(3) The shield of his mighty men is red; his soldiers are clothed in scarlet. The chariots come with flashing metal on the day he musters them; the cypress spears are brandished.
The Church of Oprah and other vague spiritualities like to emphasize the fact that God is love. It is true that God is loving. As I've written before, we have a hard time imagining just what His hesed is all about. We can get parts of it, but we can't really comprehend it.
This passage tells us that there is a side of God that you don't want to be on. One theory about the color of these shields is that they are red from getting bloody in battle. In other words, they remain red because the blood of God's enemies is regularly splashed on them. I'm not sure how that fits into Oprah's image of her god.
The book of Nahum is a prophecy against Nineveh. While the city did repent in the days of Jonah they turned back to their evil ways and God used Nahum to proclaim a judgment against them. God always takes wickedness seriously.
This is why it is so important to come to the cross and live. Apart from the saving work of Christ we are as doomed as Nineveh was. I'd rather be behind the warriors with the bloody shields than in front of them, wouldn't you?
2 comments:
Jason,
I am very impressed with your blog and how much time you have put into making it speak God’s Word. I just released my blog http://awalkoffaith.wordpress.com and am excited about how God will use it to transform the hearts of men and women who are hungry for the Word and are ready to walk with Him. It would mean the world to me if you could check out my blog and share it with those around you.
God bless and thank you for taking the time to look at my blog.
Michelle Jensen
P. S.
Do you have any prayer requests for your blog?
Thanks Michelle. It's something I try to discipline myself to do daily so that I get a bit deeper in what I've read that day as part of my regular reading. As you can see, I'm very slowly going through the prophets in my ESV Study Bible. I'm looking forward to breaking through to the NT!
My prayer is just that Christ would be magnified through it and that people would give God glory for who He is.
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