Kingdom Culture, Part Two
The front lines had been breached, and the enemy’s forces were flooding into his territory. Towns were under siege, and trees were set ablaze. His people’s crops were decimated, and their water supply cut off. It was only a matter of time before the entire land of Moab would be overrun. King Mesha looked all around. The end was coming, and there was nothing he could do to stop it.
Rising higher than the sounds of his people’s defeat, he could hear a distinct cry. It was his son. His firstborn. The heir to the throne. In that moment, Mesha knew what he had to do. Lifting the child up onto the city wall, he raised his voice to his god, Chemosh. And then, with all the fury of the ongoing battle coursing through his veins, Mesha slaughtered his boy. It was a necessary sacrifice to arouse his god, his only hope of turning the tide of destruction.
Disgusting as it is, this is a true story, recorded for us in 2 Kings 3:24–27. The wicked king of Israel at the time, a man named Joram, had decided to invade Moab, because the king of that land had stopped paying him tribute. Together with the kings of Judah and Edom, he laid siege to Moab. He even had the Lord’s help. Elisha had prophesied a small miracle, and everything that he said was coming to pass (see vv. 14–25).
That’s when Mesha decided to sacrifice his firstborn son to the god Chemosh, the chief deity of his land. After all, that’s what wicked pagans do. But here’s the crazy thing: The Bible tells us that after Mesha’s son was dead, “the fury against Israel was great; they withdrew and returned to their own land” (v. 27). In other words, the sacrifice worked. Chemosh apparently aroused and empowered the soldiers of Moab, and they were able to push back Israel’s troops.
This scene doesn’t sit well with modern readers. We’ve been led to believe all the “gods” of the nations are make-believe, that the supernatural realm is populated only by the Triune God, some angels, the devil and some demons. And even with that limited cast, the only one with any real power is God. But that’s not quite how the Bible describes the unseen world.
Dark spiritual forces are real. They’re sometimes called “gods” or the fallen “sons of God”; at times they’re lumped in with demons. And while their power is not absolute and has been constrained by the one, true God, these beings are not fictitious. They are very real, and they are very powerful. This is why, when discussing the problem of eating food sacrificed to idols, Paul wrote:
Do I mean then that food sacrificed to an idol is anything, or that an idol is anything? No, but the sacrifices of pagans are offered to demons, not to God, and I do not want you to be participants with demons. You cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons too; you cannot have a part in both the Lord’s table and the table of demons. (1 Corinthians 10:19–21)
While the idols themselves are just evil, little figurines that don’t hold any real power (other than being a gaudy eyesore), the gods behind them do. Paul called them demons and instructed believers not to have any partnership with them. If they weren’t real, there would be no need for this counsel. Similarly, in the Old Testament, God commanded His people:
Do not follow other gods, the gods of the peoples around you; for the Lord your God, who is among you, is a jealous God and his anger will burn against you, and he will destroy you from the face of the land. (Deuteronomy 6:14–15)
If other gods were merely figments of a depraved people’s collective imagination, then there would be nothing for God to be jealous about, no reason for his anger to burn. But God told His people to take the issue seriously. And as we can see from Israel’s own history, following after demon-gods leads unswervingly to one destination: the loss of everything that makes us human.
This is where it all leads when we choose to serve other gods and despise the path Jesus has set out for us. The Lord said, “Those who are regarded as rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them” (Mark 10:42). And as we saw in the previous post, they are only “regarded” as rulers because dark spiritual powers are influencing their decisions. So, when we choose to lord it over one another, whether that be at work, in the church, or through politics, we are following the ways of those same dark powers. And while we may not find ourselves slaughtering our babies on the city walls, we will find ourselves becoming less like the people God created us to be.
A few years ago, I was working for a major Christian publisher. In a marketing meeting one day, one of my colleagues was very vocal about the publicity plan for a particular title. Let’s just say he had strong feelings. Now, this guy was not normally so verbose, and one of the vice presidents of the organization was getting irritated. Leaving the meeting, that VP turned to me and said, “I think Jack Welch had the right idea.”
I didn’t know what he was talking about, so I bit: “About what?”
“He said the best companies create positions that can be done by anyone with a broad set of skills. That way, employees are like cogs in a machine. And when you have a bad cog, you can just rip it out and get a new one.” I’m paraphrasing, but that was the gist of it.
Now, I don’t know if Jack Welch, the famed former CEO of General Electric, really said that, but the fact that a senior staff member at one of the world’s leading Christian publishing houses—a man who’s supposed to be a leader within the organization—entertained the thought of treating a veteran editor like a cog in a machine made me sick. It was dehumanizing, not just for the editor but also for the VP. And it’s not the way of abundant life that Jesus promised.
The better way that Jesus described is to become a servant, to see our authority as a means to bless those who report to us, not as a pass to get our way all the time.
Here is that same principle from another angle, once again from the apostle Paul:
So Christ himself gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors and teachers, to equip his people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up. (Ephesians 4:11–12)
Now, this is about offices in the church, of course, but it holds true for every sphere of life where Christians can be found. Those who have been given positions of leadership are to use their office, their authority, their gifting, and their resources to lift others up—to equip and to serve those who have been placed in their charge. That’s how true leadership works. Those at the top of an organizational structure exist for the sake of everyone else—and never the other way around.
King Mesha of Moab found there was real power in serving his false god, but it was ultimately destructive. He preserved his nation but lost his soul in the process. There’s a different sort of power that comes with serving Jesus. It’s the power to transform lives, to shift culture, and to step into our divine purpose. It comes by way of humble service and never by feeding our hunger for validation, comfort, and security.
Next time, we’ll take a look at how power structures are supposed to operate in the kingdom of God. Until then, consider what you’ve let yourself believe about leadership and authority, and ask yourself if, in the end, it promotes human flourishing or leaves people (yourself included) feeling hollowed out.
Check out my latest books:
The Unlikely Intrusion of Adams Klein (The TimeFall Trilogy, Part 1)
Pages of Joy // John Greco 
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