NELSON PRICE: Does God judge nations

This is not a happy time column, but one offered in answer to the many who have asked does God judge nations. In search for the answer the Bible is the source.

Let God’s love be your background for interpretation.

The primary city on which these thoughts are based is Ninevah in the country Assyria. The source is the Old Testament book of Nahum. It opens by identifying God’s disposition.

“The Lord is slow to anger and great in power, And will not at all acquit the wicked.” Nahum 1:3 He is not a precarious or wishy-washy God. There is a pattern that precedes His judgment: God warns, God waits, God acts.

That was the pattern used by three prophets who wrote of cultures God judged: Nahum against Assyria, Obadiah against Edom, and Habakkuk against Babylon. Ezekiel chapters 25- 28 gives a list of nations God had judged to that date. The Philistines are noted as an example: “I will execute great vengeance on them with furious rebukes; and they shall know that I am the Lord, when I lay my vengeance on them.”

This pattern of God’s patience is noted in the New Testament. “The Lord is not slack concerning his promises, as some men count slackness, but is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.” (II Peter 3: 9) Scripture warns consequences result from disobedience: “If you do not obey the voice of the Lord, but rebel against the commandments of the Lord, then the hand of the Lord will be against you, as it was against your fathers.” (II Sanuel 12: 15)

Inscribed on the Jefferson Memorial are these words of Jefferson: “God who gave us life gave us liberty. Can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have removed a conviction that these liberties are a gift of God? Indeed I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just, that His justice cannot sleep forever.”

This leads to the conclusion God does judge nations, all nations.

“If my people who are called by my name will humble themselves, and pray and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their land.” (II Chronicles 7: 14)

God is not selfish and overbearing in wanting obedience. He wants us to be obedient for our own sake as well as His. He set the standards for good and evil and knows the consequences of both. It is to our advantage to be obedient because inherent in such conduct are blessings. At variance with this is the fact disobedience has intrinsic in it the seed of spiritual and moral debilitation and ultimate destruction. Disobedience is not just bad, it is simply bad for us. God desires our best, therefore, He appeals for us to be obedient.

Nahum is 1: 7, “The Lord is good, A stronghold in the day of trouble; And He knows those who trust in Him.”

This is perhaps the most serious column I have ever written. It is done with the prayer it might make the issue clear and be met with a positive response.

There is a grievous aspect to national judgment. Within a population consisting of mostly disobedient people that comprise the ungodly nation are godly people. Collateral judgment falls on them also. Even then their God loves them and will give spiritual blessings to sustain them.

This article originally ran on mdjonline.com.