Now I have given all these lands into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon, my servant, and I have given him also the beasts of the field to serve him. (Jeremiah 27:6)
God is sovereign over the nations. Most Christians should agree with that statement. We even know, at least intellectually, that he sometimes uses ungodly rulers for his purposes. But I wonder how often we think of world leaders, especially the bad ones, as God’s servants?
We don’t have a problem thinking of Moses (Numbers 12.7) or David (2 Samuel 3.18) as the servant of the Lord, but Nebuchadnezzar?
Nebuchadnezzar wasn’t exactly a benevolent ruler. He was the type of ruler that would have God’s people talking wistfully about the coming Kingdom of God. And yet, here in Jeremiah God calls Nebuchadnezzar “my servant“.
Nebuchadnezzar may not have seen things that way, but he was serving God’s purposes. He had authority only because God gave it to him. In a very real way, he was God’s servant. God was using him, for a season, to accomplish something in the world. In the next verse, God promises to bring Babylon to justice, in his time, according to his plan.
For us, as God’s people, we can learn two important lessons from this passage.
First, we can learn to trust God with the world. He is God, not us. This is his world, not ours. When he puts a ruler in authority, we can trust that God is still in control.
Second, we can honor the ruler(s) in authority over us, having confidence that they are in authority only because God put them there. Honoring them doesn’t mean agreeing with everything they do, but it does mean being respectful of the position of authority they are in. It does mean valuing them both as a person made in the image of God, and as God’s servant. To do otherwise, is to disobey God.
As much as you may dislike that government official or ruler, God commands that as his people we are to “Honor the emperor” (1 Peter 2.17). Paul once spoke harshly to the Jewish high priest, even calling him a name. When he found out it was the high priest he had spoken to, he apologized and quoted Exodus 22:28.
And Paul said, “I did not know, brothers, that he was the high priest, for it is written, ‘You shall not speak evil of a ruler of your people.’” (Acts 23.5)
Paul firmly opposed the legalistic religion of the Jewish leaders, and yet he felt this passage in Exodus required him to not speak evil of someone in authority over him.
How then should we, as Christians today, apply this principle to our lives? How will it affect your Facebook posts and email forwards? Your conversation with friends over dinner? Your conversations with other believers when you gather? Will you honor those in authority over you as servants of the Lord? Or will you speak evil of a ruler God has put over you?
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