Grasping God's Wrath

I've been calling the Summer of the Short Books the

Summer of the short Books. So you heard from First John,

we've heard from Fi Lehman, and this morning Nahem Nahem.

If you've found it by now, you'll notice it has

three short chapters. It is a book named Comfort by

a guy named Comfort, that's all about God's wrath, even

celebrating I think it would be fair to say celebrating

the wrath of God. How does that work? Well, that's

what we want to get into this morning. That's why

I've titled this morning sermon Grasping God's Wrath. Maybe maybe

better titled starting to grasp God's Wrath.

I don't think we ever.

Like get to the bottom of it, like, oh, I've

got God's wrath figured out.

But we want to start.

We want to get at grasping God's wrath. I think

that if you're here this morning and you're not a Christian,

you probably have a wide spectrum of feelings about God's wrath.

Most non Christians do.

They go from kind of like nervously curious about God's

wrath all the way to probably infuriated by what the Bible.

Says about God's wrath.

And as believers, I would say, we tend to just

be embarrassed.

We tend to I'm not saying you are.

But what I've noticed over the course of my time

as a Christian with Christians is that believers tend to

be just a little bit you know, you know.

Otherwise, God is a great guy, but.

He's got this wrath, and that would be a complete mistake.

It would mean that we don't quite grasp God's wrath

and its goodness.

And my aim here this morning.

Is that we would deepen in our appreciation our grasp

of the wrath of God. Sound like a modest task.

Let me start with this, and then when I get

to the end of.

My introduction, we're gonna read the whole thing.

Okay, we're gonna read all three chapters, but I want

to start with this. I think one of the best

ways to just start appreciating the wrath of God is

by watching.

Like Liam Neeson movies.

You know, the movie Taken, where this guy's daughter is

kidnapped and he you know, he's on the phone with

the kidnappers.

Everybody's heard like, I've got.

A certain set of special skills, and I will find you,

and I will hunt you down.

There are a ton of movies like this. If you

haven't seen that one, that's fine, you've seen something like this.

I watched one not long ago, I think maybe this week,

maybe last week. It was much less well acted, but

it was about human trafficking and the hero, the protagonist,

eventually infiltrates the den of these brutalizers that are kidnapping

and trafficking and young women, and.

Bullets fly and there is blood.

And at no point in the audience, even if it

was you would you be like, I don't know about this. Instead,

your response to the wrath that you see on that screen,

because of the way the movie has framed up the

purity of the hero and the patience of the hero,

and the brutality and the cruelty of the bad guys

is your response is.

Get them.

If you get that sense of moral equation, you start

to grasp God's wrath. This morning, as we look at

what helps us deep in our appreciation of God's wrath,

I want us to just look at five aspects, briefly,

five aspects of God's wrath from Nahem that will help

us appreciate.

The goodness of God's wrath. Here are the five aspects.

I'll give them to you ahead of time, because when

we stand to read them, I'd love for you to

be looking for them while we read. God's wrath is

number one his, it's his. Number two, it's fitting. Number three,

it's comforting. Number four it's not simplistic. And number five

it's unfailing. I'll go through those again. I see you

scribbling them down. I don't want to frustrate you. Here

we go. God's wrath is number one his, it's his,

it is fitting, it is comforting, it's not simplistic, and

it is unfailing. Now we're gonna stand and read the

Book of Nahem altogether. I'd love for you to be

looking for those aspects of his wrath while we read.

Fair warning, it's kind of like a John Wick movie.

It's bloody. Are you ready an oracle concerning Nineveh? Huh?

Maybe we know what that. Maybe we've heard of that

city before. The Book of the Vision of Nahem of Elkosh.

The Lord is a jealous and avenging god. The Lord

is avenging and wrathful. The Lord takes vengeance on his

adversaries and keeps wrath for his enemies. Okay, we know

what this is about. The Lord is slow to anger

and great in power. And the Lord will by no

means clear the guilty. His way is in whirlwind and storm,

and the clouds are the dusts of his feet. He

rebukes the sea and makes it dry. He dries up

all the rivers, BATIONI and caramel wither. The bloom of

Lebanon withers. The mountains quake before him, the hills melt,

the earth. Heaves before him the world and all who

dwell in it. Who can stand before his indignation, who

can endure the heat of his anger? His wrath is

poured out like fire, and the rocks are broken into

pieces by him.

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.

What do you plot against the Lord? He will make

a complete end. Trouble will not rise up a second time.

For they are like entangled thorns, like drunkards. As they drink,

they are consumed like stubble, fully dried from from you.

Came one who plotted evil against the Lord, a worthless counselor.

Thus says the Lord. Though they are at full strengthen

many they will be cut down and pass away. Though

I have afflicted you, I will afflict you no more.

And now I will break his yoke from off you,

and will burst your bonds apart. The Lord has given

commandment about you. No more shall your name be perpetuated

from the house of your gods.

I will cut off the carved image and the metal image.

I will make your grave, for you are vile, speaking

about one of the cruelest, most wicked, and brutal empires

that the world has ever seen. Behold upon the mountains

the feet of him who brings good.

News, who publishes peace.

Keep your feasts, so Judah, fulfill your vows, for never

again shall the worthless pass through you.

He is utterly cut off.

The scatterer has come up against you. Man the ramparts,

watch the road, dress for battle. Collect all your strength,

for the Lord is restoring the majesty of Jacob as

the majesty of Israel. For plunderers have plundered them and

ruined their branches.

The shield of his mighty men is read. His soldiers

are clothed in scarlet.

The chariots come with flashing metal on the day he

musters them. The cypress spears are brandished. The chariots raise

madly through the streets. They rush to and fro through

the squares. They gleam like torches. They dart like lightning.

He remembers his officers as they stumble. As they go,

they hasten to the wall. The siege shower is set up,

the river gates.

Are opened, and the palace melts away. It's mistress's strip.

She's carried off her slave girls, lamenting, moaning like doves,

and beating their breasts.

Nineveh's like a.

Pool whose waters run away. Halt they cry, but none

turns back. Plunder the silver, plunder the gold. There is

no end to the treasure or the wealth of all

precious things. Desolate, desolation and ruin. Hearts melt, and knees tremble.

Anguish is in all loins, all faces grow pale. Where

is the lion's den, the feeding place of the young lion?

With the lion and lioness went where his cubs were,

with none to disturb. The lion tore enough for his

cubs and strangled prey for his lionesses. He filled his

caves with prey and his dens with torn flesh. Behold,

I am against you, declares the Lord of Hosts. I

will burn your chariots and smoke, and the sword shall

devour your young lions. I will cut off your prey

from the earth, and the voice of your messengers shall

no longer be heard. Woe to the bloody city, all

full of lies and plunder, No end.

To the prey.

The crack of the whip, the rumble of the wheel,

galloping horse and bounding chariot, horsemen charging flashing sword, glittering spear,

hosts of slain, heaps of corpses, dead bodies, without end.

They stumble over the bodies.

I told you this is like a john Wick montage,

all for the countless hoarings of the prostitute, graceful and

of deadly charms, who betrays nations with her hoarrings and

peoples with her charms. Bel I am against you, declares

the Lord of Hosts.

I will lift up your skirts over your face.

I will make your make nations look at your nakedness,

and kingdoms at your shame. I'll throw filth at you,

and treat you with contempt, and make you a spectacle.

And all who look at you will shrink from you

and say, wasted is Nineveh? Who will grieve for her?

Where will you? Where shall I seek comforters? For you?

Are you better than thebes that sat by the nile?

With water around her? Her rampart a sea of water,

her wall cush was her strength.

Egypt too, and that without limit. Put and the.

Libyans were her helpers. Yet she became an exile, She

went into captivity. Her infants were dashed in pieces at

the head of every street. For her honored men were lots,

were casts, and all her great men were bound in chains.

You also will be drunken. You will go into hiding.

You will seek a refuge from the enemy. All your

fortresses fortresses are like fig trees with first ripe figs.

If shaken, they fall into the mouth of the eater. Behold,

your troops are women in your midst. The gates of

your land are wide open to your enemies. Fire has

devoured your bars. Draw water for the siege. Strengthen your forts.

Go into the clay, tread the mortar, take out, take

hold of the brick mold there will.

The fire will devour you. The sword will cut you off.

It will devour you. Like the locusts.

Multiply yourself like the locusts. Multiply like the grasshoppers. You

increase your merchants more than the stars of the heavens.

The locusts spread its wings and flies away. Your princes

are like grasshoppers. Your scribes are like clouds of locusts,

settling on the fences in a day of cold. When

the sun rises, they fly away. No one knows where

they are. Your shepherds are asleep, King of Assyria, your

nobles slumber. Your people's are scattered on the mountains, with

none to gather them.

There is no easing your hurt. Your wound is grievous.

All who hear the news about you clap their hands

over you. For upon whom has not come your unceasing evil.

This is the word of the Lord. Thank you, you

may be seated.

Told you so what aspects of God's wrath?

Help us, help us to deepen our appreciation of it.

That the purpose of this book was. It was written

to Israel and Judah and the people of to express

the coming wrath of God against the most brutal, evil,

twisted empire that they had seen, and it was to

deepen their appreciation of what who God is and what

he will do and and similarly it should deepen our

appreciation of God's wrath as well. However, there is a

vast difference between our culture and theirs, our experiences and theirs,

and so that's the challenge of Nahum for us is

just just to bridge that gap of historical context. Figure

out how to do that. I think we'll focus on

these five aspects. First of all, what helps deepen our

appreciative appreciation of God's wrath. Here's the first aspect God's

wrath is. We need to understand this his God's wrath

is his. In other words, God's wrath is not disconnected

from his other attributes and his other actions and moral character.

God is ole God.

And his wrath belongs to him along with his loving

kindness and mercy and patience. In fact, very first couple

of verses here when it says the Lord is a

jealous and avenge in God, the Lord is avenging and wrathful,

takes vengeance.

On his adversaries. He says the Lord is slow.

To anger, and great in power, and will by no

means clear the guilty. Okay, that is that's a message

all by itself.

That is a clue about what's going on here.

Let me see if I can cluse in Nahem, the

book of Naem is the sequel to the book of Jonah.

Nahem is the sequel to Jonah.

If you remember the book of Jonah, it's Jonah is

about five or six generations removed from this earlier than

this Assyria Nineveh, their capital is already brutal, wicked, twisted

and cruel.

And God says, go preach to Jonah. He says, says

to Jonah, go preach.

And Jonah doesn't want to because he's afraid that Ninevah

will repent and God will be merciful. And what God,

what Jonah wants to see happen is this.

So Jonah, you know, he goes on the run, you

know that story. He God.

Taxes him back to his assignment, and Jonah then preaches.

He got walks into Nineve. He preaches probably the worst

sermon that's ever been preached.

Forty days and nine of U's getting flipped.

That's his whole message, right, And what happens is Nineveh repents.

Ninevah does get flipped.

It gets flipped in repentance, and the king of Nineveh says,

who knows God might be merciful to us? We must repent,

and he declares repentance across the land. Even the cows

are wearing sackcloth. And Nineveh repents and God shows mercy,

and Jonah is ticked.

You know the story, generations pass.

Six generations, which sounds like a lot, but it's just

like my grandfather's grandfather. It's a couple of living memories, right.

And over the course of that time, Nineveh went from

repentant and receiving God's mercy to worse and worse and worse,

till they reached the height of both.

Their power and their cruelty.

And the sequel to Jonah comes and it's Nahem, and

Nahem shows up metaphorically, he doesn't go to the gates

of Nineveh, but Naeim shows up and says it is

time Jonah's complaint. Jonah's complaint was about the character of God,

straight out of Exodus thirty four.

I knew you were a gracious.

God, full of steadfast love and mercy, showing compassion. Jonah

leaves off the other part of that statement from Exodus

thirty four, which is, but I will know by no

means clear the guilty. Nahem picks up where Jonah left off.

This is who I am. I am steadfast, and I

am full of steadfast love. I am merciful, I am compassionate.

But I will by no means clear the guilty. And

your time is now up. And who I am will

not stand for this anymore, says verse thirteen of chapter two,

and verse five of chapter three. I am against you,

says the Lord of Ho. I am against you. God

is against you. In the movies we watch like taking

these others. I did a little research. It's amazing how

many movies are just like that. I mean, it's kind

of an old formula, something very morally like important about.

Justice.

But they always take pains. These movies always take pains

to show just how patient the hero is. Right, man,

don't push my buttons, the hero says.

Man, I don't want to do this.

Man, if you would just cooperate and do right, I

wouldn't have to come in there and break your femur.

Right does that all sound familiar? I don't know. How

many these movies you've seen.

Why because otherwise it wouldn't be right. God's wrath is his,

which is to say, it is not disconnected from the perfect, patient,

merciful character of God.

Part of deepening.

Our appreciation for the wrath of God is not avoiding

the parts of divorcing the parts of God's character from

each other, or avoiding what scripture says.

About God's character. It's actually getting to know him.

If we get to know him better, we will more

deeply appreciate.

His wrath because it's not divorced from his character.

So when we do things like oh, that's Old Testament

stuff versus New Testament stuff, or or that's you know,

God the Father stuff, not God the Son's stuff, we're

making a huge mistake. God and his promises and his

actions and his character are whole. So I would just

I would encourage you, believers, don't be quick. Don't be

quick to gloss over or dismiss those things that you

look at in scripture and.

You're like, I don't understand that about God.

Sit under them, study a little bit with an open mind, prayerfully,

patiently deepen in your understanding of who He is. If

you're not a believer. Here, I would just say, you know,

this is one of the things that I think non

Christians are the quickest to judge, which is ironic.

To be quick to judge God's judgment.

Wouldn't it be much wiser to, with an open mind,

sit under the wisdom that the scriptures have about who

God is and why his wrath is his. Get to

know him prayerfully in his word, and it will deepen

your appreciation of his wrath. Well, that's one aspect. What

else helpens helps helps deepen our appreciation of God's wrath.

We're gonna have to move faster. Here's aspect number two.

God's wrath is not just his. God's wrath is fitting.

It is fitting, it's right.

It's just as it says in verse three of chapter one,

I will by no means clear the guilty. As it

says in verse fourteen of chapter one, you are vile,

Probably one of my favorite words in the whole book.

You're vile, Chapter three, verse one, whoa you? The bloody

city full of lies and plunder.

Right, just like just like in the movies, how they

show the patience of the hero so that we understand

the moral equation. There, they also show what the vileness

of the bad guys, just how cruel, just how wanton,

just how brutal, so that when the wrath comes in

the movie, we clap because there's a moral calculus there.

And here's the thing. Hollywood does a great job of that.

Often, scripture sometimes shows the vileness of the people that

they're dealing with. Sometimes the scripture just asks you to

familiarize yourself with the vileness of sin so that you

will understand what's happening.

Right.

Sometimes scripture is asking you to familiarize, to grasp the

vileness sin and its consequences so that.

You can appreciate God's judgment right as it says in

verse the very very last verse of the whole.

Book, upon whom has not come your unceasing evil. So

one of the ways that we deepen our appreciation of

God's wrath is by starting to grasp the vileness of sin.

Don't resist this. Grasp the pain.

Of adultery, and you will start to grasp God's wrath

against adultery. Start to grasp the disorder that's caused by greed,

and you will start to grasp God's wrath against greed.

The corruption of dishonesty, the destruction of gossip, the stupidity

of pride.

We start deepening our appreciative of.

God's wrath and we see how fitting it is against

vile sin. Don't resist grasping the vileness of sin. It

will make so much more in scripture and life makes sense.

Here's the third aspect. What else helps deepen our appreciation

of God's wrath?

Not only is it his? Not only is it fitting,

it's comforting. Aspect number three.

God's wrath is comforting. It's comforting when you're a victim.

It's comforting when you're oppressed, when the cartel gets machine

gunned out of your village. You're not comforted if you're

the cartel, but you're comforted if you're the villagers.

It's comforting.

Says in verse thirteen of chapter one, I will break

his yoke from off you. I will burst your bonds apart.

He's saying that to Judah and Israel that people love

saying good news Verse fifteen good news. You might be

familiar with this scriptural term. Right behold upon the mountains

the feet of him who brings good news. What's the

good news that's being brought.

Bullets and blood.

It's comforting to those who will only be freed, will

only be out from underneath oppression, will only stop being

victims when God brings the bullets and blood.

We deepen in our appreciation God's wrath.

Only grasp the perspective of actual victims of sin and oppression.

Which is not to say rush for a false victim mentality.

There's plenty said and written about that these days. Avoid

a victim mentality, but also don't avoid seeing real hurt

and taking up the cause of the wronged. God says

you'll be blessed when you do. He says, learn to

do good, seek justice, correct oppression, bring justice to the fatherless,

plead the willow's widow's cause. You will so much better

grasp and even be comforted by His wrath against wrongdoers

and those who take advantage of the week if you

see what's happening to them. That's aspect number three. God's

wrath is actually comforting. Aspect number four, God's wrath is

not simplistic. God's wrath is not simplistic. What I mean

by that is that God understands complicity. He comes against

whole kingdoms and whole systems. You know, there were a

lot of different people that it required to stand up

the cruel Empire of Assyria. It wasn't just one cruel

dude or a handful of cruel people, and everybody else

was sort of like just innocently going along. Now that

they're soldiers and officers and lawyers and princes were like grasshoppers,

it says, there were so many of them, and merchants

also lying, cheating merchants.

In other words, sin and oppression.

Has involves people in its system, It involves people in

its kingdom. There has to be complicity in order to

stand up most oppression and wrongdoing.

Right, in order for.

There to be the guy who kidnaps the girl, there

has to be someone who will trade her. In order

for those two guys to operate, there has to be

someone who's willing to turn a blind eye. There has

to be someone who funds the whole thing. And at

the very end of the line, there has to be

those who are willing to watch pornography. To stand up

the whole system, that's where all the money comes from.

There's a whole system and a kingdom of complicity when

it comes to sin and oppression.

And what we see is that.

This entire kingdom, this entire kingdom receives the wrath and

judgment of God, from the princes all the way down

to what it calls the lion Cubs says verse say,

Chapter two, verse three and four, right, saying, you got

soldiers are clothed in scarlet. You've got masses of soldiers.

The chariots come with flashing metal. Right, you got officers,

you got princes, you got scribes like grasshoppers in chapter three.

All I think kind of centering on this idea that

you see in verses eleven, twelve, and thirteen from chapter two,

The Lion's Den and his Cubs, Right, it's it's those

who have learned to become the most brutal, the most cruel,

and those who feed off of it.

Consider carefully. Let me just put it this way.

Consider carefully what kingdoms you operate in, what systems you

participate in.

And support. God's wrath is not just against.

The most brutal and the most cruel and the most degrading.

It is also against those who turn to blind eye.

It is also.

Against those who are complicit in the entire system of

sin and degradation. Consider carefully what kingdoms you traffic in.

God's wrath is not simplistic. He understands complicity even better

than we. Last aspect, aspect number five, How are we

going to deepen our appreciation of God's wrath? We should

understand that God's wrath is unfailing. Number five.

It's unfailing.

That's probably the most expressed aspect throughout this entire prophecy.

It's astonishingly unfailing, calling an overwhelming flood verse three through

six of chapter one. Right, God is in the whirlwind,

He drives seas, he melts hills. He asks the question

who can stand? And then you've got this whole montage

of desolation. That's my word for it, the montage of

desolation throughout chapter two and on.

There's red everywhere, there's metal everywhere. The whole city is

running away like a pool. There's the crack of.

The wheel and the rumble and the heaps of bodies.

It is like it is like a John Wick movie.

This is just what I see is just kind of

going through the hallways heaping them up.

Boom boom boom boom boom boom boom boom.

Boom, it's overwhelming. And the thing about every hero in

those movies, they don't fail. That's the promise of the movie, right,

promise of the movie is You're gonna see justice done

and he won't fail.

Why do those movies work.

Because the moral, that moral calculation is woven into the

soul of every human being by God himself. Because you

will see justice and I won't fail, we will deepen

in our appreciation of God's wrath when we see that

God's wrath is unfailing.

But here's the thing. Our hearts resist seeing.

His unfailing wrath unless we are sure of refuge. Unless

we are sure of refuge against the overwhelming flood, we

resist even looking at it.

Maybe that's why we get some.

Embarrassed from time to time as we forget our gospel refuge.

Like it says in Chapter one, verse seven. Buried right

at the beginning of this whole cinematic display of God's

wrath is this verse verse seven of Chapter one. The

Lord is good, a stronghold in the day of trouble.

He knows those who take refuge.

In him, and he has given us this way to

take refuge in him, faith in his cross, faith in.

His cross, the place where justice.

And mercy, where wrath and compassion meet so vividly, justice,

death to sin, judgment for wrongdoing, the vileness of sin

on display, and mercy taking it on behalf of all

who would trust in him and put their lives in

his hands and receive, just like we're saying, all sufficient merit.

To be refuged by him.

You want to deepen in your appreciation of God's wrath,

You wanna make sense.

Of what you find in scripture.

Consider his willingness to take that wrath on your behalf.

He himself is the only refuge to the overwhelming flood

of his wrath.

Just himself, just Jesus.

Put your life in his hands, because his wrath is his.

It is fitting, discomforting, it's not simplistic, it's unfailing. And

I would add this, it's taken. His wrath is taken.

For those who seek his refuge in the cross, who.

Run into his sacrifice, they place their lives in his hands,

and they say, I am going to be one of yours.

I reject the kingdom of sin and oppression, and I

embrace your kingdom and your kingship. I want your refuge

and the Lord, What does it say, Lord knows those.

Who seek refuge in him, The Lord knows.

Would you stand with me all over this place and pray?

Heavenly Father, we come to you this morning, and we

asked that you would continue to deepen our understanding of you.

Of you, not just theological concepts, not just biblical puzzles

or events. Lord, we want you to deepen our understanding

of you, because.

You are worthy of all praise.

If we understand you better, we won't come away praising

you less. We'll come away praising you more so in

those places where we are puzzled, where we are, where we.

Pause, where even we can admit.

We might be embarrassed about some aspect of your character

or your.

Plan.

Help us to understand deepen our appreciation that we would

go from confused or even embarrassed, that we would go

from that to praising, to proclaiming, to announcing and even

celebrating all that you are in Jesus name.

Amen, let's sink