We can become too flippant about the failure of leaders within our nation and within the Church, thinking their failed leadership can simply be ignored. It can’t. Permissive evil in any form and in any position will cause those who are being led to interpret their permissiveness as permission to do the same.

A common theme among the failed leaders of Israel was the evil that they allowed to take place, which would eventually cause God’s people to sin in like fashion. This has happened throughout the history of Israel and within the Church and continues today. We cannot escape human nature, even in the nation of Israel, which God had promised great things if they would continue to follow His commands and instructions.

A repeated theme that occurred in the book of I Kings records what happens when a failed leader is in power. It will cause the release and acceptance of similar sins among the people, and as a result, their leadership would cause the people of Israel to do the same. I happened with Nadab, “But he did what was evil in the Lord’s sight and followed the example of his father, continuing the sins that Jeroboam had led Israel to commit” (I Kings 15:26).

It also happened with Ahab, who married Jezebel, “First, Ahab built a temple and an altar for Baal in Samaria. Then he set up an Asherah pole. He did more to provoke the anger of the Lord, the God of Israel, than any of the other kings of Israel before him” (16:32-33).

The leaders who did not give people a license to sin would pull down the Asherah poles that previous administrations had erected and would destroy the temples dedicated to the worship of demons. It happened in history, and it must happen today if a nation or the Church wants to move forward under the influence of God’s righteousness and not continue to follow the example of failed leadership.

When a change of leadership happens after a season when sin was allowed and accepted, their course of change will appear disruptive to what had been allowed. A righteous leader will tear down the objects of false worship and lead God’s people forward to a moment of repentance and a reordering of what had been allowed to take place when a failed leader held the reins of leadership.