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.