why you must vote for Huckabee

[mccarty]

I decided to remove my comments after further reflection.

 

[Nadiine]

Whoever gets in is God's person - whether it's for good, or for judgment of that nation or to be used to bring judgment on others. It's in God's hands!

(nevermind that we happen to BE His "hands and feet" on the earth and we work to help accomplish His good pleasure and will)???

 

[mccarty]

I decided to remove my comments after further reflection.

 

[Nadiine]

Nadiine, perhaps you solved the mystery question right there, maybe it's that simple.

it's that simple to me... lol

We might as well say, "well, God doesn't NEED our money - He's capable all by Himself to do everything"... but He gets it done THRU our willingness to give (sometimes sacrifically) - that's the SYSTEM we're in & that's how it works.

We are His vehicles to use down here in the physical sense to get His will accomplished. (vessels).
Removing myself from the process is hardly my ideal of service to the Lord.

 

[mccarty]

I decided to remove my comments after further reflection.

 

[Gregged]

(nevermind that we happen to BE His "hands and feet" on the earth and we work to help accomplish His good pleasure and will)???

Um... yes Nadiine... to spread the Gospel!

Ro 10:15 And how shall they preach, except they be sent? as it is written, How beautiful are the feet of them that preach the gospel of peace, and bring glad tidings of good things!

If people followed the first two commandments then we wouldn't even need politics! Which is greater? Prayer or politics Which is done more in the Dominionist agenda?

If Jesus was here as He was 2000 years ago, which would he tell the church to do? Spend their time sending letters, protesting etc... or praying? What would Jesus preach from the pulpit? Politics, or the Gospel? What would He be on the streets doing? Handing out party propoganda or giving people the Good News?

There are a number of things, Dominionism is one, which have made the church go away from what it should be doing - yet because it's moved in slowly over time and it appears good and right, it's accepted as being good and right. Like a frog in a slowly heating up pan of water.

 

[MrJim]

Than I guess the answer really is to isolate His Name and the Faith as far from the political circus as possible. That would only make sense, wouldn't it.

Well, if that's all He wants, I gladly submit because that's what the heart itself would attest to, to simply not be concerned with such things in the first place.

I see it less as isolation as simply being about the Father's work in spite of the the political circus. Brothers and sisters in America tend to identify themselves more with their political affiliations than with the church of God universal. We live in a very corrupted world and it is in everything-and I've little faith in political and corporate machinations~yet as Solomon said, there is nothing new under the sun. Things could be better, could be worse, but as the elect, as children of the Most High God His work must continue~and there is enough that we are to do without having to immerse ourselves in the system if we are not called to do it.

If you find yourself with two unacceptable choices, look for a third way, it will be there...

 

[Nadiine]

Um... yes Nadiine... to spread the Gospel!



If people followed the first two commandments then we wouldn't even need politics! Which is greater? Prayer or politics Which is done more in the Dominionist agenda?

If Jesus was here as He was 2000 years ago, which would he tell the church to do? Spend their time sending letters, protesting etc... or praying? What would Jesus preach from the pulpit? Politics, or the Gospel? What would He be on the streets doing? Handing out party propoganda or giving people the Good News?

There are a number of things, Dominionism is one, which have made the church go away from what it should be doing - yet because it's moved in slowly over time and it appears good and right, it's accepted as being good and right. Like a frog in a slowly heating up pan of water.

What better way to spread the GOSPEL than to try to elect people who best represent the gospel! I'm sure leaving the secular population to elect people like Nero & other antichrist sympathetics who work AGAINST truth of God isn't the best climate for spreading the gospel as they help promote EVIL....

No we sure can't know who will be the best candidate, but we can know their values and the general positions they hold & if they're open to righteousness.

I vote every election and until God dissallows me from doing so, I'll continue. I'm His vessel and I have a hand in trying to keep out WORSE candidates that I know don't hold Godly values or want conservative judges in place which directly affect this nation.

(where does God tell you NOT to vote??)

 

[MrJim]

What better way to spread the GOSPEL than to try to elect people who best represent the gospel! I'm sure leaving the secular population to elect people like Nero & other antichrist sympathetics who work AGAINST truth of God isn't the best climate for spreading the gospel as they help promote EVIL....

No we sure can't know who will be the best candidate, but we can know their values and the general positions they hold & if they're open to righteousness.

I vote every election and until God dissallows me from doing so, I'll continue. I'm His vessel and I have a hand in trying to keep out WORSE candidates that I know don't hold Godly values or want conservative judges in place which directly affect this nation.

(where does God tell you NOT to vote??)

You are falling into the trap that we control our destiny~our Sovereign God appoints rulers, not us.

Funny you should mention Nero...when Paul wrote Romans 13, about submitting to rulers and that they are appointed by God, Nero was Paul's ruler...yet Paul was satisfied to say:

Romans 13:1 Let every person be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God. 2 Therefore whoever resists the authorities resists what God has appointed, and those who resist will incur judgment. 3 For rulers are not a terror to good conduct, but to bad. Would you have no fear of the one who is in authority? Then do what is good, and you will receive his approval, 4 for he is God's servant for your good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for he does not bear the sword in vain. For he is the servant of God, an avenger who carries out God's wrath on the wrongdoer. 5 Therefore one must be in subjection, not only to avoid God's wrath but also for the sake of conscience. 6 For the same reason you also pay taxes, for the authorities are ministers of God, attending to this very thing. 7 Pay to all what is owed to them: taxes to whom taxes are owed, revenue to whom revenue is owed, respect to whom respect is owed, honor to whom honor is owed.

Nero was a beast, someone bad enough that within our culture we'd think Paul would be justified in calling for revolution~take Rome for God, pick up your pitchforks~afterall, that's what happened with the American Revolution. Yet that is not what Paul is saying here (and ultimately, since it's scripture, what God is saying).

Since you choose to participate then do so, most do...just understand that God puts in whom God has chosen to put in, and if the "bad guy" gets elected, then that person will be God's instrument to rule this nation.

 

[MrJim]

(where does God tell you NOT to vote??)

Where does God tell you to vote?

 

[Gregged]

What better way to spread the GOSPEL than to try to elect people who best represent the gospel!

Ok... so you elected Bush... How has the Gospel been better advanced because Bush has been in power than if someone else had? Is the world view of Christianity better, worse or the same?

I'm sure leaving the secular population to elect people like Nero & other antichrist sympathetics who work AGAINST truth of God isn't the best climate for spreading the gospel as they help promote EVIL....

You know, it (sadly) can often be adversity that people find Christ. What happens when there's been a disaster? What happens when someone's life is threatened and are about to die? Do they cry out to God?

How is Christianity in China under an oppresive communist government? Numbers growing or not? Could it be that China could be the nation with the most Christians?!! Why do long term missionaries who see miracles and people coming to Christ and who come back to their home country, preach against the Western church, to get back to the Gospel? Could it be because they know that the power of salvation is in the Gospel and not in politics?

Do our votes count more than God's will? If your vote is the one that sways the decision does God think "Oh no My choice hasn't got in again"? Or does God raise up people up and take others out the picture (Psalm 75:6 For promotion cometh neither from the east, nor from the west, nor from the south. But God is the judge: he putteth down one, and setteth up another)? This is all because God's plans and purposes will be accomplished and prophecy will come to pass. Anything God has said, or says, will not return to Him without it being accomplished!

No we sure can't know who will be the best candidate, but we can know their values and the general positions they hold & if they're open to righteousness.

We can? So saying things that aren't quite true, or using language to deceive doesn't happen?

I vote every election and until God dissallows me from doing so, I'll continue. I'm His vessel and I have a hand in trying to keep out WORSE candidates that I know don't hold Godly values or want conservative judges in place which directly affect this nation.

(where does God tell you NOT to vote??)

As for how governments work and whether all that goes on in the government and it's agencies, I think if we see all these things when we get to Heaven, there'll be a few surprises in how these things work and the agenda of some at the top of these institutions! You may be shocked and disappointed if you knew all that goes on - even with Conservatives in places of power Things may not have been so very different if another party had been in power.

Where did I say God told us not to vote? I don't think I did but please correct me if I'm wrong But where does it say we should be involved in all things political? I am saying that the church is too involved in politics when it should be doing what we are told to do!

What did Jesus say? "Go into all the world, be active in politics and spread democracy so the earth is ready for me to return" or "Go into all the world and preach the good news to all creation"?

 

[Nadiine]

How? Bush elected conservative supreme court judges who in turn have a conservative bent in their rulings which have a direct effect and rights in this country.

That's 1 way. He also overrules/vetos bills that liberals would promote which he's against as a conservative.
All these things combined help keep the leadership to a more conservative atmosphere, than having it lean heavily to liberalism which goes against what we know is scripturally right.

Each thing helps keep things from getting more liberal.
(that's my short answer)

In some cases, I'm quite happy some of you won't vote too. My faith is in God either way - I just do what God gives me the liberty to do in a democratic country.
I vote for the person I think is least harmful to God's Word.

 

[Nadiine]

Where does God tell you to vote?

That's my point
So why are they telling us NOT to?? as if it's evil?

We're God's servants & vessels down here - He works thru us to accomplish things. In the explanation of his reason for claiming we shouldn't vote, I find it an erroneous position (biblically) becuz I can use that same excuse to sit on my hands & not do ANYTHING down here becuz "God is capable of doing it all Himself".

That may be true, but He CHOOSES to use us in His methods & plans.

 

[Izdaari Eristikon]

I like Mr. Jim and Albion~. Jim, you shared a very wise perspective in response, and Albion, you are very honest about your views.

This is what I find dangerously wrong with the world today, and coincidentally it's our own country that has become dangerously, suggestively to blame for much of it-You have hoards of Christians out there pouring to voting booths because their pastor says they have to vote anti-abortion, and they're right to do so. At the same time, many of those same people don't understand how to accept the fact that 80% of today's porn stars were molested as children and how it's reasonable to assume that a 15yr old girl having grown up in a single family home that may have been molested as a child having again been raised in a home totally absent of any Christian/Biblical understanding might go forth with having an abortion with little conscious, not to mention understanding of what she's doing.

Well, mccarty, this much I think we can agree on: pastors ought not be telling their congregations how to vote... and that's just as true whether the pastor is of liberal or conservative views. And yes, my experience is that happens at least as much in liberal churches as it does in conservative ones. It ought not to happen at all. Churches have God's work to do, but that work doesn't consist of changing our secular rulers.

But still, I think it's right that Christians should participate in government, since this nation has been blessed with a system of government based on citizen participation. But we should do it with our best judgment as citizens and as our consciences dictate, not because we think we're doing the will of God, and not because we put our trust in government rather than in God.

Now, my understanding of history and economics, and in general of how the world works, and of how God designed humans to function within it, leads me to a different political conclusion than yours, and for that matter to a different one than Nadiine's, but I don't fool myself that by voting a certain way, I'm doing the will of God. I'm simply exercising my best judgment as a citizen. I'm perfectly fine with my Christian brothers and sisters, and also people of other faiths or of none, doing the same, even when their judgment tells them something different than mine.

 

[Gregged]

How? Bush elected conservative supreme court judges who in turn have a conservative bent in their rulings which have a direct effect and rights in this country.

That's 1 way. He also overrules/vetos bills that liberals would promote which he's against as a conservative.
All these things combined help keep the leadership to a more conservative atmosphere, than having it lean heavily to liberalism which goes against what we know is scripturally right.

Each thing helps keep things from getting more liberal.
(that's my short answer)

In some cases, I'm quite happy some of you won't vote too. My faith is in God either way - I just do what God gives me the liberty to do in a democratic country.
I vote for the person I think is least harmful to God's Word.

I think you should also look, without your political bias or rose tinted glassed, at the number of things that have happened which are not for your good and certainly aren't for the overall good - or decisions where God has been sought either.... Even by Conservatives! Can you believe it?!

That's my point
So why are they telling us NOT to?? as if it's evil?

We're God's servants & vessels down here - He works thru us to accomplish things. In the explanation of his reason for claiming we shouldn't vote, I find it an erroneous position (biblically) becuz I can use that same excuse to sit on my hands & not do ANYTHING down here becuz "God is capable of doing it all Himself".

That may be true, but He CHOOSES to use us in His methods & plans.

Oh well... I guess people who live in non-Democratic countries can't be in God's will then, or can't see God working in their country because they don't have (so called) Christian leadership... They can't even hope to be God's hands and feet because they could never get positions in politics. Right? Wrong!!! As I said before, we are God's hands and feet to tell others the Gospel. The Bible doesn't say "How beautiful are the feet of those who bring democracy and a good political manifesto"!!!!!

I wish you would have answered some of the other questions raised in other posts....

 

[MrJim]

How? Bush elected conservative supreme court judges who in turn have a conservative bent in their rulings which have a direct effect and rights in this country.

That's 1 way. He also overrules/vetos bills that liberals would promote which he's against as a conservative.
All these things combined help keep the leadership to a more conservative atmosphere, than having it lean heavily to liberalism which goes against what we know is scripturally right.

Each thing helps keep things from getting more liberal.
(that's my short answer)

In some cases, I'm quite happy some of you won't vote too. My faith is in God either way - I just do what God gives me the liberty to do in a democratic country.
I vote for the person I think is least harmful to God's Word.

You raise some valid points:

1. Liberty~as I've stated earlier if you feel led to be active in this way then do so~I'm not convinced that it is sin to be engaged in the process, but rather that it really isn't profitable.

2. Stemming the tide of liberalism/Godlessness~one example that is pointed to often is Wilberforce and his work to stop slavery in England~this can be a valid reason, and often I am tempted to vote for a prolife candidate only on that basis.

On these two points you have a valid case for your participation~while I may not agree with it I can't say that it is wrong to participate in the process. Remember though again, that even if your choice doesn't "win", the person elected is still God's appointed instrument of authority, and it's not that Satan won the election instead. Often these elections come across as "God's Man" vs. "Satan's Man" and that isn't the way to approach it. What could be determined (maybe?) is that if one elected is apparently not a preferred choice that perhaps God has some special plans for that official and for the nation...

Beware of the notion that if Christians could elect the "right" person in the White House, and the "right" people in Congress that we could have a literal Kingdom of God here on earth~that is the mentality and theology of some folks out there, and not necessarily Dominion Theology people.

 

[Albion]

Returning to the topic of the thread...

Has anyone else noticed that Huckabee came out of nowhere, won the Iowa caucuses big time, was acclaimed by the pollsters and media commentators...and is now relegated almost to being "yesterday's news," all in two or three days?

He seemed to me to be the forgotten debater in the ABC debates last night, and I can't find a single network commentator today who is not talking as though Romney could win, McCain is positioned to win, or Giuliani will strike back, etc. -- but nary an encouraging word about Huckabee.

There's little interest being shown in him one way or the other, although I did read one article in the paper about how he'd made a few damaging comments or moves at the end of the Iowa campaign that will probably take the luster off his candidacy, and there was one TV commentator who said that he has too little funding to succeed.

How fleeting is political fame!

 

[Izdaari Eristikon]

I'm not really paying too much attention to what the "chattering classes" say about Huckabee. They're too out of tune with the voters. But I will be watching the polls (especially Rasmussen and Zogby, the ones with the best records of accurate predictions) and his results in the coming primaries. He likely won't score big in NH, but SC is coming up.

Back to the polls for a sec:

Sunday, January 06, 2008

The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Sunday shows John McCain and Mike Huckabee tied in the race for the Republican Presidential Nomination. Nationally, it’s McCain 19%, Mike Huckabee 19%, Rudy Giuliani 17%, Mitt Romney 15%, and Fred Thompson at 13%. Ron Paul attracts 4% support (see recent daily numbers).

Right now Huck is tied for 1st place nationally. Those who discount his chances do so at their peril.

Futures markets are another interesting indicator:

Iowa was the first election test for our new service—RasmussenMarkets.com. The markets accurately projected Obama and Huckabee as the winners.

Rasmussen Markets data currently shows Obama with a 60.6 % chance of winning the Democratic nomination while Clinton has a 37.9 % chance.

Among Republicans, the numbers are McCain 33.3 %, Giuliani 31.5 %, Mike Huckabee 16.2 %, Mitt Romney 12.5 %, and Fred Thompson 2.7 %. Numbers in this paragraph are from a prediction market, not a poll. RasmussenMarkets.com is a “futures market” that harnesses competitive passions to becomes a reliable leading indicator of upcoming events. Using a trading format where traders "buy and sell" candidates, issues, and news features, the markets correctly projected both Obama and Huckabee as the winners in Iowa.

Both of the above quoted from http://www.rasmussenreports.com/pub...ial_election/daily_presidential_tracking_poll

 

[Sketcher]

How? Bush elected conservative supreme court judges who in turn have a conservative bent in their rulings which have a direct effect and rights in this country.

That's 1 way. He also overrules/vetos bills that liberals would promote which he's against as a conservative.
All these things combined help keep the leadership to a more conservative atmosphere, than having it lean heavily to liberalism which goes against what we know is scripturally right.

Each thing helps keep things from getting more liberal.
(that's my short answer)

I'm a conservative and all, but that just doesn't do it for me. What you mention does have some social value, but none of that is spreading the Gospel. Spreading the Gospel and changing the culture is something the CHURCH should do, not the government. In the republican system that we have, electing Christian officials and changing various laws should be a reflection of the change we are making in our society rather than trying to change society from the top down. Furthermore, the Gospel did spread long before the first Christian prefect or governor in the days of the Roman Empire. It's also spreading in non-Christian countries today, where the vast majority of those in power are not Christians. So we have no excuse! We should be converting people like our persecuted brothers and sisters are. Christian rulers are nice to have, but they are not useful for making true converts. Not in a free society.

 

[Sunrise78]

Beware of the notion that if Christians could elect the "right" person in the White House, and the "right" people in Congress that we could have a literal Kingdom of God here on earth~that is the mentality and theology of some folks out there, and not necessarily Dominion Theology people.

I completely agree with you on this. I think that this is the mentality of a lot of Christians in America, and I think that they misplace their efforts. Jesus Himself said that His kingdom was not of this world (at least not in this present age). God has to change people's hearts - Christianity (or even morality generally) cannot ultimately be legislated if the majority does not want it to be (and I think this is what we are increasingly seeing).