Proverbs 21:1 commentary; Of Presidents and kings

1 ¶ The king’s heart is in the hand of the LORD, as the rivers of water: he turneth it whithersoever he will.

God is in complete control of the actions of the chief executive of any nation, even when He gives Satan the authority to lead that chief executive; who could be called a Prime Minister, a President, a king, or an emperor among other nifty names we use for the people we allow to send our children to their death, to steal our money, and to act like little gods.

Let me put it this way. A chief executive, no matter how wayward or how his eyes are set on conquest or other policy can do nothing without the Lord’s permission. Remember first;

Matthew 28:18 And Jesus came and spake unto them, saying, All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth.

Secondly, go back to Daniel and note this;

Daniel 4:17 This matter is by the decree of the watchers, and the demand by the word of the holy ones: to the intent that the living may know that the most High ruleth in the kingdom of men, and giveth it to whomsoever he will, and setteth up over it the basest of men.

Thirdly, remember what Satan said to Jesus when he tried to tempt Him in vain.

Matthew 4:8 Again, the devil taketh him up into an exceeding high mountain, and sheweth him all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them; 9 And saith unto him, All these things will I give thee, if thou wilt fall down and worship me.

Fourthly, understand who is the nominal king of this world system.

2Corinthians 4:4 In whom the god of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them.

And finally, we come to a strange fact.

1 Corinthians 1:26 For ye see your calling, brethren, how that not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, are called:

From these facts and others we can only conclude that the very act of desiring to have rule over human beings as the chief executive does most likely implies that that person is going to be an ungodly reprobate. I mean, why would a Christian who believes his Bible want to have the power to send young men and women to die and to kill the young men and women and children of another country? Would you not think that if a Christian were elected president that he would flood a Muslim country with missionaries and Bibles rather than bombs and bullets?

The famous Lord Acton had a quote which people often only use in part. The popular part goes like this from a letter he wrote to a Bishop Creighton in 1887;

“Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.”

The rest of the quote reads;

“Great men are almost always bad men.”

The pool of men and women from which the so called “great leaders” are drawn from Caesar to FDR, from Alexander the Great to Reagan, from Mansa Musa to Clinton, and from Genghis Khan to George W. Bush is not of the highest sort. In other words, these people are not likely to glorify God in their behavior and decrees. I try to exempt George Washington because he didn’t want to be President and said something like that his inauguration felt more like the final walk of a condemned man to the gallows than something joyous and King Alfred of Anglo-Saxon England because he tried to glorify God through his entire reign (which is probably why he was taken so young).

We admire great men. However, God appreciates the other end of the spectrum of men. The simple Appalachian farm woman who knows the Bible, has the fruit of the Spirit in Galatians 5:22 just oozing from her pores, and loves God is of far more importance than the Speaker of the House in the US Congress or the Prime Minister of England to God.

Literally, this verse would have been applied to a king of Israel and remember, God did not authorize kings. In fact, He was against the concept of a chief executive as He was to be the king of His people. But, they wanted to be like everyone else.

1Samuel 8:7 And the LORD said unto Samuel, Hearken unto the voice of the people in all that they say unto thee: for they have not rejected thee, but they have rejected me, that I should not reign over them.

So, God selected people like an insignificant man of a the smallest tribe;

1Samuel 9:21 And Saul answered and said, Am not I a Benjamite, of the smallest of the tribes of Israel? and my family the least of all the families of the tribe of Benjamin? wherefore then speakest thou so to me?

Then a simple shepherd boy, David;

1 Samuel 16:11 And Samuel said unto Jesse, Are here all thy children? And he said, There remaineth yet the youngest, and, behold, he keepeth the sheep. And Samuel said unto Jesse, Send and fetch him: for we will not sit down till he come hither. 12 And he sent, and brought him in. Now he was ruddy, and withal of a beautiful countenance, and goodly to look to. And the LORD said, Arise, anoint him: for this is he.

These kings think that they are in control and have great power, much like we do in our own lives. The kings could send armies to fight, make alliances, and do great good or great cruelty, but God could always manipulate them, sometimes directly, and sometimes permitting Satan to do his bidding and you’d be hard pressed to tell the difference between the two.

2Samuel 24:1 And again the anger of the LORD was kindled against Israel, and he moved David against them to say, Go, number Israel and Judah.

1Chronicles 21:1 And Satan stood up against Israel, and provoked David to number Israel.

So, as it stands, it is impossible for us to figure out if a king’s order, a chief executive’s order is by the direct will of God or by permission, empowering Satan, the god of this world, by virtue of Adam’s sin, our first ancestor, and by our continuing to walk in Adam’s sandals in rebellion.

But, nevertheless, the key here is to understand that when a leader plots a course, creates a policy, or makes a “bold” move he probably is not as in control as he and the historians would like you to think he is. In fact, any historian who denies the spiritual aspect of the leadership of nations, as laid out in the Bible, will never have a clue as to the real why or how some so called great event came about.

If you are truly a Bible believing Christian you are going to look at any action of a world leader with some suspicion. It doesn’t mean you won’t do your duty and vote or get involved to try to temper the wicked, ungodly actions of leaders, but it does men you should not fall for the lies told as the rest of the “kool aid drinking” sheep of any political group do.

All is in preparation for that final stand of Satan and mankind against the God who created them. You will learn that it is only by God’s mercy that our wicked selves weren’t cast into Hell and the eventual Lake of Fire. While we in our politics glorify man, thereby glorifying Satan, man’s elected king, only those who glorify God by submitting to Him in the person of the visible image of the invisible God, the Lord Jesus Christ, will stand at the end.

The point of this Proverb is that when ‘the man’, whomever he is at any particular time, stands in the Oval Office and decides some great issue he really has no idea of who is really in control. Of course, if he did he would probably immediately resign the office and retire from public life, giving no interviews, and start a church but that’s another story.