The Consequence of Choice

“Elections have consequences!” 

I remember hearing someone say that on some television channel. It was an admonition directed at would-be voters, warning them to consider carefully who they should vote for.

When one considers the place to where our nation has fallen since the last election, it’s impossible to argue the point. Elections do have consequences. Some elected officials have a broken or non-existent moral compass, thus America is paying the price.

A better way to consider the situation is to replace the words “elections” or “elect” with “choice” or “chosen”. Basically, we are dealing with the phenomenon of choice. An election is an event where voters “choose” who will lead them. An “elect” person is chosen. 

This is a basic tenant outlined in many places in the Bible. In the scripture God’s election leads to salvation and blessing. On earth, when man chooses it often does not.

This is painfully evident in the leaders we are choosing to subject ourselves. Do we want leaders who openly celebrate the killing of tens of thousands of babies every year? Do we want crime and murder rates reaching all-time highs in our major cities? Run-away inflation: is that a choice? What about taking away the protection of police and other first-responders who serve God and man? Do you like having your family in danger when going out to shop or eat? Is that a good thing? Doesn’t seem so to me. Who would choose that quality of life? Evidently, some voters do.

We’d better wake up as a nation. We have chosen not to hold God in high esteem as is His due. Moses warned Isreal about making proper choices. In Deuteronomy, chapter 30, verses 11 through 18 it says:

For this commandment which I command you today is not too difficult for you, nor is it out of reach. It is not in heaven, that you should say, ‘Who will go up to heaven for us to get it for us and make us hear it, that we may observe it? Nor is it beyond the sea, that you should say, ‘Who will cross the sea for us to get it for us and make us hear it, that we may observe it?’ But the word is very near you, in your mouth and in your heart, that you may observe it.

See, I have set before you today life and prosperity, and death and adversity; in that I command you today to love the LORD your God, to walk in His ways and to keep His commandments and His statutes and His judgments, that you may live and multiply, and that the LORD your God may bless you in the land where you are entering to possess it. But if your heart turns away and you will not obey, but are drawn away and worship other gods and serve them, I declare to you today that you shall surely perish. You will not prolong your days in the land where you are crossing the Jordan to enter and possess it. 

Psalms 33:12 says:

Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord.

Let’s consider our own lives first. Are we choosing God? Some will argue that the election of God precludes any responsibility on our part. Who can withstand His will? If we are fore-known and fore-ordained, why bother? These are good and fair questions, that deserve answers. I’ll let the Bible scholars debate over those.

However, the Good News Only is that we have a chance to change the course our nation is on. We don’t have to subject ourselves to leaders who open lie to us, and care nothing for the people, but only exist to serve and enrich themselves. Who true desire is the destruction of our nation.

Indeed, as stated in Proverbs 29:2

When the righteous flourish, the people rejoice, but when the wicked rule, the people groan.

When it’s time again to make our voices heard at the voting booth, let’s remember, choices have consequences. America as a concept, an idea, an experiment cannot exist outside of godliness. Our founding documents were written for a moral people, a people trying to overcome their short comings by reaching for “higher-ground”. 

Let’s not let our nation perish. America is the greatest nation on earth and still the place where many people want to be. We can do it!