OF RULERS AND LEADERS  (Part 5 of 5)

Between many options, it sometimes seems hard whom to choose, especially when divine vision is also unclear.  Simple rule: when you are unsure of whom to stand with; when it seems hard to tell the leader from the ruler, check who is very desperate for the office, who thinks that they must be there by every means; then check the other whom the office seems to be chasing even when they sincerely wish they were rather in their quiet corner; check who are takers and who are givers; check those whose crowd comprises praise singers and bribed servants, and those whose followers do so from their heart.  Check their language: threats or care?  Force or love?  Check their past: how many did they lead out and bring back in?  How many did they betray out there to get where they are now or seek to be at?  What songs do the simple women compose to describe them?  Whom do the sincere singers say that they are, as against bribed headlines?

Sometimes leaders lose, not because the people do not know what is right to do, but because they have been taken advantage of by the ruling few.  In His crucifixion season, Jesus the Messiah lost election to Barabas the thief.  Many of those who voted against Him had been those He had healed, or whose friends and relations He had healed, taught, guided.  Some of them He had fed for free with bread in the wilderness.  Why did they side with the thief to vote against Him?  They were threatened by the rulers, others were bribed, although everyone knew the truth.  Even Pilate the boss got threatened by those negative forces to not let Jesus go free.  It happens, that the good do not always win every election, but then the people suffer.  They tell their regrets only after.

Not everyone who started out as a leader remained so.  Some declined into rulers, others simply disappeared or were cancelled by Heaven to not be heard again.  Saul started out as a leader, whom the throne was seeking when he was not seeking it. It would appear that, with time, he got so bloated with the throne that he lost relationship with the people and remained with a title, no more in touch with the pains and pleasures of his flock.  The palace became a distraction.

In his early days, when he led the flock “out of the field,” he often heard the cry of the people and wondered, “What aileth the people that they weep?”  Then when he called his people, “the fear of the LORD” fell so much on them that “they came out with one consent” (1 Samuel 11:5-7).  Then, he fought their battles against those who would pluck out their eyes to shame them.  Those people followed him, ready to kill or be killed for his sake, often threatening, “Who is he that said, Shall Saul reign over us? bring the men, that we may put them to death” (v.12).  The impact of his leadership was that “all the men of Israel rejoiced greatly” (v.15).  He fought their battles and shared in their sorrows.  They also shared in his joy.  He was a leader.  But he lost it in his later days.

Like the early Saul, Jeroboam was a leader too.  He started well, with a prophetic word from Ahijah that spelled out his path.  Soon after he had found the throne, he lost the God that had put him there.  Now he is forever the epitome of the other side of a godly leader that the Bible repeatedly laments: “Jeroboam the son of Nebat, who made Israel to sin” (1 Kings 22:52; 2 Kings 3:3; 9:9; 10:29).  That sad expression occurs like a refrain, over twenty times in the Bible.  What a name: “the man who made Israel to sin…”

While we mourn the decline of leaders into tyranny or into other selfish types, we may warn also of fake leaders, like Absalom the son of David, who took time to position himself strategically at the gate of the palace, giving everybody what appeared to be proper attention, whether they were high or low.  He often announced how much he might have done for them if he had been the king, thus sowing evil seeds in the hearts of the people against his father the incumbent king.  By thus posturing himself as the leader of the people that he was not, the Bible says he “stole the hearts of the men of Israel” (2 Samuel 15:6).  He was a hearts-thief.  We talk of those that steal money or steal spouses.  Here was a stealer of the souls of men; a thief of hearts.  He spoke nice words but meant terrible things in his heart.  False Christs.  Fake leaders.

How do we know them?  Listen to your soul when they subtly tend to put down others as the only means of promoting themselves; when they say how nice they are, blaming the present system for everything that they would have done better if it were they; when they secretly challenge the one whom they publicly appear to be supporting; when they scheme to unseat their very benefactors; when they advertise their supposed values, and insist you must hear them to know how good they are.  Beware of Absaloms.

There is one verse that has often puzzled me, stressing that Heaven sees things differently than we often do on earth.  Once upon a time when Ahab was still king of Israel, the prophetic voice announced,

There was a king on the throne of Israel, but Heaven said that the nation was “as sheep that have not a shepherd,” and worse still, that “These have no master.”  In other words, God did not see anyone on the throne.  Men saw King Ahab there but Heaven saw none.  The people were as good as having no master.  They were better at home “in peace” than risk their lives following that man.  In other words, the throne does not necessarily define the leader, neither the title.  That the Electoral Commission has put someone there does not mean that God also sees them there.  As far as God is concerned, a throne could be vacant; a country with an ‘elected’ president could be “sheep that have not a shepherd”; a people that “have no master.”  How does God see your land in this season?

Rulers care about territory, leaders about people; rulers coerce into compliance, leaders inspire and motivate; rulers point to the way, leaders guide in the way as they go ahead of their flock out and in.   Not all kings are leaders.  Some are rulers.  A leader needs not a title to be who they are.  The people always know the difference, and when battles come, they know whom to follow out and in.  Only those who seek favours and flattery follow titles, often to their doom on Mount Gilboa, as in the tragic story of Jonathan even when he knew between the leader and the title holder (1 Samuel 23:17; 24:20).

Between King Saul and David, between the lavish office and the wild field, the people knew where their interest lay.  There they went.  Between the regal ruler and the rugged leader, the people knew with whom they were safe, and that was whom they followed naturally, out and in.  They gave their eyes and their ceremonial voice to the king whom they hailed respectfully; but they gave their heart and their feet to the leader, whom they followed committedly.  In the space where you are head, which are you: ruler or leader?  In your land at such a time as this, what is there: rulers and vacant thrones with leaders chased out of town into caves, or those that serve, that answer the people, that speak good words unto them?