Transcript: Rotten Rulers

Rotten Rulers (video transcript)
By David Feddes

In the 38th year of Asa, king of Judah, Ahab, son of Omri, became king of Israel, and he reigned in Samaria over Israel for 22 years. Ahab, son of Omri, did more evil in the eyes of the Lord than any of those before him. He not only considered it trivial to commit the sins of Jeroboam, son of Nebat—that is, worshipping God in the form of a couple of golden calves—but he also married Jezebel, daughter of Ethbaal, king of the Sidonians, and began to serve Baal, a different god, and worship him. He set up an altar for Baal in the temple of Baal that he built in Samaria. Ahab also made an Asherah pole—the goddess Astarte, or Asherah—and did more to arouse the anger of the Lord, the God of Israel, than did all the kings of Israel before him. There was never anyone like Ahab, who sold himself to do evil in the eyes of the Lord, urged on by Jezebel, his wife. He behaved in the vilest manner by going after idols like the Amorites the Lord drove out before Israel.

As for the other events of Ahab's reign, including all he did, the palace he built and adorned with ivory, and the cities he fortified—are they not written in the book of the annals of the kings of Israel?

Rotten rulers. I want to ask four questions. What’s the standard that you use to measure a ruler, by which you decide whether they’re rotten or great? What are the problems with a rotten ruler? What do they listen to—what gets the ear of a rotten ruler? And what happens to them? Four pretty simple questions.

What’s the standard? Well, I’ve been to Israel, and when I was in Israel, some of the most impressive sites were the cities that were there—and the ruins of some of those cities as well. And when you're looking at some of those, they'll say, "Here’s a great tunnel cut through solid rock in Megiddo, and it was made during the time of Omri and Ahab." They built up this city of Megiddo—not a peep about it, hardly, in the Bible. You go to another place, and they say, "Oh yeah, this place—this is another one that Ahab and Omri built up." Of course, Omri—Ahab's dad—moved the capital to Samaria, made it a great city, and built marvelous palaces. There are still ivory artifacts in Samaria connected with some of those palaces. This was the heyday. This was a great time for the nation of Israel.

What’s the standard? How big the palaces are and the amount of ivory and other stuff that could pile up? Well, the Bible says, "Righteousness exalts a nation, but sin condemns"—or is a reproach, or disgrace—"to any people." The standard is righteousness. And that's how these kings of Israel are measured. God's law—his covenant standard—is the standard for rulers. The rulers don’t get to make it up as they go; they are measured by God's covenant. And by that measure, Ahab and Jezebel were the worst ever. They sold themselves out to sin. Omri—Ahab’s dad—built up all these things, and Ahab continued in making the nation richer. At least it seemed richer and stronger.

They made an alliance by saying, "Hey, you know what? If we were really strongly allied with Sidon, then our trade would increase vastly, because Sidon has a bunch of seafaring people—the Phoenicians—and if we could just line up with them, we would get rich." So Ahab marries Jezebel, the daughter of Ethbaal, the king of the Sidonians. And it works—the money is flowing. And as the money flows in with Jezebel, so do other gods—Baal, and Asherah, and the gods of the Sidonians.

So, what does God think of the whole deal? Well, he says Ahab and Jezebel were the worst. The absolute worst. And if you want to read about the other stuff they did, read about it somewhere else. If you want to read about the palaces, the ivory, the yada-yada-yada, the stuff that the historians look at—read about it somewhere else. You see, the books of First and Second Samuel, First and Second Kings in the Bible, are not just comments or annals of stuff that happened. They are God's take on it—they're God's angle on it. And it is very helpful. The Hebrew Bible even lists them as the former prophets. The former prophets are the books of Samuel and Kings. It’s what the prophets thought of the kings. And so the standard is simply God's law—his righteousness.

We need to remember that you don’t measure a nation's greatness by how well its military is doing lately. That military can be defeated just like that, if God decides. You don't decide how great a nation is by how the economy is doing lately. God can take it all away in an instant. Think of Ahab: "Oh, all my alliances are growing great, the money's flowing in." Upsy-daisy—it stopped raining for three years. They've got nothing because God decided, "I'm going to stop sending rain on them for a while, and maybe they'll get the hint that something is wrong with the country."

Nowadays, of course, there would never be major droughts or wildfires or anything like that. Nowadays, there would never be terrible diseases that would waste away countries that thought they were very prosperous and doing great. But, you know, back in the day, such stuff happened. There are standards that God has, and standards by which rulers are measured. And by God's standard, Ahab and Jezebel were the worst that ever governed Israel.

Well, you say they're the worst. What were the problems? Well, we’ll look at them briefly. They worshipped God in the form of golden calves—that was the original sin of Israel. Right after God got them out of Egypt and gave them the Ten Commandments, they demanded a god they could see and touch. So a golden calf was made, and Aaron said, "Now here's the Lord—this is the God who brought you out of Egypt. Let's have a festival to the Lord." They still said they were worshipping the Lord God who got them out of Egypt—except it's the golden calf that represents God.

Jeroboam—the split-off king who took the ten tribes out of the nation of Israel—had said, "Boy, if they go back to Jerusalem to worship at the temple there, things could go south—literally go south. People will go south to Jerusalem and maybe tie in with the king of Judah again. I need something different." God had already promised him that if he was faithful, he'd have those ten tribes forever. But God's Word wasn’t good enough for him. So he set up two shrines, each with its own golden calf—at Dan and at Bethel. And so that's how you worship God—by Jeroboam's kind of priests, with Jeroboam's kind of images.

Ahab and Jezebel? They continued all that. Yeah, check, check. "We've got the golden calf thing going—that’s how you worship. When you want to worship the Lord, you go worship one of those golden calves at Dan or Bethel. Plus, we gotta hedge our bets." Jezebel comes from a land where they worship Baal and Asherah. So they decide they're going to set up an altar, and they build a whole temple to Baal. They're going to not only worship God in the wrong way using graven images, but they're going to worship other gods as well. Some of these gods demand the sacrifice of babies from their worshippers in order to send prosperity. They’re gods of sex, fertility, and prosperity.

Again, of course, being very modern people, we would never kill babies. We would never go chasing after our own notions of how to get prosperity and pursue sex in any way. But back in the day, they did such things. Actually, you know, in a low year for the United States, more babies are killed than were killed in the entire history of Israel. That's worth thinking about. When you've killed 50 or 60 million babies, you might want to take it a little easy before you say, "Boy, Ahab and Jezebel—they were rotters."

Well, what'd they do wrong? They imported Jezebel's religion. They depicted Yahweh as a golden calf. They worshipped Baal and Asherah. They had these vile gods of sex and prosperity. And, as someone else said, how can there be peace as long as all the idolatry and witchcraft of Jezebel abound?

Well, the Old Testament is so old-fashioned, but you might want to realize that even Jesus spoke of Jezebel religion. When Jesus spoke to John on the island of Patmos, and it’s written down in the book of Revelation, he said to one of the churches, “You tolerate that woman Jezebel, who calls herself a prophet. By her teaching, she misleads my servants into sexual immorality and the eating of food sacrificed to idols. I've given her time to repent of her immorality, but she's unwilling.” So, he’s going to cast her on a bed of suffering and bring ruin and death. That's what Jesus says to those who are following Jezebel religion. 

That little dose of Jezebel religion—just this past week, you know, by hitting my remote and watching the Olympics. Just watch the Olympics for a little while, and you'll get just a flavor of Jezebel religion. They spent quite a bit of time on a British diver. You know, they didn't cover many people from other countries, really—it mostly zoomed in on the Americans. But they spent a lot of time on one particular British diver who happened to be gay. They spent a lot of time on a guy who came in 15th and on how he had been adopted by a gay dad. They spent about 15 seconds on the gold medal winner of the shot put, showing him winning his gold medal. They spent, you know, lots of time talking about somebody who didn't even get anywhere in the standings. Why?

Well, watch the commercials. In one commercial, here's a drug that, if you're promiscuous and you're going to bed with whoever and whatever, this reduces to almost zero the probability of getting a really nasty disease. And then they have two men kissing in that commercial. Then there's another commercial with a voiceover, and it's this—it’s a different drug, but same goal: sleep around and don't die of it. And this drug will do it. It’s been tested, but it has not been tested on people assigned female at birth. That’s what the commercial said. Um, it's been tested, but not on people assigned female at birth. Oh, what would that be? Oh yeah—girls. I can't imagine—girls and women. That would be a horrible phrase to say—it has not been tested on girls and women. People assigned female at birth. 

And speaking of our rulers—the rulers issued government guidelines that here's how you deal with birthing people. Birthing people. That’s who you mothers are now—you're birthing people. So you've got drugs everywhere to protect from Jezebel behavior, but the birthing people and the people assigned female at birth should feel relieved that we stand for women's rights. But we're not going to say the word “woman” anymore. We would not want to say the word “woman” anymore. But there are still, thank goodness, some people assigned female at birth running around, and a few birthing people.

Well, anyway. Ahab and Jezebel not only just worshipped other gods and these gods of sex and whatever goes with it, but they also will do whatever to whoever to get what they want. Ahab sees a vineyard, and he really likes it. The location is great, the vineyard looks healthy. One little problem—somebody else owns it. And another little problem—the guy won't sell. Naboth owns this vineyard, and he likes it. And he's got this crazy notion that God gives allotments to different people, and this allotment was assigned to his family, and he wants to keep it in the family. So Ahab comes with his checkbook in hand—he's a generous guy. He'll say, "I'll pay you." And Naboth says, "Not for sale."

Oh man, what a downer. And so Ahab is sulking, and Jezebel, being a good wife, says, "Honey, honey, what's the matter?" He says, "Well, I wanted a vineyard, and the guy won't sell." "Are you king of Israel or what? How does a king act? Does a king take no for an answer? I'll show you how a king behaves. Give me your seal, and I'll take care of it." So she writes some letters, seals it with the king's seal, and sends it off to the village where Naboth lives. She says, "Okay, here's what you do. You get a couple of people, launch some false accusations against him, tell him to commit perjury, nail Naboth, stone him to death, and tell me when it's done."

And it’s done. They do the false testimony, they kill Naboth, and she reports back to Ahab, "Hey, welcome to your vineyard." They only covered a few commandments, you know. They broke the first commandment—no other gods. They broke the second commandment—graven images. They sinned against God. Then, in one sweep, with just the Naboth incident—and this is just representative to give you a notion of how these two operate—they break the command against coveting (he wants the vineyard), they break the command against stealing (taking what belongs to somebody else), they break the command against perjury (no false testimony), and of course, they break the command against murder. You know, they've broken four commands just in one incident. And who knows how often they did that to various people in Israel when they wanted something.

So Ahab goes to enjoy his vineyard. That is how a king acts. He ignores the law. He makes it up as he goes. He doesn't take the law as something set in stone—the law evolves. The law evolves to suit the king. So he's got his vineyard. And then comes that rotten Elijah. Just when he's plucking his first grape, somebody is standing there. "You found me, oh my enemy." "Yeah, I found you, all right. I found you. And in the place where they licked up Naboth's blood, the dogs are going to lick your blood. And by the way, Jezebel is going to get eaten by dogs." That's not great news when you're riding high and thinking you're on top of the world and you're the king of the world, and things are going to go your way. The dogs are going to lick your blood, and that witch you're married to—she's going to be dog food.

Well, what's the standard? What are the problems? The problems are idolatry and breaking every commandment under the sun. But another problem is: what do they listen to? When you read the stories of Ahab and Jezebel, what kind of message do they prefer? Well, they like to hear stuff that tells them what they already wanted to hear. And so they like to talk to each other. Ahab and Jezebel seem to have a pretty good marriage. They seem to be on the same page a great deal of the time. They are just partners in crime. And so they keep encouraging each other in all the evil deeds that they want to do.

They listen to each other because they're hearing what they already want to hear. They listen to their cheerleaders—Jezebel has 450 prophets of Baal who dine with her, who she feeds every day. Those prophets of Baal, they’re exciting, they’re dramatic. They're prayer warriors, man. They can really go at it when it's time to pray. They found that out, of course, when Elijah challenged them to a showdown. They have 450 prophets of Baal, 400 prophets of Asherah, and then there's Elijah over there—850 to one. Yahoo! Now we know we're right, because we've got 850. God's got one.

They are cutting themselves, they're praying and all that, but one little glitch—nobody answers. Elijah has this in his favor: he offered one short prayer, and somebody answered. And kablooey—fire comes from heaven, burns up the sacrifice, the stones, the water, everything around, and the people are yelling, "The Lord, he is God! The Lord, he is God!" And Jezebel repents? No. She says, "Elijah, you are a dead duck." She sees Elijah call down fire from heaven. What does she want to do? Kill the guy. You don't listen to somebody who can simply pray and stop the rain for three years or call down fire from heaven, because he's not on the same page as you are. He's got to get with the program.

So, they have this great and mighty prophet of God who preaches what God tells him to say, and they do not want to hear the Word of God. They want to hear "Peace, peace," when there is no peace, as another prophet once put it. They want cheerleaders. When it comes time to go to war again, they have an alliance they want to make with the king of Judah. He's actually a good and godly king, except he wasn't too bright when it came to his alliances. But King Jehoshaphat—they want him to join them. The kingdom, as you may remember, has been divided, with the northern part as the ten tribes and the southern part as Judah and Benjamin, with its capital in Jerusalem. The northern tribes have their capital in Samaria. There’s this place called Ramoth Gilead over to the east that used to be part of Israel's territory, and Ahab wants it back. But right now, the Syrians control it.

So he wants to go to Ramoth Gilead, and he wants Jehoshaphat, king of Judah, and his forces to go with him. They’re going to take back Ramoth Gilead. But Jehoshaphat says, "Well, let’s first ask of the Lord." Ahab says, "Easy peasy. I’ve got 400 prophets right here." He brings them all in—400 prophets led by a guy named Zedekiah. He is a fantastic preacher. He’s the kind of guy—they all love him. They've got 400 of them, and they’re cheerleaders. They say, "Go up to Ramoth Gilead, for the Lord is with you, and you will triumph! Ahab, Ahab, he's our man! If he can't do it, no one can!" They've got just this huge crowd of prophets.

Jehoshaphat’s sitting there, and he says, "Um, not so sure about this." Then Zedekiah, the top cheerleader, comes forward. He's got two horns that he's made out of iron. One is going to be King Ahab, and the other is going to be King Jehoshaphat. He takes those two horns and says, "With these two horns, the Lord is going to gore the king of Syria!" Man, what drama. You can’t beat a guy like that.

They love this prophet. But Jehoshaphat says, "Anybody else? You got any other prophets? Is there a real prophet of the Lord here?" Jehoshaphat’s been around long enough to kind of smell a rat. So he asks, "Any other prophets around here?" They call on a prophet named Micaiah. You see, Elijah's not even the only one left—there are already two other prophets besides Elijah that we know of in the Bible who have spoken to Ahab and told him to change his ways, but still no results. Ahab says, "There is one other guy that I know where he’s at—we can bring him in. But I hate his guts. I hate him because he never says anything good about me."

My mother had an old saying: if you don't have anything good to say, don't say anything. But anyway, there was nothing good to say about Ahab, and Micaiah was an honest prophet who brought God’s messages. Ahab says, "I hate him, but if you want him, I'll bring him in." So a guy goes to get Micaiah, and he says, "All the prophets are saying that we're going to win. You go say the same thing." But Micaiah says, "No can do. I have to say what God tells me. Can't say anything else." He was one of those old-fashioned guys, as the New Testament describes it—"Preach the Word in season and out of season." Only two times you gotta preach the Word: when it’s popular and when it’s not. "Preach the Word. I'm only going to say what the Lord tells me."

So, Micaiah gets there, and he actually does give the message they want to hear. He comes and says to Ahab, "Go up, for the Lord is with you." And Ahab says, "Oh, come on. That’s not what you really want to say, is it?" And Micaiah says, "I saw Israel scattered like sheep without a shepherd, and they said, 'The ruler's gone; everybody go home.'" "Didn't I tell you?" says Ahab. "I told you the guy never has anything good to say."

Then Micaiah goes on and says, "I saw the Lord. I saw the divine council. I saw into heaven, and the Lord was seated, and the divine council was around him. The Lord said, 'Who will get Ahab to go to Ramoth Gilead and die?' And one said one thing, one said another. The divine council was discussing it, and finally, somebody in the divine council comes and says, 'I'll take care of it. I'll get some lying spirit to go into the mouths of his prophets, and he'll hear them, and he'll go, and he'll die.'"

Well, Zedekiah did not like that prophecy. He smacks Micaiah across the face and says, "When did the Lord leave me and go to you? When did the Spirit of the Lord leave me and go to you?" And Micaiah says, "Well, you'll find out when you're cowering in a room somewhere after this is all over." Then he says to the people, "You mark my words: if that king ever comes back safe, the Lord has not spoken through me." 

Well, it’s simple enough—why don’t we just go home? God has just sent his prophet, and Ahab hates him. When Elijah first found Ahab after the drought, Ahab said, "Is that you, you troubler of Israel?" Elijah said, "I haven't troubled Israel. You and your father’s house have troubled Israel." When Ahab is found in Naboth's vineyard by Elijah, he says, "You found me, my enemy." Elijah didn’t choose to be Ahab's enemy—Ahab chose to be God's enemy. Elijah, when he said, "Oh, you're my enemy," replied, "You and your father’s house have sold yourselves to do evil. What am I supposed to say?"

And now, they’ve ignored prophet after prophet after prophet. Micaiah will only say what God tells him, and he says it. He gives Ahab two visions—one of everybody scattered on the battlefield, and another of heaven itself and the decree that a lying spirit has gone into the mouth of Ahab's prophets. There comes a point at which God lets you have what you want. If you want to listen only to those who bring the message of "Peace, peace," when there is no peace, maybe God will actually let them keep yapping and let you listen. 

I’ll take another example from just this past week. I saw the weekly reflection of a local pastor: "Good news! God doesn’t require you to be a Christian. Nope. And you can still experience heaven if you're not. I was taught that the only way to attain eternal life in God’s presence was to claim Jesus as your personal Lord and Savior. Is this the God we want to worship? Well, that's not the God I worship—not anymore. We each find God on our unique path. One's doctrine does not affect one's salvation. However you discover God, discover God that way—even if it's not directly through Jesus of Nazareth. The way of your walk will involve a transformation of some sort. If there's only one road leading to heaven, it's entirely possible that everybody's on it."

In that line of thinking, Ahab is on the road to heaven. He’s experiencing transformation. He can follow Baal. Asherah will lead you right into the pearly gates. Jezebel is headed for heaven. God will not judge anyone. "Go to Ramoth Gilead and triumph, for the Lord is with you," and you can have 400 prophets saying that, and it won't make it true.

Jesus said, "Broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many are walking on it." You say there's one right way and all of it leads to heaven? Well, that isn't what God said. "He who listens to a life-giving rebuke will be at home among the wise." It's better to heed a wise man's rebuke than to listen to the song of fools. The cheerleaders say, "Ahab, Ahab, he's our man! If he can't do it, no one can!" And then there's the other guy that Ahab hates, who won’t ever tell him what he wants to hear. But who was doing what would have served Ahab better? You’ve got to ask, at the end of the day, which one is speaking from God and which one isn’t.

A man’s own folly ruins his life, yet his heart rages against the Lord. That rage that Ahab had against Elijah and Micaiah was not actually just directed at those two guys—it was the God that they spoke for. Ahab hated God, and when the drought came, it was God’s fault. When bad stuff happened, it was always God’s fault. Maybe he could have tried walking with God. God was merciful to him. There was a time when, after the Naboth incident, Ahab actually repented—for five minutes. He put on sackcloth and ashes, sulked, and was sad at the news that the dogs were going to lick his blood. God had also said his entire family was going to be wiped out, vanishing from the face of the earth.

God saw this phony, baloney, half-hearted, temporary repentance of Ahab and said, "Hey, Ahab humbled himself. I won't do all the bad stuff while he's still alive—I'll let him die first." God extends mercy even to such worthless repentance. He gives more mercy than it deserves, and yet Ahab remains stiff-necked after many rebukes. God sent prophet after prophet after prophet, and even when there's a lying spirit in the mouth of the prophets, God tells Ahab exactly what's going on: "Those guys are lying, and you are headed to your death." Ahab gets one last chance, one last message from God, and he loads up the chariot and heads out.

What happens to them? Well, spoiler alert: it's not good. He’s talking to Jehoshaphat, and they head out. He tells Jehoshaphat, "Now, I’d like to put a bullseye on your chest. I’m so glad that we have an alliance. You dress up like a king, you ride around in a royal chariot, and I think I'll just go out dressed as an ordinary soldier." Sounds like a good arrangement, right? Like I said, Jehoshaphat was godly but not too bright. So he goes out there in his royal robes, and Ahab is in disguise. Meanwhile, the king of Syria has given orders: "Let’s not turn this whole thing into a bloodbath—let's just target the king and kill him, and the battle will be over." 

They come and see Jehoshaphat riding in all his royal robes, and they go after him. Then Jehoshaphat cries out, and they recognize that he's not actually the king of Israel they’re after. So they wheel around and leave him alone. They’re scratching their heads, thinking, "Boy, where is that king of Israel we’re supposed to get?" One of their bored troops says, "You know what? I’ll just let one fly." So he hauls out his bow and fires a random arrow in the direction of the Israelites.

Ahab has one little spot in his armor that’s not covered. A random arrow—just random, you know, stuff happens. But the Bible says, "The Lord appoints everything, even the wicked, for the day of disaster." That arrow was a guided missile. The arrow hits Ahab. They wheel him out of the battle, and he watches from the sidelines until he dies toward evening. They wash out the chariot in a pool where the prostitutes bathe, and the dogs lick his blood, just as Elijah had said. "The Lord works out everything for his own ends, even the wicked for a day of disaster."

There is no wisdom, no insight, no plan that can succeed against the Lord. "I’ve got a plan—bullseye on Jehoshaphat. I’m in disguise." But the guided missile is not fooled at all. The random arrow gets him, and Ahab is gone. No plan will succeed against the Lord. No plan can avoid his judgment. When the Lord has determined that you’ve had enough time, it’s over.

And Jezebel? Well, later on, a guy named Jehu comes along. He kills the son of Ahab and Jezebel. He kills the son of Jehoshaphat, who happens to be on the battlefield the same day. Then Jehu rides off to Jezreel. Like the goddess Astarte, or Asherah—many portraits and ancient carvings depict her standing in a window—Jezebel, the worshiper of Asherah, is standing in a window. Jehu rides into the city and says, "Who is on the Lord’s side? Throw her down." And because Jezebel is such a well-beloved queen, who has been so kind to the people who worked for her all those years, they grab her and throw her down. She splats on the pavement. Jehu rides his chariot over the top of her—he’s not a very nice guy—then goes in and feasts. He says, "I’ve had enough to eat—somebody go out and bury that woman. She was a king’s daughter, after all." They go out, and all that’s left are her skull and her hands. The dogs have eaten Jezebel.

Ahab and Jezebel’s entire family is gone. Well, those rotten rulers didn’t meet a very good end. What happens to them? They didn’t want to listen to God’s Word—they wanted the lying spirit of their favorite preachers to keep on speaking. And they finally reaped the rewards. The New Testament says, "Don’t be deceived: God cannot be mocked. Whatever a man sows, he reaps. If you sow to the flesh, from the flesh you will reap destruction. If you sow to the spirit, from the spirit you will reap eternal life." There are two roads—one leads to life. The broad one, with 400 or 450 however many cheerleaders you want, will be cheering you on. And it will be lying spirits cheering you down the broad road to destruction.

So when you read the book of Kings, you can read it a couple of different ways. One is to say, "You know what? That all happened about 2,800 years ago—times have changed. Religion has gotten nicer over the years." You can try that one out. Or you can say, "Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever." He still isn’t very fond of idols. He still isn’t very fond of child sacrifice. He still isn’t very fond of promiscuity. He still loves people and sends them urgent warnings. Even the least sign of repentance is enough to arouse his mercy. But there does come a day when this is it—"I am sending the warning for the last time, and I’ll make it clear what’s going to happen. You ride to Ramoth Gilead—you’re dead." If you choose to ride on in the face of God’s warnings, there is no further opportunity.

We can have our own preachers in our own time proclaiming that all roads lead to heaven. They all lead to hell—except one. That’s the message of the prophets. That’s the message of the apostles. That’s the message of God himself. God came in the person of his son to be our savior. He didn’t do that because there were a lot of other options. He didn’t do that because there were a thousand and one other ways to be saved. Do you think Jesus went to the cross and died in agony because there were all kinds of ways that we could go to heaven? He went there because he is the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through him.

Prayer

We pray, Father, that you will clear our minds and convict our hearts. That we will realize that all the rulers—all those who claim to be supreme courts, all those in whom people put their trust—must answer to the one ruler, the King of Kings, the Lord of Lords, who alone is immortal, who dwells in light unapproachable. We pray, Father, that you will turn our hearts toward you. We pray for those who are rulers in our own country and those who govern at a local level, that they may have hearts for you and turn away from the ways of wickedness.

We pray for our culture and society, which spends too much time listening to flatterers and not enough time listening to the Word of the living God. Turn our hearts to you, that we may receive mercy, that we may receive grace, that we may be transformed through repentance and new life. Fill us, Lord, with your Holy Spirit. We pray that you will have mercy on our land and send your Holy Spirit in mighty revival, to turn us away from our wickedness before it’s too late and we fall in the manner of the kings of Israel and Judah before us. We pray in Jesus' name, Amen.