How God Views the Nations - including America

As I have been preparing for Daniel 6 tomorrow, I have studied (but could not include in the sermon) the teaching out of Daniel 6 about how God views the nations. Prior to Daniel 6, the Babylonians had ruled taking Daniel as a teenager into captivity and him leaving in a foreign land under at least four different kings before the collapse of the kingdom under Belshazzar.

In fact, it was said that the mighty kingdom fell that one night (as recorded in Daniel 5:30) and "not a spear was thrown." You can read my message about that here. God is able to take down the greatest nations in one night.

And now in Daniel 6, Darius (possibly his title) is ruling.

This reminds us that nations are born, and die. They come on the landscape of history, but then pass away. God says (Isaiah 50:15) "Behold, the nations are like a drop of a bucket, and are counted as the small dust of the balance...." Nations are like one drop that spills out of a bucket. They are like dust on a balance.

John MacArthur says, "The only word I can think of to describe the nations is inconsequential."

Inconsequential when compared to the greater plans of God. Nations come and go...God remains. People and rulers rise and fall....but the people of God remain. As Joyce G. Baldwin says in her commentary on Daniel in the Tyndale Old Testament Commentary set, "The episodes chosen demonstrate that the world's great empires, and the kings who represent them, are all subject to the God of the exiles from Judah...."

God is in control and no nation or ruler has power than has not been granted them by Him (Romans 13:1).

Acts 17:26 (NIV) "From one man he made every nation of men, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he determined the times set for them and the exact places where they should live."

I love America, but we need to be humbled by the thought that God does not need America, America needs God. Again to quote John MacArthur, "Nations come and go and God's work goes on, for no nation is really significant when set against the backdrop of eternity and God's plan."