Thoughts on Nahum. Nahum chapter three, verses 14 to 19. You've had it. Now you've got to see this title in context. This is God's response. You've had it. I've put it that way. It's God's response through the prophet Nahum to Nineveh. Nineveh, it's an acronym. Assyria have boasted, you can do what you want. You can say what you want through this prophet. So what? Well, God says, you've had it. Let me explain what I mean. Verses 14 to 19 of chapter three. You can do your best to defeat me. This is what God is saying. Go on, do it. Do your best. Do your worst, whatever you want to say. This is what God says. Draw water for the seeds. Strengthen your defenses. Work the clay. Tread the mortar. Repair the brickwork. Build the defenses. Get ready for the siege. You can stand it, you say. Well, try. Do your best. Do what you can. Strengthen the defense. Build. Have a building explosion. but it'll all be useless and in vain. Fire will come, fire will devour you, verse 15. The sword will come, the sword will cut you down. And like grasshoppers consume you, locusts coming, a terrible plague. You can do all you can, verse 16. You have increased the numbers of your merchants. They're more than the stars in the sky. You've got economic, Expansion, you're in a boom time, it's going wonderfully. But like locusts, they strip the land and then fly away. All will come to ruin, all your prosperity, all your defenses, all your power, all your boasting, all your bragging will end in disaster. Ruin, verse 16. You've got gods. Look, your cards are like locusts. You've got the officials, you've got all the uniforms, you've got all the apparatus of state, but they're like swarms of locusts. They settle on the wall on a cold day, yes, they're waiting there, but the sun comes and away they go. All you've defended, or depend upon, all your defences will just fly away and nobody knows where. Go on, you've had it. Ruin. Nothing. O King of Assyria, your shepherds slumber, your nobles lie down into rest, your people are scattered on the mountains. This is what I see. Utter destruction for you. Nothing can, no one to gather them, nothing can heal your wound. Your injury is fatal. Everyone who hears the news about you shall laugh at your fall. Go on. You've had it. Nothing. And no one can save you. Unbelievable. Are you listening? Are you listening to this? Well, it's just a historical prophet talking to this nation. Yeah, my friend, it happened. Are you listening? How are the mighty fallen, these powerful people who thought they were impregnable, who thought they'd ascended up so high that nobody and nothing, not God himself, could pull them down. How they boast and brag, these people. They claim so much. I'm not just doing a time filler here. I'm preaching. Just for a very few minutes, five minutes, four minutes, I'm just preaching the word of God. And I am preaching it, I hope. I'm not giving a historical lecture. I say these things are rewarding to us. The reckoning day is coming. The reckoning God is coming. Christ will appear and we shall all be raised and we shall have to stand before him. The prophet Amos, prepare to meet thy God. Yes, you can laugh at the man with the sandwich board. But heed the word, my friend, I plead with you. Prepare, make ready, come to Christ now. There is the only shelter from this storm. None of our own works, our own defenses, our own powers can do. It didn't for Nineveh, and it won't for us. It didn't for Jerusalem in AD 70, it won't for us. May God give us wisdom.