God's Nature vs Man's Nature
Nahum 1:2-3
"The Lord is a jealous and avenging God;
the Lord takes vengeance
and is fierce in wrath.
The Lord takes vengeance against his foes;
he is furious with his enemies.
The Lord is slow to anger but great in power;
the Lord will never leave the guilty unpunished."
Never let some biblical scholar tell you that we cannot know God's mind. Everything we know about God is known in human terms, and God intended it that way. In fact we cannot know him in any other way. That's just obvious. God has spent millennia making himself known under our terms.
So what do we know?
God is a jealous god, and mankind is a jealous people. God works out his vengeance upon his enemies, and mankind is an animal of war and very easily stirred up into vengeance. God is slow to anger, and mankind isn't, but anger is something mankind knows very well. We know God will never leave the guilty unpunished, but mankind is not always just in his judgements and his punishments.
And so we see in these prophetic words from Nahum the nature of God in terms mankind can easily make sense of. But Nahum says one thing about God that humanity can never fully understand...
Nahum 1:7
"The Lord is good..."
And proud men say:
"If God is good, why...?"
And isn't this characteristic of God that which is at the heart of every agnostic or atheistic belief about God in the context of the state of things in the world. Haven't you heard a thousand times the Antichrist people railing on in their nearsightedness about the horrible conditions humanity must experience day by day. They're forever joining with the spirit of Satan accusing God of not having a true love for his people based upon all the suffering and pain they see.
They see mankind's unkindness, mankind's warring ways, mankind's evil and wicked intentions in all that they do, and they accuse God for all of it because he created these creatures. Foolish foolish man. Not a one is good, everyone is wicked. And it's all God's fault as far as these fools are concerned.
"But man, proud man,
Dress'd in a little brief authority,
Most ignorant of what he's most assur'd—
His glassy essence—like an angry ape
Plays such fantastic tricks before high heaven
As makes the angels weep; who, with our spleens,
Would all themselves laugh mortal."
- William Shakespeare, Measure for Measure
These foolish people think themselves wise, but they're merely slaves educated by Satan. They are the product of the idols they feed.
1 Corinthians 8:1
"...we know that we all have knowledge. Knowledge makes one conceited, but love edifies people."
They're shortsighted because Satan keeps them blinded to the spiritual truth. And because God is good, in His holiness and righteousness, he has had enough of the ungodly men and their brutality. And God determines to pour out his judgment, not on a whim or in vindictiveness, those are human characteristics, but on the fact that sin is evil and vicious, fully deserving punishment. He determines this because he's a just God. And in his justice, God convenes his court, and he matches the judgment he pours out on the sinners, with redemption for his faithful followers. That's God's justice. Mankind does not have this sort of justice in his heart. Justice for mankind is really vengeance alone. Mankind can only know redemption by knowing God. Redemption is not a human characteristic. Only the love of God in the hearts and minds of the man creature can edify that being into knowing about redemption.
This is why God had to come in the person of Jesus. Only he could instruct and inspire his creation into knowledge about redemption. He came to bear witness to this truth. He came to explain how vengeance can become redemption, and how true justice is served. Jesus healed the wounds of the afflicted, their sorrow turned into joy, and he redeemed those who fulfilled their vows made before the Lord (repentance).
Nahum 1:7
"The Lord is good to those that are good, and to them he will be a stronghold in the day of trouble."
God's judgment is not mankind's. God's judgment goes both ways, his almighty power is exercised for the terror and destruction of the wicked, and balanced by his protection and the satisfaction of his own people. He saves and destroys justly.
Psalm 1:6
"For the Lord watches over the way of the righteous, but the way of the wicked leads to destruction."
Here's the long and short of this lesson. The judgments of God are as a devouring fire to those that make themselves kindling for that fire. You get what you give. You get what you ask for. You can get the redemption of Jesus Christ, or you can get a destroying angel.
The King in Nineveh imagined evil against the Lord, and the Assyrian nation has been completely erased from history as a result of his imaginations. The memory of them has perished. The idols they worshiped have been forgotten. The wickedness their scholars schemed has made them suffer utter annihilation.
Conclusion:
God is good, people are not. People have the tendency to fall apart during the difficulties of life and most are unable to see beyond the trouble. They usually don't have farsighted spiritual eyes like Nahum who was able to see far beyond what his eyes and emotions were able to see. He had a deeper appreciation of God’s Grace.
Nahum's name means "Comfort" or "Consolation". It is a shortened form of the name Nehemiah. In the region of Galilee by the Sea of Galilee is the city of Capernaum which is named after Nahum, “Kepher-Nahum” the city of Nahum. And that region is where our Lord Jesus Christ spent much of his ministry. The Mount of Beatitudes, the location where Jesus gave his Sermon on the Mount, is located on the northwestern shore of that Sea of Galilee, about 3 miles southwest of Capernaum.
My final thoughts on this lesson brought my mind to this Sermon on the Mount and the miraculous story about feeding thousands. It wasn't just a nice sermon with a bunch of nice thoughts that people can later bookmark and post on their refrigerator with magnets. On that day Jesus demonstrated God's power over both the supernatural realm and the physical world, while he shared the knowledge of God's divine wisdom and grace.
What stands out for me, and what speaks to this tension between Mankind in all his wickedness and God in all his goodness, is Jesus' initial reply to the disciples when he answers their concerns about their relative lack of means for feeding the masses. Jesus simply replies...
"You feed them." (Mark 6:37)
If I'm Jesus, in my mind I'm saying to them:
You all, get together, under your own human strength, and work together to get everyone fed. Convince the people to be resourceful and kind. Help them help themselves. Make a plan, build a team, get everyone to work as one for the benefit of all. You're so smart, you know best, you don't need God, you do it. Why are you coming to me?
But the truth is everyone knows that thats not going to happen. Oh sure, some will help. Some will work very hard. But many will just get up and leave. Others will horde what they got for themselves and for their own. And of course there will be the managers and bandits who will make a buck off the need.
This is the Mankind thing to do.
What does God do?
He blesses what they have and "They all ate as much as they wanted".
The problem revealed Mankind's need, and it showed them God's grace and glory. Without that problem you don't get to see the glory. You don't develop spiritual eyes without spiritual warfare.
"why doesn't God just...?"
Because you'll never see Christ clearly without the problems.
God bless you all, in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.
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