In his book Living Above the Level of Mediocrity Chuck Swindoll describes an experiment designed to show how we typically handle peer pressure. Groups of ten teenagers were brought into a room and instructed to raise their hands when the facilitator pointed to the longest line on three separate charts. Nine participants from each group had been instructed ahead of time to vote for the second longest line. “Regardless of the instructions they heard, once they were all together in the group, the nine were not to vote for the longest line, but rather vote for the next to the longest line.” Only one person in the group was left to make the decision on their own.

“The experiment began with nine [adolescents] voting for the wrong line. The stooge would typically glance around, frown in confusion, and slip his hand up with the group. The instructions were repeated and the next card was raised. Time after time, the self-conscious stooge would sit there saying a short line is longer than a long line, simply because he lacked the courage to challenge the group. This remarkable conformity occurred in about 75 percent of the cases, and was true of small children and high-school students as well. [The facilitating psychologist] concluded that, ‘Some people had rather be president than right,’ which is certainly an accurate assessment.”

Looking in on the lives of Israel’s kings, it is clearly apparent that the dynamics of conformity are not limited to the peer pressures faced by teenagers and children. Inherent in each of us is the persuasion to conform, yet every action produces a consequence. When the people of God choose to make conformity to popular opinion their priority, they experience the consequences of their accord.

Judah’s king, Amaziah, discovered this when he became puffed up with pride from his victory over the Edomites and challenged the king of Israel to war (14:8-14). His conformity to pride brought his defeat and capture, as well as, the destruction of a large portion of Jerusalem’s wall (14:13).

The consequence of a prideful heart is often a selfish ambition that blindly leads us to pursue seemingly noble actions, but which end in ruin. In Israel, Shallum’s seizure of the throne from Zechariah was initially successful, but eventually led to his own death by assassination (15:10,13-14). Although it was a fulfillment of the prophecy spoken to Jehu, Shallum was neither called, nor anointed to be king. He seized the kingship by his own initiative, and faced the consequences when the same selfish ambition was revisited upon him by another imposter king.

That imposter was Menahem, whose butchery of the pregnant women of Tiphsah was more characteristic of pagan kings than the behavior of God’s people (15:16). The consequence that began with Shallum’s sinful ambition brought Menahem’s brutality to the history of Israel’s leadership. The subsequent decline and fall of Israel’s kingdom was swift.

As the children of God, we are to live our lives in such a way that we strive to model the righteousness of Christ, not the pattern of this world. When that model stands in contrast to the ways or the agendas of this world’s culture, we must choose to be holy and conform to godliness.

When faced with the temptation to yield to that which we know is not right, let us stand against the world just as the fourth century bishop of Alexandria, Athanasius, responded to an emperor’s reproof, “Do you not realize that all the world is against you?” Athanasius quickly answered, “Then I am against all the world.”