Nahum: The Justice of God - Nahum 2: 1-13

When I was in youth group, the Easter Sun Rise service was always one that was designed and led by the youth in the congregation. For a few years my parents served as youth group leaders and under their tenure we would plan a worship service that highlighted the groups musical gifts and other talents, but for the sermon portion of the service we would put on plays. Now I must confess that I don’t remember very many of those plays, but I do remember one in particular where God was serving as judge saying that he needed justice for the sin that had been committed in the world, sin that had broken the convent and broken his heart. The person who was on trial tried to give a list of excuses, all of which failed. But in one powerful moment, Jesus stood up and simply uttered one sentence “I paid the price”. Justice had been served on the cross. 

But that wasn’t the understanding of justice during the time of Nahum. Or at least not completely. We talked a bit last week about how Nineveh (ie the Assyrians) were oppressing the people of Israel. But the truth is, even though Nahum is among the more hopeful prophecies for the Israelites, in parts of it, especially at the beginning God through the prophet is convicting them for their sin as well. There is punishment for all sin, including the sin of Israel, which is written about more in prophets like Jeremiah and Micah,  but the time of their punishment is drawing to an end. Wholeness and integrity will soon be restored to the people, if only they seek to keep God’s covenant and remember God’s promises. 

Which brings us to chapter 2of Nahum today, where the prophecy turns to Nineveh itself. God is essentially saying to this nation that sees itself as powerful that all that power they think they have, its going to end. In fact, they will be completely shattered by God. For the Lord is going to raise us the people of Israel, the people they had been walking all over and oppressing, and they will ruin the Assyrians. 

Why are the Assyrians being told they will be ravaged? Because they have oppressed Israel, yes, but also because of the sin of their bloodshed and conflict against other nations as well. They will essentially be punished for their cruelty and greed. 

God goes as far as to say that he is against the Assyrians, so they will be cut off from the earth and all of that power and might that lead to them conquering others - that will be no more. 

The truth is no one, not Israel, not the Aysrians, not any other people, nation or tongue can live outside of the power of God. And that power is also reflected in the justice of God. God must deal with sin in one way or another. The sin of the Assyrians is that they committed crimes against other people and that made them enemies of God. The sin of Israel is that they forgot the heart of God and broke covenant with their God. And all sin, no matter who commits it, must be punished. 

The righteousness and justice of God go hand in hand, but that is so hard for us to grasp as people sometime. It is hard for us to compute in our brains how God can be one hundred precent righteous and one hundred percent just and one hundred percent loving and one hundred precent merciful all at the same time. And because we can’t understand that it our heads, we sometimes get it mixed up in our hearts. 

For example, often when we think about justice we think about punishment. Consider that play that I shared a few minutes ago - we think of justice in terms of court rooms and rules and punishment when we break the law. In fact, we often think of justice as punishment. The Israelites were probably cheering when they heard this prophecy from Nahum that the Assyrians would be defeated and get what was coming to them. 

But when we look at it through the lens of Christ, we find that God also offered love through Christ as the penalty for our sin, and Christ the son speaks to God the father in our defense. 

So what in the world do we do with something like the second chapter of Nahum? We need to remember to look at the whole of scripture not just bits and pieces to understand this God who is beyond our comprehension. 

I was in a few different plays when I was younger and another one that I remember took place at the Presbyterian Church in Clearfield when I was in middle school. The topic - Jonah. You remember the story of Jonah, right? God sent Jonah to the people of Nineveh with the message that they were going to be punished for their sin. It took Jonah a long time to get there, which is another story for another day, but Jonah did eventually make his way to Nineveh and share this message from God. Only the people repented! They cried out to God to forgive them. And surprisingly to Jonah, as he sat back and waited for God to strike the people of Nineveh dead, God forgave them. In this story we found that God would be a source of salvation to those who turn to him. 

So we can’t take the prophecy of Nahum to mean that people never have the chance to repent, because that’s not what we see throughout scripture as whole. But what we do see all throughout scripture is that sin separates us from the heart of God and God as a God of righteous and justice demands payment for our sins. Payment, that we believe came in the sacrifice of Christ on the cross. 

But here’s the thing about God’s justice my friends. It also requires us to act with justice. And by that I do not mean justice that punishes people or justice that judges where people are at in their walk with God, for that is God’s justice and power for him alone. Instead, I mean the type of justice we heard about in the call to worship this morning. The hard justice that Christ speaks of that requires to make sure that people are treated with dignity and respect. For the justice of God is both a justice that shows itself in punishment for what is wrong and doing the right thing for those in need. 

So we need to show up for people with his justice that may not look like the justice that we have in our minds, and doing so we lead people to God who seeks to save the lost and transform hearts, just like happened in the scripture of Jonah. 

In Hebrew the words for Justice and Righteous come from the same root. Friends, may I suggest that we have enough people who try to claim the justice of God as their own in this world, just like we have enough people who try to claim the power of God as their own. The punishment of God is for God alone to figure out. But this justice that can transform the world by the way we act - friends, we can have a part in that. A part of rebuilding a hurting society and praying for the restoration of God to come. Is that work that we are interested in as the church? Are we willing to be a people of justice? Amen.