HISTORY IS FILLED WITH EVIL: History is filled with wars, genocides, poverty, murder, slavery, greed, political power struggles, revolts, racism, etc. It is pretty obvious that God has allowed people to do about what they want to do, whether it could be doing good or doing evil. We know that God was heavily involved in the history of nations in the Old Testament. He foretold the next 3 kingdoms after Babylon, which would be the Medo-Persians, Greece and Rome (Daniel 2) and raised up and deposed rulers to make that happen. The purpose was to bring about the establishment of his eternal kingdom, the church, in the days of the Roman Empire. God’s sovereignty over the nations was obvious and no one could stop it. But notice that in the New Testament, there is no such prediction of who the world powers would be after Rome. Some thought that the book of Revelation predicted the Catholic Church, but that is not true. Revelation was about things to happen soon, but the formation of the Roman Catholic Church was a few centuries in the future after the book was written. Many have tried to say that the OT prophets predicted nations to come in modern history but all have been shown to be false predictions. There are no NT verses that predict historical events after the Roman Empire and after the fall off Jerusalem in 70 AD.

HAS GOD NOT BEEN WORKING FOR THE LAST 2,000 YEARS? So we might ask, “Has God been working among the nations over the past 2,000 years since the Roman Empire? Since there are no verses that answer that directly, we can only speculate based on what we think is the nature of God’s working among men. Could God have worked with nations to control them over the past 2,000 years? Certainly. If so, we are still left with a lot of questions about when and where God worked? Did he providentially help the allies defeat the Germans to stop Hitler? That might make sense since Hitler would have wiped out Christianity if he wasn’t stopped. But then why didn’t God stop Hitler before he killed 6 million in the Holocaust? Why didn’t he stop Stalin from killing millions in the Ukraine? Why didn’t he stop all the other genocides led by evil dictators?

GOD IS CERTAINLY WORKING WITH INDIVIDUALS IN GOOD AND BAD CIRCUMSTANCES: Maybe God did intervene among the nations but we have no prophets to tell us what He was doing. In the OT the prophets would tell the people exactly what God had done, was doing, and was going to do. So we can only speculate about God’s work among the nations over the last 2,000 years since we have had no prophets during that time (in spite of all the false claims of latter day prophets who falsely tried to predict the future). Maybe God has simply quit working at all among nations or even among people on earth. That is what the deists believe about God’s working from the very beginning. They believe that God created everything, but never intervened in any way after that. No miracles, no prophets, no incarnation of His Son, no predicting the future and controlling the destiny of nations. Maybe after God completed His plan, sent Jesus, destroyed death, maybe He just left everything to free will. If you are fortunate enough to hear the gospel then accept Jesus and be saved. If not, too bad. I don’t want to accept that. I believe that has been working providentially among individuals for the last 2,000 years just as He worked with Joseph and Esther. I believe that He is more concerned with how individuals handle circumstances than He is making circumstances happen one way or the other, for good or for bad. Romans 8:28 He will make all things work together for good but that doesn’t mean that He will make all things work out for good as we define good. I believe He is especially working with those who face dire circumstances, giving them hope through the gospel of Jesus and the hope of eternal life. He will no doubt allow wars to continue and yet give hope to those caught up in those wars. That is happening in the Ukraine as as many are finding Jesus through Bibles given them by EEM. The same with Christians in Iran. It is estimated that there are 120,000-500,000 Christians in Iran. I don’t know if God will get directly involved in Iran to give the people a government that is more accepting of Christianity. But I do know that God will work with the Iranian people on the ground to use the war to lead others to Jesus. Pray for persecuted Christians all over the world. Slavery will no doubt continue in spite of efforts to abolish it, but God will give eternal hope to those who can’t escape slavery. Pray for those caught up in the slave trade and human trafficking.

GOD WORKS IN US AND THROUGH US TO ACCOMPLISH HIS PURPOSES: A verse comes to mind. Philippians 2:¹² So then, my beloved, just as you have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling; ¹³ for it is God who is at work in you, both to desire and to work for His good pleasure.” Men will continue to be evil, to hurt innocent people. God is not going to stop that completely. His desire is for people believing in Jesus and receiving eternal life. People have always been more inclined to come to Jesus during bad circumstances. The first century church grew amidst extreme persecution. It got soft when Constantine legalized Christianity and it became popular to be a Christian. The church is still growing best in countries where Christians are persecuted worldwide. The church in the US has become soft bc/ of our materialism, greed, and sinful ways. It doesn’t cost us anything to be a Christian. What we do have in the US is a lot of money. We can help persecuted Christians through various organizations. We can use our money to print and distribute Bibles all over the world through organizations like Eastern European Missions (EEM). Get Bibles to people so that the Holy Spirit can do His work to convince men of their sins and then show them eternal life through Jesus.