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Observations©

Donald S. Conkey

 

Date: July 19, 2007 # 929 – Is history repeating itself? (815)

 

In Will and Ariel Durant’s ‘The Story of Civilization,’ their acclaimed eleven-volume history of civilization, they wrote about the rise and fall of twenty of the twenty-one known world nations. Few of those nations lasted 231 years, as has the United States.

Most of them rose quickly and most died quickly. Wealth, pride and a rejection of those principles of righteousness that had allowed those people to build a strong nation led to their self-destruction, those divine principles available to all nations throughout history.

            And nations continue to rise and fall. Hitler lasted twelve years while totally destroying Germany, and much of Europe. Stalin’s communistic Russia lasted less then seventy years while enslaving millions.  China’s communist rulers enslaved nearly a billion people. Cuba, once free is now enslaved. The people in Venezuela are now being enslaved. Sudan is genocidal. Nearly half of today’s listed nations live under tyranny. Can America break this historical cycle? Only time will tell and it will depend on whether America is able to maintain its moral and religious compass.

I mention this because many Americans think the United States is as divided today as in any period of its 231-year history. It is not just the war in Iraq, it is a growing divide over moral issues, those same moral issues that Durant had found destroyed the ancient civilizations of the past.

Listening to today’s divisive rhetoric in the nation’s capitol one senses the debates over Iraq are more to maintain – or regain – political power than to win that war for Iraq’s freedom. Today’s war on terrorism is a war on mankind’s liberty – lose it and all mankind loses. 

As Americans watch this Iraqi war progress they should better understand the similarities between this war and America’s war of Independence. America’s war lasted eight years, Iraq now five. America’s war could never have been won without the help of France who provided money, troops, cloths, weapons and a navy. But had France pulled out, as many in congress now want to do in Iraq, the world would not have the freedoms it now enjoys. Iraq needs America today just as America needed France in 1781 at Yorktown.

When America’s war ended the thirteen colonies (similar to Iraq’s tribes) had to learn to live together. It wasn’t easy. It was a miracle they actually came together in 1787, in the midst of chaos, to create America’s Constitution – a document of law inspired by God’s “perfect laws of liberty” Moses used to rule his ‘thirteen tribes.’ After the war the Founders needed time to find their footings just as the Iraqi leaders need time today to work out their differences. Will they get that time? That is in the hands of America’s congressional leaders.

            Recently, while pondering those nations who walked with God, as did America early on, I became intrigued by those scriptures that strongly suggest God was involved in establishing several ancient civilizations, civilizations where those principles of equality and freedom deeply embedding in America’s Constitution, were the cornerstone principles of those ancient societies.  

Enoch’s kingdom was likely the first where liberty prevailed. Moses tells us “Enoch walked with God: and he was not; for God took him.” Peter portrays Melchisedec, the king of Salem, as a King of righteousness and a King of Peace. Luke suggests Christ’s disciples led a government, perhaps a village, where none “among them lacked: …”       

These passages suggest it is possible for societies to live in peace if they are obedient to God’s “perfect laws of liberty.” The Israelites’ republic, from Joshua to Saul, lasted about 334 years. Corruption and graft, as in America today, caused them to ask their God to “give them a king, like other nations.” They had rejecting their God, who then rejected them. Following Solomon’s death the thirteen tribes (colonies) separated and within 254 years the ten tribes were conquered and ‘led’ into captivity – lost to history. It was the Anglo Saxons’ King Alfred who unknowingly began freedom’s ‘restoration’ process finally established in 1787 with the adoption of America’s Constitution.

 Another nation’s records, the predecessors of the Aztec nation, tells how it established a powerful nation, a nation where “there were no contentions and disputations among them, and every man dealt justly one with another.” It lasted 200 years before “there began to be among them those who were lifted up in pride … and they began to be divided into classes …” These contentions grew until in their 231st year (America’s age today) “there was a great division among the people” which led to civil wars and, after another 170 years, total destruction. 

As the divisions in America continue to grow will historians, like Will Durant, record America’s 2008 election as the year Americans, like the Israelites in 1095 BC, rejected their God by choosing leaders not willing, or prepared, to ‘counsel with America’s God?’

Only time will tell.

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