Nahum 1:7-13; Gal. 5:1
Introduction: Nahum here begins his prophesy about Ninevahs destruction. Ninevah is the Assyrian capital, and they had already destroyed Samaria, resulting in the captivity of the northern kingdom of Israel, and posed a threat to Judah. The Assyrians were brutally cruel, their kings inflicted gruesome punishment on conquered peoples. Oftentimes they uprooted whole populations and deported them to other parts of their city as a show of complete domination. So to this end does Nahum speak and prophesy to his people, comforting them, letting them know that God is about to utterly destroy their oppressors.
1. The Jealousy of God: In verse two it says “God is jealous, and the LORD revengeth: and is furious;” Nahum is not ascribing a human imperfection to God. Rather, the thought is that God is the One who embodies a burning zeal for righteousness and justice, quickly arises to the defense of His own, and executes judgment on those who are not His own or who hurt those who are. God is assuring His people through the prophet that He will deal with the Assyrians with the same ferocity in which they dealt with His children.
a. They attacked the children of Israel because there are areas in their life that God wasn’t pleased with. God used the Assyrians to drive the Children of Israel back to their knees in prayer. God will often use adversity and trouble to get your attention. Sometimes we’re not focused, or committed, and we take God and life for granted. Then God allows adversity to get your attention and get you back in line. There is nothing like trouble to get you to pray.
b. But when God is ready for it to be over He will execute judgment on your oppressors. Verse 3 shows us that God is great in power and will not at all acquit the wicked. He will have His way in the whirlwind, and storms. He authenticates His claim in Verse 4—He rebukes the sea, the mountains quake at Him, hills melt, and the earth is burned at His presence, and the world, and all that dwell therein. Verses 4-6 gives a brief but pointed dissertation of the power of God and His awesome control over His creation.
2. The Bondage of Man: The problem is that once God has gotten your attention and you have lined up with His purpose, the adversities, addictions, and afflictions in your life tend to linger. You still serve Him but you have this yoke of bondage in your life (justified/sanctified). The term yoke is a bit difficult to understand in our contemporary society because we don’t have oxen in our back yards, (Explain how the oxen was bigger and stronger than the one controlling him with the yoke). The term is akin to being imprisoned, bound, and not being liberated or free. God used the Assyrians to get their attention but He wouldn’t allow them to oppress them anymore once they turned to Him. He says once you’ve turned to me I’m thru with them and I will break the yoke that is around your neck and liberate you thru the anointing. Just because you were in bondage doesn’t mean you weren’t anointed (dichotomy of life).
3. The Anointing of God: When we talk about the anointing it becomes an ambiguous, religious term to be used loosely without real understanding. Sometimes in the absence of a real understanding we deduce that the anointing is manifest by outward expression. If you aren’t demonstrative people say you aren’t anointed. We put pressure on people to act out in ways to fit in to what we call anointed. There are people who don’t express themselves demonstratively who are just as anointed.
a. The anointing is made in the crushings of life. The anointing comes after you have been crushed, criticized, crumbled, stepped on, afflicted, addicted, ostracized, and scraping the bottom of life.
b. An anointed person is an affective person. It’s not in suits, titles, or connections. God anoints people to prophecy, preach, pray and whenever God anoints it’s for service and not entertainment.
c. Being anointed makes you a servant. It doesn’t make you any better than anyone else it makes you their servant because we are anointed to serve. It’s not guaranteed that you’ll quiver but you will be affective (psalms 1).
d. You are Anointed Because of The Needs of Man: you are not anointed for your benefit but for Gods people. Nahum was anointed to comfort Gods people. His name means comforter. You need the anointing when you are chasing an ambulance, or a loved one is bound…..
4. Liberty: in verse 9 the prophet here predicts the utter end of Ninevah. He says “He will make an utter end: affliction shall not rise up the second time.” His prediction was fulfilled in 612 B.C. when the city was destroyed by the Babylonians. It was never rebuilt and has remained a desolate ruin until this day. When God is ready to destroy a yoke He will do a complete work and it will never arise a second time (Phil 1:6—he that has begun a good work...)(2 Cor. 5:17--if any man be in Christ...). The enemy will always try to do an encore in your life, but you have to learn to say the benediction on your old life. The threat of the enemy climbing back over your walls of defense is just as debilitating as it actually happening (literal, figurative, personal walls). That’s why the world doesn’t want you to be spirit filled because as long as you don’t walk in the spirit they have a hope of controlling you. But when you start to walk in the spirit of God they can’t get you to stay in your place, or keep you in your corner, or lay down in your cave.
a. The Spirit of God is jail breaking, curse reversing, and yoke destroying Spirit. Where the Spirit of the Lord is there is liberty. You can tell when someone is filled with the Spirit of God because they are free from the inhibitions and limitations of life. You don’t know freedom until you start walking in the anointing of God. God’s Spirit will free you to move. Some of you have never enjoyed your life because you have spent your whole life in a prison and a yoke around your neck.
5. The Deception of Man: verse 12 shows us an Assyrian phrase implying unity “they be quiet, and likewise many”. The idiom means that they are so united that they make the noise of only one person. The world is so unified in what it does until it sounds like everyone is saying the same thing about everything. If you’re not careful you will conform yourself to the rudiments and principles of the world because it sounds like everybody is doing it. We are attracted to normalcy because Christians don’t want to seem weird or strange. You will yoke yourself to the world instead of being transformed into the image of Christ.
a. You’d be shocked at the people who are quietly following the voice of the world. They love God but are quietly have a yoke around their neck (superstitions, horoscopes, and worldly ways). The person you’re with and around, you may not even know who they really are because you’ve never seen them free, the entire time you’ve been around them they’ve been laboring with a yoke around their neck holding them down. Whatever they did they did it dragging a yoke of the world around their neck.
b. For once in your life you owe it to yourself to see how much further you could be if you got that yoke off of your neck. Take the blinders off (2 Cor. 4:4—blinded the minds of unbelievers). Tell your neighbor I’ve got to get this yoke off of my neck. I can’t spend another 10 years with this thing on me. I need to know what I can do if I weren’t limited or held down by what was said and done to me.
6. The Cycle of God: verse 12 God says “though I have afflicted thee, I will afflict thee no more.” He is saying once you’ve turned back to me I will destroy the yoke of bondage that’s on you once and for all. He says “Now” I will break his yoke from off thee, and will burst thy bonds in sunder. Its time to break the cycle of bondage. Galatians 5:1 says “Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free, and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage.”
a. You’ve heard too much word to live with that yoke around your neck. You don’t have time to keep trying to worship with that yoke because you won’t be able to. Flow with the anointing and God will destroy the yoke from around your neck.
b. If you don’t get it off of you it will get on your children and they will perpetuate the deadly cycle of sin that you started. In the natural realm if momma is on crack and she gets pregnant before she kicks the habit then baby is going to come out screaming because he needs a fix without ever having done a dope deal. As it is in the natural so is it in the spiritual. Your dysfunction will pass on to your children and you will wind up fighting them because they are acting like you. You’ve got to determine that as for me and my house we will serve the Lord. The anointing will destroy the yoke.