If you were one of the millions in the United States praying for the right outcome in the US election, you may also be one of the millions wondering where God got to on the day, as I’ve been tempted to do…
Biden has claimed to be a Bible reader. At the same time he is all for unfettered abortion for any reason, all the way up to birth. He heads a party which fully supports sex changes for those who feel like having one, and he is a total globalist, who will continue to sell out our nation, and the West, to China and other foreign powers. He will further destabilize the Middle-East by again favouring radical Iran over American ally Israel. His party has come to hate America and what makes America prosperous. The party has prospered by working to demonize its opponent-Trump-the Orwellian Goldstein of the 21st Century-accusing him of everything it could cook up. What freedom there is in the world, which the US has championed and defended, is under threat, particularly now that lies and deception are the order of the day.
So where was God? Here’s my take.
First, the election isn’t over, despite all that Pravda-US is telling us. There are legal challenges and a considerable volume of evidence of election rigging in several states. States that Trump was winning clearly on election night suddenly found hundreds of thousands of new votes-for Biden.
But if the challenges fail, there are some hard lessons for us to learn. First, we as professing believers have to remember what Scripture actually tells us about the world, and not what we would like to be so. Jesus. about to be crucified, was told by Pilate that if he would just defend himself he could escape his fate, but Jesus replied, “My kingdom is not of this world”. So if this world is not Christ’s kingdom, whose is it? The answer is clear. Jesus said, on the night of his betrayal and following crucifixion:
I will not speak much more with you, for the ruler of the world is coming, and he has nothing in Me (John 14:30).
And Paul wrote:
…the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelieving so that they might not see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God (2 Corinthians 4:4).
We have clear evidence all over the Christians’ instruction manual, the Bible, that the direction of world history is not towards Utopia, as Hegel’s cathedral pictured, and as all the biggest socialists and communists such as Marx have claimed, but towards a date with the fury and the vengeance of God. We all want to see America do well, and the rest of the world too. We hope and rightfully pray and work for a better world-but there will come a time, sooner or later, when that date with the wrath of God will come. And there is a process which leads to it: one of moral decline, in which it will seem like the wicked have their way.
The apostle Paul wrote about the civilization he was a part of, and that when a society persistently and recklessly turns its back on God and on all that’s right, God reluctantly gives them over to their wickedness. When they have stopped their ears to the gospel totally, and when they have abandoned themselves to all that is ungodly, God just lets them go, and the worst thing which could possibly happen to them-that God is no longer calling them to the narrow path of righteousness-takes place (Romans chapter 1:18-32)
Are we there yet? I don’t know, and I hope not, but our God never did guarantee that the godly would win all the elections if they just pray hard. If that were the case, we could pray our way to Utopia. But that isn’t what we’ve been told will happen. So let’s keep fighting for our nation-it’s worth fighting for-but let’s remember what we’ve been told.
Happily, moral decline isn’t the end of the story, because we’re also told that when that great Day of the Lord does come, our world will be restored to its rightful owner, and righteousness will flourish:
The seventh angel sounded his trumpet, and there were loud voices in heaven, which said: “The kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Messiah, and he will reign for ever and ever (Revelation 11:15 NIV).
Fuel for Faith 