He won’t let the wicked rule over his righteous people; if he did, they might lead righteous themselves to do evil. Psalms 125:3

One of the things I love about the Psalms is all the zingers that are hidden in the middle of otherwise predictable praise and adoration. Sprinkled throughout the Psalms are little gems, expressing a truth that it’s taken for granted the reader already knows, and therefore provides little explanation.

Today’s verse is like that. Surrounded by verses about the safety net the Lord provides from our enemies, this verse happens to mention that He is also moving to protect us from those in authority over us… lest they lead us into sin.

We don’t have to read Old Testament history for long (or any other history for that matter), in order to see that evil leaders lead whole nations astray. False teachers lead churches astray. False prophecies cause more problems than we’d think, even when the prophets are God’s real prophets and their prophesies prove to be untrue, the result of which may seem insignificant and inconsequential.

Now, you and I might be bewildered why “everyone else” would follow these evil leaders / teachers / prophets, but apparently enough people do to tip the scales. So God promises to deliver his righteous ones from the authority of these evil and false entities, even while He makes no such promise for “everyone else”.

This is important. Given all the Bible says about the dangers of rebellious spirits, God has a different plan for the non-rebellious—the people who aren’t angrily thumbing their noses at those in authority (real or imagined). He delivers his righteous ones.

Now, how might He do that? A few biblical examples: God removes the evil leader (King Saul). He removed his righteous ones out from under the evil leader (Pharaoh). He sets up a sort of détente (Obey but don’t follow; Jesus in Matt 23:3). God calls His people to disobey passively (Micaiah), or actively (Peter and John in Acts 5:29). The Hebrew midwives, Daniel and his friends and many other biblical examples come to mind. None of these people were rebellious, but they were zealous for God, to whom all authority really belongs.

Once again, these righteous decenters never lost sight of the fact that we are peacemakers, not troublemakers; respectful, not rude; and they made real efforts to live within the authority structures whenever they could. At the same time, they knew that because we are called to obey God above all, there are times when we must disobey earthly authorities when what they require violates God’s requirements.

But back to our verse for today, God is in the business of deliverance. He might deliver any one of us from a manager or a political leader; He might deliver us from bad church leadership or domineering relatives or “friends”.

As 2017 begins, remember that God has called us to freedom (Gal 5:1); Take time to consider who your authorities are. If something doesn’t seem right, ask God to deliver you from that authority structure that are keeping you from experiencing His freedom and wait and see what He does.