Nahum: The Angry Powerful Good God Series

Minor Prophets Major Message

The Angry Powerful Good God

Nahum 1:1-7

#minorprophets

INTRODUCTION… God is Complicated (p)

There is much about God that seems like a contradiction or at least is quite complicated.

Some of what God IS makes no sense to my little brain and I cannot understand Him as a human being. Some of what God DOES makes no sense in what I feel is logical. God does not contradict Himself, but there are some things that are true about God and because we cannot see Him or know Him fully we have to keep them in tension or have no complete answer.

For example: It doesn’t make a lot of sense to start a nation with a man who is over 100 years old, and yet God did this with Abraham. It doesn’t seem logical to choose to pass your promises onto someone who is a cheater and a liar and who has terrible character qualities, but God does that with Jacob. It doesn’t make sense to move over a million people through the desert and yet God did this with the Israelites in the Book of Exodus. It doesn’t make sense to incarnate Yourself to an unwed virgin, but that is what happened with Jesus. It doesn’t make sense to feed 5,000 people and 7,000 people knowing that they just want the food and don’t want to listen to You, but Jesus does this.

For example: How is it that God is love and wrath at the same time? How is it that God can judge and have grace at the same time? How is it that salvation seems on the one hand based on free will and yet on the other hand is predestined? How is it that the spread of the Gospel is dependent on human beings and yet is so completely a work of the Holy Spirit? How is it that God is both transcendent and personal? How is it that He is all-powerful with a perfect will and yet allows us to choose?

There is much about God that seems like a contradiction or at least is quite complicated.

SERIES INTRODUCTION

In the Bible, when God wanted to get His people’s attention He would often do something demonstrative like speak from a burning bush or lead by a pillar of cloud or shake the ground or do a miracle in nature. God did all of those things. God also spoke through people we call prophets.

We know some of the names of these folks whom God called to be His prophets: Moses, Miriam, Deborah, Nathan, Elijah, Elisha, Isaiah, Huldah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Anna, John the Baptist, and many more. God calls the people through His prophets and gives them directions in their relationship with Him. God calls the people through His prophets encouraging their faithfulness and warns them that faithlessness would have dire consequences.

This morning we are continuing our journey in the last twelve books of the Old Testament which I have called “Minor Prophets Major Message.” I want to focus each week on one of these specific prophets and the message that he brought to the people of God because those messages are also important to us. Today we focus on the prophet Nahum.

TRANSITION

We look today at the first seven verses of chapter 1.

READ NAHUM 1:1-7 (ESV)

“An oracle concerning Nineveh. The book of the vision of Nahum of Elkosh. The Lord is a jealous and avenging God; the Lord is avenging and wrathful; the Lord takes vengeance on His adversaries and keeps wrath for His enemies. 3 The Lord is slow to anger and great in power, and the Lord will by no means clear the guilty. His way is in whirlwind and storm, and the clouds are the dust of His feet. 4 He rebukes the sea and makes it dry; He dries up all the rivers; Bashan and Carmel wither; the bloom of Lebanon withers. 5 The mountains quake before Him; the hills melt; the earth heaves before Him, the world and all who dwell in it. 6 Who can stand before His indignation? Who can endure the heat of His anger? His wrath is poured out like fire, and the rocks are broken into pieces by Him. 7 The Lord is good, a stronghold in the day of trouble; He knows those who take refuge in Him.

TRANSITION

When I read those 7 verses, I see a complicated God in every verse. We see the God Who is angry, the God Who is powerful, and also the God Who is good.

THE GOD WHO IS ANGRY (VERSES 2-7)

As I read over the beginning of the oracle of Nahum, I noticed words like: “avenging,” “wrathful,” “vengeance,” “anger,” “rebukes,” and “indignation.” All of those are words that are in the anger category and are synonyms of what we define as a negative emotion. If we had to assign these words a color, they would be red and some of them vibrant red. Nahum presents a vision of God where He is angry.