Dear Hope family,

Thought for the Week

Message of Nahum – The Lord will judge evil

Nahum 1v3 “The Lord is slow to anger and great in power; the LORD will not leave the guilty unpunished.”

Someone asked me the other day why the Minor Prophets are rarely referred to. Well, Nahum is definitely among the rarest and is never directly quoted in the New Testament.

To be fair, I am only referring to Nahum as part of a series on the Minor Prophets.  Apart from a few verses expressing hope for Judah, the whole book is focused on a coming judgment on Nineveh. We are of course familiar with Nineveh from the events of Jonah 150 years before.  In that day, Jonah’s message of impending judgment brought repentance and the disaster was averted. But there is no such hope in Nahum: Nineveh will be destroyed never to rise again. Nineveh was infamous for the way they treated those they conquered: rape, torture and mutilation was normal. Nineveh would get its comeuppance, and all that made her strong would crumble in the face of what God was bringing.

Nahum is actually writing to the people of Judah. Why? They need to know that while people get away with evil for a time, they will ultimately get what they justly deserve. Nahum is not alone in this insight: both John in Revelation and Jesus in the gospels tell us that God does ultimately deal justly with evil.

When we see so much injustice and violence in our world, this is a vital truth to remember: God is going to deal with evil. This does not absolve us of responsibility to play our part in tackling evil, but it does mean that everyone will stand before God to give an account. God is not quick to anger, but persistence in evil will result in his judgment. The evidence of this can be seen in the fulfilment of Nahum’s prophecy as Nineveh succumbed to Babylon in 612BC. But we see this further as Jesus suffered the consequences for our evil. Today is the day of salvation, and each person needs to respond to God’s grace and repent.

May God grant that we see the results of Jonah and see people turn to God.

With love and blessing,

Roland