In just a few months, Americans will go to the polls to elect our national, state and local leaders, including the next president of the United States. This summer, both parties are holding their 2024 national conventions to nominate their respective candidates for president.
We all know that our nation is in trouble, as we deal with unchecked illegal immigration, escalating tensions around the globe and an alarming moral and spiritual decline. My grandchildren’s generation is facing an epidemic of “deaths of despair”—suicides and drug overdoses both now outnumber fatal auto accidents. It’s heartbreaking to see so many young souls living without hope.
None of us knows exactly what will be the outcome on Nov. 5, when more than 100 million voters will cast their ballots. I encourage every voter to prayerfully examine the platforms from both parties and see how they measure up to Biblical principles. In addition to the presidential election, we need to pay attention to all the other races, from Congress to local school boards.
However, the answers to our country’s fundamental problems are not to be found in the Republican or Democratic parties. Many of our ills are the result of our nation turning its back on God. I pray and hope that voters will seek God’s will, knowing that His sovereign wisdom and counsel will heal our nation.
Recently I was in Washington, D.C., for the unveiling of a statue in the U.S. Capitol honoring my father’s lifetime of ministry. The bronze statue portrays him preaching the Gospel, with a Bible draping his left hand and his right hand open in an invitation to the lost.
A plaque on the statue describes him as a “Preacher of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.”
The pedestal, carved from pink North Carolina granite, conveys two powerful Scriptures. One side has John 14:6: “Jesus said to him, ‘I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.’” The other side has John 3:16: “For God so loved the world that He gave his only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.”
“Jesus Christ is the hope of our nation and the world, and it is our mission to proclaim His Gospel to those who are lost.”
My father called John 3:16 his favorite verse. He learned it from his mom, and it became a hallmark of his Crusades. He often described it as the Bible in miniature.
The statue has another subtle message in the pages of his Bible, which is open to Galatians 6:14. This was a verse that Daddy had underlined in red in his study Bible. “But God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world” (KJV). Speaker of the House of Representatives Mike Johnson read that passage from my father’s study Bible during the dedication ceremony.