At thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore (Ps. 16: 11)
“Take away the wicked from before the king, and his throne shall be established in righteousness” (Prov. 25:5).
There is a saying in American politics that represents yet another way of pointing at the truth represented by this proverb, and that proverb is that “personnel is policy.” In the government of any complex society, the chief magistrate is going to be dependent upon his cabinet officers and advisors. There will be people he trusts, and there will be people he does not trust. The reasons for the presence or absence of trust may vary, but by the end of the day, every chief executive is either advised by the wicked, or the wicked have been removed.
When the wicked have access to the throne room, one of the results is that righteousness is resisted. When the wicked are driven away from the throne, then the rule of that king, or president, or prime minister, will be established in righteousness.
The recent history of our various presidential administrations provides a good illustration of this. The point being made is not that a particular political party is an adjunct to the kingdom of God, but it is to say that you can expect better things from a magistrate who excludes those who do not fear God. And in Democratic administrations, evangelical believers in the government are as rare as a blue comet. When the Republicans are in power, the administration is crawling with them.
And one of the more difficult things to get across to the average Christian voter is the truth that we are not simply voting for “a man.” Rather, we are voting for the population that will gather around this man, as opposed to the population that will accumulate around that one. This is a truth we need to reckon with because, after all, personnel is policy.
