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Esther 1:13. "Then the king [asked] the wise men who knew the times - for this was the king's procedure toward all who were versed in law and judgment". King Artaxerxes asked these wise men what was to be done with his queen who had refused to come at his command (Esther 1:15). The answer from the wise men was that the king should bar the queen from his presence and give her position to another who was better than she (Esther 1:19), thus opening the door to Queen Esther!

 

Artaxerxes was not a Jewish king, so he did not turn to God for advice, as a good Jewish king would have done. Instead, his procedure was to ask the advice of wise men - his advisors who were versed in law and judgment. This is not a bad procedure, in fact it is probably the best way to govern a nation that does not know God, but it certainly isn't as good as having God as the nation's ultimate leader. The law and judgment that the king's advisers were versed in were secular and godless (or based on pagan gods), they were not based in the laws of the God of Israel. Therefore, while it is possible they had some good in them, they were not grounded in true law or right judgment. The answers given by these "wise" advisors, therefore, would always be tainted by human influence, rather than formed by God's perfect wisdom, and may have even been quite corrupt, depending on the moral status of the advisors. There simply is no way around this, which is why God insisted on being the final "advisor" any of His kings ever needed.

 

This system of leaders asking their "expert" advisors is much like what we do today in many countries, including the United States. When a country is based on God's law and her wise men are versed in His law and judgment, then this can work out well. It is never perfect, there will always be corrupt or mistaken people who find their way into the halls of power, but it is a fairly good way of running a country for the benefit of its citizens. What happens, though, when the nation turns away from God, when her leaders and experts are not raised with His law but with secular priorities and "wisdom"? What happens when, for example, medical experts come to believe that a man can be a woman, or a fetus is nothing more than a clump of cells? What happens when the "experts" in history have rewritten it, or learned from a rewritten version of it that seeks to promote an agenda other than truth? There is not only no value in the "wisdom" of such people, they are in fact very harmful to a nation that looks to them for advice.

 

The United States and much of the West is struggling right now in large part because many of our leaders and the "wise" men and women they look too for advice have been miseducated and/or corrupted and are not learned in the wisdom or laws of God. Many Western leaders are so corrupt, in fact, they refuse to seek out the advice of men and women who have a Godly point of view. I think this struggle is a generational one. We first have to turn back to God wholeheartedly, and we then have to educate the next generation in His ways before we can get back to being "one nation, under God, with liberty and justice for all."