The gate in our background photo today speaks a very clear, very direct message: If you keep proceeding down this road, it will cost!
The Assyrian people, living in the capital city of Nineveh, had been traveling for years down the road of violence and sin! God sent his prophet, Jonah, to warn the people that if they continued down this road, it would cost! God had decreed judgement and destruction against the city of Nineveh.
If you keep going down this road, it will cost!
“The people of Nineveh believed God. They declared a fast, and all of them, from the greatest to the least, put on sackcloth.” – Jonah 3:5
The king of Nineveh himself repented in sackcloth and dust. The king issued this decree to the people: “Let everyone call urgently on God. Let them give up their evil ways and their violence. Who knows? God may yet relent and with compassion turn from His fierce anger so that we will not perish.” – Jonah 3:8-9
God did indeed relent, and with compassion God did turn from His fierce anger.
The city was spared. The people did not perish.
Time passed.
Once again, the people of Nineveh fell back onto the same well-traveled road of violence and sin.
They knew God’s warning: If you keep going down this road, it will cost!
They knew.
Yet they kept blazing down the road anyway.
God, in His great love and compassion gave the people of Nineveh one last opportunity to repent. God sent the prophet Nahum with one final warning.
The book of Nahum opens: “The LORD is slow to anger and great in power; the LORD will not leave the guilty unpunished.” – Nahum 1:3
If you keep going down this road, it will cost! In fact, just as the 12-lanes in the background photo are evidence of the virtual “flood” of traffic sweeping through, so also a great flood will sweep you away! It will cost you everything!
– “Woe to the city of blood, full of lies, full of plunder, never without victims! … Charging cavalry, flashing swords and glittering spears! Many casualties, piles of dead, bodies without number, people stumbling over the corpses.” – Nahum 3:1-3
– “’I am against you,’ declares the LORD Almighty.” – Nahum 3:5
– “With an overwhelming flood He will make an end of Nineveh.” – Nahum 1:8
– “The river gates are thrown open and the palace collapses.” – Nahum 2:6
– “The LORD has given a command concerning you, Nineveh: ‘You will have no descendants to bear your name.’” – Nahum 1:14
– “All who see you will flee from you and say, ‘Nineveh is in ruins.’” – Nahum 3:7
And so it happened. The city of Nineveh was totally and completely destroyed by a disastrous flood!
The message of the book of Nahum is this: God loves everyone! God wants all people of the earth to repent and turn to Him! But we can never presume upon God’s mercy. If we ignore God and keep proceeding down the road of sin, it will cost! (Romans 6:23)
Jesus Christ in Nahum
Jesus Christ is the great Avenger of God’s people. Just as God avenged the wicked of Nineveh, so also Jesus will return at the end of time to avenge once and for all the wicked of the earth.
– Revelation 6:10
– Revelation 19:2
– Revelation 16:5-7
– Revelation 11:18
– Revelation 18:20
– Luke 18:7-8
– Romans 12:19
– Psalm 9:12
– Psalm 58:10
