Nation Will Rise Against Nation

For nation will rise up against nation, and kingdom against kingdom; there will be earthquakes in various places; there will also be famines. These things are merely the beginning of birth pangs. (Mark 13:8)

I used to think this was a redundant statement, or worse I was thinking that nations meant only democracies and free societies while kingdoms referred to monarchies or dictatorships. Was I wrong!

A kingdom is any kind of country; free, socialist, monarchy. The word Kingdom was translated from the original βασιλεύς (basileia) which means kingdom, or power to rule a kingdom. At the time of the New Testament that's all there were. But a nation is different. The word we translate to nation comes from the Greek word ἕθνος (ethnos) from which we get our word "ethnic" from.

In fact a less used but very correct definition of nation is "an aggregation of persons of the same ethnic family, often speaking the same language or cognate languages." When you read or hear "nation will rise up against nation, and kingdom against kingdom" this is not a redundant statement. Kingdom against kingdom is clearly political: US against Russia, Lebanon against Israel or Iran against Iraq. Or even North Korea against South Korea which would be kingdom against kingdom but in reality one nation because Koreans are Koreans regardless of which side of the border they're on. Many families are split in half because of that border.

But nation rising up against nation is not constrained political boundaries. It's regional, ethnic, racial, even theological. Black against white, Jew against Muslim, Kurd against Turk, Arab against European, If you look around you'll see nation rising up against nation almost everywhere, Islam is slaughtering Christians all over Africa and the middle east, Islam has been at war with Jews since Satan first whispered in Muhammed's ear, Western Europe is getting tired of the flood of legal immigrants from the middle east turning their cities into war zones, and North Americans are getting tired of illegal immigrants from South America wreaking havoc on the economy.

Jesus' words were prophetic, and we are watching them come true  before our eyes. I'm just shocked and saddened that the President of the United States is a leading cause in this mess.