The Turn-About of Disobedience

                                                                                                                                                              
                                                                                                                                                              
                                                                                                                                                              

As my long-time teacher Derek Prince pointed out, the word "authority" comes from the word "author," which means "the person by whom a thing is created."  Even leaving aside His complete wisdom, His infinite love, and all else He IS that makes Him the Only One Who should ever rule, God's absolute authority in all things is His as absolute Author or all things.

So His decision that men should have kings to rule among them is unquestionable, as is His choice of the men who will rule.  His command is that we respect and obey those He puts in authority, in respect and obedience to His Sole authority to make those choices.

An interesting thing has happened among us in recent years.  When God placed Barack Obama in authority in America, there were very many people (including very many Christians) who treated him with complete contempt.  In our recent history, no American president has been more violently hated, or had more lies told about him.

Of course God's choice of the "kings" He gives us owes nothing to the personalities of the men.  But it's interesting that those who most reviled and hated Obama were those most instrumental in "choosing" (as they thought) the current president, who was one of their kind.

The current president has certainly made that faction's characteristic spirit a large part of how he rules.  America has never had a president who ruled with more contempt, hatred, and lies than this one "chosen" by those Americans most given to lies and hatred.

I don't entirely subscribe to the saying that "people get the kind of leaders they deserve."  It doesn't seem completely accurate, or fair, to blame the ruled for rulers like Hitler, Nero, Stalin, and others.  But in the reality that God authored, there will certainly always be a moral equity between what people do, and the consequences of their actions.

It all comes down, ultimately and completely, to God's authority.  And the most important point is that He commands those He sets in authority, His authority, to rule in His Character, as "ministers [servants] of God" (Romans 13:4, 5).  He commands that they rule in His moral Character, for good to those who do good, and "bring[ing] wrath" on evil-doers.

The kind of rule God commands of those to whom He gives His authority could not be farther from that of America's current ruler.  I will not say that the lovers of lies and hatred who (believe they) "chose" him "got the kind of leader they deserve:" but there's a God-ordained moral equity in their being ruled in the spirit they love.