There is something almost disconcerting about the prophet Nahum and his place in Scripture. Nahum is little more than just a name to us. He is a prophet with a very narrow and particular view of who God is. But even within that narrow vision of God, Nahum’s prophetic words give us something to contemplate. This is remarkable considering the almost impersonal stamp which is put on the book as a whole.
Nahum directs his prophetic words against the people of Nineveh. Nineveh was the capital city of the Assyrian Empire, the great power of the time. The Assyrians had conquered the ten northern tribes of Israel in 722 BC and had transplanted their people. In the years after that the Assyrians continued their brutal empire building all through the Middle Eastern world. They invaded the kingdom of Judah many times. They destroyed cities, and burned farmland, and put the city of Jerusalem under siege more than once. Assyria had carried off kings, and took treasures, and left Judah in a most vulnerable position.
But Nahum comes to prophesy against the people of Assyria. Nahum comes to speak words against the enemies of God’s people. And there is always a difficulty with reading this sort of prophecy. It is a harsh word which Nahum speaks to Nineveh. This is not the vision of God we get from our sentimental religiosity today. This is not a benevolent, irrelevant being sitting up in heaven fretting over mere mortals and all those things that they do. Nahum’s God is a God of action. Nahum’s God is a god of vengeance. Nahum’s God is a god of justice. Nahum’s God is the God we have tried to destroy with our middle-of the road banal lifeless Christianity.
But some may counter by saying, wasn’t Jesus a nice man. And doesn’t this passage and all of its calls destroy that vision of who Jesus was. And all I can say to that is, Thank God if it does. Because a nice man cannot save you. A nice man cannot lift you from the powers that would destroy. A nice man cannot relieve the burdens that keep you down. Only the power of the living God, the power of his risen Son, the power of his Holy Spirit, only that can save you, lift you, empower you. If Jesus were only a nice man, then what are we to do?
Nahum’s words come to us as a threat to the comfortable religion we have built for ourselves. And that is because the words of judgement against Nineveh are not just words directed to afar-off enemy. They are words that show what our God is like. They are words that, after stripping away the narrow national interest, give us a message about what God has in store for all is people, whether they be enemies or not.
And so we come to the words of Nahum one. In the later chapters of Nahum he describes in brutal detail the siege and the fall of the city of Nineveh. But chapter one provides the rationale for this destruction. Chapter one shows us who God is and why he demands justice. And it begins with the following words, “The Lord is a jealous and avenging God; the Lord takes vengeance and is filled with wrath. The Lord takes vengeance on his foes and maintains his wrath against his enemies. The Lord is slow to anger and great in power; the Lord will not leave the guilty unpunished. His way is in the whirlwind and the storm, and clouds are the dust of his feet.” (vv.2-3). There are two images of God in these two verses. The first is jealous, avenging, wrathful. These are the words which Nahum uses to open his description of God. There is no papering over in the beginning. God’s wrath and vengeance are a hard reality in this book, as it is a hard reality throughout the Old and New Testaments.
But these attributes of God are part of his consistent personality, a personality that takes offense at unrighteousness, a personality that looks with anger upon sin. The Lord and sin cannot abide together. There is a necessary consequence to action. Our habit in the church today regarding the wrath of God has been to downplay or even ignore the subject. Those who believe it rarely speak about it, and those who do speak are shouted down in the chorus of theological opinion as some sort of misanthrope who has no faith in humanity. To an age which has sold itself to the gods of greed, pride, lust, self will, the church and its ministers mumble on about God’s kindness, offering some sentimental and nostalgic view of a God who never even existed.
There is bound to be a sense of discomfort when we consider the wrath or anger of God. At times just the mention of God’s anger, God’s wrath, God’s vengeance, God’s judgement, causes the immediate reaction of resentment and hostility. Our stubborn obstinate hostility that we do not want to believe the facts. We do not want to believe the words of Scripture. But the words are clear, “ ... the Lord takes vengeance and is filled with wrath. The Lord ... maintains his wrath against his enemies. ...the Lord will not leave the guilty unpunished.” And let us not think that it is simply a description of a far-off God seeking to destroy a far-off people. Let us not think that God’s enemies are some collection of bogeymen with forked tails running about in some nether world.
Because God’s anger and wrath can be felt through all of creation. Just because Nahum is directing his words to Nineveh does not mean that only Nineveh could be the enemy of God. Hear what Nahum says in verse 4-5, “He rebukes the sea and dries it up; he makes all the rivers run dry. Bashan and Carmel wither and the blossoms of Lebanon fade. The mountains quake before him and the hills melt away. The earth trembles at his presence, the world and all who live in it.” If God is Lord of all creation then the power of his wrath and anger could and would be felt in all parts of the creation. Can we think that we are safe in the walls of the church? Can we think that we are safe in the waters of baptism? Can we think that we are safe just because nobody knows our secret sins?
And should there be a sense of confidence develop in our lives, Nahum asks a question which we all need to heed at this time, “Who can withstand his indignation? Who can endure his fierce anger?” (v.6). The people of Nineveh felt secure. They lived in a huge walled city. They had faced off and defeated the greatest armies in the world. They were confident. Who can withstand his indignation? Who can endure his fierce anger? They had lived lives of oppression, injustice, and violence. The Assyrians were renowned in ancient history for their cruel practices. Now they faced a different foe. They came face to face with the power of justice, the power of righteous anger, the power of divine wrath, and they were not prepared. Their armies could not destroy it. Their fortress could not repel it. Their wealth could not bribe it away. They could not even charm it away. And they came to terms with God and came to terms with what they had done, with all of the sins and evils they had committed. And there was no place to hide, there was no one left to blame, no one to point fingers at but themselves, and as Nahum tells it, “...with an overwhelming flood he will make an end of Nineveh ; he will pursue his foes into darkness. Whatever they plot against the Lord he will bring to an end; trouble will not come a second time. They will be entangled among thorns and drunk from their wine; they will be consumed like dry stubble. From you, O Nineveh , has one come forth who plots evil against the Lord and counsels wickedness.”
But in the midst of this chapter on the wrath of God there are two brief portions that give hope. They are again part of the character study of God, the second part that I began to mention earlier. In verse 3, we read that, “God is slow to anger...” The opportunities are there for repentance. In the book of Jonah we read of Jonah going to Nineveh to call the city to repentance. And when they did, God’s anger was abated and he did not fulfill Jonah’s words of doom. For the sinner, God is not capricious in his wrath and vengeance. As much as God abhors sin, he loves his creation as well. And so he cannot abide to see it destroyed. The knowledge that God is slow to anger, tempers the wrath of God, but its does not destroy it. The knowledge that God’s compassion has reached out from the cross does not make God’s hatred of sin any less.
God has granted to us a wonderful opportunity for repentance. And the fact that Nahum mentions this trait in his prophecy is important. It shows that the Lord in his destruction of Nineveh and the Assyrians was not being simply a violently angry being. It shows that God’s judgment is his last resort, that his anger can be abated by true repentance and sorrow for sin. Nahum sees that in Nineveh’s case they could not or would not do that. It is cause for sorrow when repentance is not reached for. Repentance is held out to us, repentance in the good news that Jesus Christ died and was raised for us. God is slow to anger, but that does not mean that his anger will never come. So the opportunity for repentance should be grabbed today.
A second verse in this chapter that is cause for hope comes in verse seven, “The Lord is good, a refuge in times of trouble. He cares for those who trust in him...” Nahum also sees that his people had been afflicted, that his people had been oppressed by the Assyrian giant. He knew the faith which his people had in God, and he knew that God’s enemies stood no chance against him. If we are truly people of God, then we seek refuge in him. To call God a refuge in times of trouble means that as our faith brings us to a place of security, then we can know God’s love and God’s power even in the deepest despair of life. Perhaps it is my utter gospel simplicity that sees comfort in the fact that in the midst of the storms of life, that there is a refuge we can call upon. There is a shelter in the storm. There is a rock in the weary land.
In verse 15, Nahum writes, “Look, there on the mountains, the feet of one who brings good news, who proclaims peace! Celebrate your festivals, O Judah, and fulfill your vows. No more will the wicked invade you; they will be completely destroyed.” That is the peace which comes to us through the message of good news in Jesus Christ. That is the knowledge that God in Jesus Christ, takes his anger and vengeance and destroys that which would destroy us. Sin Death Hell. The power of the demons would be broken. The power of evil would be broken, and we would be lifted up on the mount to share the peace which God provides.
A.W. Pink, a top conservative theologian, has said that there are three things about which we need to meditate when we think of the wrath of God. “First, that our hearts may be duly impressed by God’s detestation of sin. We are ever prone to regard sin lightly, to gloss over its hideousness, to makes excuses for it. But the more we study and ponder God’s abhorrence of sin and his frightful vengeance upon it, the more likely we are to recognize its heinousness. Second, to beget a true fear, or awe, in our souls for God. ‘Let us have grace whereby we may serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear; for our God is a consuming fire” (Heb. 12:28). Third, to draw out our soul in fervent praise to Jesus Christ for having delivered us from the wrath to come.”
Do you believe you are delivered from the wrath to come? Have you felt the repentance which God has offered in his slowness to anger? Do you seek a shelter in the storms of life, do you seek one who can stand before your oppressors and uproot them? Nahum has given us words to heed in this chapter, words of wrath to listen to, words of justice to pray for, words of a God who gives refuge to hope in. Take these words with you today. Speak them, believe them, and lift them up in fervent praise to Jesus Christ for having delivered us from the wrath to come.
