Yes, It’s a Sin Not to Vote. Here’s Why (with Scripture).

Evangelicals, with some on both sides of the political aisle, have been busy telling you it’s okay to withhold your vote and to sit this election out. Here’s why they’re wrong.

The argument goes like this (as you’ve probably already heard); it’s okay not to vote in the upcoming presidential election because – after all – neither candidate is a good representation of Christ. Or, it’s something to that effect.

Joshua Howerton, pastor of Lakepointe Church in Dallas, recently made waves for explaining to his congregation that although Trump and his vice presidential running mate, J.D. Vance are “flawed,” Kamala Harris and her vice presidential running mate, Tim Walz, should definitely be categorized as “unrighteous.” The Freedom From Religion Foundation subsequently filed a complaint with the Internal Revenue Service for supposed infractions in the IRS code restricting 501(c)3 organizations from endorsing a candidate. Oddly enough, The Freedom From Religion Foundation did not file a similar complaint when Koinonia Christian Center Church allowed Harris to campaign from their pulpit last Sunday.

Unsurprisingly, the evangelicals who we’ve been warning about for well more than a decade – the very ones exposed as having deep dollar ties with far-left Democrat Dark Money in Megan Basham’s Shepherds for Sale (and before her, Pulpit & Pen) – have been out in front this election season, not trying to convince you to vote Democrat per se, but at the very least offering evangelicals the emotional support to stay home on election day.

Like the devil singing a soothing lullaby, these sinister ministers know that they don’t need to get you to vote blue this election for evil to triumph, but only for Christians to stay home.

Other more well-meaning evangelicals have been frustrated with what they perceive to be Trump’s wavering position on moral issues, like abortion. In a close election, and with the over-turning of Roe v Wade being heralded as the reason for an underwhelming performance in 2022, it could be that Trump is simply doing what politicians do, and treading carefully out of political expediency. His softening tone on abortion certainly hasn’t fooled Democrats, who still warn that the former POTUS, if he becomes POTUS once again, will sign a national ban on abortion despite what he currently promises. Some of these rightfully disgruntled evangelicals have also sworn to withhold their vote from either candidate.

We are not attempting, in this article, to decry the nonsense of projecting Trump and Harris as moral equivalents, because we have already done that here. It suffices to say, one candidate had a mobile abortion van pull into their convention to observe Satan’s bloodletting Communion during their coronation ceremony, and that candidate wasn’t Donald Trump.

The point of this op-ed is to demonstrate that it is indeed sinful to be gifted the responsibility to vote in our Democratic Republic, and choosing to abstain. Please follow the logic, as well as the Scriptures on this point.

1. Leaders (kings, judges, potentates, magistrates, etc) are obliged to rule.

God appoints magisterial leadership. He removes kings and sets up kings (Daniel 2:21). Quite literally, God chooses leaders (Judges 2:16-3:6). Sometimes, he installs leaders as a blessing, but sometimes he installs leaders as punishment. For example, Proverbs 28:2-26 says that God gives lawless leaders like, “a hard rain that ruins crops.” Sometimes, entire forms of government are God’s judgment upon people. When Israel wanted a king and strong central government, when God’s system of a de-centralized government of godly judges sufficed, He warned them that they would get what they asked for, along with excessive taxation, imminent domain, and endless wars (1 Samuel 8:10-18).

At this point, some might insist that these proof-texts deal specifically with the nation state of Old Testament Israel, but they would be mistaken. God clearly appointed and directed Cyrus the Great of Persia, Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon, and others to accomplish his will. We are told that God directs the will of kings, no matter who they are (Proverbs 21:1-9).

2. Leaders are obliged to rule in respect to God’s Law.

Kings, who may have come to power through hook or by crook, or by bravery and noble conquest, were all nonetheless there by divine providence. Yet, they were all instructed by God to study his law daily, to not enrich themselves at the expense of the people, and were to remember that they, too, were “of the people” (Deuteronomy 17:14-20).

But even kings of pagan nations are considered ministers of God’s divine will. Romans 13 is the most prominent passage on this subject, although 1 Peter 2 closely parallels the didactic teachings of that text. Simply put, by Paul, “Let every person be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God.” He goes on to write, “For rulers are not a terror to good conduct, but to bad. Would you have no fear of the one who is in authority? Then do what is good, and you will receive his approval, for he is God’s servant διάκονός (minister or, literally rendered, deacon) for your good.

We might desire to tread carefully on this point, lest we get bogged down in arguments related to Theonomy, a heterodoxical doctrine that holds to the abiding validity of Israel’s civil code as opposed to just the Moral Law (for example, the Ten Commandments). But we need not get lost in the weeds. It’s enough to summarize the passage as, “Leaders are ministers, punishing the wicked and rewarding good, as defined by the word of God.”

It should not be lost on us that both Paul and Peter wrote their commands to those under the pagan Roman government, who like the kings of Israel, must honor Christ or suffer his wrath (Psalm 2:12).

3. Different forms of government appoint leaders differently, but they are not free to abandon the Scripture’s command for leaders to lead.

Israel was a theocratic kritarchy prior to King Saul, and a theocratic monarchy after him. By Jesus day, Israel had devolved into a pure theocracy, with no king except that appointed by Rome as leader of the puppet state beholden to the empire. And yet, Israel and Rome were both instructed by the Apostles to submit to God’s Word.

In the millennia that followed, Christians would serve as citizens in monarchies, oligarchies, democracies, republics, and colonies under empirical rule. They would also serve as serfs in feudal systems, live in Communist regimes, and endure fascist despots. Nonetheless, God’s commands are eternal (forever) and universal (everywhere).

Every potentate, every king, every despot, every emperor, every demagogue, every bureaucrat in every kingdom is subject to the Lordship of Jesus Christ and accountable to God Almighty. Every king, everywhere, will one day honor Christ Jesus as the King of them all (Psalm 72:1).

4. In the American form of government, the law is king, and citizens are the executors of law.

We are a nation of the people, for the people, and by the people (Gettysburg Address, 1863). But don’t let Lincoln’s words mislead you. People are only executors (those who carry out a task appointed them) of the law. The American government was set up to require by solemn oath of every elected official to swear allegiance to the Constitution of the United States (Article VI, Section 3 of the U.S. Constitution). Although this seems normal to us, it is sometimes lost on us how extraordinarily abnormal that was at the time. The greater does not pledge an oath to the lesser, but the lesser pledges to the greater. In other words, “the Constitution is king” (Thomas Paine, 1776).

It is precisely for this reason, we argued during Covid, that it was not unbiblical to resist government edicts closing churches on Sunday – not only because it violated God’s law – it violated the constitution.

Although many pietists shouted Romans 13 at us, we argued vehemently that the time, that the Scripture demands we submit to our ruling ordinances (1 Peter 2:13), literally κτίσει (laws). Our law did not allow magistrates to dictate pandemic exceptions to the Bill of Rights, and we had every right to ignore those dictates. Or, for example, Romans 13 tells us to submit to governing authorities, or ἐξουσίαις. In the United States, that authority is quite clearly and explicitly laws, which hold both government officials and the governed in mutual rightful submission.

In short, in the American form of government, law is King. However, how those laws are administered – and by whom – is the direct responsibility of the leaders who they elect. As a republic, opposed to a pure democracy, the people appoint for themselves legislators to write the laws, judges to interpret the laws, and executors to carry out the laws.

Although the rule is indirect, with only one layer of executive power between the citizenry and the ruling authority of law, the people nonetheless take part in the act of ruling. We can elect those who will carry out the responsibilities of executorship according to the dictates of righteousnesss, or we can elect those who will carry out the responsiblities of executorship according to the dictates of unrighteousness.

Great power has been entrusted – by God – to every American citizen with the right to vote for the leaders that will implement the will of our sovereign earthly king, the Constitution of the United States.

This is in keeping with Biblical demands in Romans 13. We are told, “Submit yourselves to every ordinance of man for the Lord’s sake: whether it be to the king, as supreme; Or unto governors, as unto them that are sent by him for the punishment of evildoers, and for the praise of them that do well.

Our responsibility and duties prescribed in God’s Word are not only toward the King, but toward any who the King sends to execute his will (governors, or anyone who is sent). In the United States, the King – the Constitution – commissions political leaders for this task, as elected by the decisions of voting citizens.

We would submit to you that evangelicals telling you it’s okay to stay home on November 5th are enticing you to sin. Just as it would be sinful for a king, appointed by God, to feast while his nation is being attacked, it’s a sin for you to abdicate your responsibility to vote.

One can only imagine the harshness of wrath God might have for a nation’s king to decide today he will just abstain from ruling. That is not a luxury kings are afforded, and it would be a dereliction of his duties to sit upon the throne, doing nothing, during times of great peril. God, common sense would suggest, did not bring him to power only to do nothing.

Christians in the United States are born with a birthright of authority. We have been gifted, by the nature of our citizenship and bloodline, to take dominion over what powers we’ve been granted and rule well, for Christ’s sake.

Do not stay home this election, dear Christian. Do not abdicate your rule. Do not surrender your power. You were appointed by God to rule. And while the choices could always be better, rulers have to lead even through the densest fog and most murky waters. It’s just what we do, because we were born for it and appointed by a sovereign God for this solemn task.

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