Two Enemies

In the history of God's earthly people we learn that they had two mighty enemies. The first enemy was called the Assyrian. The second enemy was the Babylonian. To distinguish the two enemies is very important in understanding God's ways in the future. When the Assyrian was the enemy of God's people, God was in relationship to them and He owned them as His own people. I want to say that again: when the Assyrian was the enemy of the people of God. God (Jehovah) recognized them as His people. He could call them His servant and use the Assyrian to chastise them, to punish them for being unfaithful to Him. But He still owned them as His people and Judah could never be taken over by the Assyrian.
But then there came a time when the Lord had to say, I can't recognize them as My people anymore. So He wrote over them the word. Lo-ammi, which means: not My people. After He wrote those words over Israel they had a new enemy. the Babylonian. Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon, came and he was able to conquer the land of Israel totally and take the people nut of the land into captivity. That is important to the understanding of God's ways, because God is going to deal again with His earthly people and when He deals with them again. He is going to deal with the same two enemies.
First the enemy is going to be the descendants of the Babylonian empire and the empires that followed it. During this time, Israel still has written over it, Loammi: not My people. The enemy will have power over the professed people of God when He is not recognizing them as such.
Later God will recognize Israel again as His people, but He will in the future as in the past again use the Assyrian to chastise them. Yet He will say that they are His people and the Assyrian cannot do as he wishes. God will use them to punish and teach the people of Israel through chastisement, but the enemy is not going to take over the people of God.