Opinion Editorial
“And who knows whether you have not come to the kingdom for such a time as this?”
(Esther 4:14b)
The first thoughts of my wife and, independently, a good Alaskan friend, upon seeing and hearing Sarah Palin’s profoundly moving acceptance speech as a candidate for Vice President of the United States were of Esther 4:14. It was a historical moment on a number of levels. It gave me chills when they told me almost simultaneously of their reaction after she finished speaking from the heart without benefit of a teleprompter, in what even some of her political opponents are calling the greatest acceptance speech by a woman ever heard in this nation. And who knows…?
Uncle Mordecai made the above impassioned plea to his niece, Esther, an earlier beautiful lady with strong convictions in a high place, amid Israel’s punishment for their unfaithfulness to God. Plenty of Christians today fervently pray that God will be mercifully longsuffering toward apostate America, who makes ancient Israel’s unfaithfulness look like a misdemeanor. At a time when multi-millions of America’s most defenseless citizens are being wantonly murdered in the womb, a woman state governor, expecting a baby with Down Syndrome, could easily have conjured more worldly reasons to legally murder her child than 99% of those who have done it, but chose not to. She had been an outspoken advocate for the sanctity of life long before God gave her an opportunity to prove it to the world.
Juxtapose that witness with an elected representative who voted against a bill (that passed with a near unanimous margin) in the Illinois legislature to prohibit the murder of a child born alive due to a botched abortion. Pit the two against each other in an election for the highest two offices in this post-Christian nation and you have an electoral battle of biblical proportions.
Conservative Christian voters are electrified by the meteoric rise and amazing record of reforming political corruption against daunting odds by a God-fearing hockey mom who went to a PTA meeting, ended up in the governor’s mansion and now aims for the second highest office in America.
But this is not a political website and I need go no further than the sin of abortion to point out that God’s Word is living and still speaks in wondrous ways. If Sarah Palin were struck mute for the next 60+ days, or otherwise gets her character assassinated tomorrow in this nasty but oh so important business, and goes back with baby Trig, his three sisters and dad to govern the pioneer state of Alaska, God has spoken in a mighty way at this point in history, using another woman named Sarah to touch untold millions of hearts. He who has ears to hear, let him hear (Matt. 11:15).
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JD Wetterling is a ruling elder in the Presbyterian Church in America. He is a member of Village Seven PCA in Colorado Springs, Colo.