The big news this weekend has been about America attacking Venezuela and kidnapping its president. The Trump administration had been building up military forces in the region for months, just for this purpose, and to intimidate the Venezuelan president and a sovereign nation.
This was a play right out of Pres. Putin and Satan’s playbook: take what you want (Exodus 23:2, Proverbs 3:31, James 4:1-3). This is how the corrupt and fallen world works, not the people of God.
President Trump has been after President Maduro since his first administration. For months, the president lied to the American people about blowing up drug boats and murdering people without showing any evidence to stop the flow of drugs into America. Despite the government’s own records saying that most drugs come in on land, not water.
As a nation of law and order, even drug dealers must go through our legal system. Once again, President Trump does not follow our laws, but does the works of his father, the devil:
- Deceive
- Murder
- Steal
The scariest part of this forceful takeover of another sovereign nation is how so many Bible reading conservatives are praising this act of war. One of the signs of the end times is God’s people once again turning from His ways to the ways of this world and the desires of their hearts (Matthew 24:10-14, 2 Timothy 3:1-5, Revelation 2:4-5).
Many have forgotten that God set His people apart from this world to be different and to help lead it back to God, not to rule it like the corrupt earthly leaders (Leviticus 20:26, Romans 12:2).
They want to be great in this dark kingdom, instead of being the light to the nations. This domination of the Western Hemisphere is a key component of Project 2025 and President Trump’s agenda.
It doesn’t matter if we are a pastor, Christian writer, or world-class theologian; if we support anything that contradicts the ways of God, we need to repent and come back to God (Ezekiel 18:32, Hebrews 6:1).
What Does It Mean to Repent
Repent is something a lot of people, including God’s people, often get wrong. Repent is defined as, “To turn from sin and dedicate one’s life to the amendment of one’s life; regret.”
Repenting isn’t something that only lost people do; biblically, even God’s people must repent of their sinful and evil ways. Repenting is more than just feeling bad or confessing wrongs; true repentance leads to change, like recalibrating our GPS and going in another way in life.
Once we truly repent, we cannot keep living the way we used to by listening to our evil hearts and pursuing selfish desires as the fallen world does. When we repent, we just don’t feel bad about our sin; we run from it. Our lives, priorities, and hopes change as we follow the path God has for us back to Himself.
That is why the Bible has a lot to say about our need to repent and how it changes us (Acts 2:38; 3:19, Romans 2:4). Repentance leads us out of darkness and into God’s glorious light and His ways (Acts 26:18, Ephesians 5:8, 1 Peter 2:9).
Let me be clear, we don’t repent to be saved, we repent because God has given us new lives and a fresh start. The old man has passed away, so the new man lives (2 Corinthians 5:17; 7:10, Ephesians 4:22-24, Colossians 3:9-10, Titus 3:5). The Apostle Paul remembered his Jewish education about the need to repent.
Šûḇ
The Torah tells us that after mankind sinned, they were ashamed and hid from God (Genesis 3:7-10). This feeling of shame came from their disobedience that separated them from their Creator, unlike how they were before they sinned (Genesis 2:25).
Once they confessed their sin to God, He covered them (Genesis 3:21). Unfortunately, this regret didn’t lead mankind to repent, and mankind continued to drift away from God as sin increased in the land, the second generation of mankind led to the first murder, and once again, mankind tried to hide their sin (Genesis 4:8-12).
The Hebrew word in the Old Testament for repent is šûḇ, and it can also mean “Return, again, turn, away, restore, or recompense,” depending upon the context it is used in. The creation continued to drift away from God so much that He regretted making mankind and plunged the creation into a water baptism to cleanse it of its sin (Genesis 6:6; 7:1-24).
Even after the flood, mankind continued to sin and turn from God (Genesis 9:20-25; 11:1-9). That is why He called His people to be different from this corrupt world and to help the world turn back to God (Deuteronomy 7:6, Psalm 4:3).
Because of this, Judaism emphasizes the need for God’s people to repent (2 Chronicles 30:9, Isaiah 30:15, Jeremiah 31:19, Zechariah 1:3). This is the practice of Teshuva :
- Regret
- Renounce
- Confess
- Reconcile
- Make amends
- Resolve
The New Testament shares about John the Baptist preaching repentance in the wilderness before Jesus began His earthly ministry (Matthew 3:1-11, Mark 1:4, Luke 3:16, John 1:23). John the Baptist didn’t primarily preach repentance to the Gentiles; his main audience was Israel, especially the religious leaders like the Pharisees and the Sadducees, because they had turned from God and pursued earthly greatness. Not much has changed in 2000 years!
John reminded the people that God’s Kingdom isn’t of this temporary and fallen kingdom, and it was coming soon (Matthew 3:1-2). John was trying to get God’s people to turn from their selfish and evil ways back to God because His Kingdom was coming with Jesus.
Jesus also emphasized the need to repent because He saw God’s people turning from Him (Matthew 3:2-8; 4:17, Mark 1:15, Luke 24:47). He warned that without repentance, no one will enter the Kingdom of God (Luke 13:3-5). Jesus knew that His Kingdom is not of this corrupt world (Luke 18:36).
Greenland
In other big news this weekend, one of the advisors of the first lady, Katie Miller posted a picture of Greenland colored with the US flag, and the word “Soon”. Her post referenced President Trump’s goal of annexing Greenland, another sovereign nation.
President Trump, his administration, and his followers are obsessed with an earthly kingdom and temporary greatness instead of God’s Kingdom and doing His will. World domination isn’t the purpose of God’s people; the world’s salvation is. If we are God’s people, we cannot be like the people and rulers of this fallen kingdom:
- Greedy
- Power-should hungry
- Deceptive
- Unloving
When we come to God, we must turn from our selfish and sinful ways, not justify them because we know God. We cannot continue to practice any sin in our new lives and the new direction God has given us (Romans 6:1-2, 1 John 3:9).
Charles Spurgeon explains it this way, “Repentance is the inseparable companion of faith.” As the new year rolls on, it is a great time to take our lives in a new and better correction. We can leave our mistakes and sins in the past once we truly šûḇ!
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