Scott Maze, Senior Pastor at Cross Church NRH and NFW, preached in SWBTS Chapel on October 23, 2025.
The following is an uncorrected transcript generated by a transcription service. Before quoting in print, please check the corresponding audio for accuracy.
Thank you so much, choir. And that was so beautiful. It’s good to be back. What a privilege it is to be at Southwestern, having the privilege of coming here all the way back in January of 1995 I come from the era of Roy fish and Malcolm McDowell and Dr Tolar, and I can say from that era to the present that Southwestern has only impacted my ministry, but it has made me a better believer. In fact, recent days, I’ve had the privilege of taking Dr Andy Jennings on apologetics and Dr Jim wicker on theology of John on recent days, and it was just as good as it was back in the day. Thank you all for that. Find with me the book of Nahum, a small book with a massive view of God. I want to thank those 30 plus of our church members who are here today.
We have to ask, Don’t y’all get enough of me on Sundays. And here you are speaking of questions to ask when the email came to preach on the book of Nahum, I began to question whether the current president has access to the transcripts of former students. Nevertheless, we’re here today my assignment, God, in His goodness and in his time makes all things right now you won’t wake up one day to find Nahum trending on social media. If the Bible were a playlist, Nahum is probably the book or the song that you’d skip every time it is a book that we almost totally ignore.
But here’s why you should pay attention to the book of Nahum. Nahum tells us about a God who reigns and that he will have the final word against evil. Begin reading with me in verse one, the Bible says an Oracle concerning Nineveh, the book of vision of Nahum of Elkosh. The Lord is a jealous and avenging God. The Lord is avenging and wrathful. The Lord takes vengeance on his adversaries and keeps wrath for his enemies. The Lord is slow to anger. Verse three says, and great in power, and the Lord will by no means clear the guilty. His way is in the whirlwind and the storm, the clouds are the dust of his feet. Verse seven says, again, the Lord is good a stronghold and the day of trouble. He knows those who take refuge in Him, but with an overwhelming flood, excuse me, with an overflowing flood, he will make a complete end of his adversaries and will pursue his enemies in the darkness.
May God bless the reading of His Word. When evil looks loud and God feels quiet, Nahum answers three questions. By way of preview, today, I want us to see what does God know? What does God feel? And lastly, what will God do? First Look with me this. What does God know? Now, Nahum is a book, and it’s unique in that it’s totally dedicated, totally dedicated to the destruction of one ancient city. It’s unique in all the Bible there makes us wonder, what is it that God knows? Maybe you heard about the small town attorney who called his first witness to the stand, an elderly woman. She was a local gossip. Everyone knew that he approached her while she was on the stand, said, Miss Jones, do you know me? She said, Well, yes, I do know you. I’ve known you since you were a young boy, and quite frankly, you’ve been a big disappointment to me. You lie, you cheat on your wife, you manipulate people, you talk about them behind their backs.
You charge far too much money, and you don’t have the brains to realize that you’re nothing going to be more than a two-bit paper pusher. Yes, I know you. Well. The attorney was flabbergasted and stunned. He didn’t know what to do next. He just pointed to the next attorney, the defense attorney, and said, Do you know him? Of course, I know Mr. Bradley. Mr. Bradley, I watched you when you’re a baby. You’ve been a big disappointment to me as well. You’re lazy, you’ve got a drinking problem, you’ve cheated your way through law school, and you’re one of the most crooked lawyers in the state. At that moment, the judge hammered the gavel down and called both attorneys to the bench and looked at them in hushed tones and said, if either of you asked that woman if she knows me, you’re going to spend the night in jail with that what does God know?
Look with me, beginning in verse one, the Bible says an Oracle. Now you may have a different translation. It’s an Oracle. Now, Oracle’s not the database software. It is a weighty Word from God here, given to someone that God trusts the prophet Nahum. We know almost nothing about Nahum. His name means to comfort. It’s a shortened. Name, likely of the name Nehemiah, and he is comforting God’s people by confronting God’s or excuse me, I should say the people’s oppressors. And while we don’t know much about Nahum, we know a lot about Nineveh, you’ll notice that word in verse one, it is today, next to modern day, Mosul Iraq. It was the last capital of the ancient empire of Assyria, and the city’s name would strike fear in the hearts of his of its enemies, its people were perverse, sadistic and evil. Assyrian kings did not hide their brutality. Instead, they advertised their brutality.
If you were to go to the British Museum today, you would see there an inscription from the ancient Assyrian kings, the very ones that Nahum is thundering against, where they talk about piling up the flaying of the skins of their enemies and piling them up on a stake that cruelty was intended to advertise and communicate. This is what happens when you cross Assyria. Terrorism was part of nineveh’s policy. Now you know many of you do astute as you are, as Bible scholars that Nahum is not the only book to deal with Nineveh. About 150 years prior to Nahum is the book of Jonah. And remember, Jonah was commanded to go to Nineveh and preach. It’s one of the great biblical revivals, and he didn’t want to do that. He did not want this sadistic, cruel, perverse nation to experience the mercy of God. And so God sends down Nahum. Did God change his mind? With the first prophet, he says, here’s the mercy of God. And now with Nahum, he says something different.
No, God didn’t change his mind. Grace for Nineveh, if they repent in Jonah’s day and now in nahum’s day, it is judgment because they refuse it. Friend. If cruelty had a Hall of Fame, Nineveh would be a first ballot entry. When you look at Nineveh, you need to be aware in Assyria that they go too far. The prophet Isaiah tells us that they were selected. The kingdom was selected by God to bring judgment on his own nation, the nation of Israel. But they again, the sadistic, the cruelty, the brutality, and they went beyond that. Isaiah, chapter 10 says, And now, as God is finished judging Israel, He will now turn and judge the people of Assyria. Is God watching? That’s the question. If you were alive prior to 612, BC, when Nineveh fell, you’d have to ask yourself, with such a sadistic, cruel, brutal nation, is God? Is he watching? What does he know? Much like we might ask in our day and time, God, are you not going to do anything about Putin as he invades Ukraine? I want you to notice carefully the beginning of verse three, the Lord is slow to anger. Somebody. Give me an amen on that he is slow to anger.
I so thank God that he’s not quick to anger, and he is great in power, and the Lord will no means. Clo excuse me, will no means. Clear the guilty. I’m so thankful I know you are as well that he slows down his wrath in order to give us an opportunity to be transformed. Nineveh had tested the very limits of God’s patience. And remember, God communicates this vision to Nahum, 150 years after Jonah, he had already sent them a message, a billboard, a text, if you will. And he would say to them, if you don’t change your ways. Judgment is coming, and God has slowed down his wrath. Nineveh fell in 612, BC. If you were to ask your grandparents where they were when JFK was assassinated, they could tell you exactly where they were on the 22nd of November in 1963 if you were to ask my generation, where were you when the towers fell in 911 I could tell you exactly where I was here in South Fort Worth. And if you were to ask Nahum’s Children, where were you when the evil empire in the city of Nineveh fell in 612, BC, they would tell you exactly where they were. God in His goodness and His time makes all things right. Secondly, look with me, What does God feel?
Notice, if you will, in verse two, three times. In verse two, the word a form of it of avenging, appears. The Lord is a jealous and avenging God. The Lord is avenging. There it is a second. In time, and the Lord takes his vengeance on his adversaries. That word appears three times as a warning. In fact, the word wrath in verse two, it really shows us the inside, if you will, the boiler room of God himself. It speaks of an inner fire, if you will. And Nahum takes us into the emotional boiler room of God to make us understand what makes God ticks. Most of the culture of America today cannot reconcile a God who is jealous, a God who takes vengeance, or a God who is wrathful that that is complimentary to him being both good and loving. And here’s where friend you and I need to really communicate as future ministers. The name of Oprah is not a name that is as widespread as it once was. But I want you to go to Google or wherever your search engine is and just put in in your search engine, how Oprah was listening to a pastor preach about the jealousy of God.
And at that moment, she turned away from the faith, once and all delivered for the saints we have to communicate with great care for a generation in front of us. And if you want to think about how God’s jealousy and his wrath complement His goodness. I take you to the Mercurial, to the not consistent at all gods of the Greeks and the Romans. Consider this in Greek mythology, the god Apollo was once mocked by Cupid. Yes, that Cupid In retaliation, Cupid, it is told in mythology, shot Apollo with an arrow to make him fall in love with Daphne. Are you tracking with me so far? Unfortunately, it was then that Cupid shot Daphne with an arrow that made her reject Apollo’s love, all in retaliation to him being mocked. And then when Daphne came to her father and begged for her father for help in this love triangle that’s gone awry, he turns her into a laurel tree.
Now that’s a miracle God that’s a God that is inconsistent, a God that has bad hair days, a God that maybe you want to talk to him on a Tuesday, but leave him alone on a Wednesday. Let me ask you if that were the God of the Bible, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, I don’t know that I would take the risk and the gamble to pray to him. I might be praying for a boyfriend and end up with Jeffrey Epstein or Hannibal Lecter, I would not want to go anywhere near that kind of God, and our God is not like that at all. Nahum startles us again when he says this one whole vision is dedicated to the destruction of an ancient city, but he does so both as a warning first, but also to show us the principles by which God acts. He’s not. He’s not a God that has a bad hair day. Notice in verse two, the Bible says God is jealous, and compare that over in verse seven, that God is indeed good. These are characteristics that are complementary and not contradictory.
Now many stumble here. When we hear jealousy and God is jealous, we think of petty insecurity. We think that maybe one employer is jealous that his employee or her employee might get more money from a future employer. When we hear wrath, we might hear a temper tantrum, but God does not have mood swings. But instead, he takes moral stances. God’s jealousy isn’t impulsive. Instead, it is intentional. And when you think and you read of God’s jealousy in the Bible, I want you to think instead of God’s protection everywhere that we see this word jealousy, it is there and it is present for God’s People’s Protection. Let me show you how God zealously protects his people. And the God of Nahum is the god of Calvary, where wrath and mercy will meet at the cross. How does he protect? Well, first and foremost, injustice. I remind you that God is coming after an evil brutality. Nation, like a police officer, is to corral that which is evil on the streets.
God protects his children from injustice. He doesn’t just He doesn’t just see injustice verse two, when it says he feels the wrath. He feels injustice done against his people, verse two says again that this injustice moves him, and you can expect God to act decisively, decisively when he needs to defend. His people and act against the enemies of God’s people. This is a principled reaction to all injustice. I say principled again, so that you would understand that he acts by his good and great character, I remind you that all of us in this room, if we’re in Christ, God is calling us to be conformed to the image of His Son, Jesus, Christ, the character of God is to be our character. And this is good news. You don’t want a God to be indifferent to injustice. You don’t want a God to be indifferent to exploitation. Statistics tell us today that in the good old United States of America, some 460,000 children on average, go missing. You don’t want a God that is indifferent to such exploitation. We don’t want a God that like a police officer that would see a crime turn her head or turn his head. We don’t want a God that would be like a fireman to see a fire break out, doesn’t put it out.
What kind of God would it would be if this God is not just no friend, the goodness of God in verse seven is a compliment to his wrath and the vengeance as well as the jealousy in verse two, if we have ever wept over injustice or longed for someone to answer for evil that we have part of the heart of God in us, and God’s jealousy is not only incited by injustice, also incited by the worship of foreign gods, of idols. Perhaps you know this passage in Exodus, chapter 20, the Bible says You shall not bow down to foreign idols, to other gods, or serve them. For I the LORD am a what jealous God say that like you’re awaking It means something at about 1130 on a Thursday, for I am a I thought maybe the Bible education department here had fallen by the wayside. God is not in jealous like an insecure employer that may again, see someone else do better somewhere else. No, he is like a husband, and he knows what is best for his wife, the church, and what’s the best thing for us. God Himself. There is no other God that’s better than God, God Almighty.
And he is not jealous of you, friend, he is jealous for you. Every time you see the word jealousy, you know that a good God is on patrol, protecting his people, and he wants the very best for his children. Again, our theme today as we look at Nahum God, in His goodness and in his time, makes all things right, if that’s what God feels and that’s what God knows, look at me thirdly, and lastly, at what God will do. Verse seven, again, the Lord is good, a stronghold in the day of trouble. He knows those who take refuge in Him. I want you to marinate on that verse, because some of the best saints down through time have loved this verse. Spurgeon said it is a green island of refuge amidst the torrent of river the rest of the chapter one, and then Luther. Luther would go to Nahum, chapter one, verse seven, he would say, this is an outstanding statement overflowing with consolation.
Now, if both Luther and Spurgeon can get behind verse seven, maybe you might add it to the verses you’ve memorized. Again, the Bible says here the Lord is good, and then it tells us God’s going to do two things. And this is consistent from 600 years before Jesus Christ walked on the earth to the day in which he comes back to rescue his saints, he will, one, protect us, and secondly, he will eradicate his enemies. Look with me first, when we said that God is always doing two great things. First, he protects his people. Some of you are going to know that in turbulent pastorates, some of you are going to know that when you go on the mission field and you wonder, God, are you looking? Are you watching? Are you knowing what is happening? God is a great refuge at all times for God’s people. I want to point you to that he says, he says he knows those who take refuge in Him. It continues by saying he’s a stronghold in the day of trouble and whatever may come your way. You need to know that it’s not a week of trouble. It’s not a month of trouble. He appoints a day of trouble. He puts a boundary to the persecution and the challenges that come our way.
And I remind you, as ministers of what Timothy tells us, that all who are godly in Christ Jesus will suffer loss, suffer persecution, and so if it’s always fair and it’s always kind and your day. Days are always just nothing but the best. Maybe you need to see whose team that you’re on. I remind you here, when you’re facing difficulties and persecution, it is a day of trouble. Sooner or later, we’re going to have that kind of day, and the Bible says when that day comes, you can know that our God is a stronghold. He’s a day of refuge. He’s a fortress. He’s a castle. And the day of trouble, the Psalmist would say it this way, God is our refuge and strength, a very present help. And in trouble, therefore, we will not fear, though the earth gives way, though the mountains be moved in the heart of the sea, though its waters roar and foam though the mountains tremble at its swelling. Your greatest stronghold is not the money in your account. It’s not the name that you might have. It’s not the name of the church or even this institution. Your greatest refuge is always the cross of Jesus Christ. He is where you will always find protection from the wrath of God.
He is where you will always find the mercy of God. And then Nahum helps us here by showing us the power of God. If you’re going to have a protector, if you’re going to have one who’s a stronghold, then you want to make it a powerful protector. You want to make it an impregnable castle and fortress. That’s exactly what this God is. At the end of verse three, notice he begins to paint for us in colors of nature and show us the power of God by what he controls. The Bible says it this way. His way is in the whirlwind and in the storm and the clouds are dust at his feet. He rebukes the sea and makes it dry, and he dries up all the rivers. And then in verse five, notice carefully continuing this same theme, the mountains quake before him, the hills melt. The Earth heaves before him, and the world and all who dwell in it. When I think about the power of our God and nature, I want to rid my vocabulary of all things like such as Mother Nature, but I think of Robert wells a little children’s book he put together entitled, it’s the blue whale. Is the blue whale the biggest that there is.
I went to public school in the state of Kentucky, so I need books on my level. Is the blue whale the biggest thing that there is. And this children’s book, let me walk you through how it thinks. Because I think Nahum would have said an Amen, the largest animal on the earth is the blue whale, and just the flippers of the blue whale are taller and bigger than most animals on the earth. But a blue whale isn’t nearly as big as a mountain, in fact, as well. Says, if you took 100 blue wells and put them in a huge jar, picturing it. Put them in a huge jar. You could put millions of these jars and a how hollowed out Mount Everest got the picture. But Mount Everest isn’t anywhere near as big as the Earth. You could stack 100 Mount Everest on top of one another, and it’d be but a whisker, he says, On the very face of the earth. But the Earth itself isn’t anywhere near as big as the sun. And the sun, he says, You could fit, well, 1 million Earths inside the sun, but the sun is not anywhere near as big as the Milky Way. And the Milky Way, of course, has billions of stars that make it up.
But now that we have such things as the Hubble telescope and astronomers telling us that there are billions of galaxies in the universe, and all of this is controlled this vast expanse of the universe, and it tells us exactly what Nahum told us with the whirlwind, that God has a vast amount of power, that he can protect his own and route his enemies. By the way, you got to preach that part two in verse eight, God is not air conditioned hell, because it’s not politically correct. And the Bible here says that he is going to judge his enemies with an over flowing flood, that he will make a complete end of his adversaries. I found it interesting to note that Greek historians not Bible believing Christians, but Greek historians said that when Nineveh fell in 612, BC, that part of what brought it down was the flooding of the Tigris River, among other rivers that took down the defense walls to the ancient city of Nineveh, when God says it, every word that he says is a promise.
You can draw a direct line from the jealousy and the vengeance and the wrath of verse two into verse eight. The Lord is an avenging and wrathful God. He takes vengeance on his adversaries, but his wrath. Wrath is, again, not an emotional roller coaster. He is principled and deliberate, and he has an intentional strategy on his part to to intensely oppose everything that is evil, and when God finally shows his wrath, he’s never lost his temper. He has a slow wick, a slow fuse on his wrath that finally comes to fruition when he brings down his wrath upon people. I’m almost done, and I close with this all these years later, a lot has changed. Nineveh is but a former thought that the Indiana Jones of the world explore. It’s nothing more than an archeological site. Nahum is with the Lord and Assyria is a former power that has now all the gold is departed. But of all the things that are different, there’s one thing the same, the character of Almighty God, 2600 years ago, and consistent with this day. God, in His goodness and in his time, makes all things right.
You may not remember that this year began with an American Airlines plane crash. My wife Tracy and I were flying back just this past Friday on American Airlines, and I was reminded just this week that American Airlines flight 5342 with 64 souls aboard collided. Three soldiers on a US Army Black Hawk on the 29th of January of this year, in a mid year collision over the Potomac and there on that plane, 5342 it was just your typical mid week regional flight. Some of you like me have flown on dozens of those through the years, a mother and a father with her two caps aboard traveled to see their daughter, who was away in college, a flight attendant had switched careers in order to see the world. And then among the 64 people, many of whom had never met. There was a girl named Liz, and her mother told the New York Post that Liz was to catch an earlier flight, but was unable to do so because her work meetings went long, and her mother kept waiting on that phone for the one word that she would know was coming, just a one word text landed, word that never came. And all 64 souls and all three soldiers aboard that plane in that helicopter, they were stripped of their credit cards. They were stripped of their bank accounts. Offshore and onshore, they were stripped of their latest clothing. They were stripped of all their How to Succeed books and their Marriott points. And here they all are, a duck hunter aboard a corporate lawyer, a flight attendant and a community college professor, and now they’re under the ground with nothing of those possessions, and all they brought into eternity was what was in their heart.
Today, you and I are tasked to communicate much of the same message that Nahum did, only we do so in light of the cross of Jesus Christ, and the message is equally the same, that God’s wrath and God’s mercy meet perfectly and compliment one another on the cross of Jesus Christ at Calvary. This is where Jesus Christ drank from the full wrath of God, for a sinner like me, the rightful wrath of God, and the only hope that I have of when my appointment to meet eternity, and the only appointment, the only hope you have in your appointment and everyone that you’ll communicate as you leave this place, is knowing that Jesus Christ frees us From his wrath in order to we may have His mercy, Jesus Christ took the punishment that I deserve so that I would get the reward that he deserves. Today, we are to call on people to repent and believe much like Nahum not many things have changed, but with the joy of knowing Jesus Christ, let’s pray.
Father, thank you for your incredible patience, your goodness and we thank you even for your jealousy and wrath. Conform us to your image, cause us to be slow to anger. God. Cause us, Father, to have a heart of compassion and mercy, make our character much like the holy character that you have. And then, Father, we trust in the actions of your Son, Jesus Christ on the cross completely we don’t trust today as ministers and future ministers and professors and students and future missionaries on our own good works. We believe that Jesus Christ died for us, was buried for us, and rose again and remind us, Father in this place, that you are no respecter of persons. It’s not about the money in our pocket. It’s not about the color of our skin, the you ransom from every people and tribe and tongue and even some Assyrians to populate heaven with people who are washed by the blood of Jesus Christ through Calvary. Thank you for not only showing us the way, but providing us the way. Your Son Jesus is the Way, and we celebrate the righteousness of Jesus on our behalf. In Christ’s name, we pray amen.
