Does the Bible apply to Nations

Does the Bible speak to Nations?

We are delving into the question “can the West be saved”. We have established that if there is a God, then the Bible has the best credentials for being God's message to the human race. So a good question to examine is: “Does the Bible have anything to say about the rise and fall of nations and civilisations?”

There is a technical problem to consider before we start. It is this: “to what can we compare Western civilisation as a whole or indeed individual modern nations in terms of entities depicted in the Bible?”

From Moses onwards there is a lot in the Bible about the 12 tribes of Israel, then the unified kingdom of Israel, then the separate kingdoms of Judah in the South and Israel in the North. But these have a special relationship with God: “You have I chosen out of all the nations” so their dealings with God were on a level unmatched by any modern nation.

The nations of the ancient world which did not worship YHWH do indeed come in for mention, but unlike them Western civilisation does have a strong Christian heritage, and although modern nations now boast of secular government, their populations have, perhaps more in the past than the present, claimed to be “Christian”. Since Jesus said: “unto whom much is given, much is expected...” the modern West may face a higher standard of accountability before God.

So modern nations may rate somewhere between the Israelites and the ancient gentile nations.

A further caution comes from Jesus' teaching about the Kingdom of God under the New Covenant, particularly that, as he said to Pilate: “My kingdom is not of this world”. I believe we would be mistaken if we tried to identify any denominational church, let alone any nation with the Kingdom of God, even though both these claims have been made down through history.

With these warnings that we will need to exercise some care in how we extract principles from the Bible which can be validly applied to our quest, let's see what we can find!

Let's start with an easy one – and one I think may be applicable now – Israel in the time of the “Judges”.

The previous happenings under Moses and Joshua had of course been part of a very special covenant relationship and specific promises made by God to Abraham which modern nations cannot claim. Similarly the loss of “the land” and the 70 years exile in the 8^th century BC were closely tied up in scripture with the covenant – this time punishments for breach of it.

Even in this period of the judges, cripture makes it clear that what happened was a playing out of the exclusive covenant relationship between Israel and God (eg Judges 2:20 “this nation has violated the covenant I made with their ancestors”), but I am hoping we may find there is also something here we can apply to our modern situation.

In Judges 2:6,7 we read “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 had seen all the great things the Lord had done for Israel.”

But then things slid. Judges 2: 10ff “After that … a new generation grew up who knew neither the Lord nor what he had done for Israel. Then Israel did evil in the sight of the Lord and served the Baals. They forsook the Lord … they followed and worshipped various gods of the peoples around them … They aroused the Lord's anger because they forsook him and served the Baals and Ashtoreths. In his anger against them, the Lord gave them into the hands of raiders who plundered them … they were in great distress. Then the Lord raised up judges who saved them from the hands of these raiders. Yet they would not listen to their judges but prostituted themselves to other gods … Whenever God raised up a judge for them he was with the judge and saved them from their enemies … for the Lord relented because of their groaning under those who oppressed and afflicted them. But when the judge died the people returned to ways even more corrupt than their ancestors ...”

The pattern stated here is borne out by the historical cameos which follow. Some of the judges are simply mentioned, but on my count for five of them the cycle of: they reject God – fall to oppressors - cry out to God for deliverance – God raises up a judge and uses him or her to deliver them – they are faithful to God for a while – then they begin the cycle all over; is depicted.

In the history of the Christian West, the pattern may not be quite as clear – there seems never to have been some “golden age” - but certainly in different places at different times there have been revivals of faith in and obedience to Christ, and conversely descents into great evil (often wearing the mast of “religion”).

From the book of Judges we can at least see that these repeated descents are true to human nature, and the revivals due to the continued grace, mercy and power of God. We can also see that whilst the present falling away of Western nations in unison may be novel in Christian history, and the “gods” we are turning to different to the Baals and Ashtoreths, the process itself is nothing new.

It gives us an explanation for what we see currently happening in the world around us and in our own societies. It also holds out for us the hope that as God repeatedly had compassion on those rebellious Israelites when they cried out to him for help, he will have compassion now.