During the campaign for the recent general election in our country, we heard the blare of sirens, then watched an advance guard of motor bikers with flashing blue lights, followed by a black limousine with tinted windows, and then another pack of bikers close behind. A candidate hopeful of election was passing by.
It reminded me of Absalom, another candidate for leadership. Absalom prepared him chariots and horses, and fifty men to run before him. And of
Adonijah: “Then Adonijah the son of Haggith exalted himself, saying, I will be king: and he prepared him chariots and horsemen, and fifty men to run before him.”
Godly leadership has a different style altogether. King David, the man after God’s own heart, spoke of his concept of leadership:
He that ruleth over men must be just, ruling in the fear of God. And he shall be as the light of the morning, when the sun riseth, even a morning without clouds; as the tender grass springing out of the earth by clear shining after rain.
What a beautiful picture! That is a leader I can trust. That kind of leadership is what so many people in this country dream of after the election, but we know that they are much more likely to get another Adonijah.
I like watching Bible videos with my one fairly good eye. I cannot hear the dialogue any more, but I can watch the action. I notice that in the videos on David and Solomon, you never see Absalom and Adonijah with the people. You only see them up on a horse or in a chariot. But David, and Solomon, in his earlier years, were content with donkeys or mules, or simply walking, happy to be on a lower level, close to their subjects.
Jesus, my King and leader is like that, lowly and riding upon an ass. He is not aloof. He walks with me and, when he returns, he will come down like rain upon the mown grass: as showers that water the earth. I like that idea. From my verandah, I have often sensed the sweet scent of rain upon the newly mown lawn below. Some Christadelphian literature portrays the Lord Jesus, in his coming kingdom, as terrifying in his divine glory, a royal figure too majestic ever to be approachable. But that is not what I learn from the Bible. When I was younger, we often used to read Psalm 2 and Psalm 72, pictures of our coming king. Kiss the Son, Psalm 2 tells us. You can’t kiss someone on horseback or in a chariot. He shall save the children of the needy. I suppose today that would make him head of the Children’s Emergency Fund. And he will spare the poor and needy. In that regard he will certainly have a lot of work to do, at the grass roots level.
What about spiritual leadership within the brotherhood? At the last supper, there was a big fuss among the twelve about leadership, and the Master made his views very clearly known. Most leaders, he said, interpret leadership as lordship. Those in authority like to be known as benefactors. But ye shall not be so. Leadership, he went on, means serving from the bottom, not laying the law down from the top. And, he stressed to them, it will be just the same when you are kings in the kingdom of God. Learn to lead humbly, gently, and tenderly today, and you will be a suitable candidate for leadership in the new world of tomorrow. Make sure that you get you own way now, and in the day when the honors are given, you will find yourself at the end of the line.
I feel so sad when I learn of my leading brothers in Christ behaving like Adonijahs, determined to get their own way at any cost, and, like Pharaoh, treating their brothers and sisters with rigour. Try David’s style: it works so much better, and it will surely please the King of Kings.
The Origin of the Organic World – Part One