How To Vote Like A Christian #2
Last week we talked about how God judges nations. He judges nations based on their leaders and their laws. I asked you how you were feeling about our leaders and our laws. The United States makes this a really interesting concept. Since we elect our leaders, the buck kinda stops with us.
FDR said, “Let us never forget that government is ourselves and not an alien power over us. The ultimate rulers of our democracy are not a President and senators and congressmen and government officials, but the voters of this country.”
We the people are ultimately responsible for both who our leaders are and the laws they create and enforce. This is why it’s so important that we know who we’re voting for and what they say they’re going to do while in office. But we should never get so excited about some political candidate or leader that we start putting our hope and trust in them.
Psalm 146:3-5 says “Do not put your trust in princes,
in human beings, who cannot save.
When their spirit departs, they return to the ground;
on that very day their plans come to nothing.
Blessed are those whose help is the God of Jacob,
whose hope is in the Lord their God.”
Our hope is not in our leaders or their ability to save the United States of America or any other country of this world. Our hope is only in the Lord.
So when we vote, It is very important that we support candidates who will uphold the commandments and truth of God’s Word while in office. Which includes both the way they act—the way they treat people, the way they speak, their character—and the substance of the things they say. Meaning their actual plans and policies, the things they promise to do.
That’s quite a pickle, isn’t it. Because they seem to be a bunch of turkeys. There seems to be a real shortage of trustworthy politicians who are actually honest, faithful people. I’m not sure a truly honest, trustworthy, good person could even survive in the world of political theatre and cutthroat politics.
If God judges nations based on our leaders, who are we able to vote for? How can we vote for someone who publicly displays prideful arrogance? Or exhibits unrepentant sexual immorality? Or has a history of nepotism, scheming, ties with leaders of racist organizations, a track record of supporting plans that harm the most vulnerable members of our society while lining the pockets of the most powerful?
In other words, how can we vote for any politician? If you thought I was singling any particular candidate out with any of those toxic and deadly sins—think again. That list covers both sides, it covers everyone. As far as I can tell, they all fail the character sniff test.
I’m tired of the church having her witness smeared by the appearance that she’s gotten in bed with some political opportunist who only wants to use her and cast her aside once they have their way.
Christians need to figure out how we can talk about supporting a party and a platform without making excuses for the character flaws and sins of the politicians we support.
Find a way to support their ideas and still hold them accountable for their behavior. The Prophet Nathan spoke out against the sexual sin, murder and deception of King David and he repented. John the Baptist spoke out against the sexual sins of Herod and it cost him his head. We need to speak out no matter what it costs us. Stop trying to win our political arguments by glossing over the obvious sins of our candidate and attacking the flaws of the opponent. It makes us look like hypocrites.
So I’m not saying that we should take character off the table, but I don’t see how it can be the centerpiece. There just doesn’t seem to be many people of good character who run for office. There’s only one Jesus and I don’t think He’s going to be confused with any of our politicians.
JFK said, “Mothers all want their sons to grow up to be president but they don't want them to become politicians in the process.”
Politics tends to ruin people, we need to pray for our leaders. Not just attack them.
God judges nations based on their leaders, but He also judges nations based on their laws.
So we have to look at what they stand for, all those campaign promises and political ideologies. These are the things that are going to become the laws and direction of our society depending on how the election goes.
This is where it really gets messy. Their plans. Pinpointing the source of all our nation’s problems and deciding which solutions will fix everything.
It’s almost impossible to even have a sensible conversation about this stuff. Everyone thinks they have the higher moral ground. Progressives, Conservatives. Everyone underlines different parts of their Bible. Everyone thinks the other side is out of their mind, inherently racist, delusional, and unreasonable.
But we have a king and a kingdom that are not of this world. He has commanded us to be the salt and the light of the world. We can’t stay silent.
Ezekiel 33:6 says,
“If the watchman sees the sword coming and does not blow the trumpet to warn the people and the sword comes and takes someone’s life, that person’s life will be taken because of their sin, but I will hold the watchman accountable for their blood.”
We’re the watchmen. If we see the danger, we better speak up.
We need to speak out against the evils in our country. The destruction of the family, fatherlessness, contempt for human life, promotion of gender confusion, the cultural acceptance of sex outside of marriage—these are problems. Deadly problems.
Biggest Issue #1 - Abortion But the most hideous evil in our land is the practice of abortion on demand. Using abortion as a last ditch effort for birth control.
Our country is very split on this issue. Half the country thinks abortion is bad but it’s kinda like removing a tumor and the other half think it’s killing a baby. Either a medical procedure or murder. Those are very different points of view.
If you think it’s like removing a tumor, then you probably think a woman has a right to make up her own mind about her own healthcare and should be able to choose what she does with her own body. Why should a woman’s life be forever changed, her future plans destroyed, just because of an accident that happened in a moment of passion? Why should the woman be sentenced to nine months of pregnancy when the man gets to just walk away scot free? And then have the responsibility of motherhood for the rest of her life? That doesn’t seem fair. Besides, it’s just a lump of tissue. It’s not a person yet.
But if you’re on the other side, you see it very differently. It’s not just a mass of tissue, it’s a human being, and to purposely terminate a pregnancy is to murder a child.
So who’s right? Is it a tumor or a person?
Some people try to sidestep by calling the unborn baby a fetus. Which is a Latin word that means “little one” or very small baby. So that doesn’t really help their case. “It’s not a baby, it’s a very small baby.”
But I started to wonder, maybe there’s a period of time between conception and birth where the fetus isn’t really human yet. At what point is all the DNA information completely developed? You know, maybe it would be okay to terminate a pregnancy before everything that actually makes a unique human being is in place—before all the DNA information is encoded.
So I looked it up.
I found this on the MedlinePlus.gov medical encyclopedia site: “When the single sperm enters the egg, conception occurs. The combined sperm and egg is called a zygote. The zygote contains all of the genetic information (DNA) needed to become a baby.”
So all the information is there at conception. This is the same DNA the person will have their whole life. At the moment of conception. That’s pretty amazing.
Especially when you consider what God’s Word says about when a human life begins.
Psalm 139:13-16 is a particularly interesting passage on the subject, it says,
“For you formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother's womb. I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.”
Knitted me together in my mother’s womb. That sounds like it lines up with the medical encyclopedia to me—a human life begins at conception.
Then there’s the story of Mary, when she was pregnant with Jesus, when she went to visit her cousin Elizabeth who was also pregnant with her son who would grow up to be John the Baptist. Do you remember that story?
When Mary got close to Elizabeth she said in Luke 1:44, and it’s Elizabeth talking,
“As soon as the sound of your greeting reached my ears, the baby in my womb leaped for joy.”
A baby in the womb reacting to the presence of Jesus.
Look, DNA wasn’t discovered until the 1800s, but God’s Word told us long before that that we were created by God, in His image, fearfully and wonderfully and uniquely made in the womb.
Romans 3:4 “Let God be true, but every man a liar.”
I know we all want to think for ourselves, but we need to learn to trust God’s Word. Trust what He’s told us. Let God be true and every man a liar. When science disagrees with what the Bible says, just be patient, it will eventually catch up.
Meanwhile, I want to ask you a question. If you think any of those arguments for keeping abortion legal sound like good arguments. Either because a woman should have the right to choose what she does with her own body or the economic hardships of teen pregnancies. Most women terminate their pregnancy because it would dramatically inconvenience their life. Their education. Their job or career. They don’t think they can afford a baby. They’re single. Whatever your arguments for keeping abortion legal so women have the “right to choose” is—I have a question for you.
Which of those arguments would you be willing to stand behind if we move the age of the unwanted child to five years old?
I realize no one is proposing the murder of five year olds. But this isn’t a ridiculous question. What you call abortion, I call infanticide. Clearly human life begins at conception. According to science. According to God’s Word. The age of the unwanted child doesn’t make any difference to me.
God judges nations based on their laws. Parents who sacrifice their children on the altar of convenience for financial prosperity have been in God’s crosshairs throughout the Bible and throughout history. Child sacrifice is very common but it is always wrong. The early Christians in the Roman Empire rescued babies that had been tossed out on the rocks to die. Abortion was also common in the Roman Empire, but with the rise of Christianity, it was finally abolished. In 211 AD the emperors banned abortion with temporary exile as the punishment. It took two hundred years.
And in case you think abortion laws don’t make a difference, in Ireland abortion was illegal and on the decline for 10 straight years. In 2018 it was legalized and since then there has been a 142% increase.
In the United States there’s a law called the Hyde Amendment. It’s supposed to keep US government funds from paying for abortions. There are a lot of people who want to see that law taken down. The president of “Pro Choice America” put out a statement recently saying that the Hyde Amendment is racist because it disproportionately affects communities of color. Basically they think congress needs to pay for the killing of more black babies. I know it sounds like satire but it’s not.
People say it’s foolish to be a “one issue” voter. That Christians are being played for suckers. It doesn’t matter—I can’t back a candidate that supports infanticide.
And because this always comes up in any conversation about this subject: what about in cases of rape or endangering the life of the mother—which are less than 1% of all abortions. I wish someone would propose sensible legislation that allowed exceptions for these kinds of situations, and only these. I would love to vote for that person.
I understand that as a nation we need a plan to love and care for all these unwanted, inconvenient children but killing them is not an acceptable solution.
Biggest Issue #2 - Religious freedom is on the ballot, too. We saw how easy it was for them to close our churches down—to demonize any pastors or Christians who dared to gather for worship anyway.
What would happen to the church in America if they got rid of our tax exempt status? Property taxes would close most churches. What would happen to the ministry of the church if tithes weren’t a tax deduction?
How long before we would get kicked out of worshiping in a school if we read the parts of the Bible that talk about sodomy and lesbianism being sins against God? God didn’t change His mind about these things.
If certain people have their way, how long do you think it will be before the Bible is officially considered “hate speech?”
Are you going to let the progressive, radical gay and transgender ideology gain even more ground in our culture? Openly promoted in schools along with the sexualization of young children? What’s next? Legalize pedephilia?
These things are consequences of how we vote. All these things are deeply embedded in one of the political party’s platform.
God’s Word is the only standard that will keep our culture from coming off the rails.
Some people think the separation of church and state means to banish Christian faith from the public arena. It was never intended to protect the state from the church, it was to protect the church from the state.
I brought these things up so none of us can say we didn’t know. And James 4:17 says
“So whoever knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, for him it is sin.”
Everyone wants to change the world but no one wants to change their mind, I get it. Proverbs 18:2 says
“A fool takes no pleasure in understanding, but only in expressing his opinion.”
Okay, take a deep breath. That’s a lot to deal with. Heavy things.
When we talk about abortion, there’s a good chance that someone listening has either had one or paid for one. I’m not trying to crush anyone with guilt and shame. When St Paul says in 1st Corinthians 6:9-11
“neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor those who practice homosexuality, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God.”
He goes on to say,
“And such were some of you. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.”
And in Romans Paul had been talking about all kinds of sin and how we try not to sin but we sin anyway and we feel terrible and guilty, but then Jesus offers us forgiveness. A free gift. Grace. In Romans 8:1 it says,
“There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death.”
Please hear this: if you believe in Jesus, then He took all those terrible things you’ve done, and took them on Himself on the cross—all those things died with Him. You’re free of them. No condemnation. And if you believe He rose from the dead, then you have His word that you’ll raise from the dead, too. You are forgiven, saved, justified, made right with God. You will not be judged for any of the things you’ve said and done. Because of Jesus. That’s what being a Christian means. Receive that forgiveness.
But God still judges nations based on its leaders and its laws.
As a Christian, it’s your duty to be the light of the world. To take that Gospel and the teachings of Jesus and apply them to every part of your life. Your faith in Jesus means you trust His Word to have the final say on all the things we’ve been talking about.
I’m not going to tell you who to vote for but I hope you’ll carry your faith into the voting booth and vote like a Christian. AMEN
PRAYER:
Lord have mercy on us. Have mercy on our nation. Turn away Your anger from us.
Help us to discern how You want us to vote and how you want us to treat our neighbors. Including our enemies.
Turn this nation back to You and to what is just and good.