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<\/source><\/picture>This is a dark hour in our country. It is a time when cultural Marxists are trying to tear down our republic. The crisis revolving around Donald J. Trump may well impact the future of our country.<\/p>\n
Love him or hate him, since when do politicians in the United States of America <\/em>get arrested and charged by their opposition? Gary Varvel, the insightful political cartoonist, asks<\/a>, \u201cIs this the new America where we prosecute political opponents?\u201d<\/p>\n It is a terrible precedent that is being set. These kinds of activities belong in Third World countries \u2014 not our country.<\/p>\n Some have noted that these prosecutors are trying to put Trump in prison for the rest of his life so that the prosecutors can run for higher office.<\/p>\n When Donald J. Trump was booked in jail and had his glaring mugshot taken, he spoke<\/a> afterwards, noting: \u201cThis is a really sad day for America. This should never happen. You should be able to challenge an election … As you know, you have many people you\u2019ve been watching over the years do the same thing whether it\u2019s Hillary Clinton or Stacey Abrams or many others … What they\u2019re doing is election interference … There\u2019s never been anything like it in our country before.\u00a0This is their way of campaigning.\u201d<\/p>\n Ben Shapiro writes<\/a>: \u201cAll of this is quite terrible for the country. No matter what you think of Trump\u2019s various legal imbroglios … the glass has now been broken over and over and over again: Political opponents can be targeted by legal enemies. It will not be unbroken. If you think that only Democratic district attorneys will play this game, you have another thing coming. Prepare for a future in which running for office carries the legal risk of going to jail \u2014 on all sides. Which means that only the worst and the most shameless will run for office.\u201d<\/p>\n It\u2019s a tragedy to have so many leading our country who don\u2019t have the nation\u2019s best interest at heart. But Calvin Coolidge warned<\/a> us, \u201cIf good men don\u2019t hold office, bad men will.\u201d<\/p>\n Ronald Reagan once said<\/a>, \u201cYou and I have a rendezvous with destiny. We’ll preserve for our children this, the last best hope of man on earth, or we’ll sentence them to take the last step into a thousand years of darkness.\u201d<\/p>\n Is there any hope for our constitutional republic during times like this? I think we can find answers from President Lincoln\u2019s Second Inaugural Address, delivered on March 4, 1865, in the final weeks of the Civil War, after he won a contentious battle for re-election.<\/p>\n Lincoln declared<\/a>, \u201cFondly do we hope \u2014 fervently do we pray \u2014 that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bondsman’s two hundred and 50 years of unrequited toil shall be sunk and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword as was said 3,000 years ago so still it must be said ‘the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n Dr. Daniel Dreisbach of American University once wrote an article<\/a> on this classic speech, calling it, \u201cLincoln\u2019s 700 Words of Biblical Meditation.\u201d<\/p>\n Dreisbach writes: \u201cLincoln concludes with a humble, poetic plea to a people divided and devastated by war to eschew triumphalism and vindictiveness in victory and acrimony and recrimination in defeat: \u2018With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n I interviewed Dr. Daniel Dreisbach on the subject of Lincoln\u2019s Second Inaugural Address and the Bible for a radio<\/a> segment. He told our listeners how Lincoln learned to read and speak \u201cfrom the very distinct cadences of the King James Bible. It was very much a part of who he was.\u201d The Bible gives us hope for American renewal.<\/p>\n The founders gave us a system<\/a>, as they explain in the Declaration of Independence, where we rule ourselves (\u201cconsent of the governed\u201d) under God (we have been \u201cendowed by [our] Creator with certain unalienable rights\u201d). Self-rule under God.<\/p>\n In the Declaration, they add that they are \u201cappealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions\u201d \u2014 they put their trust in the Lord.<\/p>\n Dreisbach says<\/a> of Lincoln\u2019s Second Inaugural Address: \u201cHe calls on his countrymen to \u2018bind up the nation\u2019s wounds\u2019 and to care for those left by the war fatherless and widowed. For only through the difficult work of reconciliation can there ever be a \u2018just and lasting peace.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n As a nation, we desperately need what Lincoln called for in his Gettysburg Address<\/a>, \u201ca new birth of freedom\u201d as one nation \u201cunder God.\u201d<\/p>\n Jerry Newcombe, D.Min., is the executive director of the Providence Forum, an outreach of D. James Kennedy Ministries, where Jerry also serves as senior producer and an on-air host. He has written\/co-written 33 books, including\u00a0George Washington\u2019s Sacred Fire<\/em>\u00a0(with Providence Forum founder Peter Lillback, Ph.D.) and\u00a0What If Jesus Had Never Been Born?<\/em>\u00a0(with D. James Kennedy, Ph.D.). www.djkm.org?\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 @newcombejerry\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0www.jerrynewcombe.com<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n