Anguish

“She is emptied!  Yes, she is desolate and waste!  Hearts are melting and knees knocking!  Also anguish is in the whole body and all their faces are grown pale!”  Nahum 2:10

Anguish – HEADLINE NEWS:  The great city is doomed!  God has spoken.  Judgment is coming.  Everyone will be destroyed.

This is perfect 6 o’clock news material.  It is full of fear and disaster.  It’s the kind of story that every newscaster loves.  There is only one problem.  No one was listening.

If you were a citizen of Nineveh, wouldn’t your ears perk up at this announcement?  Nahum specifically names Nineveh as the city scheduled for holy destruction.  So why didn’t the people pay attention.  The answer is simple.  Nahum made the announcement some 20 years before the event.  The story is newsworthy but the timing is terrible.  It’s only good news if the disaster is immanent. 

The Hebrew word chalchalah is very descriptive.  It means great pain, anguish and trembling.  It’s holocaust material.  Hiroshima.  Dresden.  Very bad stuff.  But when Nahum put out this press release, no one gave it a second thought.  They were all too busy with today to worry about tomorrow.  What they heard was a threat in the distant future.  They were deaf to the compassionate voice of God in this oracle.

Why would God announce His plan for judgment and destruction twenty years in advance?  Because God does not want judgment.  He wants repentance.  He wants to save us from our fate.  He wants to redeem us.  If compassion did not motivate God, He would never bother to warn us.  God gave the citizens of Nineveh 20 years to change their ways.  God painted a picture of what Nineveh would look like when judgment came, and then He invited its inhabitants to erase His canvas. 

Today we live in “the great city” – the global village of self.  God has already painted a landscape of judgment.  It’s coming.  But He delays because He is not willing that any should perish.  Are you tuned to His channel and getting the heavenly news?  Are you nodding in agreement with Nahum?  If you are, then what will you do to bring the picture into focus for those who think that twenty years is a lifetime away?