In my previous posts on politics, I first stated that I firmly believe that God is ultimately responsible for the leaders we get, directing the results of elections to give us leaders according to His will - either leaders who will act as a judgment on a rebellious nation, as in Isaiah 3 and Jeremiah 52; or leaders who represent his mercy towards a repentant nation.  We can never say "don't blame me, I didn't vote for him," because in fact, we have gotten the leader we deserved - unless God has mercy on us.

In my second post, I elaborated on my own particular political position; I am committed to vote pro-life no matter what, but other than the war in Iraq, my other issues are more or less flexible (though I certainly lean to the right).  I also briefly explained my support for Mike Huckabee.

In reaction to yesterday's primary, I will comment briefly - according to my criteria previously explained, I'm open to the possibility of voting for McCain.  I'm also open to the possibility of voting for Romney, though frankly, he makes me nervous for several reasons.  But I don't consider Huckabee out of the race yet; God is not limited to what is "probable" in the political process - in fact, as an old gospel song says, "Faith laughs at impossibilities and cries 'It shall be done!'"  If it is God's decree that Mike Huckabee will be president, it will happen.

That brings me to my topic for today's post.  As I talk about "voting on my knees" and praying for leaders, what am I actually praying for?  Am I praying for Mike Huckabee to become president of the United States?

No.

What I'm praying is that God would give us a leader - according to His mercy, rather than according to what we deserve - who would meet His requirements for a righteous ruler.  Those requirements are given in 2 Samuel 23 (in the last words of David):

2 Samuel 23:3-4

3 The God of Israel said,
The Rock of Israel spoke to me:
‘He who rules over men must be just,
Ruling in the fear of God.

4 And he shall be like the light of the morning when the sun rises,
A morning without clouds,
Like the tender grass springing out of the earth,
By clear shining after rain.’

The two requirements to be a righteous ruler before God are:

1. The leader must be just.
2. He (or she) must lead in the fear of God.

In essence, these requirements are for horizontal and vertical rightness.  The leader must behave righteously towards those he leads, embodying justice; and the leader must behave righteously before God, acknowledging God's sovereignty, and striving for obedience to His word.

David goes on to say that he actually did not meet these requirements himself.  David is as close as Israel ever got to a king who was truly just and ruled in the fear of God, however.  So what we are actually praying for when we ask God for a leader like this is for the return of Christ and the establishment of His kingdom on earth.  He is the only One who truly delights in the fear of God (Isaiah 11:3) and will bring forth justice to all nations (Isaiah 42:1).

But we can nonetheless pray for leaders who will embody these requirements in the same way that David did - imperfectly, but with an intention of heart to strive for these two standards.

Derek Prince, in his excellent book, Shaping History Through Prayer and Fasting summarizes this prayer neatly through an example from his own experience in World War 2.  After describing the incompetence and shameful self-indulgence of the British officers responsible for the humiliation of the Allies at the hands of the Germans in North Africa , he writes:

During the long and demoralizing retreat to the gates of Cairo, God laid on my heart a burden of prayer, both for the British forces in the desert and for the whole situation in the Middle East.  Yet I could not see how God could bless leadership that was so unworthy and inefficient.  I searched in my heart for some form of prayer that I could pray with genuine faith and that would cover the needs of the situation.  After a while, it seemed that the Holy Spirit gave me this prayer: "Lord, give us leaders such that it will be for Your glory to give us victory through them."

(From Chapter 5, Seeing History Shaped through Prayer and Fasting)

Prince goes on to describe the removal of the incompetent officers by the British high command and the death of the designated replacement officer by enemy fire.  Through these events, in answer to Prince's prayer, God sovereignly orchestrated the arrival of General B.L. Montgomery, a God-fearing man who brought justice, discipline, morale, and eventually victory to the Allies in North Africa.  Prince ends this section with this comment:

I believe that the prayer that God gave me at that time could well be applied to other situations, both military and political: "Lord, give us leaders such that it will be for Your glory to give us victory through them."

This, then is what I am praying.  Lord, give us a president in 2008 who will lead us in justice and the fear of God; a president such that it will be for Your glory to bring blessing and restoration to America in these days.

In Jesus name.  Lord have mercy on America!

In my previous post, I attempted to be balanced in regard to political views, and give my many left-leaning Christian friends the respect they deserve. This may have created impression that I am a political agnostic and don't have strong views on the current political situation, apart from theological implications. This is not at all the case, as the new banner on the left side of my blog indicates.

Like the vast majority of people who have been at or are otherwise involved with IHOP, I wear a Life Band, which means that I am essentially committed to single-issue voting - or more accurately, single-issue filtering of candidates. I will never vote for a candidate who is not pro-life. If this makes me a single issue voter, then, with Dave Sliker, I'm fine with that. However, I see it not as "the only issue I care about", but rather as "the issue which is non-negotiable."

I do care about the war in Iraq - I feel strongly that, whatever the verdict on whether starting the war was a mistake, we now have a serious responsibility to minimize the damage to Iraq. The calls to "End the war now" and "bring our boys home" are utterly irresponsible and morally reprehensible if it is possible that we can save Iraq from genocide by staying longer.

Aside from that, and gay marriage (on which I'd assume my views are obvious), I don't have a lot of deep convictions on the current political issues. I generally lean to the right economically, and maybe someday I'll post some thoughts on why that makes sense to me, but it's not something that I hold at the level of conviction.

All of this is mostly to explain the appearance of the Mike Huckabee banner on my blog. I am unabashedly a Huckabee supporter for 2008. I like the guy, I agree with most of his issues, I resonate with his worldview, and he seems like the best hope from the pack of candidates for 2008.

But I'll end this by reiterating what I said in my last post. The most important voting that I'm doing this year is on my knees. The fact that we are a democratic nation is utterly irrelevant to the sovereignty of God - leaders are still the agents of the Sovereign God, and they are also His judgments on unrepentant people. We may get the leader that we deserve in 2008 - but let us pray that God gives us a leader according to His mercy instead!

Psalm 75:4-7
4 “I said to the boastful, ‘Do not deal boastfully,’
And to the wicked, ‘Do not lift up the horn.
5 Do not lift up your horn on high;
Do not speak with a stiff neck.’”

6 For exaltation comes neither from the east
Nor from the west nor from the south.
7 But God is the Judge:
He puts down one,
And exalts another.

For understandable reasons, there's a lot of discussions of politics happening on blogs these days.  Dave Sliker recently posted an eloquent discussion of the dynamics of leadership and a strong defense of being a single-issue voter, and his conclusion, in addition to the fact that he is going to continue to vote pro-life no matter what, is that he is more concerned with voting with his knees than voting at the polls.

John Paul Jackson, a prophetic minister who has been residing in the New England area for the past decade, posted on politics and mentioned the shock of hearing an unintentional spiritual statement out of the mouth of a liberal pundit:

“We may think we are electing a President, but we are really getting the President we deserve.” I was stopped in my tracks. Was this a spiritual statement coming out of a liberal mouth?

I want to expand on the allusions that these men are making in their posts.  I've recently been struck by the clear teaching of the Bible with regard to politics, and how radically different it is from what is accepted as conventional wisdom in our culture (what else is new?)

The question I want to address is the "bumper sticker" mentality that is so common in our culture.

Don't blame me, I voted for... (insert opposing party here)

Can we say this?  Biblically speaking, are we ever justified in saying that the leaders we have in our nation are "not our fault?"  Are we justified in mocking them, criticizing them, and expressing our hatred and contempt for them?

The Bible answers this with an emphatic "No."

Consider Isaiah 3:

1 For behold, the Lord, the LORD of hosts,
      Takes away from Jerusalem and from Judah
      The stock and the store,
      The whole supply of bread and the whole supply of water;
2 The mighty man and the man of war,
      The judge and the prophet,
      And the diviner and the elder;
3 The captain of fifty and the honorable man,
      The counselor and the skillful artisan,
      And the expert enchanter.
4 “ I will give children to be their princes,
      And babes shall rule over them.
5 The people will be oppressed,
      Every one by another and every one by his neighbor;
      The child will be insolent toward the elder,
      And the base toward the honorable.”
6 When a man takes hold of his brother
      In the house of his father, saying,
      “ You have clothing;
      You be our ruler,
      And let these ruins be under your power,”
7 In that day he will protest, saying,
      “ I cannot cure your ills,
      For in my house is neither food nor clothing;
      Do not make me a ruler of the people.”
8 For Jerusalem stumbled,
      And Judah is fallen,
      Because their tongue and their doings
Are against the LORD,
      To provoke the eyes of His glory.
9 The look on their countenance witnesses against them,
      And they declare their sin as Sodom;
      They do not hide it.
      Woe to their soul!
      For they have brought evil upon themselves.

J. Alec Motyer, in his excellent commentary on the book of Isaiah, writes the following on this passage:

3:6 - 4:1 has a double function.  First, it shows how judgment will work out in divine action, transforming luxuriousness into poverty and slavery, making use of enemy assault resulting in a casualty rate of six men in seven and Zion herself being brought to the dust.  Secondly, they prepare for the vision of what the Lord will yet do (4:2-6), for just as the 'daughters of Zion' (3:16-24) encapsulated the spirit of their mother, so they will be the primary objects of divine renewal. (4:4).

The message of the whole section is solemn in the extreme.  Divine judgment on society begins to manifest itself in the disappearance of solid leadership (1-3) and the appearance of immature, capricious leaders (4).  Society becomes divided (5a), the age-gap opens up (5b), values are at a discount and those who should be despised take the initiative (5c).  An air of despair dominates elections (6-7).  All this arises from moral and spiritual causes.  It is not the result of failures of policy but of speaking and acting against the Lord and provoking him; blatant sin inviting its just reward (8-11).

The Lord removes stable leadership (1-3) and introduces childish leaders (4).  As a result fragmentation sets in, socially and morally (5), and the whole idea of leadership falls into disrepute (6-7).

...

The sovereignty of God is not only the power which underwrites the end of history but also the power at work in the detailed ordering of earthly affairs in accordance with his immutable principles of righteousness.  Here, when leaders fall and leaders arise, it is he who removes (1) and appoints (4) them.  He does so not arbitrarily but through the election processes (6-7) and in accordance with justice (8-17).

...

Beginning with military leadership, hero and warrior (the supposed evidences of national security), Isaiah heaps up titles, moving broadly from the national (judge and prophet) to the local (elder and craftsman), and mixing the legitimate with the illegitimate (counsellor and enchanter).  This creates an impression of the total collapse of the command structure of society.  The dissolution of society and the abandonment of true religion is always the signal for superstitions and an obsessive interest in prognostication, hence the reference to the soothsayer or 'fortune-teller'.  Captain of fifty and mank of rank, the counsellor refers to local government, and skilled craftsman to the disappearance of the local carpenter and plumber or of men whose work is reliable.

...

In society as a whole there is divisiveness and ruthless self-advancement (the 'rat-race') and within society's natural groupings, teenage rebellion.  ... In the moral order, honour is accorded without consideration of worth.  The base is lit. 'the one who ought to be thought nothing of' and the honourable, the one 'who merits honour'.

6-7 In the political order there is a disinclination to treat leadership seriously and a breakdown in public spirit.  Isaiah is not describing events but caricaturing attitudes in which leadership merits not thoughtful but hasty action (seize), not a search for the best candidate but taking whatever is at hand (brothers at ... home), not qualification but show (cloak).  Despair has set in (heap of ruins), infecting the candidate like the proposers.  ... The candidate takes his proposition at face value and disclaims even the pathetic qualifications urged in his favour.  Behind this caricature lies the reality of unwillingness to accept responsibility and for reasons as frivolous as those put forward in his favour.  Isaiah is in reality describing a breakdown in national character and seriousness; the spirit which treats national welfare, politics and leadership as a joke.

Verse 8 reads 'For Jerusalem has stumbled and Judah has fallen, for their tongue and their deeds are against the LORD.' The first 'for' explains the evidences of social and character collapse just reviewed and the second explains the first, tracing all to a root cause: speech and conduct contrary to the Lord.  ... Isaiah sees this sin as compounded in the case of his people for it is not an occasional lapse nor a shameful secret but a public and unabashed way of life.  They wear what they are on their faces and parade/'tell of' their sin.  Moral factors (words and deeds) and spiritual factors (against the LORD) are the cause of national breakdown.

Does this sound familiar?  A lack of seriousness in elections; a collection of bad choices for candidates; deep divisions in society, and the advancement of people who are unworthy of their position or the respect afforded to them?  Isaiah points us to the root cause - we have sinned against the LORD.  We may not have voted for "this loser" (whichever party we consider to be the incompetent one... this applies as much to conservatives in the 90's as to liberals today) in the polls, but the fact of the matter is that we have voted.  We voted with our hearts. 

"The king’s heart is in the hand of the LORD,Like the rivers of water; He turns it wherever He wishes." (Proverbs 21:1)  Rulers are a judgment from God; either a judgment of retribution for wickedness or a judgment of blessing and mercy for repentant people who seek His face.

The Bible abounds with examples of verses in which people get the leaders they deserve.  One of the most striking examples is in Jeremiah 52:

1 Zedekiah was twenty-one years old when he became king, and he reigned eleven years in Jerusalem. His mother’s name was Hamutal the daughter of Jeremiah of Libnah. 2 He also did evil in the sight of the LORD, according to all that Jehoiakim had done. 3 For because of the anger of the LORD this happened in Jerusalem and Judah, till He finally cast them out from His presence. Then Zedekiah rebelled against the king of Babylon.

By any standard, Zedekiah is one of the worst kings Judah had.  Not only was he weak-willed and incompetent, but he treacherously broke his agreement with Nebuchadnezzar, bringing his people into a war without hope of survival, let alone victory.  From the perspective of the Jews of his day, it must have seemed that Zedekiah single-handedly brought about the destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple - the very icon of the uniqueness and holiness of Israel.  But from God's perspective, Zedekiah was nothing but a judgment on the people for their sin.  Zedekiah's folly was the instrument of God's wrath to bring judgment on the people of Judah for their idolatry and rebellion.

Fortunately, Zedekiah and the destruction of Jerusalem are not the end of the story!  But the consequences were real and disastrous to a generation.

The Biblical prescription in times of political crisis, when judgment in the form of terrible leadership hangs over a people, is simple:

2 Chronicles 7:14
My people who are called by My name will humble themselves, and pray and seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their land.

So if you are a Christian who has been complaining about the leader of this nation, or loudly voicing your opinions about what must happen in this election... please, stop it!

Let us shut our mouths and get on our knees.  The Lord is the one that we need to worry about, not "those idiots who are trying to ruin this country..."