Removing Evil Rulers

The exception to my previous post is that God does sometimes pronounce judgment against kings, rulers and political powers who are doing serious harm. These leaders have demanded that the people of their nation accept their authority and submit to them. The people who submit to them become vulnerable to any spiritual powers that the rulers have given a place. If the rulers are not careful, they can leave the people open to attack by powerful evil spirits that can do terrible harm. In this situation, the people who trust their rulers to protect them from the physical threats that they fear are betrayed, and left exposed to far worse spiritual and physical evil.

When kings and rulers surrender to spiritual evil (often unwittingly), God pronounces judgment against them, because they empower the spiritual powers of evil to do great evil amongst the people that they are responsible for protecting. God will use his prophets to pronounces judgment against them to remove them from their position and protect the people who trusted them.

Babylon the Great is an example. It opens the people it controls up to great evil, so it has to be removed from power. John announced God’s judgment against Babylon the Great in the book of Revelation (Rev 18).

The prophet's declaration and intercession give God authority to deal with evil rulers. When a situation turns sour and God needs to take action, his prophetic voices announce his condemnation of the evil government. This prophetic declaration gives God permission to send a preventive judgment against the evil ruler that the prophet had pronounced judgment against. The prophet's declaration expresses God's judgment/verdict on the evil ruler. God's action against the Evil ruler represents his sentence against him.

In these situations, prophets and judgments go together. Without the prophets, God would not have authority to bring preventive judgments against evil rulers. Unless God sends judgments against evil rulers, the prophets would be just crying in the wind. Prophets and judgment of evil rulers are part of God's strategy for constraining evil in the world.

The modern world thinks of judgment as a grumpy god going around whacking people. However, most people in the world do not get justice. Their life is full of injustice. Various empires and political leaders have promised to get them justice, but the ordinary people never receive it. Fair judgment is good news for most people.

If we want to understand God's judgment we should read the Beatitudes. The poor will be blessed. The rich will be disappointed, because they have already received their comfort. Those who have had plenty and privilege might miss out.