Under three things the earth trembles, under four it cannot bear up: a servant who becomes king, a godless fool who gets plenty to eat, a contemptible woman who gets married, and a servant who displaces her mistress. (Proverbs 30:21–23)
I lived in an earthquake country for four decades. I mean real earthquake country as in “San Andreas Fault land.” I know the terror that can overtake a region when the earth starts to shake and move. I saw the devastation of the 1994 Northridge, California, quake when it shook so hard that loaded file cabinets punched holes in the ceiling and overpass pillars poked through the freeways.
I’ve also witnessed moral earthquakes, times when the upheaval and destruction are caused by the upending of societal righteousness by those driven by the seismic power of unbridled evil. Think Adolf Hitler. Think Saddam Hussein. Think Idi Amin.
In the passage above, the sages of Solomon cite four shifts in the tectonic plates of life that reduce homes, communities, and nations to rubble. The last two—a mistress who wins the heart of a husband from his wife and a wretched, contemptible woman who marries destroy the peace and cohesion of family relationships. They wreak havoc by introducing flawed characters into the fragile balance of love and commitment that sustain a righteous home and family.
Principle: No grand dreams of love and happiness and no firm resolve to sustain commitment until death ends it can save a marriage or family if even one of the spouses lacks righteous character. Character is the foundation on which all stable relationships are built.
A whole community can be rocked by the second situation, a fool who prospers. As his financial blessings keep him well fed, a fool is increasingly able to flaunt his folly, fund his excesses, and violate the laws of God and man. Every community has at least one “rich jerk” who operates on the premise that his success is validation that the rules don’t apply to him. When this happens, all hell breaks loose.
Principle: God must keep some fools poor because He knows that if He let them prosper, they would have the means to multiply their folly and its disastrous consequences.
The situation described first in this quartet of proverbs I call the Idi Amin Syndrome. Idi Amin Dada Oumee was the third president of Uganda from 1971 to 1979. Rising from poverty through the ranks of the British colonial regiment, he seized power in a military coup. Mad with power as the ruler of the nation, Idi reigned by human rights abuses, political repression, ethnic cleansing, arbitrary killings, nepotism, corruption, and gross economic mismanagement. Estimates of those slaughtered range upward to half a million.
As one from the peasant class, Amin “made the earth tremble” when he gained power. The same dynamic operates in politicians and televangelists who rise to fame and fortune from nothing and lose all moral centering…because they are unfamiliar with the world of affluence and influence. It surely explains the Miley Cyrus and Justin Bieber character meltdowns. I think this principle even explains why Billy Graham didn’t get seduced by his favor and blessings. He came from Southern comfortability, respect, and godly character at the start.
Principle: Unless there is familiarity with wealth and power coupled to godliness, a person rising to sudden affluence and celebrity tends to lose all impulse control and to bring chaos to his own life and the lives of those he touches.
Between these moral tremors and quakes under which no family or nation can stand, obedience to the law of a holy God stabilizes the continental shelves of society.
[from “Wisdom for the Trenches” by Dr. Larry W. Poland]