All kinds of ideas and what ifs there! But I think, respectfully, that we have fallen into the trap of spending way, way, way too much time and effort looking at what man does, examining all the permutations and combinations, trying to interpret the real meaning and significance of everything happening, attempting to align it with Scripture, and cautioning each other about what's going on. Where in God's Word does it tell us to do that?
I truly think all of that is all a ploy of Satan to keep us occupied where God does not want us occupied. That's something (I have learned in 80 years) at which the Devil is very good. The fact is this-- God is in control. He sees everything coming and He knows every plan and every deep and dark secret. Nothing is hidden from His gaze or outside the reach of His hand. His power is infinitely greater than the power of everything else in the universe combined. He sees the beginning and the end and everything in between. He is infinitely able and willing to guard us and keep us through all that could ever possibly transpire. We have no need for fear, or even concern. Our God is a mighty God! THE Almighty One! I think we would do well to put more effort into focusing on Him in our attention, our thoughts and our efforts, and doing what He called us to do-- namely proclaiming His glory in the earth, calling men to come to Him through repentance and faith in Jesus Christ.
There is a place for warning our brothers and sisters; but honestly count up the number of words we expend on discussing what's going on in the world compared to the number of words we spend glorifying God, exploring His nature and His works, and comforting and praying for one another. Even on this site I see far more interest in --and contributions to-- topics that involve this world and what's happening in it than I do to the things of the Spirit. And I've been guilty of some of that. I repent of it.
Amen pastor. I hear your heart brother. I understand the good faith admonition to not look so much at what man is doing. Often this is in a general sense that which scratches the itch of I'll gotten "certainty." In a more specific sense it could be from fear or it could be from stroking ego too at times I have seen. This is good to remember because, as far as I know, all the previously mentioned items here...we have all done at some time and in some way.
Where I agree with this concern the most for me is I guess what I might call the Green Acres effect. That TV series was classic, and well capture how wrongly connected logic looks in all her absurd glory. And we can laugh about it because this is every person somewhere at some time. But I think the more profound humor in it was just watching how the writers could playfully play that up to the hilt...taking it to the extreme. Laughing just thinking about that. In like fashion, as end times is new because there is only one, and regardless of how much we might make sense to ourselves in trying to calibrate what in end times lives in true mystery, our tracking of roll out can be rather vaudevillian. I have enjoyed making fun of myself even in seeing this phenomenon.
I appreciate your sharing from you life's exposure to the enemies ability to distract with so many things. I would say even from today where ministries warn from being distracted, ministries themselves can often or at times be drenched with distraction of their pedigree and brand. The Green Acres effect. In that sense, we kind of live in magical times, don't we? lol. Another rubric caption for our day in this respect might also be charectorized perhaps best in the movie: Ideocracy. Which possibly might have become the actuallity of globalism the elites would never had intended to have somehow been drinking their own coolaide all along the way as well. And it be some Twilight Zone outcome of where globalist elitism might have landed had we belonged to an alternative universe where end times not exist.
But yeah, in short, though where I might err most is on the side of certainty...not so much fear. Raised in the more fear of the angry Father syndrom, American reformed camps can be prone to be somewhat about, and having a melancholy dispostion myself, made for a grotesque and very sloppy combination in my life. An overly sensitive Spidey sense that was utterly exhausting. So in that respect, I do tend to believe fear porn would not be my emotional drug of choice these days. And on the certainty front though, I've taken a keen interest over the course of years to take it and often beat it up, put it in a clown suit, and set it on fire. Just to see if anything remains of it after. Now, THAT might be my emotional drug of choice today. But a generally helpful feature out of all that actually would have been the unusual calm during the Biden years.
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But the reason I bring up that aspect about Trump though is something I heard from a non-watcher perspective. And I can do all sorts of cartoons in my head with that stuff. But I would ask something of that nature more so I reckon to sharpen aspects of sense making in general in a way. Not so much for certainty though. Because I can very easily take a decade of nostalgically held beliefs and toss them to the wind overnight. That might not be the greatest trait, lol, but I guess it has become a skill of sorts over the years for me. So, yeah, I totally honor where you are coming from. In spades actually. Because I see every reason under the sun to have those concerns today. Is there an over focus of watching what men do to map it to our sense of certainty in scripture? 1000%. For I believe if we were still here like we are 100 years from now, the time capsule opened for our day would not be pretty in that respect.
But I do believe there is a sense where aspects of the charector of God can been also understood too in how Providence unfolds, and be of notice. Yes, too much reliance on that can be a kin to trying to understand trends by reading chicken bones or some strange earthy practice of devination. Amen. But I do believe as much as we live in a Green Acres era, we also live in a time where God's character can be noticed in our providential moment. The highest order as to why, to me, would be in starting I guess from what we already know of His character in the word. That as we get closer to the end, it would be highly likely we also notice His care toward His creation at varying levels--increase. And that He likely would provide low hanging fruit potential for even the unbelieving to get a sense of His charector too because of the closeness of the dark approaching hour. And how He loves repentence over the death of the wicked. So in that way, primarily, it would make sense He demonstrate perhaps a highten season of that sort of thing.
So like when I look at trends and such, for me, its just like a way of crowding out white noise. Because things I might project as possible are typically under some pretty fierce scrutiny for me as a rule. Like I guess the way I would consider it somewhat helpful to dertimine if Trump might be about the business of "overwhelming" as part of a strategy, is more so related to acquiring small elements of conviction that might make other seemingly non-related actions or events make fuller sense from perhaps a more robust mutli-orbed context. And, for me, I reckon why that might have some small level of relevance might be because what does seem to be made clear about our day is that we will have our leaning biases very likely challenged. So on one hand we have likely the low hanging fruit of God's character perhaps more observable in Providence, while on the other hand we have our biases somewhat in a state of sem-constant status of being challenged. A fairly odd combination, lol, no doubt.
But I don't exactly lean toward discovery of these things in the hopeful matching of scripture or prophecy as much as a gathering of likely amunition against my own biases. That may sound psychedelic...lol. It even kind of sounds that way to me in ways. But I it seems less common today that we find assertive tendencies in peeps to purposely and proactively place their views under wartime scrutiny. We normally see the opposite. Like you have shared. Where we more likely superimpose what we are thinking onto scripture. Whereas I tend to be more about the opposite. Upending my own convictions with the gain of deeper reasons to call myself out. lol. Kinda weird probably. But yes, at the end of the day, there will be a mass migration of herds of thought and sensibilities I have that will just have "no" answer. I guess in some ways though, on my journey of collective info from various sources, I myself, I believe, tend to kick up as much dust as possible to see what else might be present yet unnoticed so much. So it could be i'm projecting my own approaches onto Trump. I appreciate the points you make because in general that is far more the concern of our day than perhaps the kinds of reasons I might ask, so much. In some ways though it is helpful because I would consider insights from someone like yourself that has been around and seasoned a stable example of seasoned perspective in our day as we have now. And how to take heart in its profound observation as well. As a meaningful weigh-in that should be found in our day should our age be opened 100 years from and in its time capsule found: An earmark representation of godly grounded perspective even in the midst of the age of Green Acres. Blessings.
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