Minor Prophets 7: Nahum
You Can Read and Understand...the Minor Prophets • Sermon • Submitted • Presented • 16:40
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3. Law and Gospel must both be preached, but once the Law has done its work, it’s time for Gospel.
2. Nahum appears to be very short on Gospel and very long on Law.
1. But once all the Law in Nahum has brought you to repentance, it’s time to hear the rich (and perhaps surprising) Gospel there.
Nahum Is Long on Law—Until One Repents.
Sermon
The Lord is good, a stronghold in the day of trouble; he knows those who take refuge in him. But with an overflowing flood he will make a complete end of the adversaries, and will pursue his enemies into darkness. (Nah 1:7–8)
3.
One of the greatest contributions of the Lutheran reformers to the Christian Church was the clarification of the distinction between Law and Gospel. Law and Gospel were hopelessly confused in medieval times. To Christians living then, Jesus was more a threatening tyrant than a gracious Savior. It’s still that way in many churches. Gospel is presented as Law and Law is presented as Gospel.
But there’s a difference, and it’s this: Gospel is always a gift. It is whatever God graciously does to save us and bless us through the suffering and death of his Son, Jesus Christ, for our sins. God’s love, his forgiveness, and every daily blessing from him are free gifts for Jesus’ sake, and not because of anything we do or don’t do. Gospel never threatens us or makes us feel guilty. Gospel always reassures and comforts us.
On the other hand, Law is what God demands. Law is what we are supposed to do or not do, and it always comes with threats for not obeying it. The Ten Commandments are Law. “Love your neighbor as yourself” is Law. The Golden Rule, “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you,” is Law. Even the love chapter, 1 Corinthians 13, insofar as it commands us to love, is Law. Thank God that Jesus loves us so perfectly! As Christians, we want to obey God’s Law, but no matter how hard we try, we always fall short.
If you’re feeling guilty, frightened, or anxious after you hear a sermon, somehow Law came across stronger than Gospel, because Gospel doesn’t make you feel that way. Law always makes us feel like inadequate failures. Gospel says God loves us and embraces us as his dear children in spite of our faults. Gospel says that by faith in Jesus Christ, I’m a new and holy person every day. Law makes me hang my head in shame. Gospel makes me want to sing and dance in the sunshine of God’s love.
Lutheran pastors are taught to divide Law and Gospel. We have to hear Law because we don’t know we’re guilty sinners who need Jesus to save us unless we hear Law first. And we don’t appreciate the Gospel unless we know what Jesus saved us from: sin, guilt, the devil, and an eternity apart from God. But once the Law has done its work, it’s time for the Gospel, the Good News that Jesus loves us and saves us.
Sometimes we speak of the SOS of Law and the SOS of Gospel. The SOS of Law is this: Law Shows Our Sin. But the SOS of Gospel is that it Shows Our Savior. Put another way, Law says, “Do!” Gospel says, “Done!”
2.
Having said this, Nahum reads as very short on Gospel and very long on Law. It’s not that he didn’t attend a Lutheran seminary, or even that he didn’t have the New Testament to guide him. There’s another reason the Holy Spirit inspired Nahum to write precisely this way. We’ll get to that.
This is the only Gospel that’s easy to find in Nahum: “The Lord is good, a stronghold in the day of trouble; he knows those who take refuge in him” (1:7). This is a beautiful statement of Gospel! Yahweh, our God, is good. He’s the strong protector in the day of trouble for anyone who takes refuge in him. No one who seeks God’s protection has to do anything to earn it. They just come to him for refuge, and they find him to be their good and gracious stronghold.
Then, immediately, in the next verse, Nahum presents Law: “But with an overflowing flood he will make a complete end of the adversaries, and will pursue his enemies into darkness” (Nah 1:8). Law couldn’t be more clear. Be an adversary of God, be his enemy, and he will drown you; he will banish you into the outer darkness. Nahum devotes the rest of his book to terrifying Law. His words of Law aren’t directed to troubled people who take refuge in the Lord, Yahweh—they’re directed to a people who would probably never read or hear them, the Assyrians.
We’re on the seventh of the twelve minor prophets. By now you’ve heard over and over about the Assyrians and their capital, Nineveh. That’s because Judah, Israel, and their neighbors were all living in terror of this superpower of the day. The Assyrians controlled everything from Persia to Turkey to Egypt. They even controlled the Greek island of Cyprus.
Nahum writes after the time of Jonah. You remember that the people of Nineveh listened to Jonah. They repented, and God spared the city. But they didn’t repent for long. Soon after, Nineveh turned back to its old ways and went on the warpath once more, conquering more people. It was Assyria that invaded Israel, deported many of the people, and went on to threaten Judah. For Nineveh, repentance wasn’t permanent.
This is why Nahum is so long on Law when he addresses the Ninevites. You see, it’s never yet time for Gospel when people are still comfortable in their sin. Until there’s a sense that I’m lost, helpless, deserving punishment, unable to get myself out of this mess, it’s still time for the Law. Nineveh had been there—terrified, penitent. And God’s sweet Gospel had followed; the city was spared. But now Nahum’s message is clear: “You blew it, Nineveh. You’re back to your old wicked ways. God will use your enemies to end your evil once and for all. Your butchery of the innocent, your exiling of people, your idolatry, your witchcraft, and your greed are over. You’re done for. God’s patience is ended!”
And sure enough, if you read through this short Book of Nahum, you’ll see vivid detail of the destruction: “like entangled thorns, like drunkards as they drink; they are consumed like stubble.” The city’s walls have been breached. Chariots race madly through the streets. “The palace melts away; its mistress is stripped; she is carried off, her slave girls lamenting, moaning. . . . Plunder the silver, plunder the gold! . . . Desolate! Desolation and ruin! Hearts melt and . . . all faces grow pale! . . . Hosts of slain, heaps of corpses, dead bodies without end—they stumble over the bodies! . . . Wasted is Nineveh” (Nah 1:10; 2:6–7, 9, 10; 3:3, 7).
1.
Had the Assyrians followed through and become faithful people of God, who knows how world history might have changed. But they didn’t. Except for this footnote: Centuries later, when the Assyrians heard of Christ’s coming, they were largely converted to Christianity. Today there are large communities of Assyrian Christians in Iraq and even in the United States. The message of Gospel and grace, following the word of Law and punishment, finally got through.
There is still that message of Gospel—just waiting for the moment to be proclaimed, the moment one has realized one’s helplessness, repented. And it’s there in the Book of Nahum, a lot more of it than we may have noticed.
I haven’t gone through Nahum with you verse by verse, but it’s a short book. You really can read it in a few minutes. But when you get through reading all the threats, warnings, and punishments God was going to unleash on the Assyrians, please go back and read again Nahum chapter 1, verse 7. Here it is again: “The Lord is good, a stronghold in the day of trouble; he knows those who take refuge in him.”
You see, there’s the key to the whole book. Remember, we said that most of Nahum was addressed to those who would never read it, the Assyrians. But who did read it? God’s people, Judah. And when they read the book, what did they see? “The Lord . . . knows those who take refuge in him.” God’s people, too, always need to repent. We need to repent. But when we do, we become those who take refuge in him. And that means he delivers us from our mortal enemies—death, hell, Satan, and all his henchmen.
Do you see? The destruction of Nineveh and the Assyrian Empire was Gospel to God’s people! That terrible judgment on the enemy, on Nineveh, was Gospel to Judah. “Behold, upon the mountains, the feet of him who brings good news”—Gospel!—“who publishes peace! Keep your feasts, O Judah; fulfill your vows, for never again shall the worthless pass through you; he is utterly cut off. . . . For the Lord is restoring the majesty of Jacob” (Nah 1:15; 2:2).
This is precisely what God did for us when he sent his Son into the world. Jesus entered the house of the strong man, our mortal enemy, Satan. He died doing it. But then he rose, broke through the walls, and plundered his goods. We are his goods—his gold, his silver! And Satan, our Nineveh, is left desolate! In desolation and ruin! Wasted!
You see,
Nahum Is Long on Law—Until One Repents.
And when we repent, “The Lord is good, a stronghold in the day of trouble; he knows those who take refuge in him.” Repent, dear friends, and take refuge in the strong cross by which Jesus plundered our enemies. Read the whole Book of Nahum again with that in mind.
We pray: Lord, you are good, our stronghold and refuge in every trouble. Help us never depart from your goodness and grace in Jesus, your Son. Amen.