What Will 2024 Bring?
What will 2024 bring? God only knows. I wish the most important things to consider were who will win the Super Bowl and World Series. But alas, whoever wins the sporting events makes little to no difference in the grand scheme of things. For the record, I am a huge sports fan; go, Guardians! Go Browns. The way the Browns handled Baker Mayfield was simply wrong, but I digress.
It is a Presidential election year here in the United States. The Democratic platform seems to consist of only one item – if former President Trump is elected, democracy will cease, and the world will plunge into an unrecoverable dark age for hundreds of years. The Democrats tell us anyone who considers voting for Trump is a racist, a nazi, and a reincarnation of Adolf Hitler. I guess calling half the nation “deplorable” was not strong enough. Could you imagine what would have happened if John Kennedy had called Richard Nixon a racist nazi during the campaign of 1960? I think it is safe to say Nixon would have won.
The Republicans, on the other hand, are not gaining a whole lot of excitement. They are holding debates without the front-runner. The polls tell us that all the other candidates combined do not have the support President Trump has. Trump’s time is occupied by holding rallies and running from one court appearance to another.
Meanwhile, President Biden and his family are facing legal issues. The evidence the public sees is growing, and it looks worse for the president daily. The only defense offered is that “it is all lies.”
I long to see the day when a famous person, politician, entertainer, or sports personality is accused of something and comes out and says, “I did it. I am sorry. I apologize for all that I have done. I will never do it again, and I will make restitution to those I have wronged as quickly as possible, and I will accept any punishment imposed upon me.”
I am in my mid-sixties. The odds of seeing this in my lifetime are near zero.
Whether or not democracy ends with the 2024 elections has nothing to do with the 2024 elections. Our actions, individually or collectively, directly result from our spiritual condition. When a person lies, they do not have the spiritual wherewithal to stand for the truth. If a person cheats on their spouse, they do not have the spiritual fortitude to say no to lust. If a person steals, spiritually, they are unable to have the faith that God will provide, or the spiritual strength to fight off greed, or both. In other words, elections are a by-product of the nation’s spiritual condition.
A friend recently told me that he thought Trump was “a wicked and vile man.” But, if November comes down to Trump and Biden, he will vote for Trump because he is the lesser of two evils. Regardless of your opinion of the two likely candidates in 2024, all of us, in times past, have either voted against a candidate or did as my friend is doing, voting for the lesser of two evils.
Why is it this way? Answer – The nation’s spiritual condition is in such poor shape that people with George Washington’s honesty or Abe Lincoln’s character do not rise to the top of the heap.
Is America’s liberty in danger? Yes. Not because of any political party or candidate but because – 2 Corinthians 3:17, “Now the Lord is that Spirit: and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.”
Many Christians have reduced the Spirit of the Lord to that feel-good feeling when they hear the sound of Jesus music. Many Christians do not understand that the Spirit of the Lord comes through His Word. Bibles gather dust, and preachers tell their congregations what the people want to hear without considering what Christ wants preached.
The spirit of Christ is difficult to find today, but it was dominant in our nation’s founding; that is why we have liberty.
From our founding fathers:
George Washington, “To the distinguished character of Patriot, it should be our highest glory to add the more distinguished character of Christian.”
John Adams, “Now I will avow, that I then believe, and now believe, that those general Principles of Christianity, are as eternal and immutable, as the Existence and Attributes of God; and that those Principles of Liberty, are as unalterable as human Nature and our terrestrial, mundane System.”
Thomas Jefferson, “God who gave us life gave us liberty. And can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have removed their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are of the Gift of God? That they are not to be violated but with His wrath? Indeed, I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just; that His justice cannot sleep forever…”
John Hancock, “Resistance to tyranny becomes the Christian and social duty of each individual. … Continue steadfast and, with a proper sense of your dependence on God, nobly defend those rights which heaven gave, and no man ought to take from us.”
Need I go on? Our founding fathers knew and understood that our rights and liberty come from God and God alone.
One last quote: John Adams, “Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious People. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”
What will 2024 bring? One thing is sure – if it does not bring a Christian revival, our liberties will continue to decrease regardless of who wins the elections in November because the Spirit of Christ is decreasing.
What are the odds of a revival? Well, currently, the church is Laodicean with Christ outside pounding on the door, trying to get in (Revelation 3:14-22). Also, the world is in the great “falling away” that must happen before the Tribulation begins (2 Thessalonians 2:3). But 2 Chronicles 7:14, “If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land.” is still there, and “the things which are impossible with men are possible with God” (Luke 18:27).
Preacher Tim Johnson is Pastor of Countryside Baptist Church in Parke County, Indiana. His weekly column “Preacher’s Point” may be found at: www.preacherspoint.wordpress.com
Yes, and adding to that context, most of our forefathers were deists and not the kind of “Christians” that the the author is conflating them with. Their belief system was very different than the author’s. Regardless, the author often writes that the past is better than the present, a common error in thinking. That past is not the present, so our actions cannot be the same. But let’s examine our forefathers. I do admire much of what Benjamin Franklin did, but he was also quite a cheat and got around plenty of women or what we may call girls now. I think past memories often evoke a kind of less-than-true nostalgia. How many of our forefathers were slave owners? Oh, right, that was okay in the Bible, wasn’t it? Often, the preacher refers the Bible as a book. The Bible is NOT a book. The Bible is a library of texts, hundreds of them written by hundreds of authors, most of which are unknown, over two-thousand years. The Book the preacher refers to is an immensely redacted/abridged version of something so much larger that was compiled by men, not God or even women, for example. There are over 40 versions of the Bible to fit each compiler’s “morality.” It was compiled by powerful folks that could read and chose what to put in and what to leave out according to their own “morality.” As psychiatrist James Gilligan notes in “Morality is the Problem.” People hurt others, steal, rape, kill for their moral reasons, and we punish them the same for our moral reasons. The State kills the man that kills because killing is wrong. Does that make sense? Shouldn’t the taking of any life be prohibited? But States want the power to kill folks, push them off ledges and out windows. Few people could kill others if they did not think they were morally justified. That is exactly how Jesus died. He got a bit too close to the truth. Anyone that does that, gets a death sentence by the State. He threatened the status quo.
Yes, context matters. Stop writing that things were good in the old days and that people lost faith. If people lost faith it’s because they see the truth on the wall. It’s because preachers like you failed to keep pace and understand youth. Stop talking at and preaching at young people. Learn from them. Their lives are complicated. Religious organizations are the ones failing people. It’s not the other way around. So many churches care about money, and the only way to bring people to church is to suffer them with eternal damnation while also telling people that God loves them unconditionally. Such institutions risk minimizing God, or whatever we choose to call a higher power, to a mental illness. We are left not with seeing God, but with nothing more than manifestations. Let us look to our own flaws and do the best we can. Let our religion not be in a church with like-minded folks. Let our God be kindness and our actions be acts of kinds. There is enough suffering in this world. We do not need to make more of it.
I learned this as a teacher, therapist, and school bus driver: you must humble yourself, sir. Listen, learn more, preach less.
First of all there is absolutely no evidence President Biden broke any laws. His son Hunter has, but Hunter Biden isn’t president.
Second, the different between the 1960 general election and the 2024 election is this: Trump is accused of leading an insurrection and stealing hundreds of top secret documents from the government. He has four pending prosecutions that are set to start, the first one in March. in 1960 neither Kennedy or Nixon were under indictment for any crimes.
Context matters — truth matters.