“She is pillaged, plundered, stripped! Hearts melt, knees give way, bodies tremble, every face grows pale.”
~ Nahum 2:10
Hi James and Ellen,
Did your dad read to you Nahum 2 before he began to read to you what your grandpaa wrote? If your dad did, you probably did not fathom what your dad read. Even though Nahum is a different kind of book, God still wants us to learn from this book. Do you remember your grandpaa telling you that part of the Old Testament was made up of two groups of books – the Major Prophets and the Minor Prophets? The Major Prophets are made up of four books with three of the books long books. The Minor Prophets are made up of twelve books with all of them being shorter books. Because Nahum has just three chapters, Nahum is one of the Minor Prophet books. Nahum was a prophet. God sent messages through prophets to His specially chosen people – the Israelites, and to people who were not his specially chosen people. Nahum wrote about a city called Nineveh. The people who were living in Nineveh were not God’s specially chosen people. Nineveh is not mentioned much in the Bible. When God does mention Nineveh, He uses Nineveh as an example to remind us what can and what will happen to us if we are not obedient to Him. Do you remember hearing a story about a guy who was swallowed by a whale? That really happened. The guy who was swallowed by a whale was Jonah. Jonah lived about two hundred years before Nahum. God had wanted Jonah to go to Nineveh with a message from Him. God wanted Jonah to tell the people who were living in Nineveh to repent. Jonah decided he did not want to do what God wanted him to do so he decided to run away from God by getting on a boat to go to another country. Because God can see us all the time, God knew exactly where Jonah was. When Jonah finally went to Nineveh with God’s warning to repent or . . ., do you think the people of Nineveh listened to Jonah? The people who were living in Nineveh actually believed Jonah and they repented. Because the people in Nineveh were really sorry for everything bad that they had done, God did not destroy Nineveh. Your grandpaa will tell you someday the whole story of Jonah’s life. For now, you will learn about Nahum and the message that God had Nahum pass on to Nineveh. It is now two hundred years later. Did the people in Nineveh continue to stay sorry for the bad things that they had done? No. They went back to doing bad things. God had given Nineveh one chance to not to be destroyed. God did not destroy Nineveh when they took that one chance to say that they were sorry to God. When the people who were living of Nineveh stopped being sorry for the bad things that they had done and after they began doing the bad things again, God said enough was enough and . . . God sent one of his prophets to tell the people who were living in Nineveh how awfully bad it was going to get for them. That prophet was Nahum.
Your grandpaa will sometimes ask himself a question that starts out with what if. A what if question that your grandpaa has asked himself is what if your grandmaa had decided not to study at Dordt College? Your grandmaa did not go to a church that was in the same denomination as the denomination of the church that your grandpaa attended. Your grandpaa’s ma and dad were members of the Christian Reformed Church that is in Volga, South Dakota while your grandmaa’s ma and dad were members of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church that is in Wilmington, Delaware. Dordt College is in Sioux Center, Iowa. Wilmington is close to thirteen hundred miles and about twenty hours away from Sioux Center. Dordt College was a very small college. The Christian Reformed Church denomination started Dordt College. The pastor in the church where your grandmaa attended encouraged your grandmaa’s ma and dad to have your grandmaa go to Dordt College. If your grandmaa had not gone to Dordt College to study, your grandpaa more than likely would never have met your grandmaa. We can ask the what if question about the people who were living in Nineveh. What if the people who were living in Nineveh had stayed sorry for having done bad things? Just as God planned it before He created the world that your grandpaa would meet your grandmaa so that you would be sitting exactly where you are sitting right now, God planned it that Nineveh would repent when He asked them to do so through Jonah. God then allowed Nineveh to go back to doing bad things so that He could destroy them. Why? Sometimes God will not tell us the answer to a hard lesson that He is teaching us. God may have been giving His specially chosen people – the Israelites, a life lesson through Nineveh. God may have wanted to show His specially chosen people that He would save them if they repented of their bad ways. God’s plan may have been to use what He did to the guys, gals and kids who were living in Nineveh to show His specially chosen guys, gals and kids what He will do to them if . . . verse 10 describes what God caused to take place in Nineveh – “She is pillaged, plundered, stripped! Hearts melt, knees give way, bodies tremble, every face grows pale”. We can look at this message which God gave to Nineveh through Nahum also as a message for us. What if we do not repent from doing bad things or what if we begin doing bad things again after we have said that we are sorry for the bad things that we have done or what would it be like if we do do those things that we know that we should do which is to always obey God? If we think of God as the One Who is continually unrolling/unfolding a customized perfectly designed plan for us, we do not have any reason at all to think of any what ifs.
Nineveh was a well-known, large and an old city when Jonah and Nahum visited it. Nineveh does not exist today. God will not remember guys, gals and kids who do not do what they need to do to experience having God’s blessings in their lives. God reminds us in the Bible that He will bless us with a life that is filled with hope if…
Nahum 2 (16)