Have you heard the maxim, “Good fences make good neighbors”? God likes that idea, too.
In his famous anti-God song, John Lennon wrote, “Imagine there’s no countries, It isn’t hard to do, Nothing to kill or die for, And no religion, too.” Apart from the bad grammar, it’s also a very bad idea. Throughout history, those who have imagined a world without national boundaries have slaughtered millions in their desire for global empires. In fact, such invasions are happening at this moment! But Paul declared that God “has made from one blood every nation of men to dwell on all the face of the earth, and has determined…the boundaries of their dwellings, so that they should seek the Lord, in the hope that they might grope for Him and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us” (Acts 17:26-27). Note first that there is only one race—the human race. Second, God subdivided that race into nations, establishing their boundaries so they can “dwell,” or be at peace. Third, His purpose is to use diverse ways to win each nation so they should seek and find Him. Moses put it succinctly: “When the Most High divided their inheritance to the nations,…He set the boundaries of the peoples according to the number of the children of Israel” (Deut 32:8). Israel’s borders were to be “from the Red Sea to the sea [the Mediterranean]…and from the desert [the Negev] to the River [the Euphrates]” (Ex 23:31). This is described in detail in Numbers 34, but when the land was taken in Joshua 15-18, it was considerably smaller than God intended. Although larger in the days of David and Solomon, Israel must await their Messiah to possess all their promised land. We today should possess our possession, all that God has for us, but every believer still awaits “an inheritance incorruptible and undefiled…reserved in heaven for you” (1 Pet 1:4).