The Shocking Consequences of Bad Leaders: A Warning for Anyone in Leadership!

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Tsar Nicholas II of Russia

Tsar Nicholas II of Russia has gone done in history as one of the worst leaders in Russia.

Historians point to his inability to address the economic issues in the country led to widespread civil unrest that ultimately led to the Russian Revolution of 1917 which led to decades of communism and the horrors under Joseph Stalin.

This story illustrates the point that bad leadership can have devastating and far-reaching consequences for a nation and its people.

Series Introduction

Title

Micah: Act Justly, Love Mercy, Walk Humbly

Open Bibles to Micah 3 #920, near the end of the OT, after the book of Jonah but before Nahum, Habbakuk, Zephaniah

Overview

Not a practical series, more theological.

We want to understand more about who God is and then let that understanding shape how we live our lives.

Series Theme Verse

There’s an iconic verse in the book of Micah that we’re going to lean on throughout this series. Pastor Rob is actually going to preach on it in a few weeks.

Micah 6:8 “He has told you, O man, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?”

Series Goal

The goal for this series is that our understanding of God would grow and that that vision of God would shape the way we live our lives.

Today’s Message: The Shocking Consequences of Bad Leaders: A Warning for Anyone in Leadership.

What makes Leaders Bad?

Consequences for Bad Leaders

Biblical Problem with the Consequences for Bad Leaders: Things that God says that seems to directly contradict what God says in other parts of the Bible

How do we explain these consequences?

Hating the Good, Loving the Evil

Reinterpret the Consequences for Bad Leaders

Application

What Makes Leaders Bad?

Micah 3:1–12 “And I said: Hear, you heads of Jacob and rulers of the house of Israel! Is it not for you to know justice?— you who hate the good and love the evil, who tear the skin from off my people and their flesh from off their bones, who eat the flesh of my people, and flay their skin from off them, and break their bones in pieces and chop them up like meat in a pot, like flesh in a cauldron. Then they will cry to the Lord, but he will not answer them; he will hide his face from them at that time, because they have made their deeds evil.

5 Thus says the Lord concerning the prophets who lead my people astray, who cry “Peace” when they have something to eat, but declare war against him who puts nothing into their mouths. Therefore it shall be night to you, without vision, and darkness to you, without divination. The sun shall go down on the prophets, and the day shall be black over them; the seers shall be disgraced, and the diviners put to shame; they shall all cover their lips, for there is no answer from God. But as for me, I am filled with power, with the Spirit of the Lord, and with justice and might, to declare to Jacob his transgression and to Israel his sin.

9 Hear this, you heads of the house of Jacob and rulers of the house of Israel, who detest justice and make crooked all that is straight, who build Zion with blood and Jerusalem with iniquity. Its heads give judgment for a bribe; its priests teach for a price; its prophets practice divination for money; yet they lean on the Lord and say, “Is not the Lord in the midst of us? No disaster shall come upon us.” Therefore because of you Zion shall be plowed as a field; Jerusalem shall become a heap of ruins, and the mountain of the house a wooded height.”

What Makes Leaders Bad? (Three Things)

#1 When Leaders Don’t Know Justice (v. 1).

God says in verse 1, “Aren’t you the ones who are supposed to know justice?”

It is the responsibility of leaders to know justice, to know what people ought to do and to make sure that they do it.

#2 When Leaders Don’t Do Justice (vv. 2-3)

They were like butchers who fileted people.

They were like wild animals who ripped the flesh off one another.

They were like cannibals who ate one another.

These are metaphors of what they became like.

#3 When Leaders Don’t Preach & Teach God’s Word (v. 5)

Instead, they only preached for money.

What Are The Consequences for Bad Leaders? (Four Consequences)

#1 God will not answer bad leaders (3:4, 7)

The bad leaders didn’t know justice nor do justice but then when God came to establish justice the leaders cried out to God and said, “I’m not answering you.”

#2 God will hide his face from bad leaders (3:4)

The bad leaders apparently were seeking God but God said “You’re not going to find me!”

#3 God will not be present with bad leaders (3:11).

This is shocking because they believe that God is present with them, but God mocks them by saying, “You think I’m present with you?!”

#4 Everyone suffers because of bad leaders (3:12)

Because of bad leaders, everyone in the kingdom is going to suffer.

The Biblical Problem with the Consequences for the Bad Leaders (Tension!)

I don’t know about you, but I’ve got a few problems with these consequences!

The Bible says these bad leader cry out to God but that he won’t answer them?!

Does that mean that God won’t answer a sinner who cries out to him while lying on his death bed?

What about the story of thief on the cross?!

He cried out to God on his death bed!

And what about Isaiah 65:24 “Before they call I will answer; while they are yet speaking I will hear.”

Or what about Psalm 86:7 “In the day of my trouble I call upon you, for you answer me.”

The Bible says these bad leaders were seeking God, but they didn’t find God?!

Does that mean that those who seek will not find?!

What about Matthew 7:8 “For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened.”

Or John 6:37 “… whoever comes to me I will never cast out.”

The Bible says these bad leaders believed that God was present with them, but he wasn’t present with them.

What?!

What about Matthew 28:20 “And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”

How Do We Explain These Consequences? (Resolving the Tension)

Go back to Micah 3:2 “You [Leaders] who hate the good and love the evil.”

Hating The Good, Loving The Evil

I want to teach you about good and evil.

This is the most important part of the message and so I want to encourage to do whatever you must to focus for the next ten minutes for two reasons.

First, because what I’m about to say is very important

Second, what I’m about to say might be a new idea for you and sometimes new ideas take time for us to grab a hold of and make our own.

What is Good?

I bet that if we went around this room, most of you would say something like:

Good is whatever brings me pleasure: Sports and sports gambling are good because they bring me pleasure.

Good is whatever works: This medicine is good because it will make me feel better.

Good is whatever produces favorable results: It was a good investment because it made a lot of money.

What is Evil?

I bet that if we went around this room, most of you would say something like:

Evil is the opposite of good.

But if I said tell me more, I bet most of you would struggle to tell me something more about evil. Instead, you’d probably point to things like abortion, murder, rape, theft and say “those things right there are evil things.”

Or maybe you’d tell me that ‘Good and Evil are locked in this cosmic battle for supremacy in the universe.

There’s one power that we call ‘Good’ and there’s another equal power that we call ‘Evil.’ And it’s a ten round prize fight in the Boxing Ring or Octagon between these two equal powers.

The Rich Young Man

There was a young man who came up to Jesus and called him ‘Good Teacher.’

Matthew 19:17 “And he said to him, “Why do you ask me about what is good? The good is one.”

Without a doubt, Jesus said this based on Deuteronomy 6:4 “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one.”

The Good is One and The Lord is One.

Here’s something that should be obvious to all of us: We are human ‘beings’ not animal ‘beings’.

But both humans and animals have ‘being.’

To have being means to have existence, to have life.

We are human beings, we exist, we have life.

God Is a Being and Being Itself

God is a being, but he is not like us because he not only has Being, he is Being Itself!

Exodus 3:14 “God said to Moses, “I am who I am.”

God doesn’t just have life, like you and I, HE IS LIFE!

Here’s something else that should be obvious to all of us: It Is GOOD ‘To Be.’

Everyone agrees that this is true.

Who here doesn’t want to exist?!

Who here doesn’t want life?!

Everyone wants life, even the people who cry out at the end of life, they don’t want to be free of life, they want to be free of pain.

Let’s put some things together to get at the truth.

Key Truth: Being and Goodness are the same thing.

To have being (life) is to be good.

To have more being (life) is to be more good.

To be ‘Being Itself’ (Life Itself) is to be the best and highest good - That’s God!

Let’s follow the idea even further!

If Being (Life) and Goodness are the same thing, then when you take away Goodness you’re taking away Being (Life).

WATER JARS ILLUSTRATION

Many of us separate Being and Goodness into two completely different things. (TWO GLASSES WATER)

On the one hand, I have Being which simply represents me. Here’s the life I have.

On the other hand, there’s this thing called Goodness which isn’t a part of me in any way it just represents the things that I’m supposed to do in this world to make God happy.

Because we’ve separated these two things in our minds, we believe that we can lack goodness but still have life.

But the truth is, Being and Goodness, are the same thing. When you have more goodness, you have more life. (EMPTY THE GOODNESS JAR INTO THE BEING JAR)

What this means for us is that evil is not some cosmic power that fights against God in a ten-ring boxing match or in the Octagon with Joe Rogan commentating.

Let’s go deeper!

Key Truth: Being and Goodness are the same thing, and because Good is the opposite of Evil, Evil is the absence of Being.

Do you watch Game of Thrones, pornography, blood, guts, and gore on Netflix, horror movies, or the Kardashians on Hulu? What sort of reels on TikTok or Facebook are you watching?

Do you lie, cheat, and steal? Do you gossip, slander others, hate others? Are you filled with rage for other people?

When you participate in evil, you bring the absence of being into your life, which is to say you, yourself, drain the very being (life) from yourself.

Pour out Jar on the Ground

Key Takeaway: To the extent that you participate in evil, you lose being (life).

This is the problem in Genesis 3!

We turned from being itself to something that could not give us being.

The Bible describes it as a piece of fruit that somehow is connected with knowledge of good and evil.

And then the Bible says we were banished from the presence of God, locked out.

What does that mean?!

The more being (life) you drain from yourself, the harder it becomes to see Being. In other words, you lose all awareness of Being Itself, who is God. You are locked out.

And when you lose all awareness of God, who is Goodness itself, you lose all understanding of Good & Bad, Right & Wrong, knowledge of good and evil.

Reinterpreting The Consequences for Bad Leaders in Light of Hating the Good and Loving the Evil.

God did not refuse to answer those who cried out to him.

Those leaders who were pouring out their being by participating in evil were not crying out to The One who is Being Itself.

Instead, they were crying out to a god of their own making.

God did not hide his face from those who were seeking him.

Those leaders were not seeking The One who is Being Itself.

Instead, they lost their cognitive ability to see him in everything that has been made. They became fools.

God did not remove his presence from them.

Instead, those leaders chose not to acknowledge his presence.

C.S. Lewis said “Hell is locked from the inside.”

The idea that the Triune God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit is going to throw people who earnestly want to be in his presence into an eternal lake of fire is a lie from the Enemy to convince you not to give everything to The One Who Is.

It is we who have removed ourselves from God’s presence. It is we who have chosen to seek something other than God. It is we who have darkened our minds. It is we who hate the good and love the evil.

This is the message of Micah. It’s dark, depressing, and altogether bad news. It’s important to know the bad news so that we can know the goodness of the good news!

The Goodness of God

Despite all this, look at what God says. Go to Micah 2:12 “I will surely assemble all of you, O Jacob; I will gather the remnant of Israel; I will set them together like sheep in a fold, like a flock in its pasture, a noisy multitude of men.”

God promised! He promised to save us!

Ephesians 2:1–10 “1 And you were dead... 4 But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved”

Fill Empty Jar With a Third Jar

Christ took the absence of being in us upon himself and filled us with being itself - Himself! The Holy Spirit of God living in each of us.

Assurance

If any part of you has been moved by this message.

Maybe you’re afraid fearful. Maybe you’re remorseful. Maybe you feel uncomfortable with what I’ve shared. If you are experiencing an emotional response to this message, then praise God because there is Being inside of you!

God’s Holy Spirit is present to you and he is calling to you.

Use this moment to grow in your faith!

Let’s Talk About Applying This Message

Pray for Leaders Everywhere!

When leaders fail, everyone suffers including you and me. And the Enemy knows this which is why he attacks leaders.

We must pray for leaders everywhere. Local Leaders, Church Leaders, Police Officers & First Responders, Judges, District Attorneys, State Government, Federal Government, Congress, Supreme Court, President.

Even leaders all across the world. We must pray for the leaders of Gaza, Israel, Iran, China, Russia, Venezuela, the Taliban.

We’re not praying the wicked leaders would succeed in their wickedness; instead, we are supposed to pray that they will see the light!

Pray For Yourself!

Why? Because you’re a Leader!

1 Peter 2:4–5 “As you come to him, a living stone rejected by men but in the sight of God chosen and precious, you yourselves like living stones are being built up as a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.”

Let’s do a quick thing to get participation points in class.

Regardless of how well you may be following Jesus right now, raise your hand if you declare in your heart that he is your Lord and Savior.

Who were the leaders that God called out through Micah: Rulers, Prophets, Priests? The Bible says Christians are priests.

IF YOU’RE A FOLLOWED OR JESUS CHRIST, THEN YOU’RE A LEADER!

You have been called to be a member of a Kingdom that transcends this world! You are above this world: Salt & Light! And it is your job to point others to the Kingdom of which you are a member and have been called to represent and advance to all ends of the earth.

YOU ARE A LEADER! At School, At College, In the Home, In the Workplace, at the Grocery Store, On the Road.

Visualize!

How might your life change for the better if you lived like the leader that you are in Christ?!

If you lived your life in light of the truth that you are a leader. And that your leadership will impact this world for generations to come?

What might need to change in your life for you to start leading the way God wants you to lead?

Act Justly; Love Mercy; Walk Humbly (Title Slide)

When you act justly, you’re living in agreement with the way God has instructed us to live our lives.

The more you live in agreement with God’s ways, the more you will experience life.

Love Mercy

The more you experience life, the more you will come to see how dead you once were which grow your love for mercy. And since God is mercy, your love for God will grow.

Walk Humbly

Trusting that God’s way is best even though I may not fully understand it.