The Empire of Babylon by George E. Price

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Dec 18, 1893

The Empire of Babylon

By George E. Price

HISTORY. NO. 3.

BY GEORGE E. PRICE.

THE EMPIRE OF BABYLON.

THE bounds of the habitation of the kingdom of the Babylonians were early determined by the will of the Eternal. The times before appointed during which they should seek the Lord, and during which mercy would be extended to them, were unalterably fixed; and during this time the word of the Lord was: "And now have I given all these lands into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon; and the beasts of the field have I given him also to serve him. And all nations shall serve him, and his son, and his son’s son, until the very time of his land come." The children of Israel were included in this decree, and were carried away captive to Babylon; and thus God accomplished a double purpose; he chastened Israel and taught them to seek the Lord, and they carried his truth to Babylon, to be proclaimed there, and thence to be given to all the nations of the world. Daniel was a witness for Jehovah. The three Hebrew worthies proclaimed his name. But the king’s heart was lifted up, and as he began to say, "Is not this great Babylon that I have built?" the decree went forth against him, and he was driven out among the beasts of the field. He had not heeded the warning voice to break off his sins by righteousness, and his iniquities by showing mercy to the poor, that the time of his tranquillity might be lengthened, and so the tall tree was hewn down for a time, in order that the living "might know that the Most High ruleth in the kingdom of men, and giveth it to whomsoever he will." The lesson when complete accomplished its work, and he "praised and extolled the King of heaven," and proclaimed his signs and his wonders "unto all peoples, nations, and languages." But there came a time when the last point of iniquity in this nation’s history was reached; when all these things were willfully forgotten, and the most daring insult was added to neglect. The holy vessels of the house of God were prostituted to the lascivious rites of his abominable sun worship, and "in the same hour came forth fingers

of a man’s hand, and wrote over against the candlestick upon the plaster of the wall of the king’s palace." And "this is the interpretation of the thing: Mene; God hath numbered thy kingdom, and finished it. Tekel; Thou art weighed in the balances, and art found wanting. Peres; Thy kingdom is divided, and given to the Medes and Persians."

Almost the same line of history occurred with Medo-Persia. The truth of God, salvation from sin through the merits of a great coming Sacrifice and Redeemer, were proclaimed at the capital of that nation. We have one incident in the reign of Darius, and one in the reign of Xerxes, the Ahasuerus of the Bible, that give us a glimpse of this great work. But when the great day shall come that we, as the saints, "shall judge the world," and we then have access to the great original historical records above, we will no doubt see that in the time of Alexander the cup of that nation’s iniquity was full, and that God’s protection was removed from the rejecters of his grace.

The same might be shown with Grecia. The light may not have shone as brightly at this time, but we cannot prove that it did not. The difficulty is the very meager account there is of it in the great book that God has given to man as an outline of the records above. Secular history gives us indeed some facts concerning the dealings of this nation with those to whom were committed the oracles of God; but we have in that word itself the plain intimation that the Macedonian Empire was not destroyed or subdued by another until the measure of its iniquity was reached. "In the latter time of their kingdom, when the transgressors are come to the full, a king of fierce countenance, and understanding dark sentences, shall stand up." Dan. 8: 23.

This has brought us out from the misty ages of the past into the light of a clearer day. And now the illustration of these principles is found on every hand. Indeed, this is all that history would do if we had all of its records and they were rightly understood. The time will come when the history of this world, from Eden to Eden, will be studied by all the surviving sons of God, and will be shown to teach man’s sin, and misery, and woe, and God’s mercy, tenderness, and love. There is no fear of exhausting the subject, for it is limitless. Volumes could be written upon it and then be but the preface, for the cross of Calvary, and in its light the history of our world, "will be the science and song of the redeemed to all eternity;" not the darker phases of the record, but those brighter pages in which we see the love and tenderness of God in restraining iniquity and sin, in blotting out transgressors when they become an obstacle to his work, and in "pleading with men everywhere to accept the gift of life." "O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! how unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past finding out!"

The nations just mentioned do not, of course, include all of the world down to the time of Rome. They were, however, the centers of the world; they were the nations that were most closely connected with God’s work in the earth, and almost all to which we have any extended reference in the Old Testament. But Roman history, and the history of the church for the last eighteen hundred years, what do they not teach? What truth do they not illustrate? what lesson do they not point out? and what course of folly do they not reprove? How terrible the denunciations against the least departure from the laws laid down in the book of God for the government of nations! How tender its accents of pleading when showing the love and mercy of God toward nations and individuals! But we cannot go into details in this short sketch, and shall only refer to some of the principles that have been already mentioned.

The world was made ready for the advent of the Son of God. The whole civilized world was consolidated into one grand empire, and its representative received ambassadors from India, from China, and from Ethiopia. The Jews were scattered throughout the earth, and, although they may not have been good living representatives of the religion of the true God, yet the sacred writings that they carried with them were to be taken hold of by God and given to the world once more. That people, with such an unparalleled national history as a cause of pride, had scorned the weak tyranny of the Seleucidæ; but beneath the iron monarchy of Rome they were at least compelled to wear their chains with becoming reverence. But eagerly they awaited the fulfillment of the numerous prophecies that spoke of a coming King. And "this opinion of the approach of a general deliverer extended much farther than the country of the Jews; for, through their connection with so many countries, their disputes with the learned men among the heathens, and the translation of the Old Testament into a language now almost general, their religion greatly prevailed in the East; and, consequently, their opinion that a Prince would appear in the kingdom of Judah, who would dispel the mists of ignorance, deliver the Jews from the Roman yoke, and spread his dominion from one end of the world to the other."—Fleetwood’s Life of Christ, chap. 1, p 8. At such a time was revealed in all his splendor, "that true Light which lighteth every man that cometh into the world."

The wisdom of Athens and the valor of Sparta had descended to the Roman world. The probity of a Regulus, the courage of a Horatius or a Scipio, the eloquence of a Cicero, and the genius of a Cæsar, all mingled in the veins of the citizens of that proud monarchy—"the most sublime incarnation of power, and a monument the mightiest of greatness built by human hands, which has upon this planet been suffered to appear." "The gods of every nation, having been carried to Rome, had there lost the power of their oracles, as the people had in the same place lost their liberty. These gods, ranged face to face in the capitol, were mutually cast into oblivion, and their divinity had shrunk into nothing."—D’Aubigne.

But out of this great caldron, into which had been flung something from every civilization on earth, there arose the genius of Rome; and, resplendent with glory, she claimed to rule in all things, human and divine. The divinity of the State, as personified in her rulers, claimed the homage of all mankind. But while Greece had forgotten God for artistic beauty, and Rome had "changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man," the people of the earth, including even their sages, had sunken into that depth of iniquity so faithfully set forth in the first chapter of the book of Romans. Even the genius of Rome, teaching the philosophy of a Plato, could not save the world. With even the professed people of God unable to fitly represent the pure religion of their ancestors, and even unwilling that any others should have a part in its salvation, the world as never before was in the need of the gospel of God, and so the Son of Man appeared.

(To be continued.)