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The Ax In The Hand Of God

In Isaiah 10:5 and 6 God said that Assyria is "a rod of his anger, in whose hands is the club of His wrath  ... against a godless nation … to seize and loot … to trample down like mud in the streets …"  Simply put, Assyria was a club in the hand of God to clobber the godless northern nation of Israel in 722 B. C..

Isaiah goes on to say, "does the ax raise itself above him who swings it, or the saw boast against him who uses it?  … Therefore, the Lord will send a wasting disease upon his sturdy warriors ..." (Isaiah 10:15-16)  Assyria was the ax and saw in the hand of God to execute judgment, but she became arrogant, thinking a tool was more important than the one using the tool.  So, in 606 B. C. God used Babylon, another ax in His hand, to cut Assyria down in an act of divine judgment.    

God didn't make Assyria attack Israel against her will.  He didn't violate her freedom of choice.  She certainly wouldn't have chosen to be a tool of the Israeli God.  She didn't know she was anybody's tool, let alone God's tool.  Besides, Assyria had full intensions of invading the northern kingdom of Israel.  Even though it was God's will for Assyria to invade Israel, the attack violated the Abrahamic Covenant.  So, God cut Assyria down in judgment with the ax of Babylon.  Remember, "he who blesses Israel will be blessed and he who curses Israel will be cursed". (Genesis 12:1-3) 

Human history is repetitive.  Only the names change from one era to the next.  Babylon, like Assyria, was chopped down to the ground by Persia, God's next ax in His hand of judgment.  Babylon had violated the Abrahamic Covenant when she invaded the southern kingdom of Israel and leveled Jerusalem in 586 B. C..   

Throughout the book of Isaiah you will note references to "the Assyrian".  He's the king of Assyria, who many prophetic futurists believe is prophetically symbolic of the anti-Christ.  Like the king of Assyria and his kingdom, the anti-Christ and His empire will rise to world domination, with a special hatred towards Israel.  Also like the king of Assyria, the anti-Christ will be the ax in the hand of God to cut Israel down one last time.  After experiencing the worst axing in her history, Israel will finally find lasting repentance and return to her God. (Zechariah 13 and 14)  This ends the anti-Christ's usefulness as an ax in the hand of God.  So as God brought down Assyria and Babylon for their treatment of Israel, the anti-Christ, and those allied with him, will be decimated at the Battle of Armageddon.  

There's a few things to learn from all of this.  God won't violate a nation's freedom of  choice, but at the same time, He is actively involved in the affairs of that nation and the choices it makes.  Even though that nation doesn't realize it, and would certainly deny it, God can use it to accomplish His will.  Then, like Assyria and Babylon, if necessary, throw it into the junk pile of rusty old nations once used as tools in the hand of God.  It's my opinion that Great Britain fell from world supremacy when in 1948 she defrauded Israel of the land the League of Nations promised her.

As godless as your nation might be, you should know that the Lord is quite capable of using a godless nation and its godless leaders to accomplish His will.  For our own peace of mind, it is important to understand these things as God maneuvers His way through the unsettling world events that now face us.  We need to see these events from God's perspective, not from our perspective.  As Isaiah 9:7 says, "the zeal of the Lord Almighty will accomplish this".  This is my version based on my understanding of the Hebrew text.  "The passionate jealousy of the Lord of the mother of all angelic armies will certainly accomplish His will", and in this context, God's will is the restoration of Israel.