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The Historic Faith
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Lesson 7 of 7

Should Christians Pray for Specific Election Outcomes or Legislation?

The Historic Faith The Historic Faith

Lesson Transcript

All right. So the next questions are regarding praying for specific leaders. So one of the often it's not an uncommon teaching in scripture to speak of praying or respecting or honoring the king. And so we have several questions regarding prayer for leaders or prayer for nations. I'm not going to read all of them. I'm going to post several of them here. And hopefully we can kind of get some practical direction of a worthwhile effort for the Christian within the context of political leaders.

Grant Miller asked, " I spoke a man I spoke to a man recently who told me he is praying Trump will win the election. This made me wonder, when we pray for our nation, should we pray that a specific person wins? Should we pray that certain pieces of legislation get passed? Another question by Charlton Sweezy that I think sums that up in a different sense is what is wrong with the statement? We don't vote, but we pray Republican.

And then Charles Hood is looking for maybe just your own experience with praying for leaders. I'm not looking for a word for word prayer to recite. Rather, I'm looking for some godly principles to help guide such prayers regarding praying for leaders of the land. Yeah, it's a great question, Charles. I appreciate that. Again, I honestly think that the fundamental problem is not having enough confidence in your, you know, in your own kingdom, the kingdom of God and its answers to this.

You know, I like the phrase, if it wasn't so true, is it okay to, what does he say, accept God's will for president, but yet to pray Republican. You know, how someone prayers of God puts a burden on your heart to pray for a particular agenda or issue or something, you know, I don't think David and I are kind of, you know, come and say that there's something wrong with that per se.

But again, what I've seen over and over again and from my experience of spending basically almost 28 or 29 years in the Kingdom and Anabaptist world is to see so much of this is a leaven that leads the wrong way. And it's bizarre to me how we get caught into it. Typically, and particularly in Anabaptist history, it has a longer legacy of this. Getting involved in conservative politics, fundamentalism, and things like this has repeatedly taken the Anabaptists off course into some pretty bad areas.

If we get into it, I have some slides prepared to show and some different things like that to see that. And it starts from this. I mean, you can see it happening historically, you can see it happening where people just get involved, involved, involved with supporting this. The thing that I have noticed that many times, maybe not even most times, the Antichrist comes from the right.

Now, that doesn't mean in any way that we should condone the left and their anti-Christian attitudes or whatever, but the Antichrist comes as an angel of light. It comes with the vocabulary of things. And when we start getting involved with that and starting to think this is the way to go, it just doesn't come out right. Let me just give you a quick, I have a slide here. So let me pull this up. So let me share this slide.

And this was written by the Mennonites in Germany about 1938, I think, or something, when they were hearing some very good things that were coming from Hitler. And so they really were getting excited about this. They were getting, you know, you know thinking this was the way to go. And the background's made up, but just this is the part that's real. But he says, " With greatest excitement, we German Mennonites of the Paraguay and Chaco follow the oh, I'm sorry, this is the one in Paraguay.

This is the same time I have another one from the Prussian Mennonites. This was the group from let me make sure that's another one. This is from Paraguay. With the greatest excitement, we German Mennonites of the Paraguay and Chaco follow the events in our beloved Motherland and experience in spirit the national revolution of the German people. We are happy that in Germany, after a long time, a government that freely and openly professes God as Creator stands at the head of the nation.

With special sympathy, we hear that our current government takes seriously the realization of Christian principles in social, economic, and cultural life, and especially emphasizes the protection of the family. Sorry. And so it goes on, this is the one in a telegram written September 10th, 1933, representing the sentiments of the Church Council. Here's another one.

To Chancellor Adolf Hitler, Berlin, the Conference of East and West Prussian Mennonites assembled today and Hergenhagen, sorry if I butchered that, Free State of Danzig, feels deep gratitude for the powerful revival that God has given our nation through your energy and promised joyful cooperation in the upbuilding of our Fatherland through the power of the gospel. Faithful to the motto of our forefathers, no other foundation can anyone lay than that which is laid, which is in Jesus Christ.

And you know what I say on here is that I don't think Hitler probably had time to answer every telegram, but this one he did. For your loyalty, this is to the Mennonites, and your readiness to cooperate in the upbuilding of the German nation, expressed in your letter to me, I express my sincere thanks, Adolf Hitler. So the thing is this, is that, of course, well, yeah, they didn't know. They didn't know what was going on and all these things, and I have a lot more I could show you with all that.

That's the point, is that this language that they woo us and to get us into their camps, makes us end up supporting, vocally supporting an Antichrist. And I think you could perhaps under frame this into what's happening today. And we could end up the kingdom Christians supporting an Antichrist. And then when it comes out, we're left there with egg on our face. And if you look to see that, and it wasn't just the Mennonites, all the conservative Christians of Germany did this.

When you read Bonhoeffer's biography and you hear what's happening with the Confessing Church and how many people Bonhoeffer lost to Hitler constantly. After all that was over, look at the devastation that happened in Europe of radical Christianity. It was done. And so, or not completely done. So with that, I would just say that this is a grave mistake for us to just a grave warning for us to watch out of us praying Republican as we start getting involved with these different things. Now, that was great.

I appreciate you having those slides, Dean. It's scary. What can happen when we get involved in politics, thinking we're going to use that to usher in godly things. I would probably just add to that. Satan appears as an angel of light in both directions, left or right. The whole left-wing political party here in the United States, political parties, I should say. It started with the churches, the social gospel of the 1800s, is what ushered in the whole thing. And it sounded so good.

We're going to bring in the kingdom of God using the government to do it and all of these wonderful programs. And in the end, where has it ended up? Well, one thing, it's ended up with abortion that a million unborn babies a year here in the United States are killed every year. I mean, it dwarfs anything that Hitler and these other people did. And that comes from the left. And so it's like choose your poison. Either side, both sides present themselves as angels of light. I think Satan is equally behind both sides.

And so yeah, we don't want to be voting or praying Republican. I don't think we want to be voting or praying Democratic. I mean, these are both just two sides of Satan's kingdom. And Satan doesn't care which one he ensnares you in. He's got you either way you go.

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