If history bores you, it’s likely you haven’t yet learned what it means …
Four Reasons Why God Intervenes in History – Recognizing God’s Fingerprints in World Events
Joel Hilliker with The Trumpet writes:
If history bores you, it’s likely you haven’t yet learned what it means. History is not just an accidental unfolding of senseless events.
Winston Churchill said, “He must indeed have a blind soul who cannot see that some great purpose and design is being worked out here below.” This man who saved Western civilization from Nazi tyranny wasn’t religious, but he knew that “a man’s own contribution to his life story is continually dominated by an external superior power.” This is true of the whole world.
How much does God intervene in world events? How much has He shaped human history? The answers to these questions are inspiring.
God’s fingerprints are everywhere. Yet if God is mentioned, it is generally to blame Him for tragedies like natural disasters or human acts of evil. How could God allow such suffering? people ask. There is a sensible explanation.
But what far too few recognize is the myriad ways, small and great, that God shapes events for tremendously positive purposes.
In the sixth century b.c., Nebuchadnezzar ii was the most prestigious king of the Neo-Babylonian Empire. God put within the mind of this proud, pompous pagan a picture that foretold nearly 2,500 years of human history. The prophetic dream of this ruthless ruler, recorded in Daniel 2, is the greatest overview of human history in all literature.
God then sent a young prophet to reveal the meaning of this vision. “Blessed be the name of God for ever and ever: for wisdom and might are his,” the prophet said; “he removeth kings, and setteth up kings …” (verses 19-21). He then unveiled the prophecy of four world-ruling empires that would dominate right down to the time of the Second Coming.
You can pick up any book surveying world history and see how God then brought that dream to life. Over the course of 25 centuries, He shaped world events—removed and set up kings, guided decisions and actions, directed wealth and resources, determined outcomes of battles and wars—to ensure history unfolded in this precise sequence: the Babylonian-Chaldean head of gold, overtaken by the Persian breast and arms of silver, conquered by Alexander the Great and the Greco-Macedonian belly and thighs of brass, overcome by the beastly Roman Empire, which split into two legs of iron—two capitals, Rome and Constantinople—leading right down to 10 toes, representing 10 kings in our day.
God intervenes in history to ensure His prophecies are fulfilled. Fulfilled prophecy proves God. Nobody has power to shape history apart from the one true God.
