Troubler of Israel
“Do not be deceived: God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows.”
I want to challenge us to meditate on this verse of Scripture in the aftermath of the 2016 election. All of us. For a lot of reasons.
First, political progressives and Hillary Clinton supporters should consider the Apostle Paul’s words carefully as they reflect on the past few months, and more importantly, on the eight years before that.
We’re seeing hand-wringing and consternation in major cities, on college campuses, and at liberal media outlets over the election of Donald Trump. The Huffington Post described the results at least three times this week using the word “terror.” Thousands from my generation are sobbing and throwing hissy fits in the streets. They’re burning things. Retreating to their safe spaces. And the political left seems to have suddenly rediscovered federalism, checks and balances, and a respect for the filibuster. Everywhere I look, those on the opposite end of the political spectrum are beside themselves with fear over what Mr. Trump will do in office.
But it’s no accident that he will be taking the oath at the height of the American presidency’s power. Eight years of Barack Obama has seen overreach after overreach, with the most liberal president of my lifetime often governing by executive fiat. He asserted a prerogative to rewrite laws already on the books. His administration abused the power of taxation to intimidate conservative organizations into silence. And he attempted to enforce the bleeding edge of sexual radicalism on every bathroom of every school in the nation, with a mere stroke of his pen.
The president’s political allies stood silently and watched all of this happen. But now that someone with whom they profoundly disagree has taken office, they’re frightened. They should be. President Obama (not to mention a Supreme Court manned by liberal appointees) has set a dangerous precedent, and now Trump will have to decide whether to follow in his predecessor’s footsteps, or voluntarily scale back the power of his office. I pray he does the right thing.
But remember: You reap what you sow.
Those who used words like “racist,” “bigot,” “homophobe,” “intolerant,” “uneducated,” “irredeemable,” and “deplorable,” as cudgels to dismiss opponents of radical left-wing politics are also gathering a bitter harvest. It turns out the targets of these insults can find their way to a voting booth, and they made themselves heard a few days ago, loud and clear.
The degreed and enfranchised who feel that our country is on the right track have insisted on belittling the undiplomad and disenfranchised, who believe our country is on the wrong track. This election, the wrong-trackers made themselves heard. And they’re now enjoying what they think of as the well-deserved misery of the ruling class. I know. I am friends with these folks, both in real life and on social media. They’re sick of being treated like human garbage, and they’re delighting in the misery they’ve brought on the enfranchised.
You reap what you sow.
But the other side of the political aisle has also been scattering a lot of bad seeds, and they shouldn’t be surprised when their crop, too, begins to grow.
I want to be very clear: I’m not talking about conservatives who made the agonized decision to vote for Donald Trump as a firewall against the radically pro-abortion, anti-religious liberty Hillary Clinton.
I’m talking about those who enthusiastically campaigned for him back in primary season, who posed for photos with him in front of Playboy magazines, who chose to vote for him when there were infinitely better options, who saw him as a brick to toss through the window of party establishment and political correctness, who heard his remarks about women, watched him refuse to denounce racists, heard him promise to shut Muslims out of the country, listened to him describe immigrants as rapists and murderers, comprehended his promise to commit war crimes, and joined him in excusing boasts of sexual assault as “locker room talk,” all while claiming that he was a follower of Christ, and even calling him “God’s anointed!”
Many of these conservatives did all of this in full knowledge that Trump had lived the life of a garden variety libertine. They tarred fellow conservatives who couldn’t bring themselves to vote for him, saying we would be responsible should Clinton win.
In the process, they have given up all pretense, so doggedly asserted during Bill Clinton’s tenure, that character and moral integrity are essential for public office. These conservatives sent a very clear message by tirelessly supporting and excusing Trump: Character is a luxury good, not an essential. And the next time they condemn a politician for insensitive remarks, a sex scandal, or flip-flopping on a crucial issue, very few Americans will take them seriously—or should.
If any president-elect ever belonged to a group of supporters, Donald Trump belongs to this group of conservatives. They own his presidency, and whatever he does during the next four years will and should stick to them. They have planted in abundance, and whatever harvest comes of it, they will gather in abundance.
You reap what you sow.
Lastly, our future president should prepare his own grain silos. Throughout this campaign, he made it abundantly clear that he considers his opponents and critics “nasty,” “pathetic,” disastrous,” “losers.” He has called nearly everyone opposite his podium a liar or incompetent at one time or another, often suddenly changing his mind when these opponents dropped out and endorsed him. Trump has raised incendiary hyperbole to an art form, and generally given the impression that, if placed in charge of the country, he would fix it all.
“Make America great again” was more than a slogan. It was the tenor of his whole campaign, an operation characterized by the kind of vague, fanciful promises for which Republicans once ridiculed Obama. “We will win so much, you’ll be sick of winning,” he told us, and every nebulous pledge was backed by a hearty “trust me, believe me!”
No mortal can possibly live up to these commitments, and Trump will inevitably let his supporters down, in some way. Yet in denouncing others so harshly, he has set the bar for his own tenure in office. He will be our president in less than three months, and he will have to play the big game he’s talked for nearly two years.
I hope and pray he succeeds, as president. I hope and pray he does what’s genuinely right for the country. And I hope and pray he experiences true repentance and humility, submits himself to the discipline of a local church, and finds forgiveness and new birth in Jesus Christ.
But real consequences remain, and the measure by which president-elect Trump judged others will be the same measure by which he is judged. He and his most strident supporters now face the unenviable responsibility of meeting an impossible standard. And like the half of the electorate now mourning their exile, Donald Trump’s Republican Party will eventually have to reckon with its own words and deeds.
God will not be mocked. You reap what you sow.
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