Using the 10 Commandments as a Guide to Vote This November
This is part one of a two-part article. Find part two at this link.
As a nonpartisan Christian, I have been encouraging Christians to vote for their values instead of voting based on groupthink and party affiliation. To do this, we have to go to the source of our ethics and values: the Bible.
God could not have made His standard for societal law any clearer than when He wrote His law in the Ten Commandments and gave it to Moses on Mount Sinai, as noted in Exodus 20. He laid them out in the order of importance as His Top 10 list. These moral laws were given as a corporate blueprint to frame a policy for Israel and all nations so they might experience national blessings.
These commandments are also the standard in both the New and Old Testaments for personal holiness and ethics. They are repeated almost verbatim in the New Testament (see Eph. 6:1-3). Although we are not saved by obeying the works of the law (Eph. 2:8-9), the Ten Commandments serve as the ethical behavior the Holy Spirit empowers us to walk in (Rom. 8:4) when we yield to His grace (Titus 2:11-12). Although the ceremonial aspect of the law has been done away with in Christ (John 1:29, Heb. 9:1-10:14), the moral law is still the good, holy and righteous standard for us to live by (Rom. 3:31; 7:12, 14, 25).
As we look at the Ten Commandments, we find two primary components related to our obligation to obey the law. The first four commandments relate to our vertical obligation to God, and the last six commandments relate to our horizontal obligations toward our neighbors.
To save space, I will not quote all the commandments but will focus on several relevant to the upcoming election.
The first commandment is to have no other gods before Him (Ex. 20:3).
This is the most important of all the commandments because if we follow it, all the other commandments will naturally fall into place. Hence, I will only use this verse as related to our four stated commandments toward God.
Having no other gods before Him means that God has to be first and foremost in our lives, even as Matthew 6:33 instructs us to put His kingdom and righteousness first. In Matthew 22:37-38, we are called to love the Lord with all our heart, soul, mind and strength.
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Regarding the upcoming election, this means we are to put God’s standards and Word above our ethnicity and gender (it shouldn’t matter whether a candidate is black, white, yellow or brown, or male or female), and we should put biblical values above our party affiliation.
As Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. alluded to in his “I Have a Dream” speech, we should judge candidates based on the “content of their character rather than the color of their skin.”
The last six commandments are about how we are to live in relation to fellow human beings. This was summarized in Matthew 22:39-40 when Jesus instructed us to love our neighbors even as we love ourselves. Thus, the first four commandments connect to Matthew 22:37-38, and the last six commandments connect to Matthew 22:39-40.
In reference to the last six commandments, we need to see how they directly relate to the public policy positions of each of the political parties as well as each individual candidate.
“Honor your father and mother” (Ex. 20:12a, ESV) is the most important commandment regarding human relations because it connects to the nature of marriage and procreation. Marriage (Gen. 2:23-25) is the basic human building block of society and existed before human government, (which started with God delegating capital punishment to humans in Genesis 9:5-6), before Israel, the Law of Moses and the church.
It is also important to note that this commandment mentions both “father” and “mother,” not “mother and mother” or “father and father.” Thus, according to God’s Top 10 list, biblical marriage is the most important human institution we need to protect and honor, and is even mentioned before murder, adultery and economics.
Thus, political candidates who support same-sex marriage are in gross violation of the fifth commandment (which is also the first commandment related to human relations).
The sixth commandment is “You shalt not murder” (Ex. 20:13).
God so hates the shedding of innocent blood (Prov. 6:16-17) that murder is No. 2 on His list of the remaining six moral commandments related to human obligations.
Of course, if the platform of a political party or a candidate is pro-choice, they are in favor of a woman’s right to terminate the life of an unborn child within her womb. What’s even more troubling is that Black people and other people of color have been targeted the most by the abortion industry, as noted by planned Parenthood founder Margaret Sanger, who believed people of color were from an inferior race. Because many of them were poor, she planned to use “colored” ministers to convince them from a religious perspective that the right thing to do was to terminate their pregnancies if they were too poor to afford them.
“Birth control must lead ultimately to a cleaner race.” — Margaret Sanger, “Woman, Morality, and Birth Control.”
We should hire three or four colored ministers, preferably with social-service backgrounds, and with engaging personalities. The most successful educational approach to the Negro is through a religious appeal. We don’t want the word to go out that we want to exterminate the Negro population. And the minister is the man who can straighten out that idea if it ever occurs to any of their more rebellious members.
Margaret Sanger’s December 19, 1939 letter to Dr. Clarence Gamble
“Eugenic sterilization is an urgent need … We must prevent multiplication of this bad stock.“ — Margaret Sanger, April 1933 “Birth Control Review.”
Unfortunately, Sanger and Planned Parenthood have been largely successful in achieving their goals, since data shows us that Black women are five times more likely to have an abortion than white women, and in New York City, more Black babies are aborted than are born.
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Dr. Joseph Mattera is an internationally known author, consultant and theologian whose mission is to influence leaders who influence culture. He is the founding pastor of Resurrection Church and leads several organizations, including the U.S. Coalition of Apostolic Leaders and Christ Covenant Coalition.
