The godly person has perished from the
land, and there is no upright person among men. All of them lie in
wait for bloodshed; Each of them hunts the other with a net.
Concerning evil, both hands do it well. The prince asks, also the
judge, for a bribe. And a great man speaks the desire of his soul; So
they weave it together. Micah 7:3
I live in Iowa, land of the perpetual
election. Not that we have elections any more often than anyone else,
but we have politicians here ALL THE TIME. The phone rings and it is
a candidate, a political pollster, and plea for money for one party
or another. The second one election ends, the candidates for the next
one start in. There is no getting away from the commercials, the
phone calls, and the faces of Democrats and Republicans plastered
everywhere.
If you are intrigued with politics,
move to Iowa. You will have your fill, but it will become like
manna...good stuff, but when it is all you get, it gets tiresome to
we mere mortals. You can actually meet these people, see and hear
them for yourself, and have a somewhat educated guess at what you are
voting for.
The sad part is that few are not
influenced by the power and the mighty buck. Simple, humble (or as
humble as you can be promoting yourself all the time and surrounding
yourself by people who tell you how wonderful you are) men and women
become power-hungry, money-grubbing fools who sell out. And when the
people in power are out for themselves, the common man takes the same
approach. They are left feeling unshepharded, unprotected...and start
taking matters into their own hands. Chaos ensues. And we see it
taking over our culture.
There are good people, and there are
these folks. They have money and power and they want to not only keep
it, but destroy any who would threaten it. The politicians, the
judges, and the money-bags who influence them, they are these that
Micah condemns. The politicians promise votes for those who would put
money in their coffers, the judges get bought off letting powerful
men break the law with a little more than a slap on the wrist, and
the rich man just states what he wants to happen and those with the
“power” come running to make it happen. Micah says that they
weave it together, they conspire together. If any of those strings do
not cross, the fabric is weakened. They support each other. The
adage, “Oh what a tangled web we weave...” can apply here. It
refers to deception, and they do deceive innocent minds into thinking
that they are “working for you” when they are doing little more
than becoming rich and boosting their own egos.
I know of a few honest politicians.
They are called every name in the book by those who are weaving. They
want them to weave, too, and when they don't play the threading game,
they are burnt big time. But God sees it all. He sees the intent of
the heart. He sees those who use their influence just to enrich
themselves and those who truly try to shepherd the wandering sheep.
Just about anyone can fall into the trap of believing what
politicians say instead of evaluating what they do. They sad thing is
that we continue to let these evil and don't vote them out.
Even sadder is the fact that in Micah's
day, these were religious positions. The judges, the rulers, the
priests, they were all representatives of God to all of Israel, and
they betrayed their God-given positions. And when the people did not
know the Word themselves, they were unable to discern good and evil,
godly from ungodly. And the whole nation was judged. I have Directv,
and there are MANY church channels. It is wonderful to hear the
preaching of God's Word, and distressing that there are so many of
those programs that will not lead people to God, but astray. The
health and wealth gospel was never preached by Jesus or Paul, Peter
or James. The gospel of not having to turn from sin, of God loving
everyone regardless of their religious beliefs, and of strange
doctrines contrary to Scripture abound. Just because a church is big
does not mean it is being blessed. It means that the Devil has
tickled their ears as Jesus said he would. Anything that doesn't lead
men to draw near to God in humbleness, brokenness, and gratefulness
for the gift of Jesus, our Savior from our SINS is a lie, a
deception, and a ploy. These preachers are like the unrighteous
politicians. They are in it for the money. They are in it for the
power. I appreciate the Chuck Swindolls and the David Jeremiahs that
tell you to search the scriptures to find out if they are preaching
truth. They exalt Jesus, God, and the Scriptures as authority and
not themselves. They study, they have compassion, and they only want
to feed you and not fleece you. They preach God's love, and also
God's righteous judgment. Jesus isn't some holy wimp, but the truth
who will drive out all falsehood. The book of John exalts Jesus'
love because John experienced that (he was a son of thunder, so he
probably had foot-in-mouth disease like Peter), and he preached
Jesus' warnings to the church leadership, but look at Mark and Luke
and you see Him preaching warning after warning to the common man. No
one escapes the eye of the Lord. But His warnings are given so that
we can change our minds about the awfulness of our sins. We don't see
our sins as that awful, but they are. They separate us from a Holy
God. He came to draw us to Himself...sometimes with wooing words, and
sometimes with serious warnings. All are meant to cleanse us and
bring us to Him.
No amount of power, influence, or money
can make us happy, let alone right with God. Even if they leadership
of church or country fails us, we are so blessed to have the Word in
our language, in our own hands, and in our own hearts. If you want to
know what you should support or cry out against in the political
world, you need to get your nose in the scriptures. It just might
break your heart, open your eyes, and give you new direction and
hope, not it any politician, but in the God who someday will make it
all right again.
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