God Knows America’s Future
- Scriptures: Genesis 15:13-16; Proverbs 3:5-6
Transcript
Kerry Duke: Hi, I’m Kerry Duke, host of My God and My Neighbor podcast from Tennessee Bible College, where we see the Bible as not just another book, but the Book. Join us in a study of the inspired Word to strengthen your faith and to share what you’ve learned with others.
What is going to happen to this country? What kind of world will our children have when they grow up? What will be the outcome of all the conflict and all the chaos that we’re witnessing around us?
These are questions that people are asking more and more. People who are not even Christians and who are not even concerned about religion want to know what will happen, what the future of this land will be. And people have their opinions. Some opinions are politically-based. Some opinions may be based on history. Some opinions may be based on economics, but they are human opinions. We’re not going to be looking at opinions today. We’re going to be looking at a passage of Scripture that gives us a small part, a small feature of God’s perspective on these kinds of issues. And this is a passage that is very encouraging when we think about our nation and all the nations of the world and how all this fits together in God’s plans.
What can we learn from the Bible? Now, there are some people that when they consider and talk about these issues immediately point to certain ideas that they have in their doctrine. And so they immediately begin to talk about the rapture and the Antichrist, the Battle of Armageddon, and the Great Tribulation, and the idea of a millennial reign of Christ. But the Bible says that no man knows when Jesus is coming, Matthew 24, verse 36.
And the Bible tells us that he will come as a thief in the night. So those kinds of ideas take the discussion away from what the Bible actually teaches about how we should view this kind of subject. Is there anything that we need to remember and tell others about concerning the turmoil that we’re facing and the fears that we have, that we entertain about the future of our country.
A very powerful passage on this point is found back in Genesis chapter 15. Genesis chapter 15. I’m going to be reading verses 13 through 16. God is talking to Abraham here. Abraham happens to be in the land of Canaan when God speaks to him.
And here’s what God said in Genesis 15 verse 13, “And he said unto Abram, Know of a surety that thy seed shall be a stranger in a land that is not theirs, and shall serve them, and they shall afflict them four hundred years. And also that nation whom they shall serve will I judge, and afterward shall they come out with great substance. And thou shalt go to thy fathers in peace, thou shalt be buried in a good old age. But in the fourth generation they shall come hither again, for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet full.”
Notice in this passage that God describes three nations. The first one is in verse 13, “He said unto Abram, know of a surety that thy seed…” The seed of Abraham would be the descendants of Abraham—his children, grandchildren, great grandchildren, and on and on. The Bible here is talking about the posterity of Abraham, his descendants or his seed we know were the nation of Israel.
But ironically, the nation of Israel does not even exist at this point. Abraham does not even have a son, much less a grandson and a great grandson, and all this posterity known as the nation of Israel. So God is talking about the nation of Israel before they even exist. That’s the first nation.
And he says in verse 13, that your descendants will be a stranger in a land that is not theirs. They’re going to be foreigners in some kind of strange land. And while they’re there, they shall serve them. That is, your descendants are going to be servants to this other nation. And they, that is, this other nation, this foreign nation, shall afflict them (your descendants) for 400 years.
Now notice already that God is describing two different nations here, and He’s talking about what is going to happen hundreds of years in the future. And he’s describing what is going to happen to the seed of Abraham for 400 years. But remember that God has plans. God has purposes in all that He’s describing here. In verse 14, “And also that nation, whom they shall serve, will I judge, and afterwards shall they come out with great substance.” Nation number two is the nation of Egypt.
That’s the nation that he’s talking about in verse 14 when he says, “And also that nation whom they”—that is, the Israelites—”shall serve…” Because we know that the Hebrew nation were slaves in Egypt. They served the Egyptians. But God said in verse 14, “I will judge that nation.” I will judge the Egyptian people.
And afterward, after I judged them, he said, “shall they—that is, the Israelites—”come out with great substance.” Notice the words “come out.” That refers to the Exodus from Egypt. The word Exodus means the way out. And so here the Bible, hundreds of years before it actually occurred, talks about the Exodus that we read about in our book of Exodus.
So far then we see Israel and we see Egypt. Now look down at verse 16 again, because we see the third nation: “But in the fourth generation they shall come hither again, for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet full.” In the fourth generation, that is, the fourth generation of these Hebrew people, “shall they,” that is, the Israelites, “come hither,” that is, they will come here again.
Now, God is talking to Abraham hundreds of years before this comes to pass. And we ask the question, where was Abraham in Genesis 15? He is in the land of Canaan. That was the promised land. That is the land that God promised to the seed of Abraham. In Genesis 12, God said, “I will give this land to your seed.”
And here the Bible tells us that the nation of the Hebrew people would go into Egypt and they would be afflicted for 400 years. And after that, they would come out and they would eventually come here. That is, they will come back here to the land of Canaan. And we know that that took place in the book of Joshua.
And God explained something in verse 16 that’s very important to remember. God said that the reason for this is “for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet full.” The Amorites were one of the nations in the land of Canaan and here these Amorites represent all of these Canaanite people. So the Amorites are the nation of the Canaanite people. They were wicked. They were evil in Abraham’s time.
But notice what the Bible says at the time of Genesis 15. The sin of the Amorites was not yet full. It was not complete. God was going to let the Canaanites go on in their sin. You see, the Lord allows sin to grow to a certain point, and then he cuts it down just like you would harvest a crop.
Now, we think sometimes that that point should be sooner. As a matter of fact, you find in the Bible that the prophets of God are sometimes represented as asking why God doesn’t punish evil people sooner. Jeremiah said, “How long will the land mourn” for unrighteous people and for the fact that the wicked are prospering and that they’re persecuting the good people. Well, that’s Jeremiah 12 verses one through four. So Jeremiah. wanted the judgment of God to come upon these wicked people sooner and he asked the question “How long?”
In the book of Habakkuk the prophet also asked this question .How much longer will God let this go on? How much longer will God allow these evil people to have power and to oppress other people and to seemingly get away with what they’re doing?
This is exactly what we find in Revelation chapter 6 verses 9 and 10 where the souls of the beheaded say, “How long, O Lord?” How long will you not avenge the blood of them who have been slain? Those souls are represented as crying out for justice in the sight of God. And what we find back here in Genesis chapter 15 verse 16 is that God’s timetable is not ours.
The Canaanites were allowed to continue as a nation and as nations for 400 more years. They were bad, they were evil in Genesis 15 in the time of Abraham, but they were going to go on in that wickedness and get even worse for over 400 years. And then, when the time is right, and we might even say, when the time is ripe, then God takes that nation down. God punishes that nation.
The Bible tells us that when a man or a nation gets so bad in God’s sight, the Lord deals with him according to His own way and His own timetable. In Daniel chapter 2 verse 21, the Bible says he removes kings and he sets up kings. But he does that in his own time and not when we think that he should act.
The Lord allows evil men to seemingly get away with what they’re doing. But the Lord does not stop an evil man when he thinks about doing evil. The Lord does not even intervene many times when men are in the process of doing evil. As a matter of fact, the Lord allows men to continue, and sometimes He allows nations to continue in their wickedness for generations and even hundreds of years before He cuts them down.
So that’s why we would say, when the time is right, or when the time is ripe, just like the image of a harvest is used in the Bible, that is when God acts. In Revelation chapter 14, verses 14 through 20, the Bible represents angels carrying sickles and carrying out the harvest. And those angels with those sickles represent God’s judgment upon the nation of Israel in the destruction of Jerusalem in A.D. 70.
Now we have something similar here in Genesis chapter 15 where God is saying that the Amorites are evil, but they’re going to continue in that evil and then when the time is right, God is going to take care of those people. God is going to punish them.
So think about what we’re looking at here in Genesis chapter 15. We have three nations. We have a period of well over 400 years, and we have one God in charge. One God, who is foreseeing all these events. And He’s not only foreseeing and foretelling what is going to happen, but God is managing, He is coordinating, and He is working out His plans and His promises in the midst of the affairs of all these nations.
How remarkable. But we’re just getting started. Let’s look, first of all, at the nation of Israel, then we’re going to look at the nation of Egypt, then we’re going to look at the Amorites and see how God worked His will in all of these nations over the course of these hundreds of years.
First of all, we have the nation of Israel, the seed of Abraham. Abraham had a son, Isaac. Isaac had a son, Jacob, who was the son of promise. God named him Israel. One of Jacob’s sons, Joseph, was hated by his brothers. They envied him and they sold him as a slave and he ended up in Egypt. And when his brothers came before him, not knowing that he was the second most powerful man in Egypt, in Genesis chapter 45, the Bible tells us that Joseph revealed himself to them and said, Genesis 45 verse 5, “Now therefore, be not grieved, nor angry with yourselves that you sold me hither; for God did send me before you to preserve life.”
And then notice verse seven: “And God sent me before you to preserve you a posterity in the earth and to save your lives by a great deliverance. So now it was not you that sent me hither, but God. And he has made me a father to Pharaoh and Lord of all his house and a ruler throughout all the land of Egypt.”
So the story of Joseph is the story of the baby nation of Israel, as it were, going down into Egypt, into a land that God told Abraham would be a land that is not theirs. And there they would serve these people. Now, if you take all of that out of the Bible, if you take what God is describing here out of the Bible, then the whole history of the Scriptures is different.
Yes, God had the power to leave the Israelite people in the land of Canaan, and He had the power to bless them there without taking them into Egypt and then bringing them back. But it was God’s will to do that because there were many other things involved rather than just the idea of the Israelite people having that land.
And it’s fascinating to see that God accomplished all this through bad weather because it was a drought that caused the brothers of Joseph to go down to Egypt to try to buy food, and that’s why they ended up in Egypt. All this works together for good when you look at it from the divine perspective that we read about in the Bible.
And this brings us to Exodus chapter one. In Exodus chapter one verse five, we find that 70 souls came to Egypt to join Joseph and his family. The Bible says that the nation of Israel was that small at that time. Then in Exodus chapter one, verse six, the Bible says, “And Joseph died ,and all his brethren, and all that generation. And the children of Israel were fruitful and increased abundantly and multiplied and waxed exceeding mighty; and the land was filled with them, and there rose up a new king over Egypt, which knew not Joseph” and that king began to afflict the children of Israel.
Then these Hebrew people cried out to God in Exodus chapter 2, verse 23. “It came to pass in process of time that the king of Egypt died, and the children of Israel sighed by reason of the bondage. And they cried, and their cry came up to God by reason of the bondage. And God heard their groaning, and God remembered His covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob. And God looked upon the children of Israel, and God had respect unto them.” The Bible says in Exodus chapters 3 and 4 that God chose a deliverer, and that man’s name was Moses. So that is nation number one, the nation of Israel. And now we’re looking at the nation of Israel after they have been in Egyptian bondage for hundreds of years.
And that brings us to the second nation, which is the nation of Egypt. Now remember what God said about the nation that would afflict his people back in Genesis chapter 15, verse 14 God said I will judge them. And that is exactly what we read about in the book of Exodus in Exodus chapters 5 through 14.
God sent the plagues upon the people of Egypt. Why did he do that? He did that because the Bible says in Numbers chapter 33 verse 4, the Lord executed judgment upon their gods. So the punishment of the plagues upon these Egyptians was actually the judgment of God upon their gods that they were serving and worshiping.
But there was an even more important part of God’s promise and God’s plan to Abraham in Genesis 15 about the nation of Egypt. And we find a very important passage in Exodus chapter nine, verse 16. Now this is God speaking through Moses to Pharaoh. Listen very carefully to what God said and notice how God is working out his plans and especially his plan for the nation of Egypt.
In Exodus chapter nine, verse 16, the Bible says, “And in very deed for this cause have I raised thee up.” Now, notice, first of all, that God said, “I raised you up.” Pharaoh did not become the king because of his ancestry or because of his intelligence or because of his abilities. Now, from a human standpoint, those may have been the reasons why he was selected as king.
But from God’s point of view, the Lord raised him up. The Lord put him in that position of power. The Bible says in Daniel chapter 4 verse 17 that “the Most High rules in the kingdom of men and gives it to whomsoever he will and sets up over it the basest,” that is, the lowest, “of men. That is exactly what we see going on here in Exodus chapter 9 verse 16.
God said, “I have raised you up.” And notice also in this passage that the Lord said “for this cause,” that is, for this reason. God had a reason for putting Pharaoh on the throne. What was it? Well, first of all, he says, “for to show in thee my power.” God said, I wanted to show my power in you by showing my power over you.
The Bible says in Isaiah chapter 40, verse 15, that all the nations of the world are a drop of a bucket to God. As a matter of fact, in Isaiah chapter 40 verse 17, the Bible says all nations before him are as nothing. So that’s why God put Pharaoh on the throne. But there’s another reason, an even bigger or broader purpose, and that is “that my name,” the name of God, the name of the Lord,”may be declared throughout all the earth” because of what God did in Egypt.
God’s name was glorified and spoken of throughout the whole world, and it certainly was. This came to pass, and we read about that later in other books of the Bible. For instance, when the people of Israel came to the borders of the nations of Canaan, the Bible says that the first city that they came to was Jericho.
The Bible says that two spies from Israel went into that city and they came to the house of Rahab. And do you remember what Rahab said to those two Israelite spies? This Canaanite woman said, “We have heard of what the Lord did for you in drying up the Red Sea.” How had she heard that? Without the internet, without telephone, without television, she had heard about what God had done.
That is in fulfillment of what God says here in Exodus chapter 9 verse 16. He said, Because of what I’m doing here in Egypt and to Pharaoh, My name will be declared throughout all the earth. And we even find later in 1 Samuel chapter 4 that the Philistines talked about the gods of the Israelites who smote the Egyptians.
So they had heard about what had happened here in the book of Exodus, just as God said it would happen in Exodus chapter 9 verse 16. So we find in the second nation, the nation of Egypt, that God is working out his plans about them as He’s working out also His plan with the Israelite people.
But then we have a third nation that is talked about in Genesis chapter 15 hundreds of years before these events came to pass and that is the Amorites. And by mentioning the Amorites, God is representing the Canaanites as a whole. And now, all this while, as God judged the Egyptians and delivered the Israelites, the Lord was watching Canaan. He was looking at how sinful they were and how much worse they were becoming.
After the Hebrews had spent over 400 years in Egyptian bondage and after they had wandered 40 years in the desert, the Bible says then that they came to the borders of the land of Canaan. The time had come to put the sickle into the harvest. In Leviticus chapters 18 through 20, God warns the Israelite people not to commit the same sins that these Canaanites had committed. When people ask the question, “Why did God send the Israelite army into the land of Canaan and slaughter all those people?” the answer is this: because they were that wicked. They deserved to die. What did they do? In Leviticus chapter 18, beginning in verse six, the Bible says that God warned the Israelite people not to do what these Canaanites had done. What had they done? What kinds of sins had they committed?
The Bible tells us in Leviticus chapter 18, verse 6 through verse 18, that incest was rampant. Incest was common in the land of Canaan. Not only that, He talks about adultery in verse 20, he talks about human sacrifices in verse 21, he talks about homosexuality in verse 22, and he talks about bestiality in verse 23 of Leviticus chapter 18. This is how wicked these people were. This is how perverse the nations of Canaan were.
And the Bible tells us in verse 24, “Defile not you yourselves in any of these things, for in all these the nations are defiled which I cast out before you.” Now remember what God said to Abraham in Genesis chapter 15. He said the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet full. It is not complete. Now, that was hundreds of years earlier when God said that to Abraham.
The Amorites were evil then, but they became worse and worse. And they finally reached the point to where God said, Enough is enough. And the Bible says in Leviticus chapter 18, verse 25, “And the land of Israel,” that is, the promised land, the land of Canaan, “is defiled. Therefore, I do visit the iniquity thereof upon it, and the land itself vomits out her inhabitants.”
So here we have an even more striking figure. And that is when you eat something and it doesn’t sit well on your stomach, your body has a way of purging itself. And that’s the image that is used here.
The land of Canaan is represented as being sick of these people because they were so twisted in their morals and God told the Israelite army to go in and to execute these people, God did all of this. He worked in the lives of key people. He managed these three nations. He coordinated the events. He timed the outcome. Who but God could have done that? Who but God could have worked with three nations with millions of people over the course of hundreds of years to bring about his plans and his purposes?
Now, let’s get back to the question that we asked at the very beginning. What will happen to our country? The answer is, God knows, and God has reasons for what He does. God has reasons for why he allows evil men to be in power. God has purposes for why he allows evil to get worse for years and even for centuries.
God has reasons as to why he allows his people to wait and to suffer in times of affliction. God already knows the future of this republic. God already knows the future of every nation on earth. God knows how one nation impacts another hundreds of years down the road. God knows that He works in all the chaos of the world to bring good out of bad and out of seemingly hopeless situations.
“Oh, the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God. How unsearchable are his judgments and his ways past finding out” (Romans 11 verse 33). “Such knowledge is too wonderful for me, it is high, I cannot attain unto it (Psalm 139 verse 6).
So, when God closes a door in one land, He may be opening a door in another. When the flame of truth dies in one country, God sometimes lights a candle in another. The fall of one nation may be the birth of another, and God blesses one nation by punishing another by punishing another and vice-versa. And on a more personal level, if God can manage all the nations of the world at the same time and make sure that His promises are fulfilled hundreds of years in the future, then it is a very small thing for Him to manage and to coordinate the life of a child of God with the few people that we have dealings with.
If God can manage millions of people, He can manage you and the few people that you know and have dealings with. And if God works out plans over centuries of time, He can work out His plans in your short lifetime. The Bible says in Romans 8 verse 28, “And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.”
In Proverbs chapter 3 verses 5 and 6, the Bible says, “Trust in the Lord with all thine heart, and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths.” What’s going to happen to this country? People in the past, and people in other countries, have asked that same question.
The Jews in ancient Israel wondered about it, Christians in the Roman Empire thought about it, and right now, people in different countries besides ours are concerned about the future of their own nation, and the answer for them is the same as the answer for us. God knows. And what’s important for us to remember is that all the kingdoms of men rise and eventually fall.
Ours is no exception. If we’re looking for a kingdom that will never fall, there is only one. It’s the kingdom that Daniel spoke of long ago in Daniel 2, verse 44: “And in the days of these kings shall the God of heaven set up a kingdom, which shall never be destroyed. And the kingdom shall not be left to other people, but it shall break in pieces and consume all these kingdoms, and it shall stand forever.”
That’s the kingdom that Jesus said we can enter by being born of water and of the Spirit (John chapter 3 verse 5) and that kingdom is the church.
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