How do you feel when those who enter our country illegally riot and cause mayhem while waving the flag of their home country? Don’t you think, “If you hate our country so much, why not just return to your own?” There’s something inherently wrong, offensive, ungracious, and definitely unthankful about people who do such things. It’s like someone barging into your home uninvited who then proceeds to jump on the furniture, set fire to the couch, all while complaining you haven’t cooked their next meal fast enough and to their liking. What would you do in such a situation?

The second greatest commandment, according to Jesus, is to love our neighbor as we love ourselves (Matthew 22:37-40). We are to love God supremely and others sacrificially. Jesus even went so far as to say we should love our enemies! (Matthew 5:43-48). Jesus said, “Inasmuch as you did it to one of the least of these My brethren, you did it for Me” (Matthew 25:40). Shouldn’t we care for people regardless of how they enter our nation? There are people who enter our country illegally seeking a better life for themselves and their family. We see that and we’re tempted to cast a compassionate eye their way, even look the other way, and condone their actions by doing nothing. Is it wrong to have borders, or limit immigration, or have requirements for people to enter our nation? Are borders wrong?

The Bible states: “‘And if a stranger dwells with you in your land, you shall not mistreat him. The stranger who dwells among you shall be to you as one born among you, and you shall love him as yourself; for you were strangers in the land of Egypt: I am the Lord your God” (Leviticus 19:33–34).

Does that verse support an open-door-no-borders worldview? Well, no. The word “stranger” (Hebrew ger) means: a guest, foreigner, sojourner, traveler, stranger. A “stranger,” therefore, is not someone who enters the land and forces their presence on people requiring their support to live. A “stranger” here is one passing through, a guest in the land on a temporary basis. We are most definitely to be hospitable to people, but are under no compulsion or without recourse if they overstay their welcome or begin to act disruptively.

Even the needy need to observe and abide by a nation’s immigration laws and restraints. When MILLIONS of people pour illegally over borders to take advantage of social service benefits, or enter the job force, it exhausts that nation’s benefits for its citizens. It robs citizens of that nation of opportunities they have earned. Citizens have pledged allegiance to this nation, abide by the laws of the land, have invested in this nation, and therefore deserve preference in receiving such social services. That is fair. That is reasonable compassion. That is just.

Borders are God’s idea. The first mention of the term “border” is found in the Table of Nations in Genesis 10. There we find reference to the “border of the Canaanites” (Genesis 10:19). “Hey,” you say, “wait a minute, didn’t the Israelites break in over the borders of the Canaanites?” Yes, this is true. God ordained for His people to invade and displace the Canaanites, who had degenerated into a pagan people with immoral practices. If you want to know what the Canaanite practices were, just look at the prohibitions God gives His people in the book of Leviticus. Do that and you’ll see why God directed His people to enter the Canaan Land to make it His Promised Land. God is sovereign and can righteously displace sinful people and raise up nations and bring down nations (Daniel 2:21).

Yes, borders are God’s creation (Genesis 1:9). God, “the Most High,” is the One who set up nations with borders. The Bible states: “When the Most High divided their inheritance to the nations, When He separated the sons of Adam, He set the boundaries of the peoples According to the number of the children of Israel” (Deuteronomy 32:8).

God set the borders for the tribes of Israel who were entering the Promised Land (Numbers 34:2-12). He oversees borders. In the New Testament the Apostle Paul addresses the free-thinking philosophers of Athens and at one-point states: “And He has made from one blood every nation of men to dwell on all the face of the earth, and has determined their preappointed times and 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; for in Him we live and move and have our being, as also some of your own poets have said, ‘For we are also His offspring'” (Acts 17:26–28).

We are not to divide racially because we all bleed the same red blood. But God has “determined the preappointed times and boundaries of their dwellings.” God is providentially overseeing the experiences of people and “the boundaries of their dwellings.” Why does God do this? He does it “so that they should seek the Lord, in hope that they might grope for Him and find Him.” God is orderly, not chaotic (e.g., 1 Corinthians 14:33 and 40). Borders provide safety and orderliness, which facilitates an environment in which people can seek the Lord. The hope is that all people will discover that “he is not far from each of us,” and that, “in Him we live and move and have our being.” Paul comments that even some of their own poets said things in line with this. Then Paul is inspired to say: “Truly, these times of ignorance God overlooked, but now commands all men everywhere to repent, because He has appointed a day on which He will judge the world in righteousness by the Man whom He has ordained. He has given assurance of this to all by raising Him from the dead” (Acts 17:30–31).

No matter what nation you come from, it’s time to repent and bow in faith to “the Man whom He has ordained… by raising Him from the dead,” Jesus.

We are therefore to recognize borders. The Bible states, “You shall not remove your neighbor’s landmark” (Deuteronomy 19:14a). Borders define nations and their territory. Borders and observing them is part of what Paul wrote to the Romans saying, “Let every soul be subject to the government authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and the authorities that exist are appointed by God” (Romans 13:1). Government officials and citizens of a nation are responsible for what happens within their borders. Citizens within a nation can expect a certain amount of protection from those in leadership of the nation within which they live.

We live in a fallen world overflowing with sin. There are those who enter our country with ill intent to literally rape, steal, do criminal acts, misuse, and abuse the generosity of America. There are those who enter our nation illegally with the intent on destroying our nation from within. They do this by attending our schools and pushing their evil influences. They do this through criminal means like pushing fentanyl, sex trafficking, and the most disruptive, depraved means their evil, despicable minds and hearts can concoct. Borders are one line of defense against such things. To be a country requires borders. To ignore borders is to disobey God and destroy a nation and its citizens with all the consequent added financial and societal burdens of the mass influx of immigrants.

Without borders, we have no more nations. “Good!” You might say. “We are the world!” You might sing. But have you really thought about the consequences of a borderless world? In a borderless world, someone is going to lead, to control, to decide who gets what services and supplies, and how much. Who will lead? There are those pushing a “Great Reset,” a world without borders is part of that. I can tell you who definitely will not lead such a reset world. “We the people” will not lead such a world. Sinful men in privileged positions will take over. They will use every form of technology to enforce their will on people from AI to robots, to transhuman combinations of both. They will decide how you live your life, “for the common good.” Who decides what “the common good is”? They do. Those in power now who are pushing a reset borderless world overseen by a select few who will play puppeteer to our puppet positions.

Those promoting a Great Reset borderless society know that borderlessness is only a means to their end. Otherwise, why would they then promote the idea of fifteen-minute cities where people will have to get permission to cross the parameters of borders set for fifteen-minute distances. I don’t know about you, but I want the freedom to travel where I want, when I want, as long as I want and as far as I want. I love long boring rides! In recent years, we have also seen forced inoculations en masse under threat of job loss and isolation inside if you don’t comply. These authoritative agents are planning to use artificial means to control people. The new Grok technology has even Elon Musk “terrified.” Yes, don’t be so quick to tear down the border walls and give up on the last bastion of sweet liberty, the good old US of A.

Illegal immigrants who enter a country illegally and then through demonstration, clandestine influencing, rioting, and waving their home country flag do harm to the homeland and its people they have invaded. Even those who crowd through our borders looking to personally profit need to check themselves in by our nation’s prescribed legal means. There are provisions for those in danger seeking asylum in America. Our nation has an excessively big heart in that regard. But not all the millions of immigrants are asylum seekers.

Church Borders?

There is another area of borders, the Church. The border of the Church is truth. The Church is ordained by God to be the “pillar and ground of the truth” (1 Timothy 3:15). God’s truth is found in God’s word (John 17:17). We are to speak the truth in love (Ephesians 4:15). But love does not tone down truth, it is defined by the truth. Jesus said, “If you love Me, keep My commandments” (John 14:15). Jesus said, “He who has My commandments and keeps them, it is he who loves Me. And he who loves Me will be loved by My Father, and I will love him and manifest Myself to him” (John 14:21). The border of the Church is the truth of God found in His word.

How do such borders look? Well, the Bible says, “If we say that we have fellowship with Him, and walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth” (1 John 1:6; cf., also 1 John 2:4). Walk in the darkness of sin and overstepping the parameters of God’s word, and you’ve crossed a border that sets you at odds with God. Our sins or illegal border crossings separate us from the God of borders (e.g., Isaiah 59:1-2).

We deal with borders and border breakers wherever they are. We do that by honoring God’s desires and truths for all involved. Even though border breakers are escorted out, sometimes incarcerated, and leave hurting victims, our hope for all is not mean-spirited. For all people in all border situations, our hope is that, God would, “open their eyes, in order to turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan to God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins and an inheritance among those who are sanctified by faith in Me” (Acts 26:18). The most impassable border is the one that separates hell from heaven. That border is the destination of every person who hasn’t received Jesus as Savior. Only the cross of Christ can bridge the chasm, the border God has set in place between hell and heaven. That border is there for a reason. No one with hellish intent will ever be allowed to pollute heaven with their sin. That’s what makes heaven, heaven. Yes, borders are God’s idea, and they are important.

“The Lord… is longsuffering toward us, not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance” and saving faith in Jesus (2 Peter 3:9). The redemption of the lost must always be a priority in the border discussion. But we are not to use such a hope as an excuse to overlook justice or disregard the borders set by God’s truth.

Claude Stauffer is an author and the Senior Pastor of Calvary Chapel of Hope.