The Bible is the most ancient and comprehensive history that exists. It came fresh from the fountain of eternal truth, and throughout the ages a divine hand has preserved its purity. It lights up the far-distant past where human research seeks in vain to penetrate. In God's Word only do we behold the power that laid the foundations of the earth and that stretched out the heavens. Here only do we find an authentic account of the origin of nations. Here only is given a history of our race unsullied by human pride or prejudice.
In the annals of human history the growth of nations, the rise and fall of empires, appear as dependent on the will and prowess of mortals. The shaping of events seems, to a great degree, to be determined by human power, ambition, or caprice. But in the Word of God the curtain is drawn aside, and we see, behind, above, and through all the play and counterplay of human interests and power and passions, the agencies of the all-merciful One, silently, patiently working out the counsels of His own will.
The Bible reveals the true philosophy of history. In those words of matchless beauty and tenderness spoken by the apostle Paul to the sages of Athens is set forth God's purpose in the creation and distribution of races and nations: "From one ancestor He made all nations to inhabit the whole earth, and He allotted the times of their existence and the boundaries of the places where they would live, so that they would search for God and perhaps grope for Him and find Him." Acts 17:26, 27, NRSV. In the creation it was His purpose that the earth be inhabited by beings whose existence should be a blessing to themselves and to one another, and an honor to their Creator. All who choose to may identify themselves with this purpose. Of them it is spoken, "This people have I formed for Myself; they shall declare My praise." Isaiah 43:21.
God has revealed in His law the principles that underlie all true prosperity both of nations and of individuals. "This is your wisdom and your understanding," Moses declared to the Israelites of the law of God. Deuteronomy 4:6. The blessings thus assured to Israel are, on the same conditions and in the same degree, assured to every nation and every person under the broad heavens.
Only God Can Give Power to Rulers of Nations
The power exercised by every ruler on the earth is Heaven-imparted, and success depends on the use of the power thus bestowed. To each the words spoken to Nebuchadnezzar of old are the lesson of life: "Break off your sins by being righteous, and your iniquities by showing mercy to the poor. Perhaps there may be a lengthening of your prosperity." Daniel 4:27.
To understand these things, to recognize the outworking of these principles in the manifestation of His power who "removes kings, and raises up kings" (Daniel 2:21), is to understand the philosophy of history.
In the Word of God only is this clearly set forth. Here it is shown that the strength of nations, as of individuals, is not found in the opportunities or facilities that appear to make them invincible, nor is it found in their boasted greatness. It is measured by the fidelity with which they fulfill God's purpose.
Ancient Babylon
An illustration of this truth is found in the history of ancient Babylon. To King Nebuchadnezzar the true object of national government was represented under the figure of a great tree whose height "reached to the heavens, and it could be seen to the ends of all the earth. The leaves were lovely, its fruit abundant, and in it was food for all." Under its shadow lived the beasts of the field, and among its branches the birds of the air had their nests. Daniel 4:11, 12. This representation shows the character of a government that fulfills God's purpose, a government that protects and upbuilds the nation.
God exalted Babylon that it might fulfill this purpose. Prosperity attended the nation until it reached a height of wealth and power that has never been equaled--fitly represented in the Scriptures by the inspired symbol, a "head of gold." Daniel 2:38.
But the king failed to recognize the power that had exalted him. Nebuchadnezzar, in the pride of his heart, said: "Is not this great Babylon, that I have built for a royal dwelling by my mighty power and for the honor of my majesty?" Daniel 4:30.
Instead of being a protector of its people, Babylon became a proud and cruel oppressor. The words of Inspiration picturing the cruelty and greed of rulers in Israel reveal the secret of Babylon's fall and of the fall of many other kingdoms since the world began: "With force and cruelty you have ruled them." Ezekiel 34:3, 4.
To the ruler of Babylon came the sentence of the divine Watcher: King Nebuchadnezzar, "to you it is spoken: The kingdom has departed from you!" Daniel 4:31.
"Babylon, the glory of kingdoms,
The beauty of the Chaldees' pride,
Will be as when God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah."
Isaiah 13:19.
The Rise and Fall of World Empires
Every nation that has come on the stage of action has been permitted to occupy its place on the earth that it might be seen whether it would fulfill the purpose of "the Watcher and the Holy One." Prophecy has traced the rise and fall of the world's great empires--Babylon, Medo-Persia, Greece, and Rome. With each of these, as with nations of less power, history repeated itself. Each had its period of test. Each failed. Its glory faded, its power departed, and its place was occupied by another.
While the nations rejected God's principles, and in this rejection ruined themselves, it was still seen that the divine, overruling purpose was working through all their movements.
This lesson is taught in a wonderful symbolic representation given to the prophet Ezekiel during his exile in the land of the Chaldeans. The vision was given at a time when Ezekiel was weighed down with sorrowful memories and troubled forebodings. The land of his fathers was desolate. Jerusalem was depopulated. The prophet himself was a stranger in a land where ambition and cruelty reigned supreme. As on every hand he beheld tyranny and wrong, his soul was distressed, and he mourned day and night. But the symbols presented to him revealed a power above that of earthly rulers.
Ezekiel and the Whirlwind
On the banks of the river Chebar, Ezekiel saw a whirlwind seeming to come from the north, "a great cloud with raging fire engulfing itself; and brightness was all around it and radiating out of its midst like the color of amber." A number of wheels, intersecting one another, were moved by four living beings. High above all these "was something like a throne, in appearance like sapphire; and seated above the likeness of the throne was something that seemed like a human form." "The cherubim appeared to have the form of a human hand under their wings." Ezekiel 1:4, 26; 10:8, NRSV. The wheels were so complicated in arrangement that at first sight they appeared to be in confusion, but they moved in perfect harmony. Heavenly beings, sustained and guided by the hand beneath the wings of the cherubim, were impelling these wheels. Above them, on the sapphire throne, was the Eternal One, and round about the throne a rainbow, the emblem of divine mercy.
As the wheel-like complications were under the guidance of the hand beneath the wings of the cherubim, so the complicated play of human events is under divine control. Amidst the strife and tumult of nations, He that sits above the cherubim still guides the affairs of earth.
The history of nations that one after another have occupied their allotted time and place, speaks to us. To every nation and to every person God has assigned a place in His great plan. Today individuals and nations are being measured by Him who makes no mistake. All are by their own choice deciding their destiny, and God is overruling all for the accomplishment of His purposes.
The history that the great I AM has marked out in His Word, uniting link after link in the prophetic chain, from eternity in the past to eternity in the future, tells us where we are today in the procession of the ages, and what may be expected in the time to come. All that prophecy has foretold as coming to pass, until the present time, has been traced on the pages of history, and we may be assured that all which is yet to come will be fulfilled in its order.
On the Threshold of Great Events
The final overthrow of all earthly dominions is plainly foretold in the Word of truth. The message is given in the sentence from God that was pronounced upon the last king of Israel: "Thus says the Lord God: Remove the turban, and take off the crown: ... exalt the humble, and humble the exalted. ... Overthrown, overthrown, I will make it overthrown! It shall be no longer, until He comes whose right it is, and I will give it to Him." Ezekiel 21:26, 27.
The crown removed from Israel passed successively to the kingdoms of Babylon, Medo-Persia, Greece, and Rome. God says, "It shall be no longer, until He comes whose right it is, and I will give it to Him."
That time is at hand. Today the signs of the times declare that we are standing on the threshold of great and solemn events. Everything in our world is in agitation. Before our eyes the Savior's prophecy of the events preceding His coming is being fulfilled: "You will hear of wars and rumors of wars. ... Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be famines, and pestilences, and earthquakes in various places." Matthew 24:6, 7.
The present is a time of overwhelming interest to all living. Rulers and statesmen, people who occupy positions of trust and authority, thinking men and women of all classes, have their attention fixed on the events taking place about us. They are watching the strained, restless relations that exist among the nations. They observe the intensity that is taking possession of every earthly element, and they recognize that something great and decisive is about to take place--that the world is on the verge of a stupendous crisis.
Angels are now restraining the winds of strife that they may not blow until the world shall be warned of its coming doom. But a storm is gathering, ready to burst upon the earth, and when God shall command His angels to loose the winds, there will be such a scene of strife as no pen can picture.
The Final Scenes of Earth's History
The Bible, and the Bible only, gives a correct view of these things. Here are revealed the great final scenes in the history of our world, events that already are casting their shadows.
"They have transgressed the laws, changed the ordinance, broken the everlasting covenant. Therefore the curse has devoured the earth, and those that dwell in it are desolate." Isaiah 24:5, 6.
"I looked on the earth, and lo, it was waste and void; and to the heavens, and they had no light. I looked on the mountains, and lo, they were quaking, and all the hills moved to and fro. I looked, and lo, there was no one at all, and all the birds of the air had fled. I looked, and lo, the fruitful land was a desert, and all its cities were laid in ruins." Jeremiah 4:23-26, NRSV.
"Come, My people, enter your chambers, and shut your doors behind you; hide yourself, as it were, for a little moment, until the indignation is past." Isaiah 26:20.
"Because you have made the Lord, who is my refuge,
Even the Most High, your habitation,
No evil shall befall you,
Nor shall any plague come near your dwelling."
Psalm 91:9, 10.
See also Psalm 50:1-4; Micah 4:10-12; Jeremiah 30:17, 18;
Isaiah 25:9, 8; 30:20-22; 60:18; 54:14.
The prophets to whom these great scenes were revealed longed to understand their import. They "inquired and searched carefully: ... searching what, or what manner of time the Spirit of Christ who was in them was indicating. ... To them it was revealed that, not to themselves, but to us they were ministering the things which now have been reported to you--things which angels desire to look into." 1 Peter 1:10-12.
To those who are standing on the very verge of their fulfillment, of what deep moment, what living interest, are these delineations of the things to come--events for which, since our first parents turned their steps from Eden, God's children have watched and waited, longed and prayed!
Things of True Value
At this time, as before the world's first destruction, men and women today are absorbed in the pleasures and pursuits of sense. They have lost sight of the unseen and eternal. They are sacrificing imperishable riches for the things that perish with the using. Their minds need to be uplifted, their views of life broadened. They need to be aroused from the lethargy of worldly dreaming.
From the rise and fall of nations, as made plain in the Scriptures, they need to learn how worthless is mere outward and worldly glory. Babylon, with all its power and magnificence--power and magnificence which to the people of that day seemed so stable and enduring--how completely has it disappeared! As "the flower of the grass" it has perished. So perishes all that does not have God for its foundation. Only that which is bound up with His purpose and expresses His character can endure. His principles are the only steadfast things our world knows.
It is these great truths that old and young need to learn. We need to study the working out of God's purpose in the history of nations and in the revelation of things to come, that we may estimate the true value of things seen and things unseen and may learn the true aim of life. Learning here the principles of His kingdom and becoming its subjects and citizens, we may be prepared to possess it at His coming.
The day is at hand. For the lessons to be learned, the work to be done, the transformation of character to be effected, the time remaining is all too brief.
"'None of My words will be postponed any more, but the word which I speak will be done,' says the Lord God." Ezekiel 12:27, 28.