The Church & Politics | General Superintendent David K. Bernard

we give you thanks lord we praise your name praise your name amen isn't it wonderful to be in the presence of the lord on a wednesday night amen while you're standing i'm going to read a verse of scripture it's found in philippians chapter 3 verse 20. i'm going to be using the new king james it's great to be with you tonight we appreciate pastor shaw and the invitation to speak to you and this has been quite an unusual year my wife and i of course we were shut down like all of you for a couple of months but then we've been traveling since may uh and it's been uh a different experience but uh quite an unusual schedule so my schedule's completely changed every every few weeks so we were able to be here for a few days and going to be here a few more days in november and december so looking at philippians chapter 3 verse 20 new king james version it says for our citizenship is in heaven from which we also eagerly wait for the savior the lord jesus christ so i'm going to be talking about the church and politics and you may be seated the church and politics but i want to start with our citizenship is in heaven we love our country we love our nation we're blessed to be here in america but we're very aware that our citizenship is not just here but primarily it's in heaven and we're very aware that our ultimate solution is not going to be a politician it's not going to be a law but it's the lord jesus christ and so that's where we start but we are living in this world so we're citizens of a heavenly kingdom and so we're united with people all across the globe brothers and sisters of many different races nationalities languages of course that's what heaven is going to be like if you read the book of revelation people from every tribe every tongue will be gathered around the throne worshiping god all the different races all the different nationalities but we'll be worshiping together that's what heaven is going to be like and that's what the church down here should be like but while we're down here we we all have uh even though we do have these different backgrounds we're all called by one name the name of jesus we all have one spirit the holy spirit and we all have the same blood the blood of jesus christ that cleanses from all sin so our citizenship is in heaven we look at however many years we're going to live down here 70 years 80 years however many years it's going to be well that's only a small fraction of our total life because in eternity we'll be with the lord so our citizenship is in heaven but of course what i'm going to talk about tonight is what we're supposed to do while we're here on earth so we have a heavenly citizenship and we have an earthly citizenship now i'm going to share some scripture for the sake of time i'm going to just refer to some that you can read at your leisure others will slow down and take the time to read and so in thinking about our earthly citizenship our earthly home the psalmist david of course he was writing originally to the nation of israel in psalm 122 and 6 he said pray for the peace of jerusalem i think that's a good statement for all of us today but in the original context he was saying pray for your nation's capital the focal point of the nation of israel was the city of jerusalem and the temple that was in jerusalem so if you go by what the old testament says we're supposed to pray for our own nation we're supposed to pray for our own capital and then the book of jeremiah chapter 29 verse 7 it's talking to people in exile and it says whatever city you go into pray for the peace of that city so even though you may be in a pagan country like babylon because the babylonians conquered the tiny nation of judah and many of the jewish people were taken into captivity but jeremiah says even if you are taken into a strange country another city pray for the peace of that city because if that city has peace you will have peace so even though our citizenship is in heaven we actually live in austin texas right now or the surrounding area so it's in our own best interest to pray for austin or round rock or wherever you live or texas because if our area prospers then we're likely to prosper now i'll just say this uh little thing here the word peace in hebrew you might have heard of it shalom but it means a lot more than what we might think of just by a translation of the english word peace it does of course mean peace but it encompasses uh wholeness health welfare well-being so if you pray for someone's peace or you say peace be unto you it's not just meaning don't get into a fight but it's saying i hope you're in health i hope you're will i hope you prosper i i hope your life is is fulfilled and so to pray for the peace of our nation and to pray for the peace of our city means we pray for its safety its health its welfare for the people to prosper to do well to have security wholeness so that gives us a little bit of idea of how we should pray for our own city our state our county our nation our world now sometimes since we as christians our citizenship is in heaven and since we know this world is full of sin and everywhere we go we talk about politics we we see people that do things we don't agree with and uh we're supposed to vote but yet some of the people that we would choose to vote for are living very imperfect lives and some of the laws that they want to pass may not correspond completely with god's plan and so we have this struggle so some people say well just stay away from politics altogether but that doesn't seem to be what the bible says some people say well you can't be involved in secular government in any way because it's sinful well unfortunately uh if you work on a job you're going to be faced with sinful situations right if you go to school or you're going to be faced with a central situation so as long as you're in this world you're gonna have to deal with these things it's not just government that's the problem it's human humans that are the problem so how is do we as christians live in a fallen world how do we work on a job uh where you've got centers and how do you go to school where you've got centers and where you hear some things that you as a christian would rather not hear you see some people do things that you as a christian would rather not do well that's not just limited to politics that is what it means to live on planet earth in 2020 so and and we do find examples in scripture of actually godly people participating in secular pagan governments i won't take a lot of time but joseph became a leader in egypt god used him daniel became a leader in babylon later in persia his friends shadrach meshach and abednego became leaders those are their pagan names their their actual hebrew names are hananiah michel and azariah but they're better known by their pagan names because that's the names they were used in that were used in government of course queen esther was greatly used by god in the persian empire we have those examples where godly people served in secular governments but noticed they did not compromise their convictions they maintained their commitment to god even when they are pressured to bow to idols they refuse when they were told they needed to eat the king's food and which didn't correspond with the jewish dietary laws they refused so we have examples of people who served faithfully in high positions of secular government but they did not compromise they did not engage in the sin around them so it is possible to serve even in government capacities the apostle paul was a roman citizen and when he was persecuted for his faith he he reminded people wait just a minute i'm a roman citizen i have certain rights so he he appealed to the law it's okay now we're not supposed to sue brothers and sisters in christ but sometimes it is appropriate to stand up for our legal rights the apostle paul did so cornelius if you read acts chapter 10 verse 1 i'll read from the nlt cornelius was a roman army officer captain of the italian regiment so he had a high position in the military another man you may not have heard of erastus was a christian in the city of corinth and you can read in romans 16 23 according to the niv he was the city's director of public works or the nlt translated he was the city treasurer so we're not quite sure the exact equivalent in modern terms but it was a high position in the city government of a very well-known city in the ancient world corinth and he was the city treasurer or the director of public works he was the inner circle he was next to the mayor although they didn't call it a mayor i'm not sure exactly what they call it but but he was right up there in the inner circle of political position of a major city in the roman empire a christian a member of the corinthian church he spoke in tongues he was baptized in jesus name and yet he served so we do have these examples so let's let's uh let's ask ourselves well how can what are how are we supposed to relate to our secular government our secular society let me give you some passages of scripture that you can read later but romans 13 1-7 is one passage that talks about the christians relationship to the government to the state romans 13 1-7 and another passage is first peter 2 13-17 first peter 2 13-17 now these two passages give general guidelines and what they say is we should be good citizens we should obey the law and we should pay our taxes so if anybody thinks well you know what i don't think the government the government's so sinful i don't think i should pay my taxes well don't tell the irs that because they might arrest you but actually the apostle paul said you should pay your taxes you should obey the law you should be a good citizen you should respect authority and he wasn't talking in romans 13 he wasn't talking about church authority although obviously we're supposed to respect church authority but he was talking about secular authority because he says the secular leader bears the sword and he doesn't bear the sword in vain what does that talk about that's talking about the police force or the military it's talking about capital punishment saying look if you disobey the law the government can cut your head off with the sword and so you need to obey the law so the basic principle is christians should be law abiding citizens we should cooperate now you might say well what about you know if there's an evil law what about this what about that well let me just hasten to add in these these two passages the apostle paul and the apostle peter which by the way would be the two more two most foremost apostles of the new testament if you're looking for the highest authority of course jesus christ and and his apostles especially the apostle peter and the apostle paul more than any others you would think of as be representatives or spokesmen or leaders of the church and so both peter and paul agree and by the way jesus also said to pay taxes and that famous passage of scripture where somebody um the jewish people of course you have to understand they were under the roman government so it was a dictatorship the romans had conquered their land so it wasn't like an elected representative that you're supposed to honor it was this foreign dictator the emperor that you're supposed to honor he was a dictator he was a foreigner he had conquered your nation by force and so some people came to jesus some jewish religious leaders and say they said should we pay taxes to caesar they thought they had him caught because if he said yes then all the jewish people say you mean you're supposed to honor a dictator who conquered our country but if he said no they would say you mean you believe in disobeying the law let's call the authorities right now and arrest you and so jesus said well give give me a coin that you pay taxes with so they brought a denarius which of course it had the image of caesar on the coin he says whose image is on this they said caesar's he says well give to caesar what belongs to caesar give to god what belongs to god well they couldn't really argue with that could they he wasn't saying obey and worship caesar but he was saying give siege or secular things because he's a secular ruler give god spiritual things because he's the spiritual ruler and so even if it's a dictator and thankfully we do have a democracy at least in some ways and uh so if if someone gets elected even if it's not the person we want we're still supposed to respect them for their office and follow the law okay if if the early christians were supposed to obey the evil dictator for an oppressor caesar then at least we should try to cooperate with our duly elected officials doesn't mean we agree with them doesn't mean they're right now that is of course if you read it carefully the apostle paul in romans 13 explain the role of government is to punish evil doers so even though it's a dictatorship they did catch criminals you know if somebody if somebody broke in your house and robbed your house they would catch that person and and uh deal with them probably execute them or somebody murdered someone they would catch them and they would execute them so even though they were evil dictators they fulfilled the basic functions of order and peace and justice in society now of course what paul doesn't address what happens when the rulers actually do the opposite well then that's a different story and of course romans 13 doesn't go into that what if there's an evil unjust law what if there's a law that's contrary to god's plan it doesn't go into that it just gives the general principle when government is trying to keep order government is trying to punish evil doers we should be good citizens we shouldn't be the robbers and the thieves and the murderers and the criminals we should be the law-abiding citizens now you know somebody says well um if you if you if you break the speeding law are you sinning and going to hell well i don't know that that's criminal law i had one uh teacher that said well it's not a sin but if you go past go faster than the speed limit the angels get off of the car and you're on your own so maybe that's the way it works as long as you're keeping the speed limit the angels are protecting you but once you pass the speed limit they get off and you're on your own i don't know but i would say as a law-abiding citizen if you do speed and you get caught and you get a ticket then you're supposed to pay it you're a law buying citizen so or you show up in court and explain why you don't need to but in other words you're not supposed to uh disobey and even if it's some infraction of a civil nature not a criminal nature which every one of us have uh done something like that well then you you pay what you owe you take your punishment and then you're still a good law abiding citizen okay now that's getting a little too close to home maybe so we could debate how many miles over the speed limit is it okay and still maybe the angels won't know or won't care or you know just where is that i'll leave something some things you have to leave between your your own conscience i can't tell you everything it's between you and the lord but but my main point is we're supposed to obey the law but it doesn't really discuss what happens when maybe the government is doing the opposite of what a government's supposed to do we do have some hint of that in acts chapter 5 when the apostles were arrested and they were forbidden to preach christ well even though that was the government still obeying the lord and preaching the gospel you can't stop being a christian you can't stop worshiping god you can't stop preaching truth and so what did the apostles do they kept preaching and teaching jesus they were arrested and asked why are you breaking the law and the apostle peter said in acts 5 29 we ought to obey god rather than man so i'm not saying that government is infallible and i'm not saying that we follow it into sin because there is a higher law we ought to obey god rather than men but as a general rule we as christians want to be known and want to be law-abiding citizens that's what we're supposed to be we're supposed to be a good witness now we are thankfully we're we're not in a dictatorship we're not in the roman empire we're not conquered by a foreign ruler we have what's called a represent a republican democracy and if you go back and read the declaration of independence or even the u.s constitution what you'll find we're democracy in that it's the government by the people the people ultimately have the final say uh we we have rulers or leaders but they lead with the consent of the people so we don't have a monarch a king but our leaders are elected because ultimately they're accountable to us so that's a democracy but it's a representative democracy so a perfect democracy would be every um you know every law 330 million americans or or whatever portion are voters they would have to vote on every law well obviously that's not very practical so we elect representatives and that would be congress for example or here in texas the the state legislature so you know millions of people can't vote on every single thing so we elect leaders who will pass the loss so that's called a representative democracy or a republic it's a republican democracy and what's really interesting if you want to study this out and i find it fascinating in fact i just got finished reading a book called america on trial which talks about the founding of our nation it's kind of a little deep philosophical book but it makes a very important point it says of course you may or may not know but the u.s constitution is the first uh constitution of its nature that would provide for a government like i just described a republican democracy and it's still the oldest living constitution in the world so what we take for granted when america was founded there was no nation in the whole world that followed these principles we were the first now there are a few partial experiments like ancient greek city-states and a few small entities that had some type of democracy but what i've just described there was no nation of the world that was a republican democracy all the nations of the world were led by kings dictators they didn't have what we take for granted but the book that i read and i've done some other study this type of thinking actually arose from the christian faith it doesn't mean america was exactly a christian nation but here's the point the reason why we believe in a republican democracy is because first of all we believe in one god and we believe that all of us are accountable to god the highest authority is not the king or a dictator the highest authority is god and every human being has been created in the image of god that comes from the bible that doesn't come from greek philosophy or hinduism or buddhism it comes from the bible and because every human being is creating the image of god every human being has certain rights that you cannot take away the government didn't give you and the government didn't give you life so therefore the government doesn't have a right to take your life unless you have forfeited it through some heinous crime such as murder you are accountable to god so you have freedom of conscience the government doesn't have the right to tell you what to think because you have a relationship with god that comes before there was a government and so things like freedom of religion freedom of speech freedom of the press freedom of peace of assembly the the declaration of independence says these are unalienable rights their rights that cannot be taken away from you government didn't give them government can't take them away why because god gave them when he created you as a human being in his image with a will with knowledge with a relationship and with a responsibility to serve him that god gave you that so the government has no right to interfere with that now if you commit a crime the government can put you in jail but they have no right to tell you what to think to tell you who to worship to tell you what to say that was given to you by god now we take that for granted but when america was founded there was no nation in the world that followed that we were the first and it was based on this belief in god and humans created in the image of god and so from that came a lot of other things equal justice under the law it doesn't matter if you're rich poor black white whatever you're a human being you're creating god's image you should be treated fairly same as everybody else of course that was our ideal from the declaration of independence all men were created equal obviously we didn't fulfill that when it came to such horrible things like slavery but that was our ideal and thankfully over time we've tried to get closer and closer to that idea but notice that comes from our belief in god and that comes from our form of government i'm taking a little time to share this because okay also our economic freedom so think of it like this you're creating the image of god god has given you life so you have ability you have ability to think uh like god you have an ability to create things human beings can paint pictures that nobody's ever thought of they can write music poetry they can invent machinery they can build a house or they can create things with their hands and their minds that nobody in the else has ever thought of we have that creative ability god gave us that the government didn't give us that so that means we have a right to our own work our own labor so there's your economic freedom the government didn't give you that ability to think and that ability to make things with your hands and so your right to have a job and your right to to support your family that didn't come from government that came from god so that means yes the government has to function so therefore it has to charge taxes and that's reasonable that's like anything else uh you have to pay for what you use the government builds roads the government has a police force to protect people so yeah we've got to pay taxes but our basic labor that didn't come from the government that came from god and then if we you know if we work hard and and we grow our own crops then we have a right to eat that food the government doesn't have right to take it away from us of course in our modern economy we don't all grow our own crops and make our own clothes so what we do is we have transactions using money where i do one form of labor you give me money then i can buy all the other stuff so it's kind of an agreement but that money represents your labor it represents your time and if you buy a house with that money that house represents so many hours of your labor so many hours of your time so in essence private property is something that government didn't create it comes from ultimately from god you're following me so our belief in economic freedom private property the ability to own our own home to to grow our own crops or to do some other form of work and get compensated so we can buy food the government didn't create that god is the one who gave you that so there's a basic principle that each person gets to have the fruit of their own labor if you go back to genesis by the sweat of your your your face you will grow food so that's part of god's plan for us okay i took all that time to say that under our system then we believe in a limited government government only has certain purposes and if you believe in god the highest purposes are beyond what government can do government is supposed to give us security and safety so we can pursue the higher goals let me give an example let's read from first timothy chapter two one through four first timothy chapter two and this will show us what the limited role of government and how it fits into god's overall plan first timothy 2 1-4 and i'm just going to stick with the new king james first timothy 2 therefore i exhort first of all that supplications prayers intercessions giving of thanks be made for all men for kings and all who are in authority okay notice we're supposed to pray for our secular government why so they can do their job what is their job that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and reverence for this is good and acceptable in the sight of god our savior who desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth so the government's job is to give us peace and safety and security so we can serve god but what are we supposed to do we're supposed to live a holy life we're supposed to win souls we're supposed to preach the gospel the god the government's not supposed to preach the gospel the government is supposed to secure our rights so that we can preach the gospel now here's the problem and this is what we're facing in america today if you take god out of the picture then rights come from government and what the government gives the government can take away and then majority rules but in america the majority rules but the rights of the minority are protected so the majority can vote for a president but the majority can't vote to outlaw our religion because that's an unalienable right but when you take god out of the picture there are no rights except what government gives and if government is ruled by the majority then the majority can say you know what your form of christianity is not allowed anymore or if you insist on your form of christianity you're going to be taxed for it because there's no higher authority and that becomes the tyranny of the majority so we believe in democracy what we don't believe that any form of government not even a democracy is absolute because we believe there are certain rights that we have from god that no government not even a democracy can take away from us when you take god out of the picture you take away rights but another thing you do is then now government has to supply all the needs and this is what we're finding today human beings still long for peace for meaning for purpose for value and that's comes from serving god but if there is no god then you people look to government to supply their needs they look to government to give them a happy family they look to government to give them all these things and so what you find is the secular people start using politics as their substitute religion you wonder why there is such such hatred and attacking it's not just like well your party has a wrong policy it's your party as a heretic your party is a false doctrine your party has a false god because when you take away belief in god people are going to substitute and so for them politics becomes their higher meaning but the true purpose of government is to give us security safety peace and harmony so we can pursue god's will for our lives and the government can't tell us what god's will is but when you take god out of the picture then now the government starts telling you how you're supposed to live your life and that's what's happening in america today so we as christians have to speak up to say wait a minute you can't take away this so what do we do as a church well let me be plain as a church we do not and should not promote political candidates or parties why not first of all we want everybody to come to church i don't care if you're democrat republican or independent i want you to come to church and i want you to be saved and so if i try to make statements that are political then you might not even feel comfortable coming and you won't get saved so the purpose of the church will be thwarted because we become excessively political however that doesn't mean the individual shouldn't care no i do think individuals should be a participant now we've already seen in scripture we should pray so at the least if you're a christian you should pray for your government you should pray for leaders you should pray for elections now the bible doesn't say go out and vote why not because there was no vote it was a dictatorship but since we do have that right under our democracy and since i've explained to you the the evolution of that form of government actually came from biblical principles then i feel like certainly we should vote so i plead with you i think you already have to have been registered but you need to vote i'm not going to tell you who to vote for or what policies to vote for but you need to inform yourself city state national referendums propositions whatever learn what they mean and get out there and vote because your voice needs to be heard if we want to protect our freedoms we have to participate praise god so i would challenge you to pray and to vote now as individuals you can also be involved in other things you can support candidates you can run for office yourself that's all fine i showed you the examples of the old testament of people involved in government and the new testament examples of government and i think we should vote according to biblical values now here's the problem there's probably no candidate that's going to be perfectly represent us okay so you look at candidate a they may have some moral sin canada b may have a different sin uh candidate a may have some moral sins but some good biblical policies candidate b might have no gross moral sins but bad biblical policies so who are going to vote for and that's why reasonable christians could have different opinions on different candidates so we have to agree to disagree but the point is in an imperfect world we're not looking for someone who's our pastor okay we're not voting for the pastor of austin or the pastor of the u.s we're voting for someone who has the policies that we feel will best fulfill our needs and what policies are those we're informed by biblical values now another point is not all biblical values can become public policy because we're in a polar realistic society so like we as christians we we believe we should abstain from alcoholic beverages because we know of the devastation that that causes but in america in the 1920s they tried what was called prohibition it didn't work it actually led to more crime because you can't really legislate holiness i do think we need good laws but when you have a pluralistic society where many people aren't even christians and some who are don't have the holy ghost you're not going to be able to fulfill all moral laws this is not a theocracy so in that case you have to decide which policies are more workable and more important so we're not trying to find perfect candidates who who would be our pastor and we're not trying to implement every belief that we have we're not trying to legislate all people dressed like we think is appropriate we're not trying to outlaw cigarettes and tobacco we're not trying to say that all forms of sexual immorality should be punished by people going to jail because that's not practical in the world we live in okay so we as christians should could disagree on which policies and so forth but we should bring our values into play in deciding what who we're going to support and we need to make sure to hold government accountable that it stays in its place like i just said government should not trample on our rights it should have be limited to its proper function and it should not have stepped into places where it doesn't belong where the church belongs where god belongs so that's our big concern in our society is to make sure we vote for candidates and we and we vote for people who will choose judges that will respect the limits of our constitution and respect our religious freedoms to me that's first and foremost now in that regard i'd like to read another passage of scripture zechariah chapter 7 verse 9 through verse 10. now the old testament prophets are full of admonitions for society because they were dealing with real injustices in society and i don't have time to go into all that in fact i'm just going to take a few more minutes here tonight but i but these are a few important minutes i think i'll just give you this one example from the prophets in zechariah chapter 7 verse 9 through verse 10 thus says the lord of hosts execute true justice show mercy and compassion everyone to his brother do not oppress the widow or the fatherless the alien that's the the foreigner or the poor let none of you plan evil in his heart against his brother so what rings loud and clear in our society we should work for justice we should work for mercy and we should work to help the vulnerable the most needy so many of us have good jobs we have good lives we're not subject to being unjustly treated but look for the people in our society that are hurting that are needy and we could say well they should work they should do this they should do that and i realize at some point everybody has to take responsibility for their own lives but we as a nation can try to facilitate and give opportunities we can't completely give everybody everything they want or need but we can try to create a fair just and merciful society that gives everybody maximum opportunity that's why i think economic freedom that's why i'm against socialism because it's well-meaning but it doesn't work it actually takes away opportunities so the bible gives the examples of the widow that in in that society particularly if a woman's husband died she didn't have a means of support there's no easy way for her to make a living the fatherless and we have a lot lots of people that are fatherless some their fathers have died but many their fathers are just never in the picture or left the picture well they're still needy and deserving of support and so the foreigner so the stranger among us the immigrant uh and and the poor so we should have policies that try to help people in our society now let's put try to put this all together now here's going to be you're going to get i've tried to be as biblical as i can and support what i'm saying by scripture but how do you apply this practically who to vote for well i've already told you i'm not going to tell you that what policies to vote for well i don't have time to tell you all that but i believe based on everything i've said there are four priorities that every christian should look at when you decide who you're going to vote for what policies you're going to support what parties you're going to support i suggest you look at these four big things the first one is freedom to me everything depends on freedom of conscience freedom of religion if you don't have that you're gonna lose everything else so we need to support people who will respect and uphold freedom of conscience freedom of religion speech press peaceful assembly and protection of religious institutions so what's happening they're going to go against churches and say well if you don't support our agenda we're going to tax you or they're going to go it's businesses now i think a business should should not discriminate it should treat everybody fairly but a business should not be required to support functions or speech it doesn't agree with so if a kkk member says i want a kkk barbecue and i want you to give me the barbecue a private business ought to be able to say i'm against racism i'm not going to do that you're not discriminated against the person the person might be a kkk member and they come and buy something that's that's their privilege but you don't have to support their activity you see what i'm saying so there needs to be protection of our freedom of conscience that's the first thing freedom second thing is justice the church needs to stand for civil rights for everybody it needs to stand for equal justice under the law we've heard a lot about minorities being discriminated against and maybe even without people fully realizing it some have borne the brunt of of being discriminated against even to the point of mistreated by the police so we believe in upholding the law but we believe that the law officers must be accountable right so that's what i'm talking about justice for everybody civil rights equal justice on the law the rule of law but the so we're we're against anarchy we're against looting and burning that's wrong but we also believe that law enforcement officers need to be accountable to do their job and to treat people justly and fairly so that's what we say we're for justice across the board number three respect for human life we believe humans are created in the image of god so we respect all humans we respect human life and of course that starts with the unborn it's it includes the most vulnerable as i've said people like seniors the poor minorities immigrants we want now we can have policies when it comes to immigration obviously every nation has to have policies but we can still treat people with respect with kindness with courtesy as humans especially those who have been mistreated historically there's nothing wrong with saying we want to take special efforts to help those who have been mistreated in the past or even in the present so that's why i mentioned the poor the minorities the immigrants that's we because we respect human life now that also means support for families because as i said one of the big the biggest sources of vulnerability is absent fathers absent husbands and so if we have policies that support families that's going to help the poor the needy so families are worthy of support and of course respect for life means we want a defense against terrorism or state aggression so as a nation we have to have a defense against these kind of things and i also would single out the nation of israel do you know the nation of israel even to this day is the only democracy in the middle east it's the only country in the middle east that has freedom of religion it aligns with our values and i also believe that it aligns with the plan of god that doesn't mean israel is perfect that doesn't mean we have to support everything that government israel says but we should support their right to exist because god is the one who gave israel that land and that right to exist so part of our defense of human life should include making sure we try to help the nation of israel okay and then the fourth is economic freedom and opportunity as i've said economic freedom is what's going to help all of us socialism and communism sounds great in theory but the problem is humans are sinners and they're not going to fulfill a utopia we have to have a system that balances the needs of everyone and so when i say limit economic freedom and opportunity i'm saying government should be limited regulation should be limited as much as possible we should have local self-determination um and of course that involves things like providing education health because if you're not educated how can you really have a good job if you're not in good health how can you work so the government has a role in helping us in these areas the environment we need a good environment clean air clean water so i'm not giving you specific policies but i'm saying part of economic freedom is not just making money but it's all these other things that help us all to be able to have good jobs and good economy all of that comes together okay so let me summarize obviously i've covered a lot of ground and when i mentioned something like health or education or environment or the poor obviously you could have different policies you could have republican party policies democratic party policies on all these things so i'm not making a political judgment but i'm saying these are the kind of things that we should carefully evaluate which is best for our country which most closely aligns with biblical values so i suggest we look at freedom first and foremost if you don't have freedom everything else falls freedom even over security we have to have freedom second justice third respect for human life for fourth economic freedom and economic opportunity so here's my summary we're not going to have a perfect government until jesus christ comes back to earth and establishes his kingdom praise god that is going to happen we do believe it so we're not striving for perfect government actually we're striving for limited government that government fulfills its role so the church can fulfill its role we don't want government to do everything we don't want government to try to put perfection on us because we know that'll never work and though the most scary people are those that think they have an answer for everything those that think they can have a perfect government you know why because they will use force to enforce it because they think their way is the only way they will take away all rights to implement that that's what adolf hitler did that's what joseph stalin did that's what mao did did you know communism killed over a hundred million people in the 20th century their attempt to impose utopia over people who didn't agree they were willing to kill people in order to put heaven on earth well it never got to heaven on earth did it so our ultimate hope is not in government but in jesus christ so in a few weeks we have an election some people are going to be happy and some people are going to be disappointed let me just say to those who are happy it's not going to be as good as what you think and to those that are sad it's not going to be as bad as what you think because you know what we're going to still have church i don't care who gets elected president i don't care who's elected the city council i don't care who's like the center i mean i care but at the end of the day it's not gonna change one thing i do i'm gonna still pray i'm just gonna worship i'm just gonna go to church i'm gonna love one another i'm going to try to be just and fair and merciful so the government's not the answer to my problems i want a good government i want the right people i want the best policies but my hope is not in the government i refuse to be depressed over who gets elected i might be discouraged for a few hours i refuse to let my day be ruined by whatever an election brings because my hope is not an election my hope is in the lord jesus christ and i'm going to speak in tongues just as much the next day as i did before praise god the most important thing and i close i want you to pray for our elections and our leaders i want you to vote i want you to carefully inform yourselves according to godly values and i hope some of you will start participating more we're a big church i'd like to see some of you participate in austin politics it could use christian voices or cedar park politics we did have one time one of our members was elected to the city council of cedar park so i hope we can get more people involved in practical ways but at the end of the day the most important thing that all of us can do is share the gospel of the jesus christ in the power of the holy ghost if we do that we can do more to change human hearts human destinies and do more to change our community than all the politicians in the world i do respect the job that good officials do but i'm saying at the end of the day the most important thing we can do is preach the gospel of jesus christ in the power of the holy spirit because that is the ultimate solution for austin texas can we praise the lord together amen let's worship the lord together amen

Channel: United Pentecostal Church International

Views: 18,527

Rating: 4.9044118 out of 5

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Id: FqhRgpDzNjA

Length: 48min 19sec (2899 seconds)

Published: Sat Oct 17 2020