Praying for Changed Hearts – Proverbs 21:1

Erik Raymond of the Gospel Coalition, reviews one of my favorite books:  “J.I. Packer wrote a book that regrettably does not get as much attention as it should. It is aptly titled Evangelism and The Sovereignty of God. In the book Packer helpfully unpacks the concepts of divine sovereignty and human responsibility with a particular application toward evangelism.”  One critical part of evangelism that Packer deals with is praying for someone’s conversion.  But what good does it do to ask God for someone’s conversion if He can’t actually change their heart?

The king’s heart is a stream of water in the hand of the LORD; he turns it wherever he will. (Proverbs 21:1, ESV)

Who is the most powerful person in the realm, whose will must be obeyed on pain of death?  Yahweh is in control of him.

Once again the sages are dealing with the reality of God’s sovereign power and the impact of that on how we live.  But a mystery remains.  They are not indicating that every decision the leader makes is God’s desired decision.  Leaders who make bad decisions will be judged by Him.  Yet somehow His will prevails in all matters.  He can turn it to the direction He wants.  He has that power.

But what does this mean for us?  We have the obligation, Paul says, to pray for kings and all in authority (1 Timothy 2:1,2).  This supposes that if God chooses to respond to our prayers He will move in the hearts of these leaders to be favorable toward peace and thus towards Christians in the sense of allowing them to live peaceably among the other citizens.  He has not always chosen to respond to those prayers and persecution has happened.

Bottom line, when dealing with “kings” we know that they are no more powerful than God allows them to be and we trust Him to do as must be done in determining the course of their rule.