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Devotional thoughts (Monday through Thursday mornings) from the pastor of Exeter Presbyterian Church in Exeter, NH // Sunday Worship 10:30am // 73 Winter Street

Monday, October 13, 2008

Nahum 2

The story of the Bible can be told according to the idea of scattering and gathering. The scattering part is bad, but often necessary. The final plan of the Lord calls for the gathering of His flock in a place of the greatest peace and blessing. We are moving toward that great gathering. As part of the Lord’s plan to gather His people, along the way it has often been necessary for Him to scatter those who would desire to thwart His perfect plan. We see that at the Tower of Babel in Genesis 11. We also see heartbreaking events throughout the history of the Old Covenant where the Lord has used some foreign power in order to scatter His own people. While this kind of discipline against Judah and Israel was in some sense a necessary part of His larger plan for mercy to the nations, these episodes of brutal scattering against the Lord’s children cannot be the end of the story. Assyria was one of the agents of the Lord’s correction of His people. But the Assyrian Empire would face a scattering that would come against her. As she had done to many nations, it would be done to her.

This world during this present evil age is a very dangerous place. As we have been warned by the Lord Jesus prior to His death, the age of the gospel in which we live is an age of birth pains. The resurrection age is coming, but not without pain. Nation will rise against nation. There would seem to be a continual stream of winners and losers, accompanied by much injury and destruction. This has been the way since sin and death entered the world through one man. No nation can afford to ignore the brutal truth of the troubles of their times. In their national pride, powerful peoples may think that they will never fall. The truth is that the Assyrians will face the Babylonians. The Medes, the Persians, the Greeks, and the Romans will each come in their own time, and all of this even before the gospel goes out to all the nations of the world, and the church faces the brutal persecution that comes from her enemies. Because of the dangers all around them, it would be necessary for the Assyrians to man the ramparts; watch the road; dress for battle; collect all their strength. Though they might dream that they alone would never fall, every empire of men that dreams that theirs is the final kingdom is in for a violent disappointment.

The final kingdom will be the Lord’s kingdom, a new Israel that includes all of his people from all the nations of the world. God’s kingdom, inaugurated through the death and resurrection of Christ, is a most unusual force. They do not rely on the weapons of this world for their progress. Some of their greatest victories come when they are martyred. Some of their worst moments of disgrace happen when they have too much worldly power and they move to kill their enemies. That is not the way of the kingdom of Christ. What kind of kingdom is the Lord’s church? This kingdom wins by the power of the resurrection. The one who dies in the Lord is safe in Christ in the heavenlies. From that place on high great and mighty things are taking place among a great multitude who are preparing for a massive resurrection invasion, when men and angels return under the banner of the God/Man Jesus Christ. Even now the message of the peace, love, glory, and judgment of God in Christ goes forward, and the souls of His people are nourished in the hope of the resurrection. We should be doing holy battle now as the greatest force of faith working itself out through love ever known among men. Those within the Lord’s church that would want to turn her into yet another miserable expression of forceful earthly temporary power are not working on the same side as the One who won His greatest victory on a Roman cross.

That kind of effort will only fail, just as Nineveh and the Assyrian Empire eventually met its match and was destroyed. The misery and loss of military destruction! How many cities have faced their end in the same ugly spectacle as took place in ancient Nineveh? Their reward was desolation. The proud are made to tremble, and the bravest faces grow pale in the face of death. The power of men will never be the final story, and the weapons of men will never bring about the glorious peace of God. Nor will coercion ever be the way for us to truly lead people into the liberty that Christ has won for His people. Christ is the great victorious warrior of Psalm 110:3. A willing people in His day of power shall come to Him.

There is much for us to learn through the story of history. Are we proud in our own strength? Many have been there before us. They became the subject of the taunt songs of their conquerors. Assyria was a proud lion, a young lion that no one would dare to disturb in her moment of quickly fading glory. Soon the Babylonians would be singing about it with derision. “Where is the lions’ den now?” Yet it would not do the Babylonians any good to sing too proudly or too loudly. Their day of destruction would come soon.

The Lord Christ is on the move throughout this gospel age with the strange power of the message of a crucified and risen King. Through Him a most unusual kingdom is being built up throughout the world. Though there is much evidence of our worldliness, guilt, and shame within that ironic kingdom, because of the righteousness of Christ and because of His electing love and power, one day we will hear these words of commendation, “I was hungry and you gave me something to eat.” Our risen Lord will gather His people into the eternal kingdom of resurrection love, and we will never be scattered again.

posted by Pastor Magee @ 12:00 AM

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