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Good. I was a little bit worried whether or not I put my Bible up here or not. Okay. Nahum will be finishing some thoughts, obviously not addressing the entirety of the book, but finishing a few thoughts from the book. And tonight we'll be in chapter 2, verses 1 and 2.

Nahum chapter 2, verses 1 and 2. When you get there, well, let's just start by reading it together. Nahum 2, 1 and 2. He who scatters has come up before your face. Man the fort, watch the road, strengthen your flanks, fortify your power mightily. For the Lord will restore the excellence of Jacob, like the excellence of Israel.

For the emptiers have emptied them out and ruined their branches. So just by way of reminder from this morning, thinking through a little bit, pardon me, the theme of this book, as the name indicates, is comfort. But it is comfort through an interesting means. It is comfort through the destruction of Nineveh.

It is comfort through the destruction. Destruction of the enemies of God through the knowledge that they will be destroyed. And when they are destroyed, when the opposition to God is removed, then that's the end of the conflict. That's the end of the war, and we live in peace.

And we talked about this this morning. That is, I believe, in particular, about the actual Nineveh at their actual time and their historic context. But that, in principle, as they are the exemplars of opposition, we see and can apply these principles to our own modern-day context. Tonight, we're going to start in a similar fashion.

In verse 1, it starts out with he who scatters. So I started out this morning, who is the wicked one. My question to start out tonight is: who is he who scatters? And be careful, it's a trap. My young adults would know if I'm asking for you to answer something blatantly obvious, then it probably isn't quite so blatantly obvious.

He who scatters, you might be tempted, knowing that this book is about Nineveh, to say, oh, yeah, it's Nineveh. But in context of verse 15, where we ended this morning, he is utterly cut off. The wicked one is utterly cut off, and then he, again, in our text, who scatters has come before your face.

You can help me out? Thank you. Oh. Hold on just a second. My beautification. Thank you. It was probably distracting me as much as it was y'all. Anyhow. All right. So he who scatters. He before your face. So who's the he and who's the your face? What I'd suggest to you is he's talking about being cut off.

He's talking about how they will no longer pass through. And then he says he's going to come along and scatter. Man the fort, watch the road. He's talking to Nineveh. Without necessarily changing or saying that there's a change here, nonetheless, he is changing who he's speaking to. Nineveh, he who scatters has come to face you face to face.

And there's two possible answers here on who this could be. The first, fairly obvious. Nineveh actually fell in history. How did it fall? Well, the Babylonians and the Mines. Medes formed an alliance, and they sieged the town for three months. We have an account of this by a Greek historian.

In an interesting way, flooding of the Tigris River occurred, a massive flood, unprecedented flood, which caused a breach in the wall along the river, which, coincidentally, that's also where Sennacherib's personal palace was. Sennacherib was no longer in the picture, but his palace was there. Just as a matter of curiosity, read with me chapter 1, verse 8.

But with an overflowing flood, he will make an utter end of its place, and darkness will pursue his enemies. With an overwhelming flood, look with me once again at chapter 2, verse 6. The gates of the rivers are opened, and the palace is dissolved. The gates of the river are not the gates of the city.

There was one, possibly two branches, two rivers, one prominent river and perhaps a canal coming through the city proper. So they had plenty of water in any circumstance. They couldn't be run out of water. And there were sluices to allow the water in and out to control the flow of the water going through the middle of Nineveh.

So these are the gates of the rivers. Coincidentally, when they flood in this country, Case, coming up from the river, they flood the palace, which is quite poignant picture there of like sugar. And so, this happens historically, and this takes place. And when the walls crumble, walls that were as greater, greater than the fabled walls of Babylon itself in the years to come, they quickly, the Babylonian Medes, they took advantage of this in order to take the city all at once after a relative three months of siege at that day and time of one of the greatest, if not the greatest city on all the earth, both in size and infrastructure.

Unbelievable. Nobody would have possibly thought this could have happened. And yet it did. It happened all at once, and it happened in this way. So, he who scatters has come before your face. They've come, they're going to take you. And chapter 2 is largely about the Medes, the Persians, the Medes and Babylonians.

And without naming them, it talks about them. Verse 4, the chariots rage in the streets. They jostle one another in the broad roads. That's your Los Angeles traffic. So you got all this going on. But I think there's more going on here, and I think it's plain to see.

If you will look, look at verse 2. 4. You could read that because. The Lord will restore. The Lord will. Because the Lord will. He who scatters has come before your face because the Lord will. The fact is, you have the Babylonians, I believe, depicted in chapter 2, but you have what God is doing in chapter 1.

And most of the uses of this word, by the way, he scatters, is what the Lord is doing. We see him doing this same thing. He works through means. He uses this phrase all through the Old Testament, God scattering various opponents, people who would oppose him in the prophets.

The fact is, if I have a nail and I drive that nail, question. Here's your pop trivia for tonight. What drives the nail? Is it the hammer or is it me? Yes. Yes. Is it the hammer or the one holding the hammer? Even Nahum here in context, I think, makes it clear.

Babylon is the one who scatters. God is the one who scatters. And I think he means, from the context of verse 2, because the Lord will. I think he means both. I think this is in mind when he writes these words. And so we see the inevitability. We talked about that this morning.

The question and the prophecy at work, God's declaration that we talked about a good deal. Even if Nineveh is the wicked one, the inevitability of their outcome is shared universally, as we've talked about. God will cause to happen, and he will use the means that he chooses to use.

So, with all of that said, by way of introduction, tonight I want to make really only two points. The first and the first verse, the second and the second verse. First, that God will accomplish his plans regardless of the opposition. Second, that God will accomplish his plans with his own.

You could say this a number of different ways. With that said, on the first one, active opposition of God will not stop him, that he will accomplish in the face of opposition. I think here it is talking very plainly about Nineveh. It's talking very plainly about the wicked one, and we discussed this some this morning.

But tonight, I wanted to talk more specifically to the church, to the saved, to those here. So I'm going to take some of the implications and Try to make some applications from them on app opposition in general, because even among us as Christians, can we not oppose the will of God?

We love God, and yet we seem to like to grumble, to get our own plans put first. I think of the older brother and the story of the prodigal son. The older brother never left home. He was faithful, he was always there, and even in the end, he was still there, and yet there was resistance, there was opposition against the father.

He was never outside of the home, even in his opposition, and yet he did oppose the father, an ungrateful, uncooperative child, as we, myself included, can tend to be. So, with that, and understanding that we can oppose God from time to time, and understanding that I think every word is important, I wanted to try to draw out some applications.

Remember, this is historical. This is not just a metaphor, so be careful about passing too quickly over the words. Man the fort, watch the road, strengthen your flanks, fortify your power mightily. It's tempting to say, okay, yes, well, get the picture, resist all you want. To and it's not going to work, and we move on.

But I think, and I have a conviction that every single word of Scripture is important, every single dot and tittle, if I want to use that phrase, is important. And therefore, let's think about each one of these phrases just a moment, if you will. First of all, Nineveh has already received a warning.

They received it through Jonah. Don't think that they didn't have the opportunity to respond. A whole generation did repented. And I have to believe that if they had repented, which they didn't, if they had repented, the same, I mean, Scripture is consistent. And they would have been afforded the same salvific opportunity, both physically and spiritually, in every respect.

But instead, here is reflected almost sarcastic comment. You know what's coming. Micah and all this, it's been a long time developing and coming. You know who you're resisting. Man your fort. Stay where you are. Refuse to move. And I think this is something of what's in here. A refusal.

To move. Forts don't move. You can't build a fort in a day. You can't pack it up and move it over. Man the fort means closing the doors, just like Nineveh when it was under a siege, stayed there, and once you got to that point, it was too late.

They knew who they were opposing. They should have known it was futile, as we talked about this morning. If you oppose God, you have no hope. That message was given to them. They had every opportunity, and yet they closed their doors, resisted, stayed in their nice, neat little walls, thinking that would help them somehow if they just didn't move.

I said I was going to apply this to my fellow brothers and sisters in the room, and I would like to do so. A couple ways that we, as Christians, in opposing God, act the same way. We refuse to move when we're told to move. One, we refuse to move away from sin.

Move away from sin. To turn the other way, repentance is that image of you're going one direction, you stop, and you go the other. We refuse to make that move. You don't just repent when you become a Christian and you're good and you never have to repent again.

We live a life of repentance continually, of continually moving away from sin. You find those little Pet things in your life that you don't want to let go of, and you refuse, no matter how many times it's brought up, no matter how many of your brothers or sisters will address it with you, you will not give it up.

And guess what that is? That is an idol, a sin and an idol, all the worse. If you, on the one hand, refuse to move away from sin, on the other hand, we can refuse to move toward that which we're called to move towards. And we talked about this this morning.

And in verse 15, what are we to do? We're to hold the feasts. If we're applying some of these principles given to the Israelites, they're called to hold the feasts, to keep their vows. And I, in explaining how this would apply to us, we are to meet together.

We are to, in community, in church, continue to worship, to put God first as our love. However, again, the Assyrians allowed to move away from their resistance and toward being with God, the chance to be proselytes, the chance to accept the true God, and they refused that, the two sides of the coin, we continue to do the same.

Same because we spend time with what we love. If you love God, you move towards Him. If you love yourself, you're going to tend to move away from Him to be alone. I'd like to point you to a biblical example of this in the Garden of Eden. In the Garden of Eden, God walked with Adam and Eve in the garden, talking with them, spending time with them, in communion with them.

And after the sin, what happened? They hid themselves. They withdrew from God. See, when everything was right, they were with and going towards Him. When everything was wrong, they withdrew and were alone. The same example here. So, my question: a couple ideas and examples of how we can think about this.

Let's move from the abstract again to the concrete, the in-your-face. If we love God, are we spending time with Him? We talked about this morning, revelation, being sensible, being through means we can understand that are clarified for us. Are you spending time in His Word? When you have problems in life, absolutely.

Absolutely. We are here for you. But the first answer should be in your scriptures. And when you struggle to understand those scriptures, then we as a family can let's look at this together. What have you been reading? Where are you at in your walk? Let me help you in your walk.

If you have no walk, I cannot help you with your walk. If you are not living in relationship, I cannot help you with that relationship. It's kind of like if somebody were to come to me for marriage counseling and say, help, my marriage is suffering. And I say, great, let's work together on this and make it better.

Where is your wife? Well, I don't know. I haven't seen her in 15 years. Have you tried? No, I didn't want to try. Well, I can't do anything for you. You have to take some first steps there. Are you spending time with the one you love? And then with the opposite of that being also, well, to finish that thought, actually, I wanted to jump on this.

So John Davis got us started with the young adults on the pastoral epistles. And I have the great opportunity to start Titus chapter 1, verse 9. And I was enamored with this particular verse. There's a word there, and he's telling pastors how they should behave and what they should do.

And one of the things he says is: you must choose men that will exhort. By the way, and I don't have time to, I'll make a whole nother sermon. I wouldn't mind doing it. But preaching is not just a tradition. It's not just something we do because it's handed down over time.

It's something from Scripture. And I'm preaching to the choir. But you can't never hear the word declared. You can't go without reading it yourself. You can't go without hearing it declared. You can't go without being in the community. All of those things that come together. And then on the opposite side, that's going towards and then refusing to go away from sin.

Some people in our community and people I have known, they will like to come in and they'll be at church every Sunday, but they'll be at a different church every Sunday. They'll be in some kind of Bible study constantly, but they'll jump into this Bible study and then out, and then into this Bible study and out.

Go to your family, develop those bonds. It's not just an intellectual learning the Bible is fun kind of thing. If I love God and I love his people, I'm going to develop those relationships. I'm going to start to adhere with my people that, like me, love God. So I'd encourage us to think about that.

Or, or, on the other side, they check the box. I see this sometimes too. I'm going to come once every week or two, but I'm never going to participate in serving God. And there's many ways to serve God. I'm not going to try to give you a list.

If you never serve, I might be with my wife, even physically be in the same household. But if I never do anything to show her love and kindness, to serve her, that's not love. That's going away. That's serving self. That's putting self first and going away from that which is important.

Refusing to be moved as we should towards God and not away from God, not away from our sins. Next, as we try to. Think about this. We try to outthink God. Notice the next thing. Man the fort in a way that you're refusing to be moved in the proper way.

And then watch the road. Watch the road. This is the idea of knowing the enemy is coming. I find this, again, perhaps I find irony where there isn't any, but I think it's a little bit funny. God has said, they're coming for you. And then you're going to say, I'm going to watch and make sure if they're coming for me.

Like, okay, you just learned, you see them. Okay, they're coming. Now you know they're coming. Does this change anything? No, it doesn't change anything. We try to outthink God. Examples of this, to justify sin. It's okay to do this thing because this verse is cultural. This verse only applied to Nineveh.

It has nothing to say to me today where I am. This verse over here only applied at that day in time. It has nothing to say in this day in time. Things have changed since the Bible was written. Jesus didn't understand how it was going to be. We justify and we try to argue our way to understanding.

Hey, everything's good with me. Well, no, it's not. And you can play these games all you want, mental games, trying to outthink God. Or to get out of the repercussions and corrections. And I could go through Proverbs where it talks about. About fools despising wisdom and the many different ways that is said, and the different examples this is said.

It is foolish to think that you know better. Assyria, as non-Christians, as the example of those opposed to God entirely, is also an example to us as Christians who still have some of these tendencies to think we can outthink God. You can't. I hate to inform you. The one who created you is just a wee bit beyond your grasp.

You're not going to get one over on him. Third of all, strengthen your flanks. And as I'm thinking about what do these words mean and what is he saying there, and I would suggest this is an idea of securing your weaknesses, but not in a good way. It's securing your weaknesses by your own means.

And I'd suggest in a Christian context, the way that we tend to do this, and you see it quite a lot in the Bible, is by substituting faith with legalism. Substituting faith with legalism. See, I know I'm having trouble making it, but instead of just trusting God and what He has told me, I'm going to do a whole bunch of really good things, and then I know God will have to, you know, I can't trust what He said.

I'm going to make. Sure, he's got my flanks by being really good in doing all these things. I will appease God with good works. This is perhaps, and that's not just the Judaizers as prominent as that is in the New Testament. This is by and far and away the biggest problem that we have.

The entire Catholic Church is premised on this idea. The idea that if I do good enough, then God will be accepting of me, and my weaknesses and where I feel insufficient will be restored and made well. So these are some ways, and then fortify your power mightily. I would generally take as a summary statement of all three of these: ways in which, if you oppose God, your efforts are wasted.

As Christians, as well, if we oppose God by refusing to move when we are told to move, by refusing to accept the wisdom and instruction of the Lord, and refusing to trust Him and not our own devices. But then there's another side, and I see this in verse 2: for the Lord will restore the excellent.

Of Jacob. And this, I see, again, we come on this theme of comfort that I really want you all to hear tonight. Jacob here means the whole of Israel. Remember, Israel has, this is after the northern tribes have been wiped out by Assyria. You have Judah and Benjamin, and that's it.

So Israel would be referring to the north, Judah to the south. But here you have Jacob, the father of the twelve. All of the twelve sons, the twelve tribes unified under the name Jacob. Nowhere to my knowledge or any commentary that I could find has ever found Jacob to refer to anything other than the entire unity of all of the Hebrews.

So it means all of Israel, the country as we know it, and the people as we know it, and the followers of God as we know it. And what does it say about them? The Lord will restore the excellence. Now, this is quite a thing. The northern tribes, as I just said, have been wiped out.

Not only have they been militarily conquered, Assyria and its standard foreign policy, after they took Israel, the northern tribes, dispersed them, and Mixed them in with other cultures, essentially obliterated their culture as it existed, obliterated all of their genealogical lines. We have Samaria today as a result, in large part of that.

And we call them, in fact, the lost tribes in some contexts. So, how exactly are they going to be restored? And I suggest to you: between the fact that these tribes have never been at least physically restored, and the fact, look at the end of verse 2, the emptiers have emptied them out, referring, I think, to the entirety.

Judah, at the time that Nahum is written, has not been emptied out. Sennacherib came and attacked, but he was unsuccessful in taking Jerusalem. It's not until Babylon comes after this book was written that everyone is truly entirely emptied out. Between the fact that they haven't been emptied out yet, and to this day the northern tribes have not been restored, this can only be of the future, including our future.

This is the future. This is the end of times as I would see it. In a day yet to come, Jacob, the entire nation, will be restored. In verse 15 through chapter 2, verse 1, I think there are some overtures to this effect talking about things that are going to happen in the end, but in chapter 2, verse 2, it's unquestionable in my mind.

So let's think about this for a second. What does this mean? What is going to happen? First of all, in order for these tribes to be reconstituted, you have to have Jews whose family lines are, at the very least, unknown, suddenly brought back. So you would think. But I'd like to bring your attention to something.

I could make a number of different arguments, but I settled on only one argument. Look at Jesus, if you will. Jesus, the descendant of Rahab and possibly Tamar, both Tamar being possibly Canaanites, Ruth, a Moabitist, Jezebel by means of Athaliah of Tyre, Ziviah of Beersheba, and possibly a few others of which we are less confident.

God is not incredibly worried about the bloodline pedigrees. He is not worried. Worried about the exact, you know, these to use in ways that I would think slightly crass to say, the pure bloodlines, you know, this idea that we see in some of your racist propaganda and such.

He was a Jew, no doubt, and yet, what is a Jew? They will return. We see this fact. You have the 144,000, you have Isaiah, and by the way, this is not the church replacing. Look at Isaiah 49 that I read this morning. It's talking, it opens up in the first verses to the coastlands.

So you have this idea of the covenant people, Israel, and the coastlands being incorporated into two distinct entities, joined together in the promises of Israel, not subsuming them. God has always used Israel as a living metaphor for salvation, among other things. He has utilized Israel as a living metaphor for salvation, so that neither the metaphor nor the salvation that he offers is ever lost.

Or made indistinguishable. If Israel, the people, were lost, the metaphor would be lost because he hasn't been able to save them. And yet, him keeping Israel itself being a metaphor is not salvation in actuality. Both remain in place. How then? Well, if you look, look with me at Ezekiel chapter 37, you can see where it addresses just a little bit of exactly this.

How is he going to re-raise these nations which have been lost? And we see Ezekiel 37, join with me in verse 1. The hand of the Lord came upon me and brought me out in the spirit of the Lord and set me down in the midst of the valley, and it was full of bones.

Then he caused me to pass by them all around. And behold, there were very many in the open valley, and indeed they were very dry. And he said to me, Son of man, can these bones live? So I answered, O Lord God, you know. Again, he said to me, Prophesy to these bones and say to them, O dry bones, hear the word of the Lord.

Thus says the Lord God to these bones, Surely I will cause breath to enter into you, and you shall live. I will put sinews on you and bring flesh upon you, cover you with skin, and Put breath in you, and you shall live. Then you shall know that I am the Lord.

So I prophesied, and it was commanded, and as I was commanded, and as I prophesied, there was a noise, and suddenly a rattling, and the bones came together, bone to bone. Indeed, as I looked, the sinews and the flesh came upon them, and the skin covered them over.

But there was no breath in them. And he said to me, Prophesy to the breath. Prophesy, son of man, and say to the breath, Thus says the Lord God, Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe on these slain, that they may live. So I prophesied, as he commanded me.

And the breath came into them, and they lived and stood upon their feet, an exceedingly great army. Then he said to me, Son of man, these bones are the whole house of Israel. They indeed say, Our bones are dry, our hope is lost, and we ourselves are cut off.

Therefore prophesy and say to them, Thus says the Lord God, Behold, my people, I will open your graves and cause you to come up from your graves and bring you into the land of Israel. Then you shall know that I am the Lord, when I have opened your graves, O my people, and brought you up from your graves.

I will put my spirit in you, and you shall live, and I will place you in your own land. Then you shall know that I, the Lord, have spoken it and performed it, says the Lord. How does he do it? Because he's God, and he said so. I don't have to ask a second question.

God has said that he will bring all of Jacob back, restore their excellence, and I trust God in what he says. In the same way that I trust him with my own soul, he has saved me. How exactly? Well, I can go into all the details of Jesus, but ultimately, the finer mechanics, I can't understand the entire mind of God or how he works, but I trust and know him.

It doesn't stop there. He will restore Jacob like the excellence of Israel. Now, interesting thing there: who is Israel? Jacob. The Lord will restore the excellence of Jacob like the excellence of Israel. That like is there. So, how does that make any sense? I'd suggest to you: go back and look: how does Jacob get the name Israel?

Jacob leaves his family after obtaining his blessing, goes to Laban in Genesis chapter 28. He crosses the Jordan to do so. And I will not go back to read, I wanted to read it, but as you look at the story, in a sense, he's in exile. He's living in absolute terror of evil.

Esau. And in chapter 32, he's preparing to meet Esau again as he's coming back home. He has sent his entire family, his servants, everything, he's left all alone. Chapter 32, verse 24, and there he has a confrontation with God. There he gets the name Israel. He's been brought to a place where he must.

He's coming back from exile and he must trust on God alone. He has nothing left to trust on. He is facing terror like he has never known. And he has no more shenanigans, no more carn art is going to get him out of this. He is facing his fears, and he must do it through God alone.

The Lord will restore the excellence of Jacob, and he will do so like the excellence of Israel. That should give you shivers. You're coming back. He will restore you. And as I've just said, if we're taking this and understanding it and applying it to our context, if he has saved them, he has promised to save us.

He has given them promises. He has said he incorporates us in those promises. He has saved Israel and he saves us in the same way. Folks, if you oppose God, he will humble you. On the other side of things, never think that there's anything going on or outside entity or force or person that can hold you back from the God who loves you.

There is not. He will restore you. It doesn't matter how dry your bones are or where you have been or how hurt you are. God will accomplish what he has said. He will accomplish against opposition. In verse 1, he will accomplish no matter what opposes him, and he will accomplish, in your case, for those who love him, no matter what you've experienced or been through, because he loves you.

The emptiers have emptied them out, ruined their vines, their branches, rather. Just very, very quickly on this, there's a lot that could be said about the branches. I was going to read Romans 11 again. I'll suggest you to go home and do so. But in our sermon this morning, we looked at Romans chapter 10.

Verse 15 is given by Paul in a quotation in Romans 10, 25. And interestingly enough, I don't know if he was specifically drawing from this, but. It's very likely, it seems to me, because in the very next chapter, he draws an image from this branch: the branches that are restored, the branches that are placed back in the olive tree.

If there's one thing I can give you tonight from this text, if there's one comfort from the book of comfort that you can have, just know this: there is nothing, whether it's you and your opposition or an outside force or an experience you've experienced, there is nothing that can hold you apart from a God who loves you.

Let's pray, Dear Lord, I thank you. I thank you for being who you are, for showing yourself to us, for loving us, and for conquering everything that stands between us. I pray that we will all be comforted by this, that we will all love you more for this, and that we will demonstrate our love and our relationship in a way that grows and is beautiful and is seen and.

Our community in this church, a people in love with you. I pray this in Jesus' name. Amen.