Recycled History?

I find history fascinating. Yet the interpretation of history is hindered by our own brief lifespans. As individuals, it is hard to separate our personal existence and experiences from the distant past, making us very near-sighted at best. One lifetime is not enough to see full cycles complete, to witness a nation rise and fall, to know if the ice caps are actually melting or there is a harmless warming trend going on, like countless others, before man ever thought to record them. We have been brought up to think America is utterly invincible and permanent based on what we perceive as God's blessing and/or our own inherent wisdom and goodness. It is obvious there is an Enemy Without that hates America and would like nothing more than to see its collapse. But the real threat is the Evil Within. It is far more insidious and frightening because we are so familiar with it we don't recognize the threat until it's too late; like a cancer that thrives in a body, eventually crowding out and destroying all healthy function, because its cells don't detect an invader and won't defend itself. The death and decay of a society can take generations--centuries--while its members never see it coming. Increasingly, I feel a heightened concern for the US of A. Ideals we hold dear are not automatic and guaranteed. The following quote is copied from a Facebook status of a close friend. It is a call to consideration, to alertness, to prayer.

In 1887 Alexander Tyler, a Scottish history professor at the University of Edinburgh, had this to say about the fall of the Athenian Republic some 2,000 years prior: "A democracy is always temporary in nature; it simply cannot exist as a permanent form of government. A democracy will continue to exist up until the time that voters discover that they can vote themselves generous gifts from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates who promise the most benefits from the public treasury, with the result that every democracy will finally collapse over loose fiscal policy, (which is) always followed by a Dictatorship.

The average age of the world's greatest civilizations from the beginning of history, has been about 200 years. During those 200 years, these nations always progressed through the following sequence:

-From bondage to spiritual faith;
-From spiritual faith to great courage;
-From courage to liberty;
-From liberty to abundance;
-From abundance to complacency;
-From complacency to apathy;
-From apathy to dependence;
-From dependence back into bondage."

 

Help is needed. And not from any political party.