Dust on the Scales and a Drop in the Bucket
10 Nov 2006
Although Americans ascribe great importance to them, I suspect that our elections will ultimately be swept into the dustbin of eternal insignificance. “On what,” you may ask, “do I base such an unpopular and seemingly unpatriotic opinion?” To begin with, I base it on verses like Daniel 5:30-31: “In that night was Belshazzar the king of the Chaldeans slain. And Darius the Median took the kingdom, being about threescore and two years old.” Isn’t it striking how the fall of ancient Babylon, something historians have written volumes about, is dismissed in Scripture as little more than a footnote? The Bible’s dismissing of world powers in passing leads me to believe that our country, like all others, is important only to the degree that God is using it to fulfill the divine program.
In addition to the above, the ancient Prophet Isaiah taught that God sees nations “as the small dust of the balance” and as nothing more than “a drop of a bucket” (Isaiah 40:15). He even sees them “as nothing” and their significance in the grand scheme of things “as less than nothing” (Isaiah 40:17). Furthermore, Isaiah taught that God brings “princes to nothing” and reduces “the judges of the earth [to] vanity” (Isaiah 40:23). No sooner does God “plant” them and they “take root” then God “blows” on them and they “wither” and are blown “away as stubble” (Isaiah 40:24).
It is needless to say, in light of the preceding, that neither the importance of our elections nor the capacity of our government to accomplish things of eternal consequence should be overestimated. Still, our elections and elected officials will prove somewhat significant in the grand scheme of things; that is, to the degree that they are used to set the stage for the Scripture’s foretold end time scenario.
Don Walton
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