A spiritual perspective on the US election:

Daniel 2: 20 Daniel answered and said: " Blessed be the name of God forever and ever, For wisdom and might are His. 21  And He changes the times and the seasons; He removes kings and raises up kings; He gives wisdom to the wise And knowledge to those who have understanding. 22 He reveals deep and secret things; He knows what is in the darkness, And light dwells with Him.

Psalm 75:6 For exaltation comes neither from the east Nor from the west nor from the south. 

7 But God is the Judge: He puts down one, And exalts another.

Romans 13:1 

Let every soul be subject to the higher powers [of government]. For there is no power but of God: the powers that be are ordained of God.

Psalms 46: 10 Be still, and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth!

On one hand, it really does NOT MATTER who gets elected. God has appointed the course of world history, and it always ends the same way--with God in control of an everlasting kingdom, and all earthly rulers reduced to insignificance. 

We can rest assured that God will care for us whoever is elected President, Senator, Congressman or Governor:

Psalm 37: 1 Do not fret because of evildoers, Nor be envious of the workers of iniquity. 2 For they shall soon be cut down like the grass, And wither as the green herb. 3 Trust in the LORD, and do good; Dwell in the land, and feed on His faithfulness. 4 Delight yourself also in the LORD, And He shall give you the desires of your heart. 5 Commit your way to the LORD, Trust also in Him, And He shall bring it to pass. 6 He shall bring forth your righteousness as the light, And your justice as the noonday. 7 Rest in the LORD, and wait patiently for Him; Do not fret because of him who prospers in his way, Because of the man who brings wicked schemes to pass. 8 Cease from anger, and forsake wrath; Do not fret --- it only causes harm. 9 For evildoers shall be cut off; But those who wait on the LORD, They shall inherit the earth. 10 For yet a little while and the wicked shall be no more; Indeed, you will look carefully for his place, But it shall be no more. 11 but the meek shall inherit the earth, And shall delight themselves in the abundance of peace.

On the other hand, it really DOES MATTER for whom you vote in this election.

WHY?

Let me give you some reasons:

• If you read the books of Kings and Chronicles in the Old Testament, you'll discover a pattern: when Israel and Judah had good kings, the nation prospered spiritually, and also prospered physically. As the kings in Judah (after Israel was carried captive for their sins) were either good or bad, the nation either prospered or suffered. the equation is pretty simple: a godly king meant good times, and an evil king resulted in social chaos and spiritual destruction. Manasseh, one of the wickedest kings, reigned during the ministry of Isaiah; he ruined the nation with his idolatry and wickedness, so that recovery was impossible. Despite the fact that he later repented, the nation eventually sank into oblivion as first one and then another foreign power invaded it and ultimately Israel was carried captive to Babylon.
• So here's the principle: good kings make a good nation, and good times; evil kings make an evil nation, and evil times. Chaos comes from evil, and leads to more chaos. 
• Corruption is the cancer of government and common life. Its root is spiritual corruption.
  The Old Testament discusses bribery, corruption, and other evils like this in spiritual terms, and makes clear that corruption is not only evil in itself, but also the cause of more evil, until the evils are multiplied beyond belief. the Prophets speak so extensively about this that I'll have to select among many choices for illustrations, but here goes:
  
  1. Isaiah 1:23: Your leaders are rebels, the companions of thieves. All of them love bribes and demand payoffs, but they refuse to defend the cause of orphans or fight for the rights of widows.
  
  2. Amos 2:6-7: Thus says the LORD: " For three transgressions of Israel, and for four, I will not turn away its punishment, Because they sell the righteous for silver, And the poor for a pair of sandals. 7  They pant after the dust of the earth which is on the head of the poor, And pervert the way of the humble. A man and his father go in to the same girl, To defile My holy name.
  
  3. Amos 8:4-7: Listen to this, you who rob the poor and trample down the needy! You can’t wait for the Sabbath day to be over and the religious festivals to end so you can get back to cheating the helpless. You measure out grain with dishonest measures and cheat the buyer with dishonest scales. And you mix the grain you sell with chaff swept from the floor. Then you enslave poor people for one piece of silver or a pair of sandals. Now the LORD has sworn this oath by his own name, the Pride of Israel: "I will never forget the wicked things you have done!" Political corruption and business corruption go hand in hand.
  
  4. Zechariah 1:1-6: 1 In the eighth month of the second year of Darius, the word of the LORD came to Zechariah the son of Berechiah, the son of Iddo the prophet, saying, 2 "The LORD has been very angry with your fathers. 3 Therefore say to them, 'Thus says the LORD of hosts: "Return to Me," says the LORD of hosts, "and I will return to you," says the LORD of  hosts.  4 "Do not be like your fathers, to whom the former prophets preached, saying, 'Thus says the LORD of hosts: "Turn now from your evil ways and your evil deeds." ' But they did not hear nor heed Me," says the LORD. 5  " Your fathers, where are they? And the prophets, do they live forever? 6  Yet surely My words and My statutes, Which I commanded My servants the prophets, Did they not overtake your fathers? "So they returned and said: ' Just as the LORD of hosts determined to do to us, According to our ways and according to our deeds, So He has dealt with us."
  These principles are pretty simple. You cannot justify taking bribes, oppressing people, cheating and rejecting God, and expect to survive at the judgment. If you are a candidate for office, and you are corrupt, and the people elect you, they have enabled you to do the evil you want to do. If you are part of the candidate's defenders, and that candidate is elected, and you knew what you were doing, you become part of their corruption, and you will stand before God in judgment, just as they will.
  
• The root of all this is rejection of God in politics, business, and common life: As Romans 1 says, "Because they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over......in other words, he opens the door for people to do evil, and then judges them for their choices, eventually pouring out His wrath on them for their evil choices and behaviors.

How does all this relate to the way we vote?

Well, first of all, voting is a spiritual enterprise if you're Christian. Make no mistake. It is part of your commitment to God. You are responsible to choose (you can't escape your responsibility by not voting), because you are a man or woman of God, and you are responsible to choose the candidate who will either do the most good or least harm to the nation, city or state. This means you can't choose the "candidate you like," or "everyone likes." It's a matter of the will of God. Who will advance the cause of Jesus Christ the best? Who will do the least harm to society by example or by statute? 

Who, among the choices available, has both a real chance of winning and also has the desire to exercise a good and godly influence on the nation? Please don't get stuck on "rights." They do matter, but not so much as the good and godly influence. 

As a nation, we will never have the perfect President (and on down the ticket). Whoever we elect will always be deeply flawed. If we have learned anything, it's that.  I've been voting now for 50 years. Each time I voted, I hoped for the best, because so many things are unknown. Not one of the people for whom I voted was anything but flawed. No leader will be, until the Lord Jesus returns. However, you and I are responsible to vote, and to vote, not our political preferences, but our spiritual responsibility. 

I have a half dozen other "guiding lights," but those are mine personally, and I'm not going to tell you to be like me. You wouldn't listen, and you would be right not to listen. I'm opinionated enough to think I'm right, and if you follow my other "stuff," you'll know what I think, but my point is this:

Vote for the people most likely to help the spiritual life of the nation, and who are least likely to corrupt our fine country. Unlike many, I don't think America (or any other nation) is a Christian nation, since Jesus meant His Word to fill the earth, not just one country, and since God has said, (Malachi 1:11): "For from the rising of the sun until its going down, My name shall be great among the nations..."

Said as simply as I can, God means us to serve Him with our votes, not to serve ourselves, a political party, or personal advantage. 

Think about that when you cast your vote. And vote. Be sure to vote.

How Important is "Who we worship?"

I've recently been reading through the prophets. It's a difficult journey, because there are so many negatives, but I'm finding that many people don't attach enough importance to "Who I worship." Many folks say things like, "All roads lead to the same place;" and, "Religion is good;" The problem with those sentiments is that the nation of Israel tried that. They worshipped a variety of gods, despite being commanded to worship ONLY the Lord:

Exodus 20:2 "I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. 3 "You shall have no other gods before Me.
4 "You shall not make for yourself an idol, or any likeness of what is in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the water under the earth. 5 "You shall not worship them or serve them; for I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children, on the third and the fourth generations of those who hate Me, 6 but showing lovingkindness to thousands, to those who love Me and keep My commandments.

Deuteronomy 6:5 "You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. 6 "These words, which I am commanding you today, shall be on your heart.

When the nation of Israel was sent into captivity for their sins, the foremost reason was their rejection of God:
2 Chronicles 36:14 Furthermore, all the officials of the priests and the people were very unfaithful following all the abominations of the nations; and they defiled the house of the LORD which He had sanctified in Jerusalem. 15 The LORD, the God of their fathers, sent word to them again and again by His messengers, because He had compassion on His people and on His dwelling place;
16 but they continually mocked the messengers of God, despised His words and scoffed at His prophets, until the wrath of the LORD arose against His people, until there was no remedy.

It's pretty clear (this is just one passage of many I could use) that the real reason God sent His people into captivity was their worship of other gods.

Now this is intimately connected with the book of Revelation, which we are discussing in the blog. The basic problem with us humans is our rejection of the living and true God. Once we do that, we get seduced by the evil one, and eventually listen to his lies about religion... (or no religion), and then about right, wrong, and evil. This will culminate in many of the people of the world selecting the Dragon as their god and the Beast (Antichrist) as his representative. You ask me, "how can this happen?" Well, really, it's pretty simple.  Once you reject God, your mind gets blinded, and you are then susceptible to all sorts of false teaching.

Paul put it like this:
1 Thess. 2:10: because  (people who eventually worship the dragon) did not receive the love of the truth so as to be saved. 11 For this reason God will send upon them a deluding influence (KJV, "Strong Delusion") so that they will believe what is false, 12 in order that they all may be judged who did not believe the truth, but took pleasure in wickedness.

In other words, when you reject God, it's like taking red-hot nails and poking your eyes out intentionally. When you choose to do that, you can be led in any direction and false teaching seems as true to you as any other. Add to that enough pressure (you have to believe or die, for example), and you'll swear allegiance to anything or anyone because you are blind to the consequences.

Idols (which the ancients worshipped, and which are still worshipped today by some) are mere representations of the Dragon ("the things which the Gentiles sacrifice, they sacrifice to demons [not idols]...").

So can you come back from this spiritual blindness? YES. However, it takes your wholehearted effort: The Scriptures say, "You will search for me and find me, when you search for me with all your heart."

It's important to keep in mind that Satan doesn't exactly have your best interests at heart. He wants to destroy the human race. You're included. Every one of his actions translates into: Defy God. Destroy people.

There is a gigantic spiritual conspiracy to keep you from the truth about the importance of worshipping the living and true God and His Son Jesus Christ. It comes from the Dragon, and that conspiracy will come to its full fruition in the future, as the Dragon takes control of the world in ways that he's never been allowed to do before. People who believe in Jesus Christ will not just be despised or persecuted in some areas of the world. They will be murdered wholesale and everywhere to show that the Dragon is a mightier being than Christ (utterly false, of course). There will, by the way, be no atheists or agnostics in those days. All people who reject Jesus Christ will worship the Dragon. OR ELSE.

It was the same in other eras:
In ancient times, worship of the true God disappeared from Israel. Israel moved into a vicious downward spiral that could be characterized as, "the worse they were, the worse they got," moving ever downward until they were empty of good and of God, and God judged them without pity because they chose this. The prophets tried to stop the people, to call them back, to beg them to do good for themselves and not to allow themselves to be suckered into worshipping the things that not only would destroy them, but things that made no sense at all, such as a piece of wood. 

The people refused, and eventually they were destroyed by the Northern armies of the Assyrians and the Babylonians.

It's the same today. Influences that drag you away from the living God destroy you, and you become easy prey for Satan and his demons. Once you stop worshipping the living and true God, who made the world we live in, you are "deceivable." You have a hard time telling right from wrong (look around you at the world; isn't that just what's going on today?), and you justify the greatest evils with deceptive words.

See what Paul says in Romans 1:
21 For even though they knew God, they did not honor Him as God or give thanks, but they became futile in their speculations, and their foolish heart was darkened.
22 Professing to be wise, they became fools...
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24 Therefore God gave them over in the desires of their hearts to impurity, so that their bodies would be dishonored among them.
25 For they exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever...
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28 And just as they did not see fit to acknowledge God any longer, God gave them over to a depraved mind, to do those things which are not proper,  29 being filled with all unrighteousness, wickedness, greed, evil; full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, malice; they are gossips, 30  slanderers, haters of God, insolent, arrogant, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, 31 without understanding, untrustworthy, unloving, unmerciful; 32 and although they know the ordinance of God, that those who practice such things are worthy of death, they not only do the same, but also give hearty approval to those who practice them.

This is what happens in a society that rejects God--Satan takes up the vacuum with his ideas and temptations, and the society and its people disintegrate, destroy themselves and find themselves permanently separated from God (there's lots more in this passage, and the dashes represent material I've left out).

The key to human life is the worship of the living and true God and His Son Jesus Christ. The worship of any other being or creature (or yourself, or money or power) destroys you. It's an idol, which you've set up in your heart. That idol in your heart is like a burning poison that consumes you.

So please don't say, "All roads lead to the same place;" in fact, all roads BUT ONE lead to the same place, but it's not the place you may think. Jesus is the ONE WAY. 

Jesus said, "I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life." NOBODY comes to the Father, except through Me." 

That is the truth. There is no exception, and there is no reprieve, if you reject the living and true God and His Son Jesus Christ.

So what do you intend to do about this?

"He who believes in the Son has everlasting life; he who does not obey the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God remains on him."