Trust Not in Princes
“This is the most important election of our lifetime.” I am quite certain I’ve heard that every four years going back to when I started paying attention to politics. For some people, including many Christians, this refrain is a powerful one. It has the power to fill people with a sense of urgency and dread. If the vote goes the wrong way, if the wrong leaders get elected, then what will happen to our country?
Certainly, concern about our country, the stability of life, and the leaders who make decisions affecting such things are important and mentioned in the Scriptures. “If possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all,” (Romans 12:18) the apostle Paul exhorts us. Our desire and aim should be for a peaceable life with all people. And the quality of a leader can have a major impact on the quality of life of the land he rules. We are told “by justice a king builds up a land” (Proverbs 29:4a) and “this is gain for a land in every way: a king committed to cultivated fields” (Ecclesiastes 5:9). A king focused on building up the prosperity of his country and ruling with justice will benefit his entire country and would certainly go a long way toward that peaceful life Paul talks about.
In the period of the judges, when there was no stable leader, the nation fell into sin and was invaded by foreign nations, cycling between peace and instability. The author of Judges sums up the period in these words: “In those days there was no king in Israel. Everyone did what was right in his own eyes” (Judges 21:25), lamenting the lack of true leadership that led to this disarray with the nation of Israel.
Even when Israel had a king, the quality of the king had a direct impact on the prosperity of the kingdom. Just as an example (of which I could have chosen from many) it says of King Jehoahaz in 2 Kings 13:2, “He did what was evil in the sight of the Lord and followed the sins of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, which he made Israel to sin; he did not depart from them.” Notice that the quality of Jehoahaz did not simply stay with Jehoahaz, but that as king he had a direct impact on his subjects: “which he made Israel to sin.” We find this countless times throughout the Bible, that the goodness or evilness of the king has a direct impact on the character and quality of the entire nation. And the declining quality of kings and of the people led directly to the captivities of the Assyrians and Babylonians.
That seems like something to avoid. Unlike the children of Israel, who had little choice in king, our “king” has been divided up into different branches of government some of which we elect. We individually have a small (but sometimes pivotal) impact on the leaders we have. And we can get very caught up in elections, very certain that we should vote one way or the other. Add on top of that, the urgency and fear that the “wrong” candidate might win. Pushed along by political messaging, we begin to sink into despair, fearing the worst because we know history, and we know how bad things could get with the wrong leaders. And we begin to think that if this or that politician isn’t elected then our nation will be doomed.
Should this be the Christian’s response to the emotional weight of elections? It is so easy to be carried away, either in fear by the uncertainty of the future, or in ecstasy by the charisma of certain leaders that you can lose yourself. But as Christians, we need to be sober-minded in all things, and that should include our attitudes toward our leaders and the processes we use to select them. The Psalmist warns us “put not your trust in princes, in a son of man, in whom there is no salvation; when his breath departs, he returns to the earth; on that very day his plans perish” (Psalm 146:3-4). Whether our leaders are good or bad, they are but mortal, and things will change. We cannot rely upon a man, even the best man (or woman), to save us from a decline in our nation. It is unwise to place our hope for the salvation of our country into ANY politician. Instead “it is better to take refuge in the Lord than to trust in man; it is better to take refuge in the Lord than to trust in princes” (Psalm 118:8-9).
We should instead have a different relationship with our leaders. We need to recognize that “there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God” (Romans 13:1b), and that we are to “fear God, honor the emperor” (1 Peter 2:17b). And lest we think this is only a directive for “good” governments, Paul and Peter give Christians these commands who lived under Roman rule, hardly a model of godly governance. Christians are expected to live righteously regardless of whether they find themselves under a good king or a bad king.
This attitude is found among the godly throughout the Scriptures as well. Despite the general moral decline of Israel during the period of the judges, men like Boaz lived according to the law of Moses even if his countrymen did not. The Prophet Elijah was told by God that even under the rule of the evil King Ahab that “seven thousand in Israel, all knees that have not bowed to Baal” (1 Kings 19:18) remained. And a faithful remnant was saved through the captivities and returned to the land of Israel. Despite bad kings and bad circumstances, there were those who remained faithful to God.
So regardless of how the upcoming election goes, and regardless of what the future may hold for our country, as Christians we ought to place our faith in the Lord and live by faith no matter what comes.
