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ah

book by book how pleased we are that you

come to join us

for this time of bible study and we're

looking at the book of nahum

in the old testament and i'm joined here

my name is richard buse but here

is paul blackham my colleague and also

our honored guest gordon bridger

whose commentary we have been enjoying

it came out

not too long ago the message of obadiah

nahum

and zephaniah and of course we helped

greatly

by your section on nahum over these last

five studies

we come to the last one today which were

entitling

you will seek refuge and we're coming to

nahum chapter 3 verses 8 to 19 why don't

i read just a few verses i think maybe

well here we are i'll start at verse 8.

are you better this is addressed to to

assyria

the would-be conquering nation of judah

are you better than

thebes situated on the nile with water

around her

the river was her defense the waters her

wall

verse nine cush and egypt were her

boundless strength

put and libya were among her allies yet

she was taken captive and went into

exile her infants were dashed to pieces

at the head of every street then we move

on

to the very very last part of the re of

the chapter

o king of assyria your shepherds slumber

your nobles lie down to rest your

peoples are scattered on the mountains

with no one to gather them nothing can

heal your wound

your injury is fatal everyone who hears

the news about you

claps his hands at your fall for who has

not

felt your endless cruelty here we are in

our last study

and the key truth really is that the

world will rejoice when

ultimately when the lord jesus christ

destroys the citadel

of evil on the final day of judgment so

paul our final study there's both terror

but also satisfaction i think in this

chapter

and why do we suppose that neo focuses

on

thebes and egypt in verses 8 and 9.

i think that's important because i think

assyria themselves had

gone and destroyed egypt and

i think in previous conflicts between

egypt and assyria they'd sort of clashed

but sort of remained distant from each

other because i suppose assyria thought

oh egypt's very strong but in the end

assyria was able to go

and in 663 it

just carried on going when they'd con

had conflict with them it's

in recorded in like two kings 19 and

things

and they pushed on and went right to

thebes and

of course egypt must have thought no one

will ever be able to take us with our

defenses and there's the nile

our river walls all these defenses and

yet as syria did

and and totally destroyed this

superpower that was egypt and brought

them right down

and really then mayhem saying now look

you assyrians

you think in nineveh you can't be

touched with your river defenses and

your wars and things

remember what happened to thieves in

egypt

you know you yourselves did it a

generation ago it's an

incredible it must have really hit home

to them to think if

that if egypt fell so will we and the

lord god's coming

yeah so here's a syria headed by ashley

bernie paul its leader

boasting and its pride and it's worth

examining i think in verses 8 to 11

how the lord's judgment against

arrogance and pride is revealed in this

prophecy

what do you think gordon well it's clear

isn't it that

uh arrogance and pride was the problem

because we were looking earlier at that

passage in isaiah in isaiah 10 12 to 14

where the same truth is shown and

zephaniah

2 15 says this is the carefree city that

lived in safety

she said to herself i am and there is

none beside me

so that's wow just how proud and

self-sufficient

she was those are the words of god and

god says that about himself i am yeah

exactly actually see i could quote from

page 161

i think in your commentary here gordon

about that when you say

uh here in the judgment that was soon to

come the proud arrogant assyrians would

be hiding

from their enemies and drinking from

what you call the cup

of god's wrath that's powerful gordon

and god is against so often we learn

that god is against arrogance and

self-sufficiency whether found in

nineveh or thebes

or for that matter new york and or

london or anywhere else in god's world

and nineveh was no better than thebes in

her behavior as

paul has said so in spite of her

apparent invincibility

like thebes she was soon to fall yeah

and looking through these verses 12 to

17.

how can we discern what became of the

syria's trust then

in military power and technology i mean

the answer's here isn't it yeah i mean

actually when we go through and pay

attention to like

the little all these little details it's

as if the whole

military siege and campaign that was

going to be out of syria

it's as if it's all written in advance

so it's as if the assyrians if they'd

look paid to cut to a couple attention

to this they could know literally how

they were going to be attacked

but there's that powerful image of the

fig trees and there's like ripe fruit

and it's on the branches and it's so

ripe that it hardly needs to be touched

before it falls off

and into the mouth of the eater that's

how ripe for judgment they are

and look at the troops he said look at

your troops first thing the weaklings

well why are they weaker because of the

luxury they've been indulging luxury and

all that the

the sort of their own selfishness and

greed seems to have undermined them and

maybe once they've been the strongest

and fiercest warriors

but they're not anymore the right the

rotten at the core

almost the corruption they haven't got

the strength anymore

the siege the preparations for siege in

verses 14 and 15.

look draw water for the siege work the

clay tread the more to repair the

brickwork they're like

getting the strongest walls possible but

of course they can't just hole up

forever

like in the old days the syrians would

have been out on the battlefield now

they're holing up in the city

trying to build walls as fast as they

can but that's exactly the weakness

and you know the fire consumes them the

walls fall down

and all those merchants that had been

with them they desert them and it's as

if the whole thing's rotten to the core

and

falling apart it's all there for us they

trusted in technology and military power

and it let them down

and i think that today i always think

today what do people people trusting

technology in the same way

maybe it's health technology and they

say oh well i'm not going to die because

i

i go for a checkup all the time and i'm

in the i'm in the best possible private

health care

or whatever it is that people think i

don't need to fear

the judgment of god because i can worry

about that in decades or whatever

no all these things are false hopes

there's only one place to have real

security so as far as

syria is concerned the far devours right

where the trust was actually yes

actually maybe we move on to verses 16

to 18.

you notice gordon that assyria's

merchants are described as being more

numerous

than the stars of the sky does that

sound like a corruption of an earlier

promise in the bible

it does doesn't it it sounds like the

promise that god made to abraham

that he that his descendants would be a

blessing

uh to him but to other nations as well

the nations of the world

and instead of multiplying believers

nineveh was multiplying merchants who

were out

to make money when they made it in the

boom

and the threat of the bust they left the

city

and a great deal of uh corruption went

on

and the boom would bring the great

wealth to the city but this very same

merchants that flocked to nineveh

because of this

prosperity eventually moved away

stripped the city of its assets

and departed to unknown places like

locusts like locusts

and that powerful image there these

locusts all just like

zoom strip everything and then they're

all gone we're two

well someone was born in africa and i

remember locust swarms and when they

came

i mean billions of them coming out of

the country when they left

the place was just stripped yes there

was a to tell you it was before the days

of insecticides

right when we saw these locust swamps it

was terrifying if you're in a car

you have to stop the car because they

brought it up the entire windscreen

the place went dark with them well

that's something of the imagery

that mayhem is using yes you described

that bursting bubble very vividly

in your commentary as we come to the

last two verses of this prom

of this prophecy here we are verses 18

and 19

where we read about oh king of assyria

your shepherds slumber your nobles lie

down to rest

and in fact if you look today at the

remains of nineveh

all you find is a shallow mound near

the city of the iraqi city of mosul by

the river

tigris it's a mound which for years has

been a grazing

mound for sheep and so it's called as in

fact the archaeologists call it

uh telco yunjik which means the mound of

many sheep

is called by that today and that's

fortress nineveh

which fell before that combined assault

of the babylonians and the scythians and

the medes

all on that one day as and then later on

in uh 350 351 bc

that's uh 200 years later alexander the

great

on his quest for world domination he

passed over that man not

well he's completely unaware that a

world empire lay in that mount under his

feet wow

so just a hub left now biblically

paul i mean as we you know with a final

sentence of the prophecy that tells us

everybody who hears the news about

never will clap their hands so would it

be fair to say that the book of nahum

ends rather the same

there's a book of revelation it does and

that sense of that

celebration that this great enemy of the

church

has fallen and i love that the way the

bible ends in the book of revelation

and we've been through the book of

revelation the visions of judgment and

things

and then we end with that picture of

there's babylon with all the wealth and

all the merchants and all the comments

commerce and then babylon falls and the

again we thought about that how heaven

celebrates because the real purpose of

history

the real purpose of history isn't these

empires and all their money making and

commerce

the real purpose of history is the

marriage of christ and the church is the

marriage feast of the

of the lamb the rider on the white horse

comes out and pushes aside

babylon and puts an end to it and then

the real history of the world begins

married to the where we're married to

the to christ

and all i just think that's wonderful

and i love the celebration of it

and nobody's sad nobody's sad to hear

that assyria's gone no one will be sad

to hear babylon's gone in fact it says

all who hear the news about you clap

their hands at your fault for who has

not felt your endless cruelty

and that's the case isn't it only all

that tyranny and

godlessness and corruption and and

heartlessness of this present age will

be done away with

and they'll just ah glorious i you know

it makes us

i desire it even more just thinking

about it and that's what puts the

confidence

into those who are suffering persecution

right now in our present world

yeah finding the opposition of others

almost seeming

too much to bear and we who perhaps are

in

easier circumstances we want we are

humbled we're humbled and inspired by

them

and we want also to be sharing in what

they are

involved in and that is in that greater

kingdom that's forever

it's wonderful that you've brought our

attention to that in the book of

revelation

it's wonderful gordon you've been a

mainstay for us in these studies

of nehemiah i want to thank you very

very much indeed

and also give other help you've given to

various generations of students who've

come to oak hill college where you were

the principal for a number of years

hundreds of students have gone through

your hands who have become

preachers and leaders of churches we

would like to thank you very much for

your continuing ministry

and to wish your god's blessing upon you

and upon elizabeth your wife and upon

all the family

as well we're very grateful for this

commentary as well

today so as we close off what's perhaps

the chief

message that we could sort of take away

from this incredibly

powerful book of nature well i've been

thinking about this and uh

i think for most of us our god is too

small but now

make sure that we don't leave his book

without knowing that god is great

he's sovereign over nature he's

sovereign over history sovereign over

the nations

god is good and that his goodness is

revealed not only in

uh in salvation and care for his people

trust those who trust in him but also in

judgment

because his acts of judgments as we've

discovered time and time again

are good and things that we can rejoice

in and in many ways

the very last verse very last few words

of name linked up with the last words of

the book of jonah where we began

seem to just tie in two other thoughts

about this great

and good god name ends by saying for who

has not

felt your endless cruelty so

he is saying the judgment of nineveh is

thoroughly justified we praise god for

it because god is just

he's not a father christmas uh he's a

god who's holy and righteous and just

and and he's judged the nations that

have rebelled against him

who has not felt your endless cruelty

they deserved it but jonah

reminds us of the other side a hundred

years earlier 100 years earlier

should i not be concerned about that

great city the very last word

also in a question at the end of jonah

and jonah couldn't take the fact that

god is also a compassionate

and loving god so you get this wonderful

balance in them

of the judgment the justice the

righteousness of god together

with his compassion his love and his

goodness

and it all points to that great verse

that sums up the gospel because now like

all the old testament books

is pointing forward to the new testament

and we all know the verse john 3

16 for god so loved the world

that he gave his only begotten son that

whoever believes in him

should not perish heard a lot about

perishing there's no need to

because god loves us she'll not perish

but have

eternal life and then points

directly to that gospel that is

wonderful that's wonderful

actually we could make that sentence you

just quoted from john 3 16

our closing bit i mean as we finish off

now we'll have a prayer in a moment but

what about taking that sentence somebody

sharing in this study

you've been perhaps teaching a little

bit on the edge of christian experience

and

discipleship of christ and maybe you

could make that

sentence your own if you put your own

name in there god put your name in there

god so loved

that he gave his only begotten son that

as

believes in him should not perish but

should have eternal life can you put

your name in there

john 3 verse 16

i think what we should do now is to end

off with a prayer and a prayer

a good one which is we can echo the

prayer actually of john

calvin the great reformer from europe

many or over 400 years ago he'd also

like gordon he did a commentary

attempted a commentary

on the book of nahum and

this prayer is taken right out of john

calvin's comment let's have a pray now

grant almighty god that as we are

constantly reminded

in thy word the things which seem the

firmest

tend to ruin when by thy breath

thou shakest that strength in which men

trust

o grant that we being really subdued and

humbled

may not rely on earthly things but raise

up our hearts and our thoughts

to heaven and there fix the anchor of

our hope

until we shall be gathered into that

celestial kingdom

obtained for us by the blood of thy only

begotten son

amen

we've loved being with you in these

studies thank you so much for joining us

we'll do another book by book before too

long keep a lookout for us and meanwhile

god bless you always