First Kings 12-13

God’s message to me: Faith and the fear of God should always be a part of leadership. Religion should never be a matter of politics. It works one way but not the other. The goal of God is to provide protection and prosperity to His people. As such it is wise for a leader to look to God for direction and to guide his leadership based on God’s direction.

When leaders begin to set up principles and call them religion, WATCH OUT. The goal of the political leader is power and the quest for personal power is hindered by recognition of God’s power. For as long there have been governments there have been men willing to lead people down the wrong path in the guise of religious values. Always remember that truth is found in the bible not in philosophy. No matter how good something sounds or how convincing the speaker, if it disagrees with the bible it will lead to destruction.

Promises: God can make you great or destroy you and the fact that He has made you great will not stop Him from destroying you if you turn from Him and by your action lead others astray.

Commands: Turning from God is an act of evil but, intentionally turning the hearts of others from God and leading them into the sin of worshiping false gods is worse. Jeroboam turned most of Israel to false worship in order to secure political power and God promised to destroy his house for that sin. He also promised that the false priests and false prophets of those false religions would be killed on their own alter.

Timeless principles: Leaders fear what they cannot control. The Israelites served God and looked to the temple in Jerusalem as their most holy site. Jeroboam felt that they would turn against him and back to Rohoboam if they continued to go to the temple so he set up idols and strengthened worship in false gods so that the people would look to false religion outside of Jerusalem and not have a chance of their religion guiding their politics.

How can I apply what I’ve learned: Understanding the bible and what God truly intended for us is the only antidote to political correctness. Politically correct is just the current standard that politicians can convince people is right. They will use all the right words to make it seem like it is of God but they will lead you straight to hell.

Freedom of choice sounds like a good thing but amounts to murder. Euthanasia seems like a dignified act of love but amounts to patricide(killing your parents). Population control is the political effort to avoid starvation, poverty and other evils brought on by overpopulation. It also goes by the name of Eugenics, National Socialism(the Nazi Party), Holocaust, Forced abortion, extermination of the weak or “defective”. In other words, all the evils that led to the worst and darkest days of the last century. Think “ethnic cleansing.”

It sounds great when people say we should give back to the community but the community didn’t give you anything to begin with. God did. Charity is wonderful, socialism is destructive. Remember this basic principle. Any beautiful thing that God creates, Satan will try to adopt, pervert and undermine. The best lie is the one hidden in the truth. Forced charity is anything but charitable. Volunteering isn’t an act of selflessness if you don’t have a choice not to volunteer. Sharing the wealth is charity, tax and spend is theft.

more to learn for in-depth study: Rehoboam, the son of Solomon, Acted foolishly in his first big decision as king. He could have kept all of Israel united by following the advice of those his father had chosen as advisers. God intended to break up the kingdom and so Rehoboam listened to his personal friends instead.

Those who had a rough time under Solomon asked to be treated better and that would have been wise. Rehoboam was not wise and his friends even less so and he listened to the advice of his friends who said that he should be aggressive. Faced with those who wanted more fairness he promised less and all of Israel, except the tribe of Judah in which the capital lay, turned against him. When he sent out the tax collector to demand the money he expected to receive as king the people killed the tax collector. The king was left to run away and the rest of Israel appointed Jeroboam as their king.

tomorrow: First Kings 14-16