This is my post election blog.  This election season has made clear that our national is deeply divided.  Christians are confused and anxious about the future.  Our voice is labeled, “extreme” and “irrelevant.” The days ahead will be difficult. I try to make sense of our cultural context, from the perspective of the  prophets.  Here is a sampling from Jeremiah.  “They spread lies about God.  They’ve said, ‘There’s nothing to him.  Nothing bad will happen to us, neither famine nor war will come our way.  The prophets are all windbags.  They speak nothing but nonsense” “(Jer. 5:12-13 – Message).  “Prophets and priests and everyone in between twist words and doctor truth.  My people are broken – shattered! – and they put on Band-Aids, saying, ‘It’s not so bad. You’ll be fine.’  But things are not ‘just fine'” Jer. 8:11 – Message).

Men, if we allow the dominant media’s narrative to inform us we will be deluded into thinking that things will be “just fine,” while we continue to ignore God.   The arrogance and vanity is apparent, when seen the lens of the OT prophets.  Isaiah warns us, “But they were a proud and arrogant bunch.  They dismissed  the message, saying, ‘Things aren’t that bad.  We can handle anything that comes.  If our buildings are knocked down, we’ll rebuild the bigger and finer.  If our forests are cut down, we’ll replant them with finer trees” (Is. 9:9-10 – Message).

I wonder if God is allowing our  national experience to be a form of judgment, giving us what we deserve.  Romans 1, which begins with these words, “But God’s angry displeasure erupts as acts of human mistrust and wrongdoing and lying accumulate, as people try to put a shroud over truth.” Then we read three times (vs. 24, 26, 28) that God “gave them over” when referring to the on going consequence of turning from Him.  The passage closes with these frightening words, which we will see demonstrated  in our dominant cultural narrative in the days to come. “And it’s not as if they don’t know better.  They know perfectly well they’re spitting in God’s face.  And they don’t care – worse – they hand out prizes to those who do the worst things best! (Rom. 1: 32 – Message).  Is this a portrait of America’s near future?

So how is a man to live in the days ahead? Here are a few reminders.  Remember that the Lord God, Almighty, the maker of heaven and earth,  is sovereign over the course of history.  The question during this political season has been, “what side of history are you on?”   Isaiah says it straight and to the point. “Surely, as I have planned, so it will be, and as I have purposed, so it will stand” (Is. 14:24) and then in Is. 46:11, “What I have said, that will I bring about; what I have planned, that will I do.” In trust and surrender put your life and future into the hands of your heavenly Father who is in complete charge of history.  James reminds us, “Don’t be deceived, my dear brothers.  Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows” (James 1: 16).

We follow Jesus, who is “King of kings and Lord of lord” (Rev 20:16).  He has established His kingdom reign in the earth (Matt 28:18-20).  We are part of that reign.  Jesus has conquered and been victorious.  So men, let us follow that lamb who has conquered.  “Worthy is the Lamb, who was slain, to receive power and wealth and wisdom and strength and honor and glory and praise” (Rev. 5:12).