Jeremiah 25:8-14 God is Bigger than Any One Country

Jeremiah 25:8-14 (NRSV)

​⁸Therefore thus says the LORD of hosts: Because you have not obeyed my words, ⁹I am going to send for all the tribes of the north, says the LORD, even for King Nebuchadrezzar of Babylon, my servant, and I will bring them against this land and its inhabitants, and against all these nations around; I will utterly destroy them, and make them an object of horror and of hissing, and an everlasting disgrace. ¹⁰And I will banish from them the sound of mirth and the sound of gladness, the voice of the bridegroom and the voice of the bride, the sound of the millstones and the light of the lamp. ¹¹This whole land shall become a ruin and a waste, and these nations shall serve the king of Babylon seventy years. ¹²Then after seventy years are completed, I will punish the king of Babylon and that nation, the land of the Chaldeans, for their iniquity, says the LORD, making the land an everlasting waste. ¹³I will bring upon that land all the words that I have uttered against it, everything written in this book, which Jeremiah prophesied against all the nations. ¹⁴For many nations and great kings shall make slaves of them also; and I will repay them according to their deeds and the work of their hands.

Observation:
The more I look at this oracle of Jeremiah, the more shocking it is. God calls Nebuchadrezzar, king of Babylon, "my servant." In punishment for Judah's unfaithfulness, God will use Judah's enemies against them. God says the Babylonian Empire will be executing God's own will by conquering and holding captive the whole kingdom of Judah for seventy years. After that time, God will punish the Babylonians themselves.

Application:
I'm trying to put myself in the place of a nice, red-blooded, patriotic Judahite boy overhearing Jeremiah's prophecy. For him to call the king of Babylon, our enemy, "God's servant", would be like walking into Washington DC today and saying God is fighting on the side of Kim Jong Un or Vladimir Putin. There may not be too many things left that can unite all Americans, but the outcry this would cause might just do the trick. 

I'm conflicted reading a passage like this, because I believe when First John says "God is Love." It's hard for me to picture God basically ordering a military strike on any nation, even if they have been unfaithful. I would never preach that any national catastrophe, in any country, is God's retribution for our sins. On the other hand, I would also never preach the kind of nationalistic lies that Jeremiah's contemporaries were preaching: namely, that God is exclusively on the side of our own nation, no matter how we act or who we hurt. This prophecy from Jeremiah reminds me that God isn't on the side of any one country. God is on humanity's side. God will do what's best for all God's children.  
  
Prayer: God, I love the country where I live. I am thankful to be an American. I think we have done some good things that have made you happy. But I need your help to remember that everyone, from every nation, is also your child, and you are working through people in every nation to heal, liberate, and save humankind. Thank you for making me part of your movement, that transcends space and time. Amen.