Revival or Reprieve?

The election is now over. For the second time in our history, a president who served a previous term in office will once again come to power after being out of office for four years (Grover Cleveland’s second presidency was the other instance). Many, especially among those who are believers in the Lord Jesus Christ, are relieved that Donald Trump won the presidency rather than his opponent, whom many considered a great danger to our nation. Many others, however, see in Trump a dangerous actor who will be a “dictator” and impose some sort of harsh retribution on his political enemies.

When one contemplates the political, social, and moral landscape of our nation, one cannot but compare it to the time of Israel before the Babylonian invasion. Our country has been in the grip of many social ills and a breathtakingly rapid moral decadence for many decades. Although our nation’s ills are not new (the sexual revolution, for example, was a product of the 1960’s generation), the speed with which people have descended into moral chaos seems unprecedented. Since the Obergefell Supreme Court decision legalizing homosexual marriage in 2015, many in our society have rushed to attempt to impose all kinds of moral perversions upon the rest of us. The current infatuation with “transgenderism” is a great example of that trend. Can there be any more insane belief than the idea that men can be women and vice versa simply by thinking themselves so?

Perhaps at no other time in our history, except the antebellum period before the Civil War, has our nation been so divided. Today, however, that division is not primarily the product of cultural and state’s rights issues, but a social class division where the educated, rich elites are divided from the “working class” and racial animus is often fanned into a frenzy. Witness, for example, former president Obama (a black, rich elite) lecturing a group of black men about the “fact” that if they didn’t vote for Kamala Harris, then they were falling prey to misogynistic and racist propaganda. Thus, compliance with the perceived racial standard (black people should vote Democrat) became a litmus test as to whether, in the words of Joe Biden, one was “really black.”

It was Abraham Lincoln who said (paraphrasing Jesus in the gospels) that a house divided against itself cannot stand. If the divisions that afflict our nation continue, it will not be long before they come to a head. When one contemplates the electoral map, one cannot but be struck by the fact that our nation is once again divided geographically. This time, however, it is not based on slavery or the different economic engines driving each region, but on ideological pollical lines. The east and west coasts are bastions of so-called progressive thought. Whereas the rest of the country, with a few exceptions (Minnesota, Colorado, New Mexico, and Illinois) are overwhelmingly more conservative. We would like to believe that people have finally come to understand why such divisions exist so they can apply the proper remedy to such divisions. But judging by the pundits on the political shows speaking after the election, we cannot be optimistic. Many of those progressive reporters are telling us that Trump won the election because of, you guessed it, misogyny and racism!

Getting back to pre-exile Isreal, decades before the Babylonian invasion Judah went through a period of reform that forestalled that threatened judgment. Under the leadership of Hezekiah, Judah was spared when Assyria came against the Northern Kingdom and took Israel captive. Isaiah 37 tells us of the destruction of the Assyrian army that had encamped itself attempting to lay siege to Jerusalem. Unfortunately, the judgment eventually did come because Judah, rather than taking the opportunity afforded to it by such a reprieve, continued to be insistent in its rebellion and immorality. Manasah brought untold perversion to the society and, although he eventually repented, the die was cast. Judah’s continued disobedience would no longer be tolerated.

Could it be that our nation is undergoing its own “Hezekiah movement?” Could God be giving our country a reprieve from the judgment it so richly deserves? To be sure, by all outward measures, Donald Trump is not a true believer. Nevertheless, he is certainly an improvement on what we have experienced for the last four years and a much better choice than his opponent. It may just be that God is attempting to call our attention to our sins and giving us an opportunity to repent. At the same time, it is imperative to understand that no amount of outside pressure is going to change the heart of the people. That must come from within. Even so, sometimes the Lord uses those outward pressures to bring about a change in the people’s hearts. It is our prayer that such will be the case and that our nation will not have to experience the judgment that comes from its stubborn insistence on going its own way.