The reason that we study history is to learn from those who have gone before so that we can repeat their successes and skip their failures. History may not always repeat, but it does rhyme, and when anyone thinks that they’ve progressed, they’ve usually just done something that has come before.
Solomon said that there was nothing new under the sun, and he was not mean that there were not, or would not be new technologies but that people being who they are would always do the same things with the technology available at the time.
In today’s society, we’re told that we have progressed beyond our ancestors because we have finally removed the taboo around some practices and let people out of the closet. We’ve extended marriage to people of the same sex. And now, we’ve allowed children to decide whether they are the sex they were born with or something else– and let them have life-altering surgeries before we would let them vote, drink alcohol or join the military.
We miss that every late-stage empire sees the same things:
This is where gender ideology comes into the picture. Feminism, the sexual revolution, homosexuality and transgenderism are to be seen all as consecutive steps toward the same direction, gradually threatening to reconstruct the very identity and cultural understanding of Western societies. When ancient societies, whether the Greeks or the Romans, reached such confusion of sexual identity and authority it was a sign of their downfall.
Reforming Sexuality? Gender, Leadership and the Bible in the Controversy Between John Knox & Queen Mary – Founders Ministries
We are following the path of the ancient Romans, and the path of ancient Israel before it. Every empire sees excesses after its apex, and we are headed that way too. What many are championing as our progressiveness are actually the signs of our downfall.
Whether it’s the natural consequences of sin or the time coming right for God’s judgment, we may still experience times of abundance (like King Hezekiah in the middle of all of the bad kings), but our trajectory is set. Perhaps America’s fall is part of the end-times sequence or just another milestone. Often the end comes quicker than anyone expects.
Look up.