00:03:17.640Hey, Pastor Dale, I live in Southern California, and the politics down here under our governor are getting increasingly hostile toward Christians.
00:03:25.900In addition, the presidential election is around the corner.
00:03:28.620As a Christian, you think it would be easy to answer this question, who should I vote for? But unfortunately, it's not. I'm so frustrated with the character of both men, I'm considering opting out. Is this right?
00:03:45.500I think you're not alone in this desire and this concern and this frustration.
00:03:53.040And I think a lot of people right now in the church are looking for clarity.
00:03:57.180So let me start with a few points, and this is probably going to be maybe a shorter episode,
00:04:01.200but a few points, and then I'll move into my personal interpretation and suggestions according to Scripture.
00:04:08.500So first off, no, you're not required to vote by Scripture, meaning that there's no passage
00:04:15.080of Scripture that's going to be able to have jurisdiction on a command that'll say,
00:04:20.840you must vote. Now, I want you to hold on to that truth in one hand, and in the other hand,
00:04:29.180I want you to hold this truth. You are required as a Christian to stand up for righteousness.
00:04:36.240Okay, so you're not required to vote, but you are required to stand up for righteousness.
00:04:40.640Now, we're going to learn a little bit about how those might kind of overlay each other.
00:04:46.700So let those two truths just sit in your hands for a moment, and then let me briefly offer
00:04:52.040some foundational ground before I go further.
00:04:58.340The current political climate here in America has two very polarizing political parties,
00:05:03.380and that is the Democratic Party and the Republican Party. They're not defining and
00:05:09.760differentiating themselves by moderate positions. They are defining and differentiating themselves
00:05:16.820by extreme positions. And this wasn't always the case in America. In fact,
00:05:21.88050 to 80 years ago and back, many Christians would regularly change political parties depending on
00:05:28.080the specific election candidates and policies. And they could do that because then both parties0.61
00:05:34.700were built on moderate differences on policy and minor differences on morality. Today, that's not
00:05:42.360true. Today, we have two political parties who are built on radical differences on policy and
00:05:50.560major differences on morality. For example, let's just look at the Liberal Party, the AKA Democratic
00:05:57.380Party. And by its very definition, to be liberal means that you are willing to take liberty with
00:06:07.280moral, political, and societal norms. That is, you do not have a system of thought
00:06:15.380or a philosophy or a worldview built on objective, immovable truths. But instead,
00:06:23.600your worldview is built on subjective interpretive truths. And this is why liberals are also called
00:06:30.540quote, progressives. And I really believe they've hijacked that word to label their moral system
00:06:39.320that changes, right? And they've made it seem like it's some sort of virtue because it's progressing.
00:06:46.360I don't think that's a positive outlook.
00:06:51.060So this is the reason why, you know, because they believe in progression and change and not immovable objective truths, this is why they're the party who supports the abortion under the guise of better health care.
00:07:08.620or the redefinition of marriage or the redesigning of the family and the shifting jurisdiction of
00:07:16.000parenting, the complete revision of gender under the banner of, again, love and open-mindedness,
00:07:21.600this kind of, again, virtuous, virtue signaling words there. Now, I'm all about being open-minded,
00:07:31.680but the only request I have is if you're going to be open-minded, make sure you have an open Bible
00:07:36.660next to it. The question we have to ask ourselves as Christians is, can we support a party who is
00:07:46.280built on this philosophy? Do we believe that as Christians, humanity can progress from God's
00:07:57.240truths? In other words, is morality moving? Is it fluid or is it static? And so those are some core
00:08:06.100things to think about. Then on the other side, you have the Republicans who are identified as
00:08:11.900generally as conservatives. And unlike the liberals whose main goal is to change
00:08:17.800conservatism, their aim is to conserve moral, political, and societal norms. And this is the
00:08:26.280reason that they're the party who is trying to protect the lives of the unborn or guard the
00:08:32.320definition of traditional and biblical order for the family. Family, you know, gender and morality
00:08:39.500and law and order. They're trying to conserve those things. Now, to be clear, both sides,
00:08:45.840Republicans and Democrats, are secular structures, and both sides are filled with people who will go
00:08:51.880to hell if they don't repent and believe in Christ. So it just doesn't matter. You know,
00:08:58.460we've so elevated in the church conservatism and, you know, Republicanism as if it's capable of
00:09:07.280saving. It's not. Obviously, the conservative party is more in alignment just from face value
00:09:17.020with biblical values than a democratic or liberal philosophy is. And if you can't see this,
00:09:25.180you need to go back and read your Bible some more. Anyone filled with the Holy Spirit should
00:09:31.300be experiencing the deep anguish that comes with watching people operate in a manner that
00:09:37.900stands against God's truths. Now, to get to the core question, is standing for righteousness
00:09:44.060and using your American privilege and right to vote connected? Are those two things connected?
00:09:54.360is standing for righteousness, because we are definitely called to stand for righteousness
00:09:58.880throughout the scriptures, and this opportunity and ability for us to vote. Are those two connected
00:10:05.400in some capacity? In other words, is not voting in this election an act of abandoning your call
00:10:14.120to stand for righteousness? And I think there's an argument there, and here's why. As I said
00:10:20.380earlier, because this election is not differentiated by minor moral issues, but by extreme moral
00:10:26.920issues, passivity, in my opinion, is not the correct posture for the Christian. Let me remind
00:10:33.380you that this election is about the most serious matters of life. It's about can you legally kill
00:10:42.660your child? Can your seven-year-old change her gender? Can your children be taken from you if1.00
00:10:49.520you don't permit gender or sexual transition? Will pastors have to violate their conscience
00:10:57.260and marry same-sex couples? Will families be forced to take vaccinations? Will churches be
00:11:04.380placed under strict governmental guidelines for gathering? Will pedophilia become classified
00:11:10.160merely as a sexual preference? Will police not uphold law and order, but fight crime with
00:11:17.860therapeutics? Will religious liberty be removed? Will our right to protect ourselves and our
00:11:24.640families be taken from us? Will the Bible be classified as hate speech? These are life-altering,
00:11:32.600culture-changing core issues that people will and have died for historically. In other words,
00:11:39.880these are not small matters that are up for grabs because this is the balance between two
00:11:45.120worldviews here, objective truth and subjective truth, immovable static truths that we are trying
00:11:54.740to conserve, or fluid changing values that change with the emotion of the day. And, you know,
00:12:06.960these are gigantic matters. And if you want to opt out of casting your vote as a Christian0.96
00:12:14.080for the party or for the individual who most aligns with your biblical system,
00:12:21.760your biblical value system, then for me, I can't see how you are failing to stand up for
00:12:29.300righteousness. So that's my point there. I want to offer you just a few biblical principles and
00:12:36.860two illustrations to support my position. James 4.17 offers this unique blanket truth at the end
00:12:45.420of chapter four that sums up his previous paragraphs regarding worldly behavior and
00:12:52.300personal convictions. He says this quote, he says, quote, so whoever knows the right thing to do
00:12:58.660and fails to do it, for him it is sin. And this means that any person who is dealing with a
00:13:07.400personal conviction or an opportunity to participate in righteousness, but instead
00:13:14.660betrays their conviction and doesn't do what they know is right, this passage says that that is sin.
00:13:21.500Now, this is also the idea of maintaining a clear conscience before God and man regarding your duty
00:13:31.120as a follower of Christ to stand up for righteousness. Paul, in Acts 24, 16, he talks
00:13:37.360about this. He says, in this view, or in view of this, I also do my best to maintain always a
00:13:43.840blameless conscience, both before God and before men. So having a clear conscience is critical,
00:13:49.920And this is a, I would say this is heavily a matter of conscience, making a decision to vote and to vote for what and to stand for what.
00:14:00.200And we're going to continue to talk about that more.
00:14:02.480Let me offer you another illustration here.
00:14:04.160If you heard the cries of an infant at 40 weeks being ripped apart by forceps, and their brains were being sucked out of their skull that was cracked open with a metal tool, and you sat in the other room and listened to the screams of that baby, and you did nothing, as a Christian who knows what is right, that would be sin for you.
00:14:31.960And this is the sin of omission. Okay, it's not the sin of commission. You didn't kill the baby,
00:14:39.060but you sat utterly by while it happened. And this passage says it is of equal weight,
00:14:45.960actually, before the Lord. Many Jewish Christians knew this well as they committed the sin of1.00
00:14:51.140omission and violated their own conscience as they sat in silence and watched the Jews be0.87
00:14:55.920shipped off and slaughtered systematically before their eyes. John Calvin once said,
00:15:02.000the torture of a bad conscience is the hell of a living soul. So having a clear conscience,
00:15:07.600doing what is right is critical. In other words, knowing the will of God and not standing for
00:15:15.240righteousness when given the opportunity is of greater fault or equal to than someone who is
00:15:22.920ignorant of God's will and stands for evil. I'm going to say that again because I want you guys
00:15:27.580to grasp this. Knowing the will of God and not standing for righteousness when given the
00:15:33.440opportunity is of greater fault than someone who, ignorant of God's will, stands for evil.
00:15:42.180This means that we are going to be held responsible for what we know and what we did. The sin of
00:15:47.340omission is serious. We want to call it passivity maybe, but that's not an escape.
00:15:57.540John MacArthur actually shared a similar illustration when he said,
00:16:01.140if you were the only person who could make the decision whether you would want someone in power
00:16:08.680who believed in allowing the slaughtering of babies and someone who did not allow the
00:16:15.680slaughtering of babies, and you were the only person to vote on the matter. He says, quote,
00:16:21.500I think you would vote, and you would vote for what is right as a Christian. Well, in God's eyes,
00:16:27.380he says, you are that one person, and I don't think a Christian can shirk that responsibility,0.99
00:16:34.080end quote. Now, I know many Christians are hung up on all types of things, especially the character
00:16:42.820of these two candidates. And I get it. Trump's attitude and pride and arrogance0.68
00:16:49.300are an absolute disgrace to this country. Biden's dishonesty and pride and perverted1.00
00:16:56.160outlook on morality is frightening and embarrassing. But remember, we're not voting
00:17:04.100for men. We're voting for policies and moral philosophies. We're not voting for who is the
00:17:10.640more godly person. We're voting for the person who is most likely to uphold God's principles
00:17:16.620systematically, legislatively in the country. And our responsibility as Christians is to be
00:17:24.960advocates for righteousness, okay? That's our responsibility, is to be advocates for
00:17:29.560righteousness. We're ambassadors of the King who can, you know, we're called to use our voice and
00:17:34.480our resources to uphold, to the best of our ability, the constitution of heaven, the moral
00:17:40.300law of God. We actually, it's a verse in Philippians, I wish I had it written down. It says that our
00:17:45.380citizenship is in heaven, meaning, and that word citizenship is the word pletjuma in the Greek.
00:17:51.820And it's the idea that we are to fight for our citizenship there. Now, we are not Democrats or
00:18:02.580Republicans. We are not liberals or conservatives. We are Christians. And people are going to always
00:18:10.080want to throw us into one side, and they're going to hate the fact that we're not going to do
00:18:14.540identity politics that way. We stand by no other name than Christ. And so it's our job to represent
00:18:23.700the King in the way that we live, in the opportunities given to us, including voting.