"I will punish the king of Babylon and his land as I punished the king of Assyria..." Jeremiah50:18
After Solomon's death, Israel split into two kingdoms: North and South. The Northern Kingdom was destroyed by the Assyrians in 721BC. The Assyrians were in turn destroyed by the Babylonians.
Later, the Southern Kingdom was defeated and taken into exile by the Babylonians in 586BC. But God promises that the Babylonians would have to pay the price for exceeding their mandate.
What do I mean?
The Old Testament shows us how God judges nations. Here are the key issues:
1. When Israel sinned, their degeneration made them vulnerable for attack. But there was more at play than simple opportunism, God made it clear that He raised nations and that He marched with them. (Jeremiah tells us that God marched with the Babylonians against Israel)
2. Although God led nations and used them to bring about judgement on Israel and other nations, they were not puppets or automatons. Unfortunately many of them took advantage of the open doors that God had given them and meted out more harshness and cruelty than was needed. So God would judge the nation that had once been His instrument of justice.
Here Jeremiah is proclaiming that although Babylon had been an instrument of justice, they were now in the dock to be judged for doing justice work unjustly. (In Isaiah, Cyrus, King of the Persians, who defeated the Babylonians is called "God's Servant.")
What's the lesson for us?
Sometimes God uses us to expose evil or deal with injustice.
We should be careful about strutting and pridefulness.
Otherwise God may have to deal with us.
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Theo Groeneveld theo@gracepresby.org.za
You can see past EmmDevs at http://emmdev.blogspot.com/
