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Curated Sermon Illustrations from Psalm 2

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When Rulers Refuse to Listen

Author

Adam S. McHugh

The kings Of history are rewarded with many impressive descriptors: majestic, exalted, glorious, sovereign. Men and women bow before such heights of nobility; even the eyes of wealth and status fall to the ground as the king passes.

When his majesty makes a proclamation, the trumpets sound, the royal standard is raised and the people kneel with a hush. I suspect that few kings have been lauded for their ability and willingness to listen. We don’t have to dig deep into the annals of royal history to find kings who had finely tuned senses yet were strangely deaf.

Henry VIII rejected the pope’s authority in his personal life and divided the church. Napolean ignored his advisors who opposed an invasion of Russia and found himself in island exile. King George III and Parliament refused to heed the growing unrest of the colonies against taxation and incited war. If Saruman had listened to Gandalf he wouldn’t have been stuck in a cold tower with Wormtongue.

The pages of the Bible are stained with the blood of kings who would not listen to God or their counselors, revealing the perilous temptation of all human kings, and probably all human beings, to usurp divine prerogative. Shakespeare would lead us to believe that the machinations required for gaining absolute power have a way of rupturing the eardrums, so that all kings can hear in the end is the sound of their own voices. After all, if megalomaniacs were able to listen, they wouldn’t be megalomaniacs.

It seems that the more power you have in the human kingdom, the less you feel obligated to listen. There are exceptions, of course. Winston Churchill said that “courage is what it takes to stand up and speak; courage is also what it takes to sit down and listen.”