GOD’S INVOLVEMENT IN POLITICS
Daniel 4:26
And in that it was commanded to leave the stump with the roots of the tree, your kingdom will be assured to you after you recognize that it is Heaven that rules.
The greatest example of God’s involvement in the political affairs of a nation is Israel itself where God established its constitution, legal structure, and laws that were to be the model for other nations to emulate (Deuteronomy 4:5–7). Along with 1 and 2 Kings, in books such as 1 and 2 Samuel and 1 and 2 Chronicles, God is active on every page, setting up this king, judging that king, and deposing yet another king. There is no escaping God’s political activity. This means we cannot divide life down the middle, putting God on one side and politics on the other.
Now someone may argue that while God was intimately involved in the governing of Israel, that was because God Himself established Israel as a theocracy. But when it comes to the other nations of earth, God is not that deeply involved. Scripture would not agree with that because in Daniel 4 we see God getting very personally and very intimately involved in the life of King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon, the greatest secular ruler in the greatest pagan kingdom of the day. Our look at Nebuchadnezzar begins with his over-enlarged ego that he got from spending too long gazing into his mirror. He declared himself top ruler in the universe, so God sent him a dream. In the process of interpreting Nebuchadnezzar’s dream, Daniel told him God had decreed that Nebuchadnezzar would be rendered insane until he “recognize[d] that the Most High is ruler over the realm of mankind, and bestows it on whomever He wishes” (Daniel 4:25). But then Daniel told Nebuchadnezzar he would get his kingdom back when he thoroughly understood that “it is Heaven that rules” (v. 26). The rest of Daniel 4 records the fulfillment of Daniel’s interpretation and Nebuchadnezzar wound up making the very confession God decreed he would make (vv. 34–37).
REFLECTION: If even unbelieving rulers are put in place by God, what does that mean for those under their authority? Rulers can make choices that do great harm to their people, but as we have seen, their “reach” is limited by God. Thank Him for this.
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