"LORD, I know that people's lives are not their own; it is not for them to direct their steps" (Jer. 10:23, NIV).
"'...Surely, as I have planned, so it will be, and as I have purposed, so it will happen'" (Isa. 14:24, NIV).
"The LORD foils the plans of the nations; he thwarts the purposes of the peoples" (Ps. 33:10, NIV).
"If men could learn from history, what lessons it might teach us. But passion and party blind our eyes...." --Samuel Taylor Coleridge
There are no accidents of history which is dependent upon impersonal, non-existent forces, such as fortune, fate, or luck! Don't sing, "Que sera, sera, what will be, will be!" Providence is God's answer to happenstance!
History is a story by a grand Storyteller, the great Orchestrator of History itself, God, which means it has a direction, meaning, and a conclusion or consummation; we ignore it at our peril!
The ancients believed in a cyclical historical narrative, whereby history repeated itself; however, Mark Twain said that history doesn't repeat itself, it only rhymes! The only thing we learn from history, it is said, is that we don't learn from history; that is probably why Henry Ford proclaimed history as "bunk." The Bible is the final arbiter of truth and what is "bunk," though. The communist ideology justifies itself and its dialectic materialism by positing history as the judge. Some religions, on the other hand, see karma as the inevitable judge of mankind, from which we cannot escape.
Do nations that unjustly go to war, to wage unjust wars reap what they sow, is there bad karma for them? It seems like the good guys don't always win and justice comes out the loser if one observes history, yet God orchestrates all history, and history is simply "His story." We have to acknowledge that we don't always see what God is up to in His world, as He micromanages it to the minutiae--there is indeed not one maverick molecule out of His control.
Karl Marx said something interesting about history: The point is not to interpret it, but to change it! I believe one of the biggest problems we have in our nation is its lack of familiarity with American and even world history. If we don't learn some basic lessons, we are doomed to repeat history. The Bible teaches a linear approach to interpret history, that it doesn't go in cycles but is heading toward a climactic event or consummation (the Second Coming of Christ). Scientists deny any supernatural intervention in history, such as the Deluge, and this is called the uniformitarian view of history--this is because they want to make the earth out to be billions of years old and this view supports their old-earth hypothesis.
History can be summed up according to biblical interpretation: Creation, fall, redemption, judgment! History and time had a beginning at creation and Secular Humanists can't adjust their worldview to include this approach, but hold to an eternal universe (such a theory is untenable in view of scientific evidence of a Big Bang). The point is that, if there was a beginning (Big Bang), there had to be a Beginner or one who pulled the trigger! Nothing just happens by itself! We must learn the lessons of history, and Christianity is the only faith and worldview that is based on history and has evidence to back it up.
In the final analysis, we don't know the future, but we know who holds the future! This doctrine is sometimes referred to as Providence and we must learn to not second-guess God. Certainly, as Ben Franklin observed: "I have lived a long time, and the longer I live, the more I realize that God governs in the affairs of men." God has no back-up plan nor a Plan B, and His will cannot be frustrated by us, as we cannot thwart Him (cf. Job 42:2).
History is something we really don't understand and cannot fathom, until after the fact, when we can see more objectively what God is doing in the affairs of men; therefore to conjecture about the future or to make prognostications is out of our realm of competency, since we don't have a crystal ball that works--it's God's dominion--we trust God for the future, and must realize that our future or (times) is in His hands (cf. Psalm 31:15).
In sum, consider the following verses (Psalm 22:28 (NIV); Job 36:23 (HCSB); and Daniel 4:35, NIV): "[F]or dominion belongs to the LORD and he rules over the nations," "Who has appointed His way for Him, and who has declared, 'You have done wrong'?" "...No one can hold back his hand or say to him: 'What have you done?'" Soli Deo Gloria!
In sum, consider the following verses (Psalm 22:28 (NIV); Job 36:23 (HCSB); and Daniel 4:35, NIV): "[F]or dominion belongs to the LORD and he rules over the nations," "Who has appointed His way for Him, and who has declared, 'You have done wrong'?" "...No one can hold back his hand or say to him: 'What have you done?'" Soli Deo Gloria!
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