God Over Government
As I’ve discussed in a previous post, a Christian should always be looking only to God for moral guidance and not to government. Also, that the government’s role is to be God’s wrath against wrongdoers and our obligation as Christians is to respect that position as enforcer that the government has been given.
At the end of the post, I’d discussed what happens when the government, rather than punish what God declares wrong, does the exact opposite and punishes people for doing good. This is a hard place to be in but it’s also a place that teaches us a very specific lesson.
God’s Plan, Not Our Preference
If we had our way, as believers, we would naturally want men in leadership who promote the good and punish the unjust. This is the type of leader that guides a nation toward peace and prosperity. However, we are also reminded to rejoice in our trials.
Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.
James 1:2-4
In my lifetime, I’ve seen many believers all too content to tell people off with how their preferred candidate won because God chose them only to have that very thing thrown back in their faces by unbelievers when their candidate won a later election.
The reality is that both are right in that statement but likely wrong in perspective. All leaders are appointed by God for their time in history. God appointed Ahab just the same as David.
Why Bad Leaders?
He makes nations great, and he destroys them; he enlarges nations, and leads them away.
Job 12:23-25
He takes away understanding from the chiefs of the people of the earth and makes them wander in a trackless waste.
They grope in the dark without light, and he makes them stagger like a drunken man.
God may bless nations with good leaders that make nations great and enlarges them. However, he also appoints leaders that destroys them. When it comes time to judge a nation, he takes away the understanding of their leaders and leaves them to wander without good guidance. Staggering around as if blind or drunk.
When we don’t like our nation’s leaders, we should start by asking why God has set out to bring destruction to our nation. It should be a clear, unmistakable message to believers that we should call our neighbors to repentance and before that, especially, to repent of the various attitudes that have covered the church’s light with a basket. How have we lost our saltiness that our nation is on a path that God must punish?
How We Respond
As I mentioned above, I’ve heard a lot of back and forth between believers and unbelievers about how leaders have been appointed by God. Believers often mistakenly believing only good leaders are appointed and unbelievers say the same (if only in a scoffing way) when they get what they want. However, when everyone views bad leaders rightly, it cleans up a lot of this mess.
Whenever you’re mad about who’s in charge, remember it is God’s judgement and it is just. If you want things to change, it’s time to repent. Focusing only on replacing bad leaders with good leaders is pointless because God’s will, when you have bad leaders, is clearly that you will have bad leaders! It needs to be bigger than a movement to replace who holds an office.
Instead of a judgement on campaign strategy or election integrity, it’s a call to national repentance. In modern America, we have been steeped in an individualism that makes this very hard to understand. We think only in terms of individual conversion and piety. However, we have in God’s word no end of examples of what it means for a people (collectively) in judgement to corporately repent. Nineveh even put their animals in sackcloth (Jonah 3:8)!
When a people have bad leaders, it is because God has declared them worthy of destruction. Unless a nation becomes a nation worthy of thriving, no amount of political canvasing will turn things around. While part of doing the right thing will doubtlessly include opposition to all kinds of political corruption, the goal should always be first and foremost to make your nation one that honors God rather than to “fix the system”.
It’s already working as intended by a perfectly just God. When a nation suffers, it’s because it deserves to suffer (almost certainly worse than it is, because God is also perfect in his mercy). Don’t be mad at your leaders. Instead, become the salt and light of the world. Not just to individual salvation but also God honoring discipleship of the nation in which God has placed you. Learning to obey his commands and then teaching others.
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