As the United States prepares for another presidential campaign in the coming year, hopeful candidates begin to present their plans and ideas for how they can get the country back on track. Whether it has to do with reducing public debt, solving the problem of health care, or creating jobs, the candidates present their answers with an abundance of confidence and hubris. Taken at face value, all of the candidates would appear to solve the country’s troubles, if only elected into the presidential office.
It may be a pessimistic prediction, but we can be reasonably sure that whoever will be elected president of the United States next year will not bring about any lasting solutions, and in all likelihood, will cause a further decline in international favor. With prophecy in the equation, the pessimistic prediction becomes a realistic certainty. The Bible makes it clear that man’s answers to his own problems, when God is not in the picture, are doomed to ultimate failure.
The only way to escape imminent destruction is through repentance and returning to God. Recall the story of Nineveh, when the city repented in a comprehensive manner, directed from the leadership (compare Jonah 3:5-8). At that time, the disobedience of the people in that city aroused the anger in God, who threatened to destroy it. However, after hearing about the prophesied destruction that would come upon them, the inhabitants took it to heart and changed. As a result, God too changed His mind. Jonah 3:10 reads, “Then God saw their works, that they turned from their evil way; and God relented from the disaster that He had said He would bring upon them, and He did not do it.”
Can you imagine any secular politician campaigning on a platform of returning to the one true God and His laws? Can you imagine a candidate presenting the simple act of repentance of our sins as the solution to the country’s problems? To say the least, it is far-fetched to even conceive of that happening. And even those who may occasionally speak of God and the Bible and our “Judeo-Christian heritage” do not represent the true God, nor do they even understand, let alone embrace and live, the timeless laws of the Ten Commandments, statutes and judgments. Instead, as man’s history repeats itself, God’s ways will continue to be rejected in favor of his own solutions (compare Mark 7:9). Yet, repentance is what must happen to turn the direction of our countries and the world around.
Sadly, such a turn in direction will not happen with the re-election of the current president of the United States, nor the election of a different one. However, we do know, through the prophecy of the Word of God, that a righteous kingdom will be established on earth. At that time, the hearts of the people living on earth will turn, as they did in Nineveh (compare Malachi 4:6). While we can be sure that the current or a new president of the United States will not take that path, we look forward to the time when God’s kingdom will be established. At that time, Isaiah 9:7 will become a reality: “Of the increase of His government and peace There will be no end, Upon the throne of David and over His kingdom, To order it and establish it with judgment and justice From that time forward, even forever. The zeal of the LORD of hosts will perform this.” May that time come quickly.
©2024 Church of the Eternal God
