God will decide outcome of presidential election
“That the living may know that the most High rules in the kingdom of men, and gives it to whomsoever he will, and sets up over it the basest of men.” Daniel 4:17b.
Several of my friends have asked my opinion on the second presidential debate held last Sunday evening. Well for what little that is worth, here goes. I think the first 30 minutes went to Hillary as she pummeled Donald due the decade old tape which revealed his totally repulsive and inexcusable verbal degradation of women.
Certainly her point is well taken. But unlike Hillary and other prominent politicians and pundits and, of course, all of the “stone casters” who pretend to be “without sin,” I heard the echo of my own shameful indictment. I recalled my own disgusting and vile banter that I had so often engaged in with friends while growing up and, even worse talk, while I was in the military. Even though all this was before I trusted Christ as my Savior, there is no excusing it. My only defense is that I thank God for His mercies and forgiveness. Maybe others feel they can’t be sympathetic to Mr. Trump. I did not say condoning not excusing but sympathetic to the man but I am.
Conversely, I felt the final 60 minutes mostly belonged to Trump. It did my old carnal nature good to watch Hillary squirm. There were even a few moments when she seemed to lose her smugness. I did wonder during the event if the female moderator was really the appointed moderator or Hillary’s partner in a tag-team debate.
I realize this will appall some of my good and close friends. But I want to make it clear that I am still planning to vote for Trump. My decision is easy. A shallow, narcissistic, crass, and arrogant windbag such as Trump is still, in my opinion, less repulsive than a lying, treacherous, self-serving, exploiter who is, also, an unabashed promoter and defender of baby killing.
I have much less resentment of Donald Trump legally avoiding taxes and his lawful, albeit suspicious, refusal to disclose his federal returns than I do of Hillary’s illegal destruction of many thousands of emails while she held public office.
Trump’s lack of forthrightness or transparency with his tax obligations concerns me but these things are not illegal. More importantly, neither do they endanger our national security. Hillary’s defiant disregard of safety protocol with her email servers when Secretary of State, and her negligence and lying about the Benghazi debacle, and her stone-walling of congress over these matters, and the disheartening political compromise by the FBI on her behalf have certainly put us all at risk.
But all of this said, it is my opinion that the winner of this coming election (regardless of whom it may be) can only be understood in light of the above verse that I referenced. Ours is a generation that has been raised in a world with but little moral restraint. The ever growing disdain of traditional American values and ethics by our national leaders, the secularization and the removal of God from our schools, morally degrading entertainment, nihilistic popular music, the breakdown of families, including absentee or uninvolved parents, and a watered down and spiritually emaciated Christianity are all symptomatic of a nation in decline. A lack of basic civility, moral ambiguity, and a coarse and open vulgarity have become the new norms.
I constantly read of religious leaders and spokesmen who claim that God had given to them divine assurance that he would make Donald Trump, or conversely, Hillary Clinton our next president. As I read this twaddle, I asked myself, “Can this be for real?” I tell anyone who will listen that in this election we need to do the right and vote according to our understanding of God’s word and choose between the lesser of two evils. But make no mistake, at the end of the day, it will be God almighty who allows the ascension of the next president. It may be that He allows to be put in power, “the basest of men,” male or female. But it will be God’s decision and it will ultimately be for his glory and it will be the right decision.
William “Ed” Nicholson is current pastor of the Grace Baptist Chapel at Little Summit in Dunbar Township.