As we close the year, let’s reflect on this question: What event best demonstrated the Sovereign Hand of the Almighty Triune God? My answer is the attempted assassination of Donald Trump in Pennsylvania. I say this for three reasons: publicity, consequence, and margin of survival. Regarding its public nature, anyone who has access to the internet can witness these events unfold. In terms of consequence, imagine if had he been killed. What would our beloved county look like right now? The thought alone is chilling. Finally, in terms of how close Trump came to dying, he literally got shot in the ear. I’m no scientist, but I know that the distance between his ear and his skull is extremely small—a hair’s breadth. At a critical moment, Trump turned his head, and his life was spared.
Why did the President-elect dodge the bullet? It’s unchristian to dismiss it as mere randomness or to say, “We don’t know.” No, we do know, for the Bible tells us so. This is the answer: God ordained this to happen. Scripture is clear that everything, from the minute to the monumental, happens according to God’s divine will. As King Nebuchadnezzar confesses that God “does according to His will among the host of heaven and among the inhabitants of the earth; and none can stay His hand or say to Him, ‘What have you done?’” (Dan 4:35).
In saying that the LORD preserved Trump’s life, I am not saying that I (nor anyone else) knows the ultimate reason why. The short-term reason is that Trump would win the election on November 4, but beyond that we do not know. Time will reveal the purpose God has for the President-elect. Nor am I saying that God’s preservation of Trump’s life means that Trump is a Christian. Trump’s eternal destination is irrelevant to my point, since Yahweh uses both righteous (2 Kings 18:4) and pagan rulers (Isa 45:1). I am simply affirming that what we saw had God’s fingerprints all over it.
Writing about our Nation’s Civil War and Abraham Lincoln’s subsequent assassination, theologian Charles Hodge (1797–1878) wrote this about what he observed, “No Christian can look upon the events of the last four years without being deeply impressed with the conviction that they have been ordered by God to produce great and lasting changes in the state of the country, and probably of the world. Few periods of equal extent in the history of our race are likely to prove more influential in controlling the destinies of men. Standing, as we now do, at the close of one stage at least of this great epoch, it becomes us to look back and to look around us, that we may in some measure understand what God has wrought.”
These observations resonate with our current situation. Our Nation has seen tumult in the last four years that, left unchecked, could have torn the USA apart. The assassination of the President-elect would have accelerated the tumult, but the Triune God preserved Trump’s life. While we wait to see what God has in store for us in 2025 and beyond, we proclaim with Nebuchadnezzar that the LORD’s “dominion is an everlasting dominion, and his kingdom endures from generation to generation” (Dan 4:34). Praise His holy name!
Pastor Chance Sumner
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