Nahum 3, Bible Reading and Daily Devotionals

Max Lucado Daily: YOUR REFUGE

versions.  But never did David use the word more poignantly than in Psalm 57.  The introduction to the passage explains its background: “A song of David when he fled from Saul into the cave.” Lost in shadows and thought, he has nowhere to turn.  Go home, he endangers his family; to the tabernacle, he imperils the priests.  Saul will kill him.  Here he sits, all alone.

But then he remembers he’s not.  And from the recesses of the cave a sweet voice floats: “Be merciful to me, O God!  For my soul trusts in You; and in the shadow of Your wings I make my refuge” (Psalm 57:1).  Make God your refuge.  Let Him be the foundation on which you stand.

Nahum 3

Let the Nations Get Their Fill of the Ugly Truth

 Doom to Murder City—
    full of lies, bursting with loot, addicted to violence!
Horns blaring, wheels clattering,
    horses rearing, chariots lurching,
Horsemen galloping,
    brandishing swords and spears,
Dead bodies rotting in the street,
    corpses stacked like cordwood,
Bodies in every gutter and alley,
    clogging every intersection!
And whores! Whores without end!
    Whore City,
Fatally seductive, you’re the Witch of Seduction,
    luring nations to their ruin with your evil spells.

5-7 “I’m your enemy, Whore Nineveh—
    I, God-of-the-Angel-Armies!
I’ll strip you of your seductive silk robes
    and expose you on the world stage.
I’ll let the nations get their fill of the ugly truth
    of who you really are and have been all along.
I’ll pelt you with dog dung
    and place you on a pedestal: ‘Slut on Exhibit.’
Everyone who sees you will gag and say,
    ‘Nineveh’s a pigsty:
What on earth did we ever see in her?
    Who would give her a second look? Ugh!’”

Past the Point of No Return
8-13 Do you think you’re superior to Egyptian Thebes,
    proudly invincible on the River Nile,
Protected by the great River,
    walled in by the River, secure?
Ethiopia stood guard to the south,
    Egypt to the north.
Put and Libya, strong friends,
    were ready to step in and help.
But you know what happened to her:
    The whole city was marched off to a refugee camp,
Her babies smashed to death
    in public view on the streets,
Her prize leaders auctioned off,
    her celebrities put in chain gangs.
Expect the same treatment, Nineveh.
    You’ll soon be staggering like a bunch of drunks,
Wondering what hit you,
    looking for a place to sleep it off.
All your forts are like peach trees,
    the lush peaches ripe, ready for the picking.
One shake of the tree and they fall
    straight into hungry mouths.
Face it: Your warriors are wimps.
    You’re sitting ducks.
Your borders are gaping doors, inviting
    your enemies in. And who’s to stop them?

14-15 Store up water for the siege.
    Shore up your defenses.
Get down to basics: Work the clay
    and make bricks.
Sorry. Too late.
    Enemy fire will burn you up.
Swords will cut you to pieces.
    You’ll be chewed up as if by locusts.

15-17 Yes, as if by locusts—a fitting fate,
    for you yourselves are a locust plague.
You’ve multiplied shops and shopkeepers—
    more buyers and sellers than stars in the sky!
A plague of locusts, cleaning out the neighborhood
    and then flying off.
Your bureaucrats are locusts,
    your brokers and bankers are locusts.
Early on, they’re all at your service,
    full of smiles and promises,
But later when you return with questions or complaints,
    you’ll find they’ve flown off and are nowhere to be found.

18-19 King of Assyria! Your shepherd-leaders,
    in charge of caring for your people,
Are busy doing everything else but.
    They’re not doing their job,
And your people are scattered and lost.
    There’s no one to look after them.
You’re past the point of no return.
    Your wound is fatal.
When the story of your fate gets out,
    the whole world will applaud and cry “Encore!”
Your cruel evil has seeped
    into every nook and cranny of the world.
    Everyone has felt it and suffered.

Our Daily Bread reading and devotion   
Wednesday, July 22, 2020
Today's Scripture & Insight:

Isaiah 44:21–23

“Remember these things, Jacob,
    for you, Israel, are my servant.
I have made you, you are my servant;
    Israel, I will not forget you.
22 I have swept away your offenses like a cloud,
    your sins like the morning mist.
Return to me,
    for I have redeemed you.”

23 Sing for joy, you heavens, for the Lord has done this;
    shout aloud, you earth beneath.
Burst into song, you mountains,
    you forests and all your trees,
for the Lord has redeemed Jacob,
    he displays his glory in Israel.

Insight
Isaiah was the most prolific of the writing prophets, but the great size of his book is eclipsed in importance by its content. Commentator John Gill wrote: “He should rather be called an evangelist than a prophet . . . certain it is that no one writes so fully and clearly of the person, offices, grace, and kingdom of Christ; of his incarnation and birth of a virgin; of his sufferings and death, and the glory that should follow, as [Isaiah] does.” Isaiah’s focus on Messiah and His mission was vital to preparing the way for Jesus’ coming, for it provided Israel with critical identifiers of Him and certain hope in His promised victory.

For more on Isaiah, check out Knowing God through Isaiah at discoveryseries.org/sb151.

A Wide, Sweeping Grace
I have swept away your offenses. Isaiah 44:22

Alexa, Amazon’s voice-controlled device, has an interesting feature: it can erase everything you say. Whatever you’ve asked Alexa to do, whatever information you’ve asked Alexa to retrieve, one simple sentence (“Delete everything I said today”) sweeps it all clean, as if it never happened. It’s too bad that the rest of our life doesn’t have this capability. Every misspoken word, every disgraceful act, every moment we wish we could erase—we’d just speak the command, and the entire mess would disappear.

There’s good news, though. God does offer each of us a clean start. Only, He goes far deeper than merely deleting our mistakes or bad behavior. God provides redemption, a deep healing that transforms us and makes us new. “Return to me,” He says, “I have redeemed you” (Isaiah 44:22). Even though Israel rebelled and disobeyed, God reached out to them with lavish mercy. He “swept away [their] offenses like a cloud, [their] sins like the morning mist” (v. 22). He gathered all their shame and failures and washed them away with His wide, sweeping grace.

God will do the same with our sin and blunders. There’s no mistake He can’t mend, no wound He can’t heal. God’s mercy heals and redeems the most painful places in our soul—even the ones we’ve hidden for so very long. His mercy sweeps away all our guilt, washes away every regret. By:  Winn Collier

Reflect & Pray
Where are you most aware of your failures? How does the image of God sweeping away all your mistakes give you hope?

So many regrets, so many things I’d do differently. God, You tell me that You can forgive and heal me. Thank You for Your mercy and grace.

My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Wednesday, July 22, 2020
Sanctification (1)

This is the will of God, your sanctification… —1 Thessalonians 4:3

The Death Side. In sanctification God has to deal with us on the death side as well as on the life side. Sanctification requires our coming to the place of death, but many of us spend so much time there that we become morbid. There is always a tremendous battle before sanctification is realized— something within us pushing with resentment against the demands of Christ. When the Holy Spirit begins to show us what sanctification means, the struggle starts immediately. Jesus said, “If anyone comes to Me and does not hate…his own life…he cannot be My disciple” (Luke 14:26).

In the process of sanctification, the Spirit of God will strip me down until there is nothing left but myself, and that is the place of death. Am I willing to be myself and nothing more? Am I willing to have no friends, no father, no brother, and no self-interest— simply to be ready for death? That is the condition required for sanctification. No wonder Jesus said, “I did not come to bring peace but a sword” (Matthew 10:34). This is where the battle comes, and where so many of us falter. We refuse to be identified with the death of Jesus Christ on this point. We say, “But this is so strict. Surely He does not require that of me.” Our Lord is strict, and He does require that of us.

Am I willing to reduce myself down to simply “me”? Am I determined enough to strip myself of all that my friends think of me, and all that I think of myself? Am I willing and determined to hand over my simple naked self to God? Once I am, He will immediately sanctify me completely, and my life will be free from being determined and persistent toward anything except God (see 1 Thessalonians 5:23-24).

When I pray, “Lord, show me what sanctification means for me,” He will show me. It means being made one with Jesus. Sanctification is not something Jesus puts in me— it is Himself in me (see 1 Corinthians 1:30).

WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS

Sincerity means that the appearance and the reality are exactly the same.
Studies in the Sermon on the Mount

Bible in a Year: Psalms 31-32; Acts 23:16-35

A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Wednesday, July 22, 2020
Hurricane Heroes - #8748

It's sure not uncommon to hear that a hurricane coming up the East Coast is headed for the Outer Banks of North Carolina. When I hear that, I flash back to an old white frame building there and to the story I heard there that has followed me ever since.

Our family vacation took us to those beautiful Hatteras beaches and to the Chicamacomico Life-Saving Station. That's where I heard about, and saw demonstrated by re-enactors, the heroism of the United States Life-Saving Service.

They call that stretch of shoreline the "Graveyard of the Atlantic" and there's a reason. Hundreds of ships have gone down there, victims of that Cape's violent storms; it's treacherous shoals. But many who would have been buried in that "graveyard" made it out alive. Those people survived, because of the men of the Life-Saving Service. They call them the "surf men." They risk their lives again and again, heading into deadly storms in little boats, to do whatever it took to save the people on a sinking ship.

And, boy, I've not forgotten the motto of the Life-Saving Service. It's tattooed on my soul: "You have to go out. You don't have to come back."

I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "Hurricane Heroes."

Those guys kind of showed me the meaning of rescue, which is the life mission of my Jesus. Because in His words, He came "to seek and to save what was lost" (Luke 19:10) And in our word for today from the Word of God, John 20:20, Jesus says, "As the Father has sent Me, so I am sending you." So, if you belong to Jesus, He is sending you into the surf and the storm to do what He did; to risk whatever you must to save a life.

The life-saving station. It's a great place to get strong for the rescue. It's a great place to bring people back to when they've been rescued. But, you know, never in the history of the Life-Saving Service did anyone ever knock on the door and say, "Please help me. I'm drowning. Could you come and save me?" No! In every case, the rescuers had to leave the comfort of the life-saving station and go where the dying people were. Just like our Jesus. He left the greatest Comfort Zone in the universe to come to our "graveyard" to die.

So how can I, for whom He sacrificed so much, let my comfort and my fears decide what I will do? He has commanded me in Proverbs 24, "rescue those who are being led away to death" (Proverbs 24:11).

And how much longer can we, as His church, just keep waiting for the dying people to come to us? Mostly they're not. We have to take the life-saving Gospel of Jesus outside the walls of the life-saving station; quit depending on our programs, our activities to reach them.

The program of God for the rescue work of God is the people of God. It's you! You're on your stretch of beach. You're His designated lifeguard there. We're the ones to take it to the street, to the office, to the factory, to the campus, to the locker room, to the neighborhood, to our service club, to that nursing home, to the jail, to the gym. How can we be content any longer to sit inside our stained glass cocoon while just outside so many are dying in the storm?

We have to go out. We don't have to come back. Remember, this is about lives at stake.