Overcoming Opposition to the will of God

I love studying the Old Testament because we see real life situation and we discover quickly that human nature has not changed one bit over the millennia. In our walk through the entire Bible at Southern Calvert Baptist Church, we have are in the Old Testament book written by the prophet Ezra. In a previous lesson we looked at Ezra 1, where the pagan king Cyrus surrendered to the will of God. King Cyrus was greatly influenced by the prophet Daniel. Upon reading the prophet Jeremiah, a scroll that Daniel had brought to Babylon when taken captive, king Cyrus surrendered to the will of God and decided to send the Jews back to Jerusalem. King Cyrus also promised to support the rebuilding of the Temple and sent the articles from the Temple back to Israel. This is a miracle. The children of Israel who were taken in Babylonian captivity finally get to go home. The Jews who were left in Jerusalem should have been excited that the city was going to be restored and the Temple rebuilt. On top of all of that, the local Jews were going to be reunited with their exiled brethren. Anyone who has ever tried to live out the will of God in their daily lives knows that there is always going to be opposition to that decision, often times, from family. It’s still shocking to experience. These exiled Jews are about to experience that opposition as they enter Jerusalem to rebuild. 

God’s Righteous Judgments

Once again, I sit here in front of my monitor writing down my thoughts on this next Bible lesson that we are teaching in our Connect Groups at Southern Calvert Baptist Church. This week, we are going to dive down in the book of the prophet Nahum. The Bible presents the nature of God, in other words, the character of God to humanity. The main character trait that people remember about God is that He is love. Some people ignore all of the other character traits of the Lord and simply focus in on one aspect, love. God definitely is love. He is also righteous and just. He punishes sin. He protects victims. He takes revenge for those who cannot defend themselves. When we examine God, we need the full picture of who He is. The book of Nahum presents God as being wrathful. Nahum explains to the readers WHY God judges people and nations. The focus of this week’s lesson is the righteous judgments of God.