Sermon: “Rise and Fall of Empires”
Life Cycles of Empires
Pastor Kim Wenzel
German philosopher Hegel(1770-1831) said:
“What
experience and history teach us is this—that people and governments
never have learned anything from history, or acted on principles deduced
from it.”
Sir
John Bagot Glubb (1897-1987), a highly honored British general and
historian better known as Glubb Pasha, wrote about the collapsed empires
of the past. In his 1978 book The Fate of Empires and the Search for Survival, he
described a common pattern fitting the history of some fallen empires.
They went through a cycle of stages as they started, expanded, matured,
declined and collapsed.
1. The age of outburst (or pioneers).
2. The age of conquests.
3. The age of commerce.
4. The age of affluence.
5. The age of intellect.
6. The age of decadence.
7. The age of decline and collapse.
Decline
1. Rampant
sexual immorality, an aversion to marriage in favor of “living
together” and an increased divorce rate all combine to undermine family
stability. Bible speaks so strongly on this topic. Why? Family break down.
Greeks slid into homosexuality just before Rome conquered them. Homosexuality became acceptable before fall of Rome.
-Infanticide:
Affluence and fun lead to a lifestyle desiring freedom from
responsibility. Children become a burden - birth rate drops or infanticide becomes the norm.
2. Many foreign immigrants settle in the empire’s capital and major cities. The mixture of ethnic groups in close proximity in these cosmopolitan places inevitably produces conflicts. God gave Israel advice before the Promised Land
3. Both irresponsible pleasure-seeking and pessimism increase among the people and their leaders. 1 Corinthians 15:32 “Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die!”
4. The government provides extensive welfare for the poor. In
the case of the city of Rome, which had perhaps 1.2 million people
around A.D. 170, government-provided “bread and circuses” (food and
entertainment) helped to keep the masses content. About one half of its
non-slave population was on the dole at least part of the year.
Mark 14:7 You will always have the poor among you, and you can help them whenever you want to. But you will not always have me.
2 Thessalonians 3:10-12
10 Even while we were with you, we gave you this command: “Those unwilling to work will not get to eat.”11 Yet we hear that some of you are living idle lives, refusing to work and meddling in other people’s business. 12 We command such people and urge them in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ to settle down and work to earn their own living.
Today's Verse
Mark 11:24
Therefore I tell you,
whatever you ask in
prayer, believe that
you have received
it, and it will be
yours.
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