Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread,"
Does the God of the Bible, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, "the God of the spirits of all flesh" (Num. 27:16), judge nations for their apostasy? The Bible answer is yes.
Consider Israel, God's own special people. He did not personally chastise them physically, but He was forced to abandon them to the tender mercies of their enemies. For their deep apostasy, the northern kingdom was left to the Assyrians who put an end to it.
The southern kingdom learned no lessons from them, and God was forced to let them fall into the hands of the Babylonians. Due to the apostate deceitfulness of King Zedekiah and his court, the judgment was very severe. Jeremiah had to suffer through it like the rest.
King Nebuchadnezzar, for all his harsh rulings, had an honest heart (he eventually wrote a chapter in the Bible, Daniel 4); but his grandson Belzhazzar apostatized from what uprightness there had been, and Daniel 5 records the "decadence," Mardi Gras feast, that brought God's judgment when the kingdom came to its end by the Medo-Persians. They had some regard at first for justice. Then they had their two centuries of probation, and their apostasy brought the end of their empire to Alexander the Great. On and on it goes.
Does God keep an account of the nations today? The more light a nation has had, the more severe will their judgment finally be. The fall of ancient Babylon remains in the New Testament a metaphor to describe God's coming judgment on the nations today (Rev. 14:8; 18). But let us remember that always in God's dealing with individuals and nations, "in wrath [He remembers] mercy" (Hab. 3:2). He is still the "God [who] is love," the world's heavenly Father (1 John 4:8; Matt. 6:9). Don't doubt the truth: He is love all the way through!
--Robert J. Wieland
From the "Dial Daily Bread" Archive: September 9, 2005.
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