KINGDOM OF GOD
AMERICAN REVOLUTION 1650-1850 AD
Luke 16:16 “The Law and the Prophets were proclaimed until John (the Baptist). Since that time, the good news of the kingdom of God is being preached, and everyone is forcing his way into it.”
After the French Revolution another man by the name of Napoleon came upon the scene and eventually brought death to over 20 million people. It is estimated that two generations of men between the ages of 15 and 25 lost their lives.
This eventually brought in communism, Nazi-ism, Statism which in turn eliminated millions of people in the 20th century. (We will look at this later.) We also see a shift in the enemy’s tactics. We now see Paganism in our day, using different ideologies to try to destroy the truth.
After 5000 years of human history a new continent opened up that became a bed of evangelicalism so that after 1600 years the kingdom could flow throughout the world. Our problem is that we do not see history as God’s story; the story of His kingdom coming into full fruition. The American colonies, 3000 miles west of Europe, had developed a model of liberty which was unique in human history.
From the time that Columbus discovered America and before the first Puritans came over – 100 years passed by. Benjamin Franklin Morris states in his epoch book The Christian Life and Character of the Civil Institutions of the United States (written almost 150 years ago) that God did not allow anyone to set foot upon the American soil until His prepared people over in Europe were ready.
The men and women who came over were Christian men and women who were trained and formed by the fires of conflicts raging in Europe. Ideas of liberty and religion were formed and developed through civil and religious revolutions. The persecutions of the Puritans in England for non-conformity, the religious agitations in Germany by Luther and in Geneva by Calvin and in Scotland by Knox – were the preparatory work for those who came over to this new continent to lay down the ground work of establishing the civil institutions of the American continent.
Morris in his book states: “It would, however, be a violence to historic truth not to affirm and admit that they were under the special and constant guidance of an overruling Providence. The Bible, as the divine charter of their political rights, as well as of their hopes of immortality, they reverently studied, and on it laid the corner-stone of all their compacts and institutions. The system of Moses (Mosaic) of political jurisprudence, which contains more consummate wisdom and common sense than all the legislators and political writers of the ancient nations, was thoroughly understood by the founders of the American republic and incorporated its free spirit and democratic principles into their organic institutions.”
When we look back over history we see that ideas have consequences whether good or bad. With these ideas come symbols that characterize a nation or an empire. For example Morris goes on to show that:
1. The Hebrew commonwealth was the symbol of a theocratic government. Its rituals of religion and liberty maintained the form and diffused the spirit of freedom and of a true republican government.
2. The Roman Empire, in its colossal unity and form, was the symbol of law, of the stately grandeur of a strong government, of the reign of military rule and conquest.
3. The symbol of the Greek republic was the ideal.
4. The symbol of the British Empire, from its earliest history till the present, was national aggrandizement and selfishness, originating in the feudal system.
5. The symbol of the French empire is glory. Atheism, practical and theoretical, has ruled the French empire, and its fatal power has more than once threatened the very life of the nation.
6. The founders of the Christian republic of North America adopted the symbol of civil and religious liberty as the great idea and end of all their civil institutions.
It is important for us to understand God’s hand in history so that we might comprehend what He is doing and work along with Him. Since Paul said, “From one man he made every nation of men that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he determined the times set for them and the exact places where they should live. God did this so that men would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from each one of us” (Acts 17:16-28), several things are worth mentioning here.
First, it is God who determines events – whether it is nations or individuals. It is God who is in control.
Secondly, God moves all things so that men might seek Him or come into redemptive contact of Christ’s work on the cross. God is on the throne and we are moving towards the climax of history: His…story.