discerning the signs of the times

From my very first blog post after the 2016 presidential election and continuing to this day, I have spoken repeatedly of the “revelation” that tRUMP, America’s Caligula, has been for me. But the revelation should not be, must not be confined to me. He should serve as a revelation to all of us. The fact that so many have lacked discernment of his revelation is a mystery still to be revealed—though the New Testament’s Book of Revelation can go a long way toward shedding light into this dark corner of American culture.
 
Willful ignorance has played a large role in the blindness of so many millions of Americans. But after his coup, attempted through mindless, likely sociopathic thugs, terrorists, and insurgents charging the U.S. Capital building, only the most willfully blind, deaf, and unfeeling can fail to discern his revelation—a revelation of “the signs of the times.”
 
Some of tRUMP's “insaniacs,” have likened their sociopathic leader to Jesus. This is beyond disgusting and pornographic. It is blasphemous. It is the taking of the name of God in vain to a degree that would possibly enjoin the death penalty upon them if they were living in the Biblical times they claim to love so much. Having said all of that, there is one way in which we can liken the two men, one God, the other a demon from hell.
 
I have quoted the following often, including in my latest Mad State and Blog posts. Jesus is speaking to leading Pharisees and Sadducees.
 
“He answered and said unto them, When it is evening, ye say, ‘It will be fair weather: for the sky is red.’ And in the morning, ‘It will be foul weather to day: for the sky is red and lowring,’ O ye hypocrites, ye can discern the face of the sky; but can ye not discern the signs of the times?”[1]
 
Jesus then follows this up with, “there shall no sign be given unto it [this generation], but the sign of the prophet Jonas.”[2] Now, Jesus used this “sign of the prophet Jonas” on more than one occasion and to illustrate more than one point. For example, earlier in his ministry, Jesus had used this “sign” as a lesson concerning his death.
 
“For as Jonas was three days and three nights in the whale's belly; so shall the Son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.”[3]
 
This usage of the “sign” does not fit the context in Matthew 16. In another context, Luke records Jesus’ use of Jonah as a “sign.
 
“For as Jonas was a sign unto the Ninevites, so shall also the Son of man be to this generation.”[4]
 
Here, Jesus himself is a “sign” to Judah as Jonah was a “sign” to Nineveh. But the sign had nothing to do with big fish swallowing little men or God lying dead for three days. So, what sort of sign” was Jonah to Nineveh? As every reader of the Bible knows, Yahweh commanded Jonah to “Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and cry against it; for their wickedness is come up before me.”[5] After his fishy detour, Jonah finally arrived in the city and delivered his ominous message.
 
“Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown.”[6]
 
Jonah, then, with his Assyrian ministry and message, was a “sign” that if Assyria did not immediately mend its ways, it was subject to utter destruction. A half-millennium later, Jesus served the same role in the life of Judah. He was a sign, as John the Baptist had been before him, that the time for repentance had come. A broom was prepared. Absent Judah’s repentance, God would use the broom to sweep Judah away into the dust bin of history. The only way to survive was to repent.
 
This, in a kind of anti-hero manner, is the sort of revelation or “sign” that America’s mad would-be dictator represents. He signifies all that is wrong with America: materialism, hedonism, arrogance, self-centeredness, self-righteousness, shamelessness, contempt for others, rage, corruption, deceit... on and on it goes. His dark and fictitious and seditious visions of election fraud and the attendant insurrection he instigated, and that his hordes attempted and will continue to attempt, are all “signs.” “Signs” that America as it has devolved cannot endure. “Signs” that the day of repentance is nearly past. “Signs” that it is either “repent or perish.”
 
One can hope and pray that America will learn from and follow the Assyrians’ example.
 
“So the people of Nineveh believed God, and proclaimed a fast, and put on sackcloth, from the greatest of them even to the least of them. For word came unto the king of Nineveh, and he arose from his throne, and he laid his robe from him, and covered him with sackcloth, and sat in ashes. And he caused it to be proclaimed and published through Nineveh by the decree of the king and his nobles, saying, ‘Let neither man nor beast, herd nor flock, taste any thing: let them not feed, nor drink water: but let man and beast be covered with sackcloth, and cry mightily unto God: yea, let them turn every one from his evil way, and from the violence that is in their hands. Who can tell if God will turn and repent, and turn away from his fierce anger, that we perish not?[7]
 
When “God saw their works, that they turned from their evil way… God repented of the evil, that he had said that he would do unto them; and he did it not.”[8]
 
Observing the “signs of the times” that tRUMP is flashing in neon red, America can still repent. One can hope and pray that it is not too late.  But, as of right now, the “signs” that America discerns “the signs of the times” that tRUMP represents are depressingly absent. From senators and congressmen and women to the basest of the mad insurrectionists, far, far too many remain under the spell cast by the latest of Satan’s spawn, who spews “great things and blasphemies” out of his perverted mouth.[9]
 
“A responsible government—and let’s be frank here, a responsible political party—would be acting in concert to stamp out this threat using every tool necessary and making the transition to a stable successor government as smooth as possible.
 
“Instead what we have is the Republican party doing everything in its power to avoid addressing the threat, making the succession to the Biden administration as challenging as possible, and desperately trying to protect Donald Trump from consequences under the insane rubric of ‘national unity.’
 
“And it’s not just a few ‘bad apples.’ Jake Tapper reports that even the minority of House members who didn’t actively support the coup want to act ‘as if it didn’t happen,’ with scant exceptions….
 
“For months Republicans told the country that they were just ‘humoring’ the president. That there was nothing to worry about. That was a lie, a wish that they were hoping to get away with, since they were too timorous to tackle the threat that was bubbling up before our eyes.
 
“They are running the same play again, right now: Asking that America turn the page, hope for the best, and run out the clock of the Trump presidency. And pray that nothing else bad happens.”
 
“If we haven’t learned what a terrible ‘strategy’ this is by now, then we never will.
 
“The attacks on our country that Donald Trump has agitated for are ongoing.”[10]
 
Yes, one fears that “the day of grace [is] passed with them, both temporally and spiritually”[11] and that our deliverance is little more than that of a thirsty and starving man’s false night-time dream of life-sustaining liquid and nourishment. The post-truth world of delusion is alive and well in the land of the unfree—for it is only truth that will set you free.
 
Even so, come, Lord Jesus!


[1] Matthew 16.2-3

[2] Verse 4

[3] Matthew 12.40

[4] Luke 11.30

[5] Jonah 1.2

[6] Jonah 3.5

[7] Jonah 3.5-9

[8] Jonah 3.10

[9] See Revelation 13.5
[10] “The Attack on Democracy Is Not Over. It’s Still Happening. Right Now,” Tim Miller, thebulwark.com
[11] Mormon 2.15