Monday, June 25, 2018
These times
Luke 12:56
Hypocrites! You can discern the face of the sky and of the earth, but how is it you do not discern this time?
Donald J Trump defeated Hillary Rodham Clinton in the General Election in the United States of America on November 8, 2016. He assumed office on January 20, 2017, making him the 45th President of the United States.
Millions were in shock, and many still cannot get over that reality until now and almost two years have passed. Mrs Clinton was ahead nationwide by 2.1 percentage points, with 65,853,514 votes (48.18%) to 62,984,828 votes (46.09%); neither candidate reached a majority.
When, months before the election, I had expressed my opinion that Mr Trump would win, I was almost abused by friends of mine, especially those who had lived in the United States and professed knowledge of these things. The last thing I remember is them promising me that he couldn’t get past Super Tuesday, a unique phenomenon in American Politics. The rest is, as they say, history.
Today, many of Mr Trump’s detractors are consumed with his management style, his political style, his diplomatic style, and they fill hours of TV talk time, miles of newspaper and magazine columns, and yottabytes of digital criticism. Yet Mr Trump continues on his quest to, in his terms, Make America Great Again.
I ran into more trouble with my friends when I declared that Mr Trump would be the most transformational United States President in my lifetime. To be clear, I am a fan of Barack Obama and was taken by it all when he became US President, and William Jefferson Clinton is my favourite politician of all time. But Mr Trump will cause and create more change on the planet than anyone recently, or soon I think.
For a while now, the post second world war world, especially post-cold-war, has been pretty settled and world leaders predictable. Global political affairs are all being decided at the United Nations, and trade issues at the World Trade Organisation and so on. In the regions, blocks of countries are making single policy in economic and monetary unions like the Caribbean Single Market and Economy (CSME) and the European Union (EU).
Then there are multilateral free trade areas like EAEU, MERCOSUR, GCC, SICA and we have NAFTA, GAFTA, PAFTA, SAFTA, CEFTA, CISFTA, SADCFTA, AANZFTA and EFTA, to name a few. That the world is settled doesn’t mean that there are no conflicts. There is conflict and fighting somewhere every day both within and without borders. But by and large, we are a well-regulated world. We would be silly to think, that with all the prophecy of scripture, and the continued presence of sin, the world would stay that well-regulated.
Enter President Donald J Trump. The real problem with Trump is that he is not sticking to the national and global agreed to scripts on any of the issues before him. Mr Trump had made it clear, on the day that he announced his candidacy, what his issues were and by and large he has stuck to his list.
It was on June 16, 2015, that Mr Trump announced his candidacy for President of the United States at Trump Tower in Manhattan. In that speech, Trump highlighted his priorities – illegal immigration, offshoring of American jobs, the U.S. national debt, and Islamic terrorism. He also introduced his campaign slogan: “Make America Great Again.” He has tackled that in a very unique Trump style that has rattled America and the world with it.
Trump, however, is not singular as a global political leader who is causing and creating the conditions for global upheaval in the very near future. If we pay attention we will see the re-emergence of global strong men and a realignment of global power structures. There are also Mr Vladimir Putin and Mr Xi Jinping who must be recognised for their role in the transformation.
Here is what Mr Xi said this week, “China must uphold the protection of the country’s sovereignty, security and development interests, proactively participate in and show the way in reform of the global governance system, creating an even better web of global partnership relationships” Mr Xi wants to reform global governance.
Just to be clear, I am not making a case for or against Donal Trump or any of the other global leaders who are shaking things up. Rather, this is a challenge for us to pay attention to global events as a context in which we must live out our Christian faith. If we settle into the world as it is we will certainly miss what God requires of us as the world changes.
Jesus, in a long discourse with multitudes, tackled this issue of paying attention to current and world events in three verses, Luke 12:54-56. Jesus makes the point that we are capable of examining current conditions in the weather and using our observations to predict coming weather phenomena but fail at being sensitive to the Spirit and understanding the times. We are unable to predict how the world is changing to align with biblical teaching and prophecy. We often fail to see the real spiritual crisis as we, like the world, want things to remain stable and predictable.
When King David assembled an army at Hebron there were thousands of fighting men from all the tribes. His army also included “the sons of Issachar who had understanding of the times, to know what Israel ought to do, their chiefs were two hundred; and all their brethren were at their command” 1 Chronicles 12:32
Think on these things:
- Do you pay serious attention to world affairs?
- Are you able to relate the events in the news to what God is doing in the earth?
- Does your church commit any time to discuss world affairs in the light of scripture and prophecy?
Prayer focus:
Let us pray today that we would learn to pay attention to these times to hear what the Spirit of the Lord is saying.
In His Grace
Pastor Alex