Our Relationship to Our President

by Bruce Mills

"Honor the emperor" (1 Peter 2:17, ESV). With those words, the apostle Peter established a principle which is often ignored or overlooked by many Christians. The apostle Paul gave the same principle in Romans 13:7 in regard to the believer's responsibility toward government and governmental authorities--"Pay to all what is owed to them...respect to whom respect is owed, honor to whom honor is owed." He was not saying that Christians only need to show respect and honor to those whom they believe deserve respect and honor; rather, he is affirming the universally understood principle that kings and emperors are to be respected and honored because of the position they hold. Paul also instructed Christians to pray for their secular government leaders--"I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for all people, for kings and all who are in high positions, that we may lead a peaceful and quiet life, godly and dignified in every way. This is good, and it is pleasing in the sight of God our Savior" (1 Timothy 2:1-3).

Why are these instructions so important? Because it is my observation that many within the generally conservative American evangelical community do not demonstrate the kind of respect and honor that Scripture calls for regarding those political leaders with whom they disagree. I have heard many Christians (and I have fallen into the same trap) besmirching and ridiculing the character, behavior, and actions of men such as Bill Clinton, Jimmy Carter, and now, Barack Obama, because they disagree with their political positions.

Sometimes their dismay over those matters is justified, such as when Bill Clinton engaged in immoral sexual behavior and then lied about it to the American people. Yes, his conduct was reprehensible, but that does not abrogate the responsibility of believers to pray for our leaders and honor them. God has sovereignly placed them in their position of authority over us and we are commanded to respond with submission and honor.

As Barack Obama has assumed the presidency of this nation, conservative Christians again find themselves in the position of having to demonstrate respect and honor for a man whose political positions and personal beliefs are often in conflict with the requirements of Scripture. Many find President Obama's position on abortion to be abhorrent, his position on homosexual marriage to be an abomination, and fear that his support for the nation of Israel may be less enthusiastic than his predecessors. In addition there are grave concerns among many that conservative values and those who hold to them will be increasingly marginalized and rejected as being "outside the mainstream." Some even go so far as to say that speaking out on certain biblical positions will be deemed hate speech and may be prosecuted by the government.

I have no idea how many of the perilous predictions that many evangelical Christians are expecting will come true under President Obama's administration. But I do think it is reasonable to expect that many will be very unhappy with him because of the effects of his executive orders and legislative pursuits upon values important to conservative Christians. However, none of this should have any impact upon our commitment to pray for and demonstrate honor and respect for President Obama.

Keep in mind that at the time that the apostles Paul and Peter wrote the words which opened this post, the emperor was Nero. He was the man who carried out the worst atrocities upon his victims. He enjoyed dipping Christians in wax, impaling them on poles around his palace, and then lighting them on fire, yelling, "Now you truly are the light of the world." He also sent many into the arena at the Circus Maximus where he would wrap Christians in animal skins, throw them to lions or dogs which would then tear those men and women apart in front of thousands of entertained spectators. At other times he would crucify them, and after the crowd would get bored, he would set the Christians on fire.

Additionally, Nero was an adulterous bi-sexual who ordered his own mother's execution. He was just about as vile as a man can be, yet this was the emperor whom Peter said to honor and for whom Paul instructed his readers to pray.

There is simply no way to validly compare President Obama to a man as evil as Nero. But, like Nero, Christians are to pray for President Obama and request the Lord to grant him wisdom and strength to carry out the duties of his position, and that the Lord will restrain him from poor decisions and direct him toward wise and good decisions. You may not agree with him politically, but he is our president. Thus, we are to obey the commands of Scripture to submit to, honor, respect, and pray for Him.

It's Finally Over--Now What?

By Bruce Mills

The presidential election of 2008 is finally over. I doubt there are any of us who woke up today and thought, "Aw shucks, I sure am gonna miss all those campaign commercials on TV." No, we are all happy the election is finished, if for no other reason than that. But I want to take a little time in my post today to let my mind sort of ramble regarding some observations about where we go from here.

Whether or not the outcome met your desires or expectations is not really the issue. The issue is how do we as Christians respond to the election. I have listened as many evangelical Christians have lamented about the potential result of this election, as though the election of a man could in some way destroy or change God's sovereign purposes for this nation and for the believers in it.

Let me say this as plainly as I can: God's purposes for this nation, its people, and the Christians who live in it were established before the foundation of the world, and nothing any elected official ever does will fall outside of God's decreed and permissive wills for this nation. Even the evil of man achieves the glory of God, as mind-boggling as that thought is to our finite minds.

So for us to fret and worry that an election will somehow change God's purposes for this nation or for the personal safety and freedoms of Christians is to deny the sovereignty of God and diminish Him to the level of some kind of demi-god who sits, wringing his hands, wondering if everything will turn out the way he wanted it to. That is a slap in the face of our infinite, almighty Lord.

Think about what the worst possible outcomes might be over the next several years. We may see our nation's economy decline further or our country's standing in the world diminish as we adopt a non-interventionalist approach to genocide and other crimes against humanity. Socialism may replace capitalism as the basis of our economic system. Our liberties may be taken away with expansion of hate crime laws and the reinstitution of the Fairness Doctrine. Supreme Court justices may be seated who expand the government's power to limit free speech, who further solidify Roe v. Wade as the law of the land, or who overturn laws forbidding gay marriage and remove the right of churches to refuse to hire applicants for employment who are homosexuals. We could even see the government remove the tax exempt status of churches and of charitable contributions to them. Euthanasia of the infirmed elderly and disabled may become standard practice, as it is today in the Netherlands and was in pre-World War II Germany. It may be that, within my lifetime, it may become illegal to hold certain biblically correct theological positions, and thus those Christians who are true and faithful to God's word may suffer imprisonment.

And if all of those things take place (and I believe that over the next 20-25 years they will), they will all take place in accordance with God's will. In Romans 1, Paul describes the wicked, depraved sinfulness of man, and three times (vv. 24, 26, 28), he says "God gave them over." In the original Greek that phrase referred to the turning over of someone to imprisonment and punishment. God turned ungodly man over to receive within himself the awful results of his rebellion against God's truth.

God does the same thing with nations. This is graphically portrayed throughout the Old Testament with the nation of Israel, as well as God's pronouncements of judgment against other nations for their ungodliness and depravity. The United States is no different. Our nation is merely reaping the results of its depravity and rejection of God's moral law. God has turned this nation over to receive the just punishment for its sin, and unfortunately, the more any nation forsakes God, the more the Christians within that nation also suffer. So we can expect that unless this nation turns from its sinful pursuits, the terrible things I listed will take place in this nation. It may already be too late. Pastor John MacArthur has a sermon titled "When God Abandons a Nation" which explains these things much better than I can.

So how do we respond? We find our answer in Scripture. When Jesus and his disciples were walking the earth, Rome was the government which ruled the majority of the known world. The Roman Empire was the most powerful, well-structured government that had ever been up until that time. But there were a lot of awful, sinful, ungodly practices taking place.

Abortion was practiced to limit the number of children in a family, and when a child was born that was not the sex the father desired, infanticide or abandonment was common practice. This was particularly common if the baby was a girl.

Slavery was the dominant social structure, with 20-40% of the population being owned by someone else. Slaves had no legal rights and were considered to be nothing more than a living tool. They could be beaten, tortured, or even killed by their master without any reason.

Homosexuality and bisexuality were common practices in the society, even among the Caesars, the official rulers of the empire. Nero, the Caesar in power at the time of the apostle Paul, commonly practiced homosexuality. Wild orgies were also common among the wealthy aristocratic rulers of the empire.

Rome contracted out its tax gathering to individuals telling them how much they were required to collect for Rome, and that they could keep anything they collected above that amount. Consequently, they would extort large sums of money from the citizens with the threat of imprisonment if they didn't pay what was demanded.

So it was a very bad situation for those who desired to follow and obey Christ. Yet at no time throughout all the New Testament, do we ever find either Jesus or the apostles ever spending their time championing causes such as stopping abortion, infanticide, or slavery. Scripture spoke against the sin of homosexuality, but the Christians were not campaigning against its practice. And when the Jewish leaders tried to trap Jesus into speaking against Rome's taxes, He responded that they were to "render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to God the things that are God's" (Matthew 22:21). In other words, pay your taxes. And we are told in Scripture to respect, obey, and submit to our government (Romans 13:1-7, 1 Peter 2:13-17).

So instead of championing causes, Jesus and the early Christians focused on evangelizing people with the gospel. That was the central message; in fact, it was the only message--that Christ came into the world to save sinners and people needed to repent of their sin and turn to Him. It was only after people became believers that they then began serving the Lord by gathering abandoned children and caring for them, freeing their own slaves, turning away from ungodly sexual practices, and helping the poor. And when others asked them why, they just continued to share the gospel. Never once in all the New Testament do we ever find Christians adopting a cause other than the evangelization of the hearts of lost men and women. They let the power of the gospel which changes the heart of man be the means by which those evils of society were diminished.

Initially, the result wasn't what they would have desired. Christians were ostracized, accused of unbelievable crimes, imprisoned, tortured, and then used as public entertainment as they were fed to lions and burned at the stake in the Roman Coliseum. This continued for about 250 years. All the while the gospel continued to spread throughout the empire, and finally in 313 AD, Constantine became emperor and outlawed the persecution of Christians.

Our response, then, to the election of our president and leaders is to show respect to them (regardless of how we might feel about them personally or their policy positions), obediently submit to their authority, and pray for them--both for wisdom in the decisions they make and for their personal salvation. We are to avoid turning our Christianity into a campaign against the evils of society and instead, make it a campaign to share the saving gospel of Jesus Christ so that the evil of men's hearts will be removed by God's cleansing power. And even if in future days, the liberties Christians have experienced in this land for the past 200 years are slowly removed and we begin to suffer for faithfulness to our Lord, the apostle Paul tells us, "do not be ashamed of the testimony of our Lord...but join with me [Paul] in suffering for the gospel according to the power of God" (2 Timothy 1:8). That is our calling; let us be faithful to obey.

Choosing Who We Vote For

By Bruce Mills

We are now in the height of the political election season. The Democratic Party convention was held this week, and next week is the Republican Party convention. Party platforms have been established and legions of the party faithful are now eagerly attempting to convince the public of the validity of their candidate's positions, in an effort to receive the votes needed to elect the candidate.

The question for Christians is, are there any particular issues that are so important to the Christian faith that a believer should not vote for a politician who holds to a position which does not square with Christian doctrine? Or should political issues be considered as matters which should be kept separate from one's faith?

The answer to these questions centers on the value one places on God's Word and its instructions to us, as well as the hermeneutical approach one takes when interpreting the Scriptures. If God's Word is seen to be the inerrant, infallible, written revelation of God to man, then what it has to say is infinitely important for establishing what one believes about these matters and how that impacts one's life. Its teachings become the driving force behind every belief, every action, and every decision one makes. And if one adopts a literal-historical-grammatical approach to the interpretation of Scripture, he or she will not attempt to allegorize or reinterpret the plain statements of Scripture to mean something which better fits with what that individual might wish the Scripture would say. Instead, the Christian will subjugate his will and desires to that which God's Word teaches.

Therefore, when one uses this two pronged approach and examines moral issues such as abortion and the institution of marriage, we find that the Bible clearly teaches that God is the One who created human life and forms each person in the womb, and that marriage is a union of one man and one woman. No other conclusion can be made if one is consistent in using this approach to the Bible and its interpretation. Therefore, it is clearly a violation of the tenets of the Christian faith for man to decide that God-created human life can be terminated by man's choice, and the God-ordained pattern for marriage can be reconstructed into a homosexual union.

So how should this impact one's political viewpoints and how one votes? The simple answer is that we should view every issue of life through the lens of Scripture, because the Bible provides the only objective, infallible standard for how we interpret these matters. What God has to say about these things is far more important than what any person believes. That means that His standards on every issue of life, particularly moral issues such as abortion and marriage, must become our standards and convictions. And because our convictions drive all that we do, we cannot do anything but support and vote for those who hold to views consistent with God's Word and refuse to support and vote for those who hold contrary positions.

Does this mean that a candidate's positions must square with ours on every issue before we can vote for him or her? No. Only those positions which center on moral issues about which the Bible provides instruction are affected by these principles. Thus, a candidate's position on abortion and gay marriage become "litmus tests" for whether a Christian votes for or against that candidate, whereas, a candidate's approach on national defense or how to stimulate the economy do not necessarily rise to such a level of importance.

This is a very different approach than the world takes, which sees abortion and gay marriage as only impacting a few people; namely, those involved in the situation, whereas issues such as national defense and the economy affect everyone. Thus, most people view those issues as the important issues which should decide how one votes. But believers are called to value God's Word above all else. Therefore, they should consider the topics which it addresses as the most important issues to consider when deciding which candidates to support.

So Where Do We Go From Here?

by Bruce Mills

Well, the nomination process is over. The Democrats and the Republicans both know who their respective party’s candidate will be in November. Now begins the long, brutal, bruising political campaign as each group seeks to have its candidate elected. Hundreds of millions of dollars will be spent, and just as many words will be written, over the next several months as Americans determine who their nation’s president will be for the next four years.

As I thought about that prospect, my thoughts returned to the need for Christians to reject the world’s view, which places its hope for change and a better life in the achievements of men. Over the next several months, campaign commercials will descend upon us like Niagara Falls, promising more jobs, a safer nation, improved health care, an end to the war in Iraq, and a better way of life--provided, of course, that the candidate of the political party that paid for the commercial is elected. And Americans—notorious for voting with their pocketbook—will rush like lemmings to the sea to vote for the individual whom they perceive to help them achieve those goals.

But the truth is that all the achievements that any president, congress, or government can ever attain are temporary. No matter how wealthy, safe, healthy, and enjoyable a particular society may become because of their efforts, in the end it will all pass away. Nations and kingdoms rise and fall, and have done so since the dawn of civilization. Some of those nations were great empires, controlling far more world power within the context of their day and age than the United States has ever possessed. Yes, the United States is currently the most powerful nation that has ever existed, but those who think it will always be so are very short-sighted in their thinking. In fact, a survey of the Bible’s teaching on future world events has no references whatsoever that would indicate that the United States will play any kind of significant role in those events.

So am I saying that we should ignore the political process and be unconcerned about who is elected as our nation’s highest leader? I’m not saying that at all. I believe Christians should participate in the political process by voting for the candidate whose beliefs best represent biblical moral standards and who will uphold our privilege as believers to worship and evangelize as we desire. Issues such as protecting our nation from external and internal attacks and making decisions which improve our economy are important, but secondary issues.

Keep in mind that we must not trust that whoever is elected can or will guarantee such benefits and privileges to us. Scripture tells us, “Do not trust in princes, in mortal man, in whom there is no salvation” (Psalm 146:3). Those who place their hopes in political leaders to save them from the difficulties and concerns of life are shortsighted and doomed to disappointment. Our economy may become worse than it already is, Islamic terrorists may (read “will”) attack us again, healthcare may continue to increasingly become a benefit of the wealthy, and Christians who stand for the truths contained in God’s Word will continue to be increasingly rejected and persecuted by our society because of their positions on certain moral and theological issues; specifically, homosexuality, abortion, and the wrath of God toward sinful, self-righteous mankind.

But Christians live every day in nations where the privileges we enjoy in this nation are non-existent; places such as Myanmar, Viet Nam, Saudi Arabia, Indonesia, and North Korea. They are forbidden to openly worship, to evangelize, or even hold certain jobs. But we must not forget that Jesus said, “I will build My church, and the gates of Hades shall not overpower it” (Matthew 16:18). He is actively building and maintaining His church in places which seek to devour and destroy it; where the political leadership is violently opposed to the gospel and Christians do not have the benefits of jobs, healthcare, and safety.

So please exercise the privileges God has graciously granted to you as a citizen of this nation. Vote in the upcoming election. But do not vote based on what the candidate claims he will do for you financially. That’s a very greedy, and thus sinful, viewpoint. Rather, vote for the candidate whose positions on moral issues best reflect the standards of God’s Word. Of course you should be concerned about all those other issues like financial soundness and national security, but ultimately you must rest and trust in our Lord’s sovereign control over those matters and submit to the government regardless of which political party is in control. We need to value what is important to God above our own self-interests. As the psalmist said, “It is better to take refuge in the Lord than to trust in princes” (Psalm 118:9).