Trusting Princes and Submitting to Rulers

God wants you to submit to authorities but not trust in princes. Many fail to get this and go extreme one way or the other. It's sad when even some churches and pastors do this, showing the church yet disunited in faith and therefore immature, if we go by the Ephesians 4 rule. [Image above by Church of the King @cotk_photo, Unsplash].

Paul told believers to submit to the governing authorities because "all authorities are from God," [Romans 13]. You go against it, you go against God and find Him your enemy. Yup, even if the government is corrupt or evil (Paul wrote this as Christians were persecuted by an evil empire). But you should submit to the authority, not to personalities, especially NOT politicians. You should discern if a leader is acting as an authority or a politician.

It's silly to be loyal to a politician and desire to die protecting him--or defend all his crooked opinions and policies. Well, the Presidential Security Guard (PSG) protects the president as a matter of duty, not because they support his ideas and policies.

Peter and the apostles once defied men in authority (not the authority itself) when they were forbidden to preach the Word of God. He said, "We'd rather obey God than men." You see that? He said "than men" not "than the authority." He was against the dirty politics of the religious leaders. He was against the wrong they were doing. But he and the apostles were not rebelling against the government.

Jesus defied Herod when he stubbornly proceeded with his God-assigned preaching schedule rather than pay attention to Herod's murderous threats, keep mum or hide in fear. Yet, he told people to "give to Caesar what is Caesar's." To get a closer glimpse of this Kingdom principle, Jesus once told the Jews to obey the Pharisees but never to do what they did. You are duty-bound to obey a leader if what he says is within the jurisdiction of his authority. Anything outside of that is trash.

Do not trust anyone acting out of politics. Psalm 146. 3-7 says:

Do not put your trust in princes, in human beings, who cannot save.
4 When their spirit departs, they return to the ground; on that very day their plans come to nothing. Blessed are those whose help is the God of Jacob, whose hope is in the Lord their God.

"Their plans" come to nothing when God ends their reign. And those "plans" include their politicking maneuvers and deceptions. The lies, double-talks, bluffs and sham pretenses. Those "plans" are outside the bounds of their authority. If you trust them in these things not even God will save you because you have clung to your idol. God hates idols.