Joseph Shulam: Nahum - God's Wrath and Mercy

Read the transcript below, or watch a video of the teaching by Joseph Shulam.

Shalom. In our series about the minor prophets with Brad TV we have arrived to the prophet Nahum.

Nahum has only three chapters, not very long chapters. But why do I always look for two themes when I study the Bible, and especially the prophets? I'm trying to understand God how God works, what makes him happy, what makes him sad what makes him blow his top and get angry and punish sometimes awful punishments of individuals and of nations.

Nahum is a unique book, three chapters, but very unique chapters because there is no condemnation of Israel as a nation or the Jewish people as the people in the prophet Nahum. All of Nahum's prophecies are about the empires around us: the Assyrian Empire, the Babylonian Empire, Egypt all figure in Nahum's very, very strong and harsh condemnation of our big neighbors. In fact, the book starts with the words in English, New King James version, the burden against Nineveh, the book of the vision of Nahum, the Elkoshite. Burden against Nineveh. The word burden in Hebrew is "massah". You could call it the burden. You could call it campaign against Nineveh. And that's a strange beginning from all the prophets, from Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, all the prophets, a strange beginning, but right from the very beginning it tells us that the book deals with our northern neighbor, Nineveh.

But we already had couple of lessons ago the discussion on the prophet, Jonah, who also did not prophesy against Israel but against Nineveh, the same Nineveh, a huge city, beautiful city on the shores of the Euphrates River. For me, it's important that we have a prophet, an Israelite prophet called Nahum, that most of his prophecy is a condemnation of our neighbors, specifically the northern neighbors. And the word "Massah", which is translated "burden" in the New King James appears rarely, but the time that it appears that is very interesting to me is the chapter nine of the prophet Zechariah from the first verse. It reads as "the burden or the campaign of the word of God in the land and against Damesek and its rest for the eye of Adam, of men and all the tribes of Israel." And interesting, but it's a rare word, especially in this context.

So, what do we have? Very strong, very detailed condemnation describing the anger of God against Nineveh, Assyria. We're talking about the seventh century BC and the prophet starts his kind of a poem, a psalm against Nineveh. Starts from Verse Two of Chapter One of Nahum:

"God is jealous and the Lord avenges. The Lord avenges and is furious. The Lord will take vengeance on his adversaries and he reserves wrath for his enemies."

Nahum, like some of the other prophets that we've been talking about. I've never heard, I've been more than 60 years of disciple of Yeshua, preaching the gospel at least once a week, somewhere in the world in person or nowadays through Zoom, through computer, through WhatsApp, through YouTube, all over the world.

But I've never heard many sermons preach from Nahum in any church. And I've never heard, only on very rare occasions, about God being angry, being upset of what people do, what his children are doing. So upset that he is furious and he's seeking vengeance against his children who are disobeying, doing terrible things to each other, to the land, to Israel. The phrase that caught me in the beginning of Nahum is from the end of Verse Two:

"and God reserves his wrath for his enemies"

Wow. Do you realize what this says? It says that God is not quick to show his anger, his wrath against those who are his enemies. He stores it.

When I studied psychology, one of the things that the textbook said that it's damaging, it's not healthy for a person to store his anger to store his wrath because then he is going to explode in an uncontrolled, sometimes irrational fashion. It says God stored his anger for his enemies. But the next line kind of softens the issue.

"The Lord is slow to anger and great in power and will not at all acquit the wicked. The Lord has his way in the whirlwind and in the storm and the clouds and the dust, they are as dust to his feet."

All these, I would say great tools of war. The storm, the wind, the earthquake, the tornado the whirlwind, the sea. We all saw not too long ago maybe 11 years ago, 12 years ago, the great tsunami in Japan, and I visited about a year after the tsunami. I visited the region where the tsunami hit. And everything was almost as it was when the tsunami hit. The damage to the houses, piles of cars that the water washed away and dashed against each other and against buildings and against trains. Yep. God has tools that can shake up the whole earth, that can drown a city and the lava of a volcano like in Pompeii, Italy long time ago, during the Roman period toward the end of the first century AD.

Yes, these tools the prophet tells God reserves them. He reserves the wrath till it comes to a boiling point and then boom, he punishes. Boom, floods, earthquakes, tsunamis, volcanoes, plagues. Yes, we forget, we don't study the Book of Nahum because it's unpleasant. The mountains quake from him. The hills melt, the earth heaves at his presence.

"Yet the world and all who dwell in it, who can stand before his indignation and who can endure the fierceness of his anger, his fury is poured out like fire and rocks are thrown down by him."

You know, Protestant and Christian preachers don't preach this. You know why? Cause we preach only grace and love and and Mary Poppins, the God of, you know, "Sound of Music". We don't like this God that shows his wrath with the fiercest powers of nature. But immediately after that, the prophet:

"The Lord is good. A stronghold in the day of trouble. And he knows those who trust in him."

Wow. The Lord is good, is a stronghold in the days of trouble for those who trust him, that believe in him that do his will that are obedient to him.

Wow. Dear brothers and sisters, we've got both sides of the coin here. But the emphasis of Nahum is on the Lord's wrath. Yes, my dear brothers and sisters, on the Lord's wrath. And we want to forget the Lord's wrath. We want to believe in God the merciful and the wonderful, the Santa Claus God. That's the one that we want to believe in. Old man, sweet, bringing gifts, blessings, no matter how bad we are. But Nahum reminds us that God can get angry, that God can send a flood, that God can damage us our country, our land, our mountains, our oceans.

Yes, we don't wanna think about that, but it's a part of the Bible, not only of the New Testament my dear brother and sister, because the Christian paradigm has been the Old Testament. God is a God of judgment, wrath. The New Testament, God is of love grace and mercy and hallelujah. But, if you read the Book of Revelation, that same God that you read about in the Old Testament is there. The plagues, the earthquakes, the fire, the brimstone is there, and it's going to come in the seven last days.

You can call 'em the days of tribulation if you wish. But this is the Jewish doctrine in the Book of Revelation, just like it is. Same doctrine, the same teaching in rabbinical literature. A little bit contemporary and a little bit after the apostolic era. Yes. I grew up in a home. I had wonderful father, wonderful mother. My father wasn't at home a lot 'cause of his job. He traveled a lot. But when he was home, it was a holiday. It was wonderful until I would say something very wrong or offend him in, you know use curse words against him or something like that.

Then his wrath was kindled and explodes to the point that my mother had to call the neighbors to save me from my father beating me up, spanking me. God is the same way. When he is good, he is wonderful but when his anger is kindled, he's terrible. I want to read some of that, but I repeat, Chapter One from Verse One till Eight, God is terrible. Yeah. From just Chapter One, Verse One to Six is anger, is fierce. He pours out his fury like fire. The rocks are thrown down by him on us.

But Verse Seven, the prophet says, very smile, maybe, "the Lord is good, a stronghold in the days of trouble, and he knows those who trust in him." Yes, both sides, we all are double-sided. We all have our good side, our bad side. And the question is if we know how to activate and put a caption on our bad side and let our good side shine. But God looks at our hearts, looks at what we do to each other, looks at what we do to him and his holiness and he either blesses or he curses. And that aspect is very clear in Nahum.

Let me go to Verse 12 of Chapter One of Nahum that says the Lord:

"Though they are safe and likewise many, yet the manner they will be cut down when he passes through. Though I have afflicted you, I will afflict you no more. For now, I will break off his yoke from you and burst your bonds apart."

Now I'm gonna release you from your handcuffs from your leg cuffs. I'm gonna release you from your bondage, from your imprisonment. Oh wow. There was a verses earlier in which his anger over our evil and our wickedness was so strong it was ready to destroy us, delete us.

But then comes the salami inside the sandwich. I will not afflict you anymore. Yes. Though I have afflicted you, that affliction will have an end because now I'm going to release you. I wanna break off your yoke. I'm gonna burst open your bonds, your handcuffs, your legcuffs. Why? Verse Four: "The Lord has given a command concerning you. Your enemy shall be perpetuated no longer out of the house of your gods. I will cut off the carved image and the molded image and I will dig your grave. And you are vile."

He's talking to the enemies here, the idolatrous enemies that consistently tried to infect and sometimes succeeded to infect Israel with idolatry, with debauchery, with immorality, with hate. Yeah. But God who scatters, God, who brings back, the God, who has a rod in his hand to punish has the blood of Yeshua to save. The blood of Yeshua is not mentioned here. Yeah, in the prophet, but I'm looking at the full picture because I'm reading now from Chapter Two.

"The shields of his mighty men are made red and the violent men are in scarlet.
And the chariots came flaming with flaming torches in the day of preparation. And spears are brandished and the chariots rage in the streets, jostle one another in the broad roads, it seems like torches. They ran like lightning."

This is the description of God's powers as he deploys these powers as an instrument of education for his children. Yes, we are witnesses of wars in the 20th century. I was born in 1946, so I've seen seven wars in the land of Israel, personally experienced them as a child and as adult.

And praise God, I can say this, our enemy was furious and attacked us and threatened us. But the mercy of God in the end overturned the enemy, and we were victorious. The Six-Day War is a war that every military school, college, university course analyzes. It's miraculous. It was the hand of God in it. The Yom Kippur War in 1976 was horrible, but, in the end, God came through and gave us the victory over Egypt and Syria and Jordan. Yes, we need to know that there are two sides to God.

The one that says to Nineveh, the great city:

"Destruction, the end of its treasures. She will be empty, desolate, and a waste. The heart melts and the knees shake. Much pain is in every side and all their faces are drained of color."

That's how he describes what's going to happen to Nineveh. And, in fact, Nineveh now is in ruins. There is Iraqi city there not far, but the ruins of Nineveh are there, witnesses that whatever the prophet Nahum spoke thousands of years ago became a reality. God keeps his promises.

And in this, I want to end our study in Nahum. It's not easy reading, but it's important for us to remember that God has a side of light, mercy, love, appreciation, support, salvation. A wonderful side for his children, for his faithful, for those who walk with him. But he has the other side as well, which is strong, powerful, punishing, using the forces of nature to punish, to drown, to destroy, to teach us that his world and we, his children, are not vaccinated against sin. And if we do sin, we are gonna pay for it.

Our people, our cities, our nations are gonna pay for it. But because God has promised so many times that Israel will be saved, both in the prophets of the Old Testament and in Paul's letter to the Romans, and we have the Book of Revelation, then I have confidence. And my prayer is for myself, for my family, for Netivyah is that we will do our best to be faithful, to do the will of God, that our hands will be clean and our hearts will be cleansed and circumcised by the Lord's love and mercy. And our gifts will be acceptable before the Lord.

In Yeshua's name, I bless you. Keep studying and read these books.