Like piranhas swarming over a possible victim, the so-called American news media clusters around any tidbit of rumor about the Trump presidency that might have potential of greater bloodletting—or the possibility of creating “facts from unnamed sources” that could produce a real gush of Trump blood. It reminds me of that old gossip starter that goes like this: “Just listen to what I’ve learned, and I have a rumor to base it on!”

The ongoing drive of the left to annihilate anything and everything Trump is the most pitiful showing of childish stupidity ever exposed in American public life.  It even surpasses that of Chris Matthews exclaiming with great awe and gleefulness about Barack Obama’s speaking: “I felt this thrill going up my leg….”

It is absolutely uncanny how the left displays so much of a lack of understanding of truth and reality. The famous statement of Margaret Thatcher, former prime minister of England, speaks volumes that go unheard and dismissed: “Socialism works until they run out of other people’s money!” (Or, we could say, until we top out our national debt limit for the last time.”)

When such theories of government are exposed as examples of what is not of the truth, American leftists claim it doesn’t work for those people because “it was not our leadership in place.” When Austin Goolsbee, former economic adviser for President Barack Obama, is confronted with the dismal economic record during the Obama years when national economic growth never reached the levels of prior administrations, he grins cockily and says “he reached those levels in some quarters of a year!”

As someone once said, “With that kind of friends, we don’t need any enemies!” And I must repeat again, from prior articles, those words of Barack Obama last April 30, 2016, when he muttered, seemingly in a casual aside, “The end of the Republic has never looked better!” His goal of fundamentally transforming America appeared to be on the brink of being accomplished, as it looked like Hillary Clinton had the election well under control. (With “under control” having a much deeper meaning than just much more favorable poll numbers, of course.) We must not forget that both Clinton and Obama were and are disciples of Saul Alinsky, that Marxist purveyor of community organizing to radically overthrowing a government.

In the 2016 election people judged Donald Trump unworthy to be president, not a few of them Christians, because his language was bad, he was not “presidential,” and he lied, lied, lied. Many of those people still have that attitude. Yet, the alternative was one who openly maintained that the reign of Obama and his policies would continue as before.

The lies and deceptions of that administration and its likely copier have been openly displayed in numerous instances. It has been hard for me to understand the mentality, the mindset, of opposition to one who spelled out clearly his steps to restoring America’s leadership in the world and the economic and social well-being of its citizens. As one favorable evangelical pastor noted, “we were not electing a “pastor-in-chief” but a commander-in-chief. In all of the rumble about who was unqualified and who was qualified to be president, I recalled Psalm 75:6-8 and noted that God is still sovereign and His plans for the tenure of mankind has not diminished at all . That passage, as a reminder, says this:

“For exaltation comes neither from the east nor from the west nor from the south, but God is the Judge; He puts down one and exalts another. For in the hand of the Lord there is a cup, and the wine is red; it is fully mixed, and He pours it out. Surely its dregs shall all the wicked of the earth drain and drink down.”

And another quote that fits well with this one, Psalm 62:11, “God has spoken once, twice I have heard this, that power belongs to God.”

Trusting the sovereignty of God is paramount to our being able to make sense out of all that is going on in our world today.  Knowing that judgment is hovering over those who have no regard for God or anyone who trusts Him is a great bulwark against the evil that is perpetrated by those who despise truth and embracer deception. A great uplift comes from this quote from Nahum 1:7:

“The Lord is good, a stronghold in the day of trouble, and He knows those who trust in Him.”

Colossians 1:13 also gives us this reassurance:

“He has delivered us from the power of darkness and conveyed us into the kingdom of the Son of His love, in whom we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins.”

But what about those who do not look to these words for comfort but reject them as unworthy of critical consideration? Those who think they have the light of truth, yet call good evil and evil good have this startling statement from Jesus in Matthew 22:23b,  “If therefore the light that is in you is darkness, how great is that darkness!”

Is there more to the issue of “falling away” in 2 Thessalonians 2:3, that is, is it the whole society of mankind falling away from law-abiding behavior and totally embracing evilness, not even recognizing the difference? Paul does write this, in 2 Timothy 3:1 and 13:

“But know this, that in the last days perilous times will come…evil men and impostors will grow worse and worse, deceiving and being deceived.” These Scriptures indicate that the “falling away” is not just in the realm of Christianity but everywhere. We can see how evil men become bolder as those who resist back off. Peter wrote that we must “Be sober, be vigilant, for your adversary, the devil, walks about as a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour” (1 Peter 5:8).

The futility of the feeding frenzy to find fault in Trump’s presidency is that they are dealing with a sovereign God who intends to maintain control of His plan for the ages. You will get your New World Order and its one-world government, you globalist elite, and at its head will be that lawless one, the Antichrist, who is headed for an eternity in the lake of fire, according to Revelation 17:10-11 and 19:20. Jesus said, when He returns as a thief in the night, there will be business as usual in all segments of life, not giving any indication the “end of the Republic is at hand,” as Obama and Clinton and their backers had hoped.

Entrusting ourselves to the sovereignty of God is foundational to our faith, for as Peter exclaimed, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. Also we have come to believe and know that You are the Christ, the Son of the living God” (John 6:68-69).

Contact email:  andwegetmercy@gmail.com

Often, as we grow older, we reflect on our struggles over our lifespan of the three score years and ten or more (Psalm 90:10), or less, and fight back tears, perhaps regrets, wondering why.

You have heard, perhaps, that changing only one letter in our “disappointments” will make all the difference in the world. Change the first letter from “D” to “H” and you have “His-appointments.”

What a difference that makes!

If we are connected with God, that is.

Jesus said, in John 16:33, “These things I have spoken to you, that in Me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation; but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world.”

And Paul wrote, in Romans 8:18, “For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us.”

Sometimes we hear 1 Corinthians 2:9 quoted and the next verse left out but the two go together:

“But as it is written, ‘Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor have entered into the heart of man the things which God has prepared for those who love Him,’ but God has revealed them to us through His Spirit. For the Spirit searches all things, yes, the deep things of God.”

Wow! The deep things of God—I must read that again…and again.

It reminds me of 1 Corinthians 13:12, “For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part, but then I shall know just as I also am known.”

Sometimes we get a pink slip with our paycheck, telling us that it is the last one we will be getting on that job. Devastation comes crashing in, and who would ever relish the thought of that happening? No one! Or some other calamity hits us in our mid-section like a sledge hammer. It certainly gets our attention, and that just might be what God had in mind. Romans 8:28-29 tells us this:

“And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose. For whom He foreknew, He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brethren.”

Remember those troubling words (perhaps) at the end of the quote above from 1 Corinthians 2:9-10, “For the Spirit searches all things, yes, the deep things of God.” God wants to dig out the selfish, self-centered clutter in our hearts that makes it impossible for Him to fill us with His own goodness and blessing. If we are full of ourselves, He cannot find any place for Himself.

There is an interesting phrase in the passage of 1 Peter 1:5-7, “if need be,” that provides some enlightenment of God’s purpose for the things believers go through to reach His goal for us:

“[We], who are kept by the power of God through faith for salvation ready to be revealed in the last time–in this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while, if need be, you have been grieved by various trials, that the genuineness of your faith, being much more precious than gold that perishes, though it is tested by fire, may be found to praise, honor, and glory at the revelation of Jesus Christ.”

In Matthew 5:3-10 are nine attitudes to have that will make us truly happy, according to Jesus. Together they seem to encapsulate the essence of practical spiritual life, as the teaching of Jesus does so magnificently. Two that I want to highlight here are the first and the fourth ones, in a somewhat paraphrased manner:

“The truly happy are those who realize their own spiritual poverty” and “The truly happy are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness.” The one who comes to the end of himself and still senses emptiness is the one whose hungering and thirsting draws him to the only source who can provide that need. It seems to be the summation of our spiritual journey of our lifetime on this earth.

(Some time ago I posted a three-part article analyzing the B-attitudes. If you cannot locate them on Rapture Ready.com, send me a request by email, if you want copies.) [1]

Another summation of the journey is at Philippians 2:12-13, where it speaks of our part and of God’s part—our submission and His completion:

“…work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you both to will and to do for His good pleasure.”

In Philippians 3 Paul recounts his accomplishments before he met Christ and dismisses them as mere garbage compared to what he had found in the Lord and declares that his goal was “that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death,  if, by any means, I may attain to the resurrection from the dead” (Philippians 3:10-11).

He goes on to declare that he was “forgetting those things that were behind him and was pressing on toward that goal.” Typically, then, he says to other believers, this:

 Therefore let us, as many as are mature, have this mind; and if in anything you think otherwise, God will reveal even this to you. Nevertheless to the degree that we have already attained, let us walk by the same rule, let us be of the same mind”(Philippians 3:15-16).

Is this, then, that “searching the deep things of God” that is mentioned earlier in 1 Corinthians 2:10?

When we realize and appreciate the fact that this “time capsule” we are in was created with a beginning and an ending, the words of Psalm 90:2 beckon us with an assurance that God has better and more enduring things when we are with Him:

“Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever You had formed the earth and the world, even from everlasting to everlasting, You are God.” And, coupled with 2 Corinthians 1:20, the package is unbeatable: “For all the promises of God in Him are Yes, and in Him Amen, to the glory of God through us. “

Endnotes

[1] Search for article in Rapture Ready.com: https://www.raptureready.com/gene-lawley/

Contact email:  andwegetmercy@gmail.com