Our scripture reading for this morning comes from the prophet Nahum. And I don't know if you've heard any sermons lately on Nahum. And you might wonder why you are hearing one this morning. Well, I do have, as a missionary, one of my most important responsibilities is to study the Word of God, both in English and Spanish. and this year I'm going through the Minor Prophets and I'm trying to write a course every month on the Minor Prophets and so I'm in, I'm up to Nahum and tonight you'll hear about Zephaniah and there's a reason why this book is in the Bible and this morning we need to discover that and we need to appreciate it and may the Lord apply it to our life. So the So we will read the first chapter, Nahum chapter 1. Now I'm using the new King James Version and I forgot to ask this morning what version you guys use, but anyway you'll hear both if you have a different one. The Burden Against Nineveh, the Book of the Vision of Nahum, De Elkoshite. God is jealous and the Lord avenges. The Lord avenges and is furious. The Lord will take vengeance on his adversaries. and he reserves wrath for his enemies. The Lord is slow to anger and great in power, and will not in all acquit the wicked. The Lord has his way in the whirlwind and in the storm, and the clouds are dust of his feet. He rebukes the sea and makes it dry. He dries up all the rivers. Bashan and karma wither, and the flower of Lebanon wilts. The mountains quake before him, the hills melt, and the earth heaves at his presence. Yes, the world and all who dwell in it. Who can stand before His indignation? And who can endure 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 knows those who trust in Him. But with an overflowing flood, He makes an utter end of its place, and darkness will pursue His enemies. What do you conspire against the Lord? He will make an utter end of it. Affliction will not rise up a second time. For while tangled like thorns and while drunken like drunkards, they shall be devoured like stubble fully dried. From you comes fourth one who plots evil against the Lord, a wicked counselor. Though they are safe and likewise many, yet in this manner they will be cut down. When he passes through, though I have afflicted you, I will afflict you no more. For now, I will break off the yoke from you and burst your bonds apart. The Lord has given a command concerning you. Your name shall be perpetuated no longer. Out of the house of your gods, I will cut off the carved image and molded image. I will dig your grave, for you are vile. In the words of our text, behold on the mountains the feet of him who brings good tidings, who proclaims peace. O Judah, keep your appointed feasts, perform your vows, for the wicked one shall no more pass through you he is utterly cut off as we as we mentioned that the the book of Nahum a short book not that popular of a book is in the Bible for a reason and the specific reason why this book is in the Bible is that it is a prophecy, the final prophecy, about the destruction of the city of Nineveh. And that city will be destroyed in 612 BC. It's a historical event that happened. It's recorded in the Bible. It's recorded in secular history as well. And we will see how the prophet prophesies about that event. Well, first of all, we notice that God uses just one prophet, a lonely figure, Nahum. We don't know much about Nahum. In fact, it appears that he does not come from the ruling caste or ruling class. He's not a priest. In fact, he's not a prophet before he receives the Word of God. But he receives the Word of God and that makes him a prophet. That's an important point. How do you know who's a prophet? A prophet is one who receives the Word of God and proclaims it to someone else. And that's why he's constituted as a prophet. Now, as a prophet, he's not the first one to speak to Nineveh. Remember Jonah? We don't know how many years previous, but it could have been over a hundred years. It could have been up to a hundred and twenty years before when Jonah was sent by the Lord. Reluctantly, of course, he went, but he did go and preached repentance there and judgment, and Nineveh repented and God relented from his judgment. And rather than destroying Nineveh in 40 days, that city has survived another, let's say, 120 years. But now Nineveh has repented from repenting. And now Nineveh isn't repenting anymore. They have come to a spot as a city where they have become apostate. They have gone beyond repenting. There's no turning back. And so the word of judgment comes to them. And it comes to them in three ways according to verse one. It's a prophecy. Nahum receives this word from God. It's not his opinion about what's going to happen to Nineveh. There's no opinions in this book. It's a prophecy. It's the word of the Lord. He receives the Word of the Lord. Secondly, it is a vision. It's something that's going to happen in the future. Some of the events will immediately happen, other events will still take time. It's a vision that he receives. And thirdly, it is also written down in the form of a book. And the book form of it we still have today, but in those days it was necessary to have it written down to compare with other prophecies of the time and also that there would be an objective standard by which to judge how God is going to act. And this would be given to people in Jerusalem and Judea who have been under the oppressions of the Assyrians. It could have been given to the remnant of Israel. They already have been taken into captivity. It could have also been delivered to the rulers of Nineveh, but it has been preserved for us and for our instruction. And so Nahum was not the first prophet of God to speak to Nineveh, and he is the second, and he also speaks in an objective way. But notice that God uses this unknown figure He doesn't use a religious leader. He doesn't use a civic leader. He uses a simple, lonely believer. One man. One man. And this points to how the Lord works also amongst us. We call this in Protestant circles the office of all believer. The fact that God uses all believers in order for us to be prophets. priests and kings. It's a wonderful Reformed doctrine, very well explained in Lord's Day 12 of the Heidelberg Catechism, where because of the anointing of Christ we are prophets, priests and kings. Now there's a whole history to that. It's very important to realize that that's traced all the way back to Adam and Eve. And after the fall you have the promise to the seed of the woman and the seed of Satan. Now when you look as to who the seed of the woman is, Galatians 3 verse 16 teaches us that the seed is the Messiah. And what does the word Messiah mean? It means anointed one. Christ in Greek, Messiah in Hebrew. Anointed one. And so that is a signal for us that the people of God, the sons of God in the Old Testament, as opposed to the sons of men, the sons of God are those whom God is going to use in order to accomplish His purposes. They are servants of the Lord in one form or another. They're not all the same, but God will use His people. And so, we, this morning, can speak about Nahum as representing the office of all believers. Now, on the day of Pentecost, you find his doctrine coming in full bloom. You have Peter, the apostle Peter, saying in fulfillment of Joel chapter 2 verse 28 and following, that the Spirit has come, and that our sons and our daughters will prophesy, and our young men will have visions, and the old men will have dreams. You see, we have a God who speaks to us. He's not silent, and He speaks to us through His Word, whether it comes through the minister, or whether it comes through the member of the church, but He will speak to us. And if we don't speak, the rocks will cry out, because God will speak, and He will make known His will to us, and we praise Him for that. Now, the doctrine of the Office of All Believers, which teaches us that we are all as Christians. To be a Christian, you have to be anointed. How do you know if you're anointed? Jesus said, well the Spirit of the Lord has come upon me and he has anointed me to do what? To proclaim or preach good news, the Gospel, to the needy. And then on the day of Pentecost you see with Peter announcing that the Spirit of the Lord has come upon the church and our sons and our daughters will prophesy. We will be priests. We will pray to the Lord. Whoever calls upon the name of the Lord will be saved. We will be kings. We will serve with Him in holiness as we repent from our sins and as we are part of the Church, the Body of Christ. And so that call comes to us this morning, each and every one of us, as we listen to the message this morning. We too are prophets. We too are called to speak to the City of Man. When we And I borrow this idea from a theologian called Augustine, who wrote a book, and if you haven't read it, you gotta read it, it's a must read, The City of God. It's a wonderful, wonderful book, where right from Genesis 3.15 to the end of Revelation, he shows that there's a seed of the woman, and there's a seed of Satan, and that the seed of the woman are involved in the building of the city of God, and that the seed of of Satan is involved in the building of the city of man. And the characteristic of the city of God is that they love God above all else and their neighbor as themselves. And the characteristic of the city of man is that they love themselves above all else. And so here too we see that Nineveh represents the city of man, one of the many cities of men. And because they did not repent they will be destroyed. Getting back to the Office of All Believers, next year we're going to be celebrating 500 years since Martin Luther nailing the 95 Theses on the wall, on the church door, of the cathedral in Wittenberg, Germany. Had he done that here, he'd probably get thrown out, right? The thing is, he did this publicly. That's why it's important. Not only did he protest, and that's why we call it the origin of Protestantism, those who protest, but he did it publicly. And he did it in defiance of his own church. In fact, he was not totally critical of the papacy and of things that were happening in the Catholic Church. That would come later. But he certainly was critical of what we know as indulgences, where one could buy favor from God. If you had money, you could pay, and this money would go to the building of the cathedral of St. Peter's in Rome, and the conscience and the sensibilities of this monk were tremendously bothered by this, and so he nailed the 95 Theses on the cathedral wall. One lone German monk. I wonder this morning if there's a Nahum amongst us, or if we are being like Nahum, whether we prophetically are speaking against the city of man. Is there someone this morning, or is there someone in our whole political system, as we're in the time of the year where we are getting ready to vote, and I know you have to be careful to keep the separation of church and state, so I'll try not to show my colors, but is there someone who will stand up and say, you know, there's only one God, and He's the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and all other gods are idols? Is there someone who will speak up and say, you know, Jesus is the only way of salvation, and we're to evangelize non-Christian people, including the Muslims? Will there be anyone, will there be a Nahum amongst us who will say that our problem is sin? and that we have sinned against God and our neighbor, and it's only through repentance and faith in Jesus Christ that there is a solution, including social, political, economic solutions. Is there anybody who would say that, you know, Christians need to speak up? The law of God is not for one party or the other or the third party. The law of God is for all cultures, all times, and all peoples. Will there be a Nahum who will stand up and say, you know, Christians have religious rights too. We have the freedom to worship, the freedom to celebrate a weekly day of rest, the freedom to pray, witness in public, the freedom to abstain from anything that's considered sinful. Is there a Nahum amongst us who will stand up this week and say, you know, abortion is a crime against the Creator and the family. And we pray that those who practice that and support it and vote for it will repent. Is there somebody who will stand up this morning and say, you know, on the Day of Judgment, we will be judged according to the gender that God has created us, and you can't change that. If God has made you a man, you will be judged as a man. If God has made you a woman, you will be judged as a woman, and that doesn't change. Is there someone who will stand up and say, you know, marriage is between one adult male and one adult woman, and that marriage is for life. Is there a Nahum amongst us who would say that when we consider fostering and adoptions that we do so according to traditional family values? Is there a Nahum who would remind us that the prologue to the Ten Commandments is about a people who were enslaved and brought out of Egypt. They were aliens, they were foreigners, they were illegals, and that we are to respect foreigners and illegals within our land, for they are made in the image of God. Is there someone amongst us who would remind us of the commandment, you shall not steal, to say that charity should not be used for political clout or personal gain? Or that healthy men are expected to work for a living, and that being able to work and not working and living off welfare is robbing the state? Would somebody remind us that all people, including rulers, are under civic law that conform to the law of God, and that the love of money is the root of all political, social, and economic mischief? You know, all I did there was apply the Ten Commandments. It's nothing new. Fifty years ago, if I would have said that, it wouldn't have made the news. But today it does, because things are changing in America. But God doesn't change. He always is the same. He has the same being, the same will, and the same word for us, and we praise Him for that. Now let's speak about that, God. We notice that it's only God who speaks to the city of man. Idols don't speak. The Heidelberg Catechism, Lord's Day 35, calls them dumb idols or dumb images. They're made of wood and stone. They don't speak. They don't address the needs of the city. But only God speaks. And God is not silent in the face of the sins of the city. And so, this God, and as you go back to our passage, we see that God is jealous, and the Lord avenges, the Lord avenges, and is furious. Do you get it? He's upset, very upset. And the reason why he's upset is because he's holy. And because He's holy, He cannot stand sin. He cannot let sin go. And because He's just, He must punish sin. All sin is punished. There's not a sin in the universe that will go unpunished. No one ever gets away with sin. And God is jealous. He guards His justice. He guards His holiness. He expresses His wrath. Now, the beauty of the doctrine of the vengeance of God is not that, wow, look at him destroy the wicked. Not at all. Because we deserve to be destroyed too. Only by the grace and mercy of God are we saved. But, because vengeance belongs to the Lord, you and I don't have to do it. And we're free to love our enemy. I want to repeat that because that's really, really important. Because there are religions in this world today that think they have to take it upon themselves to wreak vengeance on those that they think are offending God. No, no, no. Romans 12 says, vengeance is mine. I will repay. That job belongs to God. Therefore if your enemy is hungry, feed him. If he's thirsty, give him drink. For in so doing you heap coals of fire on his head. Do not overcome, do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good." Because vengeance belongs to God, and He will take care of business, we are free to love our enemies. Now, as I'm involved in world missions throughout Latin America and the Caribbean, but also in jail ministry in the United States, and also next week I'll be going to jail in Quito, Ecuador, but it's very interesting to see how many Christians work in the prison and jail systems? And that's because we have a theology that allows for it. You know, because the inmates are there, now at the end of September I'll be going to Charlotte for two days, that's down by North Fort Myers, and to Seffer Hills, which is by Tampa, and I'll spend two days with the inmates, and we have mince classes. And as we have a mince class, you know, around the table there are murderers, They're all the sins that you can think of, they're represented around that table. And here we are, praising the Lord together, studying the Word of God, and He is transforming them, and He's changing them, and they become His light in the prison system. And it's amazing when you, for example, when they register for our program, they write their personal testimony, You read those testimonies and you go, whoa, this is amazing. And I've tried to document those testimonies in some of the writings that I do, because it's just a wonderful demonstration how God, when people repent, like when Nineveh repented the first time, He is capable of relenting from destroying them and transforming them. And we praise God for that. So because vengeance belongs to the Lord, we are free to love and minister to our enemy. The Christian ministry at the local level and missions and world missions, let's say, is characteristic of that. You'll see that missionaries will go to people that really, really, really oppose Christianity. They hate you. They don't want you there for whatever reason. And yet, there's this strong love of God and love of neighbor, and the Christian movement keeps pressing on with the grace and mercy of God in the forefront, and we love our enemies, we love those who persecute us, we love those who oppose us. That should set a tone of how we address the city, should it not? The city is rebellious, and the city of Nineveh is going to be destroyed, and yet it's the Lord who says, vengeance is mine. Now he's able to carry that out, And he did so by using the enemies of God against the enemies of God. He'll use the Babylonians and the Medes in order to punish the Assyrians and Nineveh. He's sovereign. He'll take care of business. He knows how to do that. Our job is to love our enemies. It says here, and then there's a real words of comfort here for the remnant who are going to suffer because the city is going to be destroyed. The Lord is good, a stronghold in a day of trouble, and He knows those who trust in Him. And so He calls the remnant to come to Him and to trust in Him. And then He turns to verse 15, where He gives us the amazing promise that the city of God is the only city that's going to survive. The city of man will be destroyed. Now it's very interesting to know that Nineveh, was destroyed, 1612, and that the modern city of Mosul is built on the ruins of Nineveh. I think it's across the river, Tigris. And that city has been built up, and every generation that has come, and all these empires that have come throughout the years, in the last 25 years it's been destroyed by the Iraqis, it's been destroyed by the Americans, and now it's being destroyed by the Islamic State And now the Americans and the Iraqis are getting together and they'll destroy it again. And that city, representing the city of man, keeps getting destroyed because there's no repentance. In fact, there's about an estimated 60,000 Assyrian Christians in Mosul and they all had to flee. They had to go into exile. They had to leave the city because there's such a hatred against God and his people. And yet, God will prevail. And he will call his people to himself also in that city. Like I said, 60,000 Assyrian Christians who are in refugee camps and throughout the Middle East and also some have come to the United States. Now, God is going to destroy sin. He has to destroy sin. He has to destroy the sinner. And he will destroy the sinful city. It's been that way since Adam and Eve. Remember Noah. He had to destroy a whole civilization, and only Noah and his family were saved. Remember Sodom and Gomorrah. You know, the fire and destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah came from God Himself. He destroyed that city. Remember the army of Egypt was destroyed in the sea. Remember Jericho and the cities in the conquest of Canaan. And some people are critical that these cities had to be destroyed, but they were past redemption. They were past restoration. They were past repentance. There was no hope left in those cities. They had to be destroyed. Our passage mentions Basin. Remember in Amos, the cows of Basin and Carmel and the flower of Lebanon, perhaps referring to Samaria. These cities were also destroyed. That happened in 722. And then the great capital of the Egyptian empire at that time Alexandria, it's called Thebes, in 633 was destroyed. And then Nineveh in 612. And then Jerusalem in 587 and 586. And then Jerusalem again in the year 70 AD. And so the City of Man continually, if it does not come to repentance and faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, will be destroyed. But then comes the question, and as a missionary I ask the question, well what about those civilizations that have been around for a long time and never really been destroyed, like the Chinese dynasties and the Chinese civilizations? Well, wouldn't you know that they still exist today and they haven't been destroyed because they have a redemptive purpose. God is doing a great work in China. Right now two of our men are in China. They're making exploratory visits. We've been there before. And we have two people who are translating Chinese, our materials into Chinese. But there's close to a hundred million Christians in China. There's more Christians in China than the United States and Canada combined. And the Lord's doing a great work in China. That's why China still exists today. China exists today for the gospel. And if a city, the City of Man, if it does not bow to the Lord Jesus Christ like Nineveh bowed and repented and was saved for another 120 years, let's say. The same theory principle applies to the civilizations and the cities today. You say, well, what about the United States of America? Well, if you're a social worker, if you're a judge, if you work in the judicial system, in the penal system, and if you're a high school or a public school teacher or If you know what's going on in our society, you know that there are groups of people that are destroying themselves at a very rapid rate. High suicide rates, amazing amount of abortions, the culture of death has taken hold of people groups, and it's destroying us. And the United States is being destroyed from within the United States. But we pray for repentance, and we preach the Gospel, and everybody, all of us are called to preach the Gospel. That's what we learn from verse 15 here. In verse 15, which is amazing, Behold on the mountain the feet of him who brings good news, who proclaims peace. Now the prophet sees the far bigger picture. He's not speaking to the cities. He's not speaking to Nineveh now. He's not speaking to Jerusalem or Samaria. But he's speaking about something far greater. In fact, the Gospel that's going to be preached is so big, a city cannot contain it. Jerusalem won't be big enough to contain it. It has to be preached on the mountains. It has to be preached in the valleys. It has to be preached everywhere. Behold, on the mountains, the feet of Him who brings good tidings. That gospel is going to run through the mountains. It's going to run through the valleys. It's going to run through the earth. And that's the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. And what is the message? The message is peace. He who declared war announces peace. You see, the Lord declared war against us. I will put enmity between you and the in the seat of the woman. The Lord is at war with us because we're sinners and He's holy. But now, because of the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ, He proclaims peace. How can we be sure? Well, the Lord Jesus Christ is the answer. On the cross of Calvary, the full wrath, vengeance, indignation of God is poured out on the Son And so the Father shows His holiness and His justice and He just destroys His Son on the cross. That's the most horrible death that He died. But in Him, sin, the sinner, the power of sin, evil, power of Satan are crucified. And because they are crucified and He dies to sin, He rises again from the dead and He lives again forever so that all who believe in Him can have that power over sin. There is no excuse to live in sin anymore because we can believe in the Lord Jesus Christ who liberates us from sin. And so the peace that God proclaims is found in the Messiah, in Christ, the Anointed One, who also will anoint His people to go forth. and cause us to be the feet, the feet that run and go throughout the world with this life-changing Gospel. Now this evening I will speak a bit more about that as we look at Zephaniah, but the, I speak about the New Jerusalem, so I won't get into that now, but let it be known that the City of God, the New Jerusalem, is going to be built through the proclamation of the Gospel, through the preaching of the Word of God. Isaiah 52.7 says, how beautiful are the mountains, are the feet of Him who brings good news, who proclaims peace, who brings good tidings, who publishes salvation, who says to Zion, to the people of God, your God reigns. And like we mentioned in Luke 4, verse 18, the Spirit of the Lord is upon me because He has anointed me to proclaim, to preach good news to the needy, to the poor. And then to the Samaritan woman, the Lord says, Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when you will neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem worship the Father. But the hour is coming and now is when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and in truth. For the Father is seeking such to worship Him. God is spirit and those who worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth. You see, the response of God to sin, sinners, Satan, the city of man, is to preach Good News. And it's for that reason why with Miami International Seminary, although my main task is to train pastors and elders and deacons and church members, but we also build chapels all over the place. And the reason is so that the Good News will be preached in a consistent and orderly way. In Psalm 2, where the psalmist writes, why do the nations rage and the people plot vain things? The response is, yet I have set my king on my holy hill of Zion. God's response is to plant His Church and to preach the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ, His Anointed One, the Lord and His Anointed. And so it is through the proclamation of the Gospel that we respond to the destruction of the City of Man. Out of the ruins of Sodom and Gomorrah, out of the ruins of Nineveh, out of the ruins of Jerusalem, out of the ruins of Berlin and Rotterdam and all those cities that were destroyed in World War II, we preach the Gospel. That's the good news. The City of God will be built through preaching, teaching evangelism and witnessing to the Word of God. And so this congregation has been invited. Last night we had a meeting to help build a chapel in Haiti. We're trying to build 25 chapels in five years. I don't know if we'll get there, but that's our goal. But the reason is because after the earthquake six years ago in Port-au-Prince, there was a missionary, he's from the PCA, Christ Church of America, he went, he's a Haitian, he went back to Haiti and they started 118 churches. And a lot of these places don't have a place to meet. In fact, I preached in some of them, one in particular, and you know, it consisted of poles and palm leaves. And I'm six foot five, and I think the ceiling must have been about six foot three. And so, obviously, as my head was sticking in the roof, they needed a church. So I said to the missionary, you know, the Lord has used us in the past in the Dominican Republic, to help build chapels there. Sandy, my wife, and I worked there for twelve and a half years and we received more than 35 workers. And I think this would be a good time to initiate a project as well. And so thankfully your church has responded and we're making plans for you to go. Some of you will go to Haiti and another group will go to the Dominican Republic to do some repairs for churches. But why These chapels, because the gospel must be preached, need a place to preach the Word of God. But not only do we preach, but we evangelize, we teach. We believe in Christian education that's based upon the Word of God in church, home, and school. We have to prepare the future generation to be a Nahum in their cities. We do not waver with the orthodoxy of our pastors, elders, deacons and our members. We hold, each and every one of us, we hold each other to the high standards of the Word of God. Because it's by the preaching of the Gospel, the Word of God, that the city of God will be built. And for that reason we send out missionaries who can evangelize, witness, preach, teach, train. We send out Christian school teachers, leadership trainers, social workers, Christian agriculturalists. Yes, we need Christian farmers in the mission field. farmers who will come not only with the seed but with the Word of God. And so the Word of God will be spread by the feet of many who will be stampeding throughout the whole world. The Christian mission movement is amazing because it's not restricted by temples or by the walls of a city or by the boundaries of a nation. It is an unrestricted movement across lines, across borders, to all cultures, to all people groups, to all language groups. The Gospel is going everywhere because God is going everywhere. So in conclusion, whose prophet are you? Who are you a spokesman for? Are you a spokesman for the city of man or the city of God? Will we, like Nahum, speak to our city and to the solutions that are needed today and this week? Do we identify with our God? Have we given over? Because sometimes, you know, when people oppose us, we'd like to wipe them out, right? Well, that's not the way to do it. Vengeance belongs to the Lord, so that we're free to love our neighbor, and free to love our enemies, and free to minister. What city is God building in your family? through your work, at your school, in your street, in your community, and in your church. Let us join ranks with the prophet Nahum and denounce the destruction, and announce the destruction of the city of man, and proclaim the building of the city of God. Let us be busy with loving our enemies and our neighbors, with the word of God and evangelism, witness, proclamation, and teaching. Let us seek that city not built with human hands, but whose builder and architect is God. Let us invest in a future that is sure and secure, the City of God. The Nineveh's of this world will be destroyed, but the City of God will last forever. Amen. Let's pray.