Friday, December 12, 2025

PT-1 “The God of Irrevocable Condemnation” (Nahum 1:1)

 

SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 12/12/2025 11:50 AM

My Worship Time                                     Focus:  PT-1 “The God of Irrevocable Condemnation”

Bible Reading & Meditation                                                         Reference:   Nahum 1:1

            Message of the verse:  “The oracle of Nineveh.  The book of the vision of Nahum the Elkoshite.”

            This morning I begin to look at the first verse in the book of Nahum, and I have to say that my troubles with my new laptop continue and so I went back to my older laptop in order to write this Spiritual Diary.  If the Lord is teaching me patience through these computer trials He is doing a very good job.

            Now we can imagine that there was a great deal of weight on the shoulders of Nahum and he began to pen this letter as Nahum introduced his prophecy with the name “The oracle of Nineveh.”  Now the designation oracle, a specialized term for divine revelation, can also be translated as “burden,” which indicates the difficulty and gravity of this message.  I have to say a lot more of a burden than trying to understand my new laptop.  Now in this case, the divine utterance of judgment was directed against the city of Nineveh, the capital of Assyria and the greatest city of that time.  Let look as some reverences from the following verses 2 Kings 19:36; and Isaiah 37:37 in that order:

36 So Sennacherib king of Assyria departed and returned home, and lived at Nineveh.

37 So Sennacherib king of Assyria departed and returned home and lived at Nineveh.

            Now remember that Isaiah wrote in the time period which is also written about in 2 Kings.

            Nineveh was not unfamiliar either to God’s proclamations or to the people of Israel.  For approximately one hundred years prior to Nahum, Jonah preached God’s Word to the Ninevites, which at that time brought them to repentance as seen in Jonah 3:5-10, which I will now look at:  “5 Then the people of Nineveh believed in God; and they called a fast and put on sackcloth from the greatest to the least of them. 6 When the word reached the king of Nineveh, he arose from his throne, laid aside his robe from him, covered himself with sackcloth and sat on the ashes. 7 He issued a proclamation and it said, "In Nineveh by the decree of the king and his nobles: Do not let man, beast, herd, or flock taste a thing. Do not let them eat or drink water. 8 “But both man and beast must be covered with sackcloth; and let men call on God earnestly that each may turn from his wicked way and from the violence which is in his hands. 9 “Who knows, God may turn and relent and withdraw His burning anger so that we will not perish." 10 When God saw their deeds, that they turned from their wicked way, then God relented concerning the calamity which He had declared He would bring upon them. And He did not do it.

 

            But since the time of that revival, a new generation had arisen that, as we can see, ignored the threat of God’s judgment and so they returned to the sins of their fathers.  They even attacked the people of God, taking the northern kingdom of Israel captive as seen in the 17th chapter of 2 Kings.  The fall of Nineveh, which was foretold by Nahum, serves as a warning not to forget God’s past blessings or the reality of His judgment which we will now look at some verses in order to support that statement:  Deut. 8:11-20; Psalm 103:1-2.

11 "Beware that you do not forget the LORD your God by not keeping His commandments and His ordinances and His statutes which I am commanding you today; 12 otherwise, when you have eaten and are satisfied, and have built good houses and lived in them, 13 and when your herds and your flocks multiply, and your silver and gold multiply, and all that you have multiplies, 14 then your heart will become proud and you will forget the LORD your God who brought you out from the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. 15 “He led you through the great and terrible wilderness, with its fiery serpents and scorpions and thirsty ground where there was no water; He brought water for you out of the rock of flint. 16 “In the wilderness He fed you manna which your fathers did not know, that He might humble you and that He might test you, to do good for you in the end. 17 “Otherwise, you may say in your heart, ‘My power and the strength of my hand made me this wealth.’ 18 “But you shall remember the LORD your God, for it is He who is giving you power to make wealth, that He may confirm His covenant which He swore to your fathers, as it is this day. 19 “It shall come about if you ever forget the LORD your God and go after other gods and serve them and worship them, I testify against you today that you will surely perish. 20 “Like the nations that the LORD makes to perish before you, so you shall perish; because you would not listen to the voice of the LORD your God.”

 

“Bless the LORD, O my soul, And all that is within me, bless His holy name. 2  Bless the LORD, O my soul, And forget none of His benefits;”

 

            Going on with this subject “It also provides a vivid reminder that each generation is responsible for its own sin as seen in Ezekiel 18:20:  “20 “The person who sins will die. The son will not bear the punishment for the father’s iniquity, nor will the father bear the punishment for the son’s iniquity; the righteousness of the righteous will be upon himself, and the wickedness of the wicked will be upon himself.”

 

Spiritual meaning for my life today:  I have been thinking about something that I have written earlier in this portion of my Spiritual Diaries, and that is that once I became a believer that I also became an alien on planet earth, so realizing this I am not to make my roots to deep in what is going on around me but remember to take opportunity to reach out and tell others the good news of the gospel, so that they too may become aliens in order to share Christ with others, and so the beat goes on.

 

My Steps of Faith for Today:  Learn from the difficulties that are going on with my wife as she battles cancer, and to be by her side as she does this.  Learn not to have my roots too far in the place where I live, remembering to serve the Lord, and remembering that this is not my home as I am only passing through waiting to go to the place beyond the blue.

 

12/12/2025 12:25 PM

 

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