When the wicked rise to power, people go into hiding; but when the wicked perish, the righteous thrive.

Proverbs 28:28, NIV

There is a battle going on for the soul of America and it is playing out before our very eyes. Americans who are paying attention have been horrified at just how evil people can be when they want to hold onto power. This past week we witnessed the attempted assassination of a Presidential candidate. This particular man is not perfect by any means, but if you can judge a man by his enemies, then he may be the best hope America has for escaping our current set of evil leaders. Of course, when I say that, I am not forgetting the true, best hope - God, but I believe that He works in mysterious ways and that is why I am becoming more and more convinced that this particular candidate might be the one to help change the reckless course that our nation finds itself on.

One of the lessons the events of this past week has taught is that we must never underestimate the capacity of wicked men to do evil.

After the assassination attempt, it was found that those in charge of the secret service responsible for providing the protection of Presidential candidates, had changed the way they do business. They gave the former President's normal secret service team the weekend off, and then replaced them with a skeleton crew of individuals who appeared not to have been fully trained. 

The result was that a sniper was able to climb up on a nearby roof in full view of law enforcement without being challenged. He was then permitted to open fire, striking the former President and three others. The secret service snipers were so few in number and so ill-prepared that they were either unable or unwilling to take a shot until after the shooter had finished.

Let that sink in. They waited for the man to get into position, take aim, open fire, and finish firing before they intervened. The result was one dead - a retired fire chief who was shielding his wife and daughter, and three wounded. I believe it was by the grace of God that more were not killed.

As the days have gone by since the shooting, it has become clear to me that those in charge (by that, I mean those who are in the highest positions of this particular chain of power) were the ones who created the circumstances for this tragedy to occur. They are idealogues, everything from social justice warriors to petty men and women who just seem to despise anyone who disagrees with them or who gets in the way of their power. It is clear that they provided to perfect circumstances for an opponent to be removed.

Whether their involvement went beyond that is yet to be determined, but one thing seems abundantly clear: They manipulated the events in such a way as to leave a political opponent unprotected. Then, instead of being fired immediately or resigning in disgrace, they have doubled down on their wicked behavior by trying to remain in their positions of authority. Hopefully by the time you read this article, that situation will have changed.

So, what's the point of this discussion? Is it just to provide fuel for an unpleasant fire? Is it to provide another "conspiracy theory" to separate people who might otherwise find common ground? No, the purpose of this article is to remind us all that the truths of the Bible never change, and that we need to keep those truths in mind so that we might be guided by them. Regardless of which side of the political aisle you stand on, one thing is certain: When wicked men are in power, the righteous do end up having to go into hiding. But, when the righteous prevail, there is a cause for rejoicing. We need a cause for rejoicing about now.

As I have already stated, I don't believe that Donald Trump is perfect, but he may be our best hope for ridding our nation of the wicked men and women who have been in power (both Republican and Democrat - evil knows no boundaries). These evil men and women have seemed to express a disdain for everything that is righteous, and an allegiance towards everything that is wicked. They have removed God and Christ from the public square and replaced them with a love for perversion, sexual immorality and even a detestable infanticide of the unborn. They have put the righteous down as far as they can and have seemed to have shown no limits as to the evil they promote.

And the righteous have let it happen, mistakenly thinking that things will get better if they say nothing. But we have said nothing (or at least too little) for too long and is ruining our nation and imperiling our children and grandchildren's future. It is time, I believe, for righteous people to stop living in a fantasy world in which we believe that the capacity for wicked people to do evil is somehow limited. It clearly is not! Furthermore, it is time for us to get involved! We need to be praying for God's help, but we have to repent of our own shortcomings before we can do that. Then we need to take a stand, for what will happen if we do not?