Ezekiel 14:12-13 “The word of the Lord came again to me, saying: (13) "Son of man, when a land sins against Me by persistent unfaithfulness, I will stretch out My hand against it; I will cut off its supply of bread, send famine on it, and cut off man and beast from it.”
God is extremely patient and merciful, because of which He allows nations to walk in their own ways, all the while giving them time to repent of their wicked ways and turn back to following after His norms. We see that truth confirmed to us in the above quoted passage of scripture, for in this passage God speaks about dealing with nations that are persistent in their unfaithfulness to Him. In other words, God warns these nations and gives them time to repent, but nevertheless they persist in following their path of rebellion. And so there comes a time when God says enough is enough and He then begins to judge a nation for their wickedness, and that judgement takes on many different forms. There are three main judgements that God pronounces on nations, i.e. the sword, pestilence and famine (Jeremiah 27:13). As revealed in the above passage, one of the earlier judgements that God sends on a nation is famine. When we look at God’s judgement of famine we tend to think of food shortages only, however this form of God’s judgement involves every aspect of a nation’s economy. And so whenever we see a nation that is experiencing famine, drought and economic collapse, we can be assured that judgement has begun to fall on that nation, and unless they repent things will only get progressively worse for them. There are also instances when God chooses to judge all the nations of the world because of their collective wickedness. An example of this type of global judgement would have been the Great Depression that occurred in the nineteen thirties, when every nation of the world was impacted as their economies collapsed.
Michael E.B. Maher
Comments