Vote!

PROVERBS 14:34 Righteousness exalts a nation, But sin is a reproach to any people

PROVERBS 29:2 When the righteous are in authority, the people rejoice; But when a wicked man rules, the people groan

The title of this sermon is ’Why didn’t somebody do something?’ I took this from a story we heard at a conference that Pastor Rhonda and I attended this week. Most of you know we attended the ’Pastor’s briefing’ conference in Austin and we had a wonderful time. It was very moving and very motivating, and I want to share some things with you here this morning that I pray gets us all motivated!

Former Pres. candidate Mike Huckabee spoke Thurs night about a trip that he took his family on back in 1992 to Israel. His daughter was about 12 at the time, and they had gone to a museum about the Holocaust. As they moved from various display to display, picture to picture, he said he was watching his daughter to see how it was effecting her. We all would.. after all, most (I hope all) of our children didn’t grow up with that kind of behavior, or even dream those kinds of things could happen. Things like that don’t happen in our own little world....

Anyway, he observed her as she looked closely at the exhibits. It was hard to read what she was thinking and he, like all parents would, wondered what was going on in there. Sometime pastor Rhonda will ask me what I’m thinking and I say ’nothing’. She has a hard time believing that I guess because she always says ’you HAVE to be thinking something!’ Listen, this is for you wives/girlfriends....when a man says he’s not thinking, you should take that literally! I don’t know why you find that so hard to believe...you accuse us of that anyway!

Gov Huckabee said he couldn’t get a read on her until right at the end, where there was a ’visitors’ sign in book that had a place for comments. He said she took his pen from his pocket and wrote their names in the book....and then he watched as she wrote in the comments ’why didn’t somebody do something?’ That’s a good question, isn’t it? I pray that after today we all realize that ’somebody’ needs to be us! Now!

You might be saying to yourself ’preach’a! don’t go a-mixing religion and politics now...you know...there’s separation of church and state!’ Well, actually...there’s not! And the purpose of today’s sermon is not to tell you who to vote for...just to tell you that it’s your duty as a christian and an American to vote....and encourage others to do the same.

’Look, preach’a...we don’t want the church to get too political!’ We don’t? Did you know that if our founding fathers had taken that attitude, we probably we still be speaking English in this country...oh, yeah, we DO speak English...I mean English with that funny accent! I want to share some things that we learned and I pray that you get as excited about this coming election as I am!

Do you know that in England, the beginnings of the American Revolution was called the ’Black Regiment’. Why? Because of the black robes that preachers wore in those days. The pastors were preaching truth from the pulpits, and the church of England tried to shut them down...tell them what to preach. Censor the church...hmmm....

Ask anybody what the Revolutionary War was about and they’ll tell you...’taxation without representation’...and they are partially right. But listed in the Declaration of Independence (which is been used as the longest ever document for a government/nation) eleven times more often than taxes is the abuse of representative powers. The abuse of military powers is listed 7 times as often, and the abuse of judicial powers 4 times. Taxation without representation was simply grievance #17 out of 27...listed alongside the colonies problems with immigration and foreign trade.

In 1762 America tried to establish a missionary program to the Indians. King George III vetoed it because he thought it would compete with the church. Most any attempt to start a missionary society, or Bible study society, or even Sunday School was squelched by the King. Founding father Charles Carroll and Samuel Adams, both signers of the Declaration, cited religious freedom as the reason they joined the revolution. Remember, the government WAS the church and the church was the government.

Separation of church and state...that sounds like a good idea, huh? Founding Fathers didn’t think so. As a matter of fact, whenever elections were approaching pastors would publish their ’election sermon’ which was then sent for all to read. These sermons would usually speak to the relationship of government and God’s law...and make sure that both were in agreement. Many of these documents are still around and they were preached to our founding Fathers! Many have their names on them!