Proverbs 11.14
“Where there is no guidance, a people falls, but in an abundance of counselors there is safety.”
The impact of leaders on the group they lead is a recurring theme in the OT. What leaders do has an impact that extends far beyond their personal circumstances. This is not an obscure Old Testament notion, as we see this principle at work today. The decisions and actions of people in positions of leadership have an amplified affect in every type of organization: family, team, company, hospital, school, military, and government.
I call it The Performance Pathway, and you can see it at work everyone in human history.
Leaders create culture.
Culture drives behavior.
Behavior produces results.
We need wise leaders in all sectors and institutions of society. We need the kind of leaders who provide the kind of guidance described in the book of Proverbs. The passage above is clear: Without effective leadership and guidance, a people falls. With effective leadership, a people will thrive.
That is true in families, teams, schools, businesses, government, and society.
Here is a fundamental leadership principle in the kingdom of God: Before you can lead in the world, Christ must first rule in your heart. Leading begins with submitting. The best leaders are first the best followers.
The book of Hosea describes what happened in Israel when the nation’s spiritual and political leadership failed to lead in alignment with God’s standards:
“Hear the word of the Lord, O children of Israel, for the Lord has a controversy with the inhabitants of the land. There is no truth or mercy, and no knowledge of God in the land; there is swearing, lying, murder, stealing, and committing adultery; they break all bounds, and bloodshed follows bloodshed. Therefore the land mourns, and all who dwell in it languish, and also the beasts of the field and the birds of the heavens, and even the fish of the sea are taken away.” (Hosea 4.1-3)
The consequences of Israel abandoning her covenant with God were devastating for every aspect of Israelite society. The summary conclusion of this disconnect from God is “the land mourns, and all who dwell in it languish.”
America is in a situation very similar to that of Israel in Hosea’s day. In modern America, there is no consensus about the givens of human existence, and certainly no divinely created order or even a natural moral order, so that categories such as true or false, right or wrong, and male or female are relative and depend entirely on one’s viewpoint. The ruling elite claim that everything is socially constructed and therefore anything is permitted.
In the words of Hosea, “There is no truth or mercy, and no knowledge of God in the land.” Like Israel we have “broken all bounds.” The result is a contemporary culture being flooded with toxic ideas that are leading us into chaos and disaster.
A key pillar of America and the West has been the assumption that there are indeed givens, and these givens derive from an infinite-personal God. The universe has a created order, including right and wrong, true and false, male and female, and therefore it has an ethical and social system just as it has a physical and biological system. Respect this order and the result will be productivity and fruitfulness, but reject it and the outcome will be the curse of deepening chaos and disaster. Borrowing again from Hosea, “the land will mourn, and all who dwell in it will languish.”
It is time that the followers of Christ speak up and challenge the spirit of the age. The created order is real and its ethical standards are good, and America will not flourish if it abandons its Judeo-Christian heritage. If the present trend continues, the link between America’s disobedience and America’s degeneration will become plain to all—probably in terms of mounting violence and sexual chaos. According to Hosea and the other prophets, personal integrity and public order are a necessity for those who desire to build just, free, and stable human societies. To flout the will of God openly will therefore be the fast track to social and national failure for America and the West.
May we have ears to hear.
