Edward Gibbon (1737-1794) in his book ‘Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire’ said that the following five attributes marked Rome at its end:

1. A mounting love of show and luxury
2. A widening gap between the very rich and the very poor
3. An obsession with sex
4. Freakishness in the arts, masquerading as originality, and enthusiasms pretending to be creativity
5. An increased desire to live off the state

Does any of this sound familiar? Certainly, it should. When a nation abandons the worldview of absolutes in which God defines and governs all the particulars of life (science, nature, people, morals, etc..) then all we are left with is a humanistic worldview which begins from itself and goes no further. Life loses meaning and all we can do to stay afloat is amass unto ourselves material things and superficial relationships which can never truly satisfy.

Societies, nations, and governments find themselves compromised at the core rather than weakened from outside forces. The result is an inevitable imploding from which there is no recovery. This has been the case time and time again with the rise and fall of world empires.

In light of this, the words of Alexander Solzhenitsyn, author of ‘The Gulag Archipelago’, are ever relevant. He said, ‘Dwell on the past and you’ll lose an eye, forget the past and you’ll lose both eyes.’

Will there come a point in the course of this nation where men are drawn unto national repentance before the Lord whom they have despised and rejected? Will Christ’s law take hold of men’s hearts and minds? Or will the immanent implosion of this decadent ’empire’ be God’s final nail in the casket of America’s history? Will we break the chains of humanistic, autonomous, and evolutionary reasoning, or will America take her place in the long line of fallen world empires?

I pray that it be the former rather than the latter but, nevertheless, may the Lord’s will be done.

Maranatha!