Jeremiah 25:15

"For thus saith Jehovah, the God of Israel, unto me: Take this cup of the wine of wrath at my hand, and cause all the nations to whom I send thee, to drink it. And they shall drink, and reel to and fro, and be mad because of the sword that I will send among them."

"The cup of the wine of wrath ..." (Jeremiah 25:15). This was no literal cup, but a symbol of God's wrath against many nations, a number of which would be named in this very chapter. Significantly, even the apostate church was made to drink of the cup of the wine of God's wrath in Revelation 18:6. It is also of very great significance that at the very time when God's people were to drink of the wine of God's wrath, the nations of mankind who knew not the Lord were also summoned to drink of the same cup! So will it be at the end of the age. When the final apostasy of mankind has taken place, and even the church has disappeared, or nearly so, from the face of the earth, as foretold by the Saviour in Luke 18:8, at that very moment the destruction of all the world shall immediately follow upon the occasion of the final Judgment, the redeemed in Christ Jesus being the sole exceptions!

The metaphor of God's giving the nations a cup of wrath that caused them to be mad and drunken ascribes "all that happens," whether good or evil, to God. This is hard for moderns to understand; but all of the prophets stressed this. "Shall there be evil in a city, and Jehovah hath not done it" (Amos 3:6)? How is God the author of evil? He has created the laws of control, not merely for the universe, but for men as well; and when men violate God's laws of control, evil is sure to result. In that sense, God does the evil. This was a necessary point of view on the part of God's prophets, because the pagans ascribed all evil to members of their pagan pantheon. The Great Truth proclaimed by the prophets was that God is the First Cause, and the Last Cause, and the Only Cause. As Cheyne stated it: "The faith of the Prophets compared to ours was as an oak tree to a sapling; and therefore they could express the truth of the Universal Causation of Jehovah with perfect tranquillity."[8]

"The sword that I will send among them ..." (Jeremiah 25:16). This could mean the actual sword of human warfare, or God's own sword, as mentioned in Genesis 3:24. God is not dependent upon the swords of men for the accomplishment of his will. Many other instruments are available to the Eternal God.