LEARNING DAILY

Proverbs 21:1, The king’s heart is in the hand of the Lord, like the rivers of water; He turns it wherever He wishes.

The political world never ceases to amaze me! I should have known better as I hoped some of the pettiness between political parties would lessen after the election. Nope, it did not happen. So, it is in the political world. Doing what is best for the people of this nation seems to be secondary to holding on to power making everything miserable for the other party, and the people elected. Afterall, is it not the responsibility of the party out of power to point out everything bad the party in power wants to do? I used to think I was clever when I told my government classes that. But listening to that stuff day after day has gotten old.

The verse from Proverbs reminds us that God has sovereign control over the king, the leader of a country. Drop down to verse 12 in this Proverb and read, “The righteous God wisely considers the house of the wicked, overthrowing the wicked in their wickedness”. Kings and presidents certainly hold tremendous power in this world, but even the most powerful leaders are subject to God’s power and His will. God will use whoever He chooses to accomplish His will including any world leader – good or evil – and an elected president.

Let me give a few examples from the Bible. God moved in the King Cyrus of Persia to pass an edict to allowing Hebrew captives to return to Jerusalem to rebuild the destroyed temple (Ezra 1:2). In the days the New Testament, God used Caesar Augustus to call for a census, causing Mary and Joseph to go to Bethlehem to register; prophesy in Micah 5:2 was fulfilled as a result.

“Government was never meant to reflect a Christian’s total value system – it can never do so in a pluralistic {multicultural] society” (David Jeremiah Study Bible). That might be true, but it is still discouraging to see the leaders of the United States pursuing policies that are different from what God values. The next verse in this Proverb is a reminder for each of us that not just our leaders, “Every way of a man is right in his own eyes, but the Lord weighs the heart”. A leader, or any of us, might think his behavior is fine, but God is the ultimate Judge. No matter how good one believes himself to be, God looks at his heart to see what his motives are, if there is sin there. Remember the Pharisee who was praying in the temple and compared himself to another nearby? He thought he was righteous because he did “religious things”.  However, God examined his heart and did not justify him; God justified the other person who acknowledged his sin.

Here is the point this morning. “God turns the heart of a leader like a farmer uses an irrigation apparatus to water his fields. World leaders and our president may think they are directing world events but the decisions they make do not happen apart from God’s sovereignty” (David Jeremiah Study Bible).  God knows their hearts, knows what is happening in this world; He is not surprised by anything. The best thing Believers can do is to pray for our leaders even when we do not agree with them.