Is the axe to boast itself over the one who chops with it?
Is the saw to exalt itself over the one who wields it? (Isaiah 10:15)
We’re at the end of the first week of Donald Trump’s second term as president of the United States and the assault he is carrying out against our Federal Masters is intense. Executive orders are breaking down the walls of our nation’s capital, even to breaching the citadel where, during President Biden’s dotage there ensconced in 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, the deep state termites were free to eat to their hearts’ content.
To those of us old enough to have watched a host of presidencies inaugurated and concluded, our present time is breathtaking. In our memory, there has been nothing even close to this sacking President Trump is carrying out inside the Beltway. With each successive attack, my amazement grows.
These brave attacks upon the enemies of justice and freedom inspire the same wonder and joy some of us were privileged to experience back at the fall of the Iron Curtain three decades ago. That the Soviet Union would be disbanded peacefully was incomprehensible beforehand; and even afterwards, it remained incomprehensible. You pinched yourself to see if you were dreaming. How could it be God would show the world such undeserved kindness and mercy?
In connection with the fall of the Iron Curtain, there were heroes. Start with that prophet Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn who spent decades exposing Communism’s lies, oppression, and atheistic materialism. He was the indefatigable recorder of history from whom all the others descended. Without Solzhenitsyn’s One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, The Gulag Archipelago, Between Two Millstones, and The Red Wheel cycle, the New York Times’s tenderness toward Russia would have remained unanswered, and President Reagan, Pope John Paul II, and Lech Wałęsa wouldn’t have stood a chance against this terribly Evil Empire which had presided over one-sixth of the earth’s land mass.
Not wishing to detract from the courageous leadership of these men, we yet must ask whether they are the only ones who wielded the axe against the Soviet Union? Are the fall of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War the work of man, alone?
If you’re a follower of the Lord Jesus Christ, you know the answer. God Himself gave them their courage and strength, delegating to each whatever authority he wielded. The King of Kings and Lord of Lords is Jesus Christ Who Himself promised His followers, “All authority has been given to Me in Heaven and on Earth” (Matthew 28:18).
Recently I’ve been reading the history of the reigns of the kings of Israel and Judah recorded in the Old Testament Historical Books. Finishing 2Chronicles this past week, it’s been instructive to compare Scripture’s summaries of the kings of the Jews as we’ve been observing the inauguration and first week of America’s new king who, himself, has been promising he will usher us into our nation’s “Golden Age.”
Out of character, President Trump has been making a few mentions of “God.” They seem jarring from a man not known for any religious commitments beyond the merely institutional. One hopes there might be a nascent fear of God in our president who recently came so close to death and has been so universally hated by half the population of the nation—and this as he faces his final few years on earth.
Every Christian’s heart beats faster when the Only True God is named by those in positions of authority. That’s why politicians do so. In some ways, it was a relief how President Trump has, in the past, made no claim to being a god-fearer. Other presidents using God’s holy Name have made us angry knowing from their lives how utterly deplorable they are ethically and morally.
Take him or leave him, Donald Trump has been known for both exaggeration and honesty—simultaneously. The Chicago Tribune ran an interview with him prior to any national prominence, politically. It was back in 1989 when, asked about what he thought about death—whether it worried him—he responded:
No. I’m fatalistic and I protect myself as well as anybody can. I prepare for things. But ultimately we all end up going. No. I don’t believe in reincarnation, heaven, or hell—but we go someplace. Do you know I cannot, for the life of me, figure out where.1
We pray for our President. May God bless Him. May God protect Him. From His great lovingkindness, may God lead him to repentance. May our Heavenly Father grant President Trump saving faith in Jesus Christ.
The Lord Jesus Christ.
Earlier I mentioned the kings of Israel and Judah whose reigns are summarized in the Old Testament. Listening to President Donald J. Trump speak several times on Inauguration Day, his Second Inaugural Address somewhat restrained while his speech in Emancipation Hall less so, I remembered that sin that was fatal to the kings of the Old Testament. About King Uzziah, Scripture records:
But when he became strong, his heart was so proud that he acted corruptly, and he was unfaithful to the LORD his God, for he entered the temple of the LORD to burn incense on the altar of incense. (2Chronicles 26:16)
And King Hezekiah:
But Hezekiah gave no return for the benefit he received, because his heart was proud; therefore wrath came on him and on Judah and Jerusalem.(2Chronicles 32:25)
“His heart was proud.” Under both these kings, God blessed the nation with reform and wealth and peace, but neither Uzziah nor Hezekiah responded in humility with gratitude to the Giver of their nation’s wealth and peace. They “gave no return for the benefit” they had received from God, but ascribed the wealth and peace to themselves. “Look what I have done! Our kingdom’s golden age has arrived, just as I promised! Aren’t I great!” In President Trump’s vernacular, it’s a combination of “Aren’t I great?” and “Aren’t we great?” and “Make America great again!”
This sin of pride so inimical to gratitude is common to us all.
Assuredly, kings have more opportunity to pump out their chests and proclaim their greatness. They have a bully pulpit from which to do so. (Consider President Trump holding sway over all the masters of the universe assembled in Davos this past week.) Of course, pastors also have a bully pulpit from which we preen, calling our sheep to admire our great spiritual and scholarly eminence. I say it from experience.
Anyone who has listened to a single campaign speech of President Trump, has ears to hear, and fears God, trembles at this man’s pride. Yes, resolve. Yes, patriotism. But do not stop there. Donald J. Trump has shown us an almost supernatural self-esteem and confidence for many years now, and even with a healthy allowance for his many abilities and gifts, we all must acknowledge how much of a braggart he is. Admitting this simple fact is not to be disloyal to the man, but to give him the benefit of our sober evaluation and the proper direction of our counsel and prayers.
Stay with me. It is entirely possible to do his sort of reform work while acknowledging very publicly that it will fail without the power of God. Say, for instance, “God willing, we will make America great again!”
Is that so complicated? Were you his Vice President, would you not love him, your neighbor, enough to give him this suggestion, accompanied by a warning of what God did to the proud kings of Scripture?
Say, for instance, Herod whose Scriptural account of great pride comes to a tragic end:
On an appointed day Herod, having put on his royal apparel, took his seat on the rostrum and began delivering an address to them. The people kept crying out, “The voice of a god and not of a man!”
And immediately an angel of the Lord struck him because he did not give God the glory, and he was eaten by worms and died. (Acts 12:21-23)
But then, also, there is this history of King Nebuchadnezzar’s discipline by God recorded in the book of Daniel. And this King learned from God’s discipline, and after seven times of humiliation, was restored to his former glory:
All this happened to Nebuchadnezzar the king.
Twelve months later he was walking on the roof of the royal palace of Babylon. The king reflected and said, “Is this not Babylon the great, which I myself have built as a royal residence by the might of my power and for the glory of my majesty?”
While the word was in the king’s mouth, a voice came from heaven, saying, “King Nebuchadnezzar, to you it is declared: sovereignty has been removed from you, and you will be driven away from mankind, and your dwelling place will be with the beasts of the field. You will be given grass to eat like cattle, and seven periods of time will pass over you until you recognize that the Most High is ruler over the realm of mankind and bestows it on whomever He wishes.”
Immediately the word concerning Nebuchadnezzar was fulfilled; and he was driven away from mankind and began eating grass like cattle, and his body was drenched with the dew of heaven until his hair had grown like eagles’ feathers and his nails like birds’ claws.
But at the end of that period, I, Nebuchadnezzar, raised my eyes toward heaven and my reason returned to me, and I blessed the Most High and praised and honored Him who lives forever;
For His dominion is an everlasting dominion,
And His kingdom endures from generation to generation.
All the inhabitants of the earth are accounted as nothing,
But He does according to His will in the host of heaven
And among the inhabitants of earth;
And no one can ward off His hand
Or say to Him, ‘What have You done?’At that time my reason returned to me. And my majesty and splendor were restored to me for the glory of my kingdom, and my counselors and my nobles began seeking me out; so I was reestablished in my sovereignty, and surpassing greatness was added to me. Now I, Nebuchadnezzar, praise, exalt and honor the King of heaven, for all His works are true and His ways just, and He is able to humble those who walk in pride. (Daniel 4:28-37)
It is not America’s electorate who put Donald J. Trump back in the White House, nor is it any of us who can properly take credit for the largely-glorious wielding of the axe at the root of the deep state corruption of our American Capital.
The President has been put in place by the hand of God and He Alone is to receive all the glory. We must remember this and give testimony to it publicly—those of us who belong to Jesus Christ.
This is what it means to be His salt and light in this evil world. As Scripture says:
The king’s heart is like channels of water in the hand of the LORD;
He turns it wherever He wishes. (Proverbs 21:1)
| ↑1 | Chicago Tribune, March 12, 1989, page 10, Section 5. |
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