God Appoints Presidents and God Takes Them Down Every father is accountable in his home for what he does. Every pastor is accountable before God as well as the people for what he does. Every person in position of authority is accountable to the Almighty God.
It is ultimately God who by his permissive will or purposed will, sets men and women in positions to rule and exercise authority and power over others. But God intends it always to be for good.
I want you to note two principles here and then to note how to pray for a president as well as for those in authority over us. The first thing I want to say is this: the presidency is an ordained appointment. The typical way to look at a presidency is this. A man becomes the president as a result of a particular desire or goal or ambition that he has.
He is able to reach that position because of his eloquence, his charisma, his appearance, because he has gained favour in the eyes of the people or because of his education, his experience, or because of his past excesses. Or people will say that he has reached the most powerful position in the land, because he is a good campaigner.
He had the right strategy. He had the right people around him. He had the right resources. He was able to find the favour of the people. He was able to appeal to most people in the campaigns and somehow make them enough promises to appeal to their desires and ultimately when they voted a majority of people voted for him and so he became the president. Other people impose themselves on the will of the people, by the use of the gun or corrupt and undemocratic means to become and stay president for ever, killing his opponents in the process.
The only problem with that is that it is biblically incorrect. Let us look at the biblical view. The presidency is certainly a divine privilege that God gives to men or in kingships and queenships, to men and women. The truth is that the office of the president is a position afforded either by the people with either the purposed will of God or the permissive will of God.
It is a position afforded by the people by their vote and their choice, and more important, by either the permissive will of God (what God allows to happen) or the purposed will of God (what God chose to happen in order to accomplish a design or designs he has). Let us read Psalm 75:1-7.
1We give thanks to You, O God, we give thanks,
For Your name is near;
Men declare Your wondrous works.
2"When I select an appointed time,
It is I who judge with equity.
3"The earth and all who dwell in it melt;
It is I who have firmly set its pillars.
4"I said to the boastful, 'Do not boast, '
And to the wicked, 'Do not lift up the horn;
5Do not lift up your horn on high,
Do not speak with insolent pride.'"
6For not from the east, nor from the west,
Nor from the desert comes exaltation;
7But God is the Judge;
He puts down one and exalts another.
Who is it that puts one down and exalts another? It is God. The truth is therefore that there is no amount of gun protection or undemocratic corrupt means that can keep a president in office beyond God’s will. According to the scripture it is God, the sovereign ruler of this universe, who ultimately decides who rules and who does not rule.
Let us read in Daniel 2: Here is the background. King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon has had a dream. He is the one who destroyed Israel. Daniel is one of the Hebrew children of that time. The king has asked all his magicians to tell him what the dream was and then to interpret it. He said if he told them the dream, they could come up with any kind of interpretation.”I want you to tell me the dream, and then interpret it”, he said to his magicians. As the magicians could not do it, the king sends his bodyguards to destroy all the magicians. He then comes to Daniel. Daniel says, “I know a God who can tell me what that dream is” and so they begin to pray.
Daniel 2:19-21 says:
19Then the mystery was revealed to Daniel in a night vision. Then Daniel blessed the God of heaven; 20Daniel said,
"Let the name of God be blessed forever and ever,
For wisdom and power belong to Him.
21"It is He who changes the times and the epochs; (seasons)
He removes kings and establishes kings;
He removes kings and establishes kings. That is a sobering thought. Every father is accountable in his home for what he does. Every pastor is accountable before God as well as the people for what he does. Every person in a position of authority is accountable to Almighty God. The whole of this scripture is simply saying that it is ultimately God who by his permissive will or his purposed will sets men and women in positions to rule and exercise authority and power over others, but God intends it always for good. Compare what the presidency of Uganda today is doing to specific tribes in Uganda, especially Buganda, Northern Uganda, etc.
It is man who proposes, it is God who deposes
Think about the story about Napoleon. The story goes like this. On the morning of the great battle between France and England, Napoleon stood at the battle field with his commanding officer and said, “We will put the artillery here, the cavalry here, and the infantry here”. He said, “When this day is over, England will be at the feet of France, and Wellington will be the prisoner of Napoleon”.
His commanding officer said, “Sir, I urge you to remember that it is man who proposes, it is God who deposes”. Little Napoleon stretched out his arms and stood at his toes and said, “Sir, I would have you to know that it is Napoleon who proposes and it is Napoleon who deposes”. The story goes that, from that moment the battle was lost because when the battle was over that day, it was France at the feet of England and Napoleon the prisoner of Wellington. God hates pride.
Pride says, “I do not need anybody. I can handle it. I do not need God”. God is looking for men and women of humility, dependence, aware of their weakness, recognition of how desperately they need him.
I am simply saying that this is the time for people of God to pray. That is what this scripture is all about. I know that you cannot please every body. Ask God, “What do you want me to do in order to please you?” It is God we must aim at pleasing and not everybody. That is the only way you can operate. When you want to do what is right, what is good, or what is godly, skip pleasing people.
Any person in the position of authority and power is responsible before God to live before him, recognizing that he or she would be accountable to God for their actions, their attitudes, the legislations that they promote and they pass. It is an awesome thing to be in a place of responsibility where a person has a potential of influencing other people either for good or for evil.
It is very clear in all these passages of scripture that God is the one who gives men and women the awesome privilege of ruling and reigning over nations. It is God who places you as head of a corporation. God has allowed that. He is the one who has allowed you to prosper. He is the one who has allowed you to have influence. He is the one who has allowed you to help other people and bring them up and along.
Destruction of Buganda and Northern Uganda
Those in places of leadership should have a sense of humility. It should not be, “What can I do for myself to get re-elected and stay president for life? What can I do to destroy some of the tribes (Buganda, Northern Uganda) in order for me to rule for life? Rather it should be, “What can I do to help the whole country to prosper, and to build a moral fiber that is absolutely unquenchable and indestructible? What can I do to build strong families, and to stop the sacrificing of children? What can I do to build a society that is God-fearing, where people are safe on the street, and not in fear of the country’s security organ, and not in fear of people carrying iron bars for the purpose of killing people in Buganda?
Buganda was a very good nation as well as the people in it. Buganda was very well organized and governed where hundreds and thousands of people come to stay. Why do so many people come to stay in Buganda? Why?
If this was a bad place they would be going somewhere else. There is something in Buganda that draws people. God cannot forget Buganda. There are many godly men and women in Buganda, more than you know who are teaching and preaching the gospel. There are godly people conducting Bible studies and prayer meetings. There are godly people living ethical and moral lives in business and in their home.
There are enough godly people in Buganda through whom God withholds the destruction of Buganda as planned by this nation’s foreign occupation enemies. Today Buganda is under foreign occupation.
None of us can take credit for the mercy of God. Buganda exists today by the mercy of God while the foreign occupation forces would like to wipe us off the map. Buganda has and has always had her enemies, inside and outside but God is the one who preserves. God is the one who sets men up, and he is the one who takes them down. It is our responsibility to cry to God and pray for those in places of leadership that they may rule for the good of the country and our future children.
Ten-fold prayer for the president
Since the focus is on presidency, I would like to give a ten-fold prayer to pray for the president. These prayers can be prayed for any person in authority. We will pray for those in authority over us with special focus on the presidency.
1. Lord God we pray that the person in that position would realize his own personal sinfulness and his daily need of the cleansing power of Jesus Christ. Every one of us needs that.
2. Lord, we pray that that person in authority would recognize his personal inadequacy for the task and therefore depends upon the Almighty God for wisdom, knowledge, understanding and courage to carry out his task. That should be our prayer for any leader.
3. We pray that he or she might reject all counsel that violets spiritual principles and then trust God to prove them right. The Bible is full of that; how godly men and women placed their trust in God when that was not the popular thing to do, and God vindicated their righteous judgment.
4. We pray that the person in position of authority will resist the pressure of those who would have him or her violet their conscious. You can imagine the kind of pressure that surrounds some positions in life. There is some pressure to violet their conscious in order to get some things to pass, or in order to appease a certain group. Once a person in leadership violets their conscious and compromises what they know is right and wrong, God’s judgment is coming soon or later.
5. That the person in the leadership will work at reversing the trend of socialism and humanism both of which dethrone God and defile man. The trend is to remove all morality thereby defiling man and dethroning God. It is then no longer God who is ruling, it is man ruling, removing the Ten Commandments, the Bible and prayer. That is, to remove those power influences of God.
6. We pray that the person in political office will be ready to forsake their political career and their personal ambition if to do so is in the best interest of our country. Whoever they are, and whatever their position may be, it is unbiblical to cling to power imposing their personal political ambition against the will of the people. Once a leader does so, by whatever means, or by the use of the gun or murder, be sure that God’s judgment is coming soon or later.
7. We pray that he or she will rely upon prayer and the word of God as the source of their strength and the key to their success. Any man or woman in that leadership office is in desperate need of God. There is no man or woman who is so smart, so intelligent, as to be able to fulfill that office without God being there with them, in them through them, working it out on his behalf. The word of God will be the source of his strength and key to his success. Is God working on behalf of a president who orders the killing of some of the people of the country (Northern Uganda)? Is God working on behalf of a president to occupy another region (Buganda) using armed forces?
8. We pray that God will use that man to give dignity, honor, trustworthiness and righteousness to the office of the presidency.
9. We pray that he will remember to be a good example in his conduct to the fathers and sons of our country.
10. We pray that he will be reminded daily that he will be accountable to the Almighty God for his attitudes, his actions, and his motives while serving in that place.
Christians are to cry out to God
What I have written here, is real simple. God is the one who places men in authority and he is the one who takes them down.
Secondly, our responsibility as Christians is to cry out to God for the sake of our country. And God would remind those in authority that ultimately, like every single one of us, we stand accountable to Almighty God for our privileges, our possessions, and whatever power a person may have to influence others in some particular office.
God’s people will major on crying out to God for the sake of our country. This is our home. This is our country. This is our land. We are not to be influenced by the ungodly and the wicked. We have the holy Bible and a whole lifetime to prove that the God of this universe hears the prayers of his people. Christians have a right, more powerful than the vote. It is the power of prayer. God is the one who places men in authority, and he is the one who takes them down.
