Evangelical Leaders on Voting - Demonstrable Hatred

So last week I started off the week very focused on something in particular and I admit that I got distracted that's my bad

I shouldn't get distracted by nonsense especially when we've got an election coming up and we've got to be laser focused over the last next week or so on on whatever it is that we're attempting to do

I've got a bunch of stuff that I need to be focused on not just the election of course but you know I run another business and all that kind of stuff anyway let's jump into it today because the beginning of last week

I was focused on this idea of voting Democrat and how that should be a church disciplinable offense that should be something that if you don't repent of that you ought to be excommunicated and so I issued a challenge and I borrowed this challenge from actually a

Jonathan Lehman nine marks article where in that article he makes the case that there are some political parties that exist pretty much exclusively to do evil and so it would be a sin and an excommunicatable offense for someone to support a party like that and in the article he mentions the

KKK and the Nazi Party I would agree with both of those things I think that both of those parties exist primarily to do evil there might be some small redeeming qualities here or there of something that they want to do that is actually good but by and large they exist pretty much to do evil and so I would say if you're claiming the name of Christ and you're intending on voting for the

KKK party in an election or the Nazi Party or something like that that that should be something that you should be called to repentance for and if you don't repent you should be removed from the

Assembly of Christ you don't you no longer have the the the right to call yourself a Christian that's what

I would say now I would apply that also though to the Democratic Party because if you look at the

Democratic Party platform which we've been doing over the last few weeks you will see that almost to the point every part of that platform is evil they are saying look we are a party that is gathered together to do these list of things and when you look at that list it's pretty much exclusively evil even if you go just by like body count and stuff like that like there's so much more death caused by the

Democratic Party's policies than by the KKK parties but so it's actually worse than the

KKK the Holocaust of abortion is way worse than the evil murders and stuff like that that the

KKK did they're both bad but let's just be honest if you just go by a strict body count it's clearly worse and so I issued a challenge

I said hey guys anyone who thinks it's crazy to excommunicate your Democrats be

Christians who claim the name of Christ that are voting Democrat explain to me what the difference is what's the principle that you're using to make it okay for like the

KKK and the Nazi Party but not okay for the Democratic Party because I have a sneaking suspicion that basically the only difference is that a lot of your friends are

Democrats right now and it would look very bad to excommunicate Democrats from the church in fact

Phil Vischer said this exact thing he claimed that well pretty much you know black people just pretty much vote for Democrats and so if you excommunicated them what you're saying is that there's no room for black people in Christ and no that's not what we're saying and see the thing is guys like Phil Vischer they're obsessed with optics right let's just say that all

Latinos were voting for Democrats except for me I would have the same opinion because for me it's not about optics it's about what's right and so if it's wrong to vote for Democrats which

I argue that it is because the entire platform is evil from top to bottom all they want to do is evil if it's wrong for for someone to do that then it doesn't matter what their skin color is it doesn't matter if it's if it's black or Latinos or Asians or whatever it's always wrong because I'm not a partial person so to me it's not about the optics of the situation it's about what's right and so you know

I issued that challenge and honestly I did not expect very many people to take it up because I don't think there really is a good argument to make the difference between voting

KKK and voting Democrat you know you can you can look at the platform from top to bottom and there's a lot of evil in both and so if it's good for the goose then it's definitely good for the gander so I didn't expect many people to provide any kind of response but I did get a few people that did respond and they responded in a similar way that really to me seemed like a non -argument like I didn't understand why they were responding that way but I really want to understand right and so I thought about it a lot and I think

I might have figured it out so the response goes something like this they say look ad what you don't understand is that people vote for certain candidates or parties for very different reasons they don't always just vote for a certain party because of abortion

I know that you're obsessed with abortion ad but not everybody's obsessed with abortion we're looking at the entire platform and we don't always necessarily vote for that platform for the same reasons that you do so everyone has different reasons for voting and you can't just excommunicate people because they choose someone differently than you the other thing that that they'll typically say is that like you know church disciplinable offenses are few and far between it's not just any sin and so the thing is like you can't just say this kind of sin is is different it's not a church disciplinable offense furthermore

I'm not even sure if it is sin to desire the Democratic Party platforms to be to be accomplished in Toto there might be there might be you know sort of some things that you would do differently but I'm not even sure that's a church disciplinable offense prove to me that that all sins are church disciplinable offenses and then maybe we can talk but until you do until you show me the verse that says that the voting for a platform is is is a church disciplinable offense and you can't say that it is and so therefore be quiet ad and I couldn't understand why they were responding in that way for for one

I mean obviously I know that people vote for different reasons but my point is that if you support if you desire a party to accomplish evil which

I would say that the Democratic Party tells you they're going to accomplish evil and then goes and does it if you desire that party to be empowered so they can accomplish their evil goals

I would say that that's that's that's a clearly a sin right like like whatever the reasoning that you give you in your own mind like desiring evil ends is itself evil so I don't care what the reasons are nobody's offered even one reason that's legitimate to to to vote for Democrats and so that's weird furthermore

I'm not saying that everyone has to agree with me on who I'm going to vote for I think there are totally legitimate options out there for people to vote you don't have to vote

Republican you don't have to vote for Donald Trump but one thing you cannot do is vote for a party that exists primarily to do evil that doesn't that's a non -starter for a

Christian so there's definitely at least one party the Democratic Party that you cannot vote for but I'm not saying who you need to vote for so that's that's the other thing but then

I started thinking about sort of what's what's sort of the reasoning behind this right like why are they saying that they're not even sure that this is a church even if it was a sin it's not a church disciplinable offense why is that why is desiring to put into power because a vote is is nothing more than expressing your desires you know in action right so when you do when you vote for Joe Biden Biden you are expressing your desire that he become the president right you're wanting him to become president and presumably you want some of his activities that he's told you he's going to go and do you want those to be enacted my argument is all of those activities are evil so when you're desiring that Joe Biden be empowered in order to do evil than you are in desiring to do evil that's that's my argument and so why is that not why would that not be a church disciplinable offense because I've had a lot of people say

I think you're right I think it is sinful to vote Democrat in fact Jonathan Lehman says this he thinks it's sinful to vote

Democrat yet he doesn't think it's a church disciplinable offense why is there a disconnect there and I started thinking about this and I thought about it for a while and obviously

I don't know the exact answer because I'm not inside everybody's head but I think that there has been a pervasive idea that has been spreading amongst evangelicals for a very long time and it's coming out more and more regularly and I think it's all connected to the revoice conference do you remember the revoice conference where they're trying to kind of recast how we think about homosexuality and homosexual behavior one of there's a lot of problems with the revoice conference but one of the problems is sort of like a disconnect they're trying to build a wall between the desire for another man if you're a man or another woman if you're a woman and the actions of actually you know trying to join them in union marry them have sex with them or something like that and so they're trying to build this this wall where you can say okay

I'm a gay Christian because I desire other men but I've never acted on it so I'm okay so the desire itself isn't a sin because by the way

God gave me that desire and and it's it has to be right good and holy because God gave me that desire not everybody says this by the way but a but a number of them do and so there's there's a wall between the desire itself and the action so somebody can get up on stage and say

I'm a gay pastor and not be church discipline because there's a difference between the desire which is good right and holy or maybe it's disordered but it's not your fault so it's like they'll say maybe it's like maybe it's it's not right but it's not wrong either it's just it just is it's just a thing that is and I and so there's like a disconnect there between the desire to do evil and the evil itself and this is very hard to understand for most conservative

Christians because we know that our Lord has said that that that disconnect that that's actually not real you know what

I mean like that's actually not real like if you lust in your heart after a woman if you desire a woman that that's not your wife that's the sin of adultery now you it's not the crime of adultery we couldn't execute justice upon you we couldn't convict you of adultery on the evidence of two or more witnesses it's it's a different kind of sin but it is a sin right if you hate your brother in your heart we heard from the words of our

Lord like that hatred is the sin of murder it's it's a different kind we couldn't execute justice on you on the evidence of two or more witnesses not a crime but it's a sin you've committed murder if you hate your brother in your heart there's no disconnect between the desire and the action right that's the thing and so when we think about the desire to empower

Joe Biden to accomplish his wickedness whether it's the abortion issue or whether it's stealing from some people to give charity to others welfare programs progressive tax rates carbon credits destroying industries whatever it is whatever the evil that they want to accomplish is when you express your vote to desire to empower him to do that evil that desire itself is a sin it is church disciplinable it's not that it's not as bad as it could be you could be the literal ones doing the stealing right you could be the one who steals from some and gives to poor people that would be a worse sin that would be something we could execute justice on of course but the desire for the sin is a sin so when

Greg Johnson gets up and says I'm a gay pastor because I have a desire for other men he should be church disciplined for that he should be defrocked for that because the desire itself must be mortified

I'm not saying it's easy to do this because everyone has sinful desires you know yourself you know yourself better than I know you

I don't have to tell you that you have to sinful desires that you think about and that are in your heart and there they feel like they're just there because sin is so pervasive in us and we must defeat it we must rule over it right we know that I hate my sin

I hate that I hate my sinful desires and I hope that you do as well the thing is though that like we can't have this disconnect this wall because I'm thinking to myself why are people saying that this is somehow not a sin that is church disciplinable especially because it goes beyond the desire because here's the thing guys like let's just be honest like desiring sinful policies is one thing but going and voting for someone to be empowered to do those sinful policies that actually crosses the line into action right so with this it doesn't even make sense in the first place but I think that that the the idea that there's kind of a wall between the desire and the sin itself that is something that expresses itself in revoice for sure and I think it's expressing itself in this whole situation with voting like how can

Jonathan Lehman say that it's a sin to vote Democrat but I won't confront you about it and I won't church discipline you about it like how much does somebody have to hate you to allow you to continue in sin if somebody is doing a sin and saying expressing themselves their desires in an action in an action they're expressing their desires and you think you're a pastor my goodness you're a pastor and you think it's a sinful desire that's being expressed in a sinful action how much do you have to hate them to not confront them to start church discipline and the way you start church discipline is to confront them and say hey brother you're doing this thing you ought not to do this thing let me explain why like like if you won't even do that like how much do you have to hate someone it's it's just really it's really hard to understand but I think that whatever

I haven't really thought through this all the way but I think whatever is driving the revoice error that I just described where you can be a gay pastor but not get defrocked because the desire for gayness isn't as bad as the gayness itself it's not really a church disciplinable thing besides it could be holy whatever's driving that disconnect is also driving this disconnect here where we have tons of pastors that'll say

I wouldn't vote for a Democrat I think it's sinful but I'll come to the table with you and I won't confront you in fact

I'll write article after article after article soothing your conscience the same way that they write articles about the revoice conference saying we'll track a and track

B inside a inside B by the way we're still figuring this out it wasn't that Tim Challies who's like yeah we're still figuring this out you know it could be legitimate it's like man if you if you know better and you're not confronting your brother you really ought to think about that what the definition of hate and love is you really ought to think about that anyway let me know what you think about this in the comment section below I hope you found this video helpful