Georges Clemenceau, Prime Minister of France

Making and Erasing Nations

    The year was 1919. The season was spring. The country was France. The four most powerful men in the world, at that time, were crawling across a map spread out on the floor. Dr. Grayson commented, “It had every appearance of four boys playing some kind of a game.”

    One man was Georges Clemenceau, age 77, Prime Minister of France. Another man was David Lloyd George, the youngest at age 56. He was the Prime Minister of Great Britain. A third man was Vittorio Orlando, Prime Minister of Italy. The fourth man on his knees, playing the “game,” was the President of our own United States, Woodrow Wilson.

    With the Great War just behind them, on that occasion, these four men obliterated more national boundaries and formed new nations by their own will than had ever been drawn up at any one time. America had entered the war late but her entrance was decisive for victory for the Allies. During the ensuring conference, President Wilson commented that of all the nations present, the United States alone was considered “the only nation represented in this great conference whose motives are entirely unselfish.”

    Out of that floor “game,” came a break up of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. The Czechs and Slovaks were merged. Serbia and Montenegro were joined to the Slovenes, Croats, and Serbs as well as Dalmatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina to form the country of Yugoslavia. Bessarabia, Bukovina, and Transylvania were combined to form my dearly-beloved adopted country, the Kingdom of Romania.

    The Ottoman Empire was broken up and new nations built on the sands of Arabia: Turkey, Syria, Iraq, Lebanon, Cyprus, Iran. The world was forever changed following that “game” on the floor. This war “to end all wars” and the subsequent Covenant were intended to be the beginning of a new pacem in terris, peace on earth. We all know how that turned out as Adolf Hitler invaded Czechoslovakia eighteen years later and set off round two. That was not the end of it either as many of those countries formed in 1919 eventually were to go on to break apart.

    A work by Thomas a Kempis (said to be the second most read “Christian” text after the Bible) is Of the Imitation of Christ. In that work, a Kempis wrote: “For the resolutions of the just depend rather on the grace of God than on their own wisdom; and in Him they always put their trust, whatever they take in hand. For man proposes, but God disposes; neither is the way of man in his own hands.”

    I rehearse this bit of history for this purpose. Only God knows the boundaries and limitations of man. The great prophet, Daniel, in the heart of a world empire that no longer exists, said, “The Most High is ruler over the realm of mankind, and bestows it on whom He wishes and sets over it the lowliest of men” (4:17). The great apostle Paul, also in the heart of a long-deceased empire, said, “He made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined their appointed times and the boundaries of their habitation” (Acts 17:26).

    Do not trust man for your peace and happiness. Do not trust the United Nations. Do not trust Washington, D. C. Do not trust Republicans. Do not trust Democrats. God alone can be trusted and when the boundaries of this great empire are one day erased, only the church of Christ will be left standing (Dan. 2:44; Matt. 16:18).

--Paul Holland