The Political History
The war between good and evil that lies within history reveals itself in every aspect of human life including politics. Satan constantly works through all political systems to try to crush goodness out of the world and thus overthrow the balance that God has maintained between good and evil which ensures that His Love will receive a fair test in history. God uses various methods to prevent Satan from gaining control over and using political systems for evil purposes.
From time to time, Satan has raised great empires bent on gaining control over the whole world, but also for the hidden purpose of getting control over God's people so that he can eventually convert them to evil or destroy them outright. The first such recorded empire was Babylon which conquered Judea around 600 B.C. and deported most of the wealthy and middle class Jews to Babylon. God allowed this to happen because much of Judea had given itself to idol worship which God must punish in order to correct. Idol worship and pride are the two most dangerous weapons that Satan uses to try to crush goodness completely. The Babylonians left the poorer classes in Judea because they thought their influence in the world was insignificant. Since many of God's people have always been among the poorer classes, God saved many of His people from slavery in this way. Some of God's people were deported, but God ensured their protection by gaining control over the mind of the king, Nebuchadnezzar. In Daniel, chapters one through four, the Bible records the methods which God used to gain control over the mind of Nebuchadnezzar which caused him to recognize the Jewish God as the only true God, and issue a decree that would ensure the protection of God's people. Satan had made his political move, but God countered with His own move which protected His people and preserved the balance between good and evil.
After Nebuchadnezzar, the fifth chapter of Daniel records that God continued His protection of His people by using a method that scared king Belshazzar out of his wits. God used the hand that wrote on the wall to proclaim the doom of Babylon to king Belshazzar. That very night, God punished Babylon by allowing the Medes and Persians to conquer it. The fear that God had instilled into Belshazzar no doubt spread to his followers and thus to his army and caused the downfall of Babylon.
Chapter six of Daniel records that king Darius was, for the most part, a fairminded man who only wanted to use the most talented men to rule over Babylon. Thus, king Darius selected Daniel because of his great intellect and leadership talents to be the head of his puppet government. In addition, Darius had no doubt learned the story of how God had instilled such great fear in Belshazzar and the part that Daniel had played in the downfall of Babylon. Yet, Satan influenced certain of the princes of the Persians to trick king Darius into issuing a decree that no one could petition any god or man but king Darius for thirty days and all who disobeyed should be cast into a den of lions. These princes knew that Daniel would disobey this decree and pray to God, and so they caught him so doing and delivered him to the king to be cast into the den of lions. King Darius could not get around the rule of law that the princes insisted on upholding, and so the king had Daniel cast into the den of lions. But Darius displayed his faith in Daniel's God by assuring him that God would protect him. God did indeed perform a great miracle and protected Daniel from the lions. King Darius then issued a decree to the whole empire that all men should fear the God of Daniel. The plot devised by the princes to destroy Daniel was meant to cause despair among God's people; a loss of faith that would eventually cause God's people to become absorbed into idol worship. Satan was behind this political plot to crush goodness out of God's world. God countered Satan's move by protecting Daniel from the lions, instilling faith in king Darius and thus maintaing His balance between good and evil.
The seventh chapter of Daniel returns to a prophecy that Daniel revealed to king Belshazzar about the four great empires that Satan would use in his attempts to crush all goodness completely out of the world, prevent God's trial of His Love, eliminate all of God's influence from the world, and bring all of mankind into enslavement. Throughout the rest of the book of Daniel, here and there he prophesied that these four empires would be destroyed, and that God would succeed in the future in bringing His suffering Messiah into the world to complete the trial of His Love, and that at some time in the far future this same Messiah will destroy Satan's beast who will be the leader of Satan's armies that will fight against God, and that this Messiah will then establish God's Kingdom in the world. The history of the world from the time of Daniel has certainly borne out his prophecies. Four great empires have arisen and fallen, and the suffering Messiah has come and completed the trial of God's Love, and His gospel has been preached to the world so that all who will believe will be saved. History down to the present day demonstrates God's awesome miracles; that mighty empires have failed to crush goodness out of the world, and that God has used a small and humble people to preserve His Word and to complete the trial of His Love which is the salvation of all who will believe. God has also succeeded in restoring His Jewish people to their own land just as His Word has prophesied even after being scattered over the whole world for two thousand years and terribly persecuted. Considering the further miracles of how God has preserved Israel through the 1948 war, and all of its other wars with a hoard of enemies striving mightily to destroy it, one wonders how anyone can doubt that the future prophecies of Daniel that the Messiah will come again to destroy Satan's evil armies, will not be fulfilled.
The book of Esther records a change in the Devil's tactics that he uses even now in his attempts to destroy the people of God. Satan invented a new false combination employing an unreasoned hatred for God's people simply for being the people of God. This was the beginning of all forms of ethnic, racial and religious bigotry. The history of the world does not seem to record any of this kind of hatred before this time.
King Ahasuerus promoted one of his princes named Haman, who was a very prideful man, to a higher position in his kingdom. But one of the king's advisors, a Jew named Mordecai, would not bow to him. This hurt the pride of Haman and engendered a great hatred in him for Modecai, and by extention, to all Jews. His hatred caused Haman to lie to king Ahasureus in that he accused the Jews of disobeying the laws of the land and of thus being in a state of rebellion against the king. Haman convinced the king that he should issue a decree that all of the Jews in the kingdom should be destroyed on a certain date. Satan had worked through Haman to intoduce a new horrible false combination into the world called genocide. But God was ahead of Satan and had already positioned a courageous Jewish lady named Esther, as one of the king's queens, to thwart the evil plans of Haman and bring about his destruction instead of her people's. Haman was the first of the Anti-Semites, who should more accurately be called the Anti-Judahites, who would plague the Jewish people throughout the rest of their history. Yet throughout history, God has proven to be more than able to counter Satan's evil plans to destroy God's people, both Jews and Christians.
Read Daniel 2: 21-22
Direct and indirect persecution of the Jews continued throughout the Greek and Roman empires. One of the Greek rulers of the Jews, Antiochus Epiphanes, sacrificed a sow on the altar of the Jewish temple. Satan inspired him to do this in order to cause despair among the Jews in that they would wonder why God would allow such an abomination to happen. Satan hoped that this despair would cause a complete loss of faith in God and prevent the coming of the Messiah and the test of God's Love. Satan's plan failed when the Jews simply cleansed the temple and renewed their worship of God.
The Roman persecution of the Jews culminated in their war against the Jewish rebellion in 70 A.D. The Romans went too far with their force and violence when they slaughtered most of the Jews, destroyed their temple, and forced the rest to be scattered over the whole world. God had prophesied in the Old Testament in several places that the Jews would be so scattered, but God had also prophesied that one day He would regather His earthly people and recreate their nation which His Word had even prophesied would be called Israel. Satan counted on the scattered Jews eventually losing their faith and thus making the future nation of Israel impossible. This would thwart the will of God and finally cause the world to belong entirely to Satan. But many of the Jews miraculously clung to their faith even through two thousand years of the Diaspora. Actually, God had protected the Jews by allowing them to be scattered over the world. Most of the Jews became good and productive citizens of whatever communities that they joined. This caused the good and fair-minded people of these communities to provide protection for the Jews against the Anti-Semites who sought to destroy them. Sometimes however this protection failed, and the Jews became the victims of pogroms and inquisitions inflicted upon them by the Anti-Semites who had infiltrated both the governments and religion. Despite all this, God miraculously fulfilled His prophecy and reestablished the nation of Israel in 1948.
In 1933, the Anti-Semites gained control over a whole country, Germany. These Nazis then proceeded to attempt to destroy the entire population of Jews living in Europe. They endeavored through waging war to gain control of the whole world and destroy all of the Jews everywhere. The Nazis waged war against most of the other European countries and wherever their armies found Jews, they killed them. But even under such horrible conditions, there were some good and fair-minded people in each of these countries, even in Germany itself, who tried to save small groups of Jews from destruction. The good and fair-minded free people of the world also united in a mighty force called the Allies who defeated the Nazi war machine and saved the Jews who were left in Europe. Because of the guilt felt by the good people of Europe and America that they had failed to stop the Nazis before they got started, Britain and America determined that they would ensure that the Jews would regain their ancient homeland in Palestine. God brought the Nazis to defeat, and He made sure, by bringing guilt on good people, that Israel would be reestablished as a nation in 1948.
God also proved, through Hitler's foolish actions, that evil always possesses the seeds of its own destruction. At that time, Germany had the very best scientists and engineers in the world. Given time, Germany could have produced greatly advanced weapons that would have ensured that Germany could have conquered the world fairly easily. Germany could have raced ahead of the naive Allies who only wanted peace at any cost, and produced all of these advanced weapons before the Allies could have even gotten started on them. All of this raises the question: Why did not Hitler simply wait until he had these weapons before he started the war? Had Hitler waited until he had these weapons, including atomic bombs and long-range missiles and airplanes to deliver them, he could have fairly quickly conquered the world and saved the lives of millions of his own soldiers in the process. Instead, he went to war far too soon and unnecessarily sacrificed the lives of his soldiers for limited gains. Hitler also made the great mistake of going to war with Russia before he had conquered Britain. During the war, Hitler made many egregious blunders including refusing to allow whole armies to retreat when they were surrounded and cut off from supplies, such as at Stalingrad. In fact, Russian leaders had plans to assassinate Hitler by using certain of their secret agents in Germany, but they decided not to do so because they rightly concluded that Hitler had more value to them alive than dead.
All of this evidence points to the fact that deep within the psyche of evil men, they know that they are evil. This deep knowledge of their own evil causes them to be obsessed with death and destruction, of themselves and everyone around them. Their inner ability to construct false combinations causes a sense of worthlessness and emptiness within themselves which acts out to cause cruelty and destruction. This shows that all men secretly know that false combinations only produce nothingness. Yet, instead of humbly turning to God to plead for a cure for their sin, evil men, like Lucifer, adopt a terrible pride which causes them to believe that they can rid themselves of God's Goodness. In a kind of vicious cycle, their sin feeds their pride, which in turn, feeds their sin. This condition constitutes the mystery of evil which not even God can understand.
Near the end of the war, Hitler ordered that the entire infrastructure of Germany should be destroyed. An obedience to such an order would have left Germany completely destitute, and the people had better sense than to obey it. Hitler's reason for this order was that since Germany had failed him, then Germany deserved only destruction. This order revealed only a terrible pride and a will for utter destruction. This evidence points to the fact that Hitler never really loved Germany. Hitler actually loved only horror and destruction, of himself and his people.
The history of WWII in many ways corresponds with the history in the Bible. Bible history records that God used many methods to combat evil and maintain the balance between good and evil. For instance, I Kings chapter 22 records that God caused one evil force to go to war with another evil force. This tactic not only destroyed evil, but also spared the lives of many good people who did not have to fight. In this same history, God used lies to persuade the evil forces to fight each other. God possesses the ability to use false combinations, such as war and lies, to combat other false combinations in order to create good combinations that produce a desired result which is the destruction of evil. God used these same tactics in WWII when He caused one evil force, the Nazis, to fight against another evil force, the Communists, in order to destroy evil in such a way as also to protect the lives of millions of good people. God also inspired the Allies to invent various ingenious lies that hastened the destruction of the evil forces. Because of His great Love, God holds the power to change false combinations into good combinations. Read Proverbs 10: 12.
All of this proves that God has used extraordinary measures throughout the political history of the world to protect goodness from being completely destroyed by evil. Had God not done so, evil would have long ago completely overwhelmed goodness because of the inherent innocence within limited goodness. Limited cleverness beats limited innocence every time. God wins over evil because He possesses an infinite and omnipotent Love and Innocence which cannot be overwhelmed. God possesses an absolute cleverness which gives Him the power to change evil to good. Nevertheless, God has allowed evil to remain in history in order to maintain a balance between good and evil so that those who freely choose to put their faith in God's Goodness as displayed in the cross of Christ will prove beyond all doubt that God's Love holds the greatest value that can ever possibly exist.
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