That's really interesting. Do you also believe in prophecy? Do you believe that God has ever appointed a specific ruler for a purpose? If so how do you tell the difference between an appointed specific ruler and one who is not?
I believe in prophecy, yes; but I don't view prophecy as fortune-telling. Prophecy isn't fore-telling, it is
forth-telling. The chief role of the ancient prophets wasn't to predict the future, but to proclaim God's word--in the proclaiming of that word there was both warning of judgment and hope of promise. Insofar as these things were involved, certain future events are warned of/promised; not always absolutely, but sometimes conditionally.
And, yes, I believe God has at times, in the past, appointed specific rulers for a specific purpose--examples of these exist in the biblical narratives; the most well known is that of David. The way I tell the difference between an appointed leader and one that isn't is that those who were specially appointed are clearly marked as such by God--the biblical texts specifically say that God specifically told Samuel to anoint David, the son of Jesse. But I also think we're dealing with a very special case already when talking about Israel because Israel was a special, covenant nation--those unique factors simply do not apply outside of historic Israel as the nation of the covenant; they do not apply to any other nation, government, or earthly power. In fact we read in the biblical narrative that when God established Israel as His nation He was to be their King, and God only allowed human kings because the people pleaded for God to give them a king like the other nations did--which led to the appointment of Saul as the first king of Israel. Israel wasn't intended to have an earthly king, Israel was to be a special nation whose king was God.
From the Christian perspective the allowance of Israel to have kings does have purpose within the divine drama though, as the anointing of David bears ultimately the messianic hope which Christians see as fulfilled in Jesus, who we confess and believe in as Lord and King Messiah. In that sense the choosing of David as king ultimately serves to give us Jesus, and thus the truth: God is King is made manifest--that is, after all, the subject of Jesus' ministry, "The kingdom of God is near, repent and believe the good news." By "kingdom of God" is meant the reign of God as King, and the reign of God as King is exercised and manifest in and through the person, life, and work of Jesus Christ, which is why for Christians our allegiance is to Christ who is our King. It is why we say
Iesous Christos Kurios (Jesus Christ is Lord) not
Kaiser Kurios (Caesar is lord); St. Paul saying, "There are many so-called gods and many so-called lords--but for us there is one God, the Father, from whom are all things and for whom we exist and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom are all things and through whom we exist." (1 Corinthians 8:6). The Christian can never confess the lordship of any other, nor acknowledge any other king as being
truly king. As we confess Jesus Christ, King of kings and Lord of lords, whose kingdom is everlasting.
-CryptoLutheran