MORNING SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 2/22/2026
9:32 AM
My
Worship Time Focus: PT-2
“Inescapable Judgment”
Bible
Reading & Meditation Reference:
Nahum
3:14-17
Message of the verses: “Draw for yourself water for the
siege! Strengthen your fortifications!
God into the clay and tread the mortar! Take hold of the brick
mold! There, fire will consume you; The
Sword will cut you down; It will consume you as the locust does.
Multiply yourself like the creeping locust, Multiply yourself like the swarming
locust. You have increased your traders
more than the stars of heaven—The creeping locust strips and flies away. Your guardsmen are like the swarming
locust. Your marshals are like a
locust-swarm Encamping in the stone walls on a cold day. The sun rises, and they flee, And the place
where they are is not known.”
John MacArthur writes:
“With their defenses destroyed, the Ninevites would be not simply to
being killed but to being slaughtered in a shameful execution (Lev. 17:10;
26:22; Deut. 12:29; Josh. 7:9; Jer. 44:7).”
(Lev. 17:10; 26:22; Deut. 12:29; Josh.
7:9; Jer. 44:7).”
“10 ¶ "If any one of the house of Israel or of
the strangers who sojourn among them eats any blood, I will set my face against
that person who eats blood and will cut him off from among his people.”
“22 And I will let loose the wild beasts against
you, which shall bereave you of your children and destroy your livestock and
make you few in number, so that your roads shall be deserted.”
“29 "When the LORD your God cuts off before
you the nations whom you go in to dispossess, and you dispossess them and dwell
in their land,”
“9 For the Canaanites and all the inhabitants of
the land will hear of it and will surround us and cut off our name from the
earth. And what will you do for your great name?’”
“7 And now thus says the LORD God of hosts, the
God of Israel: Why do you commit this great evil against yourselves, to cut off
from you man and woman, infant and child, from the midst of Judah, leaving you
no remnant?”
“The
devastation would be so comprehensive that Nahum compared it to a locust
plague. He exclaimed that the fire and
the sword will consume you as the locus does. Locust plagues were common in ancient
times and devoured all vegetation, leaving the land utterly barren (cf. Joel
1:4; 2:25; Amos 4:9; 7:1).”
(cf. Joel 1:4; 2:25; Amos 4:9; 7:1)
“4 What the cutting locust left, the swarming
locust has eaten. What the swarming locust left, the hopping locust has eaten,
and what the hopping locust left, the destroying locust has eaten.”
“25 I will restore to you the years that the
swarming locust has eaten, the hopper, the destroyer, and the cutter, my great
army, which I sent among you.”
“9 "I struck you with blight and mildew;
your many gardens and your vineyards, your fig trees and your olive trees the
locust devoured; yet you did not return to me," declares the LORD.”
“1 ¶ This is what the Lord GOD showed me: behold,
he was forming locusts when the latter growth was just beginning to sprout, and
behold, it was the latter growth after the king’s mowings.”
“Even to
this day, world governments spend massive sums per year to combat locust
infestations, which can decimate food supplies in places like Africa, Arabia,
and India. Nahum’s prediction was that
after flood, fire, and foe ravaged Nineveh, the city would be left as a
desolate wasteland.
“Having compared their enemies to
locusts, Nahum then applied that analogy to the Ninevites. He sarcastically urged Nineveh to multiply
yourself like the creeping locust and multiply yourself like the
swarming locust. While the creeping
locust referred to the locust at its infant stage, the swarming locust marked
the fully grown insect when it swarms together.
The prophet again made it clear that no matter how much Nineveh
multiplied its population or military forces, it would be no match for the
enemy horde that was coming. Locust
plagues can produce so many locusts that they were invincible because of the
size of their city and its army, they had severely miscalculated.
“The prophet acknowledge that
Assyria had indeed amassed immense power throughout its history, observing that
you have increased your traders more than the stars of heaven. One way Nineveh multiplied its might was
by increasing its economic resources.
Traders engaged in international commerce, bringing back wares from across
the known world (cf. 1 Kings 10:15; Ezek. 17:4; 27:3).”
(cf. 1 Kings 10:15; Ezek. 17:4; 27:3)
“15 besides that which came from the explorers and
from the business of the merchants, and from all the kings of the west and from
the governors of the land.”
“4 He broke off the topmost of its young twigs
and carried it to a land of trade and set it in a city of merchants.”
“3 and say to Tyre, who dwells at the entrances
to the sea, merchant of the peoples to many coastlands, thus says the Lord GOD:
"O Tyre, you have said, ‘I am perfect in beauty.’”
“Such
business allowed Nineveh to acquire the best military hardware, operate as the
global center of finance, and become seemingly too mighty to fail. Being more numerous than the stars of
heaven, an obvious hyperbole to emphasize the size of the Assyrian economy,
Nineveh’s traders acquired countless riches.
They carried out their business, Nahum noted, as the creeping locust that
strips and flies away. The word strips
can denote ripping a tunic off of a person (cf. Gen. 37:23), skinning an animal
(cf. Lev. 1:6), or removing all the valuables from those slain in battle (cf. 1
Sam. 31:8-9). Like a locust devouring
every grain of vegetation from the land, so these traders appropriated every
treasure from the peoples and places conquered by Assyria.’
(cf. Gen. 37:23)
“23 ¶ So when Joseph came to his brothers, they
stripped him of his robe, the robe of many colors that he wore.”
(cf. Lev. 1:6)
“6 Then he shall flay the burnt offering and cut
it into pieces,”
(cf. 1 Sam. 31:8-9)
“8 ¶ The next day, when the Philistines came to
strip the slain, they found Saul and his three sons fallen on Mount Gilboa. 9 So they cut off his head and stripped off his
armor and sent messengers throughout the land of the Philistines, to carry the
good news to the house of their idols and to the people.”
Spiritual
Meaning for my Life Today: Be humble and rely on the Lord.
My
Steps of Faith for Today: Trust the Lord to see me through
teaching my Sunday school class this morning without problems.
The last
quote from Dr. David Jeremiah’s cards: “We
ought not to be weary of doing little things for the love of God, who regards
not the greatness of the work, but the love with which it is performed.
(Brother Lawrence)
“Beloved,
let us love on another, for love is of God; and everyone who loves is born of
God and knows God. (1 John 4:7).
2/22/2026
8:10 AM
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