Nepaug Bible Church - http://www.nepaugchurch.org - Pastor's Evening Sermon Notes - http://www.nepaugchurch.org/ev/ev20091129.htm

THRU THE BIBLE EXPOSITION
Nahum: God's Comforting Judgment On His People's Cruel Foes
Part IV: God's Comforting News Of Vengeance On Formidable, Abusive Parties
(Nahum 3:1-19)
  1. Introduction
    1. Trusting God to take vengeance on an abusive party may seem like a simple, attainable task for one who has been moderately abused, but cases of extreme abuse are far more difficult for their victims to handle!
    2. Nahum 3:1-19 provided Israel with the comforting prediction of God's vengeance on a terribly abusive foe in Nineveh, and it offers comfort and direction for similarly afflicted folk today (as follows):
  2. God's Comforting News Of Vengeance On Formidable, Abusive Parties, Nahum 3:1-19.
    1. In Nahum 3:1, God's prophet, Nahum pronounced a woe on Israel's formidable, abusive foe in Nineveh, noting several vile characteristics about its abuse that would lead to God's severe judgment on the city:
      1. Nineveh was a city of bloodshed, a cruel foe, so it would fall due to such infamous abuse, Nahum 3:1a.
      2. Nineveh was full of lies, a city that would manipulatively pretend to befriend other nations in order to gain to control them so as to plunder them, Nahum 3:1b,c with 3:4; Bible Know. Com., N. T. , p. 1502.
      3. Nineveh never lacked victims, indicating she relentlessly abused other people groups, Nah. 3:1d, 19b.
    2. Having itemized these terrible characteristics, in Nahum 3:2-3, God described the dramatic battle scenes that would occur as the Medes and Babylonians invaded Nineveh and destroyed her for her sins.
    3. The fall of Nineveh is figuratively likened to the traumatic abuse of a harlot, Nahum 3:4-7: the city had spiritually prostituted herself in practicing witchcraft for demonic insight into defeating other nations, so God would let other nations invade, plunder, destroy and dishonor her, with no one grieving her fall, Ibid.
    4. Nineveh had destroyed the city of Thebes along the Nile, an event recalled by God in Nahum 3:8-11 (Ibid.), but God would turn the tables on Nineveh, letting the city herself experience the very cruelties she had administered on Thebes in Nineveh's own coming fall to the Medes and the Babylonians:
      1. God asked Nineveh if she thought she was better than the city of Thebes she had defeated, Nah. 3:8a.
      2. Then, He itemized ways Thebes had been like Nineveh before its fall to the Assyrians, Nahum 3:8b-9:
        1. Thebes had been located on the Nile surrounded by water canals, making her seemingly difficult to defeat much like Nineveh was aided by its association with a river, Nah. 3:8b; Ibid., p. 1502-1503.
        2. Like Nineveh who looked to her vassal states for military help, Thebes had relied on Put (Somaliland) and Lubim (Libya), but to no avail, Nah. 3:9-10a; Ryrie St. Bib., KJV, ftn. to Nah. 3:9.
      3. However, just as Thebes had fallen to Nineveh, Nineveh would fall to her attackers, Nahum 3:10-19a:
        1. Like the people of Thebes, many Ninevites would be taken captive and go into exile, Nahum 3:10a.
        2. Like Thebes whose infants had been dashed to pieces at every intersection (street "head") to end its future, Nineveh's infants would likewise be slain, Nah. 3:10b; Ibid., Bib. Kno. Com., O. T. , p. 1503.
        3. Like Thebes whose nobles and great men had been divided up by lot to enemy soldiers and chained up as slaves, the same humiliating fate would befall the prominent men of Nineveh, Nahum 3:10c.
        4. As the men of Thebes had been drunk in her fall, the men of Nineveh would be drunk in her fall, a fact verified by Diodorus Siculus (Bibliotheca Historica 2.26.4), Ibid., p. 1495; Nahum 3:11a.
        5. God predicted the men of Nineveh would go into hiding, Nahum 3:11b. [So abandoned was the city by its survivors that its location became lost to historians until 1842, Ibid., Ryrie, ftn. to Nah. 3:11!]
    5. Other descriptions of Nineveh's fall in Nahum 3:12-19a include the easy prey her military fortresses would become (3:12), the demoralizing of her troops (3:13a), the opening and destruction of her protective gates (3:13b), her failure to rebuild destroyed portions of her protective brick walls (3:14-15), the defeat and scattering of her surviving soldiers (3:17-18), the permanence of the fall and joy of other nations (3:19a), which joy would be the a result of Nineveh's having been so perpetually cruel toward them, 3:19b. This last point is a "parting shot" at Nineveh's predominant sin -- the perpetual, terrible abuse of other nations!
Lesson: God comforted Israel with the prediction that her relentless, deceptive, manipulative and even demonic-influenced foe, Nineveh, would be destroyed in divine vengeance in a way that fit her abuse.

Application: If badly mistreated by a very formidable, abusive party, may we trust God to deal with the party, taking hope and encouragement from the message of Nahum 3:1-19 to that end, Romans 12:19.