MESSAGES FROM THE PROPHETS:
NOT FICTION
NAHUM 1:7
#6weeksintheprophets
INTRODUCTION… It’s NOT Fiction (p)
Imagine you wake up one morning and you are getting ready for work and the day seems like any other day. You hop in the car to head to work and plan on stopping to get coffee on the way in the drive-thru, but for some reason your normal place is closed. Weird. You pop on the radio the rest of the way to work and you hear about a virus that is spreading and stores and restaurants are closing. You arrive a work and some people, who got there ahead of you, are leaving with a box in their hand. Distracted, you leave all your things in the car and run in. You get to your desk and your boss calls you into his office. You are instructed to telework from home for the next two weeks and after that someone will call to let you know if you are laid off or you still have a job. Your spouse is in the medical field and when you get back to the car you have three missed calls and a message from them. Someone at the hospital already tested positive and your spouse has to quarantine and won’t come home for 2 weeks. You also find out all the schools are closed so your kids will be at home for the foreseeable future. On the way home, you keep the radio on and you find out the whole economy is shutting down. No going to banks, restaurants, and most grocery stores are reporting being out of toilet paper, hand sanitizer, Lysol spray, Clorox wipes, and bottled water.
I could have told you this story about 2 months ago and you would have thought that I was giving you a fictitious story or maybe describing the beginning of a science fiction movie. And yet this has been the reality for many these past months. Some better. Some worse.
Imagine you are going to school for a particular vocation and the school closes due to lack of students, mismanagement of funds, and the inability to get accredited. This means you no longer have a place to live because you lived on campus, but you have to find another school to go to, which may or may not be cheaper, and this new school has to accept the credits you have already done. It is a domino effect of issues because the school is closing. Most of the time not everything transfers so it is possible you have lost time and money.
I could have told you this story about a fictional university, but it happened in our brotherhood to a university late last year (2019). It closed without a whole lot of notice. This was a reality for faculty, staff, and students from this university. This was a reality for many students from there. Some fared better. Some fared worse.
We could talk about stories of doctor’s visits that do not go well, loss of jobs, children or grandchildren that disappoint, parents or grandparents who disappoint, broken relationships, money troubles, people breaking trust, and so on. We could talk about a loved one dying unexpectedly or even expectedly, but they are still gone and grief still remains. These are not fictional stories, but troubles we may face in our lives. Trouble isn’t fiction.
Job 5:7: “Yet man is born to trouble as surely as sparks fly upward.”
Job 14: 1: “Mortals, born of woman, are of few days and full of trouble.”
Matthew 6:34: “Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.”
John 16:33b: “In this world you will have trouble.”
TROUBLE IS NOT FICTION
Hardships in this life are not fiction. You and I know that life is not fair. Money is fleeing. Youth is wasted on the young. Good people die young. There are so many thoughts we have about this life and about troubling days. Trouble comes on the unrighteous and the righteous. Just because you are a Christian does not mean that your days will be trouble-free and only full of angel visits, hallelujah spiritual highs, and kumbaya moments with the ones you love. This life has trouble. That is not a fiction.
THE REFUGE OF THE LORD IS ALSO NOT FICTION
What is also not fiction is the refuge, love, mercy, strength, and peace that comes from God Almighty. Faith in God does not bring about fictitious results. God is not a fiction. The peace and strength that comes from an intimate relationship with the God of the Universe is as real as any physical relationship you might have.
NAHUM/TRANSITION
We have been 6 weeks in the Minor Prophets. This week is our last week in this series and we end up in the little book of Nahum. I say “nay-hum.” I have heard people say, “nay-hume.” It doesn’t really matter… but go with “nay-hum.” The book of Nahum is prophecies about the fall of Nineveh in the Assyrian Empire. If that name sounds familiar, that is because that is where Jonah went as well and we just talked about him two weeks ago. Nineveh will lose out and be conquered by the Babylonians. Nahum uses images like the other prophets to try and communicate what he sees from the Lord. He uses word pictures such as lions, prostitutes, and locusts. The demise of Nineveh was also not fiction. The judgment is real.
As I was pouring through Nahum, one of the verses dropped into my lap and made so much sense and ministered to my heart. It dropped into my lap probably because we were in the first few weeks of the COVID-19 shutdown and quarantine and that was the type of verse my heart was looking for. I’d like us to dig into Nahum 1:7. We will read Nahum 1:7 (you can begin to turn there in your Bibles) and we will focus on 4 words in this short verse that pack a punch for us and show us that God’s help and refuge and power in times of trouble is not fiction, but reality.
READ NAHUM 1:7
“The LORD is good, a refuge in times of trouble. He cares for those who trust in Him…”
GOOD
This verse says the “Lord is good.” God is good. God is always in order, morally good, kind, merciful, working for the good, and always righteous. God is good. Throughout the Bible we read passages about God and words like “forgives,” “heals,” “redeems,” “crowns”, “satisfies,” and “renews” are associated with Him. That is all good from God our savior. Good. Our God is good. The Lord of the Universe and Creator and Sustainer of our lives is at His very core good and has no hint of evil. Everything He does is good. His judgments are good. His wrath is good. His Word is good. His discipline is good. His will is good. His blessings that satisfy are good. Psalm 34:8 says, “Taste and see that the LORD is good; blessed is the man who takes refuge in Him” which sounds similar to our verse this morning.
Whenever I think about the goodness of God I think about the story of Joseph from the Old Testament in Genesis 37-50. Joseph was the favorite son of Jacob and had dreams that his brothers and parents were bowing down to him. He would one day rule over them all. Joseph’s brothers got angry and jealous that Jacob was giving Joseph all the attention and having these dreams, so they plotted to kill him. Instead of murder, they threw him in a pit, sold him to slave traders, and then lied to their father that he had died in an animal attack.
In slavery, Joseph worked for an Egyptian official named Potiphar. Potiphar’s wife felt hurt because Joseph didn’t like her the way she liked him, so she lied about him to her husband and he got thrown into jail. In jail, he had the opportunity to interpret some dreams of fellow prisoners that came true. One day when the Pharaoh had a dream, Joseph was called to interpret the dream. Joseph told the Pharaoh that there would be 7 years of plenty in Egypt followed by 7 years of famine.
Pharaoh made Joseph 2nd in command in Egypt and he organized the food so everyone didn’t starve. Eventually Joseph’s brothers came to buy food and they didn’t recognize him. Joseph sold them food and asked about his father and finally told them his identity. Joseph’s family all moved to Egypt in the midst of the drought and famine and was saved.
That is a story about God’s goodness? Was it good for Joseph to be sold into slavery? Was it good for Potiphar’s wife to falsely accuse him? Was it good for Joseph to be in jail? Was it good that there was a famine? None of those things were good, but we do see in Genesis 37-50 that God was working for Joseph’s good the whole time. How do we know that? In Genesis 50:19-20 Joseph said: “Don’t be afraid. Am I in the place of God? You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives.” It is not fiction that God is good.
RE-READ NAHUM 1:7
“The LORD is good, a refuge in times of trouble. He cares for those who trust in Him…”
REFUGE
The word “refuge” in this verse means “a strong place of safety and protection.” A bomb shelter is a place of refuge from war. Your house might be a refuge from the hustle and bustle of work and business. Your bathroom might be a refuge from little kids asking for something every five seconds… but that is a bad use of the word “refuge.” When we usually use the word refuge, we mean a place of absolute safety.
ILLUSTRATION… https://bostonfirehistory.org/the-story-of-the-cocoanut-grove-fire/ [summary]
The Cocoanut Grove was a nightclub in Boston, Massachusetts. On November 28, 1942, the fashionable nightclub burned in what remains the deadliest nightclub fire in United States history, killing 492 people and injuring hundreds more. As is common in panic situations, many patrons attempted to exit through the main entrance, the same way they had come in. However, the building’s main entrance was a single revolving door, immediately rendered useless as the panicked crowd scrambled for safety. Bodies piled up behind both sides of the revolving door, jamming it to the extent that firefighters had to dismantle it in order to get inside.
Other avenues of escape were similarly useless: side doors had been welded shut to prevent people from leaving without settling their bills. A plate glass window, which could have been smashed for escape, was instead boarded up and unusable as an emergency exit. Other unlocked doors opened inwards, rendering them useless against the crush of people trying to escape. Five people survived, and there were not many, survived by taking refuge in a walk-in refrigerator. Fire officials later testified that, had the doors swung outwards, at least 300 lives could have been spared. That walk-in refrigerator was a place of refuge from flame and smoke and injury and death.
God is strong safety and protection for us. My immediate thought is a question: God is our refuge from what? A refuge for what?
A refuge of salvation from being lost (2 Samuel 22:3)
A refuge for the truth and what is true (2 Samuel 22:31; Proverbs 30:5)
A refuge of peace (Psalm 2:12)
A refuge of gladness and joy (Psalm 5:11)
A refuge from evildoers (Psalm 14:6, 37:40)
A refuge from everything that is wrong in the world (Psalm 18:30, 46:1)
A refuge from shame (Psalm 31:1)
A refuge to always be heard and validated (Psalm 31:2)
I hope that you believe that you can go to God at any time to be your refuge. When hardship or trouble comes or even when goodness is overflowing, we can pray to the Lord and His presence is here with us. We can open His word and peace will flow from His Word. We can turn on some music and praise God in worship and we will be ushered spiritually into the throne room of God. God is peace and strength and wisdom and perseverance when we are in struggling times. It is not fiction that God is our refuge.
RE-READ NAHUM 1:7
“The LORD is good, a refuge in times of trouble. He cares for those who trust in Him…”
CARES
This word could mean a lot of things. To care for a dog is different than caring for the lawn or a baby or finances. Different things need to be cared for in different ways. So how does God care for us? What does that look like?
In Deuteronomy (11:12) this means God is always watching over us and we are never out of His sight.
In Psalms (55:22) this means He gives us strength and sustains us.
In Psalms (55:22) this means He holds us up and we are not shaken.
In 1 Peter (5:7) this means in the midst of our anxiety He is there.
When I personally think about God caring for us, I often think about how God often makes a way when there seems to be no way. He goes before us and blesses us and many times we do not know how God has cared for us because we did not experience life without His blessing. In my mind, God is point on a strike team. He is the one in the front hacking branches down in the Amazon. He is the One making life level for us and knows what is ahead.
ILLUSTRATION… https://sheridanvoysey.com/048-finding-god-in-unexpected-places-5-great-stories/
I ran across a story from a missionary named Ben Staggs. He tells about his first visit to the Boshu people, an extremely isolated group in Ethiopia’s Me’en territory in the southwest part of the country.
On arrival, Ben and his team were welcomed by a local named Golon Kabule. ‘We sat down and spoke a bit,’ Ben says, ‘explaining that we had come to tell them of “God’s talk”. I described who God is, what He is like, and where He lives.’
But Golon interrupted. ‘We must follow Christosi,’ he said, using the Me’en word for Christ. Astonished, as Christ’s name hadn’t even been mentioned, Ben asked where Golon had heard that name. Golon explained that Christ had appeared to him in a dream, told him it was He who had given Golon his life, blood and bones, and that Golon was to follow Him. Christ then said that in just five days someone would come to tell him about following that path.
Ben and his team had landed on the fifth day.
It is not fiction that God cares for us.
RE-READ NAHUM 1:7
“The LORD is good, a refuge in times of trouble. He cares for those who trust in Him…”
TRUST
https://medium.com/publishous/what-does-it-mean-to-trust-god-c2e54457e7d7
(I have no idea how to say it better than this author, adapted)
How do we trust God? The verse talks about those who “trust in Him.”
Trust in God does NOT mean that we believe everything will go the way we want it to, and it does.
If that were true, those who follow God should be the most enviable people on Earth. Everything would go their way. It doesn’t work that way. Believers in some parts of the world are literally murdered for their beliefs. Others lose their jobs or livelihoods for their faith. Some people think that “believing in” God entitles them to a problem-free life. If they have problems, they think they either don’t have enough faith or God is “not holding up His end of the bargain.”
Trust in God does NOT mean God will explain everything that is going on in our lives. God didn’t answer Job when he asked “Why me?” God doesn’t owe you an explanation when life is painful and confusing. That is my opinion I guess, the infinite eternal all-powerful God of the universe does not owe little ‘ol me an explanation. I’m not His father or Lord or King… He is mine.
Trust in God DOES mean that no matter what happens, we will turn to Him instead of away from Him. That’s it. Even if life hurts bad and nothing you asked God for worked out the way you were hoping it would… we still turn to Him.
In the end, you only have 3 options:
First, trust God. God is a benevolent, omniscient, omnipotent being who is in total control and will one day wipe all evil from the face of the universe and restore humanity by the blood of Jesus Christ to harmony, peace, and joy… this is definitely the choice to go for by far.
Second, trust fate or destiny or karma or some other type of idea. This choice will help you live with less stress in daily life, for the most part, but it has its limitations because there is no hope or meaning. Fate does not guarantee that the pain will end someday. Fate does not personally care about you. Fate is just fate. Destiny is just destiny and then it stops.
Third, trust only yourself. In my opinion, this is the worst of the three choices. We human beings are notoriously unreliable, and we can’t control the weather or our mouths or the stock market or our health… much less our past or present or future. Trusting yourself too much can lead to disaster.
It is not fiction that we need to trust in God.
SUMMARY
RE-READ NAHUM 1:7
“The LORD is good, a refuge in times of trouble. He cares for those who trust in Him…”
What does this verse say? This verse says that you and I worship and serve God Who is good and is ever-present in our lives when the garbage and evilness of this world rears up and bites us. That same God who is ever-present when life is full of trouble cares for us in the middle of the trouble because He loves us more than we can possibly know. That is what this verse says.
APPLICATION
In the midst of pandemics when you are worried about your health, your family’s health, finances, where to buy toilet paper, and whether or not it is safe to go to church because of a large crowd, turn to God in prayer and let Him fill you with His word to strengthen you. Trouble isn’t fiction and neither is the unending strength and protection of God Almighty.
In the midst of stress and uncertainty about school closings and lack of sports and awards and life not being ‘normal,’ turn to God for wisdom and peace and ask Him to bolster your common sense that you might meet the strange days with a level head and confidence. Trouble isn’t fiction and neither is the unending strength and protection of God Almighty.
When a doctor’s visit doesn’t go well or a job is lost, or children or grandchildren disappoint, or parents or grandparents disappoint, or broken relationships are on your mind, money troubles fill your dreams, or people break trust… may I encourage you to turn toward God in those times because He is our refuge! Trouble isn’t fiction and neither is the unending strength and protection of God Almighty.
CONCLUSION IN PRAYER
