Ben Zornes

Living and Dying to Show the Preciousness of Christ

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One Note: Some Reflections on the NFL Anthem Protests

One Note: Some Reflections on the NFL Anthem Protests

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A National “Conversation”

The NFL “anthem protests” over the weekend, indicate a few things, and gives us plenty of food for thought. Our President so deftly defused the fire by pouring gasoline on it. What was once a solitary player, Kaepernick, protesting police brutality became a league-wide protest and a national conversation.

We’ve been having a lot of “conversations” recently, and none of them seem to go beyond tribal mudsligning and many of them descend into riots. The President’s statements about firing the players who silently protest during the national anthem may seem to have been just gasoline on the fire, and if he had left well enough alone it might not have blown up to the proportions it did.

However, as I’ve reflected on what Trump did, I’m inclined to think that once again he (perhaps) had a strategic goal in mind. He certainly encouraged the nationalism that got him elected, but one other thing it produced (and again, I’m not sure if this was intentional by Trump or not) a muddying of the messaging for those protesting.

Muddying the Message

While Kaepernick originally was intending to make this about police brutality against blacks, it has snowballed into a fruit salad of widely varying “protests.” Sure, race is one of the more prominent things being protested, but now we have whole teams in the locker room to show “solidarity,” we have other teams locking arms to display “unity,” some guys sitting on the bench, others kneeling, other guys standing solo in counter-protest to show “support to the troops.” But effectively, now no one really knows what the messaging IS for these protests.

[epq-quote align=”align-right”]Trump made the protests about Trump.[/epq-quote]Trump’s statement didn’t draw attention to the issues we ought to be debating and addressing; instead he made the protests about Trump. That’s why I’m inclined to think he did this strategically. He hijacked the protests, and made himself be a part of the conversation. Say what you will about him, but one thing we have seen him do repeatedly is use the momentum of some current event, and leverage it for his own branding, mission, goal. Thus, the NFL, with the highest amount of viewership of any televised programming, is now forced to discuss and take a position on Trump. Regardless of what Trump’s intent is in inserting himself into this issue, he has ensured that we are talking about him, and I think I can safely say, that’s the way he likes it.

False Religions Have the Tastiest Potlucks

Conservatives, and especially Christian conservatives, must be wary of the fact that the false religion of nationalism has some really appealing bait. It offers a sense of stability, respectability, and virtuousness. However, Conservatives’ outrage over “disrespecting” the flag shows that we have come to hold it sacred. We have not honored God as holy, as our worship and lifestyles show, so we have come to pay homage and reverence to the symbols of national religion. When nothing is holy, then everything is holy. We are currently seeing a frenzy over which god we will serve. Equality is the idol of the protestors, nationalism is the idol of conservatives, and the list could go on.

We opine about how this dishonors the “men who gave their lives.” Yet we forget that the flag has also flown over our Supreme Court’s rulings to “ok” the slaughter of babies, and referring to two dudes in bed together as marriage. The flag has flown over Congress’ repeated capitulation on overspending and increasing our debt to $20 trillion. It has flown over a White House that repeatedly lies through its teeth about sexual scandals, spying scandals, spending scandals, and every other stripe of scandal. It flew over slave fields. It flew over abortion clinics. It flew over soil that was not ours, claiming to make it ours by force.

[epq-quote align=”align-right”]All this to remind us that our flag has flown over foul deeds and fair ones.[/epq-quote]All this to remind us that our flag has flown over foul deeds and fair ones. Virtuous ones and wicked ones. The problem is that we think that because we have historically valued the virtues of holding life and liberty as sacred, there is no problem with the fact that we lack national repentance. Conservative Americans have come to believe that our national righteousness covers all our fiendish deeds. In fact, they damn us all the more. We claim to stand for life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, while we tolerate the slaughter of babies, the desecration of marriage, the ever-increasing tax behemoth, nation-building, police state, and many other unrepented sins.

One Note, Once More

If you’ve followed my blog at all, you likely know what note I’ll strike once more. Repentance. It is vastly different from protest. It is vastly different from national pride. It is vastly different from equality marches or white nationalist marches. It cuts us all down to size, and ought to bring us all to our knees.

The flag of our nation represents us as a nation. It is not holy, it is not sacred. It is an ensign that designates the nation. If we want it to stand for something glorious, and we should, we must repent of having put nation ahead of Jesus, national pride ahead of biblical humility, civic duty ahead of Christian charity, feelings ahead of faith, experience ahead of exegesis, the constitution ahead of Scripture, the head of state ahead of the Head of the Church.

We must repent. Repent of injustices overlooked. Repent of communities decimated by tax-incentives for fatherless homes. Repent of abortion mills. Repent of police-brutality. Repent of anarchy and socialism. Repent of hypocrisy. Repent of valuing entertainment more than fellowship. Repent of being more concerned with being comfortable than being charitable. Repent of putting the city hall in the center of town instead of the church. Repent of putting football as more important than Lord’s Day worship. Repent of putting on the appearance of Christianity without rending of our hearts in repentance.

 

Hypochondriacism

Hypochondriacism

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The Sin of Racism

First, racism is a sin. Christianity emerged from the Messianic promise given to the Jews, fulfilled in Christ, who then sent His Apostles to the ends of the earth, to every tribe, with the message that He was the Savior of all nations. First century Jews struggled to figure out how this global mission of Christ’s Gospel would fit with their traditional ethnic “purity.” The answer was God’s people are “one in Christ (Gal. 3:28).” God’s people no longer fit in the category of only those who could trace their DNA to Abraham. God’s people were those who linked themselves to Abraham’s faith in God, and His promised Messiah: Jesus. Thus, Christianity was and is anti-racism to the core.

It is a sin to think in terms of racial superiority, as biblical doctrine teaches ALL mankind is under God’s wrath for our sin. So, ethnic arrogance is sin. This does not mean that some cultures haven’t achieved greater things than others, that is plain as the Pyramids. The pride of life (1 Jn. 2:16), which is of the world, seeps into every crevice of man’s heart and sets him at war with his brother. Hatred of another is indicative of an unregenerate heart, and hatred of another family, people group, or nation, is indicative of the same.

Now For Some Controversy

That said, in our recent culture clashes,RACISM has taken center stage. Some say it is systemic in our American system. Others deny there’s any instances of racism. Others insist on parading around in bedsheets, glorying in their shame. All that said, we must remember that the mass media is in the business of getting eyeballs, attention and clicks. After celebrity sex scandals, nothing grabs audiences like racism. This is partly due, I think, to our Nation’s Civil War, and many of the rifts that it created, as well as the segregation laws that followed. Other nations ended slavery rather peacefully, the USA set brother at variance with brother and still face the national consequences of that strife.

We all too often underestimate the effectiveness of media saturation on a given topic. When low-fat diets gained popularity, the talk shows loved to have on guests to tout their miracle diets, the nightly news spouted off the latest research, and bookstores had trouble keeping the shelves stocked with the many “best-sellers.” We demonized fat. What we had to show for it, was that low-fat diets didn’t do much to impact weight, cholesterol, etc. After decades of low-fat craze. Science shows that the right kinds of fat are actually very important for your well-being.

This anecdote shows that we ought to be careful to be mindful of the fact that what you sow is what you reap. Sow the gospel of low-fat diets, reap a harvest of low-fat dieters. Sow the gospel of systemic racism, reap a harvest of Social Crusaders demanding that white people leave their college or work place for a day. Sow the gospel of White Supremacy, reap the harvest of White Supremacists. There’s a difference between actual arrogance, manifesting itself as racism; and what we might call hypochondriacism. The power of suggestion, and in this case repeated suggestion by social media and mass media, can very well produce and perpetuate the very thing it feigns outrage over.

Anything But Repentance

[epq-quote align=”align-right”]The play that is being run on the church, is to convince her to surrender the Gospel which she must preach.[/epq-quote]My concern, especially for Christians rallying to go on a witch hunt for any hint of remaining racism in our country, is that we are running the risk of mistaking outrage for repentance, protests for compassion, #Activism with actual charity towards our neighbor. The play that is being run on the church, is to convince her to surrender the Gospel which she must preach. We are being convinced that social activism can result in Spirit fruit without preaching against sin, calling for repentance, and praying that God would give revival. If we insist on creating a new social order, without preaching the new birth, we will end up with a dead culture hellbent on insatiable vengeance. It will be the ugliest of unending feuds.

The messaging we hear is that we should see that racism is everywhere. Where racism exists it must be expunged. But not by unjust measures. Rather by the white hot Gospel that God sent His Son to die for His enemies, so that His enemies might become His friends. Only the Gospel of Christ’s atonement will satisfy the hurts of injustice, humble the arrogance of the human heart, and bring red, yellow, black, and white to join together in worship before the Lord Jesus Christ.

Victim Maiming

Victim Maiming

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The Alphabet Soup Of Victim Groups

A hot-button topic around here has been the issue of victims, victimizers, and the churches that are left to deal with the wreckage. Culturally, there is a popular viewpoint that has gained a lot of steam over the last decade which wants us all to view people in terms of “victim-groups”. We see this vividly depicted in the fact that a decade ago we were usually only talking about Gays and/or Lesbians, whereas nowadays the discussion must include an alphabet soup of different groups who now form the LGBTQIAPK coalition.

The obvious reality is that people sin (and will continue to do so) in despicably horrendous ways against each other. Having spent time counseling folks, I have heard first-hand stories of the craters that sinful actions leave on those who have been ravaged by the selfishness of others. The question for Christians who are put in the position of helping to navigate folks biblically through such snarls, is: what is God’s purpose in this tragedy, and what is Satan’s aim in this tragedy?

God’s End In Suffering

We know, if we’re good confessional Christians, that the chief end of man, in all circumstances, is to glorify God and enjoy him forever. That’s how Westminster wonderfully frames it, drawing upon statements like this from John 17:3, “And this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent.” True life (i.e. the chief end of man), is to know God & his Son; and to know God (in the sense spoken of here), results in glorifying God (Jer. 9:24).

We must not lose sight of this in the midst of dealing with those sinned against, and those who did the sinning.[epq-quote align=”align-right”]The goal for both the victim and the perpetrator is that they would glorify God and enjoy Him forever.[/epq-quote] The goal for both the victim and the perpetrator is that they would glorify God and enjoy Him forever. “Easier said than done,” the cynic in us might reply; but this does not change the aim of true Christian discipleship, which is largely what navigating the terrain of human suffering is.

Our goal is making disciples, which means the goalpost must not move in order to accommodate the frailty of someone who is hurting, nor to disbar from redemption the one who hurt. God saves sinners, and whether you are a victim or a perpetrator you fall into that bigger category of sinner in need of the Gospel.

Satan’s End in Suffering

Now, for the victim, we must not think that they are suddenly immune to temptation. In fact, as a result of the dark and hellish acts done to them, we should not be surprised that Satan’s end game is not only to bring harm to the victim physically and but also to damage them spiritually. His aim is to blind (2 Cor. 4:4), deceive (Rev. 20:10), accuse (Rev. 12:10), and to steal, kill, and destroy (Jn. 10:10) both the victim and the perpetrator. For the victim, the bait laid before them in their attempt to process and sort out what the heck happened to them, is to believe that now they are exempted from resisting temptation, confessing their sins, obeying the commands of Scripture to forgive, repent, and above all, continue to believe the Gospel.

It is telling that a common victim response to the violence done them is to be uncertain about what actually happened to them. Indeed, one of the dreadful consequences of  abuse against them is that they blame themselves, change their story, blame others, in an attempt to sort out and explain what happened. This doesn’t mean they weren’t sinned against, but it means that pastors and fellow Christians need to be ready to help weather the storm of confusion that accompanies abuse, not by coddling untruths, but by directing the victim to the only stable source of truth there is: the Gospel of Christ.

Bitterness, lies, insecurities, unreasonable fears, anxiety, unforgiveness, and hatred are the fruit which Satan hopes to grow in the scorched earth of the tragedy. After a forest fire, it is remarkable how quickly greenery appears; but we must remember that the thorny weeds and grassy meadows are both eager to spring up. A time of tragedy is ripe for sanctifying grace and a backsliding unbelief alike. To class victims as a particular group that is somehow less needful of Gospel faith, grace, repentance and obedience is worse that victim blaming or shaming, it is victim maiming. Victims, and those counseling victims, must not veer from “Look unto me, and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth: for I am God, and there is none else [Isa 45:22 KJV].”

Remember too, that perpetrators stand in need of the Gospel. Being a miscreant of a sinner does not mean they are beyond redemption; and in a similar way, the smoking crater of their sin is a perfect opportunity for Gospel-ministers to rebuke, confront, and bring the Word of God to bear upon their rebellious neck. To break in order to bind up. Satan would love nothing more than to deceive victims into a life of unforgiveness and bitterness, and for victimizers to be proud of their sinful power, fail to see their sin as sin, or to believe they are beyond grace and hopeless for salvation. Satan would love for victims to think of themselves in terms of being eternal victims, and perpetrators in terms of being eternal perpetrators. Both need to come to see themselves as sinners, who need Christ, to become a new thing entirely: eternal saints of our Lord.

A Gospel Big Enough for Both

All of this must be done with both tenderness, compassion and courage. Victims who turn to Christ are not left forever frail, but are emboldened by grace to forgive and grow in godliness. Perpetrators who turn to Christ, are enabled to make restitution for their offenses and crimes, and by grace gratefully accept the consequences of their sin. The “gospel of victimhood” is quickly deceiving countless multitudes, and Christians must make it clear that the Gospel which victims need is big enough to save us all.

This doesn’t let perpetrators off the hook, and shift the responsibility to victims. Rather, the Gospel pins us all down as perpetrators, and that the responsibility for our sins fell on Christ, and through whom we might now be reckoned as not only forgiven sinners, but far more gloriously: righteous in Christ.

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True Revival Builds Culture

True Revival Builds Culture

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We need to be careful what we ask for, because we just might get it. Christians are prone to throw around prayers for revival like a germaphobe with hand sanitizer. We see the grimy corruption of our culture, and we desire things to be a bit more “tidy”. So, our sense of “Christian-ese” motivates us to throw requests for revival into our prayers, like radishes into a salad. Revival indeed is the solution to the maelstrom of sin which our society is caught in; but as we ask and implore God to grant revival, we best be prepared for what we’re asking for–if that’s at all possible. We most certainly will never be “prepared” for revival, in one sense; but we most definitely need to know what it is we are asking for when we ask God to give revival to our families, communities and  nations.

To be clear, we are not asking for more teary-eyed worship nights, with so much swaying to the music. We are not asking for mere social reform to satiate our nostalgia for Victorian sensibilities. We are not asking for spine tingling pep-talks which let us vent our pent-up emotions. We are not asking for some kind of confessional catharsis.

We are asking for a sweeping fire of repentance. Revival is, in fact, a massive gift of repentance to an individual, family, community, and/or nation. Thus, revival–when God grants it–results not in simple tearful behavior modification, but in repenting from allegiance to worldliness, moralism, and humanism, and turning in faith and allegiance to Christ, His covenant, and the laws found in His word for how we are to order society.

[epq-quote align=”align-right”]True revival results in a new culture[/epq-quote]What this means is that true revival results in a new culture. Its fruit is a more thoroughly Christian culture. Regardless of the extent of the revival, the true fruit of a revival is that people get married, have kids and raise a Christian family; they start businesses which operate on Biblical principles; they run for office, to guide the civic sphere to work in submission to Christ’s Kingdom; they undertake science experiments to develop remedies to disease, and invent newer & better equipment to due our work/communication with; and they compose songs & symphonies, write stories, make movies, take photographs, and paint beautiful, good, and true things. In essence, things get really practical after a true revival.

Two Biblical examples of this are the Exodus and Pentecost. To paint with a broad brush, these were both revivals, which attest to God’s people returning unto God, by God’s power. In the first instance, notice that following the great deliverance of God’s people out of Egypt, God spends 3+ books (half of Exodus, and all of Leviticus, Numbers, & Deuteronomy) laying out the ordering of a God-honoring culture. Following this great revival of true religion, we witness a zeal for ordering a community according to God’s standards (and of course plenty of sinful blunders along the way).

At Pentecost, we see the greatest revival found in Scripture (and it is set in contrast to the first Pentecost, which I’ve written about here); but in the following chapters, what do we find those who experienced the revival doing? Well, for starters, organizing potlucks (Acts. 2:42); they began ordering the early church into, might we call them, parishes, districts, groupings, etc. Then we see the Apostles, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, ordaining the first diaconate. Then we see missionary undertakings, which produced the need for councils (Acts 15). We also have the rest of the New Testament, much of which is devoted to the outlining of how Christian families and Churches are to be ordered. To pull it all together, John’s Apocalypse sets forth the vision of Christ ruling over all the nations with the Sword of His Gospel. After the glorious revival of Pentecost in Acts 2, the entire New Testament is devoted to building and establishing a new culture, one that is under submission to Christ and His Word.

When revival comes, we are not aiming to have Kleenex’s stock rise due to all the tearful confessions (though repentance often is accompanied by such emotions, and there is no intrinsic problem with those feelings). But the proof is in the pudding–as the British, I think, say–and the fruit of true revival is true repentance, and that means turning away from sinful ordering of society, and submitting to a Scriptural ordering of society. That has implications for the individual, the family, the church, and communities large and small (towns, cities, and nations).

The problem with the common understanding of repentance and revival is that we are far too heavily influenced by some of the most unhealthy aspects of the revival-ism (of the likes of Charles Finney). So much so, that we have geared even our weekly worship services to cater to a sort of Protestant Confession booth, were we get a cathartic release every Sunday, only to continue on in the same sorts of worldly habits and thinking the rest of the week. What we truly need is a Christian reformation of culture. That is what we are really asking for when we plead with God to grant revival. This all is not to in any way impinge our praying for revival, but to enrich our understanding of what God does when he revives a people.

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The Smoking Crater of Our Integrity

The Smoking Crater of Our Integrity

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I’m incredibly saddened today as the news media has brought to light recordings of Donald Trump speaking quite crassly about how he views women and his tall-telling of how he has treated women. This is no surprise really; what is grievous is that many evangelical leaders have not withdrawn their support of this man and further, have continued in their insistence that we must vote for him, “or else we’ll lose our country”.

My friends, the republic is long gone.

Is it a coincidence that the liberal media kept this in its pocket during the primary’s and then whipped it out 30 days from ballots being cast, and in coordination with WikiLeaks documents outlining the money grubbing corruption that is Hillary Clinton? Of course we knew the liberal media would do its best to smear any candidate with an R next to their name; which is why folks like myself insisted that Trump was a toxic brew of smearable material. They aren’t done either, and there’s certainly more to come.

The hypocrisy of it all is staggering. We stand aghast at how lewd Trump’s 2005 remarks were about how he treats women; we denounce and decry it as demeaning, we who spent $166.2 million to watch a man demean a woman in 50 Shades of Grey, we who spend multiple billions to watch men demean women, we who insist on our right to murder and sells the parts of the babies we’ve “inadvertently” conceived and who pose an “inconvenience” to our personal plans. We’ve adored the movie stars (like Leo) who treat women as chattel.

Do not forget…we elect men to represent US. Sure looks like we’ve done a fine job. Clinton and Trump are you and me; greedy, lustful, selfish, avaricious, arrogant, conniving sinners. To think, for us conservatives, we had the likes of Rand Paul, Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz, Carly Fiorina, and Scott Walker; upstanding men, who were honorable. At this point, I’d even settle for John Kasich or Jeb Bush!

It doesn’t give pleasure to say, “I told you so”, but it pains me to watch folks I once held in esteem continue to insist on the need to vote for Trump. Pastors and Statesmen who ought to be leading the charge to back away from this dumpster fire, arguing that the dumpster fire is not a polished dumpster fire, but he’s a better dumpster fire than the dumpster fire on the left side of the street.

The solution, tomorrow, being the Lord’s Day, it would be wise for Pastors to preach white-hot sermons against sin; from top to bottom we’ve coddled it in our hearts, thoughts, words, homes, and cities. We’ve refused repenting and forsaking our sin, and insisted on watching it on our TV’s, clicking on it in our browsers, overlooking it in our children and leaving rebellion undisciplined; and now the rooster’s coming home to roost. Some may say, but this was awhile back, and Bill Clinton is just as bad or worse, right? True repentance doesn’t shift the blame, which is what Trump did in his statement.

True repentance owns it, and accepts the responsibility. The issue isn’t whether we should offer Trump forgiveness, of course we do, in Jesus Christ it is available to him (even if he claims he doesn’t ask for it). The issue is that by voting for him, we are acnoweldging that we want HIM to represent US and be our head of state.

Our integrity, along with Trump’s campaign and presidential prospects, are a smoking crater. We should be grateful that God has so humbled us, and instead of doubling down and justifying our sin, repent, and flee to Christ. We’ve fed on exegetically pathetic “sound-bytes” for far too long, hummed along to tepid pop-Christianese songs for far too long, and neglected obedience to God’s word for far too long. The best time to begin is now; obedience is hard, repentance is a sort of humiliation, but pride is the best route to ruin and desolation.

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A Broken Sense of Justice

A Broken Sense of Justice

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The Text

Tell ye, and bring them near; yea, let them take counsel together: who hath declared this from ancient time? who hath told it from that time? have not I the LORD? and there is no God else beside me; a just God and a Saviour; there is none beside me. Look unto me, and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth: for I am God, and there is none else. Isaiah 45:21-22

Justice in Our Bones

A sense of justice is in our bones. The doctrine of total depravity does not mean that we believe that man is without any sort of “moral compass”; rather, we hold that by the fall man’s so-called moral compass is now incapable of pointing true north (to continue the metaphor).

Every human has a sense of repulsion at the more grotesque moments of human history: genocides, cannibalism, ISIS beheadings, chemical agents released on civilians, etc. We know, somewhere within us that there is a difference between justice and injustice, or to say it another way, we have an instinctive desire to affirm there is good and evil.

Due to the fall, however, our perception and judgement of determining good and evil is itself tainted by evil and is ever calibrated (to return to the compass metaphor) 38º off, so that even when we attempt to enforce justice, we inevitably will miscarry justice. In order to define justice and injustice, good and evil, we must ask where is the standard which will inform us with definitions, and guide our conscience.

Polar Wandering

Humans, left to themselves, will ever wander between polar extremes of morality. Either they will insist on legalistic tyranny, taking the form of government bureaucracy passing laws for what sort of toothpaste you must use. Or else it will descend into sensual anarchy, taking the form of lawless subjectivism.

Only by faith in the One True God, as revealed in the world, the Word, and most clearly, the Word made flesh, can we ever be “put right”. This is called repentance, and the first step is admitting that our polarity is willfully in rebellion to the North Pole of God Almighty. Otherwise, we will be left wandering in the desert of carnal lust, or in the padded cell of self-righteousness.

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The Mercy of Judgment

The Mercy of Judgment

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Unpopular Reality

If you have not been paying attention to the firestorm of news stories this week, a lot has happened quickly. The sum of it is this: the United States of America is under judgment from the Lord. Christians must learn to read the story we are in, and do so in light of the story of God’s redemption!

Two different black men were killed by police in two different states, which incited protests by the “Black Lives Matters” folks, which led to last night’s tragedy in Dallas; it was the most deadly day since 9/11 for law enforcement. This happening right on the tail of the FBI recommending that–despite clear violations of the law (really well outlined here)–Hillary Clinton should not be indicted; Donald Trump is the presumptive GOP nominee, a man with no guiding principle other than expediency; 50 lives were cut short in the Orlando terror shooting; and on the worldwide stage, Iraq, Turkey, Brussels, and Bangladesh have all seen the horrific nature of the monster which is ISIS (a product largely of Obama and Clinton’s foreign policy).

It isn’t popular to say, but this is judgment from the Most High.

But let’s get this straight…

Judgment from God is also a mercy, and this is something that must be understood by Christians. All of these current events, which might lead some to recoil in fear, uncertainty, and dread, are in the hand of the One who holds the scepter of the universe. When a country, and in a certain sense the entire world, is faced with such a turbulent year, the worst thing that can happen is for us to miss the purpose for which these shakings are sent to us.

David warned Solomon that, “if thou seek him, he will be found of thee; but if thou forsake him, he will cast thee off for ever (1 Chr. 28:9).” Notice that in both scenarios, God is the one with His hand on the driver’s wheel; a person or nation seeking God finds that it is God that first loved and sought him. However, if a person or community insist on forsaking God, it is God that is, in fact, turning them over to there carnal lusts. God is catching them in his net of His justice.

We have rebelled from serving the Living God and His Word, and so such violent and turbulent upheavals of our culture should not come as a surprise. These are God’s judgments upon us, but let’s get this straight, God’s judgment, is, in itself, an act of mercy. We are left, this morning, asking, “Why?” And, to make matters worse, either Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump will be the next president of these forlorn States of America. We may ask, “What in the world are we to do about this train wreck our country is in?” Had we been left to enjoy our atrocious lust and greed and bloodthirst, we would never have come to ask the sort of questions that bring us to realize that Jesus Christ and His Word are the only solution to man’s woes, both individually and communally.

We Deserve All This

Our nation has murdered 500,000 babies this year. Our Extreme Court has ruled that marriage is defined by whim and not by God’s revelation in creation and in Scripture. Our electorate has chosen the worst possible candidates to be the head of our state; furthermore, both candidates fiscal policies will likely add trillions to our already gluttonous debt-load, yoke  our children and grandchildren into thralldom for the sake of our greedy ambitions. We have cast off all restraint, and we are find that rather than getting out from under God’s law, we are being caught by God’s law, and we deserve every inch of it, and likely more.

Nevertheless, the Lord is goodness indeed. He shakes the pillars of our intrinsic humanism, shaking Man’s kingdom, so that only the unshakeable Kingdom of God remains (Heb. 12:27). The only way ought from under God’s judgment, is not to flee from God, but flee to God in Christ Jesus His Son. The only hope for mankind is in the Gospel of the Lord Jesus. And that is what all this societal turbulence is sent from God to accomplish, which if you’re eyes are open, is a most merciful gift from God.

Ben Zornes