Psalm 33:10 – The Lord brings the counsel of the nations to nothing; he frustrates the plans of the peoples.
A good look at the history of nations would demonstrate that world leaders make plans that fail. The examples of this are myriad. Napoleon’s plans to rule Europe and Russia. Hitler’s plans to eradicate the Jews. Canada’s goals to end “child poverty” (an odd concept to me – are there hungry children living in homes where the parents are well off?). The nations of the world gather together in Copenhagen to talk about climate change and what can be done about it and they set goals for CO2 emissions to be reduced to a certain level by a certain date. Not a person on the planet knows if the determined goals will be reached. They have failed to reach them before.
Why is that? Psalm 33:10 tells us that it is because God brings the counsels of the nations to nothing. If all the joint plans of all the nations of the world always succeeded the hubris would be tangible. It is bad enough without success. One can only guess with chagrin how arrogant the world’s leaders would be if all their plans came to pass as they had envisioned. God will tolerate no rivals.
That is what the account of the tower of Babel is about. Nations gather together and suppose to be able to reach the heavens all by themselves. Now nations suppose that they can make the planet liveable, end war, bring an end to poverty and war and hatred. It is laughable and the God of heaven does laugh at them (Psalm 2:1-4).
The world would be a much more morally corrupt place if the counsels of the nations all came to pass as they were planned. How we should be thankful that God will not allow that to happen. Let us pray that in their futility the leaders of the world will realize that making the world a fit place to live will require the heart of all humans to be radically changed.
They cannot do that. But God is doing it and He will bring it to pass. There is coming a new heavens and a new earth that will be all that is good and right and true. The only leader who can make it happen is the one who came into the world and experienced its depravity first hand and then died to win it back to Himself.
Thank you Lord for doing what needed to be done. And thank you for not allowing the puny little plans of nations to rise to the place where they thought they had actually achieved their goal themselves.
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