Click

Back in the day of bank robber movies, (I’m 78) when the bad guy wanted to open a safe the camera would zoom in on his hand very slowly turning a dial. Since he did not have the combination to that safe, he had to rely on his senses to open it. As he turned the safe’s dial first in one direction and later in the other direction, he would be listening for a small sound and feeling for a slight shift in the internal disks. When his trained fingers felt and his attuned ears heard a small “click” he knew he had found one of the lock’s necessary alignments. When all the disks’ openings had lined up, the safe could open and the treasures inside would become accessible.

So, I believe, it will be with consequences of the 2020 election – it’s the first click. A significant change in the safety of America and, ultimately, the world has occurred; it’s just a matter of time. Before continuing, in the interest of full disclosure, I declined to vote last week. Neither Trump nor Biden should be President; both are bad for this country albeit with different approaches.

There was an interesting editorial in the St. Paul Press last Thursday, Nov. 6, before the election results were declared. The writer said it really didn’t matter who won, the consequences would be the same: America would progressively decline because the value system of its citizens had dramatically declined. Millions of people thrive on hate and want to cancel each other out. “The liberal Universities,” he said, “have done their jobs.”

The Bible tells us that a nation under judgement is one which has deliberately and blatantly turned its back on God as evidenced by whom and by what they worship. In this world we worship self, we worship fun, we worship money and the stuff it buys. America has moved from condemning certain moral behaviors to tolerating them to championing them to requiring them. I had coffee with a friend on Election Day and she was hoping that like Israel’s King Hezekiah who, after being told by God to get his affairs in order and prepare to die, was granted a fifteen year reprieve. As I thought about the conversation I speculated that maybe America has already had its Hezekiah reprieve; maybe the Trump years were our reprieve and chance to change things. But we didn’t.

After the service at the Bridge Bible Church last Sunday I had a conversation with another friend who speculated on the Biden era being America on probation. Maybe. Maybe we’ll get four years to turn back to the Truth. But maybe we’ve already had and wasted the probation period and now we’re going to be required to serve out our sentence. In either case, what would possibly compel America to make a change for the moral better. Morality is based on an absolute and we do not believe in absolutes. Morality is based on self-restraint and we don’t believe in self-restraint.

In my opinion, 2020 represents a taste of God’s impending judgement, a judgement that may start out looking like things are getting better, (the first half of the Tribulation) and ends up in the worst possible scenario (the last half of the Tribulation). Similarly, I suspect that at first the Biden years will look like things are getting better but later will come crashing down. The media is reporting that Biden will appoint Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren to his cabinet, both of whom claim to favor socialism. Socialism sounds good, especially to young people who haven’t thought it through. Free education? Someone has to pay the teachers. Who? Improved infrastructure? Someone has to pay for materials and workers. Who?

In the eighties I started with a new company as their Director of Marketing and inherited a fresh-out-of-college employee who I felt was being grossly underpaid. I requested a significant raise for her. On the first payday she walked into my office holding her pay check and looking shocked. I figured HR hadn’t gotten her raise into the system in time. I looked at her check and the raise was, in fact, there. “But look at all the taxes they took out!” she said. “Jennifer,” I responded, “when you were in college advocating for more social programs for the little guy, who did you think was going to pay for them?” “Well, the government, of course!” she exclaimed. To Jennifer – and everyone who is thrilled to see Biden’s socialism program coming –  who do you think the government is? You are. Socialism has failed in every country where it’s ever been tried. America will fail also.

Click.

Please, neither off-handedly accept nor reject what is said in this blog. Check it out. Look it up for yourself in the Bible. If you are a child of God, you are in good hands and there is the most wonderful eternity waiting for you. If you are not a Christ follower, now is a really good time to honestly explore the truth claims of the Bible.