God’s Sovereignty and Election Day

We will soon learn tonight who will be our President for the next four years – that is unless we have a repeat of the 2000 Presidential election.  I shudder thinking of hanging chads.  Regardless of the outcome on election day God is sovereign.  He is in control.  The outcome is of no surprise to him.  This is part of His purpose and plan.

Anybody looking for one of our Presidential candidates to “save” us will be sorely disappointed whether you favor Mitt Romney, Barack Obama, some other third party candidate or whoever.  Washington, DC can not save us.  Utopia is not around the corner.  Politics has its limits.

Erick Erickson said it pretty well in an email sent out this weekend:

I think this world is destined to go to hell in a hand basket by design. I think things are supposed to go to pot. So if Barack Obama wins, I won’t be upset. If Mitt Romney wins, I won’t be running through the streets cheering. I think, either way, it is all part of the design. The world is going down hill. Barack Obama re-elected just gets us down the slippery slope faster in my view. For others, it is Mitt Romney who does.

Actually sin corrupted the world, it isn’t broken by design, but our sin didn’t surprise God either.  Utopia will not come until Christ returns.  And then in the words of one of my favorite preachers, Dr. Tony Evans, “He isn’t coming to take sides. He’s coming to take over.”

Government is God’s instrument to restrain us in our sin. (when it ceases to do that then we’ll experience the “fruit” of that).  Government will not usher in God’s Kingdom, the late Chuck Colson wrote in his book God & Government:

Government is, in one sense, God’s response to the nature of the people themselves.  Man “can adapt himself somehow to anything his imagination can cope with… but he cannot deal with chaos.”  While it cannot redeem the world or be used as a tool to establish the Kingdom of God, civil government does set the boundaries for human behavior.  The State is not a remedy for sin, but a means to restrain it.  Its limited task is to promote “the good of the community in temporal concerns, the protection of life and property and the preservation of peace and order,” (pg. 102).

Very true.

So regardless of the results and regardless of what party you’re in don’t despair and find your hope in Jesus, not a political party or politician.

Some of us are going to have to reflect on our discourse as well as this election has been a source of division.  While the debate and discussion is a good one to have; it is something that must be kept in proper perspective.