Listening the last 2 years to the “experts” thinking aloud on what the last presidential election meant is exercise in frustration, if not futility. The talking heads across the cable and broadcast spectrum have consistently attributed Donald Trump’s win to everything from the fake news of a Trump-Russian collusion to news media’s biased poll-taking and misreading of exit polling the day of the election. These throw in that those in charge of the losing campaign just didn’t understand the people of middle America. They didn’t see the people’s pent-up rage against the Washington establishment–the D.C. insiders.
All of these elements no doubt contributed to that election–as many of the pundits framed it–eventuating in a totally unexpected outcome. But, it is the never-mentioned aspect of that 2016 election dynamic that is frustrating to me as a Christian. It is this that produces a sense of futility.
No one in media has talked about the 81% – 84% (depending upon the figure you accept) of “evangelicals” who turned out in that election. Christian participation just isn’t figured in at the highest levels of broadcast and cable punditry.
This means, to me, that the experts believe the 2016 election had nothing to do with our being fed up with the social debauchery and degradation that took place, particularly over the Obama years. The homosexual, transsexual, same-sex marriage agenda, with mandated same-sex, multiple-occupancy public restrooms, had no influence on the voting in that election year, the experts are saying with their silence. We, the voters–who are Christians and came out in numbers that have not been seen in many elections–apparently weren’t (according to the pundits) making a statement that we were fed up with our White House being bathed in rainbow colors emblematic of the homosexual lobby. We aren’t sick and tired of having the homosexual rainbow flag flown atop that same American presidential edifice, is the message of the pundits’ silence.
That electoral landslide against the candidate and party that crammed down America’s throat all of this hellishness–mostly through presidential, executive order-fiat–had nothing to do with the social issues, I guess we are to take away from this silence.
That we are disgusted with small bakery owners being publicly humiliated and fined for refusing to bake same-sex wedding cakes obviously isn’t considered worth mentioning in the analysis of that 2016 election results. The absolute horrors and atrocities that we learned about involving Planned Parenthood and the selling of human baby body parts didn’t, in the thinking of the post-election, political analysts, figure in our collective voting statement.
It was all about terrorism, wallet issues, and building back America’s defense, while determining to “drain the swamp.”
These were all important issues in my own thinking, as in the thinking of many other Christians, while election day approached. But, in addition to stopping a further tearing down of America’s founding structure, I wanted–and continue to want–a government that will stop the anti-godliness, down the road of which the Obama administration deliberately moved this nation.
As expressed previously in these commentaries, it was God’s people praying the prayer of 2 Chronicles 7:14 that turned that election so dramatically. This is the answer the pundits are seeking when they ask incessantly about what happened that the news media types missed. How could this election have turned out so differently than expected right up until 9 p.m. EST Tuesday, November 8, 2016?
The fact is that the throne room of Heaven was deluged day and night with God’s people imploring Him for mercy–asking that He hear from Heaven and answer our prayers. This, of course required repentance–not of America’s population, but of God’s people. It is more than obvious that He did hear and answered in a spectacular way. God cannot lie, and He promised He would answer such prayer–uttered under biblically prerequisite conditions.
Now, the question is: Will we who are called by His name continue to pray and to follow up on those prerequisite conditions? How we respond will determine how our nation–and our lives–fare over the coming days, months, and, perhaps, years.
We have proof that our Lord answers prayers in a spectacular way. The pundits will never see it, but we who did and are doing the praying certainly understand.
We can further understand God’s influence in that stunning election by the truly Christian people He has placed among the power elite that govern us.
So, in this pre-Tribulation time, we have a window of opportunity to honor our Lord’s merciful answer in giving us a leadership that promises a return to founding principles. Along with that merciful action, it is also obvious that we have been given a course-correction, a return to the moral pathway–out of the depravity foisted on us in recent years.
We don’t have to wonder about how to honor His mercy and kindness in having answered our prayers. His number-one priority has always been and will always be the salvation of souls. We are expected to honor His decision to give America a reprieve–I have no doubt–in order to, first and foremost, lift Jesus Christ so that the Holy Spirit draws all to Christ for salvation.
Just beneath that all-important mission for God’s people in America is to let the pastors of our churches know that the true, Christ-believing bodies of worship should be devoted to teaching and preaching truth. That is, we are now, more than ever, to be the Philadelphian church and not the Laodicean church (read Revelation chapter 3).
There is no doubt that we see this gracious, merciful, moving of God’s hand in America. However, there are also signals that are growing stronger by the day that we are in times at the very end of the age.
Jesus forewarned in the Olivet Discourse that there would be great ethnic strife. We have been seeing it manifested in American cities. The seas and waves of humanity are “roaring” in America and in Europe. The 2016 election has intensified that roaring, I believe.
People who continue to refuse to accept the election results are exemplifying the apostle Paul’s perilous times characteristic “incontinent”–or, “out of control.” Jesus said societal conditions will be exactly like now when He intervenes catastrophically into the affairs of mankind. That will happen with the Rapture.
With the United States now seeming to be headed back toward the America we once knew and loved, with the promises of the Trump Administration, we can enjoy our moment of gratefulness.
However, this time of national renewal is also likely to be a time like described by Jesus–a time that will bring His next catastrophic intervention into the affairs of mankind. That time might just be upon us.
“Therefore be ye also ready: for in such an hour as ye think not the Son of man cometh.” (Matthew 24: 44)