Answers Bible Curriculum: Lesson 5 - God Judges Nations

Lord, we thank you so much for your word and how that it Just guides us in the path of righteousness. We ask that your name would just be lifted up this morning as, as we, study the book of Nehum and as our other teachers, teach their classes, just bless them. We thank you for all of your provision. You give us life, breath, food, everything.

Thank you, Lord, that you forgive our sins. We ask Lord that you would help us walk in forgiveness towards our brothers and sisters in Christ and those even outside the church. We ask also, Lord, that you just protect us from the evil one, who would want to take the truths that we learn each day and pluck them from our minds, harden our hearts with the deceitfulness of sin, we thank you that we can confess each day that we can repent daily. by your spirit and, and continue in the path.

And so guide us this morning in Christ's name we pray. Amen. excuse me. All right, so we're gonna Last week, we ended up talking about Just the judgment that.

had come upon Israel, the northern tribes. What's up, Robert? And this morning, we're gonna be trying to ask, a part of what we're gonna do is, is ask this question or try to answer it. How does God normally bring about judgment on the earth?

Let me just ask you guys, just, just straight out, how does God normally bring His judgment? Hey, Cynthia. If you were to look at All of the various judgment scenes in the Bible. How does he normally do it?

Say it again. OK, there's a flood. So that's one category of judgment is you have supernatural events where God either pours fire or water. We know that there's gonna be great heat at the end.

Yeah, and that really seems to be the most frequent form of judgment. We do have the big flood and we have the Sodom and Gomorrah. We have what's going on at the end of the age. But more often than not, what you see is God bringing nations into other nations and in using individuals to bring his judgment.

which is going to raise some questions we'll see this morning. Now let's just do a little bit of review. you guys know that we're in the middle of a certain period of Israel's history. That we're in the middle of what we call the divided kingdom, moving into the exilic period.

Does anybody remember what the first period of Old Testament history is? What do we call that very first period, one bun? OK, 2 shoes, the next one. What's, what's the first one?

Beginnings. After Beginnings, we have two shoe. And this is a mnemonic device we taught, if you guys haven't been here. Two shoes like you see Father Abraham inside of a hamburger bun, so we call it the patriarchal period.

3 tree, we see a tree and we see an exit sign on the tree, so we exodus. 4 door, we see a door, but the walls all around the door have broken down. We, we call that the what? Conquests, right?

So that's the people of Israel go into the land and the walls come tumbling down, right? And then 5 hive, we see a judge hitting a hive very unwisely. This is Judges, 6 sticks. We see a king holding 2 drumsticks in one hand.

That's the United Kingdom. So that's David and Solomon. Then 7th heaven, we see a crown split in half on top of a cloud. That's the divided kingdom.

That's where we're at right now. There's the division between Reaboam and Jeroboam, lots of ungodliness, and then this is bleeding into the 8th period which we, it's 8th gate, we see a poor Hebrew who is chained to a gate. And this is what the exilic period, it's Israel being carried away into captivity. And so, that's, that's the, the, the part of Israel's history that we're seeing right now.

So last week, we hit The whole idea of Israel being judged. so we talked about the fact that the Assyrians are coming down. It was it into the north or the, or the southern tribes, Israel or Judah? Israel's getting hammered.

And what's the big nation that's coming down to get them? Assyria. These are bad dudes. And so we equated this to a couple of different things.

We talked a little bit about Hitler entering Paris. Do you guys, do you guys remember seeing any of those videos or pictures of Hitler and the Germans marching into Paris and all the French people are having to hold their hands up and they're crying. And by the way, the French were not a very moral people, very immoral, and, and so, And, in Israel, we had a lot of idolatry and immorality. God says Assyria's gonna come and take you out, and indeed that's what happens, very terrible stuff.

And then they're living in this almost post-apocalyptic Canaan, where Syria basically takes all of the main folks out of Israel, redistributes them, basically to try to breed Israel out of existence, right? Leaves a few of the poor people down in Israel and, and transports a few people from other tribes, which leaves not enough people in the land. And so what ends up happening in Canaan from a land standpoint, land management standpoint. Yeah, caves drops down.

You may remember the analogy we used last week to describe the post-apocalyptic canaan. I am legend. Yeah, there's just not a lot of people living in the north anymore. And so you've got this, this lion population is taking over the north, and in fact, God's in control of that because he's, it says that the Lord was sending lions to basically ravage these families.

And so what does Israel do, or what does Assyria do in response to try to control the God of Israel? Anybody remember? Yeah, they send a priest down, not a very conservative priest, but a guy who's just gonna teach them the basic rituals to keep Yahweh in control. And then they syncretize the Yahweh worship with their worship and they're hoping that Yahweh will be happy enough to stop sending lions and messing with everybody.

so I'd like to use some names of modern preachers to equate this priest with, but I won't. but just imagine somebody who's trying to syncretize all of the, the Christian, Christian faith with virtually every other faith. And, and then we try to answer the question, does this mean the Abrahamic promise has failed, that God has now taken Israel out of the land? And our answer to that was what?

No, it has not failed. In fact, we looked at Amos last week, that God has promised actually to bring Israel back and not just temporarily, but at the end of Amos, it says, and they will never again be plucked up from the land. So that is a future promise that has not yet been fulfilled, to see Israel back in the land underneath the rule of Christ where they will never again be uprooted. So this morning, now we turn.

To God's judgment upon Assyria, which is gonna raise some questions. God is the one that by the sovereignty brings Syria down. It's clear he's not just allowing Syria. He says he's bringing Syria down to punish Israel.

But now, God is going to punish Assyria for their sins. And so, we're gonna take a look at a video here in a second, about Assyria to kinda kick this off, and then we'll jump into Nahum and try to, to wrestle with some of these questions. All right. So that's a little introduction here to what we're Looking at.

So, yeah, the Assyrians, these are not friendly folk. actually, if, if you want to live in Nineveh at the time, this was the place to be. It was the party capital of the world. Think of, I was trying to ask my daughter what the Hunger Games big city was, the capital.

like in Hunger Games, you got the big capital and they're basically just raping the whole area to bring in all of the goods. That's pretty much what Nineveh was. They just, the armies would just go out and just take everything they could from anybody in the area and bring it all back to Nineveh. And so Nineveh was a very, very wealthy place.

again, like plumbing and a postal system and, the type of technology that just wasn't available in many other places, they remind you a little bit of the Aztecs. the Aztecs had that, a lot of high technology, very wealthy there in Mexico. And yet the surrounding nations were just in fear, abject fear of the Aztecs. by the way, I don't know how many of you have grandparents or if anybody that was involved in World War II or if you have any friends that are connected to Asia, What do you the grandparents and great grandparents?

What do you think they think in Asia about Japanese people? I think they like Japanese. Shaking your head back there. They don't like the Japanese.

Why don't they like the Japanese? We, when I think of the Japanese today, I just think of baseball and when I've been to Japan, they're very polite. Why don't they like the Japanese? Yeah, they invade, they've invaded everybody and, and, they invaded China, they invaded the Philippines.

Pastor Carlos's dad was on Guam when the Japanese came through and if you listen to some of the stories he tells, just watch a few documentaries on the brutality of the Japanese and to this day, older people do not like the Japanese. They love Korea. If you go to, in, into Asia for some reason, everybody loves Korea because of their pop culture and especially their soap operas. They like their soap operas, they like their music.

And the Koreans, they've kinda, they were a poor country and they've been able to rise up and now economically, they're just a real jewel of Asia. And so people look to that and they're like, oh we, we love the Koreans, but the Japanese, they can't stand them. at least the older folks and because they remember the Japanese going and slitting people's throats and raping all of their daughters and just terrible, terrible things in warfare. And that's the way people felt about the Assyrians.

the Assyrians would take hot irons, rip their prisoners' tongues out, they would filet them alive and hang their skins up, and, and they would do this all as like a macho, look at us, we're just really bad. We're just bad tough people. And, and so, so these were the people that came in and invaded Israel and then, these are also the people, by the way. Remember when we covered Jonah, Jonah was called to go to.

Nineveh. And so you can get a feel for why Jonah may have been a little bit trepidatious about going to Nineveh and to preach the, repentance. And then when they did repent, he says, I knew you would do this, God, that's why I didn't want to come here. I didn't want to see these guys repent and get your mercy.

But 100 years or so goes by and whatever repentance was had initially at the preaching of Jonah has now been lost and, and, so a series back to its, its old ways and And so we're, I'm sorry, I was just distracted by some baseball players back there. I When I see baseball players, I get distracted. So anyway. So that's the coach in me.

this may sound strange. This is totally aside, it has nothing to do with our lesson. But sometimes I'll be just driving around and I'll see like young, like, like maybe high schoolers, and I'll just be like, oh, that guy looks like a ballplayer. Man, look at those arms.

I wonder if he plays. I should go talk to him, see if he wants to come play with us. Anyway, That's just totally outside. all right, so let's go ahead.

Let's open up to the Book of Nehe. And honestly, If you understand the background of Assyria and then you read Nehum in light of that background, you have some understanding of this prophecy and it, it, it really kinda makes sense. If you don't understand the background. You're reading this book and you're just like, why?

Why is Nahum so upset? Why is the Lord so upset? And. I think it's similar, sometimes we see, we'll look in a little bit at some of the judgment scenes in the New Testament, you're like, why is the Lord so upset at certain peoples?

Well, just imagine that you're living in Central Africa, like, let's say, Uganda. And some, some tribe has attacked you, stolen your children to fight in their army, and when they leave, they cut off the hands of all the men and cut off the breasts of the women, so that the men can't work and the women can't feed their babies. Do you think when God starts talking about judgment, do you think that that would give you comfort to think that God will judge wicked people that do stuff, things like that?

I think so.

And, and that's what we see here. Before we listen to the audio, I do want to read one of the key verses. Look down at verse 3. I'm reading from a New King James, the Lord is slow to anger and great and power, and he will not acquit the wicked.

It's a very interesting verse. We see that the Lord is, he's slow to anger, and it's been over 100 years since the preaching of Jonah. And so the Lord's allowed a lot of time before he's finally gonna drop the shoe of judgment. But he will judge.

He is not gonna quit the wicked. Now, look at verse 7. In contrast to that, the Lord is good, a stronghold in the day of trouble, and he knows those who trust in Him. This is spoken directly to Judah.

Hey, we know that you're getting beat up, but guess what? The Lord is good and one of the ways he displays his goodness is by judging your persecutors. In verse 8, it says, but with an overflow flood, he will make an utter end of its place and darkness will pursue his enemies. So one of the keys to understanding Nehum is to know when is Nehum's prophecy being spoken to Nineveh or Syria, is representing Syria.

When is that particular verse being spoken to Judah? And when is that verse being spoken to the future Judah? This is one of the, one of the features of prophecy is sometimes the prophet is speaking right to something that's about ready to happen in the history of that time. And then all of a sudden, the, it's called foreshortening, the prophet will rise up, look way into the future and say something that just seems like it couldn't possibly come true, like Judah will never again be attacked.

We know Judah is going to be attacked by Babylon, Nebuchadnezzar in a generation, but the prophet rises up and looks way forward to this millennial period when Judah will never be attacked again and they will never be uprooted from the land again. So that's another key. feature of prophecy. So let's go ahead.

We're gonna have an audio play because I, I really like the, the way the NIV dramatized version does this. And so tracking your Bibles, I'm looking at New King James, but they're doing, this is NIV dramatized, and we're just gonna do chapter one. We'll talk about it a little bit and then we'll go to chapter 2 and 3. All right.

So, so this kicks off this, the first chapter gives us a little bit of the scene, the setting, and also just the character of God. how is, Nehum, what is he exactly reporting here according to the first verse? What is he giving us? According to verse one, is this coming?

Is he, is this like just a, a regular old prophecy? He's just like being filled with the spirit and prophesying? What do you see in verse one? Some of your translations might say burden.

Some of them say, actually, they all say burden. Most of them say burden. The burden Against Nineveh, the Book of the vision of Nehum. Raise your hand if your translation says vision.

Raise your hand if your translation has something else other than vision. Oracle. OK, so good, oracle or vision, be the same idea. So this is something that he received in a vision and now it's being delivered, it's being put onto the pages of scripture for Judah, but we would also assume that Nineveh is going to get this information that's gonna be delivered to them.

What are some of the attributes of God that we see in this chapter? OK. Obviously, we see God's wrath and judgment tied to his righteousness. We see jealousy, right?

So he is jealous for his people. We also see his patient, so he's slow to anger. That comes right out of the preface to the 10 Commandments, right? so he is a, he is a patient God, but he will by no means clear the guilty.

Good. you'll notice if in the NIV translation, perhaps, there's times where they'll add little words just to help the reader understand the context. So, for instance, in verse 12, you guys may have heard in the dramatized version, it has the word Judah, which is added so that we know, it help the reader understand who the you is. In that context.

Sometimes the NIV does a good job with that, and other times they'll try to add these little context indicators that can be difficult for the reader because there's meant to be an ambiguity sometimes and the NIV tries to get rid of all those ambiguities. So notice, do we see that any direct, reference to armies in this first chapter. Do you see any swords or spears or nuclear bombs? we Yes.

OK, good. So, Dan says that we see storms, we see whirlwinds. So, if you were just to read the first chapter, you would, you would definitely be able to tell that God's gonna bring some wrath, but perhaps it sounds like he's gonna bring wrath through a storm or maybe some earthquake. But clearly what's being established in this first chapter is that it is God that is bringing the judgment.

That he is in charge. And, and that he is not happy with Nineveh. He is not happy with the Assyrians. Would you guys all agree with that?

All right. So let's go ahead and go, if we can, Brian, to chapter two and let's make, some notes of. Of that, of what's developed in there, in that chapter. So the result, what are the other nations doing at the fall of Assyria?

Clapping their hands. and this hasn't happened yet, but Nahum is predicting what is going to happen. And, notice that we have Let's see here. many different descriptions on the front end of the chapter, woe to you, city of blood, full of lies and robbery, that they had built their wealth on the attack of other nations and blood.

this is known as being one of the most descriptive and poetic, of all of the prophets. You'll just notice all the different images that are mentioned here. Verse 8, you have the city of Thebes. In some translations, it's gonna say No Amman because that's what it would have been called by, the Hebrews, but it's the city of Thebes that Assyria themselves had attacked and destroyed, and the Syrians themselves would have taken the babies of the Egyptians and And and cast them and crush them.

and so we see that cruelty, you see, a very blatant image in, in verse five. In fact, sometimes this raises the question, you'll hear some people who attack the scriptures, they'll say something like this, that the Bible is pornographic. How would you respond to that? Is the Bible pornographic?

Yeah. Well, first of all, does the Bible have any pictures in it? No, it doesn't. So it can't be pornographic.

It doesn't have any pictures. and notice that the Bible doesn't give intimate detail like some of the, these novels that are written and stuff like that. It will mention shame, it will mention the shame of nakedness. Jesus Christ was crucified naked in the in the shame of nakedness.

And nakedness in the Bible is frequently referred to as, as something as, as being, when it's displayed as a sign of shame. And so what we see in verse five is the prophet predicting the shame of Assyria. So this is far from pornography. Say it again.

Yeah, you have the Song of Psalms and stuff like that, that displays the love of a husband between a wife. Yeah, but you'll, you'll have people that walk, I don't know, has anybody heard that? In the literature I read, it's one of the common things you'll hear people say to try to justify, like, here's, here's an example of how it'll come up is like some pro-life or pro-family advocate will be talking about, something related to our culture needing to come back to God so that we can come back to morality.

And they'll say, well, look at your scriptures, your scriptures are full of porno pornonography, and they'll point to passages like this.

And it's just that you can't even compare the two. it normally comes from people who have less than a Sunday school knowledge of the Bible. They're not really interested at all at trying to look at the context. Anyway, I thought I'd throw that out there because I know I was hit with that stuff in college and Yeah, totally, totally.

But notice especially here at the end, that Syria is being referred to as locusts. They're the type of people that would go in and just eat up a country and just take everything from it and just leave behind chaff. And now this judgment is going to basically come into them like locusts. And so what they have done to other nations will happen to them, and there will be no compassion, Naum says, from the other nations.

In fact, they will applaud. And the reason they will applaud is because who has not felt the wickedness of the Assyrians. I, I, if you, I, I, I enjoy reading and, and watching film about World War II and when you read about and hear about the reactions of people when like the Americans or when the allies came in to Like the Philippines, for instance. I remember reading or seeing a documentary, this family that had been, In the pri, prison camp there in the Philippines in Santo Tomas.

I don't know if you guys have ever seen The War by Ken Burns. one of my favorite documentaries. but when the Americans finally came in and arrested those that were in charge of the prison, the children all came out and started hurling stones at the Japanese soldiers. and, and yelling insults at them, these skinny little kids who had watched their parents die, and they were just weeping and hugging the American soldiers.

And just the emotions of being underneath the type of cruelty that they endured underneath the Japanese and that happened all over the Pacific, that when, when the Japanese finally fell, people were applauding, they were excited, that the Japanese had fallen and part of it was just the travesty that they had felt. So many people had lost loved ones. had watched their own family members be beheaded or throats cut, and these were not just, soldiers that were being killed, these were civilians that were being mutilated by the Japanese soldiers.

And And so a similar type of thing.

turn over to 2 Thessalonians, and as you do, let me just make one other parallel, and that is to the Aztecs. Aztec history is very politicized today, but if you're able to get your hands on a non-politicized, view of, Mexican history, a really good book is, gosh, I wish I could remember the author now. It's called The Incas. Incas, Mayans, and Aztecs, and, and they take a lot of the research that's like pre-twentieth century research.

And when Cortez arrived in Mexico. and started his path towards Montezuma. many of the tribes joined with him. Because they were in abject fear of the Aztecs.

Their children were being kidnapped by the Aztecs, dragged and offered up to the sun god, and I've explained in this class before how they would go about it, that they would try to get as many tears as they could from the child, and that would please the god more. And once they felt the child had cried enough tears, then with the child alive, they would cut the heart out of the child, hold it up to the sun god, and then there would just be this trail of bodies. This comes from their own literature.

20,000 at a time would be offered up to the sun god there in Mexico.

And so when Cortez showed up, what, the surrounding tribes were like, hey, hey, hey. Way to go, Cortez. We're on your side. And, and they joined with him.

Now, Montezuma, he invited Cortez under friendly. A friendly flag at first. but some people say one of the reasons why he was so friendly to Cortez at the beginning was because so many of the tribes around had aligned themselves with Cortez, and so it was, with, yeah, they had aligned themselves with Cortez, and so it was the Aztecs versus the world at that point, they had caused so much travesty. I don't know if you guys ever, anybody familiar at all with the film Apocalypto?

Anybody, anybody heard of it? OK. this is, that's actually about the Mayan culture, and there's some controversy, but, it's pretty well received for the most part. but part of Mel Gibson's burden in that film was try to, to try to demonstrate the fear that many of the surrounding tribes had of some of these high cultures that were so much into the human sacrifice.

And at that point, this was late in Mayan history, they had. taken on the practice that the Aztecs had taken on of the human sacrifice and were out basically kidnapping people to bring to their god. And, and so that film basically just depicts a guy who escapes human sacrifice and, and then at the very end of the film, there is a Cortez-like character that comes, comes through and the main protagonist is like I've been rescued from human sacrifice. and so.

so anyway, this is, this is the type of thing that the Syrians, the reason, the way that the Assyrians are being thought of is very similar to some of these types of situations, but I want, I want us to not just look at what is happening here to Nineveh and Nahum. But to fast forward, Chapter 3, or chapter 1 calls us to look to this hill, someone who is bringing peace. And in chapter 3 of Nehum, there's also this seems to be this forwarding look towards a time that goes well beyond the time of Nehum.

And in 2 Thessalonians, we get a little bit of an idea of what it's gonna be like when Christ returns.

And let's pick it up in verse 32 Thessalonians 1:3. Where Paul says, we are bound to thank God always for you, brethren, as it is fitting because your faith grows exceedingly, and the love of every one of you all abounds towards each other. And that we ourselves boast of you among the churches of God for your patience and faith in all your persecutions and tribulations that you endure. Let's stop right there.

So the Thessalonians were enduring persecutions and tribulations. And let me just suggest to you that they weren't just getting, people weren't just calling them bad names. they were getting hammered, losing jobs, losing family, family members to death. This is one of, this is part of one of the early persecutions that is coming upon the church.

When you look at the, before the fall of Rome, there's 10 major persecution periods that come from the various Roman emperors. This one is almost certainly a persecution that is, is both the Roman consulate combining with Jewish leadership, that has brought just terrible persecution upon. The Thessalonians, so much so that we're, as we're gonna see later in the book, if we were to, if we were studying this book, that the Thessalonians think that they're in the day of the Lord.

It is so bad.

They've heard about the, the time of Jacob's trouble. They've heard about the great and awful day of the Lord. And, and Paul has to comfort them and say, don't worry, I know you're getting beat up and persecuted, but you're not in the 7 year tribulation yet. That's how bad it is.

So if you, if you think about the 7 year tribulation, how terrible the Book of Revelation is, the Thessalonians think they're in it. That's how beat up they're being in their persecutions. Now, pick it up in verse 5. So, Paul's saying, we thank God that you've been faithful in all your tri tribulations.

Which is manifest evidence of the righteous judgment of God. What? This is evidence of God's righteousness, that you may be counted worthy of the kingdom of God for which you suffer. So God's brought this suffering upon you as a demonstration that you're really believers.

And this is part of what this is one of the fruits of salvation that you're enduring suffering. Verse 6, since it is a righteous thing with God to repay with tribulation those who trouble you. This is a theme that we see throughout the Bible. Is it one of the motivations for God's punishment and justice is to protect his kids.

So it's a righteous thing. With God to repay with tribulation those who trouble you, in verse verse 7, and to give you who are troubled rest with us when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven with his mighty angels. So just like we see in the book of Nehum, God brings judgment upon Assyria, which actually brings rest to Judah. It brings up, so Judah experiences God's kindness.

In God judging Assyria. Does that make sense? And that's the same thing we see with Jesus Christ. But notice that Jesus Christ, he's being revealed from heaven with his mighty angels, verse 8, in flaming fire.

Taking vengeance on those who do not know God, and those who do not obey the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ, these shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord, from the glory of His power, when he comes in that day, this is the great and awful day of the Lord, to be glorified in the saints and to be admired among all those who believe because our testimony among you is believed. So what is one of the reasons that Jesus Christ is going to come back?

You guys tell me, what's one of the main reasons Jesus is coming back a second time? Vengeance.

He's coming as the avenger, he is the avenger, coming to take vengeance upon those who do not obey the gospel, and those who pick on his kids. And when he comes in great and awful wrath in that mighty day of the Lord, it gives comfort. To his people. The Thessalonians are getting just hammered.

They're losing family members, they're having kids, they're people are being, families are being ripped apart. we're gonna see 10 waves of persecution that goes throughout the early church. Each time the persecution comes, people start thinking, oh no, we're on the day of the Lord. No, you're not.

You're just hitting another wave of persecution. but one of the ways that the Bible comforts those that have fallen underneath persecution, one of the ways that Christ comforts those in Uganda. One of the ways he comforts Christians all over the world who have experienced great persecution is this reminder that God's judgment is coming. And just like God has judged in the past to rescue his people, he will judge again.

And the judgment of Nineveh will pale in comparison to the great and awful day of the Lord. When you look at all the different things that are described in scripture. Everybody says, everybody points to this future day and says, that is the day that will be the worst that it will ever be when Christ has given us all of that discourse in Matthew 24 and following, right? Jesus says, it'll be worse than anything has ever come upon the world, and anything afterwards will be this day, this great and awful day of the Lord of God's judgment.

Worse than the flood, worse than the Tower of Babel, worse than what came on Sodom and Gomorrah, worse than what happened to Nineveh. Work will be when Christ returns to take his bride to be with himself and to pour his wrath upon all those that follow the devil and And, and those that follow him. So that, this is actually meant to give us comfort. I think if, if we can keep Like church history in mind, then we can grab onto that comfort.

We're living in this little pocket in the United States right now where we're still feeling the little waves of the great awakening back in the late 1700s or early 1800s. That might seem like a long time ago, but historically speaking, it's a very short time and that huge revival that happened in the late 181700s, early 1800s, we still feel the effect of it today. Even though we're very much in a post-Christian era, how is that? Well, if you, anybody taking early American history right now or?

Any of you guys taken a class like that recently? No? OK. One of my favorite periods of, I was an English major and I put a lot of emphasis on early American literature.

but before the Great Awakening, there was so much evil and so much sin that a lot of Christians, a lot of churches thought that we're in the last days, and Jesus Christ was about ready to turn because it was just so wicked. When we think of the 1700s, we normally think of people with wigs and everybody's conservative. No, no, no. Jonathan Edwards talking about what was going on amongst the youth that during his time, he says, all they do is tavern going and night walking.

What is that? It's, yeah, it's bar hopping and cruising. That's all the youth did during his day. They were just bar hopping and cruising all the time, total immorality, children out of wedlock, just marriages being destroyed, people getting drunk in the streets.

It was just terrible. All of a sudden, A few preachers start going out into the various locations, start preaching the gospel. God brings over guys like George Whitfield and the Wesley's and this huge revival just starts falling on the colonies, starts in Europe first, and you just have this massive wave of the gospel where people are getting truly converted. They're having this not just an intellectual experience with the Bible.

But through the preaching God's word, they're having a relational experience with God. People are describing how that when they heard the word preached, that suddenly they were being overwhelmed with God's presence, they were overwhelmed with their sin, they were ashamed of their sin, and they began to cry out to Jesus and to feel the overwhelming joy and peace that would come over them. It was just an a radical move of the Holy Spirit. And at times it was so radical that people began to criticize the movement as just emotions.

This is just religious fervor. And Jonathan Edwards, by the way, had to write a, an, an essay, Religious Affection, to try to defend the movement because there were also some, like whenever the light comes in, there's also some crazy offshoots, right? So there were some crazy offshoots too that, looked like revival that we're just people getting weird. But the thing is, is all overnight, you had all these young people that instead of night walking and tavern going, they were gathering together for prayer and worship.

And they were going out and talking about the Bible. And so this impacted our culture tremendously. And while the French went off and had their revolution and the French just did what the French did, all the rank and morality over there. The United States became all of a sudden very much a Christian nation, very much guided by morality and the gospel, all that stuff you hear about, about the wild, wild west, that the, the amount of gunfights that actually happened in the wild, wild west was like in the dozens.

It's like it's so over exaggerated in Hollywood. the wild, wild west just wasn't the wild wild west because of the Great Awakening. And so, so you, so we as a country, we began to actually obey the laws. We began to stop at stop lights when there were cars.

You go to very place, various places all around the world. Do most places in the world stop at stop lights? They don't. They don't follow any of the laws.

They, they don't, it's, it's not in many cultures, it's just not natural to just do what a police officer says or to stop at a stoplight. And then people come over here in the United States and like, Wow, you guys, you really, why did you stop at that stop sign? Why are you guys driving all orderly? Even in the Philippines, in the Filipinos, they drive like crazy all over the place.

They violate all these laws, but whenever they get on an American army base, everybody follows the rules. They start stopping at stop lights, and it's very orderly, and then as soon as they get off the base, they're they start going crazy. We think it's just because we're just good people. We're just good Americans, good red-blooded Americans.

That's why we follow the laws. It's because we're good people, no. It's because we're still under, under God's common grace, we're still feeling the ripples of the great awakening that has come down to us this day. And I, why am I even talking about this now?

I lost my original point. Do you remember, Joe? Can you tell me? Is, it's because I just like the Great Awakening or?

Where was I going? Man, You guys, OK, I owe you guys some donuts for that one next week. I was going somewhere with that. Maybe just cause I love Wesley and Edwards and Benjamin Franklin's pretty cool too, although he was more on the front side.

Yeah, I was trying to relate it somehow to today. Persecution. We were talking about persecution. about Oh, that's right.

OK, the pocket. OK, let me finish this up and then we gotta finish. That's it. So we're in this little bubble here in the United States where we really haven't, we're starting to feel some of the persecution, but really, people are still just saying not nice things about us, right?

We're not being thrown in prison and all that. and so, it, so sometimes when we read some of these heavy judgment scenes, it's hard for us to understand because we just don't think that the world's all that bad, right? But transport yourself over to, some of these African countries where people are trying to live for the Lord. Try to be a Christian in Saudi Arabia.

try to be a Christian in many places in the world, and, when we were just in the Philippines in Baguio, we got to know some people who had converted from Islam to become Christians, and they were in fear for their life. one of the pastors I met, I, I preached at his church, his wife, no, no, he married his current wife, her first husband was martyred. They were ministering down in the southern part of the Philippines, just preaching the gospel, trying to be careful amongst Muslim country or Muslim people.

they mistook him for a more radical version of Christianity and ended up killing him.

And they, so he ends up meeting his wife, this, this hus, this pastor I met, they met at a, Muslim outreach conference. He finds out that she's in there reaching Muslims, he's into reaching Muslims. Her first husband was killed. Hey, I'm here.

They fall in love and they get married and they're like, hey, let's go back and reach out to Muslims. that's what a lot of people are experiencing around the world. And when you understand that stuff, then God's judgment in 2 Thessalonians and Revelation, it all starts to make a lot more sense. If you're sitting in a village, and your dad's arms were cut off, or hands were cut off, your mom's breasts were cut off, and you had to escape from a Muslim army, then you'd be like, oh, come Lord, quickly, I so look forward to your judgment.

Upon evil people, wouldn't you? Yeah, you would. I think you would. final thing, and we're a little bit over, this is a final analogy is I used to work at this boys home called Robert and Pyle's Boys Camp up in the mountains where we would take a bunch of juvenile delinquents on backpacking trips, a lot of fun.

And, but I remember the director one time telling me, I was having this conversation with him and he said, Mike, I never thought I could kill anybody until I had my daughter. And when I just think the thought of somebody trying to sexually molest my daughter, or get my daughter aside and do something harmful to her, there's something that rises up in me where I know I could kill somebody. I could do it. And what, that's something I, I don't think, I think that's actually something that reflects a little bit of the nature of, of God, or creating God's image.

We do want to see justice be done, right? Now, justice is the Lord's vengeance is the Lord's, but you gotta know that that's the way the Lord feels. He looks down at his children and he sees the devil assaulting them. He sees us getting just hammered.

Don't you think that he's looking forward to that day when he's gonna send his son just to whip up on the devil and take care of business? it. In fact, Jesus Christ, when he descends, and I know there's some questions and when it's the rapture and when it's the second coming proper. But clearly, Jesus comes down and it's with a shout.

He's not like, oh, I don't really wanna do this and Man, I really wish I could have a little more patience with these people that are beating up on my kids. No, he's like, hurrah! I, I, I think it's like a hurrah type of shout as the Lord comes down, just to, just to really take care of the devil. I don't know.

What do you guys think? That's what I think. So there, there's no contradiction between God's love and His wrath, because His love is exercised in pouring wrath out upon our enemies and Christ's enemies and so on. Let's go ahead and pray, and I'll be up here if you have questions.

Lord, we just thank you so much for this reminder in the book of Nehe that yes, you are slow to anger and very patient, but you will bring judgment. We consider just the ferocity of the Assyrians. And the ferocity that we see from the devil throughout history, we are so grateful to see that you are a God that does not just stand idly by, but that you do bring down your judgment. You will not, just allow the devil to continue to whip up on your kids, but yet you give us the grace to endure for now, and we are not you, so we don't always know where the lines are drawn.

We don't always know who the enemies are and who the friends are. And by the way, we're called to love our enemies, as you do. but Lord, help us just to leave justice in your hands, and, but to take comfort in the fact that it will come. We pray all this in the name of Jesus Christ.

Amen.