Because you have said, "These two nations and countries will be ours and we will take possession of them," even though I the LORD was there. – Ezekiel 35:10

Today's Scripture Reading (October 3, 2026): Ezekiel 35

As the American Civil War dragged on, a story tells of Abraham Lincoln attending a scientific convention in Washington. At one point during the convention, a member called on the President with a question. "Mr. President, we trust during this time of trial in which the nation is engaged, God is on our side, and will give us victory." Lincoln looked at the inquisitive member and replied, "Sir, my concern is not whether God is on our side. My great concern is to be on God's side. For God is always right!" No one knows for sure whether the incident ever happened; no firsthand references to the meeting appear, and the first mention of this conversation appears in the minutes of the Connecticut Temperance Union in 1881, a little more than fifteen years after Lincoln's assassination. As a result, some have rightfully questioned whether the conversation ever happened. However, the comment fits Lincoln and the moral battle he fought during the American Civil War. Lincoln's opposition to slavery was deeply ingrained. In his Peoria speech, given by Lincoln opposing the pro-slavery Kansas Act, Lincoln declared, "I cannot but hate it. I hate it because of the monstrous injustice of slavery itself. I hate it because it deprives our republican example of its just influence in the world ..." But it was more than just the hate the President had for slavery. He chose the hard road that led him into the Civil War, and almost to the dissolution of a nation, not because he believed that slavery was wrong, but because everything that he studied and that he knew about God convinced him that God thought that slavery was wrong. And if God thought it was wrong, how could he not oppose it? At least, that is the argument from what we know of the Civil War President.

The central element of God's charge against Mount Seir and Edom was not that they opposed Israel and Judah. While that would have been enough, God also says that they opposed the descendants of Jacob even though they knew that God was there. Their concern was themselves; they wanted what they wanted, and they would chase it, even if it meant opposing God's will. The only God Edom wanted was one that would blindly agree to the nation's aims; that would never be the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

I have to admit that the one thing that concerns me about the contemporary church, and often contemporary politics, is that we want God to be on our side, but we don't seem to want to figure out exactly where God is moving. It is easier to pray that God will be on our side; that he will rubber-stamp our goals, than it is to commit to be on God's side. After all, making sure we are on God's side might carry us into conflicts for which we are not ready.

If we want to change the world, we don't need God to be on our side. We need to make sure that we are on God's side. The last thing that we want to hear when we finally meet God face to face is God asking us why we opposed him or why we didn't even seem to want to try to be on his side. After all, deep down we know that Abraham Lincoln is correct; God is always right.  

Tomorrow's Scripture Reading: Ezekiel 36