Our world is becoming more polarized. This is to be expected. We are coming to the end of this age, which will be the ultimate battle between light and darkness. Every person must enter the “Valley of Decision” and choose which they will serve. Every person will choose a path for their life that leads to the light or the darkness. As we have covered before, we are told in Proverbs 4:18-19:
But the path of the righteous is like the light of dawn, that shines brighter and brighter until the full day.
The way of the wicked is like darkness; they do not know over what they stumble.
“The path of the righteous” or “the right path” will lead to increasing brightness and clarity. This should be the hallmark of every Christian life—ever increasing light. If this is not the case for us, then somewhere we have missed a turn and departed off of the path of life. As paraphrased by C.S. Lewis, “The wrong road never turns into the right road. If we are not on the right road, we must go back to where we missed the turn.” That is repentance.
In these times, the light is getting brighter and the darkness is getting darker. The righteous will see more clearly, and those who are not on the right path are entering greater darkness and confusion. As stated in Proverbs, they stumble but do not even know what they stumble over. This leads to increasing fear. That too is another way that the two paths are distinguished. If we are on the right path, we will increase in the peace and joy of God. If we are on the wrong path, we will increase in anxiety and fear.
I know many Christians who stumbled over the recent elections. I am one of them. If we are on the right path, we will know what we stumbled over, so I don’t want to ever stumble and not see clearly what I stumbled over. Here are some of the things that I have learned from this and some of you may find helpful.
True faith in God is faith in God, not just an outcome. I have been preaching this a lot lately, but as Paul wrote to Timothy to “pay attention to your own teachings” (see I Timothy 4:16). Often what we are teaching is what we too need to hear. As we are told in Romans 4:18-20 concerning Abraham, the “father of faith”:
In hope against hope he believed, so that he might become a father of many nations according to that which had been spoken, “So shall your descendants be.”
Without becoming weak in faith he contemplated his own body, now as good as dead since he was about a hundred years old, and the deadness of Sarah’s womb;
yet, with respect to the promise of God, he did not waver in unbelief but grew strong in faith, giving glory to God.
Anyone can have faith when everything is going well, but the greatest faith is demonstrated in the most impossible circumstances.
I don’t remember ever seeing so many Christians as depressed and disoriented than after the 2012 elections. I was one for several hours, and then I received a revelation that turned my depression into a surge of hope like I do not remember having for a long time. However, I should not have been depressed, and if I had been as close to Lord as I want to be and should be, I would not have been surprised by this outcome. I was definitely expecting a different one, but I was putting my hope in that outcome and was in shock as much as anyone when it did not come out the way I was expecting. Even so, it was easy to see this trap that I had fallen into—believing for an outcome more than trusting in God.
Did God choose Obama over Romney? No. We did. As I quote often because it is such an important truth for us to grasp, Psalm 115:16 declares:
The heavens are the heavens of the Lord, but the earth He has given to the sons of men.
The Lord has delegated authority over the earth to man, which is why He will not even do things on the earth until we pray. America got what America wanted in this election. The election was a very good barometer of where America is spiritually right now. As the saying goes, “If you do not change your course, you will end up where you are headed,” and America decided not to change course.
The truth is that America is now so far down the path to darkness that it will take far more than an election for us to change course. Maybe now we will focus on our only true hope—turning to God. We do not need a change in our government as much as we need a change in our culture.
I do not know of any other President in my lifetime that has awakened the church as much as Obama. I think his second election has done this even more than the first. As Andrew Armstrong, our youth pastor, recently said, “A lot of things have awakened Christians, but we quickly roll over and hit the ‘snooze’ button or just remain half awake. Now we have to get fully awake and stay awake.”
We are headed for more than a fiscal cliff, and I don’t know any person truly in touch who does not understand this. We are beyond what any election can do to change this outcome. Now maybe we will focus on the only thing that can change this outcome—we must have another Great Awakening.
If you will bear with me for just a couple of more weeks, I want to dig down a little deeper on the lessons of this past election. I think they are crucial for us to understand.
A PERSONAL WORD FROM RICK
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