WHEN GOD IS IGNORED OR REJECTED, NATIONS WILL SUFFER

BIBLE PASSAGE:
It is You alone who are to be feared. Who can stand before
You when you are angry? From heaven You pronounced
judgment, and the land feared and was quiet.
(Psalm 76:7-8)

MEDITATION:
Does God judge nations for evilness, corruption,
and worshiping anything other than Him?
Yes He does!

When He brought the Israelites out of Egypt, that generation knew
the value of worshiping the One and only God of the universe.
Not only did they worship Him, but they had a heart of thankfulness
which motivated them to serve Him throughout their lives.
After Joshua had dismissed the Israelites, they went to take possession
of the land, each to their own inheritance. The people served the Lord
throughout the lifetime of Joshua and of the elders who outlived him
and who had seen all the great things the Lord had done for Israel.
(Judges 2:6-7)

However, the next generation failed to learn from their ancestors.
We don’t know if it was a failure on the part of their ancestors to
impress on them the importance of having a relationship with
the Lord, or if it was rebellion in the hearts of the next generation,
but we know that they did not have fellowship with the Lord.
After that whole generation had been gathered to their ancestors,
another generation grew up who knew neither the Lord nor what
he had done for Israel. (Judges 2:10)

Look at the results of their choices to ignore God.
They served other gods and lived a life that was in blatant opposition
to the life God wanted them to live so they could enjoy His blessings.
Then the Israelites did evil in the eyes of the Lord and served the
Baals. They forsook the Lord, the God of their ancestors, who had
brought them out of Egypt. They followed and worshiped various
gods of the peoples around them. They aroused the Lord’s anger
because they forsook him and served Baal and the Ashtoreths.
(Judges 2:11-13)

How did God respond to their evilness?
He was angry with how they rejected Him and His principles,
so He allowed their enemies to seize control and rule over them.
They experienced great distress because the Lord removed His
hand of protection from them, but there was nothing they could
do themselves to change their situation.
Note: God may have allowed this to happen so they would reach out
to Him and pray for His hand of protection to return to them.
In his anger against Israel the Lord gave them into the hands of
raiders who plundered them. He sold them into the hands of their
enemies all around, whom they were no longer able to resist.
Whenever Israel went out to fight, the hand of the Lord was
against them to defeat them, just as he had sworn to them. They
were in great distress. (Judges 2:14-15)

Let’s assume they did pray to the Lord
and pleaded with Him to save them from their peril.
We see the compassionate heart of the Lord
as He gave the people new leadership to save them
(He also gave them another chance to turn to Him).
Then the Lord raised up judges, who saved them
out of the hands of these raiders. (Judges 2:16)

But the people did not appreciate, or accept God’s gift of compassion.
Their hearts were not changed, so they continued to
ignore the Lord and how their ancestors had connected with Him.
Their wicked hearts prevented them from understanding how they were
missing out on His blessings because they chose to follow other gods.
Yet they would not listen to their judges but prostituted themselves
to other gods and worshiped them. They quickly turned from the
ways of their ancestors, who had been obedient to the Lord’s
commands. (Judges 2:17)

God showed the depth of His compassion and His concern for
the Israelites by giving the people a new leader to rescue them.
He did that because He heard their groaning
(which may have been their prayers for relief from their difficulties).
Whenever the Lord raised up a judge for them, he was with the
judge and saved them out of the hands of their enemies as long
as the judge lived; for the Lord relented because of their groaning
under those who oppressed and afflicted them. (Judges 2:18)

But when the leader, who was raised up by God, died,
the people once again returned to their life of corruption
and they continued to follow, worship, and serve other gods.
They refused to acknowledge the Lord as their Savior.
But when the judge died, the people returned to ways even more
corrupt than those of their ancestors, following other gods and
serving and worshiping them. They refused to give up their evil
practices and stubborn ways. (Judges 2:19)

Their attitudes and actions aroused the anger of the Lord
and the entire nation suffered as a result.
There may have been some who were worshiping the Lord,
and He may have given them the ability to cope with His
judgment, on the entire nation for rejecting Him.
Their punishment was the removal
of the Lord’s hand of protection once again.
When we look at these scriptures,
we see that the Lord’s punishment was giving them
one more chance to live in the same manner as their ancestors.
Therefore the Lord was very angry with Israel and said,
“Because this nation has violated the covenant I ordained
for their ancestors and has not listened to me, I will no longer
drive out before them any of the nations Joshua left when he
died. I will use them to test Israel and see whether they will
keep the way of the Lord and walk in it as their ancestors did.”
The Lord had allowed those nations to remain; he did not
drive them out at once by giving them into the hands of Joshua.
(Judges 2:20-23)

In these few verses we have seen how disobedience can arouse the
Lord’s anger, which can result in the punishment in an entire nation.
But we have also learned that He is a compassionate God.

We may be thinking, “All of that occurred during biblical times,
so what does this have to do with the United States?”
Simply this:
God is an impartial God (which means He is consistent), so if He
judged nations in the past for their corruption, evilness, and turning
to other gods, but didn’t judge America in the same way for the
same reasons, it would be a contradiction of His impartiality.

ACTION:
We have seen that when God heard the groaning (prayers)
of the people, He responded in a positive way.
As followers of Christ, we have a responsibility to pray (groan)
and ask God to return His hand of protection over our land.

Pray,
“Heavenly Father, I am sorry that we, as a nation, have chosen
to reject You in many ways. Not only have we turned to other
gods (wealth, selfish pleasure, etc.), but we have become a sinful
nation in Your eyes. Forgive us for our sinfulness and hear the
prayers of those who still praise and worship You. We plead with
You to return Your hand of protection to our nation, to eradicate
this deadly virus, to overturn lawlessness with law and order, to
change our hearts, and to heal our land. Remind us of what can
happen when we reject You, and reignite our desire to return to
Your house in record numbers, which will hopefully create a great
revival across our land, and around the world. Thank You for Your
compassionate love of Your people.”

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