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Royalty and Ruin
A Power Overrides Human Affairs
This is what the prophet Ezekiel saw when before his astonished
gaze God portrayed symbols that revealed a Power overruling the
affairs of earthly rulers. Wheels intersecting one another were moved
by four living beings. High above all these “was the likeness of a
throne, in appearance like a sapphire stone; on the likeness of the
throne was a likeness with the appearance of a man.”
Ezekiel 1:26
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The wheels, so complicated that at first sight they appeared to
be in confusion, moved in perfect harmony. Heavenly beings were
powering those wheels. The complicated play of human events is
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under divine control. Amidst the strife and tumult of nations, He
that sits above the cherubim still guides the affairs of this earth. To
every nation and individual God has assigned a place in His great
plan. By their own choices, men and nations today are deciding their
destiny, and God is overruling all to accomplish His purposes.
The prophecies that the great I AM has given in His Word tell us
where we are in the procession of the ages. Everything that prophecy
has foretold until the present time has been recorded on the pages of
history, and all which is yet to come will be fulfilled in its time.
The signs of the times declare that we are standing on the thresh-
old of great and solemn events. Everything in our world is in agita-
tion. The Savior prophesied of events to precede His coming: “You
will hear of wars and rumors of wars. ... Nation will rise against
nation, and kingdom against kingdom. And there will be famines,
pestilences, and earthquakes in various places.”
Matthew 24:6, 7
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Rulers and statesmen recognize that something great and decisive is
about to take place—that the world is on the verge of a stupendous
crisis.
The Bible, and the Bible only, gives a correct view of events
that already are casting their shadows before. The sound of their
approach is causing the earth to tremble and people’s hearts to fail
them for fear. “Behold, the Lord makes the earth empty and makes
it waste, distorts its surface and scatters abroad its inhabitants.”
“Because they have transgressed the laws, changed the ordinance,
broken the everlasting covenant. Therefore the curse has devoured
the earth, and those who dwell in it are desolate.”
Isaiah 24:1, 5, 6
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