"For before the boy knows how to say ‘My father’ or ‘My mother,’ the wealth of Damascus and the plunder of Samaria will be carried off by the king of Assyria.” (Isaiah 8:4)
Why does God allow evil and corrupt nations to rise to power? Well, ultimately, He does it to carry out His will. Now, don't get me wrong. God never condones wicked and evil governments. That being said, if He can use them to fulfill His plan for the world, He will. For example, He used the Pharisees and the Jews' Roman oppressors to bring about salvation for all of humanity. Their unjust trial and execution of Jesus Christ ultimately allowed Him to atone for our sins so that we could become right with God again through repentance. However, in this particular instance described in Isaiah, the purpose is not salvation: it is judgment.
Israel had been divided into two kingdoms. Judah was the southern kingdom, and the northern one was still called Israel. King Jeroboam, the ruler of the northern kingdom, feared that, since God's temple was located in Judah, his subjects would go back there to make sacrifices. He believed that this would lead them to kill him and reunite with their southern brethren. In order to prevent this from happening, he created two golden calves for the people to worship, claiming that these idols were the gods who delivered them out of Egypt instead of the one true God (1 Kings 12:26-30). The people fell for his scheme and descended into a downward spiral of wickedness which led them to commit unbelievably evil deeds, including the use of the occult and child sacrifice (2 Kings 17:17). Finally, God ran out of patience and chose the most violent nation around at the time to punish them: Assyria.
The Assyrians were basically the Vikings of the Middle East. I saw a relief taken from the tomb of one of their kings, Ashurnasirpal, inside of a museum in London, which showed Assyrian soldiers playing a soccer-like ball game with the decapitated heads of their enemies. When God needed someone to teach the rebellious Israelites a lesson, the Assyrians were more than willing to oblige. They completely sacked the northern kingdom and deported everyone into slavery throughout other parts of their empire.
Now, we may think that we are safe from God's judgment. After all, we don't go around worshipping golden cows, so we should be in excellent shape, right? Not necessarily, for the following reason:
Anything that we worship other than God is an idol!
Take an honest look at your life. Do you worship money? Has your career become more important to you than God? Do you worship sex? Have hours of pornography stolen your quiet time with Jesus? Do you worship your friends/family? Is their approval of your life more meaningful to you than God's approval? Do you worship your boyfriend/girlfriend? Is their love more important to you than the love of Jesus? Or do you worship your public image? Are all of your good deeds just an attempt to make yourself look better than everyone else?
Be very wary of what you worship, because if you choose something other than Christ, then that idol will completely consume you. Once that happens, you may become capable of unspeakable acts, just like the Israelites. After that occurs, you are putting yourself in the path of God's judgment. Now, if you are a Christian, you cannot lose your salvation (John 10:27-29). However, God can still discipline you for what you do. There may be an "Assyrian army" waiting to enslave you if God chooses to remove His protection from you. They could be the backstabbing coworker who will get you fired once your ruthless ambition causes you to make a horrible mistake. They could be the promiscuous young lady who tries to "babytrap" you when you decide to live out your lustful fantasies with her. They could even be the local gossip at your church who will destroy your reputation once they find out that your lack of private integrity does not match your public image. So before you bow down to that idol, ask yourself if it is really worth incurring God's wrath.
