The outcome of the 2024 ballot box in America has produced more optimism about our future as a nation than any that I can recall. President Trump has predicted that we are about to enter “The Golden Age” of American prosperity. He has stated frequently that Canada would be best served by becoming America’s fifty-first state.

Amazingly, I discovered that in our past we have had pastors who believed that the gospel of the kingdom of God had even an even greater sweep than just Canada!

Thomas De Witt Talmage (January 7, 1832 – April 12, 1902) was a preacher in the United States who held pastorates in the Reformed Church in America and Presbyterian Church. He was one of the most prominent religious leaders in America during the mid - to late -19th century, unequaled as a pulpit orator. He also preached to large crowds in England. During the 1860s and 70s, Talmage was a well-known reformer in New York City and was often involved in crusades against vice and crime.

In the 1870’s he preached a sermon titled, “The Ballot Box”. In it he declared that “until a man can read the declaration of American Independence, and the Constitution of the United States, and the first chapter of Genesis, and right of petition for citizenship with his own hand, and calculate how much is the interest of the United States debt, and tell the difference between a Republic, a limited monarchy, and a despotism, he is not fit to vote at any polls between Key West and Alaska. Time was when there may have been an excuse for ignorance, but there is none in this day, when this common school makes knowledge as free as the fresh air of heaven.”

His eschatological view of the future was not one of optimism or pessimism, but one filled with “gospel hope”. As he continued in his ballot box sermon, he shouted, “We cannot live under any other form of government than that under which we are living. The stars of our flag are not the stars of thickening night, the stars sparkling amid the red bars of mourning cloud. Let the despotisms of Asia keep their feet off the Pacific Coast! But the tyrannies of Europe keep their feet off the Atlantic Coast! We shall have in this country only one government, and on this continent only one government. At the south, Mexico will follow Texas into the Union, and Christianity and civilization will stand in the halls of the Montezumas, and if not in our day, then in the day of our children, Yucatan and Central America will wheel into line of dominion. On the north, Canada will be ours, not by conquest, for English and American swords may never clash blades, but we will simply woo the fair neighbor of the north, and she will be ours, and England will say to Canada, “You are old enough now for the marriage day. Giant of the West, go take your bride.” Then from Baffin’s Bay to the Caribbean there shall be one republic, under one banner and with one destiny - a free, undisputed, Christianized American continent. God grant it. Amen!

DeWitt Talmadge believed in the transforming power of the gospel of the kingdom of God, not in human ability to produce heaven on earth. Sadly, so few Christians today sincerely believe that the gospel of Jesus Christ is the most powerful force on this planet. We are willing to give the gospel a certain relevance and power in a few scattered individuals, but what we see it do in a few, we do not believe it can do in the majority. In so thinking, we self-consciously believe that the forces of evil are too powerful to be dislodged, unbelief too stubborn to be overcome, and unbelieving human authorities too numerous and well organized to be resisted on a broad scale successfully. This loss of faith in the power of the gospel is outright rebellion against Christ, treason against our Prince, and faithlessness to our solemn charge. If Christ has given us a command and instructed us to have a certain expectation, not to obey and believe is sin, betrayal, and cowardice. The fruit of our unbelief is the pagan culture of these United States. Christ has not done a mighty work here in recent times because of our unbelief. We have a culture of our own creation, the creation of an unbelieving, ashamed, and compromised Church that would rather be tolerated, respected, and prosperous than confront wickedness in high places, call heresy heresy, and unashamedly stand for Christ's interests regardless of how the newspapers, general public, or even its members respond.

James Henley Thornwell, was one of the most brilliant Southern Presbyterians of the 19th Century. He taught at South Carolina College (which became the University of South Carolina), and in 1851 became its president. He challenged the people of God in one of his sermons by writing: “If the Church could be aroused to a deeper sense of the glory that awaits her, she would enter with a warmer spirit into the struggles that are before her. Hope would inspire enthusiasm. She would even now arise from the dust, and like the eagle, plume her pinions for loftier flights than she has yet taken. What she wants, and what every individual Christian wants, is faith - faith in her sublime vocation, in her Divine resources, in the presence and efficacy of the Spirit that dwells in her - faith in the truth, faith in Jesus, and faith in God. With such a faith there would be no need to speculate about the future. That would speedily reveal itself. It is our unfaithfulness, our negligence and unbelief, our low and carnal aims, that retard the chariot of the Redeemer. the Bridegroom cannot come until the Bride has made herself ready. Let the Church be in earnest after greater holiness in her own members, and in faith and love undertake the conquest of the world, and she will soon settle the question whether her resources are competent to change the face of the earth.”

When the church of the living God repents of her unbelief and begins to live and announce to whole gospel of the King and His kingdom, then Canada, the United States, Mexico will be one under the blood-stained banner of the cross of Christ.

Because Jesus has fulfilled the Father's will, conquered and cast out Satan, and is now enthroned at the right hand of God, the nations will be converted to him. They belong to him by the solemn oath and covenant of his Father (Psalm 2). He has all authority and all power by which to make them his own. For all intents and purposes, he is the only One left standing on the battlefield. His robes are dipped in blood from conquering his enemies, dispossessing Satan, and laying the foundations of a worldwide kingdom that will progressively change the face of the world (Isaiah 63:3). Christ has now entered his glory and universal dominion over men and nations (Luke 24:26; Ephesians 1:19-23). He is King of every king, Lord of every lord (1 Timothy 6:15). Every knee will bow to him and every tongue confess that he is Lord (Philippians 2:7-8). He will reign from God's right hand until all his enemies are subdued under his feet (1 Corinthians 15:24-26; Hebrews 10:12,13). He will not return from his exalted state until all his enemies are defeated, the gospel successful, and the world converted. 

The New Testament is clear. Christ's present enthronement and reign will result in the conversion of the world. Christ gave the great commission to the Church not as busy work, an idealistic dream, or as an exaggerated claim, but as a command and duty. It is his will that the nations be discipled, Christianized, transformed from rebels into worshippers of God. His power and dominion guarantee that this will take place.

The Christian’s choice should be neither optimism nor pessimism, but sound, victorious, confident expectation, combined with desire, that everything God promised to accomplish through the gospel of the kingdom, He will successfully achieve -  which can be expressed in two words -  BIBLICAL HOPE!

“From victory unto victory, His army shall He lead “til every foe is vanquished and Christ is Lord indeed!