WAS GOD EVER
SAID TO HAVE "COME" WHEN HEATHEN ARMIES DESTROYED NATIONS?
MF Blume
Yes.
One man asked me where
the Bible ever indicated that God was to "come" when it was physically heathen
armies that came in destruction of a people. The reason this was asked was
due to the Partial Fulfillment insistence that Jesus' coming in Matthew 24:31
was a coming of judgment in which He used the heathen armies of Rome to destroy
Jerusalem.
Below we find it stated
in plain language that God came in judgment, using heathen armies.
First we see God declare
woe to the unrighteous.
Woe
unto them that decree unrighteous decrees, and that write grievousness which
they have prescribed;
(Isa 10:1)
Judgment was on it's way!
And then we read that
Assyria is the tool in God's hand to judge Israel.
O Assyrian, the rod of mine anger , and the staff in their
hand is mine indignation. I will send him against a
hypocritical nation, and against the people of my wrath
will I give him a charge, to take the spoil, and to take the prey, and
to tread them down like the mire of the streets.
(Isa 10:5-6)
So we clearly see that God
used Heathen Armies to judge His people when they deserved judgment for unrighteousness.
But what about God
being said to have "come" in times like this?
The burden of Egypt. Behold, the LORD rideth upon a swift cloud,
and shall come into Egypt: and the idols of Egypt shall be moved
at his presence, and the heart of Egypt shall melt in the midst of it.
(Isa 19:1)
John Gill's commentary
reads: "and shall
come into Egypt; not by Sennacherib king of Assyria, and his army, whom he
should send to invade it, and enter into it, as some think; but rather by
Cambyses and Ochus, kings of Persia; though it seems that what is here foretold
should be done, was done, not by means of any foreign power, but by the Lord
himself, who did by his own power and providence, or suffer to be done, what
was done: "
The fulflilment
of this prophecy occurred when the heathen armies of Cambyses and Ochus,
kings of Persia conquered Egypt. Yet it was said that God came in clouds!
See how it is indeed biblical to say God came in judgment using heathen
armies for destruction upon a people.
The LORD is slow to anger, and great in power, and will not at all acquit
the wicked: the LORD hath his way in the whirlwind and in the storm, and
the clouds are the dust of his feet.
(Nah 1:3)
Above we read in Nahum
of God's wrath upon Ninevah and Assyria using the armies of the Medes and
the Chaldeans.
John Gill's Commentary
reads, "The wrath of God
may be compared to a whirlwind, and a storm, which is sometimes hastily and
suddenly executed upon men: respect seems to be had to the armies of the
Medes and Chaldeans against the Assyrians; who, as the Babylonians against
the Jews, came up as clouds, and their chariots as the whirlwind, Jer. 4:13;
and the figures beautifully describe the numbers of them, the force with which
they came."