DO POLITICAL PRIMARIES MAKE A DIFFERENCE?

It has begun, the  political campaign season, that is. The two parties are holding their primaries to certify their respective nominees for the president of the United States. The political season has begun. Really? Not really, no it hasn't. We're subjected to politics immediately after the election of a new president or the retention of the old. Immediately after the winner is declared, we hear of the possible candidates four years down the  road and those seeking the position start gearing up their fundraising machines, the taking of polls, and the "experts" start talking about who the front runners are. There is no surcease the politics of primaries, ballots, speeches, and promises. It wearies the soul. Will all of this make a difference and save the republic?

Unfortunately in the midst of this around-the-clock and year political banter, speeches, and posturing, we've forgotten something somebody told us decades ago but we didn't listen then and aren't listening now. He did warn us, you know, but we had ears of stone.

The one who came to warn us was Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn a Nobel Prize winner in Literature in 1970. When he came to America, his warnings began. He said, "The strength or weakness of a society depends more on it's spiritual life than its level of industrialization. If a nation's spiritual energies have been exhausted, it will not be saved from collapse by the most perfect governmental structure. A tree with a rotten core cannot stand." (Pause and think about that.)

One of the Founding Fathers said the same: "Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other." (John Adams) In other words, character counts. 

It was most interesting a few decades ago to listen to what the liberal establishment had as their talking point in defense of President Clinton when his adulterous character made headlines; "We elected a commander-in-chief, not a pastor-in-chief." Like most sloganeering, this one rings hollow.

Michael Brown was correct when he wrote: "I’m not keen on the line, “But we’re electing a president, a commander-in-chief, not a pastor-in-chief.” But when it’s used to justify voting for someone who has a long track record of being ruthless, cruel, unchristian, immoral, profane, full of pride, greedy, and double-minded, then I have a real problem with it. . . .Does the fact that we’re electing a president, not a pastor mean that the president doesn’t need to have a solid moral base? That he doesn’t need integrity? That he can mistreat and abuse others? That he can be petulant, self-centered, and nasty? That ethics don’t matter since he’s our political leader not our spiritual leader? . . .I will confront the empty, 'We’re not electing a pastor-in-chief” slogan wherever I find it.'"

Let's switch gears and move to the local church. When God instructed Paul to lay out the qualifications for being an elder, 86.6% of them have to do with the man's character. It bears repeating, character counts. 

As we tread on the tiresome path of politics, politics, politics,  we see Solzhenitsyn standing by the side of the road, pointing to a large sign with large letters: A TREE WITH A ROTTEN CORE CANNOT STAND."

SHE LET THE CAT OUT OF THE BAG

We employ an odd idiomatic expression without asking, "Where did that come from?" Such an expression is the odd saying, "Letting the cat out of the bag." Those who research such things tell us why we say, “Let the cat out of the bag” dates back to the Middle Ages. As the story goes, shady livestock vendors in medieval marketplaces tried to swindle their customers. 

When someone would purchase a pig, the vendor would sneak a cat into the bag instead, cheating the buyer out of the higher price for a pig. It wasn’t until the buyer arrived home and, literally, let the cat out of the bag that he'd realize he had been scammed, hence the phrase’s association with revealing a secret." (From "The Reader's Digest," Feb. 9, 2022)

A university professor held the bag and then let the kitty out of it and deliberately so.  (She either was or is a professor, I don't know the status of her employment.) Anyway, she delivered the following report which shows the state of American "education."

Here's what she said, and I'm paraphrasing: "Let's say you're doing research with due diligence. You are examining the data as you should; you're piling up the evidence that leads you to the correct, inescapable and absolute conclusion. The data and research have taken you there. 

But the problem is that you can't publish, teach, or publicize the truth you've proven. You must keep it quiet. Why? Because, if the conclusion hurts a specific group of people, that cat must stay in the bag. 

Let's say your research proves that a civilization based on the Judaeo-Christian ethic (i. e. the Bible) produces more freedom for women, is a more productive, and healthier country than a society based on the Koran, then you MUST sequester that kitty in the halls and journals of academia (i. e. the truth must be hidden). 

The only exception to this cat's staying in the bag is that any "research" that hurts a group of Christians or Jews must get out of the bag. Let's say that your statistics show that Christians were using bullhorns to chant slogans and then to block members of the Young Democrats from going to class in 96.7% of American universities, that cat would be out of the bag and mewing all over the U. S.  (The bullhorns, the chants, the use of force to harass Jewish students is what's happening in our universities, not by Christians but by those of the demonized antisemitic persuasion. In one case, anti-Jewish chanting and harassment lasted for 10 hours on one college campus.)

What this means is the collapse of a civilization because truth is dead.Roger Author Kimball writes, "Our educational institutions. . . have sacrificed their legitimacy on the altar of a corrupt and mendacious ideology... . Civilization, if it is to survive, must acknowledge the radical nature of that challenge and respond in kind."

You and I know the gospel is true; you and I know there is only one way to God and that is through faith alone in Christ alone. The "response in kind" for the follower of Jesus Christ is to let the cat out of the bag no matter what group is "hurt." You and I have the bag, let's open it up.

WHEN WILL CHRIST RETURN?

 We have a Scripture which tells us when Christ will return at His Second Advent, not the rapture of the church as described in I Thessalonians 4:13 -18 but His Second Coming. He told us in Matthew 23:39: "For I say to you, from now on you will not see Me until you say, ‘Blessed is the One who comes in the name of the Lord!’”

A fundamental rule of hermeneutics is to ask this question about any portion of Scripture: To whom  is this person speaking or writing?" Matthew 23:1 answers that question: "Then Jesus spoke to the crowds and to His disciples." So, the answer is that He spoke to Israel, not the Gentiles. 

The next important hermeneutical question is this: What's the context in which the verse occurs? The end of the chapter brings the answer:  Jesus said, "Jerusalem, Jerusalem, who kills the prophets and stones those who have been sent to her! How often I wanted to gather your children together, the way a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you were unwilling. ³⁸ Behold, your house is being left to you desolate! ³⁹ For I say to you, from now on you will not see Me until you say, ‘Blessed is the One who comes in the name of the Lord!’” 

So there it is. Christ will return when the nation Israel recognizes Him as their Messiah. When will the nation of Israel say that about Jesus? They certainly aren't saying that today.

We must put that national realization into its context. Israel will realize that Jesus of Nazareth whom they had rejected is their Messiah after the Great Tribulation whose judgments will prepare them to come to that belief. 

In the Tribulation, Israel will come to believe that the antichrist is their Messiah. Midway through that judgmental time, he will turn on them and betray them, breaking his treaty with them.

Then all the nations of the world will come against Israel ant that, with the other factor, will cause them to realize that Jesus is their Messiah and will turn to Him saying, "Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord" and will make the great confession of Isaiah 53:1-12.  

No one today can set a date for that confession when, as Romans 11:26 says, "and so all Israel will be saved; just as it is written: “The Deliverer will come from Zion, He will remove ungodliness from Jacob.”