The mercy, love, grace and goodness
of our God cannot be proclaimed too fully, cannot be believed
too firmly, or extolled too highly. I rejoice ever to declare to
men and women everywhere, the Lord is good. Listen to this. The goodness of God endureth
continually. The psalmist said, I had fainted
unless I had believed to see the goodness of the Lord in the
land of the living. The earth is full of the goodness
of the Lord. The earth is plumbed, slapped,
dabbed full of the goodness of the Lord, full of his goodness. It's the
goodness of God that leadeth thee to repentance. Oh, how great
is thy goodness, which thou hast laid up for them that fear thee,
which thou hast wrought for them that trust in thee before the
sons of men. Let us ever rejoice in the goodness
of our God. Oh, how I thank God for some
knowledge of his great goodness. But we live in a day in which
the Church and the world have a terribly perverted sense of
God's goodness. There is a sense of God's goodness
that is commonly perceived by men. that's totally unbiblical
at best, but really it borders on idolatry. It is a sense of
goodness that robs God Almighty of majesty. It is a concept of
divine love and mercy and goodness that denies God's being as God,
that denies his justice, his truth, his veracity. There is
a perversion of God's goodness that makes God weak. frustrated, makes God to be somehow
reactionary to things that go on around him, and denies his
holiness. Those who have the idea that
God is so loving, so gracious, so good, that he will not punish
sin. Those who have the idea that
God has nothing to do with calamity and evil and judgment, deny that
God is God. To deny that God punishes sin
is to deny that God punished his son for sin. To deny that
God will punish sin is to deny that God forgives sin. It is
to deny the whole gospel of God's grace. If we would worship God,
if we would worship him, we need to be captured by him. We need
to be arrested by him. a sense and awareness of God's
awesome, glorious majesty as God. For it is in the totality
of his beating, in his awesome, glorious majesty and holiness,
that he exercises his goodness in saving our souls. Turn with
me to the book of Nate. If ever there was a generation
that needed to hear the message that Nahum declares, it is this
generation. In the opening verses of his
prophecy, we are confronted with a striking, bold declaration
of God's character. Here is that one true and living
God, before whom sinners are compelled to bow, recognizing
his awesome, infinite majesty, recognizing that this God is
indeed a consuming fire. Begin with me at verse 1. The
burden of Nineveh, the book of the vision of Nahum the Echolshite. God is jealous. The Lord revengeth,
the Lord revengeth and is furious. What a word! God, 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
of the dust of his feet. He rebuketh the sea, and maketh
it dry, and dryeth up the rivers. Bashan languisheth in Carmel,
and the flower of Lebanon languisheth the mountains quake at him, the
hills melt, the earth is burned at his present shape, the world
and all that dwell therein. Who can stand before his indignation? Who can abide the fierceness
of his anger? His fury is poured out like fire,
and the rocks are thrown down by him. The Lord is good." Isn't
that a strange way to conclude that paragraph? The Lord is good. Not strange at all, if you understand
that God's goodness is always exercised in utter consistency
with all his holy beings. The Lord is good, a stronghold
in the day of trouble, and he knoweth then to trust in him.
Nahum's name means comfort or consolation. We don't know anything
else about it. We don't know another thing about
this man, don't know where he lived and where he died. We don't
know what kind of work he did, if he did something other than
work as a prophet of God. We don't know if he had a wife
or if he had any children. All we know about this man, Nahum,
is that God gave him a word, a word specifically for Nineveh.
And this man, Nahum, faithfully delivered the message God gave
him in his generation to a people who would not hear it. God doesn't
tell us anything at all much about He served God gladly in
seclusion, with no notoriety or fame of any kind. But Nahum
tells us a great deal about God. Now, the message of this book
is a message of judgment. In verse 8 of chapter 1, Nahum
declared at the very opening verse that he carries the burden
of Nineveh, the book of the vision that God gave him concerning
Nineveh. And in verse 8 he says, But with an overrunning flood
he will make an utter end of the place thereof, and darkness,
darkness, darkness shall pursue his enemies. And so Nahum declares
at the very outset of his message that he's come to proclaim to
the city about him judgment, condemnation, utter ruin, from
which there was no I can't imagine such a heavy
word. I preach God's justice, God's wrath, and warn men to
flee the wrath to come. But God's never told me concerning
any man there's no hope for him. But it's sent Nahum to proclaim
to Nineveh, you're under the judgment of God, and there's
no hope for you. I won't heal you. I won't turn
back from my wrath." And Nahum gives the word. A hundred years
before this, you'll remember that the Lord sent Jonah to these
same people. He sent Jonah to warn them of
impending wrath, to warn them of impending judgment. And as
soon as they heard the prophet of God raised up from the dead,
who came to declare the message of God to them, they repented
and sat clothed in ashes, and they cried, Who can tell? Maybe
God will have mercy. And God had mercy. He spared
the city. But now another generation has
risen up. It's been a hundred years. And
generation after generation, the people of Nineveh went back
to their idols. and went back to the ways of
barbaric cruelty and lasciviousness to which idolatrous religion
always leads. Idolatrous religion is man worshipping
himself. That's what it amounts to in
its essence. And men who worship themselves have utter disregard
for everyone but themselves. And that's the reason religion
brings men into utter barbaric cruelty and lasciviousness while
pretending to claim to worship God Almighty. And now Nahum comes
with this word from God. It was laid upon his heart by
God, and his prophecy graphically foretells the complete desolation
of that people who violently persecuted God's elect. The destruction
didn't come for another hundred years. Jonah came, and God had
mercy upon the people. They repented. They abandoned
God, forsook Him, forsook His worship. A hundred years later,
Nahum comes and says, God's going to kill you. God's going to kill
you, and you're not going to escape it. This city shall be
destroyed. And you know how long they lived?
Another hundred years. Another hundred years. And they
suspected nothing was going to happen. Remember that old man
Nahum? We told you he was just a scarecrow. We told you he'd
just try to scare you into something. Remember him? It wasn't nothing
to him, but there was something to it. In chapter 1, Nahum announces
God's determined judgment upon Nineveh. In chapter 2, the sentence
of God's wrath is described. Verse 13, the Lord says, I am
against thee." What a great word this is. If
God be for us, who can be against us? Oh, my soul, if God be against
us, who can be for us? God says to Nineveh, I am against
thee. And then in chapter 3, the prophet
describes the execution of God's wrath upon this city. As I said,
it wouldn't come to pass for another hundred years, but it
would come to pass. The Lord God had bruised the
city with an incurable stroke of justice. And he declares in
verse 19, There is no healing of thy bruise, thy wound is grief. And Nahum closes the book and
goes home. what a warning there is here.
To despise God's mercy is to court his wrath. God sent his
prophet to Nineveh, and God showed mercy to Nineveh, and God established
his worship in Nineveh. But then the Ninevites abandoned
God and his worship and his that trampled underfoot the blood
of the Son of God. And now God Almighty turns upon
Nahum in swift justice. Nahum's prophecy describes the
utter destruction of Nineveh. And the city was so utterly destroyed
that there was no trace of its existence. It was just a memory
in history until 1841, when some archaeologists started digging
around But this is Nineveh. This is that place where Jonah
came free. This is that place Nahum said
God's going to overthrow us. And what the Lord did was he
raised up a pagan army and he caused the Tigris River to overflow
her banks and absolutely destroyed that city just as he said he
would. They thought they were impregnable.
But God Almighty has his way. in the whirlwind, in the sea,
in the mountains and in the hills, in heaven and in earth, and with
all men and all the elements of the earth. When the appointed
time of wrath came, the Lord raised up a pagan army and sent
them as his servants, just as surely as he sent his angels
to proclaim the birth of his Son when his Son was born in
this world. He sent a pagan army to destroy
the Ninevites. They were his And he caused the
river to overflow the city, so that it was utterly destroyed.
That city which they thought had been their protector all
those years, now is their destroyer. But that's not all there is to
Nahum's message. Thank God that's not all there
is. As I told you, his name means comfort or consolation. His message
was not just a message of wrath and judgment. It was wrath and
judgment fully deserved by a people who would be punished everlastingly
with wrath and judgment because they had fully earned it. But
it is also a message of consolation and peace and comfort to God's
people. How fitly Nahum describes the
character of our God in the exercise of all his works in He began
his prophecy with a declaration of who God is. I would to God,
this generation, would pause and listen to what Nahum says
about God Almighty. Here, Nahum gives us six distinctive
attributes, six attributes which set God apart from all imaginary
things being called God, things that are essential to the very
character of God. First, he tells us God is jealous. And I'll be honest with you,
I've read that and read that and tried to study it for years,
and there was a time when I just couldn't understand what on earth
they were talking about. Because that's where the Scriptures tell
us how cruel jealousy is. And most of us know about it
from experience. It's cruel, it's a mockery. Jealousy
is a horrible thing. But jealousy, you see, arises
from insecurity in us. And jealousy arises from evil
in us. Not in the one about whom we're
jealous, but in us. Because of insecurity and evil
in us. But Nahum speaks of God being
jealous. What's he talking about? Jealous? Can this be a fault? You see,
it's right for God to be jealous, because God's perfect. And any
assault upon his person, any resistance to his will, any rebellion
to his rule, any objection to his work, is evil, and God is
jealous concerning him. God's jealous concerning his
son. Jealous. What do you do when you're jealous?
You take it out on somebody. Ask the Jews. God was jealous
concerning his son. God's jealous concerning his
worship? Ask Uzzah. God's jealous concerning his
people? Ask Pharaoh. The Lord is jealous! Jealous! God will avenge his own elect. And this is how man begins prophecy.
Children of God, listen to me now. Listen to me now. You've
been oppressed by these men of violence. They had a brief reprieve,
and they repented and turned to God, but they have been throughout
their history, your persecutors and your enemies, blasphemers
of God, overrunning and overruling people by sheer power because
of their own lasciviousness. God is jealous, and he won't
let them get by with it. He's not going to let them get
back. It's not always going to be that way. God's jealous for
you. Jealous for his honor. Look at
verse 2. God is jealous and the Lord redenges. Vengeance is mine, saith the
Lord. The Lord redenges and is furious. Furious for what? His jealousy for you, his people. The Lord will take vengeance
on his adversaries. And he reserveth If you can read
it this way, notice the word rapt, it's not in the original
text, it's been added by translators. Read it with a long, empty space. He reserved it for his enemy. No word can describe
what he reserves for his enemy. Then he says the Lord is slow
to anger. In other words, this great, terrible God, whose jealousy
makes him furious, is also patient, forgiving, long-suffering. God is never in a hurry to punish
sinners. He's never in a hurry to execute
wrath and judgment upon his enemies. Judgment is his work, but it's
his strange work. The Lord God always defers judgment. He sends Naomi and says, I'm
going to destroy you, I'm going to destroy the city. And he doesn't
do it for a hundred years. And the Lord God has sent his
word and declares his wrath and judgment, the soul that sinneth
it shall die. He that believeth not on the
Son of God is condemned already. Believe not and everlasting damnation
shall be your portion. Well, it hadn't happened yet.
God gives men space for repentance. He doesn't only give you space
to repent. Before he sends you to hell,
he commands you to repent, and promises mercy to all who do
repent. God is furious, but he's slow
to anger. Look at his third thing. The
Lord is great in power. Oh, he who is God is great in
power, omnipotent. He has all power. What does that
mean? That means he can do all that
he's pleased to do. Our God is a great God because
he's great in power. Don't ever speak to me about
anything that you call God and then say he tries or he wants
or he can't. A God that is weak is a frustration
to folks who claim to worship him, and he'd be a frustration
to himself if he existed. Some of us were talking back
there in the study just a little bit ago. I don't know of anything
more frustrating to a man, and it might not be true with women,
but I can't think of anything more frustrating to a man than
weakness. Any of you men know anything
more frustrating? Weakness. Inability to do what you want
to do or ought to do. Weakness. Physical weakness,
if nothing else, just weakness. Let me tell you something. God
Almighty has no weakness. He's omnipotent. What does that
mean, preacher? That means that he has the ability
and the power to do everything he has purpose to do. He has
the ability and the power to do all his pleasure. He has the
ability and the power to perform all his word. He has the ability
and the power to accomplish all his purpose. He has the ability
and the power to save all his people until he says it shall
be done. He said, I do all by pleasure. He said, that which
I have purposed, so shall it be. It shall come to pass. He
said, I'll save my people. A weak God is as useless as a
bucket without a bottom. It's nothing but the idolatrous
figment of man's imagination. The Lord is great in power. Look
at this fourth thing. The Lord will not at all acquit
the wicked. Let me pause here for a minute. God is just. Justice and truth
are the habitation of his throne. Though he is long-suffering and
patient, he will punish every transgression and every transgressor. Did you hear that? God's going
to punish you, and punish all your He will by no means clear
the guilty. He will not at all acquit the
wicked. Well, wait a minute. If God will
not clear the guilty, if he will not acquit the wicked, there
is no hope for anybody. Listen to it again. The Lord
will not at all acquit the wicked. Now, all the mystery of redemption
is wrapped up in that short sentence. All the mystery of redemption
is wrapped up right there. If a well-known criminal is pardoned
by the governor or president, the man's crimes are well-known.
Well-known. Everybody knows he's guilty.
No extenuating circumstances. He's guilty. And because some
bleed-heart fellow just decides with a stroke of a pen to pardon
the man, then it is manifest either that there is some flaw
in the law that condemned him, or there is a terrible flaw in
the person who executes that law. One of the two. And so the
land becomes a land sort of like the United States of America
today, a lawless land of chaos. Because where there is no law,
no maintenance of justice, no punishment of evil, no correction
of that which is done wrong, and violates men, and violates
life, and violates honor, violating law, then chaos reigns. That will never happen with God
Almighty. God is just, and must punish
sin. So the question rises, Can God
Almighty forgive sinners and yet punish sin and maintain his
justice? How can he do so without there
being some flaw, either with his law or with him? And the
answer is found throughout the scriptures in one blessed word,
Christ. The answer is substitution. If
God Almighty saves guilty If he takes Bob Duff to glory, three
things are going to happen. Three things are going to happen.
You've got to be punished until the law is fully satisfied. Punished
for all your sins. Fully punished. So the law cannot
look in any way and say, now wait! He'll want more. No. Fully punished. More than
that, your crimes have got to be completely taken away so that
you're not guilty. Not only punished for them, but
not guilty, not guilty of them. And then you've got to stand
before God Almighty righteous, righteous before his holy law.
A preacher, no man can do that, no man can. But the Lord Jesus
Christ God's darling Son took on himself our nature and stood
before God Almighty as our substitute. And when he died under the wrath
of God, bearing your sins, he was fully punished to the full
satisfaction of God's infinite justice for your sins. And he
took them away. So that you're not guilty. You're
not guilty. Not anymore, not before God,
not guilty. Oh, but I feel so guilty. Not guilty, don't matter
how you feel. But I'm not guilty. He took it away. And he has made you the very
righteousness of God in him. How fully? Just as fully as he
was made to be said. in exactly the same way. But I can't do anything righteous.
Good! He makes us righteous, Sam, in
exactly the same way as Christ was made sin. He didn't do any
sin. It was made to be his. And we can't do anything righteous. But his righteousness is made
ours, and now we're made the righteousness of God in him.
All right, we go. The Lord hath his way in the
whirlwind and in the storm." What do those words mean? Exactly
what it looks like they mean. Most everybody who lives in this
part of the country has seen a pretty good whirlwind at times. Most of us run high, but you've
seen the result. And it looks like just no sense or meaning, just random,
just random. God has his way in the world. The clouds will show you where
he's walking, get the dust of his feet. That means God Almighty
absolutely rules everything. In all things, at all times,
with all creatures, in all places, the Lord has his way. In creation
he has his way. In providence he has his way,
in grace he has his way. God always exercises his sovereignty
in all things for the redemption of his people and our everlasting
salvation. As we contemplate what God did
to Nineveh, let's remember this. Our God is in the heavens. He
hath done whatsoever he hath Most people these days have the
idea, they wouldn't really say it this way, most religious folks
wouldn't, that somehow God just sort of had something to do with
getting this world started, and he started this whole thing spinning,
and then he steps back and he just, he's some sort of a heavenly
observer who just watches out, doesn't interfere much, once
in a while he may give a little nudge here and there, but he's
just observing what's going on. Read this book again. God Almighty
is not an observer of history, he is the maker of history. He's
the maker of history. Let's see if we can make good
on that. Turn to Isaiah 45. The same God who one day caused
a great wind to blow for Joseph. Another day caused the great
wind to blow against Nineveh. He caused the wind to blow both
times. When some great tragedy comes,
some epidemic sweeps over the land, some pestilence, some attack
of terrorists, some sickness, disease. People look at those
things, and you wonder, well, it looks like those things will
cause men to repent. Well, it might nudge them in
that direction, if they thought God had anything to do with But you listen to those folks.
No! No, God didn't do that. No! What
it does is it causes folks to maybe look to God and debate
with Him about why. Why didn't you stop this? Why
didn't you prevent this? Maybe plead with Him now to step
in and straighten out the mess, but no! God didn't have anything
to do with that. Let's see. Isaiah 45, verse 7. You got it
in front of you? This is God speaking. This is
not my commentary. This is what God said. I form
the light and create darkness. I make peace. And anything that
disturbs your peace, I did that, too. I create evil. I, the Lord,
do all these things. when we see God doing his work. It ought to get our attention.
It ought to cause us to turn to him and cry out for instruction
from him and turn our hearts to him. How little we observe
the hand of God in history. And yet, Mary, it's so evident
everybody ought to see it. Let me give you just two examples. There was a little war in this
country back a hundred years ago, a little more than that. At the Battle of Gettysburg,
do you know what happened to cause ultimately the crushing
of the Southern armies? A change in the direction of
the wind. That's all. That's all. Right? The wind suddenly and
blows in another direction. Napoleon, that great little peanut,
challenged the world and God Almighty on one occasion. He
said this. Folks talk about the Lord's on
our side. He said, The Lord is on the side with the heaviest
artillery. But that proud little man with his mighty artillery
and his great army was stopped dead in his tracks. and brought
to defeat, and his mighty artillery proved utterly useless by the
sudden great accumulation of little flakes of snow. That's all. Where did that come
from? God did it. God did it. Judgment
is God's He raised up the river and sent in the armies of the
Medes and the Babylonians to destroy Nineveh, because he is
God. Now a question is raised. Who
can stand before his indignation? Who can abide the fierceness
of his anger? not you, not me, but bless God,
there's one who did. The Lord Jesus Christ stood before
his indignation, and he so fully abode the fierceness of his anger
that he swallowed it all up, so that the wrath and fury of
God Almighty fully spent itself upon his darling Now, look at
verse 7. The Lord is good. The Lord is good. Oh, our great
God is good. What does that mean? They and
his talking about judgment, but in the midst of this terrible
storm of wrath, he finds a calm, serene place, and he says, children
of God, hear me, the Lord is good. Oh, my God, teach me that you're
good. Good. Essentially good. What do you mean, essentially
good? I mean there's nothing but goodness in him, and nothing
but goodness comes from him. Yes, God permits evil in this
world, but he overrules it for good. Yes, the Lord afflicts his children
with pain, causes his children to endure hardship and that which
appears to be evil, but he declares that no evil shall happen to
the just, and he causes the evil that we think is evil to work
for our good. Yes, he will punish the wicked
with vengeance and fury. But even the punishment of the
wicked will prove his own goodness in the end. God Almighty is singularly
and distinctly good. So much so that nobody else is. You remember when the rich young
ruler came to the Lord Jesus and said, good master? The Lord
stopped him and said, why did you call me good? Are you saying
I'm God? There's none good but God. Why did you call me good?
God alone is good. And our great God never changes
in his goodness. All his acts of grace, all his
works of providence, are infinitely, incomparably, immeasurably good. He's always good to us. That's
what David concluded, the Lord is my shepherd. Therefore it's
reasonable that I should say, Surely goodness and mercy shall
follow me all the days of my life. And then he makes this
conclusion. What a glorious conclusion it
is. The Lord is good. The Lord is a stronghold in the
day of trouble. He's a stronghold. He's a refuge. He's a place of
safety. Oh, we have our days of trouble
as long as we live in this world. But notice how Nahum describes
those days of trouble. He said it's the day that God
sent, what you and your family are going through right now.
The day of trouble that God sent. And it's just a day of trouble.
It'll soon be over. It'll soon be over. It'll last
just as long as God Almighty has appointed it. He's a stronghold
in the day of trouble. Oh, children of God, whatever
the trouble you find yourself in, the Lord is our stronghold
in the midst of trouble. Mighty fortress, place of safety,
place of refuge, place of comfort, place of provision, Now watch
this. The Lord knoweth them that trust
in him. The Lord knoweth them. What a
pregnant word that is. The Lord foreordained and predestined
them to trust in him. The Lord everlastingly loves
them that trust in him. The Lord is intimately acquainted
with everything about them that trust in him. He numbers the
hairs of your head. The Lord graciously approves
of and accepts them that trust in him. The Lord knoweth this. He tenderly cares for them. There's never a time, a circumstance,
or a situation when the Lord doesn't know them
that trust in him. He knows Job on the dunghill.
He knows Abel fallen by the hand of his brother. He knows Peter in his cursing He knows Peter
in his bitter weakness. He knows Peter when Peter abandons
everything. He knows Peter when he meets
him on the seashore. He knows Peter in the prison.
The Lord knoweth them that trust in him. And knowing them, he
owns them as he is. He owns me as his own. He owns me before the Father's
throne. And one of these days, he will
own me before wandering worlds, as he is. Let us ever trust the goodness
of God, even when we can't see his goodness. What does the book say? We walk
by what? Faith, not by sight. It's not trusting God's goodness
when you see his goodness, it's trusting God's goodness when
you lean your life on his goodness when everything appears to be
evil and no goodness in any way. If the Lord who is good knows
us, we want nothing else. He is jealous. He's just. He's omnipotent. He has his way
everywhere, all the time. He's good. Now, if this God is
my refuge, if he knows me, if he owes me as he is, then I want
no