We come to Jesus Christ, our stronghold, who suffered and died to take the punishment of sinners in their place. We come to Jesus Christ, who has lived a perfect life of righteousness on our behalf so that he can claim the glories of heaven for those who hide in him. We flee. We don't say, ‘I can help myself. I can bring my sword, my shield. I can go up and mount the battlements.’ No, we drop them all, and we just run, and we trust in that stronghold alone. We have no righteousness of our own, no niceness of our own. We say, ‘I am a lost sinner. I deserve only judgment. I come for mercy. I come to a shelter. I come to take refuge in this stronghold.’ ‘The LORD is good, a strong hold in the day of trouble.’ Those are his terms. Come to him as a stronghold, and you can get in, and you can be in the kingdom in the day of trouble, ‘and he knoweth them that trust in him.’ He looks upon them. He knows their names. He knows them in the sense that he relates to them, and he takes a close interest in them, and he protects them, and he will never abandon them.
And that is the message of the gospel in Nahum. God not only protects those who run to him for mercy, but he becomes known to them, he touches their lives, he follows them, and he hears and answers their prayers. What a wonderful verse that is, and the whole of the Book of Nahum must be seen in relation to this verse. You will not have the stomach for these three chapters of doom and catastrophe, unless you remember chapter one, verse seven, that this mercy was available, that this stronghold is open, that people can run, bringing nothing with them, no merit, no riches, no worth, and they can have all the blessing of Almighty God. The judgment is for those who will not, who do not, and who are bitterly against God, and all those who do not run to him for refuge. You must see the judgment in that context, and then you understand the book.