disgusted with idolatry

The LORD has given commandment about you:

“No more shall your name be perpetuated;

from the house of your gods I will cut off

the carved image and the metal image.

I will make your grave, for you are vile.”

Nahum 1:14

The book of Nahum is all about the end of wicked Ninevah. Jonah was a story of grace undeserved to a wicked and violent people who repented at God’s warning of judgment. Ninevah was a given a reprieve under Jonah. In the oracle of Nahum however, Ninevah is handed over to complete annihilating judgment. Assyria’s dominance and violence would end. Ninevah’s idolatry would be finished. God would deliver the judgment He demanded.

God does not tolerate idolatry. We must remember that Ninevah did at one point repent and turn to God. So these harsh words against idolatry are right of God to pronounce. He had forgiven them only to be rejected. His worship was abandoned for idolatry once again. Here then is what God really thinks about idolatry!

The results of Ninevah’s idolatry look like this:

1) Ninevah would be destroyed and forgotten. Not only does nobody remember Ninevah’s false gods… nobody remembers Ninevah! The name of Ninevah is trivial. It is as if her gods never existed.

2) Idolatry would be cut off at its source. The temples of Ninevah’s false worship are no more. There are no more wooden or metal images of what was worshiped there. Idols, as mere physical objects, are easily destroyed by God.

3) The Assyrians themselves are gone. God dug their graves Himself in this prophecy. He ended idolatry in Ninevah by ending idolaters. False worship kills. It’s that serious.

4) False worship makes a person vile. It isn’t a little thing to turn from God to something else. We must see worship of anything other than God Himself in the most disgusting terms. God does.