If you would take your Bibles and turn to the book of Nahum, the book of Nahum. And Nahum is a little bit of an interesting prophet to consider at this time in our lives because we're here a week out from the start of what we call our revival services and have been praying for the Lord to do a work. particularly exciting and interesting for me to consider having this right at the beginning of our school years. Normally we have it a few weeks after school has started and it's easy for us as people, especially working with students, to look at them and after a week or two in, you know, kind of get the idea that we know what these students need, and we know the preaching that they need to hear, and we kind of get that mindset, sort of like that we can fix this sort of mentality. But I think it's interesting just the way the timing of this has worked out. We don't know what the incoming students need. We don't know the message that they need to hear. Only God knows that. And, you know, God can bring the message for the chapels, for the school, the chapels for the college that students need to hear and praying that it will be a, that the students will hear those messages and respond to God's word. and just get things rolling in the right direction. The book of Nahum can be considered sort of a sequel to the book of Jonah. In the book of Jonah, we read about the prophet Jonah bringing the message, bringing God's message to Nineveh. And when he brought God's message, of course, we know he did so reluctantly, but God sent him. God had a message for him. God had a purpose for him going. And when he went, when he brought the word of God, the people of Nineveh, they responded to God's message. And there was a widespread revival that went from all the way from the king down to the people. Even the animals were subject to the imagery that we connect with the revival of that time. And it was really a unique scenario, a unique situation, and that caused him to receive the mercy of God. And God spared the judgment that he had forecast to them, and it had been put on the side burner for a time. Now Nahum comes along, let me say roughly somewhere around 100 years later, so it's a new generation of people, and what we find when we come to the book of Nahum is that that revival didn't last all of that time. That revival had an impact in its day, but the parents perhaps didn't teach their children and they went back to their wicked ways and we see now the book of Nahum and he is revealing the doom of Nineveh. He's revealing that the judgment that Jonah preached about is coming. That judgment was right around the corner at this point. Nahum is a prophet. His name means comforter, which is, you know, you kind of look at that maybe and scratch your head, you know, how could his name mean comforter when he is delivering this message of judgment? But I think some of that is because of the comfort that would come to the people that were subject to the nation of Assyria. I was doing some study for this and I came across some records of the kings of Assyria that had been translated and they were included in this study book that I was looking at. And if you look at the records from the kings of Assyria and what they did to their captive people, They're too gruesome to even go through in a situation like this, in a scenario like here in this auditorium. They're just so brutal, so gruesome, and that was typical of that nation. They were a wicked people. They were extremely cruel. And the judgment against Nineveh would in many ways bring comfort to the people around Nineveh, the people around Assyria. So his name means comfort. There's speculation as to where he was from. We don't know. The Bible doesn't tell us exactly where he was from. It's not clear. It doesn't really matter where he's from. What we do know is that he was a prophet of God. He brought forth a message from the Lord. We know that this was from God because we can look back on history and see that his prophecies were fulfilled. You know, it's one of the tests of prophets. We look at in the Bible is that if they gave a prophecy and it didn't come true, they said it was from God, yet it did not come true, then they would look at that and say, well, that prophet is false. He's not giving us the word of God because his message failed. However, if the prophet brought a message, said it was from the Lord and it came to pass, that was something that confirmed that prophet's authenticity. So we don't know exactly where he's from. There's speculation that he could have been a Jew that was carried away into captivity and perhaps lived near the city of Nineveh, or perhaps he was from one of the cities within Israel or Judah itself. It doesn't really matter where he was from, but what we do know is that he was bringing the message from the Lord. He starts off giving us a bit of a picture about the Lord. We see some of the characteristics of God, and I think it's, we'll read the first seven or eight verses here, and we can see some of the characteristics of the Lord that Nahum is starting his prophecy with. Let's go ahead and look at chapter one, verse one. The Burden of Nineveh, the Book of the Vision of Nahum, the Elkishite. God is jealous and the Lord revengeth. The Lord revengeth and is furious. The Lord will take vengeance on his adversaries and he reserveth wrath for his enemies. The Lord is slow to anger and great in power and will not at all acquit the wicked. The Lord hath his way in the whirlwind and in the storm, and the clouds are the dust of his feet. He rebuketh the sea and maketh it dry, and dryeth up all the rivers. Bashan languisheth, and Carmel, the flower of Lebanon, languisheth. The mountains quake at him, and the hills melt, and the earth is burned at his presence, yea, the world and all that dwell therein. Who can stand before his indignation? And who can abide in the fierceness of his anger? His fury is poured out like fire, and the rocks are thrown down by him. The Lord is good, a stronghold in the day of trouble, and he knoweth them that trust in him. But with an overrunning flood will he make an utter end of the place thereof, and darkness shall pursue his enemies. So we have this a little bit of a glimpse into the character of God. And the first thing that I think we can see and is very evident is that the Lord is patient. And the Lord is patient. He is slow to anger, the Bible says. Here and in other places, we see it. He is slow to anger. Now that's something that I think we can all appreciate. We can all appreciate his slowness to anger, his slowness to anger. send judgment our way because we're all sinners. We're all guilty before him, yet he is slow to anger in that he will be long-suffering with us, he will be patient with us, he will give us space to repent, he will give us second chances and third chances and praise the Lord for that. So the Lord is in fact slow to anger, but what we need to be careful about when we consider that aspect of God's patience is that he will not overlook sin. So he is, in fact, slow to anger, but he does not overlook sin. You know, I think the Ninevites, in particular, will kind of key in on that city, the capital of Assyria. They had experienced the slowness of God's wrath, the slowness of God's anger. When Jonah came, when he preached, they responded, and God preserved them from judgment at that time. He withheld judgment at that time. He showed them that slowness of his anger. However, They had perhaps gotten comfortable with that, and perhaps they had looked at that slowness of anger and assumed that that meant that God was just going to condone their way of life, condone their lifestyle, condone their sin. But we see in connection with the slowness of God's anger is that He also will not at all acquit the wicked. So they saw His silence or his patience, they did not see his sovereignty. The overriding principle here is that God cannot allow wickedness to persist. He cannot allow wickedness to persist. Though he is slow to anger, he will not acquit the wicked. So we see Nineveh, they had the chance to repent, they did, however, they returned to their sin, they returned to their condition before the revival that came after Jonah's preaching, and now judgment was coming. So we see that the Lord's patience is shown to us. in these first verses of the Book of Nahum. We also see the Lord's power. We see several examples here where the Lord basically shows His control over nature, that He is in charge of nature, that the forces of nature that we might try to battle with today, those are from the Lord. God is in control of those things. And it's used to make comparisons to his power. We think about some of the forces of nature and how powerful they are, and how we cannot, as people, with all of our strength, with all of our ability, we cannot combat the forces of nature. You know, maybe you look around your yard and you say, wow, I had grass here a month ago and it was green and lush and I was cutting it every week or maybe even a couple times a week and then the rain stopped coming and now it's not growing as quickly. Now I'm not having to cut it as much. Now it's not as green as it was. You know, no matter how how strongly we wish for it to rain or we maybe we have something superstition that we try to indulge to try to get it to rain we can't make it rain and we can put water on it we can get the hose out and we can water the grass but we can't make it rain just as when it does rain if it rains really hard to the point where it's flooding you know we can't make the rain stop we can't make the rivers We can't control their banks. You know, sometimes there'll be different groups that will maybe construct levees. They'll maybe put out some barricades to try to control the flow of the river. But ultimately, you know, those are attempts that work sometimes, but sometimes those things even fail. And so the forces of nature, the force of God, is a powerful force. And He uses some of these things. We see in verse 5, the mountains quake at Him. The hills melt. Those things which are obstacles and barriers to us, they just move out of God's way. It talks about how he throws down the rocks. Rocks are things we're very familiar with here in New England. You try to dig a hole or plant a garden or plant a tree and you're likely to find a few rocks. Maybe you'll just find one rock, but that one rock will be so big you can't move it by yourself. My little brother may be jealous. A summer or two ago, he was installing a fence. He had all these fence posts that were nice and evenly spaced. And he was able to build this fence in a day. I said, man, how did you do that? He said, well, I just started digging. And where he lives is just all sand. So it was no problem for him to dig. It's very easy digging. In my yard, I tried to plant an apple tree. And I dug about this deep. And then it was just solid rock in the entire area. I was trying to dig a hole about this big. It's going to prep it very nicely so there would be good room for expansion of these roots and be able to amend the soil. And I got down that deep and just rock all the way around. And so it's difficult when we run into those because, you know, it's a it's a strong force. But, you know, rocks are not a they're not a problem for God. God is a powerful God. He is greater than any earthly enemy. He is over nature. It mentions several places that would have been around, geographically around where this prophecy was given. And it talks about how they could not withstand his judgment. We cannot stop nature. We also see the Lord's presence is shown to us. Verse number seven, the Lord is good, a stronghold in the day of trouble, and he knoweth them that trust in him. You know, if we just look at that one verse, I mean, we could spend all morning just considering just the depth of that verse, just phrase by phrase, the Lord is good. That's a statement. It's not a question, that's a statement, and it's true. It's always true. The Lord is good. We can easily get distracted from that fact, easily get distracted from that truth, and we look at things that are going on, maybe in in a neighborhood or in a country or in a state and we say, man, why are these things happening? These things are not good, we might say. And why would God allow this? But the truth to remember is that the Lord is always good. He is also a stronghold in the day of trouble. So rather than getting anxious when we see things falling apart or we see things crumbling around us, we see a society or a group going in a direction toward destruction, rather than getting anxious about that, What we should remember is that God is good, and He's a stronghold for us in our day of trouble. When things are difficult, He's a stronghold. He's still there. He can give protection. He can offer that strength. He can offer that security of a stronghold. He also knoweth them that trust in Him. And one of the things that perhaps would have been a real comfort amidst this prophecy is that there were Israelites, there were Jewish people that were taken from the geographical land of Israel and brought to Assyria. They were brought to the various places within that province, within that kingdom. And now they're hearing this message of destruction that's coming. And that would be a scary thing. Yet God, in all of that, He still knew where His people were. He still knew where the people that trusted in Him, exactly where they were. He knew exactly what they needed, and He could still be a comfort and a help to them amidst the trouble that was there and amidst the judgment that was coming. I think of examples like a Rahab. You know, a Rahab, who lived in Jericho, heard about the God of heaven. She had heard the reports that came out of Egypt and reports that came of God's people while they were in the wilderness, and she believed the Lord. She was living in a place that was going to be destroyed, but she believed the Lord. And God delivered her, even though the rest of that city was destroyed. You think of other examples, even of Lot. Lot was a man who was not right with God, but he was somebody that believed God, that trusted God. And when God was sending judgment against Sodom and Gomorrah, he literally pulled Lot out of that city. The Lord knows those that are him. The Lord knows those that trust in him. The Lord is good. The Lord is a stronghold. His presence can be a sanctuary for those that trust in him. His judgment that was coming, what Nahum would be revealing here in the details of it, they were not against God's people. It was not against a people that claimed God as their own. It was against people that had rejected Him. This judgment was against those in Nineveh that had rejected Him and had gone their own way. He can preserve His own, even in this general judgment. We see the Lord's patience, and praise the Lord for that. We see the Lord's power. It's a good reminder for us to be, just to think about God's power, to think about His ability, to think about what He can do in our lives, because, you know, sometimes we can, if we focus on ourselves, we can maybe become discouraged in thinking, what can I do? Or how can I make a difference? We can make a difference through the power of the Lord, the Lord's presence. He promises to be with us. You think about the New Testament, you know, what Jesus said to his disciples, you know, the last words that he said to his disciples before he would leave them on their mission here on earth was that he would be with them to the end of the earth. And that's a promise that extends even to his people today, that he will be with us. And when we live daily with that in mind, that he will be with us, that he will go with us, that can give us strength and that can give us courage as we live in the midst of a wicked world. The Lord also, he will overwhelm the enemy. Let's read a few more verses, verse nine. What do ye imagine against the Lord? He will make an utter end. Affliction shall not rise up the second time. For while they be folded together as thorns, and while they are drunken as drunkards, they shall be devoured as stubble fully dry. There is one come out of thee that imagineth evil against the Lord, a wicked counselor. Thus saith the Lord, though they be quiet and likewise many, yet thus shall they be cut down when he shall pass through. Though I have afflicted thee, I will afflict thee no more. For now will I break his yoke from off thee, and will burst thy bods and sunder. And the Lord hath given a commandment concerning thee, that no more of thy name be sown out of the house of thy gods, while I cut off the graven image and the molten image. I will make thy grave for thou art vile. Behold, upon the mountains, the feet of him that bringeth good tidings, that publisheth peace. O Judah, keep thy solemn feast, perform thy vows, for the wicked shall no more pass through thee. He is utterly cut off." We see judgment described as a flood coming in here. It's kind of an interesting kind of thread you could follow through this, the judgment that was coming, and we'll kind of get ahead of ourselves a little bit here, but I think it's an interesting verse. Look at chapter 2. Chapter 2, verse 6, the gates of the rivers shall be opened and the palace shall be dissolved. You know, it's really interesting to me that the word choice that is used here, talking about these rivers, the gates of the rivers being opened, the palace shall be dissolved. We've talked about this before, I'll just remind you. When we were studying Jonah, we took a historical look back at the city of Nineveh. It was a huge city. The gates of the, you could say, the city proper were huge walls. The gates were huge. It was a fortress that you would have looked at in that day and say, there's no way that city can be conquered. There is no way an army could come against this and throw down these walls or breach these gates. There is no way that it can be done. It was built very strategically. It was built very strong. And it was an imposing force in that day. It's one of the reasons you could look at it and say, this is why they were able to be as dominant in their day as they were. Around the major metropolis, if you will, of the city, there were suburbs that extended far out in every direction. And it was a huge city, a big place. And you would look at it and say, there's no way it can be destroyed. How could this fall? Yet what we know from history. is that it would fall. It would be so utterly destroyed that people would forget that it even existed. There would not even be a monument to it in its day because the destruction would be so thorough, so complete. And not until some almost, or maybe about 2,000 years after, would someone come around with a shovel and start digging and find this city and just be amazed at how grand this city once was. and how it was destroyed and covered over with dirt. But that was the destruction that was coming. It would be dissolved. There's a lot of A lot of speculation, I suppose, and assumptions is how the city fell, but some of it, some of the thinking is that there was heavy rains that did weaken the foundations of the walls, and you could see how they would be dissolved, how that water would be a destructive force against the gates and against the walls of Nineveh, and how that would be the catalyst that would start the destruction of the invading armies coming through that weakened point because they were dissolved by water, a force of God, God bringing judgment on Nineveh. But we also, we see another way they were destroyed. It talks about their counselor, a wicked counselor in verse number 11. Let's turn to 2 Kings chapter number 18. 2 Kings chapter number 18. One of the things to remember as we go through these minor prophets, they're not books that are tacked on to the end of the Old Testament. A lot of these prophets are, they're prophesying during historical times that we can find in other places of the scripture. And so here in 2 Kings chapter 18, we see some of the threats of Assyria and what they, the message that they brought against Judah In 2 Kings 18, let's look at verse 17. It says, ìAnd the king of Assyria sent Tartan and Rapsurus and Rapshaka from Lachish to King Hezekiah with a great host against Jerusalem. And they went up and came to Jerusalem. And when they were come up, they came and stood by the conduit of the upper pool, which is by the highway of the foolerís field. And when they had called the king, there came out to them Eliakim, the son of Hilkiah, which was over the household, and Shebna the scribe, and Joah the son of Asaph the recorder. And Rapshaka said unto them, Speak ye now to Hezekiah, thus saith the great king, the king of Assyria. What confidence is this wherein thou trustest? Thou sayest, but they are but vain words, I have counsel and strength for the war. Now on whom dost thou trust, that thou rebellest against me? Now behold, thou trustest upon the staff of this bruised reed, even upon Egypt, on which if a man lean, it will go into his hand and pierce it. So is Pharaoh king of Egypt unto all that trust on him. But if he say unto me, We trust in the Lord our God, is not that he whose high places and whose altars Hezekiah hath taken away, and hath said to Judah and Jerusalem, Ye shall worship before this altar in Jerusalem? Now therefore, I pray thee, give pledges to my Lord, the king of Assyria, and I will deliver thee two thousand horses, if thou be able on thy part to set riders upon them. And we could continue here, but what we find is that there were some counselors sent by the king of Assyria to Jerusalem to discourage the people and in many ways get them to surrender without a fight. They basically came and said, look, you guys are not going to be victorious. If we have a war, you're going to lose. It's settled. We don't even have to fight it. You're going to lose. And they brought these slanderous reports against them and they brought these discouraging words to the people and they were making these very openly so that people could hear them and it would break the morale of the people was their goal, but the thing that they did not understand fully is the power of God. They thought God was just like one of the gods of the other nations that they destroyed. Maybe a nice object that you look at and you worship and you set up on a pedestal and they compared their true God, the one real God, to those images that other nations had made. And he brought these accusations against them and said, look, your God's not going to be able to protect you. No God has protected any of their people to this point. What makes you think you're any different? And then he also mocks them saying, look, if you'll just pay tribute to us, we'll give you horses for war if you have men that you could put on them. So there there's this report that comes against them. Now, we're going to skip through a lot of this. It would be good to read. the entire thing, but we just don't have time. If you go through the rest of chapter 18, you see more threats that this counselor Rapshka brings against Jerusalem. And he's doing so in the Hebrew tongue so that the people can hear them. And he brings these threats. Hezekiah is the king of Judah at this time. He goes to the Lord. Isaiah is also a prophet at this time, and he's praying for the people and interceding for them. God gives them an answer. Let's look at chapter 19, verse 6. 2 Kings 19, verse 6, it says, And Isaiah said unto them, Thus shall ye say to your master, Thus saith the Lord, Be not afraid of the words which thou hast heard, with which the servants of the king of Assyria have blasphemed me. Behold, I will send a blast upon him, and he shall hear a rumor and shall return to his own land, and I will cause him to fall by the sword in his own land. So here's God giving a message to Isaiah to then go bring to the king, Hezekiah. And what God says is, look, they have blasphemed my name, the Lord's name, therefore I will fight for you. Let's just skip through down to verse number 35. Verse number 35, we see God here intervening on behalf of His people. 2 Kings 19.35 says, And it came to pass that night that the angel of the Lord went out and smote in the camp of the Assyrians an hundred, fourscore, and five thousand. When they rose early in the morning, behold, they were all dead corpses. So Sennacherib, king of Assyria, departed and went in return to dwell at Nineveh. And it came to pass as he was worshiping in the house of Nisroch, his god, that Adramelech and Charizard, his son, smote him with a sword, and they escaped into the land of Armenia. And Esarhaddon, his son, reigned in his stead. So what happened? God stepped in and did what he said he would do. He fought for his people, and 185,000 Assyrian soldiers were killed in one night by the angel of the Lord, as it says there in verse 35. So we see the Lord's promise of overwhelming the enemy and of bringing that judgment against a people that had rejected him and had had the opportunity to repent, yet went back to their wicked ways. And then we also see the Lord's protection back in Nahum. So let's turn back to Nahum, turn back to Nahum, and we'll see there's a phrase that's mentioned twice, once in chapter two and once in chapter three, which is really a terrifying phrase. We see it once in chapter two and once in chapter three. As we get into chapter two, we see that the judgment is being described, and basically, for sake of time, we'll not go deeply into all these verses, but what we see is God's warning of judgment coming, and then we also have the prophecy or the indication given to them that no matter what they do to prepare for this judgment, it's not going to be enough. The end of the story has already been written. There's nothing that can be done to avoid this judgment. There's not going to be an ability on their behalf to stop this judgment. It is coming. But here's a terrifying phrase. We see once in Nahum 2 and once in chapter 3. Look at chapter 2, verse 13. Those first, what do we got there? Five words, first five words. It says, Behold, I am against thee, saith the Lord of hosts, and I will burn her chariots in the smoke, and the sword shall devour thy young lions, and I will cut off thy prey from the earth, and the voice of thy messengers shall no more be heard. Behold, I, the Lord speaking, I am against thee. We also see that in chapter three, verse five. Behold, I am against thee, said the Lord of hosts. You know, that's a... That's a terrifying phrase to consider. We, as believers, we take comfort in the fact that the Lord says he will be with us. When we are right with the Lord, and that should be our goal as believers, to be right with him, to not be living in unconfessed sin, but to be right with the Lord so that he can be with us, so that he can help us and strengthen us and lead us, and all those things that we want, But what a terrifying phrase to hear, behold, I am against thee. You know, there's some people in the world that would mock at the name of the Lord and that would maybe claim that there is no God or that in some way they've convinced themselves that they are more powerful than God or able to create their own destiny or create their own fate. But what they don't understand is that if they get to the end of their lives and they reject what God has done for them, this ultimately would be said of them as well. Behold, I am against thee. What a terrifying phrase that we find here. And that just kind of sets the scene for what this judgment would be like. The Lord had set himself against this people. He had set himself against Nineveh. Nothing they could do would protect them. As we already mentioned that the city would be destroyed and would not even be rediscovered until the 1800s. So it was quite the destruction. The judgment was devastating. We could read chapter 3 and maybe you could do so later. You read chapter 3 and you see just how widespread and how final this destruction would be. They would be openly humiliated because of their sin. They would be no better than some of the other places that had also seen a similar destruction. Let's look, let's go to read kind of the end of chapter 3. Let's go down to verse number 11. Nahum chapter 3 verse 11. Thou also shalt be drunken, thou shalt be hid. Thou also shalt seek strength because of the enemy. All thy strongholds shall be like fig trees with the first ripe figs. If they be shaken, they shall even fall into the mouth of the eater. Behold, thy people in the midst of thee are women. The gates of thy land shall be set wide open unto thine enemies. The fire shall devour thy bars. Draw thee waters for the siege. Fortify thy strongholds. Go into clay and tread the mortar. Make strong the brick kiln. There shall the fire devour thee. The sword shall cut thee off. It shall eat thee up like the canker worm. Make thyself many as the canker worm. Make thyself many as the locusts. Thou hast multiplied thy merchants above the stars of heaven. The canker worm spoilt and flyeth away. "'Thy crowned are as the locusts, "'and thy captains as the great grasshoppers, "'which camp in the hedges in the cold day. "'But when the sun arises, they flee away, "'and their place is not known where they are. "'Thy shepherds slumber, O King of Assyria. "'Thy nobles shall dwell in the dust. "'Thy people are scattered upon the mountains, "'and no man gathereth them. "'There is no healing of thy bruise. "'Thy wound is grievous. "'All that hear the brute of thee "'shall clap their hands over thee, "'for upon whom hath not thy wickedness passed continually.' So we see their perceived strength, talks in verse number 12, all thy strongholds shall be like fig trees that are ready to be shaken. The figs will just fall right off because they've reached that point in the harvest. And their strongholds, their perceived strengths would actually be exposed as their weakness. Let's think about this a little bit. Man's greatest weakness, just generally speaking, and this I think applies probably to each individual as well, but our greatest weakness is when we perceive that we have no weakness. You think about even the Titanic. When the Titanic was built, there was comment made that God himself could not sink this ship. And that's the spirit of pride which God hates. And when we put ourselves in that position where we think we have no weakness, we have no need of anything, that's exactly when our humbling will come. Man's greatest weakness is always when he perceives he has no weakness because pride always results in destruction. You know, that's a fact, a truth from God. You know, we look at the book of Proverbs, it talks about the one who is proud, talks about the life of the proud and how God sees that as an abomination and how destruction always follows that. But on the flip side of that, what's essential for us being blessed by God is humility. So when we perceive we have no weakness, we perceive we have no need, that's when we're most vulnerable, because we're not in a position to receive the blessing of God, but also we are living in that pride that God will judge, that God cannot bless. Here in Nineveh, they looked around, and they said, you know, we're in a good position. We're strategically located. We have a strong city. We cannot be defeated. But that perceived strength would be what God would use to humble the people. Same for us. Our greatest weakness is when we perceive we have no weakness. The Assyrians would be destroyed. There's illustration here. They'd be destroyed like locusts. There's several ways that they were described here, like a ripe fig tree. It talks about their gates being wide open and the only defense they would have would be their women. Their fire will consume their brick kiln. Their source of wealth would be destroyed. Their leaders would scatter. This would be a final destruction. It would be a conclusive end to Nineveh. The surrounding peoples would rejoice because of the wickedness of Nineveh. And there was going to be no one that was going to sit around and mourn for Nineveh. No one was going to be upset and lose sleep over the fact that Nineveh was going to be destroyed. You remember we said the name Nahum means comforter. And that's part of what this is. This comfort is coming not to Nineveh. This comfort is coming to the world because of Nineveh's destruction. We know that historically this would happen. Nineveh would be destroyed in the 600s BC. So for a long time, just wiped off the face of the earth. No record of them even existing outside of the Word of God. Now I'll mention this. Someone in here brought this to my attention. It's kind of an interesting thought to consider. Nahum, you'll notice that ends with a question. And somebody mentioned that there's only two books in the Bible that end in a question. And one of them is Jonah, and the other is Nahum. Both of them speaking of Nineveh. And the question in Jonah is from God to Jonah, should not I spare Nineveh? He made that question, posed that question to Jonah. Why shouldn't I spare Nineveh? Look, they've repented. They've turned from their wickedness. But now we see here in Nahum, it says, there's no healing of thy bruise, thy wound is grievous. Why? Because upon whom hath not thy wickedness passed continually. They left that repentant lifestyle, they had left the revival that came after the preaching of Jonah, and now they were living in this wickedness that had gone throughout their entire kingdom and had caused great conflict and great trouble to the peoples surrounding them. There's an interesting thought there we can see as we close out the book of Nahum. It's a reminder to us that we need to be in right standing with God. We don't want it to be said of us that the Lord is against us. We don't want to elevate ourselves and puff up ourselves to the point where we think that we are in control, that we have no need of God, that we're all set because we do need the Lord. And sometimes it's good to have a reminder of that and to be humbled in our minds that we can be in a position where God can bless us. Let's close in a word of prayer.