Rome: An Unexpected Lesson on What Falls and What Stands

So, Rome. It's hard to walk away from a visit to what has been called the “Eternal City” without, at least on a sub-conscious level, pondering the question of what is truly eternal and worthy of ultimate trust.

“Some trust in chariots and some in horses, but we trust in the name of the Lord our God.
They collapse and fall, but we rise and stand upright.” (Psalm 20: 7)

Imperial Rome, although at one point it ruled all of what was the known world at the time, had a set time for its reign, and eventually collapsed. It doesn't take a lengthy glance back at human history to see clearly that the same has gone (and will go) for all other man-made institutions of this world. Anything that is not based on what is eternal will inevitably fall.

So, the question looms large before us – at this point in human history, where is our hope based? Is it our country, our financial security, technology, medical advancement, our philosophies, those around us, ourselves? Or is our trust, our final sense of assurance, based on the only One Who sits on the everlasting throne?

As we watch our country struggle, we do well to remember that even though we should stand firm in graciously speaking the Truth in love, when all is said and done, we can rest in knowing that God's providence cannot be thwarted. We can trust in the name of the Lord our God, even if all that we know collapses and falls, because if we are in Christ, His saving work on the cross will ultimately cause us to “rise and stand upright” in the end.

 

Until that Day, may God help us to remember and live out His command to love with a true love:

"Now that you have purified yourselves by obeying the truth so that you have sincere love for each other, love one another deeply, from the heart. For you have been born again, not of perishable seed, but of imperishable, through the living and enduring word of God. For,

“All people are like grass,
    and all their glory is like the flowers of the field;
the grass withers and the flowers fall,
but the word of the Lord endures forever."(1 Peter 1:22-25)