Concerning a Nation

 Rev. 12:5 And she brought forth a man child, who was to rule all nations with a rod of iron: and her child was caught up unto God, and to his throne.

Rev. 19:15 And out of his mouth goeth a sharp sword, that with it he should smite the nations: and he shall rule them with a rod of iron: and he treadeth the winepress of the fierceness and wrath of Almighty God.  16 And he hath on his vesture and on his thigh a name written, KING OF KINGS, AND LORD OF LORDS.

 A common Jewish accusation against Christians is that we seem to devote all our energies to the need for individuals to repent and be saved and ignore God’s dealings with people at a national level.  There is more than a grain of truth in the observation.  We can all think of Christians who believe that personal evangelism is the only thing that matters.  It is better that they evangelise than not, of course, but there must be more to the Gospel than an ‘I’m all right, Jack’ – even a ‘You too could be all right, John’ – individualism.  I praise God for our dear sisters who evangelise in Whitechapel but still come every first Saturday in the month to West Ham to pray for our nation and against the proposed ‘megamosque’.  They have the balance right.

It is true that there is a Scriptural basis for both the accusation and the individualistic approach.  The Biblical emphasis appears to shift from the Old Testament to the New, away from corporate judgment towards individual salvation.  The Old Testament is full of God’s dealings with Israel and Judah and prophecies referring to them and to other nations.  The teachings of the Lord Jesus on the other hand are heavily focused on personal responsibility before God, and the work of the Apostles was devoted to setting up churches and teaching converts.

The context of the New Testament is firstly to proclaim the divinity and ministry of the Lord Jesus and secondly to proclaim his Gospel (at the time, to occupied peoples living under theRoman Empire).  We should not expect a prophet to rise up Old Testament-style to criticise the policies of a king or ruler.  But in John the Baptist that is what we get.  His denunciation of the personal life of Herod was as dramatic as anything Elijah said to Ahab.  Paul spent his converted life setting up and encouraging churches and urging individuals to believe and behave, and yet he found time to criticise the activities of the gentiles (eg in 1Cor 10:20), prophesy about godless societies (Romans 1:18-32), set out the duties of rulers (Rom 13:3-4), urge prayer for them (1Tim 2:1-4) and offer a political vision of Almighty God in Jesus Christ as the source of all earthly power (1Cor 15:25; Phil 2:9-12; 1Tim 2:5, 6:15).

We might say that it is unrealistic to expect God to send a New Testament prophet to denounce Rome, although some may say the Apostle John received such a commission and discharged it in Revelation, albeit in a coded form which may be interpreted in other ways.  Equally, we should not expect a prophecy againstIsraelorJudea.  Nonetheless, we get that from the Lord Jesus anyway, although not specifically linked to the nation’s sins.

The Lord Jesus does however speak of corporate sin, not addressing Israel, rather the smaller units of towns and cities.  He denounces Chorazin, Bethsaida and Capernaum for their unbelief and lack of repentance in the face of his miracles (Matt 11:21-24; Luke 10:13-15).  But what does Jesus mean by ‘at the day of judgment’ in these passages?  It could mean the resurrection of the dead of Rev 20:12-15 and the opening of the books, but it can also easily and more probably mean a specific day of judgment for those towns.

The Old Testament has, of course, too many passages to bring to mind relating to personal responsibility, salvation and judgment.  They are undoubtedly more in proportion than the corporate messages of the New Testament.  And yet, if God does not change, if God is the same yesterday, today and tomorrow, then His declared intention to judge both people and groups of people does not change either.

The words of the Prophet Jeremiah in Jer 18:7-10, with which we opened, speak of God blessing or cursing a nation depending on how it behaves.  It is in its way a restatement of Deuteronomy 28, but now with a universal application.  God is not just interested in howIsraelrelates to him, He is concerned with all nations.  Jehoshaphat realised that God was more than just the God of Judah and Israel, and the Psalms have numerous statements that God truly is Almighty.

2Chrn 20:6: O Lord God of our fathers, art not thou God in heaven?  And rulest not thou over all the kingdoms of the heathen?  And in thine hand is there not power and might so that none is able to withstand thee?

Psalm 22:27: For the kingdom is the Lord’s, and he is the governor among the nations.

The tragedy of the United Kingdom is to see Jeremiah 18:9 being played out in our time.  We know how God has sustained our nation down the years, and used us to advance the Gospel.  During the time that we at least attempted to follow the Lord, as a nation, we were saved from the Spanish Armada, from Napoleon, and in two world wars.  All of these came against us in the spirit of Antichrist, and God saved us.

But since the end of the Second World War we have turned our backs on God and done what any of the prophets would have described as evil, disobeying the voice of the Lord, going the way of man, which seems right but ends in death.

Pornography and perversion were legalised and divorce for little or no reason on demand introduced, in direct contravention of the ruling given by the Lord Jesus in Matt 19.  As God’s institution of the family broke down, children were increasingly corrupted as our society became obsessed with instant gratification and the virtues of modesty, chastity, fidelity and chivalry were laughed at by our leaders and replaced with hedonism and selfishness.

In perhaps the most macabre twist of rebellious legislation, the abolition of the death penalty and the Abortion Act together took away the sentence of death for the guilty by the state, where it belongs, and imposed it instead on the innocent within the family, where it does not.  How Satan must have laughed at the prospect of the blood of the victims of murder going unrequited on the one hand and, on the other, the blood of innocent children being shed in what should be the safest place on God’s earth.

Then, by joining the European Union, we did what the King of Spain, Napoleon and Hitler failed to do.  We were not conquered from without, but from within.  Our leaders took us voluntarily into a god-denying, totalitarian, fascist (it tries to control the minutiae of deed and thought), corrupt, bureaucratic, oligarchic, self-serving, self-perpetuating empire of Antichrist.

The judgment has been falling for some time, but now God is bringing Islam against the whole of Europe. As the European Union becomes more secularist, trying to spread its own wickedness throughout the world, promoting self-interest, feminism, abortion, sodomy, fornication and family breakdown with all the wealth and diplomatic energy at its disposal, so Islam is coming in like a flood, observing the decadence of Western society, and determined to replace it.

The prophets – whose books comprise one-fifth of the Bible – all criticised the injustice of their day, and all observed that the root of it was idolatry, putting created things above the Creator.  We mentioned earlier the Apostle Paul drawing the same conclusion as he describes a people in three stages of decline in Romans 1:18-32.  God gives them over to uncleanness, to vile affection and finally to a reprobate mind where their leaders actually take pleasure in those worthy of death.  And every society in the history of the world which has gone down that road has been swept away by a stronger, self-confident, monolatrous * people.

As we look forward to Christmas, our annual, national celebration of the birth of God Incarnate, we should also be thinking of  a time in which Christ will judge the nations.  We read in the Revelation to John that he will rule them ‘with a rod of iron’.  So there is no possibility of arguing that the Gospel is all about individual salvation.  Nations still have a responsibility before God under the New Covenant.

The message of Jeremiah is that a nation cannot survive on past glories.  It must be continually renewing, constantly moving towards God, with leaders aware of Paul’s maxim in Romans 13 that they are ordained of God to act righteously, enact Godly laws, deal justly and walk humbly with God.  And that is where the prophets come in.  Every one of our members is a prophet, witnessing to rulers of the demands of a holy God to fear Him and follow His laws.  And there is even more need when the nation instead of moving towards God is daily moving further away.  But that we have a Christian duty to prophecy is clear from the example of the prophets and our duty to pray for our nation, even if we do not feel totally at ease with it, is set out by Jeremiah, when he says:

Jer 29:7: And seek the peace of the city whither I have caused you to be carried away captives, and pray unto the LORD for it: for in the peace thereof shall ye have peace.

And how wonderful it is to have that very sentiment repeated centuries later, under the New Covenant, by the Apostle Paul:

1Tim 2:2: (Pray) For kings, and for all that are in authority; that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and honesty.

It will take a miracle to turn our nation back to God to the point where the Almighty One will bless us again, but I believe that miracle will happen when (and only when) the Lord’s people cry to Jesus day and night and are prepared to show God their prayer is serious by what they are prepared to do in terms of prophetic witness – and evangelism – carried out in unity and backed up by fasting.

 Footnotes:

• Monolatrous: worshipping one god while accepting that there are others.  Contrast with:
• Polytheistic: worshipping many gods, and
• Monotheistic: believing that there is only one God who is Almighty.