Voting According to the Bible

On this final TruthCurrents before the 2020 Presidential elections Let’s talk about the character, the competence and the content of the two major presidential candidates.

This will be the eleventh Presidential race that I have voted in in my lifetime. Each one filled one with different issues, each one important in its own way. Many times I have voted when I was less than enthusiastic about the candidates available to me. And yet, I felt it was significant for a Jesus follower to step up to the expectations of godly citizenship and to participate in the process.
As I’m going to ask you to be sure and vote.  Vote early, vote on that day, whatever is appropriate for you. As I’m asking you to vote, I want to give you some Biblical guidelines to consider for these candidates.

The Character of these two men, President Donald Trump and Vice President Joe Biden, character has been an issue raised often in this campaign. And the fact of the matter is, for Jesus followers we’re pretty much 0 for 2 in this campaign. President Trump is not a kind man. He’s not gentle. He doesn’t exhibit Christ-like characteristics often. He is thin-skinned and petty and vengeful towards those who oppose him.

On the other side Joe Biden. Forty-seven years in Washington D.C. has a long track record of being divisive and petty and vengeful towards those who are in the other camp.
Neither of these men are model citizens from the character standpoint. So, we can’t make this about character. You can’t say, “I’m not going to vote for this guy or I’m not going to vote for that guy because they’re mean or they lack character.” Because frankly, they both lack character. So, what’s the next thing we consider?

Competence.

I’m concerned as we have watched this presidential campaign that Vice President Biden has been sheltered. I’ve never seen a presidential candidate spend less time interacting with the press and with real-life voters. In fact, the few encounters that the Vice President has had with real-life voters he’s often insulted them. He’s threatened them. He’s offered to punch them in the face. I don’t think that’s what somebody does who’s mentally healthy. Nobody talks about that issue. And everybody is afraid in the media to bring it up. But I wonder if his bugled use of language if his faulty memory if his consistent forgetfulness can be overlooked in this campaign.
President Trump is past seventy years of age himself. But he doesn’t seem to display those same kinds of issues. It’s just a question for us to consider. If Joe Biden is elected but fails to be able to complete a four-year term, that would make Kamala Harris the President of the United States. And of the four major players on the tickets, President Trump, Vice President Pence, Vice President Biden and Senator Harris, she is clearly the most dangerous leftist is the crowd. A vote for Vice President Biden may in fact be a vote for Kamala Harris to be President of the United States.
Character and Competence, what about Content?

I’m concerned that Americans are focused on the things that they always focus on and they leave matters of eternal significance on the sidelines. A Pew Institute Research project recently published that American’s number one concern in this election is the economy. That shouldn’t be a surprise because American’s number one concern is always the economy. It’s because America is very materialistic culture. And so, the protection of our materialism is always a high priority in our culture.

Much lower on the list of concerns are things that I believe, for Jesus followers at least, should be issues much higher. For example, Abortion. Abortion is clearly an issue that determines every other issue. If you can’t get this issue right, it really doesn’t matter what else you think on other topics. Joe Biden has recently, in catering to the far-left branch of the Democrat party, he has given up his decades long support for the Hyde Amendment. In other words, he has thrown out any restrictions in his platform on Abortion. The Democrat party today believes that abortion should be legal up to the moment of birth for any reason or for no reason at all. In fact, Kamala Harris is touting on the campaign trail want she calls her Reproductive Right Act. This is an incredible piece of legislation that will actually turn Federalism on its head. It provides for the Justice Department to have to give pre-clearance to any abortion laws passed by the states. In other words, if the left controls the White House, the States will have to fall in line. They cannot pass laws that the Justice Department doesn’t sign off on. That is unconstitutional. It’s clear that this most pro-abortion administration in all of history has abandoned what even the founders, what even the original proponents of Roe vs Wade argued. At least in the 1970’s pro-abortion proponents argued something about fetal health. But all that’s been given up for a culture of death that simply says, “Abortion can be offered and taken for any reason at any time for anyone.” This is often at tax-payer expense.

I think another issue that comes up in this campaign that needs more attention is the issue of Religious Liberty. It’s interesting that progressives often find themselves in this position. Progressivism is sort of the pseudo-intellectual tail that wags the Democrat dog. Progressives recoil at the notion that an intelligent person can believe that there is a God and that His Word is true and needs to provide guidance for life. In fact, they see the Church as a hinderance to the radical agenda that they want to put into place. And so, we’ve already seen elements in the Obama administration of a lack of concern for the conscience rights of American citizens. President Obama shamefully took nuns, Catholic nuns, to court for years trying to force them to buy into a health-care plan that included elements that violated their conscience and the teachings of the Roman Catholic Church. Vice President Biden has already said that all of those restrictions that have been taken down in the Trump years would be replaced and once again set in motion. What will happen is, churches will in fact be restricted over time. The rights of Christians to follow their conscience will be put on the back burner in favor of the sexual revolution and the progressive agenda.

President Trump is not a sincere follower of Jesus, I think. But I do think that he has been a friend to those who have issues of conscience that need to be protected.

Finally, The Supreme Court and the Federal judiciary. There’s no question in my mind that the appointees of a Biden administration would be anti the very values that we hold so dear. In fact, Vice President Biden has gone out of his way to not offer to the American people a list of those that he would appoint to the Supreme Court and to the Federal benches. If he doesn’t want us to see the list of people he would consider, that tells me logically that it’s a list of names that the average American would not be happy with. I’ve never seen a presidential candidate refuse to answer questions with only the standard answer, “After I’m elected, I’ll let you know.” I’m sorry, but that’s not good enough.

President is not everything that I want, but what you see is what you get. And I’m content that I do know what I’m getting in that package. While in the other package there’s so many unknowns that I am deeply concerned.

The last issue is Family Life. Kamala Harris just this week submitted a piece of legislation entitled, The Family Friendly Schools Act. You haven’t heard about it yet. You probably won’t until after the election. But in the Family Friendly Schools Act, promoted by Kamala Harris and several other Democrat Senators, it is a proposal that America’s public schools extend their hours to 6:00 pm so that they can provide child care for working parents. Imagine this, government schools having access to the minds of our children from 8:00 am until 6:00 pm every single day. That’s fifty hours of awake time that your children will be in the hands of a government agenda. I’m not a huge conspiracy theorist, but I’m telling you fifty hours of school, there’s somethings else going on here. And this a dangerous idea.

The sanctity of life is at stake. The sanctity of your conscience is at stake. And frankly, the sanctity of your family is at stake in this election.

“Well Pastor, I’m just not going to vote this year. I don’t like either of these candidates.”

Well, we could look in scripture and we could find in the book of Mark 6:18, John the Baptist speaking truth to power in his encounter with Herod the King. We see Jesus and Peter in Matthew 17:27 paying their taxes. We see Paul in Acts 25 appealing to Caesar. Each one of them exercising the privileges and the obligations of citizenship. The Biblical model is not that Christians are detached from the obligations of this world. It’s that we are salt and light. No one in the first church had the privilege to be a part of a representative republic like we do. But with that privilege goes the obligation to participate.

“Well, how can I vote between these two choices?” I get it. It’s a challenge.

I love vanilla ice cream. I love the clean crisp taste of vanilla ice cream. What if you went into an ice cream shop and said, “I want a dip of vanilla ice cream.” And they said, “Well, we don’t have any plain vanilla. We only two kinds. We have vanilla with raisins.”
“Vanilla with raisins? What a terrible idea. What’s the other one?”
“Well, the other one is vanilla with rat poison.”
“Vanilla with rat poison? I believe I’ll choose vanilla with raisins.”

Why? Not because I like raisins but because vanilla with raisins is the better of the two options available to me. That’s the way you approach this election.

You might say, “Well, I just won’t eat at all.” Except here’s the problem. If the party that’s offering vanilla with rat poison wins the day, the goal is to force you to eat their ice cream.
Folks, we are called by Christ to be salt and light. And we can’t do that in hiding.

Look at the character, the competence, the policy content of those who are offering themselves to be President of the United States. And then prayerfully go vote.

This is TruthCurrents.