Every election season in America brings the same troubling thought: “This is the most critical election this nation has faced.” The declaration can be validated as true in the case of each, because the world moves ever deeper into the end of days, and humanity’s future becomes more precarious with each decision made within the political process.

Powerful dynamics impact our present time, and are forcefully shaping our future in ways that can’t be fully anticipated. End-times politics are upon this generation, as is understood by those with spiritual eyes and ears to see and hear. But, to senses caught up in the ephemeral forces that gush society and culture along at breakneck speed, such matters of eternal consequence are beyond comprehension.

Internal politics of each nation of the world move this generation of earth-dwellers inexorably toward the final seven years of human history that will culminate with the return of Jesus Christ. Yet the politicians and the self-iconizing politics the majority of them practice generates hubris that prevents them from thinking in terms other than those that flow from humanistic pridefulness.

Love of Money the Common Thread

Proof of the man-centered governance that runs throughout the nation-states is evident in the accumulation of personal wealth almost every head of state, whether dictator or legitimately elected leader, garners to himself. Whether considering the Saddam Husseins of the world who build billion-dollar bank accounts for themselves simply by raiding their national treasuries at will, or congressmen in the United States who vote themselves pay increases and special perks in late-hour sessions away from the glare of public scrutiny, the avarice is there, pulsing with greed that validates the Word of God: “For the love of money is the root of all evil…” (1 Tim. 6:10a).

This will be viewed by some as cynicism of the first order. But, the cynicism is based upon well-known common practices by the politicians of all stripes, although the robbery is for the most part accepted without opposition by the victim-citizenries throughout Planet Earth. Government “of the people, by the people, and for the people” has never truly been the case. The concept is impossible to achieve because of the very nature of both those who govern and those who are governed.

Governing the Heathen

Perfect governance was established by the Creator of all things upon a pristine planet. Man has struggled to remove God’s tether of restraint since the first man chose to do what was right in his own eyes. The planet itself suffers as a result. Prophecy  from God’s Word foretells the final actions by the rebellious politicians and their politics, and spells out the tragic result:

“Why do the heathen rage, and the people imagine a vain thing?

The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together, against the LORD, and against his anointed, saying, Let us break their bands asunder, and cast away their cords from us. He that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh: the Lord shall have them in derision. Then shall he speak unto them in his wrath, and vex them in his sore displeasure” (Psa. 2:10-5).

First Political Superstar

The earliest attempts by human governors and government to conduct human affairs apart from God’s authority was recorded by the inspired writer of Genesis. Nimrod was the first superstar of politics upon Planet Earth following the great flood of Noah’s day:

“And Cush begat Nimrod: he began to be a mighty one in the earth. He was a mighty hunter before the LORD: wherefore it is said, Even as Nimrod the mighty hunter before the LORD. And the beginning of his kingdom was Babel, and Erech, and Accad, and Calneh, in the land of Shinar” (Gen. 10:8-10).

Key Ingredient to Empire Building

Genesis 11:1-9 tells the story of this first king who established a powerful kingdom following the flood. It is more than merely interesting that the same basic material that gave Nimrod and his government the ability to build the tower, which was the primary manifestation of his kingdom and its attempts to usurp God’s authority, is the same material that is so important today to the building of power bases of governments within nation-states.

“And they said one to another, Go to, let us make brick, and burn them throughly. And they had brick for stone, and slime had they for morter. And they said, Go to, let us build us a city and a tower, whose top may reach unto heaven; and let us make us a name, lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth” (Gen. 11:3-4).

“Slime” is the word in the King James Version of the Bible to consider here. Oily pitch bubbled up from the ground in the region even then, and this material was used in firing the bricks for the construction of that infamous tower of Babel. God scattered the people who wanted to, in effect, cast off the bands of the Almighty and build a tower of great height that would, symbolically, at least, reach into heaven so those rebels could shake their fists in the face of the Creator. The Lord confused their language, breaking apart even the continents, apparently, during the time of Peleg (read subsequent passages in Genesis).

Ancient/Modern Ties to Mid-East Petroleum

One can’t help but make the analogy to, and draw the parallels of, those times to this end-times era. We will look at some of those parallels with the next commentary.