God is Sovereign over all Nations!

Those in the highest echelons of power in our world—the Obama’s, the Bernanke’s, the Clinton’s, the U.S. Congress, the Central Banks, the IMF, and all their myriads of agencies— would do well to acquaint themselves with the works of God, and observe His works in history. That’s where they can see such demonstrable proof that men must necessarily either submit to God and His laws, or in the end be destroyed by their pride, their arrogance of power, and their attempt to erect a new world order outside of God’s command.And those of us who find ourselves under the thumb of such tyranny and unlawful government would do well to hold on to the fear of God and the knowledge that God governs in the affairs of men. He will bring to naught the plans and dreams of those who attempt to build their socialist new world order, for surely the nations of this world shall become the nations of our God.

It is in this light that we who hold fast our faith in Christ must firmly plant the light of the Gospel into the soil of civil government and politics. And while this nation–read ‘empire’–may find itself in the balances of justice and be destroyed if it does not repent and turn back to God, still God’s people and His kingdom will continue to prosper as they honor and obey His laws. New nations may be formed out of old nations, and some day in the future nations will learn to obey all that God commands. In these nations men may finally find the lasting liberty that all men in time and history have sought.

The following reflections of Charles Rollin (Professor at the University of Paris) written in 1731 eloquently reveal the greatness of Almighty God as He governs the nations—that He disposes all events as supreme Lord and Sovereign, and that He determines the fate of kings and the duration of empires. These reflections will be published in three separate posts. Part One: God is Sovereign over all Nations; Part Two: Kings and Rulers under God’s Government and Judgment; Part Three: History, the Nations and the Messiah Prince .

The Study of History Reveals the Rise and Fall of Nations

The study of history would be unworthy of a serious attention, and the great length of time bestowed upon it, if it were confined to the bare knowledge of ancient transactions, and an unpleasing inquiry into the eras when each of these happened. It little concerns us to know that there were once such men as Alexander, Caesar, Aristides, or Cato, and that they lived in this or that period; that the empire of the Medes and Persians, who were themselves subjected by the Macedonians, as these were afterwards by the Romans. But it highly concerns us to know by what means those empires were founded; the steps by which they rose to the exalted pitch of grandeur we so much admire; what it was that constituted their true glory and felicity, and what were the causes of declension and fall.

It is of no less importance to study attentively the manners of different nations; their genius, laws, and customs; and especially to acquaint ourselves with the character and disposition, the talents, virtues, and even vices, of those men by whom they were governed; and whose good and bad qualities contributed to the grandeur or decay of the states over which they presided.

Such are the great objects which ancient history presents; exhibiting to our view all the kingdoms and empires of the world; and at the same time, all the great men who are any way conspicuous; thereby instruct us, by example rather than precept, in the arts of empire and war, the principles of government, the rules of policy, the maxims of civil society, and the conduct of life that suits all ages and conditions…

God Almighty Governs the Nations

But another object of infinitely greater importance claims our attention. For although profane history treats only of nations who had imbibed all the chimeras of a superstitious worship, and abandoned themselves to all the irregularities of which human nature, after the fall of the first man, became capable; it nevertheless proclaims universally the greatness of the Almighty, His power, His justice, and, above all, the admirable wisdom with which His providence governs the universe.

If the inherent conviction of this last truth raised, according to Cicero’s observation, the Romans above all other nations; we may, in like manner, affirm that nothing gives history a greater superiority to many other branches of literature, than to see in a manner imprinted in almost every page of it, the precious footsteps and shining proofs of this great truth, viz. that God disposes all events as supreme Lord and Sovereign; that He alone determines the fate of kings, and the duration of empires; and that He, for reasons inscrutable to all but Himself, transfers the government of kingdoms from one nation to another.

We discover this important truth in going back to the most remote antiquity, and the origin of profane history; I mean to the dispersion of the posterity of Noah into the several countries of the earth where they settled. Liberty, chance, views of interest, a love of certain countries, and similar motives were, in outward appearance, the only causes of the different choices which men made in these various migrations. But the Scriptures inform us, that amidst the trouble and confusion that followed the sudden change in the language of Noah’s descendants, God presided invisibly over all their councils and deliberations; that nothing was transacted but by the Almighty’s appointment; and that He alone guided and settled all mankind agreeably to the dictates of His mercy and justice. The Lord scattered them abroad from thence upon the face of the earth (Genesis 9.8-9).

God’s Great Plan: Known from the Beginning

We must therefore consider as an indisputable principle, and as the basis and foundation to the study of profane history, that the providence of the Almighty has, from all eternity, appointed the establishment, duration, and destruction of kingdoms and empires, as well in regard to the general plan of the whole universe, known only to God who constitutes the order and wonderful harmony of its several parts, as particularly with respect to the people of Israel, and still more with regard to the Messiah, and the establishment of the Church, which is His great work, the end and design of all His other works, and ever present in His sight. Known to the Lord are all His works from the beginning (Acts 15.18).

God has vouchsafed to discover to us in holy Scripture, a part of the relation of the several nations of the earth to His own people; and the little so discovered, diffuses great light over the history of those nations, of whom we shall have but a very imperfect idea, unless we have recourse to the inspired writers. They alone display, and bring to light, the secret thoughts of princes, their incoherent projects, their foolish pride, their impious and cruel ambition; they reveal the true causes and hidden springs of victories and overthrows; of the grandeur and declensions of nations; the rise and ruin of states; and teach us what judgement the Almighty forms both of princes and empires, and consequently, what idea we ourselves ought to entertain of them.