Tonight the first 2016 US Presidential debate will be nationally televised. Barring any unforeseen catastrophic circumstances, one of the two candidates in the debate will end up being the President of the United States, still one of the most powerful “rulers” in the world. Did you know that there was no official ruler of God’s people until they finally begged to have one in about 600 BC? (as it is written in the First Book of Samuel, “When Samuel became old, he made his sons judges over Israel…Yet his sons did not walk in his ways…Then all the elders of Israel gathered together and came to Samuel at Ramah and said to him, ‘Behold, you are old and your sons do not walk in your ways. Now appoint for us a king to judge us like all the nations’.†(1 Sam 8:1-22) God told Samuel to appoint Saul, who became the first King of Israel but ended up turning from God. So God told Samuel to appoint another, and King David was chosen, and then there was a succession of kings leading up to King Herod’s reign in which the King of Kings, Jesus Christ, was born. So the people asked to be ruled…as people usually have over the ages. My novel, The Peace Maker, which is being re-published and released tomorrow, Sept. 27, is based on the First Book of Samuel and the rise of King David, set in a modern-day America with a plot about a contemporary US Presidential election and issues much like those we face today: the strife for peace in the Middle East, right to life vs. right to choose, and more. So…which candidate is the right one in this election? Which one would God choose? I think we need to educate ourselves, so a good first step would probably be watching the presidential debates, starting tonight. And then we need to keep praying!
