[Images: (1) Salado Cave Dwellings; (2) Steep Climb; (3) Tonto (Salt River) Basin and Roosevelt Lake, 2013 JA Van Devender]
Acts 17:25–26 (NKJV)
25 Nor is He worshiped with men’s hands, as though He needed anything, since He gives to all life, breath, and all things. 26 And He has made from one blood every nation of men to dwell on all the face of the earth, and has determined their preappointed times and the boundaries of their dwellings,
There has to be a certain strange insanity that prompts some "no longer young" men to undertake to hike up the 1/2 mile trail from the parking lot and visitor center at the Tonto National Monument to the "Lower Cave Dwellings". Note that qualifier... there is an "Upper Cave Dwelling" that will remain beyond my personal first hand experience for the remainder of my life.
But I had plenty of water and the path was spacious enough for the various young families to go whizzing past me. Some of the show-off dads were carrying their kids on their shoulders. No respect in these younger generations. The views (see 2 & 3) and the ruins were well worth it actually and I absolutely commend this particular National Park to any who come to the northern regions of Arizona.
Look out on that vista in photo no. 3. The Roosevelt Lake (named after Theodore of course who set aside these lands for a National Park and funded the dam construction) was not there about a thousand years ago (1150 - 1450) but people were. Lots of people. Around 15000 of them worked the land, building irrigation ditches to raise numerous varieties of foods, organizing communities and demonstrating superb pottery skills with unique glazes and designs. They were not "cave dwellers" but they took advantage of the numerous caves in the region to construct multi-family homes out of the natural stone that was the material in the cave walls. Most of the hundreds of certified sites in the region are not in caves but demonstrate an integrated cultural integrity with some evidence of commerce with other nations outside the region.
These were the '"Salado" people though that is a later name applied to them. There are no written records to tell us what they called themselves. "Salado" is from the Spanish word for "salt" and refers to the Salt River Region which was their central habitat.
They were evidently an intelligent, hard working people. The cave dwelling are very functional and sturdy with some rooms remaining largely intact for almost a thousand years. The construction is not elegant but one can readily imagine how safe and secure these families were who lived here, shielded from the weather by the shallow cave and from any predatory humans with evil intent by the easily defended heights. There were springs nearby and game was abundant. It must have been a relatively good life for prehistoric American peoples.
And then... they just seem to have disappeared. There's lots of theories about what happened but all have this in common. They are all pretty much pure speculation. These folks seem to have lost their identity and perhaps their very existence. Even the remaining verbal myths of other tribes do not help. Something happened and their time was up.
There's a lesson there for all of us in my thinking.
No matter how apparently prosperous and strong a nation becomes, yet it can disappear into the mists of history virtually over-night. The people of Pompeii went to bed one night in their prosperous and up-scale Roman villas only to wake the next morning to unimaginable horror. Some mothers were buried alive while shielding their infants in the downpour of volcanic ash that swept over the city. The same story has been repeated in greater and smaller scale throughout all of history. There was a time when some "brilliant" academic archeologists thought that the Biblical mention of the "Hittite" people was just one more strike against its authenticity, since at that time no evidence of such a civilization existed,[see HERE]. That is until some wandering Arab fell through a hole in the desert and landed in a Hittite library. The point is, all civilizations stand before God in the same way that individuals stand before Him. Their lives are in His hands.
It is God who determines their times, both to rise and to fall. It is He who sets their boundaries and provides for their prosperity, when it is required for His purposes, and brings about their ruin, when that is required also. This is true for nations that know Him (such as Byzantium) and for those that don't (such as the Salado). As Jon Edwards famously preached - "it is a terrible thing to fall into the hands of an angry God". When God has determined that a nation has reached the end of its purpose, the course of events would be properly interpreted as God's "anger."
This country, and all of us in it, should remember the Salado. We have no claim, inherent or otherwise, to His continued blessing. We have nothing to hold up to Him and say, "See... this is how good we are. You should preserve us indefinitely." No, Sodom and Gomorrah were not too far removed from our own standards of common morality.
We have no claim on God, but we do have access to Him. And we should use it. After all, what does God require of us, but to do justly, love mercy and walk humbly with our God. It doesn't guarantee that He will preserve the country in which we dwell.... but it might just be that our witness and integrity are the very purposes that serve His glory. Perhaps... in our repentance... we might just see that such is what He intended all along.
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