Nobody talks much about evil anymore, especially the personal evil we are all capable of when greed and power are involved. It’s as if evil doesn’t exist, as if anything we do is A-Okay as long as it brings us what we want.
Nobody talks much about the devil, either, as the cause of that evil. A lot of people won’t even call Satan by name. So, it isn’t surprising that we may not recognize evil, especially when it is being disguised as something beneficial, and then fed to us.
Evil is being politically disguised today as a sumptuous meal. We are urged to take it, urged to swallow it. But if we choose that meal, we will poison our country.
The personification of evil is referred in Scripture as the devil, Satan, or the Father of Lies.
He was a murderer from the beginning, not holding to the truth, for there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies. John 8:44
A chronic liar will use any means to get others on his or her side. Promising a do whatever you want attitude is one of those means. We see that attitude growing day by day in our present society. We have forgotten that America was founded on truthfulness, on the principles of attaining a moral system of government that works for everyone–not a system of government that uses everyone to its own dishonest ends.
Where are those honorable principles in this election?
We cannot be complacent. Satan attacks us in our complacencies, in our inattentiveness. We must take the blinders from our eyes to see that in our own government, good is being called evil, and evil is being called good.
Satan also attacks us personally through what we desire. He lures us by our addictions, the things we think most about, the things we’ve tied ourselves to. He yanks on the chain of those addictions, leading us further and further away from what is good until we become his devoted ‘pet,’ believing anything he says. Then he’s got us just where he wants us.
No, we don’t want to hear this. We say, “Look, I want what I want, and what I want is okay.”
Well, that depends. Because we weren’t given life on earth in order to fulfill ourselves. Believe it or not, each of us has a greater mission than our own existence. There is a reason for our having been born. God knows our mission even if we haven’t yet discovered it. And it has nothing to do with evil, and everything to do with good.
Our country is starving for good government. Who will serve it best?
Each presidential character is almost like a chef preparing a meal for us.
One candidate promises to satisfy the appetites of those who support her, not using the ingredients of leadership, but for her own self-aggrandizement. She will increase her own power and importance by ignoring the Constitution, by playing God with human life, and by destroying the laws of our Creator. Killing the unborn is part of her poisonous meal. And slapping down the sanctity of marriage is its dessert. Both are part of the devil’s package of deadly candy, yet many have been lured to devour it.
The other candidate is a flawed man. His imperfections have been pointed out, and he is surely not a saint.
But we don’t need a saint. We need a strong leader.
Throughout human history, God has used flawed people to lead the good fight because no one is without imperfection. Think of Adam, King David, the apostle Peter, St. Augustine, and even Mother Theresa.
The meal this imperfect presidential candidate offers us is much more genuine than the other candidate’s plate of over-used, thirty-year old words and moldy ideas which have already weakened America. However flawed, this candidate’s plate does not present lies as truth, or evil as good. His meal is made with ingredients that include and are based on the Constitution and Bill of Rights upon which America was founded–not the bloody destruction of human life itself. That destruction is, of course, the true goal of the devil.
So today, we had better remember the devil and how he can fool us. We had better call him by name, look him in the face, and refuse the plate of evil prepared for us. Because if the wrong candidate is elected, our own country of America may be poisoned forever.
Translating a World on the Edge 