It did not take me long to read of a leader that I do not admire – Jehoram. This is how his leaderhip of eight years was honoured.

Jehoram had become king at the age of thirty-two and had ruled in Jerusalem for eight years. Nobody was sorry when he died. They buried him in David’s City, but not in the royal tombs. – 2 Chronicles 21:20 GNT

Our Canadian Parliament Buildings have many inscriptions that dedicate it, it’s leadership and our country to God – all scripture references.

I read this story about the White House in the United States that grabbed my attention for it is a great inscription.

The first occupant of the White House, John Adams. He served as vice president under George Washington but he was the first president of the White House, who lived in the White House, and the White House wasn’t finished, and when he first moved in, and he moved in late November in the year 1800, and they had to light fires in every room in order to dry out the plaster. And his wife wouldn’t be there for several weeks and he wrote letters, and those letters are extant and they’re part of the nation’s treasure. In one of those letters Adams wrote something, and these two sentences were so impressive, and so deeply moved Franklin Roosevelt, that he had it carved into the mantel piece of the state dining room, and when Harry Truman supervised the rebuilding of the White House, he insisted that the inscription remain where it is today, and when John F. Kennedy was president, he had the inscription carved into the mantel piece in marble, and it said this: “I pray heaven to bestow the best of blessings on this house and all that shall hereafter inhabit it. May none but honest and wise men ever rule under this roof.”

I am preparing a sermon on the personal encounter of Saul with Jesus. A man set against the followers of Christ. I believe someone was praying for him, I believe the testimonies of how the Christian families reacted when they were imprisoned or in Stephen’s case, stoned to death, allowed the Holy Spirit to speak into his soul. His testimony has to be the most amazing experience of meeting Jesus and being transformed ever recorded.

Prayer can change leaders into great men. It is a prayer I pray today for my leaders. I do not want a Jehoram in a place of power, authority and civic rule.

There are many Christians to-day who are doing things that are not pleasing to God, and leaving undone things which would be pleasing to God. When you speak to them about these things they will confront you at once with the question, “Is there any command in the Bible not to do this thing?” And if you cannot show them some verse in which the matter in question is plainly forbidden, they think they are under no obligation whatever to give it up; but a true child of God does not demand a specific command. If we make it our study to find out and to do the things which are pleasing to God, He will make His study to do the things which are pleasing to us. Here again we find the explanation of much unanswered prayer: We are not making it the study of our lives to know what would please our Father, and so our prayers are not answered. – R.A. Torrey