The Throne That Outlasted Rome

In August of 410 AD, the unthinkable happened. Alaric and his Visigoths breached the walls of Rome — the city that had ruled the known world for centuries. Refugees streamed into North Africa carrying stories of burning temples and looted palaces. The empire that called itself eternal was dying.

In Hippo, a sixty-six-year-old bishop named Augustine listened to their despair. Many Christians wondered aloud: Had God abandoned the world? Was civilization itself unraveling? Augustine picked up his pen and began writing what would become The City of God, a work that took him thirteen years to complete. His argument was as simple as it was revolutionary: every human kingdom, no matter how mighty, carries the seeds of its own collapse. Only one throne endures.

Augustine understood what Daniel saw in his night vision — the Ancient of Days seated on a throne of blazing fire, attended by ten thousand times ten thousand, while the empires of the earth rose and crumbled like waves against a cliff. Rome fell. Babylon fell before it. Persia, Greece, every dominion that seemed invincible returned to dust.

But Daniel also saw One like a Son of Man approaching that eternal throne and receiving a kingdom that would never be destroyed. Every earthly power has an expiration date. The Almighty does not. When the thrones we trust in wobble, the Ancient of Days is still seated — and His Kingdom is still coming.