The mild din, the soft music, the pleasantly pungent aromas, the warm cup sitting six inches to the left of my laptop, filled with the ever-dear-to-my-heart Tall Vanilla Latte. It’s official: coffee shops are the best place to blog. There’s something about the constant noise and movement that really helps me concentrate. Maybe that’s why I like the prayer room too.
Anyway . . . If you haven’t noticed Leadership and our response to it is something that is heavy on my heart and I am adamant about understanding the ins and outs of the Lord’s heart in it. How are we to pray? How should we act? I find these questions tricky at best and as we approach the end of the age we are going to be faced with increasingly wicked governments.
So how do we act? Do we submit to wicked leadership or rise up and rebel against it? When we look at Biblical models what we see at first appears to be contradictions. Moses and the plagues against Pharaoh, the judges appointed, Like Samson that flew in the face of the established structures, numerous prophets, both Major and Minor, speaking against the wicked leaders of their time. Or extra-biblically we have the Maccabean revolt against Antiochus Epiphanies.
Then there is the other side, David letting the Lord deal with Saul even when he was within his reach, Jeremiah telling the people to go into captivity without resistance, Daniel serving a pagan government faithfully for the majority of his life, the beast empires sent to judge Israel, and (above all) the only One above any of these structures not only submitting to it and dying because of it but also telling you to pay taxes too.
Despite all other evidence I am going to side with Jesus. Besides if we really examine the biblical evidence for acting against a government we see that there is something bigger going on. The prophets were addressing the heart condition of the whole nation, not just the leaders. Plus, they were speaking what the Lord was declaring, not moving to tear anything down. Samson and other judges were acting against the enemies of Israel not the leaders of Israel. If we look at Moses, it was God that delivered Israel through the plagues. Moses was there to let pharaoh know who was responsible. And as for the Maccabean revolt, well, there is a reason it’s not in your Bible.
We have the first part of out answer, how do we act as subjects to government? We obey. As long as obedience does not constitute sin or wickedness is allowed to prevail through out inaction, we stay within the confines of the law.
This means that only two options remain to us. One is of course prayer, which I will address in part 3, and the other is changing our leadership through the means provided through the established governmental structure. We are blessed with one that is open to change every four years and cannot be unanimously controlled by any one man or group. ( At least in theory.) Although the system is not perfect, as long as it exists we won’t see the atrocities that are occurring in Zimbabwe and elsewhere happen here.
Let me just add a quick postscript here. This could sound as if I were saying that I was against the stand for LIFE or other movements to right what is wrong in our country. I’m not saying this at all, in fact quite the opposite. I am all for standing against injustice. I appreciate that our country allows us legal means to protest those things in our laws that don’t align with the heart of the Lord. I also love that such great pains are taken in order to protest within the legal bounds that are placed on such protests. And to all you who stand for LIFE, well done.
