“The Most High is Ruler in the kingdom of mankind.”—DAN. 4:17.
HUMAN rule has failed! Of that there is no doubt. A major reason for that failure is that humans lack the wisdom to rule successfully. The failure of man’s rule is especially evident today when so many rulers have shown themselves to be ‘lovers of themselves, lovers of money, self-assuming, haughty, disloyal, not open to any agreement, slanderers, without self-control, fierce, without love of goodness, betrayers, and puffed up with pride.’—2 Tim. 3:2-4.
Long ago, our first parents rejected God’s way of ruling. In doing so, they may have thought that they were choosing independence. In reality, though, they were submitting to Satan’s way of ruling. Six millenniums of human mismanagement—powerfully influenced by “the ruler of this world,” Satan—have brought us to the current low point in human history. (John 12:31)
Commenting on the state of mankind today, The Oxford History of the Twentieth Century states that it is useless “looking for a perfect world.” It explains: “Not only can it not be found, but the attempt to create it leads to disaster, totalitarianism, and war at its worst.” What a frank admission that human rule is a failure!
How tragic, then, that our first parents rejected the only kind of rule that does work—rule by God! Of course, we do not know precisely how Jehovah would have structured his way of governing the earth if Adam and Eve had remained faithful to him. However, we can be certain that divine rulership accepted by all mankind would have been marked by love and impartiality. (Acts 10:34; 1 John 4:8)
In view of God’s matchless wisdom, we can also be sure that if mankind had remained under Jehovah’s rule, all the mistakes made by proponents of human rule would have been avoided. God-rule, theocracy, would have been successful in “satisfying the desire of every living thing.” (Ps. 145:16) In short, it would have been a perfect rulership. (Deut. 32:4) How tragic that humans rejected it!
Still, it is good to remember that even though Jehovah permitted humans to exercise self-rule, he at no time relinquished his right to rule over his creatures. Even the powerful king of Babylon was forced to realize that ultimately “the Most High is Ruler in the kingdom of mankind.” (Dan. 4:17) In the long run, God’s Kingdom will cause his will to be done. (Matt. 6:10) True, in the short term, Jehovah has allowed Satan to act as “the god of this system of things” in order to provide a convincing answer to the issues that were raised by that opposer. (2 Cor. 4:4; 1 John 5:19)
Nevertheless, Satan has never been able to go beyond what Jehovah permits. (2 Chron. 20:6; compare Job 1:11, 12; 2:3-6.) And there have always been some individuals who chose to subject themselves to God, even though they were living in a world ruled by God’s great Adversary.
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