If you could turn in your copy of the scriptures to Nahum, we did verses 1-8 last week, we'll be in verses 9-15 this week. If you can't find Nahum, to find it fast, quick, find Micah, it's a little bigger. Find Micah, it's the very next book. If you've hit Habakkuk or Zephaniah, turn around, you've gone too far. We're going to be in Nahum, chapter 1, starting in verse 9. Last week, we saw that God's judgment of sinners is certain. And this week, we're going to see that that judgment is not undeserved in the slightest. So here are the word of the Lord, Nahum, chapter 1, starting in verse 9. What do you plot against the Lord? He will make a complete end. Trouble will not rise up a second time. For they are like entangled thorns, like drunkards as they drink, they are consumed like stubble fully dried. From you came one who plotted evil against the Lord, a worthless counselor. Thus says the Lord, though they are at full strength and many, they will be cut down and pass away. Though I have afflicted you, I will afflict you no more. Speaking to Israel. And now I will break his yoke from off you and will burst your bonds apart. The Lord has given commandment about you. No more shall your name be perpetuated. This is Assyria. From the house of your gods, I will cut off the carved image and the metal image. I will make your grave for you are vile. Behold, Upon the mountains the feet of him who brings good news, who publishes peace. Keep your feasts, O Judah, fulfill your vows, for never again shall the worthless pass through you. He is utterly cut off. The grass withers and the flower fades, but the word of our God stands forever. Let's ask for his blessing as we go forward. Lord Jesus, you promised us that wherever two or three are gathered in your name, so there you are. You are truly with us. So Lord, as you are with us, I pray that you would speak to us your word, that I would become lesser and you would become greater, and that you would impress upon the hearts of your people the truths that you would have them know. that we would be broken and molded and made anew. Lord, let the words in my mouth and the meditations in my heart be acceptable in your sight. Oh Lord, my rock and my redeemer. Amen. Now imagine you could always see it coming. What do I mean by it? I'm talking about you name it. Maybe the great upset in sports history. Maybe the tragic accident coming, or maybe the great tragedy or disaster, maybe the stock market plunging or rising. Imagine you could see it. Well, maybe you wouldn't be here, maybe you'd be sitting at the tables in tunica trying to strike it rich. but we can't always see it. It's even hard to see. You may have all the information in the world. You may even make a few really good guesses with that information, but in the end, we can't see it, not for sure, unless we are watching a rerun or a replay of the sports game. We are never more omniscient than we are when we are watching something for the second time. Now, take that and imagine that you can watch something for the first time as if you're watching it for the second or third time. And if you've imagined that, you have just taken a glimpse into the mind of God. God never sees things for the first time or the second time. God just sees them. And beyond that, God always rolls snake eyes. In fact, the table and the casino belong to God. Would you ever play a hand against the Almighty who controlled the table? All decks are stacked in His favor because all decks are His. Yet, at the same time, God's enemies always try it. They always do, no matter what. And God's enemies always seek to dethrone him, but he sees it coming, and he has his response prepared from before the foundations of the world. In this case, the Assyrians, the Assyrian Empire, represent our usurpers in this time and place, and they are signs of usurpers in every time and place, and God has a word of judgment for them. That's the burden of our text this morning, that God cuts off ungodly usurpers. God cuts off ungodly usurpers and he cuts them off with a complete destruction for his people's sake and by a royal decree. He cuts off ungodly usurpers with a complete destruction for his people's sake by a royal decree. And so as we jump in, we see that really, this is a continuation of what was talked about in verse eight, that he will make a complete end of adversaries. And so in verse nine, he says, and what do you plot against the Lord? He will make a complete end. Trouble will not arise a second time. It's going to be a knockout punch for the ages. It's going to be career ending loss, a complete destruction, the manner by which God cuts them off. It will be total, and it's inevitable. You know, it seems like that every now and then you're reading the scriptures, 1 and 2 Samuel, you're reading about the Philistines, OK? Saul defeats the Philistines, and then David cuts off Goliath's head after hitting him with the stone. He defeats the Philistines, but the Philistines keep coming back over and over and over again. And they weren't destroyed for, I think it was 400 years. Over and over, the Philistines, Philistines, When God decides to make a complete end, there will be no rerun, there will be no redos. When God strikes, he strikes hard, and he doesn't miss, and that's the end. And so the question that Nahum asked is really important. What do you plot against the Lord? It's pointless. It's like being on death row and making a plot against the president's life. Are you kidding me, guys? It will not end well for you. The outcome is assured. Verse 10, Nahum says, for they are like entangled thorns, like drunkards. As they drink, they are consumed like stubble fully dried. Now, entangled thorns, if you were working any kind of bushwhacking type of landscaping, you've had to remove briar patches before. Entangled thorns, yeah, they poke and they hurt, but they're really easy to burn. It's like a natural made fireball, just waiting for you to light the match, especially when it's dry. And the second example he uses, like drunkards as they drink, in the same way, the lifelong alcoholic is enslaved to his bottle, because if he doesn't drink, then he'll have the spider sensations. He'll feel crazy, because he is bound to the bottle. Like tangled thorns, like an alcoholic bound to his bottle, They can resist nothing. They can't. They're completely helpless. Now, they may not feel like they're helpless. These Assyrians were at the top of their game. They had never had a bigger empire when Nahum was writing. But Nahum is showing us just how truly fragile this empire was. They were so drunk on their success and power, they didn't notice that the end was coming soon. How could they be so dumb? How could you be so foolish? Well, Jonah, even Jonah shows us that the violence of the civilization, its sins, they had a disturbed conscience. All Jonah had to do was walk through Nineveh with a simple message and the people lost it. They repented. They knew how evil they were, but they had worn off. So how is it possible? Verse 11, Nahum tells us. He says, from you came one who plotted evil against the Lord, a worthless counselor, or wicked counselor, if you have the New King James. They're deceived by wicked, worthless counsel. Now this word underneath wicked or worthless may sound familiar to you. It's the word belial. Belial, hmm. And turns out in the New Testament, 2 Corinthians 6.15, Paul, when he's talking about not being unequally yoked, he says, what accord has Christ with Belial? Belial became a shorthand for Satan. What Nahum is saying is you have been deceived from one, from your number came one who is a satanic counselor. I think this is largely a correct way to look at it. Talking about this, a fellow named O. Palmer Robertson, a Mississippi Associated Presbyterian, maybe you've heard the name. He said this, Christ and Belial represent rulers of two diametrically opposed kingdoms. Paul's contrast represents the climax of a conflict represented here in Nahum, where an ominous figure stands behind the ruler from Nineveh, prodding him in his wicked determinations. Satan is real. I mean, that's not news to say from this pulpit, but instead of just treating Satan like a hypothetical evil out there, Satan and other demonic forces are active. They want you to think that he, Satan wants you to think he's hypothetical at the most, if not just non-existent altogether. But John, it shows us in Revelation, he's active, he's moving, he's doing, he's scheming. Paul calls him the prince of the power of the air, the God of this world, and John will call him the Antichrist, the spirit of the Antichrist. Satan is behind it all. Satan, you know, like the parable of the sower, the seed sown onto the path, when the birds pluck it up, Jesus says it's like Satan plucking away the word of God. Jonah had sown the seed, it had fallen on the soil it fell on. But all the ground has become hard, and that seed is all gone. The work of Satan. And now they are under his deception, not realizing how close they are to being completely destroyed. But do not be afraid. Do not be afraid. To quote Elisha in 2nd Kings 6.16, Elisha says, those who are with us are more than those that are with them. This is when he was in the city. I think it was just the Syrians were surrounded the city. And his servant was freaking out. And he said, God, please open his eyes. And he sees chariots of fire surrounding the city. Those who are with us are more than those who are with them. Even though the forces we see out in the world, they seem better organized, better funded, more determined than ever to push satanic things upon us and our country, the West, the whole world, God is protecting us. God sees it from a mile away. Though it seems like everyone's lost their collective minds these days, the sense that people seem to have 40 years ago seems nowhere to be found, even by people who lived 40 years ago. But God is watching over us. Though Satan should buffet and trial should come, Horatio Spafford writes in the hymn, God is our shield. God sees Satan coming. When God created Lucifer, who fell, took a third of the angels with him. When God had made him before, while Lucifer was still good, he knew the end from the beginning. He had already planned Satan's destruction. It was all in the mind of God already. He knows the end from the beginning. The difference is, both we and Satan, both forces of evil and the church, we see God bringing judgment. Satan saw the destruction of Assyria when it happened, and Babylon, and Greece, and Rome, you name it. The difference is Satan never learns. We have a chance to learn if God has made our hearts soft to hear it. So in the world, when Satan demands your surrender, Stand fast, because God has the victory. He has already offered his own terms of surrender. His terms of surrender are his son, whom he surrendered to the cross for our sake. So Satan desires a pound of flesh. Christ gave every pound of flesh and every pint of blood he had. for our sake, so that no matter what Satan does or thinks, his destruction is assured because Christ the King, who received the judgment that we deserved, reigns and rose above it in his resurrection, ruling over all things. Greater is he who is in us, John tells us, than he who is in the world. We don't have to worry. We don't have to be afraid. Because God cuts off ungodly usurpers, Satan especially, for our sake. And he cuts off ungodly usurpers with a complete destruction. And like I just mentioned, he cuts them off for his people's sake, the purpose. God, of course, judges evil and sinners to vindicate his own righteousness, but he also does it for us, to help us. And when he does it, And when the ball starts rolling, it unravels quickly. Verse 12 says this, thus says the Lord, though they are at full strength and many, they will be cut down and pass away. The fall of the Assyrian Empire happened at its height. It wasn't like the Roman Empire, which gradually contracted, and make sure I get this right for the sake of my life. The Roman Empire fell because of taxes, slavery, unemployment, and disease. Those four things, God used them to gradually drag that empire down into the dust. Not the Assyrian Empire, nothing like that. They were like a mighty oak tree, a 60-foot oak that's been growing in town forever. It's the great oak. At the old RTS campus, there was an oak that had been there for like, it's actually still there. It's a huge tree, a trunk, for like 100 years. One day, that tree will fall at its greatest height. God comes at his enemies with a chainsaw, and he hacks quicker than a woodchuck. Quicker than a woodchuck. That's hungry. Take with that what you will. It's one thing to see someone go down. It's another to be taken off the pedestal. The number one seed being taken out by an underdog. A decade ago, remember the kick six? Number one Alabama tries to kick a long field goal. They don't make it. It gets returned for a touchdown and they lose. Assyria is about to get kick sixed by the Holy One. They're taken out by one of their own vassals, Babylon. All it takes is one mistake and the whole thing can unravel. One particular bad thing in this case, it was just the river next to the net of a flooding. Flooding more than it ever had in a long time, and it washed the walls out. Suddenly your capital's defenseless. And so Assyria was gone. They will be cut down and pass away. Or you can even say the new King James actually has it better than the ESV in this case, when he passes through. This is a reference to when God, through the angel of death, passed through Egypt, killing all the firstborn without blood on the doorpost. Or even when the angel of the Lord, as the Assyrians were besieging the city, not 67 years before this was written, the angel of the Lord passed through the Assyrian camp and killed 185,000 soldiers. Total, come from behind, victory. And it was for their God's people's sake, for the exes, for them to leave Egypt, for the besieged believers in Jerusalem and King Hezekiah's day to see the salvation of God through a sudden strike that redeems. We see the effects of that in verse 12, the rest of it. Though I have afflicted you, God says to Israel, I will afflict you no more. And I will now break his yoke from off you and will burst your bonds apart. Jesus through, Jesus is God, so you could say Jesus said it, but God is saying, though I afflicted you, God was the one afflicting. They're forgetting the law of God for they're not worshiping him in spirit and in truth. Though I afflicted you, I will afflict you no more. Though I was the one who caused all these calamities to come upon you, the discipline is complete. Sometimes when we walk through the valley of the shadow of death, it feels like God is punishing us. So maybe it even might feel like God hates us, that he would let this happen to us. But that's not true. If God is our father through the Lord Jesus Christ, there's a huge difference between discipline and punishment. If Christ has taken your punishment, and wipe that slate clean, all that's left is discipline. Now, discipline is hard. It does not feel good to be disciplined, but discipline's temporary. Discipline has a good end to it. When I was in high school, I got suspended for five days for doing something that was pretty irresponsible. I'm not gonna get into the details here. But it felt like that discipline went on forever because I got punished more at home than I did at school, believe it or not. If you know my father, you've been around him a little bit since he's been here, you could see that. It felt like it lasted forever, but there was a light at the end of the tunnel. There was a light at the end of the tunnel. And that was it. And it ended, and I was better for it. In all things, when God disciplines us, we're not getting what we fully deserve. We deserve far worse. than what we receive from God. As the Puritans prayed, my trials have been fewer than my sins. My trials have been fewer than my sins. And we see once the discipline is over, our father, he gives us peace, the affliction passes away. He gives us rest when the yoke has taken off our back and he gives us liberty when the bonds, the fetters around our wrists are broken and his timing and in his way, but that doesn't mean just because you are afflicted, just because you bear heavy burdens too hard to bear, just because you have bonds around your hands that you aren't a beloved son. He's working. Christ will do, he will break all these things through the father when the father says, that is enough, let him go. Now, some of our burdens are unbearable. There is a truism in our Christian culture, our Christian subculture, that God will never give you anything that you cannot bear. I'm here to tell you that's not true. That's actually not what the Bible says at all. Hear what Paul says. Now, I think in most cases, God gives us things that we can bear, but sometimes he gives us, he burdens us beyond our strength. Look, Paul says this in 2 Corinthians 1, he says, for do we not want you to be unaware, brothers, of the affliction we experience in Asia? For we were so utterly burdened beyond our strength that we despaired of life itself. Now, if an apostle can say that, if an apostle can feel that way, we sure can too. There's no being a man about it, if you will, and just kind of pretend, you know, being stoic and I'm just going to bear this burden and I'm going to make it through. Forget it. Paul, Apostle Paul said, I felt like I was so overburdened I was going to die. Me and my friends, we cannot, could not deal with this. Our afflictions are very serious. Incurable disease, the times we get dementia, and fast-acting dementia that changes everyone's lives around us, cancer in children, the number of accidents that can happen to us. These things can be so burdensome beyond our strength. We only have one place to look, and that's up. And we can look up because if Christ loves you, if you can sing with a good conscience, Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so, You can with Paul say in the very next verse, indeed we felt that we had received the sentence of death but that was to make us rely not on ourselves but on God who raises the dead. He delivered us from such a deadly peril and he will deliver us, will deliver us. On him we have set our hope that he will deliver us again. Christ bore a burden that he could not bear and live our sins. He died, but he, even as Christ suffered on the cross, he believed in his father, though his father had turned his back on him, he believed that he would live with his own eyes, and again, in the land of the living. In the land, in the joy of salvation, of resurrection from the dead, and when we are burdened beyond your strength, let what Jesus looked forward to, let what Paul looked forward to be what you look forward to, the resurrection of the dead, no matter how much Satan does, no matter in many other places in this world where Christians are losing their lives. There was a church burned down and attacked in Nigeria. Several wounded, five died. They worshiped in rubble this morning, is my understanding. Though that happened, they were not looking to the church. They were not looking at those who died. They were looking at Christ, exalted, risen from the dead for their hope. God will sustain us and when the time comes he will end the trial and we will be raised from the dead. We trust in God who cut off Christ on the cross for us and in Christ who bore the father's wrath for us so that we would never be cut off. Christ was treated as ungodly so that we who are ungodly might be treated as sons. But God cuts off all ungodly usurpers. He cuts them off with a complete destruction for his people's sake and he finally cuts them off by a royal decree. Now, God's cutting them off, cutting off his enemies, the Assyrians in this case was not a new idea. This is in the mind of God and part of the eternal plan from all eternity. And then God delivers the decree. In verse 14, he says, the Lord has given commandment about you. No more shall your name be perpetuated. From the house of your gods, I will cut off the carved image and the metal image. I will make your grave for you are vile. This judgment being published by God by the hand or the voice of Nahum is threefold. says this, he says, your name shall not be perpetuated. Assyria has no legacy. I will cut off the house of your God, from the house of your gods, I will cut off the carved image and metal image, no more false religion, no more demonic authority. And finally, I will make your grave, no honor and death. Now Nahum, believe it or not, I love archeology for this reason, Nahum was making a specific reference. There was this thing called Ashurbanipal, he's a king of Assyria, his monument, where he made the monument as part of his dying legacy to perpetuate his name and to honor him in his death. And if anyone tried to dishonor him in his death and to cut off his line, he appealed to the entire Assyrian pantheon of gods. to avenge him if such a thing happened. Now, this was a known monument. Nahum saying this in Assyrian-controlled Middle East, he did it at risk of his life. If they caught him, and we have no idea what happened to Nahum, he was a dead man. But God is poking Assyria in the eye right here. No, no legacy, no religion, false religion, no honor for you. And where are these false gods now? This Assyrian empire collapsed. They're in the dustbin of history. There is no church of Ishtar. There are no believers and worshipers in Ashur. These gods have been tossed away and forgotten forever. And even the demonic influence behind them is in chains and cringes before the king of kings and the lord of lords. This is published judgment and it's also published salvation. Vows for never again shall the worthless pass through you. He is utterly cut off This is the same kind of idea where we see judgment on God's enemies for our sake There's a little bit of a different twist on it Nahum is giving almost an exact exact a pretty close quotation of Isaiah 52 7 and Isaiah 52 7 should have turned there before I mentioned it Isaiah 52 7 Isaiah says this, he says, how beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him who brings good news, who publishes peace, who brings good news of happiness, who publishes salvation, who says to Zion, your God reigns. It's a happy thing. message in Isaiah 52. It's a scary message in Nahum, but I submit to you that the messages and the messengers are one and the same. It's two sides of the same coin. Now, how do we synthesize this? If you're a morning person and you like to sit outside in the morning, you hear the birds singing, it's lovely to you. Hearing the birds sing is a terror to the worm or to the bug. If you are an infantryman, if you're a soldier and you're fighting a battle, you're getting pressed upon by an enemy and you hear your Calvary's trumpet, that's your salvation. If you're the enemy soldier, you're in terror. Salvation, judgment, all the same message. And so it is with the gospel. We see that God's judgment of our sin upon Jesus is our salvation. And then God's judgment upon our enemies is our relief and our deliverance. But we see it does have an ultimately spiritual dimension. Again, we see that never again shall the worthless, wicked pass through you. He is utterly cut off. This is about spiritual warfare ultimately. This is Belial yet again. Yet we see in Genesis 3.15, God promised through the seed of the woman, his son, the Christ, to crush the head of the serpent, to crush Satan who had dragged us into slavery. So he is the one ultimately crushing the head of the serpent so that we can be free to worship in spirit and in truth no matter what we see happening around us. So the question is, as we close, have you believed the news, the news of the messenger? So we look at the situation that these, it's a prophecy to Judah about Assyria. These Judeans are in. They had a terrible king, Manasseh. They were probably in their last good days with Josiah. And then they would have bad kings, and they'd get taken off into exile in Babylon not too long from then. They traded one tyrant, Assyria, for another. But Nahum is telling, I think a message in Nahum is to look beyond the situation that we are in. To look about and ask the question, what is a god ultimately doing? And the mentions of Belial twice, I think, helps us do that. What is God ultimately doing in this world? Coming Messiah we have in history, and by faith still, in Jesus Christ. We must look beyond our situation and ask ourselves, in light of Christ, how should I now live? What would God have me do? What do I need to change? Ultimately, everything we do, we need to trust. It's a shift in our frame of reference from living in fear to living in trust. For our sake, do we believe that Christ is who he says he is and risen from the dead, eternity past. He's planned it all out. So for we who are usurpers, for those who look at God's rules, God's law, God's reign and say, no thanks, I'm not interested in this. We have to repent of that, even on a daily basis for those who confess to know Christ. Misconfess our sins and believe his good news and even believe the bad news about evil ones. Turn to Christ. Trust him as the king of kings. Trust that he's been cut off for your sake, but he's risen again and you too will rise again no matter what you see happening out there. I don't want to say forget it, but stare it, maybe even stare it in the face and say, my God reigns. Christ is my king. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we thank you that you have set Christ above all. He is high in the heavens. And though he reigns high in the heavens, we thank you that he is with us. By his word and by his spirit, we thank you that he speaks, that he breaks, that he binds, and he comforts. Lord, though he is a great and mighty king, we thank you that he calls us to come. All who are weary and heavy laden, And he promises rest. Lord, help us, adjure us, urge us, carry us into that rest. We ask these things in Jesus name. Amen.