Thoughts After the Election

The 2012 election is now over. While Florida still remains unaccounted for, the Electoral College has awarded President Obama 303 Electoral Votes while awarding Mitt Romney with 206 Electoral Votes. For some, their candidate won, while for others, their candidate lost. We are still a nation divided and I don’t see that changing anytime soon.

The United States of America has long been called a Christian nation. While it is nice to imagine that it is, I don’t believe that statement holds true any longer. We have elected the first openly gay senator. Voters have also approved same-sex marriage for the first time. While there are those are trumpeting this as a good thing, this goes against God’s holy Word. In Exodus 20:14, it is written, “You shall not commit adultery.” Martin Luther, in his explanation of the Sixth Commandment writes, “We should fear and love God so that we lead a sexually pure and decent life in what we say and do, and husband and wife love and honor each other.” God’s Word speaks against such actions as this. Genesis 2:24 says, “Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.” Marriage has been instituted by God as the lifelong union of one man and one woman. Teaching contrary to this goes against God and His Word and is not Christian teaching.

Those that say that God is a welcoming God and accepts all peoples, regardless of what they believe or practice do not understand the God of the Bible. God destroyed the land of Sodom for their homosexual practices (Genesis 19). St. Paul writes in Romans 1:24, 26-27: “Therefore God have them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves…. For their women exchanged natural relations for those that are contrary to nature; and the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another, men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in themselves the due penalty for their error.” It is hard to say that God accepts such practices when His Word clearly speaks contrary to that.

Regardless of whether your candidate won the election, God has saw fit to place President Obama in his office as president and we therefore pledge to be faithful citizens. That does not mean that we have to agree with every decision that he makes or like every piece of legislation that comes down from the Oval Office. We abide by the Fourth Commandment, “Honor your father and your mother.” In Luther’s explanation, he says that “We should fear and love God so that we do not despise or anger our parents and other authorities, but honor them, serve and obey them, love and cherish them.” As our president, we owe President Obama our support and our prayers, praying that he would lead our great nation in ways that are pleasing to God and which serve the people of our nation.

At the end of the day, we must place our trust in God and not in the princes of this world. As the psalmist writes, “Put not your trust in princes, in a son of man, in whom there is no salvation. When his breath departs, he returns to the earth; on that very day his plans perish. Blessed is he whose help is the God of Jacob, whose hope is in the LORD his God.” (Psalm 146:3-5 ESV)