What are the consequences of nations turning away from God?

Let us now see the consequences of this high-handed rebellion against God. The reader will mark the connection as shown by the word "therefore." "Therefore came a great wrath from the Lord of hosts. Therefore it is come to pass, that as he cried, and they would not hear, so they cried, and I would not hear, saith the Lord of hosts: but I scattered them with a whirlwind among all the nations whom they knew not. Thus the land was desolate after them, that no man passed through nor returned: for they laid the pleasant land desolate." (vv. 12-14.) The returned remnant knew very well the past history of their nation, that the pleasant land (the land of desire) had been ravaged and laid waste by Nebuchadnezzar, and that even their present condition, though they had returned from exile, was a testimony to what had been suffered. But whenever we get off the ground of the word of God there is a tendency to lose sight of the hand of God in our chastenings; and it is more than likely that the Jews, forgetting their special place in the dealings of God, were taking up in spirit a position like that of the surrounding peoples. If therefore they had been conquered and carried away captive, so, they might have reasoned, have other nations. To counteract any such thought, and to compel them to see the root of all the evils that had befallen them, the Lord reminds them of the conduct of their fathers, and tells them that it was His wrath they had suffered in judgment; and hence that it was in His favour alone prosperity could be enjoyed, and that obedience to His word was the only way by which His favour could be regained. It was for this reason the prophet was instructed to hold up this picture of the past, that they might learn a lesson, take warning, for themselves. They might fast and separate themselves for ever; but if this were unaccompanied by self-judgment and obedience to the Word, they did but fast in vain. Our Lord also taught the same thing when He said to His disciples, "When ye fast, be not as the hypocrites, of a sad countenance: for they disfigure their faces, that they may appear unto men to fast. Verily I say unto you, they have their reward. But thou, when thou fastest, anoint thy head, and wash thy face; that thou appear not unto men to fast, but unto Thy Father who is in secret: and thy Father, who seeth in secret, shall reward thee openly." (Matthew 6:16-18). The Jews and the priests to whom Zechariah was sent, in their desire to commend themselves to one another, had too much forgotten Him who "seeth in secret," and thus betrayed the state of their hearts. Nor are we free from the same danger; and hence it is that the apostle insists upon the true heart and the full assurance of faith in our approaches to God. (Hebrews 10; compare 1 John 3:20-22.) It was then in consequence of disobedience to the word of God that judgment had fallen upon His people. The various stages of His dealings with them are very solemn. First, "there came a great wrath from the Lord of hosts." This failing to produce contrition, "He cried," and they would not hear, and then when they, awakened at length, though too late, did cry to Him, the Lord would not hear. (Compare Prov. 1:24-31) And thus there came, finally, the crowning woe and judgment in their being scattered with a whirlwind among all the nations whom they knew not. Thus the land, bereaved of its inhabitants, had been desolate; for they, they by their sins, had laid the pleasant land desolate. In this solemn way the prophet is made to lay bare the bitter root of all the sorrows of the people, that they might learn what an evil and bitter thing it was to depart from the living and true God.

Here the prophecy of Azariah, or rather that of Oded his father whose messenger he is (v. 8), bears the character of all spoken prophecy. It addresses the king first of all, then the two faithful tribes, Judah and Benjamin. Azariah presents the conditions of the covenant of law: "Jehovah is with you, while ye are with Him; and if ye seek Him He will be found of you, but if ye forsake Him He will forsake you" (v. 2). It was necessary that this covenant be observed by both sides; on Jehovah's side it is always observed, for He is faithful, whereas Israel, if they were to be unfaithful, would of necessity fall under the judgment of God who must forsake them. Azariah then recalls the former days when all the people had been unfaithful; alluding particularly to the time of the Judges, when through Israel's disobedience the most complete disorder had reigned: "Now for a long while Israel was without the true God, and without a teaching priest, and without law, but in their trouble they turned to Jehovah the God of Israel, and sought Him, and He was found of them. And in those times there was no peace to him that went out, nor to him that came in, but great disturbances were amongst all the inhabitants of the countries. And nation was broken against nation, and city against city; for God disturbed them with all manner of distress" (vv. 3-6). God, the priesthood, and the law had disappeared, so to speak; every man had been a law to himself. It was the reign of iniquity. Then how many times the people in their anguish had cried out to the Lord and returned to Him! And each time they had found God to be a Deliverer. There is "no peace" in forsaking God-no rest, no peace for the wicked, says Isaiah-but trouble upon trouble; on the contrary, from the moment the king returns again, as Asa did, there was peace and rest (cf. 2 Chron. 14: 1).

In spite of all the blessings enumerated in Judges 5, Israel very soon relapsed into evil ways and forsook Jehovah. By way of chastisement for this unfaithfulness, God delivered them into the hands of the Midianites. The people passed through all the phases of misery (material for them - moral for the church) which invariably follow going after the world and forsaking God. Under Jabin, Israel was without arms (Judges 5: 8); under the yoke of Midian he was famished - the consequence of our unfaithfulness, from which we always suffer when we seek our portion with the world. It drags us down and takes away our arms, our strength leaves us, and we lose every means of withstanding; not only so, but the very sources of existence are also lacking, for the world never affords nourishment to any one, and we perceive it by the barrenness which invades the soul, when, in our folly, we leave the marrow and fatness of the house of God for the harvests which are merely a mirage of the desert. This was the experience of Israel; Midian "left no sustenance" for him (v. 4).

Jehovah is not mocked with impunity. "Therefore shall they eat of the fruit of their way and be filled with their own devices." Sowing to the flesh must be reaping destruction. He does not execute judgment as yet; but it will come assuredly and soon — tribulation and anguish for man — indignation and wrath on His part who judges. It is easy to turn away from grace and truth, from righteousness at any time; but the backsliding of the simple will slay them, and the prosperity of the foolish shall lure them to perdition.

If Solomon or his sons turned from God's commandments, however, and descended to the level of worshiping false gods, God promised just as firmly that He would cut off Israel from the land He had given them and would bring the temple down to nothing, so that other nations would consider Israel with contempt, asking why the Lord had done such a thing to His people. The answer would be given them that Israel was guilty of forsaking the Lord after having been so greatly blessed by Him. Turning away to serve other gods, they brought such a calamity on themselves (vs.6-9).

Nevertheless Solomon is reminded of his own responsibility. The continuation of the kingdom, as it was given to him, hung upon his own faithfulness. God says, "If thou," etc., and adds, "if ye turn away," for the people would assuredly follow their king. And the consequent judgment would (and did) fall upon all Israel. "I will root up them": even the house called by His own name should become a reproach. But the nations, the Gentiles, would know why God so dealt with them.

But, on the other hand, when Israel forgot the Lord, and forsook His precious commandments, the heaven became brass and the earth iron; barrenness, desolation, famine and misery were the melancholy accompaniments of disobedience. How could it be otherwise? "If ye be willing and obedient, ye shall eat the good of the land; but if ye refuse and rebel, ye shall be devoured with the sword; for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it."

(2) If they turned aside from Him, God's threatenings would be as faithful as His promises. They had seen the abominations of the heathen, and could thus realize the wickedness which had brought down God's judgment. Let them not awaken it, then, against themselves by following in their steps; otherwise their own posterity and the stranger from a far country should see in the desolation of the land the manifest anger of the Lord against them for sins as manifest; and they would be rooted out of it.

"And the Lord shall separate him to evil out of all the tribes of Israel, according to all the curses of the covenant that are written in this book of the law; so that the generation to come of your children, that shall rise up after you, and the stranger that shall come from a far land, shall say, when they see the plagues of that land, and the sicknesses which the Lord has laid upon it; and that the whole land thereof is brimstone, and salt, and burning, that it is not sown, nor bears, nor any grass grows therein, like the overthrow of Sodom, and Gomorrah, Admah, and Zeboim, which the Lord overthrew in his anger, and in his wrath." Soul-subduing examples of the governmental dealings of the living God which ought to speak with a voice of thunder in the ears of all those who are turning the grace of our God into lasciviousness and denying the Lord that bought them! — "Even all nations shall say, Wherefore has the Lord done thus to this land? What means the heat of this great anger? Then men shall say, Because they have forsaken the covenant of the Lord God of their fathers, which he made with them when he brought them forth out of the land of Egypt; for they went and served other gods, and worshipped them, gods whom they knew not, and whom he had not given to them; and the anger of the Lord was kindled against this land, to bring upon it all the curses that are written in this book; and the Lord rooted them out of their land in anger, and in wrath, and in great indignation, and cast them into another land, as it is this day." (Vers. 19-28.)

Thus did He compass His people round with accumulated proofs of His displeasure to the uttermost, if peradventure they might still repent. At least the warnings, thus given and despised by the rebellious people, would instruct those who might have ears to hear in their midst. "And it shall come to pass, when thou shalt show this people all these words, and they shall say to thee, Wherefore has the Lord pronounced all this great evil against us? or what is our iniquity? or what is our sin that we have committed against the Lord our God? Then shalt thou say to them, Because your fathers have forsaken me, says the Lord, and have walked after other gods, and have served them, and have worshipped them, and have forsaken me, and have not kept my law; and ye have done worse than your fathers; for, behold, ye walk every one after the imagination of his evil heart, that they may not hearken to me: therefore will I cast you out of this land into a land that ye know not, neither ye nor your fathers; and there shall ye serve other gods day and night; where I will not show you favour." (Ver. 10-13.)