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“Change” has been the mantra for as long as I can remember when it comes to presidential politics. “We need change in Washington” is the hue and cry from the echoing lecterns of the political stump, and this presidential election season has produced, I think, the most hyperbolic call for change in the history of the republic. The call for change comes from both of the major candidates. However, the candidate of one particular party continues to bluster for change, yet, at least to my listening ears, hasn’t given one clear definition or any details of the change, what it will mean for the nation, or how it will be accomplished. It is empty rhetoric. Or, might it be much, much more predictive of rearrangements that will profoundly alter the way life is lived in America and the world?
Please understand that I am not even in the slightest suggesting that Senator Obama, Senator McCain or anyone else will be the one who will one day be Antichrist. Let’s get that out of mind at the very outset. That person, to become “the beast,” will, I’m convinced, not even be recognized as fitting the mold put forth by Daniel or John in the Revelation until the Church (body of Christ comprised of the born again) is suddenly caught up to be with Jesus (1 Cor. 15: 51-52 and 1 Thess. 4:13-18). We get the assurance that the man of sin, also called the son of perdition, will be revealed when the Holy Spirit, resident in all Church Age believers, is removed as restrainer, and that action by rapture. God the Holy Spirit will, of course, not leave this world, for He is omnipresent. But He will, when the Church is removed, begin a different office of activity on planet Earth.
That will be some change! He is presently restraining evil, the passages in 2 Thessalonians Chapter 2 tell. When He removes from his office of restraining evil, life on earth will be…well, let’s let the Lord Jesus tell us: "For then shall be great tribulation, such as was not since the beginning of the world to this time, no, nor ever shall be” (Matt. 24:21).
Whenever this election’s presidential candidate who is most vociferous about wanting to change things is asked for specifics, he deftly dances around the question, both about what he insists be changed, and how he proposes to change it. I think most of us would agree, regardless of political or religious persuasion, that there definitely needs to be change in Washington, D.C., and in America. There needs to be change--radical change—for the entire planet, as a matter of fact. But the right kind of change, when it is implemented, will be very specific, having plain speaking and consensus acceptance at its heart.
The ideal society will come with the return of Christ. Presently, however, evil runs rampant, with fallen minds motivating and ruling over both the governing and the governed at all levels of society, culture, and controlling authority. Yet God the Holy Spirit still oversees and influences the consciences of mankind. There is coming a time when a great deal of that supreme governing authority will be lifted, and Jesus foretold what would happen following that lifting. The Book of Revelation, Chapter 4-20, tells the whole story of what happens from that twinkling of an eye moment forward.
All humanistic politics are infected with sin-induced rebellion and sinfulness against the Creator of all things. So it is with America and the American political system. There is recognition by both major candidates and their parties that change is needed. But most of the rhetoric, the invective, the droning mantra, has been directed not at the core causes of the tumult, but toward the compounding economic issues during this political season. Those pocketbook matters are what have gripped the citizenry of America, and by the tremendous influence the U.S. exerts, are what have inflamed the fears of leaders and the peoples of the world.
So, the real problems–problems that are the root of what ails the United States of America and the rest of the world—are covered over by the love of money, which, as we know, is the root of all evil, according to God’s Word.
The issues at the heart of the sin-sickness engulfing all nations is wrapped in “change” that brought on exponential growth of immorality –the pushing away of Almighty God and the embrace of unrighteousness. In America, for example, “change” started the spiral downward. It began in earnest when God was summarily dismissed by judicial fiat from the classrooms of America. All that is happening now, immersing all of the world’s powers in boiling economic distress and perplexity, is based in refusal to adhere to God’s prescription for living righteously. These principles are found, of course, only in His Word, the Bible. In actuality, that Word is Jesus Christ, himself.
“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made. In him was life; and the life was the light of men” (John 1:1-4).
Change, then, is something that should be undertaken with great caution. The reordering that resulted from the Supreme Court decision to remove God from the classrooms of America’s public schools and the Supreme Court decision Roe vs. Wade in 1973 are core moral value changes out of which have come the great turmoil that is spinning America and the world out of control.
One party in particular has been at the heart of foisting that deleterious “change” upon this nation, whose founding fathers established America upon principles existing within the Ten Commandments. Anyone who is intellectually honest will recognize that fact after earnestly looking into the matters involved.
That political party’s leadership, including its candidate for president this election year, supports keeping God out of public places, especially out of public schools. That party and its candidate supports abortion rights, which have resulted in the legalized murder of more than 50 million babies since 1973. That party and its candidate for president supports through the legislative process, or, if that doesn’t work, through judicial edict, making homosexuality a special classification of lifestyle that they want to be off limits to criticism by Christians and others who see homosexuality as unnatural and debauched.
Considering such destructive thinking, the question one must ask is whether such a party, or the candidate it endorses, should be trusted to offer any sort of change that will benefit America or the world America so profoundly affects.
