The Highway Forums General Discussion Open Forum An appropriate prayer for the Election Season

Good points, Marie. Let's pray that the wickedness of abortion become unavoidable in the remaining debates.

I fear that many current evangelicals who don't grasp the two kingdoms model can have a very hard time understanding what to do in "more difficult times" like ours--which are actually quite ordinary in the history of most of the world. Their proper desire to see evil behavior restrained by laws rooted in the eternal moral law can, in people not comfortable with the doctrine of original sin, lead to an expectation that mere legislation will reform a society. Their frustration with that situation can lead on one hand to a unfounded hope that a Christian magistrate will right all societal wrongs--witness the reaction of some to Mr. Huckabee last winter--or on the other hand to a disbelief that God can work through them in more mundane ways--witness the tendency of some to refuse to vote absent a sufficiently Christian candidate.

The proper response, I believe, is to say that God holds all nations in derision for their rampant unbelief in Christ, treating each nation with varying degrees of hardening or mercy as suits his eternal purposes to glorify himself and redeem and sanctify a people for himself from all nations, simultaneously revealing his wrath from heaven and sending the Gospel of Christ to be preached to the ends of the earth. Our lives as believers, then, must be wasted neither with working for a political salvation, nor with believing the world so lost that our calling as citizens is not used in his plans.

I think the abortion holocaust provides a good backdrop for this, with which we have wrestled much over the years. Back in the 1980s we discussed responses, knowing that direct vengeance would never be countenanced by God, and feeling that passive demonstration could be left to the conscience of the individual. Many participated in marches from time to time, several ran for local office; but as the 1990s passed we began to realize that a merely legislative solution, even if attainable, would not in itself turn the hearts of enough people to end the tragedy.

So we began doing the much harder work of directly teaching every child and teen and young adult who came our way, and every grown man stepping out of life on the street, if they didn't know already--and most didn't (we have many children under the teaching of the church who are themselves not covenant children)--and reminding those who knew, about the holiness of God and his purposes for human life, cutting through all the spirits of the age, and letting them see what a holy life was supposed to look like. They could see first hand how R.--mentally slowed from birth by FAS--and our own C.--born blind--and J. and L.--born with severe physical disabilities, were loved and respected by virtue of having been formed by and in the image of God, and how each contributed to the fellowship of faith.

And so although we grieve inwardly to hear of some who have gone on and broken the 7th commandment, we still rejoice with those who return to thank us for teaching them, when young, not to compound that sin by breaking the 6th as well. The teen girls' Pacesetters group, led by young women of the church and with members mostly from outside the church, last year for the first time was able to welcome back a former member, who asked if she could bring her newborn to the meetings so she could learn more of the Lord.