Nahum what???

Pastor: Church, please open your Bibles to Nahum 1:9′.

At this point, half of the church have no idea what Nahum is not to speak of where it is! Two-thirds are sure they have heard of it before somewhere but have no clue where to begin the search. The remaining people are certain it is somewhere in the Old Testament and begin frantically searching but after 2 minutes resort to the Table of Contents. This just goes to illustrate the fact that Nahum is one of the most ignored, most unread books of the Bible by most Christians along with the likes of Ezra, Haggai, Zephaniah and Philemon.

I was just there in my room today, praying/browsing/watching ANTM and I thought, ‘hmm, Temi, you don’t know much anything, about Nahum. So I decided to blog about it. But before I could do that, I had to sit and actually read it. It’s not that long (just three chapters, actually).

On opening to page 906 of my Bible (yes, I had to refer to the Table of Contents!), my first thought was that ‘hmm, a rather dry account of history which is really not very relevant today’ and ‘what/where on earth is ‘Elkoshite”?. It took all my will power not to flip to my good ol’ Psalms. I must admit, it paid off. I’ll share with you my discoveries.

Nahum pretty much had a vision and boy, it was not a pretty one. It was one fully describing the wrath of God against a place called Nineveh (remember from Jonah?). God was very vexed with Nineveh and Nahum’s vision had details of the destruction that was to come upon the city/town/country (let’s just say ‘place’).

As we know, our God is a Lion (Revelation 5:5) yet a Lamb (Revelation 13:8). He is a merciful God (Psalm 100:5) yet a Consuming Fire (Hebrews 12:29). Nahum brought to the fore the ‘Lion’ and the ‘Consuming Fire’ attributes of God.

So why exactly was God so angry? As I mentioned earlier, the prophecy of Nahum is directed at Nineveh where Jonah was sent to by God. When Jonah preached in Nineveh (after much persuasion and in fact outright force!), the city repented in sackcloth and ashes. God’s anger was withheld from the city and he spared it, because from the king on down to the lowest citizen, they turned to God and repented of their sins. The book of Nahum comes some one hundred years after the episode of Jonah. Nineveh, unfortunately had gone back to their old ways and God was mad at them, very mad!

But the same Nahum who tells of God’s great indignation in Nahum 1:6 tells of His great love too. I think this balance is wonderful. It is impossible to speak of the God of wrath without touching on the God of love. The anger of God is borne of His love and is a manifestation of His love. Charles Spurgeon once said that “He who does not believe that God will punish sin, will not believe that he will pardon it through the blood of his Son.”

I remember when my dad used to beat smack me when I did something silly, he would roar ‘I am doing this because I love you!!!’ Well, the same thing goes with God for whom the Father loves, He chastises (Hebrews 12:6). Nahum also nicely tells of ways of escaping God’s anger: The Lord is good, a stronghold in the day of trouble;  he knows those who take refuge in him (Nahum 1:7).

Also, I was pleasantly surprised to discover that the song ‘OUR GOD REIGNS’ by Lindell Cooley has some lyrics from Nahum!!! Remember this verse?:

A fire goes before Him

And burns up all His enemies

The hills melt like wax

At the presence of the Lord

At the presence of the Lord

Well, they’re from Nahum 1:5!

As Paul advised, “All scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.” (2 Tim. 3:16,17), therefore, we ought to fall out of the habit of ignoring any part of the Bible. Plus, there is so much to learn from Nahum.

Whilst I am not certain I fully understand Chapter 2 of Nahum yet, I know never again will I say ‘Nahum what???’

 

With my caramel latte!!! *and an attempted pout :p

 

In other news, Ann (whom I told you guys is my fave in ANTM Cycle 15) has made history! She is the first contestant to be called first four consecutive times for best picture in the history of America’s Next Top Model!!!

Here she is:

She’s sooo Vogue Italia!

That’s all folks (for now)

Temiville.xoxo

Truth or blatant heresy?

Am I a bad Christian for believing in the truth of star signs?

Again, I plead, hold your fire all thou holy and righteous and let me explain myself. Back in the day, I NEVER believed in anything that claimed to predict personality traits. I thought it was a whole load of bullocks! That was until I read The Spirit-Controlled Temperament by Tim LaHaye. I read that book when I was 15, I believe. I finished it in a few hours! All 251 pages of it! Why was I so glued to it? Well, aside of the fact that I used to read like my life depended on it as a teenager (I read everything that came my way: From John Grisham to Danielle Steel to M & B, Hints and Hearts *covering eyes in shame*, to the Bible *smiling with pride*, I related to The Spirit-Controlled Temperament on a deep level. I quickly identified my dad as a MelChol, my mom as a SanChol and myself as a SanMelCholPhleg (yes I am 25% of all temperaments! bite me :p) It was just so true, so real, so relatable.

 

An amazing read!

 

I especially love the way Tim linked it all to the Holy Spirit. He made it clear that the Holy Spirit-filled temperament does not have weaknesses; instead it has nine strengths which happen to be the fruit of the Spirit! Irrespective of ones natural temperament, the Spirit gives strength for every weakness. The perfect characteristics of each temperament were shown in Jesus Christ who stands as our example, the One we should look to as the perfect personality.

This is all nice and dandy. But I was so keen to know more about myself. Why do I act the way I do? Why am I so emotional? Then I probed further into another source of personality trait predictor and decided to read about my Zodiac star sign, Pisces. What I saw left me weak in the knees. I was dumbfounded. I was intrigued. My insides screamed out ‘this is so me!’

Let me give you a few of the characteristics that embody the Pisces which I culled from the internet.

Key Words of the Pisces: Shy* Romantic *Trustworthy *Dreamy *Creative *Understanding *Unrealistic *Impractical*.

I BELIEVE’ is the motto for Pisces. You are drawn to religion and anything of a spiritual or esoteric nature. You have a very creative imagination and an artistic temperament.

You are a compassionate, sympathetic and loving soul. You are so sensitive that unconsciously you may absorb the moods and thoughts of the people around you.

It’s easy for you to become emotionally drained by the needs of friends, family and lovers, so it’s important for you to take time out for yourself.

You can be very impressionable. You can also be indecisive, but that’s partly because you don’t like to be pinned down.

These to a great extent describe myself and a lot of other Pisces I know. The same also goes for other star signs.

But is this Biblical? Should I be reading this? Or is it knowledge given by God but now distorted by the devil because wisdom comes from God alone (Romans 16:24, Proverbs 2:6). I really am confused. Like I am wont to saying and mentioned in my recent post on another blog, when confused, reach for the Word of God. It never fails. So what sayeth the Bible about star signs, astrology, zodiac signs and why are they so annoyingly almost always accurate? Let’s go there.

 

What does the Bible say?

 

In Psalms 147:4, we discover that “He telleth the number of the stars, He calleth them all by their NAMES.” If God created the stars, then are they not ‘good’? Genesis 1:31 says that ‘And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good.’ Hence, we have established that stars are good. For example, the wise men (we were lied to, they were not three!) in the Bible saw Jesus’ star and were able to go and worship Him (Matthew 2:10).

The problem however is that they have become perverted by workers of iniquity for their own use and to mislead people from God. Whereby, people would rather subscribe to Astrological Daily Predictions than read Open Heavens or better still, the Bible. That, my friends, is where the problem lies!

Deuteronomy 18:9-12 clearly states that,

‘There should not be found in you anyone who makes his son or his daughter pass through the fire, anyone who employs divination, a practicer of magic or anyone who looks for omens or a sorcerer, 11 or one who binds others with a spell or anyone who consults a spirit medium or a professional foreteller of events or anyone who inquires of the dead. 12 For everybody doing these things is something detestable to Jehovah, and on account of these detestable things Jehovah your God is driving them away from before you.’ So, whilst I don’t think it is wrong to understand personality traits of people, it is a problem to replace the knowledge of God with this.

There was never any mention of Sanguine, Choleric, Melancholy or Phlegmatic temperaments in the Bible, yet Tim LaHaye has successfully related it to the Word of God, teaching us how we can be strengthened even in our weaknesses through the help of the Holy Spirit. I think the same can be done with these Zodiac signs. For instance, the Aries can learn to be less aggressive by building up a meek and gentle spirit (1 Peter 3:3), the Pisces can learn to be more decisive through the help of the Holy Spirit etc.

I feel we ought to stop dismissing things we do not understand as ‘alien’, ‘demonic’ and try and understand them better but with caution though! It becomes WITCHCRAFT however when we depend on it instead of on the Holy Spirit and on GOD and look to it for help instead of looking into the Word. Nothing must be exalted above GOD.  Take your daily cues from the Word of God and not from the back page of some silly newspaper written by some ignorant person!

Do I speak truth or is this blatant heresy?

In other unrelated news, let’s say a word of prayer for Gamu and her family in what must be undoubtedly, difficult times.

That’s all folks (for now)

Temiville.xoxo