Does God Rig Elections?

Please don’t tell me that God rigged this last Presidential election—or any other Presidential election for that matter.

How would anyone know this? How would anyone be so certain that God was involved in any political election for that matter. Is God that big of a micro manager that he has to involve himself in our political elections? Is this all he has to do? Really?

Does anyone have a special communication link with heaven that the rest of us don’t have? Does God tell any one person things that he doesn’t tell he rest of us? 

C’mon man! Get real!

I’m sorry, I don't mean to come across as being flippant. I really don’t. Yet I’m dead serious about this. A friend of mine messaged me on Facebook declaring that Donald Trump is God’s new king Cyrus of Persia. You know that guy, he’s the pagan king who set the Israelites free from Babylonian captivity. The assumption therefore is that God will use Mr. Trump just as he did Cyrus the pagan king.

Being compared to Cyrus, a pagan king, is not that flattering  in my opinion. 

There’s a story in the Old Testament (since some folks love to use the Old Testament to prop up their claims about God) in which we find Job getting a tongue lashing for his false assumptions about how God behaves (Job 38-42). 

It seems that Job and his cohorts believed God rewarded those who lived holy lives and punished those who did not. This is a really bad summary but I believe it makes the point: 

Neither Job or any one of us can make such claims on God’s behalf; we really don’t know what he will or will not do—with absolute certainty.

So God told Job: 

“You don’t know what you’re talking about Job so please play the quiet game.” 

Well, in so many words.

Here’s my point and I do hope I haven’t stepped on anyone’s spiritual sensitivities. But it must be said: 

Making claims for God is tricky business. 

When a pastor tells his or her congregation that God told him or her to say such and such, then caution is called for. I naturally don’t trust folks who claim God talks to them alone.

I find it really strange that any one human being can make such definitive claims for God without knowing all the facts (we never know all the facts). Again, read the text in Job.

Can or would God use an American President or any world leader? Perhaps. Maybe. But I think we are skating on very thin ice when we claim that God literally rigged an election so his man (or woman) would win. 

You might sincerely believe this but it doesn’t necessarily make it true and what does that say about God?

As a pastor I quit saying a long time ago that God told me to say this or that in a sermon. I stopped making claims for God that I really didn’t know were true (deep down in my heart I didn’t know they were true).

Did God heal uncle Joe from cancer? How do we know for sure? Perhaps it was modern medicine that led to uncle Joe’s healing (probably was more the case). We may want to believe that God healed uncle Joe from cancer, but how do we know with any degree of certainty? 

We don’t! We can’t!

We might say: “Thank God Joe has been healed of cancer.” 

But this is different from claiming: “We are thankful that God healed Joe from his cancer.” 

And you know what, I am glad I don’t know for sure. You want to know why?

Because my relationship with God is based on faith and not certainty. There are a lot of things about God I just don’t know (such as when he does or does not intervene in someone’s life or in the life of a given nation or in a political process).

Shouldering the responsibility of knowing anything about God with certainty is just too difficult for me. It really is. I choose to go with faith or trust that God cares for me and loves me; he loves and cares for us all. 

That’s all I really need to know: I trust that God loves me—and all of us!

So please, quit making claims on God’s behalf; claims that you know deep down in your heart you cannot substantiate.

So please stop trying to interpret the unfolding events of life as the result God’s direct intervention—which may or may not be true.

You just don't know. With any certainty that is.