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 chapter 21,
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,
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.
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.
But while you're turning to Genesis chapter 15,
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
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.
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.