“Behold, a king will reign in righteousness, and princes will rule in justice.” (Isaiah 32:1, ESV)
Some years ago, a Gallup poll rated various professions concerning honesty and ethics. The results should come as no surprise. People rated our elected officials at the bottom of the list in the area of honesty and ethics. Governors, senators and congressmen rated slightly higher than a used car salesman. Between 9% and 15% of people questioned rated these officials as being honest. This means that 85% of our populace views our governing officials as dishonest, that is morally corrupt. If the people are correct, this means that morally corrupt people govern our country.
As believers, we know this is the case. For we know that only a few people have a true faith in Christ. Only those with true faith will seek the things of God, who has given us the perfect standard of righteousness.
This leaves us with many questions. Why do people elect those whom they do not trust? Why do they not trust those whom they have elected? While the answers to these questions are subjective, we have a couple possibilities. The first possibility is that, from an overall standpoint, the electorate is as morally corrupt as the officials they elect. Logic indicates this. For if they knew the officials were dishonest but voted for them anyway, the electorate must also be dishonest, indifferent, or ignorant at the time of the election.
The second possibility is that the electorate has no better options. In other words, they view all the candidates as corrupt and therefore vote for the lesser of the evils.
The third possibility is that the elected officials campaign on one thing but do something else when they get in office. This means that people vote with a certain trust level and then get disheartened after the politicians take office and do things contrary to their campaigns.
In many cases, the elected officials may send out a hypocritical position in their campaigns, taking both sides of an issue through crafty words. They may also, by their silence on an issue, demonstrate an avoidance tactic, which the electorate sees as dishonest. In many cases, they compromise on issues, taking no firm stand. All these things breed mistrust.
The point here is not to dissect and debate our political process. It is to look forward. As believers, we often view the current political scenery with discouragement. Yet we must look forward to a better time. The human governance of the nation of Israel in Isaiah’s day was very corrupt. Yet here Isaiah looked forward to a time when there would be righteous rulers. When is this time? Isaiah was looking forward to the Millennial Kingdom when the Messiah, Christ, will reign in righteousness. It will be a time when the righteous King will rule over His righteous Kingdom and those that rule with Him will govern with righteousness.
Today we need to keep things in perspective. We need to realize that the corruption of sin has affected everything, including our political system. We need to sort through the deception to the best of our ability. Rather than be discouraged in this perception of our elected officials, we need to stand steadfastly for the truth. Like Isaiah we should look forward to the day when Christ, our King, will establish His righteous reign on earth.
Renewing the Heart 