Devotional
Daily Bible
God is jealous, and the LORD avenges; The LORD avenges and is furious. The LORD will take vengeance on His adversaries, And He reserves wrath for His enemies; The LORD is slow to anger and great in power, And will not at all acquit the wicked.
The LORD has His way In the whirlwind and in the storm, And the clouds are the dust of His feet. He rebukes the sea and makes it dry, And dries up all the rivers. Bashan and Carmel wither, And the flower of Lebanon wilts.
The mountains quake before Him, The hills melt, And the earth heaves at His presence, Yes, the world and all who dwell in it. Who can stand before His indignation? And who can endure the fierceness of His anger? His fury is poured out like fire, And the rocks are thrown down by Him.
The LORD is good, A stronghold in the day of trouble; And He knows those who trust in Him.
The Lord God Jehovah is a jealous God. He has no rival to His claims, though He is slow to anger despite provocation from the pride and self-willed of men. If He must punish and take vengeance of His adversaries with great fury, it is only after long patient endurance with evil, and until it is useless to wait longer for them to repent. When His warnings are ignored and His grace despised, and the world shows its scorn of Him by its treatment of those whom He favours, not fearing to raise its hand against His inheritance, then He will recompense tribulation on those who trouble and “'take vengeance on them that know not God” (2 Thessalonians 1:6-9). His power is infinite, and He will use it to assert His right to His own workmanship, which Satan, who has the power of death, has spoiled by introducing lust and self-will, so bringing the world under His power.
FA Blair, An Exposition of Nahum
Charles Simeon, a minister from Scotland, was powerfully effective, writes Alistair Begg. He goes on and says: "There were correctives in Simeon’s life that came from all kinds of sources. John Thornton, who I think was the church warden in his time, wrote on one occasion to his vicar, 'Watch continually over your own spirit, and do all in love. We must grow downward in humility to soar heavenward. I should recommend you having a watchful eye over yourself, for generally speaking as is the minister so are the people.'" Thinking of another author, Samuel Rutherford who said; 'Be humbled,' he writes, 'walk softly, down … with your top sail: stoop, stoop; it is a low entry to go in at heaven’s [gate].'"
References
See: https://www.truthforlife.org/resources/sermon/standing-firm-in-the-grace-of-god/
John Thornton, quoted in Hugh Evan Hopkins, Charles Simeon of Cambridge (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1977), 43–44.
Rutherford to Cardoness, Elder, Aberdeen, 1637, in Joshua Redivivus; or Three Hundred and Fifty-Two Religions Letters, by the Late Eminently Pious Mr. Samuel Rutherfoord, 11th ed. (Glasgow: William Bell, 1796), 214.
