“And all who look at you will shrink from you and say, ‘Wasted is Nineveh. Who will grieve for her?'”
– Nahum 3:7
So here’s the picture here in Nahum 3. Let’s make sure we get it clearly. This is God bringing judgment on a world power. One day, God, in his proper time will make clear that there is no world power apart from him, that all the mightiest, most powerful, most wealthy nations will one day be laid waste. This is the whole picture we see in Revelation, specifically depicted in Babylon with all its might and all its power, all its wealth, all its pleasures, all its possessions will one day in an instant, you read Revelation, those final chapters, in a single hour it’s laid waste. All that’s been built up over centuries just like that is laid waste.
Nahum 3:7 Reminds Us to Keep World Powers in Proper Perspective
So God, help us to see world powers today in proper perspective. God, help us to see the United States of America in proper perspective. Help us to see Russia and India and North and South Korea and the United Kingdom, and Saudi Arabia and Iran, and Qatar and Brazil, and we could go on and on and list every country in the world knowing that one day they will all be laid waste before you and you will be shown as supreme over them all.
Nahum 3:7 Reminds Us to Not Hope in the Powers of this World
So God, help us not to hope in the power of this world, the possessions and the pleasures of this world, in the wealth of this world. God, help us to spend the wealth and pleasures and possessions you’ve given us for the spread of your glory in the world.
Among all the nations, as we pray almost every day for unreached people, groups, on this podcast, God, hear our prayers and use our lives for the spread of the gospel to all the peoples and all the nations of the world, knowing that in the end, Jesus alone will stand as supreme over all.
Praying for a Proper Perspective
So God, give us proper perspective on everything we see going around us in the world, on everything we see going on around us in the world. Help us to trust in you continually and firmly. Keep us from putting our trust and our hope in the stuff, in the nations or anything else in this world. God, help us to live for the world to come, for your kingdom above all. We pray all of this in Jesus name, in light of Nahum 3:7. Amen.
David Platt serves as a pastor in metro Washington, D.C. He is the founder of Radical.
David received his Ph.D. from New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary and is the author of Don’t Hold Back, Radical, Follow Me, Counter Culture, Something Needs to Change, Before You Vote, as well as the multiple volumes of the Christ-Centered Exposition Commentary series.
Along with his wife and children, he lives in the Washington, D.C. metro area.
