Proverbs 21:1 ¶ 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 Joe Biden 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 mean 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.
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