The LORD is slow to anger and great in power,
and the LORD will by no means clear the guilty.
His way is in whirlwind and storm,
and the clouds are the dust of his feet.
He rebukes the sea and makes it dry;
he dries up all the rivers;
Bashan and Carmel wither;
the bloom of Lebanon withers.
The mountains quake before him;
the hills melt;
the earth heaves before him,
the world and all who dwell in it.
Who can stand before his indignation?
Who can endure the heat of his anger?
His wrath is poured out like fire,
and the rocks are broken into pieces by him.
The LORD is good,
a stronghold in the day of trouble;
he knows those who take refuge in him.
To set the stage for the above passage we have to know the reason Nahum wrote this book. At the time the nation of Assyria was the most powerful nation on the earth. They were also the most cruel nation on the earth. About 100 years earlier Jonah traveled to the capital of Assyria, Nineveh. He proclaimed God’s mercy if they would only repent. They did. But, a century in time later the next generations returned to their previous patterns. They were evil, cruel and barbaric in their treatment of those not their own. Nahum came to prophesy against them. He did so to encourage the southern nation of Judah. The Assyrian’s crushed the northern tribes (Israel). But, God would intervene. Nahum tells us why and how in his book. But, in the above passage he tells us the capacity, capability and conviction of God’s power to do so. You can say you can do something and show you have the capacity. But, if you also don’t have the conviction of character to do it, it matters not the power you posses. God has the conviction and the power. Those who hurt and injury and malign His people stand in the way of God’s powerful wrath and outstretched arm. Note what Peter said about those in the early church who were preaching error to the church. These false teachers may not look barbaric in their practice, but spiritually that is exactly what they were doing to the souls of the church. Note how these word’s align with Nahum’s message:
2 Peter 2:3-10 (ESV)
And in their greed they will exploit you with false words. Their condemnation from long ago is not idle, and their destruction is not asleep.
For if God did not spare angels when they sinned, but cast them into hell and committed them to chains of gloomy darkness to be kept until the judgment; if he did not spare the ancient world, but preserved Noah, a herald of righteousness, with seven others, when he brought a flood upon the world of the ungodly; if by turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah to ashes he condemned them to extinction, making them an example of what is going to happen to the ungodly; and if he rescued righteous Lot, greatly distressed by the sensual conduct of the wicked (for as that righteous man lived among them day after day, he was tormenting his righteous soul over their lawless deeds that he saw and heard); then the Lord knows how to rescue the godly from trials, and to keep the unrighteous under punishment until the day of judgment, and especially those who indulge in the lust of defiling passion and despise authority.
Bold and willful, they do not tremble as they blaspheme the glorious ones,
God knows how to deliver the godly out of danger and to keep the ungodly ready for punishment. That is the message of both Nahum and Peter. It may not be in our life time, but the ungodly will be punished. We will be delivered as we walk in obedience to Him.
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