Tuesday
Ever since human beings started thinking and recording their thoughts, we have been looking for the principle upon which all the events of history turn, and there have been many guesses about what that controlling principle is.
Long ago, the ancient Greek philosophers came up with the idea that history moves in cycles; Aristotle also said that first a tyrant rises, who seizes control of a nation or a group of people and rules until his dynasty ends. Then control gradually passes to a ruling family of aristocracy. And gradually their power deteriorates until control passes down to the people, and this is what he calls a democracy. But a democracy also deteriorates and gradually yields to the breakdown of all power, and anarchy ensues. Out of anarchy a tyrant again seizes control, and on goes the cycle of history. We have to admit that there seems to be a good deal of truth in this theory, but is this all there is to history, just and endless turning of the cycle?
Through the centuries other men have contributed guesses about the controlling principle of life. Thomas Jefferson thought it was political, and when he wrote the Declaration of Independence he incorporated that idea in the prologue - that human governments recognize that certain inalienable rights are granted to men, and that to preserve these rights, governments are instituted among men. He felt that the forces that shape human history and form the nations of earth are political in nature.
Karl Marx had his own ideas of what drove history, and he wrote his “Communist Manifesto”, which has dramatically influenced our world. His idea was that the controlling force of history was economics, that it is the need to meet the material demands of life that shapes the course of history. This idea has so captured the minds of men today that all over the earth are millions who feel that economics is the controlling interest of life.
Others have said that the primary principle of history is sociological. Charles Darwin developed the theory of evolution which claims that the process of “natural selection” shapes the course of human destiny.
The Bible tells us that none of these principles is what really drives the world. The Bible says that behind the whole course of human history is God! The hinge on which history turns is not economic, political, sociological or evolutionary in nature - it is spiritual. God's Spirit is at work in the world and among people, and you cannot understand human events if you do not first recognize that fact.
The prophet Joel understood this principle better than most and he had clear vision of God moving His people and all of history toward the great and final “Day of the LORD”.
Joel 1:15 - Alas for that day! For the day of the LORD is near; it will come like destruction from the Almighty.
Joel 2:1 - Blow the trumpet in Zion; sound the alarm on my holy hill. Let all who live in the land tremble, for the day of the LORD is coming. It is close at hand
Joel 2:12 - ‘Even now,‘ declares the LORD, ‘return to me with all your heart, with fasting and weeping and mourning.‘
Joel 2:27 - Then you will know that I am in Israel, that I am the LORD your God, and that there is no other; never again will my people be shamed.
Joel 2:32 - And everyone who calls on the name of the LORD will be saved; for on Mount Zion and in Jerusalem there will be deliverance, as the LORD has said, among the survivors whom the LORD calls.
Joel 3:1-2 - ‘In those days and at that time, when I restore the fortunes of Judah and Jerusalem, I will gather all nations and bring them down to the Valley of Jehoshaphat. There I will enter into judgment against them concerning my inheritance, my people Israel, for they scattered my people among the nations and divided up my land.
Joel 3:16 - The LORD will roar from Zion and thunder from Jerusalem; the earth and the sky will tremble. But the LORD will be a refuge for his people, a stronghold for the people of Israel.
Jeff Frazier
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