Pastor Rob Kimsey on Politics – Should Christians Vote and Who For?

Laurel Bible Church

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Greetings, this is Rob Kimsey, Pastor Rob Kimsey from Laurel Bible Church, just wanted to just really address the current political situation.

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I've had a lot of people ask recently what should be a

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Christian's viewpoint on politics. I'm sure if you are on social media at all you probably have seen some podcasts and some different discussions on this topic.

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I recently watched one from Grace Community Church in Sun Valley, The Men of the

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Word. It was a Q &A with several different pastors. It was,

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I believe it's Pastor Brad Clausen, it was

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George Crawford, Mike Riccardi, Abner Chow, and Brad Hamilton.

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I believe all the men are elders at Grace Community Church. Just a really, really good talk and Q &A on the topic of politics and whether or not

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Christians should vote and who we should vote for. So I would commend that to you if you are online.

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You can find that on YouTube probably if you just search Men of the Word Q &A, it's going to be one that you'll find pop right up.

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Someone had asked Pastor Mike Riccardi in particular, the question that was fielded to him is basically should we as Christians abstain from voting and the idea of voting

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Republican or voting Democrat and if there's no party candidates on either side, would you abstain?

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If you're voting for a Democrat, why would you do that as a

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Christian? If you're voting for a Republican, does it matter if that candidate is a Christian or not?

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And so there were a wide range of different questions, but Pastor Riccardi had basically sort of addressed the idea of, well, yeah, and I don't think he said it just like this, but basically voting for the

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Democrat or the Democratic Party or a candidate as a Bible -believing

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Christian and the problems with that. So yeah, I'm not sure how if you claim to be a follower of Jesus Christ how you could vote for a candidate in the

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Democratic Party given that their party really has like three main pillars.

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Yeah, I would say they're expressed now, they're sort of like, yeah, foundational, like this is their ticket issues would be abortion, the transgender issue specifically with puberty blockers and surgery for minors even without parental consent, and then you have the

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LGBTQ issue. So abortion, the mutilation of children, and homosexuality, and its various lifestyle choices.

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Those are all three things that the Bible clearly teaches against that the Lord has called an abomination, and so how could you as a follower of Christ follow a candidate who is supporting that?

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Now there's a lot of other issues, of course. You have, yeah, you just think like illegal citizens who are crossing the border is not having a defined border, that's not biblical.

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Abortion is the big key that I think we talk about the most, especially as Bible -believing

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Christians, and whether you're pro -life or you're an abolitionist. I think obviously now we've seen the

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Republican Party adopt a pro -life position and not abolition, which is not a biblical position.

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But, you know, you think what would be the other main issue? Well I think you'd have to address

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Israel, the nation of Israel, what's going on with that, and clearly the Democratic Party has a history of supporting the

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Palestinian Authority, and the Republican Party is very pro -Israel and looks at Israel as this democratic nation really fighting for people's freedoms in the middle of the

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Middle East, where they're really the only free democratic nation. And so I think

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Israel needs to be higher on that list, that's not often talked about, but I think for us as a nation as we are going to support

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Israel or not support Israel is going to be a big determiner of the of the blessing that we receive.

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Certainly we are under God's judgment because we see the rampant sin in our culture, especially with the

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LGBTQ community. But yeah, I mean you think about that abortion, transgender,

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LGBTQ, and, you know, essentially the Democratic Party is not like the liberal party of the 70 or 80s that was talking about social reforms and fiscal responsibilities versus the

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Republicans. They have transitioned into sort of like a religious death cult that's very like hive mind tribal mentality.

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So if you're a follower of Christ, how could you with a clear conscience vote for anyone in that party?

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I don't know. I haven't, in my thinking according to the Word of God, I can't wrestle that out.

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However, the question that was posed on the stage at Grace Community Church was more on the idea of if you have a candidate who is not a

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Christian, that is a Republican, can you vote for him even if he's pro -life? He's not an abolitionist.

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And clearly, I mean, we're not, you know, they're not talking in a vacuum, so obviously we have an election going on.

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And that's why I wanted to make this video is how do we think about voting as a

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Christian? How do we think about the governing authorities? Of course, they're the big debate of Christian nationalism, and there's different sides within evangelicalism on how far you go with that.

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But yeah, I really commend to you watching this Q &A. It's the Men of the

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Word Grace Community Church Q &A. You can just search it on YouTube, probably even find it on Facebook. Pastor Riccardi, I thought, gave such a great answer.

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And he said as a Christian, as a paraphrasing, so if you watch it, and I'm kind of like putting words in Pastor Riccardi's mouth, and I apologize,

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I don't want to do that, but I just thought his response was so great. And basically, this is what he said in a paraphrase, is that you have a candidate who may or may not be a

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Christian, and we're focusing on the Republican Party because I don't think we're gonna have a candidate on the

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Democrat side who is going to push biblical principles.

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George Crawford actually addressed that and said, yeah, if you have a Democrat, he's looking at the person who is going to more solidify and promote biblical principles.

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So I'm not saying that you can't vote for a Democrat, it just works, like, how do you do that if it's anti -biblical and literally against the teaching that Christ gave, what the scriptures say about these subjects that they're promoting as progressive good ideas

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God calls an abomination. However, George Crawford made a good point. The candidate is pushing the biblical principle, and so this is what

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Riccardi was basically honing in on, and I think that question came after Riccardi's response.

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But you're thinking about, obviously, Kamala Harris, you're thinking about Donald Trump, and so I don't think any of the men on the stage—certainly

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I don't— would not promote or suggest in any way that I believe that Donald Trump is a born -again believer.

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I don't think he's a follower of Christ. He has promoted the

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Bible in terms of saying it's a good book, it's the best book. He clearly is aligned with biblical principles, but not fully, especially more recently.

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It's even like the Republican pro -life movement is more like the Democrats ten years ago. But so how do you, as a

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Christian, how would you vote for this person who's been accused of adultery, very likely committed those adulteries, you know, a sort of a savage businessman, even maybe unethical in some ways, but taking advantage of the current laws that are in place, and as far as taxes and being, you know, being a cutthroat businessman doesn't necessarily mean that there's a legal activity.

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He's a businessman. And then you think about the position with pro -life and even some of the more concerning statements that he's made recently.

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Well, again, out of the candidates, what candidate, what policies would promote biblical principles?

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What policies would move further along the freedoms that we enjoy as citizens of the

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United States of America? But what candidate is more against abortion?

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What candidate is more against not allowing minors, elementary school, junior high, you know, teenagers high school, to receive puberty blockers, which are basically sterilization drugs.

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The same drugs they're giving to the kids are sterilizing drugs that they would give to an adult.

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Or mutilating them, castrating them. Yeah, just essentially dissecting young girls, taking their body parts off.

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And then promoting the LGBTQ, really, religion,

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I would call it, more like a cult -like religion, that is against those things, but also promoting freedom, that it's the individual's right to choose.

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However, clearly, between the candidates, one is more for abortion and one is not.

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One is more pro -Israel and one is not. And so if we look at the scriptures in total, and I'm not going to quote a chapter and verse here,

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I would like to address Romans 13 as we think about the idea of Christian nationalism and being subject.

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I think this is a good time to address these issues, given that this vote is going on. But I just want to give a pastoral perspective.

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And so, yeah, I would agree wholeheartedly with Pastor Riccardi's statement, that out of the candidates, there really isn't an option for the

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Christian. One clearly is promoting more biblical principles. The person doesn't have to be a born -again follower in Christ in order to promote biblical principles.

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So what as a citizen, and as a Christian, as a believer, would be more in line with having a clear conscience, so that you're not violating your conscience by voting for this person, even though this person is not a believer and has an immoral lifestyle in the past and maybe currently.

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We don't know. All we can deduce is what we see on the news and these various clips.

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Clearly, Kamala Harris is not somebody that would stop abortion.

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I think even more recently, she said that religious exemptions would not be allowed for abortions. I'm trying to work that out in my mind, how that would work out.

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What would a religious exemption even need to be? So essentially, she's saying if a state—now that it's at the state level to decide—if a state—essentially, if a federal initiative came back where every state was mandated to allow abortion in their state, and that state came to the federal government and said, we as a collective have voted and have decided we don't want to have abortion in our state because we identify as Christians.

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So here is Christian nationalism. So it might be an individual state and the governor, the representatives of the people voting according to their constituents, and maybe there's even a vote taking place, and that state decides because we identify as Christians, we will not allow abortion in our state.

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She's essentially saying that the federal government will not allow that religious exemption and they will be forced to allow abortion in their state.

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This is getting into an area of really tyranny. And so, yeah,

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I just want to, I guess, point you to good resources. So I would point you to Grace Community Church and that Q &A, very insightful, very recent, where you have some elders, some experienced pastors.

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And so some of you know me personally, and I have been a minister of the

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Word of God for a number of years, serving in a capacity as a pastoral intern and associate pastor, really a lay person, a churchman, and then more recently, most of you know

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I was called to be the pastor teacher of Laurel Bible Church, where, praise God, I'm serving here with a co -elder and my brother in Christ, Pastor Justin Peters, who has just been an extremely helpful brother and really just mentoring and helping and, yeah, co -partnering for the gospel ministry here in Montana.

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And so I will just sort of add on that before we get into the Scripture.

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I do want to look at Romans 13, and I want to read a couple of things that I think are helpful to you and maybe point you to one more clip.

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So, but yeah, just as a sidebar before we read Romans 13, I want to explain a few things from that.

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I was really shocked when I came to Montana. I grew up in Southern California, really in in LA County for the majority of my life.

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More recently, before I moved to Montana, I lived in East LA in a city called Downey, which is a suburb of Los Angeles, and went to worship and served at a local congregation in Long Beach, California, under the mentorship of Pastor Seymour Heligar, faithful brother in Christ, who had served in that congregation for ten years.

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It was a grace -advanced church, so a church revitalization. I served there for three years under Seymour's mentorship, and grew in my understanding of God's Word, my relationship with Christ, and my relationship with God's people, probably more than any time in my life as a

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Christian. And so I've been saved for about 11 years, and you know, coming from obviously

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LA, Long Beach, California, certainly very like transgender,

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LGBTQ, all of that stuff, people I think out here sort of like think of like June is not a good month, it's

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Pride Month, but in California every month is Pride Month, essentially. But yeah, as I came out here to Montana, I was stunned.

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I thought in my mind, I'm coming from this blue state, California, I'm going to a red state, a quote

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Republican conservative state, and what I found immediately as I got called out here was that, well first of all, the local zoo in Billings, Zoo Montana, had a drag queen story hour in 2022, so some faithful pastors here in the

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Billings area knew that I was coming from the Master's Seminary, and they asked me to sort of join their group, and they were planning on doing some kind of a response to the community, and just address this as Christian pastors, that these drag queens, essentially men cross -dressing, practicing a sexual fetish in front of young children, was being promoted in the community in Billings, and so Laurel is next door to Billings, and I was just shocked by that.

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It's like, man, I left drag queen story hour in California, I thought I had left that behind, and no, it is everywhere.

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This is a spiritual issue ultimately, so this doesn't matter whether you're in a red state or blue state, and then what

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I found that also shocked me was that the number one church model, at least in my area, in Billings and in Laurel, and I think the surrounding communities as well, is seeker sensitive mega churches.

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Seeker sensitive emergent church culture churches, yeah, non -denominational or SBC churches, which of course, sadly, we know over the last, you know, 10 years or maybe more, more recently,

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I'd say 2019 -20, just the social justice stuff, and of course their president J .D.

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Greer said homosexuality is not a sin, and so yeah, the SBC is huge out here, but yeah, seeker sensitive emergent church, you have the laser show, the kind of rock style entertainment band worship, fog machine kind of vibe, and I say that in somewhat in hyperbole, but also literally, yeah, there's churches that have fog machines and they have light shows, and the kind of church where the pastor rides up to the pulpit on a

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Harley and gets off the Harley and then preaches, and I've listened to many of the the surrounding churches, certainly in Laurel, and the preaching is topical.

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Yeah, when I got here, we had invited the community to come and watch a screening of the

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Essential Church, and we actually contacted AMC movie theaters, and AMC told us they weren't interested.

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The way they did that was they asked us to fill out a petition form and to essentially promote the film to let them know there was a need, so I shared that link with just the church folks here, and we had so many people petition to see it that when

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I later went on to petition and fill it out, they had locked it because too many people had done it, but then they said there's no interest, so that was

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AMC movie theaters. There's a privately owned movie theater in downtown Laurel, and I believe that that brother, after talking with him several times, he communicated he's a believer.

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He was excited about the film. He knew about Pastor John MacArthur, and so we got this screening of the

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Essential Church, and it was the only movie theater that I know of in the state of Montana to screen it, and so I had went to about four of the churches in Laurel.

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I didn't have anyone respond. I was asking. I basically did a letter. I did a flyer.

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I went and hand -delivered those either to the pastor or dropped it off with their secretary, and we didn't have one person respond, so you just get a flavor.

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You understand when COVID happened, the churches in Montana widely, widely, the seeker -sensitive emergent church culture churches, these big mega churches, do you think that when

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John MacArthur took the stand to not shut the church down, initially he did close the church.

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He wants to be responsible, and you know, you have to believe the governing authorities, but after a month or two, a few months, you start realizing, like, hey, the narrative of what they're saying about this isn't actually matching the truth and reality, and so eventually

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John MacArthur and Grace Community Church, the elders of Grace Community Church, took the stand that they wouldn't shut down the churches.

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Well, the churches out here didn't agree with that. These churches shut down. There's even a

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TMS church in Billings who disagreed with MacArthur and shut the church down, was promoting the vaccine.

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Yeah, just really shocking to think, like, wow, isn't that brother from TMS, he's a master's man, doesn't the

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Master's Seminary, wouldn't you think, oh yeah, maybe we could look to Grace Community Church, this established five decades,

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I think it's 55 years now MacArthur's been in ministry, you know, 20 to 40 elders, some of them medical doctors, attorneys, judge, you know, different, you know, these are professional men who aren't playing loose cannon, and they're not cowboys shooting off the hip, no, there's a lot of thought into that decision, so then to be out here and say, well,

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I disagree with that and I'm just gonna do my own thing, you know, you have a church that during, essentially during the,

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I guess it's doing a thumbs up because I'm doing a thumbs up, I don't know if you guys can see that on my screen, a little bubble just popped up,

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I gotta watch out my thumbs up. Well, yeah, you have, like, 2019, 2020, and you have a master's guy who preaches, who doesn't preach, that I listened to the sermon and said,

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I'm not preaching today, this isn't a sermon, and he talked about, he talked about critical race theory,

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Black Lives Matter, socialism, and Marxism, and he explained those four things, how they started, who their leaders are, what they believe, and then as he landed the plane, hour and five minute sermon, as he landed the plane, he said, this is what, as Christians, we have to be gracious and we have to admit where they're right.

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Excuse me? We have to admit where Karl Marx was right? We have to admit where the critical race theory ideology is right?

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There isn't any part of the Marxist, socialist, Marxism movement of Black Lives Matter that was biblical or right, and as a

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Christian, I don't have to be gracious to agree with anything that goes against the Bible, but it's sort of like a warm and fluffy kind of a thing.

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Yeah, that's a TMS church. Sad. Absolutely tragic. Now, in Laurel, you're going to get the same kind of flavor, not maybe a larger congregation or smaller congregation.

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So for example, we, as a welcome here, in 2023, we did an event called the

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Gospel Story Hour at the zoo, and so we rented a pavilion at the zoo, and we did an hour long worship service.

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There was the public reading of scripture, there was prayer, there was worship songs, and there was a sermon that preached the gospel, and we did all that in an hour, so it's not like an hour long sermon, a very short public worship service.

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At that time, I think I invited the same amount, I think it was four or five churches from Laurel.

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I know the pastors group that I'm a part of in Billings, I think invited 30 churches. There wasn't one church in 2023 that came.

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Wrap your head around that. Not one church. So we did the event again in 2024, and this time having met a couple of the local pastors, who are the pastors of these seeker -sensitive churches,

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I invited nine churches to the 2024 Gospel Story Hour at the zoo, and there wasn't one church in Laurel that participated.

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Not one. So we're, you know, we're having a public worship service.

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It's at the zoo. You can go to the zoo and look at animals after. We're reading the scripture out loud.

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We're having a time of prayer. We're preaching a gospel sermon, gospel -centered.

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This is not a political message, and we have to understand honestly that there is no such thing as a difference between political and spiritual.

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Everything is a spiritual matter. So that needs to be clearly said. We don't battle against flesh and blood, right?

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No, but the principalities of the wicked, demonic forces of the heavenly places.

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And so, but outside of that, the issue, and this is just pure speculation and conjecture, the issue that I believe was the determining factor of these, you know, you have over 30 churches in Billings, you have,

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I have nine in Laurel. Keep in mind Billings is a hundred and thirty thousand people, Laurel's about eight thousand, so Laurel's very small.

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So I go to nine churches, either hand it to the pastor, reach out to the pastor, or don't hear back from the pastor, but I still go to their building and give the flyer and a letter inviting them.

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I believe it was the title, Gospel Story Hour at the zoo, and that sparked a correlation for them that, oh, it's the, in response to the

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Drag Queen Story Hour, and oh, we don't touch that. We don't touch that. You know, it was communicated to me that the big church in Billings that is a

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TMS church, that the pastors communicated that their ministry is about preaching

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Christ and Him crucified, and they don't get involved in that kind of stuff. So it's like, well, we're preaching the gospel in a public setting.

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Wouldn't you want to lock arms with like -minded brothers and go and preach the gospel in the public square?

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But, oh, no, it's political. We can't call out homosexuality as a sin. We don't get involved in that.

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Before we read Romans, I'll give you one more example. There's a congregant here at Laurel Bible Church, and this person has some grandkids in the public school system in Laurel, and so I got a text on a,

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I think it was after worship service on a Sunday, and the next day on a Monday there was going to be a public school hearing.

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The public school district with the board of superintendents was having this hearing because the local public, this is public school for,

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I believe, junior high and high school. For sure high school, but I'm not sure what the age was. So for high school, you figure 14 and higher, and if you have a school that has a middle age the middle school is 12.

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My son went to a school that was 7th grade to 12th. So whether it's 7th through 12th or 9th through 12th, you're talking about preteens or teenagers, minors, not adults.

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And there was about, I think, seven books that the principals unanimously, so every principal that part of the high school system in Laurel, signed off on adding these books to their school library.

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This is not a public library, this is a school library, and the books ranged in topics from transgenderism, there was self -harm, some cutting, homosexuality.

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I think every book had critical race theory. I think every book had an anti -Christian.

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One of them was specifically geared at the Catholic Institute, or the Catholic religion.

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But yeah, every one had gratuitous violence that depicted explicit violence.

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Some of the books had gratuitous explicit sexual content.

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And so these are books that in some cases would depict a sexual encounter between two minors.

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In one case it was an adult with a minor who was a girl, and it shows pictures where they're essentially having intercourse.

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Really gross, pornographic, an adult with a teenager having intercourse.

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I mean these are really disgusting books. So you read these articles or you see viral video clips of parents or pastors going to these school board hearings to try to talk out or talk, remove these books from the public school system.

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And here it is, I have a congregant ask me if I'll go to this this board hearing because they're going to be trying to promote these books.

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It turns out some of the books have already been purchased and are already in the libraries.

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And so some of the parents there are saying, hey, this is wrong. And so I attend this meeting.

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I didn't plan on speaking, but I felt compelled to say something at the end of the meeting.

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It's like a two and a half hour meeting. And all of the principals had signed off on the books, and unanimously every librarian, every single librarian was promoting the books.

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And what was shocking is I was the only pastor from Laurel. There was actually a pastor from Billings who was there to support a group called

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Moms for Liberty, to pray with them and to try to support them. He didn't speak. He's from Billings.

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He's actually a brother in Christ, part of our pastors group in Billings, really faithful brother.

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There wasn't one other pastor in Laurel. I said like, how is it that I'm the only one that knows about this?

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This was at the end of 2023. I'd come in February. I hadn't moved out here full time until September.

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And so I'm like, I'm the only pastor in Laurel that knows about this? And what I found out was, no, I wasn't.

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I was the only pastor that showed up. I was the only pastor that showed up. And when

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I talked to one of the pastors at the biggest church in Laurel, Seeker Sensitive Church, his response was, well,

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I don't get into that. That's not my thing. I'm like, and I'm telling you this as we're talking about politics and whether we should vote, abstain from voting.

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Is it okay to vote for Trump even though he's not a Christian? Should I vote for Harris as a

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Christian? Certainly I would say no on that one. So I'm just trying to paint a picture for you to help you to understand that Montana is not a conservative place theologically.

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So here's an example. You go down downtown Laurel. You see a

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Trump flag on the person's house. And next to that same house, next to the

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Trump flag is a gay pride flag. And not the traditional gay pride one. The new one now that has like the little triangle in the middle with the blue and the white and the pink, which is the essentially adults for basically promoting relationships with minors.

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So it's a sexual orientation now that a man or a woman can be attracted to a person who's not a minor.

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That's what that stands for. So if you're promoting the gay pride flag, the one that has the triangle on the end, that's adults for basically to have sexual relationship with minors.

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Really disgusting stuff. So you have a state that, and I'm in Billings and Laurel, so I won't say the whole state.

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I don't know that. However, in my area, folks are very politically conservative, but theologically liberal.

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And so you have the big Methodist church in town, a female pastor.

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You have the first congregational church in town, a female youth pastor.

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And I don't know if she's an elder, but they're putting it on their Facebook. Oh, meet our new pastor. She's great.

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And then she introduces herself. It's like, oh, it's a woman pastor. I thought they were reformed. Well, that's their version of being reformed is that, well, we can have her teach and preach, but she's not an elder.

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It's kind of the same stuff the SBC is doing, a slight of hand. And yeah, they're not going to get involved in saying books that depict adults having sexual intercourse with kids is wrong, because that's not my thing.

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And it's like, well, brothers, whose thing is it?

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If you're an ordained minister, a preacher of the word of God, who's going to show up to that book challenge and say, this is an evil against God.

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It's an evil against children. This is immoral. It's sinful. It's evil. Who's going to do that?

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The mayor of the city? The police chief? The fire captain? Not the principal of the school who okayed the books.

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You're an ordained minister of the word of God. You're to stand up and say, we have objective truth.

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We have objective morality. We have the word of God. And so the word of God says this, and it's evil to do this to children.

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Who's there to advocate for the children and to stand up for the honor and zeal of God's holiness, if not the ordained minister of the word of God?

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I don't think you need to be a pastor to do that. I think you just need to be a Christian. And so, yeah, that was really disheartening and sad.

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So that kind of gives you an idea of what Laurel, Montana is like and what

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Billings is like. And I've been here a short time, but my perception initially, you know, getting here, moving on to my second year, is that Laurel is liberal.

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It's a liberal town. And even the churches that would say, oh, we're conservative, they won't get involved in anything they deem political.

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For example, another one, there's a bill out here called CI -128, and it's going to promote abortion up to late term and without parental consent.

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And so I talked about that during the announcement portion of a sermon. I'm not going to preach that.

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It's not part of worship, but I can include that in the announcements. I put some flyers out on the table to help people think through that issue.

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There's a lot of misinformation. The Democratic Party is spending millions of dollars to try to get this thing passed.

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And so they took signatures, and they got enough signatures. It's on the ballot, CI -128. There's a letter, an open letter that pastors are invited to sign.

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I've signed it. Laurel Bible Church supports this. So I talked about that.

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I gave a copy of the letter. I contacted the local sort of leader of the ministerium, which would include all of the evangelical churches and the

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Catholic Church. So the churches here have seen no separation between evangelical Protestantism and Roman Catholics.

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And it went on deaf ears. No response. No response. I'm not sure at this point whether any of them have signed the letter.

37:19

Certainly I don't think they're going to be talking about it. Not my thing. That's political. So to talk about a bill that could allow the dismemberment of a child late term, up to nine months, and allowing the state or the local county to do that with health providers that don't have to be actually physicians that have any kind of certification.

37:45

A health provider can be... it's almost like anybody. It's a really horrible bill to just be silent about it.

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To just be silent about it. And so the conservative, conservative

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Christians who are promoting the political reform, who show up to the book studies, guess what?

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They're congregants at the seeker sensitive church whose pastors won't touch the issue.

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And I don't know how else to say it. You don't have a pastor. You have an ostrich. You have an ostrich with the head in the sand.

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Yeah, I mean, are you a man or not? And so to say, oh, it's a political issue.

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I can't call out evil in society because I'm supposed to just preach the gospel. Actually you're disqualified from being a pastor.

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The thing that I saw is these men are not willing to make doctrinal distinctions or draw a line in the sand.

38:47

Last example, and I'll share something from Romans 13, thinking about this idea of what we have potentially after the election with Kamala Harris saying she's not going to permit religious exemptions for local states.

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Last year during Easter, I visited with one of the pastors, and I looked in their weekly bulletin, and their weekly bulletin had a thing that said

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Lent Breakfast, celebrating Lent Breakfast. So they're going to celebrate Lent. This is a

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Protestant evangelical church, biggest church in town, seeker sensitive church. And I looked on the list, and it was the

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Lutheran church, it was the Methodist church with a woman pastor, it was the big

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SBC church, it was the Roman Catholic church. And so this evangelical church,

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Protestant church, is partnering with the Roman Catholic church to celebrate Lent Breakfast, and there was five churches plus the

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Roman Catholic church in town, and each one of those places would host the

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Lent Breakfast. One of the local churches, I looked up what the pastor was preaching there, and this is the church in town that has a female youth pastor, he preached four sermons on Lent.

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This is a Protestant evangelical. Now certainly you understand Lent, if you're somewhat of a student of the

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Scripture, is a tradition of the Roman Catholic Church. Now we could look at Esther, Kings, you think about the repenting, the fasting that would happen when a nation would turn away from their sin and return, and what would they do?

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They would put sackcloth on, they would put ashes on their head, they would turn away from their sin and repent.

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That is the only thing you could even get close to as an Old Testament argument or approved passage to celebrate

40:50

Lent. And so Lent, this tradition of the Catholic Church, what do you see? The celebrities do this, and they take like a piece of charcoal or some ash, and they make a little cross on their head, and it's associated with fasting, that you withhold something.

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Not food and water. It might be that you're gonna fast from Facebook, so you're gonna do a social media fast, and you're gonna tell everybody about it by putting this thing on, or you post on Facebook or Instagram or whatever your poison is for social media.

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And actually, what do we have as a command from our Lord, New Testament, about fasting?

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The Lord Jesus Christ says, don't let other people know you're doing it. Wash your face.

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Look clean. Don't walk around looking all, you know, sickly.

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Actually, it's a private thing between you and the Lord, and that idea of fasting that Lent has, it ties to repentance.

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At least that's a form of a penance, you know, denying yourself for a desire you have tied to repentance that you can earn

41:58

God's grace. This is the tradition of the Catholic Church. And you have all of the major churches.

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The biggest SBC church in town. The biggest assembly in town. These are all seeker -sensitive churches, by the way,

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SBC or not. The Lutheran Church, Martin Luther would be rolling over in his grave to see this kind of partnership.

42:19

And so each week the congregation would go to one of their buildings, and one of those was going to the

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Roman Catholic Church, and then you would invite the Catholics to come to your congregation and have your congregations mingle, talking about repentance and fasting, an issue of soteriology, the doctrine of salvation.

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Disqualified. Absolutely disqualified. Enemies of the gospel. Enemies of the cross to partner in some way that we're being gracious or fun or, oh, we're just all brothers in Christ.

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Absolutely just deplorable. Enemies of the cross. Yet the biggest congregations in town.

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And I'm not making this video to pick on anyone. I know folks that watch this, or if it gets around,

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I'm not going to be the most popular guy in town, I understand that. I'm here in Laurel Bible Church.

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I'm trying to preach the gospel week in, week out. I'm preaching through the gospel of John.

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We are doing expository preaching. We are not here to build a large congregation. I don't want to have a goat farm.

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I am looking for God's people, and I trust in God's perfect timing that he will send his sheep, as I desire to be a faithful shepherd of his people.

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It's Christ's church. He is the head of the church. So we're going to honor Christ. We're going to honor the gospel.

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We're going to honor the word of God. And so that gives you a really big kind of broad picture about sort of like what we're up against.

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We are in a very dark, dark spiritual place in Laurel and Billings, Montana.

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Please pray for our congregation. And so I just want to end by pointing us to the word of God.

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And how do we think about this, the idea of being subject to government and who we should vote for that will further biblical principles and avoid tyranny in our country, which

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I think more than any time in the inception of the United States of America, we are looking at totalitarianism and tyranny in our land.

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And so we want to promote Christian principles and biblical principles, number one, of course.

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But we also want to put people in place that are Christians, who would believe in the word of God, that have some level of understanding of objective morality.

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There is good, there is evil. And so when we have a law, it's essentially enforcing a moral law.

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And so what do these moral laws come from? And I would argue that they need to come from the word of God, because the word of God is the only source of objective morality, right and wrong.

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So let me read to you the full context of Romans 13, which people love to look at the first few verses and say, oh, you need to take your

45:20

COVID shot. You need to close your church down, because if you don't, you're not in subjection to the governing authorities.

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Well, let's read this in context. I want to share with you some commentary from one of the

45:34

Reformers, and then I want to read a couple of posts online that I thought were very, very helpful thinking about this issue.

45:43

And you can think like, well, as a pastor of the church, am I supposed to be saying who I'm voting for? I have every right as a citizen of this country to say

45:51

I vote for a person or not. I'm not... this is going to be going on my social media.

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I won't post this from the church's Facebook, but I am the pastor of Laurel Bible Church. I'm a citizen of the

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United States of America, and I have every right to say who I'm voting for. As the pastor of the church,

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I'm not endorsing in a way. I don't support a certain candidate in terms of campaigning or financial stuff or anything like that.

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There are no restrictions against that. There are just some parameters and rules I have to follow, but I am free to express my political opinion.

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And so I want to do that as well to sort of help you think about that. So now I've sort of given you this big broad brush.

46:35

Here's what we're up against out here. Here's what it's like to be out here.

46:41

But let's think about this in terms of the tyranny that we see, the writing on the wall with Kamala Harris's statement that religious exemption will not be allowed for states to say we won't do abortion.

46:54

So Romans 13, the Apostle Paul writes to the church in Rome, and he's in the topic now as he's moved away from living a life of sacrifice and a life of holiness and not being conformed to the world, but actually being transformed by the renewing of your mind and living your life in a way that you're living a service, a sacrificial life in honor of Christ and his sacrificial death for you.

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As one of my professors would always say, you express your gratitude in the gospel by living your life like a thank -you letter to God, by loving him and loving others.

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So now Paul has just got done talking with that. He actually says in the last kind of logical flow of thought, don't be overcome by evil, but actually overcome evil with good.

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And this is what he says. He says every person...this is Romans 13...every person is to be in subjection to the governing authorities.

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And I'm reading out of the Legacy Standard Bible, so I have my Legacy Standard. I am a master's man, and so yeah,

47:53

I believe this is the best English translation. I would agree with Pastor John MacArthur out of the

47:58

Hebrew and Greek. Really solid, so if you don't have an LSB, buy one immediately. Really good translation.

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Paul says every person is to be in subjection to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except from God and those which exist have been appointed by God.

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Therefore whoever resists that authority has opposed the ordinance of God, and they who have opposed will receive condemnation upon themselves.

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For rulers are not a cause of fear for good behavior, but for evil. Do you want to have no fear of that authority?

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Do you do what is good, and you will have praise from the same. For it is a minister of God to you for good, but if you do what is evil, be afraid, for it does not bear the sword in vain, for it is a minister of God, an avenger who brings wrath on those who practice...on

48:55

the one who practices evil. So stop right there, this is up to verse 4. So wait a minute, the governing authorities are put in place as ministers of God to restrain evil in society, and so in order to take this passage and say, well

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I have to listen to the governing authorities and stop worship service, you'd have to say, well worshiping in the middle of this pandemic is evil, and so God has put these people in place to restrain me from the ability to worship

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God. Logically, you don't have to go to seminary, this is not...I

49:29

don't have to read a bunch of commentaries, just think about what it's saying, but that's just up to verse 4, let's keep reading.

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So because of that, Paul says in verse 5, therefore it is necessary to be in subjection, not only because of that wrath, but also because of conscience.

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Conscience. Will you betray your conscience? The ministers of God put in place to restrain evil in society.

49:59

He says, for because of this, you also pay taxes. For rulers are servants of God, devoting themselves to this very thing, and then he gets into the idea of our relationship with the state, what we owe them.

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He says, render to all what is due to them, tax to whom taxes due, custom to whom custom, fear to whom fear, honor to whom honor, owe nothing to anyone except to love one another, for he who loves his neighbor has fulfilled the law.

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Wow, so he's actually now tying the subjection to God's ministering authorities to restrain evil to what?

50:36

The Ten Commandments. Well, how do I know that? Because verse 9 says this, for this you shall not commit adultery, you shall not murder, you shall not steal, you shall not covet, and if there is any other commandment, it is summed up in this word, you shall love your neighbor as yourself.

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Love does not work evil against a neighbor, therefore love is the fulfillment of the law, and do this.

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Here's why we're doing this. Why do we live in a society that God has put police officers and ruling authorities to restrain evil?

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Why do we do this? He says, do this knowing the time, that it is already the hour for you to awaken from your sleep, for now salvation is nearer to us than when we believed.

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The night is almost gone and the day is at hand, therefore let us lay aside the deeds of darkness and put on the armor of light.

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Let us walk properly as in the day, not in carousing and drunkenness, not in sexual promiscuity and sensuality, not in strife and jealousy, but put on the

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Lord Jesus Christ and make no provision for the flesh in regard to its lusts.

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So being subject to the authorities in the government is not divorced and not separated from the

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Ten Commandments and the law of God, not according to the Apostle Paul. I'm not arguing for a theocracy, but I'm saying what the

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Bible says. Paul is making it clear that the governing authorities are not going to act in a way contrary to the moral law of God revealed in his

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Word. And so this is why we need to embrace these aspects of what it means to have

52:27

Christian ethics in our society, because here's the thing, if those principals in Laurel were

52:33

Christians, if those librarians were Christians, if some of the super superintendents...now

52:39

keep in mind I sort of didn't give you the the break ground of that book challenge. Five of the seven books got through.

52:45

Five of the seven books got through, and even the ones that didn't, or even the ones that didn't, it was not unanimous.

52:52

It was a five to two vote. Here's what I'm gonna say. I don't know for sure. I do know because some of them

52:57

I emailed and I heard back from them. Out of the seven -person panel, it was five to two.

53:03

What do you think are the odds that the five people who voted to remove that pornographic, disgusting stuff for children...so

53:11

you have adults giving gratuitous violence, explicit violence, sexually explicit material into the hands of minors, which is a violation of the state law of Montana.

53:21

It still happened. Happened in Laurel and it happened in Billings. Out of the five that voted to not have that happen, you think some of them were

53:29

Christians? You better believe they were. You better believe they were. And even if they weren't, these were people who have some idea of morality based on the biblical principles we have in the

53:43

Word of God. So whether they're believers or not, they're moving forward the biblical principles of morality that we need so desperately in our society, especially with this election.

53:57

And so I don't want to point the hope of our culture in a political person.

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That is certainly not what I'm saying. We have one hope and it's the Lord Jesus Christ.

54:07

He is sovereign over all of these things. He has told us in His Word what will happen at the end of the age and it seems like we are living in that time period.

54:17

And the writing is on the wall where we're...the freest country in the history of the world is turning away from freedom.

54:24

And the Democratic Republic that we started based on Christian principles from the founding fathers into this kind of tyranny that we see.

54:36

And even a political candidate in the United States of America is saying religious exemption will not be allowed.

54:44

It's tyrannical. And so I want to end by helping you think through...so

54:52

this was a lot longer than I thought. We're about an hour. So if you've made it this far, praise God. I hope, you know, this was helpful to you.

54:59

I want you to think about, you know, why you support a certain candidate?

55:05

Is that candidate in alignment with the biblical principles so clearly taught in the

55:12

Word of God? That's what I think you should be voting on. Not supporting abortion, the mutilation of children, teenagers, the broad acceptance of immorality and sin in the

55:24

LGBTQ community, open borders, and really important, the nation of Israel. And so those are just some of the things.

55:32

This isn't a one -vote issue. Biblical principles are being moved forward by one candidate versus the other, and that's clear.

55:43

And so let me just read a couple things. I thought these were really super, super helpful. I found these on Facebook.

55:51

One of the acquaintances, friends, I would say brother in Christ, not super close friend, but somebody that I, you know, can look at what he will post.

56:05

And so just a helpful brother, this person went to the Master's Seminary. So I want to read a couple of things to you.

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This was a post by a woman that I think might know him. I'm not sure, I don't know.

56:17

I won't say her name, but it's a woman that had posted something on his site, on his Facebook page.

56:22

And so this is what it says. I thought this was just so great. So the idea of voting, and so actually before I read this to you, so I'm going to read this person's post.

56:36

It's a female who posted on a friend of mine from the Master's Seminary who's also a pastor.

56:42

I want to read to you a couple of notes from a really well -known commentator named James Boyce, so you may recognize that name.

56:51

Some other things also posted on this site. So I want to try to anchor this in a biblical way. I thought that was really helpful.

56:59

I would also point to you, too, there's a pastor in Tennessee, Johnny Artavanis, I believe

57:06

I'm saying his name right, connected to TMS and TMU. I believe he was the assistant pastor, campus pastor for TMU.

57:12

I don't know him personally, but I've seen some clips that he's addressed politics. I actually shared a short five -minute clip on my

57:19

Facebook page. I would look for that, too. Johnny Artavanis, Pastors on Politics, or I forget the exact name.

57:26

Super helpful, and I thought that was a really kind of well -said thing that Pastor Johnny Artavanis had said.

57:34

But let me, yeah, as I just go back to my screen here, I want to just say, you know, when

57:41

I had initially posted who I would support as the president,

57:47

I had done it on our on our Facebook page, not thinking about it, because I have my own personal than the church's, and I put who

57:54

I support, and I had a bunch of people, probably over 70 people, the Liberals of Laurel, just attacking, saying, oh you're a pastor, oh we're gonna report you to the

58:04

IRS, we want to remove your exemption status, oh you're exempt, you don't pay taxes. I don't know where they're getting that, that as a pastor, as an employee of the church, that I'm tax -exempt.

58:15

I pay taxes. I think I paid like $15 ,000 in taxes last year. I'm an employee of the church, but I'm self -employed.

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I don't opt out of Social Security or Medicare. I have to pay into that. Normally it's like 7 .65

58:28

that the employee pays, and then the employer matches that. As a self -employed pastor of the church,

58:35

I pay both. So I pay 15 .3 into that. That comes out of my annual salary.

58:41

They were talking about our 501c status. So I had posted that saying who

58:47

I supported, and I had people from Laurel, Laurel, Montana, conservative Laurel, Montana, it's not, it's liberal

58:53

Laurel, attacking me, attacking the church, saying they were gonna report us to the IRS, sharing links to where they could report, because how dare a pastor say who he's going to vote for?

59:08

Not in an official way to campaign, support money, or I'm not a chairperson, I'm not on the campaign, just as a citizen of the country, as a citizen of the

59:17

United States. I happen to be a pastor, and I'm a Bible -believing Christian. I'm well within my rights to say who

59:25

I would like to vote for, but also I understand that, oh well, you should be promoting the gospel.

59:32

You should be talking about Christ. You should just be the gospel. You're outside your lane if you're gonna say who you're gonna vote for.

59:39

So for the people that say I don't have a right to express who

59:45

I'm going to vote for, I will honor that request, and I'm not gonna say who

59:52

I'm gonna vote for in this video. I want to read a couple Facebook posts to you, and then

59:57

I'll sign off and try to make this, I think we're just about an hour now. So I want to honor that, that charge, that accusation, that because I'm a pastor

01:00:07

I don't have a right, I don't get to have a voice to say who I'm gonna vote for. So I want to honor that completely, and I'm not gonna say in this video who

01:00:15

I'm gonna vote for. Let me just read to you a couple of Facebook posts, and then

01:00:20

I think that will be helpful for you to understand. Alright, let's read those posts.

01:00:27

And so let me just pull them up, have them loaded right here. Let's see here.

01:00:33

Yeah, the first I thought was just really well said, so this is a lady that had posted on my friend's

01:00:38

Facebook page. This was a recent post, October 15th. She said, do you know that one in three

01:00:46

Christians do not vote consistently, some arguing that a Christian's involvement in politics is somehow out of line with following Jesus, yet Jesus declared his followers to be salt and light in every arena, including government, which was after all instituted by God.

01:01:07

Lest we forget, Daniel and Joseph were top officials in government. John the

01:01:12

Baptist openly opposed the evil governing authority and is commended by Jesus as the greatest among the prophets.

01:01:20

And she's citing the Gospel of Matthew chapter 11 verse 11. We extol the brave Christians who have risen in opposition to the evil policies of their governments.

01:01:33

Wilberforce or Bonhoeffer, these are some historical folks she's referencing, foremost among them.

01:01:41

Wilberforce and Bonhoeffer. And who of us doesn't look back with unbelief and great dismay at the difference and political non -engagement of most

01:01:50

German Christians and English American believers during the years of slave trade and Holocaust?

01:01:56

Fair question. Then as now, the answer to the question remains the same.

01:02:02

What does God require of us? To act justly, love mercy, and walk humbly with him?

01:02:11

Providentially, we live in a nation where, among other things, acting justly, loving mercy, and quote, doing good in Babylon, looks like voting.

01:02:20

Voting for the option that best stems the tide of great evil. Remember Romans 13, restraining evil in society.

01:02:29

So she's saying voting for the best option that stems the tide of great evil.

01:02:35

Voting to oppose a radical party representing everything

01:02:40

God hates. And quote, a demonic death cult under the influence of Satan.

01:02:47

And so there she's quoting Pastor Johnny Artavanis. Thought that was well said.

01:02:53

Politics is part and parcel of the God -ordained institution of government, where, quote, where Christians have the greatest opportunity to advocate for our neighbors being treated justly and righteously.

01:03:08

Again, Romans 13, love your neighbor. All of those commandments that is loving your neighbor, and that's tied to the magistrates, the ministers of God who have been put in a place to restrain evil in society.

01:03:23

So I'll read that again. Quote, where Christians have the greatest opportunity to advocate for our neighbors being treated justly and righteously.

01:03:33

She's quoting Pastor Chris Leduc. And Pastor Chris, I hope I'm saying your last name right.

01:03:40

TMS brother. She says, there is no justification for not voting when amongst the many evils of the current

01:03:48

Biden -Harris administration is the sexualization, mutilization, mutilation of children, unchecked slave trade at our borders.

01:03:58

That's a good point. You think about open borders and the sexual trafficking stuff. Oh, absolutely deplorable.

01:04:04

How do you love your neighbor and allow that or not vote against that? She says, and paving the way to bureaucrats to take gender -confused children from, quote, non -affirming parents.

01:04:15

This is the idea that the parents don't have a right anymore. The state has taken the place of the parent.

01:04:22

Excellent point she makes. She says, Christians have a duty to use their vote as a righteous outcry.

01:04:29

As always, the results are God's. So I like the way she ended that there, kind of pointing back to God's sovereignty.

01:04:35

And I think that matches up with what Pastor George Crawford at Grace Community Church said, and Pastor Mike Riccardi.

01:04:43

Again, I would commend to you the Q &A men of the word.

01:04:49

Really helpful, very biblical. So I want to share with you two things that a pastor from TMS has shared.

01:04:56

I'm just gonna read them to you. This is from James Montgomery Boyce, a really well - scholar,

01:05:04

I think is fair to say. This is what he said on tyranny. I'll read you two quotes from James Boyce and we'll sign off.

01:05:11

James Boyce said this, quote, government cannot develop morality. This is on tyranny.

01:05:18

He says, when I say this, I'm sure you understand that the key word is develop. It is not that the government is unconcerned with morality.

01:05:25

Indeed, morality is the only valid basis for the law. If the government passes a law against stealing and enforces it with the sword, the only valid basis for that act is that stealing is wrong.

01:05:39

If it is not wrong, then the act of government is tyranny, an unjust and intolerable restriction of freedom.

01:05:47

If it is wrong, then the government is acting properly. It is the same with all laws.

01:05:52

The only valid basis for any law is a previously existing morality.

01:05:58

I thought that was wonderful. James Boyce, knocking it out of the park, said that a long time ago, too.

01:06:05

And then so as we think about Romans 13, who we're gonna vote for, and moving along biblical principles, loving our neighbor, restraining evil in society, remember the context, not divorced from God's law.

01:06:17

He said this on the responsibility to the state, and this is specifically the Christians' responsibility to the state.

01:06:24

So I think this is helpful, and we'll land the plane here. He said, My fourth point deserves separate treatment, for it is one we especially need to hear.

01:06:33

Since the state has been established by God, and it is responsible to God, this is true whether or not the state exists in an age of spiritual depth and morality.

01:06:42

Certainly, we can see that in our time. Very relevant and poignant. Romans 13. Christians must remind the state of this ultimate responsibility.

01:06:52

We speak in America of government deriving its powers from the consent of the governed, but there is more to it than that.

01:07:01

Government derives its authority from God and is responsible to God. Our role is to remind the state of that fact and challenge it to operate accordingly.

01:07:11

Can we? Will we? Not as we are presently living, for self and substance.

01:07:21

We can do it only as we are first possessed by the Lord Jesus Christ and determined to follow him at whatever cost.

01:07:29

In another writing, I speak of these three necessities. First, we must fix in our minds that God is truly sovereign in human affairs, including affairs of state.

01:07:41

Second, we must know the Bible and its teachings. The reason for this is that one may be willing to do the right thing and yet not know what the right thing is, since the issues are not always black and white, but gray.

01:07:56

We can respond to such situations properly only when we know what Scripture teaches.

01:08:02

Third, we must be willing to surrender everything, even life itself, if that is necessary.

01:08:10

Nothing is achieved by those who refuse to sacrifice. Our self -indulgent age desperately needs to learn that, but it will not learn it from the state, which sacrifices nothing.

01:08:23

As a moral force, the state is destitute. The world can learn sacrifice only from Christians who have learned it from their

01:08:32

Lord. James Montgomery Boyce. So good. I thought that was really helpful.

01:08:38

So as I conclude, I want to thank you for sticking with me. Just a local pastor in Laurel, Montana, sharing his thoughts on the election, on politics, and I think a right understanding of God's Word is the compass that guides our path.

01:08:55

It's light in the darkness. It is a lamp that guides our feet, and so may we rightly think about things in the sovereignty of God, the gospel of grace, and the

01:09:07

Lord Jesus Christ, and voting for the person who is going to more likely move along biblical principles and cooperate, even unknowingly, even unintentionally, to cooperate with God in putting magistrates in place that restrain evil in society and correlate with the moral law revealed in the

01:09:35

Word of God. So I hope that's helpful for you, Christian. I do want to just encourage you that no matter what happens in the election,

01:09:46

God is sovereign. Our God is a living God. Jesus Christ is alive, and so God is on his throne.

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He is sovereign over all of these events, and all of these things are moving along in human history to that great day that we have, that God has set on his calendar, that we have waiting for us, the day of glory where we are transformed after his own glory, and so we await the return of our

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Lord and Savior. And in the meantime, we should vote with a clear conscience to put magistrates in power that will restrain evil in society, that correlate with God's revealed moral law in the

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Ten Commandments and what his Word says. And so that's what I would ask you to do as a

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Christian, and just know that you have a friend here in Pastor Rob, and so yeah, please feel free to comment on this video, and you can go to laurelbiblechurch .net.

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The contact form there comes straight to me, so please feel free to reach out. I'd love to pray for you and get to know you, and yeah, let's trust in the

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Lord in these turbulent times, and reveal that we have a real hope in us, that we can give a defense for the hope of salvation that we have in us as we see the turbulent election that's about to take place.