Nations! - - Ruminating in the Word of God

The Lord is awe-inspiring, fearsome, fascinating, intriguing, majestic, and full of splendor: breathtaking! Here is what I saw of him today and what came to my heart and mind in Genesis 10:32,

"These are the clans of Noah's sons, according to their lines of descent, within their nations. From these the nations spread out over the earth after the flood."

Here is something I wrote about this verse in January 2020:

Here in this chapter we have a listing of the descendants of Noah, through his three sons, that provided for populating the earth with various nations. In the next chapter, Genesis 11:1-9, there is the account of the Tower of Babel which provides us the history of how all these nations went in different directions.

Obviously, there was a time when no nations existed. We have no mention of nations prior to the flood (that I recall), and there certainly were no nations early on following the account of God's creation and the first generations that followed.

Have you ever wondered why we have differing nations among mankind? Where and why did they develop? Was there an intentional purpose for the creation of various nations, or did it "just happen"? You might think the answers to those questions were lost in antiquity, but you would wrong.

Paul commented on just these things when he addressed the philosophers at the Areopagus in Athens two millennia ago, Acts 17:26-27, "From one man he [God] made all the nations, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he marked out their appointed times in history and the boundaries of their lands. God did this so that they would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from any one of us."

Here we learn that it was God who created the nations. He determined the various nations would inhabit the whole earth, he determined when in history they would exist and what real estate they would inhabit. Paul also provides God's purpose for creating the various nations. He says, "God did this so that they would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him". The ultimate purpose for nationhood was to serve his plan of redeeming mankind.

As we study our Bibles, we eventually realize that all of God's decisions and activities we read of point to God's grand redemption of mankind. It culminates in Jesus Christ who came to pay the penalty for all of our sins that "funded" redemption.

So, how does the institution of nations serve God's purpose that mankind might seek him and reach out to him and find him? My best thought on it comes from Romans 8:20-21 (a passage that seems to be misunderstood by many), "the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the freedom and glory of the children of God."

The "one" who subjected the creation to frustration is God himself. The "creation" referred to here is not rocks and hills and trees, as some have suggested, but mankind. It is mankind that can be liberated from the "bondage to decay and brought into the freedom and glory  of the children of God." How does God subject the creation, the people of the earth, to frustration? One way is to have us all divided into groups (nations) that we go after each other's throats, as nations prove to be a frustration to one another. That frustration, fear, threat, anxiety, etc. within the turmoil of the world's stage can prompt us all to reach out for God. (Ever hear of "foxhole" conversions? - I heartily endorse them!)

Here is one of the reasons God destroyed the Tower of Babel and scattered the various nations "over the face of the whole earth." Genesis 11:9. (There is another I can think of... can you?)

Anything of the Lord capture your heart from Scripture today? Share what moved you about him from your Bible reading today. I'd love to hear from you!

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