IN coming to the study of Nahum, which is another of what is known as the minor prophets in the Old Testament, I have to say that the consideration of this prophecy has not been one of my actions in the past. I have read the prophecy several times as I have regularly sought to read through the whole of the Bible again and again, but I have never stopped to study this prophecy. I come to writing sermons from Nahum with anticipation but also with utter dependence on the Holy Spirit for his revealing to me God's word for us in today's world.

In this first sermon I have been compelled to stop and consider this opening verse which is the introduction and presentation of this prophecy. It is so easy to pass over this verse, treating it rather as a greeting like the way we open our letters, just a means of commencing the letter, but without much meaning. As I commenced reading Nahum, I read the prophecy right through, and then returned to the beginning, and found myself halted in consideration of this opening verse, and finding it full of matter and truth. With this in mind this first sermon concentrates our attention on this first verse.

In the first place and at first sight it does not seem to tell us very much. Other prophecies say much more. We are not told anything about the prophet except that he was an Elkoshite. This must mean that he came from Elk, some town or village, or area, but where Elk is situated we have no clue. We are not told when Nahum prophesied. However it is deduced that he prophesied between the reigns of Hezekiah and his son Manasseh, because Assyria attacked Judah in the latter time of Hezekiah, and in the apostasy of Hezekiah's son Manasseh, Assyria subjugated Judah, and Manasseh was taken into captivity. We read this both in the book of 2 Chronicles and the book of two Kings.

Nahum's prophecy was against Nineveh, the chief city of Assyria. We have reference to the origin of Nineveh in Genesis 10: 8-12. Here we read that Nimrod, was a mighty hunter before the Lord and that his kingdom stretched to Assyria, where Nimrod built the city of Nineveh. If we look at map of the time we see Assyria mentioned there, together with Nineveh as capital of Assyria. This oracle against Nineveh is found fulfilled in Zephaniah 2: 13 where Nineveh is left utterly desolate. Nineveh figures large in the book of Jonah where Jonah was sent by God to declare the word of God to Nineveh, and where the message was heeded in the mercy of God, and from the king downward there was a massive repentance, on which then God withdrew his word of judgment and the city was saved. Here in the book of Nahum we are perhaps a hundred years later where the city and Assyria had returned to the godlessness it had repented of in the time of Jonah.

This opening verse of the prophecy of Naham tells us that the message of God which came to Nahum was an oracle, and that it was made known to Nahum in vision, and that what God declared to Nahum in this vision he wrote down in the book of Nahum, which we have in these three chapters.

Here we have the core of the massive divine revelation which is declared in this opening verse of the prophecy of Nahum. God's message was the oracle, that Nahum was made aware of in some visible form in what is called a vision.

Visions were one of the ways God revealed himself and his will and purpose to the Old Testament prophets. They were such that, although the recipient was still conscious of his surroundings, he was given a sight, or was made to see, the purpose of God, which was powerfully conveyed to the prophet. In the book of Jonah we read that the word of the Lord came to Jonah. This was the instruction of God for Jonah to tell Nineveh that the Lord proposed judge the city for the godlessness and sin that he saw there, but it was a word which God would make effective, and so bring about repentance, and the repeal of the word of judgement. Jonah seemed to know this purpose of God, and this was the reason for him to try to get out of declaring this message. Jonah felt Nineveh deserved no such grace from God.

In this prophecy of Nahum, God spoke as a oracle, not simply a word. The reason for this is found in the fact that Nineveh had reached to end of God's patience with them, and God was declaring his final devastating judgement on the city, and so on Assyria. When we examine the use of an oracle to declare God's purpose, it is seen to be one of final judgement where God determines to make an end of the nation or city that the oracle was pronounced against.

We have this expressed in Isaiah 13 where in verse 1 we read was an oracle which Isaiah saw. Here again, as we read on in this chapter, we see that oracle seen in a vision by Isaiah was of God's wrath in devastating judgement. Notice again that the oracle was seen, that is was revealed in a vision.

Again we see the same thing with regard to Egypt in Isaiah 19. Again God spoke in an oracle to Isaiah, and as we read on we find it declares a devastating judgement, which God in his just wrath, pours out on Egypt.

Then we again come across an oracle given through the prophet Jeremiah in chapter 23: 33ff. Here it seems that the people and the prophets were questioning the message in the oracle, and because of this, and because there was a seeking to distort the word of God expressed in the oracle and make it something less than what is expressed in its plain meaning, that God's wrath reacts against this behaviour, and God responds by saying he is bringing everlasting shame on the false oracles and the prophets who declare it.

What is declared in all this understanding of an oracle is so very relevant in our own time. In the oracle there is an expression of God's wrath expressed in devastating judgement. In the church of the present there is an antipathy against the idea of God's wrath, and the idea that God acts in wrath against people. The prevalent view in the visible church seems to be that as God is a God of love, the idea of God expressing wrath is totally objectionable to God's character of love.

The trouble with this perception is that wrath is perceived as human total loss of control, where unguarded anger is poured out on someone or something. This is just an expression of human sinfulness, and has nothing to do with the wrath of God, which is not an expression of wrath in this human sense, but an expression of his character of holiness and purity, and his sovereignty over all his creation.

In this human wisdom, expressed in this human view of God's love, human wisdom goes on to see no purpose in God's way of salvation through giving his only begotten Son to takes God's punishment for sin in our place; and finds it even revolting, and unworthy of God's love; and so the doctrine defined as substitution, where God places Jesus Christ before himself to take our place before his holiness, and where Jesus takes responsibility for the sin of the world, and God exacts his just wrath on Jesus in our place when Jesus died on the cross, is rejected altogether, and the true love of God in giving his only begotten Son to be the propitiation for our sins is despised.

When we seek to understand the wrath of God as it is revealed in God's action in the Bible, specially in the history of the Old Testament, we see that God's wrath is expressed primarily against the sin of idolatry, where God's creative and sovereign authority over all his creation is rejected, and people turn to various forms of false gods made with human hands and expressed in human thought and imagination. God is sovereign over all. He is the one and only sovereign creator and ruler of all people and all things. He has created all things. He sustains all life. He rules over his whole creation. He works his sovereign will and where this is not accepted and acknowledged there is the darkness of idolatry, which is the seed and source of all evil. When God is not given total worship and obedience, then human beings give their worship and obedience to the prince of darkness, Satan, who is called in the New Testament the god of this world and the prince of darkness. Satan was originally a high creation of God like the Cherubim, who rebelled against God, with many other of the angelic creation, and being cast out of heaven, and isolated on this earth, seeks to oppose God and his will in every way he can. Satan gained this dominance over mankind because of the action of our first parents Adam and Eve. They believed and put their trust in Satan when they turned away from obedience and allegiance to God when they defied God's one prohibition in the Garden of Eden, and ate the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. They believed Satan and wanted to be as God, and so became subject to the dominance of Satan.

This is expressed in the New Testament as the whole creation lying in the evil one. This truth is expressed so vividly in the history of the world which has shown so devastatingly the work of the devil in evil abounding.

When God expresses his purpose in an oracle, then we see that this is usually, if not always, a declaration of God's final just and implacable wrath against those who worship idols instead of God, who in a sort of finality have chosen to give their allegiance to the prince of darkness, and this is expressed in terrible persistent idolatry, which is at its root rebellion against God. Because this is giving allegiance and worship to Satan, this issues in the many expressions of rebellion against God in the way humanity behaves and acts, which is seen in the way the world has been evolving throughout history. Although in so many ways the evolution human life is seen in the technology which is so much part of life at the present, as far as goodness and love is concerned there has been little or no progress.

What is not appreciated is the fact that every human being born into the world is born under the rule of the prince of darkness, and is born with a corruption that comes from the devil. Human life retains something of the image of God in which Adam and Eve were created, and so goodness, and love and moral excellence is in some measure understood, yet the devil's authority holds all humanity in bondage, and this is seen that even those of the greatest intellect and wisdom, still succumb to the evil which is at the heart of all human life.

When God reveals his will in the expression of an oracle, God expresses his total antipathy to rebellion against him seen in idolatry, which is the source of all evil and the expression of the dominance of Satan. In this we see how offensive to God in his holiness is the breaking of the first two commandments. Wherever such rebellion and idolatry is found, then this is the truth that it is here that the wrath of God is expressed.

Is there such idolatry in the world today? Of course this is seen in the godlessness of humanity present everywhere. It is also seen in the many expressions of religion and worship which are not the worship of God, through the salvation of sinners through faith in Jesus Christ who by his death of Christ assuaged to wrath of God against us by taking our sin upon himself and suffering God's just wrath in our place. This condemns as idolatry all other religions other than the one religion of salvation through Christ, whose members are under this wrath, and await this wrath unless they repent.

We must go further in our understanding of idolatry by noting the idolatry expressed in the visible Christian church. Here, over the last century or more, human wisdom has been set over the Bible and its infallible authority, and where this is expressed in human wisdom taking authority to judge the revelation of God in the Bible, and only accepting the revelation of God in the Bible which suits their human wisdom. By this the whole revelation of God in the Bible of God as holy and love, is watered down to refusing to accept the whole revelation God has given of himself in the Bible, and only accepting what is in accord with human wisdom.

This is nothing less than horrible idolatry, and the visible church therefore to a large extent is subject the oracle of God, which if not heeded, will issue in final and catastrophic wrath poured out.