Now if you would, turn with me
to the book of Nahum. If you've been marking your Bible,
we've been the past few weeks, Nahum is right after the book
of Micah, page 1158 in most of our Bibles. Nahum chapter one. We'll read the first eight verses. The bird of Nineveh, book of
the vision of Nahum the Elkoshite. God is jealous, and the Lord
revengeth. The Lord revengeth and is furious.
The Lord will take vengeance on his adversaries, and he reserveth
wrath for his enemies. 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. He rebuketh the sea and maketh
it dry. He dryeth up all the rivers.
Bashan languisheth, and Carmel, and the flower of Lebanon languisheth.
The mountains quake at him, and the hills melt, and the earth
is burned at his presence. Yea, the world, and all that
dwell therein. 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. The Lord is good, and a stronghold in the day of trouble,
and he knoweth them that trust in him. But with an overrunning
flood will he make an utter end of the place thereof, and darkness
shall pursue his enemies. We'll end our reading there.
Let's bow before our Lord together. Our Father, we've gathered here
together this morning to hear a word from thee. And Father,
I beg of you that you'd send your spirit upon us and enable
us to hear the word preached with an ear of faith and a heart
that believes and clings to and loves our Lord Jesus Christ. Father, I beg of you that you,
through the preaching of your word, show us your glory this
morning. Show us your redemptive glory
and how you save sinners, how you're just and justifier. And
Father, enable our hearts to melt within us with awe and wonder. Worship you and thank you and
praise your matchless name. Father, I thank you. You've given
us such a blessed privilege to be able to meet together and
worship you. That because of your son, the
doing and dying of your son, you have enabled sinful men and
women like we are to come before your very throne crying, to come
to a throne of grace, not a throne of justice. Father, we're so
thankful. We praise your matchless name. Father, we thank you for this
place. I thank you for this family of believers that you've called
together. Father, I pray you'd cause us
to be a help and encouragement one to another, that we never
put a stumbling block in front of one of our brethren. Cause
us to show our love one to another, to not just feel it, but to show
it, to help and encourage one another as we go through this
journey here below together. Father, we pray a special blessing
for your people that you brought in the time of trouble and trial. They're in deep waters and dark,
difficult places. Father, we pray you'd be with
your people. Pray a special blessing for our sister, Andrea, that
she'd be pleased to touch her body and heal her. Father, be
with her and comfort her heart, her body as she goes through
these treatments. And all these things we ask in that name which
is above every name, the name of Christ our Savior, amen. I've titled our message this
morning, Who Can Stand Before This God? That's what the prophet
asked in verse six, who can stand before his indignation? Now most of the world would wonder
why would the prophet ask such a question? Who can stand before
this God? To the world, that is an odd
question because they think God is love. They hear this question,
they say, wait a minute. I thought God loves everybody.
I thought God doesn't want to damn anyone. Why? I thought God was like an old
grandpa who just wants to do everything, give everything,
hand over, you know, fist to his children despite all of our
faults. He just gives anything we want, you know. I am a, as I mentioned a little
while ago, grandfather. And my grandson knows that his
papa will pretty much do whatever he wants to do. When he's with
us, papa just does what he wants to do. I got nothing better to
do than just do what he wants to do. Well, the other day, horror
of horrors, his mother told him no about something. And you know
what his response to her was when she said no? He looked around
and said, papa, papa will give me what I want. People think
that's what God's like, don't they? They think that's what
God's like. Why would I ever have to fear
a God like that? Well, we fear God because that's
not who God is. Listen to the way God describes
himself here in this burden of Nahum. This is the message that
the Lord sent Nahum to preach. This is the message that God
sends all of his preachers to preach. And I'm telling you,
it's a burden. Nahum says here in verse one,
the burden of Nineveh, the burden of Nineveh, the sinful city was
upon him, the burden of it, to preach the gospel to him, the
book of the vision of Nahum, the Elkoshite. You know, there
is no greater joy than to be able to preach the gospel, to
tell sinners of Christ the Savior. But now it's a burden. It's a
burden to handle the word of God, to handle it right, to rightly
divide the word of truth. You're just so constantly dependent
on the Lord because what man is sufficient for these things?
You know, it can be a burden to tell folks about the truth
of God. God's not like what we think
He is. And we're not like we think we are either. No, God
is holy and we are totally, completely defiled, dead in sin. and the
God with whom we have to do is holy and just. If we would ever
get some understanding of the character of God, his holiness,
his justice, who he is, we would understand the fear of standing
before him in ourselves, in our own words, pleading something
that we have done. Now, this is the way God describes
himself here. First of all, he says in verse
two that God is jealous. God is jealous of his glory,
and he'll not give his glory to another. And he'll not forgive
somebody that gives his glory to another. God is so jealous
of his glory. God's greatest glory is showing
mercy to sinners by the sacrifice of his son. God is so jealous
of his glory, he'll damn anyone who does not trust in his son. That's how jealous he is of his
glory. Joshua, towards the end of his, His earthly ministry
is the people were there in the land that God had promised them.
In Joshua 24 verse 19, Joshua said unto the people, you cannot
serve the Lord, for he's a holy God. He's a jealous God. He will not forgive your transgressions
nor your sins. You cannot serve God like you
are. You cannot serve God in your sins. He will not look upon
us. He's not going to share his glory
with us. You know, thinking, well, God's
going to bless me just like the Jews thought, because I go through
all the right ceremonies. Now that's giving me some of
the credit. God's not going to share his glory with another.
God's very name is jealous. He is so jealous of his glory.
He will only forgive sin one way, one way, and not the way
we think, not the way we want, the way God has prescribed. It's
in his son. God will forgive sin by the sacrifice
that he provides, but no other way, because God's jealous of
his glory. Oh, God help us from ever trying
to take some of that glory for ourselves or give some of that
glory to people of the flesh. God's jealous of his glory. Number
two, God is just. He'll punish every sin with death.
Verse two says, God is jealous and the Lord revenges. The Lord
revenges and is furious. The Lord will take vengeance
on his adversaries, and he reserveth wrath for his enemies. Now the
Lord's slow to anger. He's a great power. He will not
at all acquit the wicked. The Lord hath his way in the
whirlwind and in the storm and the clouds or the dust of his
feet. Nahum says here that the Lord
revengeth. That word vengeance means to
punish. And when God punishes sin, it's
an absolute justice. Absolute justice. He'll not overlook
one sin. He'll give every sin exactly
what it deserves. And when God punishes the sinner
and gives them exactly what they deserve, it's complete destruction.
And it's in his fury against sin. The word wrath here, has
been added by the translators. It says there at the end of verse
two that the Lord will take vengeance on his adversaries and he reserveth
for his enemies. That's what Nahum actually wrote.
The translators added the word wrath in there and I'm sure that's
what Nahum meant. But the wrath of God was so great,
when Nahum thought about it, he couldn't think of a word for
it. God's wrath against sin is unspeakable. There's no word
for it. Just shudder to think of what
God's wrath against sin really is. But, did you notice this? The Lord slowed to anger. God's
not in a rush to damn anybody. God's not in a rush to condemn
the guilty. Now He will do it when it's time. Make no mistake.
He will do it when it's time. But He's not in a rush to do
it. Now God's just. He will take vengeance on sin.
but God also gives every sinner time to repent. Every sinner. As a matter of fact, look in
Acts chapter 17. Not only does God give sinners
space and time to repent, God commands them to repent. Those
who sin against God, those who would take His glory, and God's
angry with the wicked every day. God is so merciful, He still,
He doesn't just invite them to repent, He commands them to.
Acts 17 verse 30, And the times of this ignorance God winked
at, but now commandeth all men everywhere to repent, because
he hath appointed a day in which he will judge the world in righteousness
by that man whom he hath ordained, whereof he hath given assurance
unto all men, and he hath raised him from the dead. Now God's
slow to anger and he commands us to repent. He commands us
to trust in that one who was slain, who was crucified for
the sins of his people. And God raised him from the dead
as evidence, his sacrifice put all of the sin that was laid
on him away. And God commands us to repent, to quit trusting
in our works, to quit trusting in what we trust in naturally
and turn to trust Christ. God commands us to do that. What
a gracious command. Aren't you thankful God's not
like us? If we had enemies like that,
even if we were going to wait a while before we get them, we
wouldn't want them. We wouldn't give them space to
repent. Just smash them. Just smash them. You know, I'll tell you what
Nahum's telling us here and what the rest of Scripture tells us.
If you and I go to hell, It's our fault. It's not God's fault. It's our fault. Now, if we awake
in glory with Christ and the likeness of Christ, that will
all be because of God's grace in Christ Jesus. That will all
be because of the work of Christ done for us and in us. But if
we go to hell, it'll be our fault, because that's what our works
deserve. All of God's people will one day awake in Christ's
likeness and glory, and that will be because that's what the
work of Christ our Savior deserves. See, God's going to give everybody
exactly what they deserve. He's going to punish every sin
with exactly what it deserves. Death. Now, I'll come back to
that here in just a minute. Here's the third thing. God is
omnipotent. He has all power. Don't ever
think God wants to do something. I hate that phrase, God wants
to do this, God wants to do that. No, God has all power and he
does as he pleases in the armies of heaven and among the inhabitants
of the earth and he has the power so that no man can ask him, what
are you doing? Look at the end of verse three
here. It says, the Lord hath his way
in the whirlwind and the storm and the clouds are the dust of
his feet. Our God is so powerful He controls
the uncontrollable. The Holy Spirit inspired Nahum
here to use the example of a tornado. A tornado that just seems like
utter chaos to us. I saw a video just this week
of a, I don't even know where it was, a tornado touchdown and
I mean, it just was bouncing here and there and everywhere
and just, I mean, the buildings it destroyed, it was just unbelievable.
There's a building just completely flat, I mean, pile of bricks
just laying there on the ground and across the street. The building
didn't look like it had even been touched. But that just seemed
like utter chaos to us. But you know what that was? That
thing was just under the finger of God. He controls the uncontrollable. In that chaos, Almighty God is
accomplishing His eternal purpose. Do you feel like sometimes your
life is just another chaos? I mean, we're so busy, we've
got so many things going on, we've got so many irons in the
fire, we've got so many things to worry about, you know, it
feels like the hits just keep coming and you feel like your
life is just, you know, you can't really see, you know, past the
end of your nose. Our hand of God is directing
every blowing particle of that. The same way He does the whirlwind.
The same way He does the floods. Our God rules and controls everything
that's happening in the human creation, in human time. And
he's working all those things together like gears in a clock
to accomplish his purpose. His one purpose, saving his people
from their sins. And he's gonna do it because
he's got the power to do it. And he's gonna take those people,
he has already redeemed them by the blood of his son. And
he's working all those things together to bring his people
to hear the gospel of Christ. In the tornado of life, you were
brought here this morning and it wasn't an accident. Almighty
God determined before time began that you hear this message of
who he is, so that you could believe Christ, so that you could
rest in him. and all those events of our lives,
whether we think they're good or whether we think they're bad,
whether we think they're a blessing or whether we think they're a
curse, whether they're painful or wonderful to us, I don't care
what it is, in the end, we're gonna look back at all the events
of our lives and we're gonna say with our brother Joseph,
you meant it for evil, but God meant it for good. God meant
it for good and that's just the way it turned out. Perfect. Perfect. That's who God is. You think of His justice, His
holiness, His power. Now the question that we need
to answer, who can stand before His indignation? Who can stand
before His anger at our sin? Who can abide in the fierceness
of His anger? His fury is poured out like fire
and the rocks are thrown down by Him. Now who can stand before
God's indignation? If the mountains can't stand,
I sure can. I can't stand in his presence. If the mountains
and the whole creation, who can stand in his presence? Can anybody?
Now, we already looked at this, but there's a hint of hope here
in verse three. The Lord is slow to anger. The
Lord is slow to anger. And this is the message of Nahum.
Now, Nahum's telling us who God is. God is jealous of his glory. God is just. He'll punish every
sin with death. He'll not overlook one sin. God
is all powerful. There's no escaping His power.
There's no escaping His wrath. But the word, the name Nahum
means comfort. Comfort. Nahum, now he had a
burden to preach to the sinful people of Nineveh. But he has
a message of comfort. He has a message of consolation
for God's people. The comfort of Nahum's message
is there is one. There's one who could stand before
God's indignation. There's one who can abide. There's
one who could not be consumed by the fierceness of the father's
anger against sin. There's one. It's the Lord Jesus
Christ. He stands. He is already stood
the fierceness of God's anger. He already has stood as a sacrifice
for the sin of God's people. He stood that in that fiery furnace,
the fire of God's wrath. and it didn't consume him. Every
other sacrifice, animal sacrifice ever offered by the sons of men,
the fire has consumed the sacrifice. The fire went out because the
sacrifice was gone. But Christ offered himself. Christ,
our Passover, was slain. He stood. He stood with that,
and it didn't destroy him. He stood until the fire of God's
wrath went out. And he was still there. to say,
Father, into thy hands I commit my spirit. It's finished. The
sin of God's people was put away and he gave up the ghost and
died. And every believer, every sinful man and woman who trusts
in him stands before God in him. We stand in him. See, God does
not forgive the sin of his people by overlooking their sin. You
know, we do that, don't we? For those we love. We overlook
their sins. We overlook their faults. God can't do that. If
God simply ignored the sin of His people, He'd be giving up
His glory. He'd be giving up the glory of
His justice. He's not going to do that because
He's jealous of His glory, remember? It wouldn't be just for God to
overlook the sin of His people. God is just. Now, He's slow to
anger, but that anger must be appeased. His justice must be
appeased. And God can't do that if he just
ignores sin. Then how can God be just and
still justify the ungodly? Look at Romans chapter three. Nahum said there, God will not
at all acquit the wicked. He will not at all do it. Then
how can a sinner be justified? By substitution. Substitution
and satisfaction. Romans chapter three, verse 24. Well, look at verse 23. Now we've
all sinned and come short of the glory of God being justified
freely. Sinners are justified freely
by his grace through the redemption that's in Christ Jesus, whom
God has set forth to be a propitiation, to be a sin covering through
faith in his blood. to declare his righteousness
for the remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance
of God, to declare, I say at this time, his righteousness,
Christ's righteousness, that he might be just and the justifier
of him which believeth in Jesus. See, the way God can justify
a sinner is by substitution. Substitution and satisfaction. I can't be your substitution.
Well, I tell you, there's a person in this room, without a moment's
hesitation, without even a moment's thought, would I die in their
place. My dear wife. I love her so much,
there's not a moment's thought that I would not die in her place. But baby, wouldn't do you good. I'd be willing to be a substitute,
but there'd be no satisfaction with it. There has to be substitution
and satisfaction. See, in order for God to save
a sinner, three things has to happen. The sinner must be punished
for a sin. Number two, the sins of that
sinner have to be completely removed. He must be made white
as snow. And number three, that sinner must be perfectly righteous.
All three of those things can only be accomplished by substitution
and satisfaction in the death of Christ our Savior. In order
for a sinner to be saved, he must be punished for his sin.
You know how God punishes the sin of His elect, those people
He chose not to save, or He chose to save? You know how He punished
their sin? Through a substitute. See, this
way, every sin is still punished. Christ became the substitute,
and He was fully punished for the sin of his people. Although
sins were fully punished in the person of our substitute, justice
is satisfied. Christ took care of the person,
didn't he? Number two, in order for God to save a sinner, the
sins of that sinner must be completely removed. He must be made holy.
Well, the sins of God's elect were completely removed from
them. When God had took those sins
from his people and he imputed them to his son, on Calvary's
tree and he made him a sacrifice for the sin of his people. Remember
Nahum said God will not at all acquit the wicked. Well, you
want to know how holy God is? God wouldn't even acquit his
own son, his only son, his beloved son. He would not acquit his
own son when his son was made sin as a substitute for his people. The father slaughtered him because
that's what God's justice requires. And when the father put his son
to death, Christ shed his blood as a propitiation for the sin
of his people, and he completely removed all of the sin of all
of his people. It's gone. The father will not
charge you with it because there's nothing to charge you with. The
blood of Christ took it away. Christ took care of the second
one. One more step. In order for a sinner to be saved,
That sinner must be made perfectly righteous. Well, you know when
God's people were made perfectly righteous? When the Lord Jesus
Christ traded His righteousness for the sin of His people. He
swapped places with them. He took their sin into His own
body on the tree and He gave them His righteousness. He made
them righteous and Christ died for the sin of His people. Now
the Father satisfied. and He can show mercy to His
people in justice. See, the Father had to do something
for us. He had to make it right for Him to show mercy to us.
He determined to show mercy to a people, but He had to make
it right for Him to do it. That's what the death of Christ
accomplished. Look at 2 Corinthians chapter 5. I thought as I was going over
my notes this morning, well, we won't turn to this because
Frankie quoted this in about every single message, but let's
look at it. Let's look at it. The whole message
of the gospel is right here. 2 Corinthians 5 verse 18. All things are of God who has
reconciled us to himself by Jesus Christ. And he's given to us
the ministry of reconciliation. He's given to us this ministry,
this opportunity to preach Christ. Here's how sinners are reconciled
to God. God's given us that blessing to preach that to our generation.
To wit, namely, here's our message. That God was in Christ, reconciling
the world unto himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them, hath
committed unto us the word of reconciliation. Now then, we're
ambassadors for Christ, as though God did beseech you by us. We
pray you in Christ's stead, you be reconciled to God. God's reconciled,
now you be reconciled. God's reconciled himself to his
people. Now you stack your arms and you
surrender and you reconcile yourself to God. And here's why you do
it. For he, God the Father, hath
made him, God the Son, sin for us, who knew no sin, that we
might be made the righteousness of God in him. Now that's the
gospel. And you and I can't understand
or believe the gospel until we see this. How can God punish
every sin and still save sinners? It's through the sacrifice of
his son. It's the only way God can be
just and still justify the ungodly, show mercy to sinners. Charles
Spurgeon made this statement. He who does not believe that
God will punish sin will not believe that he'll pardon it
through the blood of his son. This is how God puts the sin
of his elect away. and makes them righteous by punishing
Christ in our place. Alright, here's the fourth thing.
God is absolutely just. Look back here in our text, Nahum
1 verse 7. The Lord is good and a stronghold
in the day of trouble and He knoweth them that trust in Him. Now God is just when He saves
His people because He provided them a shelter. He provided them
a shelter. The best example I've ever seen
of a shelter is a dear friend of mine from high school. Her
parents bought a house. In the backyard of that house,
sometime in the 60s, a lot of people were doing this, they
built an atomic bomb shelter. And her parents bought this house.
And by this time, the fear of nukes landing all the time were
kind of past. And it was just there. And we go back there. in that
bomb shelter. And, you know, we'd sit around
in there and we'd imagine, you know, what it would be like to
be in here if a nuclear bomb went off. And, you know, we'd
sit in there on a hot day. It was, you know, built back
in the hill. It was cool in there. We'd drink,
pop, and just talk, you know, do all those kinds of things
that teenagers do. But, you know, that wasn't the
purpose of that bomb shelter. It wasn't built to play in. It
was made to hide in. That's why they made it. Almighty
God has provided a shelter from his wrath against seeing the
Lord Jesus Christ. And anyone who hides in him.
They're safe, they're secure. God's wrath cannot touch anyone
who's hiding in Christ. The message of the gospel, the
message we preach is to command sinners. You come to Christ,
you hide in him. This was not meant to play with.
We're not playing games here. This was not meant to play with.
You run to Christ and you hide in Him. See, hiding in Christ
our shelter, that's salvation that's done in justice. See,
the justice for our sin still falls on our sin. The difference
is it all falls on Christ our shelter and none of it touches
us. Since Christ was made guilty
of all the sin of His people, Justice was satisfied because
a guilty man died on Calvary Street. Now there's safety, eternal
safety by hiding in Christ. That's such good news. That's
the message of grace and consolation and comfort that God's given
us to preach. There's peace in Christ. There's comfort. There's
confidence for your soul in Christ. Now hide in Him and you'll be
safe because the Lord's good. Not because we're good, because
the Lord's good. But there's a flip side to this
too. God will one day punish every
unbeliever who refuses to trust in Christ. If someone refuses
to hide in Christ, the day is coming, just like the day in
Noah's day, when Noah was building that ark, all those mockers,
anytime they wanted to, they could enter the ark, couldn't
they? But it came a day, God shut the door. The day of grace
was over, and they couldn't enter in anymore. The day is coming
when the day of grace will be over, and God's gonna shut the
door, and God will punish the unbeliever, and when he does,
it will be just. Look at verse eight. But with
an overrunning flood, he'll make an utter end of the place thereof,
and darkness shall pursue his enemies. I don't want to end
this message making it seem like I'm trying to scare anybody.
I'm not using hellfire and brimstone trying to scare you to run to
Christ. Don't come to Christ because you're afraid of hell. Come to Christ because you're
a sinner. And he's the savior of sinners. You come to Christ
because he's good. Come to Christ because of his
great love and mercy for sinners. Come to Christ because he sacrificed
himself for the sin of his people. You come to Christ because his
greatest glory is to show mercy. to sinners like you. That's His
greatest glory. Look at Hebrews chapter 2. We'll quit. Come to
Christ. And this is a good warning for
a congregation who has heard the gospel. For years and years
and years and years, some of you all your life, some of you
for as far back as you can remember. Remember that bomb shelter I
told you about? Don't play with it. Hebrews 2
verse 1. Therefore we ought to give the
more earnest heed to the things which we've heard, lest at any
time we should let them slip. For the word spoken by angels
was steadfast, and every transgression and disobedience received a just
recompense of reward. How shall we escape if we neglect
so great salvation, which at the first began to be spoken
by the Lord and was confirmed unto us by them that heard it? Now we've heard the gospel. How
shall we escape if we don't trust Christ? We won't. We won't. We can't escape God's
justice. But thank God he's made a way of escape. He's made a
way of escape in the Lord Jesus Christ and anyone who trusts
in him stands accepted by the Father and it'll be right for
him to do it. And let me tell you one more
time, run to Christ. Run to Christ, hide in Him. Don't
play games with us. Don't play games with us. Run
and hide in Christ. All right, let's bow together.
Our Father, we thank you for this blessed opportunity that
you've given us to one more time hear Christ our Savior preached.
To hear of full and free redemption from our sin in Him. in his obedience,
in his bloody sacrifice. Father, how we thank you. Human
language would never be sufficient to praise you and thank you for
this redemption that you provided for your people and your son.
And Father, it's my earnest plea that all of us here this morning
will be found in him, not having our own righteousness, which
is of the law, but that which is through faith. in the Lord
Jesus Christ. Give us faith in Christ and cause
us to run to him. Father, I know I ask a great blessing. Anytime any son of Adam asks
for mercy, we're asking a great blessing. But Father, for your
great namesake, would you get glory to your name in saving
sinners like us here this morning? It's in Christ's name. For his
glory and his sake we pray, amen. All right, Sean.