Should Christians Vote?

well here we are in another of the every four years cycle of a presidential election and as usual society is an absolute uproar there's angst and anger and arguments and there's chaos and there's you turn on the news and you can't watch too much because after a while you're just banging your head against the wall or you read articles you know every every day i try to read articles go online from different magazines different newspapers to keep up with what's going on and of course they're all saying different things and arguing with each other and fighting with each other there's even violence going on well welcome to democracy this is what democracy produces now this is bad and it is a crisis in terms of we don't know how this ends up in this country um but you know it's always been democracy has always been a mess i mean in the first early history of the united states we tried one form of government the articles of confederation it actually was ending up where the states were going to war with each other so they had to stop and create the constitution of course there were lots of people disagreed with the constitution some people thought george washington was um just the greatest savior to the country others who lived during his time thought he was a dictator early on in the american history two members of the government got in an argument and they had a duel and whatever was killed it's been pretty messy go read the congressional record of 1860. it's uh of course at that point the country reached the point was it was headed into a civil war democracy has always created conflict what is interesting about the united states is how long it has actually lasted how long it's actually lasted so here we are we're faced with the craziness of this election and every place you go everybody talks about it uh one of my neighbors uh was yesterday it was thursday i was outside doing a little bit of lawn work and he came over and we started to talk and of course he knows i'm a pastor um in fact at the feast he mowed my grass for me i have a couple neighbors who do that when i'm not there i and i i thanked him for it he said yeah but i didn't do it on the sabbath i didn't do it on the sabbath so i appreciated that um and he's been a you know he has he has a real religious background in fact he was talking he's been a lutheran catholic and and now he goes to a baptist church um and he was talking about how he just moved into tennessee not too long ago and how the other state that he came from he said when he was young everybody went to church he said now almost nobody there goes to church the churches are mostly empty he says you come here and he says most people at least are going to church there's some kind of a biblical understanding some kind of biblical values and then he started talking about the election and he asked around you know people are they want to sort of figure okay where you are in all this and i just said really i'm pretty apolitical i'm not political so that opened up for he could tell me all what he was thinking about and you know where he stood on things but he was interesting he he talked about how you know it's so distressing to see how nothing in this country could get solved there's just no way to solve anything and then he said he'd you know he'd come to the conclusion that if god doesn't do something there may not be much of a future for the united states of america and i thought how many people are thinking that way because he says i don't know what any the solutions are so here we are christians in the midst of this circus how should we approach the presidential election how should we as christians particip what should we do in participating in politics i mean is it true that if we all have the same values wouldn't all of us vote for the same candidate should you vote who would jesus vote for now these are questions that in if you've been in the church of god very long whether it's united church or god way back into the world white church of god back in the radio church of god these things were talked about quite often i'm not sure we've talked about it quite as much over the last few years what is and what should be our approach to participating in this election and you talk to different people you know i have neighbors who think that it's their moral duty if they don't vote they're actually disobeying god so what did what it is or what is our actions what is it that we should be doing how we answer these questions they go well okay we're just going to talk about some political issues no how we answer these questions is based upon our christian worldview and our christian value system so this is a very important question how should we participate in the politics of this national election what we should we be doing we're going to tackle this by talking about some principles and then i literally want to get down into we're going to look at four major political platforms and say how would a christian deal with this i'm not dealing with parties here i'm not dealing with persons or politicians we're going to look at something we're going to look at how would a christian answer these issues which will help us understand where we should stand and who we are as christians in terms of this political process that we we were born into a country with this political process first of all let's go to the heart of the conflict why so much political conflict why is it that there's always been political conflict in this country always from the very beginning why is it why is it that it's so dysfunctional why is it that people are always polarized and the bigger the country gets and the more there is access to information some of the true some of it not true the worse this gets to there reaches a point where no one even knows really most the time what's true and what's not true what's real and what's not real well let's go to the heart of the problem ephesians chapter 6 and this is part of something that paul is dealing with the church in ephesus he's dealing with what they were coming out of they're greeks they're coming out of a greek political system i mean greece is where democracy started now we're having to be a a democratic republic okay so we are a republic it's not a pure democracy but it's it's as close as you can get with 320 million people no one ever imagined no one ever imagined a republic with 320 million people nobody even knows how that's supposed to work because there were there's never been concepts on how that works the original founding fathers never considered something that big they never considered media the way it is in other words we're in a world that is so different that it's just been evolving since the time this country was founded that we're living in a world that no one even knows how to define what the problems are but here's the base of our problems he never i'm sorry not hebrews but official ephesians chapter 6 verse 11. put on the whole armor of god that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil his point he's making here is that satan affects the world and in effect he affects us and so we have to be prepared with god's spirit and this armor of god to be able to withstand satan's influence on us verse 12 for we do not wrestle against flesh and blood but against principalities against powers against the rulers of the darkness of this age against spiritual hosts of wickedness in heavenly places what paul understood is when he looked at the world he saw that this was not the kingdom of god now he was looking at the roman world and he said this isn't the kingdom of god we look at the world through american eyes but this is not the kingdom of god you know wherever you live you have a biased on how things should be done i mean i've i go to i've been to italy and they think you know the italian way is a good way you go to france know the french ways the best way you go to germany know the german ways the best way right you come here we have a world view and it's an american world view but let's understand that an american world view is not the kingdom of god worldview those are not the same things they're not the same things at all that underlying the united states is the fact that satan has been allowed to rule this world since adam and eve got kicked out of eden now that doesn't mean certain governments aren't better than other governments i would rather live here than any place else in the world there's actually certain components here that are here because of a certain understanding certain little bits and pieces of the knowledge of the bible saying certain little bits and pieces of the knowledge of the bible but it doesn't mean it's the kingdom of god look at it this way the laws of god are built into the fabric of the human condition so let's take a man who's an agnostic he's not even sure there is a god but he never commits adultery and he stays married to the same woman his whole life and they have a good marriage he applied a principle of god by trying to be a good husband he applied the principle of god by not committing adultery and he was blessed okay does that make him a christian no but he received the blessing of doing something god's way this nation has received a number of blessings from god sometimes we didn't not because we deserved it and sometimes it was just because of a certain understanding of things that connected us to the bible that connected us to something that was right and so we got blessings from it but it never was the kingdom of god god never ruled over the united states of america he's never ruled over any of these nations the only place he ruled over a civil nation in history was the nation of israel in the old testament and those people didn't do it his way and we see how that worked out no better than our country even with god's way given to them they couldn't do it and the result was they failed so we have to understand our worldview is based in this concept that all the nations of the world none of the governments of this world is god's government in fact let's go back a couple chapters here chapter two we read this this all the time these couple verses are read and you'll hear them in in bible studies you'll hear them in sermons usually a couple times a year because it's so basic to how we understand the world we live in he says verse 1 and you he made alive he's talking to the church he's saying you're different than what you used to be who were dead in trespasses and sins in which you once walked according to the course of this world according to the prince of the power of the air the spirit who now works in the sons of disobedience he said all of us were just as dysfunctional and cut off from god as everybody else until god called us now some of you were called very early some of you were brought into a relationship with god as a child others came in later in life but the truth is none of us are any different than anybody else unless god does something with us and when god does something with us he says that we become different than a world that's under remember we just read this in chapter six this this spiritual darkness underneath this world that's the foundation of it is a spiritual darkness that has affected the very core of human nature he goes on in verse three among whom also we all once once conducted ourselves in the lust of our flesh fulfilling the desires of the flesh and that of the mind and we're by nature children of wrath just as the others he reminds christians he reminds those in ephesus that you know they were different no different to anybody else except that god did something with them and brought them out of a world where the principalities and powers are ruled by darkness this is the core this is where we start well we're going to talk about politics as christians that's where we start it is that if god calls us into his kingdom to prepare us for his literal kingdom when christ comes now remember god's kingdom still exists he's still on his throne satan just rules here for a while because he lets him not because he took it away from god but he's going to reestablish that kingdom on this earth when christ returns until then there are rulers of darkness and all human governments will fail and they'll fail because of two reasons one is because there is an influence on them i'm not talking about everybody's demon possessed there's some people in politics there have been kings and presidents and congressmen and i mean there's been people that have done some amazing things as they've tried to do what was right over the years but in the end until human nature is changed until satan is removed we will always end up in the same place because it's where satan and human nature takes us and only god has the power to remove satan and only god has the power to change human nature no government will bring justice for everybody no government will bring equality for everybody no human government will solve diseases will solve poverty none of them will none of them throughout history has because they can't deal with the fact that there is a dark influence on human beings and two human nature is already corrupted so even if quote-unquote good people are in charge in the end we end up in the same place this isn't a world view it's not this isn't a negative world view it turns oh wow you know everything's bad everything's always going to be bad it realizing for one thing we should be really really happy for certain things that are good i can tell you this living in this country at this time period in my lifetime i realize is about as bad as good as it's ever been in the history of humanity now i didn't deserve that i just by god's grace happened to be born now but all of humanity the whole history is a failure and somehow we can lock into a belief that the united states is beyond that failure but the united states is just has the same internal flaws as any human government and you know what it is it's us it's people and it's the influence of satan you know there's something interesting jesus says let's go to john 18. this is where jesus is brought before pilate of chris pilot's a very powerful man pirate pilot is the governor of judea he literally has the power of life and death over people now as you see you go through this it's very interesting i would guess pilate was a typical um sort of roman governor or official who had really bought into the idea of pox romana that they were going to create a roman peace and the only way you could create a world like wide roman peace was through law so he had to do everything according to the law now of course roman law and you know it is interesting i mentioned before under rome there was a freedom of economy that was just amazing the way goods could flow from place to place there was no government regulations basically pay your taxes and you can you can destroy the competition any way you want except kill them short of that it doesn't matter right you had religious freedom as long as you accepted the emperor as semi-divided you just had to sacrifice to him then you believe whatever god you wanted you had road systems that had never been throughout the world like that before you had a postal system you had a a wealth that wherever you were in the in the roman empire there was a growth of wealth in fact uh winston churchill says that he looks back at the history of or wrote that he will look back on the history of england and he said one of the greatest periods of english history was when the romans occupied england because for one thing they made everybody literate i mean you had the chance to become literate you had the chance to learn how to read um the celtic peoples didn't have a written language and he taught him how to read or i mean the romans thought about the ring of course then the anglo-saxons came in and they didn't have written language either and within two generations after the anglo-saxons were there nobody could read anymore either so it you know came in it went but he looked at said you know when you look at the architecture the road system the economic system he says that was one of the greatest periods in english history we wouldn't think that would you but you know he looked at their history and said it was it wasn't the kingdom of god was it and now it's coming in contact with the kingdom of god let's go to verse 33 then pilate entered the praetorium again and called jesus and said to him are you the king of the jews now this question is real important if you understand roman law he could not he could not take jesus and just kill him because the jews wanted him killed now he could i mean the power who's going to stop him but you know being a true roman now we have to do this according to the roman law books you know and i just don't want to kill him but if he's a king that means he's equal with caesar i can kill him okay so are you a king and jesus answered him and said are you speaking for yourself about this or did others tell you this concerning me uh now that's a that's a smart question and pilate automatically understands i'm dealing with a very intelligent person here okay i asked him if you're a king he can he could get crucified for the answer of that and his answer is who told you this have you made this up where'd it come from and of course you can see the frustration pilate answered am i a jew your own nation and the chief priest have delivered you to me what have you done i just want to know why these people hate you so much you want me to kill you and jesus answered my kingdom is not of this world if my kingdom were of this world my servants would fight so that i should not be delivered to the jews but now my kingdom is not from here he said i have a kingdom and i am a king but my kingdom is not here yet it's not now of here it's not here now that's an interesting way of putting that because it's it's a philosophical argument you know i mean pilate probably was a well-educated man he knew philosophers would talk about you know the kingdom of the mind that you know oh wait wait wait this guy's a philosopher he's like about some kind of non-earthly kingdom which romans could care less about or could not care less about right we don't care about heavenly stuff all we want to know is about rome and the power of rome that's all that mattered the pilot therefore said to him are you a king jesus answered for you say rightly that i am a king for this cause i was born and for this cause i have come into the world and i should hear bear witness to the truth everyone who is of the truth hears my voice and of course pilate said what's truth you talk to me about truth he walks out and he says i can't find anything wrong with this guy he says i'm a babbling philosopher he's not against the state he's not he's not another jewish messiah come to wreck because they were dealing with that all the time some jewish messiah would get a couple hundred men together and try to overthrow the roman empire you know he's not this kind of guy and he even he said i didn't have anything wrong with him he just he's just a philosopher of course we know what happened we're going to come back to this my kingdom is not of this world we already looked at the basic christian worldview every human being is under the influence of satan and to one degree another every human being and except those who are called by god although we still have the fighting from time to time and because of that this world system is controlled by darkness every government they ask jesus about paying taxes jesus said that we should pay our taxes paul said we should pay our taxes paul said that we should obey the laws of the land as long as they don't come in conflict with the laws of god okay so we as christians are to pay our taxes and we are to obey the laws of the land as long as they don't come in conflict with the laws of god why because we have a greater citizenship than the citizenship we have here and this comes down to where is your citizenship where is your citizenship let's look at three three passages to talk about our citizenship and then what i want to do is i'm going to go through some actual political platforms and look at them and say how should we as christians knowing this worldview corrupt human nature it's satan's world knowing that knowing what our citizenship is how should we approach these things ephesians 2 ephesians chapter 2 and let's start in verse 19. now what paul is talking here he's talking to the once again we're back in ephesians we keep going back here because paul's really dealing with this when you read first and second corinthians galatians ephesians philippians colossians all there are their letters where people are having a hard time coming out of their allegiance most of these people are greeks greeks were highly educated greeks knew philosophy they knew government they knew mathematics these were highly educated people considered the most educated people in the entire roman empire and he's dealing with them because they're having a hard time understanding okay we're coming out of paganism but what exactly how much do we have to come out of our culture how much do we have to come out of our allegiance to our or the world we live in so he's telling them here before god called you you looked at the jews and he started to look at the god of the jews say oh that's the true god but wow they're the people of god and i'm not right i'm a greek i'm not the i'm not the people of god but he said something could change for them verse 19. now therefore you are no longer strangers and foreigners but fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of god they are citizens you know it's very interesting the word citizen or citizenship those two words are used in a number of different places in the new testament but it's not always the same word uh it has very similar meaning they're very strong words you are patriotic you are loyal you are a member of this country he says you are now citizens of the people of god our loyalty who we look up to the government we follow this is who our where our citizenship is he goes on to use this analogy then having been built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets jesus christ himself being the chief cornerstone in whom the whole building being filled together grows into a holy temple in the lord and who in whom you also are being built together for a dwelling place of god in the spirit you and i are the dwelling place of the spirit of god we are as collectively and we are individually so wherever you go you are god's representative you are a representative of the household of god and of the kingdom of god now this sort of starts to change the way we maybe should look at things we understand the premise we understand the world view now we start to see who we are we represent a different governmental system a governmental system that you are to be applying into your lives now and the way that you react to god the father and the way you react to jesus christ and the way we react to each other in the church we represent something different what is our identity what political party are you someone asked you what political party are you oh i i'm i'm a registered kingdom of god i'm a registered kingdom of god it would change a lot of conversations well what's your stance on no you probably wouldn't get much of that right because if the only thing about the bible it's like oh you're a fanatic or something you know i don't want anything to do with you philippians chapter 3. [Music] philippians 3 verse 20 for our citizenship is in heaven for which we also eagerly wait for the savior the lord jesus christ who will transform our lowly body that it may be conformed to his glorious body according to the working by which he is able even to subdue all things himself he's going to subdue all things one of the things that jesus christ does when he came comes back he dissolves all governments the government of the united states will not survive the tribulation and it will not survive the coming of the messiah no political party in this country will survive the coming of the messiah there will be no need for those anymore they will no longer be acceptable forms of government i mean it's amazing i think the united states government is absolutely amazing it's genius in many ways it's absolutely genius but it it's not the kingdom of god and you and i were called to be something other than independent republican or democrat understand we're called to be something other than that our citizenship is in heaven hebrews 11. we are living examples of a different way a different form of government a different kingdom a different yeah we don't have a president we have a king that's hugely different isn't it of course in hebrews it's talking about hebrews 11 all the great people of faith in the old testament and verse 13 says these all died in faith not having received the promises but having seen them afar off and were assured of them embraced them and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth the more you truly embrace the values of the kingdom of god the more you find yourself an alien in an alien land that's what happens the more you embrace the values of the kingdom of god the more you find yourself an alien in an alien land it's hard because we live pretty good lives here right and compared to much of the rest of the world even our hard times are good times so we get used to this we get comfortable with this but this is not the kingdom of god he said for those who say such things declare that they seek a homeland you and i seek our nation and our nation is not this one our nation is not this one it's another nation now we obey the laws we're to be good citizens in that way we're to pay our taxes i mean i've covered those things in in sermons before that's not the discussion here the discussion is where is your heart where is your mind where is your loyalty where is your patriotism he says and truly if they had called to mind that country from which they had come out they would have had opportunity to re return but now they desire a better that is a heavenly country therefore god is not ashamed to be called their god for he has prepared a city for them that's a remarkable statement is god ashamed to be called our god he said faithful people he's not ashamed to say i'm the god of that person but if we are too mindful and too wrapped up in the place we came out of we will have the opportunity to go back and that can happen a lot of different levels it can happen on a lot of different levels your calling is a whole lot greater than you realize [Music] it is to come out of this world and be members of the family of god and to be representatives of the kingdom of god now as i said before i know at this point some people say and and it's i understand the argument it's not a it's not a stupid argument it's not a bad argument it's a it's a i understand it but do we not have a duty to vote and participate because we could bring good even in a small way we can bring good i suppose if that was true i would say yes but is it true let me give an example let's look at let's look at four major platforms that you will find that are in um you know politics today they've been in politics for ever since i was a kid okay i can't talk about you know 1890 i wasn't there you have to talk to mr uh kellers but i wasn't there he's sitting downstairs so i couldn't i just can't i couldn't that was sort of mean he probably doesn't remember any politics to at least 1920. but anyways so what do i mean by this what do i mean by this well let's look at these four things i picked and i could have picked 20. i just picked four because they're major things people are arguing about okay the lgbtq agenda now i really i really challenge you to find any politician i don't care what party they belong to that's going to stand up against that agenda find any politician that would get up and say by the way i think in our country we should make it legal for only people to you know be together sexually if they're married otherwise it's a crime well you talk about political suicide nobody's going to say that nobody's going to support that and nobody's going to say anything directly against this agenda except you will find some that are standing against um gay marriage and there's a reason for that because to stand against them on religious grounds becomes very very in our country becomes very uh because some people say that the right to be homosexual is a religious right in fact they can be a christian jesus loves everybody jesus loves me therefore i'm a christian so there's lots of christian denominations surprising number of christian denominations who are supporting homosexuality and the reason why is well okay there's a religious component to this so they come at it from this idea well there's a okay there's a legal component you can't have gay marriage well you can only fight that so long eventually that'll collapse it has to if you have the right to be homosexual you have the right to be married that is a political argument you see this has become a political point now i know someone said why are you picking on this particular sin well i i can there's lots of sins i could there's lots of issues i could bring up i brought this one up specifically because this is an actual political platform that both parties stand on no one's going to say this is wrong in fact they're promoting it as a right it is your right because the political argument is is that people in a free society should decide for themselves their sexual values and there's nothing in the constitution i have my constitution here i've had one ever since i was a kid i keep it with me sometimes okay there's nothing in the constitution by the way it says that that's not you can have sexual freedom there's nothing that says you can't they never expected that would be an issue it's not in here okay there's nothing in the constitution that says you can't have sexual freedom so this is a platform that you find both parties standing on now i don't pick this out because it's somehow the worst sin you can commit it's not i mean there's homosexuals that have turned to god been forgiven are fine christians you know moved beyond that that's not what we're talking about we're talking about though let's use uh stealing oh get up there talk about stealing okay but we're talking about politics and i know of no politician who's arguing look i think stealing's good and anybody who's against stealing has a real moral problem because everybody should be thieves everybody should accept thieves nobody's saying that okay but everybody who is supporting this in one level or another let's go to romans chapter one romans one paul is talking about the issues i have no problems talking about the issues fact i will try to equally insult every political party in the united states by the time i get done okay i have no problem talking about the issues if they're biblical you know i we all have ideas someone will come up and ask me an idea on some economic issue or societal issue that's not biblical i give my idea and they can give their idea and we talk about it don't come to a conclusion because well it's our ideas you understand there's a difference between arguing about or discussing i mean our society and getting into what are the values of the kingdom of god that's a totally different thing there are certain values of the kingdom of god that are not bendable and here we have in romans 1 paul's talking about society he's talking about how the roman society is so corrupt and there's a whole bunch of things he talks about and in one section of it a couple verses he talks about homosexuality then he talks about other things too but i want to go down to verse 32 because this is very important who knowing the righteous judgment of god that's on any of these issues all of them i mean it's proud and boasting and and greed all these things are mixed in here but we have this particular political platform so i and that both parties can agree to with in one degree at least to it or another he says who knowing the righteous judgment of god that those who practice such things are deserving of death not only do the same but also approve of those who practice them now what's the conclusion now remember we've gone through all human nature is corrupt we've gone through that all nations are influenced by satan every one of them we've gone through that our citizenship is in the kingdom of god now we still have obligations here but that's not our primary citizenship so there's only one conclusion we can come to here we can approve of them which means if you vote for a candidate who supports the lgbtq community you're you're casting a vote against the kingdom of god because you're approving of them think about it a minute oh yes we'll approve of them because i like this social program i'll approve of them because i like this particular economic program we're approving of them the right to own guns okay now i'm going to pick on another group the right to own guns the fundamental right to own guns in this country is in the constitution of the united states the constitution united states is one of the most remarkable documents i have ever read it has some statements in it that are so profound and i am glad i live under a country that has those principles but the constitution of the united states of america is not the kingdom of god it is not it is the best i think human beings can make make up and it has a few elements of some biblical principles in there but it's not the kingdom of god the kingdom of god is not america and america is not the kingdom of god now we talk about the right dome guns you know i i have i've mentioned this before because i i know over the years i've mentioned it a few times and i've had some people get very offended by it i own two hunting rifles one is my dad's um that he hunted with for years that i don't think i've ever fired and then i have a hunting rifle that i use we used to hunt for meat because we were pouring that was sort of important and actually i keep it too because at my mom and dad's first anniversary that's what she bought him she saved up this money for this rifle for him and i used to hunt with it there are many deer that live long happy lives because i'm such a poor shot [Music] part of the reason why i could not stand to think of shooting a deer and not killing it so i wouldn't take the shot i had to have a clear shot to take i mean absolutely clear shot and running deer just got away you know because but i have those they say well you know the second amendment guarantees you the right to do that nobody better should come take it away from you okay what if they change that and say by the way you have to give up your hunting rifles okay come get them come on or i'll bring them to the police station if that's what you want because you know i don't have a god-given right to own those i have a right given to me by the u.s constitution and which is not my main citizenship my citizenship is in heaven so if they demand them and they change the law i give them back because well i obey the law of the land and what gets me do most people even know what that second amendment is okay i'm going to read it to you okay just in case you don't because i want you to understand the reason for that law and maybe you know i you know i hear sometimes uh christians defend this vehemently okay but do you understand what the law really says second amendment rights to keep arms a well-regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed the reason the constitution says you have the right to bear arms is so that you can use it against the state you see go back to the time period there was no u.s army well there was a us army that was created during the american revolution then afterwards everybody went back to their states how did they have an army back then every town had a militia and every town trained as a militia and then they would create a state militia and then the state militias would come together to create the us army eighty years after the constitution during the american or a civil war at the beginning of the war it's estimated that the american army comprised of five thousand men that's that's it the us army was five thousand men there was no way they could fight a war how did how did the civil war get fought why is it tennessee had soldiers fighting for the north and the south it depended on where their county voted to go and some of them voted to go north and fight for the union some of them voted to go south and fight for the confederacy and where did they get their guns well they were hanging up in the house everybody had one so everybody could be part of the militia understand the right to bear arms has to do with fighting a war that's why we have that in this country so there could be militias not the militias we think of today would you just sort of people band together for whatever reasons these were authorized militias that every county had in the united states and every state had and until the end of the civil war it's what the american army was it was malicious so that's why they have the second amendment i just bring that out because i don't own a hunting rifle so i could fight the state and if they want it they can come get it just pass the law and say it's not mine anymore and you can have it because it's not a kingdom of god right that's why it's not a kingdom of god right that's my value system now i know that you know that's just my value system how about abortion the political value is that it's a woman's body she can do with it whatever she wants what's the kingdom of god value the kingdom of god value is is that that unborn child is made in the image of god and is a human being to abort that child is murder to have governmental sanctioned abortion is for the government which our government does sanctifying mass murder and i hope that sinks in what that really means our government sanctifies mass murder genocide on those who can't defend themselves now that's the kingdom of god value you know what that means i mean just just think about it i don't care why you like a certain candidate to vote for that candidate when they support abortion is a vote against the kingdom of god see why i said this has to do with values it has to do with values it has to do with your worldview [Music] how could you vote that'd be like saying well i really like the way the government has given are starting to produce these volkswagens and everybody gets a car so i'm going to go ahead and vote for adolf hitler no come on you can't compare the two no i'm just comparing mass murderers that's all how dare you say that do you believe an unborn child is a human being if you don't then what i'm saying is going to seem ridiculous to you if you do logically you have no choice because not only does god condemn those who do that but condemns those who what approve of them oh boy this is big we have to dig down deep here into who we really are we have to dig down deep to what we actually believe and you have to believe this nobody else can believe something for you you have to decide where you are on these issues the last one i want to talk about is war it is the right of any nation to protect itself by waging war against another country awkward i understand that's the political argument and you know if you're going to be a country without god's help my suggestion would be the biggest be the biggest baddest country in the world right if you're going to fight other people without god's help you better be the biggest baddest military in the world what did jesus say we already read it my disciples are not of this world elves or they would fight but they're not going to fight you don't have to worry about people tearing down the government we're never going to be violent people trying to overthrow the government just like the early christians never tried to overthrow the roman government no matter how oppressive it was or the jewish government no matter how oppressive it was they never fought against it in an organized way how do you make choices about war well i'm going to vote for this person and hope they make good decisions about war let me ask you this if you're in the military how do you make decisions how do you decide which village to burn down in which village not to burn down when your order is to do it how do you decide that how do you decide to keep the sabbath when they say you they say to you you can't keep the sabbath how can you have your kingdom of god values and be in the military you know many people don't realize this but it was the mennonites the church of god seventh day and the seventh-day adventist clear back in the 1860s and through the 1800s that helped get the united states to formulate the concept of conscientious objectors people who would serve their country in many ways but they would not serve in taking up arms and killing somebody i don't know if you've seen i don't recommend a hexal ridge because it is bloody but it's true i remember when i saw that movie i thought that battle could not have been that intense because nobody would cram that many men in that small of an area so i looked it up and got a map of hacksaw ridge and they crammed that many men in that small area it was just um unbelievable and there's a seven-day adventist two would not fight now what the movie didn't show is he had been in many battles that was just the battle where he saved seven seventy men who had been wounded but he wouldn't fight at age 17 this you know you wondered could this be that hard of a question or answer but it was for me this was a hard thing for me at age 17 i received my draft notice i love this country i felt patriotic i also thought am i a coward that i am not willing of course every 17 year old's gonna think am i a coward that i am not willing to go fight for my country because i respect people i still respect people who are willing to do that because i understand their value system but then i had to realize what is my value system that's somebody else's what is mine and i studied the scripture i prayed about it and i applied to be a conscientious a conscientious objector and you know vietnam's going on at the time which knowing me i wouldn't survived i'm too dumb you know i just um but i i got back that it was voted down by the draft board out of the three officers two to one i have to appear before them now do the one means okay you you probably are you may be but we have to make sure you're not you know trying to just get out here and i started to look into that and study it you know what are the questions they would ask somebody do you vote and if you said yes then you're not really a conscious objector but you're willing to participate in the government force the government to do what you want get what you can out of the government but you won't fight for it and that was a legitimate issue to me i don't know i don't know how you can have integrity and say i'll vote but i won't fight for it so i never voted and i never will because i had to decide where my allegiance was and that's hard at 17 because i know if if i didn't have this belief system i would have gone i'd have gone just like that i was preparing for this i was doing something on the internet what popped up was something i'd i said wow that's interesting i clicked on it it was three men who had been in vietnam they interviewed all three of them and they were talking about what their combat experience was and one man said that um he remembered he said the most scared he ever was was he said a sniper had zeroed in on him and he heard the bullet go by and he started to run and he kept hearing them just missing him and he said it was the strangest sound in the world he said it sounded like an electronic mosquito and i was fascinated i had to go tell my wife because when i was a kid i was out in the woods out in the mountains or in pennsylvania and someone didn't see me wearing a brush and they fired that rifle and it went right past my head i heard it and it was such a weird sound i i could never figure out what it sounded like yeah it sounds like an electronic mosquito it's it's just a different sound i don't know how far away it was i don't know if about ballistics i just know that it's a real bad feeling in your pity or stomach when you realize what just happened right but i i didn't know how i got off of that but the point was these guys were talking about it and how it changes a man it changes who he is yeah and that's why we i understand why men do that they go to do it to protect their country now some don't but most of them do but i had to decide not to do that and that wasn't easy that was an easy call you see you can't pick your candidates and then try to what determine how they're going to vote on which war we get into and not get into who they're going to send to die what country they're going to bomb tomorrow how do you as a christian do that i just picked four things sort of tough sort of tough i want to talk about christ's return just for a minute because i'm going through the first amendment first amendment is an amazing sentence the first amendment is one of the greatest sentences in the history of mankind it really is i am so glad i live in a country under the first amendment but i want to talk about this now in the context of the kingdom of god congress shall not make or shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof when jesus christ comes back this will be done away with there'll be one religion and he will forbid the exercising of any other religion okay well that one that one goes away let's see the rest of the amendment or abridging the freedom of speech you and i are already living under these these new kingdom rules aren't we you and i can't use god's name in vain oh that's fruit that's sort of restricting our speech isn't it there's certain things you and i can't say so that one gets greatly modified or the power of the press how many when jesus christ is king of kings the lord of lords on his church in jerusalem how many television stations how many sites on the internet is he going to allow to be the opposition party satan's not around so somebody's got to pretend to be satan and oppose him right how many that you think is going to happen you think there's going to be newspapers we're the opposition to the king newspaper we want a new king elected so the freedom of the press disappears and then of course or the right of the people peaceably to assemble and to petition the government for a regress of grievances or redress of grievances in other words the right to politically assemble i'm not sure we have a right to politically assemble when jesus christ comes back you know let's just take this part of the world and turn into our own government and forget about that what's going on jerusalem you think that's going to happen suddenly the first amendment doesn't mean anything the second amendment doesn't mean anything and that in fact most of that constitution is meaningless when jesus christ comes back i'll put it to you this way it's not going to be the basis of any government a document he uses so you and i have been called to be part of a different government and i understand i still feel at times a great patriotism and love for this country not saying that's all wrong but we always have to put it in relationship first of all to our greater citizenship we have a greater citizenship it's not easy to stay focused on that censorship my wife and i have talked about over the last few months how sometimes it's it's easy to get caught up in all this stuff going on and sort of forget really i have very limited to do with this i live in this country i love this country but i'm an alien in an alien land as much as i love it we are aliens in an alien land spiritually but as christians that's that's who all christians are i read a case where a judge was talking to a man who was going to be registering as a conscience objector and he said you have churches all over the world he said yes they all believe this he said yes then none of them could take arms up against each other because you might shoot each other yes in other words none of them could serve in an army because they could end up shooting their own their own brothers and sisters which of course throughout history christians have killed his uh christians over and over by the millions they've killed each other and wars he let him be a conscientious objector yeah you can you can't you're going to shoot each other so okay i understand your point you and i have to remember that as difficult as it is as much we may love this country um we have to understand that we have a greater calling and sometimes that greater calling demands a lot of sacrifice of us it demands that we don't do what we normally want to do or feel we should do let me conclude by just going to psalms 146 all of one all of psalm 146 is about this subject but i'm just going to read the first few verses here because this sort of summarizes then how we need to approach this first one praise the lord praise the lord o my soul verse 2 while i live i will praise the lord i will sing praises to my god while i have my being do not put yourself in princes nor in a son of man in whom there is no help his spirit departs he returns to the earth and that very day his plans perish happy is he who has the god of jacob for his help whose hope is in the lord his god i truly believe the united states is going to probably be slipping more and more into political confusion and i don't care who is elected we're going to be slipping more and more into political confusion as we do if our hope is in this land we will find ourselves hopeless and we will find that we can actually help others we can't encourage others we'll be just as discouraged as everybody else but if we put our hope in god and in his kingdom and his rule in the coming of jesus christ then that will make a difference in who we are right now it will also give us the courage to face every day who would jesus vote for i have another question could jesus get elected president of the united states of course not and that's who i vote for you

Channel: UCG Nashville - TN

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Id: 1FitniFjPMc

Length: 67min 15sec (4035 seconds)

Published: Sat Mar 27 2021