Pastor John Mackay says,
“God’s wrath is one aspect of his character that is almost too awesome to contemplate. Its implications for sinners are so overwhelming that we shrink from it. But there is another attribute of God that his people have to remember so as to have a full orbed appreciation of the God with whom they have to do. [The LORD is good]. God [is] implacably opposed to what is morally wrong, and has as himself the standard by which all goodness is determined.”
Further, we saw last week that this opposition to wrong means that we as sinners need a rescue. But as those rescued by the grace of God, this is the very good news that God will truly deal with all evil in the final analysis. Such that Heaven can be a wonderful place, filled with glory and grace. Because a Holy, Good, Wise, and Just God has dealt fully and finally with Evil. The second component of this is the Timing of God. We see that in the patience of the Lord, the slowness to anger, that God deliberates and chooses the timing of his justice. This was good news because it means that like Adam and Eve the Lord is patient and his timing allows for the Gospel. The good news of rescue and refuge in Christ Jesus.
This week, we will see a small example of Evil and the entangling chaotic nature of sin. Ninevah is plotting against the Lord and the Lord’s people. Because God cares for those who take refuge in him, He will make an end of Ninevah.
Read: Nahum 1:7–15
#1 vv.9 Plotting against God? The End. (v.9).
#2 vv. 10-13 The Entangling Folly of Sin (v. 10-13).
#3 A Case Study of Foolish Idolatry (v. 11,12, 14).
#4 Peace with God: The Freedom of Wisely Worshipping (12b, 13, 15).
[7] The LORD is good,
a stronghold in the day of trouble;
he knows those who take refuge in him.
[8] But with an overflowing flood
he will make a complete end of the adversaries,
and will pursue his enemies into darkness.
We will go more into the end of Ninevah in the future. But one thing to note is verse 8 says with an overflowing flood God makes an end of his adversaries. And in this case, Ninevah quite literally historically did flood at its downfall; the river flooding was part of the ordinary means the Lord used to allow Babylon to conquer it.
The Prodigal Son: [Tell the opening story up until he takes his father’s money and his intended uses for that money]
….It was a plot dreamed up in his heart…He believed he could do it, get away with it, and gain ease and pleasure in the world. You see sinful plotting can range from wicked nations like the assyrians serving the idols of power and glory. All the way to the idols of Money, Pleasure, possessions, and fame. What do we suppose the end of this kind of plotting is?
1. The Folly of Plotting & Idolatry against God: verses 9-11? (v.9-13).
Look in verse [9] What do you plot against the LORD? He will make a complete end; trouble will not rise up a second time.
i. Evil is frequently talked about in the bible as scheming or plotting against God. Plotting against the Lord’s people or even plotting against the Lord’s creation.
1. A couple Examples; Psalm 2, the nations rage and PLOT in vain against the Lord’s anointed. God laughs and the psalmist says the anointed king reigns in Jerusalem. Ultimately this is about Jesus. Satan has long opposed God, the people of God, and eventually the anointed messiah of God.
2. Proverbs 21:29-30 [29] A wicked man puts on a bold face, but the upright gives thought to his ways. [30] No wisdom, no understanding, no counsel (or no plan no plotting) can avail against the LORD. (ESV)
3. Whether nations or Individuals, in the long run it is Fruitless to plot against God. Indeed, it is inherently dangerous. He will make an end to it, Stan plotted to strike at God throughout history until he finally struck at Jesus’ heel, which he then crushed down on the head of Satan, pivotally at the Cross and as we saw last week when he returns in glory to fully and finally crush evil and bring us into heaven where trouble will never rise up to plot again. No, not ever..
So plots are vain. Second, The Entangling Folly of Sin (v. 10-13)
[10] For they are like entangled thorns, like drunkards as they drink; they are consumed like stubble fully dried.
2. Nahum: You are sneaking around God’s creation where you shouldn’t
a. You are going up against the Lord and his people
b. You soon forget the plot against other people as your own plots and sin takes your full attention.
c. The IMAGE: Is of a burglar coming against a house and getting entangled in thorn bushes as they try to break in, the second image is of a drunk man going against a foe and stumbling around or possibly just sleeping off his stupor in his chair while being attacked.
i. SIN entangles and confuses us; that is the general principle here. Or Sin makes us easy prey to downfalls.
1. There is a Chaotic nature surrounding people entrapped in relational sin
a. Nations that sin against other nations stir up chaos and the Lord is going to Judge Ninevah for this.
2. But closer to home for us: there is a Chaotic nature of people entrapped in societally destabilizing action – Empires have always reaped what they sowed when they do not let the people dwell in peace. When they do evil and not good towards others.
a. Either creating unethical people or a destabilized region.
b. Example: B.B. Warfield and the distress in the streets…sees one calm man, and asks “What is man’s chief end?” “To glorify God and enjoy him forever.”
c. Trusting the Lord, the living and true God, or giving ourselves to the idols mentioned here that are poor counselors of money, possessions, passions, and power that is fleeting…the Living God, or the thorns of Satan and entangling sin with all its confusion and distress.
3. For you – you will reel or become entangled if you abandon the Lord’s commands for your life. In Every area of our life we are tempted to think we can lay aside God’s commands for our Speech, or our anger, or even our relationships.
a. In dating, marriage, singleness, as father, or mother no matter the status. There is a chaotic cost to sin every time.
i. There are consequences - if we sin in marrying an unbeliever. Because two people are no longer pursuing the same horizon of God. Because Everyone has an ultimate chief controlling life goal, and the Lord knows our relationship will reel and suffer confusion if one person is pursuing idolatry and one person is pursuing God in Christ; knowing the gospel of forgiveness and reconciliation makes a difference.
d. There are consequences if we act abusively towards family members.
i. It may be as simple as the economic and relational cost of a split home. Of now having two mortgages, and two of everything rather than one home, one marriage, and peace.
ii. That’s the bad news of the sinfulness of sin. We’ll get to the good news in a second…I’m trying to not just let us sit in the general principle of “oh poor Assyria, they got what they deserve” and “oh sin, vaguely defined, has consequences.”
One way to overcome this vagueness is to remember the revealed moral law of God. A study of the 10 commandments and the catechism questions on each one reminds us of how we are called to live, God’s plan for holy living, lays out the many ways we can sin against God and neighbor. And a good exercise is to ask, Why? Why commands on honoring parents, murder, coveting, stealing, lying, and sexual immorality….Well if you trace each way as a way to Love God and Love our Neighbor we see that sin then harms our neighbor, is against God, and ultimately means we have not loved our own lives because we have embraced the foolishness of sin in each broken commandment. As I said last week, “I will run in the way of your commandments when you enlarge my heart” (v. 32); “Your testimonies are my delight; they are my counselors.” Enlarge my Heart, O God, lest I stumble and fall.
Jim McCarthy says, “When we open our Bibles in private or at the start of a Sunday sermon, our desire must be for the Holy Spirit to stretch, hammer, and mold our hearts over the anvil of his word. It must be our desire to be shaped by the Bible, and never to shape the Bible. With young Samuel we must learn to pray: ‘Speak, Lord, for your servant hears’ (I Sam. 3:9).”
….And to do this is to believe every word of God about the true nature of the chaotic cost of sin.
There is a chaotic cost to sin every time. [10] For they are like entangled thorns, like drunkards as they drink; they are consumed like stubble fully dried.
Even if, as the psalmist says, it seems like for a year, 5 years, 30 years the person has gained from the sin, or the wicked has prospered. No, they didn’t. No, they didn’t, not at the end of the day.
1. There was a costliness to that sin. There was disorder of God’s good creation and a misery produced by it. Even if no one will tell you the cost and only his word, only God himself is wise and good enough to tell what the cost was. Trust the Lord even when sin seems to have all upsides and no downside to it.
2. Remember Ninevah had a revival 100 years before Nahum wrote and you can imagine as that faded and they fell back into wickedness and idolatry. Maybe for a few years they wondered what the cost was going to be…until eventually they said. There is no cost. That repentance was a brief panic. The Lord of Heaven and Earth does not care, let us turn to idols, let us turn to sin, it is easier and more comfortable this way.
3. But it is a lie: Nations pay the price. Families pay the price as do communities, as does every individual living soul.
4. Assyria will feel secure in its greatness; there are historical reasons to think their army was drunk and off guard when they were attacked.
5. And like dry stubble the end is quick a flash.
v Let us look more closely at the State of Ninevah in verses 11-14… Because this is the specific example given…
#3 A Case Study of Foolish Idolatry (v. 11,12, 14).
[11] From you came one who plotted evil against the LORD, a worthless counselor. [12] Thus says the LORD, “Though they are at full strength and many, they will be cut down and pass away.
[14] The LORD has given a commandment about you: “No more shall your name be perpetuated;
from the house of your gods I will cut off the carved image and the metal image. I will make your grave, for you are vile.”
1. A worthless counselor plots evil against the LORD
a. Most likely this is the Evil Assyrian King Sennacherib. His counseling is actually very extensive in 2 Kings 18, where he gives his opinion of the LORD, and where Israel should put their trust.
b. Remember, Hezekiah has become king and he does what is right in the Lord’s eyes according to all that David his father had done. He removes idols and pillars and even the bronze serpant of Moses that people had begun to worship. …We are told He trusted in the LORD, the God of Israel. And he even rebelled against the king of Assyria and would not serve him.
c. During this same time, Israel in the north was still deep in idolatry and they were carried off by Assyria in 722 BC.
d. So the Assyrian King Sennacherib imposes a massive tribute on Hezekiah, 300 talents of gold. And in 2 Kings 18:15 “And Hezekiah gave him all the silver that was found in the house of the LORD and in the treasuries of the king’s house. At that time Hezekiah stripped the gold from the doors of the temple of the LORD and from the door posts that Hezekiah king of Judah had overlaid and gave it to the king of Assyria….But Sennacherib came with his army anyway…and the communication from Sennacherib through intermediaries is this: “18:18 On what do you rest this trust of yours? Do you think that mere words are strategy and power for war? In whom do you now trust, that you have rebelled against me?”
e. He then goes on to mock Hezekiah, mistakenly thinking Hezekiah removed the high places. That Hezekiah’s removal of idols from Judah was his removal of God. When in fact, it was Hezekiah being faithful to the Lord. (v.22)
f. He then mocks Israel, attempting to counsel them to fear Assyria and ignore Hezekiah’s kingly leadership to trust in God.
g. Assyria feels like they are at full strength. They feel powerful and like the great majority *verse 12 of Nahum…
h. Sennacharib says, make peace with ME. Not the LORD God. Then you will prosper…things will be great and easy.
i. He then mocks all the countries’ he has conquered saying their gods are worthless and defeated and couldn’t defend them.
j. “But the people [ofJudah were silent] and answered him not a word , for the king’s command was, ‘Do not answer him.” But they were scared….
i. Hezekiah in his fear went to the LORD, tore his clothes. And he knows Judah is physically weak compared to Assyria.
ii. But he notes to the prophet Isaiah in 2 Kings 19:4 “It may be that the LORD your God heard all the words…the king of Assyria has sent to mock the living God, and will rebuke the words that the LORD your God has heard….To spoil the end of this particular account. Sennacherib speaks against God saying 19:10 “Do not let your God in whom you trust deceive you by promising that Jerusalem will not be given into the hand of the king of Assyria…”
iii. After blaspheming God, he then tries to defeat Jerusalem…Hezekiah says, “2 Kings 19:19 So now, O LORD our God, save us, please, from his hand, that all the kingdoms of the earth may know that you, O LORD, are God alone.” (ESV)
iv. TO which the Lord replies. “I will defend this city to save it, for my own sake and for the sake of my servant David.” And that night the angel of the LORD went out and struck down 185,000 in the camp of the Assyrians [v.19:36] Then Sennacherib king of Assyria departed and went home and lived at Nineveh. [37] And as he was worshiping in the house of Nisroch his god, Adrammelech and Sharezer, his sons, struck him down with the sword and escaped into the land of Ararat. And Esarhaddon his son reigned in his place. (2 Ki. 19:36-37)
v. Nahum 1:14 The LORD has given commandment about you: “No more shall your name be perpetuated; from the house of your gods I will cut off the carved image and the metal image. I will make your grave, for you are vile.
k. Evil ultimately serves false idols (v.14)
l. Those who worship idols worship worthless things
6. In the end idols always wants more…power…wealth…pleasure. it will never be enough until our sin consumes us…or the Lord disciplines us.
a. Its all very extravagant when its nations and Assyrians and names like Sennacharib.
b. But it’s the same today. The Human heart is a perpetual idol factory. The names change, the way we sin changes, but all are vile distortions of the good, the true, and the beautiful.
c. How very different a mindset idols produce in us Compared that to the fruit of the spirit – sober-minded, alert, on guard, awake. In 1 Peter and the Gospels. Joy. Peace. Paitence. Kindness. Goodness. Faithfulness. Self-control.
Let’s recap some Application, Lessons for us From verses 9-14 Questions to ask our hearts
d. First Remember: Alarm bells – Is my sin, whether secret or public making me have to think, plan, and plot further sins to get away with it or to keep pursuing it?
e. Second, Do I remember and believe that my sin will be brought to an end either through natural consequences or by the LORD on judgment day?
f. Third have I considered: The heavy hand of the Lord?
i. The Lord judges those plotting evil against him and his people. And also…
ii. The Lord chastens him whom he loves. Like a father disciplines the son he loves. So good news in the confusion, plotting, and reeling. If you are 1 step down the trail of sin, 3 steps, or even 50 steps and you feel the entangling, confusion, and the sense of impending doom from your sin.
iii. That may be the good news that you are a child of God and has not abandoned you to your sin but your conscience, the Holy Spirit, is still working in your heart and mind to say – flee from this – go to Christ – entrust yourself to the loving forgiveness of your Father.
iv. Remember the Church is a hospital and a refuge for those who are tired of their sin, and desire to seek a fellowship of brothers and sisters to begin plucking the thorns from their wounds, and to bring clarity, truth, and order to the confusion brought about by your sin.
7. Remember the Good news of gospel is the Lord offers reconciliation and healing to sinners:
i. The bible consistently shows those who have made a mess of things the promise the call from God is the free offer to at any instant to repent and be forgiven by the Lord.
ii. But what the bible does not promise is that we will always have more time to repent and return to the Lord. There is a suddenness to life. Ninevah has fully given itself to sin. To sinful plots. To entanglement, chaos, and either confusion or feeling at ease as they drink. And like an overwhelming and sudden end they will have a complete end and will never rise again.
iii. Nahum gives one historical example of Sennacherib and warns that it will be much worse this time. Nahum is not about the fall of Sennacherib (in 701 BC) that is only an example.. Nahum 2 and 3 will not just be the destruction of their army away at Jerusalem but the violent conquest of Ninevah some 80 years later by the Babylonians in 622 B.C. And as we’ll see over the next two weeks, war is not pretty. What the Assyrians did to others was brutal, and their judgement by the Babylonians will be as well.
How should Judah respond to this good news that the evil Empire of Assyria is no longer going to be oppressing them? Look in verse 15
#4 Peace with God: The Freedom of Wisely Worshipping
[15] Behold, upon the mountains, the feet of him who brings good news, who publishes peace! [it is said for the fortress cities you could tell that good news was coming based on how the messenger on foot ran joyfully in reporting the news. Good news behold good news is running towards you Judah, and should they respond? Second part of verse 15…]
Keep your feasts, O Judah; fulfill your vows, for never again shall the worthless pass through you; he is utterly cut off. (ESV)
2. Remember the Prodigal son…he had hit rock bottom….there are two futures possible for him
a. One is like Ninevah…they no longer worshipped the Lord in any way. They were not his people. They did not take refuge in him.
b. The second is Judah. Ike the prodigal son, returning home to his father, his father running to embrace his son that was lost but now is alive. [the prodigal remembered]
c. Judah needs to remember the Lord. After the time of Hezekiah a good king, Judah has two very wicked kings in a row in Nahum’s Day. Manasseh and Amon. God is calling Judah to hear the downfall of wicked Assyria, to turn from the evil idolatry of King Manasseh with his rebellion and abominations, rebuilding pagan high places. King Amon was also a wicked king. So cruel that his servants assassinated him. But out of this Young Josiah was made king at just 8 years old. And he reigned 31 years. He was a reformer. 2 Kings 22:2 says, Josiah “did what was right in the eyes of the Lord and walked in the ways of David his father, and he did not turn aside to the right or the left. King Josaih was a good king; he fulfilled his role as king, kept the covenant vows of Judah, and truly worshipped the Lord.
The exhortations make historical sense only in Josiah’s day:
· Verse 15 “Keep your feasts” → Temple worship is restored; Hilkiah the priest finds the book of the Law and Josiah restores the feast of booths; Passover is restored; the covenant is renewed with vows, and for a time they have peace and righteousness.
· Nahum is saying: Now that the LORD has broken Assyria’s yoke, respond rightly.
· Embrace Freedom from worthless idols.
Nahum’s good news did not end when Assyria fell, because Assyria was only the shadow of a deeper enemy. In Christ He bears the judgment in His own body. The yoke is not merely broken—it is nailed to the tree. And so announces a greater good news than just Nineveh’s fall—peace with God through the blood of His Son. Keep the feast, fulfill your vows, rejoice in your King—because in Christ the enemy is truly cut off, and the Lord Himself has become our refuge forever.
Prayer
Benediction.
