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23rd February 2026
MondayReflection
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'Michael Thiel'
Cities Church
"Nahum 1:1-3"
1 This is a message about Nineveh, the account of a vision seen by Nahum, who was from Elkosh.
The Lord's Anger against Nineveh
2 The Lord God tolerates no rivals; he punishes those who oppose him. In his anger he pays them back.
3 The Lord does not easily become angry, but he is powerful and never lets the guilty go unpunished.
Where the Lord walks, storms arise; the clouds are the dust raised by his feet!
.... Nahum 1:1-3 GNT
We are in the seventh book today of our Minor Prophets sermon series and will be tackling the book of Nahum today
In Nahum we have two main people groups that we need to look at.
One group is Israel.
And the other group is Nineveh which is the capital of the nation of Assyria.
The Ninevites repented in the day of Jonah but the nation as a whole was used by God to bring judgment on Israel about 40 years after Jonah.
So the Ninevites in effect turn on God by trusting in themselves and choosing to live corrupt and evil lives apart from God.
We pick up the story in Nahum where Israel is being oppressed by Nineveh, and the Ninevites are having the time of their life.
They think they have everything figured out. They think they are on top.
They think they have the control since they are the largest city in the world at this time and they have rivers and water surrounding their city so no one can get them, so they think.
In their arrogance they'd say we don't need God.
The first point is really the main point because God stands over the situation of Israel and Nineveh.
God is the author and Nineveh and Israel are the characters in the story.
So who has the control?
God does.
Every good story has a problem and what is the problem in this story?
The problem is that people don't trust God's control.
People tend to trust in themselves, yet it is God who is in control, and he knows what he is doing.
This is the problem in our story as well - we struggle to trust God.
We want to take matters into our own hands and do things our way because we don't trust God and, specifically we don't like how he does things.
We don't like the specific details of the story.
We may trust and like the story of the gospel of Jesus Christ, but we struggle with how that plays out in our life.
So Nineveh, the ancient city that repented, only 40 years later, came in and destroyed Israel, which was orchestrated by God.
Then in Nahum we have Nineveh oppressing what is left of Israel.
The people that survived the exile are a mere remnant.
This remnant up against the power house of Nineveh is the situation we find in Nahum.
The amazing thing to think about is that God was not caught off guard by the Assyrians.
He created them. And God moved and orchestrated these Assyrians to bring a trial and to bring hardship to the Israelites because God loved his people.
The Israelites as we saw in Micah were in a terrible pattern of unbelief where they did not trust God, did not love God, and did not follow God.
They were taking matters into their own hands and saying I don't want anything to do with this God.
They were perfectly happy ignoring God.
So it could be viewed that God's working with Assyria to bring judgment on Israel was actually an amazing kindness to the faithful ones of Israel.
And in Nahum when God crushes Nineveh to save the remnant, God is putting on display an amazing unfolding of how he will save those who trust him.
See, in the moment in our lives we don't have the power to see what God is up to.
It's like we can't see the forest from the trees.
See, we often think God is crazy for what he is doing, but the reality is, God is the only one big enough to know the big picture, have a plan for the future, and he is the only one who has a plan that cannot be stopped.
We too struggle to trust God's control.
And we also struggle with the idea that God is in full control yet we have responsibility.
In Jonah, Micah, and Nahum, God is moving this nation of Assyria wherever he wants and he's got a plan.
In the moment no one can see this.
And we are learning today in Nahum that the plan is unfolding that God will crush Nineveh.
So, believing that God is in control of all things yet at the same time Nineveh being responsible for their actions is a difficult concept to believe.
How can God be in control like moving nations wherever he wants and yet how can the Ninevites be held responsible for their actions?
This is a common place where we get stuck in trusting God's control.
Just like space and time are both dimensions that are linked yet are independent of one another, so too God is in full control in and at the same we do have responsibility.
We have to be careful that we don't say and think only one is true and not the other.
><(((°>
This is an edited version.
The full article is avaiable on request
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