Please stand with me for the reading of God's word. I'd like to turn to 2 Thessalonians 1. In this New Testament reading, we're gonna read about the goodness of God, but also the severity of Jesus Christ. And I'd like you to be careful to listen to both Paul, Silvanus, and Timothy. to the Church of the Thessalonians in God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. We are bound to thank God always for you, brethren, as it is fitting, because your faith grows exceedingly. and the love of every one of you all abounds towards each other, so that we ourselves boast of you among the churches of God for your patience and faith in all your persecutions and tribulations that you endure. which is manifest evidence of the righteous judgment of God, that you may be counted worthy of the kingdom of God for which you also suffer. Since it is a righteous thing with God to repay with tribulation those who trouble you, and to give you who are troubled rest with us when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven with his mighty angels in flaming fire taking vengeance on those who do not know God and on those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. These shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his power. when he comes in that day to be glorified in his saints and to be admired among all those who believe because our testimony among you was believed. Therefore, we also pray always for you that our God would count you worthy of this calling and fulfill all the good pleasure of his goodness and the work of faith with power. that the name of our Lord Jesus Christ may be glorified in you and you in him according to the grace of our God and the Lord Jesus Christ. Our Old Testament reading comes from the book of Nahum. If you can find Jonah, it's Jonah, Micah, and then Nahum in the Minor Prophets. We're gonna read verses one through eight, and to give you a sketch of what you're about to hear. You're about to hear God in eternity riding on a storm, riding the whirlwind, coming and bringing national judgments which will affect both the world and the church. Nahum chapter one. The burden against Nineveh, the book of the vision of Nahum the Elkishite. God is jealous, and the Lord avenges. The Lord avenges and is furious. The Lord will take vengeance on his adversaries, and he reserves his wrath for his enemies. The Lord is slow to anger and great in power, and he will not at all acquit the wicked. The Lord has his way in the whirlwind and in the storm. And the clouds are the dust of his feet. He rebukes the sea and makes it dry and dries up all the rivers. Bation and caramel wither. And the flower of Lebanon wilts. The mountains quake before him. The hills melt. And the earth heaves at his presence. Yes, the world and all who dwell in it. Who can stand before His indignation? And who can endure the fierceness of His anger? His fury is poured out like fire, and the rocks are thrown down by Him. The Lord is good, a stronghold in the day of trouble, and He knows those who trust in Him. But with an overwhelming flood, He will make an utter end of its place, and darkness will pursue His enemies. Amen. Kind of seems like Nahum might have been singing Psalm 46, huh? Tonight we're gonna look at the difficult subject of the avenging wrath of God against sin, but also the remarkable testimony concerning God's zealous love for his church. The great truth of the book of Nahum is that as Nahum describes God's character and power, he's showing us Jesus Christ. We'll see the outlines of his character, his nature, and his work, both as a delivering redeemer and a coming judge. We'll see that Jesus is both the lover of his people and the terror and just judge of his enemies, even a conquering warrior king. Make no mistake, when Nahum speaks of the jealousy, patience, power, wrath, fury, goodness, and judicial vengeance of God, we're looking at the contours of Jesus Christ. We are seeing the jealousy of Jesus, even his zeal for his people. We're looking at his patience, his power, his wrath, his fury, his judicial vengeance, and also his goodness. Jesus is being held up for you to see. Nahum will provide a theological framework whereby we can understand such comprehensive doctrines as the love of God in providing atonement for sin, the sovereignty of God in working salvation, and the inevitable and final destruction of sinners. Again, our text will open up the difficult subject of the avenging wrath of God in Jesus Christ. and his dread majesty, and at the same time, his work of sacrificial love and zeal, to have us as his own, and to defend and deliver us from all his and our enemies. Well, let's find our place in the Old Testament. It'll be useful for us to find the place and the time of the Book of Nahum. The high point of the Old Testament is 2 Samuel 7, when David tells God he wants to build a house for his name. Do you remember what God said in response? David, I will build a dynasty, an everlasting dynasty for you. That everlasting dynasty will be the throne that Jesus, the warrior king, sits on, enthroned for all eternity. It's not long after that we realize we need a greater king than King David. Do you remember what happened? The sin with Bathsheba, murder of her husband Uriah, Well, the nation reaches its pinnacle under Solomon, but it's split in two under Solomon's son, Rehoboam, and this division is recorded for us in 1 Kings 12. 1 and 2 Kings records for us the tragic decline and exile of both Israel and Judah. Both nations refused to comply with the basic terms of God's covenant. Though God remains faithful to his covenant, they justly bring the punishment of exile upon themselves for doing exactly what God had warned them not to do. Nahum wrote his book after Israel's exile. but before Judah's fall and destruction. God sent his disciplining rod in the Assyrian army against the northern kingdom of Israel for their great evil, but he prevented Assyria from conquering Judah in Jerusalem. At the time of writing, Assyria has reached a golden age and it's dominated the Near East for 100 years. Nahum writes at the crossroad of history. and during a period of fading hope in the slow disintegration of Judah due to its own sin, God's people were living in the dark days of foreign dominion. Judah was under a heavy yoke. There was the outward pressure from a world power bent on ruthless imperialism that was weaponizing fear and plundering wealth. There was also the inward corruption from Judah's own leaders Assyrian images, satanic Assyrian images filled the temple. Judah's king Manasseh was unconverted and he served as a vassal loyal to Assyria. He introduced Judah to the official satanic cult worship of the Assyrians along with a whole host of heathen practices. It's in this time of despair and powerful darkness that mirrors our own time that God remains faithful. Even in the context of punishment for sin and impending exile for Judah, Nahum is a book that brings comfort to God's people. His name means comfort. Square in the face of a mighty world conqueror, Nahum declares a prophetic message. None of us shall fall. Nineveh shall fall and the result will be that God's people will be comforted. Surrounding Gentile nations will be included in that comfort. With the fall of the Assyrians, there will be universal relief and joy of all who suffered under the oppressive regime of a merciless tyrant. You should pay attention to God as he reveals himself in the book of Nahum. Not only because it opens a window into the person of Jesus Christ, But in the total destruction of Nineveh, we have a window into God's divine activity on the Day of Judgment. Like with the fall of Nineveh, Jews and Gentiles will respond with worldwide rejoicing in the Day of Judgment. We will have our comfort. We will have our rest. We will have our eternal Sabbath never to be disturbed again by tears, misery, sin, or death. The judge in the last day is Jesus. He will by no means acquit the guilty, but he's also a refuge to those who trust in him. He's good and he remembers his covenant love for his own. He will pour out the wrath of God on all who refused his mercy. but he's also the wrath bearer for all who would run to him and cling to him in faith. Tonight, we'll just look at verses one and two, which set the tone and message for the entire book. Verse one gives us an introduction to the book. Verse two opens up a discussion of the eternal character of God as he sits enthroned in heaven in eternity. Verse one. The Burden Against Nineveh, the Book of the Vision of Nahum the Elkishite. There are four facts that we learn from verse one. First, Nahum's prophecy is described as a burden. The Hebrew word for burden or oracle was used by the prophets when they announced divine proclamation against foreign nations. It's nothing less than a declaration of war announced by God. for the sake of his chosen people. This burdensome prophecy would hang like a millstone around the neck until the city and its king were cast into the sea of God's eternal wrath. God is making an object lesson out of the Assyrians by announcing his avenging majesty. He will make a worldwide spectacle out of them for their satanic worship and their cruel treatment of his people. Once the city falls, It will never rise again, for its wound will be fatal and final. Second, the heading also points to the subject of the book, Nineveh. Nineveh, the royal seat of the Assyrian monarchy. About 150 years prior, you might remember, Nineveh had been an illustration of God's universal redemptive concern. Now it will be an example of what happens when nations refuse to kiss the sun. lest he be angry and they be destroyed in their way, Psalm 2. Despite the reference to Nineveh in verse one, the book uses general references until we get to chapter two in verse eight. This suggests a general and even end times application for our text. To keep building the case for a broader application, Nahum uses Isaiah's language describing the much later fall of Babylon. Both Nahum and Isaiah use the figure of a harlot, which is then again reflected in the visions in Revelation. This book forms the background of Revelation 17 four. These shall make war with the lamb and the lamb shall overcome them for he is the Lord of lords and the king of kings. Though we start with an immediate application to Nineveh and Judah, this application deepens to speak to the world power set against God and his kingdom and his beloved church. Here's the application for today. God will destroy every Nineveh that seeks to destroy or seduce God's people, full stop. Nahum invites men of every age to humble themselves before God's justice. and trust that he will bring down the oppressors of every age, every time, and every place. The third thing we learn from verse one is that the prophecy is a book and not a sermon. The origin of the book is a vision from God. The prophet saw vividly the scenes which he so graphically describes in the book. Nahum contains divine testimony that the Israelites might know that the testimony of God's vengeance on their enemies was not brought by a mortal man, and that they would have no doubt that God was the author of this prophecy. The fourth and last thing we learn from the heading is that it identifies the servant that God uses to announce the doom of Nineveh. His name is Nahum, the Elkishite. The prophet is unknown in history except for his book. Even his hometown has not been clearly identified. This isn't unusual. Often we know little about the prophets that our confidence might be grounded in God and his word and not in a man. Well, we get to verse two and now we begin the discussion of God's eternal character as he sits enthroned in heaven. Verse two, God is jealous and the Lord avenges. The Lord avenges and is furious. The Lord will take vengeance on his adversaries and he reserves his wrath for his enemies. In Hebrew, Nahum's phrasing starts out terse and pointed. God is jealous and Yahweh avenges, the master of wrath. It's a Hebrew idiom that we understand the word furious. Jealousy, wrath, and vengeance are bound together in verse two. The first thing to note is that God is jealous. The Bible gives us three word pictures to help us understand jealousy. The picture of a husband, zealous for an exclusive relationship with his wife. That marital picture communicates to us God's zeal for his exclusive claim on our life and our supreme love. The second picture we have in the scriptures is the fierceness of a warrior rushing into battle from Isaiah 59. The Lord shall go forth as a mighty man. He shall stir up jealousy like a man of war. He shall cry, yea, roar. He shall prevail against his enemies. This battle cry provides soldiers with adrenaline-enhanced strength and alertness. God, on the other hand, has the untiring zeal of his glorious divine nature. The third picture of jealousy is that of fire. We see it both in the Song of Solomon with a fire of love, but more often we see the fire of God's anger as seen in Deuteronomy 4. For the Lord is a consuming fire, even a jealous God. Fire is a picture of divine presence. It shows the infinite intense energy of God's affection as he dwells with his people. God's zeal or jealousy is his own limitless fervent energy of his own holiness burning for his own glory. God's jealousy inflames and fuels both the fire of his wrath and the warmth of his love. The source of both is the same brilliant fire of holiness. His jealousy activates his wrath to punish sinners with judicial vengeance, but also to glorify himself in the lives of his people. Zephaniah 3, all the earth will be devoured, by my fire of jealousy. He will claim his creation. He is not going to give it over to another. He will not have it ruined by sin. God's zeal also guarantees deliverance and enjoyment of the everlasting kingdom to the church. The beauty of his holiness and his zeal will be reflected in the life of the church. We shall be holy for he is holy. We shall be holy and zealous for him, like a mirror reflecting his glory back to him on a perfect sea of glass. God cannot bear injuries or wrong, and so God's jealousy pours out his wrath with the result that his vengeance is accomplished. And now we understand how jealousy, wrath, and vengeance fit together. The wrath of God is the anger of God required by his jealousy. His vengeance is the judicial action he takes. Both are grounded in his holiness and energized by his zeal. His fury, also mentioned in verse two, is the hot edge of his judicial sword as he exercises his vengeance. The Lamb of God is now coming as the lion of the tribe of Judah. We've examined jealousy, but now let's look at wrath and vengeance. God's wrath is his holy anger against sin. God's wrath is not capricious, arbitrary, irrational, uncontrollable, or impulsive. It is consistently and thoroughly applied, carefully measured, and perfectly reasoned. God's holy wrath is pure. It's holy and it's just. Will not the judge of all the earth do right? The wrath of God is irresistible in its force, unbearable in its effects, infinite in its burning reach, constant in eternal duration, and righteous in its judgment. God's wrath is his anger against moral wrong, and it will be seen to be the most destructive power in the universe. It will pursue all God's enemies with darkness, where the worm does not die, and when the fire is not quenched. It is beyond the magnitude of our understanding. Psalm 90, who can know the power of your anger? How do we know that the lights are gonna go out when God visits the earth in his wrath? Because the lights went out when the wrath of God visited the Son of God at Calvary, for me and for you. God's wrath is already dynamically operating in the world of men. Romans 1 tells us, the wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against sin. There is both a temporal and an eternal aspect. In Romans 1, the first evidence of wrath is that God gives men over to their misery and to their sin. Sin dooms to hell, but it also makes men liable to the miseries of this life. And there's something of a death in every misery we face. The first taste of hell is always self-inflicted. Our third term is vengeance. God's vengeance is fueled by his wrath against sin and his love for the church. It's the direct action he takes to punish evil and sin and to deliver his people. Vengeance is not malicious retaliation. Vengeance is a judicial term that involves the righting of wrongs by a legitimate authority. Vengeance is the punitive retribution in a judicial sense by our sovereign king. Our sovereign king who remembers his covenant. Our sovereign king who maintains perfect justice and our sovereign king who will save his people. Only God is capable of perfectly executing judicial discipline against sinful men. God is not like us and there is no error in His justice or in His judgment. That's why the Bible is so careful to tell us, do not avenge yourself for vengeance is mine and I will repay, says the Lord. The avenging God will discipline, defend, or deliver according to the demands of His holiness. God avenges his people in the sense that he champions their cause against their enemies because of his jealous love. Without vengeance, there is no justice and there is no future. Without the function of God as a destroyer of wrong, corruption would continue and creation would be lost. Does God have the will? and the power and the love to save the work of his hands. All the promises of God are yes in Jesus Christ. And this now leads us to the objects of God's wrath. The object of God's wrath and vengeance in verse two are his adversaries and enemies. Sin is punished because ultimately it's against God. God's righteousness causes him not only to break fellowship with guilty sinners, but to execute his curse upon them with punishments and torments fitting for their sins. The punishment will match the crime. Sin destroys our friendship and fellowship with God. This is the greatest loss because all human happiness is bound up in God. God is the cause and fountain of all good and the loss of him is the loss of everything that is good and excellent. The only way to reconcile an enemy is to destroy the enmity, the hostility, the animosity. And that's what Jesus did for you and me on the cross. The spirit took out my heart and your heart of stone that was dead in sin and would have sunk us to the bottom of God's wrath and he gave us a heart of flesh that would love him once again. The spirit dwelling in believers engages in continual militant conflict with sin and he won't let us go until we're safe and secure in heaven. In application, do not resist the Holy Spirit. Do not grieve him. Cooperate and come back to him in repentance, confessing specific sins by name. Get your house in order for the master's coming. God exercises his judgment with sovereign freedom. He may apply, delay, or restrain his punishments as he sees fit. but justice will always be done. Verse two tells us that God reserves his wrath for his enemies. God guards his wrath. He maintains it. He keeps it. It does not fade because time passes. The door will open to his red-hot fury at the end of time for events long forgotten. The delay is wrapped up in the mystery of his providence and secret counsel. We can be tempted to think that God is indifferent because he delays his wrath and justice. Does he think or care anything for our misery since he allows it to go so long unavenged? Jesus has his eye on your suffering and he takes it for his own. Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me? Those who bring harm to a son or a daughter or a wife of the king must soon stand before the king himself. Matthew 25, what you have done to the least of these little children, you have done to me. God's government, including his judicial process, is on schedule. He displays a calculated control in dispensing vengeance. God's mastery over his wrath and vengeance is seen most clearly in the endurance of the Father and the Son in the hour of Christ's crucifixion. The state of wicked men under final judgment consists in the loss of the highest good and undergoing the highest penalty. We see both of these in Christ's words. Depart from me, you cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels. Men will be totally deprived of all the happiness that they were capable of. The wicked will experience the unmixed wrath of God. He will give them judgment without mercy. God's judgment and justice will be made plain to all. Revelation 20 tells us that there's a great white throne of judgment. And it's here that the dead, both great and small, will stand before God. He will open the books. God has everything documented. He's got all the receipts. His justice will be made plain and manifest in every case. The book of each man's conscience will also be opened and it'll be as good as a thousand witnesses for he shall accuse and condemn himself. But there's another book, the book of life. All who believe in their heart and confess that Jesus is Lord will find their name written in that book. Anyone whose name is not written in the book of life will be cast into the lake of fire Who can stand in the presence of the Lord? Christ can, and I can stand in Jesus Christ. I have disqualified myself, but he has qualified me. That's the testimony of everyone whose name is written in the book of life. Jealousy, vengeance, and wrath are bound together in verse two. Together, they lay the theological groundwork So that even by verse two, the wicked should realize there will be no escape. And the righteous should see victory is inevitable. The righteous will be delivered by the vengeance of God. Our optimism comes from the character of God. There's a lot of talk right now about who's gonna control the future. The future belongs to the church. We are the people of tomorrow, as Pastor Zecchi says. The meek shall inherit the earth. The design of the Holy Spirit in verse two is to match the exceeding wrath and power of the king of Assyria and even the wrath and power of the dragon, that ancient serpent who is the devil, to assure Judah that what God has announced will surely come to pass. The application extends to the comfort of the church and the terror of the kingdom of darkness. The eternal character of God means that evil cannot triumph in a world, in the world, and that the sinner will not stand in his presence. In the context of judgment against his adversaries and enemies, God is described as jealous, avenging, and wrathful. God's entire being is against sin and evil. His omnipresence exposes it. His knowledge judges it. His love abhors it. His righteousness condemns it. His compassion grieves over it. His wisdom is even now plotting against it. His majesty looms over it and it will be his power that will punish it. We could also say that God's entire being is for me and for you. God's entire being is for the rescue of creation and the final salvation of his bride. The omnipresent one became present with us in the flesh in the person of Jesus Christ. He grew in knowledge and stature. He lived a life of righteousness. He grieved over sinners and even now is calling them. He died in dishonor but rose in majesty and is coming again in power for you. Will you be his? Some lessons. When you understand the power of God's wrath and the certainty of its coming, the assured victory of God will give you a backbone for kingdom activity. You will understand that the future belongs to the church. For one day, the wicked shall be no more. It will give you pity for the nations. It will give you pity for your persecutors as you call out to them with the gospel of God's free love. Lastly, it'll give you a fuller appreciation of what Christ Jesus suffered on your behalf and just how deeply he has loved you. Beloved, you have no idea. With your own eyes, you will see the infallible righteous severity of the ruler of the world and his loving kindness, his long suffering, his tender mercies. Men will respond in either terror or with awe and a wave of relief and comfort at his coming. The presence of perfect wrath and perfect love and harmony stamps the character of God as he's seated in eternity with a perfection elsewhere unknown. Like all the prophets, Nahum looks forward to the time when Christ will come to reign in righteousness and justice. As in every other portion of the Old Testament scriptures, the Lord's anointed is visible upon the horizon. Look up. Nahum typifies Jesus, the greater prophet, who graciously warned men of the judgment to come. Unlike Nahum, Jesus suffered under the tidal wave of God's wrath, as all the holy anger of God beat upon the breast of the spotless Son of God. Jesus bears the fullest extent of God's holy hatred and anger for human sin. He's jealous to have all those who would come to him in faith. He has opened the door to the love of God. Again, will you be his? Come quickly, Lord Jesus, come, let's pray. Lord, we, your people, are panicked. We see ourselves trapped between the Egyptians and the Red Sea. We ask that you would part the water for us. And if you do not, give us the conviction of Daniel's friends We will not bow down. Our God will save us. And if he doesn't, we're still not going to bow down to you. Amen.