A jealous and avenging God is the LORD; the LORD is avenging and wrathful. The LORD takes vengeance on His adversaries and He reserves wrath for His enemies. The LORD is slow to anger and great in power, and the LORD will by no means leave the guilty unpunished.   Nahum 1:1-3 HCSB

I have never read or studied any scripture from the book of Nahum that I can recall. If you are looking for something sweet and uplifting, you won’t find it here. Nahum is one of the minor prophets and there is not a lot known about him except that his name means “consolation”. Nahum’s message was against Nineveh. You may recall that God told the prophet Jonah, “Arise, go to Nineveh, the great city and cry against it, for their wickedness has come up before Me.” But Jonah didn’t want to do this because he felt that Nineveh was too far gone, so he fled to Tarshish and from there got onto a ship. God was so angry at Jonah for his disobedience that he brought a great storm upon the water and Jonah went overboard to save the rest of the ship’s passengers. He was then swallowed by the whale. Now after that experience he obeyed God and went to Nineveh. The people there fasted and repented and turned from their evil ways. God had been angry with them and had promised to bring calamity on this great city, but when they turned from their wicked ways, he relented (Jonah 1-3). But that wasn’t the end of the story, because the great city of Nineveh eventually went back to their evil ways. So by the time we get to the book of Nahum, God is declaring their captivity and destruction.

You see when we read about God’s mercy and His grace and how much he loves us unconditionally, it’s easy to come to think that we’ve got God wrapped around our little finger and no matter what we do, He will just overlook it. But my friend, I beg of you today to understand that we serve an awesome God. He is awesome in power and He does love us unconditionally, but He is also a God of justice. He is also a God of great wrath. Please don’t ever be tricked into believing that He will not punish bad behavior. The Ten Commandments are not the ten suggestions, they are rules that we are to live by. God didn’t give these commandments to Moses so that we could pick and choose which one we would obey. He intended for us to obey all of His commandments. He intends for us to love Him as much as He loves us and to bring Him honor and glory and praise.

But if we fail to do this, we will suffer His wrath. What is going on in our world today, Dr. Tony Evans describes as God’s passive wrath. The question is asked in Nahum 1:6, “Who can stand before His indignation? Who can endure the burning of His anger?” Nahum goes on to say that the LORD is good and knows those who take refuge in Him, but he will bring destruction on its site and will pursue His enemies into darkness.

In James 4:4 we are told that loving the world is enmity with God. The world is the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes and the vainglory of life. We never want to become an enemy to God. But know that it can happen, we are either for Him or we are against Him (Luke 11:23) there is no middle ground.

In Genesis 6:5-6 we are told that God saw that there was great wickedness in the people on earth and was sorry that He had created man to live on the earth. This is when He had Noah build the ark so that He could spare the only righteous family he could find during that time.

I want you to understand that our sin does not go unpunished. We serve a mighty God. His wrath is something that we cannot withstand. I ask you today to look deep inside your heart and examine yourself. Do your words bring glory to God and witness to the lost? Do your actions honor God? We live in a fallen world. But we must not talk and look like the world. The Bible assures us that we will be taken up in the rapture and will not endure the tribulation, but we are already enduring some very difficult times. I have a feeling that what we are seeing now is nothing compared to what is coming our way. Now is the time to get right with God. Now is the time to surrender to Him.

Throughout the Bible we see that God completely destroys cities and people who disobey Him, but we see that He brings forth good for those that honor Him. A prime example of this is Joseph whose brothers sold him into slavery, but God brought him up to be second in command of all of Egypt. Daniel was taken into slavery, but God gave him favor with the king and he was placed in a high position within the government of Babylon. Esther was taken into slavery as a young girl, but wound up being queen.

God is angry, we are seeing His wrath all around us. Don’t allow yourself to be destroyed with the wicked, turn to God today. Repent and turn from your evil ways. Ask God to relent in the wrath He is showing here. 2 Chronicles 7:14 tells us that if we will humble ourselves and seek Him and pray to Him that He will heal our land. Won’t you do that today?

Have a great weekend!