Does God Sometimes Let Us Endure Dark Days?

Posted on October 19, 2020 by russellmckinney

(“Questions From Israel’s Exodus” series: post #1)

In Genesis 15:12-16, we read about a dream that Abraham had in which God declared that Abraham’s descendants would spend 400 years in a foreign land and be afflicted there through servitude to that land’s occupants. At the end of that prophesied era, though, God would judge that foreign nation and bring Abraham’s descendants back into Canaan, the land that God had already given to them. Even more than that, those descendants would bring great possessions with them out of that foreign land. Abraham would be long dead before all this took place, but that didn’t make the prophecy any less certain.

Sure enough, right on schedule in God’s plan, Abraham’s descendants (who at the time consisted of only the large family of Jacob) moved from Canaan to Egypt, the foreign land of the prophecy. However, they didn’t immediately become slaves there. Much to the contrary, Jacob’s son Joseph was reigning as Egypt’s second-in-command at the time of the move, and Joseph’s favor with Pharaoh ensured a very pleasant settling in the land for Jacob’s family. It wasn’t until Joseph, his eleven brothers, and that entire generation died off that things changed (Exodus 1:6). By then the family’s original number of 70 (1:5) had multiplied exceedingly to become a thriving populace. That’s how the family of Jacob became the nation of Israel (1:7).

The change in the Egyptians’ attitude toward the Israelites was precipitated by two factors. First, a new king (Pharaoh) arose in Egypt, and he was a man who either had no direct knowledge of all the good that Joseph had done for Egypt, or he at least had no appreciation of it (Exodus 1:8). Second, this new Pharaoh used the population explosion among the Israelites as a scare tactic to convince his fellow Egyptians that in the event of war the Israelites might side with an invading army (1:9).

With this reasoning in place, the new Pharaoh appointed taskmasters over the Israelites, and these taskmasters forced them into slave labor to build two new supply cities for Pharaoh (1:11). The Egyptians thought that all that backbreaking work would greatly curtail the population explosion that was taking place among the Israelites, but in fact the exact opposite happened as the Israelites multiplied all the more (1:12). The Egyptians’ response to this heightened fertility was to make the work even harder on the Israelites by forcing them not only to build more cities but also to work in Egypt’s fields (1:13-14).

Additionally, Pharaoh instituted a new method of controlling the Israelites’ burgeoning population as he commanded Israel’s midwives to kill each newborn male (1:15-16). To their credit, though, in a classic case of “We ought to obey God rather than men” (Acts 5:29), the midwives disobeyed the order (1:18). This led Pharaoh to issue a new decree stating that every Israelite male baby must be thrown into the Nile river (1:22). Many students of the Bible have pointed out that Satan was working through this Pharaoh in an attempt to exterminate the Jewish race and in so doing keep Jesus from being born into the world through that race.

Obviously, at this point, the Israelites’ future looked incredibly bleak. They were in a land that was not their own, and they were literal slaves. The only comfort they could find in their circumstance was the comfort of their families, and now even those families had become tragedies as each day Israel’s newborn male babies were horrifically tossed into the Nile river where they would either drown or be eaten alive by the river’s crocodiles. Where was God in all this? Was He going to allow the Israelites to go extinct at the hands of a sadistic madman called Pharaoh?

No, He wasn’t. The Israelites probably didn’t realize it but the back half of that prophecy that God had spoken to Abraham was still hanging over them. Just as surely as they had moved to a foreign land, and just as surely as the occupants of that land had afflicted them with forced servitude, God was going to bring them out of that land with great possessions. The passing of all the centuries hadn’t lessened God’s memory or His intended plan one iota. His words of prophecy to Abraham were still running right on schedule.

Still, though, let’s not just gloss over the fact that the Israelites endured many, many dark days — days wherein they watched their male babies sink down into the depths of the Nile — while they waited on God to keep His word of deliverance to them. While I realize that this is subject matter that most Christians don’t like to hear, the fact that it hurts our ears rather than tickle them doesn’t make it any less true. Speaking from personal experience, I know that it’s information that we need to have regarding our understanding of God. If we don’t have it our trust in Him will take a serious hit anytime He delays His deliverance long enough for us to endure dark days.

Believe me, the God of the Bible doesn’t fit neatly into the box that so many preachers have built for Him today. Jesus, God the Son, couldn’t even get born into this world without all the male children who were two years old and under in Bethlehem and its surrounding districts being put to death by Herod the Great (Matthew 2:16-18). In the wake of that event, can you imagine some preacher going to those parents and saying to each of them, “God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life”? I can just hear one of those fathers saying, “Really? I just watched Herod’s soldiers take my two-year-old son from my arms and kill him. So, you’ll forgive me if I’m not feeling particularly loved by God right now. And as for that wonderful plan for my life, He must have a different definition of ‘wonderful’ than I do.”

Does God sometime let us endure dark days? You bet He does. These days are exceedingly difficult and they test our faith in ways that days of prosperity can’t even begin to touch. But like that prophetic dream given to Abraham, God’s plan doesn’t call for us to be left endlessly in our dark days. Therefore, the key to spiritually navigating through such days is to keep your eyes on the deliverance that God has scheduled.

I don’t know what form that deliverance might take in your life, but I can tell you what form it took in the lives of the enslaved Israelites: the exodus. That exodus would officially end for them once they arrived on the northern shores of the Red Sea, but before we get them there in this series we have a good many more questions to ask and answer. That’s why each post in the series will be devoted to asking and answering one new question. The spiritual lessons we’ll glean from these answers will be some of the most relevant you’ll ever find, and so I hope that you’ll come along with me for this journey as we mine the exodus for much of the gold that it holds.

Posted in Adversity, Christ's Birth, Depression, Disappointment, Doubt, Faithfulness, God's Timing, God's Work, Human Life, Patience, Perseverance, Problems, Series: "Questions From Israel's Exodus", Slavery, Suffering, Trials, Trusting In God, Waiting | Tagged , , , , , , | 2 Comments

The Barber & Jesus

Posted on October 16, 2020 by russellmckinney

A Christian man was getting a haircut and decided to witness to the barber. In an attempt to ease into a conversation about Jesus, the man asked the barber, “Do you believe in God?” Curtly, the barber answered, “No, I don’t.”

Now the Christian had a choice to make. He could drop the subject entirely or keep running with it at the possible expense of the barber exacting his revenge by way of the haircut. With his zeal for evangelism getting the better of him, he said to the barber, “If you wouldn’t mind telling me, why don’t you believe in God?” The barber said, “Oh, I don’t mind. All I have to do to know that God doesn’t exist is come to work each day. Barbers are like bartenders in that for some reason people want to tell us about their problems. Men sit in this chair all day long and tell me they hate their jobs, their marriages, and their lives in general. More than one man has even admitted to me that he has seriously considered committing suicide. So, if God existed, don’t you think He would do something about all that?”

The Christian was caught off guard by the barber’s seemingly logical reasoning, and the lack of a good comeback on his part created an awkward silence in the room. The barber took the silence to mean that he had won the debate, and so he cheerfully proceeded to give the Christian a fine haircut as the two of them filled in the silence with small talk about sports and the weather. Once the haircut was finished, the Christian paid the barber and sheepishly left the shop.

As the Christian stepped out onto the sidewalk, he prayed, asking God to give him an appropriate response to the barber’s atheism. Just then a hippie with unkept hair down to his shoulders walked past him. In a moment of divine inspiration, the Christian grabbed the hippie by the arm and walked him into the barber’s shop. Standing there with the shocked hippie, the Christian said to the barber, “You know what? Barbers don’t exist. If they did, this fellow wouldn’t have such long hair.” Agitated, the barber said, “Well, I exist, but I can’t cut someone’s hair who won’t come to me.” To that, the Christian replied, “Exactly! And God can’t help someone who won’t come to Him by coming to Jesus.”

“But you are not willing to come to Me that you may have life.” (John 5:40, N.K.J.V.)

“O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the one who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her! How often I wanted to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing.” (Matthew 23:37, N.K.J.V.)

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Young Timothy & Genesis Chapter 1

Posted on October 14, 2020 by russellmckinney

The apostle Paul was Timothy’s spiritual mentor, but he didn’t claim to be the person who taught Timothy the scriptures. Instead, Paul attributed that accomplishment to Timothy’s mother, Eunice, with Eunice presumably getting help from her mother, Lois (2 Timothy 1:3-5). As Paul said to Timothy:

But you must continue in the things which you have learned and been assured of, knowing from whom you have learned them, and that from childhood you have known the Holy Scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus. (2 Timothy 3:14-15, N.K.J.V.)

In keeping with this idea of Eunice teaching the holy scriptures to little Timothy, let’s imagine her teaching him scripture’s opening chapter. She starts by telling him about Genesis 1:1, which says: “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth” (N.K.J.V.). “Timothy,” she begins, “these words simply mean that God is the Creator of all creation. There wouldn’t be anything if it wasn’t for God.” Timothy ponders the matter for a second and then nods his head in agreement and understanding.

Now it’s time for Genesis 1:2, which says: “The earth was without form, and void; and darkness was on the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters” (N.K.J.V.). Eunice eases into her explanation of this verse by saying, “Timothy, these words mean that this earth as God originally created it didn’t look like it does now. There were no people on it, no trees, no rivers, no mountains, and no deserts. The earth didn’t have its form back then either, and it was completely covered in water. The Spirit of God hovered over those waters like a cloud can hover over us today, but the earth was totally dark.” Timothy’s agreement and understanding come slower this time, but after a few seconds of processing he again nods his head as if to say, “Okay, what happened next?”

Eunice then proceeds to walk her child through the rest of Genesis chapter 1 as God continues the creative process through which He gave us the earth that we know now. The information is a lot to process, and Timothy can’t fully grasp every single detail of it, but he is able to understand plenty enough to know that God created: the heavens, the earth, the daytime, the nighttime, the dry land, the seas, the grass, the herbs, the trees, the sun, the moon, the stars, the water creatures, the land creatures, and Adam and Eve. He’s also able to know that God did all that work in just six days, days that had an evening and a morning.

But now let’s imagine that Eunice, Lois, and young Timothy attend their local synagogue one Sabbath day. The guest speaker for that day is a rabbi they have never heard, and he presents a brand new interpretation of the opening chapter of Genesis. He calls this new interpretation “The Gap Theory.” According to this theory:

  • Isaiah 45:18 proves that God didn’t originally create the earth as formless, covered in darkness and water, and uninhabited.
  • There were creatures and a race of people who lived upon the earth of Genesis 1:1.
  • Satan’s rebellion against God was catastrophic enough to ruin a sizable amount of God’s pristine creation.
  • In particular, Satan’s rebellion completely ruined the earth because Satan was the angel that God had originally placed in charge of the earth.
  • There is a gap of time, no doubt millions or billions of years in length, between Genesis 1:1 and Genesis 1:2.
  • The decimated earth from Genesis 1:1 laid for untold eons of time in the ruins described by Genesis 1:2.
  • Finally, after all those eons had passed, God set Himself to the task of restoring the earth to a livable state.
  • The process of how God did that restoring is recorded in Genesis 1:3-31.
  • We don’t know anything about what kind of creatures or people inhabited the earth of Genesis 1:1.
  • We can’t know what (if anything) became of those people in the afterlife.

Now I ask you, what would all of that new teaching have done to little Timothy’s simplistic understanding of Genesis chapter 1? For that matter, what would it have done to Eunice’s? Fortunately, we don’t have to worry about that. Do you know why? It’s because no Jewish rabbi of Timothy’s day taught The Gap Theory. As a matter of fact, all the various strings of the theory weren’t pulled together into one unit until the 1800s. That’s when the likes of Thomas Chalmers started giving lectures on it and C.I. Scofield made it a central tenet of the study notes for his wildly popular Scofield Reference Bible.

You see, there are those who would have us believe that no one who lived prior to the 1800s correctly understood how Genesis chapter 1 should be interpreted. I mean, that is the obvious implication of holding to The Gap Theory, right? This, of course, stretches the bounds of believablity way past the point of credibility, and this alone should rule out The Gap Theory as being an acceptable interpretation of scripture. If you are really interested in this whole topic, I encourage you to read the eight posts in my series “How Old is the Earth?” (particularly the post entitled “The Gap Theory”), but in the meantime let’s just let Genesis chapter 1 read the way it reads and not force it to be filtered through any strange interpretations. After all, if such a simplistic interpretation was good enough for Eunice and Timothy, it ought to be good enough for us.

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What Two Monks Can Teach Us About Sin

Posted on October 12, 2020 by russellmckinney

There’s an old story that tells of a senior monk and a junior monk who were making their way from one monastery to another. It was a pleasant enough walk until they came to a certain crossing site at a river. Since the monks needed to get across the river, their only course of action was to wade the waters and hope that the current wasn’t swift enough to cause them any problems.

Just before the monks stepped into the water, a young woman approached the crossing site. She too needed to get to the other side, and she asked them if they would help her. The junior monk, having vowed to never touch a woman, was horrified at the thought. But the senior monk, who had taken the same vow, walked over to the woman, allowed her to climb onto his shoulders, and waded into the river. The junior monk followed close behind in shocked disbelief. Fortunately for all three, the river’s current was calm and they all made it safely to the other side. Once there, the monks went their way and the woman went her way.

Three hours passed as the monks continued in silence along their journey, and with each passing hour the turmoil inside the junior monk grew. Finally he reached a breaking point and blurted out to the senior monk, “How could you have allowed yourself to carry that woman on your shoulders? We’re not supposed to ever touch a woman.” In response, the senior monk said, “Brother, I sat her down on the other side of the river. Why are you still carrying her?”

This story finds its roots in the “Zen wisdom” of Buddhism, and over the years various versions of the story have arisen. In some versions, the older monk pulls the naked, drowning woman from the river and gives her his robe. In other versions, the woman is standing at the river’s edge all dressed up in beautiful attire, not wanting to get her clothing wet. In other versions, the two monks talk a lot before they meet the woman at the river but hardly speak afterward, which prompts the older monk to ask the younger monk what he has done to offend him. The consistent details in all the versions are the older monk helping the woman at the river, the younger monk thinking less of him for doing so. and the older monk pointing out that it was the younger monk who was still carrying her long after the event.

The usual lesson that people take from the story is that most of us are carrying around old mental baggage that we need to set down if we are going to enjoy living in the present. While this is a perfectly appropriate application, I’d like to suggest an alternative one. My application goes like this: Even if an act isn’t a sin by God’s standards, it actually becomes a sin to you if you can’t do it with a clear conscience.

In the days of the Roman empire, many people worshiped idols and offered the choicest cuts of meat to those idols as acts of worship. Once the act of worship was completed, however, the leftover meat was sold at a greatly reduced price. We’re talking about high quality meat sold at discount prices. Some Christians believed that it wasn’t a sin to purchase this meat and eat it, but other Christians (particularly ones who had come out of backgrounds of idolatry) considered it sinful to eat such meat. As strange as all this might sound to our modern ears, it was a raging debate in the early churches, so much so that Paul had to weigh in with his verdict.

And what was Paul’s verdict? Actually, it was a bit tricky. In Romans 14:14-23 and 1 Corinthians 8:1-13, he taught that meat offered to powerless man-made idols didn’t carry any taint and could be eaten sinlessly as long as the Christian could eat it without feeling guilty. But if a Christian couldn’t help but feel guilty about eating the meat, that Christian shouldn’t eat it because he would be in sin to do so. As Paul said about the situation:

But he who doubts is condemned if he eats, because he does not eat from faith; for whatever is not from faith is sin. (Romans 14:23, N.K.J.V.)

Mind you that this teaching does not apply to deeds that are 100% sinful all the time. It only applies to those that take place in the gray areas where life and scripture don’t collide in a clear-cut way. Getting back to the story of the two monks, whereas the older monk could touch the woman and not sin because his conscience was clear in the matter, the younger monk’s conscience would have landed him in sin if he had tried to help her.

Learn this about your conscience: erroneous information causes it to misfire by rendering wrong assessments regarding sin. For example, if you haven’t heard a Paul explain that it’s okay to eat meat that has been offered to idols, you’ll never be able to eat such meat without feeling guilty and consequently sinning. On the other hand, if a Paul has explained to you that lifeless idols can’t affect meat one way or the other, you’ll be able to enjoy a delicious meal at a cheap price free from sin’s guilt. Likewise, if you’ve been told that it’s a mortal sin to touch a woman (even when you are trying to help her), you’ll never be able to touch a woman sinlessly. On the other hand, if someone has explained to you that it is alright on occasion to touch a woman, your conscience will allow you to help damsels in distress without crossing the line into sin. Do you understand? And that, ladies and gentlemen, is what two monks can teach us about sin.

Posted in Alcohol, Choices, Christian Liberty, Conscience, Decisions, Discernment, Faith, Personal Holiness, Sin | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

God Hears Our Cries

Posted on October 10, 2020 by russellmckinney

And the Angel of the Lord said to her: “Behold, you are with child, And you shall bear a son. You shall call his name Ishmael, Because the Lord has heard your affliction.” (Genesis 16:11, N.K.J.V.)

I chose Genesis 16:11 as a text for this post because that verse is the Bible’s first case of God hearing a cry for help. Surely God had heard such cries before Hagar lifted her voice to Him, but Genesis 16:11 gives us the Bible’s first specific mention of such a thing happening. Of course, it is far from the last mention.

For example, Exodus 3:7 says that God heard the cry of the Israelites while their Egyptian taskmasters were treating them cruelly. Nehemiah 9:9 says that God heard the cry of the Israelites when Pharaoh’s army had them pinned down on the shores of the Red Sea. Job 34:28 says that God hears the cry of the afflicted. Psalm 72:12 even makes the promise:

For He will deliver the needy when he cries, The poor also, and him who has no helper. (N.K.J.V.)

Notice that Psalm 72:12 promises that the needy will be delivered, not just that God will hear their cries. This is an important distinction to make because, let’s face it, God merely hearing a person’s cries doesn’t help much if He doesn’t do anything to address the person’s need. We want God to be omnipotent, not just compassionate.

I should also point out that there is a difference between calling out to God and crying out to Him. Crying is more intense than calling. We can (and should) call out to God every day, but we ought to reserve our crying out to Him for those times when our backs are truly up against the wall. Every parent knows the difference between a child’s call and a child’s cry. Crying comes from pain, either external or internal. That’s why a parent moves faster when a child is actually crying. God, being the Christian’s heavenly Father, acts the same way.

Perhaps you are right now experiencing some genuine pain, either external or internal. Perhaps you have a need that you just can’t meet. Perhaps you have, to quote the closing words of Psalm 72:12, “no helper.” What should you do? You should let God hear your cries. I’m talking about you flooding the throne room of heaven with the sound of you crying out for God to help you with your problem.

You say, “Oh, I don’t have to do that. God already knows all about my problem.” Yes, He does, but that doesn’t change what the Bible teaches about the value of you crying out to Him in your time of trouble. Again I go back to the illustration of the parent hearing a child’s cries as opposed to hearing a child’s calls. There is a tone, a certain tone, that will always bring a loving parent running to help a child. Trust me, I’ve raised two boys, and that tone has put me on the run more than once. And what I’m saying, dear friend, is that you praying with this tone just might be what God is waiting to hear before He starts running to meet your need. Oh, and by the way, when your pain gets intense enough, you won’t have to work up or fake this tone. It will come out of you as naturally as breathing. When you see me, you can ask me how I know that and I’ll be glad to tell you.

Posted in Adversity, Disappointment, God's Omnipotence, God's Provision, Prayer, Prayer Requests, Problems, Suffering, Trials, Trusting In God, Worry | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

A World Filled With George Wilsons

Posted on October 8, 2020 by russellmckinney

For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved. He who believes in Him is not condemned, but he who does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God. And this is the condemnation, that the light has come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil. (John 3:16-19, N.K.J.V.)

In late 1829, George Wilson and James Porter engaged in a series of mail train robberies. Ultimately, the two men were caught and charged with not only the robberies but also putting the life of a certain mail carrier, who had tried to stop them, in danger. The two were found guilty and sentenced to be hanged. The executions were to be carried out on July 2, 1830.

James Porter was executed as planned on that date, but by then Wilson’s influential friends had gone to President Andrew Jackson on his behalf and had asked for a pardon for him. Jackson had granted that pardon on June 14 under the condition that Wilson might still be eligible to serve a maximum of twenty years in prison for the series of crimes. Incredibly, however, Wilson refused the pardon!

At that point no one knew where Wilson stood legally, and so the case was taken up by the Supreme Court. Chief Justice John Marshall wrote the opinion of the court, an opinion that basically said that a pardon is just a slip of paper, the value of which is to be determined by the acceptance of the person to be pardoned. Therefore, since George Wilson refused his pardon, he was hanged.

A condemned person refusing a pardon? Whoever heard of such a thing, right? Oh, trust me, it’s not so uncommon. The fact is, the world is filled with lost people who have heard about the free pardon of sin offered to anyone who will place saving belief in Jesus, but these people have refused the offer.

Tell me, you aren’t one of these people are you? If you are, then I ask you, what is keeping you from accepting your pardon? Surely you don’t enjoy walking around condemned. And remember, when it comes to this type of condemnation, there is no relief even in death. This condemnation is eternal. Your physical death will officially begin it, not officially end it. That is a sobering reality, and it’s one that you would do well to avoid.

Posted in Belief, Capital Punishment, Christ's Death, Christ's Resurrection, God's Love, God's Wrath, God's Judgment, God's Mercy, Grace, Heaven, Hell, Salvation, The Death Penalty | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

Nahum (post #4)

Posted on October 5, 2020 by russellmckinney

An attacker advances against you, Nineveh. Guard the fortress, watch the road, brace yourselves, marshal all your strength! (Nahum 2:1, N.I.V.)

Nineveh, the capital city of the Assyrian empire, was an incredible city. Its origins could be traced back to the legendary leader Nimrod (Genesis 10:8-12), and at the peak of its prosperity it was home to 600,000 people. The central part of the city covered an area one mile by two-and-a-half miles, and the entire metropolitan area was over sixty miles in circumference. A sixty-mile-long wall, 100 feet tall, defended the city as did a moat and 1,500 guard towers that were each 200 feet tall.

Assyria’s army was infamous for its cruelty. Assyrian soldiers were known to gouge out eyes, pull out tongues, burn children, leave corpses impaled on stakes, and skin certain captives alive in order to display the skins on tents and walls. Actually, when the Assyrians conquered your city the best you could hope for was to merely be captured and forced to relocate far away to another Assyrian territory.

Speaking through the prophet Nahum, however, God foretold the fall of mighty Nineveh and with it the fall of the Assyrian empire. History informs us that God worked through an alliance army of Babylonians and Medes to bring Nahum’s prophecies to pass. Those prophecies were so detailed that they read like a play-by-play walkthrough of the battle:

  • The enemy army makes quick work of the fortified towns surrounding Nineveh. (3:12)
  • The enemy army advances upon Nineveh itself. (2:1)
  • The enemy army wears scarlet clothing and carries red shields. (2:3)
  • The enemy army lays siege to Nineveh. (3:14)
  • The Ninevites attempt to store water in order to ride out the siege. (3:14)
  • The Ninevites attempt to shore up decaying parts of the city’s wall. (3:14)
  • The Ninevites turn to drunkenness to alleviate their fear. (1:10; 3:11)
  • The enemy army breaches the gates that are built into Nineveh’s wall. (3:13)
  • The enemy army’s soldiers, horses, and chariots roll into the city streets. (2:4; 3:1-3)
  • The battle ends relatively quickly, and the plundering begins. (2:8-10)
  • The remains of the city are set ablaze. (2:13; 3:15)
  • Some Ninevites are able to flee the site and become homeless wanderers. (2:8; 3:18)

How could such a thing happen to a city as well fortified as Nineveh? In the early spring of the year 612 B.C., the Babylonian/Mede army marched up the left bank of the Tigris river and surrounded the city’s walls. That time of year was the rainy season for Nineveh, and unusually heavy rains that year caused the Tigris (in conjunction with two smaller rivers in the same general area) to flood. The flooding caused a two-and-a-half mile stretch of the city’s wall to collapse. This allowed the invading army to enter the city through the breach. The Greek historian Diodorus Siculus wrote that the Tigris didn’t just damage the wall but also flooded parts of the city. Perhaps this is what Nahum meant when he prophesied: “Nineveh is like a pool, and its water is draining away…” (2:8, N.I.V.).

Siculus also wrote that Sardanapalus, who was Nineveh’s king at the time of the fall, responded bizarrely to the city’s flooding. According to Siculus, Sardanapalus interpreted the flooding to be the fulfillment of an oracle that had foretold that Nineveh would only fall when the Tigris declared war against it. Surmising that the river was indeed declaring war against Nineveh, Sardanapalus built a huge funeral pyre in the royal precincts of the city and loaded the pyre down with gold and expensive clothes. The pyre featured a chamber in the middle of it, and Sardanapalus shut himself inside that chamber along with his family, concubines, and eunuchs and then burned down the pyre.

Siculus describes the plundering of Nineveh as totaling up to what he calls “a quantity beyond counting.” Here again the words of Nahum’s prophecies ring true as he wrote: “Plunder the silver! Plunder the gold! The supply is endless, the wealth from all its treasures!” (2:9, N.I.V.). How thorough was the plundering of Nineveh, the richest city on earth? It was so thorough that archaeological excavations of Nineveh have never unearthed any gold or silver.

The details of Nahum’s prophecies match up so well with the historical accounts of Nineveh’s fall that liberal scholars have attempted to make the erroneous case that Nahum’s words must have been written after Nineveh’s destruction. Here are a few more of those detailed prophecies:

  • Nineveh’s chariots would be burned. (2:13)
  • There would be stacks of corpses of Ninevite casualties. (3:3)
  • Nineveh would be left in ruins never to be rebuilt. (1:9; 1:14; 3:7)
  • Nineveh’s guards would flee in fear for their lives. (3:17)
  • Nineveh’s city leaders would be caught unprepared and killed. (3:18)
  • Nineveh’s false idols and graven images would be burned. (1:14)

Also, Nahum describes the Assyrian soldiers who were responsible for defending Nineveh as being “women” (Nahum 3:13). Obviously, those soldiers weren’t literal females, but that doesn’t make the prophecy any less accurate. James Montgomery Boice, in his commentary remarks on the verse, points out that secular historians confirm that by this time in Nineveh’s history homosexual effeminacy was running rampant in the city. No doubt this at least partially explains why Nahum has so much to say about the fear and cowardice the attack of the enemy army would produce among the Ninevites (2:10; 3:11-12, 3:17-18).

In closing, what the sudden, unexpected downfall of Nineveh the city and Assyria the nation prove is that God can bring down anyone and anything if He so chooses. If He sets Himself against a nation, a group, an organization, or an individual, no amount of wealth or protection can stop Him from carrying out every last detail of His plan. The vessels through which He accomplishes His plans can vary wildly, but in the end the credit always goes to Him. The prophet Nahum prophesied to his fellow Judeans as a way of promising them that God was going to eliminate the Assyrian threat once and for all, and God made good on that promise. That, of course, is what He does, and there is coming a time when He will also make good on His prophetic promises to subdue all the kingdoms of the world and install Jesus Christ on the planet’s throne to rule and reign for 1,000 years. These prophecies are as sure as Nahum’s regarding Nineveh, and we’d be well advised to believe them and place our trust in the Jesus who will one day reign as fulfillment of them.

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Nahum (post #3)

Posted on October 2, 2020 by russellmckinney

This is what the Lord says: “Although they have allies and are numerous, they will be cut off and pass away. Although I have afflicted you, O Judah, I will afflict you no more. Now I will break their yoke from your neck and tear your shackles away.” The Lord has given a command concerning Nineveh: “You will have no descendants to bear your name. I will destroy the carved images and cast idols that are in the temple of your gods. I will prepare your grave, for you are vile.” (Nahum 1:12-14, N.I.V.)

The citizens of Judah, Israel’s southern kingdom, lived with the threat of an Assyrian invasion for more than twenty years after the Assyrians conquered Israel’s northern kingdom in 722 B.C.. That threat finally became a reality in 701 B.C. when the Assyrian ruler Sennacherib led his troops into Judah. According to Sennacherib’s personal account, his soldiers leveled 46 of Judah’s walled cities (in addition to other smaller cities) and took hundreds of Jews captive as prisoners of war. The Bible more or less confirms this account in 2 Kings 18:13. Sennacherib then turned his sights toward Jerusalem, Judah’s capital city. Judah’s king at that time was Hezekiah, and the land’s most famous prophet was Isaiah.

After Sennacherib’s troops laid siege to Jerusalem, he demanded that Hezekiah pay tribute money to him. Initially, Hezekiah paid the exorbitant sum of money (2 Kings 18:14-16), but later he sent some of his royal staff to Isaiah to seek guidance (2 Kings 19:1-4). Speaking for God, Isaiah assured Hezekiah that Sennacherib and his army would not conquer Jerusalem or even enter the city (2 Kings 19:5-7,20-34).

That same night God delivered on that promise as the Angel of the Lord moved throughout the Assyrian army and killed 185,000 soldiers (Isaiah 37:36-37; 2 Kings 19:35-36; 2 Chronicles 32:20-23). The devastating (to say nothing of bizarre) slaughter prompted Sennacherib to tuck his tail between his legs and get back to his home city of Nineveh as quickly as he could. So ended that particular Assyrian threat against Judah.

As seemingly climatic as that ending was, though, it did not put a permanent stop to Judah’s Assyrian problem. Just a few years later, after Hezekiah’s son Manasseh ascended to Judah’s throne, the Assyrians again marched into Judah. They took Manasseh as a prisoner of war, put a hook in his nose, bound him in shackles, and led him away to Babylon (2 Chronicles 33:10-11). While in Babylon, which was then under Assyrian control, Manasseh repented of the great sins that had caused God to allow his capture, and God then orchestrated events to enable him to return to Jerusalem and reclaim his throne (2 Chronicles 33:12-13).

The point in all of this history is that Assyria, with its capital city of Nineveh, was a constant threat to the people of Judah. God, however, had plans to at long last deal with the Assyrians once and for all. Speaking through Nahum, He promised Judah’s citizens that He was going to cut off the Assyrians and cause them to pass away (1:12). In doing this He would break the Assyrian yoke from off the neck of Judah (1:13). Assyria’s national demise would be symbolized by the destruction of Nineveh.

The citizens of Judah had no way of knowing it when Nahum was doing his prophesying, but in 612 B.C. God would use an alliance between the Babylonians and the Medes to bring a mighty army against Nineveh, lay siege to it, conquer it, and thus deal a fatal blow to the Assyrian empire. Yes, Nahum’s prophecies about the Nineveh’s defeat did come to pass, and following that defeat the Assyrians never again threatened Judah.

Perhaps you’ve heard that the names of Bible characters usually mean much more than names do today. With this in mind, what does the name “Nahum” mean? It means “comfort” or “consolation.” Accordingly, we shouldn’t be surprised that Nahum’s prophesying against Nineveh was meant to comfort and console the people of Judah. This explains Nahum 1:15, which says:

Look, there on the mountains, the feet of one who brings good news, who proclaims peace! Celebrate your festivals, O Judah, and fulfill your vows. No more will the wicked invade you; they will be completely destroyed. (N.I.V.)

As I sat down to write this post, I thought about how many people there are who have long been oppressed by some type of overbearing enemies. Day after day, week after week, month after month, year after year, these afflicted people have had to kowtow to ungodly people who have bullied them, intimidated them, and scared them into submission. If you are such a victim, please know that the book of Nahum has a personal word of application for you.

And what is that word? It is this: The same God who once broke the Assyrian yoke from off the necks of the people of Judah stands ready to interject Himself into your situation. He knows when injustice is taking place, how long it has been taking place, who the guilty parties are, and what He wants to do about it all. So, if you have been crying out to Him for some time now, asking Him to bring you out from under the shadow of some wicked person or group, just hang in there. Hear the words of J. Vernon McGee as I use them for the close of this post. He hit the nail on the head when he said:

The writer is Nahum, and his name means “comforter,” but the message that he gives is one of judgment. How in the world can Nahum live up to his name? How can he be a comforter? Well, it is owing to how you look at the judgment. If it is a judgment upon your enemy, one of whom you are afraid, one who dominates you, then judgment can be a comfort to you.

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Nahum (post #2)

Posted on September 30, 2020 by russellmckinney

…His way is in the whirlwind and the storm, and clouds are the dust of his feet. He rebukes the sea and dries it up; he makes all the rivers run dry. Bashan and Carmel wither and the blossoms of Lebanon fade. The mountains quake before him and the hills melt away. The earth trembles at his presence, the world and all who live in it. Who can withstand his indignation? Who can endure his fierce anger? His wrath is poured out like fire; the rocks are shattered before him. The Lord is good, a refuge in times of trouble. 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. (Nahum 1:3-8, N.I.V.)

We know little about the prophet Nahum’s personal life except that he calls himself “the Elkoshite” in the opening words of the book that bears his name. That description probably refers to where he lived, but the location of Elkosh has been lost to history. Because the name “Capernaum” literally means “town of Nahum” or “Nahum’s town,” some scholars identify Elkosh as Capernaum. Admittedly, however, that association is as much a leap of logic as a historical fact. As is always the case with God’s prophets, though, it’s the man’s ministry that is historically important, not his personal life.

To figure out the time period in which Nahum did his prophesying, the best we can do is logically deduce our way down to a general half century or so. Since his prophecies describe the Assyrian city of Nineveh as being a great city, and since other historical records tell us that Nineveh fell to the Babylonians in 612 B.C., he must have prophesied before 612 B.C. Also, in Nahum 3:8-10, he talks about the fall of a city called No Amon. No Amon was the capital of southern Egypt and is better known by the name Thebes. It fell to the Assyrians in 663 B.C. Therefore, Nahum must have lived and prophesied sometime between Assyria’s conquering of Thebes in 663 B.C. and Babylon’s conquering of Assyria in 612 B.C.

That dating means that Nahum did his prophesying to the citizens of Israel’s southern kingdom (called Judah). We know that he didn’t prophesy to Israel’s northern kingdom (called Israel) because by that time that kingdom was no longer in existence. After a twenty-year campaign in which the Assyrians had systematically conquered the northern kingdom bit by bit, they had finally finished off the job by conquering the capital city of Samaria in 722 B.C. As was the Assyrians’ typical way of operating, they had relocated the surviving citizens of the northern kingdom by transplanting them to other Assyrian lands. All this, in point of fact, was what the prophet Jonah had feared would happen when God had chosen to spare Nineveh, Assyria’s great city, rather than destroy it in Jonah’s day. Jonah had made his trip to Nineveh at least 100 years, perhaps as many as 150 years, before Nahum’s time of ministry.

By putting all this together, we see that by Nahum’s day God now had even more justification for dealing harshly with Nineveh. Despite the fact that God had miraculously intervened to keep the Assyrians from conquering Israel’s southern kingdom (Isaiah 37:36-38), He hadn’t forgotten what they had done to the northern kingdom. So, by inspiring Nahum to prophesy Nineveh’s impending doom, God was assuring the citizens of the southern kingdom that they needn’t worry about the threat of Assyria.

Speaking through Nahum, God explained that He was now taking His association with the Assyrians to a whole other level, a darker one. He had spared the citizens of Nineveh during Jonah’s time, and He had even later used the Assyrian army as the vessel through which He had devastatingly judged the sins of the northern kingdom, but now the vessel of judgment would become the judged vessel. As commentator William MacDonald says about this divine irony, “Although God uses pagans to punish His people’s apostasy and sin, the tool itself is also liable to punishment.”

But how could the mighty Assyrian army be defeated? And how could the nation’s most famous city, Nineveh, be taken? Those answers would be found in the indescribable awesomeness of God. According to Nahum, God has His way in the whirlwind and the storm (1:3), and the clouds are merely the dust upon which He walks (1:3). He has the power to dry up rivers and make mountains quake (1:4-5), and no one can withstand His indignation and anger (1:6). These facts led Nahum to confidently conclude that God would be the one to make an end of Nineveh (1:8).

As for the citizens of Israel’s southern kingdom (Judah), all they needed to do was make God their “refuge” (N.I.V., N.L.T.) and “stronghold” (K.J.V., N.K.J.V.) during their time of trouble (1:7). He is, after all, a good God who cares for those who trust in Him (1:7). While this description stands in stark contrast to the depiction of God as a terrifying God of war who pours out His wrath like fire (1:6) and pursues His foes into darkness (1:8), the fact is that any accurate description of God must include both sides of His nature. The same God who can mercilessly destroy the Assyrians can also mercifully spare the citizens of Judah. The same God who can be an overwhelming flood (1:8) can also be a safe refuge (1:7). The deciding factor comes down to who places their trust in Him and who doesn’t.

Perhaps right now, as you are reading this, you find yourself in a troubling situation. The threat of your own personal “Assyrians” hangs over your life like a dark cloud, and it looks for all the world like they are about to bring your kingdom to ruination. What should you do? You should do what Nahum told those citizens of Judah to do: make the Lord your refuge/stronghold in your time of trouble. You see, by turning your situation completely over to God and placing your trust in Him, you are afforded the luxury of watching Him convert your “Assyrians” into the conquered rather than the conquerors. Remember, His strength is immeasurably greater than your strength, and He can do for you what He did for those citizens of Judah if you will place your trust in Him.

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Nahum (post #1)

Posted on September 28, 2020 by russellmckinney

The burden against Nineveh. The book of the vision of Nahum the Elkoshite. God is jealous, and the Lord avenges; The Lord avenges and is furious. The Lord will take vengeance on His adversaries, and He reserves wrath for His enemies; The Lord is slow to anger and great in power, And will not at all acquit the wicked… (Nahum 1:1-3, N.K.J.V.)

We can only wonder what the prophet Jonah would have thought about the prophet Nahum’s word of doom to the Assyrian city of Nineveh. More than a century before Nahum did his prophesying, God had sent Jonah to Nineveh to proclaim that God would overthrow the city in forty days due to the city’s wickedness (Jonah 1:1-2; 3:1-4). Jonah hadn’t minded declaring that message because the Assyrians were well known for their idolatry, arrogance, and excessive cruelties in warfare. But a strange thing had happened when Jonah had declared that prophecy of impending judgment: the Ninevites had believed God, proclaimed a total fast throughout the city, clothed themselves with sackcloth (the traditional clothing worn by mourners), and repented (Jonah 3:5).

And how had God responded to all of that? He had relented from destroying the city (Jonah 3:10). That, in turn, had infuriated Jonah (Jonah 4:1). He had even vented to God, saying, “Isn’t this what I told you would happen before I came to this city? I knew that you are a gracious and merciful God, slow to anger and abundant in lovingkindness, One who relents from doing harm” (Jonah 4:2). As a matter of fact, Jonah had gotten so ticked off about the whole situation that he had actually asked God to kill him if He wasn’t going to kill the Ninevites (Jonah 4:3). God hadn’t take Jonah up on that offer, but the book of Jonah had concluded with Jonah still mad at God and God trying to reason with him. Mind you that all this had only come after God had been forced to enroll Jonah in “whale seminary” to even get him to make the trip to Nineveh.

Now let’s fast forward a century or more to the time of the prophet Nahum. The king of Nineveh who oversaw that time of repentance and mourning has long since passed off the throne, and every last one of those Ninevites who saw seen their city spared now lie in graves. The mighty Assyrian empire is at the pinnacle of its power and geographical sprawl, and the idolatry, arrogance, and excessive cruelties in warfare for which the Ninevites were infamous in Jonah’s day have been reinstituted. The Ninevites think they are invulnerable behind the 150 foot wide moat and 100 foot high walls that surround their city, and all seems well. What they don’t know, though, is that God again has them in His crosshairs, and this time there will be no 12th hour stay of execution.

In the opening passages from Nahum’s prophecies, we hear the early warning alarms of God’s intentions. Nahum begins by bluntly stating that what follows is the record of “the burden against Nineveh” (1:1, N.K.J.V.). That leaves no doubt who is God is gunning for. Next, Nahum uses the phrase “the Lord avenges” not once but twice, and then he uses the word “vengeance” for good measure (1:2, N.K.J.V.). Talk about opening up hot!

Nahum then offers the justification for God’s destruction of Nineveh by explaining that God is furious, will take vengeance on His adversaries. and reserves wrath for His enemies (1:2). As Nahum puts it, God is slow to anger but His merciful patience should never be taken to mean that He acquits the wicked (1:3). He might need a century to get mad enough to deal with a Nineveh, but His anger will eventually reach a level that compels Him to act in judgment.

My personal opinion is that Jonah would have said a hearty, “Amen” after hearing or reading the opening words from Nahum’s book. After all, Nahum gets to preach the message that Jonah had wanted to preach. I can just hear Jonah saying, “Well it’s about time that you brought those wicked people down, Lord.”

The lesson for us here is that God really does pour out His vengeance upon His enemies. He’s certainly in no rush to do it, and sometimes His delay in doing it can drive His own victimized people nuts, but He does always get around to settling His accounts. As He says time and time again in scripture (Deuteronomy 32:35; Romans 12:19; Hebrews 10:30), “Vengeance is Mine, I will repay.”

Notice that He doesn’t say, “I might repay.” No, He says, “I will repay.” The citizens of Nineveh were going to learn that lesson the hard way, but they certainly wouldn’t be the last people to ever learn it. The fact is, some people are learning it right now and others are about to learn it in the very near future. Needless to say, we would all be well advised to make sure that we aren’t the ones on the receiving end of it. In other words, if you are living in a Nineveh situation right now, you’d best get out of there before the judgment falls.

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