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All right, amen. Nahum chapter number two. So really last week, chapter number one, if you want to get fancy with this, if you want just a few phrases to kind of break down the book, something easy to remember, we go with it like this, okay? Chapter one is really Nineveh's doomed decree. It's God saying, this is what's coming, this is what you can expect. Chapter two, which we're going to talk about tonight is doomed depicted, okay? Doomed depicted, and that's basically what this entire chapter is about. And then of course next week, we're going to talk about doomed deserve, why they deserve what we're reading tonight, this depiction of absolute destruction. Within this chapter here is a great lesson on why God is doing this. And so in other words, really what you're dealing with here is a post-Christian era, okay? That's what Nahum is dealing with. Remember that the Jonah era ended violence, but what has happened now, okay? Well, one generation went off, another generation has now risen up and they have installed paganism. They have forgotten the word of God, and that has come with consequences, okay? And what I'm calling their religion, the religion of the Assyrians though, they'd probably tell you, oh, we don't have one, we're pagan, we are God. Hey, it is paganism, and paganism has a very special thing that it brings to a society, okay? And that special thing gets the attention of God no matter what nation it is on this planet. Now, keep your place there in Nahum chapter two, but go to Proverbs chapter number six real quick. Proverbs chapter number six. So remember this, okay? The Jonah era ended violence and the post-pagan era rendered arrogance. That's what you're gonna find here, okay? You're gonna find arrogance. We talked a little bit about it last week, but what has prompted God to actually declare and to depict their own destruction to them, and what you're gonna find is arrogance. And this is written down in Proverbs chapter six why this happens. So if you look down at verse number 16, look what it says. It says, these six things doth the Lord hate, yea, seven, are an abomination unto him. Now, that doesn't just say, well, this is only for the believers, only for Christians. This is just across the world. God hates these things, and look what the very first one is. A proud look, okay, a proud look. Now, why would I bring that up? Well, you're gonna see that in this chapter today as we are gonna go back to 2 Kings, and we're gonna look at the words of the king of Assyria, and you're gonna find that he definitely was a person along with his men that had a proud look, and we know that God hates it, okay? And so if God hates it, and God is all-knowing and everywhere, we know that it gets his attention, and it will commence a response from him. So verse 17 says, a proud look, a lying tongue, and hands that shed innocent blood. Remember, that is what also God hates, and God is telling us through the prophet Nahum and other places as well that the Assyrians were doing this, okay? Not only were they prideful, not only were they extremely arrogant, but they also were shedding innocent blood, a thing that God definitely hates. Look at verse number 18, an heart that deviseth wicked imaginations, feet that be swift in running to mischief, and of course, the list goes on. We're not gonna get into the rest of it, but those three things, verse 16, 17, and 18, are going to be seen today throughout this study. Now go ahead and go back to Nahum chapter number two, and we'll get started here. So again, the title of the sermon is Doom Depicted, okay? Nahum is giving us a prophecy. Remember what prophecy is? Prophecy is prehistory, okay? And I have to bring that up frequently because so many people love to go to the timelines that are out there, and they say, well, Nahum lived at this time, and you know, Zunacharib lived at this time, so it wasn't talking about that. And what happens when you start getting off into the weeds with secular dates, okay, they start to make the Bible seem like it doesn't make sense, okay? Prophecy is prehistory. So when we're looking at prophecy that is fulfilled, we need to understand that that is the history that we stick with, that is the history that we believe and trust, okay? So as long as we understand that, it is going to be very well. Now, paganism has set in. We are in a post-Jonah, post-Christian era here. Now go back to chapter one real quick. We're just gonna look at verse number 15 and take a look at a few things. But what is special about paganism? Okay, well, if you just kinda do a quick search on paganism, or God forbid you run into one of them out in town and they tell you about it, you're going to find that basically they'll say this. Well, we are the other option. So they look at it as you've got all these other religions in the world, and then there's us, okay? And we, instead of looking at the world as sinful and sorrowful, we look at the world as joyful and pleasurable. And of course, there's nature worship and a lot of things like that involved in it as well, which they may not necessarily be upfront about. When I lived in Washington, they have a, I don't think they have this here. Maybe they do, and I'm just not aware of it. They have a big pagan festival every year over there in Northern Washington. I think it's in Tacoma, Washington. And I've met more than I like to admit, Wiccans. Hey, people that practice witchcraft or Wicca. And they always love to go to the pagan festival. I'm just like, well, I always ask them, how does that make sense? Like, don't you got, like, aren't you a witch? You know, what are you doing at a pagan festival? Don't they like reject all religion? Oh, they're brothers and they got a lot of the same views and so on and so forth. And so then, you know, you just basically come to the conclusion that we're always talking about. There's only two religions in the world, the religion of human achievement and the religion of divine accomplishment. So there is no difference. But because that's their framework for what they believe, then what were the other option? Okay, what does that do? Well, that elevates man, okay? Now, a lot of these other religions that are out there in the world, you know, we were against all of them, obviously, if it's not the biblical religion, but some of them are against pride and arrogance, okay? And that is one thing that I've noticed that separates paganism from the rest of the religions that are in the world. And that is not to say that they don't have arrogant people, we know they do. But the point is here that paganism breeds something, okay, it breeds something. And we know that that is extreme arrogance every single time. And that is the direction, by the way, that our country is headed in as well. You're looking at a nation that once accepted the word of God in great detail, in great numbers, and now they have gone the extreme other way, the other direction, and that's exactly what you're seeing in the West, but especially in the United States of America right now. So again, chapter one is the doom decreed. It's God saying, hey, this is what is going to happen. And then of course, chapter two, it's the depiction, it's the description, the detailed, vivid words that paint the picture of what will happen. But we want to start right here so we can get the context leading into chapter two. Look at verse 15, okay, look at verse number 15, because with the verse 15 here and then the first few verses in chapter two, not only do you find a prophecy, but you also find a double fulfillment, okay? So verse 15 says this. Behold upon the mountains the feet of him that bringeth good tidings, that publisheth peace. O Judah, keep thy solemn feasts, perform thy vows. Now look at this. For the wicked shall no more pass through thee, he is utterly cut off. Okay, we're going to come back to that because that is a quote unquote point of contention that atheists like to use and say, wow, you know, the Nahum said that, you know, Judah wouldn't have any more enemies come through and then the Babylonians came through. Okay, we'll break that down and that won't be an issue. Okay, now go to chapter two and look at verse number one, because it continues right on. Okay, so God is telling Israel, He's telling Judah, in other words, hey, be strong, there is coming a point in time where the wicked will no longer pass through you and you will no longer have to deal with this. Okay, look at verse one. He, okay, it just starts off with that word there. He, and who is that he? Well, you'd have to get that from verse 15. The wicked shall no more pass through thee. He is utterly cut off, okay. So, who are we talking about? King of Assyria, okay. He that dasheth in pieces is come up before thy face. Okay, and again, remember last week, we read a little bit from Isaiah, talked a little bit about second Kings and how Sennacherib sent Rabshakah to basically terrorize the nation with words. And so this is what is going on here. God is saying, I've seen this, okay. This wicked person here, he that dasheth in pieces. Remember, these people are pagans now. They are filled, saturated with extreme arrogance. And what does that lead to? Well, it leads to the rest of the abominations that you read about in Proverbs chapter number six, okay. They're swift to shed innocent blood and things of that nature. Verse one again, he says, he that dasheth in pieces is come up before thy face, okay. Now, look at what he says next. He, or he says, keep the munition. Okay, it sounds like ammunition. Keep the munition. So he's saying, keep your weapons, keep the munition, watch the way, make thy loins strong, fortify thy power mightily. Look down here at verse two, for the Lord hath turned away the excellency of Jacob as the excellency of Israel. For the emptiers have emptied them out and marred their vine branches, okay. So in verse one, God is saying, he, this wicked Assyrian has come up before your face, Judah, okay. And then he goes on and says, keep the munition, watch the way, make thy loins strong, fortify thy power. What you're gonna find in this chapter is that God challenges arrogance with prophetic embarrassments. That's what he does. So in other words, what God will do is he will tell the enemy outright exactly what he's gonna do. He'll paint the picture, give you the words, and then watch how you can do absolutely nothing about it. So God tells the king of Assyria, hey, this is what's gonna happen to you. I've decreed this. Here's exactly how it's gonna go down. So go ahead and step up, you know, fortify yourself, do what you wanna do. You know, bring your armies up, check your worthies, check all the nobles, stand strong, do whatever you wanna do, and you're not gonna be able to stop it, okay. That is how God deals with arrogance. God challenges arrogance with prophetic embarrassments. I mean, think about it, okay. God is telling us that in Revelation, right, there will come a time in the future that people look up to heaven and see Jesus Christ and the saints, and they're like, whoa, hide us from him who's hit on the throne, okay. Hide us from that guy. You know, God tells you what else. Well, he tells you all the stuff that the antichrist is gonna do, exactly how he's gonna be destroyed. And it's like, it's an embarrassment, right. Isn't that embarrassing to be told, hey, here's what's gonna happen to you, and there ain't nothing you can do about it. There's no way that you can stop it, okay. And so that's what we start to see here in Nahum. Now look at verse number two. The Lord hath turned away the excellency of Jacob. Hey, remember, Jacob is another name for Israel. As the excellency of Israel, there's my proof. Look at the rest of the verse. For the emptiers have emptied them out and marred their vine branches. So this prophecy is coming forth almost like a conversation. You've got the Assyrians, you've got the nation of Judah, which is still standing during this time. And then, of course, we talked about this last week, the Northern Kingdom of Israel, they're already gone. They've already been taken away by the Assyrians, which by the way, fueled their pride and their arrogance. And so God's saying, yeah, I've turned away the excellency of Israel. They're no longer a factor. And so therefore you think that you have one up on me. You think that you stand a chance, but you don't. Okay, and look at this here in verse number three. The shield of his mighty men is made red. And there's all kinds of debates on what this means here. But what color would a shield be? Well, it's made out of metal. Well, obviously it's a metallic color. So if it's being made red by a nether army, that would indicate blood being transferred to those shields. So verse three, the shield of his mighty men is made red. Look at this, the valiant men are in scarlet. The chariot shall be with flaming torches in the day of his preparation, and the fir trees shall be terribly shaken. So this is depicting here a battle between what I believe is the Babylonian empire coming in to conquer Nineveh and the Assyrians, okay? Which we know obviously happened because the Bible tells us it. And even secular history cannot deny that or get out of that, okay? The way they have to mess with this is to change dates, to try to cast doubt on the Bible. But what's the significance with scarlet in there? Well, if you're familiar with reading through Daniel, what did Daniel get in chapter five for interpreting the visions? Remember, he got a scarlet robe, he got scarlet garment. And so I believe that is God giving us a clue there on context, that this is the Babylonian empire coming in being used by God to take out the Assyrians because of their pride and arrogance. Now let's go back here real quickly to chapter number one and just talk about this here, okay? Verse 15 says, behold upon the mountains, the feet of him that bringeth good tidings, that publisheth peace. And obviously we know that Jonah did that in Nineveh. We know that Paul quotes that in Romans chapter 10. And of course it says, O Judah, keep thy solemn feast, perform thy vows. So at this timeframe, the southern kingdom of Judah is all that's left that has the oracles of God, that has the word of God. And God is saying, hey, I know your king Hezekiah, at this point in time, he is strong. I'm going to encourage him through my prophet, damn, through my prophet Isaiah. And what God's command for them is, hey, keep doing what you're doing. Keep being that beacon of light to the world, okay? And then he says this, for the wicked shall no more pass through thee, he is utterly cut off. Now, obviously that is prophetic at this time, but that also is going to prove to be a double prophecy. And you say, well, how can you say that? Well, remember what we know. Hey, what do we know? Well, we know that God said right here, for the wicked shall no more pass through thee, okay? We know that the wicked Babylonian empire passed through. We know that the Medo-Persian empire passed through. We know that the Grecian empire passed through. We know that the Roman empire dashed in pieces and thus scattered them throughout the rest of the world. So we know who also the real Israel of God is, that is us. And what that verse is basically telling us in today's day and age, is that it has not been fulfilled yet. In other words, the Assyrian is also a picture of the Antichrist, and that is not to say that the Antichrist is gonna come from Syria somewhere. I said it, I didn't say that, okay? I said the Assyrian is a picture of how the Antichrist operates. That is something that we are to learn from this. You have to, you know, when you guys are reading these minor prophets, you have to ask yourself this question, if you wanna be a good student of the Bible, what is God, why did God preserve this for us? And a lot of people don't ask themselves that, and therefore they miss the larger picture and the lesson that is set forth in these smaller books. Okay? And of course, you know that the word of God cannot fail, so that means double dual fulfillment. Okay? It's not a problem in scripture. It's very easy if you're saved to understand what that means. So again, we're talking about doom depicted. God is depicting the doom and destruction of Nineveh, of the Assyrian empire by the Babylonian empire, which is now on the rise. Okay, look at verse number four. The Bible says, the chariots shall rage in the streets. They shall jostle one against another in the broadways. They shall seem like torches. They shall run like lightnings. I've got this pamphlet that someone left on my car a couple of years ago, and it was, these are proofs that the Bible is true, and this verse is in there, and they say the Bible predicted automobiles, airplanes, and tanks, and I'm not knocking that, okay? But when we just take things like that and keep repeating them, okay, it can make us look dumb, you know? There's a saying that somebody told me a long time ago, and an army officer told me this a long time ago. He said, you know what? No one watches you harder, closer than people that don't like you, and that has always proven to be true, okay? And I bring that up because the Bible also says that our enemies sharpen their tongues like vipers. Our enemies hate us so well that they'll learn the basics of what these books mean. They'll read them. They'll get the context and try to turn around and throw it back in your face when you repeat things like that, okay? So for us in our church, we need to understand that the primary application here is the battle between the Babylonians coming into the Assyrian empire, okay? Now, because verse 15 in chapter one does seem to have, or it definitely does have dual fulfillment, you could say this does obviously depict future warfare, battle of Armageddon, things of that nature. I don't have a problem with that. As long as we understand that this is talking primarily about that battle between what is kind of the empire of the world, the Assyrians, and what is definitely going to be the empire, which is the Babylonian empire, okay? And so enough about that. Let's look at verse number five. So it starts off again with that word, he. So this king of Assyria here, he shall recount his worthies. Isn't that what our politicians do all the time when they lose an election? I want to recount, I want to recount, okay? Well, that's what he's doing right here, okay? He's starting to get mopped. Even though he's been told to his face, this prophecy has gone forth, it's already gone out, okay, he knows it's coming, he's starting to lose the battle here. And so what does he do? He recounts his worthies. What does that mean? Well, who are the worthies, okay, in a pagan empire? Well, it's your nobles, your governors, your people of higher status, your people that are in leadership. And so he's trying to get a regrouping together and figure out like, hey man, what's going on here? Is this going to keep going this way? What can we do to win? What can we do to prosper, okay? So he shall recount his worthies. Look at this, they, in other words, his worthies, his nobles, his leaders, his generals, they shall stumble in their walk. They shall make haste to the wall thereof and the defense shall be prepared. Now, let's keep your place right there. Go to 2 Timothy chapter number three in the New Testament, 2 Timothy chapter number three, because what I see here is a definite defiance against the word of God. Again, what does God do to the arrogant? God challenges the arrogance of people with prophetic embarrassments. That's what he does in the word of God all the time here and so here we see the king of Assyria actually trying to take position and figure out a way to stop the prophecy of God from being fulfilled and of course we see that he's unsuccessful but I want to kind of revisit this here. What happens when paganism goes unchecked, okay? What happens when paganism goes unchecked and really you're going to get leadership like you see here in verse number five where people are like, I don't care what the Bible says. This is, you know, we're going to make our own way because I'm a hustler and I'm an alpha and I could do whatever I want to, okay? That's cute to say for YouTube videos, that might get you a little bit of money and a little bit of fame but when God gets involved and decides it's time for you to get knocked down, you're getting knocked down and there's nothing that you can do about this, okay? But just to kind of connect what you see here in Nahum chapter number two and what we're dealing with with the future, look at this here, 2 Timothy chapter three, look at verse number two. So Paul says about really our day, post his days is for men shall be lovers of their own selves, okay? What does that mean? Rise in narcissism or rise in pride, okay? For men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy. Now, what is this type of mindset in the last days? What does that lead to? What is that going to lead to? Well, go to Revelation chapter 13 and we'll take a look at this. Revelation chapter number 13, now look down at verse number six. And so John writes this down here, Revelation 13 verse six, which says, and he opened his mouth, it's talking about the antichrist, okay? And he opened his mouth in blasphemy against God to blaspheme his name and his tabernacle and them that dwell in heaven. You see that there? So how is it, because the Bible tells us that most people are going to take that mark, what is the mindset that sets the world up to be primed and ready to go for that? Well, it's the mindset of getting God out of here, okay? Once you take the word of God out, like we see here in Nineveh, what happens? Pride sets in, okay? This pagan culture rises up and men will become lovers of their own selves. That leads to covetousness, boasting, proud, all the stuff that we looked at, evil imaginations. Basically you've got everything in Proverbs chapter six coming to full fruition with just about the majority of a population of a nation and that leads to all sorts of absolute hell. Now go to second Kings chapter number 18. Let me just give you a detailed description of this playing out here, okay? Because remember we know Jonah went and preached the word of God, okay? The King of Nineveh at that time, the Assyrian King is like, hey, I don't want God to destroy me. Maybe he'll change his mind. Let's even get the animal kingdom to repent and sackcloth and ashes, okay? And the people accepted, that generation did well. Now we have a king who is just as arrogant as a human being could possibly get. And let's look at that mindset here, okay? So what the Assyrian King does during Hezekiah's reign, remember Hezekiah, King of the Southern Kingdom of Judah, talked about that last week, but what the Assyrian King does, what Sennacherib does is he sends a man, a general or worthy we could call him, by the name of Rabshaki, okay? I call him Rabshaka because he thinks his words are shocking. It's like a slang term. Of course, I'm just kidding, but let's see what this guy has to say here, okay? Look at verse 28, says then Rabshaka stood and cried with a loud voice in the Jews' language, okay? So obviously bilingual here, this guy can speak the language of God's people, which is what kind of goes back to what I was saying earlier. You know, we do not want the enemy to be able to speak our language better than we can speak it. We speak Bible, we speak truth, okay? So it says and stood and cried with a loud voice in the Jews' language and speak, saying, hear the word. Now look at this next phrase. Hear the word of the great king, okay? The great king, the king of Assyria, okay? So he's proud of his king and his king is somebody who's to be looked upon and admired to the high heavens. Look at verse number 29. Of course, these pagans also have their idols and their gods, you know, but they're so puffed up with pride that it's just ridiculous, okay? Look at verse 29. He says, thus saith the king, let not Hezekiah deceive you, for he shall not be able to deliver you out of his hand. So right off the bat, the first person he dispatches or takes out of the way mentally is King Hezekiah. Now what you're gonna find are six attacks on God himself from this man here, Rabcheki, by the mouth of Sennacherib, king of Assyria, okay? The great pagan, we'll call him. Here's number one. Look at verse 30. He goes on to say this. Neither let Hezekiah make you trust in the Lord. Now that is the attitude of the United States government today, okay? That is what they are doing. They do not want us preaching the New Testament. They do not want us even preaching the Old Testament. They don't want us preaching the Bible, okay? Because it goes against their narrative that the Jews are a special people that can never be spoken against and they can never do anything wrong. They're the apple of everybody's eye, okay? And of course, we know that that is false here. But Rabcheki says neither let Hezekiah make you trust in the Lord. So he's trying to cast shade on God. That's number one. Now here's the second one in the same verse. This is saying the Lord will surely deliver us and the city shall not be delivered into the hand of the king of Assyria. What's interesting is not only did Nahum prophesy to this clown, but also Isaiah did, and in Micah as well. And so this is just extreme arrogance that you're dealing with here, okay? It's not like he's without excuse here. It's not like they were back in Jonah's day where they didn't know the right hand from the left hand. Now they know the truth, okay? They've come up post-Christian era, we'll say, just for reference there. Now look at verse 31 here. He says, harken not to Hezekiah. So he's going back and forth with this. Harken not to Hezekiah, for thus saith the king of Assyria, make an agreement with me by present, and come out to me, and then eat ye every man of his own vine, and every one of his fig tree, and drink ye every one the waters of his sister. Sound familiar? Sound like, hey, take this mark, and you can buy, sell, trade, life will be very good. Life will be very well. Okay, this is a, what I see here is just the same pattern playing out, okay? But obviously on a lesser scale. So now you've got that to deal with. Look at verse 32. It continues, until I come and take you away to a land like your own land, a land of corn and wine, a land of bread and vineyards, a land of oil, olive, and of honey, that ye may live and not die. And harken not unto Hezekiah, when he persuadeth you, saying, and here's number three, the Lord will deliver us. That is the now third direct attack from Zannacharib through Rabchucka to God, okay? And it kind of reminds me of churches like ours, okay? There's just so much out there, so many people out there that are just hell bent on, hey, don't listen to that guy. He's crazy, he's angry, he's got a lot of problems, okay? Yeah, like you don't have a lot of problems, like you're not angry, okay? At least we're angry about the right things. You know, at least we're angry about the truth not being followed in the world today. So look at number four here, verse 33. Hath any of the gods of the nations delivered at all his land out of the hand of the king of Assyria? So he's bringing our God, he's bringing the God that saved his prior generations down with idols, okay? That is a very serious offense there. Verse 34. Where are the gods of Hamath and of Arpat? Where are the gods of Sepharvaim, Hina, and Ivah? Have they delivered Samaria out of my hand? So again, you know, God used their nation to do that because the Northern Kingdom deserved it. They kept going into idolatry and rejecting God. And so God raised them up to be able to do this. He equipped them to be able to do this because it was a punishment and they took that and they're like, ah, yeah, you know? It wasn't because of him, it's because we're so strong and we're so mighty. We've got so many things figured out. We're a free people. We're different from the religions of the world. We're a pagan. We make our own way, okay? So that's attack number five. Look at verse 35 for number six. Who are they among all the gods of the countries that have delivered their country out of mine hand, that the Lord should deliver Jerusalem out of my hand? And we'll break down the rest of his words next week in chapter number three, but let's finish this up here and go back to Nahum chapter number two, okay? And so because of that mindset there, I mean, think about it. They went from the days of Jonah to this as a mindset, okay? And we know that when the king has that mindset, that is going to roll downhill through his generals, his politicians, his business owners, and then eventually to the majority of the people that are in the land. And that has gotten God's attention. And so what does he do? God challenges arrogance with prophetic embarrassments. So God's saying, hey, here's exactly what I'm gonna do to you and exactly how I'm gonna do it. Good luck, okay? Verse number six, Nahum chapter number two. So moving on here, the prophecy goes on like this. The gates of the river shall be opened and the palace shall be dissolved. So God's saying, hey, you think you're safe because you've built these great gates and you've got this beautiful view of all this water. Well, guess what? Those are gonna get opened and flood your palace. You're not gonna have enough sumps to pump that water out. Verse number seven, and Hazab shall be led away, captain. That's another point where people just love to just go off on these wild tangents. Well, this means in Hebrew, shut up. You don't know what it means. I don't know what it means, okay? That's not the point, okay? Look at what the verse says. And Hazab shall be led away captive. Look at this next word. She shall be brought up and her maids shall lead her as with the voice of doves, tabbering upon her breast. This is a depiction of doom. That's all that we need to know, specifically for this nation here. So this queen, I guess you could kind of say, well, that kind of pictures, you know, the false prophet or whatever, that's fine. You know, if you wanna do that. Look at verse number eight. But Nineveh is of old like a pool of water, yet they shall flee away. Now look at the mindset here in this next sentence, okay? So God's telling him, hey, I'm gonna open up these gates. I'm gonna flood your palace. I'm gonna do this to your queen. I'm gonna do this to all of your women here. They're gonna be done for, okay? And then he brings up the fact that Nineveh is of old. It's been around a very long time. And then he says this. This is what they're gonna say. Stand, stand, shall they cry, but none shall look back. God makes them into an embarrassment, tells them exactly what he's gonna do to them, exactly how it's gonna play out. And yet they cannot do anything to stop it. Verse number nine. Take ye the spoil of silver, take the spoil of gold, for there is none end of the storm and glory out of all the pleasant furniture. So again, God's just taunting them. He's like, take all your precious metals, do whatever you wanna do. Get as rich as you possibly can. Make as many weapons as you possibly can. Verse 10. She is empty and void and waste. And the heart melteth and the knees smite together. And much pain is in all the loins and the faces of them all gather blackness. So God is depicting here the intricacies of battle and just the bloodshed, the death, the smoke, the fire, the dirt, the famine that is going to just infiltrate the hearts and minds of the Ninevites and their army. And they're just gonna be helpless, okay? Verse 11. This is very interesting here. He says, where is the dwelling of the lions and the feeding place of the young lions? Where the lion, even the old lion walked and the lions whelped and none made them afraid. So if you do look through some secular history, we have a book up here you can look with after the service. There are a lot of Assyrian artifacts where they depicted their generals and depicted themselves as lions, okay? And so God's, again, challenging them. You think you're tough, you think you're like a lion, okay, at one point you were, okay? At one point you were, but that is soon to be the end. And verse number 12 says, the lion did tear in pieces enough for his whelps and strangled for his lioness. That would be probably chazab, a reference there. And filled his holes with prey and his dens with raven. And of course that's a reference there to all of the conquering that the Assyrian empire or the Assyrian kingdom had done prior to what's going to happen to them. Obviously we know that they destroyed a lot of nations. They destroyed the Northern Kingdom of Israel because God withheld his protection from them for a just cause. And so God's like, hey, you know, you did tear in pieces. You did have enough to store up for yourselves. But look at this here in verse 13, words that nobody ever wants to hear. He says this, behold. So despite this whole lion culture that you're building there, this hustler lion, tigers and bears, you know, puffed up mindset that you have, he says, behold, I am against thee, saith the Lord of hosts, and I will burn her chariots in the smoke. And the sword shall devour thy young lions, and I will cut off thy prey from the earth. And the voice of thy messengers shall no more be heard. And so that there concludes the depiction of the destruction that God is going to do to the Assyrians. And of course, the main thing to take away here is to understand how God deals with arrogance. And what did we say? God challenges arrogance with prophetic embarrassments. He tells people exactly what he's gonna do to them, and they can't stop it, okay? And that is a principle found throughout the entire word of God, throughout the entire Bible. And so the point off of that is to just trust him and realize, hey, he's stronger than us. We oughta just listen to what he says. His ways are not grievous. His yoke is not heavy. His burdens are light, the Bible says. So that's where we're gonna stop it for tonight. Doom depicted, remember chapter one is doom decreed. Next week we're gonna look at the doom deserved and talk about that. So let's bow our heads and have a word of prayer. Thank you so much, Lord, for this chapter and for these things that you constantly teach us with. We just pray that you'd bless the fellowship after the service and bring us back again safely this weekend, in Jesus' name I pray, amen. All right, we're gonna have one more song and then we'll be dismissed.