God's Just Judgment of a Nation

By James Tarter

God gives an amazing word about nations in the Minor Prophets in the Bible that is being worked out before our eyes. This word fits into fulfilling Jesus' Great Commission and also the judgment of spiritual darkness that has come on many nations in the past 80 years. The choice of the U.S. or any other nation for or against joining itself to the Lord Jesus depends crucially on the work or lack of it by the Christians there. We get to see what God calls believers to do to save their land. This book focuses on the God-ordered sequence of Joel, Amos, and Jonah, includes the strong conclusion from Malachi, and keeps to the main picture about nations today. This main picture includes what Ephesians, 2Chron. 7:13-14, and Romans 8 show is needed to receive the blessed future of a nation in Jesus instead of a just destruction.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: Apr 8, 2011
• ISBN: 9781257473045

Book preview

God's Just Judgment of a Nation

God’s Just Judgment of a Nation

Preparing Our Nation to Receive a Blessed Just Judgment

Dr. James M. Tarter

Copyright Page

18th Edition

ISBN 978-1-257-47304-5

Copyright 2001, 2006, 2018 by James M. Tarter.  All rights reserved.  Permission granted to make copies for purposes consistent with furthering the Gospel of Jesus Christ and the Kingdom of God.

Scripture taken from the NEW AMERICAN STANDARD BIBLE® (1995 Updated Edition): 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995 by the Lockman Foundation.  Used by permission.  (www.Lockman.org)

I call the New American Standard Bible the NAS.  I add boldface or underline to specific words and phrases in Scriptures to add my emphasis for discussion.

Introduction: God’s Word in the Bible for Nations in Our Day

Biblical views of the end times are usually all negative or all positive: either all nations reject Christ and follow the Antichrist, or else all nations ultimately receive the Lord Jesus.  Each view has Scriptures to support it and has ways to interpret away conflicting Scriptures.

But both views miss the key emphasis from the Bible when they predict what all of the nations will do.  The Bible normally provides a different perspective: God shows the vital spiritual issues for nations in the crucial time period leading up to Jesus’ return, and exhorts each person and people group and nation to choose life.  As happens with individuals, many nations will choose life in Christ, and many will not.

What the Church does in each land before Jesus returns makes the crucial difference in what a specific nation will do with Jesus.  (The Church’s ministry to a nation is discussed especially in Chapters 4-5, and Chapters 6-15 provide further insights into the real situation.)

All 12 Minor Prophets provide much of the vital Biblical picture for nations today.  This book focuses on seeing this picture in the Minor Prophets with a special view of applying it to the U.S.  The U.S. is in far worse danger of utter devastation and has a much greater opportunity for the ultimate blessing than most people think.  A key problem is that few believers realize what God calls us to do to take advantage of the great opportunity for our nation (and other nations).  God shows this word clearly in the Bible, but it is also easily missed and requires care to be fully appreciated and accurately judged.

I show the picture in Chapter 1, which is short and omits much detail and justification.  But today we already have too many opinions without enough Scriptural authority.  This picture comes from whole books of the Bible and some other well-known Scriptures with a fresh perspective.  Our examination of the Scriptures concerning nations today begins in Chapter 3.  My goal is to explain this picture from the Bible thoroughly enough for a reader to judge how well Scriptures show it and to know how to respond appropriately to God about it.

This book is written with a primary application to the U.S.  The Biblical principles in this picture can easily be applied to another nation with the application to the U.S. as an illustration.  I personally have done this for three nations where I have lived for more than a month at a time: the Philippines, South Sudan, and Eastern Congo.

Believers must respond to God and do His word before the national judgment becomes imminent.  If the Church in a land provides what it needs in its season of opportunity, then this land will be healed and its just judgment will be a blessing in Christ – not a devastation.

In this book I sometimes refer to a SUPPLEMENT or to one of the FIVE BOOKS about healing nations in our day. These book references give a different focus or a more extensive description or explanation than I believe is best for most readers of this book.  The PDF and Preview of each of my books contain the whole book and are free at www.lulu.com under James Tarter, so that you can see or examine any page or whole reference for free.  At the end of this book (hereafter called your book) I briefly describe the details of the Supplement and the focus of the other four books.

Chapter 1: A Nation Choosing Life in Jesus – Or Death

Bible prophecy is being fulfilled before our eyes, but few people see it with understanding.  Whole nations are getting devastated while other nations are being prepared for a wonderful life in Christ Jesus.  But few Christians appreciate how clearly and specifically the Bible shows what is happening now.  And few know what God wants believers to do to make their nation’s future to be a wonderful blessing instead of a most awful curse.

In Chapter 1 we briefly survey this picture.  Scriptures will follow.

At the heart of these earth-shaking events is Jesus’ Great Commission, which is stated in Matt. 28:18-20:

And Jesus came up and spoke to them [His disciples], saying, "All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth.  Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age."  (Matt. 28:18-20)

Jesus’ personal disciples are to make disciples of all the nations, especially their own nation or any other nation or people group to whom God calls a personal disciple.  As with individuals, some nations accept this opportunity to be His disciple, and some nations reject it.

What enables a nation to make its vital decision for Jesus instead of rejecting Him?  A good preparation by the Christians in the land.  But who realizes the clear direction that God provides in His word about how we are to do this tremendous feat?  Who realizes His amazing prophecy about what His people will become like in our day of testings and deceptions?

The Life or Death of a Nation

Real life for any individual or nation is provided in its relationship with God through Jesus Christ.  The situation facing Gentile nations today is concisely expressed by an exhortation in Deut. 30:19-20, which serves as an example for nations now.  Moses told the nation of ancient Jewish people:

…I have set before you life and death, the blessing and the curse.  So choose life in order that you may live, you and your descendants, by loving the Lord your God, by obeying His voice, and by holding fast to Him; for this is your life and the length of your days, that you may live in the land which the Lord swore to your fathers, to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, to give them.  (Deut. 30:19-20)

God spoke through Moses to set before the nation of Israel life and death, and the blessing and the curse.  Then He exhorted the nation to choose life by loving, obeying, and holding fast to the Lord.  Many individuals chose life, and many chose death.  But it was the national choice for death that kicked them out of the land three times.

Ancient Israel, Judah, and Judea all failed to choose life, and one generation in each nation capped this failure and received a national judgment which was the curse, full of spiritual and physical death.  Assyria permanently destroyed ancient Israel from being a people (Isa. 7:8); Babylon took the remnant of Judah into exile 70 years; and Rome took Judea into exile in 70 AD, which lasted 19 centuries.  The Bible also shows the just judgment of many other nations as whole units, but these three are the most thorough Biblical examples for us.

Rom. 2:9-10 states a principle about the judgment or blessings of individuals: to the Jew first and also to the Greek, which means any non-Jew (Gentile) in Rom. 2.  This principle applies to nations also: in this time leading up to Jesus’ return, God speaks through the Bible and through His people in a land to set before each Gentile nation the same choice of life and death, the blessing and the curse.

On the one hand, a Gentile nation today has a better opportunity than ever before to join itself to God as a national disciple of the Lord Jesus Christ.  What does this mean?  There is one key ingredient: a national disciple of Jesus must have a living, vital relationship with Jesus as its Lord and King.  With this established, the nation will be a part of His people; He will lead it in the way that it should go; and He will provide life and the blessing to the nation and very many of its people by His Spirit, power, and grace.  As Psalm 33:12a exclaims, Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord!

If a nation rejects its opportunity to be blessed by God in our day, the nation receives the alternative: an awful judgment of spiritual darkness, so that the nation and very many of its people receive death and the curse.  This curse is often twofold: a national enemy utterly devastates the land, and its government moves from being unGodly to being firmly under the devil for his domination (as in Nazi Germany).

Many nations have received a deep spiritual darkness and death since about 1940.  Examples include Eastern Europe (Poland, Albania, Lithuania, etc.), Ethiopia, Cuba, Angola, Afghanistan, China, Viet Nam, Cambodia, North Korea, etc., and nations that have come under an Islamic government that persecutes confessing Christians.  This judgment of the nation normally continues through one or more generations, so that very few people who enter this judgment see the deliverance of their nation.  Yes, God still judges nations as whole units, but we rarely hear it described as His national judgment.

If the devil gets dominant authority, he characteristically works to systematically wipe out any Judeo-Christian foundation and heritage of the nation.  But the nation’s foundation and heritage were already too flawed to produce repentance, and God does constructive work there in only a small part of those who considered themselves to be Christians when there was little persecution.

Judah’s example shows what has happened in many nations that have been under communist domination in our day.  Judah’s exile lasted 70 years.  The few who returned had been shaken loose from a culture that God had judged, which had immunized its people against coming to a real repentance (2Chron. 36:12-16 describes this lack of a remedy for Judah).  After the judgment, those who returned were free from the subtle trappings of Judah’s past, so that they could establish a fresh national culture which was truly based on God’s word.

In many nations under the domination of atheistic communism for thirty years or longer, the people have been shaken loose from their flawed national foundations.  There is a great opportunity now for them to be replaced by much better ones that are based on God’s word.

The devastating national judgment often does not lead into a blessed future.  The Minor Prophets show that some nations receiving this terrible judgment might be permanently destroyed like ancient Israel.  In any case, the generation of Christians in a nation entering the terrible curse has normally missed their last chance to bring their nation into discipleship to Jesus.

People in the Land Lose Grace for Finding God

Do not be misled by the great spiritual harvest in some nations like China.  This national judgment is bad news, even spiritually.  A national decision for or against Christ Jesus affects the grace available to deliver the people in a land.  In Ez. 14:13-14 God shows a general principle for any nation that is entering a national judgment:

"Son of man, if a country sins against Me by committing unfaithfulness, and I stretch out My hand against it, destroy its supply of bread, send famine against it and cut off from it both man and beast, even though these three men, Noah, Daniel, and Job were in its midst, by their own righteousness they could deliver only themselves," says the Lord God.  (Ez. 14:13-14)

He repeats this principle three times in v. 15-20 for three other means of devastation, and adds that they could not deliver either their sons or daughters and they alone would be delivered, but the country would be desolate.  Notice these two facts: Noah delivered his family in The Flood, and Noah and Job were Gentiles.  This is not for Jewish nations only – God held up these three men as examples of the most righteous people anywhere or at any time up to the time of Ezekiel.

Thankfully God’s grace is far more abundantly available when a country is not entering its national judgment. God has delivered people on earth by the intercession of relatively righteous people, although far greater righteousness and intercessory power are available in Jesus.  But who can deliver others by his own righteousness as a nation starts its judgment?  Again, God declares this as a principle for any land.

Many other Scriptures show that the spiritual darkness on a land hurts the ability of people to see and receive God’s light from any source.  Therefore the national choice to become a national disciple of Jesus is very important to the people in a land for all eternity as well as for their lives on earth.  And this national choice is determined by how well the Christians in the land do in especially the season leading up to the ultimate national decision.  The good news is that the Bible shows clearly what God calls for His people to do.  The problem is that few believers know what the Bible shows us, and few of us will do what is needed as effectively if we do not know this.

We shall work to correct this problem especially in Chapters 4-6.  There we shall consider the crucial work which God wants to do in and through