(02-25-2022 10:28 PM)BlueDragon Wrote: (02-21-2022 04:44 PM)G-Man Wrote: I don't think God has favorites when it comes to Nations. I know a lot will disagree, but I don't think the United States has ever had some special blessing or destiny that made it more special than other countries or their forms of rule.
But, please don't think I'm disparaging the USA. It's the best place on earth to live, IMO, due to what it stands for (at least in the last 100 years). So, I definitely consider myself patriotic.
However, I just don't see any valid evidence or doctrine that supports the idea that America or any other country today, has ever possessed "the Spirit of the Lord" nor has lost it.
I think God's Spirit is offered and received only to and by human beings, and is not something He bestows on, nor withdraws from, their governments.
Ezekiel 8 through 11
You may want to rethink that statement
Apologies if is sounds arrogant on my part, but I truly believe there's nothing I need to rethink based on the Ezekial verses.
My Christian view/mindset/perspective (we all have our own) is that we cannot conflate or compare in any way how God dealt with Jacob's descendants in the Old Testament, regarding how they point to the world's need for Christ, and His (at the time they were written) future first coming. I'm not contradicting Paul in his statement, nor would encourage anyone not to take to heart what he said about the Old Testament when he stated that all scripture is profitable and for our edification (especially since at the time he said it most of the New Testament didn't exist).
And we must also apply his directive to our New Testament that he didn't have, which made what he said also partially prophetic. In other words, I'm not saying we shouldn't read and ask God to speak to us from the Old Testament. We should.
And yet, Christ's incarnation, death, resurrection and having established His Church renders much of what was written in the Old, as needing to be put into perspective as writings foreshadowing what was fulfilled by what occurred in the New. But much of the old (other than where prophecy clearly gets into details about his first coming and subsequent death) was written, with the intent somewhat veiled at the time, regarding how it pertained to Christ.
Having said this, I'll repeat (and believe I'm correct to say it) that TODAY the Church is God's ONLY chosen people--not any nation or government. And when it's appeared in the past (i.e. Old Testament scriptures about it) that God did have some chosen "nation" or "people" other than the Church, I'll also state my belief that such Old Testament references, point to the New Testament's fulfillment of them. For example, I'm sure we'll agree that God's requirement for sacrifices wasn't a valid "need" but merely a foreshadowing of what we all need-- Christ's final sacrifice that renders all others totally unnecessary.
But we might not agree (even though I'm sure I'm correct about it) it's the same regarding the New Testament Church and the Old Testament Nation of Israel. The former is the "real thing" and the latter is a foreshadowing of it, that is no longer to be considered separately from the greater, true version of that to which it pointed/referred.
Paul stated in Galatians 6:16 that the "Israel of God" even at THAT time, after Christ had been resurrected, was no longer the descendants of Abraham in the flesh, but only his descendants by Faith, which is the Church.
In the verses prior, Paul had been distinguishing between those who were still attempting to boast of being circumcised in the flesh (the Jewish people). And he contrasted them with those who had become a "new creation" in Christ" where it didn't matter if someone was or wasn't physically circumcised. Paul emphasized that those who were this new creation, were to live by "this rule" (being governed by Christ), and would have "peace and mercy be upon THEM, and the Israel of God". He was not talking about two different "new creations" but only ONE (which he'd just stated Christians were the "new creation" in the prior verse). The only new creation is the Church; the TRUE (and only remaining) Israel of God.
Old Testament Israel, like Old Testament Sacrifices, are foreshadowings of the real things they represent, that hadn't been yet fulfilled until Christ came. As a result, there was no longer a need for sacrifices of animals that weren't the true sacrifice necessary to conquer sin for all men. Christ was always and ONLY the true sacrifice for our sins. In the same way, God's ONLY "chosen" people weren't ever truly the physical descendants of Jacob which were merely a foreshadowing of the real thing: the Church of Christ, which is His ONLY real people-- the TRUE Israel of God.
And after Christ established His Church, the only place His Spirit now resides is in the physical bodies of all Human Beings regardless of their ancestry or history, who have become Christians, regardless of how it resided before in places (Temples). Since Pentecost, His Spirit resides wherever they are, in them; because they/we are all, in our physical bodies, Temples of God at the time we are baptized with Christ into His death to be raised up as a new creation with Him" as Paul clarifies in Romans 6.
Before Paul, and before the Church was created, Jesus addressed the same type of speculation that your OP contemplates: if/why God would allow punishment for sin to happen to groups of people (i.e., what you're calling to "withdraw His spirit" from them, and no longer protect/bless them) based on their sinfulness.
Jesus cleared-up that misperception in Luke 13:4. He minced no words about that the 18 killed by the falling of the Tower of Siloam weren't greater sinners than the people asking if they were, and that all people would deserve to be punished, IF it was God's desire to punish sinners by allowing or causing bad things to happen to them.
America has also seen towers fall, and there are those who speculated that it had to do with God's judgment-- because we no longer "as a nation" put him first as a people. Who can forget the offensive, preposterous judgmental assertions about how it was an indication of "chickens coming home to roost", because of "America's" sins?
The United States isn't God's people and never has been. Christians in the USA have been and still are. But so are all other Christians in the world, in whatever nations they live. No government has been or will be except the government that rests on Christ's shoulders. And the Christians who make up Christ's body, and are his bride, are the only place where His Spirit resides.
Can anyone say today (literally while I write this) about Russia's invasion of Ukraine, that what has befallen the Christians of that country now battling or fleeing for their lives, has happened to them, because God has withdrawn his Spirit from their nation?
The Father's mercy allows continued opportunity everywhere for people to turn to His Son for the healing of their souls. And He extends it both to those who are His people, Christians, and those who are not. His Spirit hasn't been, nor will ever be withdrawn from anyone who receives it, and continues to live life in obedience to Christ as their Savior.