Fig-Tree Fortresses

“All your fortresses are like fig trees with first-ripe figs—if shaken they fall into the mouth of the eater.” (Nahum 3:12)

When we take refuge in anything besides the Lord, he shakes our imagined fortress to show that all along, we were hiding in a fig tree.

All it takes is one shake, and the figs fall down.

There was a day when Nineveh took refuge in the Lord alone. After they heard Jonah’s word of warning, they stepped off the throne, took off their robe, and put on the sackcloth of humble trust (Jonah 3:4-9).

But over time, Nineveh rebuilt their walls.

They stopped fasting and turned to sexual immorality (Nahum 4:3). They stopped believing in God and started leaning on powerful people (Nahum 4:17). They stopped praying and started taking matters into their own hands (Nahum 4:19).

But with every brick of rebellion, they were setting themselves up for a divine embarrassment.

“Behold, I am against you, declares the LORD of hosts, and will lift up your skirts over your face; and I will make nations look at your nakedness and kingdoms at your shame. I will throw filth at you and treat you with contempt and make you a spectacle.” (Nahum 3:5-6)

God lifts up the skirt of Nineveh and turns their clay-formed fortress into a kiln of fire. Through judgment, he shames the proud city before the nations to reveal the one Name that stands.

This is what God does. He turns every Babel into a heap of stones.

A single word of slander destroys a relational network pursued in vain. A single lawsuit topples the fortune we lean on as our trust. A single storm takes us out of our house of hiding and leaves us exposed again before the Lord.

God is the only safe place.

“Indeed, none who wait for you shall be put to shame; they shall be ashamed who are wantonly treacherous.” (Psalm 25:3)

Where is your trust?

Your answer determines what happens when life is shaken. Every false fortress makes you fall in the shaking like a ripened fig. But there is a Cornerstone of hiding that keeps you, even when everything else falls down (1 Peter 2:6)

God shakes the heavens and the earth to toss aside all the figs of false security and reveal to us a kingdom that cannot be shaken (Hebrews 12:28).