“Let every soul be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and the authorities that exist are appointed by God (Romans 13:1). This year the citizens of the United States will elect our president and other government leaders. So I thought we should look at what the Bible says about God and worldly government. The Bible teaches that God has put into power every government leader that has every existed and those that exist today. I know it is hard (impossible) to reconcile in our human mind how a holy God could allow some of the evil men and women who have ruled nations in past history and those evil rulers that exist today. But we have to accept that God does everything to eventually destroy all evil and bring in His rule in heaven and the earth. “And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose” (Romans 8:28).
Nebuchadnezzar was an evil man who gloried in his own power, and yet God calls him His servant (Jeremiah 27:6). Even the wicked serve God’s eternal purposes. When the three Hebrew men didn’t bow down to the golden idol Neb built he cast them into the burning fiery furnace. After God delivered the three Hebrew men through the fire without even the smell of smoke on their clothes, Nebuchadnezzar said, “There is no other God who can deliver like this” (read Daniel 3). Daniel said of God, “He sets up kings and deposes them” (Daniel 2:21). And after his humiliating experience of living with animals and eating grass for seven seasons because of his arrogance toward God, Nebuchadnezzar said, “The Most High God is sovereign over the kingdoms of men and sets over them anyone he wishes” (Daniel 5:21). “The Lord has established His throne in heaven, and His kingdom rules over all” (Psalm 103:19). The king's heart is in the hand of the Lord; He directs it like a watercourse wherever He pleases” (Proverbs 21:1).
The political position or power of any man or woman is a divine gift from God, and the Bible clearly teaches that those leaders that abuse this power will be judged severely by God, either here on this earth, or in eternity hereafter. 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 Jezebel, and all of his descendants, would be killed because of the evil they have done; 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). About 16 years later all these things happened 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 (Read 2 Kings 9). Here we have a political leader who suffered the consequences of his actions.
King David let the lust of his flesh get the best of him and he had an affair with Bathsheba, the wife of Uriah. But when Bathsheba turned up pregnant David had a problem, so he arranged to have Uriah killed in battle. David thought he had gotten away with his evil deeds until Nathan the prophet revealed to him that God knew everything he had done. Through Nathan God told David, “I gave you the house of Israel and Judah. And if all this had been too little, I would have given you even more. Why did you despise the word of the Lord by doing what is evil in His eyes? You struck down Uriah the Hittite with the sword and took his wife to be your own. You killed him with the sword of the Ammonites. Now, therefore, the sword will never depart from your house, because you despised Me and took the wife of Uriah the Hittite to be your own…Out of your own household I am going to bring calamity upon you…You did it in secret, but I will do this thing in broad daylight before all Israel” (2 Samuel 12:8-12). Even though David was a man after God’s own heart (Acts 13:22), he suffered the consequences of his actions for the rest of his life on this earth (Read 2 Samuel 12-24).
God said, “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). This is a strong warning to those in leadership positions that think God is not watching how they rule. God has warned those in leadership positions not to take bribes (Proverbs 17:23; Isaiah 5:20-23). It is important that political leaders serve all the people impartially, not just those that give them money for their political campaigns.
It doesn’t make any difference whether you are the president of the United States, a state governor, a city mayor, or the leader of a city council, the integrity of men and women in leadership positions is extremely important to God. There is no such thing as separation of God and government; government leaders can pass all the laws they want, but God is the sovereign ruler over this universe, and that includes all the governments of this earth. “God has spoken; twice have I heard this: that power belongs to God” (Psalm 62:11). All power belongs to God and the powers that exist are ordained by God. Through Jeremiah, God said, “With My great power and outstretched arm I made the earth and its people and the animals that are on it, and I give it to anyone I please” (Jeremiah 27:5). More on this subject next time.