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Ring of Truth provides 366 daily ‘proofs’ that the Bible is consistent throughout from Genesis to Revelation, and relevant for our lives today!
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Nahum 1:3
“The Lord is slow to anger and great in power; the Lord will not leave the guilty unpunished. His way is in the whirlwind and the storm and clouds are the dust of His feet.”
Behold, your God. The ‘Ring of Truth’ rings again!
If you want people to serve the Living God, let them see a true picture of who He really is. People today stand in more awe of the President of the United States, the Monarch of England or their own nation’s political leader than God. The trouble is that this attitude has crept into the Church too.
Nahum was trying to get the attention of the pagan Ninevites – the people of Nineveh, those who lived in the city that we read Jonah went to approximately 200 years earlier. (Jonah chose a more dramatic approach to evangelism.) Pagans need be introduced to ‘Someone’ who is greater than any of their contemporaries, leaders, experiential idols, or gods – including power and money.
In this first chapter, Nahum adopts a very interesting strategy. As we see in verse 2, he reveals that God is a jealous and avenging God who takes vengeance against His foes and maintains wrath against His enemies. He continues with this until verse 7 where he ‘opens a window’. “The Lord is good, a Refuge in times of trouble” – but there is an apparent proviso – “He cares for those who trust in Him, but with an overwhelming flood He will make an end of Nineveh; He will pursue His foes into darkness.”
Firstly, he elevates God in the eyes and comprehension of his hearers.
Secondly, he pronounces the righteous anger of God against sin and wickedness.
Thirdly, he reveals the other side to God, where He protects and cares for those who trust and follow Him.
Fourthly, he warns the people that there is no escape from the sentence pronounced by God.
Maybe there are some hints here for us to consider when trying to reach out to the ‘secular unsaved’ today. Instead of trying to win people over by the ‘God is your friend’ approach, maybe we actually need to re-establish the Holiness of a Righteous God who finds sin, rebellion and independence abhorrent.
I am the last to advocate that God is a vindictive schoolmaster, just ready to lash out at every misdemeanour but I do feel that sometimes we overlook and fail to declare that Our Loving Saviour, Redeemer is also totally Righteous and Holy. He is still a Jealous God. However, declaring His awesome holiness can and should be done in a loving and gracious way.
Maybe, if we ‘opened that window’ occasionally, people would allow the Light of Christ to penetrate their darkness and we would see more captives released from their prisons.
Why not give it a try? What do you think?
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