Nation Against Nation: The Wages of Rejecting God's Peace

For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom (Matthew 24:7). See here the woeful effects of refusing Elohim's free offers of grace. Those who would have none of the gospel of peace shall have the miseries of war. They that loathed the heavenly manna shall be hunger-starved. They that despised the only medicine of their souls shall be visited with pestilence. They that would not suffer heart-quake shall suffer earthquake. As Bradford the martyr expressed it: they that trembled not in hearing shall be crushed to pieces in feeling.

As mankind heaps up sin, as it treasures up wrath, so accumulation of offences brings accumulation of miseries. The black horse follows at the heels of the red, and the pale follows the black (Revelation 6:4). God left not Pharaoh, that sturdy rebel, till He had beaten the breath from his body, nor will He cease pursuing men with His plagues till they surrender their rebellion entirely.

Christianity does not abolish nature but purifies it. The Christian Church adopted nations with their inherent structure, yet condemns the selfish motives that lead to war—ambition and rapacity. Scripture, by leaving certain matters unspoken, sends us back to natural law and reason. Under the division of mankind into distinct nations, questions of right and justice must arise between these independent centres. Adonai permits war as a necessary consequence of human division, yet condemns the corrupt hearts that wage it.