The election is coming! I believe Jesus would have us think about two areas, our responsibilities, and our voting decisions.
FIRST, Facing Our Responsibilities…
1. Our Responsibility to PRAY
If we want God’s help in our elections, and for His best choices in candidates and who is elected, we have to PRAY! It’s foolish to expect God to move in our elections if all we do is rant and rave about all that is wrong!
Scriptures such as these teach us this… 1 Timothy 2:2 (MSG) “The first thing I want you to do is pray… Pray especially for rulers and their governments to rule well so we can be quietly about our business…” James 4:2 “You do not have because you do not ask God.”
2. Our Responsibility to VOTE
Jesus told us in Matthew 5:13 “You are the salt of the earth; but if the salt loses its flavor, how shall it be seasoned? It is then good for nothing but to be thrown out and trampled underfoot by men.“
So we are the salt of the EARTH, not just the salt of the church! Salt is a preservative. We are meant to be a preservative to our world, to our culture, not just to the church. Salt is also a seasoning. If we don’t vote, we are abdicating our influence. We are seasoning and preserving NOTHING! Voting is ONE WAY we can be salt to our culture! It’s a tremendous and PRECIOUS PRIVILEGE to be able to vote in a democratic society! Even if you don’t like any of your choices, you can vote and choose the BEST AVAILABLE based on godly and biblical values, some of which I will share below. If you choose NOT to vote in order to “make a statement”, the bottom line is NOBODY sees your “statement”! And if you have trouble supporting any of your choices, please read on to our next responsibility…
3. Our Responsibility to INFLUENCE OUR CULTURE!
Coming back to Matthew 5:13 where Jesus says we are the salt of the earth, He went on to say in verse 14 that “You are the light of the world. A city that is set on a hill cannot be hidden.”
It sounds like Jesus expects us to influence our culture and society for good! For the ways of God! If we fail to be “salty” (bringing the ways of God to our culture), then we are not a preservative and our culture decays without our “salt”. Does anyone doubt that our culture is decaying right now?
Or if we fail to be the “light” of the world, then darkness takes over. Does anyone doubt that out culture has been invaded by darkness?
I think the church has not been the “city on a hill” that “cannot be hidden” like we should have! I think that we as the church need to look in the mirror and realize we have not been influencing our culture and our nation as we should have! Our influence is not to be just political, but we should be influencing people’s HEARTS! The more we influence the HEARTS and lives and character of our fellow Americans, the better character and leadership and candidate choices we will have! If we don’t like our candidate choices, perhaps we need to look in the mirror some more!
When the Bible talks about Israel not following God the way they should in 2 Chronicles 6, we then read the answer in the next chapter, a verse that we all know but don’t do like we should… 2 Chronicles 7:14 “if My people who are called by My name will humble themselves, and pray and seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their land.” That is a HEART verse! If, as the church, we humbled ourselves and took seriously our responsibility to be salt and light and a city set on a hill, living and showing forth the ways of God and the character of Christ, I believe our nation would be in much better shape than it is right now, and our choice of candidates would be stronger! As goes the church, so goes the nation! Politics alone can never be the answer, and politics will never go in the right direction if the church does not do it’s job as being salt and light!
I need to add one caveat to this. The Bible prophesies (see Matthew 24 and 2 Thessalonians) that in the time before Jesus returns, that sin will increase, the love of many will grow cold, and people will depart from the faith (ever heard of deconstructing?). I think this will ultimately happen no matter what (because the Bible prophesies it) and that the church wlll be called to stand strong for Jesus!
SECOND, Deciding Exactly WHO to Vote for…
With the above three responsibilities firmly in place, how do we decide exactly HOW to vote, and WHO to vote for? I personally think this boils down to two things… PERSONHOOD and POLICY. Character and what a Candidate believes in and stands for.
A. PERSONHOOD
Paul told Timothy in 1 Timothy 4:15-16 (Msg) “Keep a firm grasp on both your character and your teaching.” Character DOES affect leadership and policy! We have to weigh for each candidate how much and how their character affects their policies and their leadership. In the Bible there were various types of leaders…
1. Totally wicked leaders like Ahab.
2. Leaders who were partially committed to God, good in many ways, but not in all ways, like Solomon, Jehu, Hezekiah, and Josiah.
3. Leaders who were secular and not necessarily godly, but who still showed favor to God’s people, like Cyrus.
4. Leaders who loved God and sought to follow His ways, but had personal sins, like David.
We must look at our voting choices and decide where each candidate fits in the matrix of the character list above, and how that fits with and how much it affects their policies. We will examine and look at some biblical and godly policies below. No candidate that fails on a majority of the policies below, should EVER receive our vote!
B. POLICY
We need to HONOR the ways of our Creator God if we expect His blessing on our nation. We’ve seen His blessing in many ways on our nation, but in recent years we have been DEPARTING from His ways, and the cost of that, if we don’t change, will come due!
Psalm 33:12 – “Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord, the people whom He has chosen as His heritage!”
Proverbs 14:34 – “Righteousness exalts a nation, but sin is a disgrace to any people.”
It’s time we voted PRINCIPLE and POLICY and not PARTY and PERSONLALITY! We must vote for those who represent God’s PRINCIPLES found in His Holy Word, and for those who will enact POLICIES that reflect those same PRINCIPLES!
Some KEY BIBICAL PRINCIPLES that GOD WILL HOLD US ACCOUNTABLE FOR are…
1. The sacredness of life.
We cannot kill children in the womb, even allowed by some up until the very moment of birth, children who feel pain, dismembered in the womb, and not incur the anger of God! Of “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” from our Declaration of Independence, LIFE is first on the list!
2. The sacredness of marriage and sexuality.
We can’t violate God’s PRINCIPLE of male and female united together in a marriage commitment and expect His blessing! We can’t make men women, or women men! God doesn’t make mistakes! We do! We can’t allow men in women’s sports and in women’s restrooms! We CAN’T ALLOW children suffering the anxiety of our age, too young to understand, to have hormonal drugs injected into their bodies, and LIFE ALTERING SURGERIES performed on their genitals, even REMOVING them, which should bring a PRISON sentence to the perpetrator!
3. The sacredness of the family.
We cannot allow the government in any form to trample on, disrespect, or set aside the authority of parents in raising their children. Allowing and even promoting things immoral that parents oppose!
4. The sacredness of our Freedom.
We can’t allow socialist, marxist, fascist, or autocratic ways to ever rear their heads in our nation. From EITHER party! LIBERTY is second on the list of “Life, Liberty and the pusuit of Happiness” in our Declaration of Independence. FREEDOM requires RESPONSIBILITY! As President John Adams said, “our Constitution was only written for a MORAL and RELIGIOUS people!” America is a government “of the people, by the people, and for the people.” This is what the American Revolution was all about! We are the longest existing democracy in the world!
5. The sacredness of our borders.
God makes clear in His Word that He ordains nations and their borders. Acts17:26 “From one man he created all the nations throughout the whole earth. He decided beforehand when they should rise and fall, and he determined their boundaries.” Open borders and uncontrolled immigration is not a biblical standard, and it creates all sorts of resentments and problems. Immigration must have a reasonable process controlled and enforced by law.
We could say more, but THESE KEY PRINCIPLES should help to guide our vote at every level of the election.
If we make ANY STANDARD above God’s Word, for instance elevating a political party above God’s Word, elevating current culture above God’s Word, making anything more important than God’s PRINCIPLES in His WORD, we are commiting the sin of IDOLATRY, serving other gods, the gods of “self” and “blindness” and “convenience”. And of all the sins of the nation of Israel in the Bible, idolatry brought the swiftest judgment. I don’t believe our nation is any exception to that rule. The *final* verse of First John… “Little children, keep yourselves from idols.”
5. The sacredness of Israel.
God choose Israel as His chosen nation, with a specific land to dwell in, to show forth His purposes and to bring Jesus into the world. Jesus was Jewish! God is not done with Israel (there will be many Jewish people saved right before Jesus returns), and although they are sinners like everyone, and they may not always do everything right, we are called to support them! They are also the ONLY democracy in the middle east. Most importantly, Jesus is returning to Jerusalem, and from there He will be King over the whole earth!
Zechariah 14:4,9 “And his feet shall stand in that day upon the mount of Olives, which is before Jerusalem on the east, and the mount of Olives shall cleave in the midst thereof toward the east and toward the west, and there shall be a very great valley; and half of the mountain shall remove toward the north, and half of it toward the south…. And the Lord shall be king over all the earth: in that day shall there be one Lord, and his name one.“
How we treat Israel determines God’s blessing on our nation!
Genesis 12:3 “I will bless those who bless you and curse those who treat you with contempt. All the families on earth will be blessed through you.”
VOTE WISELY!