Below Stupid

 False Confidence in Princes

Dale Ralph Davis has written an excellent commentary upon II Kings--along with several other commentaries.  At II Kings 9: 6-10, where God pronounces judgment upon the house of Ahab, that most wicked king of Israel, he has some helpful reflections.  First, the text:

Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, "I have anointed you (Jehu) king over the people of the Lord, even over Israel.  And you shall strike the house of Ahab your master, that I may avenge the blood of My servants the prophets, and the blood of all the servants of the Lord, at the hand of Jezebel.  For the whole house of Ahab shall perish and I will cut off from Ahab every male person both bound and free in Israel.  And I will make the house of Ahab like the house of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, and like the house of Baasha the son of Ahijah.  And the dogs shall eat Jezebel in the territory of Jezreel, and none shall bury her."

Davis comments:

I think verse 9  ("I will make the house of Ahab like the house of Jeroboam") is a political statement.  Not that there can never be rulers or leaders cut from different cloth, but verse 9 seems to reflect the general and boring pattern of politics as a realm in revolt against God's word and in which his judgment is repeatedly necessary. . . . It's the theatre of history where we're doomed to watch the most dismal reruns.  Not that there can't be exceptions.  But if we put our hope there we are below stupid.
Dale Ralph Davis, II Kings: the Power and the Fury, (Fearn, Ross-Shire: Christian Focus Publications, 2005), p. 152f.

Three things:  firstly, politics is the realm of revolt against God's Word because Unbelief swarms around it and focuses all its energy and attention upon it as its great hope.  Politics represents Power, and power corrupts into the worst forms of idolatry and rebellion against God.  In politics, the native pride and vainglory of the human heart gain access to earthly power which gives the illusion of  being able to command unscathed in apparently successful rebellion against God.  Thus the rulers of this earth not only lord it over their subjects (as our Lord Himself declaimed); they also vainly attempt to lord it over the Living God, having no fear of Him before their eyes. 

Secondly, this will not change until the people, with one heart and one mind, determine not only that they would have those to rule over them only those whose hearts were after the heart of God Himself, but that the people have the spiritual discernment to know which is a ruler of this world, and which is a ruler after God's heart.  Only then politics will become the realm of servants, not lords and masters.  Only then will politics cease to be a "realm in revolt against God's word."   

Finally, until that time, expect the successive and repeated judgments of God against our rulers and our governments. 

As the psalmist said:

Put no confidence in princes
Nor for help on man depend.
He shall die to dust returning
And his purposes shall end.