13 Jan 2025

Huckabee and Profound Prophetic Appointments

Margaret and I were leaving Highland Heights Baptist Church after a Sunday service sometime in the 1980s. As we turned to trek down the side of the church on the road leading to the parking lot, I heard the voice: “Terry! You and Margaret come here. I want to introduce you to Mike Huckabee.”

It was our pastor, Robert McDaniel, who was standing near the frontage road talking with Mike Huckabee, who had delivered the sermon that morning as a guest speaker.

“Mike is running for lieutenant governor,” the pastor said. “I wanted you to meet him and shake hands with him.”

We did so, and spent a few minutes in pleasantries, with my thanking him for his sermon.

Little did I imagine Mr. Huckabee would achieve the level of national and international prominence the Lord chose for him, of course.

He was, and remains, the personification of a Christian gentleman, according to all I have known from reports all these years. This, despite his being engaged in the rough-and-tumble (some would say “wicked”) business of political warfare in our state of Arkansas and in the nation.

There were many in the Christian community in those days when Mike ran for lieutenant governor and later for governor who either questioned a Baptist preacher becoming intertwined with the often nefarious art of politics, or who adamantly opposed such engagement by a Baptist preacher.

I myself remember asking why a Baptist preacher would want to become a part of the politicking in our state and nation.

My question has since been answered in my spirit. The Lord has had his hand on Mr. Huckabee–as well as on his daughter, Sarah, who was a youngster when Margaret and I shook hands with her father. She, of course, became President Trump’s press spokesperson and is now governor of Arkansas.

Mike, of course, ran for president, and he and the rest of the GOP field were defeated by one Donald J. Trump. Trump went on then to be elected president in defeating another who was once part of Arkansas government–Hillary Clinton, Bill Clinton’s First Lady when he was governor here, and, later, when he was president of the United States.

The 2016 election was, as we recall, a complete surprise to many–especially to the Hillary Clinton presidential-aspiration camp. The shock of that victory continues to reverberate with wave after wave of political and cultural impact.

The point is that God’s mighty hand continues to be on display as He restrains evil, has that “wickedness in high places” in derision, and especially as He brings all into focus for the prophesied wind-up of this Church Age (Age of Grace).

To those who observe developments through the prism of Bible prophecy, no instance of God’s great hand of providential direction and control is more profound than the dynamics involving Israel taking place at present.

We’ve seen God moving powerfully since the Hamas attack of October 7, 2023. Remember, for example, the strategic brilliance employed by the IDF in the exploding of communications devices, killing many enemy terrorists in the process. We who believe Israel’s God neither slumbers nor sleeps know this seeming miraculous action was orchestrated by Heaven, while the Supreme Maestro, Israel’s God, continues to direct the prophetic stage-setting.

That same Supreme Maestro has placed in the president-elect’s mind, I’m convinced, to appoint Mike Huckabee to be the next ambassador to God’s chosen nation. Here is a news brief framing that appointment.

Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, President-elect Donald Trump’s pick to be ambassador to Israel, has long rejected a Palestinian state in territory previously seized by Israel and has repeatedly signaled his staunch support for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Huckabee, a former TV host and Baptist preacher, frequently visits Israel and once said he wanted to buy a holiday home there. He has maintained throughout the years that the West Bank belongs to Israel, and recently said, “the title deed was given by God to Abraham and to his heirs.”

His argument for a so-called “one-state solution” contradicts longstanding official U.S. support for the eventual establishment of a Palestinian state.

He has described the Oct. 7 attack by Hamas as “horrific” and “beyond anything I’ve ever witnessed in my lifetime” and argued that the U.S. needs to stand firmly behind Israel. (“Trump picks Mike Huckabee to serve as US ambassador to Israel,” AP News, Adriana Gomez Licon, November 13, 2024)

The most important thing about Trump choosing Mr. Huckabee is not that a Baptist preacher will be in the position to wholeheartedly bring America’s full support to God’s chosen nation. Even more profound is that he will have this president’s ear in such an influential way.

This message isn’t only for Mike Huckabee. I want to implore others as well who have Donald J. Trump’s ear. That is, I implore other godly men to advise without reservation as Mr. Trump performs the duties God has appointed him to carry out. That is a main reason they’ve been placed by the God of Heaven into the pathway of this unusual man who will soon again be the most powerful human leader on planet Earth.

God’s men who have this president’s ear, such as John Hagee and Robert Jeffress, have, like Mike Huckabee, a responsibility to inform the president, at every opportunity, about Heaven’s ultimate control over things at this prophetic hour. Your advice in that Holy Spirit sense, gentlemen, is far beyond the Senate’s “advice and consent authority” under America’s constitutional prerogative. Please do not shirk that great responsibility.

–Terry

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No Time for Complacency

Although I had read the verse well over a hundred times, I had always missed its relevance for today and, in particular, our anticipation of Jesus’ imminent appearing. Perhaps it was because the words don’t directly relate to Bible prophecy that I overlooked their relevance to it.

However, as the new year dawned, I saw in the verse below an understanding of why so many people today cling to their hope of a return to normality rather than what Jesus says about their only sure hope for the perilous days in which we live.

“For the simple are killed by their turning away,
and the complacency of fools destroys them” (Proverbs 1:32, emphasis added).

It was the word “complacency” that leaped from the page on January 1. The Hebrew word is shalvah, which also denotes a sense of ease and prosperity. The online Merriam-Webster dictionary defines complacency as “self-satisfaction, especially when accompanied by unawareness of actual dangers or deficiencies.”

It’s understandable why many English versions of the Bible translate shalvah in Proverbs 1:32 as “complacency,” as it fits rather well with the Hebrew word’s sense of self-absorption that leads to a dismissal of dangers until it is too late.

Today’s Church

Unfortunately, today’s prosperity leads many to a state of complacency regarding the Lord’s return, one that causes them to ignore the multitude of signs pointing to the start of the Tribulation. Like the church in Laodicea, arrogant “self-satisfaction” is prevalent among many gatherings of the faithful, particularly in America.

False teaching and/or quietness from the pulpit directs most church attenders away from any awareness that we live in the last days of human history as we know it. Their shepherds fail to teach them how to discern the times in which we live. Their messages might contain fleeting mentions of eternal life, but there’s no meaningful teaching about what it means for New Testament saints.

The resulting complacency among many of today’s church-goers doesn’t mean that those who are truly born again will lose their salvation, no, not at all. But why should believers continue with such an earth-based outlook on life, shalvah, which for those outside of Christ will result in ruin?

The World

The world rejects any notion that the Lord might intervene in our world. Since they spurn all the warnings of Scripture, it never enters their minds that God might judge the wickedness of our day. Not only is the idea of Jesus’ return laughable to them, but they also readily scorn any notion of God’s judgment, now or in eternity.

Peter A. Steveson, in A Commentary on Proverbs, put it this way in his insights into Proverbs 1:32:

Filled with the carelessness of self-confidence, these fools show no concern over divine judgment.

We see this same worldly recklessness in the words of Ezekiel as he used the word shalvah to describe the people of Sodom before they experienced the Lord’s sudden destruction (compare 1 Thessalonians 5:1-3).

“Behold, this was the guilt of your sister Sodom: she and her daughters had pride, excess of food, and prosperous ease, but did not aid the poor and needy” (Ezekiel 16:49, emphasis added).

The problem with such self-satisfaction is not with what one possesses but rather with the fact it breeds complacency regarding the warnings of God’s Word and a failure to recognize that the Lord’s promise of eternal life is vastly superior to anything the world offers.

Those Who Hear

I know the majority of my readers fall into the category described in Proverbs 1:33:

“But whoever listens to me will dwell secure
and will be at ease, without dread of disaster.”

Those who hope in Jesus’ imminent appearing possess a peace amid all the unwelcome news that continually comes our way. We pray for the Lord to keep us resisting the wickedness and violence of our day, but at the same time, we rest in the confidence that Jesus is coming for us before the terrors of the Day of the Lord.

Is it too much of a leap to say that the wise believers of our day discern the times in which we live and thus recognize the imminency of Jesus’ appearing? Please note the reassuring words that the Lord gave to Daniel, and to us, shortly before the prophet’s death:

“Many shall be purified, and made white, and tried; but the wicked shall do wickedly: and none of the wicked shall understand; but the wise shall understand” (Daniel 12:10, KJV).

In today’s world, it’s the discerning saints who avoid the complacency that characterizes many church-goers and those in the world who don’t believe that the Lord will directly intervene in the affairs of humanity.

If you look for and long for Jesus’ appearing, thank the Lord for the insight He has given you into Scripture. In 1 Corinthians 1:18-31, Paul contrasts the wisdom of God with that of the world and ends with these words:

“And because of him you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, righteousness and sanctification and redemption, so that, as it is written, ‘Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord.’”

We must always give the Lord all the credit for who we are in Him as well as for our understanding of what the Bible says about our “blessed hope.” I know many sincere New Testament saints remain complacent regarding the signs of the times and Jesus’ imminent appearing. I don’t fully understand why this is the case or why it’s so clear to us and not to others.

What I do know for sure is this: if there ever was a time for complacency in the body of Christ, this most assuredly is not it.

-Jonathan

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