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Joshua called together the leaders of Israel and challenged them to finish the work of establishing the Jews in the Promised Land.  He admonished them,

“…choose you this day whom ye will serve; whether the gods which your fathers served…or the gods of the Amorites…but as for me and my house, we will serve the LORD.”

(Joshua 24:15)

The nations around them worshipped (through their idols, Psalm 106:37) a god—satan—which produced a dictator for their civil government.  God, our true Creator, had given to the Jews, through Moses, a government where the people chose their rulers through elections.  The first form of government enslaved the people to their king, the dictator; God’s form of government enslaved the government servants to the people, the citizens, giving to the people in government only specifically written powers which they could exercise over them (we call that a “Constitution”).  The nations around them had a dictatorship for their form of government; the Jews had a republic for their form of government.  And the Jews experienced, through their republic, more liberty and justice for their citizens than any nation had ever experienced up unto that time.

This is one of the things that makes voting such an important act.  We will always be choosing more enslavement or more liberty when we cast our vote because we will always be choosing a form of government.  A candidate’s idea of why government exists, what is the structure of government, and what is the spirit in which government should operate, is going to cause them, once in office, to pass laws which agree with their ideas.  So when you vote you are really voting for the way a candidate thinks.  The Bible says, as a man “…thinketh in his heart, so is he.” (Proverbs 23:7)  Thus, your candidate’s thinking is going to produce a certain kind of government.  In short, it will produce more liberty or it will produce more slavery for the citizens.

As believers in Christ, we have been born again and have experienced the “liberty” which Christ’s Spirit creates inside us when He forgives our sin and removes the guilt of that sin (2 Corinthians 5:17).  If we allow that liberty to grow to its farthest reach, it will produce in our culture a civil government which will (with its law) protect the teaching and the funding of that Gospel of Christ, which produces even more liberty.  But the only form of government which will protect the right to share the Gospel of Christ is a republic.  A “republic” is a form of government where the people choose representatives from among themselves to make law and the people agree that all must obey that law.  Thus, for that law to be just for all, it must be based on Biblical moral concepts. Otherwise it is illegitimate law, and will enslave the citizens.

On election day, by choosing local city council members right on through the President, you will be choosing in each one an idea of government that will either enslave you or let you—and more importantly your children—walk in liberty:  Which means you’ll be choosing for your children whether they get to hear and walk in the Gospel of Jesus Christ in public!

So will the government servant be the servant?  Or will you, the citizen, be the slave?  That depends on your ability to discern how a candidate thinks, and on your courage to vote for the one who thinks most Biblically.  Choose you this day whom you will serve:  God or government!

Think about it; because if you don’t, someone else will do your thinking for you—and for your children!  And you won’t like what that brings to you.  I’m Don Pinson; this has been Think About It.