How Should a Christian Vote?

Introduction:

On Tuesday our nation will head to the polls to participate in the elections and many have done so already. One would have to be living under a rock to not realize that our nation is at a crossroads.

While we as believers understand that ultimately, God is in control, that does not negate our responsibility to vote. Frankly, you really have no right to complain about the direction of our country if you do not vote.

James 4:17 ESV

17 So whoever knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, for him it is sin.

For the most part, politicians at every level of government, I think, seek what they think will best prosper and exalt their nations.

In the end, however, only one factor determines whether a nation rises or falls: righteousness.

Nations that follow God’s standards—that are governed by His Holy Word—are great nations. Countries that embrace selfishness and sin over righteousness suffer disgrace and shame.

World history repeatedly proves this to be true.

The most obvious illustration is Israel. When Israel obeyed and followed God, she became the greatest nation on the face of the earth. But when she forsook God for idols and all manner of sins, she fell. To this day, Israel has yet to be restored to her former glory. And, sadly, Solomon, the king who wrote the proverb we read at the start, actually set Israel’s decline in motion.

This emphasizes the critical importance of individual righteousness and responsibility. Israel had reached her peak of greatness during Solomon’s reign, but then began her downward slide when the king stooped to living in brazen and unrestrained immorality with 1,000 women. To make matters even worse, Solomon exposed his nation to the false gods of all these foreign women.

So, the question arises; “If righteousness exalts a nation, how should I, as a Christian, who is living in the USA, vote?”

As believers, we must cast our votes according to the Bible and we should do so regardless if it has political ramifications or is unpopular to do so.

This means that we must have an understanding of the moral and ethical issues that the Bible is 100% clear about and vote accordingly.

The only way to do this is to set aside the personalities of the candidate's and engage with the platform of the party with which that candidate identifies and then compare that to Biblical principle.

We can only do this if we have a biblical worldview.

Matthew 5:13–16 ESV

13 “You are the salt of the earth, but if salt has lost its taste, how shall its saltiness be restored? It is no longer good for anything except to be thrown out and trampled under people’s feet. 14 “You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden. 15 Nor do people light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a stand, and it gives light to all in the house. 16 In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven.

Our Job is to take the light that Jesus has given us and shine it out into the world in order to point them to Jesus. In order to do this, we have to take what the scriptures say and let it shine out in our speech and in our actions. Everything we approach must be through the lens of scripture. There is no distinction in scripture between spiritual and political.

Here is what we believe the Bible teaches as our worldview:

God created the heavens and the earth. Therefore, He makes the rules and He has specifically defined right and wrong. People are responsible for their own choices of right and wrong and the consequences. God is the author of life and death and determines its beginning and end, not man. The purpose of government is to make laws to protect from evil and wrongdoing. Government should not do or sanction evil. Sexuality was created and ordained by God and therefore defined by Him according to a specific pattern and not to be altered.

We then are to reflect this worldview in all of our choices. They should shape how we make decisions. When we live them out and speak them out to a lost world, the world is pointed to Jesus. They may choose to accept or reject, but we are to point them to Jesus through biblical example and speech.

1. We are to vote for a biblical worldview.

2 Timothy 3:1–5 ESV

1 But understand this, that in the last days there will come times of difficulty. 2 For people will be lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, 3 heartless, unappeasable, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not loving good, 4 treacherous, reckless, swollen with conceit, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, 5 having the appearance of godliness, but denying its power. Avoid such people.

This passage warns and instructs christians that we will live in a society that is dominated by a non-biblical worldview. We live in that society today.

There is a major political philosophy in our nation that has exploded in astronomic proportions. It has overtaken one major political party and deeply infected the other. Neither is immune. This philosophy is very consistent and presents a coherent world-view that is opposite the Bible.

God is not the creator and therefore there is not a God to make any permanent rules.

Man is the only judge and is free from any absolute standard but his own expedience. This produces certain clear and consistent philosophies.

Government is the most important provider.

Everyone is free to do what is right in their own eyes and the only vice is to judge something wrong.

Government is also a force for social engineering without absolute boundaries.

Government is there to provide instead of protect.

Equity as “we” see it is the goal since there is no such thing as an absolute standard of right and wrong.

Abortion is therefore acceptable.

The Homosexual (LGBTQ+IA) agenda is therefore acceptable.

Taxing and harming the poor in society is acceptable because it fosters the “greater good”, i.e. the growth of government.

Speaking to, paying homage to, or acknowledging God is wrong because He does not exist and to admit His existence would be to admit the need to submit to His standards as the Creator.

Those who believe in God are radical and intolerant because they have standards.

This world-view wears many faces, but is clearly evident in how liberals approach most issues.

All liberal politicians validate most or all of these positions, thus proving it is a clearly defined philosophy and worldview. They are in absolute agreement on certain values which to them form core of beliefs: no absolute truth, abortion, homosexual (special) rights.

These same politicians to a person believe in restricting the rights of Christians to speak while claiming the 1st amendment is so broad in its protection of free speech that drag queens can dance and preform in front of children, pornographic books can be required reading in school, and boys can be girls, girls can be boys, or you can even be a cat if you want to.

Again, even a cursory review of their positions – positions they hold universally- reveal they have a consistent and clear worldview in opposition to scripture.

It is our responsibility as believers to combat this worldview in the public arena of ideas. In order to advance the cause of Christ.

2. Evaluate individual issues by scripture.

We then are to vote on issues which relate to our biblical worldview.

We are not to vote on candidates, but on biblical worldview issues.

Allow me just to give you a handful of examples.

A.) Abortion.

Thank God that he saw fit to allow our supreme court to overturn Roe v. Wade a few years ago and making it so that Abortion is no longer a federal right. But don’t kid your self for one minute that the fight for the life of the unborn is over.

We also have a political party who has not been silent that they stand on a platform that seeks to codify the right to kill the unborn (and even those outside the womb after birth) into federal law.

The abortion issue isn't nuanced and hard to figure out from the Bible.

1. The Bible clearly teaches that God is the author of life, God plans our lives from the moment of conception and even before we are born, and He numbers our days.

Psalm 139:13–16 ESV

13 For you formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother’s womb. 14 I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; my soul knows it very well. 15 My frame was not hidden from you, when I was being made in secret, intricately woven in the depths of the earth. 16 Your eyes saw my unformed substance; in your book were written, every one of them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there was none of them.

Psalm 22:10 ESV

10 On you was I cast from my birth, and from my mother’s womb you have been my God.

Psalm 51:5–6 ESV

5 Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me. 6 Behold, you delight in truth in the inward being, and you teach me wisdom in the secret heart.

Job 3:3 ESV

3 “Let the day perish on which I was born, and the night that said, ‘A man is conceived.’

Jeremiah 1:4–5 ESV

4 Now the word of the Lord came to me, saying, 5 “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you; I appointed you a prophet to the nations.”

Galatians 1:15 ESV

15 But when he who had set me apart before I was born, and who called me by his grace,

The circumstances of the conception bring nothing to bear upon the sanctity of human life! No child is illegitimate to God.

Not only does life begin at conception but, the sixth commandment in Exodus 20:13 says:

Exodus 20:13 ESV

13 “You shall not murder.

Murder- is always used to describe the taking of innocent human life. Abortion is the epitome of taking an innocent human life.

We do not get to play God in order to determine when life begins or ends. Only God as the sovereign Lord of the universe gets to decide that.

Christians cannot not vote for political candidates who are backed by a platform that endorses the legalization and codifying into federal law infanticide.

WE MUST VOTE TO PROTECT HUMAN LIFE!

James 4:17 ESV

17 So whoever knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, for him it is sin.

The destruction of a human life in the manner referred to as abortion is a horrible and sinful practice against God’s laws.

We may differ on whether a war should be fought or not, but war is not always outlawed by God’s word. We may differ on an economic plan, but that is not outlawed by God’s word. The murder of an innocent, unborn life is just that – murder. It is sin for a Christian to knowingly vote for a politician who is pro abortion. We must vote for the person who most protects life.

2. Human sexuality.

The Bible isn't nuanced on this issue either. The LGBTQ+IA agenda is a sin against God!

Romans 1:18–32 ESV

18 For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. 19 For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. 20 For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. 21 For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. 22 Claiming to be wise, they became fools, 23 and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things. 24 Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, 25 because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen. 26 For this reason God gave them up to dishonorable passions. For their women exchanged natural relations for those that are contrary to nature; 27 and the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another, men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in themselves the due penalty for their error. 28 And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done. 29 They were filled with all manner of unrighteousness, evil, covetousness, malice. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, maliciousness. They are gossips, 30 slanderers, haters of God, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, 31 foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless. 32 Though they know God’s righteous decree that those who practice such things deserve to die, they not only do them but give approval to those who practice them.

Human sexuality, including all its physical, emotional, and spiritual intricacies, was God’s invention. He gave sexuality to His human creations as a gift with two functions: to perpetuate the human race and to create an intimate bond between husband and wife.

The right use of sexuality leads us to understand intimacy with God in greater ways; the wrong use of it destroys intimacy with God and substitutes sexuality in His place.

Genesis 1:27–28 ESV

27 So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. 28 And God blessed them. And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”

Whatever God creates, Satan perverts. It did not take long for fallen humanity to distort and destroy God’s sacred gift of sexuality. By the time God gave the Law to the Israelites, He had to forbid all sorts of sexual perversions that were accepted by the cultures at the time. God had already designated one man for one woman since creation but now had to clarify and forbid all manner of perversions people had invented.

Leviticus 18-20 and you will see detailed many of those forbidden practices, such as sex with a close family member, adultery, and all forms homosexuality.

Leviticus 18:22 ESV

22 You shall not lie with a male as with a woman; it is an abomination.

Leviticus 20:13 ESV

13 If a man lies with a male as with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination; they shall surely be put to death; their blood is upon them.

Deuteronomy 22:5 ESV

5 “A woman shall not wear a man’s garment, nor shall a man put on a woman’s cloak, for whoever does these things is an abomination to the Lord your God.

1 Corinthians 6:9–11 ESV

9 Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, 10 nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. 11 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.

It is prohibited by scripture and therefore as Christians we are to vote against any granting of rights or validation of this aberrant sexual behavior. Biological sex isn’t fluid and the adopting of the LGBTQ+IA agenda does nothing more than put women and especially children at risk.

Christians shouldn't vote for those who openly endorse such things.

These are just two issues, there are much more than these.

3.Evaluate individual candidates by their worldview.

I am not going to endorse any candidates or political parties.

Don’t come up after the service and even ask me who I am going to vote for because I am talking about principles, not people and parties.

Not every candidate is going to be a Christian.

It is unfortunate, but we live in a post-christian nation. We are going to be forced more and more to choose among candidates with whom we have little or nothing in common. Se we must learn how to choose the candidate based upon how their view of biblical issues reveals their (and their parties) worldview.

Christians aren't defined by whether or not they are republican or democrat, we are defined by Christ.

If they stand for things that are against a biblical worldview, we must not cast a vote for them.

This may mean we have to vote against someone who claims to be a Christian. The bible is the bible. It is the standard. All of us as Christians make mistakes and can be misguided. There are liberal theologians that misinterpret and are dismissive of scripture. Certainly, then there can be candidates who make mistakes and follow those same pastors and theology. Again, the issue is a biblical worldview. It is standing firm as closely as we can to guide our society towards biblical behavior.

Conclusion:

I am deeply concerned about the next election, I feel as if the very fabric of our nation is at stake like never before, but I am not afraid.

God is in control and always at work. He doesn’t get panicked or defeated over the outcome of elections or anything else. I know this because the Bible tells me this and thats where we stand and must put our trust.

“Pastor, what about our economy? It is scary.”

As Christians economics shouldn't be a primary issue for us. I understand we are in difficult times, but Economics does not reveal worldview as clearly as pro-life and human sexuality do. .

This is the truth for us as believers. We are to be following biblical guidelines as to managing our money. If you have done that, then you are not at risk. Moreover, our hope lies in Jesus and not in Washington D.C. or Richmond or Charleston!

God provides for His children. That is the promise of scripture. If we are obedient to living out a biblical worldview then God will be blessing us in such a way that it will give testimony to our belief in Him.

Look to God to provide and vote to hold up scripture!

We must stand up for biblical values and choose candidates in a biblical fashion.

Choose candidates that support as closely as possible our biblical worldview, even if they do not appear to be a Christian. Start with the clearest issues: abortion and sexuality. Remember that these issues reveal an underlying world view. We will not be able to evaluate the heart of a candidate, but they will reveal themselves and their worldview through such issues.

We should vote for a strong, positive character as often as possible. Vote on what they do and have done, not on what they say. If they favor things like we’ve discussed today, then we know their character because we know their worldview. Character is revealed in your actions and not your words.

Proverbs 20:11 ESV

11 Even a child makes himself known by his acts, by whether his conduct is pure and upright.

3. Consider their allies and enemies. Who do they stand with and against? If they chose to stand with those who believe in government instead of God, then we know their worldview.

Give the Gospel by talking about our hope for salvation isn't in a politician but in Jesus!