They sit easily before their forms
of entertainment, snug in their assurance that they are safe within their self
controlled lives. Their countries are
powerful, their economies are thriving and nothing could possibly go against
their desires. They shake their heads
when they hear the daily news, of the stupidity and misery others must suffer
through – always someone else, somewhere else.
Why can’t others live as they do?
It is all so simple. Nothing could
ever happen here, “We are the blest people.” they say! And yet, the news seems to be getting
stupider and more miserable; and now the events are coming from closer and
closer locations to their homes. How can
this be? Is there a reason for
this? Is someone, somewhere trying to
tell them something? Are they not
listening? What is going on, in this
confusing world?
Does this sound
familiar? Well, long ago, this
interesting analysis on history was offered – which you might consider
carefully:
“The
following five attributes marked Rome
at its end: first, a mounting love of
show and luxury; second, a widening gap between the very rich and the very poor;
third, an obsession with sex; fourth, freakishness in the arts, masquerading as
originality, and enthusiasms pretending to be creativity; fifth, an increased
desire to live off the state.”
Edward Gibbon, wrote this line
between 1776-1788 in his book, The Decline and Fall of the Roman
Empire. What an interesting
observation he made. Was he
correct? Certainly, about the Roman Empire, without a question. And you know as well as I, these five
cultural conditions did not just ‘happen’ and then suddenly came the end of Rome. Surprise!
No, it took time, it came gradually, across several generations. But, none the less, the mightiest empire, the
world had ever seen, fell to a group of Visigoth invaders from central Europe. It wasn’t
superiority of line commanders’ intellect, nor Visigoth weapons’ technology nor
did the Visigoth’s field a larger army, but it had to do with internal
corruption within the Roman Empire itself.
The rot ran from the lowest peasant to the highest officials.
If this was what destroyed Rome, as Gibbon’s
observed, then can this be true of other empires? In other words, can we learn something here
by looking at history? Certainly, these
attributes were true of the Greeks, the Egyptians, the Israelites and all of
the Persian empires. The far flung British
Empire, 20th century Fascist and Communist states and even China sure were
not exempt from these conditions. And,
they all fell due to their internal failures as well as the predominant culture
at the time of their conquests.
Apparently, with wealth and security comes the degradation of the
standards for culture, morality, value on human life and then comes the end.
So, it is well for us to
consider Mr. Gibbon’s words, from 250 years ago, as we read Daniel chapter 5
and see if what he has told us is documented in some form within Daniel’s telling
of the last day of the Babylonian Empire.
Okay, time to go back now and
think about the fall of Rome, the fall of Babylon and see if we can
come up with any similarities.
Here is
Gibbon’s list:
From Daniel chapter 5 and
archaeology:
Gibbons
Conditions Of Rome
|
Observations on Babylon
|
Show and luxury
|
Babylon was very big on
show and luxury in the 6th century bc.
|
Large gap between rich and
poor
|
Those in Babylon lived as
kings, while the rest of kingdom was in many ways only peasants.
|
Obsession with sex
|
No details from Daniel,
but from archaeology we know they weren’t as bad as some.
|
Weird art
|
Um, to the western eye, yes
very weird and often sex related.
|
Masses desiring to live off
of the state
|
Certainly we know from
Daniel there were at least 1,000 if not 2,000 present for the final feast of
Babylon. The army was treated as a
guarantee of livelihood with little requirement to endanger yourself – at
least until the end.
|
So I would say that 1, 2, 4
are definitely met as conditions, while 3 is unknown and 5 is a strong
possibility.
What I want you to see here
is that Babylon
had rotted from the top to the bottom.
The top of society no longer cared about anything, except themselves
(save for Nabonidus, Belshazzar's father and King of the Empire, but then he was on tour when all of this happened, so he
was sort of an “I don’t care kind of guy as well.”).
The vast population was in
crushing poverty, having never really recovered from Nebuchadnezzar’s wars of
conquest which had flatten whole regions so that there was nothing left
standing and they were taxed beyond their limits.
Their culture, like so many,
was a little weird on their view of sexuality and religious observances – same
kind of stuff that Israel – the northern kingdom was destroyed for by God using
Assyria as His hammer. Too bad for Judah – the
southern kingdom didn’t learn from other's mistakes!
Okay, I think you get the
point. Babylon’s culture and leadership were in
decline and God, having had enough of them, used Cyrus of Persia to crush them.
Now look at your life, the
culture in which you live, are Gibbon’s conditions for decline and fall being
met even as you read this?
Gibbons
Conditions Of Rome
|
Observations
on Western Culture
|
Show and luxury
|
|
Large gap between rich and
poor
|
|
Obsession with sex
|
|
Weird art
|
|
Masses desiring to live off
of the state
|
|
- Will you suffer if this culture is judged and
destroyed?
- What can you personally do, that can make even
the tiniest difference in how God will view this culture?
- What will make you different?
- What will make you a Daniel and not one of the
nameless masses that didn’t fair so well that distant night?
To quote Edmund Burke (1729-1797)
and repeated by many others since:
"Those who don't know history are
destined to repeat it."
