Wikimedia Commons: President Donald J. Trump and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel at the United Nations General Assembly (Official White House Photo by Shealah Craighead)
The PM of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu, and the President of the United States, Donald Trump, are both facing charges and efforts to remove them from their elected offices. Both reject the charges against them. Both claim that what they do, or have done, is no different than what others before them have done; or else that they are simply being falsely accused of some degree or other of misconduct. In both countries, those who are most excited about the prospects of their political demise are those who are actively and openly pursuing giving up national sovereignty, and openly advocating for erasing all the boundaries of order — not only politically, but also down to even of gender. How low will we go?
Both of these men also contribute to these declines by their personal lives, and their own narrow views of “me first”, “us first”, “America first”; “Israel/the Jewish people first”. Each are righteous in their own eyes, and those who support them feel that these men represent something worth supporting more than those who oppose them. The “other side” justifies themselves by their own self-righteous “liberalism”. However, the righteousness of God deems both of their righteousnesses as filthy rags; for they carry the name of the LORD in vain. The narrow road which leads to life is neither left nor right, nor in a false and compromised unity, where many find themselves — including many who call upon the name of the LORD. Those who are first will be first — in God’s way and time. By His righteousness and His grace, He can make the first last, and the last first; but He will fulfill all things as He has promised to do.
We are called to go outside our camps to Him who has been cast out, and bear His reproach, not being embarrassed or ashamed of His words in this wicked and adulterous generation. Adultery is unfaithfulness to our covenanted God, or to our wife or husband, or to those others who are joined together in blood covenant with the Lord Jesus Christ/Yeshua the Messiah.
YHVH has set His Son, the Anointed One, to be King in Zion, and to be the Ruler in Israel and over the nations. Any one who presumes to “fill this role” in His place is an antichrist, paving the way for the Antichrist. When believers in Yeshua/Jesus are exhorted to pray for those in authority, it is not just that we might have a quiet and peaceable life, testifying that we are loyal citizens of our respective countries, but mostly that those in high places would repent and come to the knowledge of the truth. There is only one Mediator between God and man: the Man Jesus Christ, who will judge the living and the dead.
When those who choose not to love and honor Him for who He is stand before the Judgment Seat, they will not be able to save themselves from condemnation by saying that everyone else did these things, too. When those who are the Lord’s receive His judgments for our works done in the body as believers, we, too, will not be able to plead any “relative” merits to earn our eternal rewards.
God is preparing us all for things to come, and calls all men everywhere to repentance, first of all in the churches. It is painful and a cause of nervousness when we see our leaders in trouble — whether they be our political leaders, or our religious leaders, or our intellectual, business, sports, our family leaders. But God has a higher purpose in mind, and His plan to establish HIS righteous and holy kingdom over and within His creation will not allow for impostors and thieves to continue beyond whatever line He has drawn in the dirt.
Today is the day of salvation; today is the acceptable year of YHVH; the gospel is still the message we have been given to proclaim until the Lord comes — which ever way the wind blows and the leaves fall until that appointed time. Surely He comes quickly; things are not continuing as they always have since the beginning of the Creation. God is long-suffering, desiring that all would repent unto salvation and life. But thank and praise the Lord that there is a set time to bring all that opposes Him and His people to an end!
This article originally appeared on Streams in the Negev, November 25, 2019, and reposted with permission.