All right, open your Bibles tonight to the book of Nahum. The book of Nahum. Just go to Matthew and start
turning back. to what has been called one of
the minor prophets. Not that any prophet of God is
minor, but to the little book of Nahum. Everywhere I've gone in the last
few days, There is much talk, much news, many weather reports, endless speculations concerning the hurricanes. There was the one in Houston,
Harvey. There is the one in the Atlantic,
Irma. There's also Jose, and I believe
another one. So I've entitled this message,
Where Goes? the whirlwind. Where goes the
whirlwind? In other words, where will these
hurricanes go? Who will they affect? When will they
come? I'm glad to say this evening
that I know. I know the answer to all three
questions. And the knowledge that is mine
by grace concerning these things and so many more is is a great
comfort. It's the only comfort really
that there is. I know that they will go where
the Lord sends them. They will go to whom he sends
them. And they will do what he sends
them to do. He's sending just like as he
has always sent them to accomplish something. To accomplish basically two things. to exalt His name and give glory
to Him alone. And He's also sent them for the good,
the eternal good of all His elect. There are those who would simply
see such a view as fatalism. Fatalism. But it's not fatalism at all,
it's faith. Because this is exactly what
the God of the Bible says. This is what He says. And if we don't find comfort
in this, if we don't find a reason to bless and trust God in this,
it's simply because we don't know Him. We don't trust Him. Nahum, this prophet of long ago
and really all the prophets of God, but Nahum here in this case,
he knew that. And if you look down at the third
verse here in the first chapter, just leap into that first verse,
first chapter, and verse three, he states this very thing. He says, the Lord is slow to
anger, and great in power, and will not at all acquit the wicked. The Lord hath his way in the
whirlwind and in the storm, and the clouds are the dust of his
feet. In every storm and in every whirlwind
especially, Men are brought to see and be confronted with the
great truth of God's sovereign power. They'll always deny it. They'll
always talk about how he either has or has not anything to do
with it. My daughter said today that she
read where somebody posted that the Lord didn't have anything
to do with the storms that were coming, which was bad enough,
but somebody posted right behind that individual, God doesn't
have anything to do with anything. But men find out, either in judgment
or in grace. Men today don't want to know
this. They don't know this. But Nahum
says, the Lord hath his way in the storm. And if you turn over to Job chapter
38. had to be reminded like you and
I have to be reminded as far as who God is. That's the problem
in our generation. Men and women do not know who
God is. And the reason that they don't
know is, one, because they don't want to know, and they have also
gotten everything they think they know about God from other
than God Himself. But we need to be reminded just
exactly how much different, how much higher, how much mightier,
how much greater God is. And that's what he's doing here
to Job. Job 38 and verse 1. Then the Lord answered Job out
of the whirlwind and said, He had something to say to Job,
and he spoke out of the whirlwind. The whirlwinds that God sends
are God speaking, oftentimes to remind us who he is. He says, who is this that darkeneth
counsel by words without knowledge? That's the way men's words are
naturally. They're words without knowledge. Gird up now thy loins like a
man, for I will demand of thee, and answer thou me. Where was thou when I laid the
foundations of the earth? Declare, if thou hast understanding. Who hath laid the measures thereof,
if thou knowest? Or who hath stretched the line
upon it? Whereupon are the foundations
thereof fastened? Or who laid the cornerstone thereof? When the morning stars sang together,
and all the sons of God shouted for joy, Or who shut up the sea
with doors when it break forth, as if it had issued out of the
womb? When I made the cloud, the garment
thereof, and thick darkness a swaddling band for it, and break up for
it my decreed place, and set bars and doors, and said, hitherto
thou shall come, and no farther, and here shall thy proud waters
be stayed. Hast thou commanded the morning
since thy days, and caused the dayspring to know his place? that it might take hold of the
ends of the earth, that the wicked might be shaken out of it. It is turned as clay to a seal,
to the seal, and they stand as a garment, and from the wicked
their light is withholding, and the high arm shall be broken. Hast thou entered into the springs
of the sea? Or hast thou walked in the search
of the depth? And have the gates of death been
opened unto thee? Or hast thou seen the doors of
the shadow of death? Hast thou perceived the breadth
of the earth? Declare, if thou knowest at all. Tell us if you know it all, Job. And he goes on for like two chapters,
statement after statement, question after question. reminding Job
of who he is and how little he really knows, how little he really
can do. He's just a man created by God
who knows nothing about God and nothing about his creation except
God reveal it to him. And all of these things, all
of these hurricanes and tornadoes are all reminders of the sovereignty
of God in all things, in all judgment, and in all grace. Job came to this conclusion. He said of God, but he is one
in one mind, and who can turn him? And what his soul desireth,
even that he doeth. I remember after one of the hurricanes,
a bunch of religious people saying that they prayed that storm off
of their town. They prayed that storm away from
their state. But that absolutely cannot be. As Job said, he is in one mind
and what he wills, that he does and nobody can stop him. Men cannot forecast a storm. They can show you where it is. They can show you the way it's
going, but they can't turn it because they can't turn him. He's of one mind, and who can
turn him? And he is an absolute sovereign
as these storms especially show in the judgments that he brings
upon this earth and as it will surely be when the Lord comes. They're unable to stop the whirlwind
now. They're unable to stop that earthly
judgment when it comes. They'll be unable to stop it
when he comes the second time. He's in all things reminding
men in the whirlwind of the sureness and the power and the unstoppable
wrath and judgment of God against sinners who are not in Christ. Look at our text. Look down at
that sixth verse. Who can stand before his indignation? And who can abide in the fierceness
of his anger? His fury is poured out like fire,
and the rocks are thrown down by him. Man builds. Man shows his strength. Man shows his glory. Man shows
his power to withstand. And all of a sudden, God sends
the whirlwind, and it brings it to nothing. That's the way
he is in judgment. The psalmist said, before your
pots can feel the thorns, he shall take them away as with
a whirlwind, both living and in his wrath. Proverbs says, when your fear
cometh as desolation and your destruction cometh as a whirlwind,
when distress and anguish come upon you, you won't be able to
stop it. No more than you can stop the
whirlwind. Isaiah, the nations shall rush
like rushing, like the rushing of many waters, but God shall
rebuke them and they shall flee far off and shall be chased as
the chaff to the mountains before the wind and like a rolling thing
before the whirlwind. Got to move them. God'll bring
them, God'll take them, he'll do with them what he will. Isaiah
again, yea, they shall not be planted, yea, they shall not
be sown, yea, their stock shall not take root in the earth, and
he shall also blow upon them, and they shall wither, and the
whirlwind shall take them away as stubble. For behold, the Lord will come
with fire and with his chariots like a whirlwind to render his
anger with fury and his rebuke with flames of fire. Jeremiah,
behold, a whirlwind of the Lord is gone forth in fury, even a
grievous whirlwind, and it shall fall grievously upon the head
of the wicked. God is sovereign in His judgment. He's sure in His judgment. He's
powerful in His judgment. And all these things are just
reminders of that. And not only that, they're a
reminder to His people to rejoice in the knowledge that their enemies
and His will be destroyed. Some very pious people say they
could never take delight in anybody going to hell. They could never
take delight in anybody perishing. But let me tell you this, if
you're one of God's people, If you're truly a believer in the
Lord Jesus Christ, you'll be glad if he takes even your unbelieving
children at that time and casts them into hell. You say, that's a bit strong.
No, that's in the Bible. In the book of Revelation, when
the whore and the beast and all that follow her and all that
are against Christ are cast into the lake of the fire, the church
rings out, hallelujah. The Lord God omnipotent reigneth. There'll come a time They may break our hearts now,
our friends, our neighbors, our children. They may break our
hearts now. We may desire their salvation. We may desire them to know God. We may desire them to believe
the truth. But if they don't, there'll come
a time when we don't do it. Rejoice in the Lord God omnipotent
reigneth. But God sends the whirlwind as
an illustration of the sovereignty of his mercy and grace. Now, where will the whirlwind
go? The whirlwind goes where he will,
and it goes to whom he will. And none can stop him, and none
can alter his course. And it's the same with grace. That's what he said to Moses. That's what he quotes by the
Apostle Paul. That's what we see illustrated
all throughout the Bible. For he saith to Moses, I will
have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion
on whom I will have compassion. And nobody is going to stop him. He would have compassion on a
man named Saul of Tarsus. And he did everything that he
could, and the devil did everything that he could to stop him. I couldn't stop him. Because he said, I will. I will. I just can't get over
with my opened eyes what I once thought that anybody could will
not to let God save them. I can't believe how I viewed
it in the absolute negative. He said, I will. That's the only hope for my children.
That's the only hope for my friends. That's the only hope for anybody
in this world, that God, in his sovereign grace and mercy, will
come upon them and, as Brother Richardson used to say, save
them against their will with their full consent. Because of His power. Because
of His might. The Proverbs says, As the whirlwind
passeth, so is the wicked no more, but the righteous is an
everlasting foundation. Who's the righteous? It doesn't
say, it says the righteous. That's the Lord Jesus Christ. And the wicked, the unbelieving,
the going about to establish their own righteousness, they
are cast away, blown away by the whirlwind of God's judgment. But the righteous, he's a foundation. He's an absolute foundation. whenever the Lord Jesus Christ
was talking about the new birth. John chapter 3 to Nicodemus. And Nicodemus was talking about
going again in his mother's womb and being born naturally a second
time and just total ignorance of the truth, especially of the
new birth. What is the power of God in the
new birth? Well, our Lord says, the wind blows where it listed. I'll just put that in plain English
for you. The wind blows where it will. you don't know where it blows.
We can't even forecast which way the hurricane will go. Every
time it takes a jot this way, and every time it takes a jot
the other way, every time it takes a jot to the west, the
people of Florida gets scared, and every time it takes a jot
to the east, the people on the northern east coast get afraid. We can't do it. And that's like
the sovereign work of God's Spirit. He said, The wind blows where
it listeth, and you hear the sound thereof, but canst not
tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth. So is every one that
is born of the Spirit. I've never seen the wind. I've never seen where the wind
comes from. I've never seen where the wind
goes when it passes by. All we can see and know is what
the wind does. Does it wiggle a tree limb in
the breeze? The wind's blowing that tree.
Does it take the roof of a building? Oh, the weak wind has done that. And when the Spirit of God, like
the whirlwind, comes upon a sinner, we can't see that work. It's
an unseen work. It's a sovereign work. But I'm
telling you, it ends up in this result. They believe on the Lord
Jesus Christ. The truth is, you might say the
Spirit of God blows everything else away. I've just been troubled
lately that I don't see any real conviction
over sin. I don't see anybody who's broken
over sin enough to see a need for a savior. They're unmoved. They're cold. They're glazed. The truth has no influence on
them, no appeal to them. They don't need anything. They're
rich and increased with goods. And they're going to be that
way. until the whirlwind of God's spirit does like he did that old Philippian
jailer with an earthquake. And that's till he comes and
shows them that the only hope they have, the only foundation
that they have, is that which cannot be blown away. The only hope, the only help,
the only Savior, the only righteousness, the only way they can be accepted
by God is in the Lord Jesus Christ. And He blows every other hope
away until He does that. And if He spares us, If He spares
us from the destruction of the hurricane, are we any more deserving
of it than the people of Houston or wherever it hits? Are we any more deserving of
Christ's mercy than anybody else? Let me read you in Luke chapter
13. There were some folks, some self-righteous
folks that were present with the Lord Jesus Christ. In Luke
13, verse 1, it says, there were present at that season some that
told him of the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mingled with
their sacrifices. People like to talk about bad
things. Did you hear about all those
people dying in Houston? Did you hear about this happening
to that one and the other happening to this one? Wonder how many
people are dying in Florida? Well, do we think for a minute
that they deserve wrath any more than we do? Jesus answering said unto them,
Suppose ye that these Galileans were sinners above all the Galileans,
because they suffered such things? I tell you, Nay, but except you
repent, you shall all likewise perish. Or those eighteen. upon whom
the tower of Siloam fell and slew them, think ye that they
were sinners above all men that dwelt in Jerusalem? I tell you
nay, but except you repent, you shall all likewise perish. We're no more deserving of God's
grace. We're no more deserving of temporal
mercies than anybody else is. But we are especially not deserving
of God's grace in Christ. I'll read you another passage. in the book of Jonah. Jonah had a little gourd vine
to grow up, cover him from the sun, shade
him from the heat. Verse 6 says, And the Lord God
prepared a gourd, and made it to come up over Jonah, that it
might be a shadow over his head, to deliver him from his grief.
So Jonah was exceeding glad of the gourd. But God prepared a
worm when the morning arose the next day, and it smote the gourd
that it withered. And it came to pass when the
sun did arise that God prepared a vehement east wind. And the sun beat upon the head
of Jonah that he fainted and wished himself to die and said,
it is better for me to die than to live. Boy, that hits close
to home, doesn't it? I'm just saying that with
me it does. Better for me to die than to
live. Because of this, because of that,
because the other, because... Did that say that the Lord blew?
The Lord sent the BM&E's wind? That's right. And God said to Jonah, dost thou
wail to be angry for the Lord? And he said, I do wail to be
angry even unto death. Then said the Lord, thou hast
had pity on the gourd for which thou hast not labored, neither
madest it to grow, which came up in the night and perished
in the night. And should not I spare Nineveh,
the great city wherein are more than six score thousand persons
that cannot discern between their right hand and their left, and
also much cattle? I'm afraid the Lord has to just
blow on us, send a whirlwind of every kind, and imagine constantly
until we find out, until we remember that He's the sovereign giver
of all things, that we did not merit it, that we did not earn
it, we did not deserve it, and because it's just become an idol
to us. Just become an idol to us. God sends the world into his
people to remind them of these things and to show them again
who is to be their trust and to correct them and to chasten
them and to show them what is important. If you get up Monday or Tuesday
or whenever it is, and everything is blown away, if you're a child of God, you'll
still have the most valuable thing you possess. the Lord Jesus Christ. And you'll still have all, because
He is all. And anything that can be blown
away by the wind is temporal, and it was going to be burned
up anyway. Job again. In chapter 37, out of the south cometh the whirlwind,
and cold out of the north By the breath of God frost is given,
and the breadth of the waters is straightened. Also by watering
he weareth the thick cloud, he scattereth his bright cloud,
and it is turned round about by his counsels that they may
do whatsoever he commanded them upon the face of the world and
the earth. everything in the natural creation,
but here particularly in the clouds and the storms and the
rain and all, it is turned round about by his
counsels. Verse 13 says, He causes it to come. He causes it. He causes it to
come, whether for correction or for his land or for mercy. All those things have to do with
his people. whether for correction or for
his land or for his mercy. Hearken unto this, O Job. Stand still and consider the
wondrous works of God. Where does the whirlwind go? Where will the hurricane go?
Well, wherever the Lord sends it. And if he sends it here, it could be the instrument by
which he takes some of his redeemed ones to glory. Let's not talk about that. Well,
says it came to pass as Elijah and Elisha went on and talked
that behold there appeared a chariot of fire and horses of fire and
parted them both asunder. And Elijah went up by whirlwind
into heaven. He went by a whirlwind to heaven. That's not so bad a way to go,
is it? The whirlwind, just like everything
else, displays the sovereign power
of God. displays his sovereign power to judge and to bring judgment. Everywhere you see where a storm
has come, things are destroyed, people's lives are lost, looks
bad everywhere. But you always see that individual
here, individual there, I think we notice it more in the tornadoes. Two people living in the house. One is killed and one is miraculously
preserved alive. That's the way it is with the
grace of God. His sovereign grace. That's the way it is with His
mercy. Because the righteous, the righteous
one is a solid foundation. Our Father, we thank you for
all your mercy. We thank you for the knowledge
and for the faith to believe what you teach us. Do what you will. Accomplish your purpose. Reveal to men the glory of your
power. But in your wrath, remember mercy. Have mercy upon your people. For we pray and we thank you.
And we give to you all the glory and honor Amen.