“One who scatters is coming up against you. Man the fortifications! Watch the road! Brace yourself! Summon all your strength!” (CSB – Read the chapter)
What does it look like when God acts? Have you ever thought much about that? We often talk about this or that being something God did, but what does His activity actually look like? I mean, He’s God, so it seems like His activity in our world should be something that no one could miss. It should be completely obvious to anyone who looks. But is that really the case? I’m not so sure, and I think Nahum here helps us see why.
This week, in part four of our series, I Do, we dealt with one of the dirtiest words in our culture. Want to know what it is? Submission. The idea of one person submitting themselves to another is anathema in the mind of the culture. And yet, when guys like Paul and Peter talked about marriage in their New Testament letters, they consistently used the word. That means we need to figure out what kind of a role it is supposed to have. Keep reading and wrestle with me with what this should look like.
Dirty Words
My boys enjoy Legos. A lot. In addition to having two of them on Lego Robotics teams at school, I think we are on a good approach for having every Lego set known to man before they graduate from high school. Over the years of accumulating various cool sets, though, some have gotten disassembled after being played with for a while. On occasion, they’ll want to play with a set from the past they know now resides in pieces in the playroom. Fortunately, the Lego website has the instructions and parts list for pretty much every set they’ve ever produced available to download. It’s just a simple matter of printing out the parts list, finding the right pieces, and then pulling up the instructions on some kind of a computer so they can rebuild it. Simple, right?
Sorry for the late post this morning. We had a snow day and spent the morning out playing in it. First things first.
“The Lord is good, a stronghold in a day of distress; he cares for those who take refuge in him. But he will completely destroy Nineveh with an overwhelming flood, and he will chase his enemies into darkness.” (CSB – Read the chapter)
As I drive around town, on occasion I’ll see a sticker on the back window of the car in front of me. One sticker in particular (which is, incidentally, most often found on big SUV’s) reads “Mama Bear.” The woman driving that vehicle is claiming two things about herself. Number one: She loves her kids fiercely. She is absolutely committed to them. Number two: If you try and get in between her and her kids, she’s going to rip you to pieces. If God drove around a big SUV, He’d have a Mama Bear sticker on His back window too.
“The Lord is slow to anger but great in power; the Lord will never leave the guilty unpunished. His path is in the whirlwind and storm, and clouds are the dust beneath his feet.” (CSB – Read the chapter)
How well do you know who God is? That’s kind of a big question right out of the gate. Let’s back off from that one for a minute. Think of someone you’ve known for a long time. Maybe a sibling or spouse or parent or friend. How well do you really know them? Perhaps you know a whole variety of good things about them, but do you know any of the hard things? I would argue that until you know at least some of the hard things, you really don’t know someone as well as you think you do. The same goes with God.
“The pronouncement concerning Nineveh. The book of the vision of Nahum the Elkoshite.” (CSB – Read the chapter)
We are finally finished with Micah. It’s time for something new. This morning, we are turning to the collection of prophecy we have from a man named Nahum. Nahum’s book is one of the shorter works of the Minor Prophets. It is one of the more focused as well. It is about the downfall of the city of Nineveh and the Assyrian Empire. Still, as brief and concentrated on a single subject as it is, there is much for us to learn if we will look closely and pay careful attention. God included and preserved it for a reason. Let’s begin digging in and see what kind of treasures we can uncover.
The Nexus 