Ecclesiastes: Social Issues

The mid-term elections are coming this week. While I will never endorse political candidates, we do encourage you to vote. Who you vote for should be a decision made prayerfully between you and God. We want to do three things: • Consider the God-ordained role of government • Consider characteristics to look for in leaders • Determine how these characteristics should apply personally Solomon’s take on Government (Ecclesiastes 5:8-9) 1. In our life under the sun, there will be corruption in government. Don’t “be amazed at the matter” (Eccl 5:8). 2. Government, even with corruption, is better than anarchy (Eccl 5:9). Characteristics of Leadership I wrote a short book on characteristics to look for in a leader called Picking a President. In that book, I offered these seven characteristics of a leader worth following: Moral Courage. Prudence. Justice. Temperance. Faith. Hope. Love. Here you can view a pdf of the book: https://www.biblechapel.org/images/uploads/The_Journey_Picking_A_President.pdf FOCUS: Moral Courage. Prudence. Love. CHARACTERISTICS OF LEADERSHIP MORAL COURAGE Moral courage is the fortitude to do what is right even when it is unpopular or dangerous to your standing as a leader. Moral courage is demonstrated even when it is not personally expedient. The action may cause you to lose friends, your social status, or your position. When our founding fathers signed the Declaration of Independence, they were putting their freedom, wealth, and lives on the line. Imbedded in the fabric of moral courage is honesty. A leader worthy of being followed keeps his or her word. Ecclesiastes 5:4-7 When you vow a vow to God, do not delay paying it, for he has no pleasure in fools. Pay what you vow. It is better that you should not vow than that you should vow and not pay. Let not your mouth lead you into sin, and do not say before the messenger that it was a mistake. Why should God be angry at your voice and destroy the work of your hands? For when dreams increase and words grow many, there is vanity; but God is the one you must fear. Psalm 15:14 [A person who walks blamelessly] keeps an oath even when it hurts and does not change their mind…. Getting Personal We should never expect something in others that we are not willing to expect from ourselves. So, the questions get personal. • Are you a person of moral courage? • Are you willing to express what you believe even when you might lose some friends? • Are you willing to show your kids (and grandkids) that you have the fortitude to do what’s right even when it’s unpopular? • Are you a person of your word…even when it hurts? • Is your word your bond? James 5:12—But above all . . . let your “yes” be yes and your “no” be no, so that you may not fall under condemnation. PRUDENCE Prudence is the ability to exercise sound judgment in practical matters. Solomon says that a person who lacks prudence has no foresight (Eccl 10:8, 15). They dig a pit and fall into it (Eccl 10.8). They don’t know the way to the city (Eccl 10.15). Prudence is not about being intelligent or knowledgeable. In Ecclesiastes, it is described as wisdom and discernment. Often, we select leaders because of their knowledge or stance in a particular area, or let’s face it—their charisma. However, we have no idea what our leaders will be up against during their time of leadership. Circumstances will define leadership. Abraham Lincoln was the only president whose entire time in office was defined by war. He said, “I claim not to have controlled events, but confess plainly that events have controlled me.” We have many important issues in our country. Illegal immigration, inflation, energy costs, and security. We also have many biblical issues like abortion, marriage, and sexuality. Prudence in a leader is critical. And, quite honestly, it’s an area where one’s personal life is fair game. It is very reasonable to want to know how a person seeking office has demonstrated wisdom in his or her personal life. The strength of a man’s virtue should not be measured by his special efforts, but by his ordinary course of action. -Blaise Pascal Getting Personal What do you think about the border issue? Not the southern border – but the border of your life. • How are you protecting your heart? • How are you protecting the hearts of your children? • What are you allowing to come across the borders of your home? Prudence is not something you learn from textbooks. It comes from engagement in God’s Word. Hebrews 5:11-14 About this we have much to say, and it is hard to explain, since you have become dull of hearing. For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you again the basic principles of the oracles of God. You need milk, not solid food, for everyone who lives on milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness, since he is a child. But solid food is for the mature, for those who have their powers of discernment trained by constant practice to distinguish good from evil. LOVE One writer well says, “If love is the greatest of all biblical virtues, it is…the home for all the virtues.” We demonstrate moral courage to protect the people we love. We demonstrate prudence to guide the people we love. Love allows us to set aside our insecure pride and do what is best for others—not just what we think is best for us. Love is a hard quality to assess in leaders. Two authors explain that love might best be manifested in the idea of passion. Passion comes from the Greek word for pain or suffering. To say we love something or are passionate about something is a declaration that we are willing to suffer for it. What are candidates passionate about? That is, what are they willing to suffer for? What have they spent their lives doing apart from jobs and political office? What loves or passions made them pursue a political office? -Dan Taylor and Mark McCloskey For the believer, love always starts with Jesus (1 John 4:10). People will know you belong to Jesus, “if you have love for one another” (John 13.34-35). Getting Personal • What are you passionate about? • What would your kids (or grandkids) say you are passionate about? • Do you love the “glory of man that comes from man” more than the “glory that comes from God”? John 12:42-43 Nevertheless, many even of the authorities believed in him, but for fear of the Pharisees they did not confess it, so that they would not be put out of the synagogue; for they loved the glory that comes from man more than the glory that comes from God. DAILY DEVOTIONAL WITH RON MOORE Get Ron’s Daily Devotional to your inbox each morning; visit biblechapel.org/devo. 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