The Fingerprints of God

        I know that history is the last thing that comes to mind as something that’s important to your life. You are running to and fro with vacations and trips to distant lands and their cultures and lives. Some may find the places glorious with history like Paris, France, Rome, Italy, Athens, Greece, or even Jerusalem, Israel. History is everywhere; you can’t escape from it. But, is it useful for life? What’s the purpose of diving into the pass for nuggets of the human experience? What’s the point of learning about dead men and women or how a cathedral like Notre Dame took 100 years to build in the 13^th century? Why learn about the great wars of the past and the effects of them that led fathers and mothers to fight or flee with courage? Why learn about the French and Indian War or the American Revolution or the War of 1812, the Mexican-American war, or even the Civil War that changed American life until the 1960s? Wars just one nugget of history: what about the peace?

        Why does the past matter? Isaiah 44:21 says this: “Let them bring them forth and show us what shall happen; let them show the former things, what they be, that we may consider them and know the latter end of them; or declare us things to come.” Former things show us the cause of something: the cause and effect of something from the past. How Ahab never truly returned to God after he humbled himself before Elijah. He had prophets all around him that told him to go out to Ramoth-Gilead, but only one of those prophets told him the truth. Ahab didn’t believe the one prophet from God, and was killed in battle because he didn’t learn from his own history of having prophets of Baal and Ashtoreth all around him telling him what he wanted to hear. History tells us the cause and effect of something. Like how a small assassination of the archduke of Ferdinand could cause the war to end all wars, or the invasion of Poland in 1939 could spark the start of World War II and the final solution against the Jews in Europe. George Washington never thought that he going to fort necessity would spark a seven year war in America and Europe, but it did.

        History shows us the character of men and women, and how they lived their lives. David was the greatest king of Israel facing down Goliath and other Philistine warriors as well as getting two hundred foreskins to get Saul’s daughter’s hand in marriage. History showed us his bravery and his heart of God, and it also showed his sins by sleeping with Beersheba and killing her husband. Alexander the Great became the best military commander in the history of the world never losing a battle and raised the Greeks to glory with a vast empire, but died in the prime of his life leaving the land to his four generals as prophesied in Daniel. The Roman Empire became a power to be reckoned with during the reign of Julius Caesar, but he was betrayed by the senator Brutus which started a civil war to make Octavian to be Emperor Augustus at about the born of Christ. In 325 A.D. when Christianity was well known across the Roman world, the bishop of Rome and Constantine the Emperor decided to make Christianity the state religion, and sponsored the counsel of Nicaea to change the Sabbath to Sunday and the Passover to Easter and made God out to be a trinity. These were only a few examples of people’s characters over the years, and they’re written down for our admonition as Paul said in I Corthinians 10.

        These were some reasons to learn about history, but the most important thing to learn about history is the providence and character of God. Providence to the reader that doesn’t know the writing of the Declaration of Independence is the divine guidance and direction of God. Esther and Mordecai were guided and directed by God behind the scenes to save the Jews from their enemies, and start the celebration of Purim. God guided Alexander the Great to destroy the Medes and Persians, and a High Priest told him about the prophesy in Daniel that he would do this when the king went to Jerusalem. That was according to Josephus. When Alexander died, it fulfilled the prophesy in Ezekiel when he laid on his side for Israel for 365 days (a day for a year). That prophesy ended at the death of Alexander the Great, and the children of Israel rose to power again in the form of the Parthian Empire in what’s now called Iran. This same Parthian Empire sent magi to Jerusalem to see the baby Jesus. This same empire fell by the Persians after a mass war with Rome around the beginning of the 3^rd century A.D. Israelites traveled to Europe and eventually to the British Isles creating the greatest empire in the world that had about 25 percent of the world’s land mass at once time in its history, and I am talking about the British Empire. All this by the fingerprint of God. Even the founding fathers of America believed that the Constitution of America was a product of the finger of God.

        The purpose of history is to show these three great things to man. There are other reasons for history, but to me, these are the fingerprints of God because He is the author of all history. History matters and I don’t care what the historians that don’t believe in God have to say about these three things. You cannot deny the truth of God’s existence just because you wish it. God is everywhere, and it’s about time we search and find Him. History helps in that search.