Election Year Tension

Two brothers in African nations have shared their concerns with me during the last few years. They are frustrated and worried about rising prices, corrupt politicians, violent protests in the streets and uncertainty about the future.

Christians in the Ukraine have been uprooted from their homes because of the war with Russia.

More recently we received news of Christians who have been killed in the midst of the Israeli-Palestinian war.

When you hear about the troubles of Christians in other countries, it helps you put our own trials and fears into perspective.

We are rightly concerned as the election approaches here in America. We can see storm clouds, but it is impossible to know what they will bring.

There is One who already knows how these temporary changes will work out in the future. Consider some verses:

• Genesis 15:13-16—The 400-year future of Egypt, Israel, and the Canaanites was in the hand of God.

• Daniel 2:36-44—God worked out His plan to establish His kingdom—the church—in the midst of hundreds of years of political chaos among the Chaldeans, the Persians, the Greeks and the Romans.

• Isaiah 55:10-11—"For as the rain comes down, and the snow from heaven, and do not return there, but water the earth, and make it bring forth and bud, that it may give seed to the sower and bread to the eater, So shall My word be that goes forth from My mouth; It shall not return to Me void, but it shall accomplish what I please, and it shall prosper in the thing for which I sent it.” This is not an evangelism passage. It is a passage about how God works in nations. The next verse explains: "For you shall go out with joy, and be led out with peace” (Isa. 55:12). The word that would not return to God void was His promise that the Jews would be freed from Babylonian captivity and return to Jerusalem.

• Daniel 4:17—“The Most High rules in the kingdom of men, gives it to whomever He will, and sets over it the lowest of men.”

God knows the future and does all things according to his perfect will. The Bible tells us to pray for rulers that we may have peace and quiet (I Tim. 2:1-2). God doesn’t owe or promise us peace, but we should ask Him for it with these words in our hearts and on our lips: “If the Lord wills, we shall live and do this or that” (James 4:15). The Lord knows what is best. We sure don’t.

Kerry

West End church of Christ bulletin, March 24, 2024