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ah

book by book and what we're doing today

is studying the book

in the old testament called nahum i'm

richard buse and i'm joined here

by my colleague paul blackham and then

by our special guest today

that is gordon bridger who has served

god

in different cities in london in

edinburgh

in cambridge in norwich and now here he

is in london again

and among other things he's been of

course a trainer of preachers

in fact he trained paul black years ago

in the college of

oak hill of which uh gordon was the the

principal then

he also writes books so we got his book

it's a wonderful commentary

the message of obadiah zephaniah and

nahum so we'll be leaning on you gordon

for this book quite a bit today

and here we are on the banks of the

river thames here in the heart of london

england opposite the houses of

parliament there and big ben

and it's a great honor now for us to be

sharing with you as you join us

in the study of the book of nahum here

we are in the first chapter

why don't i read just one or two

sentences from this chapter

an oracle verse one concerning nineveh

the book of the vision of nahum the

elkashite

verse 7 the lord is good a refuge

in times of trouble he cares for those

who trust in him

but with an overwhelming flood he will

make an

end of nineveh he will pursue his foes

into darkness what an extraordinary

start to a book

i'd like to really put it to our guest

straight away

gordon bridger why do we bother to study

the book of nahum today

it seems not much preached about and uh

some of its content seem up

somewhat alien to today's world what do

you think well i think that's right

i think it is a book that's very rarely

preached in my experience i think you've

breached the series right now

i hadn't for years and in fact until i

was asked to write the commentary

i had not preached a series from nam at

all

and i think that it's it's a minor

prophet which doesn't mean say

it's an unimportant prophet but a small

book

packed amongst other 12 minor prophets

and it's even quite difficult to find in

the bible and a lot of people

have not read it or studied it but it's

very important that we do

and for a number of reasons one that

it's part of the word of god part of the

scriptures

that jesus himself taught and memorized

and read and preached and fulfilled

and jesus himself says about the old

testament scriptures that they are

words from god and that's what sir nam

claims he says

this is the book of the vision of name

the alka-sight

that word could mean a revelation from

god and again

in verse 12 of that first chapter this

is what the lord says

and name gives a direct

record of something he believes given to

him by god

and jesus endorsed that i think one of

the lovely examples of this is

when he debated with the pharisees about

marriage and divorce

and you may remember in matthew 19

matthew 19

4 verses 4 to 6 he says there have you

not read

what he who made them said

for this reason a man will leave father

mother and cleave to his wife

and they become one flesh what he's

saying there he's taking a bit of the

ordinary narrative from genesis 2.

doesn't say god's saying anything there

but he takes the ordinary narrative

and he says what scripture says there

god says

and paul said the same thing all

scripture praying especially to the old

testament scriptures

all scriptures is god-breathed it's

given by inspiration of god

and is profitable for doctrine reproof

correction and instruction

in righteousness that men and women of

god might be thoroughly equipped

for every good work so that in itself

it's wonderful it says about the

relevance then of this today yeah well

yes you go on to say that it's

incredibly relevant for today because

it's about

nineveh the capital of assyria which was

a superpower

that was a great threat to many nations

around but also the people of god

and there are many such situations today

in our world so as we go through the

book

we shall find many parts that resonate

with the experience of christians in the

world today and often under persecution

of course as we know also

absolutely indeed so that well as we

look at it i mean how can we work out

actually from

even this early a bit when nahum

actually

lived and preached what about all that i

know

is it clues well there are some clues

but we don't we can't like some of the

prophets tell you all about

where they were when they were who was

reigning everything

not nathan he says he's an alcoholic the

only difficulty is we don't know what el

cash is or where it is was it in

assyria some people claim that could it

be somewhere in israel or judah maybe

it's difficult to put him down exactly

say some things that seem to like when

he talks in verse four there

basian and carmel lebanon that makes him

sound like he's from the northern

kingdom of israel area

but then on the other hand he just he

addresses judah

so then you think oh no he must be from

the southern kingdom but then he could

have been

living from a syria we don't in other

words we don't know for sure

but the na there's capernaum capernaum

is

the just means the town of nahum so

that's quite possible

he's from that's possible isn't it so we

don't know that when did he do

when well jonah's sort of maybe

750 bc or a bit earlier he

if we compare him to the words of

zephaniah and things like that it sounds

similar and

nineveh was destroyed in 612

bc so we know he must be earlier than

that

and then he does mention the destruction

of

egypt in chapter three which happened in

660 what was it 1673 663

yeah 663. so that means he's somewhere

in the middle of that century so let's

say 650 to 620

that's about the best we can do well

that's that's at least to start anyway

so that when we're thinking about jonah

himself you see

let's just think about we've got mayhem

but what about jonah who lived 100 years

earlier

because how could nineveh have changed

so much

um after the great revival that took

place

when jonah preached to nineveh and

pronounced judgment against it they

repented

and uh so why now with their

great-grandchildren later

is there appalling in such an appalling

state

yes if you look back at jonah three it

was an amazing movement of god

that happened just over 100 years

earlier and as you say

there's maybe some reference some

vestiges of that left

but there's there's no doubt about it

it's a very different situation

and nam is prophesying judgment upon

them

it's a bit like the the welsh revival i

was reading a little bit about this

not long ago and in 1904 to 1905

it was an amazing work of god in wales

and thousands literally thousands were

converted

new chapels were built to contain the

people who wanted to go to church and

worship god

the pubs emptied because drunkenness was

a bit of a problem in wales

there was this extraordinary movement

and work of god

and yet just over 100 years later wales

is a very

different place they may still sing the

hymns but

the christians in wales tell us they

don't worship the living god many

as they did once you're seeing what

happened in a couple of generations

each generation actually has to make its

own choices and its own decisions about

god

can't live on the shoulders of great

grandparents grandparents or parents

that's fascinating i mean so they have a

great reprieve given to

nineveh back in jonah's day when he goes

to preach to them

they turn the whole city turns around uh

to in belief

now a hundred years later syria is in a

dreadful dreadful

state of rebellion and a threat to other

people

how does jonah compare to mayhem then i

mean what's the basic sort of difference

would you say in their mission

well that doesn't show the difference

between the two i mean

jonah's kind of reluctant because

although he's given this message of

judgment

he knows the lord's not going to go

through with it and jonah's like oh

i wonder i wish the ninevites would all

be destroyed but i know the lord's going

to be compassionate and he won't go

through that

so jonah's got that sort of attitude and

he has very few words to say

to nineveh and about nineveh he's just

like 40 days judgment

that's it when you go on it's a quite a

different thing because nahum knows the

lord is

not going to have mercy and and change

he knows it's it's inevitable now

the tight the right it's ripe for

judgment it's going to happen it's

inevitable

and he has a lot of things to say jonah

speaks to the ninevites really as if

they don't know anything really about

the living god

mayhem speaks them as if they do know

something about the lord his feasts his

people

it's a different sort of thing

altogether but i think the main thing is

jonah speaks knowing there's going to be

mercy

mayhem speaks knowing that there is not

that's yeah that is quite a difference

between the two let's think that about

nineveh and the assyrians gordon i mean

what kind of how would you describe the

city of uh nineveh

what kind of an empire was a syria well

i think the city itself was a

very large city i think it was thought

it was the largest city of its time

in the known uh world it

it boasted of its security the walls

were so

massive that they claimed that three

chariots

running alongside one another could go

could encircle

the whole of the city around the walls

because they were so broad that might be

a bit of government spin

well i've heard it said yeah that there

were perhaps as many as three walls and

a moat and all the rest of it

well i think that's right and uh there

are a great deal of of masses of

weapons of destruction that were kept in

the city they felt they were

completely impregnable to attack they

were very proud of themselves so it was

a very proud city

but it was also very wicked city or very

wicked nation

their atrocities and the way they dealt

with the their enemies

and the citizens of countries that they

ever ran

was as cruel as uh if not crueler than

all that's gone

you mentioned some of the holocaust

the the leader yeah some of those

atrocities were incredible with

eurolateral

in their commentary yes they described

in great detail rather like the nazis

did about the holocaust

extraordinary i think it's worse than

anything one can read today

yes absolutely so that

with the story then of nineveh and the

australians

actually why is it relevant and urgent

for us today paul what do you think

i know because when we first talk about

it people might go

oh nineveh is serious i mean that's a

long time ago

far away who cares about some long gone

empire

it's very relevant because history

has these kingdoms and empires and

tyrannies

that come and go they always go there's

only

one kingdom that never fails and that's

the kingdom of the lord jesus christ and

daniel always held that up in his day in

babylon he's like there is this kingdom

that never fails we need to be reminded

of that because all around the world

today

people live christians live under these

tyrannical

regimes religious regimes in countries

and they're not free to speak and people

get killed

for following the lord jesus and there's

these tyrannical cruel

greedy selfish regimes you know even now

communism and religious regimes and

well even people feel under the tyranny

of the materialist

empires of the western world as well and

all this

burden of possessions and entertainment

and shallow life

all these empires come and go

that's the thing and nahum tells us that

there is a lord god in heaven who is the

real king

of all kings and his kingdom is the only

one that lasts forever

we need to be citizens of that kingdom

and even if we feel oppressed

by all the kingdoms and tyrannies and

multinationals of the world

we mustn't do there is a king who's

above them and we're in his hands if we

trust him

i think that's why this nahum means

comfort

it doesn't seem it when you first read

it but it actually is a tremendous word

of comfort

because it's telling us there is another

king

called jesus that's again such an

encouragement

we want to encourage our friends

actually because when we think that

uh you know nineveh was to fall

historically that august day

612 bc under a combined assault of

babylonians and scythians and medes

and it fell just like that under the

leadership of

nebu palace who is the leader then or

the babylonians

what we have however i think we've got

to remind ourselves in the bible

is therefore not just um history no

it's interpretive history and what we

find then is happening

is that god is at work in and through

the nations they are just a footnote

as paul said to the great kingdom that

is forever and goes on

and so it's its demise after 100 years

of a reprieve is for us to consider and

take into heart and also be encouraged

by

after all god and you write you'll quote

a poem in your

in your commentary called retribution

translated by longfellow

with just and two lines of it read

though the mills of god grinds slowly

they grind exceeding small let's take

encouragement from the fact that nineveh

fell but the kingdom of god goes on

forever are you part of that kingdom

are we part of it let's believe that we

shall find further encouragement

in our next study as we come to it in

the next time god bless you today

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