Lord, You're Speaking To Us. Help Us To Listen To You.

"This is a revelation from the Lord ..." (Nahum 1:1). What a wonderful start to this prophecy! "The Lord is patient and has great strength" (Nahum 1:3). Where does such knowledge of God come from? It comes from the revelation of God. It is revealed to us. It is the Word that comes to us from the Lord. It is the Word that is given to us by the Lord. "The Lord is good. He is a fortress in the day of trouble" (Nahum 1:7). Do we come to this faith by way of our unaided reason? or Is such faith given to us by the Lord? The way to faith is the way of revelation. "What do you think about the Lord?" (Nahum 1:9). This is a challenging question. True thoughts about the Lord are given to us by the Lord Himself. Fake thoughts come from our own minds. We think that we know God, until God comes to us and shows us that we are far from Him, and we need to be saved by Him. We need to have our minds renewed by Him. "This is what the Lord says" (Nahum 1:12). Learning to listen to the Lord is more important than anything else.

A Word of warning for God's people: "The one who will scatter you is coming to attack you. Guard your fortress! Keep a lookout on the road! Prepare for battle! Be very courageous!" (Nahum 2:1). A promise of victory for God's people: "The Lord will restore Jacob's glory like Israel's glory, although enemies have looted it and have destroyed its vines" (Nahum 2:2). We read the Old Testament prophets. It seems to us that their world is very different from our world. There are, however, spiritual principles which remain constant for every nation and every generation. The Lord comes to us in our conflict. He leads us on to His victory.

"I am against you, Nineveh, declares the Lord of Armies" (Nahum 3:5) - The Lord speaks against us so that we might learn to stop speaking against Him. We cannot really appreciate God's positive Word concerning salvation until we learn to listen attentively to His negative Word concerning our sin. It's only when we begin to see ourselves as sinners that we will begin to see how wonderful is the great salvation that has provided for sinners.