From the sole of the foot even to the head, there is no soundness in it.
– Isaiah 1:6
If people think at all about civilizational collapse, they tend to think of the fall of the Roman Empire. Famously chronicled by English historian Edward Gibbon, the fall of the Western Roman Empire in 476 B.C. is considered a red letter date in history. Those who have not read Gibbon may reasonably suppose he stopped his account at that point. But such is not the case. Gibbon was just getting warmed up. From the fall of Rome, he want on the chronicle the rise of Islam in the 6th century and its conflict with, and eventual conquest of, the Eastern Roman Empire. He ended his history with the fall of Constantinople to the Turks in A.D. 1453.
But as impressive as it is, Gibbon’s The
History of the
Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire is not the first or the best account of civilizational collapse. That honor would have to fall to Old Testament, much of which chronicles of The Decline and Fall of the Hebrew Republic. Established in Canaan under Joshua, the Hebrew Republic devolved into a monarchy under
Portrait of Edward Gibbon (1737-94) c.1779 (oil on canvas) by Sir Joshua Reynolds (1723-92)
Saul in 1050 B.C., reached the height of its wealth and power under Solomon between the years 970 and 930 B.C., then split into a Northern and a Southern Kingdom under Solomon’s son Rehoboam. From there, the fortunes of the two kingdoms trended downward over the course of several centuries until the fall of the Northern Kingdom to Assyria in 722 B.C. and the final conquest of the Southern Kingdom by Babylon in 586 B.C.
The history of the Decline and Fall of the Hebrew Republic is exceptionally well documented, for it is given to us in the form of God’s inspired, infallible, inerrant Word. As such, we have a perfect record, not only of what took place, but God’s own interpretation of why it took place. One of the problems of secular history is getting the facts straight. But even if a historian were to be given perfect documentation of the period they were studying, there still would remain the issue of interpreting the events. Events do not interpret themselves. Events must themselves be explained. Those problems do not exist with the Old Testament. God has graciously provided to us both the facts and their correct interpretation.
Though many people do not seem to recognize it, we who are alive at the beginning of the 21th century are living through a civilizational collapse, one that has much in common with that experienced by the ancient Israelites and recorded in I and II Kings, I and II Chronicles, and in the prophets. Many of the same ills that beset us in the 21st century are the same as those experienced by the Hebrews in the centuries leading up to the collapse of that nation. But not only are the symptoms the same – moral decline, economic decline, disastrous foreign policy, internal strife – the cause is the same as well. In both cases, the people turned their backs on God and his Word. And just as the Israelites learned that a godly heritage without actual godliness is no protection against disaster, so too are we in the West being taught that that same hard lesson
Lux Lucet 