In the next era, the nations will be healed. All of them. The genocided. The survivors of the Holdamor. The Turks. The Russians. I am less sure about empires, for the Assyrian people are still there, but the Assyrian empire is not.
But within each people it is a different story. Those who oppress, those who are not faithful, will be called to account. People will be shepherded by Christ, who died for them, and rose to defeat death.
The lost tribes will be found again: there will again be Manasseh, Ephraim, the Amorites and the Hittites. For the nations are all loved by God.
19On that day there will be an altar to the LORD in the center of the land of Egypt, and a pillar to the LORD at its border. 20It will be a sign and a witness to the LORD of hosts in the land of Egypt; when they cry to the LORD because of oppressors, he will send them a savior, and will defend and deliver them. 21The LORD will make himself known to the Egyptians; and the Egyptians will know the LORD on that day, and will worship with sacrifice and burnt offering, and they will make vows to the LORD and perform them. 22The LORD will strike Egypt, striking and healing; they will return to the LORD, and he will listen to their supplications and heal them.
23On that day there will be a highway from Egypt to Assyria, and the Assyrian will come into Egypt, and the Egyptian into Assyria, and the Egyptians will worship with the Assyrians.
24On that day Israel will be the third with Egypt and Assyria, a blessing in the midst of the earth, 25whom the LORD of hosts has blessed, saying, “Blessed be Egypt my people, and Assyria the work of my hands, and Israel my heritage.”
11For thus says the Lord GOD: I myself will search for my sheep, and will seek them out. 12As shepherds seek out their flocks when they are among their scattered sheep, so I will seek out my sheep. I will rescue them from all the places to which they have been scattered on a day of clouds and thick darkness. 13I will bring them out from the peoples and gather them from the countries, and will bring them into their own land; and I will feed them on the mountains of Israel, by the watercourses, and in all the inhabited parts of the land. 14I will feed them with good pasture, and the mountain heights of Israel shall be their pasture; there they shall lie down in good grazing land, and they shall feed on rich pasture on the mountains of Israel. 15I myself will be the shepherd of my sheep, and I will make them lie down, says the Lord GOD.16I will seek the lost, and I will bring back the strayed, and I will bind up the injured, and I will strengthen the weak, but the fat and the strong I will destroy. I will feed them with justice.
20Therefore, thus says the Lord GOD to them: I myself will judge between the fat sheep and the lean sheep. 21Because you pushed with flank and shoulder, and butted at all the weak animals with your horns until you scattered them far and wide, 22I will save my flock, and they shall no longer be ravaged; and I will judge between sheep and sheep.
23I will set up over them one shepherd, my servant David, and he shall feed them: he shall feed them and be their shepherd. 24And I, the LORD, will be their God, and my servant David shall be prince among them; I, the LORD, have spoken.
This gives me hope, for I am of English extraction, a New Zealander. Our nation is being betrayed, hurt. The natives are encouraged to remove themselves from the gene pool by many means: the encouragement of castration and perversion, the delay of marriage and childbirth, the strong support of sterilisation. The people have been taught to fear pregnancy and childbirth. While a new people are arriving, because it signals virtue to bring criminals from Manus Island because equality means that all must be multicultural.
The alliance between the nations of New Zealand: the Maori and Pakeha settlers of the treaty is being dissolved by such. The new immigrants don’t care. They mouth the propaganda they have, but they do not have their forefathers buried here for generations, so that another land is strange.
But I have hope. This too will pass. All people will be able to return to their land: there will be again be Afrikaners in the high veld. And those who oppress the working will have to give account.
For the healing comes from our God, who is a consuming fire.
Afrikaners and Rhodesians, again, in Africa?
I don’t know.
The Huguenots are mostly gone from France, and mostly gone as a distinct tribe.
But where they scattered, they left a legacy of faith in many cases, esp. when they intermarried with Dutch, Afrikaners, southern U.S., etc.
That, of course, rather than our earthly citizenship, is what matters most.
As for Afrikaners, many came here, to western Canada, and have blended into Reformed church communities. They’re assimilating – but their faith lives on. Just like the Huguenots (who are the ancestors of many Afrikaners – so things come full circle…).
interesting
Playing with concepts, how do you think that will work out, for those of us who are part of the Bride of Christ at that point, wandering around in new bodies?
No one who is a stranger will be allowed into Jerusalem. Joel 3:17.. Given that the same passages talks about gathering all nations into the valley of decision…
If we are going to speculate, we will be more like ourselves, as we should be. The perfection we chase in fitness will be there Our knees and backs will not ache. And we will be English, or French etc, and that will be celebrated.
Beyond that we are moving into speculation.
I’d always read the passage as the nations being those who were born after the Trib and populated the world during the Millennium, not those of us who will be Other by then.
The tribulation is arguably misconstrued nowadays and leads to a rapture before the rapture, the “left behind” nonsense and Christs reign on earth as a simply super President in Jerusalem that dispensationalists like Chuck Missler preach. This leads to a view that believers are whisked away before things get really tough when we already have two thousand years of believers doing it really tough.
When you next see Christ its over, finished, kaput and you’ll know it. If you’ve been unfriended at that point there’s no coming back and the new Heaven and new earth that will pop into existence at that point (God knows what that will be like but I can’t begin to imagine) will not be your home.