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 30th, 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.
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