Nahum 3:8-19 (Part 3)

8 Are you better than Thebes that sat by the Nile, with water around her, her rampart a sea, and water her wall? 9 Cush was her strength; Egypt too, and that without limit; Put and the Libyans were her helpers. 10 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 lots were cast, and all her great men were bound in chains. 11 You also will be drunken; you will go into hiding; you will seek a refuge from the enemy. 12 All your fortresses are like fig trees with first-ripe figs—if shaken they fall into the mouth of the eater. 13 Behold, your troops are women in your midst. The gates of your land are wide open to your enemies; fire has devoured your bars. 14 Draw water for the siege; strengthen your forts; go into the clay; tread the mortar; take hold of the brick mold! 15 There will the fire devour you; the sword will cut you off. It will devour you like the locust. Multiply yourselves like the locust; multiply like the grasshopper! 16 You increased your merchants more than the stars of the heavens. The locust spreads its wings and flies away. 17 Your princes are like grasshoppers, your scribes 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. 18 Your shepherds are asleep, O king of Assyria; your nobles slumber. Your people are scattered on the mountains with none to gather them. 19 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?

Let’s ask a crucial question: How is the foregoing message a representation of the Gospel? Nahum 1:15 as quoted by Paul in Romans 10, call is euanggelion, i.e., the Gospel. This is why I have repeatedly read Christ’s statements in Luke 24. We have it on no less authority than Christ’s own that all of Scripture regards Him. Hence we are misreading this book if we read it in a way that is not Christocentric.

Next week we will do a devotional survey of each chapter individually. Then on the 30^th, I’d like to wrap this semester up by defending our method. In other words, I want to consider why we must read and exegete Scripture in a covenantal and Christocentric way – and why any other way is both deficient and erroneous. But before we get side-tracked let’s get back to the subject at hand and just consider two final thoughts.

Looking over this passage as a whole we see two important lessons:

I. Nineveh already had examples of nations who had behaved as she had and were no longer in existence.

II. Confidence placed in anything or anyone but God is ill-placed trust.

            A. Nineveh trusted their own strength

            B. Nineveh trusted their natural defenses

            C. Nineveh trusted their great population

            D. Nineveh trusted their great walls and gates

            E. Nineveh trusted their kings and princes

            F. Nineveh trusted their ability to recover

            G. Nineveh trusted their false gods.