God And The Nations - Part 2 - The State Of The Nation Series

God And The Nations - Part 2 - The State of The Nation

Today we will be reading from Jeremiah 18:1-12

Last week we started taking a look at God and His interaction with the nations of the earth.

The first thing we did was to take a look at Acts 17:26 where it says:

From one man, Adam, God made all the nations.

Not only did He make all of the nations but He also ordained or determined when they would take place in history and where on the earth they would be located.

That is what we saw regarding the relationship between the nations and the Lord in general.

But what about the relationship between the Lord and the nation of the USA specifically. What did we find?

Here are two of the questions we asked:

Is America a dominant nation on the world stage because we have made it so or is America a dominant nation on the world stage because the Lord God has raised us up according to His plans and His purposes?

And, did the Lord God raise us up because many of our founding fathers were devout Christians or did He raise us up by selecting devout Christians to be our founding fathers? Or did He raise us up for some other reason altogether, a reason known only to Him?

To help us with the last question we went back and looked at some quotes of our founding fathers and saw that many of them were indeed devout followers of Jesus Christ.

But, does God take that into account? Apparently He does because in Psalm 33:12a it says;

“Blessed is the nation whose God is (Yahweh) the LORD.”

Finally, we looked at another factor in trying to find an answer and we found that the blessing and curse that is repeated three times in the Bible is that, “The nation that blesses (Israel) will be blessed and the nation that curses (Israel) will be cursed.” Numbers 24:5-9

Now, these last two things will certainly help a nation to be a blessed nation but what ultimately happens when the Lord decides to raise up of destroy a nation?

Let’s read Jeremiah 18:1-12 (prayer for help)

Is there any place in that passage where we see United States of America? Not specifically by name but in general we can see a category the USA could fit into.

You see, in Jeremiah 18:9-10 the Lord says, “And if … I announce that a nation or kingdom is to be built up and planted, and if it does evil in My sight and does not obey Me, then I will reconsider the good I had intended to do for it.”

OK. So, let’s just assume that the Lord God intended for the United States to be built up and planted in His sight. And that He did this according to His plans and purposes.

And let’s assume that He did this by placing godly men in charge of the founding of the nation.

And let’s also assume that the nation has been blessed ever since Israel once again became a nation because we have blessed Israel and have not curse Israel.

That brings up the question …

Has the United States done evil in the sight of the Lord?

Has the United States been disobedient to the Lord?

----------------------------------

Let’s read from Romans 1:18-32 (NLT)

But God shows His anger from heaven against all sinful, wicked people who suppress the truth by their wickedness. They know the truth about God because He has made it obvious to them. For ever since the world was created, people have seen the earth and sky. Through everything God made, they can clearly see His invisible qualities - His eternal power and divine nature. So they have no excuse for not knowing God.

Yes, they knew God, but they wouldn’t worship Him as God or even give Him thanks. And they began to think up foolish ideas of what God was like. As a result, their minds became dark and confused. Claiming to be wise, they instead became utter fools. And instead of worshiping the glorious, ever-living God, they worshiped idols made to look like mere people and birds and animals and reptiles.

So God abandoned them to do whatever shameful things their hearts desired. As a result, they did vile and degrading things with each other’s bodies. They traded the truth about God for a lie. So they worshiped and served the things God created instead of the Creator Himself, who is worthy of eternal praise! Amen. That is why God abandoned them to their shameful desires. Even the women turned against the natural way to have sex and instead indulged in sex with each other. And the men, instead of having normal sexual relations with women, burned with lust for each other. Men did shameful things with other men, and as a result of this sin, they suffered within themselves the penalty they deserved.