Reflections on the 2012 Election

In most elections, if the outcome doesn’t go the way I voted, I don’t get too worked up about it because my hope is not in the government. It's not in a particular political party or candidate or set of policies. So when election doesn’t go my way I just turn my attention to the fact that God is sovereign over elections, and He knew what He was doing when he allowed to vote to go the way it did for His perfect purposes.

I have to admit, however, that this election has been harder. I think this is the most distressed I've ever been after an election. I still trust as much as ever in the sovereign wisdom of God in allowing this outcome, but at the same time I think it is appropriate to be deeply concerned when we witness the celebration of sin, which is what I believe this election was in large measure.

Where pro-marriage initiatives were on the ballot, they lost. Pro-homosexual measures won big. In the media they are celebrating the fact that we just elected our first openly gay minority to the Congress (Mark Tanko), our first openly gay Senator (Tammy Baldwin), and Colorado chose the first openly gay speaker of the house (Mark Farrandino). Recreational drug use also won big.

And a pro-homosexual, pro-Islam, pro-abortion, pro-infanticide, President was reelected. Never before has any President been reelected with such high unemployment and such a troubled economy. The prognosticators at CU who have a model based on the assumption that people vote mainly according to the economy have never once been wrong in their predictions … until now. Even with the economy such as it is, for the first time the American electorate chose to reelect the man responsible. This seems to point to the fact that the moral issues are actually more important to the electorate. For the first time, supporting abortion, homosexuality, etc. are more important to people even than the economy.

I also believe this President’s economic beliefs are a moral issue. Millions of people voted for him because they want him to take money away from those who earned it and give it to them. For those who genuinely believe in Keynesian economics, voting that way is not necessarily sin. But if the motive is greed, voting for someone to take someone else’s money and give it to you is most certainly a moral issue.

In short, I fear these election results indicate the advent of a new immoral majority in the voting public in the United States.

In addition, I believe the failure to repeal the new socialized medicine law (“Obamacare”) will result in considerable financial hardship in the years to come, which will likely impact future ministries not only at Agape, but for all churches.

How, then, should we respond to this election? Depression? Despondency? Discouragement? Obviously not. As I said, God is sovereign, even over times when He gives a nation over to its sin. He knows what He is doing. 

So how should we feel? The same way God feels. And we get a glimpse of the heart of God toward a sinful nation in the book of Jonah. Nineveh had progressed much, much further down the road of depravity than the United States has. And God’s response was two-fold. First, He threatened severe judgment. But at the same time, He felt compassion for Nineveh – such compassion that His own Prophet, Jonah, could not understand it. And so God used a plant to teach Jonah about compassion. As Jonah was almost perishing in the oppressive heat, God provided a plant to give shade for Jonah. But then God sent a worm to kill that plant, and Jonah was so upset he became suicidal. And this was God’s response:

Jonah 4:9 But God said to Jonah, "Do you have a right to be angry about the vine?" "I do," he said. "I am angry enough to die." 10 But the Lord said, "You have been concerned about this vine, though you did not tend it or make it grow. It sprang up overnight and died overnight. 11 But Nineveh has more than a hundred and twenty thousand people who cannot tell their right hand from their left, and many cattle as well. Should I not be concerned about that great city?"

How should we respond to a sign that God may be judging a wicked nation? Compassion. Whenever you feel anxiety over the election or the direction our country is going, let that anxiety be converted to deep compassion – compassion that drives you to redouble your energy in your ministry in the Church, because the Church is this nation’s only hope.