Idea: God is the sovereign Lord ruling over all earthly governments.
Intro: These verses shift from considering the nation of Judah to focus on two specific individuals, Shebna and Eliakim. It continues to teach the important lesson that our hope and trust rest on God, not on our rulers. In fact, Shebna can be seen to individually represent the sins of all of Judah that God has just confronted. He was self-sufficient, proud, bound up in satisfying all his earthly desires, and in the end living as a practical atheist, as if God did not exist, or least as if He did not matter. That will be a thread of this message. But since that is a common theme, I'll expand today on what this passage reveals about a godly view of government.
God is the one who raises up rulers. First, this should give pause to the proud, like Shebna, who need to be warned that they are not the Messiah. Instead, they are servants of God, given authority by Him for the purpose of governing a people. This holds whether we have a wicked ruler or a righteous one. Our rulers are God's servant, raised up for His purpose.
Second, the fact that God raises up rulers also gives courage to the righteous ruler. These things don't happen by chance. Instead, God is working out His purpose. So godly rulers may take comfort, and even find boldness to act seeing that God calls them to serve. God raises up rulers to be as fathers to the people, to rule in such a way that the weight of responsibility may hang securely, not blown about by every wind of change, to open access without favoritism, or bribery, and finally, to rule self-consciously as a servant of God. |
