We don't know that much about the prophet Nahum. We're not even sure what being an 'Elkoshite' means. We do know this....100 to 150 years previous to Nahum prophesying destruction on the Assyrian capital of Nineveh....Jonah wrote about the same city. We know this also....Jonah gave a warning....a forty day warning....but Nahum wasn't giving a warning....for he was simply telling Nineveh to get ready for the destruction which was to come....for the LORD had declared it!
In that time period between Jonah and Nahum.....Nineveh's violence and atrocities to the peoples they conquered were beyond even what other armies might do to nations that they defeated. Assyria had already attacked the ten tribes of the Northern Kingdom....and inhumanely marched them back to Assyria....where they were never to be heard from again. We know that shortly after that Assyria came against the fortified cities of Judah and Jerusalem. That was where King Hezekiah prayed....and as the Assyrian army was assembled outside the gates of Jerusalem....an Angel of the Lord came at night.....and by whatever means....possibly plague.....killed 185,000 of that army! Nineveh then packed up an left.
So is that the end of the story....Jonah's warning....Nineveh's short-lived repentance....Nahum's proclamation....and Nineveh's eventual destruction....so complete that when Alexander the Great later passed through....there were no longer any signs that a great civilization existed in the area? I don't think so.
The message is definately to us also today. Nahum writes about red shields and scarlet uniforms. Is there a clue there? Probably not....but that is how we are to read all of these prophets....showing a desire to know these things....looking for traits in us....that rebellious Israel and unfaithful Judah had....along with entities like Nineveh and Edom and Moab....that brought about God's extreme wrath.
Nineveh seemed at the time....impregnable....with towers everywhere...and tall and wide walls. They were supremely confident....and drunk on their successes. Nahum was so sure of what would happen to Nineveh that he wrote as if it had already happened...and it did....as later the city is looted....the soldiers scatter....chaos and terror reigned everywhere in the city....just as Nahum had prophesied.
Assyria had constantly made trouble for Israel....as far back as Jehu. God told them through Nahum that that was it....and they were going to feel God's wrath. This is the message that is as alive today as it was to nations like Assyria....and Nineveh its capital. God will use other nations to judge Israel...or us...or anyone....and then He will judge those nations. Israel is as rebellious towards God today as we are....but they are still Israel. We are not to exalt them....but to recognize what God is doing right now....and we had better treat them fairly....and honestly....and if we make promises to them....which we have....we had better keep those promises....and if God does judge them severely....we had better not rejoice in that or take advantage of it....for God will gloriously have mercy upon them as their Messiah returns....the King of Kings....and upon their conversion they will be brothers and sisters in Christ!
If America is in any way connected to ancient Nineveh....then we had our warnings previous to and during our Civil War....and there were substantial genuine revivals in northeastern cities beginning in 1857....and again in both armies....particularly the southern armies....during the war....but that fervor soon died off during reconstruction in the South and the advent of land-grant universities in the North.
We also like Nineveh went a hundred or so years....and along came many preachers....Billy Graham being just one....telling us that God was going to judge us. Once again....along the lines of the prophet Nahum....decades have passed....and those judgements are coming....increasingly....as birth pangs. You would have to be a graybeard like me to have observed this....but those decades when preachers like Billy Graham were warning us....seem like Shangri La compare to today. It is a paradox....and an enigma....in that evangelicals today want to....make America great again. In this they are pointing back to the days of Reagan....the same days in which the Billy Grahams of the church were warning us of impending judgment!
Note: Why not take the time to listen to a 'Christmas sermon'....probably unlike the 'Christmas sermons' that you have heard so far this year. Just Google....John Piper, You Have The Words Of Eternal Life.
Today's....December 21....Sermon of the Day....from the book of Micah....is powerful in the true meaning of Christmas! You can easily Google it at....John Piper, From Little Bethlehem Will Come a Ruler in Israel.
