People say this to me all the time (well, not all the time):
Not voting for Mitt Romney for U.S. president is really voting for Barack Obama; that is, staying home on election day (or voting a third party) counts as a vote for Obama.
Where does this idea come from? Let’s turn it around a moment. Isn’t it just as logical to say the following?
Not voting for Obama is really voting for Romney; that is, staying home on election day (or voting a third party) counts as a vote for Romney.
So, since not voting for one candidate is apparently (nay, actually!) voting for the other, by not voting for Obama I have already voted for Romney. So why do they insist, that I have to vote for him again, then? Isn’t that voting twice?
When I hear my fellow Christians lament in fear that we do not have a conservative Christian deliverer in the Republican party who will save the nation and that we must turn to Mitt Romney to save us–one who has neither a credible Christian testimony nor is he a conservative, I think of a passage in Scripture (Isaiah 31):
Woe to them that go down to Egypt for help; and stay on horses, and trust in chariots, because they are many; and in horsemen, because they are very strong; but they look not unto the Holy One of Israel, neither seek the LORD!
Do we not think God is able to keep his people safe during a second Obama term, without resorting to the arm of a sinner and human wisdom? Will not God see where the church has turned for help and will he not perhaps turn in chastisement against His people?
Yet He also is wise, and will bring evil, and will not call back his words: but will arise against the house of the evildoers, and against the help of them that work iniquity. Now the Egyptians are men, and not God; and their horses flesh, and not spirit. When the LORD shall stretch out his hand, both he that helpeth shall fall, and he that is holpen shall fall down, and they all shall fail together. (emphasis mine)
Would it not be much better to sit back, do no evil, and watch the deliverance of the Lord?! What He might do, would we turn to Him and not another pagan! We have been given such awful leaders because we deserve them or worse. My friend, Pastor Aaron Gunsaulus, has wisely applied David’s choice of judgments against his sin to the present case of facing only bad choices in the fall. When faced with three possible judgments, David chose the one that would be God choosing, because he did not want to fall directly into the hands of men (1Chronicles 21:9–13)
And what may happen if we turn to the Lord (Isaiah 31:4-7)?
So shall the LORD of hosts come down to fight for mount Zion, and for the hill thereof. As birds flying, so will the LORD of hosts defend Jerusalem; defending also he will deliver it; and passing over he will preserve it. Turn ye unto him from whom the children of Israel have deeply revolted. For in that day every man shall cast away his idols of silver, and his idols of gold, which your own hands have made unto you for a sin.
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Shedlock has written a book on these issues, entitled With Christ in the Voting Booth, which is available in many bookstores as well as online at Barnes & Noble, Amazon Books, Cokesbury, and Parable.com