Will the Election Change Anything?

Two years ago an entire political party was thrown out of office; the party that replaced it ran on a campaign of change.  Now, two years later that party has lost a significant amount of it's political power and the opposing party ran on change.

So the question is will this election change anything?

In the third chapter of the book of Jonah there's an amazing story.  It's a story of a culture that was changed.  Here it is in a nutshell:

Jonah goes to the city of Nineveh and tells them that God does NOT want to destroy them but that He want to love, forgive, restore and lead them.  And then, when the people hear that, God begins to work in their hearts and they begin to move in a new direction.  When they hear that God loves them and wants to be connected to them, their hearts melt and they begin to change.  In fact the story tells us that EVERYONE begins to change.  AND because the people changed, so did the culture.

The people start fasting and wearing sackcloths - all symbols of repentance.  Here's where the story gets interesting to me.  When the king (the political power) sees what the people are doing, he creates a law saying that everyone should do what they are already doing.

Now it’s not this newly established law that causes the people to repent, it’s the word of God at work in their hearts that causes that.  In fact in this case the law is somewhat irrelevant.  The law that’s getting established here by the king, simply reflects what’s already going on in the culture; in the hearts of the people.

Now that’s true with most laws.  Generally, in most cultures, most laws function more like a thermometer than like a thermostat.  In most cultures, most laws tell you more about the moral temperature of the culture than they determine the moral temperature of that culture.

And I think that’s something that the church should never, lose sight of.  We must never lose sight of the fact that the moral temperature of a culture is not primarily determined by the people who are in power or by the laws that are in place.  It’s determined by what’s going on in the hearts of the people.

Now does that mean that Christians should not be concerned about who’s in power?  No, we should be very concerned.  History teaches us that evil people, entrusted with lots of power can do really bad things.  We should be concerned about who’s in power. 

Does it mean that we should not be concerned about the laws of the land?  No. We absolutely should be concerned about that.  Because bad laws can create a lot of injustice in a culture and as followers of Christ we should be concerned about that.

It DOES mean that what we see in Nineveh, is generally how God works; that generally cultures are changed, not primarily by the laws that are created, but by the hearts that are transformed by the word of God.

And that's something that the church should never forget.