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[0:00] In Nahum chapter 1 we read at verse 7, the Lord is good, a stronghold in the day of trouble, and he knoweth them that trust in him.

[0:12] Now one of the things that if you read through the book of Nahum you would notice is that this and perhaps verse 15 are one or two of the very few positive, you might say, happy verses in the book of Nahum.

[0:29] It is mostly a book of judgment, of dread, of terror, of the outpouring of God's wrath. And the reason for this is because it is prophesying the downfall of Nineveh.

[0:44] Yes, it's the same Nineveh that Jonah preached to and that the Lord miraculously delivered in his day, but Nahum is prophesying about 150 years after Jonah.

[0:57] But 150 years later, so what would 50 years ago be to us? That would be what, 1967? So 1867, so it's as though if Nahum was prophesying this year, then it is as though Jonah had prophesied in 1867.

[1:15] So it's that kind of difference there. Nahum is giving a message in a very different time, when Assyria has grown to be the superpower of the ancient east and a brutal and oppressive power.

[1:31] When the Babylonians finally overthrew them, overthrew the Assyrians and defeated them and conquered much of their empire, it wasn't that the Babylonians were a piece of cake by any means.

[1:44] They weren't soft, they weren't gentle or tender at all. But compared to the Assyrians, they seemed like a breath of fresh air. Nineveh, in its empire, the Assyrian empire, its practice was, as it conquered, to suck in all the wealth, all the resources, all the power of their vast territories, and suck it like into a vortex, centered around their capital and their immediate environs.

[2:16] So they sort of suck dry their whole empire in order to glorify their center. The Babylonians tended to spread their power much further throughout their empire.

[2:27] But this is Nineveh, and it is its destruction that is foretold. God is jealous, and the Lord revengeth. Verse 2 there.

[2:38] Now, as some of you will be aware, distinction between jealousy and envy. Jealousy is potentially a good thing, because God is described as a jealous God, and God can't sin.

[2:51] So jealousy is good, envy is bad. What's the difference? Well, as most of you will know, jealousy, one is jealous over that which is one's own. God is jealous. Who is he jealous for?

[3:01] He's jealous over his people, over his own people, who have been oppressed, who have been downtrodden, who have been crushed. Yes, partly for their own sins, but also they have been brutally crushed by the Assyrians.

[3:15] And God, having seen this, and their punishment, their judgment, their chastisement, he now has a concern, a care to redeem them from that. He is jealous for his people.

[3:26] Envy is the desire to have that which belongs to somebody else. God is not envious. Envy is a sin. It is covetousness. Jealousy is a concern for that which is one's own.

[3:38] God is jealous, and the Lord revengeth. Now, what it says at verse 7, the Lord is good, a stronghold in the day of trouble. We mentioned that this is one of the sort of positive verses in what is pretty much kind of dark and negative and kind of a message of judgment, of oppression, of overthrow.

[3:59] But it doesn't stand in isolation. If we take verse 7 here, which is the verse I'd really like us to think about today, and then you look at its context. Its context is not only the whole of chapter 1, but particularly verses 6 to 9.

[4:14] Who can stand before his indignation? That is, before the Lord's indignation. Who can abide in the fierceness of his anger? His fury is poured out like fire, and the rocks are thrown down by him.

[4:27] The Lord is good, a stronghold in the day of trouble, and he knoweth and the trust in him. But with an overrunning flood, he will make an utter end of the place thereof, and darkness shall pursue his enemies.

[4:40] What do you imagine against the Lord? He will make an utter end. Affliction shall not rise up the second time. So this nice verse, if you like, is in the context of verses around it, which are fearful, frightening.

[4:57] And it's not an either or. It's a both and. God's judgment is coming fiercely on the empire, on the land, and on the oppressor particularly.

[5:11] But he promises here that not only is he good, but he is a place of defense, a stronghold. The imagery here is of sort of like a stone tower, that you'd make a sort of keep, an extra strong tower in the midst of a city.

[5:27] And even if the city was captured, the strong tower, the keep would be the place to which people would flee for defense. And you'd bar the door, and the stone walls would protect you, it'd be tall and high and thick walls, and nobody could get in.

[5:40] And no matter what rage drowned about you, if you were inside the stone tower, you were safe. It's this kind of keep, this kind of stronghold that is envisaged. Likewise, we mentioned last Lord's Day about the vineyard that the Lord planted, how it said that he built a tower, and how the tower would be not only a place of storage to keep safe the harvest and the produce, it would also be where the laborers would lodge, they would have their lodgings, their residence there while they were working in the vineyard.

[6:11] It would also be a place of defense and protection to keep an eye on the vineyard and to keep it safe. So you've got all these things here. The Lord is a stronghold in the day of trouble, and he knoweth them that trust in him.

[6:26] You see, we are almost conditioned to think in terms of God being nice and good in the one hand, or perhaps there being judgment and anger. But the two are not mutually exclusive.

[6:39] The nearest comparison we can make here is if you think of Noah and the flood, and you think of how, you know, Noah and his family and the animals are safe inside the ark, inside the stronghold.

[6:53] But that doesn't mean that everything is sweetness and light on the outside. On the outside, death is raging, and the flood is destroying everything in the entire world in its path.

[7:05] And here with this judgment that is coming, we read the Lord is good, a stronghold in the day of trouble. There is a day of trouble. There is a time of judgment. How in the world is anybody going to be safe?

[7:18] They're only going to be safe by trusting in the Lord. That is their stronghold. It is their defense. It is their protection. How can I possibly defend them? Because the Lord defends them.

[7:30] The Lord gathers them to himself. The Lord keeps them from harm. It doesn't mean that they will be completely unscathed. Noah and his family would not have been unscathed by the flood.

[7:43] You know, if they were in modern times, then people would say, oh, they'd need years of counseling for the traumatic stress that they would have gone through of all the death that they witnessed and all the ordeal that they had been through.

[7:55] Well, they didn't have such things in those days. But the Lord got them through it. And the Lord protected them despite all that came against them. If you think of the plagues that visited Egypt before the Israelites were brought out, we think of those plagues as afflicting the Egyptians alone.

[8:16] And some of them did. Like when there is the plague of darkness, you know, it says that darkness will pursue his enemies. Verse 8, think of the plague of darkness in Egypt. It says such a darkness as may be felt.

[8:29] In Exodus 10, it describes it. Now, it says the children of Israel had light in their dwellings. Maybe that just means they lit lamps. Maybe it means the Lord's presence was there to light up their dwellings.

[8:41] But darkness would still have been over the land of Goshen. Darkness would still have been where they were, apart from in their dwellings. The plague of hail and fire. It says that those who believed God's word through Moses, they brought their cattle and they brought their beasts under cover.

[8:58] And they sheltered indoors while the storm was raging outside. And Moses said, Ach, we don't believe what Jehovah said. He's just the God of the Hebrews. We're not going to obey. Their cattle were destroyed.

[9:09] Their fields were destroyed. The locusts came on the whole land. Not just the Egyptian part, the Israelite part as well. And many of the other plagues we find applied right across the land.

[9:22] In other words, the Israelites too would have been afflicted by them. Not by all of them. Some of them, God made a distinction. Some of them, God put a distinct difference between his own people and the Egyptians.

[9:37] But not all of them. Some of them afflicted both alike. And when the Lord brings judgment on the earth, it's not that we are sort of just sitting in our wee cloud and sun ourselves and relaxing, you know, with an ice cold drink in our hands and with a rook or whatever while all this rage is round about us.

[9:57] We are touched by it too. We are touched by the suffering and by the judgment the Lord brings. Why is the Lord bringing judgment? Well, here he's bringing judgment on Assyria, the pagan nation that was destroying, had destroyed Israel and Judah.

[10:12] If you go back to 2 Kings, you'll read the account of how in the days of King Hezekiah, the Assyrians came up through the whole land of Judah and they rolled right up to the walls of Jerusalem.

[10:25] And Jerusalem held out against them. And the Assyrians said, let's just say, come on, don't be stupid. You can't possibly resist here. You think your God is going to deliver you? This is the same God that Hezekiah, your king, He's taken away all the altars and all the high places and He said, you've only got to worship in Jerusalem, which is exactly what God had said at the temple there.

[10:47] This is the same God. We couldn't possibly be here if your God hadn't allowed us to. Look at all the gods of the nations round about, the gods of Sepharvaim and the gods of Egypt and the gods of the Hittites and all these other people.

[11:01] They stood against us. They trusted in their gods. We went to the floor with them. And now we're here. And you, Jerusalem, you're not going to resist us either. So come on, get realistic. Surrender now.

[11:11] Come and make peace with us and we'll take you off to Assyria and we'll bring other people and put them in your land and, you know, everything will be fine. Just surrender. You know, do the sensible thing and it will all be fine.

[11:23] And those in Jerusalem wouldn't. Hezekiah held fast to the Lord. Isaiah brought him the word of the Lord. They sent him a taunting letter. He took it into the house of God.

[11:34] He spread it before the Lord. He prayed to the Lord. And then we read of how at that time the Lord smoked in the camp of the Assyrians. It came to pass that night.

[11:46] The angel of the Lord went out and smoked in the camp of the Assyrians and 104,5,000. 185,000. And when they arose early in the morning, behold, they were all dead corpses.

[11:59] So Sennacherib, king of Assyria, departed and went and returned and dwelt at Nineveh. And you read that and you think, yay, yay, yay. The Jews won there. Jerusalem was kept safe. Brilliant. And they'd all come out happy and everything.

[12:11] You come out of Jerusalem after the siege has been lifted. Quite apart from the 185,000 dead Assyrians round about. Never mind that. They rolled up to the walls of Jerusalem.

[12:23] They besieged the walls of Jerusalem. What does that mean? That means they had conquered absolutely everything else down to this last rock on which the city of Jerusalem was built.

[12:37] It means they had overrun all the cities and the lands and the valleys and the hills of Judea. They had already conquered northern Israel. They had carted off the ten tribes into captivity.

[12:49] They had taken Samaria. They had taken everything. The Lord allowed them to conquer almost the whole of the promised land.

[13:00] Almost, but not quite. The last little rock. The last little capital in Jerusalem. He kept as though to say, I have allowed you to come this far, but no farther.

[13:15] And when the Jews would come out of Jerusalem and when Hezekiah would emerge and the Assyrians all gone, it wouldn't be back into a garden of Eden that he would be coming. He would be coming into a land that had been devastated by conquest, where the army of the Assyrians had eaten everything, where they had absolutely destroyed everything, where the land was ravaged.

[13:38] Yes, Jerusalem had been spared, but everything else had been devastated. It wasn't that the kingdom was untouched. It was that the Lord demonstrated by showing just how far the enemy could come.

[13:56] He demonstrated his power, but I say when they will come no farther. I say who will be delivered. I say who will be spared.

[14:06] He had to say, well, that's a bit rough on the people that don't get spared, isn't it? That's a bit rough on all the other people throughout the rest of Judea and all the people in northern Israel and so on. God doesn't make mistakes.

[14:18] God doesn't do anything that is wrong. Whom he spares, he spares out of his good grace and providence and mercy, but partly also because they are trusting in him.

[14:31] It doesn't mean if you trust in him nothing bad will happen to you, but it does mean that those whom he would allow to perish would be gathered to himself, would be taken to himself, would be part of his plan of salvation.

[14:46] Sometimes the Lord does allow his people to perish because the nature of that perishing and the way in which they witness faithful unto death is part of his plan of salvation.

[15:01] salvation, and it may be a means by which others are brought to faith when they see the faithful suffering of those who endure faithfully to the end.

[15:12] It is not a sign God has abandoned his people. It is rather a sign that he has everything in the palm of his hand. He holds everything in perfection.

[15:22] The Lord is good, a stronghold in the day of trouble. He knoweth then the trust in him. See, part of the thing in this world is that because God hasn't yet destroyed the world, because God hasn't yet sent thunderbolts and lightning and their helmets all melt with fervent heat, people can, as the Assyrians perhaps have done, form a wrong estimate of the power of the Lord Jehovah.

[15:53] From his suspending of punishment, they think, oh, well, he can't do it. He's not able to do it. That's why he hasn't done it. He hasn't zapped us with lightning bolts. He hasn't made the earth open and swallowed us up.

[16:04] Come on, why hasn't he? Obviously, he can't. He can't do it. He's not able to. That's the reason why nothing has happened. You know, Peter makes reference to precisely this kind of attitude when he says, you know, knowing this first, there shall come in the last day scoffers, walking after their own lusts and saying, where is the promise of his coming?

[16:25] For since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation. And so, likewise, the Assyrians think, oh, well, you know, 150 years ago, you know, we got delivered.

[16:37] God said he was going to destroy us, but hey, we survived that time, we're going to survive this time. So what if Jehovah says we're going to be destroyed? Doesn't matter. Look, we're still here. Nothing's happened.

[16:48] We conquered all the world right up to the walls of Jerusalem. We're about to take it as well. Nothing can stop us. He gives time. The Lord, in his mercy, gives time for the penitent to reach safety.

[17:04] The Lord is good, a stronghold in the day of trouble. He gives time for those whose hearts he will touch to turn and repent and come to him that they might be safe, a stronghold in the day of trouble.

[17:19] He knoweth them that trust in him. And he gives ample opportunity to the wicked to repent if only they would.

[17:30] But, of course, unbelief abuses his patience and says, oh, well, he can't do it. He's not going to do it. If he was going to do it, he'd have done it by now. No, if he was going to do it, he would wait his perfect time.

[17:43] He would give every last opportunity. There is that phrase in the world, of course, you know, give somebody enough rope, let them hang themselves. God is not so callous in that respect.

[17:56] But he gives people enough time such that if they were of a mind to repent, there would be ample opportunity. You see, this judgment that the Lord sends as described in the book of Nahum here, it's not an either or.

[18:11] Either the Lord is good or the Lord is sending judgment. The Lord is both. He is good and merciful and kind and he sends judgment upon what?

[18:23] He sends judgment upon evil. We think, oh, well, yeah, that's fine. Of course, we're all against evil. The only thing is that nobody thinks of themselves as evil.

[18:34] Nobody thinks that they themselves are worthy of judgment or chastisement or, you know, punishment in any sense. Everybody always defines themselves as being good.

[18:45] It doesn't matter who they are. It doesn't matter what they're doing. If somebody is, say, a drug dealer, then they might say, oh, no, I'm good. I make sure my customers have a good product.

[18:56] None of this nonsense chopped up with bleach or, you know, baking soda or whatever. No, I give them a real deal. I make sure that what they pay for is what they get. I take my customers seriously.

[19:06] No, I'm a good man, a good businessman. And the people trafficker might say, oh, I'm giving these people a new opportunity in the West. I'm taking them where they want to go.

[19:16] Yeah, they're paying for it, but, you know, I pack them in the trucks, I get them through the border grass, I give them a new start, I give them a fresh start. I'm a good person. I'm doing well, providing for my family, I'm looking after them, I'm doing good.

[19:30] Nobody can say I'm bad. Who's anyone to judge? And everybody reckons they are good. Everybody reckons their ideas are good, but they're very ready to say that somebody else is evil.

[19:41] What is your definition? Who do you trust in terms of good and evil? On the radio the other day in the car, I heard somebody being interviewed by a BBC journalist and this person literally described, they were an American citizen and literally described their current president as an evil monster on air, in public, you know, and whatever their definition of that was, whatever their reasons for it, some people, of course, will not like the current president, others will think he's great, but the fact of the matter is you have elections every four years, you have elections every four, every five years, you know, presidents come, presidents go.

[20:20] In some ways, you might say, what's the big deal? But the fact of the matter is, the world has decided, this person is evil, that person is good. Why are they evil? They might be evil, say, because they've restricted some access to abortion.

[20:35] Well, what about abortion? It's the killing of unborn children. Is that going to be a good deal? Oh, it's going to be a good deal to do that. Somebody's evil if they stop that. They might be seeking to restrict practices of immorality or restricting, perhaps, if somebody passed a law in some country saying, oh, you're not able to teach children that sodomy is just as good as marriage.

[20:56] And I say, oh, that's evil, that's discriminatory, that's homophobic, or whatever the case may be. You know, what is your definition of evil? How do you describe this is good, this is bad?

[21:06] The flavor of the month attitude of society is like shifting sands. You know, what is okay one year is hideous to the next? You know, people had, in sporting events, you might be completely non-discriminatory, and they pointed, oh, this event took place in the 1970s, when, say, all the black players in the English leagues that they were pitted in a team against, oh, what are polite players?

[21:32] And this was meant at the time to encourage, look how many good black players we've got. This is the rising talent, the rising star. It was meant as an encouraging thing at the time, and now, of course, it's regarded as hideously racist.

[21:45] Bringing a black team against a white team instead of mingling them in together, that's awful. And you see, opinions change, even if people are well-intentioned at the time.

[21:55] What is good and what is evil? You can't go by society. You can't go by what journalists will tell you, because they'll have different opinions depending which paper they write for.

[22:08] They'll have different opinions depending which network they represent. They'll have different opinions depending which political party they support. You can't go by the media.

[22:19] A lot of people do. You can't go by how many people friend you on Facebook. You can't go by what's popular just now. What's popular one minute can be absolutely terrible the next minute.

[22:30] Things can change absolutely overnight. Public opinion is so fickle. What do you define as good or evil? The Lord is good it says.

[22:41] What does that mean? Is something good just because, say, it makes us feel good or it's positive? You know, does God give his instructions and commands because it helps us, because it's a benefit to us?

[22:53] Does God rule out certain types of sexual behaviour because they're medically harmful? or is it just the case that if God says it it is by definition good or by definition evil if he forbids it?

[23:10] Well, so often we find that what God does command is in fact for our good. Is in fact a benefit.

[23:21] You know, you've got instructions in Deuteronomy about, you know, clearing up human waste so that it doesn't pollute the camp. So you have it in a set place so that it's buried and covered over so you don't spread infection.

[23:35] But there's no point trying to say to the Israelites thousands of years before bacteria was discovered or understood by microscopes or, you know, a sense of hygiene and so on saying to them now look, all these little bacteria they're going to infect you they're going to make you sick and they're going to spread infection throughout the camp so make sure you bury all the human waste outside.

[23:57] You know, God just gives them a command. He gives them a command concerning sanitation which is thousands of years ahead of its time. We might say inspired. How else is somebody going to know these things?

[24:10] He talks about making sure that you wash your hands before you eat. Now in the days of the Pharisees this had turned into just a very ritual sort of trickling of water over the fingers and wasn't any actual hygienic benefit but that's not what it was in the law.

[24:25] It was about rinsing, washing your hands in water before you touch anything, before you eat, before you do anything. Now what is that if not the positive preventative hygiene and benefit God gives us?

[24:40] It is to our benefit. The safe behaviour in relationships is to our benefit. chastity before marriage fidelity within it keeps disease away, keeps away the spread of all the other infections and all the problems that afflict so much of our society.

[24:59] It is to our benefit but is that why it is good? Yes it is a benefit to us but at the end of the day by God's authority what is good is good not because of how it benefits us but because God has said that it is the Lord is good a strong hold in the day of trouble and he knoweth them that trust in him.

[25:28] Now this is something that is important as well for the church as well as for the world because there is a tendency in the church for us to think God's not bothered about this God's not bothered what I do about that God doesn't really care about these things if God has said in his word that he does then he does God does not lie and God does not change and the difficulty if we spin the coin round a bit and say instead of heads it's tails and say well the reason God says these things is for our benefit it's for our good because he knows that it will be of good to us and we make the ultimate end us we become as gods if we say that God only says these things because he wants to benefit us God only gives these commands because he wants my benefit my good my enjoyment my blessing so that's great thank you Lord but you know I'll decide what pleases me

[26:29] I'll decide what benefits me and what is good for me thanks for your advice Lord but you know I'll do it my way and we put ourselves in the place of God it is the oldest trick in the book of the evil one it is the oldest sin in the Bible man seeking to be as God to put himself in the place of God who do you trust in the definitions of good and evil who do you trust in terms of what is regarded as positive in this world and what is regarded as negative things are regarded as positive now which only a generation ago would have been regarded as criminal what changes human nature changes shifting signs change human opinion flavor of the month changes God does not change the Lord is good now this is something else that we have to bear in mind is that when

[27:29] God punishes evil he is doing good it is good to punish and destroy evil that is part and parts of what makes for a safe and good society you know the Lord inspires Paul to write to the Romans in chapter 13 he says rulers are not a terror to good works but to the evil will thou then not be afraid of the power do that which is good and thou shalt have praise of the same for he is the minister or servant of God to thee for good but if thou do that which is evil be afraid for he beareth not the sword in vain for he is the minister or servant of God a revenger to execute wrath upon him that doeth evil most of us would understand if somebody steals from you they should be caught and they should be punished not because we delight in their suffering but you want the law to be enforced you also want others to see this is what happens if you steal you get into trouble you get fined you get put in prison former age our nation had capital punishment so you knew that if you took somebody's life your own life would be forfeited exactly as it says in the bible if you raped somebody you would be executed then your own life would be forfeited and one benefit of that of course is that it means somebody is not then going to be going and committing those same crimes again mistakes did get made sometimes but god doesn't make mistakes when god gives his laws and commands they are good it is good to destroy evil it is good to overthrow evil and what god is doing in this chapter and the subsequent chapters of name is he is overthrowing evil and he is preserving and upholding the good if you let's say you move into a new house and the house maybe hasn't been occupied for a while and let's say there is a bit of grime that is built up and there is little beasties running all in the place and the kitchen is pretty filthy and you can't cook any food in here what is one of the first things you have to do you have to clean it from top to bottom now do you stop and get all emotional say look at the bacteria there is poor little bacteria there is poor little bugs and I am just burning them up in the incinerator what a shame they are going to die if I put all this detergent and listen look at all these wee beasties this is their home what a shame

[30:03] I don't want to destroy that no we get busy with the cloth we get out the bleach we chuck the stuff in the fire that needs burn you gouge out all the grime you put in the boiling water you steam clean the place you get as busy as you can you make it clean and you do not shed a tear for all the bacteria and the beasties and the grime and all the microscopic little organisms whose home has now been taken away because you have moved them you don't shed a tear about the creepy crawlies that won't be able to prosper now in your kitchen you don't shed a tear about the fact that when you look under the fridge now instead of a big inches of grime suddenly it's all clean and shining and sparkling new you don't think oh how dreadful oh how terrible it's all clean now it's so surgical it's so kind of clinical now oh that's that's not nice anymore yes it is it's good to be clean it's good to have the evil taken away it's good to be able to breathe clean air it is good to overthrow evil you cannot have a situation where good and evil are treated as though they are moral equivalents you have to decide what is good and stick to it and you have to decide what then by definition is evil and oppose it you can't say well

[31:29] I'm eating my food here on the table and there's all the wee beasties running across and they're the spider with its web up the corner of the kitchen cabinet that's okay they've got a perfect right to be here just like me live and let live you're not going to do that you're not going to say well you know of course I love my wife or my daughter remember my family whatever so it's okay if somebody wants to rock them or attack them or assault them I'm going to say well you know that's okay that's perfectly your right to express yourself and I'll just sort of let you do that no I will not I'm going to defend that which is right I'm going to defend that over which one has responsibility I'm going to seek to oppose evil and defend what is good that is what we should be doing but what is good to the guy who wants to assault the defenseless female in the street he thinks this is good I do what I want I express myself I get to enjoy myself at somebody else's expense that's fine it's not fine it is wrong not because the law may forbid it it's wrong because God says it is wrong and God will oppose evil as surely as he defends good the Lord is good and therefore what the Lord commands is good because God commands it regardless of what benefits might be to our society or to ourselves as individuals we will benefit from God's laws and commands and teachings we will be the better off for it we will be enhanced in our lives but that is not why we do it that is secondly primary consideration is we do it because the Lord says it and if he is the Lord of our lives if he is the Lord of heaven and earth the God of all or not the Lord at all then we submit to him first of all and we trust that he is good and if he says it then the Lord is good a stronghold in the day of trouble he knoweth them that trust in him he also knows those that want to say well you know

[33:35] God says this but society nowadays you know they say something different so we've got to be reasonable and reach some kind of accommodation between the two that may be fine if you're a politician having to do the art of the possible that may be fine if you're the arm of the state who has to gradually change people's minds and if you're following in principle and in your heart what the Lord says then it is God first last and always who do you trust you trust the media depends on what side they support depends on what party they belong to depends on which politician they're backing do you trust the world and it's changing shifting opinions do you trust educationalists who are not exactly neutral half the time do you trust what do you read on the news there was a time when the BBC could even trust it as objective and absolutely straight down the line that's why people tuned into them during the war because they knew if the British were getting beaten they would say the British are getting beaten the enemy are on the attack French are getting beaten

[34:35] Americans maybe on the back foot the Russians are getting beaten maybe the Axis forces are triumphing but likewise if they won a victory you knew it could be relied upon because it was absolutely objective and truthful that is not the case now with any media outlet there is always the spin there is always the loaded agenda where do you go how do you know what is truth who do you trust what is good and what is evil the Lord is good a stronghold in the day of trouble he is in the process and in the means and in the business of overthrowing evil of throwing down that which is evil that which is against him and we are defining evil and defining good in terms of the Lord the Lord Jesus Christ that which favours and acknowledges and adores him is by definition good because

[35:37] God says it and that which opposes him or puts other prophets or other religions or philosophies or man on the same level as him is by definition evil because it cannot be good because it is the opposite of what God says thus we define good and evil in our relation to the Lord he knoweth them that trust in him and this judgment this overthrowing of evil this is part and parcel of how the Lord brings in the good his people are in the midst of the turmoil in the midst of the storm in the midst of the hassle just like they are here in Neha just as they were in the time of the flood what do we read you know in Peter when it says now the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night yes that's what we read about how it's going to come suddenly the world that then was being overflowed with water perished but the heavens and the earth which are now by the same water kept in store reserved of the fire against the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men he's going to make a new heaven and a new earth never seeing then all these things shall be dissolved what manner of persons ought it to be in all holy conversation and godliness looking for and haste into the coming of the day of God when the heavens being on fire shall be dissolved and the elements shall melt with fervent heat nevertheless we according to his promise look for new heavens and a new earth when in dwelleth righteousness revelation says 21 verse 1 i saw a new heaven and a new earth for the first heaven and the first earth were passed away and there was no more sea now the bringing in of a new heaven and new earth is not going to be a mild easy quiet thing it's going it's going to be an upheaval it's going to be a huge event it's going to be turmoil it's going to be difficult to live through it's kind of like in a sense in creation times it's like childbirth but what is brought forth is life and blessing in all its fullness the new heaven and the new earth why what's happened to the old it's been burned up it's been destroyed it has been cleansed away and the new has been brought in you don't weep any tears over the destruction of the evil the filth the dirt any more than you weep tears over the bacteria and the beasties and the grime that is gone from your kitchen when you clean it you get rid of it and you begin to live and so

[38:19]  God gets rid of the evil just as he is doing here in the book of Nahum just as he will do at the last day just as he is seeking to do now in our present day for every soul that he raises up to himself and causes to be born again to Christ it is another little light that has been switched on in the darkness another little bit of darkness that cannot now find a foothold star by star in the night sky it is lit up an individual soul by individual soul the darkness of this world is likewise gradually banished this is something into which we are called to play a part you do not judge and assess the Lord by the judgments and assessments of this fallen and godless world who do you trust what is good what is evil the Lord is good a stronghold in the day of trouble and he knoweth them but trust in him you how you should you