I recently received this in an email. And I quote:
About the time our original 13 states adopted their new constitution, in 1787, Alexander Tyler, a Scottish history professor at the University of Edinburgh, had this to say about the fall of the Athenian Republic some 2,000 years prior:
A democracy is always temporary in nature; it simply cannot exist as a permanent form of government. A democracy will continue to exist up until the time that voters discover that they can vote themselves generous gifts from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates who promise the most benefits from the public treasury, with the result that every democracy will finally collapse due to loose fiscal policy, which is always followed by a dictatorship."
The average age of the worlds greatest civilizations from the beginning of history, has been about 200 years. During those 200 years, these nations always progressed through the
following sequence:
1. From bondage to spiritual faith;
2. From spiritual faith to great courage
3. From courage to liberty
4. From liberty to abundance
5. From abundance to complacency
6. From complacency to apathy
7. From apathy to dependence
8. From dependence back into bondage
End of quote.
It appears that we are in stage 6. We don't care about anything. Actually, many of us do care about many things--important things, at that--but we are becoming a nation who would rather live a life in bondage than sacrifice for future generations. We (myself included) have become so complacent that we forget how our complacency was afforded. We have placed convenience over conscience. A long, easy life is valued more than a short, purpose-filled life. And I probably can't even fathom the sacrifice required from generations before me, from people from stages 1 and 2, to allow me to sit at this table in this coffeehouse and type this.
Proverbs 12:28--"In the way of righteousness there is life; along that path is immortality."
