These are the implications of verse 17 discovered in those two sets of experiences: that nations are nothing before the LORD except as they are with the LORD and that they become meaningless when they contradict our deepest purposes and heritage elsewhere. Both points really are the same. We Christians so easily become enculturated if the Christian community is not consciously an alternative society. We forget that our national heritage is not our primary birthright. We are above all, as the Scriptures