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If you miss one part of the puzzle that is being put together in these studies, you will never see and understand the whole picture.

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A publication of Churches Under Christ Ministry

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Previous Lesson:
(3) Civil Government Failure and God’s Judgment of Nations

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Israel

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Jerald Finney
Copyright © December 28, 2017

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God has also given to the Gentile civil governments freedom of choice. Many scriptures illustrate that God wanted Gentile civil governments to recognize Him as who He is: for example, Exodus 7.5, 17; 14.4, 18 (Egypt); Ezekiel 25.11 (Ammonites); 25.14 (Edom); 25.17 (Philistia); 26.6, (Tyre); 28.22, 23, 24 (Zidon); 29.6, 9, 16, 21; 30.8, 19, 25; 32.16 (Egypt); 35.4 (Mt. Seir); 38.23 (the nations); 39.6, 7 (Magog & the heathen).

Solomon, in his blessing after dedicating the temple said, “That all the people of the earth may know that the LORD is God, and that there is none else.”[1]  David, within his last words, said: “He that ruleth over men must be just, ruling in the fear of God.  And he shall be as the light of the morning, when the sun riseth, even a morning without clouds; as the tender grass springing out of the earth by clear shining after rain.”[2]  [To Nebuchadnezzar it was said] “they shall make thee to eat grass as oxen, and seven times shall pass over thee, until thou know that the most High ruleth in the kingdom of men, and giveth it to whomsoever he will.”[3] So it happened and so Nebuchadnezzar then, after being restored to his kingship, “[extolled and  honoured] the King of heaven, all of whose works are truth, and his ways judgment,” recognizing that “those that walk in pride [God] is able to abase.” [4] So Nebuchadnezzar came to be called the “servant” of Jehovah.[5]

God judged King Belshazzar, Nebuchadnezzar’s son, because he did not humble his heart and “lifted up [himself] against the Lord of heaven” and had not glorified God “in whose hand [Belshazzar’s] breath [was] and whose [were] all his ways,” knowing what God had done to his father.[6]  Darius, after seeing that God miraculously delivered Daniel when he was thrown into the den of lions, decreed:

“That in every dominion of my kingdom men tremble and fear before the God of Daniel: for he is the living God, and stedfast for ever, and his kingdom that which shall not be destroyed, and his dominion shall be even unto the end. He delivereth and rescueth, and he worketh signs and wonders in heaven and in earth, who hath delivered Daniel from the power of the lions.[7]”

Cyrus chose to serve God:

“That saith of Cyrus, He is my shepherd, and shall perform all my pleasure: even saying to Jerusalem, Thou shalt be built; and to the temple, Thy foundation shall be laid. Thus saith the LORD to his anointed, to Cyrus, whose right hand I have holden, to subdue nations before him; and I will loose the loins of kings, to open before him the two leaved gates; and the gates shall not be shut.” [8]

God sent Jonah to “cry against” the Gentile city of Nineveh “for their wickedness [had] come up before [Him].”[9]  After Jonah went through the city of Nineveh crying, “Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown,”[10] “[t]he people of Nineveh believed God, and proclaimed a fast, and put on sackcloth, from the greatest of them even to the least of them.”[11]  “And God saw their good works, that they turned from their evil way; and God repented of the evil, that he had said that he would do unto them; and he did it not.”[12] Unfortunately, more than a century later Nahum delivered an unrelieved warning of judgment because Nineveh had fallen back into moral awfulness:[13] “[H]e will make an utter end: affliction shall not rise up the second time.”[14]  “According to Diodorus Siculus, the city was destroyed nearly a century later, precisely as [predicted by Nahum].”[15]

Thus God wishes each civil government to choose to rule for His glory under His precepts; that is, to establish free will for every individual while ruling under biblical principles, but not to enforce God’s rules concerning man’s relationship with God. Just as Belshazzar was without excuse in that he saw what God had done to his father, likewise rulers and civil governments today are without excuse in that the Word of God is available today for all to read and to know God’s principles and His ways.

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Endnotes

[1] I Kings 8.60.

[2] II Samuel 23.3-4.

[3] Daniel 4.32b.

[4] Daniel 4.37.

[5] Jeremiah 25.9; 27.6; 43.10.

[6] See Daniel 5.17-31.

[7] Daniel 6.26-27.

[8] Isaiah 44.28-45.1.

[9] Jonah 1.2.

[10] Jonah 3.4.

[11] Jonah 3.5.

[12] Jonah 3.10.

[13] Nahum 3.1-19.

[14] Nahum 1.9.

[15] 1917 Scofield Reference Edition, headnote to Nahum, p. 952.