Today’s reading: Jeremiah 27; Romans 3
God may use people or nations to great effect without them being good, godly, or worth emulating in any way.
I just think this reality is important to point out from time to time when we come across it in the text, because a lot of people seem to miss it. But look at what God tells Jeremiah to say to the envoys of all the nations visiting Jerusalem:
“It is I who by my great power and outstretched arm have made the earth, with the men and the animals that are on the earth, and I give it to whomever it seems right to me. Now I have given all these lands into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon, my servant, and I have given him also the beasts of the field to serve him. All the nations shall serve him and his son and his grandson, until the time of his own land comes. Then many nations and great kings shall make him their slave.”
God was pleased to use Babylon as the instrument in His hand, but that had nothing to do with Babylon being good or pleasing to Him. He was going to use Babylon because He wanted to use Babylon. And don’t miss what He says at the end, that though He is going to bless Babylon in a huge way, in order to use them, the time of their own land will come. Once He is done using Babylon as He desires, Babylon itself will be judged for what it has done.
This is exactly like what we saw with Assyria in Isaiah 10, where God declared that Assyria was the rod of His wrath, but that when He was done using them, they would face His judgement because they were not operating for Him, but for themselves.
What’s interesting is that God blesses these nations in order to use them to drive His plans/intentions for the world, but then also judges them for their actions. It’s important to realize though that He isn’t judging them for how He’s using them, but for what they do with the blessings He gives them. If they had been operating in justice and righteousness, then there is every reason to think God would have used them, and they would have faced no judgement at the end of what He was wanting, even if His blessing didn’t continue forever, but because they operated in pride, injustice, evil, etc., they were judged by God at the end.
Just because a nation or a people thrives, locally or on the global stage, does not mean God is pleased with that nation or people. There is no reason to think He does not still work this way today, just as He did with Egypt, Assyria, Babylon, and Rome in the days of the Scriptures. But even if God is blessing/using a nation for His purposes, that does not necessarily make it a good or godly nation, and it certainly does not make it “God’s country.” More than that, even if a nation has been blessed and used in the past, that does not mean He will continue to bless and use that nation forever, but if that nation is faithless with the Lord’s blessings, there is every reason to think that they, too, will be judged for how they used His blessing when He is done with them…
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