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112
True Education
But the king failed to recognize the power that had exalted him.
Nebuchadnezzar, in the pride of his heart, said: “Is not this great
Babylon, that I have built for a royal dwelling by my mighty power
and for the honor of my majesty?”
Daniel 4:30
.
Instead of being a protector of its people, Babylon became a
proud and cruel oppressor. The words of Inspiration picturing the
cruelty and greed of rulers in Israel reveal the secret of Babylon’s
fall and of the fall of many other kingdoms since the world began:
“With force and cruelty you have ruled them.”
Ezekiel 34:3, 4
.
To the ruler of Babylon came the sentence of the divine Watcher:
King Nebuchadnezzar, “to you it is spoken: The kingdom has de-
parted from you!”
Daniel 4:31
.
“Babylon, the glory of kingdoms,
The beauty of the Chaldees’ pride,
Will be as when God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah.”
Isaiah 13:19.
The Rise and Fall of World Empires
Every nation that has come on the stage of action has been
permitted to occupy its place on the earth that it might be seen
whether it would fulfill the purpose of “the Watcher and the Holy
One.” Prophecy has traced the rise and fall of the world’s great
empires—Babylon, Medo-Persia, Greece, and Rome. With each of
these, as with nations of less power, history repeated itself. Each had
its period of test. Each failed. Its glory faded, its power departed,
and its place was occupied by another.
While the nations rejected God’s principles, and in this rejection
ruined themselves, it was still seen that the divine, overruling purpose
was working through all their movements.
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This lesson is taught in a wonderful symbolic representation
given to the prophet Ezekiel during his exile in the land of the
Chaldeans. The vision was given at a time when Ezekiel was
weighed down with sorrowful memories and troubled forebodings.
The land of his fathers was desolate. Jerusalem was depopulated.
The prophet himself was a stranger in a land where ambition and