What the Scriptures Reveal About Voting for Imperfect Candidates
Charlie visits Legacy Church in Albuquerque, New Mexico pastored by the great Steve Smotherman, to give one final call the American Church to get involved in their local, state, and federal government. As Charlie likes to say, "If you don't get involved in politics, it will get involved with you." Charlie goes through multiple Bible stories, and the revealing biographies of some of the Bible's most famous characters, to build a very comprehensive argument for why the scriptures are clear that it is the American church's responsibility to get out of the pews and into the voting booth. Support the show: http://www.charliekirk.com/supportSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Defining the Human Conception00:07:01
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Charlie, what you've done is incredible here.
Maybe Charlie Kirk is on the college campuses.
I want you to know we are lucky to have Charlie Kirk.
Charlie Kirk's running the White House, folks.
I want to thank Charlie.
He's an incredible guy.
His spirit, his love of this country.
He's done an amazing job building one of the most powerful youth organizations ever created.
Turning point USA.
We will not embrace the ideas that have destroyed countries, destroyed lives, and we are going to fight for freedom on campuses across the country.
That's why we are here.
Thank you, everybody.
Thank you.
Please be seated.
Thank you.
Happy Sunday.
It's been a long month this week for me.
I've been crisscrossing the country.
If you didn't know, there's something happening Tuesday, which is going to be very interesting and important.
I made a promise to Pastor Steve that I would never forget about New Mexico.
I love New Mexico, and I have a heart for this state.
And I told Steve, I said, I know, I know, I got to come back, I got to come back.
And the stars disaligned.
And here we are right now, right before Tuesday, and honored to be here.
And I'm going to talk a little bit about New Mexico, but I'm also going to talk about things that are happening across the country.
As I know a lot of people are watching on the live stream, and we're going to talk about some of the dynamics unfolding and really kind of address it head on.
How should Christians think about the election?
How should we think about what's happening on Tuesday?
Are you even allowed to talk about it in church?
Now, we are a legacy church with Steve Smotherman.
So I think a lot of you have already had a fair dose of truth here over the last couple of years.
But it's important that we talk about this and we discuss it because this is something that has really been, in my opinion, misrepresented in the media and misrepresented by a lot of churches.
And so let's talk about it.
So coming up on Tuesday, of course, at the midterm election, this state is right in play.
I got to tell you, this is something that's very important.
You have a governor that I would not give a very good grade to.
Let's put that way on a lot of different things.
But should we as Christians care about it?
Should we show up and vote?
So first and foremost, I believe if you look at the scriptures, Jeremiah 29, 7, it says, seek the welfare of the nation that you are in because your welfare is tied to your nation's welfare.
Now, you could also interpret it as demand the welfare or require the welfare.
We as Christians are called to care about our city, our county, our nation, and our state.
We are not called to just sit on the sidelines and not have a heart for the people that are suffering under these ideas and the policies and the bad decisions around us.
In fact, there is a heresy that has happened in the American church where people say, you know, I just don't care.
As a Christian, I don't care what happens politically.
Now, let's be very clear.
It is not the most important thing.
Jesus is the most important thing, and the spreading of the gospel is the most important thing.
That's the most important thing.
But honestly, you could argue that this is the second or third most important thing because if you don't get this right, then you can't do the first thing.
And by the way, let me prove it to you.
This church, of course, defied the governor's orders back in 2020, thanks to the courageous leadership of Steve Smotherman.
And you should just be so thankful you have a leader like him.
But why did we ever put up with the church being deemed or labeled non-essential?
That's the first thing.
What is on the ballot on Tuesday?
The question of whether or not we are going to allow the church to be deemed non-essential.
Now, some of you might say, well, Charlie, I believe in separation of church and state.
Well, that's not in the Constitution.
It's not in the First Amendment, but let's pretend that it's actually the law of the land.
Let's pretend that's a real thing, even though that's a single letter that Thomas Jefferson wrote to the Danbury Baptist Convention.
It's not in our laws.
If we really believe in separation of church and state, then why is it that the state was allowed to come into the church and try to shut us down?
I thought the two are supposed to be separate.
Where they mandated masks and they mandated vaccines and they do all these different things.
No, instead, what we need to send a message on Tuesday as Christians is one thing: like, look, strip clubs, alcohol stores, drug dispensaries, and abortion clinics are not more essential than the American church, and we're never going to allow that to happen again.
And this governor, more than almost any other leader in America, was so hostile, was so harsh in locking down the church.
That's number one.
The number two, and so there's three things that I think we as Christians must pray about and we must think about as far as our biblical posture coming into Tuesday.
That's the first one: that the church is essential.
Number two, God created man and God created woman.
We don't have to overthink this.
There's not 500 genders.
There's not 200 genders.
God made you a certain way.
And just because you feel a certain way does not mean you get to suddenly change your gender.
And you certainly don't get to force other people to then accommodate to that.
And even worse, you don't get to teach children that in our schools.
God created man and God created woman.
And finally, as we are tragically here in the late-term abortion capital of the world, life begins at conception.
It's that simple.
And we should not shy away from this issue: that life is wonderfully and beautifully made by the Lord because we are image bearers of God.
We are made in his image.
And we as Christians have an opportunity to send a message on Tuesday of what we think a human being is.
Do you think a human being is just a clump of cells and an accident of evolution?
Do you think a human being just came through millions of years of mistakes and finally became what we are today?
Or do you think a human being is designed by a creator who loves you?
That matters because if you think a human being is just a clump of cells, why shouldn't you be able to terminate that being?
But if you think the human being has a soul, then everything changes.
And that's all of a sudden what comes into this very contentious abortion debate.
And some people here might say, you know, Charlie, I'm tired of hearing about it and all that.
That's perfectly fine.
But God's not tired of hearing about it because God wants every single being that comes to an existence at conception to be able to have life, to have breath, and to have a beautiful, flourishing future.
That is the question in a lot of different ways coming on Tuesday.
Do we think that the strong should be able to crush the weak at a whim?
No, we as Christians think that if you have strength, you should be able to use your strength to then protect the weak.
In fact, we are morally commanded to do that, to care for the least of these.
And the people that can't defend themselves are the 1 million human beings that get massacred in the womb every single year in America.
It is a question of the church of whether we care about that or not.
The Moral Duty to Vote00:15:25
And so I'll go through the list again.
The church is essential and will never be labeled non-essential by the government again.
God created man and woman, and life begins at conception.
When I say this Tuesday, we must vote biblically, those three things, I think you could choose very wisely amongst those three things very, very clearly.
So we see this throughout the Bible, that a perfect God accomplishes his perfect will through imperfect people.
And we're going to talk about that in a second because I hear quite often they say, Charlie, I don't like this candidate.
They're not as good of a person as I am.
And I'm sure you've heard that a lot, right?
I don't like this person.
I don't like this person.
Let me just comment on that.
You know, every so often I get a complaint from somebody and they say, Charlie, you know, for example, let's just pick a random politician that people don't like.
How about Donald Trump?
Okay?
Out of thin air.
They say, I don't like him.
He's too braggadocious.
He's too narcissistic.
He's too self-centered.
All these different things.
I've heard everything you could possibly imagine.
But boy, is he an imperfect vessel that accomplished something rather heroic when he put Kavanaugh, Amy, Coney, Barrett, and Gorsuch on the U.S. Supreme Court that gave us the reversal of Roe versus Wade.
That's an amazing thing.
Okay, so there's some people probably in the audience right now on the other side of the spectrum where they say, Charlie, I'm not going to vote because I believe my vote's going to be stolen and thrown away and shredded.
I know you're out there.
I see you.
You're probably like, I'm not going to vote because what's the point?
Now, this is logically insane.
It just is.
Okay.
Now, I'm not guaranteeing your vote is going to be counted beautifully and wonderfully, but not voting guarantees there's a 0% chance that you have any voice, okay?
So there's no argument not to show up.
And by the way, they say, well, Charlie, I don't have time.
Okay, so I just drove through Albuquerque and we passed by Starbucks, where people are willing to wait 10, 15, 20 minutes for a Frappuccino or some $9 drink.
You have time throughout your entire life to probably collectively sit in lines to go get sugar and fat and to get closer to diabetes and heart disease, and you can't wait 20 minutes in line to fill out a piece of paper to defend the unborn.
I don't have time.
I'm sorry, I'm not buying it, okay?
And they say, well, you know, I'm just too busy.
You had all voting months, okay?
There's unlimited ways to vote.
There's more secure ways than other.
I prefer voting in person on election day, looking somebody in the eyes and actually seeing it voted and processed.
Who's planning to vote tomorrow?
Raise your hand.
Just curious.
Who's already voted?
Raise your hand.
Awesome.
That's terrific.
So a lot of early voters here in New Mexico.
That's great.
So, but look, the fact that some people say, it just doesn't matter.
I'm just not going to, you know, I don't think my vote's going to be counted in any way, shape, or form.
I just don't buy it at all.
Okay.
But here's the thing: we should not be surprised when non-believers act like non-believers.
What should surprise us, though, is when believers don't do what Christ expected us to do.
And this is what always bothers me: is that there's been this big mandate in the last couple of decades.
Charlie, we have to have Christian music.
Charlie, we have to have Christian movies.
Charlie, we have to have Christian social media.
We have to have Christian schools.
I love all of that.
But do we have a little bit of a moment in time where we say, hey, what are we going to do in our government?
Are we going to have our values actually try to put forward to defend those that can't defend themselves?
And they say, oh, Charlie, you got to keep your Christianity out of our government.
I say, wait a second.
Putting all that aside, without the anchor of a belief in a God, how do you know what is right or wrong?
It is nothing more than your opinion.
It's nothing more than a power play.
You see, how do you know a line is crooked if you do not have a straight line to compare it to?
And look, New Mexico, I just want to speak to you, and I love this state.
I have a heart for this state.
You guys fight so hard.
You show up to school board meetings.
You guys fight for every inch.
It is, I think we could all agree what is happening in the state with the crime, the homelessness, the drugs, it is out of control.
You guys deserve better.
And your leaders need to start to listen to their voters and not put up with this culture of crime and vagrancy.
I mean, it's, I'll be very honest, driving just in on, you know, formerly Route 66, right?
Right in, this is, it's very sad what's happening here.
It is.
It is aesthetically sad.
It is visually sad.
It's morally sad.
And I've been coming here for 10 years.
And I think you would all agree it's actually deteriorating in real time.
Do you guys agree with that?
That it's getting worse.
And we as Christians should be extra concerned about that.
Because guess what?
The secular world, they fly in Joe Biden to tell us everything's actually just fine.
And that's an insult to all of you.
You know why?
Because I care for the person that I drove by that's addicted to drugs right there.
You know what?
It's actually not good for them to actually act as if that's okay.
And they stay on the side of the street and to allow drugs and fentanyl to pour across the southern border that could likely kill them through an accidental overdose.
It's not okay to allow the child sex trafficking to continue to come through Albuquerque or up to Santa Fe.
It's not good for anybody, actually.
But the secular world just kind of rolls their eyes.
And this is the lesson that we have throughout history.
If Christians don't care, then who's actually going to care?
And that's where it comes down to the church, which is we are the ones that have to speak out when others will not.
So then some people say this: they say, Look, Charlie, I think this is all overwhelming.
I mean, I voted, but why should I get other people to vote for the polls?
Here's the cool thing: there's an end date.
After Tuesday, I'm not going to be bothering you about this for about another year.
The point is that this is the time to not just vote yourself, but get 5, 10, 15 other people to be able to do the same.
And so, look, it's really not about us either.
You know, some people say, well, Charlie, you know, how does it impact me?
Well, first of all, I don't really care how it impacts you.
I care how it impacts our children.
I care how it impacts our grandchildren.
If you're only voting for yourself, you are voting for the wrong things.
You should vote for those that actually don't yet have a voice.
And look, as Jesus said in Matthew 5, 13 through 16, you are the salt of the earth, but if the salt has lost its taste, how shall saltness be restored?
It is no longer good for anything except to be thrown out and trampled under people's feet.
Now, when you think about salt and light, those two things in common, when you think about them, they change the environment that they come in contact with.
They are by definition game changers.
So when we are called to be salt and light, we are called to go into an environment and make it better, to make it brighter or in this analogy, to make it saltier.
So we look at what's happening in Albuquerque.
We are called to try to say, you know what, let's try to fix the homelessness issue.
Let's try to reduce the amount of drug usage.
Let's try to make it no longer the late-term abortion capital.
We're here to change the environment in which our things can actually are happening.
And boy, if there's ever been a fight of light versus dark, of being light, it's happening right here in this state in more ways than one.
And I think all of you guys feel that.
Jesus also said, you are the light of the world.
A city set on a hill cannot be hidden.
Nor do people light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a stand.
And it gives light to all in the house.
In the same way, let your light shine before others so that you may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven.
And so when you think about it, you have to go into the darkest places.
And right now, we're actually in a place where the politics are pretty dark right here, right now.
And sitting at home and not voting or not getting your friends to vote is the opposite of being the light that we need to be.
Now, look, so in John 16, 33, Jesus said, to those who are disheartened by the trouble in the world, we tell them to take heart because Jesus has overcome the world.
And this should give you peace.
Jesus has already won the battle, okay?
And that should lower your anxiety about Charlie.
What if they do this and all this and the machines and the ballots and all of this?
And they're zapping in votes from China.
I'm like, okay, Jesus has already won the battle, everybody, okay?
The battle is won by Jesus.
We know how the story ends.
Now, some people will say, but Charlie, Jesus wasn't political, okay?
Like, this is all nice, but I think it's wrong the Sunday before an election that you aren't just talking about the gospel.
You know, they say this is, they say this is a waste of time.
We shouldn't do this.
I'll say it again.
If you don't get involved in politics, politics will get involved in you.
When you do not get involved in politics, the government is able to come to the church and say, non-essential, you have to stay at home, shut down Christian schools, shut down homeschooling.
So that's number one.
Number two, though, I have a broader question.
Can anyone find an example in the scriptures where God encourages us to ignore what is happening in the world around us?
Can anyone find that Bible verse where it says, go into the hills and put your head down and ignore everything around you?
No, it's the opposite.
In fact, we are called to lean into the most difficult things happening around us.
In fact, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who was an amazing pastor who was killed by the Nazi regime, he said, silence in the face of evil is evil itself.
God will not hold you guiltless.
Not to speak is to speak.
Not to act is to act.
You see, we're not allowed to just sit on our hands.
As Christians, we're not allowed to just allow the kind of things to happen.
What I mean by allowed is God will hold you at a different accountability if all of a sudden you had the truth and you are born new and you just sat idly by and did nothing.
And so here's another question, which is how many people do you know could have used their voice or can use their voice for impact this election cycle to then further his kingdom.
In Matthew 28, 19, go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
Mind you, it is disciples of all nations, not just converts of all nations.
Discipleship goes deep and cares about everything that is happening in the world to be salt and light.
And yes, in music, in culture, in film, in education, and of course, in elections and in politics.
And this is what's so incredible: we must go out into the world to do this.
And this is another thing people say: they say, well, Charlie, I don't like my options because this person is awful and this person is more awful.
It's a lesser of two evils.
You will always be voting for the lesser of two evils unless Jesus Christ was on the ballot.
Okay?
You will always be voting for the lesser of two evils.
We are all sinners.
You are a sinner.
I'm a sinner.
We all are broken.
But you know what is not broken?
The policies and the ideas that they might or hopefully will enact once they get into office, if they're rooted in truth.
And they say, well, Charlie, you know, the differences aren't very clear to me.
Here's the thing.
If you stand for late-term abortion, okay, the differences are pretty clear to me.
Now, we are seeing right now the downfall or the side effect of wicked and godless governments.
And so in Proverbs 14, 34, it says, righteousness exalts a nation, but sin is a reproach to any people.
Now, if you read Proverbs and you read Leviticus and you read Deuteronomy and you read many of these books, they're talking about how to improve your country.
This is a lie when people say Christians shouldn't care about this.
There are entire books talking about the type of government we should have, like Isaiah 33, 22, or all throughout the type of structure.
Do you know the founding fathers, the number one book that they quoted out of any book, any book, secular or religious, was the book of Deuteronomy.
More than any other book, it was the book of Deuteronomy.
Now, again, some people will say, but Charlie, I'm looking at my ballot and they aren't Christian enough for me.
You know, they don't listen to worship music and they don't pray and fast like I do and they don't show up to every side.
They've never even been to a midweek service, okay?
They're just not as good as I am.
I say, hold on a second.
Let's look throughout the Bible.
God always used imperfect vessels for his glory and for his purpose.
How about this?
Joseph was terribly abused.
Job, he lost everything.
Samson was a womanizer and a lot more than that.
Let's just put it that way.
Rahab was a prostitute.
The Samaritan woman was divorced.
Noah could be argued to be a total drunk.
Jeremiah was young.
Two young people said Jacob was a cheater.
David was arguably a murderer and an adulterer.
Jonah ran from God.
Naomi was a widow.
Peter denied Jesus truth and the divine in flesh three times.
Martha was worrying about everything all the time.
Zacchaeus was small and money hungry and was a lover of earthly things.
Paul was a Pharisee who persecuted Christians.
And I go through that list.
Joseph, Job, Samson, Rahab, the Samaritan woman, Noah, Jeremiah, Jacob, David, Jonah, Naomi, Peter, Martha, Zacchaeus, and Paul.
If those people were good enough for God's purpose, then maybe we can suck up our own pride and vote for somebody that might be an imperfect vessel to accomplish God's purpose in an election.
And so, look, I travel the country and I've seen so many different things.
I feel that there is a movement happening in America that is very profound.
I think Arizona is about to elect Carrie Lake as the next governor, and she's a special candidate, isn't she?
She does such an amazing job.
I see it happening and I see all of a sudden a parents movement that is taking hold in a very sizable and a very significant way all across America.
But it all comes down to the church.
It always comes down to where we are right now.
And I'm not saying that if Tuesday is this resounding win and everyone shows up and it's this amazing thing, that all of our problems are going to be solved.
That is not what I'm saying.
Is that the church and the Bible and the gospel need to always remain the center of it?
But if we study any 20th century history, if we study any history at all, apathy and sitting on the sideline and just looking inwardly as a church and saying, oh, they're never going to come after me, is that that is the worst thing you could do.
Somebody out here right now probably says, Charlie, I'm hearing you sort of, but politics is too messy.
It's too divisive.
It gets too excited at times.
I just don't like it.
It's not for me.
My heart is for missions.
My heart is for helping the poor.
My heart is for educating.
My heart is just for going and being an evangelist.
And guess what?
God bless you.
We need every single, the kingdom and what we are doing right now.
There's people with different talents and different interests and different desires.
But here's my biggest ask for the Christian out there, which is I will support all of that mission work.
I will support the evangelism.
I'll support the altar calls.
I'll support the, you know, the big concerts and you should too.
I'm just asking for one day out of two years, you support the ministry to try to fight back against evil and darkness in America because we need every single level of these things.
It's so critically important.
And so it's an exciting time when you really look at it.
Our founding fathers gave us such a profound gift in the American Constitution and in citizen government and in consent to the governed and in separation of powers and in all these amazing different things.
And elections, when you think about it, are something that we did not earn and we do not deserve.
The fact is that most countries, most civilizations, most people ever to exist usually were not able to be citizens.
I'll talk about that in a second.
Most people were serfs, they were slaves, or they were subjects.
In fact, said differently, most people ever to exist were always dominated by the few dominated the many.
Eternal Wisdom in Elections00:04:04
It was almost always that way.
It was an oligarchy, a kleptocracy, or a dictatorship.
The American founding fathers reversed the entire game.
They said, we believe that the many should give the orders to the few.
And they did that through elections.
And that's what Tuesday is.
And it drives me so nuts when people say, oh, I just don't believe in voting.
I'm cynical.
Now, the world is able to say that because they're still searching for Jesus and they're searching for truth.
But my other challenge for you is if you know one Christian out there and they say, oh, I just don't want to vote.
Oh, that's the other thing.
Some people say, Charlie, I don't want to vote because Jesus, he's coming on Friday.
You know that, right?
And they say, Jesus is going to zap us all up and the end is coming.
Now, look, you very well might be right.
You know, your eschatology might be spot on and Jesus might be coming next Saturday.
But isn't that a reason to want to spread as much salt and light before Jesus comes, not just run to the hills and do the least amount of work?
Shouldn't that be a call to action to lean in and do more?
And so some people say, well, Charlie, America is like every other country ever to exist in the history of the world.
This is rubbish.
Read the Declaration of Independence.
It is a moral argument where it says when in the course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands that have tied them to another, deriving from the equal but separate station of power.
And it goes on to finally say the laws of nature and nature is God.
And it says, we hold these truths to be self-evident.
That's such a beautiful phrase, isn't it?
The founding fathers were talking about eternal wisdom.
They were talking about things that are always true.
And do you notice that the Constitution, despite being around for so long, was not written for the times.
It was written to stand the test of time.
Why?
Because they took a biblical view of human nature.
They knew that people were broken and they needed Jesus.
They knew that God should be the center of it all.
You see, in Isaiah 33, 22, it says that God is the executor, the lawmaker, and the interpreter of the law.
Otherwise, that is the legislative, executive, and judicial branch, the three branches of government that we now enjoy.
And so here we are right in front of us, an election that is just hours away.
And you're in a state that the rest of the country is going to be looking at.
I get emails from all the time.
People say, Charlie, do you really think that they can get rid of that governor in New Mexico?
And I say, when I go to legacy church, they send me a very big message that I think there might be something happening on Tuesday.
But if every person that hears my words here on the live stream across the country said, I'm going to get three, maybe five, maybe 10 people, boom, it happens.
This state is, as you know, the population center.
This is going to be on the margins.
So we have a couple thousand people here.
If you've got the live streams, other satellites and all this, if everyone said, I'm going to bring three more people that haven't already voted to the polls or get them out, boom, that's the multiplication effect that they can't factor in the polls.
That's the multiplication effect that they can't possibly interpret, that they can't possibly be able to understand.
And so my final call to action here is to kind of summarize this all together, is that, look, we must never lose sight that in the church, Jesus is the center of it all.
We want to make sure that we increase the attendance list in heaven.
That's why we're here.
That's why we do our ministry.
That's why we do all of this.
But whenever there are things of evil, as it says in Ephesians 5, 2, do not tolerate the evil acts of darkness, but call them out and to be able, and I'm paraphrasing, but to educate people of what they are.
This is what we're living through.
This is what's happening all around us.
When they are teaching this perverse gender theory to our children, when they are talking about medically mutilating our kids and telling 11-year-olds that they're women and boys and boys and girls and vice versa, that's where we need to rise up more than ever before.
We have a republic.
We're not a democracy.
We are a republic.
And there's a big difference.
A republic means that there are truths that are self-evident that never change.
Life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness, separation of powers, this beautiful Constitution.
But a republic gives you a chance, a pressure release valve.
A republic allows you an opportunity to say, you know what, I've had enough.
Why We Wait for Action00:01:06
And what's happening on Tuesday is us Christians, we have kind of taken it on the chin, haven't we?
They've locked us down.
They've indoctrinated our kids.
They've pushed pornography on eight-year-olds.
They medically mutilate them.
The late-term abortion.
And we've kind of waited our turn, haven't we?
We've kind of been waiting, circling the date on the calendar and waiting and waiting and waiting and waiting.
But guess what?
The founding fathers gave you this opportunity as a Christian to be salt and light in a couple hours to say, you know what?
I have had enough.
I'm going to press that pressure release valve and I'm going to send a resounding message to Santa Fe, to Washington, D.C., and to the rest of the world that the American citizen, the American church, and the American Christian is rising and we're not going to take it anymore and we are going to be salt and light.
God bless you guys.
Thank you so much.
Thanks so much for listening, everybody.
Email me your thoughts as always, freedom at charliekirk.com.
Thank you so much for listening.
God bless.
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