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I was arrested recently by I Samuel 12:14. In this passage, the last and greatest of Israel’s judges is powerfully reminding the people of their sin of rejecting the Lord and asking for a human king like other nations. They got just what they asked for in Saul. I’d never noticed verse 14 and I found it convicting: If you fear the Lord and serve Him and obey His voice, and do not rebel against the commandment of the Lord, then both you and the king who reigns over you will continue following the Lord your God.
Israel was apparently trying to put a king between themselves and the obligation to obey God and worship him only—they’d failed to do those things many times since entering their homeland. They would fail in hiding themselves from the Lord but this verse brings that home from a new perspective. “If you [y’all] fear the LORD,” they were told, “both you and the king…will continue following the LORD your God.” Perhaps they thought, as we often do, that having a great person as magistrate will free the people up to live without so much responsibility. The king or governor or president will tell us what to do, and if it doesn’t work out well it’s his fault. Not so fast.
I’ve heard Richard Land say often that Washington DC is not a thermostat, controlling the climate in America, so much as a thermometer, reflecting it. Isn’t that what Samuel is telling Israel? Saul will be an impressive king like other nations have, but he’ll also represent who the nation is spiritually, no better and no worse.
There’s hope in this message. I take the verse to promise also that the leaders God places over us will become more godly as we become more godly. Either the Lord will change the leader’s heart or his actions or his address. The hard news is that this puts us right back where we started, responsible to God for what we do.
We are just a few months from an important mid-term election day in our country. After that we have an endless presidential race that will culminate in fall of 2016. Over the course of these months and years we will hear ever more urgent messages about what will happen if a candidate is elected, overblown promises from one side and overblown threats from the other. Our brothers and sisters will send panicked emails about the candidate they favor or the one they fear. For the most part they’ll be wrong in either the content or volume of their promises and warnings. America will get in 2014, and in 2016, the leaders we want and deserve. The people we elect matter but they won’t determine how God blesses or disciplines America—the elected candidate may actually be the agent of that blessing and cursing, and he will reveal who we are as a nation.
A magistrate can only do certain things. He can restrain us in good and bad ways and he can punish evil doers. He cannot make us good or frugal or devoted parents or faithful husbands. He cannot do much about the most crucial problems our families and communities face. Those problems are ultimately spiritual. Bad parents have a spiritual problem, as do lazy people and thieves. Good parents and good citizens are people who honor God or those who live in the afterglow of God-honoring neighbors or families. As that glow fades, families and communities will become less functional and so will our nation’s leadership.
It sounds easier to just elect people much better than ourselves who would forcibly set the tone for our communities. Places where that has been tried have become the worst regimes in history. We’re still on the hook, responsible for our own deeds and for the well-being of our communities. There is no shortcut to national renewal.
I offer a last caution. A revival of strong families and communities would be a byproduct of something more essential. It is God we are made to worship. Our devotion to him will bear marvelous fruit in the lives of all around us, but our devotion to him is the point and not the revitalization of a nation. Remember that as we pray for our leaders and our country in the run up to future elections.
And, oh yes, Christians who are not registered to vote are on the sidelines of spiritual warfare in our nation. Registered voters who do not show up on Election Day are in sin. There’s time for you to become a registered, informed voter before this year’s mid-term election. You should do that. Be good stewards of your Christian citizenship but the hope for any people is, from the first to the last, in the Lord.
