The Billy Graham Evangelistic Association produced a pile of good reading this week, so rather than point to them one at a time, we just pulled three together for today’s “3 faith stories for your Tuesday.” All three have a “political” or “public square” angle to them. Enjoy!
First, San Diego pastor David Jeremiah explains the importance of the 2016 election in his “Casting a Vote for Religious Freedom” article. By his demeanor, Mr. Jeremiah shows that it is possible for a Christian to be very concerned and joyful-hopeful at the same time. Just because a Christian is the former doesn’t mean they are the latter, or that they lack faith in the sovereignty of God to rule over this world.
…Everybody wants to find someone who represents who they are. Unfortunately, there isn’t anybody like that, not in this election, probably not ever again.
We’re down to the point where we need to elect somebody whom we’re pretty certain won’t be against us, somebody who will allow us to live out our faith. The decision we have before us right now, from my vantage point, is pretty straightforward. The next president will select between two and four [Supreme Court] justices who will reign over the cultural issues of our nation for the next 30 years. One of the most interesting things about the Supreme Court is it is the least democratically selected body of leaders in our nation, and they now wield the most influence. Supreme Court justices have more power than many kings and dictators. …
…I think this current election may have a great deal to do with which direction that goes. And I believe that apart from a spiritual renewal, a Great Awakening like the ones we’ve had in the past—during which we would return to our roots spiritually—what we’re going to face is more and more the church under the pressure of the government, more and more being pressured to conduct weddings that we will never conduct, more and more being told to say things that we can’t say.
I don’t think that means we should be discouraged as believers. The Gospel has never been more necessary than it is now. All of these things that we talk about don’t in any way impact the fact that Jesus Christ is still the answer and that salvation is still the main business of the church.
Second, without naming names, Tony Perkins takes off the gloves for those who refuse to see the election in binary terms. He says, “This Is Not a Time to Stand on the Sidelines.”
Tony Perkins gets indignant when he thinks about Christians refusing to vote for either of the two major party presidential candidates because they believe both are undesirable.
“I want to go into some of our churches and overturn a few tables because we probably had the best selection of primary candidates in the history of presidential politics,” said Perkins, president of the Family Research Council. “Half of them were born-again, Bible-believing, evangelical Christians.
“But many people didn’t get involved in those primaries and sat back to see what would happen, so the conservative vote got chopped up and split in many different directions. I don’t think they have a lot of room to complain when the choices for the general election are not the best ones. I’m not sympathetic, and it doesn’t absolve us from the obligation we have to vote. It’s part of being salt and light.”
Voting for a third-party candidate, or writing in someone not on the ballot, does nothing to address the dire state of the nation, according to Perkins.
“We’re a two-party system in this country,” he said. “We may not like it, but that’s a reality. A third-party candidate is not going to win. The reality is that one of the candidates representing the two major parties is going to be elected president—period.”
Third, a word from Adrian Rogers, the late pastor of the great Bellevue Bapt: The Divine Call to Political Engagement |BGEA
“Our highest allegiance is to God, but we have a duty to our country as well,” wrote the late Adrian Rogers.
Our government is a government of the people, by the people, and for the people. We are some of “the people,” and we are to participate in our government. Jesus said to give to Caesar the things that belong to Caesar and give to God the things that belong to God (Mark 12:17).
If you do not participate in your government, you have not rendered to your Caesar the things that belong to your Caesar.
If, for example, you do not vote—if you do not inform yourself—in my estimation, you have disobeyed the Lord Jesus Christ. It is inconceivable that God would have ordained human government and then tell His people to stay out of it. If that is true, who does that leave to run it?
We as Christians are to participate, not on the basis of parties or persons or politics, but on principles. Our highest allegiance is to God, but we have a duty to our country as well.
We’re not to force our views on anyone else, but we should be persuasive in what we do. Our government is a democracy, and America is based on public opinion. May I tell you, the only hope for America is to change public opinion? Do you know the only thing that can change public opinion? The Word of God.
We have to get the message of the Bible out there. We are not going to out-argue anyone. They are blind and don’t see it. They need to know Jesus Christ, and they will find Him in the pages of God’s Word. We are supposed to persuade our people. We are to be taking them back one at a time and winning souls to Jesus Christ.
I’ve been to Rome. The Colosseum would seat 50,000 people. They would put the Christians in the Colosseum and make them fight with gladiators and reddenthe mouths of lions with their blood, and it was for entertainment. Caesar would be looking down upon those people in the Colosseum, but underneath it werethe catacombs. In those subterranean tunnels, Christians would huddle together to worship.
It seemed there was not a chance on this earth that those Christians hiding under the Colosseum could have done anything at all about what was going on up on the surface, but those folks started a spiritual revolution that turned that whole thing upside down. It caused a mighty revival that brought the empire crashing down and exalted the name of the Lord Jesus Christ.
I want to be like those in the catacombs who said, “Lord, You alone are God. We have no king but Jesus.” That’s where the power is. It’s not political influence that we need. It is the power of God that we need. Our hope is not in government; our hope is in Almighty God! ©2016 Love Worth Finding Ministries (LWF.org).
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