Jeremiah 51:20,24

God can use everything. He can take evil and use it for His good, and He can obviously use good for His glory. One obvious example is that of Judas Iscariot, or of the crucifixion in general. The act was evil in every respect, and Judas’ betrayal was evil (Jesus said it would have been better for him if he had never been born – notice he says better ‘for him’). However, through those acts were wrought the greatest good for us, and the greatest glory for God, that has happened since the start of history.

Likewise, we find in Jeremiah, that God uses something much larger and more complicated than one person, in fact He uses a whole nation for His purpose:

‘You are My battle-ax and weapons of war:
For with you I will break the nation in pieces;
With you I will destroy the kingdoms;’ (Jeremiah 51:20)

He is talking about Babylon, the great nation which is the focus of much of the book of Jeremiah. The greatest nation on earth at the time, and seemingly indestructible. And what does God say of them? They are merely His tools: they are His weapons of war – His axe as it were. He picks them up when and as He needs them to break the nations, and then puts them down again. Indeed, He does more than put them down:

‘ “And I will repay Babylon
And all the inhabitants of Chaldea
For all the evil they have done
In Zion in your sight,” says the LORD.’ (Jeremiah 51:24)

He repays them for the evil they have done by Zion – that is, Israel. What they have done, by attacking Judah is evil, and they must be punished for it. But in doing it, they were being used by God to fulfil His purposes, which was the chastisement of His people, and the destruction of a few nations around Israel who had done evil in the sight of the LORD (see chapter 49). God is ultimately powerful.

How does this challenge or affect us? Well it affects our relationship with Him, because we realise that we must fear Him, that is, revere Him. We are ‘sheltered from the storm’, as it were, but the storm still rages, and we fear it out of awe. God is not someone that we banter with. He is the awesome Creator and Sustainer of the Universe, who will use mighty nations for His purpose just as easily as we cook toast. It challenges us by showing us our weakness. What right do we have to keep things back from this awesome God? How can we pretend to know how to run our own lives? Let’s give it all to Him, and trust that He will use what we give for His glory.