When Bill Clinton was elected to the U.S. presidency it immediately became clear what God was doing.  I will preface the following with a saying I coined long ago following much experience and years of Bible study: “If a person or a nation wants to commit spiritual suicide, God will provide the tree, the rope and the stool.”  The Untied States’ growing obsession with  sin, specifically sexual sin, had been growing exponentially for many years leading up to that fateful election.  Sexual deviance, no longer considered deviant, had gone mainstream and was being touted as the “new normal.”  Abominations such as abortion, homosexuality, lesbianism, transgendering, sex changes, various versions of sexuality, dual-sex college dorms and bath rooms, public nudity, etc. was becoming more popular with each generation.  The nation was ready for a leader who would champion the nation’s move toward an anti-Bible, self-determined standard of morality.  Bill Clinton was straight out of central casting for the part of national leader.  With the nation in spiritual suicide mode, God placed him on the national precipice to lead the charge.

This did not come as a surprise to God’s true saints.  He had warned us to expect such a move through the Apostle Paul in his second letter to the Thessalonians (2:10-12) where he warned “those who perish because they do not love God’s Word so that they might be saved.  And for that reason GOD SHALL SEND THEM STRONG DELUSION SO THAT THEY MIGHT BELIEVE A LIE AND BE DAMNED.”  These words were written to church people who showed their lack of love for God’s Word (Truth–Jn. 17:17) in that they “DID NOT BELIEVE THE TRUTH AND TOOK PLEASURE IN UNRIGHTEOUSNESS (unbelief).”  Let us give credit where it is due by noting that it was GOD WHO DELUDED AND DAMNED THE UNBELIEVERS.  This was not then, nor is it now unusual among false believers and false prophets.  In 1 Kings 22:23 we find the LORD Himself putting a LYING SPIRIT in the mouths of King Ahab’s prophets in order to accomplish His purpose.  Now back to the American presidential situation.

Bill Clinton gave the sex and decadence-possessed nation the leadership she had been craving.  Anciently the Israelites had rejected God’s righteous priest Samuel and demanded a king who would be like themselves so that they would be accepted by the heathen among whom they lived.  Following in their spiritual footsteps, the American people had long ago rejected God and His strict, no exceptions rulership style and were craving someone as vile as they were to lead them into ever more sin and decadence.  God had given the ancient Israelites Saul of Tarsus; He gave America Bill of Arkansas.  Both proved to be spiritual disasters.  Those who keep tabs on national morals will have noticed that the nation fell off the morality cliff during the Clinton administrations.  Warning: WHEN, not if, the democrats regain control of the American Government the nation will very quickly spiral downward to the point that she will be viewed as Sodom West.  She will make the Roman Empire look like a conclave of angels.  San Francisco and Los Angeles will set the national standard for sin, squalor and self-destruction.

Donald Trump was nothing more than a rich version of Bill Clinton.  The nation having wallowed through the Clinton and Obama administrations, God would give her one last chance to change directions, but on a different subject level.  Donald Trump’s miracle “election” was arranged by the Lord because he is an “America first,” hard-nozed businessman whom the Lord miraculously inserted into the Oval Office for the purpose of putting the nation back on the conservative financial, political, governmental and military track.  “The Donald” was God’s final attempt to straighten out the nation on those levels even though she had gone past the point of no return spiritually.  Spiritually, He had long ago turned His back on this once greatly blessed nation.  God’s appointment of Donald Trump indicated nothing about his spiritual condition.  I know nothing of his present heart-set so I will remain quiet.  I have my thoughts but I will keep them to myself.  King Solomon and Donald Trump had problems relative to character long before God selected either of them to lead the nation.  Solomon led his nation into a new level of moral depravity.  The jury is still out concerning Donald Trump.  In both cases God had chosen “the basest of men” to do His bidding.  Though God appoints the leaders, He does not control their moral lives.  Like all other men, they are free to choose the path they will tread.  Solomon was a disaster.  If Trump is re-appointed only time will tell how he leads the nation.  That God would do what the Bible tells us He has done comes as a shock to many in the church.  And like so much of His Truth, they refuse to believe it.  Let us not place God in a box.  He is, after all, God Who answers to no one.

An eye-opening statement made by Jesus to the Apostle Peter reveals how He often uses sinners in spite of their spiritual condition.  In Luke 22:31,32 we find Jesus preparing for His death by instructing Peter about what to following His return to the Father.  After warning him that Satan wanted to “sift him as wheat,” Jesus told him His future apostle to the Jews that He had prayed that he (Peter) would not bow to Satan’s temptations.  He then said to Peter: “WHEN (AFTER) YOU ARE CONVERTED, help your brethren” (in their struggle to be converted).  We must understand that those men had preached the gospel, healed the sick and cast out demons.  Peter had even walked on water.  And THIS WAS BEFORE THEIR CONVERSION WHILE THEY WERE STILL SINNERS.  They had operated under the power of the Holy Spirit which the Father had placed upon Jesus.  This was the same Spirit that empowered Jesus the man to heal the sick, cast out demons, walk on water, multiply food, raise the dead, etc.

Being a man like all other men, Jesus was totally dependent on His heavenly Father in doing everything He did.  Even His Words were given to Him by God via the Holy Spirit (Jn. 14:10).  Recall that He had done nothing in a ministerial sense prior to His baptism at age 29.  It was at that point that God sent the Holy Spirit to abide within Him in the form of a dove.

Knowing that the Holy Spirit would not be available to His disciples following His ascension to the Father, He instructed them not to go out ministering for they did not have the Holy Spirit.  Due to their lack of power, He told them to “… not depart from Jerusalem” where they were to wait for “the promise”–the baptism of the Holy Spirit (Acts 1:4,5).  Just as the Holy Spirit came on Jesus in the form of a dove to begin His ministry, the Spirit came on the disciples as tongues of fire which empowered them for their ministry (Acts 2).  The other disciples in the room received the Spirit for the same reason that truly converted people receive it today–to empower them to withstand and overcome Satan’s call to sin.  By the time the Day of Pentecost arrived the people who had assembled in the upper room had been truly converted and ready for the spiritual war that would eventually take the lives of many of them.  But first the 12 apostles would take the gospel of the kingdom to every nation (Mat. 24:14).  There they were to locate their scattered Israelite brethren and tell them about the Kingdom of God, and that their promised Messiah had come to show them the way (Mat. 15:24).

For 3 1/2 years Jesus had used those unconverted men to spread His gospel throughout Judea.  Following their conversions  they had been sent to the rest of mankind with that same message.  Those who have served since that time continue to preach that same gospel and exalt that same Christ.  L.J.