He Is Not Safe, But He Is Good

Let's make a few notes here before we turn to our text. Lord willing, this won't be a common practice again. We just had kind of a breakout of the plague here recently with some of our folks, and we're hoping that we'll be able to gather again next week. So pay attention to the emails, and we'll let you know what's going on. Secondly, I'm going to be gone this coming week.

This was originally going to be the week when we started our vacation, but we went down to North Carolina to, you know, we thought the baby, Cal and Kara's baby were on the way, and it didn't happen, and I had to come home for Donna's funeral, and now I'm going back, and all this. So I won't be here this coming week. Lastly, lastly, you're wondering, what are we doing in the book of Nahum?

I'll tell you what we're doing in the book of Nahum. I found out, I can't remember if it was Thursday or Friday, that Pastor Andrew has tested positive for COVID, as has Sarah. And he was scheduled to preach this week. And so I wasn't ready with Hebrews. I had other things to do since he was going to preach. so anyway a number of our folks have along with Andrew and Sarah have this thing and so that's why we are in the book of Nahum so if you will take your bibles and turn to Nahum chapter one we'll read the first eight verses you know I love the minor prophets and one of the reasons why I love them is because no one ever talks about the minor prophets.

We hear a lot from the Torah, the first five books. We hear things from Judges and Samuel and Kings and the big prophets, but not the minor prophets. Now, you're allowed to look into your table of contents to find the book of Nahum if you don know exactly where it is So if you there I think I given you enough time You follow as I read the first eight verses An oracle concerning Nineveh the book of the vision of Nahum of Elkash 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. The Lord is slow to anger and great in power, and the Lord will by no means clear the guilty. His way is in the whirlwind and storm, and the clouds are the dust of his feet. He rebukes the sea and makes it dry. He dries up all the rivers.

Bashan and Carmel wither. The bloom of Lebanon withers. The mountains quake before him. The hills melt. The earth heaves before him, the world and all who dwell in it. 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. The Lord is good, a stronghold in the day of trouble. He knows those who take refuge in him. But with an overflowing flood, he will make a complete end of the adversaries and will pursue his enemies into darkness. Let's pray.

Father, thank you for your word. Would you please help us now as we look into this? Help us, Lord, to gain hope. Help us to see your character. Help us, Father, as we walk away to understand just who you are and what you intend on doing. Now, Lord, give us grace to understand and to have the ability and the willingness to do and to think the way you would have us.

We pray this in Jesus' name. Amen. It's really bad out there, isn't it? It seems like evil rules the day. We've seen Afghanistan fall. We've seen a bunch of terrorists take over that country.

We hear of people who are being killed, of demonstrations that are being wiped off the streets, of women who are now going to be oppressed in a way that is sad. We see 16-year-old children strap bombs on their bodies to kill people they hate, and they been taught to do that since they were little But it not just the international scene that causes you to feel the surrounding evil There these people who are militantly zealous for the right to kill babies in the womb. And it even gets us to the point of the staff at the nursing home that just doesn't seem to care for your ailing mother.

You watch angry parents verbally taking their children apart in the grocery store aisles and the darkness just seems to close in on you until you want to scream where is justice God where is your justice well sometimes we're tempted to think that our God sits impassively in heaven just sitting there while the world descends into a chaos of evil is there any hope for us well Nahum answers that question in our text this morning and Nahum is a particularly interesting prophet because he also lived in a day of terrorists. This is an oracle concerning Nineveh, the capital of the Assyrian Empire. The Assyrians were the first people to utilize terrorism as national policy.

They did horrible, horrible things to the people they conquered. They would come to a city and say either surrender or we'll just kill you all. There's a story told of the Assyrians defeating an army, just cutting the eyes out of all the troops that survived except for one, and he was to lead them back. The Assyrians were horrible, horrible. They would fit what you might call, they would fit the definition of terrorists that we use today.

So what is the answer in an age of terrorism? What do we have to say? Where is our hope when evil seems to just engulf us? Well, your hope does not lie in a government program or some sort of peace conference or an anger management class. Your hope lies in the character of God. And Nahum, in this oracle, pictures God as a divine warrior.

A divine warrior who's going to war against his enemies. and this divine warrior reveals his character in the face of the terrorists, of the evil of Nahum's day. And in that revelation he shows us where our hope lies. Where do we need to go? What do we need to know? How should we respond? Well the first thing we want to see in verses 2 is meet the God who is not safe Meet the God who is not safe This God first of all that we have to see is just Look at verse 3, the second part of verse 4.

The Lord is avenging... Where am I? The second part of verse 3. Believe it or not, I go over my sermon like three times on Sunday morning before I preach it. Here it is. And the Lord will by no means clear the guilty.

If you're guilty, you will face justice. God is just. Now, how do you view God? Do you view God as merciful and loving? That's good, because that's the way God is. But that is not the complete picture. that is not the whole of God.

And many people today want to look at God as just this kind of benevolent grandpa who sits in heaven and just loves everybody, just like grandpas do. And they don't have a complete picture. Of course, he's not a grandpa either. He's an actively loving God, but he is also a God of justice. He loves justice, and he holds both people and nations to account because of his justice.

Not just people, but nations are accountable to a standard of righteousness. God cares when the nation of the Ukraine is gobbled up by the Russian military machine and bringing with it all the heartache and the humiliation and everything. But he is also concerned about the bully who's terrorizing your son at school. and he sees and he keeps records of the way your company takes advantage of you expecting more and paying less james 5 made that clear today didn't it did you hear the new testament reading how those who don't pay you what you're worth and they hoard their gold are the ones that are going to the the corrosion on the gold that they withhold from their workers are going to stand as a witness against them on judgment day he cares about racial equality and racial justice god does but he also takes note of the husband who betrays and takes advantage of his wife.

He knows all of those things and he is a just God and takes account of it. all of those things. I recall a woman that I'll call, I'll call her Trina. She had a husband who betrayed her, but he seemed to be repentant. But she wasn't buying it, because she knew he knew all the right words to say, and he could fool people. And what she was afraid of was this, he's going to get away with it.

He'll get away with it. And she wanted justice, and she wanted it now. And she had to be reminded that even if her husband could fool every everyone the Lord will not leave the guilty unpunished do you remember that when you're facing difficulty when you're facing unjust treatment and you want justice now right and justice just doesn't seem to be coming remember God will not leave the guilty unpunished he is keeping track he is keeping record and so we have to trust him for that what is your situation where do you find yourself today do you do you need to be reminded that God is a God of justice who will not leave the guilty unpunished now is God unmoved in passive uncaring in all of this no he will not leave the guilty unpunished because of what drives that justice what drives that justice look at verse 2 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 here's one thing that drives his justice God is jealous God is jealous I remember at one point and here's one underlined in red in my Bible when I went through the Old Testament well the whole Bible and I tried to find every reference to the jealousy of God this is one of them God is jealous Now, God's not subject to petty suspicions.

When we think of jealous, we think of like Sally. Sally spends all her time with her best friend, Tina, and they do everything together. But yesterday, Tina went and did something else with somebody else, and Sally was in a tizzy. And when she saw Tina again, she says, who were you with? What did you do? You took a lot of time with her.

Right? Are you hanging out with somebody else? Just this kind of jealousy that's so petty and ridiculous. But that's not God. God isn jealous in that way He demands loyalty from those exclusive loyalty from those that he relates to by covenant These people here were his people by covenant And because they are his by covenant he wants exclusive loyalty.

The same thing is true of us. We are related to God by a covenant, the new covenant, the covenant ratified in the blood of Jesus. We relate to God by that covenant where he says he's going to forgive all our sins and write his law on our heart but this god wants our exclusive allegiance and he's jealous if people try to intrude on that i mean face it how would you feel if you knew someone was interested in your wife and you saw him singling her out in social situations to talk to her and you see that over and over would you be jealous do you think that's a proper emotion at that point?

Absolutely it is. When someone starts moving into the territory that's yours by exclusive covenant, you're going to be jealous about that person. And God becomes jealous when anyone or anything seeks the loyalty of those people that he has bought with the blood of his son. Look at chapter 3 verse 4 for a moment. Chapter 3 verse 4. He's talking about Nineveh, He's talking about Assyria when he says, And all for the countless whorings of the prostitute, graceful and of deadly charms, who betrays nations with her whorings and peoples with her charms.

God's jealousy was aroused because Nineveh sought to draw away his people by their idolatry and their power. Their power. When you read the history of the Old Testament, you see that Assyria was trying to seek an alliance with Judah. And Judah had always been told, you never seek alliances with another nation. You always trust in me. And so Assyria is trying to woo them away.

And God is jealous about that because those are his people. And God's jealousy requires vengeance. Do you notice in verse 2 that vengeance is mentioned three times in the space of one verse? Vengeance. 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.

Now, I don't know about you, but I get the picture that God's a God of vengeance, just from that one verse. God takes vengeance. Vengeance is the retaliatory punishment for wrongs done And as such it is an expression of justice God solemnly declared that it was His place to take vengeance. You heard it. Did you listen to the Old Testament reading, Deuteronomy 32?

That passage there made it absolutely clear where it talks about God taking his sword and blood being all over it because he takes vengeance on his adversaries it's clear that God takes vengeance in Deuteronomy 32 verse 35 you heard it already vengeance is mine in recompense for the time when their foot shall slip for the day of their calamity is at hand and their doom comes swiftly. So God's justice requires vengeance. In other words, if God is just, he will take vengeance on those who are unjust, on those who refuse to bow to him or who seek to lure his people away.

God's justice requires vengeance. And so wrath then, notice in verse 2, wrath fuels those acts of vengeance. Okay? Because others terrorize his people, God is filled with anger. God is filled with anger for those who would terrorize his people. Now that, for some people, that's shocking.

But it shouldn't be. It shouldn't be. Some people think that anger is always wrong. It is not. Listen, what would you think of the father who just finds out that his little girl has been molested? And he says to you, in response to the news, oh, that's too bad, that's tragic.

Say, what do you think of the Buckeyes? How do you think they did? What would you think of that guy? You would say, what's wrong with you? Don't you have a moral compass? You should be angry about that.

And so the same is true of God. God's wrath does not flare up unnecessarily. And notice as well in verse 2, he must maintain his wrath. He has to maintain his wrath. And keeps wrath for his enemies. God will not forget any injustice perpetrated against his people He will not forget We shouldn expect God to say oh my that happened so long ago let just forget about it He maintains his wrath because he just The Lord will not leave the guilty unpunished You see So we see then that he must be angry.

But then Nahum says something to us that's just a little bit off. It's in the first part of verse 3. The Lord is slow to anger and great in power, and the Lord will by no means clear the guilty. The Lord is slow to anger and great in power. God is not only just, is not only angry, is not only vengeful, but God is forbearing. All right.

Now, he's telling this to a people who probably are wondering where is the justice of God? And he's explaining to them God is forbearing. God does not get angry in an instant. And here's our problem. In the midst of suffering and terror, we often interpret God's forbearance as he is unjust. he does not care about our suffering. I think this is a key for us to understand as we just hear about God's anger and his jealousy and his vengeance and the fact that he keeps his wrath.

The first thing that may pop into our minds is so where is it? Well, he says the Lord is slow to anger and great in power. He's forbearing. And so when he's forbearing, sometimes we misinterpret that and say God doesn't care. Listen, forbearance does not mean the complete end of wrath. It does not mean that God renounces his anger.

It means that alongside his wrath, there is a divine restraint that postpones its operation. Okay? It's not that forbearance means there's no wrath. It means that there's this divine restraint that says I won't exercise it now. Okay? And this reminds me of Romans chapter 2 verses 4 and 5.

Romans 2, 4 and 5. Or do you presume on the riches of His kindness and forbearance and patience not knowing that God's coming This is meant to lead you to repentance, but because of your hard and impenitent heart, you're storing up wrath for yourself on the day of wrath when God's righteous judgment will be revealed. Do you see that? God's forbearing, which gives you an opportunity to repent.

But many people don't, most don't, and so they're storing up even greater wrath for themselves on the day of wrath. Those who presume on God's patience will be faced by an angry, all-powerful God. He is forbearing, but that doesn't mean that his wrath will not find expression. Now note, God has the power to execute his justice. And here are some vivid pictures of the power of God.

Last part of verse 3 through verse 6, notice what he says. His way is in the whirlwind and storm, and the clouds are the dust of his feet. He rebukes the sea and makes it dry. He dries up all the rivers. Bashan and Carmel wither. The bloom of Lebanon withers.

The mountains quake before him. The hills melt. The earth heaves before him, the world and all who dwell in it. 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.

Wow. Notice this. He rides the storm clouds into battle. So think of a hurricane here. Hurricane with winds of 150 miles an hour sweeping inland and just destroying everything like it did in Louisiana a couple weeks ago. In those kinds of windstorms, blowing down trees, ripping trees out by the roots, ripping the roofs and sidings of buildings, not only that, but knocking buildings down entirely.

That's a terrorizing experience. And we seem powerless in that. And we're afraid because we cannot escape the fury of those forces. I've never been in a hurricane. All right? I've never been in a hurricane, but the things I've seen, they're pretty, I think, terrifying, especially when they get up to be Category 4 and Category 5 storms.

That unbelievable Nahum says that that hurricane is God walking by and the clouds that you see are like the dust of his feet As you walk in a dusty road and you see these little puffs of dust he says that's what the clouds are like. They're just dust from God's feet. Do you ever look up in the sky and you see those gigantic clouds, right? That's just like a puff of dust as God's walking by.

That's how powerful he is. Not only that, he merely can blow out his breath in the oceans and the rivers dry up. He dries up a sea and his people walk through without any bit of mud sticking on their feet. They come to the Jordan. Same thing happens. The river widens, it dries up, and they walk across on dry ground.

Have you ever stood on the beach at an ocean? And I think probably all of us have been there. you stand on the beach and you look to the ocean spreading out to the horizon. It's so unbelievably awesome. You know, whole fleets of gigantic ships have sunk in that ocean, never to be found. And yet all God has to do is, and the whole ocean dries up. When we go to Iowa, we always cross the Mississippi. and I don't know about you but they have these you know how you feel but they have these bridges that I don't know how to describe it you know how you can look down and see right through it to the water you know what I'm talking about they're made with things like this and you just have to look down you can see it just as you're driving just look out the window and you can see right straight down into the river it gives me the willies sometimes when I do that And you look down, you see that water, and you realize if you fell off that bridge, right, if you fell off that bridge, you'd plunge into the middle of that river, no doubt die as the currents sweep your car away.

But all God has to do, just, and the Mississippi just doesn't roll along anymore. That's how God is. guess what it will be like when the divine warrior shows up to execute justice if that's how powerful he is do you think you be able to stand before that then he talks about the the leaves of of um bishan and Carmel and Lebanon all the blossoms and the things You know, autumn, I love autumn when the leaves turn colors and after about a month they fall. Well, what happens when God shows up?

Everything withers like that. There's no leaves, just like that. I mean, think about the corn. You've seen corn that's been laid down because the wind has gone through and the corn is absolutely flat on the ground. Okay? When this angry God shows up, everything dies immediately.

Mountains, he goes on to say, mountains quake and disappear and the whole earth shakes. Have you ever seen the Rockies? The Rockies reach to the skies, it seems. but in a moment God makes them disappear and you're looking at the the plains of Montana right these are the pictures he's drawing for us to show us the power of God things that we cannot even imagine and then he asks the question in verse 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 no one be able to to stand against or escape the indignation of god no one will have the ability to endure when god promises to take vengeance on our and his enemies when his jealousy is aroused you can count on the fact that he will act he has the power to accomplish his purposes.

And he draws the picture, literally, of rocks exploding right in front of you. Who can endure that? Of a flamethrower, the flame of his fury. Do you think that you will survive that? Who will be able to stand in his indignation? This is a powerful and terrifying spectacle.

That's what he wants us to see. And listen, Listen, as I read this, I think, wow, we don't have this view of God very much, do we? This is a God who's going to take vengeance with fury. And it's not going to be some petty jealousy. It is a vengeance that is just and righteous and it is beyond description All who stand before the judgment of God will experience a fury that is hell right No one would be able to escape that.

And yet, having said that, Nahum tells us to meet the God who is good. This is amazing to me. after all that he said then in verse 7 what does he say the Lord is good the Lord is good a stronghold in the day of trouble he knows those who take refuge in him the Lord is good the avenging powerful sovereign God who is just is also good and provides a refuge for those who trust in him. Now, one of the most famous scenes from the Chronicles of Narnia in the book, The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe.

I don't know if you've read that. I've read that one at least. You find a conversation between the children, right? And Mr. and Mrs. Beaver about Aslan. Now, if you read the Chronicles of Narnia, it's an allegory.

It's telling the story of who Jesus is through all these symbolic means, these metaphors. And Aslan is this lion that represents Jesus. And here's the conversation. After telling the children that Aslan will put everything right, Mr. Beaver says that they're going to see him. And here's the conversation.

But shall we see him, asks Susan? Why, daughter of Eve, that's what I brought you here for. I'm to lead you where you shall meet him, said Mr. Beaver. Is he a man, asked Lucy. Aslan a man, said Mr.

Beaver sternly. Certainly not. I tell you, he is the king of the wood and the son of the great emperor beyond the sea. Don't you know who is the king of beasts? Aslan is a lion. The lion, the great lion.

Oh, said Susan, I thought he was a man. Is he quite safe? I shall feel rather nervous about meeting a lion. That you will, dearie, and no mistake, said Mrs. Beaver. If there's anyone who can appear before Aslan without their knees knocking, they're either braver than most or else just silly.

Then he... Isn't safe? Asked Lucy. Safe? Said Mr. Beaver.

Don't you hear what Mrs. Beaver tells you? Who said anything about safe? Of course he isn't safe, but he's good. That's exactly what Nahum is saying here. He's not safe, but he's good.

The Lord is good because he's a refuge for those who trust in him. He is a refuge for those who trust in him. The Lord himself shelters his people. He's a refuge because he has destroyed our enemies. His judgment against those who have crossed his justice turns out to be our deliverance as well. I want you to think this for a moment.

When you read in the scriptures, oftentimes you see salvation and judgment connected. The judgment of God is the salvation of his people. The judgment of God on our enemies is our rescue. So judgment and salvation are not merely as we would often think as opposites. Judgment and salvation work together. When God judges, he delivers his people.

And the judgment of God is our salvation. God's judgment is a double-edged sword. It destroys and it saves. Okay? You think about that. You see this all the way through Scripture.

God's judgment is our salvation. You see that at the cross. God's judgment on his son is our salvation. his wrath against sin poured out on his son is our salvation but here's a question how do you make God your refuge when it seems that he is not acting all through the Psalms for example you read David saying the Lord is my refuge this is one of those questions that has been on my mind for a long time.

How is God a refuge? I've spent time thinking about that. Let me just share some things with you. How do you make God your refuge when he doesn't seem like he's acting before he executes his justice Well the first thing you have to do is you have to believe that he is just and that his wrath will be poured out against your enemies and his So you need faith.

You have to believe that what God says is true. You have to believe that what he says here is really true, even if it doesn't look like it right now. You've got to believe that that's true. Second, you need to feed on the promises of God. If you want God to be your refuge, then feed on his promises. Know the promises.

Know the things that he has said to you. When he says he's working all things for good, right? Feed on that. Feed on these promises that he says, I will take vengeance. So feed on the promises of God. Rehearse the character of God.

Is God cruel and unkind to his people? No. He's good and loving and merciful. Rehearse the character of God in your mind. Is our God a God of justice? Yes.

Well, then that means that injustice will not survive his indignation. Okay? You rehearse the character of God. Rehearse the deeds of God. Remember the things that he has done. Remember the works, the deeds, the actions that he has taken.

And so when you read the Bible, when you read the Bible, you have a whole book full of the actions of God, of a just God. Rehearse those in your mind. Rehearse the times God has worked on your behalf in your life. All right? As I was thinking through this and meditating on this, it occurred to me that those of us who struggle sometimes with worry, those of us who have to deal with that, what do we have to do?

We have to take refuge in God. So I have to do all the things I've said to you, but one of the things that has helped me is to look back over my life and to say, do you remember when that was going on and you thought it was going to be really bad? What happened? Well, a lot of times I can see, well, it didn't turn out the way I thought it was. God had a different plan.

Sometimes it was worse than I thought. But God brought me through. Right? So rehearse the deeds of God Fifth leave the vengeance to God and continue to do good in the face of evil Just because justice hasn't showed up doesn't mean that you take vengeance, right? It means that you do good. God will take vengeance.

You continue to do good in the face of evil. That's how you take refuge. And then lastly, saturate your life in prayer. You saturate your life in prayer. Now those are just some ways that God can become your refuge when it looks like he isn't your refuge right now, that he hasn't executed his justice. Make God your refuge.

He is good. He gives refuge to those. And by the way, all the things that I've said are the things that he has said. This is how he tells you to take refuge in him. now look while he protects you he pursues his enemies to their just end verse 8 but with an overflowing flood he will make a complete end of the adversaries and will pursue his enemies into darkness several years ago i don't know how many years ago was you folks at honda can remember this the tsunami that hit japan and thailand and a few other places you remember that have you ever seen the videos of that as of the of the waves coming in and and sometimes tragically they show the people are just swept away well god's wrath is like that tsunami right he's going to pursue his adversaries and they will not escape he that that wave of his justice is going to come sweeping in and no one will be able to outrun it it'll come in and take them all right it'll pursue them to the end they will not escape but you need to ask this question were you not at one time an enemy of god were you not at one time subject to this most powerful indignation What's happened?

When you trusted in Jesus, that wrath, the wrath described here, this explosive, flame-throwing, unbelievably powerful wrath was spent on Jesus so that if you trust in Him not one bit of that wrath rests on you In Jesus the substitute God has taken His vengeance and so His vengeance is not yours You won't have to suffer the vengeance of God. and yet remember that the Lord is slow to anger even his enemies our enemies and they're the same by the way have not experienced vengeance and in his forbearance God actually invites his enemies to be reconciled to him through Jesus and yet he maintains his wrath against all those who refuse his terms of peace. At the end of the day, he will not forget those who abused his people. He will not forget.

Listen, listen, we we're tending to start to get worried about how Christians are going to be treated in this country. Maybe things will happen and maybe they won't. But know this, know this, that God will not overlook the people who abuse his people. He will not overlook that. He will not tire so that his justice fails. He maintains his wrath against our enemies and his.

And the wrath that God will yet express, he will express through Jesus. And the wrath of Jesus will be far beyond what the Assyrians experienced centuries ago. This wrath will be the direct fury of a righteous God. The vengeance promised against Assyria is but a shadow of the great vengeance that will yet come. So, is there any reason for hope? you have reason for hope because in a world that hates god's people god will see that his justice is served you have reason for hope because in jesus you have refuge from the justice of god father thank you for your word even these prophets of days long ago speak truth to us that we need to here.

Help us now, Lord, to find our hope in you. Help us to realize first, our hope is that you will not maintain justice against us for you have served that justice in the death of Jesus for his people oh God help us to remember that and to rejoice in that and Lord help us to find hope in the fact that that you are a God of justice and that even now as you forbear of exercising that justice you are summoning people to peace, but remind us again that those who refuse will face your judgment. Those who persecute and harm your people will face the judgment of God.

So Father, give us hope in these things we pray. In Jesus' name, Amen.