The Lord Reserveth Wrath for His Enemies AUGUST 9, 2026 Pastor Steven L. Anderson

Amen.

Man, the title of my sermon this morning

is The Lord Reserveth Wrath For His Enemies.

The Lord Reserveth Wrath For His Enemies.

The book of Nahum starts out here,

the burden of Nineveh,

the 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 here's where I take the title

and he reserveth Wrath For His Enemies.

Now, what does it mean to reserve?

Well, if you just look up the word reserve in the dictionary,

it says to keep back or to save for future use,

disposal, treatment, et cetera, right?

So you're putting it aside for the future.

And that's what it means here

when it talks about God reserving Wrath For His Enemies.

And the idea here is that sometimes

there will be a delay on God's Wrath

if a nation gets right with God

or if a significant part of that nation

will get right with God or a group of people

within that nation that are enough salt and light

in that nation where it's worth it

for God to reserve judgment

and allow those great works for God to go on.

And I'm gonna show you this over and over again

in the Bible.

This is actually a very common theme

that comes up again and again.

The first example we're gonna look at

is with Nineveh itself, right?

Now, flip back a few pages to the book of Jonah, right?

Just a few pages earlier in your Bible

is the book of Jonah.

And one thing that you need to understand

is that the minor prophets in general

are in somewhat of a chronological order, okay?

And really the entire Bible is laid out in this way.

So you have sections based on the theme,

like for example, you have the law books

and then you have your historical books,

then you have your poetic books,

then you have the major prophets

and then you have the minor prophets.

And within each of these sections,

it's roughly pretty much in chronological order.

So basically, you have the book of Jonah

and then you have Nahum coming a few books later

because it's chronologically later.

And both of these books have to do

with the same subject, which is Nineveh, right?

Because look if you would at Jonah chapter one, verse two,

it says, arise, go to Nineveh,

that great city and cry against it

for their wickedness is come up before me.

So back at this time, this is like about 100 years earlier,

Nineveh is super wicked in the sight of God

and he's sending Jonah to go preach against them.

Now jump forward to chapter three, verse four.

It says, and Jonah began to enter into the city

a day's journey and he cried and said,

yet 40 days and Nineveh shall be overthrown.

So the people of Nineveh believed God

and proclaimed a fast and put on sackcloth

from the greatest of them, even to the least of them.

And then it goes on and on,

describing in great detail Nineveh's repentance.

So Jonah is just sent there

to preach against their extreme wickedness.

And when he preaches that they're gonna be destroyed,

that they're gonna be overthrown,

it's kind of surprising,

but they end up just receiving the message

and just repenting and getting right with God

and they're fasting, putting on sackcloth

all the way from the king down.

And so they have this huge repentance.

And if you would jump down to verse number 10,

it says, and God saw their works that they repented,

or sorry, God saw their works

that they turned from their evil way

and God repented of the evil

that he had said that he would do unto them

and he did it not, right?

So because of the fact that they got their act together

and fixed their works,

then God ends up repenting of the evil

that he had said that he would do to them and not doing it.

So 40 days later, Nineveh is not overthrown

because they got right with God.

And I wanna point out, first of all,

that this is different from personal spiritual salvation.

When it comes to our personal spiritual salvation,

that is based on one thing and one thing alone,

which is faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, right?

The Bible says that we are saved by grace through faith

and that not of ourselves, it is the gift of God,

not of works, listen to me mention both.

So when it comes to personal salvation, heaven and hell,

that is just based on faith in Christ.

Once we believe in Christ, we have eternal life,

nothing can separate us from the love of God,

which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

But then there's a whole different issue

of earthly consequences.

God's judgment here now on this earth.

You know, in George Washington famously said,

hey, nations can't be judged in the next world,

they have to be judged in this world, right?

Because when we're talking about like a national judgment,

we're talking about nations that exist in the here and now.

Okay, now in our personal lives, we also experience both.

There's a personal spiritual salvation

of getting to heaven when we die,

but then there's also, do we wanna be blessed

on this earth or do we wanna face judgment

and wrath on this earth, even just physically, right?

So you could be a saved Christian,

you could believe on the Lord Jesus Christ,

you could have eternal life, you're going to heaven,

but if you go out and commit a bunch of egregious sins,

you are gonna face severe consequences in this lifetime.

The Bible says,

whom the Lord loveth, he chasteneth,

and scourges every son whom he receiveth.

And so just because you're spiritually saved,

it doesn't mean that you're not gonna face

some consequences in the right here and now, right?

It's just like if we have children living in our home,

they did not have to work or earn being born into,

they're just born into it, they just live there,

and they don't have to live up to a certain standard

in order to be children, right, in the home,

but if they do wrong, they're gonna get disciplined, right?

And it's a similar analogy with God,

you're his child, you're saved, you're going to heaven,

but if you blow off his commandments,

you're gonna get your butt whipped,

that's what the Bible clearly teaches, okay?

Now, when it comes to unsaved people,

sometimes unsaved people will seemingly get away with things

in the short term or even in a longer term,

but at the end of the day, they're going to hell

when they die, so they're not really getting away

with anything in that regard.

But when it comes to us as saved Christians,

we end up getting punished on this earth

for things that we do wrong,

even though we're going to heaven,

and even though there's nothing we can do

to lose our salvation, there's a lot we can do

to screw up our life here on this earth, okay?

So here we see in Jonah, when it comes to national salvation,

God saw their works, okay,

that they turned from their wicked way.

So here's the thing, you could have a nation

full of saved Christians, but if they're not turning

from their wicked way, he could still bring

a national chastisement, a national judgment,

just like he will chastise the individual saved Christian.

So God sees their works, and by the way,

turning from your evil way is works.

So if somebody tries to tell you, hey,

in order to go to heaven, you have to turn from your sins,

turn from your evil way, turn your life around,

reform yourself, repent of your sins, whatever.

What are they saying?

They're basically saying you have to do faith and works.

Well, guess what?

Salvation is not by faith plus works,

it's just by faith alone, okay?

Not of works, let's say he managed to boast.

And so God saw their works, and he turned from the evil

that he had said that he would do unto them,

and he did it not.

But look at verse one of the next chapter,

but it displeased Jonah exceedingly,

and he was very angry.

Now this might strike you as odd at first,

because you would think that a preacher wants results,

that a preacher would want to preach,

and people get right with God,

they listen to the message, they get right,

everybody lives happily ever after.

But unfortunately Jonah has a bad attitude here,

because he obviously hates the Ninevites.

The Ninevites have done wrong to his nation,

and so this is like a national enemy,

and that's why he didn't even want to go there

in the first place, that's why he ran away

and had to get swallowed by a whale and all that,

because he did not want the Ninevites to be spared.

He wanted to see them get smoked.

He was looking forward to the judgment of Ninevah,

and that's what he says in verse two.

Look, he says, he prayed unto the Lord

and said, I pray thee, O Lord,

was not this my saying when I was yet in my country.

Now we get a little bit of a backstory

that God did not tell us in chapters one and two,

but now we're getting like inside the mind of Jonah,

and also Jonah apparently had told us to God.

He said, was not this my saying?

So the Bible often is just giving us

a really short version of the story,

but behind the scenes Jonah is saying to God,

here's why I don't want to go to Ninevah,

and he says, this was my saying

when I was yet in my country.

Therefore I fled before unto Tarshish,

for I knew that thou art a gracious God

and merciful, slow to anger,

and of great kindness, and repent of the evil.

He's like, this is what I was afraid of happening,

is that I would preach,

and then they'd get right with God,

and then you wouldn't destroy them.

So I decided I'm just gonna not go,

and then they're just gonna get smoked.

But of course God had other plans,

and he set the whale to swallow and everything like that.

It's kind of funny here, you know,

when you look at it,

I mean, I don't think it was funny to him at the time,

but it's funny thousands of years later,

now we can laugh about it.

But here's what's interesting,

flip forward now to the book of Nahum.

What's interesting is that Jonah's wish

actually does ultimately come true,

because Jonah really wants to see Ninevah get smoked.

He really wants to see Ninevah get destroyed.

Well, guess what?

Ninevah does get destroyed.

God does overthrow Ninevah.

God does punish Ninevah.

It's just 100 years later.

And why the delay?

Because God reserves wrath for his enemies,

because they got right with God,

he's gonna cut them slack.

He's gonna give them a break.

He's gonna spare that generation.

But then the next generation

that is wicked in the sight of God,

now he's gonna bring down on them the full wrath

that they'd been earning after all these centuries.

And again, we're gonna see this

over and over again in the Bible, okay?

But look at Nahum chapter one, verse two.

It says God is jealous and the Lord revenged,

the Lord revenged and is furious.

The Lord will take vengeance on his adversaries

and he reserveth wrath for his enemies.

Watch this.

The Lord is slow to anger and great in power

and will not at all acquit the wicked.

So sometimes God will be slow to anger.

He will delay the punishment.

He will delay his wrath,

but he is not at all going to acquit the wicked,

meaning he doesn't just forget to punish people.

He doesn't just forget about it, ignore it, blow it off.

No, no, no.

He's serious about it.

He's not playing games.

It's just sometimes you'll have a reason to delay that

and it's usually because of repentance

or at least giving people a chance to repent and get right.

Let's look at another example of this.

Go to 2 Kings chapter 21.

2 Kings 21 · chapter mention

2 Kings chapter 21,

2 Kings 21 · chapter mention

because I think this is a biblical concept

that's important because if it weren't important,

it wouldn't come up so many times

and it's something that we see over and over again.

Look at 2 Kings 21 because another example of this

is the nation of Judah itself and King Manasseh.

King Manasseh led Judah into just some of the most wicked,

horrible sins of their whole history

and it says in verse number 11 of 2 Kings 21

because Manasseh, King of Judah had done these abominations

and had done wickedly above all that the Amorites did

and we're gonna talk about the Amorites later,

which were before him

and have made Judah also to sin with his idols.

Therefore, thus saith the Lord God of Israel,

behold, I am bringing such evil upon Jerusalem and Judah

that whosoever heareth of it, both his ears shall tingle.

He's saying, look, I am furious.

I'm bringing down wrath.

I'm bringing down revenge.

It's gonna be insane.

People are gonna be shocked

at the punishment that I bring on Judah and Jerusalem.

And then look at verse 16.

It says moreover, Manasseh shed innocent blood very much

till he had filled Jerusalem from one end to the other

beside his sin wherewith he made Judah to sin

in doing that which was evil on the side of the Lord.

So God is super upset.

He's gonna bring down all kinds of wrath,

but here's the thing.

Manasseh ends up getting right with God, late in life.

So what happens is Manasseh has a son named Amon

and then Amon has a son named Josiah.

So Manasseh's grandson Josiah, look at chapter 23 verse 25.

Not only did Manasseh personally get right with God,

but then Manasseh's grandson Josiah ends up just leading

the nation to just national repentance,

just a huge revival of worshiping the Lord

and getting right with God so that it says

in 2 Kings 23, 25, and like unto him, that's Josiah,

there was no king before him who turned to the Lord

with all his heart and with all his soul

and with all his might according to all the law of Moses,

neither after him arose there any like him.

I mean, this is just the best possible guy

that you could have leading the nation of Judah,

just totally getting everybody right with God,

doing all these great things.

But look at verse 26, even in spite of that,

notwithstanding the Lord turned not

from the fierceness of his great wrath

wherewith his anger was kindled against Judah

because of all the provocations that Manasseh

had provoked him with all.

And the Lord said, I will remove Judah also out of my sight

as I've removed Israel and will cast off this city Jerusalem

which I have chosen and the house of which I said

my name shall be there.

Notice that even just this ultimate best ever revival

under Josiah is not enough for God to just say,

hey, I'm just gonna completely forget about

all of my revenge and wrath and anger upon Manasseh.

So Manasseh's repentance and Josiah's revival,

you know what they ended up doing is,

they ended up delaying the judgment upon Judah.

They ended up causing God to reserve the wrath,

but the wrath doesn't just go away,

the infractions don't just go away, okay?

Look at chapter 24, verse three.

Surely at the commandment of the Lord

came this upon Judah to remove them out of his sight

for the sins of Manasseh, right?

This is a guy that has already been dead for a long time.

According to all that he did

and also for the innocent blood that he shed

for he filled Jerusalem with innocent blood.

Watch this, which the Lord would not pardon.

See God's not up in heaven

and a bunch of innocent people get murdered,

a bunch of innocent blood shed

and God's not just going back,

oh, we'll just forget about it,

doesn't matter, who cares?

No, there's a payday that's coming.

There is a revenge that's coming.

There is a balancing of the scale that's coming.

And if I think about the United States of America,

the United States of America has committed some wicked sins

and there's been a lot of innocent blood

that has been shed, whether we talk about abortion

or whether we talk about just other things

and atrocities that the United States government

or military has carried out at different times.

Look, there's innocent blood that has been shed.

Now our nation is just promoting sodomy,

promoting feminism, promoting wickedness worldwide.

And here's the thing, God is up in heaven

and God's wrath is revealed from heaven

against this kind of unrighteousness,

according to Romans chapter one.

And God is furious about these things.

God is angry with the wicked every day

and the Bible says the wicked shall be turned into hell

and all the nations that forget God.

And so the idea here is that there is a reckoning coming,

there is a judgment coming, there is punishment coming,

but here's the thing, God will delay that,

God will restrain that, God will reserve that,

that it would not happen in our day or in our generation

if we are actually doing right in the sight of God.

Not to say that the entire nation

is ever gonna do what's right in the sight of God,

but if there are enough people out there

preaching the word of God, winning souls to Christ,

doing great works, then God's gonna say,

okay, well let me just withhold my judgment.

Hey, let's let these zealous soul winning Christians,

let's let them cook, let's let them do the work

that I have for them and I'll wait to punish the wicked,

I'll wait to pour out my wrath for all the innocent blood,

but it's never gonna go away.

Like the idea that it's just gonna be ignored,

that the abortion holocaust is just gonna be ignored,

or that just other, just sick, phagatory,

or it's just gonna be ignored.

Folks, it's not on the table, I'm sorry.

The Bible is clear whether we're looking at Nineveh,

which is a heathen nation, or whether we're looking

at Judah, which at that time, that was God's chosen

people in the Old Testament at that time,

whether it's the nation of Judah, his people,

whether it's a foreigner, Nineveh, doesn't matter.

The same principle applies here, okay?

And then Jeremiah preaches the same thing,

you don't have to turn there, but in Jeremiah 15,

he says, I will cause them to be removed

into all kingdoms of the earth because of Manassee,

the son of Hezekiah, king of Judah,

for that which he did in Jerusalem.

Now, if you would go to First Kings, chapter 21,

1 Kings 21 · chapter mention

we're gonna look at a third example.

So number one, we saw Nineveh.

Number two, we saw Judah.

Now, number three, we're gonna look at King Ahab.

Now, King Ahab is someone that we think of as super wicked,

and right now on Wednesday nights,

we've been going through and seeing God pouring out

his judgment upon Ahab's descendants, his household.

I mean, everybody connected to Ahab is getting smoked

in the last couple of Wednesday night sermons

in Second Kings nine and 10.

But here, we go back further to the man Ahab himself.

And Ahab is a complex character

because he's not just all super evil, reprobate guy.

Okay, he did a lot of bad things,

but a big part of that is the wicked influence

of his wife, Jezebel.

So look what the Bible says about him

in verse 21 of chapter 21, First Kings.

Behold, I will bring evil upon thee

and will take away thy posterity

and will cut off from Ahab,

him that pisseth against the wall

and him that is shut up and left in Israel

and will make thy house like the house of Jeroboam,

the son of Nebat, and like the house of Baasha,

the son of Ahijah for the provocation

wherewith thou hast provoked me to anger

and made Israel to sin.

And of Jezebel also spake the Lord saying,

the dog shall eat Jezebel by the wall of Jezebel.

And of course we just saw the fulfillment of that

in the Wednesday night Bible study.

Him that died at the Bayhab in the city,

the dog shall eat, and him that died in the field

shall the fowls of the air eat.

Okay, look at verse 25.

But there was none like unto Ahab

which did sell himself to work wickedness

in the sight of the Lord,

whom Jezebel, his wife, stirred up.

And so what you can see here in this verse

is that Ahab is not a man of pure evil.

He's not just this pure evil,

and there are some people out there that are pure evil.

There are some evil reprobates

and just horrible wicked,

like Jezebel was one of those kind of people.

Whereas Ahab on the other hand,

he's not a rotten to the core guy.

What he did is he sold himself to do wickedness,

which again, you know, is showing

that he's being manipulated by other people.

And it's still his fault

because he's the one who's the king.

He didn't, nobody's making himself sell himself,

but that's what he's doing.

He's selling himself to do wickedness.

You know, and he's basically,

you know, you hear the phrase a lot

selling your soul to Satan.

Obviously that's not what this is referring to.

But you know what?

He's selling out to other people on this earth.

You know, he's selling out,

even though he's not himself a reprobate.

And then it says, whom Jezebel, his wife, stirred up.

So she's the one who's actually manipulating him.

And you know, can you imagine this?

I think that you could probably think of some examples

in your life of people that you've known

where the wife is the one wearing the pants of the family.

Like, does this just not exist?

No, there are situations where sometimes the man

will want to do right.

He'll want to serve God.

He'll want to live for God.

But unfortunately his wife's wearing the pants of the family.

And so she ends up calling the shots

and she takes the family in a wrong direction, okay?

And obviously that is against God's order

of having the husband be the head of the wife,

as it says in 1 Corinthians chapter 11, verse three.

1 Corinthians 11 · chapter mention

And it's a turning upside down of God's natural order

when the woman is in charge.

And here we see Jezebel leading Ahab to do wickedly

and stirring him up.

And he sells out and he ends up doing all this stuff.

And it says in verse 26, he did very abominably

in following idols according to all things

as did the Amorites, we're gonna come back to them,

whom the Lord cast out before the children of Israel.

And it came to pass when Ahab heard those words

that he rent his clothes and put sackcloth upon his flesh

and fasted and lay in sackcloth, watch this,

and went softly, you know?

So this really takes him down a notch.

All of a sudden he's not such a big mouth.

He's not so prideful and arrogant.

And so he humbles himself and he goes softly.

Verse 28, the word of the Lord came to Elijah

the Tishbite saying,

see as thou how Ahab humbleth himself before me

because he humbleth himself before me

I will not bring the evil in his days.

So notice he says, look, Ahab is repentant.

Ahab is sorry, Ahab is humbling himself.

Therefore I'm not gonna bring the wickedness in his days.

I'm gonna give him a break.

But does he say, hey, I'm just gonna completely

forget about it?

Is that what he says?

No.

He says, in his son's days,

I will bring the evil upon his house.

So the punishment is still coming.

The wickedness is still coming.

It's reserved.

It's delayed.

Same thing we've been seeing.

Same type of thing.

If you would flip over to Genesis chapter 15.

Genesis 15 · chapter mention

But while you're turning to Genesis chapter 15,

Genesis 15 · chapter mention

I'm gonna bring up a fourth example.

The fourth example is King Solomon.

King Solomon is told that because of his sins

God's gonna punish.

But he says in 1 Kings 11, 12,

not withstanding in thy days will I not do it

for David thy father's sake,

but I will rend it out of the hand of thy son.

So he says, I'm gonna delay the judgment

out of respect for David.

It's not gonna happen in your lifetime.

It's gonna happen in the lifetime of your son.

And so again, we see that the punishments don't go away.

They end up just getting postponed, delayed,

reserved for the future.

Okay, Genesis 15, 16, we've mentioned the amorites.

God has brought up the amorites repeatedly

in the context of this type of a delayed judgment.

Well, it's because the amorites experience

the same kind of delay in God's judgment.

Because look at verse 16 of chapter 15, Genesis.

But in the fourth generation,

they shall come hither again, watch this,

for the iniquity of the amorites is not yet full.

And so the context here is that he's talking

about the children of Israel

are gonna be in Egypt for 400 years

and then they're gonna come out of Egypt

and they're gonna conquer the Promised Land.

Well, why didn't God just give them the Promised Land

without even doing that stint in Egypt in the first place?

Part of the reason why is because the Canaanites

were not as super wicked yet to deserve the judgment

that they're gonna get in the book of Joshua.

I mean, in the book of Joshua, God is telling them,

hey, you need to completely wipe them out.

They need to be completely smoked.

And God's obviously already telling that to Moses

in the book of Numbers and so forth.

And they're being told, look, these amorites

and other Canaanite nations need to get completely wiped out.

Well, here's what he's saying.

He's saying they're not really to that point yet.

The iniquity of the amorites is not yet full

to where they would really deserve

to just get completely annihilated.

But by the time the children of Israel

have done their stint in Egypt and come out of Egypt

and enter the Promised Land with Joshua,

then their iniquity is so gross, it's so horrific,

they're doing all those sins of Leviticus chapter 18

Leviticus 18 · chapter mention

and Leviticus 20.

He says all the nations of Canaan have done these things.

That's why the earth itself is just ready

to vomit them out and so forth.

Well, then he says, okay, now it's time

for my full wrath to be executed.

But you can see the amorites, yeah,

they're sinful people.

They're ungodly people.

But you notice God is reserving his wrath.

He's giving them time.

He's giving them space.

He's not gonna judge this nation as radically

as he's going to judge the future generations

who get worse.

So it's kind of a similar concept.

Not only that, go back to chapter six

and we'll see a sixth example,

which is the old world before the flood.

Okay, there's a similar delay in the judgment.

Because what does it say in Genesis chapter six, verse three,

the Lord said, my spirit shall not always strive

with man.

He said, look, I'm not gonna put up with this forever.

I'm not gonna sit here and just allow myself

to be mocked forever.

He says, my spirit shall not always strive with man,

for that he also is flesh.

Yet, his days shall be 120 years.

He's putting a clock on it and he's saying, look,

these people have 120 years and they're getting smoked.

Notice the delay, the pause, the reservation

of God's wrath, okay?

Now let's go to the New Testament

and see a reflection back on this in 1 Peter 3.

In 1 Peter 3, there's a reflection back on this,

this whole thing of, well, I'm not always gonna

mess with man.

I'm not always gonna strive with man.

My spirit's not always gonna do that.

But his days will be 120 years.

Now let's fast forward to 1 Peter chapter three, verse 20.

It says, which sometimes we're disobedient

when once the what?

The long suffering of God,

waited in the days of Noah,

while the ark was a preparing,

where in few that is eight souls were saved by water.

Notice is the long suffering of God,

while the ark is being prepared,

not only is he giving Noah a chance

to basically have the instrument of his salvation,

the boat that's gonna keep him safe

during the flood that's gonna last for a year,

but not only that, it's also God's long suffering

toward all these other bozos, all the idiots

that are ruining and destroying the earth,

and Noah's over here a preacher of righteousness,

and they're not getting the message,

but God is still saying, hey, I'm gonna give him a chance.

The long suffering of God, waited in the days of Noah,

he says, this is a delay in my wrath,

but it's gonna end, doesn't last forever.

Now go to Romans chapter two,

and let's make this like kind of a personal application.

Because what we've kind of focused on so far

is more nations, right?

You know, Nineveh is more of a national thing.

Judah is a national thing,

and then we think about kings like King Solomon

and King Ahab, those judgments

are in a lot of ways national judgments

that are being either delayed

or restrained or reserved for later.

And then the Amorites, again,

we're talking about like a national judgment, right?

And then the old world, again,

you know, we're talking about a group of people,

the pre-flood civilization there.

But look at Romans chapter two, verse three,

because what I wanna apply this to us personally as well,

is that we never want to misinterpret

God's long suffering as him somehow like forgetting

to punish or just not caring, right?

Because we might think like,

oh, well, I've seemingly getting away with it.

I've committed X, Y, and Z to sin,

and I'm seemingly getting away with it.

So hey, God must just not care.

And I'm telling you a lot of backslidden Christians,

I've been pastoring for 21 years,

and you know what a lot of backslidden Christians will say?

This is the kind of stuff that they say.

They'll say like, you know,

I don't think God really cares

what's going on down on this earth.

Like all here backslidden Christians talk that way,

like they start getting this view

that God's up in heaven and that he's very distant

and that he doesn't really care about our everyday lives.

He doesn't care about the little people

and that he's kind of just vaguely overseeing the universe

but that he's just not really that involved in our lives.

And when something good will happen in their life,

they won't give God the glory

for the good thing that happened.

They won't be thankful.

Like for me, if something good happens in my life,

my first thing is like, thank you, God, praise God.

Praise the Lord.

Even just little things going my way.

Anytime a little thing goes my way,

I'm praising the Lord.

And you think a big thing goes my way.

I'm like, thank you, God, praise the Lord, right?

That's how we should live.

We should be giving God credit for all of the good things

because every good gift and every perfect gift

is from above and coming down from the Father of lights

with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning.

And so we should be super thankful for the good things

and acknowledging that they come from God.

But I've noticed backslidden Christians,

you know what they think?

They think I did this for myself.

This is just me being smart.

This is just me working hard.

It's all due to my own efforts.

And they're not giving God the glory.

But then I've noticed this, that when bad things happen,

they don't give God credit for that evil either.

And what does the Bible say?

And Amos says, hey, is there an evil in the city

and the Lord has not done it?

Guess what?

Even when bad things happen, I'm thinking to myself,

well, at a minimum, God allowed this to happen.

Obviously, God's not behind sinful, evil,

or wicked things, but when something bad happens

at a minimum, God allowed it to happen.

Or certain catastrophes are even planned by God.

And he's even more directly responsible

for certain setbacks or negative things

that come into our lives.

They're not talking about sinful or wicked things,

but just negative things that happen.

But at a minimum, he's allowing these things.

And so I'm constantly thinking like,

okay, God allowed this to happen.

God has done this too.

But I've noticed that backslidden Christians,

they start having this mentality

that God is just not behind anything in their lives

and that everything's a coincidence,

everything's random chance, and all the good things.

Well, that's just all the good stuff I did for myself

and all the bad things.

Well, that's just stuff happens and whatever.

Folks, it's wrong.

God is involved in our lives.

The very hairs of our head are numbered.

If we were to count the thoughts

that God has toward each of us individually,

the Bible says they would be more

than the grains of the sand on the seashore.

How can you say like, oh, God doesn't really know what's going?

God knows a sparrow dies and falls on the ground

and God knows all about it.

Tell me God is distant.

Does it care?

Is it involved?

Yes, he is.

And that's a backslidden Christian talking

when they start to, oh yeah,

everything's just kind of running its course.

Like God just kind of wound up the earth

and just kind of clockwork universe

and then he just kind of walks away from it

and just lets it run

and then he's just up in heaven just watching

but not involved, not intervening.

Folks, I don't believe that for one second.

And we don't want to misinterpret

God's long-suffering nature as him forgetting

or not caring or letting it go

because he doesn't at all acquit the wicked.

He just doesn't.

Look at Romans chapter two, verse three.

It says,

And thinkest thou this, O man,

that judges them which doeth such things

and doeth the same,

that thou shalt escape the judgment of God

or despises thou the riches of his goodness

and forbearance and long-suffering.

Notice the word long-suffering.

Not knowing that the goodness of God

leadeth thee to repentance.

The whole point of God being good

and gracious and merciful and slow to wrath

and long-suffering is that he's leading you to repentance.

He wants you to have a chance to get it right.

But after thy hardness and impenitent heart,

treasurist, remember we talked about reserving judgment,

reserving wrath, God reserves wrath for his enemies.

Here's a very similar word, treasuring up.

Right, I mean, if I'm reserving money,

what am I doing?

I'm treasuring up money.

I'm storing it up.

I'm putting it aside for future use.

This is a word that's almost synonymous in this context.

And he says, your hardness and impenitent heart,

treasurist up unto thyself, wrath against the day of wrath.

Right, so it's like that day is coming

and you're basically just stockpiling judgments

because you're just like,

I don't understand that God's long-suffering

is supposed to lead me to repentance.

I just think God is just kind of an anything goes

kind of a God.

And then you're just stacking up all this wrath.

You know, and it'd be like,

here's kind of maybe a silly illustration,

but it would be like, for example,

let's say you were at work or something

and your boss is writing up every time you disobey the rules,

but he's not telling you about it.

Because usually, he'd write you up and tell you,

hey, I had to write you up, this is what you did.

But what if he's just over here just writing you up

and he just writes you up like 37 times

without telling you about it?

And then all of a sudden it's like,

you have committed this crime 37 times.

You've been written up 37 times.

And you're like, what, hey, what are you doing?

Or it'd be like, it'd be sort of like,

let's say you get pulled over by a cop

and he gives you a speeding ticket, okay?

And it's like, oh man, now I have this speeding ticket.

I don't wanna get too many points on my license,

so I better watch it.

Now I gotta stay under the speed limit, be careful, right?

But what if there's just like a speed camera

and the thing's just flashing you every day, right?

And then all of a sudden you just get 37 violations

in the mail.

And you're like, whoa, you didn't realize

you're just treasuring up all of this wrath.

You're just treasuring up all these violations.

And you say, well yeah, but that doesn't sound cool.

But here's the thing, God has already told us

in his word that this is what he's doing

and what's going on.

Now here's the thing, if you didn't know

that the camera was there, then you'd be like,

hey, this isn't fair.

Or if the boss had not made the rules super clear to you

and warned you and told you, hey,

I'm not gonna come tell you every time,

but I'm gonna write it up.

If he had warned you about this,

then you couldn't really blame him

and that's what God has done.

God has given us the Bible here

and he's given us preachers.

And here's the thing, you did get the warning.

Because here's the thing, what if your coworker

is the one saying to you,

hey, listen, the boss is writing you up.

I saw him writing you up.

You're saying, I don't believe you.

Because it wouldn't be cool

to get written up 37 times with no warning.

It wouldn't be cool to get 37 speeding tickets

with no warning.

You'd be like, hey, this doesn't feel right.

This doesn't feel fair.

But let me tell you something,

you have been warned, I've been warned

because God is sending his prophets,

rising up early and sending his prophets,

sending his prophets and you got the Bible,

you got it all written right here

and then you have men of God getting up

and preaching to you and preaching to you

and preaching to you and you're hearing the warning.

The boss is writing you up.

The boss is writing you up.

I saw the boss writing you up.

He promised he would write you up.

I know he's writing you up.

I know you're gonna be punished

and you're like, no, no, he doesn't care

because he never said anything to me.

When in reality, he's just writing it down,

writing it down until he has enough evidence

to fire you and then once you're fired,

it's over for you.

Can't come back, it's too late.

You've been fired, the paper trails document it

and look, I'm using an extreme example with 37

because God's just long suffering

and slow to anger and merciful

and because God's super patient

because he lives outside of time.

You know, it's easy to be super patient

when a day is like a thousand years to you

and a thousand years like a day.

It's easy to wait.

But most jobs, what, you get written up three times,

three strikes you're out,

tends to be pretty standard.

And so people misinterpret God's silence.

They misinterpret God's long suffering.

They misinterpret space for repentance

as God's ignoring, God's not involved,

God doesn't care and they are severely wrong.

Now go if you would back to Nahum.

Go back to Nahum and let's kind of tie this in

because I wanna kind of tie in the whole chapter

of Nahum chapter one because Nahum chapter one,

this is really the message behind the chapter.

It's no coincidence.

Obviously the children of Israel,

they know about the story of Jonah,

they know about the prophet Jonah,

the Ninevites know about the prophet Jonah.

Obviously it was a big deal for them at the time.

And now all of a sudden God's telling them,

look guys, just because I've reserved wrath,

it doesn't mean I'm letting this go.

Which is why he said that in verse two and verse three

but let's look at some other things in the chapter.

Look at Nahum chapter one, verse seven.

And it says, the Lord is good,

a stronghold in the day of trouble

and he knoweth them that trust in him.

But with an overrunning flood,

he will make an utter end of the place thereof

and darkness shall pursue his enemies.

What do you imagine against the Lord?

Like what do you think you're gonna accomplish

by going against God?

He says, he will make an utter end.

What does utter mean?

Just complete absolute total utter end.

He will make an utter end.

Affliction shall not rise up the second time.

He said, look, it's sort of like

what David's right-hand man said to him.

He said, hey, I'm gonna go smite, salt on the ground

and I'm not gonna hit him a second time.

What's he saying?

I'm not gonna need to hit him a second time.

He said, there's not gonna be a second punishment

because there won't need to be a second affliction

because I am gonna make an utter end.

It's gonna be a one-time deal.

And what does the Bible say?

He that being often reproved, hardened at his neck,

shall suddenly be destroyed and that without remedy.

Utter end, no second chance, no second affliction.

It's just over.

Now look at verse 10.

For while they be folding together as thorns

and while they are drunken as drunkards,

they shall be devoured as stubble, fully dry,

there is one come out of thee

that imagine of evil against the Lord, a wicked counselor.

So this is obviously some kind of a preacher

or a false prophet or just whoever this guy is

that's giving them bad advice, right?

This wicked counselor.

And here's the thing.

The Bible talks about preachers and counselors

and people who strengthen the hand of the evil doers

by giving them a false sense of security

that no evil will come upon them.

And so what we see in verses 12 and 13

is that God's gonna bring deliverance to Judah

by punishing their enemy Nineveh,

by punishing Assyria,

by punishing and bringing Jonah's dream

to come true, basically, ultimately.

Way late in his mind,

but that's because the people repented.

Of course, he's gonna give them a break

because they repented, but in the long run,

Jonah actually gets his wish, which is kind of funny.

Look at verse 12, it says,

Thus saith the Lord, though they be quiet

and likewise many, yet thus shall they be cut down

when he shall pass through, though I have afflicted thee,

I will afflict thee no more, talking to Judah,

for now will I break his yoke from Aphthih, right?

Because they're being oppressed by Assyria, Nineveh,

and will burst thy bonds in Sunder.

Now he's gonna switch talking to the Ninevites in verse 14.

And the Lord hath given a commandment concerning thee,

that no more of thy name be sown

out of the house of thy gods,

will I cut off the graven image and the molten image,

I will make thy grave for thou art vile.

He's saying, you guys are gross,

you guys are vile, you guys are wicked,

and I am going to bury you, I will make your grave.

But then he switches back to Judah in verse 15,

that was for Nineveh, switches to Judah, he says,

Behold upon the mountains the feet of him

that bringeth good tidings,

that publisheth peace, O Judah, keep thy solemn feasts,

perform thy vows, for the wicked shall no more pass

through thee, he is utterly cut off.

It's just irreparably smoked.

Now, this is quoted, of course, in the New Testament.

Now, obviously the New Testament

is probably more directly quoting

the Isaiah quote about this,

which is like Isaiah 52 or somewhere in that neighborhood.

That's probably the more direct quote,

but still, we do have the same wording here as well in Naom.

So let's talk about the immediate context of verse 15,

and then let's tie this in with the New Testament quote

here and then we'll be done, okay?

So it says here, behold upon the mountains

the feet of him that bringeth good tidings,

good tidings in the New Testament, the good news,

the good tidings is called the gospel,

and it will replace the word good tidings with gospel

because the English word gospel

literally means good tidings, good news.

And so he says, him that preaches the gospel

and publisheth peace, you know,

how beautiful are the feet of them

that preach the gospel, and this is tied in

with preaching the gospel of eternal salvation

through believing in Jesus Christ.

Now in the immediate context here in verse 15 though,

the good news is that the oppressor Nineveh

is totally defeated and totally cut off,

and now Judah can serve God in peace.

That's what verse 15 is literally saying in this context.

Now of course, this phrase being used differently

in Isaiah, differently in Romans,

but in this immediate context, that's what's going on.

But let's go ahead and tie that in

with the good news of salvation, okay?

Because if we tie this in with the good news of salvation,

you know, who is our adversary, our oppressor,

the one who is accusing us before God day and night

is the devil?

And the Bible says for this purpose,

the Son of God was manifested

that he might destroy the works of the devil.

And so through the Lord Jesus Christ coming to this earth,

dying on the cross, being buried and rising again,

he has defeated our enemy.

Because remember, all the prophets in the Bible

are ultimately supposed to be pointing us to Jesus.

And so the defeat of Nineveh here

could picture Christ's triumph over Satan,

where Satan, you know, he bruised Satan's head,

but Satan bruised his heel,

and the Lord Jesus Christ

ultimately got the victory over Satan.

Satan is our enemy, our adversary, the devil,

and he accuses us before God day and night.

But guess what?

Those accusations no longer hold.

Why?

Because we've been forgiven as born-again Christians.

We have forgiveness through Jesus' blood,

even the forgiveness of sins.

We have redemption through his blood,

even the forgiveness of sins.

And so by believing in Jesus, our sins are forgiven.

Now stop and think about what we've talked about.

How God will not acquit the wicked.

Think about this now.

Don't miss this.

Because we looked at examples.

Nineveh, God's not gonna acquit the wicked.

Judah, God's not gonna acquit the wicked.

Ahab, not gonna do it.

Solomon, go down the list.

All these examples.

The Amorites, the Old World.

Why?

Because here's the thing.

Turning over a new leaf, repenting of your sins,

getting right with God, doing good on this earth,

those are all good ways to avoid earthly punishments

and earthly judgments.

But here's the thing.

Can they actually cleanse away your sins

or wipe away your sins?

It's just a delay.

Everybody understand?

It's a reservation of the wrath,

but the sins are not wiped out.

They're not blotted out.

They're still there.

Like America could have a great revival

of soul winning and great preaching,

and that could delay the judgment,

but eventually America is gonna have to pay the piper

for the innocent blood that has been shed,

as we said earlier in the sermon.

So think about this now, okay?

Christ's blood washes away our sins,

where we actually are totally forgiven,

acquitted, and we can actually go to heaven.

So this shows you the futility of trying to get to heaven

through reformation, or through repenting of your sins,

or just cleaning up your act, being sorry.

Yeah, that gets you a reprieve from earthly judgment,

but is that really gonna get you total,

utter eternal salvation?

And the answer is no, it's not.

In order to get that eternal, utter salvation,

it is believe on the Lord Jesus Christ,

and thou shalt be saved.

It's that whosoever believeth in him should not perish,

but have eternal life.

That's what it's gonna take

to get you just ultimate and utter forgiveness.

Why?

Because that's not God acquitting the wicked

because God is still punishing.

It's just that he punished Jesus on your behalf.

Christ took upon him the sins of the world.

So that's not God just forgetting to punish

and just letting the guilty up there.

Because what if there were a judge

that just lets guilty people go free?

Would you say that's a great judge?

And look, we have some judges like that in America, don't we?

We have these horrible, evil, violent criminals,

and then we have judges just letting them go free.

They've been violent 20 times, let them go free.

Then they go murder someone on a subway,

or they just go murder people, right?

Who's seen those kind of stories in the last few years

of judges just letting people go free?

And nobody's thinking like,

oh, this is such a merciful judge.

This is such a kind judge.

It's such a loving job.

Because here's the thing.

From an earthly perspective,

from a criminal justice perspective,

the famous economist Adam Smith said,

mercy to the wicked is cruelty to the innocent.

From that criminal justice perspective,

nobody thinks a judge who just equips the wicked

is a good judge.

They're clearly guilty and he's just like, not guilty.

You'd be like, what?

That's unjust.

It's an injustice.

But the way that salvation through Christ works

is that he actually took the punishment for us

so God's justice is satisfied

by Jesus being punished for our sins.

He who knew no sin became sin for us

that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.

And so our sins were imputed unto Christ.

He pays for our sins.

That's not God acquitting the wicked.

That's not God being unjust and just ignoring sin.

No, no, no, the sin is taken care of by Jesus.

And if we believe on Jesus Christ,

then we are in Christ, we're adopted, we're saved,

we're redeemed and we have like a true

and ultimate utter final forgiveness for our sins

because they've already been paid for.

It's already been totally paid,

already totally been covered.

So that's how it works with spiritual salvation.

That's how it works with heaven and hell.

That's the gospel, that's the good news.

And this just completely shuts the mouth of the prosecution

which is Satan, the accuser,

because it's like these charges

can't be brought again, right?

We have this thing in America called double jeopardy

and I'm not talking about Alex Trebek,

but double jeopardy is saying,

hey, you can't be charged with the same crime twice.

Once you're found not guilty, it's done, it's over.

And since we've already been acquitted,

the devil can't bring these charges again.

Okay, but this is all in the spiritual realm

of heaven and hell, spiritual salvation.

When it comes to the here and now of life, okay,

then here's the thing,

repenting, getting right with God

can give you a delay on earthly consequences.

It gives you a reprieve on earthly consequences

and here's the thing, that reprieve,

don't miss this, can literally last your entire life.

You could literally go to the grave in peace

without reaping those things.

If you repent in time, get right in time, get things right,

then God could be merciful

and you get, because look at the people in the Bible,

like Ahab gets a reprieve until after he's dead.

Now he does get shot in battle and everything like that,

but at the end of the day though,

the really bad stuff doesn't happen until after he's dead.

I mean, that should show you right there

if you're smart, get right with God, serve God,

live for God, you say,

oh, I've done some really bad stuff in my past.

Well, throw yourself on the mercies of God

and try to just do as best as you can from here on out

to try to get mercy and that's what America should do

and that's what we should all do personally too.

Just try to just, hey, let's just do good from here on out,

do the best we can

and hope that God's gonna be long suffering,

that he's gonna reserve the judgment,

reserve the wrath and pour it out on somebody else

who is currently openly living in sin, not on us.

Don't take it out on us.

And you say, well, what if he takes it out on my children

or my grandchildren or whatever?

Well, here's the thing.

If the grandchild is living for God, like Josiah,

grandson's gonna be okay, Josiah's gonna be fine.

It's great grandson that's getting smoked.

Why?

Because he is wicked, that's why

and so I know that this could be somewhat

of a little bit of a complicated subject

but I hope I broke it down

and made it as simple as I possibly could

because I feel like this is such a key teaching of the Bible

and there's so many applications for us in our lives

as a nation, yes, but even in our personal lives

of just realizing, hey, when you sin and nothing happens,

hey, that's your chance to repent and get right.

God's long suffering, he's slow to anger.

Take advantage of that, make the best of that time

to get right with God.

Don't get brazen and just thinking

that you're getting away with it or whatever

and then of course, make sure you have spiritual salvation

that it's all by faith, it's through Christ

because guess what?

Reforming yourself, yeah, that doesn't last for eternity.

Turning from your evil way doesn't last for eternity.

Repenting of your sins doesn't last for eternity.

The only thing that can give you that eternal salvation

is believing in Jesus and being cleansed by his blood

through faith, that is what provides that eternal salvation.

Let's bides never order prayer.

Father, we thank you so much for your word, Lord.

Thank you for this great chapter, Nam chapter one

and Lord, help us to just apply these things

to our life and our worldview, Lord

and help us never to mistake your long suffering

for your ambivalence or ignoring or something like that,

Lord, please just help us to do right.

And Lord, if there's anyone here who's not saved,

I pray that they would get saved

before it's eternally too late.

Please allow someone to give them the gospel

and that they would be receptive to it

and Lord, just help us all to get sin out of our lives

and live the best lives that we can

and in Jesus' name we pray, amen.