 By James H. Cagle |
The book of Daniel records nations that would rise to power and then fall (ch.2 and 7). They cycled in and then out of history when they fulfilled God’s plan. These Empires rose to the apex of world dominion and then fell as other nations rose according to God’s plan.
This “cycle of a nation” repeats itself with enough regularity that it has become a standard by which we may accurately determine where a nation is in the cycle based on what state it is in.
The “cycle of a nation” goes like this, “from bondage to spiritual freedom, – spiritual freedom to great courage, – great courage to liberty, – liberty to abundance, – abundance to complacency, – complacency to apathy, – apathy to dependency, – and dependency to bondage again.” Machiavelli gives a shorter version; “valor brings peace, peace idleness, idleness disorder, disorder ruin.” Someone else said, “Hard times create strong men, and strong men create good times, good times create weak men, and weak men create hard times.”
Nations are constantly evolving. They’re moving forward or backward. “Righteousness exalteth a nation: but sin is a reproach to any people” (Pro. 14: 34). God did with Israel and can again use an unrighteous nation to judge a righteous nation that is backslidden and by so doing make them lower than their enemy.
Every nation is either the “head” and a leader nation, or the “tail” and a service nation or somewhere in between.
Israel started out at the tail and was a service nation as they were slaves in Egypt. They became the head in the time of Solomon through their obedience to God. They then fell back and became the tail again through their disobedience to God and became servants to Assyria and Babylon (Deut. 28: 13, 44; Ezek. 16). Israel will once again rise in power and become the head nation during the millennial reign of Christ and Jerusalem will be the capital of the world.
But where is America on this “cycle” we might ask, for surely this to applies to us. We’re close to the end of the “cycle.” America at first was servant to Great Britain and was the tail but she fought for her liberty and rose in power until she was a world power and became the head and leader of nations. But like Israel, we’ve taken our blessings for granted and forgotten the One Who gave them and are on the verge of being the tail and a service nation again.
America has forsaken God and He has raised adversaries against us and vexed us with all manner of adversity within our borders (II Chr.15, Ps. 107:33, 34). We celebrate in high places those particular sins that are an abomination to God. We are corrupt due to our covetousness (1 Tim. 6: 10), which is idolatry (Eph. 5: 5; Col. 3: 5). It’s unlikely the America we know now will be in existence a decade from now if we keep going down this same path in which we keep alienating ourselves from God. It’s very likely America will be a nation in the near future subject to a new head of nations and a new world order.
But we can actually break this destructive “cycle.” The prophets of Israel preached repentance in order to get Israel to repent of her sins and turn back to God and keep this “cycle” from making its full circle. But Israel would not give up her sins and repent, and through judgment lost her position as leader and became a servant to those who hated her.
Repentance and returning to God are the only things that will keep this “cycle” from making its full circle with America (II Chr. 7:14; Jer. 18: 7-10). And let this repentance and returning to God begin in the house of God (1 Pet. 4: 17).
God doesn’t owe America anything as He does Israel due to the promises He made her. God simply promised to bless us as He has every nation if we would obey Him. Neither America, nor her churches have any spiritual power. We’ve just been moving forward on the momentum of the spiritual power our forefathers had and it’s about to run down.
America is ripe for revival or revolution. We must repent to have revival and continue to rebel to have a revolution.
“Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord” (Ps. 33:12).
