“It is God who reduces the rulers of the earth, [it is God] who makes the judges of the earth meaningless; scarcely have they been planted, scarcely have they been sown, scarcely has their stock taken root in the earth; but he merely blows on them, and they wither, and the storm carries them away like stubble.”
     So does the prophet Isaiah say about the rulers of the earth.  Though they may appear mighty and unstoppable, invincible and unchallenged, the people who rule the earth are, in the end, nothing more than chaff in the wind, as evanescent as a desert wildflower, here today, gone tomorrow.
     I thought much about this passage as I watched the presidential debate last night.  Although both candidates are fine people and have much to commend them to us, in the end they are but two more potential rulers of the earth, people who, though they may be powerful, influential, and mighty in their time are, in truth, as I noted above, as evanescent as a desert wildflower.  Their day, their rule, their kingdom are but expressions of a finitude that will never find its fullness in this life.  Their "reign" can be nothing other than thoroughly temporary.
     To wit, though all of us have hopes for November 6th, we all do well to realize that in the big and most definitive picture, whatever happens that day is in the hands of God, for it is God, and God alone who decides the rulers and nations of the earth.
     As the psalmist put it (Psalm 24), "The earth is the Lord's and all that is in it."