Nahum 3:4-6

God does not give His people freedom to sin. All of His creation is subject to Him and He will especially discipline those He loves. Even though God used Assyria to punish His people, Assyria did not escape judgement. Ultimately how we treat others is how we will be treated. God sent messengers to Nineveh to repent of the repression and destruction they brought about but they ignored them.....it is a dangerous thing to be brought under the judgement of Almighty God. We must be careful that the seductiveness of money and the power that comes with it does not become our stronghold individually or as a nation. The work of the Christian like the messengers of the Old Testament is to save lives, through the goodness of the Father in Christ Jesus and the power of the Holy Spirit, by giving others the Good News of salvation.

The Lord would publicly humiliate Nineveh.

Nahum

Historical Context • The people of the northern kingdom of Israel had been sinning grievously against God and ignoring the warnings of punishment given through God’s prophets. Finally God used the nation of Assyria, with its capital city in Nineveh, to destroy the nation and carry the people into captivity. A century after the fall of Samaria in 722 b.c., the Book of Nahum was written to express a major truth of the prophets. Even when God uses a nation for His own purposes of judgment, this does not excuse that nation from its own guilt before the Lord. It was Nineveh’s turn to feel the wrath of God. The last great emperor of Assyria was Ashurbanipal (669–627 b.c.). After his death, the nation did not last much longer, for the Lord was against it.

In many ways, the Book of Nahum is a theology of the maxim of the sword. Nineveh had an international reputation for bloodthirsty acts of repression, destruction, and wantonness. God could not be good if He failed to call such an evil nation to account. The theology of the Book of Nahum is a theology of the goodness of God in bringing about the final destruction of those who oppose His will and abuse His people.

The seriousness of coming judgment is never a call for complacency among God’s people. Implicit in any announcement of doom is a call for holy living on the part of God’s people and an urgent call for them to bring the message of salvation to those who, apart from salvation, will experience the wrath of God. Judgment is God’s “unusual act”, but it ultimately arises out of the goodness and justice of God.

Nahum himself is a type of Christ. His name means “comfort,” yet this one called a comforter does not offer soft love. Nahum, like Jesus, expects responsible action on the part of those who are loved by God. Such action is a way to prove that they acknowledge His love.
Because Nahum’s name means “comfort,” it is legitimate to say he pictures the Holy Spirit’s subsequent ministry of instruction and comfort that Jesus promised His followers. Jesus promised that the Holy Spirit “will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all things that I said to you”. But sadly, similar to the rejection Jesus faced at the hand of the scribes and Pharisees, the Ninevites do not act on what Nahum teaches them.

Nahum 3:4-6

⁴ Because of the multitude of harlotries of the seductive harlot, 
The mistress of sorceries, 
Who sells nations through her harlotries, 
And families through her sorceries. 
⁵ “Behold, I am against you,” says the Lord of hosts; 
“I will lift your skirts over your face, 
I will show the nations your nakedness, 
And the kingdoms your shame. 
⁶ I will cast abominable filth upon you, 
Make you vile, 
And make you a spectacle.