{"id":9330,"date":"2020-05-17T20:00:49","date_gmt":"2020-05-18T03:00:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/?p=9330"},"modified":"2020-05-17T18:00:37","modified_gmt":"2020-05-18T01:00:37","slug":"nahum_3_1-19","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/nahum_3_1-19\/","title":{"rendered":"Stand in Awe of God\u2019s Mercy"},"content":{"rendered":"

Nahum 3:1-19 \u00a0Click here for Bible Verses<\/a><\/p>\n

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Hi GAMErs,<\/div>\n
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Today\u2019s passage is Nahum 3:1-19.\u00a0 Let\u2019s go!<\/p>\n

Nahum 3:1-15, 19 (NIV)\u00a0<\/strong>
\n1\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0Woe to the city of blood, full of lies, full of plunder, never without victims!
\n2\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0The crack of whips, the clatter of wheels, galloping horses and jolting chariots!
\n3\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0Charging cavalry, flashing swords and glittering spears! Many casualties, piles of dead, bodies without number, people stumbling over the corpses–
\n4\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0all because of the wanton lust of a harlot, alluring, the mistress of sorceries, who enslaved nations by her prostitution and peoples by her witchcraft.
\n5\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0“I am against you,” declares the\u00a0LORD\u00a0Almighty. “I will lift your skirts over your face. I will show the nations your nakedness and the kingdoms your shame.
\n6\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0I will pelt you with filth, I will treat you with contempt and make you a spectacle.
\n7\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0All who see you will flee from you and say, ‘Nineveh is in ruins–who will mourn for her?’ Where can I find anyone to comfort you?”
\n8\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0Are you better than Thebes, situated on the Nile, with water around her? The river was her defense, the waters her wall.
\n9\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0Cush and Egypt were her boundless strength; Put and Libya were among her allies.
\n10\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0Yet she was taken captive and went into exile. Her infants were dashed to pieces at the head of every street. Lots were cast for her nobles, and all her great men were put in chains.
\n11\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0You too will become drunk; you will go into hiding and seek refuge from the enemy.
\n12\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0All your fortresses are like fig trees with their first ripe fruit; when they are shaken, the figs fall into the mouth of the eater.
\n13\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0Look at your troops– they are all women! The gates of your land are wide open to your enemies; fire has consumed their bars.
\n14\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0Draw water for the siege, strengthen your defenses! Work the clay, tread the mortar, repair the brickwork!
\n15\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0There the fire will devour you; the sword will cut you down and, like grasshoppers, consume you. Multiply like grasshoppers, multiply like locusts!<\/em><\/p>\n

19\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0Nothing can heal your wound; your injury is fatal. Everyone who hears the news about you claps his hands at your fall, for who has not felt your endless cruelty?\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

On verses 1-15, 19:\u00a0 Here in these verses Nahum describes with vivid imagery the destruction that Nineveh would experience.\u00a0 In verses 8-10 Nahum compares Nineveh to Thebes of ancient Egypt and how despite all of its power and prosperity, the city still fell.
\nYou might be asking, \u201cHow could God be so cruel to Nineveh?\u201d\u00a0 Keep these things in mind:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. God had already shown mercy to Nineveh before, having warned the people of Nineveh in the past.\u00a0 After initially repenting, the Ninevites eventually returned to being a centre for great wickedness and \u201cendless cruelty\u201d (v19), refusing to take seriously God\u2019s warnings and God\u2019s mercy.<\/li>\n
  2. Nahum\u2019s message here is itself a warning.\u00a0 About 100 years before this, God sent the prophet Jonah to Nineveh to proclaim, \u201c40 more days and Nineveh will be overturned.\u201d\u00a0 In response to this warning, the Ninevites repented and God relented.\u00a0 Who is to say that God would not respond with similar mercy if the Ninevites repented in response to Nahum\u2019s message?\u00a0 Unfortunately, based on the fact that Nineveh was indeed destroyed and never built up again, it appears that the Ninevites did not heed Nahum\u2019s message or humble themselves before God.\u00a0 As a result, the destruction that Nahum warned about came to pass eventually.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    What can we learn from this?\u00a0 God is just and is committed to avenging evil.\u00a0 Still, as powerful, just and sovereign as God is, as much as God hates evil and is committed to punishing evil, God is also merciful.\u00a0 In His mercy God will usually not allow great destruction to take place without warning.\u00a0 In His mercy God will watch how people respond to Him \u2013 whether in humility or with pride \u2013 and He responds to them in kind.\u00a0 In His mercy, God even sacrificed His own Son Jesus Christ on the cross for our sins so that we would not have to experience God\u2019s tremendous wrath against sin. Were it not for Jesus, the destruction and shame that Nahum describes the Ninevites experiencing would be our fate as well.\u00a0 So let\u2019s stand in awe of God\u2019s power and justice, and thank God for His great mercy toward us expressed through His Son Jesus Christ.<\/p>\n

    Nahum 3:16-18 (NIV)<\/strong>
    \n16\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0You have increased the number of your merchants till they are more than the stars of the sky, but like locusts they strip the land and then fly away.
    \n17\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0Your guards are like locusts, your officials like swarms of locusts that settle in the walls on a cold day– but when the sun appears they fly away, and no one knows where.
    \n18\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0O king of Assyria, your shepherds slumber; your nobles lie down to rest. Your people are scattered on the mountains with no one to gather them.
    \n<\/em>
    \nOn verses 16-18:\u00a0 Here Nahum takes aim specifically at the leaders of Nineveh:<\/p>\n

      \n
    • In verse 16 Nahum compares the business leaders of Nineveh to locusts who just \u201cstrip the land bare and fly away\u201d.<\/li>\n
    • In verse 17 Nahum compares Nineveh\u2019s military leaders and political officials also to locusts in that they settle in the city for their own comfort but are nowhere to be found when you look for them (\u201cthey fly away, and no one knows where\u201d).<\/li>\n
    • In verse 18, Nahum takes aim at all the slumbering leaders of Assyria (Nineveh being the capital city of Assyria).\u00a0 Nahum especially goes after the Assyrian king, suggesting that the people of Assyria are like sheep without a shepherd, \u201cscattered on the mountains with no one to gather them\u201d (v18).<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n

      What can we learn from this?\u00a0\u00a0The health of a city or nation \u2013 or any family or organization for that matter \u2013 depends so much on the quality of its leaders.\u00a0 No city, nation, family or organization can prosper or be healthy without great leadership.<\/strong>\u00a0 About 100 years before Nahum wrote this prophetic warning to Nineveh, God sent Jonah to declare a similar message, and it was the king of Nineveh who led the people in repenting, and this in turn led to a spiritual awakening in Nineveh and a turning away of God\u2019s wrath.\u00a0 Unfortunately, in Nahum\u2019s time 100 years later, Nineveh was without such a king.\u00a0\u00a0Let\u2019s pray that both now and for every generation coming after us, that our families, church, city and nation would be led by great, God-fearing, God-honouring leaders.<\/strong><\/p>\n

      Heavenly Father, thank You for the incredible mercy You show us by warning us often before You discipline us and by not treating us as our sins deserve because Your Son Jesus paid the price for us.\u00a0 I pray for our families, our church, our cities and our nations, that for now and for every subsequent generation there would be strong, wise, God-fearing, God-honouring leadership that would heed Your warnings and obey Your Word so that we would live in Your full blessing.\u00a0 In Jesus\u2019 name, AMEN!<\/em><\/p>\n

      This brings our look at the book of Nahum to a close.\u00a0 What important lessons did you learn from this book?\u00a0 I encourage you to record them in a place near the book of Nahum in your Bible so that whenever you go back to this book you\u2019ll be reminded of the lessons you learned.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

      <\/div>\n
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      <\/div>\n<\/div><\/section><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

      Hi GAMErs,
      \nToday\u2019s passage is Nahum 3:1-19.\u00a0 Let\u2019s go!<\/p>\n

      Nahum 3:1-15, 19 (NIV)\u00a0
      \n1\u00a0\u00a0Woe to the city of blood, full of lies, full of plunder, never without victims!
      \n2\u00a0\u00a0The crack of whips, the clatter of wheels, galloping horses and jolting chariots!
      \n3\u00a0\u00a0Charging cavalry, flashing swords and glittering spears! Many casualties, piles of dead, bodies without number, people stumbling over the corpses–……<\/p>\n

      On verses 1-15, 19:\u00a0 Here in these verses Nahum describes with vivid imagery the destruction that Nineveh would experience.\u00a0 In verses 8-10 Nahum compares Nineveh to Thebes of ancient Egypt and how despite all of its power and prosperity, the city still fell.
      \nYou might be asking, \u201cHow could God be so cruel to Nineveh?\u201d\u00a0 Keep these things in mind:<\/p>\n

      God had already shown mercy to Nineveh before, having warned the people of Nineveh in the past.\u00a0 After initially repenting, the Ninevites eventually returned to being a centre for great wickedness and \u201cendless cruelty\u201d (v19), refusing to take seriously God\u2019s warnings and God\u2019s mercy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":9331,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9330","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-gametime-sharing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9330","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9330"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9330\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9333,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9330\/revisions\/9333"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9331"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9330"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9330"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9330"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}