Election 2012 — Was God Concerned?

By Don McGee

 

The 2012 presidential election is over, and President Obama has been reelected to the office for four more years. Some are elated and some are saddened by the outcome. Among those who are saddened by Obama’s reelection is what might be called a sub-group; a group of people that is not only saddened, but terribly confused regarding what happened. That sub-group consists of Christians who, knowing the president’s stand on spiritual issues, cannot understand why God allowed this to happen. “Was God not concerned?”, they ask. The answer is He was, and was also aware of what the two candidates stood for and aware of the consequences for America should either be elected. What God did was to simply allow America to chart her own destiny. Of course she will also be allowed to suffer whatever consequences that will certainly arise as a result.

Most people look at elections from a partisan perspective, but most Christians look at them from a biblical perspective. That is, choices are not made according to party affiliation because that is far too broad. Christians understand that a candidate’s worldview is what determines the presence or absence of God’s blessings upon an administration. Thus, they look for the candidate who is not only capable, but whose life reflects biblical standards knowing those high standards will govern his political conscience and his administrative agenda.

Many Christians are confused for a couple reasons. They cannot understand why God chose to not intervene at such a critical time. Nor can they understand how fellow believers could choose to support a political platform that supports abortion on demand, the acceptance of the homosexual agenda, and other practices abhorrent to God.

Regarding Governor Romney, we can only speculate as to the consequences for America had he been elected, yet such speculation is based upon evidence presented from his past as a governor and business man. However, with President Obama winning the race there need be no speculation regarding the future, for in like manner his own past as president offers ample evidence as to what America can expect.

Religiously speaking, Obama’s record indicates he is probably close to being nothing. Though he claims to be a Christian, his life offers no real evidence. And, when one considers what he has said, written and done it seems he actually leans toward Islam. Other evidence regarding his spiritual convictions comes from his being a 20-year parishioner of Jeremiah Wright, a black-liberation-theology preacher whose own track record causes many to see him as being strongly racist.

Romney is a Mormon, and as such he is a member of a cult. For any number of reasons Mormons are not Christians, including the fact they believe Jesus is the child of Adam and Mary and that salvation is a process that ends by achieving godhood.

That said, it is important to note that in context of the election, Mormon moral standards and ethics are very similar to those of the Christian worldview. That similarity is just one of the indicators showing Americans had a very clear choice. There could be no mistaking what was morally and ethically important to either man.

So, did God simply ignore the prayers, fasting and intercessions of His people who understood those distinctions? No, of course not. Then, why did He not intervene?

Well, to be quite blunt it could be that national America, like the northern kingdom of Israel in the days of Amos, is beyond repentance. Israel had been a nation for many centuries when Amos issued warnings about her choices; warnings that were ignored. Less than 40 years later God sent severe judgment when the cruel Assyrians took them captive.

Consider America’s choices. When our nation was less than 200 years old God, prayer and the Bible were officially dismissed from its public sector. For almost 40 years America has officially sanctioned the murder of the pre-born by the most draconian means. Since that infamous day in 1973 over 50 million babies have been murdered in their mother’s wombs. In 1973 the American Psychiatric Association removed homosexuality from its list of disorders, and in 1975 the American Psychological Association essentially did the same thus clearing the way for perversion to be labeled as a normal lifestyle. It means nothing to either professional group, nor to national America, that God long ago declared homosexuality to be a loathsome sin. The list could go on. National America’s heart is so calloused and hard that God’s word on these matters is ignored while His people who refuse to capitulate to social correctness are tyrannized.

Consider another choice. In a 2009 closed meeting with several Jewish leaders, when President Obama declared he will put more daylight between America and Israel in order to gain more credibility with the Arab states, two things became clear. One, Israel could no longer expect the U.S. to remain a serious partner in defense against jihadism. Two, it became all too clear that the U.S. is willing to put at risk its only ally in the Middle East while in pursuit of this political phantom. The Obama administration believes such a move will endear the U.S. to Moslems and reduce the risk of Islamic attacks. Evidence clearly shows that kind of thinking is foolish. Appeasement never lessens conflict.

With these things in mind we could conclude that it is not unreasonable to think God’s patience has been depleted.

God’s seemingly silent response to the concerns of His people on election day should give us reason to pause, get rid of all emotion that clouds objectivity and force ourselves to see America for what it has really become. When the cover is pulled back nationally, things are ugly. This is not the America of earlier days; those days when God was America’s God and the Bible was America’s primer. Though with a degree of difficulty, it is necessary to say that it would behoove Christians to wake up from their dream-world version of the America of the past and to admit to what the nation has become. Yes, there are many godly, patriotic people in the land, but their leadership does not reflect their values.

After reading the graphic description of God’s judgment upon Judah — His own special people, by the way — for her sin and hardened heart in Ezekiel chapter 5, it would be hypocritical and inconsistent for God to ignore our nation’s resolute and godless choices. We should learn from Judah and Israel. As God cannot lie, neither can His unlimited love and grace annul the eternal and immutable law of sowing and reaping.

And, there is also the matter of future events. Most of our readers have a good understanding of what God has mapped out for us, but the overwhelming majority of Christians do not have a clue. All the reasons for this cannot be addressed here, but a few are: no personal Bible study, ignoring or rejecting prophetic texts in Bible classes and in sermons, fear of coming events, etc. So, we might ask, if God were to do something to cause His people to relax their grip on this world, and to force them to look to Him instead of secular government for hope, what might He use? An election, maybe?

He might open the curtains and give His people a good look at what they have been basing their security upon for so long. The flag, those beautiful and emotional national hymns, the parading of our military might, and other such patriotic displays are good and noble. But, in today’s America they have been reduced to mere window dressing and a kind of sentimental camouflage that is effectively concealing the nefarious work of those who are gutting our country of liberty and destroying our system of free enterprise. If Christians have ever placed any degree of trust in government and politicians, recent events should be more than sufficient to expose the recklessness of such confidence. God is doing all He can to bring our attention to the absolute fact that the Oval Office, the Congress and the Supreme Court are not on His side. Read: they are thus not on our side! What God says does not even make their list of top 100 concerns.

It is one thing for Christians to submit to civil law, to respect public office and to serve our country. It is quite another for them to give misplaced honor to officialdom at the expense of faith in God. This means we must allow nothing to interfere with our belief in God, or in our believing God. And undue trust in any party or government does just that.

It could be that events of the last several decades are rapidly ushering our nation to the point where God’s judgment falls. It could come suddenly from out of left field in the form of any one of numerous potentially catastrophic events. The “what” is not known and is not even important; what is important is that it is coming. When the national agenda of late is projected into the future, somewhere very near on that projected time line judgment is waiting. And we can believe it will not be a comfortable thing. It is a fact that the church will not go through any part of the tribulation period, but it is also true that should the return of Jesus be prolonged, the church could very well see some hard times.

Judgment is a hard, flint-like word. It is like the voltaic electrical shock felt when a person with dental work bites a piece of aluminum foil. Judgment is meant to be like that. However, God gave America an option, and it had to do with conducting national and international affairs from the biblical perspective. It was all a matter of choice. Clearly and most unfortunately, America has chosen to turn from her former relationship with God. Ultimately, when it is all over, this decision will clearly be seen as the one that took our country to a place its people did not really want to go, and which cost its people more than they really wanted to pay . But, unlike the prodigal whose heart was susceptible to conviction that lead to repentance, our nation has no such heart.

Why is that so? There have been several events in America’s history that were remarkable in the sense of being agents of change. One was the rise of humanism. With the introduction of that deceptive philosophy into America’s system of public education came one of the first major attacks on the nation’s spiritual health. Another was the acceptance of a very similar twisted worldview, the theory of evolution. Like termites whose destructive work is silent and initially unseen, those two attacks had a collaborative effect upon the moral and ethical foundation of the nation — it became rotten and hollow to its core. Today the rot can no longer be concealed, but it is too late; the national heart is now too hard.

Humanism is essentially a religion in itself whose cardinal premise is that humanity is inherently capable of taking care of itself. God is therefore not needed, and is dismissed. Rules no longer mean much. Regarding governmental ethics, not only is the faith of the Founding Fathers no longer cherished, but the Constitution itself becomes a document that is open to challenge. Evidence? Its being regularly violated through executive orders, so-called security measures and other unchallenged unilateral decisions by those entrusted with authority. This has resulted in bureaucratic pronouncements that unconstitutionally restrict the open practice of religion, remove protections from unreasonable searches, etc.

To believe that the human race came from an unexplained event that triggered the creation of life, and to force-feed that into young minds is to destroy any notion of God. If there is no God then there is no heaven and no hell, no ultimate accountability and thus no reason to not satisfy any desire and give way to any lust. The notions of “right and wrong” become blurred concepts that are relative to time and culture. Thus, no moral or ethical law is absolute.

We do not know what judgment is before this nation. What must not be missed, though, is that it will come, and perhaps soon. President Obama encouraged his supporters to “vote out of revenge”. Such talk reveals what is actually in the heart of any elected official; the obvious absence of dignity and respect. Further, it springs from biblical ignorance, for such people do not have an inkling about real revenge (Deuteronomy 32:35). One day soon, however, they will.

The Christian’s charge is to remain faithful to God and to live in peace with human authority as long as such authority does not demand a compromise of our faith and does not interfere with our duty to protect and provide for our families (1 Timothy 5:8). Be at peace, for God was certainly concerned about what happened, but He was not taken by surprise.

Email authorat csm01@att.net