I’d like us to take a unique look at the love of God for us in Christ Jesus by turning to the Old Testament minor prophet bearing the name, Nahum. If you’re using the Bible in the pew rack in front of you, it’s on page 782. It’s one of the last books in the Old Testament. We’re going to center our study on just verse 7 of Nahum chapter 1. Again, it’s one of those verses I encourage you to memorize. Emily and I have found ourselves reciting it to one another over these past weeks with remarkable frequency. It’s actually the first passage of Scripture written in your bulletin; it’s the passage with which we began. It says simply this:
“The Lord is good, a stronghold in the day of trouble; he knows those who take refuge in him.”
Let’s pray briefly.
Our Father, by Your Holy Spirit, would You please enliven these words to our hearts that we would see what would otherwise remain hidden to us, that our hearts would rejoice and exult in what we discover to be true there, and may we be emboldened for the days and the path that lies ahead. We ask this in Jesus’ precious and holy name, amen.
“The Lord is good, a stronghold in the day of trouble; He knows those who take refuge in Him.” That, in itself, is a stunning promise. But to really understand the weight and the force behind it, you have to see it from its historical, even archeological perspective, because the prophecy delivered by Nahum is the sermon that Jonah wanted to preach but was forbidden to preach. You remember the story. Jonah was told to go to Nineveh, that great city, and preach to it. And Jonah knew what was coming. “If I go and preach Your sermon, they are going to repent and You are going to show them mercy and I don’t want them to receive mercy! I want You to crush them the way they deserve to be crushed!” And so the story goes, Jonah runs, gets into the ocean, God sends a big fish – compressing a lot – the fish swallows Jonah; three days, three nights in the belly. He vomits him out and Jonah, bleached white, decides, “Okay, I’d better do what God says.” He goes to Nineveh and he preaches a one-sentence sermon. “Forty days and Nineveh will be destroyed.” Kind of an offhanded sermon. And stunningly, everybody repents – from the king to the least servant in the city. Presumably the entire Assyrian Empire, they repent, clothed in sackcloth, covered in ashes, they plead for mercy and God shows them mercy. And Jonah is angry.
And 100 more years go by until we get to Nahum. This time, God says to Nahum, “Preach a sermon to Nineveh, and this time there is no room for repentance. There is no place for mercy. They are about to be destroyed.” And Nahum, his sermon is all about the vivid detail of how God is about to crush Nineveh and the Assyrian Empire. The dominant, superpower of the world at that day, they are about to be wiped out. That was Nahum’s sermon. And so it’s somewhat staggering that in the middle of the first chapter of his sermon of gloom and doom, crushing defeat for Nineveh and Assyria, you find that verse – almost out of nowhere. “The Lord is good, a stronghold in the day of trouble; He knows those who take refuge in Him.”
The Lord is Good
Now what all does that mean? How do we unpack that? Three phrases in that verse. We’ll look at them briefly in turn. A short sermon today. One, the Lord is good. We could spend hours, years, talking about one short phrase – “The Lord is good.” It’s His defining characteristic. Several weeks ago, I preached and quoted Charles Spurgeon who said, “God is too good to be unkind. He is too wise to be mistaken.” And I’ll add a third couplet. “He is too powerful to be inadequate.” And so it would read like this: “God is too good to be unkind. He is too wise to be mistaken. He is too powerful to be inadequate.” That encompasses it all. He is good. It’s who He is. It’s His nature.
The Lord is a Stronghold in the Day of Trouble
But from that you get to the second phrase. We’ll come back to the first in a moment, but the second phrase is that “He is a stronghold in the day of trouble.” We know very little about the man, Nahum, from the Bible. We know one thing that shows up in the first verse of Nahum’s prophecy. If your Bible is still open, listen to verse 1. “An oracle concerning Nineveh. The book of the vision of Nahum of Elkosh.” Three years ago, I traveled to northern Iraq to work with several of our missionaries who were serving among Yazidi refugees in these refugee camps. These were people who had suffered horrifically under an ISIS genocide. And while we were there, they really wanted to travel to this place that I had never heard of. It was a small village, roughly 25 miles north of Mosul. You understand, of course, that, Lee J. referenced it, Mosul is modern-day Nineveh. That’s the city today, the second largest city in Iraq – that’s Nineveh, at least the ruins of Nineveh are there. And so they wanted to travel to this village 25 miles north of Mosul and we did. To get there was rather difficult because you had to drive this narrow, winding road that kind of went straight up a mountain. And I took pictures from the top, and you can’t appreciate it unless you see the photos, but it’s this serpentine road that goes back and forth, straight up, and then when the car can’t go any farther, you get off and go on foot up this gravel trail that goes even steeper up the mountain. And then you get to these stone steps carved into the cliff face. And the whole time you are looking up you are seeing these holes in the cliff face above you. And when you get to the top, you go through one of those holes and you find there is a fortress carved into the cliff face. And it is absolutely stunning and unconquerable, absolutely secure fortress; a stronghold.
Do you know the name of the village to which we traveled? In the English sign underneath the Arabic were the letters “A-L-Q-O-S-H. Alqosh.” This is one of the most sacred sites for a Jewish pilgrim outside of Jerusalem. You know why? Because there is a synagogue in the village of Alqosh within this stronghold and Nahum is buried there. This is where Nahum is from. The belief is that Nahum’s parents were part of the deportation when Assyria came and conquered the northern ten tribes of Israel. Never again to return, they took them into exile and they settled them around Nineveh and this was one of the villages within walking distance of Nineveh – Alqosh. And so in the first verse, it’s spelled differently but it’s the same place. “The book of the vision of Nahum of Elkosh.” And when Nahum was growing up, when he talked about a stronghold, he was looking up at that place that was absolutely secure; a place where no enemy could get you, a place of confidence, a place of security, a place where you would be kept securely. This is how he describes his God. The Lord is good, a stronghold like that, but even better in the day of trouble.
The Lord Knows Those Who Take Refuge in Him
And then the last phrase – “He knows those who take refuge in Him.” Someone asked me, “What does it mean that God knows those who take refuge in Him?” Why is that a comforting promise? Because I can say, “I know Mayor Lumumba in our city. I’ve met him. I’ve had meetings with him. We’ve talked about what I’m praying for for him and for our city.” But do I really know him? Not really. I don’t know his story. I don’t know what he wrestles with or struggles over. I’ve met him, but that’s it.
Intimacy
If that’s all this passage means, we’re in trouble. “The Lord knows those who take refuge in Him,” which means something far deeper. I’ll give you several “I” words. First, there’s an intimacy of this knowing. He knows everything about us. He knows our names. He knows our address. He knows your social media presence. He knows your schedule for this week. He knows your story. He knows your vulnerabilities. He knows your addictions. He knows your derailers. He knows everything about you. But not with cold, impassioned, indifference. He knows us with compassionate concern and tender-hearted love. He knows us so well, He knows us better than we know ourselves. He knows exactly what we need. The psalmist says, “Before a word is on my tongue, You know it completely.” Before I am even able to form the words of my protest, petition or praise, You know it completely and You smile as You hear me voice what I’m offering to You. There is an intimacy to His knowing us. First Peter 5:7 puts it this way – “Cast all your anxiety on Him because He cares for you,” and He loves you.
Implication
There’s also an implication to this knowing. It’s a knowledge of implication, meaning He doesn’t just know the facts but He knows all the implications that will or might grow out of them. I remember when my first wife was diagnosed with cancer and my thought was, “But God, this means I am going to be a widower. This means my kids will be raised by a single parent! God, don’t You know?” God smiles and says, “I don’t miss a thing. I don’t lose sight of anything. I not only know all the details, I know all the implications to all the implications. I know it all before you have even thought of it.” He knows those who take refuge in Him. Nothing escapes His attention.
Intentionality
And then, while there is an intimacy, an implication to His knowing us, there is also an intentionality, an intentionality that the prophet, Jeremiah, speaks of when he quotes God saying, “I know the plans I have for you, plans to prosper you and not to harm you; plans to give you a future and a hope.” And most people stop there without realizing the next verse says, “Plans to lead you to call upon Me and seek Me and find Me when you seek Me with all your heart.” You see, the verse says, “He knows those who take refuge in Him,” meaning the plans, the intentionality behind whatever it is you are wrestling with today are designed to lead you to take refuge in Him, to seek Him with all your heart, to fly to Him for refuge.
Inverse
And I guess there’s one other way of thinking about what it means that God knows us. Intimacy, implication, intentionality. This is the best I can come with an “I” word – inverse. Think about the opposite of God knowing us. You remember in the Sermon on the Mount when Jesus comes to Matthew 7 verse 22. He says, “On that day, the last day, many will say to Me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in Your name and cast our demons in Your name and do mighty works in Your name?’ And Jesus says, ‘Then I will declare to them, ‘Depart from Me, I never knew you.’’” I can’t imagine any words more terrifying that a human could hear from their God and Creator, Redeemer, than those – “I never knew you. Depart from Me” – which is why this promise is so rich. He says, the prophet says, “He knows those who take refuge in Him.” He knows us, meaning, He claims us, He embraces us, He holds us fast. Like the prophet, Isaiah, says, “He tends His flock like a shepherd, He gathers His lambs in His arms, and He gently leads those who have young.” He knows us and He claims us and He says with joy, “You are mine.”
“The Lord is good, a stronghold in the day of trouble; He knows those who take refuge in Him.” Now the obvious question is, “How do you know? How can you be sure? How can you be absolutely certain that this promise is rock solid? I mean it sounds good on paper, it sounds good when we talk about it, but how do you know for sure that this promise, written 650 years BC, before the day we celebrate as Christmas, how do we know for sure?” Well if your Bible is still open to Nahum chapter 1, your eyes fall to another really surprising verse. In all this gloom and doom and destruction and annihilation for the Assyrians centered on Nineveh, the last verse in Nahum chapter 1 is this. “Behold, upon the mountains, the feet of him who brings good news, who publishes peace!” You realize this is the same prophecy that Isaiah made in Isaiah 52 when he said, “How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him who brings good news, who publishes peace, who brings good news of happiness, who publishes salvation, who says to Zion, ‘Your God reigns!’”
How do you know for sure? Nahum would say, “You look for the feet, the feet that bring good news, and you understand that they are nail-pierced feet and suddenly you know.” Suddenly you know with absolute certainty that God’s not going back on this promise. “He who spared not His own Son, but gave Him up for us all, how will He not also along with Him freely give us all things?” “The Lord is good. He is a stronghold in the day of trouble; He knows those who take refuge in Him.” He knows those who are looking to the nail-pierced feet and the nail-pierced hands stretched out saying, “It’s not your being faithful, joyful, triumphant that qualifies you. It’s your recognizing that you need a stronghold because you don’t have one of your own. It’s that you come looking for refuge and you run to the only one who provides it, who is the refuge.”
“The Lord is good. He is a stronghold in the day of trouble; He knows those who take refuge in Him.”