Consider the following scenario:

There are two people running for political office. You have inside knowledge of what these candidates will do in the future.

The first candidate will expand the military, implement confiscatory taxes, enrich some of his trusted political allies with property stolen from the people.

The second candidate will commit adultery, be an accomplice to murder, be identified as a man of bloodshed, sleep with a young woman, and his son will be his successor and increase the military beyond its constitutional limits and align himself with foreign powers by adopting their pagan religious practices.

These are your only two viable choices.

If you are at all familiar with the Bible, you know that the two candidates are King Saul and King David, and David’s successor, Solomon. If you had this future knowledge, who would you choose? Would you say that you could not choose the “lesser of two evils” and thereby not vote for either one of them? But one of them (David) is God’s choice to be king. What a dilemma.

Politics was as messy in biblical times as it is today.

Biblical heroes like Gideon, Jephthah, Samuel, Barak, and Samson had their moral failings, and yet they are in the biblical “Hall of Faith”:

And what more shall I say? For time will fail me if I tell of Gideon (idolater), Barak (coward), Samson (womanizer to the nth degree), Jephthah (followed through on a rash vow), of David (adulterer, accomplice to murder, man of bloodshed) and Samuel (terrible father who raised two evil sons) and the prophets, who by faith conquered kingdoms, performed acts of righteousness, obtained promises, shut the mouths of lions, quenched the power of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, from weakness were made strong, became mighty in war, put foreign armies to flight” (Heb. 11:32-34).

These were some very flawed people, and yet they are described as having “performed acts of righteousness.” But there was a lot of unrighteousness mixed in.

The following is from [Would Jesus Vote for Trump?](http://Would Jesus Vote for Trump?) by Doug Giles.

So … would Jesus choose and use an unsanctified billionaire with a sordid past to right the ship of our great state? Well, we’ll have to go to the Book of Books to answer that riddle, won’t we?

The short answer is, God has always used the man or the woman whom the self-righteous wouldn’t choose, nor even consider.

But God would.

Paul, the apostle, put it this way …

For consider your calling, brethren, that there were not many wise according to the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble; but God has chosen the foolish things of the world to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to shame the things which are strong, and the base things of the world and the despised God has chosen, the things that are not, so that He may nullify the things that are, so that no man may boast before God (1 Co. 1:26-29, NASB)

It’s clear from First Corinthians that Christ calls the bad boy. The one that, according to the powers that be, is not “good enough” according to “them.”

It’s also crystal clear that God enjoys shaming the “wise” and the “strong.” Did you catch that? A loving God loves shaming “experts.” As in humiliating them. Indeed, prior to Trump’s election, both “the wise and the strong,” on the Left and The Right, were mocking Trump and boldly stating that there’s no way in Hades he would get elected. Many smarmy and religious conservative “big shots” said he was too stupid, too base, too weak, too unsavvy, too unsavory, and poorly politically connected, etc … and blah, blah to be “worthy” of The White House.

They made bold predictions of how he should and would lose. They ridiculed the ground Trump walked on. They labored to derail him. They prophesied his demise and in the final analysis, they were more off-base than Pete Rose on a wild pitch. From a punditry standpoint, I’d quit if I were that daft.

Since God loves to shame and quash the experts, He always goes a-lookin’ for the man or the woman who the dipsticks think is the least likely to succeed. He said there be not many who are wise, mighty, and noble who do his bidding. But the base? Well, he uses them in abundance.

I know that some of you are thinking this refers only to a person’s salvation and not their spiritual calling, purpose, vocation or office and that somehow Christ calls the imperfect to salvation but He only promotes the perfect to places of power. To that sentiment, me and Jesus say, “Uh, no.”

Matter of fact, I don’t think most of Christendom’s biblical protagonists would pass the fussy evangelical muster if we held them to stringent scriptural standards that some Never-Trumpkins applied to Trump in the 2016 election.

For instance: would any of the NeverTrumpkins vote for…

King David was a hot mess. He had seven wives, shagged Bathsheba and then had her husband Uriah murdered. In addition, he danced nude before the Ark of The Covenant. Every Church Lady pundit on the planet would be caterwauling about all of that crud. We’d never hear the end of it. Oh, I almost forgot. David and his boys cut the foreskins off two-hundred Philistines. I wonder what the now-defunct Weekly Standard would think about that? Not very presidential, eh? 

In addition, before David became the giant-slayer we all now know him to be, nobody and I mean nobody, including the prophet Samuel, thought God would use him and yet he was God’s pick to crush Israel’s foes and restore the glory of God back to Zion. Let that sink in a bit. 

Moses wasn’t some squeaky clean. Moses was a murderer on the lam, who married a black woman, stuttered, had a very non-presidential job and massive anger issues. Can you say “deal-breaker” for most NeverTrumpkins? 

Also, Moses was eighty years old when he got God’s nod. Do you know any eighty-year-olds? Are they still dreaming? Are they up for becoming Liberator and Lawgiver and the most noted historical figure next to Jesus? 

No one would’ve picked Moses. But God did. I wonder if The Trump Haters would’ve chosen Moses, given his past track record, to lead Israel into freedom and vanquish their foes?

Question: What if Samson were on the GOP’s ticket for the NeverTrumpkins to vote for? Would Samson be “good enough?” Would Samson pass “The Statesman/Character/True Conservative Test” the NeverTrumpkins foisted and are still foisting upon Trump? Let’s dissect Samson’s résumé, shall we? Let’s see … he dated a hooker, killed Cecil the Lion, couldn’t keep trade secrets and sported dreadlocks. Can you imagine the melee that would ensue should some candidate have this Nazirite’s track record? Scandal aplenty for the punctilious among us. But … he was God’s choice and God’s Judge to lead ancient Israel for a time. Most religious idiots would focus on Samson’s foibles. God focused on his faith and his finale.

What about Noah? What if Trump got wasted and fell down naked for all his family to see? How ‘unchristian,’ eh? Who would trust such an undisciplined lush? Getting so inebriated that you pass out pantless? For those who never heard this story via their lame church, please check out Gen. 9:20-27 

Oh, by the way, God wrote up Noah, in the end, as a “preacher of righteousness” (2 Pet. 2:5). The Holy Spirit said nada about him getting wasted and passing out wasted. I wonder how you would’ve written up Noah?

Everyone knows and loves Abraham. However, if Abraham were held to the NeverTrumpkins’ standards of “statesmen-like worthiness” this cat would crash and burn. Succinctly, Abraham was a liar and a coward, who had sex with his maid, who scoffed at God, who had no problem stabbing his son after hearing voices, who was old as dirt and had a nephew who had an affinity for cities that celebrated sodomy.

Look, folks, Trump could heal the blind, walk on water and turn clay pigeons into mourning doves, and those beset with Trump Derangement Syndrome (TDS) would blame him for putting Braille publishers, bridge-builders, and skeet ranges all out of business. There’s no pleasing them that be bedeviled with TDS.

As stated, there are some who claim “piety keeps them from supporting a character like Trump with such a naughty past.” What I would like to ask them is if they would’ve chosen King David, Moses, Samson, Noah, or Abraham as a leader of their nation after their deep dives into the superfluity of naughtiness? 

It’s all about grace folks, in salvation and in our spiritual vocation. If you want God to be merciful to you, then you should be merciful to others and that includes Trump. If you don’t understand that, then that’s your problem. I have neither the time, desire, nor the crayons to further explain it to you.