The Morning After
I’m writing this on November 4, the day after the election. That’s probably a dangerous thing, but like my “Warrior Poet” daughter, I write to process. And boy, is there a lot to process this morning.
After the devastating attacks of 911, country singer Alan Jackson wrote and recorded a song called “Where Were You When The World Stopped Turning?” Among the lyrics of that song were “I’m just a singer of simple songs/ I’m not a real political man/ I watch CNN but I’m not sure I can tell you the difference in Iraq and Iran/ But I know Jesus and I talk to God and I remember this from when I was young/ Faith, hope and love are some good things He gave us, and the greatest is love.”
Well, I am a “real political man.” I love our country, and I want the best for it. I have definite feelings and opinions about what that looks like, and about what party platform best represents my values and convictions as a Christian and an American. And if you only knew the flak I’ve taken over the years for that from those who think that preachers should never, ever, ever, have or express a political opinion...
Am I happy about the election results and the makeup of Congress come January? Nope. But strangely, I feel a real sense of peace this morning. Perhaps it’s the perspective of age and experience. I wasn’t happy about the election results in 1992, the first time after I started voting in 1980 that a president was elected that I didn’t vote for. Nor was I happy in 1996. Or 2008. Or 2012. Or 2020. I was pretty happy about the midterms in ‘94, and the midterms in 2010, and I’ve had 7 presidental election results since I came of an age to vote that I was happy about, compared to 5 I was not.
But with all due respect to Alan Jackson, the world is still turning. The sun came up this morning, just like it did after every election day before. The pendulum is still swinging back and forth - left, right, left, right. Politics are what politics are. Life will go on. The apocalypse will not be caused by the election of a Donkey or an Elephant. It will be brought about by the Lamb in the Father’s timing.
Here are some modified thoughts that I shared back in 2016 on the day before the presidential election. I looked back on the article today, and the truths I expressed the day before that election day are still true on the day after election day ten years later.
1. WE WILL HAVE DIVIDED GOVERNMENT FOR AT LEAST THE NEXT TWO YEARS, WITH IMPERFECT PEOPLE ON BOTH SIDES OF THE AISLE. The Democrats control the legislative branch. The Republicans control the executive branch. There will either be cooperation or a lot of gridlock. Gridlock is not necessarily a bad thing. The founding fathers designed the system to create tension between the legislative and executive branches so that only the best ideas would ever become law. Those offices are occupied by imperfect people with imperfect knowledge. I’ve been voting for 46 years now, and I’ve never seen Jesus on any ballot I’ve filled out. That means that only flawed people run for office. That seems like a firm grasp of the obvious, but it’s a cold, hard, stark truth. Some elected officials are more flawed than others, but there’s more than enough negatives to go around attached to every candidate and every party. But we need to keep in mind that “wisdom and might are His. It is He who changes the times and the seasons; He removes kings and sets up kings” (Daniel 2:20-21), and “there is no authority except from God, and those that exist are appointed by God” (Romans 13:1). Sometimes, He raises up leaders to bless a nation, and sometimes He gives a nation rulers after their own hearts as a form of judgment.
2. ALMIGHTY GOD IS STILL THE SOVEREIGN LORD OF THE UNIVERSE. Isaiah 6 begins “In the year that King Uzziah died...” King Uzziah had been king for over 50 years in Israel, and the king was the whole government of the nation. Many of the Israelites had little or no memory of any other king. Talk about political upheaval. Talk about massive uncertainty about the future. And yet, it was at that time that “Isaiah saw the Lord, seated on a throne, high and lifted up...” Maybe a little political confusion on earth is necessary to turn our eyes upward to the true king.
3. AMERICA IS STILL TERRIBLY DIVIDED. Every election these days is more rancorous and vitriolic than the last one. I don’t see that changing. As Christians, it is important for us to remember the first rule of fighting dragons: beware that you do not become one. Can we have a political opinion? Of course. Can we express them? Definitely. Should we fight fire with fire and try to match or exceed the world’s anger, hatred and bitterness? I think we all know the answer there.
4. POLITICS ARE STILL TOXIC. Unfortunately, we have long since moved past the time when polite, rational debate of issues and policies was the order of the day. Once, those who disagreed sought to persuade the other side, or at least to make a better argument than the other side in order to win in the court of public opinion. I can remember when Ronald Reagan and Tip O’Neill had profound political differences and debates...but they still played golf together. Now, the other side is not a fellow citizen who disagrees, but a mortal enemy who must be demonized and destroyed. Political violence used to be something that other countries dealt with. Now it has come to our shores. This toxic atmosphere has poisoned not only government, but all aspects of our society. Children cut off parents and friends part company because of political differences. Physical attacks have become all too common, even to the point of unhinged people committing murder and cheering for murder. In such a society, people who take seriously Ephesians 4:31-32 can be a shining beacon of civility: “Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice. Be kind to one another, tender-hearted, forgiving each other, just as God in Christ also has forgiven you.”
5. PEOPLE ARE STILL DYING AND GOING TO HELL. Even the best of doctors and healthcare systems can only delay the former. Only the gospel can prevent the latter. Should I resign from the ministry and run for office? What a step down that would be! We have a higher agenda and a greater commission than any political party will ever know! Politicians at their best may make life better for the people they govern. Only the message of Jesus brings eternal life to souls bound for hell.
6. THE GREAT COMMISSION REMAINS UNCHANGED (AND SO DOES THE GREAT COMMANDMENT). No matter who is in the White House, the State House, the House of Representatives or the Senate, the church is still called to “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things I have commanded you.” Likewise, our Lord still commands us to “love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind...and your neighbor as yourself.”
7. REVIVAL IS STILL A POSSIBILITY IN AMERICA. In the 1730s, things looked dark in the American colonies. The colonists were a mixed collection of nationalities, with no sense of national identity or unity, perpetually at war with the Indians. Drunkenness, profanity, sexual immorality, gambling and numerous other forms of vice were shot through society. Churches were dead and dying, with unconverted people populating the pews and preaching from the pulpits. Sound familiar? And yet, it was in this time that God lit a fire of revival that became known as the Great Awakening. If He did it then, He can do it now. Even after judgment had already begun to fall in his time, the prophet Joel declared, “Yet even now, declares the Lord, return to me with all your heart, and with fasting and with weeping and with mourning. Rend your heart, and not your garments; return to the Lord your God, for He is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love, and He relents from punishing. Who knows? He might turn aside and relent, and He might leave behind a blessing” (Joel 2:12-14).
8. THERE ARE STILL 366 “FEAR NOT” PASSAGES IN THE BIBLE. That’s one for every day and an extra one for leap year.
9. PRAYER IS MORE POWERFUL THAN THE BALLOT BOX. I Timothy 2:1-4 says, “Therefore I exhort first of all that you make supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings for everyone, for kings and for all who are in authority, that we may lead a quiet and peaceful life in all godliness and honesty, 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." I realized something a few years ago that put voting into a new perspective for me. In terms of the federal government, the House and Senate combined have 535 members. My vote has influence over a grand total of three of those elections - two Senators from my state and a Representative from my district. I also get to vote for the president and the vice-president. I get no vote at all for the nine Supreme Court justices. That means that my vote influences 5 out of those 546 offices - .0091%. But my prayers can influence 100% of the government - every elected and every appointed member of the executive, legislative and judicial branches. How do you pray for a politician that you may not like, one that promotes harmful or even evil policies? I can only tell you how I do it. I always pray that God will give everyone in office His wisdom. I pray that if they walk in that wisdom, that everything they propose will come to pass. But I also pray that if they refuse to walk in that wisdom, that every effort they put forth will fail. I also pray for each politician, that he or she might truly know the Lord. Proverbs 21:1 says that “The heart of the king is in the hand of the Lord, like the rivers of water; He turns it wherever He wishes.” King Manasseh was one of the most wicked kings ever in the Southern Kingdom of Judah. Even though he was descended from David, he was anything but a man after God’s own heart. He built altars to Baal and Asherah, erected altars to the sun, moon and stars in the Temple courts, practiced soothsaying and sorcery and consulted with mediums and occultists, and even burned some of his own sons as sacrifices to pagan gods. II Chronicles 33 records that this evil king was eventually captured by the Assyrians and bound in chains in Babylon, “And when he was distressed, he entreated the face of the Lord his God, and he greatly humbled himself before the God of his fathers. And he prayed to God, and He was moved and responded to his plea and returned him to Jerusalem to his kingdom. Then Manasseh knew that the Lord was God.” He then spent the rest of his life and reign doing good and trying to undo the evil he had done. No politician, no matter how evil, is beyond hope.
10. COME WHAT MAY, IT IS WELL WITH MY SOUL. Romans 8:35-39 tells us, “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? ... No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us. For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, neither angels nor principalities nor powers, neither things present nor things to come, neither height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” No matter what political system we may live under, whether evil, incompetent, or tyrannical, and no matter what may happen to me physically, my soul is secure, and this life is not even a blip on the radar screen of eternity.
The elections are over for another two years. Let’s breathe a sigh of relief, and then let’s get together Sunday to “turn our eyes upon Jesus, look full in His wonderful face, and the things of earth will grow strangely dim in the light of His glory and grace.”
Numbers 6:24-26,
Bro. Donnie