Prophecy Fulfilled

All your fortresses are like fig trees with first-ripe figs—if shaken they fall into the mouth of the eater. Behold, your troops are women in your midst. The gates of your land are wide open to your enemies; fire has devoured your bars. Draw water for the siege; strengthen your forts; go into the clay; tread the mortar; take hold of the brick mold! There will the fire devour you; the sword will cut you off. It will devour you like the locust. Multiply yourselves like the locust; multiply like the grasshopper! You increased your merchants more than the stars of the heavens. The locust spreads its wings and flies away. Your princes are like grasshoppers, your scribes like clouds of locusts settling on the fences in a day of cold—when the sun rises, they fly away; no one knows where they are. Your shepherds are asleep, O king of Assyria; your nobles slumber. Your people are scattered on the mountains with none to gather them. There is no easing your hurt; your wound is grievous. All who hear the news about you clap their hands over you. For upon whom has not come your unceasing evil?
Nahum 3:12–19
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Prophecy Fulfilled
As the prophet Nahum ends his book we are brought back to the beginning, to his warning against Nineveh. Nahum gives us a picture of the one true God who rules over heaven and earth. He reminds us that He has an abundance of patience and mercy as He waits for the sinner to repent. Yet at the same time He does not let sin go unpunished.  For Nineveh, God’s patience came to an end. The evil nation of Assyria that had persecuted and tormented the surrounding peoples, gaining riches and power at their expense, was overthrown, and has been erased form the pages of history. God’s wrath is revealed against all unrighteousness. This truth should give us pause. Our sins merit His wrath and displeasure. Yet “God has not destined us for wrath, but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ”. Sin never goes unpunished. God’s wrath destroys it. But not in the way we would have thought. God’s wrath was poured out not on us, but on Christ, and by faith in Him we are given pardon and peace. We seek from the Lord contrite hearts so that, trusting in His mercy, we may know His forgiving love.