If you’ve clicked on any news app or dropped by any backyard barbecue recently, you’ve likely heard conversations about how our nation is declining. One political party is ruining everything or one leader is maniacally wicked and must be stopped. The evil of those on the other side is so clear to us. What’s not as evident are our own biases and the excuses we make for our sinful speech or bitter hearts. If we’re to accept the doomsaying we hear everywhere, we’d be inclined to live in fear, run for the hills, or conclude that everyone has only bad intentions. But the Bible presents a more nuanced picture. While every candidate, presidential or otherwise, is flawed and sinful, we can be confident that God will bring good out of this election. His common grace will ensure it. Scripture’s Realistic Outlook Christians who embrace the Reformed doctrine of total depravity don’t believe that every person is as bad as he could possibly be or that any has reached his full potential of evil. But we believe that, as a result of our first parents’ sin, all people’s thoughts and actions contain traces of sinful self-interest. Even our best efforts are stained by selfish motives. This is why the prophet Jeremiah said, “The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure” (Jer. 17:9, NIV). While every candidate, presidential or otherwise, is flawed and sinful, we can be confident that God will bring good out of this election. As a pastor, this conviction informs my preaching. I prepare each sermon with the recognition that every person in the congregation, including the preacher, has sinned against God countless times throughout the week and is in desperate need of the forgiveness Jesus offers. I’m convinced that apart from the Spirit’s regenerating work, no one will choose God or savingly trust in Christ. This belief also guides my prayer life and outlook on humanity this election day. I’m not surprised when I witness or hear about displays of anger, unfaithfulness, or corruption. On election day, my low view of human nature tempers my expectations of how much a political candidate will accomplish, and it downgrades my shock when things don’t go well. God’s Restraining Grace But if people are bent on evil, if apart from the Spirit they’re God’s defiant enemies, why shouldn’t we expect only bad policies and evil power plays from the candidates on both sides of the aisle? Why not simply brace for the worst? The answer is God’s common grace. God restrains evil, enables good, accentuates and advances beauty, and even brings restoration in our world. Herman Bavinck contends, [God] fills the hearts of men with nourishment and joy and does not leave himself without a witness among them. He pours out upon them numberless gifts and benefits. Families, races, and peoples he binds together with natural love and affection. . . . Wealth and well-being he grants them that the arts and sciences can prosper. And by his revelation in nature and history he ties their hearts and consciences to the invisible, supra-sensible world and awakens in them a sense of worship and virtue. Everything good we see humanity create or do, and every way we see evil restrained—all this is evidence of God’s common grace. Though the universe has been subjected to the curse of Adam’s sin, it “nevertheless remains the work of the Father” and under Christ’s lordship. As Bavinck says, “Common grace maintains the goodness of creation in spite of humanity’s radical depravity.” People who haven’t trusted in Jesus sometimes commit wonderful acts. They make sacrifices and serve their fellow man. Those deeds are never fully perfect or without self-interest, nor could they ever be enough to earn God’s forgiveness. But they’re still benevolent, helpful, and to be commended. Even as we pray for God to pour out his saving grace on unbelievers and bring about the obedience of faith in their lives, we can also give thanks for how he “makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust” (Matt. 5:45). Reason for Hope How will this election day end? Only the Lord knows. But we can be certain that God will shower down his grace regardless of who holds our country’s highest office. This isn’t a promise our lives will be comfortable. Or that the next four years will go smoothly. The election’s outcome may directly lead to grievous evil, and we should mourn and lament even as we recommit to fighting against sin and injustice. How will this election day end? Only the Lord knows. But we can be certain that God will shower down his grace regardless of who holds our country’s highest office. But if the Lord tarries, the sun will still rise on November 6. By God’s grace, we’ll still have plenty to laugh about, look forward to, and enjoy together. Even if suffering comes, God will surprise all people with kindnesses we don’t deserve. And in his sovereignty, God will use the victorious candidate to accomplish his divine purposes. No matter what happens tomorrow, focus on the good you see around you. And praise God for it. And before you blast the other side on social media, or condemn the motives of other voters, examine your heart and recognize that the good in you is also a gift of God’s grace.

What should churches do when they gather on Sunday? The answer isn’t as obvious as it may seem. In this episode, Matt Smethurst and Ligon Duncan share how they prepare for Sunday worship in light of their pastoral role. And they discuss the “counterintuitively freeing” effect of rightly understanding the regulative principle of worship. Recommended resources: Greg Beale, We Become What We Worship: A Biblical Theology of Idolatry  

On the Sunday before the 2024 presidential election, ABC This Week host George Stephanopoulos managed to squeeze off one last overwrought, hysterical opening editorial about the stakes of the election. The Regime Media have beaten the drum relentlessly since the very beginning of this cycle, and continue to do so straight through the end. Watch the editorial as aired on ABC This Week on Sunday, November 3rd, 2024: GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS: Good morning, and welcome to This Week. It is almost over. What comes next is anyone's guess. What we do know is this. No election since the Civil War has posed such a test of our constitutional system. Whether to accept election results and the peaceful transfer of power has never been on the ballot like this. The stakes in this election are as high as it gets. The differences between the candidates are as stark as it gets. And as we emerge from the final weekend, the polls suggest that this election is as close as it gets. If Stephanopoulos’s rant sounds familiar, it’s because he said these same things back in April.  GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS: Good morning, and welcome to This Week. Until now, no American president had ever faced a criminal trial. No American president had ever faced a federal indictment for retaining and concealing classified documents. No American president had ever faced a federal indictment or a state indictment for trying to overturn an election, or been named an unindicted co-conspirator in two other states for the same crime. No American president ever faced hundreds of millions of dollars in judgments for business fraud, defamation and sexual abuse. Until now, no American presidential race had been more defined on what's happening in courtrooms than what is happening on the campaign trail. Until now. The scale of the abnormality is so staggering that it can actually become numbing. It's all too easy to fall into reflective habits- to treat this as a normal campaign where both sides embrace the rule of law, where both sides are dedicated to a debate based on facts and the peaceful transfer of power. But that is not what's happening this election year. Those bedrock tenets of our democracy are being tested in a way we haven't seen since the Civil War. It's a test for the candidates, for those of us in the media, and for all of us as citizens. Civil war and peaceful transfer of power. Reasonable people might accuse of Stephanopoulos of self-plagiarism.  Today’s Stephanopoulos editorial follows a pattern of hand-wringing at ABC, wherein he and Jon Karl trade rants. Just last week, Karl opened with a similar stakes-driven rant: JON KARL: Good morning. Welcome to This Week. For most of us, Election Day is already here. Virtually all of us live in places where you don't have to wait until November 5th to cast your ballot. More than 40 million Americans have already voted. This morning, we're going to talk about where the race stands, who's up in the polls, who's down, the tactics the candidates are using to convince undecided voters and to get their supporters to turn out. But this isn't a sporting event. This is about much more than tactics or polls. If there's one thing both sides agree on, it's that America is making a choice that will say a great deal about what kind of a nation we are. And what kind of a nation we may become. Four years ago, Donald Trump became the first president in American history to refuse to accept the results of a presidential election, and to do everything in his power to try to overturn the will of the people. It was an effort that continued even after he left The White House. This time, Trump once again seems to be making it clear he won't accept the results if he loses, but he might not have to. Donald Trump has a very good chance of winning this election. He might even be at this moment, the front-runner. This even after his former Chief of Staff issued a stark warning this week that Trump wants to rule as a dictator, that he meets the textbook definition of a fascist. Once again, this is not a normal campaign. These hysterical rants serve only to pit Americans against each other, and to stoke fear of electoral outcomes not favored by the media. Ironically, this is the very thing that these screeching editorials decry. Regardless of the outcome of the election, it is not likely that this moral lecturing will end any time soon.  

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