Preface: Trump of his second term is not the same man as Trump of his first term. Whereas he was once....his whole life actually....vacuous and empty.....he is now....dark and aggressive. Something happened to this man at the time of the 2020 election and aftermath. What is going on right now is psychological in that the rest of us....whether from the progressive left....or those who still are republican and still are conservative....and those evangelicals who have not been taken by deception and delusion....are set back on our heels....and as long as Trump keeps adding new abominations and execrations....almost on a daily basis....we will remain set back on our heels. Trump cannot afford a lull....for the people to actually meditate upon what is going on.
Former Pennsylvania senator Rick Santorum may have been the first to use the term....Pastor-in-Chief....back in 2012 when he won eleven primaries and caucuses....and came in second to Mitt Romney for the Republican nomination. He said to a group of pastors that he wasn't running to be Pastor-in-Chief....and that that was their job.
That phrase....Pastor-in-Chief....may more recently have been the phrase that sank evangelicalism....as numerous well-known....and some of our better evangelical leaders on the national scene....repeated it to defend their not....not....holding Donald Trump to account.....or even warning their sheep!
Everything that we see today going on in the executive branch of government....and by default in the Republican led congress....was handed to Donald Trump on a silver platter....by the Republican Party.....and by evangelicals. To this day....with Trump mobilizing federal troops....and executive orders bypassing the Constitution of these United States....they say nothing.
As I posted many years ago....long before Trump....the Democrat Party had fallen first....but the Republican Party then fell next. God's Word describes a similar situation about the northern kingdom of Israel and the southern kingdom of Judah. This from Jeremiah....Israel had been judged........Because they have forsaken Me....and....Burned incense to other gods....and worshiped the works of their own hands. Oh how eloquent and self-righteous we were when we lambasted the Democrats beginning with the Clintons!
Jeremaih continued to speak through God....For My people have committed two evils....They have forsaken Me....the fountain of living waters....And hewn themselves cisterns-broken cisterns that can hold no water....but then God added the kicker....Yet her treacherous sister did not fear....but went and played the harlot also....only pretending to have become God-fearing.......Backsliding Israel has shown herself more righteous than treacherous Judah.
Brothers and sisters....that is what we did! Pretending to be God-fearing....attacking LGBTQ and every other kind of wokeness....we brought this 'woe' upon ourselves that Jesus spoke to the Pharisees and scribes....this from Matthew 23:23...."Woe to you scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you tithe mint and dill and cumin, and have neglected the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faithfulness."
We evangelicals like to read in Paul's letters and in the gospels and Acts and in Genesis....but we have ignored the prophets....or studied them as if they were chapter whatever in a history book....but they speak directly to us today. We like Daniel....because lions's dens and hot furnaces and giant statues keep our attention....but Jeremiah....or Isaiah....or Zephaniah....(have you read and prayed over and meditated upon Zephaniah)....or any and all of the prophets....Daniel most specifically included when he prays to God a corporate prayer of mortification....or becomes physically sick when he sees what is in the future...all these we allocate as Bible study material....to be added to our academic transcript....part of our degree requirements....but not warnings directly to us....today!
