I. INTRODUCTION
A. According to the Scriptures, God rules and judges all the nations.
1. All nations are subject to God whether they acknowledge Him or not. Consider Psalm 103:19 – “The LORD has established His throne in the heavens, and His sovereignty rules over all.”
2. Unlike the spiritual judgment of individuals that will come after the resurrection, nations (governments, kingdoms, and empires) are judged in the present. Notice Psalm 82:8 – “Arise, O God, judge the earth! For it is You who possesses all the nations.”
B. When God judges the nations, it is a small thing for Him to raise them up or bring them down.
1. Notice Isaiah 40:15-17 – “Behold, the nations are like a drop from a bucket, and are regarded as a speck of dust on the scales; behold, He lifts up the islands like fine dust. Even Lebanon is not enough to burn, nor its beasts enough for a burnt offering. All the nations are as nothing before Him, they are regarded by Him as less than nothing and meaningless.”
2. History proves that seemingly indestructible kingdoms, nations, and empires can fall quickly and completely (we will notice some of these in this lesson). This is evidence of God’s great power.
C. With this understanding, let us consider what becomes of those nations who forget God.
1. David declared the fate of such nations in Psalm 9:15-17 – “The nations have sunk down in the pit which they have made; in the net which they hid, their own foot has been caught. The LORD has made Himself known; He has executed judgment. In the work of his own hands the wicked is snared. The wicked will return to Sheol, even all the nations who forget God.”
2. The process of forgetting God is self-destructive. We will notice below that forgetting God is not only the reason for a nation’s destruction, but it is also the means by which a nation is destroyed.
II. FORGETFULNESS
A. Any nation that forgets the higher law of God is in trouble.
1. The higher law of God is basic morality, ethics, and the fear of God. It is essentially the Ten Commandments minus the Sabbath law (see Ex. 20:1-17). Jesus summarized God’s law as the love of God and the love of man in Matthew 22:37-40.
2. Whether a nation recognizes it or not, God’s law is always the highest law of the land.
a. Consider Psalm 47:7-8 – “For God is the King of all the earth; sing praises with a skillful psalm. God reigns over the nations, God sits on His holy throne.”
b. There was a time in England and early America when the universal jurisdiction of God’s higher law was well recognized and the matter of lawmaking was actually considered as a science of investigating and discovering what His law was (like physics or biology).
i. The discovery of “natural law” (see Rom. 2:14-15) and the establishment of “common law” for all citizens were concepts that the framers of the United States Constitution understood very well, but these concepts have been mostly and willfully forgotten today.
ii. The Declaration of Independence even cited the “Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God,” but unfortunately the Constitution does not state what was implicitly understood by 18th century Americans, which is that man’s laws are always subservient to God’s laws (Article Six which declares the Constitution to be the highest law of the land and does not mention God’s law).
3. God has established governments to administer His higher law, so those who forget their God-given purpose will be brought down.
a. Paul stated that a government is “a minister of God to you for good” (Rom. 13:4). Peter wrote that kings and governors were “for the punishment of evildoers and the praise of whose who do right” (1Pet. 2:14).
b. Governments who forget God and abuse their authority will perish. Notice Psalm 50:22 – “Now consider this, you who forget God, or I will tear you in pieces, and there will be none to deliver.”
B. God often applies discipline to remind forgetful nations about Him.
1. We know that God disciplines individuals whom He loves to provoke their repentance and godliness (Prov. 3:11-12; Heb. 12:5-11), and He does the same for nations.
2. The Old Testament is filled with examples of God’s merciful discipline toward many nations.
3. In the New Testament, we find prophecies of events that would occur later to provoke the wicked Roman Empire into complying with God’s higher law (Rev. 9:20-21).
C. If the discipline of God does not provoke forgetful nations to remember Him, then they are destined for final destruction.
1. Typically, a government’s destruction is the product of its own forgetfulness of God. The internal corruption, greed, and injustice that results from ignoring God’s higher law leads to poverty and weakness. Such a depleted government makes an easy target for a conquering foe or a rebellion.
2. This pattern of decline is seen in nearly every historical example of nations who have fallen.
III. EXAMPLES IN HISTORY
A. There is no better example of a nation who forgot God than the northern kingdom of Israel.
1. Nine times in the book of Deuteronomy, Israel was warned about forgetting God (4:9, 23, 31; 6:12; 8:11, 14, 19; 9:7; 25:19).
2. Nevertheless, Israel forgot God. Hosea expressed their sad condition.
a. In Hosea 4:6, God said, “My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge.”
b. Hosea 8:1-14 expresses their problem well, for they said, “My God, we of Israel know Thee!” (v. 2), but the truth was that “Israel has forgotten his Maker” (v. 14).
c. God explained their decline in Hosea 13:6 – “As they had their pasture, they became satisfied, and being satisfied, their heart became proud; therefore they forgot Me.”
3. Despite many attempts to save them, God destroyed them via Assyria (2Ki. 17:5-23; 18:9-12).
B. Assyria (Nineveh) is a good example of lessons of discipline forgotten.
1. Jonah’s preaching led the people of Nineveh to repentance for a time (Jon. 3).
2. However, Assyria returned to its wickedness and was destroyed by Babylon (Nah. 3).
C. The Babylonian Empire is an example of how easily God can overturn a kingdom.
1. Nebuchadnezzar was taught to honor God’s sovereignty in Daniel 4 (v. 25 – “the Most High is ruler over the realm of mankind and bestows it on whomever He wishes”; v. 27 – “it is Heaven that rules”; v. 37 – God “is able to humble those who walk in pride”).
2. The lessons learned by Nebuchadnezzar were ignored (forgotten) by Belshazzar, (Dan. 5:22 – “even though you knew all this”), so Babylon’s rule was destroyed in one night (Dan. 5:30-31).
D. Judah is the saddest of all historical examples of a nation forgetting God, for they were the chosen nation.
1. God said of Judah, “My people have forgotten Me days without number” (Jer. 2:32).
2. Like Israel, God disciplined Judah “until there was no remedy” and they were taken away into captivity in Babylon (2Chron. 36:13-21, note v. 16).
3. Judah was given another chance after the captivity (began in 586 B.C.), but their opportunity ended when they rejected Christ.
a. The Lord foretold of the destruction of Jerusalem and He wept over the city (Matt. 23:37-24:2; Luke 19:41-44). Jerusalem and the temple were utterly destroyed in A.D. 70.
b. The Greek historian Philostratus II recorded that the Roman general Titus refused to accept a wreath of victory for conquering Jerusalem because he saw “no merit in vanquishing people forsaken by their own God.”
E. Maybe the most effective example for us is that of the Romans because they were what we are becoming.
1. The highly advanced Roman civilization was made virtually extinct.
a. Roman cities had paved highways and multi-story brick, stone, and concrete buildings with indoor plumbing and central heating. There was hundreds of cities, and most were completely razed (none survived intact).
b. The Romans had possibly been on the verge of the industrial revolution, but instead it was delayed fifteen centuries. After the empire’s destruction, people forgot how to read and write, and they reverted back to a primitive way of life (Dark Ages).
2. All of this happened because the Roman Empire forgot God, ignored His higher law, and imposed their own godless laws.
IV. CONCLUSION
A. Why have we studied these things? The answer is obvious: if our nation does not wake up and remember the God of heaven and His higher law, it will repeat the pattern of history. The signs are all around us.
B. Thankfully, God does not forget. Even though nations forget Him, He always remembers His faithful ones, and He promises them, “I will not forget you” (Isa. 49:15). Do not be anxious, but believe in God.