Change You Can Believe In

During the 2008 United States presidential campaign, Democratic candidate Barack Obama mesmerized people with his powerful, eloquent oratory. His words were inspiring and uplifting, and filled millions of people not only in America but all over the world with hope for a better future. Peppered with a number of compelling catch phrases, his speeches proved effective in wooing Americans into electing him president, as well as seducing much of the rest of the world into hailing him as a virtual messiah figure.

At rally after rally, huge crowds chanted "YES WE CAN! YES WE CAN!" All across the country, thousands of signs, posters, and bumper stickers trumpeted "Change we can believe in."

But the change we could believe in never came into focus and never quite materialized. Today, four years later, that change doesn't seem to be any closer or any clearer—that is, unless you consider that change to be a distinct shift toward a stifling, hyper-liberal socialist state that is drowning in debt, treating the Constitution like a throw rug, spinning ever expanding webs of despicable, demonstrable lies for political advantage, and intent on making America look fickle, feckless, and irresolute in the eyes of the international community.

(Sorry, I need a moment...)

Eloquent speeches notwithstanding, it has become manifestly clear to all but his most loyal supporters that Barack Obama represents people's worst stereotype of a politician: someone who will say or do anything to get into office, say or do anything while in office, and then say or do anything to stay in office.

The point is that all politicians talk about change. It's in their DNA. They promise to change things for the better—if elected. They promise to implement new policies that will improve the lives of all citizens—if elected. They promise to dump the flawed policies implemented by the profligate nincompoops currently in office—if elected.

I don't presume to know what kind of change all those people chanting "YES WE CAN" believed in, but I have to believe that what Barack Obama has done over the past four years is not it. This time around, however, it seems to me that fewer people are prepared to buy the bill of goods that President Obama is trying to sell.

It's not exactly a news flash, of course, that we can't always trust politicians or believe in the change they promise. But the good news is that we don't have to look to politicians for change we can believe in. We don't have to look any further than God's Word.

The rebellion

The first big change that set things in motion, at least as far as mankind is concerned, was a tragic one that occurred at some point after God created man. God created Adam and Eve in a state of perfection and placed them in a perfect environment in which they enjoyed perfect communion with Him. But God also gave them free will—and just as He knew they would, they exercised that free will to rebel against Him.

Satan lured Eve into violating God's solitary command not to eat the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, and Adam followed suit. Their sin fundamentally changed man's spiritual relationship with God: It severed it. Sadly, there was nothing man could do about it—and there never will be.

This is a change we have to believe in, because each one of us is confronted with the results of it every day of our lives: We are sinners, and we sin. We have each inherited a sin nature that rebels against God and revels in the flesh, and there is absolutely nothing we can do to bridge the chasm between ourselves and an infinitely loving, infinitely holy, and infinitely just God.

No amount of good deeds or noble intentions; no rites or rituals; no esoteric insight or philosophical musings.

Nothing.

It would take a loving God to restore that relationship all by Himself, and He did it by sending part of His triune Self—His only Son Jesus—to earth to live a sinless life as a man and to die as the perfect sacrifice to satisfy God's justice on our behalf.

But Jesus' death wasn't the end for Him—it was the beginning for us.

The Resurrection

That brings us to arguably the most important change in the history of mankind—and it's not just a change we can believe in, but one we have to believe in: the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

After Jesus was crucified, His body was placed in the tomb of Joseph of Arimathea, and a group of soldiers was dispatched to guard the tomb to ensure that nobody tried to steal the body and then claim He had been resurrected. There were rumors circulating that Jesus would come back to life after three days, and these rumors had reached the ears of both the Roman and Jewish leaders. They wanted to make absolutely certain that this irrepressible firebrand from Nazareth would cause them no more headaches, even in death.

Although the Jews and Romans had finally managed to capture and execute Him, Jesus had succeeded in getting a significant number of people stirred up and buzzing about some sort of kingdom. Potentially, yet another insurrection to put down—that was the last thing the Roman leaders needed. And body-snatching shenanigans that could cause an uproar among the people sufficient to provoke a heavy-handed response from the Romans—that was the last thing the Jewish leaders needed.

Both the Jews and the Romans were no doubt hoping that perhaps now things could get back to normal: Jesus was as dead as He could be and buried as securely as humanly possible, and they were determined to do whatever was necessary to ensure that He stayed that way.

But three days later, something happened that would change the world forever: The tomb was empty. Jesus was alive.

The tomb wasn't completely empty, however. The linen wrapping Jesus had been buried in was still intact and in the exact same position that it was when Jesus' body was placed in the tomb, only now lying eerily undisturbed with no body inside it. It would have been impossible to physically remove His body from the wrapping and leave it in this manner, which is a detail that effectively shreds the grave-robbing theory.

And here's another little detail that many people miss. When Jesus' body was placed in the tomb, He had a separate face cloth covering His head. It appears that Peter actually entered the tomb first, and when he did he noticed that this face cloth was rolled up and lying off to the side, away from the burial wrapping. Who do you think did that? Or maybe I should ask: Why do you think the Holy Spirit included that detail in Scripture?

We read in John 20 and other places that after Jesus was resurrected, He was in His resurrection body (strictly speaking, He wasn't in His fully glorified body until after He ascended into heaven) and could appear and disappear at will. The face cloth is a detail that provides a wonderful confirmation of this. Jesus disappeared from within His burial wrapping, but then reappeared in His resurrection body and physically stood there in the tomb and took the time to roll up His face cloth and set it off to the side. He left us a forensic clue worthy of an episode of CSI Jerusalem.

Jesus was very dead.
Then He was very alive.

No matter how they come against it, people who deny the resurrection of Jesus Christ have an empty tomb on their hands (not to mention 500-plus eyewitnesses and the inexplicably sudden transformation that forever radicalized His disciples). Even Jesus' enemies, who had every reason to want Jesus to stay dead, conceded that the tomb was indeed empty.

There is arguably as much historical evidence for the Resurrection as there is for the fact that George Washington was the first president of the United States, and every explanation of what happened collapses under the weight of logic and known facts. Every explanation except one, that is.

The truth.

The inescapable fact is that Jesus was resurrected, just as it was written.

Our sin against an infinitely holy God left us all facing an infinitely severe penalty: spiritual death, or eternal separation from God. Only a man who had no sin of His own and so deserved no punishment was qualified to take ours, and that's what Jesus did—He died in our place so that we could live.

The rebirth

That leads us to the single most important change for us as individuals to believe in, and that is what the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ made available to each of us: our spiritual rebirth.

When we believe in faith that Jesus' death paid the penalty for our sin, and repent—that is, have a complete change of heart in regard to our sin—and ask God to forgive us, He will forgive us and He will impute the righteousness of His Son to us, or credit His Son's righteousness to our account. The Holy Spirit is sealed within us as a guarantee of our inheritance, and we are spiritually changed forever. We are born again—born of the Spirit, and this change justifies us before God, reconciles us to God, and guarantees us an eternity with God (which means it saves us from an eternity without God).

And at the risk of offending those who adhere to other religions or belief systems, if you think you know some other way to have your sins forgiven in order to be reconciled to an infinitely holy God...well, good luck with that.

Although we will spend the rest of our natural lives learning to live according to His Word and learning to allow the Holy Spirit to gradually sanctify us and conform us to the image of Christ, we are His from the moment we believe, and always will be.

And although we will fail at this in various ways and to varying degrees every day of our lives because we still struggle against our sin nature and live in a sin-infested world, we are His from the moment we believe, and always will be.

We were dead in our sin, but He has made us alive in Him:

Now that's a change you can believe in—if you believe in faith in what Jesus did for you and come to Him in repentance.

And please...I don't care if you attend church every Sunday and believe in God and try to live a good life and all that. If you don't know for sure that you are saved—that you are born of the Spirit, then take time to make sure while there's still time to take.

The redemption

The last change I want to mention is one that will happen in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye: our ultimate redemption. At a future time known only to God, we will be changed.

And I mean changed.

All born-again believers who have already died will rise first, and then we believers who are living at the time will be changed in an instant into our immortal, glorified bodies and will be caught up to meet the Lord in the air in an event known as the Rapture. And judging from the converging trajectories of major prophetic trends, it appears that we are close enough that I absolutely expect to be one of them.

Incidentally, I don't believe in the Rapture because it's some trendy pie-in-the-sky teaching or because some smooth-talking preacher taught it to me or because I read about it on some famous evangelist's slick website or something like that. I believe in it for no other reason than the simple fact that I've read and studied God's Word and I believe what it says.

And that's what it says.

If you are a born-again believer, I'm happy to report that you will be included in this, regardless of your opinion of the doctrine or your view on its timing.

That's a change I not only believe in, but am eagerly anticipating.

Who's your daddy?

As far as the 2012 presidential election is concerned, I think it's safe to say that many Americans have had it up to the gills with the "change we can believe in" business. I am not an especially political person, but I suspect you can tell from my tone I am not one of Barack Obama's biggest supporters. Guilty as charged. I should add, however, that we are told in Scripture to pray for our leaders so that we can live in peace:

In all honesty, the outcome of the upcoming election is not a major source of concern to me. Don't get me wrong—it's not that I don't care. It's just that God is sovereign and He both raises up and removes leaders—good and bad—and influences them in order to accomplish His will.

So, even though I personally happen to think Barack Obama has been less than a stellar president, I can take comfort in the fact that God is in control and will use whatever leader is in office to work out His will as He sees fit.

For example, there is speculation among some teachers of Bible prophecy that a second term for Obama could conceivably be part of God's plan to accelerate the death spiral toward the fulfillment of Ezekiel 38–39, a prophecy that describes a scenario in which a coalition of nations including Russia, Iran, Turkey, and several Northen African countries mount an attack against the Jewish nation to wipe it off the map.

Many prophecy teachers rightly believe that Obama's support of Israel is a strained pretense propped up by the inconvenient need to get re-elected, and that he is widely viewed in the Middle East as a weak player at a table that is viciously unforgiving of weakness, especially by Iran and her proxies. Some believe that if Obama wins re-election, he will end up throwing Israel to the dogs, either directly or indirectly, in the pursuit of his own naively misguided political agenda.

Obama says he's got
Israel's back—and
hopes nobody notices
the knife in his hand.

In fact, allegations have recently come to light that the Obama administration has been secretly talking to Iran (excluding Israel) through diplomatic back channels for a year or more (some say Obama's entire term), and heaven only knows what kind of agreement could be in the offing as a potential eleventh-hour diplomatic coup for Obama. Even if it consisted of nothing more than pure diplomatic spin spun on a cone like so much cotton candy, it would certainly give Obama a much-needed boost in the polls in the final days before the election. My, how convenient would that be? (Almost as convenient as the unemployment rate magically dropping below eight percent right on cue for the first time during Obama's presidency a month before the election.)

One cannot help but wonder what sort of carrot the Obama administration might have dangled under Iran's nose in an effort to score such an eleventh-hour diplomatic coup. I wonder, I wonder. Then again, maybe it's all just more of that malarkey that Joe Biden famously referred to during the recent vice presidential debate. Either way, I am reminded of the psalmist Asaph's prophetic words:

The King James Version says they have taken "crafty counsel" against Israel. If you ask me, it sounds like there's a whole lotta crafty counselin' goin' on.

I certainly do not claim to know what's going on behind the scenes, or how prophetic events will play out with a high degree of precision. The Bible gives us the outline, but the details remain to be seen—and I highly recommend that you keep that in mind if you spend much time watching YouTube videos about Bible prophecy. There is no shortage of sincere but misinformed souls out there who imagine that the Tribulation has started (uhm, it hasn't) and that we're already well into the "Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse" seal judgments of Revelation 6 (uhm, we're not).

We may not know the details, but be patient. We'll find out soon enough. In the meantime, however, I'm not going to have a panic attack over it because my Father has everything under control.

The time of trouble is coming, and the only place to be is upon the rock.

And that rock is Jesus Christ.

But no matter what happens, I'm not going to put my hope in politicians. The change I believe in doesn't come from any president.

It comes from someone a little higher up.

Greg Lauer — OCT '12

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