Alexander Fraser Tytler, Lord Woodhouselee (15 October 1747 – 5 January 1813) was a Scottish advocate, judge, writer and historian who was a Professor of Universal History, and Greek and Roman Antiquities at the University of Edinburgh. Alexander wrote;
A democracy is always temporary in nature; it simply cannot exist as a permanent form of government. A democracy will continue to exist up until the time that voters discover that they can vote themselves generous gifts from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates who promise the most benefits from the public treasury, with the result that every democracy will finally collapse due to loose fiscal policy, which is always followed by a dictatorship.
The average age of the world's greatest civilizations from the beginning of history has been about 200 years. During those 200 years, these nations always progressed through the following sequence: From bondage to spiritual faith; From spiritual faith to great courage; From courage to liberty; From liberty to abundance; From abundance to selfishness; From selfishness to complacency; From complacency to apathy; From apathy to dependence; From dependence back into bondage.
Note that this is the cycle of a Democracy rather than a Kingdom which depends on the Good or Evil nature of the King or Queen. If they are a good Royal, the Nation will head towards abundance. A good Royal need only be careful to let the people share in the abundance otherwise things turn nasty quickly. And an Evil King starts at the bottom and uses any abundance selfishly !
In fact Democracy is fairly rare in history and apart from Ancient Greece, a new phenomenon in the West. Before 1800 there were unelected Kings and Queens, Caesar’s and Tribal Leaders in Europe. The US constitution was only signed in 1776. The French Revolution of 1789 overturned the aristocracy and sent the fear of God into the nobility throughout Europe. The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland was established on January 1st 1801. NZ was the first country in the world to give women the vote in 1893. Are we witnessing the end of Western Democracy as predicted by the cycle of nations ? Our era is indeed timed with an increase in social welfare state dependency. Communist China and Russia are now aggressively challenging democracy. We are on the cusp of going back into bondage even here in New Zealand. Everyone seems surprised.
We have lived in an era of peace under the reign of Queen Elizabeth but will it go round in circles into war on her death ? King Solomon was a man who built for himself a playboy life like a rich billionaire in an era of peace, the dream of many in the Western World. But the tide came back in after his death and Solomon’s sandcastle was soon washed away.
The words of the Preacher, the son of David, king in Jerusalem. “Vanity of vanities,” says the Preacher; “Vanity of vanities, all is vanity.” What profit has a man from all his labor In which he toils under the sun? One generation passes away, and another generation comes; But the earth abides forever. The sun also rises, and the sun goes down, And hastens to the place where it arose. The wind goes toward the south, And turns around to the north; The wind whirls about continually, And comes again on its circuit. All the rivers run into the sea, Yet the sea is not full; To the place from which the rivers come, There they return again. All things are full of labor; Man cannot express it. The eye is not satisfied with seeing, Nor the ear filled with hearing. That which has been is what will be, That which is done is what will be done, And there is nothing new under the sun. Is there anything of which it may be said, “See, this is new”? It has already been in ancient times before us. There is no remembrance of former things, Nor will there be any remembrance of things that are to come By those who will come after.
Ecclesiastes 1:1-11
Without a divine intervention, history goes around in circles.
Mankind’s problem is that we forget. We know our parents and grandparents stories but that’s it. I don’t know any of the stories of my great grandparents which means I have no personal knowledge and connection to life before World War II and that is only 80 years ago !
But if we forget all this, the one thing we must remember is the Lord. Think how much wisdom is in this Book written over thousands of years. If we wisely choose to listen to the Lord, we can live in peace even when the world is in turmoil.
“When the Lord your God brings you into the land which you go to possess, and has cast out many nations before you, the Hittites and the Girgashites and the Amorites and the Canaanites and the Perizzites and the Hivites and the Jebusites, seven nations greater and mightier than you, and when the Lord your God delivers them over to you, you shall conquer them and utterly destroy them. You shall make no covenant with them nor show mercy to them. Nor shall you make marriages with them. You shall not give your daughter to their son, nor take their daughter for your son. For they will turn your sons away from following Me, to serve other gods; so the anger of the Lord will be aroused against you and destroy you suddenly. But thus you shall deal with them: you shall destroy their altars, and break down their sacred pillars, and cut down their wooden images, and burn their carved images with fire. “For you are a holy people to the Lord your God; the Lord your God has chosen you to be a people for Himself, a special treasure above all the peoples on the face of the earth.
Notice what the Lord highlights to Israel will be the root cause of future trouble. It is compromise. Making covenants with godless nations and mixed marriages that end up with idol worship throughout the land. That was what Solomon was guilty of and it lead to trouble in his own life and trouble for future generations.
Instead we are called to show our love for the Lord by choosing to obey him;
The Lord did not set His love on you nor choose you because you were more in number than any other people, for you were the least of all peoples; but because the Lord loves you, and because He would keep the oath which He swore to your fathers, the Lord has brought you out with a mighty hand, and redeemed you from the house of bondage, from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt. “Therefore know that the Lord your God, He is God, the faithful God who keeps covenant and mercy for a thousand generations with those who love Him and keep His commandments; and He repays those who hate Him to their face, to destroy them. He will not be slack with him who hates Him; He will repay him to his face. Therefore you shall keep the commandment, the statutes, and the judgments which I command you today, to observe them.
Deuteronomy 7:1-11
This same call to obedience is repeated by Peter to us Christians;
But you are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, His own special people, that you may proclaim the praises of Him who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light;
1 Peter 2:9
Out of Democracy and into a Kingdom ruled by an eternally Good King.
As a nation, New Zealanders sing to God we will serve him when we sing God of Nations at thy feet but it doesn’t add up. Our generation sings one thing, does the opposite. We make covenants with godless nations, we call them trade agreements. We are more concerned with growing our economy than where their money came from. We haven’t been bothered with godly marriages either. Anything goes these days. We see temples and mosques everywhere as a proof of our compromise.
The message for this generation of New Zealanders is a call to humble ourselves and repent and a return to the ancient paths. We are proud to be progressive but we have thrown out the Bible and are confidently progressing away from the Lord.
The Lord sends trouble at the end of the Cycle of Nations not to harm us but to turn us from the path we are on. To help us remember the old path which we have forgotten.
“Because My people have forgotten Me, They have burned incense to worthless idols. And they have caused themselves to stumble in their ways, From the ancient paths, To walk in pathways and not on a highway, To make their land desolate and a perpetual hissing; Everyone who passes by it will be astonished And shake his head. I will scatter them as with an east wind before the enemy; I will show them the back and not the face In the day of their calamity.”
Jeremiah 18:15-17
We have lived in an era of peace but also of rebellion against God. That spells big trouble.
“They sow the wind, And reap the whirlwind. The stalk has no bud; It shall never produce meal. If it should produce, Aliens would swallow it up.
Hosea 8:7
The Bible warns us so many times.
Do not enter the path of the wicked, And do not walk in the way of evil. Avoid it, do not travel on it; Turn away from it and pass on. For they do not sleep unless they have done evil; And their sleep is taken away unless they make someone fall. For they eat the bread of wickedness, And drink the wine of violence. But the path of the just is like the shining sun, That shines ever brighter unto the perfect day. The way of the wicked is like darkness; They do not know what makes them stumble.
Proverbs 4:14-19
The result of all this rebellion against God is violence and turmoil, not peace. And we don’t know why because we are wicked and living in darkness.
This should not be a surprise to us;
Now the works of the flesh are evident, which are: adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lewdness, idolatry, sorcery, hatred, contentions, jealousies, outbursts of wrath, selfish ambitions, dissensions, heresies, envy, murders, drunkenness, revelries, and the like; of which I tell you beforehand, just as I also told you in time past, that those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.
Galatians 5:19-21
When you read this passage, what do you see and what don’t you see ? Notice these are called the works of the flesh, things that are done rather than a state of being. There is no crop mentioned, there is no fruit to eat, the land is barren so to speak.
My Nanny once told me that the troubles today are the same as in her day. Things were just as bad back then. She lived through World War I and II but she was also referring to crime, which surprised me as I’m under the impression things are getting worse. But with the Lord, we can live in peace knowing he is in control and will take care of us no matter what happens.
Contrast this with how things could be in a land where the Word of God is sown and there is prayer and obedience there will surely be an abundant crop of good and tasty fruit that follows;
But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. Against such there is no law.
Galatians 5:22-23
These fruit describe a state of being rather than work done. Anyone with these fruit of the Holy Spirit is going to do good things, they don’t need a law to tell them what to do !
The reality is that our Nation will reap what it has sown.
What can we do as Christians ? We must repent and return to the Lord. We must rediscover genuine faith. We must rediscover our mission to reach the World for Christ now on our doorstep.
The Lord says
When I shut up heaven and there is no rain, or command the locusts to devour the land, or send pestilence among My people, if My people who are called by My name will humble themselves, and pray and seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their land.
2 Chronicles 7:13-14
This week we went for a swim at Mellons Bay and I remembered the many carefree summers we had for such a long time in New Zealand. We never worried about pandemics, wars and famines, these were things that happened in faraway places. Now these are at our doorstep.
But it is not too late to return to the Lord, not yet. One day soon the door will close. I’m scared this has already happened in France.
That’s what I want to do with my life in the time that is left. Any opportunity, any way to use my influence it is to point others and myself to the Way, the Truth, the Life.
