We Need To Straighten Up!" Series

“We Need To Straighten Up!”

Nahum 3:1-19

David P. Nolte

America was founded by those who sought freedom from religious persecution. Because of their faith and religious persuasion, the Judeo-Christian morals, ethics and values of the Bible became the basis for law in the colonies. God was given recognition and respect. For years the Supreme Court supported teaching the Bible in public schools. We were called a “Christian Nation.” The church had a powerful influence in society.

I love America but I don’t love what is happening to America! How things have changed in the past 50 or so years. The downward spiral began in earnest when Madalyn Murray O’Hare filed a suit against the Abington School District. The United States Supreme Court ruled that official Bible-reading in American public schools was unconstitutional.

Like Nineveh we have lost our moral compass and it has been off-course ever since. Nineveh had straightened out when Jonah preached – now, 140 years later they are worse than before. So Nahum is sent to them. He was sent because God always gives an opportunity to repent. He still says, “As surely as I live, I take no pleasure in the death of wicked people. I only want them to turn from their wicked ways so they can live.” Ezekiel 33:11 (NLT2).

To the end that Nineveh (and America) be motivated to turn from sin and to Him, God made it clear in His word that:

I. GOD DETESTS SIN:

A. Nineveh was sinful. Verses 1-4: “What sorrow awaits Nineveh, the city of murder and lies! She is crammed with wealth and is never without victims. Hear the crack of whips, the rumble of wheels! Horses’ hooves pound, and chariots clatter wildly. See the flashing swords and glittering spears as the charioteers charge past! There are countless casualties, heaps of bodies— so many bodies that people stumble over them. All this because Nineveh, the beautiful and faithless city, mistress of deadly charms, enticed the nations with her beauty. She taught them all her magic, enchanting people everywhere.”

B. Archaeologists have unearthed monuments to their terrors, inscribed with heartless boasts.

1. On top of being cruel and depraved, they bragged about it. Some of the inscriptions read, "I cut off their heads and formed them into pillars." "Bubo, son of Buba, I flayed in the city of Arbela and I spread his skin upon the city wall." "I flayed all the chief men who had revolted, and I covered the pillar with their skins."

2. These guys were mean to the core! And that was their good point.

C. The Assyrians wanted to destroy. They wanted to hurt people. They wanted to induce terror. And God decided to repay them for their wickedness.

D. Our beloved nation has become sinful as well! What is America thinking

1. When millions of unborn images of God are aborted every year?

a. When some kid can walk into a school and assassinate his / her peers?

2. When anyone can walk into a theater or mall or church and kill perfect strangers?

3. When a person is ambushed just because he / she is an officer of the law?

4. When every other religion in the world is tolerated but Christians are basically told, “Sit over there and shut-up!”?

5. When preachers are forbidden to preach against immoral lifestyles?

6. When political correctness supplants truth and rightness?

E. I am not pessimistic, but hopeful; I am not being negative, but realistic. I Am speaking the truth in love. There is but one hope for America and that is a return to God. And that is not the job of government or higher education or science – it is the job of the church! We need to be reminded:

1. “Blessed is the nation whose God is the LORD, the people he chose for his inheritance.” Psalm 33:12 (NIV).

2. “Righteousness exalts a nation, but sin is a disgrace to any people.” Proverbs 14:34 (NIV).

3. “When there is moral rot within a nation, its government topples easily. But wise and knowledgeable leaders bring stability.” Proverbs 28:2 (NLT2).

F. A man wanted to impress on his young teens that a little compromise with sin, a little yielding to temptation makes us unclean and guilty. He baked a batch of brownies and just as the kids were about to take a delicious chomp he stopped them and told them that he had added just a dab of doggie pooh to the mix. With a gag they tossed the brownies down and said, “Dad! Why did you do that?” He replied, “To show you that even a small bit of impurity ruins the whole batch.” It does not take a lot of sin to make us unclean and guilty in God’s eyes, just as robbing one bank would make us as guilty of crime as robbing 100. And God hates that sin.