The History of the Mystery of Iniquity at Work Today

Last Updated: 05/28/2009 00:51 |

I have recently begun coming across seemingly related stories that I believe may be God exposing the spirit of this world to those watching. So I would like to share that with you. If you agree, share it with others. I would also recommend reading Thought: Voice of the Spirit Realm
Genesis 3:1
Now the serpent was more subtil⁶¹⁷⁵ than any beast of the field which the LORD God had made. And he said unto the woman, Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden?
We see in the above scripture the association of the serpent with Satan. Our relationship with sin is similar to a snake eating its prey. It swallows us whole, surrounding us while it slowly eats away at us until we are no more what we used to be. Subtle is crafty and smooth, the type that can and do take advantage of others for their personal gain and corrupt the minds of innocents with thoughts and ideas from the dark side of the spirit realm. What is so effective about this force is how subtle it really is, yet how damaging it has become. As you will see, these dark sentences can be traced back to particular people and times in history, all working to systematically destroy the foundation of God and family the most effective way, the education of young impressionable minds.
I just watched a story on the news showing the absolute corruption in politics that both sides are engaging in. My friends, it pains me to see this information, but given what God has shown me in my search for Truth leading to this point, I can no longer deny some of the things I'm learning that fit with Bible prophecy. I accept that a fallen angel of light is more crafty and subtle than the greatest minds of humanity out there because he has crept in ideas of cancer that are eating away at the very values of God and catering to to the selfishness and pride of willingly ignorant men and women.

2 Peter 3:3-14
Knowing this first, that there shall come in the last days scoffers, walking after their own lusts, And saying, Where is the promise of his coming? for since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation. For this they willingly are ignorant of, that by the word of God the heavens were of old, and the earth standing out of the water and in the water: Whereby the world that then was, being overflowed with water, perished: But the heavens and the earth, which are now, by the same word are kept in store, reserved unto fire against the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men. [Matthew 24:37-39] But, beloved, be not ignorant of this one thing, that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance. But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night; in the which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up. Seeing then that all these things shall be dissolved, what manner of persons ought ye to be in all holy conversation and godliness, Looking for and hasting unto the coming of the day of God, wherein the heavens being on fire shall be dissolved, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat? Nevertheless we, according to his promise, look for new heavens and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness. Wherefore, beloved, seeing that ye look for such things, be diligent that ye may be found of him in peace, without spot, and blameless.
2 Timothy 3
This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come. For men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, Without natural affection, trucebreakers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce, despisers of those that are good, Traitors, heady, highminded, lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God; Having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof: from such turn away. For of this sort are they which creep into houses, and lead captive silly women laden with sins, led away with divers lusts, Ever learning, and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth. Now as Jannes and Jambres withstood Moses, so do these also resist the truth: men of corrupt minds, reprobate concerning the faith. But they shall proceed no further: for their folly shall be manifest unto all men, as their's also was. But thou hast fully known my doctrine, manner of life, purpose, faith, longsuffering, charity, patience, Persecutions, afflictions, which came unto me at Antioch, at Iconium, at Lystra; what persecutions I endured: but out of them all the Lord delivered me. Yea, and all that will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution. But evil men and seducers shall wax worse and worse, deceiving, and being deceived. But continue thou in the things which thou hast learned and hast been assured of, knowing of whom thou hast learned them; And that from a child thou hast known the holy scriptures, which are able to make thee wise unto salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus. All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness: That the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works.

We are seeing the result in the news daily. I would like to share what God has shown me, decide for yourself. Could it be that the master of deception has pulled the wool over our eyes from before our fathers' were born? Having the limited experience of not existing when those plans were put into place, it is easy to see how generations can be misled with simple thoughts that focus on self-fulfillment of worldly pleasures. Today's world has been blinded to reality by spiritual ideas in direct contradiction to God's Word, narrowing our focus to only the material and therefore keeping our minds on those things. This is the battle for the hearts and minds of humanity. I hope to share a trail of spiritual darkness in recent history that I believe has led us to the fulfillment of Bible prophecy and the love of many being so cold, the mystery of iniquity.
Ephesians 6:11,12
Put on the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.
What are some examples of spiritual things? Read Galatians 5:13-26 Our emotions are expressed physically, but the thoughts and the emotions themselves have no physical properties. I believe that thought is the voice of the spirit realm. Thoughts are not bounded by time. They pass from generation to generation. We can see how thoughts and ideas can potentially corrupt the spirit of an individual. That's why we must guard our thoughts. However, the serpent is more subtle and so is the sin that is eating out this world. The cancer is becoming evident in the daily news. It all started by pulling the wool over the eyes of the world with ideas that focused on fulfilling the desires of the flesh, denying the spiritual and the God who created them both, and doing so under the cloak of science.
The earliest in recent history I've tracked back is with Sir Francis Bacon (1561-1626). What first led me to examine this man was Francis Bacon: The History of a Character Assassination, written by Nieves de Madariaga Mathews (1917-2003). Who is she? Herb L. Peters and Constance Cumbeys' research into Javier Solana (1942-) led me to Nieves, Javier's mother. Sir Francis Bacon is also responsible for the scientific method and has been credited as the creator of the English essay and since the 1800s, some scholars have suggested that Bacon was the author of works attributed to Shakespeare. Understanding that the spiritual world cannot be perceived scientifically (i.e. It is based on gathering observable, empirical, measurable evidence, subject to specific principles of reasoning) and relying on just what is perceived with the physical senses focuses you on just the physical. Teaching this methodology in the school system brainwashes whole generations of children to only accept what they can perceive while failing to teach the spiritual things. This didn't used to be a problem until the education system was attacked by the separation of church and state myth in more recent times. He knew how to write and those writings, thoughts and ideas are still around today. Those principles make up much of the scientific community today. Watch Chris Pinto, producer of Secret Mysteries of America's Beginnings, talk about the Atlantis connection and America's beginnings linked with Sir Francis Bacon.

James Hutton (1726-1797) was a Scottish farmer and naturalist and is known as the founder of modern geology. "His new theories placed him into opposition with the then-popular Neptunist theories of Abraham Gottlob Werner, that all rocks had precipitated out of a single enormous flood. Hutton proposed that the interior of the Earth was hot, and that this heat was the engine which drove the creation of new rock: land was eroded by air and water and deposited as layers in the sea; heat then consolidated the sediment into stone, and uplifted it into new lands. This theory was dubbed "Plutonist" in contrast to the flood-oriented theory. He also opened up the concept of deep time for scientific purposes, in opposition to Catastrophism. Rather than accepting that the earth was no more than a few thousand years old, he maintained that the Earth must be much older (indeed, he went rather overboard and asserted that the Earth was infinitely old). His main line of argument was that the tremendous displacements and changes he was seeing did not happen in a short period of time by means of catastrophe, but that processes still happening on the Earth in the present day had caused them. As these processes were very gradual, the Earth needed to be ancient, in order to allow time for the changes. Before long, scientific inquiries provoked by his claims had pushed back the age of the earth into the millions of years – still too short when compared with what is known in the 21st century, but a distinct improvement." Wikipedia This continued the use of scientific theory to call into question the Biblical account.

Thomas Chalmers (1780-1847) was a Scottish mathematician and a leader of the Free Church of Scotland. In 1814 his "gap theory" became popular in which he shared the idea that each "day" in the creation account could have represented millions of years and therefore unwittingly preparing the Christian community to accept the later presented theory of Evolution.

Charles Darwin (1809-1882) furthered the focus on the physical by providing an explanation of existence that didn't need a God and focused on survival of the fittest. It is partially this every-man-for-himself attitude that I feel corrupts young minds who are taught this idea without an understanding of the spiritual and their lives are viewed as short times in life that must be taken advantage of before death. This attitude promotes self and fulfilling the desires of the flesh in the material world while not caring for others and blindly walking off the cliff of eternity away from the love of God by their own choices. We must guard our minds and our thought life because our choices we have come from what we experience, learn, and search out. As to the creation vs. evolution debate, it was over before anyone started arguing. Darwin himself is quoted as saying the idea was not supported by the facts. But in 1859 with the publishing of On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life, Evolution became the scientific theory that would be used to further call into question the Biblical record and deceive the world into accepting a lie.

More recently, the negative spiritual influence of Aleister Crowley Bio (1875-1947) further corrupted minds all over the world and continues to do so by spreading the thoughts and ideas that are destroying the spirits of our fellow man subtly under the cloak of music. Please watch They Sold Their Souls For Rock N' Roll. Aleister Crowley is the spirit behind many popular music artists of today. With the influence of music and repetition, they have the power to program thoughts and they are working towards what Crowley was. We all know that music helps memorization. The only reason I remember the books of the Bible is because I can sing the song. Many people "don't listen to the lyrics" not realizing that whether they like it or not, the words are changed in their mind like a mantra over and over. Nazi Germany's Minister for Public Enlightenment and Propaganda Joseph Goebbels said, "If you tell a lie big enough, and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it." The big lie. I think there's a reason Nazi Germany became such a threat. It's interesting that anti-Semitism was behind it as well. That seems to be a commonality with many things that point to the subtle serpent. Aleister's mantra was "do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law." Again, the spirit of self-serving that puffs up pride and uses it manipulate others to fulfill your desires. With the lack of focus on the spiritual, the only lusts that are understood are those of the flesh, sometimes at any cost. This means breaking some of the 10 Commandments, which are shadows of Love. True love is selfless.

"How this new Aeon of Horus will develop, how the Child will grow up, these are for us to determine, growing up ourselves in the way of the Law of Thelema under the enlightened guidance of the Master Therion." "Therion = 666"| Aleister Crowley, "Father of the New Age Movement" from The Book Of The Law

"Crowley's Magick is a doctrine and a technique for establishing contact with extra-terrestrial entities - spirits, demons... The whole of Crowley's doctrine is based on The Book Of The Law in which the future of humanity - the establishment on earth of a New Order - is outlined." | Aleister Crowley, Magick

Aleister Crowley was told by his spirit guide "Horus" that the Great Work of the Illuminati, the transformation of mankind, would essentially be accomplished by the decade of the 1990s. It would seem there was some accuracy there. The world is not what it used to be. If you would like further insight into the details of the modern New Age movement please read Constance Cumbey's books, THE HIDDEN DANGERS OF THE RAINBOW: The New Age Movement and our Coming Age of Barbarism (1983); A PLANNED DECEPTION: The Staging of a New Age Messiah (1986). You can also hear her speak about her book in this online video.

John 15:10-14
If ye keep my commandments, ye shall abide in my love; even as I have kept my Father's commandments, and abide in his love. These things have I spoken unto you, that my joy might remain in you, and that your joy might be full. This is my commandment, That ye love one another, as I have loved you. Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends. Ye are my friends, if ye do whatsoever I command you.

John 3:16
For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.

Anti-Semitism is rearing it's ugly head again through Islam. They are using the same principle to claim rights to "Palestine" and cause all the problems in the Middle East. The world has taken their side mostly and tend to blame Israel for taking the land. The facts are conveniently ignored. Unfortunately, the facts are usually not chanted as loudly because they don't have an agenda, they just are.

So in my research, several commonalities showed up. Javier Solana, the head of the European Union and effective foreign minister of Europe, has connections to the occult through his mother who defended Sir Francis Bacon in her book. I wonder what kind of influence a mother has on a growing son? Solana holds an undergraduate degree in chemistry (Received in Spain in 1963), a Master's Degree obtained in Great Britain, and a doctorate in physics; he is fond of saying that "in a previous incarnation I worked as a professor in solid-state physics." I wonder how much the education system, based on the scientific method brought to us by Bacon, has influenced his thought as with the rest of humanity growing up in the modern scientific indoctrination system? Looking at what thoughts Sir Francis Bacon brought to humanity I began to notice an occultic connection to everything. This is the mystery of iniquity. And to the world, many of these people are termed great thinkers.

2 Thessalonians 2:6-12
And now ye know what withholdeth that he might be revealed in his time. For the mystery of iniquity doth already work: only he who now letteth will let, until he be taken out of the way. And then shall that Wicked be revealed, whom the Lord shall consume with the spirit of his mouth, and shall destroy with the brightness of his coming: Even him, whose coming is after the working of Satan with all power and signs and lying wonders, And with all deceivableness of unrighteousness in them that perish; because they received not the love of the truth, that they might be saved. And for this cause God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie: That they all might be damned who believed not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness.

Perhaps you already knew all this history, for me the connections are new and the ramifications lend credence to Herb L. Peters research into the European Union, Constance Cumbey's research into the New Age Movement, and the HIStory, Our Future collection of Bible studies that show we are much closer to the end than most Christians are aware. Indeed if that study is accurate, we have two years to raise awareness in those we can reach with the Truth.

I am a watchman on the wall. God has put me here for such a time as this to share what He is leading me to see. I am an imperfect vessel, but so are we all. Yet God loves each one of us with an everlasting love. Let us focus on the spiritual task at hand of awakening the bride of Christ together while fighting the spirit of darkness in Spirit and in Truth. We are one body and we all play different parts. However, God speaks to us each individually if we listen. He speaks in a still, small voice which means you must quiet the distractions of the world and get alone with God.

Lord, I pray that you open the eyes of us that love and obey you to your plans as written in Your Word that it would be fulfilled that you tell your friends what you are doing. Your plans are perfect and we give our burdens to you. We give you our plans and desires in exchange to hear your plans and desires for us. We believe you can speak to us and we want to fulfill your will. We repent of those things not of You and ask that you reveal them to us in the coming weeks. Remove those thoughts planted by the enemy and return our childish innocence as we rely on You in all things.

Proverbs 3:5-7
Trust in the LORD with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths. Be not wise in thine own eyes: fear the LORD, and depart from evil.

The following article shows the spiritual conditions that lead to political decline. This spiritual deficiency will be used by those running the New World Order to both bring down the nations and at the same time

The Decline of a Nation by Kerby Anderson

Introduction

Doomsayers for many years have been predicting the decline and fall of this country. And while many of these short-term predictions have proved inaccurate, there is some truth to the prevailing belief that this nation will fall like every great nation before it. Apart from revival and reformation, this nation is destined to decline.

The problem with many of these doomsayers is that while their prognosis is right, their diagnosis is wrong. Yes, the future is bleak. But our problem is not ultimately political, economic, or social, as these doomsayers would have us believe. The decline of this nation (just as the decline of every other nation) is due to spiritual factors. The political, economic, and social problems we encounter are the symptoms of the spiritual deterioration of a nation.

Just as there are spiritual principles that influence the life of an individual, so there are political-spiritual principles that govern the life of a nation. And though we may feel that these are obscure and difficult to discern, in reality they are visible to anyone willing to look at the record of history.

Our problem is that we don't really learn from history. George Santayana said that "those who forget the past are condemned to repeat it." The philosopher Hegel said, "What experience and history teach us is this: that people and government never have learned anything from history or acted on principles deduced from it." Or as Winston Churchill said, "The one thing we have learned from history is that we don't learn from history."

The refrains that are often heard are: "It can't happen here," or "Our country is different." But the reality is that nations are born and die just like individuals. Their longevity may exceed the average person's lifespan. But the reality is that nations also die.

History has shown that the average age of the great civilizations is around two hundred years. Countries like Great Britain exceed the average while other countries like the United States are just now reaching the average age.

Each of the great civilizations in the world passed through a series of stages from their birth to their decline to their death. Historians have listed these in ten stages.

The first stage moves from bondage to spiritual faith.

The second from spiritual faith to great courage.

The third stage moves from great courage to liberty.

The fourth stage moves from liberty to abundance.

The fifth stage moves from abundance to selfishness.

The sixth stage moves from selfishness to complacency.

The seventh stage moves from complacency to apathy.

The eighth stage moves from apathy to moral decay.

The ninth stage moves from moral decay to dependence.

And the tenth and last stage moves from dependence to bondage.

These are the ten stages through which the great civilizations have gone. Notice the progression from bondage to liberty back to bondage. The first generation throws off the shackles of bondage only to have a later generation through apathy and indifference allow itself to once again be enslaved.

This is the direction this and every other country is headed. The book of Judges shows that the nation of Israel passed through these same stages. And this country will do the same unless revival and reformation break out and reverse the inexorable decline of this nation.

The Cycle of Nations

In his book The End of Christendom, Malcolm Muggeridge makes this powerful observation. He says:

I conclude that civilizations, like every other human creation, wax and wane. By the nature of the case there can never be a lasting civilization anymore than there can be a lasting spring or lasting happiness in an individual life or a lasting stability in a society. It's in the nature of man and of all that he constructs to perish, and it must ever be so. The world is full of the debris of past civilizations and others are known to have existed which have not left any debris behind them but have just disappeared.

He goes on to say that...

whatever their ideology may be, from the Garden of Eden onwards such dreams of lasting felicity have cropped up and no doubt always will. But the realization is impossible for the simple reason that a fallen creature like man though capable of conceiving perfection and aspiring after it, is in himself and in his works forever imperfect. Thus he is fated to exist in the no man's land between the perfection he can conceive and the imperfection that characterizes his own nature and everything he does.

Nations rise and nations fall. Every nation has followed this progression from bondage to bondage. The nations of this century will be no different. But let us not accept the Marxist notion that these are fixed and intractable laws of history. Christians can point to unusual times when revival has redirected the inexorable decline of a civilization. In the Old Testament, Jonah saw revival postpone God's judgment of Nineveh. In the sixteenth century, Martin Luther and John Calvin saw a Protestant Reformation transform Europe. And even in the history of the United States the First and Second Great Awakenings changed individuals and our society.

But apart from God's intervention, nations will decline and eventually pass off the scene. Much of the Old Testament records the history of the nation of Israel. It passed through these same stages and so will every country in the world.

As Christians we must recognize that nations will rise and fall just as individuals will be born and die. Our civilization will not last indefinitely, but will eventually pass off the scene. Only God's Word endures forever. We should not put our trust in the things of this world for they are destined for destruction. Instead, we should put our faith in God and His word.

The Decline of the Family

Nations most often fall from within, and this fall is usually due to a decline in the moral and spiritual values in the family. As families go, so goes a nation.

This has been the main premise of thinkers from British historian J. D. Unwin to Russian sociologist Pitirim Sorokin who have studied civilizations that have collapsed. In his book Our Dance Has Turned to Death, Carl Wilson identifies the common pattern of family decline in ancient Greece and the Roman Empire. Notice how these seven stages parallel what is happening in our nation today. In the first stage, men ceased to lead their families in worship. Spiritual and moral development became secondary. Their view of God became naturalistic, mathematical, and mechanical.

In the second stage, men selfishly neglected care of their wives and children to pursue material wealth, political and military power, and cultural development. Material values began to dominate thought, and the man began to exalt his own role as an individual. The third stage involved a change in men's sexual values. Men who were preoccupied with business or war either neglected their wives sexually or became involved with lower-class women or with homosexuality. Ultimately, a double standard of morality developed. The fourth stage affected women. The role of women at home and with children lost value and status. Women were neglected and their roles devalued. Soon they revolted to gain access to material wealth and also freedom for sex outside marriage. Women also began to minimize having sex relations to conceive children, and the emphasis became sex for pleasure. Marriage laws were changed to make divorce easy.

In the fifth stage, husbands and wives competed against each other for money, home leadership, and the affection of their children. This resulted in hostility and frustration and possible homosexuality in the children. Many marriages ended in separation and divorce.

Many children were unwanted, aborted, abandoned, molested, and undisciplined. The more undisciplined children became, the more social pressure there was not to have children. The breakdown of the home produced anarchy.

In the sixth stage, selfish individualism grew and carried over into society, fragmenting it into smaller and smaller group loyalties. The nation was thus weakened by internal conflict. The decrease in the birthrate produced an older population that had less ability to defend itself and less will to do so, making the nation more vulnerable to its enemies.

Finally, unbelief in God became more complete, parental authority diminished, and ethical and moral principles disappeared, affecting the economy and government. Thus, by internal weakness and fragmentation the societies came apart. There was no way to save them except by a dictator who arose from within or by barbarians who invaded from without.

Although this is an ancient pattern of decline found in Greece and Rome, it is relevant today. Families are the foundation of a nation. When the family crumbles, the nation falls because nations are built upon family units. They are the true driving social force. A nation will not be strong unless the family is strong. That was true in the ancient world and it is true today.

Social commentator Michael Novak, writing on the importance of the family, said:

One unforgettable law has been learned through all the disasters and injustices of the last thousand years: If things go well with the family, life is worth living; when the family falters, life falls apart.

The Decline of Values

There are many factors in the decline of a nation. Certainly a major one is the breakdown of the family. But another potent but less perceptible force is the power of ideas.

False ideas are bringing about the decline of western culture. Carl F. H. Henry, in his book Twilight of a Great Civilization, says:

There is a new barbarism. This barbarism has embraced a new pagan mentality . . . not simply rejecting the legacy of the West, but embracing a new pagan mentality where there is no fixed truth.
Today we live in a world where biblical absolutes are ignored, and unless we return to these biblical truths, our nation will continue to decline.

To understand how we have arrived at this appalling situation, we need to go back a century and look at the influence of five intellectual leaders who still profoundly affect the modern world. The first person is Charles Darwin (1809-1882). In 1859 he published The Origin of Species [full title The Origin of Species by means of Natural Selection or, The Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life] and later published The Descent of Man. His writings blurred the distinction between humans and animals since he taught that we are merely part of an evolutionary progression from lower forms of life. Darwinism, as it came to be called, not only affected the field of biology, but became the foundation for the fields of anthropology, sociology, and psychology.

The second person is Karl Marx (1818-1883). He and Friedrich Engels published the Communist Manifesto around 1850, and Marx devoted his life to writing about the demise of capitalism and coming of communism. He understood the importance of ideas. Marx once wrote: "Give me twenty-six lead soldiers and I will conquer the world." The twenty-six lead soldiers are the keys on a typewriter. The pervasive influence of communism in the world today is testimony to the truthfulness of his statement.

The third person is Julius Wellhausen (1844-1918). Although he may not be as well known as the other two men mentioned, his influence was just as profound. He was a German Bible scholar whose theory on the dating of the Pentateuch completely transformed Old Testament studies.

Wellhausen argued that the early books of the Bible were not put together by Moses but were gathered together many centuries later by several different men called redactors who wove various strands together. He and his disciples established an anti-supernatural approach to the scriptures which is influential in most denominational seminaries today.

The fourth person is Sigmund Freud (1856-1939). He merely took the logical implications of what Darwin was doing in biology and applied them to what today is known as psychology and psychiatry. Freud argued that humans are basically autonomous and therefore do not need to know God. Instead, we need to know and understand ourselves since our problems stem from those secret things that have evolved in our lives from our past.

A fifth person is John Dewey (1859-1952). He is the founder of modern education and published his first work, The School and Society, in 1899. John Dewey was also one of the co-signers of the Humanist Manifesto in 1933.

Dewey, like Darwin and Freud, believed that humans are autonomous. They don't need to have an authority above them but can evolve their our own system of education. Thus the very foundation of modern education is anti-supernatural.

Ideas have consequences, and false ideas can bring down a nation. The theories of these five men are having devastating consequences in our nation and world. Unless we return to Biblical absolutes, our nation will continue its decline.

Spiritual Decline

The decline and fall of nations is usually due to internal factors rather than external threats. Even though some may have fallen to barbarians, their demise ultimately came because of moral and spiritual weakness which manifested itself as military weakness. Historians have listed the stages in the decline of a nation. These should not be too surprising to any student of the Old Testament. The stages of decline parallel the stages through which the nation of Israel passed.

But neither should they surprise a student of the New Testament. In the opening chapter of the Apostle Paul's letter to the church in Rome, he traces a similar progression. In fact, Romans 1 shows the decline of a civilization from a societal perspective. Looking at the Hellenistic world of his time, he reflects on the progression of sin in a nation.

The first stage is when people turn from God to idolatry. Although God has revealed Himself in nature to all men so that they are without excuse, they nevertheless worship the creation instead of the Creator. This is idolatry. In the past, this took the form of actual idol worship. In our day, it takes the form of the worship of money or the worship of self. In either case, it is idolatry. A further example of this is a general lack of thankfulness. Although they have been prospered by God, they are ungrateful. And when they are no longer looking to God for wisdom and guidance, they become vain and futile and empty in their imaginations. They no longer honor God, so their foolish hearts become darkened. In professing to be wise, they have become fools.

The second stage is when men and women exchange their natural use of sex for unnatural uses. Here the Apostle Paul says those four sobering words, "God gave them over." In a society where lust- driven sensuality and sexual perversion dominate, God gives them over to their degrading passions and unnatural desires. The third stage is anarchy. Once a society has rejected God's revelation, it is on its own. Moral and social anarchy is the natural result. At this point God has given the sinners over to a depraved mind and so they do things which are not proper. This results in a society which is without understanding, untrustworthy, unloving, and unmerciful.

The final stage is judgment. God's judgment rightly falls upon those who practice idolatry and immorality. Certainly an eternal judgment awaits those who are guilty, but a social judgment occurs when God gives a nation over to its sinful practices.

Notice that this progression is not unique to the Hellenistic world the Apostle Paul was living in. The progression from idolatry to sexual perversion to anarchy to judgment is found throughout history.

In the times of Noah and Lot, there was the idolatry of greed, there was sexual perversion and promiscuity, there was anarchy and violence, and finally there was judgment. Throughout the history of the nation of Israel there was idolatry, sexual perversion, anarchy (in which each person did what was right in his own eyes), and finally judgment.

This progression happened throughout the Bible and to Greece, to Persia, to Babylon, and to Rome. And if it happened to these nations, then it can happen today. Unless we return to God's principles, decline and destruction are inevitable. © 1991 Probe Ministries

The Law of Human Progress Excerpted from The Science of Economics by Fred E. Foldvary

Social progress and decline

In the final "book" in Progress and Poverty (p. 475), Henry George steps back from economics to survey the human condition, and asks: "What is the law of human progress?"

Is there some "great law under which human development goes on"? Conventional economics textbooks do not address this question at all. But, as George realized, it is an important issue which puts economics in the greater context of human progress, both material and cultural.

We know from history that human beings are progressive. Whereas most animals continue the same pattern of life from one generation to another, human beings pattern their lives from their cultures, which do evolve. Sometimes, cultures devolve - knowledge gets lost, conditions worsen. Is there some principle by which we can say, this favors improvement, and that does not?

George dismisses the view that human social evolution follows the same methods as biological natural selection - that in the struggle for existence, the fittest races or nationalities survive and propagate. Similarly, some have said that the individuals with the greatest ability will live and propagate, while those with inferior abilities will not. However, the hereditary survival of superior characteristics, which does apply in biological evolution, does not explain human progress.

It is often the poor who have the greatest number of children. George also points to "an enormous fact - the fixed, petrified civilizations" (p. 481). Many societies have not progressed. The proposition that superior human nationalities or families will continuously progress is refuted by the periods of progression and periods of stagnation and retrogression in civilizations such as the Chinese, the Mayan Indians, and the ancient Egyptians.

The stagnation and decline of civilizations is not an exception or isolated cases - "it is the universal rule. Every civilization that the world has seen has had its period of vigorous growth, of arrest and stagnation; its decline and fall" (p. 484). Our own civilization is still young. That we have soared high "would prove nothing as to its permanence and future advance, unless it be shown that it is superior in those things which caused the ultimate failure of its predecessors" (pp. 484-5). If social progress were due to natural selection, "the general rule would be that progress would be continuous" (p. 485), but "The earth is the tomb of the dead empires" (p. 485).

Progress itself generates its own decline, under certain conditions: "that what has destroyed all previous civilizations has been the conditions produced by the growth of civilization itself" (p. 488).