We’re continuing our sermon series on the Minor Prophets
called “Who Are These Guys?” Today, we
look at the book of Nahum.
I’m guessing a lot of us did not even know there was a
book of Nahum. I can honestly say that
this is the first time I’ve ever preached on the book of Nahum. It may be the first time in the history of
this church that anybody ever preached on the book of Nahum. If you look in the Revised Common Lectionary,
which is a set of agreed-on readings for use in Christian churches, there are
zero readings from the book of Nahum.
Even the name itself sounds odd.
Nahum. Sounds like somebody just
sneezed. Naaaa….HUUUM! Gesundheit.
As happens with a lot of the Minor Prophets, we know very
little about Hahum. We’re told he was an
Elkoshite, meaning he came from a town called Elkosh. Scholars think it was in Judah
someplace. Some speculate that it may be
the town that later became known as Capernaum.
But we really don’t know. We
think this book was written somewhere around 625 B. C., but we don’t really
know that, either.
We’re told, at the very start of the book, that this is a
prophecy concerning Nineveh. If that
town of Nineveh sounds familiar to you, it should. Jonah, who we talked about a few weeks ago,
was also given a prophecy to give to the town of Nineveh.
What’s interesting about that, to me at least, is that
Jonah made his prophecy somewhere around 775 B. C. That’s about a hundred fifty years
earlier. Jonah gave Nineveh a prophecy
that God was going to destroy them. And
at that time, the people of Nineveh repented of their sins and changed their
ways. And God forgave them.
Now, it’s a hundred fifty years later. And, as I said last week, we sometimes make
the mistake of compressing that time element and not really understanding it or
thinking about it. We look at this, and
we say, well, God gave the people of Nineveh a warning and they said they’d
change. Now they’ve gone right back to
where they were. What’s wrong with those
people?
But just like we said last week, a hundred fifty years is
a long time. A hundred fifty years ago
it was 1865. The Civil War was just
ending. There’s no one around today who
was around in 1865, obviously. There are
very few people around who remember talking to anyone who was around in 1865.
The thing is that we don’t learn from the past very
well. We especially don’t learn from the
past if that past happened before we were born.
It seems like each generation of us has to learn and re-learn the same
lessons. That’s true today, and it was
true for the town of Nineveh. We don’t
really know whether Nineveh followed through with its promise to repent after
it heard Jonah’s prophecy, but if it did it did not stay on that course. A hundred fifty years later, it was back
where it had been. And Nahum was given a
prophecy from God against it.
And unlike Jonah’s prophecy, the book of Nahum does not
carry any word of another chance for Nineveh.
There’s nothing about Nineveh having a chance for forgiveness, nothing
about Nineveh having a chance to receive mercy from God, nothing about maybe,
perhaps, Nineveh could still be spared if it turned back to God. All there is in the book of Nahum is God’s
judgment and God’s vengeance and God’s wrath.
So we read stuff like, “Nineveh is pillaged, plundered,
stripped! Hearts melt, knees give way,
bodies tremble, every face grows pale.”
We read, “Woe to the city of blood, full of lies, full of plunder, never
without victims!” We read, “The fire
will consume you; the sword will cut you down—and it will devour you like a
swarm of locusts.” And not only that, we
read, “All who hear the news about you clap your hands at your fall.” In other words, not only will Nineveh be
destroyed, but the rest of the world will be happy about its destruction.
It seems to me, as I think about the message of the book
of Nahum, that there are a couple of ways we can look at it. And it’s not that these two ways are mutually
exclusive, because I don’t think they are.
As with a lot of the Bible, it’s really a matter of what we choose to
emphasize.
One way to look at it is that, at some point, we run out
of second chances. God had given Nineveh
warnings. God had sent them
prophets. God had given them all kinds
of opportunities to change. And they did
not do it, not for very long anyway.
They just went on doing all the sinful things they’d been doing. And eventually, the people of Nineveh ran out
of chances.
And that does
happen to us. God gives us all kinds of
opportunities to change. Every day,
every hour, every second, really, is an opportunity to change that God gives
us. Every day, every hour, every second,
is a chance to turn back to God and live our lives the way God wants us
to. Not perfectly, because God knows
we’re not capable of that. But to the
best of our ability.
At some point,
though, the clock runs out on us. We run
out of days. We run out of hours. We run out of seconds. At some point, our life on earth is over, and
we face God’s judgment. And at that
point, it’s too late to change. We had
our chances to change, and we either took advantage of them or we did not. What’s done is done.
That’s one way to look at it, and I think it’s
legitimate. I think everything I just
said there is true. But there’s another
way of looking at it, too.
As we read the book of Nahum, there’s one thing we do not
read. It’s true that in Nahum there’s
nothing about Nineveh having a chance for forgiveness or mercy from God, or how
Nineveh could still be spared if it turned back to God. But you know what else there’s nothing
about? There’s nothing about Nineveh
asking for any of those things. There’s
nothing about Nineveh asking God for forgiveness or mercy or another chance.
But we do read this in Nahum: “The Lord is slow to anger.” And this, “The Lord is good, a refuge in
times of trouble.” And this, “God cares
for those who trust in him.”
It’s not that God does not want to forgive us. God does want to forgive us. God has an incredible desire to forgive
us. But as we’ve said a few times now in
this sermon series, God cannot be played for a fool. When we’re not serious about changing, when
we either don’t ask for forgiveness or do ask for it but have no intention of
actually doing anything different in our lives, God knows that.
God forgives,
and God is eager to forgive. But God’s
forgiveness comes with an obligation to us to actually change and lead better
lives. Again, not perfect lives. But better lives. More giving lives. More loving lives. Lives that show our Christian faith. It’s okay if we’re really trying to do that
and we fail sometimes. But if we’re not
even trying, if we say, “Forgive me, Lord” and then just go on and do the same
things over and over again and make no effort to do anything different, well,
God knows that. And God’s forgiveness
may not come. God still wants to forgive
us, but God may not forgive us when we’re not sincere about asking for
forgiveness. The problem there is not
with God, but with us.
God’s judgment
is a part of the Bible. It may not be
the part we like to talk about a lot, but it’s still there. It’s real, and ignoring it won’t make it go
away. And we know that, for each of us,
the time to ask God for forgiveness is going to run out at some point. None of us knows when. It might be a long time from now, and for
each one of us I hope it is. But it
might not be. None of us is guaranteed
tomorrow. None of is even guaranteed
today.
But God wants
to forgive us. God has an incredible
desire to forgive us. God wanted to
forgive Nineveh. But if we don’t ask for
forgiveness, or if we do ask but are not sincere in our promise to change, God
knows that. And God’s forgiveness may
not come.
So let’s go to
God. Let’s go to God with sincere
hearts, with open hearts. Let’s not try
to hide anything from God. We know we
cannot do that, anyway. Let’s give
everything to God—our sin, our pain, our hopes, our dreams, our joys, our sorrows. All of it.
Let’s give it all to God.
It’s not
easy. It’s not easy to open ourselves up
that way. There are things about each of
us that we don’t want to admit to ourselves, much less admit them to God. But God already knows them. And deep down, we know them, too.
So let’s go to
God with sincere, open hearts. Let’s ask
God for forgiveness. Let’s ask God to
help us change. Let’s ask God to
overcome our own reluctance and our own resistance and help us change. Let’s ask God to put God’s Spirit into our
hearts. Let’s do it now, today. God is just waiting for us to. When we do, God will forgive us. And God will help us be the people God wants
us to be.
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