Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter! -- Isaiah 5: 20 (ESV)
What also gets lost in this is that Jeffress may not even be right about his opinion of the lesser evil! Either way, in his zeal to defeat the perceived greater evil, he embraces the lesser evil as righteous. God is not going to review your voting record when you stand before Him on the last day beloved. I have heard the most biblically vacuous arguments about this. That if you vote for this candidate or that one, you will be held to account for what they support. God forbid! We have enough problems owning our own sins! Imagine if you had to be held to account for the sins of Donald Trump! Jeffress mercifully finishes:
3) Voting is about endorsing policies, not personalities.
Ahh yes. Do you remember the 1990 Bill Clinton sex scandals? What did the Christo-political machine cry every single day? Character counts! Character counts! Character counts! Fast forward twenty years and when faced a morally bankrupt republican we find that character does not seem to count as much. Do we really think this type of hypocrisy is lost on the world? This tact is the latest line of argument used by the Christo-political forces such as Jeffress. That we really are not voting for Trump but rather the platform he stands on. Except he has vowed to blow up that platform hasn't he? Drain the swamp? Both parties are corrupt. He has spent more energy deriding the Republican side than his opponent.
Then we get to the heart of the problem with this rationale. The notion that promises are deeds. The notion that a set of ideas written on some vague "platform" is akin to righteous behavior. Not to mention that each platform has things that are inherently evil and inherently good. Realizing he has no moral ground to stand on with Donald Trump, Jeffress tries to move the goalposts and change the conversation to one of policy. Of course all policy promises are in the end promises made by politicians. George W. Bush ran as a pro-life candidate and even though he had complete control of both houses of Congress for five years he never brought it up. Like Charlie Brown charging to kick that football the Christians keep aligning themselves with evil candidates with no character in the hope that this time Lucy won't pull the football away at the last second; that they are not lying again. An independent analysis was done regarding the falsehoods Trump tells and he came in at 72% lies when he speaks. Yet Christians are lining up to embrace this evil on the off chance that he is really sincere about one issue that he has been on the other side of his entire life. You cannot separate out the policy promises from the personality that is making those promises. To do so is to be inherently stupid. Jeffress knows this of course. He does not really believe this point. He offers it as a means to get people to vote for Trump but excuse themselves from doing so when the indwelt Holy Spirit is convicting them not to. I expect nothing less from Robert Jeffress because he is not really a pastor.
That is what our key verses teach us. As a pastor he is supposed exercise oversight as God would have him. Tending to the sheep; not beating them into political submission. He is not supposed to be domineering over them but rather be an example. As such, do not display your idol worship of this country by defending who you have deemed to be of a lesser evil. Do not confer righteousness upon your unrighteous choice. Do not pretend that other choices, including not voting in protest, is somehow against the will of God. Do not hide the evil of your choice behind some phantom platform that never gets implemented anyway. Stop mixing the holy with the profane. This country does not need a forced theocratic rule. They need the church to be the church again and preach the entire Gospel of Jesus Christ. Not with words of carnal wisdom uttered by shady political operatives wrapped up in "Jesus-ese." To continue to do so is to continue to empty the cross of its power. Maybe in the end you will achieve your carnal goals of electing the most morally deficient man ever to the presidency but at what cost? Our witness for Christ and His Gospel has to be worth more than the thirty pieces of political silver we keep selling Him out for.
Reverend Anthony Wade -- November 3, 2016
