The Bringer Of Good News

This little book written by the prophet Nahum is no for the squeamish! "Horsemen charging, flashing sword and glittering spear, lots of slain, heaps of corpses, dead bodies without end..." (Nahum 3:3) It describes in vivid detail what was going to happen to the great Assyrian empire and its capital city of Nineveh. It all collapsed in the year 612 BC — the end of one of the most blood-thirsty empires the world had even seen.

Nahum's prophet's eye saw it all as if Nineveh had already been destroyed, although it was still in the future when he lived and wrote about it. He could do this because God had given him a vision of what was to come as it surely did, exactly as the prophet said.

But there was another message — a word from God for his own people and what a beautiful word it is. It is the picture of a messenger racing over the hills to tell the people the good news of the destruction of Nineveh, so that now God's people can have peace — shalom — that great experience of all-round well-being.

That is a lovely picture of what the Gospel of Jesus brings into the troubled lives of people and nations. The Gospel is good news — the great shalom of peace with God, the ultimate well-being.

Prayer

How we thank you, O Lord, for the Good News of the Gospel. Amen.