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bye

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ah book by book here we are once again

i'm richard buse

joined here by you as we look at the

book of nahum in the old testament

coming to study number three and once

again i'm joined by

my friend and colleague paul blackham

and then by our special guest gordon

bridger

who is a preacher and a writer and

actually a trainer of preachers because

paul was once in his study

absolutely gordon was the principal of

oak hill theological college here

in london here we are in uh this

wonderful book

of nahum in the old testament it's one

of what are called the

minor prophets they're only minded

because they're quite short

and as we come to now our third study

let's just take one or two sentences

again from this first chapter

look at verse seven the lord is good a

refuge in times of trouble

he cares for those who trust in him but

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

verse 12 this is what the lord says

although they have allies

and are numerous they will be cut off

and pass away

although i have afflicted you o judah i

will afflict you no more

i will break their yoke from your neck

and tear your shackles

away we're looking really at nahum in

chapter one here verses 7 to 15 and

really i think we ought to first of all

think about

if the lord as we learned earlier is

full of vengeance and

anger and power it says then we must ask

is there some way by which

that we can endure all of that well i

think that nam tells us that

it's only through the lord himself he

says the lord is good but certain

a refuge in times of trouble so the lord

himself can save us from

the judgment that we all deserve and i

think he uses a number of terms to

describe

that judgment which i think point us to

the new testament and to the cross

so for instance he talks about verse

eight he will pursue his phase into

darkness

and we think of jesus on the cross

darkness coming over the face of the

earth

a symbol of the sin of the world

being upon him and he endured the

darkness we deserved that

we might walk in the light and have

fellowship with god

so that's one picture but there's

another one they will be entangled verse

10

among thorns and that may well refer

back to genesis as

a part of the curse or condemnation of

god upon

humankind because of adam and eve's

rebellion

and disobedience and the new testament

tells us that

christ became a curse for us in

galatians 3 13 this is

he became a curse for us that he might

redeem us

from the curse of the law so again we're

secure in him

because of the cross and just one more

um

they will be entangled among thorns

verse 10 and drunk from their wine

that may refer to a picture that occurs

a lot in the bible

of drinking the cup with wine the wine

of god's wrath

upon humankind for its sinfulness and

rebellion and disobedience again

and christ we know in the garden of

gethsemane prayed that if possible this

cup might pass from him

he shrunk from it but went in obedience

drank to the dregs a cup of wrath

so that we could drink by faith the cup

of salvation

so the lord is good he is our refuge oh

god it's wonderful that we can

fill out our understanding of the old

testament by again and again by

reference to the new testament

and you know the our study guide i think

we ought to draw those

the attention of our friends who are

sharing in this study to the study

guides that accompany absolutely these

studies

so if you get the dvd of course you can

also get with it the study guide it

comes automatically

and that is fills out a little bit of

what we're attempting

in this sort of brief study time that we

have right now

actually as we have to follow on from

where you left off gordon

i mean how does nahum hold together the

beginning then

of verse 2 the jealous and avenging god

with the beginning of verse 7 which as

you were quoting the lord is good

a refuge for those in time of trouble

yeah that's for me i think

the the way that the lord because you

think the lord's good

we like that jealous and a vengeance

again sometimes people go that's a

contradiction

it isn't a contradiction that you know

the lord is both

good and angry and so on

because of his passion for people

his passion and love for people because

he's got these

um his love and purposes for the world

and he sees all the evil

and it bothers him and he won't have it

and he hates it and he'll drive it away

and we think about ourselves that we can

become

so sort of hard-hearted and apathetic

about things

we can i mean i always think about it

that we can watch an advert

on television and be moved to tears then

we'll see you know just some trivial

sentimental thing can move us

and then we'll watch the news that has

real tragedy and

evil and suffering and just be

completely blank and unmoved by it well

the lord god isn't like that he cares

passionately about people and won't and

won't be all hard-hearted and

indifferent about it

and i always think about the fact that

the lord will not have sin he will not

have it

and will never compromise or let it go

and i think about the sin in my own life

that i can get comfortable with but i

think it's great news to know the lord

isn't like that

and i i do because because of my the the

spirit and the new nature that i've

received in jesus

i hate the sin even that i do and so

i love the fact that the lord says will

not have it we'll get rid of that once

and for all

and that that sort of way in which i go

that's wonderful

the lord is good and he will not

tolerate evil

and i love that i love i long for the

day when i myself he'll drive out all

the evil from in my own heart you know

wretched man that i am who will deliver

me

from the sin that's in me he will

because he's a good god who cares

passionately

oh absolutely it's one of i love the

three tenses of salvation

he has delivered us from the past

penalty of sin

by a crucified savior he is delivering

us now from the power of sin

by a risen savior and he will deliver us

from the very presence of sin

by a coming savior wow and that's the

thing that we can hold on to with great

confidence

wow hey gun as we look on at verses 8 to

11 why is it such good news then when

nahum promises the end of nineveh it is

good news isn't it yes it is because

syria and other tyrannical powers have

caused a great deal of distress and have

murdered people and

committed atrocities and it's good that

such

nations that behave in this way are

judged by god as paul's been saying

um and they they

they fall dramatically i was watching on

television

a program about adolf hitler and the

rise of nazism in germany

and uh the best that he made the part of

a speech

claiming that germany would would rule

the world

and in the end he's defeated

and he dies takes his own life in a

bunker in berlin he ends up in about

just ends up

powerful that's it i know so all of

these

we learn from history and of course

supremely we learn from the scriptures

i mean perhaps all this reminds us of

the book of daniel actually do you

remember

does he face nebuchadnezzar of babylon

what do you think about do you remember

that book

what you do i do i know you love the

book of daniel and i can't read it

without thinking of your sermons and

writings on daniel

because and that's another example of

the because of the assyrians came

and then they were destroyed by the

babylonians weren't they really a

sort of an alliance in the babylonian

then they came up and they thought

no were there what were the empire

that's always going to be around

we're going to rule the world in history

and there's daniel

and he's in the middle of that and it's

no he discovers the same

all the empires come and go you get you

know you get assyria

babylon then you get the median persians

then you get the greeks

the seleucid kingdom then you get the

iron fist of rome one after one after

and each one of them

in the day seemed as if it would last

forever and here's we've got the thames

behind us and you think

over all the hundreds of years that

ships have come and gone here

all the different ships coming from all

these different empires and kingdoms

many of them don't even exist anymore so

and sometimes they do but they're small

and i always think that with daniel and

there and i love that vision isn't it

where there's a stone that's a little

stone

and it rolls down and there's this

statue that represents

all those empires it's glorious daniel

chapter two the little stone

that hits the great statue that

resembles all the

different kingdoms that are coming yeah

and they all end up pulverized

what's it that's the kingdom of god the

kingdom of god the stone that became

a mountain you know i think nahum's

reminding us of that same

great truth that here they seem

impossibly big and we're frightened of

them

and they may take the lives of us and

other christians and things

but even when we die even if we were

martyred by them

in our minds we trust the lord jesus and

his kingdom and we're

safe in him absolutely hey go on let's

look on

uh where are we 12 15. 15

yes i think let's look at that well

nineveh is seen to trust in its allies

as we read earlier and it's god's in

verse 14.

so why is this issue of trust and

security so

very central here well i think nem seems

to be saying that

you if you trust in certain gods the

result will be

that you'll follow their ways uh of

corruption and destruction

uh and it matters what

whom you serve and whom you worship and

whom you put first in your life

and it affects the whole of your life

yes

yes yes and of course i i like it how

you meant well you mention a lot of that

on page 122. right we won't read all of

it because

because 120 to 129 seven pages

several pages you take up this theme of

you know

what you worship you will actually

become like yes and this is

what have we seen i'm afraid in many

parts of the world

and have done so right through the way

through history and and those gods of

the babylonians they were sort of of

you know like sex and violence really

isn't it i think some of them they had

those sort of things and

it re it's reflected in the lives of the

yes is that

the babylonians yeah and the cruelty of

them

i know yeah so yes that's right in the

second part of verse 15 the people of

judah can look forward

to celebrating their feasts again and

that's

that's encouraging uh for a soldier to

remember and to hold on to

um and that idea isn't it of the that

you think it's strange that the idea

that when

there was this terrible destruction of

nineveh

that might have been reported in the

news like terrible war in assyria

but over in the church over in israel

hey it's feasts and festivals and

there's that sense of that isn't it

quite right

quite right absolutely exactly so

i mean now yeah look uh the first part

of verse 15

uh seems to have come straight from

isaiah 52

7 about the looking on the on the

they're on the mountains the feet of one

who brings good news who proclaims peace

yes it does look like that why doesn't

nahim kind of remind us of that prophecy

do you think

well that's taking it seems to be yeah

though

that link up with isaiah because isaiah

had promised

i don't know was it maybe 80 years

earlier sort of time

yeah maybe that sort of time that he and

the isaiah had said this assyria these

are syrians they'll be gone

and then all that time people are like

oh isaiah he's

he's lost it there's no way that assyria

is going to be destroyed

well of course in the book of isaiah

itself you see that way in which the

lord was able to defeat the assyrians

and nahum recalls that to them said you

remember what isaiah promised

that the assyrians will be destroyed and

do you remember what happened

during the life of isaiah the assyrians

when they came to jerusalem

the angel of the lord came and sent them

back in and it's all like that and

here's another then and nahim's giving

the same gospel message

because what's wonderful about isaiah is

he's not just talking about politics and

world empires

above it all he holds up the lord jesus

christ

and he has that incredible prophecy of

his cross and resurrection and new

creation glory

so that's what give that's how we know

that it's gonna come true because

there's this

lord jesus christ at the center of it

all isaiah 53

you know gordon earlier was talking

about how the cross is there

implicitly in all these but of course

isaiah

it's just like the most incredible

description of the cross of jesus isaiah

53.

so i think it's good whenever we read

these prophets but nahum is actually

saying to us

i hope you've read isaiah because you

need you want you want to get all the

isaiah truth

i'm building on it but you know read

isaiah is telling us

oh my word i think we're just about at

the end of our little study

study number three i mean when we think

then about the

endurance of the church and god's people

right down the centuries from early

times right through to the church of

today

we should take encouragement actually i

can think

of if you go to paris in france

and to the musee d'orsay which is one of

the great art museums

you see there in one of the pictures a

an enormous

woman she just dominates the canvas it's

a large canvas

this woman dressed in somber clothes

dominating

looking actually pretty terrifying as

well

but at her feet the artist has painted

his name was andre

russo he painted in 1897 he's painted

at her feet a little cat playing with a

ball of wool

and when i think about that well it

isn't actually three seconds

before your eyes irresistibly drawn to

the little cat

so as we wind up now this study i mean i

would say that

that's something of a picture of the of

of the church

really often dismissed across the

from early times as being nothing but

scum and all the rest of it

but actually it's the church like the

cat in russo's

painting that somehow captivatingly

stayed you know and in prosperity's view

despite all of the

opposition that there is and despite

every formidable

rival that there is on the campus of

history you know from

ashuburnipal of assyria right through to

nero

right through to hitler as you were

mentioning earlier

and far beyond the church is still there

the church is going to outlast every

body

every group of people every kingdom

in sight if we're part of that

amazingly we're on safe secure ground

god bless you we're going to come back

with another study before long

you