“Our Refuge”
Pastor Bob Leroe, Cliftondale Congregational Church, Saugus, Massachusetts
How do we get ahead in life? According to the Survivor show, we succeed by being ruthless, conniving, deceitful, following a pragmatic, win at all costs, ends-justify-the means mentality. It’s no wonder that the show has been compared to the book Lord of the Flies. In today’s world it seems like good guys finish last…or at least that’s what people want us to think. Winning from God’s point-of-view is different. In the end you may not wind up with a million dollars, but you have God’s approval. True happiness in life comes from living right, with a clear conscience. When we trust in the Lord, we experience victory and we survive not only this world, but we have a guarantee for the world to come.
The prophet Nahum delivers a sober message of judgment to Ninevah, but in the middle of his harsh prophecy he offers hope, vs 7: “The Lord is good, a refuge in times of trouble. He cares for those who trust in Him.” God knows us and wants to protect us. Naham’s name means “comfort” or “consolation”. But for those who reject God, the prophet cries, 3:7, Where can I find anyone to comfort you?” Nahum presents God as our refuge, a shelter in the time of storm.
Protection doesn’t mean a carefree life. I spent 3 days of this week in the hospital, in considerable discomfort, yet with the confidence that God was my refuge. He was watching over me. I’m an experienced, former hospital chaplain, but it has been 20 years since I’ve been an inpatient. So the experience was useful for me and I’m sure it’s helped me better appreciate what others are facing. My experience was a gift disguised. When trials come we trust in God and seek His refuge. Faith requires trust without full knowledge; it means living with uncertainty. God chooses our circumstances and trials; we choose our attitudes and reactions to them. I’m reminded of an affirmation found written on a cellar wall in Germany where Jews hid from the Nazis: “I believe in the sun even when it is not shining. I believe in love even when I am feeling it not. I believe in God even when He is silent.”
Nahum wrote 150 years after the time of Jonah. Under Jonah’s reluctant preaching the Ninevites repented and God withheld His wrath. But now it appears their repentance has “worn off” and they have sunken deeply into all kinds of sin. Ninevah was again a place of unparalleled wickedness. It was also the wealthiest city in the world, furnished with priceless objects taken as plunder from conquered nations.
God makes it plain that He is angry at Ninevah. We don’t like to think of God as being angry, yet the Bible is clear that He hates sin. You’ve likely heard about billboards along the highway with messages from God. One says, “Don’t make Me come down there.” There’s an old children’s hymn that begins, “Gentle Jesus, meek and mild.” This is perfectly true about our Lord, but it is not all the truth. Jesus wept over the city of Jerusalem and prophesied that this city which rejected Him would be destroyed. The Hebrew word used by Nahum for anger literally means “heavy or hot breathing”. Yet even when God is angry at sin, He is patient with us. Verse 2 says “The Lord takes vengeance on His adversaries, and He reserves wrath for His enemies. This can mean God stores up wrath, but it also can mean that He holds back His vengeance. He waits for us to repent; He doesn’t slam dunk us the moment we step out of line. He is “slow to anger.” He has control over His wrath. He gives us many chances to repent. However, God clearly warns us in Genesis 6:3, “My Spirit will not contend/strive with man forever.” There is a limit to God’s patience.
Many people today are spiritually blind. They don’t believe God will punish sin, and they won’t believe that He will pardon sin through the blood of His Son. In John 3 we’re told, “God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through Him. Whoever believes in Him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already because he has not believed in the Name of God’s one and only Son….Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life, but whoever rejects the Son will not see life, for God’s wrath remains on him” (vss 17-18, 36).
When we place our trust in Christ, God in His grace gives us what we don’t deserve—eternal life. God in His mercy does not give us what we do deserve! By rejecting Christ, people are turning their backs on eternal life—they will receive what they deserve--justice.
When considering the wrath of God, there are two words we tend to confuse. One is retaliation; the other retribution. To retaliate is to seek revenge and get even. God does not retaliate. Martin Luther (in his typical manner) said, “If I were God and the world had treated me as it did Christ, I would kick the wretched thing to pieces.” In His justice, God brings retribution. Paul makes this clear in Romans when he says “The payment for sin is death” (6:23). I served in the military for 25 years and now I’m receiving a pension. For those who serve sin, there is a pension awaiting them as well. Punishment for sin is effective, not in its severity, but in its inevitability. Nations like Ninevah can overlook God, but God can overrule them. He has the power to deliver or destroy. He offers us the option to decide which one it will be.”
The warden of a state prison said, “My hardest job is to convince a young delinquent that he has done anything wrong.” We live, as did Ninevah, in a culture that thinks ethics are arbitrary, that we can make our own rules, and there is no right or wrong. This is a terrifying worldview. The Russian author Dostoyevski said, “If there is no God, anything is permissible.” When we turn away from God and reject authority and accountability, we in effect become our own gods. What is God’s response to this lawlessness? 3:5, “’I am against you,’ declares the Lord Almighty.” He goes on to say (vss 6-7) that those who walk their own path will be stripped of their glory and made defenseless.
We can offer hope to our lost world, a world going its own way, a way that leads to destruction. We have the roadmap, the right directions. 1:15 announces, “Look, there on the mountains, the feet of one who brings good news, who proclaims peace!” We can be that one offering the good news. We should have a sense of urgency towards those who don’t know the Lord. We need to offer prayer for our community, care about those who need the Lord, and share what God had done for us. God will give us opportunities if we ask.
Returning home from our church conference a week ago, I prayed about who I’d be sharing a seat with on the train. A young man my son’s age came on board, and began to tell me his troubles. He didn’t know I was a minister. I listened to him share his story, offered some advice, and gradually brought God into the picture. When he found out I was a pastor he said that God must have planned this. He needed spiritual counsel. I planted some ideas and gave him my card. He said he would contact me after getting settled in the south shore. This wasn’t an accidental encounter. Opportunities like this come from prayer.
In the end, Ninevah was overthrown, so completely that archeologists only uncovered the remains of this once mighty power in 1845. In 2:6 we read, “The river gates are thrown open and the palace collapses.” Here’s what happened: The Babylonian army laid siege to Ninevah for 3 months. Then after a period of heavy rainfall the river overflowed and broke down part of the city wall. The ruler of Ninevah and all his concubines perished in his burning palace. The invaders sacked and utterly destroyed the city. So complete was the destruction that armies have actually marched over the city of Ninevah without knowing the ruins of this once proud city lay beneath their feet.
No nation is immune from judgment. Among those who reject God, who refuse to turn from their wickedness, there will be no survivors. Proverbs 29:1 warns, “Some people are still stubborn after they have been corrected many times; they will suddenly be destroyed—without remedy.” Twice God says to Ninevah, “I am against you” (2:13, 3:5). Paul says in Romans 8:31, “If God is for us, who can be against us.” But if God is against us…? God is just and will punish evil. This is a lesson urgently needed today.
Rudyard Kipling understood Nahum when he wrote: “Lo, all the pomp of yesterday, is one with Ninevah and Tyre. Judge of the nations, spare us yet—Lest we forget, lest we forget!”
