Year after year. Election after election. Revolution after revolution. We need new leaders. We need common sense. We need innovative ideas. We need justice. That’s why I’m running for …. That’s why my political opponents must be jailed …. That’s why I’ve issued a new directive ….

Why does this keep happening, generation after generation? We know we need leaders; we support those who seem to be, and often are, the smartest and strongest among us to lead us; we soon suffer their ineffectiveness, selfishness and brutality; and we support new leaders who seem most likely to effect our safety and happiness.

These election and revolution cycles are teaching us something, and it’s not that human leaders are less intelligent, capable or moral than those they lead.

The Holy Bible reveals the lesson.

It prophesied of this leadership crisis (Isaiah 3:1-4)—and revealed its terrible outcome: Human governments are about to annihilate each other! We will approach the point where humanity faces extinction (Matthew 24:21-22).

Do you realize that the main lesson of the Gospels, the epistles, Acts, Revelation and the entire Old Testament back to the two trees in the Garden of Eden is about government?

Daniel 2:44 and Revelation 11:15 are among the scriptures that plainly show that God is preparing to reestablish His government on Earth. The “kingdom of God” that Jesus Christ emphasized as His gospel, the “good news,” is not the afterlife or an idea that exists only in men’s hearts: It is a literal government that will supplant the governments of this world.

Christ Himself will govern the affairs of men. But the Bible explicitly says that He will also exercise that rule through His saints, who shall take the Kingdom, and possess it forever, receiving power over the nations (Daniel 7:18; Revelation 2:26).

God is preparing those leaders today. He is preparing them to teach and execute completely different principles, a completely different law, than the human leaders of our generation and of every other.

“Mercy and truth preserve the king: and his throne is upholden by mercy” (Proverbs 20:28). Machiavellian political savvy, well-timed deceptions and ruthless pragmatism can get you far up the pyramid in human governments, whether authoritarian or democratic. Not so in God’s government. His rulers must instead develop mercy and truth—lovingkindness, loyalty, faithfulness, reliability.

“When the righteous are in authority, the people rejoice …” (Proverbs 29:2). Many people have come to believe that a leader’s moral character matters less than everything else: the economy, the military, the schools and such. The Supreme Judge of the world says the leader’s moral character—his obedience to the laws of nature’s God—matters more than anything else.

Jesus Christ is coming to govern men, and the lesser governors who assist Him will “be appointed—and by the divine Christ, who reads and knows men’s hearts, their inner character, and abilities or lack of ability” (The Wonderful World Tomorrow—What It Will Be Like). No campaigns, no spin, no deception. No voting, actually. Only character.

“Ye know that the princes of the Gentiles exercise dominion over them, and they that are great exercise authority upon them,” Jesus said. “But it shall not be so among you: but whosoever will be great among you, let him be your minister; And whosoever will be chief among you, let him be your servant: Even as the Son of man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give his life a ransom for many” (Matthew 20:25-28). Leaders today try to serve, or at least pretend to. In God’s government, service is not for show: It is the whole purpose of authority. Christ, the King of kings, gave His very life for those He would rule.

“I am but a little child: I know not how to go out or come in,” Solomon, the newly crowned king of Israel, told God in 1 Kings 3. “Give therefore thy servant an understanding heart to judge thy people, that I may discern between good and bad” (verses 7, 9). This is what God wants in His rulers. It is exactly the mindset a leader needs: humble, aware of his own limitations, utterly dependent on the Creator, mindful of the fact that he is no greater than those he rules. It is the attitude Jesus Christ showed when He faced His crucifixion: “[N]evertheless not my will, but thine, be done” (Luke 22:42).

God’s government doesn’t need intelligence, innovation, cunning, might, or even “down-to-earth, commonsense values.” It needs humility and obedience, like that of the King of kings!

God’s government will enforce God’s law and teach His way of life to every nation (Isaiah 2:3-4). It will practice God’s love, serving people worldwide in ways that truly benefit them. And it will finally create the peace this world has always sought and never found.

You can learn what that world will be like in The Wonderful World Tomorrow—What It Will Be Like, by Herbert W. Armstrong (free upon request). And you can prepare to help rule in it by submitting yourself to God today. Christ promised that those who are faithful in small matters now will be given authority over cities in His Kingdom (Luke 19:17). The leadership crisis of this world is about to end. God is preparing the leaders who will resolve it.