Today (2016) it is called the “United Nations.”
Previously, the “League of Nations.”
Anciently, the “Tower of Babel” Union!
But in the future, apparently when Jesus returns again to earth, the (confederated) nations of our planet will be summoned by Almighty God Himself. Called into judgment!
Joel 3:2, using God’s Words, prophesies: “I will also GATHER ALL NATIONS, and will bring them down into the valley of Jehoshaphat, and will plead with them there for my people and for my heritage Israel, whom they have scattered among the nations, and parted my land.” The verb “will plead” is “shaphat” in Hebrew, meaning “to judge” 119 times in the Old Testament!
This is indeed what has become known prophetically as “The Judgment of the Nations.”
But how have those nations treated Israel?
Why is God so determined to visit “judgment” upon them?
Joel 3:3-8 allows God to continue with the indictment, the Judge on the Bench: “And they have cast lots for my people; and have given a boy for an harlot, and sold a girl for wine, that they might drink. Yea, and what have ye to do with me, O Tyre, and Zidon, and all the coasts of Palestine? will ye render me a recompence? and if ye recompense me, swiftly and speedily will I return your recompence upon your own head; because ye have taken my silver and my gold, and have carried into your temples my goodly pleasant things. The children also of Judah and the children of Jerusalem have ye sold unto the Grecians, that ye might remove them far from their border. Behold, I will raise them out of the place whither ye have sold them, and will return your recompence upon your own head: and I will sell your sons and your daughters into the hand of the children of Judah, and they shall sell them to the Sabeans, to a people far off: for the LORD hath spoken it.”
Wow!
Merchandising the Jews!
Hating Israel!
Yet for sure … every single (guilty) nation is to be judged (severely) by God!
Matthew 25:31-46 may be describing this same Event, this identical Judgment: “When the Son of man shall come in his glory, and all the holy angels with him, then shall he sit upon the throne of his glory: and before him shall be gathered all nations: and he shall separate them one from another, as a shepherd divideth his sheep from the goats: and he shall set the sheep on his right hand, but the goats on the left.”
“Then shall the King say unto them on his right hand, Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world: for I was an hungred, and ye gave me meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink: I was a stranger, and ye took me in: naked, and ye clothed me: I was sick, and ye visited me: I was in prison, and ye came unto me. Then shall the righteous answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we thee an hungred, and fed thee? or thirsty, and gave thee drink? When saw we thee a stranger, and took thee in? or naked, and clothed thee? Or when saw we thee sick, or in prison, and came unto thee? And the King shall answer and say unto them, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.”
“Then shall he say also unto them on the left hand, Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels: for I was an hungred, and ye gave me no meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me no drink: I was a stranger, and ye took me not in: naked, and ye clothed me not: sick, and in prison, and ye visited me not. Then shall they also answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we thee an hungred, or athirst, or a stranger, or naked, or sick, or in prison, and did not minister unto thee? Then shall he answer them, saying, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye did it not to one of the least of these, ye did it not to me. And these shall go away into everlasting punishment: but the righteous into life eternal.”
Again, the Judgment of the Nations!
The hateful ways these peoples (nations, ethnic groups) have treated the Jews, God’s Chosen People, is the criteria for this judgment!
Amazing.
I have much to learn in this area of Bible Prophecy. Perhaps we all do. But I believe what Joel has written, because I take all the Bible to be God’s inspired Word!
This I do know.
Mistreatment of the Jewish people is a sin which God does not forget!
Genesis 12:1-3 has been proved again and again! “Now the LORD had said unto Abram (Abraham), Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father’s house, unto a land that I will shew thee: and I will make of thee a great NATION, and I will bless thee, and make thy name great; and thou shalt be a blessing: and I WILL BLESS THEM THAT BLESS THEE, and CURSE HIM THAT CURSETH THEE: and in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed.”
True!
— Dr. Mike Bagwell