Nahum 2:11-3:7. In yesterday’s reading we saw that we need to keep our eyes fixed on eternity not on the wild crazy life that is swirling around us.  Nahum began a prediction about Israel’s long time enemy Assyria.  Remember that Nahum is writing about 650 BC to the Southern Kingdom, Judah.  This is only a part of the original nation of Israel.  The other part, the Northern Kingdom had been dismantled by Assyria over seventy years before (722 BC).  The interesting thing about that is that Judah actually called on Assyria to help them fight against the Northern Kingdom (for more on that read through the posts on Isaiah).  It’s funny how human relationships change.  Friend or allies one minute enemies the next.  It happens in personal relationships as well as between nations.

James 1:17 tells us that God does not change, however.  The “shifting shadow” is a reference to the shadow of a a turning object on another object and is probably a reference to the shadow of the earth on the moon which causes the “phases” of the moon.  It could also refer to an eclipse.  The idea is that, unlike the moon through out the month, God is always consistent in how he acts toward us.  Therefore God should always look the same to us. In Hebrews 13:8 we see this same idea applied to Jesus, he is always the same; forever.  In today’s reading Nahum continues his prophecy about Assyria.  The lion in verse 11 is probably a reference to the king or leader of Assyria, the lioness and cubs would be the queen and his children.  Verse 12 describes how the lion killed for his queen and his cubs, a pretty ugly picture of bloody flesh lying around.  In verse 13 we see that God is against this “lion”.  God is going to stop the “lion” and his army from killing any more prey.  But why?  I think a clue is in verse 12, the “lion” killed for his cubs and lioness.  Now that is normal in the animal world but in the human realm we are supposed to live for God and for his purposes.  There was plenty of killing that went on in the early days of the nation of Israel as they dispossessed the Cannanite people from the land but the reason God gave for the killing was the idolatry of those people.  God had the big picture in mind, he knew the Cannanites did not have their eyes on eternity and that they were going to draw the Israelites away too.  It’s like the story of Adam and Eve.  The devil tempted Eve to eat the fruit that God had told them not to eat.  “look how nice it looks Eve, and if you eat it you will know things you never knew before.”  Sure like pain, suffering, death, and alienation from God.  But Eve took the bait and Adam did too.  Sometimes we need to cut ourselves off from things because they will interfere with us focusing on forever with God.

In chapter three God focuses our attention on this bloody legacy of the Assyrian people.  Pillage is the stuff an army takes when they conquer a land, it’s stuff for them selves.  This army took a lot and left only bodies behind.  In verse 4 we are told that it is because of the “harlotries of the harlot” or “whorings of the whore”.  That’s pretty strong language.  A harlot is a person who has sex for money.  But that is not the real idea here.  God set up rules for human existence.  One of those rules is that we only marry and have sex with one person.  It’s not because God didn’t want us to have a good time, it was so we would have a way of understanding faithfulness.  Marriage helps us understand what kind of relationship we need to have with God.  In human relationships, one husband or wife.  In spiritual relationships, one God.  God was keeping his eyes on our eternal well being.  The prostitute in verses 4 is a symbol of unfaithfulness to God.  This is further explained when it talks about her charms or sorceries.  Both those words carry the idea of magic, spells, witchcraft, and more.  It’s about worshipping spirits rather than God.  Finally verse 4 gets back to the influence this nation of Assyria was having on others around them.  People were being led away from God.  Because of all of this verses 5-7 describe how God is going to make an example out of the Assyrian nation.

All together we can see that God is consistently interested in our eternal well-being.  One time Jesus was talking to his followers about how he needed to die to save us.  Peter was upset about the idea.  Maybe he was focusing on the fact that the Messiah (the promised coming savior) would set up the promised forever kingdom.  Jesus accused him of talking like the Devil would talk.  Then he told his followers that gaining the whole world (an offer the Devil actually made to Jesus, Matthew 4:8-9) was a bad trade for eternity (Matthew 16:24-26).  As tragic as dying the first death is (see yesterday’s post) dying the second death is the real tragedy.  There is a restoration from the first death there is no coming back from the second death.  In describing the second death Jesus said it is a place where their “worm does not die”.  That is to say there is no separation from that torment, it is forever.  So God does not change he want to see s many people as possible turn back to him and to eternity in Heaven with him.   Jeus is the same yesterday, today, and forever.  He is the one who never turned back from his goal of dying to save a lost world.  We do turn though.  We all turn away from God, according to Isaiah we have all gone astray (Isaiah 53:6) but with God’s help and because of the forgiveness Jesus has made possible we can all turn back to God.  Turn to him today and look only to him now and forever.

God thank you for Jesus.  Thank you that all my wrong deeds were laid on him.  Thank you for making that path back to you.  Thank you that because of Jeus the Holy Spirit can live in me and guide me.  Help me listen to him.  Help me not live for self, help me not live for today, help me not be like an animal.  Let me live for what you made me for.  Help me be faithful to you.

Nahum 1:15-2:10. The first verse of today’s reading is quoted by Paul in the letter to the Romans (Romans 10:15).  In that verse he is telling the believers in Rome that the Jewish people have not been abandon by God but that they need to believe that God will fix their relationship with him.  Paul is telling the mostly non-Jewish believers in that church that our relationship isn’t fixed by following the Law of Moses but by Jesus (Romans 3:20; Galatians 2:16; Romans 5:8; Romans 6:23).  Paul tells the believers there that the Jewish people in ancient days should have known this because Moses and the Old Testament Prophets had told them so.  Those guys are the ones who had “beautiful feet” and “proclaimed good news”.  The good news is that heaven isn’t earned it is given to us free of charge (See Romans 5:8).

One of the prophets that Paul specifically mentions is Isaiah.  In Isaiah 53:6 we are told that all of us have offended God; none of us deserves Heaven.  That is why the news about Jesus giving it to us for free is so good.  Unfortunately the quote Paul uses for Isaiah (Romans 10:16) is that many have not believed the message that Isaiah and the others gave them; they have rejected the good news.  Since no one deserves heaven and it cannot be earned through following the Law those who do not believe are lost.  Revelation 20 describes the final judgment of people who rejected Jesus.  According to Revelation 20:6 the end result of that judgment is called the “second death”.  In the Bible the word death means “separation”.  The first “death” or “separation” is when our spirit or soul and body are “separated”; physical death.  This death is only temporary though.   According to Revelation 20 there are two “resurrections”.  The word “resurrection” means to “stand together” and the idea is coming back to life.  The people who put their faith in Jesus are part of the “first resurrection” and over them the second death has no power.  The rest come back to life at the end of a 1000 year reign of Jesus on earth.  At that time they are judge by their actions since their names are not in the book which lists all those who have trusted Jesus to fix their relationship with God.  Those who are part of this second resurrection suffer a second death.  This separation is not from their bodies but from God.  They are sent to a place where they have no contact with God, it is called the “Lake of Fire” and according to Jesus it is a terrible place to spend eternity (Matthew 8:12; 13:42, 50; 22:13; 24:51; 25:30; Luke 13:28).  Because of all of these facts Nahum told the Jewish people to Celebrate their feast and to pay their vows (which were ways to remember who God is and what he is doing).

So the ultimate hope of the Jewish people (and us) lies in the future but they were having problems then and there. Eternity is of much more importance than right now and that is God’s greater concern.  Right now we live in a world and universe that we have messed up.  According to 2 Peter 3:9 God is patiently mating for the maximum amount of people to believe in Jesus; to respond to the “good news”, before he deals with the mess we have made.  That does not mean that God does never manipulates history, he does, but always for the greatest eternal impact. Chapter 2 of Nahum  describes how God is going to do just that by destroying the Assyrian nation represented by it’s capitol Ninevah.  Verse one tells us that the “one who scatters” has gone to fight against Ninevah.  This is a reference to God.  Verses 2-10 describe the destruction of Ninevah and it’s a “zoo”.  Ninevah had once been a great place to live (look at verse 8 and remember that Ninevah was in what is modern day Iraq.  Ninevah was like a pool in the desert) but in these verses the people are very upset.

The destruction of Ninevah described by Nahum did not happen until 612 BC, 40 years after Nahum deliverd his message to the people of Judah.  Ninevah had been terrorizing the Jewish people for decades.  70 years earlier the Assyrians had destroyed the northern kingdom and 50 years earlier they had almost taken Jerusalem, capital of Judah (the Southern Kingdom).  Some people may have still been alive from the time when Nahum spoke, very few of them though would survive until the destruction of Ninevah.  Old Testament prophecies are very encouraging to us because in them we see that God is interested and active.  Since they accurately predict the future they are proof of God’s existence and of the truthfulness of what they tell us.  But many of them would have remained future predictions to the people they were originally given to.  The point here is that they needed to be more interested in eternity than in “today”.  Of course the generation which did see the fall of Ninevah would have felt relief but only for a short time because the new empire, Babylon, would be the empire which finally did conquer Jerusalem.  We need to be encouraged by the proof of God we find in the Bible and the proof of God’s love and involvement.  We need to be careful though and realize that the “good news” is really about forever, about eternity.  When we do we can have the attitude that the author of Psalm 23 had when he said, “even if I pass through the valley of the shadow of death I will not fear evil.”  Life will be full of many dark scary valleys but we need to keep our eyes fixed on the beautiful sunny eternity that waits for us at the end.  But be careful, Jesus is the only path to this destination (John 14:6) all others lead through the darkness to the darkness where an eternity of despair awaits.

God thank you for providing a way back to you.  Thank you that it does not depend on my abilities.  Thank you for making your existence and plan clear.  Thank you for helping me see it.  Help me keep my eyes on eternity as I live each day in the shadows.  Give me strength and perseverance.  Thank you for your love and forgiveness.