Christ ChurchHere I Am (Exodus) (CC Downtown)
Moses (CC Downtown)
EXODUS 2
And there went a man of the house of Levi, and took to wife a daughter of Levi.
2 And the woman conceived, and bare a son: and when she saw him that he was a goodly child, she hid him three months.
3 And when she could not longer hide him, she took for him an ark of bulrushes, and daubed it with slime and with pitch, and put the child therein; and she laid it in the flags by the river’s brink.
4 And his sister stood afar off, to wit what would be done to him.
5 And the daughter of Pharaoh came down to wash herself at the river; and her maidens walked along by the river’s side; and when she saw the ark among the flags, she sent her maid to fetch it.
6 And when she had opened it, she saw the child: and, behold, the babe wept. And she had compassion on him, and said, This is one of the Hebrews’ children.
7 Then said his sister to Pharaoh’s daughter, Shall I go and call to thee a nurse of the Hebrew women, that she may nurse the child for thee?
8 And Pharaoh’s daughter said to her, Go. And the maid went and called the child’s mother.
9 And Pharaoh’s daughter said unto her, Take this child away, and nurse it for me, and I will give thee thy wages. And the women took the child, and nursed it.
10 And the child grew, and she brought him unto Pharaoh’s daughter, and he became her son. And she called his name Moses: and she said, Because I drew him out of the water.
11 And it came to pass in those days, when Moses was grown, that he went out unto his brethren, and looked on their burdens: and he spied an Egyptian smiting an Hebrew, one of his brethren.
12 And he looked this way and that way, and when he saw that there was no man, he slew the Egyptian, and hid him in the sand.
13 And when he went out the second day, behold, two men of the Hebrews strove together: and he said to him that did the wrong, Wherefore smitest thou thy fellow?
14 And he said, Who made thee a prince and a judge over us? intendest thou to kill me, as thou killedst the Egyptian? And Moses feared, and said, Surely this thing is known.
15 Now when Pharaoh heard this thing, he sought to slay Moses. But Moses fled from the face of Pharaoh, and dwelt in the land of Midian: and he sat down by a well.
16 Now the priest of Midian had seven daughters: and they came and drew water, and filled the troughs to water their father’s flock.
17 And the shepherds came and drove them away: but Moses stood up and helped them, and watered their flock.
18 And when they came to Reuel their father, he said, How is it that ye are come so soon to day?
19 And they said, An Egyptian delivered us out of the hand of the shepherds, and also drew water enough for us, and watered the flock.
20 And he said unto his daughters, And where is he? why is it that ye have left the man? call him, that he may eat bread.
21 And Moses was content to dwell with the man: and he gave Moses Zipporah his daughter.
22 And she bare him a son, and he called his name Gershom: for he said, I have been a stranger in a strange land.
23 And it came to pass in process of time, that the king of Egypt died: and the children of Israel sighed by reason of the bondage, and they cried, and their cry came up unto God by reason of the bondage.
24 And God heard their groaning, and God remembered his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob.
25 And God looked upon the children of Israel, and God had respect unto them.
Voting in the Unraveling (Politics in the Pulpit #1) (CC Downtown)
Lindsey GardnerINTRODUCTION
We are on the cusp of another election. It is incumbent upon God’s people to understand what we are and aren’t doing when we vote. The message of the Gospel is that Jesus Christ is Lord of Heaven and Earth, and therefore all matters fall under the purview of His authority. Politics isn’t some dirty thing that Jesus is too holy to have anything to do with. Rather, the civic realm is to submit itself to the scepter of Christ’s righteousness, cleaning its stained robes in the blood of Christ the Redeemer of the World.
THE TEXT
Hearken now unto my voice, I will give thee counsel, and God shall be with thee: Be thou for the people to God-ward, that thou mayest bring the causes unto God: And thou shalt teach them ordinances and laws, and shalt shew them the way wherein they must walk, and the work that they must do. Moreover thou shalt provide out of all the people able men, such as fear God, men of truth, hating covetousness; and place such over them, to be rulers of thousands, and rulers of hundreds, rulers of fifties, and rulers of tens: And let them judge the people at all seasons: and it shall be, that every great matter they shall bring unto thee, but every small matter they shall judge: so shall it be easier for thyself, and they shall bear the burden with thee. If thou shalt do this thing, and God command thee so, then thou shalt be able to endure, and all this people shall also go to their place in peace. So Moses hearkened to the voice of his father in law, and did all that he had said. And Moses chose able men out of all Israel, and made them heads over the people, rulers of thousands, rulers of hundreds, rulers of fifties, and rulers of tens. And they judged the people at all seasons: the hard causes they brought unto Moses, but every small matter they judged themselves.
Exodus 18:19-26
SUMMARY OF THE TEXT
Here we have the foundation and precedent for representative governance. As the nation of Israel was being formed in the Sinai wilderness, Jethro offered counsel to Moses regarding the resolution of various sociological episodes. Moses ought to spend his time teaching the people God’s Law. His task was instruct the people as to how to walk before the Lord (vv19-20). But the great prophet of Israel need not conduct the exam or grade the papers. Thus, Jethro counsels the appointment of God-fearing men into a tiered form of judgement (vv21-22 ). If Moses would heed this counsel, Jethro insightfully foresaw that the people could go about in peace (v23). Moses took on board this good counsel and implemented it right away (vv24-26).
This had two effects over time in the life of Israel. First, it placed an expectation amongst men that they were to be raised up to some degree of leadership before God and unto the people. Responsibility was laid on the shoulders of parents to raise sons who could eventually judge rightly and in accordance with the Wisdom of the Law of the Lord. Second, this also led, eventually, to the establishment of the synagogue system wherein the community would (in various ways) elect their elders. This then was incorporated into the life of the early church, where elders and deacons were put forward by the people (Cf. Acts 1:20-26 & ch.6). Moses once longed for all of God’s people to be prophets, full of His Spirit of Wisdom (Num. 11:29). At Pentecost, God filled His people with His Spirit, in order that they might all serve Him in their various offices and callings, with Christ as their head.
WHAT IS VOTING?
Voting is not a sacred duty. Your sacred duty is here on the Lord’s table. But we can rightly speak of voting as a civic duty. It is a duty of reminding our three branches of government that their power rests on the consent of those governed. By not voting you are arguably consenting to be governed by whomever everyone else picks.
Of course, our nation has more than a few corridors which even the most meatheaded building inspector would condemn for demolition. This includes the silly commitment of progressives to expand voting to more and more people, hunting for an infallible word under the banner of democracy. The 19th amendment effectively just doubled the number of votes for married couples that vote the same and cancelled out the votes of those who vote against each other. Still others advocate for lowering the voting age to 16 or lower. But this is misunderstanding the mechanics and meaning of voting.
A vote is the citizen’s participation in selecting which person should be given the particular job description which the constitution gives to them. Power is corrupting, and this is why our government was chopped into three segments. Your vote is an exercise in dominion over these branches. The term “citizen magistrates” is an appropriate way to describe it. This was a glorious development which our founding fathers brought into history.
In voting you are exercising a certain amount of God-given authority over the constitutional government we have consented to be governed by. It is through wise and prudential casting of votes that we remind politicians that government is not God, but answers to God through the conscience of “we the people” and the lesser magistrates we elect. The potency of our vote is thus greatly weakened by faithlessness and unfaithfulness. If Christ is not the acknowledged head of a nation, it will lead inevitably to godless men attempting to take dominion of the world for the glory of man instead of the glory of God.
De Tocqueville offered a worthwhile perspective in his evaluation of early American life and government: “The nation participates in the making of its laws by the choice of its legislators, and in the execution of them by the choice of the agents of the executive government.” In voting for the executive you are selecting the man best suited to executing the laws of our nation. In electing senators & representatives you are selecting the man best suited to drafting laws. This principle also should be born in mind when selecting sheriffs, mayors, and city council members.
HOW SHOULD YOU VOTE?
Our constitution is structured in such a way as to reward the victor of an election and leave the loser with absolutely nothing to show for their labors except for a pile of cheesy campaign ads. In a parliamentary system, losers often still get a slice of the pie. But American elections are winner-take-all. This helps to answer the question how should I vote? Who do you want to give constitutional authority to? Who do you think will best stay within the confines of that constitution and honor the biblical precepts which the founders envisioned? Who will secure the blessings of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness? Conversely, it often helps to ask yourself, who do I want to make sure is never given power over me and my children and my liberty and my earthly possessions?
This is all another way of say that your civic duty to vote must be done in unwavering faith in the fact that Christ sits upon the right hand of the Father. He is ruling over the nations with the rod of His Word.
“Thy Kingdom come” is a plea for Christ’s majesty to illuminate all the earth; not only the mountains of religious life in the ecclesiastical sphere, but in the plains of economy, in the hills of civics, along the lush river valleys of family life. But the light of Christ must not be restricted to only that, the light of Christ must and will shine in the dens of sin and in the crevices of wickedness. There must be no corner of this planet which is not bright with the warm and piercing light of this Gospel. Our job is to apply that Gospel wherever we go, including the voting booth.
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