“Woe to those who make unjust laws, to those who issue oppressive decrees, to deprive the poor of their rights and withhold justice from the oppressed of My people, making widows their prey and robbing the fatherless. What will you do on the day of reckoning, when disaster comes from afar? To whom will you run for help? Where will you leave your riches?” (Isaiah 10:1-3).
The question is simple: Who are you going to turn too when you face God and He confronts you with the fact that you have taken advantage of old men and women, widows and orphans? Where will you go? What are you going to say? What excuse are you going to give? There will be no place to hide, and nothing you can say will excuse you from the evil that you have done.
This is a strong warning to those in leadership positions that think that God is not watching what they do and the way they live their life. From the very beginning God has warned those in leadership positions not to take bribes (Proverbs 17:23; Isaiah 5:20-23). Leaders are warned over and over not to use their positions to take advantage of other people. The integrity and character of men and women in leadership positions is an extremely important matter to God.
The integrity and character of men and women in leadership positions is also an extremely important matter to the people that they serve and lead. Because it is easy for political and spiritual leaders to lead people astray, and cause the people that follow them to go down the path of destruction. It is extremely important that the laws that these leaders put into place be fair and impartial, and that they be justly exercised. It is extremely important that leaders look out for the welfare of all the people.
God has never allowed men or women to get away with doing things that hurt other people. God hates spiritual pretenders, false prophets and those who take advantage of other people. It is important that leaders, both spiritual and political, should desire to serve all the people, not just those that give them money for their political campaigns. It is important that they serve for the good of others, and not simply to increase their own power and honor.
King Ahab wanted a vineyard and Naboth wouldn’t sell it to him. So Jezebel, Ahab’s wife, worked out a plot to get Naboth killed so that her husband could get the vineyard.
God told Elijah to go tell Ahab that he and all of his descendants would be killed; that dogs will eat those belonging to Ahab who die in the city, and the birds of the air will feed on those who die in the country. And that dogs will devour Jezebel by the wall of Jezreel, because Ahab had sold himself to do evil in the eyes of the Lord, urged on by Jezebel his wife (cf. 1 Kings 21).
This did not happen the next day; it was about 16 years later that God did all these things to Ahab and Jezebel. It is a mistake to think that God has forgotten, that He doesn’t care, or that He doesn’t have the power to do what He said He would do. All of this happened to Ahab and Jezebel (Read 2 Kings 9). Here we have a political leader who suffered the consequences of his actions.
But, in reality, this is for all men and women, not just political and spiritual leaders. Jesus told us that we are blessed when we hunger and thirst for righteousness sake. What does that mean? It means that we are to hunger and thirst to do what is right.
If you have ever been out spraying on a hot day, in a plane that does not have any type of air conditioning, you know how thirsty you can get. There have been times that I couldn’t get back to the airport soon enough. I would be so thirsty that I could hardly wait to get a drink of cold water.
That is what it is like for a person that hungers and thirsts to do what is right. This type of person cannot wait to do the right thing, to treat his or her neighbor right, to do what is fair and equitable for everyone concerned. God does not ask us to do what is right—He demands it. We are to seek to do what is right, no matter the personal cost. We are told to keep our word, pay our debts, do a good job, to be hard workers and honest businessmen and women.
The apostle Paul told the Thessalonians, “And as for you, brothers, never tire of doing what is right” (2 Thessalonians 3:13).
King Nebuchadnezzar had a dream and he asked Daniel to interpret it. Daniel told the king what the dream meant and then told Nebuchadnezzar, “Therefore, O king, be pleased to accept my advice: Renounce your sins by doing what is right, and your wickedness by being kind to the oppressed. It may be that then your prosperity will continue” (Daniel 4:27).
But Nebuchadnezzar did not do what is right, he became prideful and God caused him to eat grass with the animals for 7 seasons. God made Nebuchadnezzar act like a fool (Daniel 4:28-32). And anyone that rejects God’s Word [the Bible] will look like a fool in the final judgement.
The Bible says, “I the Lord search the heart and examine the mind, to reward a man according to his conduct, according to what his deeds deserve. Like a partridge that hatches eggs it did not lay is the man who gains riches by unjust means. When his life is half gone, they will desert him, and in the end he will prove to be a fool” (Jeremiah 17:10-11).
God judges us more by the integrity and character of how we treat others, and how we live our daily life, than by the appearance of our worship on Sunday.