One of my favorite axioms is, “Those who don’t know history are destined to repeat it and those who know history are destined to watch others repeat it.” I can relate to that statement. The on the street interviews on TV of young people who are completely clueless about the most basic facts of American history and even about recent news items are meant to be humorous, but they are scary to my generation and we aren’t laughing.
By the time I graduated from high school I had a good overview of world history and a very solid grasp of American history from the founding documents and American Revolution through our industrial revolution and all of the changes and wars our country had been through. In addition to memorizing dates to pass exams, I studied the stories of the men and women who had an effect on our country’s development. People are what make history come alive for me. As a result I became more aware of what was going on around me, looking at each current event from an historic perspective. Of course as I have said many times, current events when I graduated from high school are now labeled ancient history.
When most people in a society are ignorant of history it is easy for others to spread lies and rewrite history to fit their agenda. I especially hate it when they try to rewrite history that I have lived through. When my generation is no longer here to correct them, I fear American history will no longer have any meaning or truth.
The Bible is my favorite history text book. As my friend and brother Niyi Gbade says, “God uses us to present history for His purpose because history is His story.” God inspired the writers of scripture to record His creation of the universe as He described it to them. Then He inspired them to chronicle His relationship with mankind from the Garden of Eden through the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of our sin. He then inspired others to record the history of the early Church of believers who spread the Gospel making it possible for each subsequent generation to believe in Jesus Christ and have eternal life. Biblical history comes alive with first hand eyewitness accounts, personal testimonies and the stories of people who have either opposed or furthered God’s kingdom. Even the scriptural account of creation is substantiated by Jesus who was not only an eyewitness but a participant. The worst and best acts of mankind are recorded, each with God’s object lesson. The Bible is God’s truth and mankind’s “manufacturer’s guide”. It is history that lights our way into the future.
The most important thing to me in this generation of relativity and revisionism is that God protects His word. In 1 Peter 1:24-25 and so many other passages, God assures us that His word is eternal and unchanging. I can be confident that long after my generation and I are gone from the scene, God’s true history will never be destroyed or rewritten. His story will be there for future generations. I pray they will make good use of it.