Why Did God Pronounce Judgment on Nations Outside Israel?

Have you heard the news? I have been asked to write a monthly column for the His Favor Ministries Newsletter! This Q&A column will answer all kinds of theological and life questions and is titled, “Ponderings of the Heart.” If you’d like to view the current newsletter, click HERE. And if you’d like to see more from His Favor, click HERE.

Below, is my first entry! I hope you enjoy it and if you would like to send a question in, send it to either amiloper@gmail.com or info@hisfavorministries.com

Dear Ami: Recently I have been reading through Jeremiah. Chapter after chapter talk about the judgment coming to Israel. Then, it turns, and chapter after chapter predict the destruction of the nations around Israel. Why does it matter to hear about that when they aren’t God’s people? Signed, Curious

Dear Curious,

I love this question! It really makes you stop and think: when there is such limited space in the Bible, why devote so much of it to something that seems relatively inconsequential?

But is God’s judgment on other nations really inconsequential? I think there are two main reasons why it is not.

First, it is important to look at this in the context of the beliefs of the time. That will give us our first insight. The nations around Israel largely believed that each nation or city served a distinct deity. Each one was different. The Philistines served Dagon; the Babylonians served Marduk/Bel; the Assyrians served Ashur and the Canaanites served Baal.

Dear Ami: Recently I have been reading through Jeremiah. Chapter after chapter talk about the judgment coming to Israel. Then, it turns, and chapter after chapter predict the destruction of the nations around Israel. Why does it matter to hear about that when they aren’t God’s people. Signed, Curious {Come read my reply!} #ChristianBlog #StudyingTheBible

From the outside of Israel looking in, it would have been easy to assume that Yahweh was the God of the Israelites and no more. However, in part through these prophesied judgments on the nations surrounding Israel, Yahweh is declaring His sovereignty over all nations, over all the world! He is not a territorial god who can be confined or run from. He reigns supreme over all and all will answer to Him.

(To read more about this, read the full-length blog, “Territorial Gods” HERE.)

Another reason God expressed His judgments over nations is to bring comfort to Israel. Israel was a rather small nation, often fighting nations that had allied themselves against her. Being pushed around and constantly having to regain its territory must have been wearying to the heart of the Israelites. That weariness could even potentially tempt them to succumb to the enemy’s ultimate plot of eliminating her from existence through assimilating them into oblivion.

Through His announcements of judgment on these nations, Yahweh pronounces their purpose in the world, His compassion for them, His justice against all their enemies that were trying to obliterate them.

God is a God of justice! He will not allow His Beloved to be abused without calling the abusers to account. He will not permit nations to take advantage of, make a mockery of, or make a vassal of His people, and look the other way. He will “give [His people] justice against [the] adversary” (Luke 18:3).

When we are hurt, we must look past the people in our lives who behave as enemies and see them as mere tools of our ultimate enemy. “We do not wrestle against flesh and blood” (Eph 6:12). And when we choose to fight the real enemy, we can rest assured that his days are numbered and He will judge our enemy and bring us justice. *LifeQuotes

Today, we have the challenge of looking past the people in our lives who behave as enemies and seeing them as mere tools of our ultimate enemy. Truly, “we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but …against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places” (Eph 6:12). When we look past the humans causing us pain, we can see the enemy, Satan, and know that God does not sit by and condone his maltreatment of us. We can rest assured that the enemy’s days are numbered and, just as God judged the nations that assailed Israel, He will judge our enemy and bring us justice.

“…he who touches you touches the apple of his eye.” Zechariah 2:8

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