Election Day is two weeks away. Last week I said the ballot box is not a Bible study. This week I asked a harder question. What happens to your faith on Wednesday morning, November 4, if your side loses? There is a verse most of us can quote in our sleep: without faith it is impossible to please God. I think we have missed what that verse assumes, and we have underestimated one word in it.
"I can love America and still refuse to worship it." (Marc Little, Episode 76)
The Numbers Are Not Kind to My Party
Early voting is underway in Texas, and Election Day is Tuesday, November 3. CNN's poll of polls, which averages the generic ballot, has Democrats ahead 54 to 45. The president's approval rating is at or near the lowest of his career, and a majority of Americans say groceries and health care have gotten out of reach. I am not going to spin that. I am a Republican, I have been one for a long time, and I can read a poll.
Last week I made the case. Vote the record. Vote your values. Vote for the candidate closest to what you believe, even if you would never sit under him in a Bible study. I still mean every word of it. But nobody seems to be asking what happens to the church on November 4 if we lose.
Two Ways This Goes Wrong
The first is despair. Christians wake up that Wednesday, look at the map, and decide it is over. The group text goes out before breakfast: the country is gone, get ready for persecution. Somebody posts that God has turned His back on America. Wednesday night Bible study is half empty because nobody has the heart to show up.
The second is quieter, and I think it is more dangerous. It is idolatry. If Republicans hold on, some of the same people who would have been weeping will be dancing like the republic just got saved by a vote count. The victory post goes up with a flag and a Bible verse, and it reads like Washington finally did what heaven could not.
Those two reactions look like opposites. They come from the same place. Somewhere along the way, a lot of us moved our hope from the throne to our Congress.
"Do not put your trust in princes, in human beings, who cannot save." (Psalm 146:3, NIV)
Princes. Speakers. Senators. Presidents. The verse does not care who is wearing the title. They cannot save.
What the Verse Assumes
Hebrews 11:6 sits right after the writer's word about Enoch.
"By faith Enoch was taken from this life, so that he did not experience death: 'He could not be found, because God had taken him away.' For before he was taken, he was commended as one who pleased God. And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him." (Hebrews 11:5-6, NIV)
The sermon on this verse almost always lands on faith. Get more of it. But look at how the sentence works. The most important part is not written down. It is assumed. The writer takes for granted that you want to please God in the first place. Enoch did. Faith is how you get there. So before the text asks whether I have faith, it asks me something more basic. Do I even want to please Him?
Most days my walk with God is not about pleasing Him. It is about not making Him mad. "The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom" (Proverbs 9:10, NIV). In plain English, it is smart not to piss Him off. Truth be told, I am just trying to sin less day by day.
What I Saw My Father Do
That hits me hard, because I call God my Father, and my experience with my earthly father was just the opposite. I wanted my dad's approval. Sons do. There is a kind of fear in a father's approval, but with my dad the fear was low. On earth I tried to please my father. In heaven I mostly just feared my Father.
Then it hit me. I watched my father go to work. I watched him sign the checks for the people who worked for him. I watched him put gas in the car so he could get home, and put his own check in the bank. When dinner showed up on the table, I did not have to believe in something I could not measure. I saw it happen. Believing in his provision took almost no hope at all.
"Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see." (Hebrews 11:1, NIV)
I saw my dad's provision. I do not see God's. That is why one took no faith, and the other takes all of it. My dad passed away in January 2021. I cannot watch him go to work anymore. In a strange way, that is where every one of us lives with God, trusting a provision we cannot watch being made.
Not a Servant in My Father's House
Then the text corrected me.
"The Spirit you received does not make you slaves, so that you live in fear again; rather, the Spirit you received brought about your adoption to sonship. And by him we cry, 'Abba, Father.'" (Romans 8:15, NIV)
If my whole walk is staying out of trouble, I am living like a servant in my Father's house. A servant keeps his head down and hopes nobody notices when he slips. A son sits at the table. He eats what his father provides, and he does not flinch every time the door opens.
"So you are no longer a slave, but God's child; and since you are his child, God has made you also an heir." (Galatians 4:7, NIV)
Fear is where wisdom begins. It is not where sonship is supposed to end. And a lot of Christians want to watch the check get signed. We need to see the map turn red before we will believe God is still providing. That is not faith. That is sight, and Hebrews says sight cannot please Him.
Key Takeaways
- Hebrews 11:6 assumes you want to please God. Faith is the only way there.
- Faith trusts a provision it cannot see. Needing the election result before you trust God is sight, not faith.
- "Impossible" means impossible. Hebrews uses the same word for God lying and for animal blood taking away sin.
- The vote is a duty. It is not a verdict. Election night does not tell you whether God is pleased with you.
- The faithful in Hebrews 11 did not all win. God still commended them.
- We align with candidates, but we do not let them define who we are. We are Christ's ambassadors.
Why "Impossible"
The writer of Hebrews could have said difficult. He could have said unlikely. He did not, and this is not the only place he uses that word. He writes of two unchangeable things "in which it is impossible for God to lie" (Hebrews 6:18, NIV).
"It is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins." (Hebrews 10:4, NIV)
Look at the company that word keeps. God lying. Animal blood washing away sin. Those things cannot happen. Right there with them, Hebrews puts pleasing God without faith. You cannot work your way there. You cannot sin less enough to get there. And you cannot vote your way there.
The vote is a duty. It is not a verdict. Election night does not tell you whether God is pleased with you, or whether He is pleased with America. It tells you who won an election.
"These were all commended for their faith, yet none of them received what had been promised" (Hebrews 11:39, NIV)
You would expect a chapter about great faith to end with a victory lap. It does not. Some of the most faithful people in that chapter lost, and God still commended them. Verse 13 says they "were still living by faith when they died," and that they admitted "they were foreigners and strangers on earth." That is not a description of people whose hope rides on a midterm.
What Faith Looks Like on November 4
The first is trust. Hebrews 11:8 says Abraham "obeyed and went, even though he did not know where he was going." You do not know how November 3 ends. You go anyway. You do your part, and you leave the results with God.
The second is intimacy. God "rewards those who earnestly seek him." It does not say He rewards those who earnestly seek a win. Sometimes the reward is Him. On Wednesday morning, whatever happened, that means prayer instead of panic.
The third is calling.
"You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled underfoot." (Matthew 5:13, NIV)
Losing an election does not make you less salty. Despair does. Bitterness does. The House changing hands does not change your assignment.
The fourth is gifts with power and authority.
"I have given you authority to trample on snakes and scorpions and to overcome all the power of the enemy; nothing will harm you." (Luke 10:19, NIV)
Notice who gave it. Not a voter, not a party, not a governor or a Speaker of the House. Jesus did. No ballot gave you that authority, and no ballot can take it away.
Conclusion
Last week I said vote, and I meant it. This week I am saying vote, and if you lose, do not let your faith go down with the ticket. If you win, do not build an altar to the results. Do not let politics become your idol. Do not let patriotism become your idol. I love this country, and I believe in what we are fighting for. But I can love America and still refuse to worship it.
"We are therefore Christ's ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us." (2 Corinthians 5:20, NIV)
An ambassador lives in a foreign land. He respects it and works for its good, but he does not take his orders from it. He knows where home is, and he stays close to the One who sent him. That is us. Stay close to the feet of God. We align with candidates and causes that line up with what we believe, but we do not let them define who we are.
Without faith, it is impossible to please God. Not difficult. Impossible. The question for November 4 is not whether your party won. It is whether you still want to please Him, and whether you trust Him enough to do it. Share this with someone who is already bracing for Election Day, and then listen to the complete episode of The Marc Little Show.