July 29

Jul 29 - Today from Proverbs 29 we look at verse 12
"If a ruler listens to lies, all his officials become wicked."

We are in the section of Proverbs specifically collected by Hezekiah's aids intended to be particularly helpful for those who are leaders (chapters 25-31). Leadership is largely influence. Pretty much everyone has spheres of influence; parents to children, teachers to students, bosses and managers to employees, political figures to the populace, public figures to their fans, pastors and church leaders to their parishes, and pretty much everyone in their various personal relationships. Some areas of influence we are keenly aware of. Some areas of influence we seldom, if ever, think about. Influence stimulates change. We live in a time of cultural change that is almost unprecedented in the world. We are to be careful what influences change our lives and what changes we are influencing in the lives of others. As responsible believers we must contemplate and evaluate the agents of influence around us.
Our culture is becoming ever-increasingly wicked. In the last generation we have relegated pornography to a protected right under freedom of expression and speech. We have relegated the slaughter of the unborn to a protected freedom of choice. We have relegated the sin of openly practicing homosexuality to a protected freedom of choice. The more subtle effects of these decisions have seeped into pores of every area of our culture until our entire society has become sickly tainted through the process of osmosis by influence. It is not those standing on soapboxes pontificating their views on the street corners who have initiated these incredible changes. It began with rulers who listened to lies. The lies were carefully cultured in our institutions of higher learning where the graduates would eventually hold prominent places of influence in education, journalism, media and politics. By cornering those four areas of influence, they would turn our values upside down.
Rulers make and enforce law. Law contains. License is legal permission to deviate from the containment of law. (e.g. The fictitious character James Bond had a 'license to kill'. Murder is against the law. The governing authorities gave him 'permission' to deviate from that law.) Somewhere in the last generation our 'rulers' have been listening to lies about values and have been giving people in our culture 'license' to deviate from the containment of moral law. At first the majority of the culture was shocked, and resisted such change. But the 'officials' serving under the 'rulers' were required to uphold their rulings and subsequently they either became 'wicked' in their enforcement of this licentiousness, or they were reduced in their offices of influence. As a result, we now live in a culture that values license more than it does moral law.
What have the righteous done about moral license in this generation? At first they dragged their metaphorical soapboxes out to the street corners and began to pontificate. This produced nothing except the image of raving extremists. Some decided to compromise in order to survive. They placed their feet on a very slippery slope, sliding into a feel-good social community of inclusiveness and universalism. Others decided that the best method of survival would be to pull back and isolate themselves. They have become curious museums to the modern culture. The church has suffered terribly in the last generation and has paid a great price for their improper reactions. They have lost their saltiness. They have ceased to be leaven. They have either fought to weariness and complacency or have compromised to the place where they look just like the world they were called to change through their influence. Complacency and compromise are not in God's program.
Influence. The hallmark of the church is to be God's unconditional love. The power of the church is to be God's grace. The message of the church is to be God's mercy. The influence of the church is to be servant-hood. Jesus went out and preached and taught and ministered. He went out into the deprived and depraved areas of society. He went out and served. He called out a church to continue His ministry in the manner that He exemplified. The successful influence of the church has always been grass roots. The church of our culture needs to re-learn this if we are to be a vital influence for the kingdom of God.