As conservative Christians across America react to the election of Joe Biden as the nation’s 46th president, leader of the 13,000-member First Baptist Church in Dallas, Pastor Robert Jeffress, believes God had a hand in his election too.
“Daniel 2:21 says that ‘It is God who changes the times and the epochs; He removes kings and establishes kings,’” Jeffress wrote in an op-ed for Fox News Sunday.
“Human governments and rulers change at God’s direction and design. Our faith and our salvation lie not in any human ruler, but in the ruler of rulers, the King of kings. We have to remember that even though the occupant of the White House is changing, the One who occupies the throne of Heaven hasn’t changed. The fact that God has established authorities means that by obeying the government, we obey God,” he explained.
When President Donald Trump was elected in 2016, millions of Christian conservatives including Jeffress argued that he was God’s choice. And president Trump went on to deliver on a number of promises to conservatives including: 200 hundred federal judges appointed for life; an embassy in Jerusalem; anti-abortion policies; and three Supreme Court Justices.
First Baptist Dallas)
Christian conservatives like Leah Schoonhoven, from Sheldon, Iowa, are worried Biden who is Catholic, won’t support Christianity in the way Trump did.
“He doesn’t stand for Christianity at all; maybe he will prove me wrong,” Schoonhoven told The New York Times. “It scares me. He’s not going to do everything that Trump did.”
Donna Rigney, a pastor from Salt Springs, Florida, who has been urging her followers “to drag Donald Trump over the finish line with prayers of faith, worship, fasting and staying in the place of loving and forgiving our enemies,” said if this is the end of the Trump era, she is thankful for what he did.
“He will be fine, he has God’s hand on him,” she told The New York Times. “He’ll be better off not being the president and not being attacked daily. But I really feel this will be terrible for the nation.”
Jeffress encouraged Christians however to not be “hypocrites” concerning their faith.
“The Apostle Paul told us: ‘Let every person be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God’ (Romans 13:1),” he wrote.
“Paul also told us to pray ‘for all people, for kings and all who are in high positions’ (1 Timothy 2:1-2). Now, it’s always easier to submit and to pray for someone when he was our preferred candidate. But the rubber really meets the road when the person who takes office is not the one we supported. Paul didn’t give us any wiggle room — his command applies all the same, whether the emperor was the faith-friendly Constantine or the evil emperor Nero,” he continued.
“Here is our chance to show that Christians are not hypocrites. … When Joe Biden becomes president, we should commend him for the things he does right. We should condemn the things he does wrong. And above all, we must pray fervently for our president,” Jeffress added. “If President Biden succeeds, we all succeed. May God bless Joe Biden, and may God bless the United States of America.”
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