Sermon Tone Analysis

Election Day!

Nov. 8, 1998               2Thess.

2

 

*Introduction:*

 

          Local, state and federal midterm elections were held this last week.

I trust you fulfilled your civic duty and voted.

Too many people say it doesn’t matter, that none of the candidates are worth voting for.

That is not a correct view.

It may be true that none of the candidates have all the qualities, beliefs or characteristics you feel would be necessary to govern the way we should be governed, but as in all life it comes down to making the best choice from among the choices we are given.

It is when we don’t exercise our choice that we then truly have no choice.

And it is also true that we can affect the choices we are given by becoming a part of the process.

I like what I read in the paper about Rev. James Meeks from Salem Baptist Church on the south side.

He took advantage of Mayor Daley’s law initiative which allows local precincts to vote whether or not they should be wet or dry regarding the sale and consumption of alcohol.

Rev.

Meeks led a campaign to make several of the precincts around his church dry and they all won.

He had an effect.

Thirty liquor establishments will be put out of business by the end of the year.

It was an effect for righteousness.

It was an effect on the way we are governed.

And Rev. Meeks has offered to try and find funds to pay 75% of the salaries of employees of those businesses while they retrain for other jobs.

That is ethics in practice.

Wouldn’t it be a fantastic testimony if all the churches in Chicago pulled together to help him with this?

If you voted, perhaps not all your candidates won in the election.

There were some successes, some failures.

But again, that is the way life is.

We keep working for the successes regardless of the failures.

If you are like me, you are open to voting a split ticket on the basis of biblical righteousness and moral value.

It may even be that not all those you would vote for are Christian.

But in government, moral value, righteousness and ethics count even if it is for human rather than religious reasons.

I was pleased that in my old home state of Iowa, Senator Grassley won again.

He is a godly man.

But I was disappointed that the governorship passed to a new administration that will now promote abortion after over 30 years of pro-life protection in the previous administration.

The new governor won on the basis of a campaign slogan that resonated with Iowa voters, “It is time to rotate the crops.”

It appears that Minnesota has wrestled with the major political issues and lost.

They lost to a former pro-wrestler named Jesse ‘the body’ Ventura.

Sensationalism and commercialism have consumed the heart of America.

He won because a majority, especially the young voters, were disenchanted with traditional politics and would vote for anything as long as it was different.

This is post-modernism.

This is self-delusion and self-destruction.

We have lost our vision as a nation because we have lost our vision of God.

And I fear we have lost our vision of God because we have grown complacent in the face of his goodness.

We have taken the opportunity of peace and have promoted it as opportunity to sin.

Is there any difference between us and decadent Rome?

The seeds of failure are within all of us.

When we stop tending the garden, the weeds take over.

We had a chance on this ballot to clean up the slate of those who sit as judges in our county.

At least six of the judges up for retention were rated as unfit by a majority of the local bar associations on the basis of temperament or ability to administer the law.

But all judges have now been retained by the voters because of a push in their favor that said all of them were recommended because they were approved by at least one of the bar associations.

As voters, we are responsible to seek out the facts and act on them.

If America goes bust it won’t be because of the politicians, it will be because the people have been unconcerned.

This country of government of, by, and for the people has been deluded into thinking that it will run itself without the input of the individual.

But to him who knoweth to do good and doeth it not, to him it is sin (James 4:17).

We are all individually accountable, and doubly so if we have not acted in righteousness, choosing instead not to act.

As we all know regarding salvation, a refusal to make a choice for Christ is still a choice (Jn.

3:18).

Perhaps we think that politics and religion should not mix.

But we are to be in the world even if we are not to be of it.

And what better place than the political arena to be salt and light?

The framers of the Constitution had in mind that government should not dictate religion, but that religion should be allowed to have positive effect on government through the morals and ethics of people with spiritual values.

The greatest sin of our culture is a growing belief in non-belief; that true religion is a relic of the past beyond which we have evolved.

But men still die, and souls are still accountable to Almighty God.

And whether or not you agree with anything I have said, the fact remains that the final administration is not yet come in power because the final vote is not yet cast.

You see, Election Day has yet to arrive, but it is God’s grace that forestalls it.

He is building the strength of his party.

There is an eternal election against which no opposition can prevail.

And yet it is also an election in which the individual counts.

We choose our party based upon whether we believe in rhetoric or in truth.

The results of any election are that there are winners and losers.

To which party do you belong?

For whom have you, or will you, cast your vote?

To whom do you owe allegiance?

To whom do you owe favors?

What are your issues?

Upon what platform do you stand?

What campaign tactics tickle your fancy?

This election is not a matter of an elephant or a donkey, it is a matter of sheep or goats (Mt.

25:31-46).

An election day is coming in which there are no terms of office.

God will serve as the election judge.

He will cast the last ballot.

And he will bestow favors upon all those whom he has elected.

/Many are called but most are frozen in corporate or collective cold, these are the stalled who choose not to be chosen except to be bought and sold.

/

/   Lee Carroll Pieper /

 

/The elect are whosoever will; the non-elect are whosoever won't.

/

/   Henry Ward Beecher (1813–1887) /

 

/This doctrine affords comfort: thy unworthiness may dismay thee, but remember that thy election depends not upon thy worthiness but upon the will of God.

/

/   Elnathan Parr /

 

/When God elects us, it is not because we are handsome.

/

/   John Calvin (1509–1564) /

 

Those who believe in Christ are the chosen or elect:

 

*Mt 22:14  "For many are invited, but few are /chosen/."*

*Mt 24:22  If those days had not been cut short, no one would survive, but for the sake of the /elect/ those days will be shortened.*

*Mt 24:24  For false Christs and false prophets will appear and perform great signs and miracles to deceive even the /elect/-- if that were possible.*

*Mt 24:31  And he will send his angels with a loud trumpet call, and they will gather his /elect/ from the four winds, from one end of the heavens to the other.*

*Lu 18:7  And will not God bring about justice for his /chosen/ ones, who cry out to him day and night?

Will he keep putting them off?*

*Ac 9:15  But the Lord said to Ananias, "Go!

This man is my /chosen/ instrument to carry my name before the Gentiles and their kings and before the people of Israel.*

*Ro 8:33  Who will bring any charge against those whom God has /chosen/?

It is God who justifies.*

*Ro 9:11  Yet, before the twins were born or had done anything good or bad-- in order that God's purpose in /election/ might stand:*

*Ro 11:5  So too, at the present time there is a remnant /chosen/ by grace.*

*Ro 11:7  What then?