Dennis Tuuri

# Sermon Transcript – Reformation Covenant Church
## Pastor Dennis Tuuri

We’ll be looking at chapters 25-29, Hezekiah’s collection of Solomon’s proverbs. And for the sermon text, I’m going to read verses 23-27 of chapter 27. I’ll be expressing my view shared by most people that this section can be broken into two sections: 25-27, chapters 28 and 29. And there is kind of a culmination of those first three chapters in the concluding verses of chapter 27. So turn to Proverbs 27.

We’ll be reading verses 23 to 27. Please stand for the reading of the King. Be diligent to know the state of your flocks and attend to your herds. For riches are not forever, nor does a crown endure to all generations. When the hay is removed and the tender grass shows itself and the herbs of the mountains are gathered in. The lambs will provide your clothing and the goats the price of a field. You shall have enough goats’ milk for your food, for the food of your household and the nourishment of your maidservants.

Let’s pray. Father, we thank you for gathering us together into the hall of the King, the Lord Jesus Christ, to hear his word. Father, we thank you that he is that great shepherd, King of Kings and Lord of Lords, who knows the state of his flock. We thank you, Lord God, that because of his diligence, he indeed comes to us today to minister strength, nourishment, milk that we might delight in, Lord God, from your scriptures.

We thank you, Father, that we are his flock. We thank you that we are also his host, an army. We pray, Lord God, that you would equip your army today by the King coming and speaking to us through his word. May your Holy Spirit, Lord God, enlighten our hearts to understand what has been so misunderstood or ignored by your church for far too long, the wisdom of kings. In his name we ask it. Amen. Please be seated.

The introduction to the Proverbs says that they are primarily given to young people. The Proverbs are to be meditated upon. They’ll produce wisdom in a people. They’ll produce an understanding of who it is we are. It’ll produce a sense of identity and how to be successful in the various vocations or callings that God has given to us. The introduction also says that it will increase a person’s ability to think and discern things in general by studying these proverbs.

I saw on the television recently, a week or so ago, a new study that they used to think that the brain was basically fully matured and developed by I don’t know just past puberty maybe. Now they say it continues to mature and develop until about 22 or so. Well, in the providence of God, he’s given us a book here that teenagers are supposed to study, that they’re supposed to be reading, and it’s in that formative period when their mind is continuing to develop and mature into adult life.

And that’s what this book does. It makes adults out of children. It moves a person to kingliness. It takes a young man and helps him to see how he’s to attend to vocation and then attend to establishing a family and then take his place and civil rule. As I said last week, kind of at the center of the book, those 30 sayings of the wise, you know, so often the church has preached focusing on the family, the middle of those. And only secondarily, maybe in the last few years, has there been a whole lot of emphasis on vocation, the first set of 10 that kind of gets things a little messed up, too, because it puts the family out there in marriage and people in young people’s minds and the minds of the church before it establishes vocation.

But the scriptures are rather clear that vocation precedes marriage and they never even get to for the most part the church. We don’t very rarely get to the last of the 10 sayings are civic responsibilities but that’s the whole point of the book. The whole point of the book is to mature through vocation and marriage and establish rule in the city. That’s the big arc. That’s the movement of this book. That’s the message of this book.

And so these last chapters leading up to the final two appendices we could say sayings of Agur and the words of Lemuel when the king was established listen to his mom got a queen and exalts her. These last set of Solomon’s proverbs are very distinctively different from the first set. They start right out of the shoot with kings. We live in a time when we don’t understand our civic responsibility or are just foolish and slothful about it. And finally in the providence of God finally we have to attend to it right now in this state of affairs because of what’s going on in our culture.

You know, there’s this song by a rock group. You can’t always get what you want, but if you try sometime, you just might find you get what you need. We’re getting what we need. The Lord God is all powerful. He’s all gracious. He’s compassionate. He’s loving. He’s wise. He is all wisdom. And in that wisdom and sovereignty and love for his church we are getting what we need a comeuppance we are getting a realization that it is from one perspective we can say the homosexual community that have applied whether understanding it or not some of the truths of what we read in the sayings of the wise for kings they’ve been strategic they’ve thought a matter through they tried to discern how to go about achieving victory the church of Jesus Christ for the most part is sat on the sidelines just trying to build happy homes trying to stop arguments in the family from going on not realizing that a big part of the way you cure families is to engage that family and the other aspects of its calling before God if all you do is focus on your family and I’ve seen this 20 years the evidence of what these proverbs tell us you’re going to come to me at some point and say things are messed up if you don’t see the importance of your vocation.

And if you don’t see the importance of your involvement to some degree in civil government, God won’t let you sit with that kind of idolatry. The family could become just that.

Proverbs are given for meditation, contemplation. You know, you’re supposed to chew them over and think about it. And what I’ve given you in this overview is a structure looking at these seven elements of the book of Proverbs and seeing a connection to the creation week. This is a very common structural device in the scriptures. And as you meditate on proverbs, to simply meditate upon them in isolation one from the other from their context is really not understanding the full broad scope of what God has given us here. How to place these things in context with one another.

Let me give you an example of that. We’re going to go a little out of the order of the outline, but you’re all smart folks. You can do this. Let’s look. I’m going to touch very briefly right now on chapters 28 and 29. So, we’ve got, you know, we’ve got five chapters here. 25, 26, 27, and then 28 and 29. Let’s start with this. Just open your Bibles up to Proverbs 25.

We did this looking at the first of these Proverbs, kind of looking at how they kind of what sort of proverbs they are a couple weeks ago. I think it was helpful for some of you. Remember we said that in Proverbs 10, the actual proverbs of Solomon after the introduction are laid out in very obvious kind of clear contrast. The word “but” but we said that it developed then as it went on and became it got out of that structure as the proverbs became a little tougher to think through.

Well, in chapter 25, which begins a whole new section with an obvious counter statement given to us that these are the proverbs of Solomon collected out by Hezekiah’s men. Now you understand of course that Hezekiah is couple hundred years after Solomon. So this is a much later collection of proverbs put together by Hezekiah. He’s identified for us as king of Judah. Right? So we got another king here and he’s adding this last collection. And there is no doubt what this collection is very obviously a kingly collection as see in a couple of minutes.

But as you scan down Proverbs chapter 25 in your Bibles, do you see that “but but”? No, you don’t. Cuz it’s not there. You scan down 26. You’re looking for contrast. The obvious kind of contrast of this, but this not there. The simple stuff that these proverbs began with in chapter 10, not there. You scan down 27. Nope. Not many of them there either. And then you scan down 28. And yeah, now there’s a lot more of them again, right? Verse 2, but verse 4, but verse 5, but verse 7, but verse 10, but verse 11, but verse 12, but you see what I’m saying.

We now in 28 change the structure out of what’s gone before those three chapters, and now we’re back to what’s the technical term is antithetic parallelism. So lines in parallel that are antithetical to one another. Contrast is a simple way to think of it and those are obvious to find in the book when you look at the “but” sayings. So the proverbs begin with a bunch of contrasts. Then they mature out of that. Then we have the 30 sayings of the wise and we have some very obviously well constructed chapters that are not have contrast in them hardly at all.

And then we as we move out of the formal proverbs of Solomon and towards the conclusion of the book by Agur and Lemuel we turn back to where it started, this antithetic parallelism of contrast back and forth, but but and for 28 and 29, that’s kind of what happens. And so it’s it’s interesting that there is this returning to simple antithetic parallelism.

However, what we also see in those two chapters is we’ve moved on from where the proverbs began by addressing a son and a father primarily. There is some of that goes on in 28 and 29. But what we see in 28 and 29 is repeated references to kings again and to their rule still and to the law as being the source of their rule and to the obligations of a ruler to the poor. So these themes of the poor rule and the importance of the law of God are what predominate in chapters 28 and 29. And you have to sort of see those things as kind of a unit.

And I think that it’s it’s interesting to if we see that kind of structuring, look now at chapter 29. And I’m going to look at verses oh, I’ll start reading maybe in verse 12. And now that you see that there’s these sections to it, try to think, meditate, contemplate a little bit of the continuity of what’s happening here.

Verse 12, if a ruler listens to falsehood, all his officials will be wicked. You see this entire chapter section of five chapters has to do with how a king rules. And this is stuff that the church has no knowledge of because the church by and large in this country doesn’t even think that the king should be Christian or that the church should have a Christian voice or rather a civil voice rather or that the church should address civil action not just in the pulpit but from the actions of the people.

You know, I’m going to be severely disappointed looking back in 20 more years from now if I look back on 40 years of ministry in a church of Jesus Christ and I don’t see a couple of guys who enter into public policy matters in a fairly steadfast forthright way and in a way that may even involve their vocation. The church of Jesus Christ should produce stellar businessmen. It should produce wonderful familymen and it should produce godly rulers. That’s the point of the book of Proverbs is so the church can produce godly civil rulers. And I’ll be sadly disappointed if we don’t do that.

Well, again, a homosexual community, they had no doubt, but they had to get people in reign. They’ve been working this program for 20 years, folks. But we’ve been asleep at the switch, content with family sermons and family topics, ad nauseium, and never getting around to understanding that as we continue to ignore the political arena, pretty soon all they’re going to let us have anymore is that little house you’ve got with its four walls and that’s it. And even that’s been invaded by the attempts of the homosexuals to move public opinion through the media very successfully. Very strategic involvement.

We’ve got the best strategy book for how to attain and effectively conduct civil rule in the world. We’ve got the divinely inspired words of King Jesus. You see, and I think if we take that perspective on what we have here. It changes who we are. It addresses our anthropology. Who are we? You know, we’re not just citizens. We’re to be rulers in the context of the world. You know, the view that Jesus Christ’s kingship is postponed up to some further date at his second coming. This has ruined the church because it’s given us the idea that somehow our rule is pushed off to then too. And all we’re supposed to focus on is our families. maybe our work from a Christian perspective, but even that becomes just evangelism as opposed to changing the face of the world through the application of diligent vocation.

See, it’s ruined us. And it’s going to take a long time to preach again the crown rights of King Jesus. But we’ll understand when we do that and when we do that in this church, it should give us a different view of who we are. We’re rulers. We’re to be the head, not the tail. You see, You know, we become so other oriented in terms of heaven and so focused on the family as just a vehicle to create kids for heaven that we don’t understand that 99% of the Bible is about the here and now. You don’t find a lot in the Bible about heaven. I believe it. It’s our destination to where we look toward. Sure, you bet. But, you know, the Bible spends far less time on the topic than we do. Put it that way. And the Bible places far more time telling us how to rule in the context of a culture or society than we do.

And here the Bible, this section of the formal proverbs of Solomon during now the first set by Hezekiah’s set. That’s where it all moves toward rule and advice. Don’t listen to falsehood if you’re a ruler. All your officials have become wicked. The poor man and the oppressor meet together. The Lord gives light to the eyes of both. If a king faithfully judges the poor, this is verse 14 of 29, his throne will be established forever. Remember, the rod of reproof gives wisdom, but a child left to himself brings shame to his mother.

When the wicked increase, transgression increases, but the righteous will look upon their downfall. Discipline your child, your son, and he will give you rest. He will give delight to your heart. Where there’s no prophetic vision, the people cast off restraint. But blessed is he who keeps the law. By mere words, a servant is not disciplined. May I know someone in this audience who wants me to understand that verse in spades. Through mere words, your son is not disciplined. For though he understands, he will not respond. Do you see a man who is hasty in his words? There’s more hope of a fool than him. Whoever pampers a servant from childhood will in the end be his heir. A man of wrath stirs up strife. And then so what’s the point of that?

What I’m trying to show you is that there is this back and forth. If you see these proverbs kind of connected together for a particular purpose, We have stuff about a ruler in verse 12. The king judging faithfully in verse 14 and then in verse 15 a rod being applied to a child. Then in 16 back to the wicked increasing transgression increasing in the context of civil rule is the obvious implication. And then 17 back to disciplining your son that he might give you rest. And then in 18 the problems that a king’s going to have if there’s no prophetic vision. The people cast off restraint. And then back to 19 where you go back to the son and he’s being disciplined again. You can’t discipline with just mere words. You got to have the rod for the fool’s back. Foolishness is bound up in the heart of the child. Do you see what I’m getting at here? It’s stitched together.

And what it wants us to do is to see the relationship certainly of correct family upbringing to societal peace. That’s part of it. But I think beyond that, when we’re now in a section, you know, chapters 28 29 are frequently called by commentators the royal collection, the rulers collection. How do you establish rule? We’re in that collection. We have these interspersings of disciplining your own children. What it’s doing is it’s telling the princes, the rulers, if you have civil rule, that your subjects are your children.

And just like you can’t train a child up just by using words, you can’t do it in the context of a civil culture. You can’t just use moral persuasion as a ruler. You have to apply punishments to your citizens who are rebellious or foolish like children. So what it does is it gives the ruler a sense of his attitude toward his subjects. And we abstract these proverbs out. That’s fine. They have immediate application in the family. We can do that.

But you see in the contemplation and meditation of these proverbs, we kind of miss the point if we don’t see that really what’s going on here primarily is instruction to the civil ruler on how to establish and maintain a godly citizenry. That’s what it’s about and now it does it by weaving together the imagery at the end of you know the collection of Solomon’s proverbs we’re going back into this imagery of the son and the father I won’t take the time now but if you look at 28 and 29 the idea of the immoral woman comes back the one who is a companion to prostitutes the son and the father language comes back after being pretty well absent from chapters 25 to 27 and you see what it’s doing is it’s thematically drawing the book together for us.

Proverbs begins with a focus on the family, the focus on relationships of parent and child, antithetic parallelism, contrast. We got into the middle of that first section of Solomon’s proverbs, and we got some kingly Yahweh stuff going on. And then we come to the end of this. We got kingly Yahweh stuff going on in 25-27. And then we’re back to antithetic parallelism, but now in the context of the movement from a son to a king, but there’s still pointers there about the father-son stuff and the harlot again. that remind us that it’s summing up the rest of the book. So it provides this beautiful unity to the book that is that is excellent and all inspiring and makes us praise God for the book.

But more importantly, I think is that having given God thanks for the structure of it, the Holy Spirit opens up that structure, we begin to understand what it means for civil rulers, for instance, and the importance of corporal punishment in the civil arena. And what it means is the church of Jesus Christ should never have allowed this culture to move away from corporal punishment of criminals.

You see, whether it’s, you know, stripes as opposed to now prison or the death penalty is the last element of corporal punishment left. And we’ve allowed that to go away. See, and the scriptures are quite clear that a culture can’t do that because the people will cast off constraint if there’s no prophetic word. If there’s no corporal punishment going on in the context of a culture, people cast off restraint and get wild and weird and goofed up. That’s what’s going to happen. The son won’t be disciplined just by words. The civil magistrate can’t just pass a bunch of laws and never enforce them.

Didn’t you think it was odd? Those of you that know about it, the attorney general’s opinion on Friday. What a strange thing. Yes. [County name] officials are engaging in illegal activity. But you know, they might be right. It could be unconstitutional. So, we’re going to give them some advice. You know, we’re we’re into advice now in our culture. Well, that’s all the civil magistrate mostly does anymore is advice. And so they give advice. We think they should stop it. If they don’t, well, we can’t. We have no authority. Somehow the lead law enforcement officer of our state has no authority to tell a county official what to do regarding state law. That strikes me as passing strange.

The judgment begins at the house of God and moves out to the culture. They’re that way because we moved away from those things in the church of Jesus Christ. because we allowed the culture to move away from corporal punishment because we didn’t understand that Proverbs 29 wasn’t just a bunch of individual little proverbs you’re supposed to meditate on and apply the ones in the family and forget the ones in the state that they’re all woven together. And God was warning us.

Some of you read the Proverbs every day of your lives. Many millions of Christians do this, I think. And God has warned you over and over and over again that the effects in this culture, the removal of punishment of criminals will be very bad and the city will come apart. The center won’t hold. He’s warned us and we’ve ignored the warnings. So 28 and 29 kind of bring us back. You know, the king has been established and it kind of brings us back with an understanding of what he should do in relationship to all of that.

So that’s that’s one of the ways in which a contemplation and meditation on what Proverbs is about. Not just the individual proverb, but the structure of what God has provided. It’s an exciting time. to study proverbs research study and contemplation of the structural forms of proverbs which are essential to understanding what the individual proverbs mean. This has really only gone on in any kind of concerted useful sense for the last 50 years. Virgin territory. Some of you young guys want to make your mark in the world. This is where you can do it by studying the structural content of Proverbs and delivering up to God’s people forms and structures that help us to put together these things in a way that increases our understanding of them and drives God’s people inevitably to apply the crown rights of King Jesus in the context of our land. It’s an exciting time to study the proverbs.

I’ve loved doing it again the last four or five weeks and I’ll be preaching these same basic messages in Poland. Pray for me that I do that well over there. Very important book. And I want to we want to talk a little bit more about you know chapters 25 to 27 and some big picture items in them. But again, what we’ve the top half of your outline, I reminded you of the first five elements of the seven elements of this book, their relationship to the seven days of creation.

And you know, it’s not hard. This isn’t, you know, hard. It’s not rocket science. It Well, it may be if we don’t if we don’t know what the seven days of creation were. It may be if we’re so ignorant of God’s word. that we don’t even know what the seven days of creation were and what was created on what. But assuming you do, it’s pretty easy to remember this how Proverbs is structured in its relationship to all of that.

The formal introduction, the first nine verses, the transcendent wisdom of God is going to be given primarily to young people, but the wise will hear and receive instruction, more wisdom as well. The transcendent wisdom of God, let there be light. It comes and it comes very specifically in the first nine verses to the primary audience children. It’s going to come through listening to their fathers. Fear of the Lord is beginning of wisdom and immediately goes on to talk about the importance of hearing your father and your mother’s instruction. So this transcendent wisdom is going to the light will be established in your relationship to your parent and through that to God.

And then we got nine chapters getting us ready for the actual proverbs themselves. Remember that is very clearly a structure that shows two different paths just like God put a firmament in the sky. Two paths. So here there are two paths to go and the proverbs become marked by this division between two paths. The antithetic parallelism, the contrast, two paths and the two paths are summarized in chapters 1 to 9. At the very heart of that introduction as what woman are you going to embrace? At the middle of the very middle of that introduction, there’s warnings not to embrace the wrong woman. harlotry, which stands for foolishness. But in the life of an 18-year-old or 16-year-old young man, see, it has very immediate application on either side of that warning.

So, we looked at the introduction from a couple weeks back, chapters 1-9. Remember, it was embrace wisdom. Don’t embrace the harlot. Embrace your wife. You see, wisdom isn’t gnostic. Wisdom is incarnational. You can’t embrace Sophia, philosophy, love of wisdom in an abstract sense. If you’re not faithful to your wife, you’re an idiot. You’re a fool. The way to embrace wisdom is by embracing your wife, by avoiding the harlot.

That’s at the very center of the introduction. Everything else kind of flows out that way. And for men at least, how they treat the women in their life is absolutely critical. How they treat their sisters. Now, wisdom is kind of pictured as the sister. How you treat your wives. Wisdom is put in direct relationship in the center of the introductory chapters 1 to 9 in relationship to embracing your wife and being satisfied with her and then embracing wisdom as a woman.

How do you how do you embrace you know women in the general sense? You properly relate to women as opposed to improperly. So that’s what that introduction was all about. And then we saw that Solomon’s proverbs had this they were the first fruits the first set of proverbs. They were the beginning of everything. And everything kind of begins for the man who becomes a king by being a good son. and then by being moved to establish vocation.

Again, it began with talking about the two paths and we saw very clearly in chapter 10 as all that opened up that a very heavy emphasis was put upon diligence. Fourth Commandment issues are central to establishing vocation by abstention of work on the Lord’s day. Yes, certainly. And again, the church has given that one up. And as a result, we end up with no diligence, no working six days of the week either. And we wonder what happened. Well, that’s what happened.

And over and over again in the proverbs as the king Solomon who has meditated on the commandments of God, the Ten Commandments and sees in the first four a short form of everything else. He knows that the culmination of all our relationship to the Father, Son, and the Spirit is whether we are diligent in work and rest on the Sabbath day, rest on the Lord’s day. That’s the deal. That’s what’s culmination. That’s what everything culminates in. So diligence and establishing vocation and household in those first set of Solomon’s proverbs.

And then at the very heart of the book, the words of the wise. We saw, you know, the first 10 again stressing diligence, three statements going through Father, Son, and Holy Spirit by way of a proverb and then a final set of seven. All that were an exposition of working correctly and diligently not for riches. But so the combination of those 10 was that you could not oppress the poor and in fact be motivated to give to the poor to be gracious and beneficent. This is the purpose of vocation. And then the middle set of those 10 was all about the establishment of the home through wisdom and again avoiding drunkenness, bad companions, wrong women.

And then the last set of 10 was this focus upon civil rule and ruling correctly. Having this understanding that it’s our obligation to rescue those being led off and encouraging the sin of homosexuality. It is the obligation of the church of Jesus. You see it. You see young women being deluded into walking off to the slaughter house where they’re going to give their babies up. Now you see young homosexual people in school being trained to explore their spirituality. Now you see couples that have had no peace in a homosexual relationship because of the curse of God and the chastisements of God and this conviction of sin. You see them now being encouraged with the civil magistrate to enter into a formalized marriage and have the blessings upon it.

You know, they’re being led off to the slaughter. They’re being encouraged in a path that is destructive to them and it’s destructive to our culture. You see, it. Have you not seen it? The Lord knows you’ve seen it. He says in that last section of 10 Proverbs in the middle of the 30 words of the wise there. And you have an obligation to do something about it. Today, you can meet some of that obligation. We got voter registration forms here. It is a godly thing to do today to get your voter registration card in order. Anything you do in terms of civil activity, for the most part, at least changing the Oregon Constitution, removing ungodly judges, removing ungodly men, so to speak, so that righteousness can reign.

All that happens in the context of being registered to vote. You can’t sign a petition. You can’t vote if you don’t register. You can’t you can’t vote if you’ve moved and haven’t updated your registration form. You kids that are 18, if you’re going to be able to vote in the primary election or 17 if you’re 18 by the time of the next election, you can register today when you’re 17. We’re going to have voter registration cards here today. You should take care. You should do it. I don’t see any reason why anybody in this church should not update their voter registration information to make sure you’re registered to vote.

Have you not seen the slaughter that’s going on in our culture and the way it’s knocking at the door of our own churches and homes? Don’t you know that left unchecked if the church continued to put its head in the sand? They’ll be knocking at that door saying, “Well, your constitution says that you can’t be a member. In order to be a member, you got to think that homosexuality is an abhorrent sin. That’s hate talk.” You’ll be there. Haven’t you seen it? It’s all working itself out. You can do that today.

If you’re a young person today, age 13 to maybe I think it’s 19 or 18, 17 maybe. Every year there’s a thing called teen pack first in first weekend in April. Thursday well I guess it’s a it’s first week in April and you can go down to Salem and understand how civil government works by a Christian group. Train you in how a bill becomes a law, train you in political action, lobbying, all that stuff from a Christian perspective. You can do that. You have You want more information? Talk to Scott C. He did it last year. I’m taking Charity down there on Friday. They have a one-day thing for kids age 8 to 12. You can begin to train future leaders.

I told Scott yesterday, maybe him, I don’t know who, but Lord willing, there’ll be people coming out of our church that want to exercise civil rule from a Christian perspective and get involved in that sphere. And this is one little small step you can do to move that way. It’s interesting that Howard L.’s Sunday school class, the book by Gene Veith on vocation calling in the world, the middle three chapters are on your calling in terms of your work, your calling in terms of your family, and then your calling in terms of your civic responsibilities. I haven’t actually read the chapters, but that’s the 30 sayings of the wise all summed up, I bet the middle of his book about what it means to be a Christian, to be called by God. That’s what it means. And we can engage that today.

But so, so we have this obligation and those things tell us how to do it. And remember, the words of the wise concluded with the tremendous emphasis on diligence. and the deleterious effects of sloth at the very end of this 30 sayings of the wise. So that all sets us up for this set of proverbs and at least the context should be developing in your mind.

What happened on the fifth day if this is the fifth element of the book well the fifth day was the day remember the fourth day was sun moon and stars rulers that’s when the law was given at Pentecost the fourth feast in Leviticus 23. So we rule through the words of the wise the fifth day was the day when God inhabited the heavens and the seas, not the land now with animals, but he put birds up there and fish down there. And these things were given command to team and multiply. It’s the first day of commandment in the creation week. And they’re teaming and multiplying, but not in the land yet. That’s going to happen on the sixth day beasts come along.

So from one perspective, Solomon’s proverbs multiply. Right now we got a whole new collection developed 200 years later. They’re multiplying in the context of this book. More importantly though, the birds and particularly the fish are representations in the Old Testament and new of the gentile nations that would be gathered in when Christ comes. All those nations represented by the birds and the and the fish. They would be brought in now. And so the civil rule of the proverbs given to us by Hezekiah’s men is part of the implications of the church of Jesus Christ extending rule and reign over the world, bringing in the gentile nations.

The fifth feast in Leviticus 23 is the feast of trumpets. You blow forth the word of God and all the nations stream to the house of the Lord. We trumpet forth the crown rights of King Jesus present now in our time and the obligations of the church to exercise civil rule. We set up a country that has good solid laws and the world will, you know, beat a path to our doorstep, right? No, they won’t, Dennis.

Well, they did. They did 300 years ago. They’ll do it again. Now, question isn’t will that happen? Will that have an effect on global evangelization? The question is, will we take up the task? That’s the only question left. And if we do, then those teeming hordes of God’s people around the world come up to his holy mountain to worship him. So, that’s what’s what this section is.

And now, let’s talk a little bit specifically about chapters 25-27.

So, turn back to chapter 25 and we’ll begin talking about that. And what I have in your outline is these are kingly proverbs and the king does not seek his own glory. Chapter 25 has such a kind of a flow to it that some commentators have called it a proverb poem. It has that kind of flow. And what I want you to see first of all in terms of this chapter and you can actually yeah you have your Bibles. If you don’t have your Bibles, you can actually look on the order of worship because it was there as well.

Let’s read verse one and two and then drop down in verses 27. So verse one says this, these also are proverbs of Solomon which the men of Hezekiah, king of Judah, copied. So kings given these. Verse two says, “It’s the glory of God to conceal a matter, but the glory of kings is to search out a matter.” Verse 27 says, “It’s not good to eat much honey, nor is it glorious to seek one’s own glory.” And then verse 28, “A man without self-control is like a city broken into and left without walls.”

So how do those match up? Well, clearly verse 2 and verse 27 concern the same topic and that’s glory. So the context for this entire chapter, the book ends that God gives us here are references to glory. Are you going to have glory through doing what you’re supposed to do to search out a matter or are you going to tempt to get glory for your own purposes? Are you going to try to seek after glory? And to seek glory is not glory. So the theme of this chapter is proper glory. It’s hidden. It’ll become revealed by God in time. And as you seek it out, but in opposition to that is the idea of seeking out one’s own glory and trying to establish one’s own gloriousness.

Now that’s verses 2 and 27. Verses 1 and 28 talk about the king Hezekiah in this collection, which is a kingly collection. And then it talks about not having control over your own spirit being like a city without walls. The king’s job is to promote righteousness in the context of his community and to defend it from attacks from outside. And what this first chapter is telling us is that if a king doesn’t get this part, glory, what it is, how to achieve it, and warnings against seeking one’s own glory. If he doesn’t get that, he won’t be able to control his spirit and he can’t do his job as a civil magistrate. He can’t protect his people. So the theme of chapter 25 is glory.

The godly king, the one who will be established, does not seek his own glory. No, he goes about achieving glory by searching out the things that God has hidden. It’s the glory of God to conceal things, but the glory of kings is to search things out. Now, remember what I said a couple minutes ago that chapters 25 to 27 are a unit within this larger unit. And we began by reading the last few verses of chapter 27. And what is a king to search out? A king is to search out the state of his flock. Right?

Again, if all we do is isolate these proverbs out, this is an agricultural proverb. But if we understand that the context is kingly wisdom, then we’re going to see a relationship of this guy is supposed to search out the well-being of his flocks and how are they doing. We’ll see the relationship of that. Back to the beginning verse, Hezekiah, Solomon, the godly king, who’s going to search out a matter. One thing he searches out is the state of his people, the state of his household. And in terms of our home, this is an immediate application to us. If we’re going to be kings of our own castles, we need to search out a matter. We have to think through what is the state of our flocks with an eye to doing something about them.

Now, this isn’t just established by this book end of 25:1-2 and then down to 27 the last few verses. I’ve said this before when we talked about Jesus as the great shepherd in John’s gospel. In the Old Testament the shepherd is not ultimately a guy that takes care of sheep literal sheep and it’s not the pastor. Ultimately in the Old Testament the references to shepherds over and over again in the prophetic works are civil rulers. Now the immediate text of the shepherd definition is somebody who takes care of sheep. But that is applied in the Old Testament, not so much to ecclesiastical rulers. It’s applied in the first instance to civil rulers, to kings. A king is a shepherd.

And if we understand that’s the way God has defined the word for us in the Old Testament and we are in a selection of wisdom given to us to help a king rule, to attain an established rule. And then we get to the conclusion of that first section of those kingly proverbs and it talks about a king or a shepherd knowing the state of his flock so we make immediate application. He’s talking about civil rulers. You see the meditation on the structure is a tremendous benefit to us to properly understand what’s happened and it leads us to Christ. Christ understands us. He’s not removed from us. He is ministering to us his glory as it as it is demonstrated to us through his personage in the gospel. Remember that all this speaks ultimately of Jesus Christ.

Jesus came as the one who didn’t seek out his own glory. That would not have been glorious. It is the nature of the triune God to empty himself to serve others. Right? Not to exalt his own glory. It is the nature of God the Father because the Son said, “If you’ve seen me, you’ve seen the Father.” It is the nature of God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit not to glorify themselves. The Father doesn’t seek his own glory. He gives his only begotten Son. And the Son becomes king. The Son doesn’t seek out his glory. He’s doing the Father’s will.

The Holy Spirit doesn’t come and say want the Holy Spirit doesn’t want the church of Jesus Christ to say the Spirit the Spirit the Spirit the Holy Spirit wants you to say Jesus Jesus that Jesus is showing us the Father and the Father is talking about the beloved Son and that’s the way it works that’s what love is not seeking one’s own glory that is the nature of God not to do that and you being made in the image of God this is what will accomplish your well-being and actually your glory your weightiness will come as you don’t seek your own glory.

You see and this is one of the huge problems of course with civil politics because so often that is precisely the reason why men are running for civil office to seek glory and so we’re wrong right out of the shoot. You see Christian politicians need to have godly men around them reminding them of this basic idea that the first chapter of Proverbs which is a beautiful song of what proverb wisdom is for kings. The most important thing for you to remember, oh king, is not to seek your own glory, but instead search out the matters that God has given you to. Search out the well-being of your flocks and tend to them.

Well, let’s just read through these quickly. The rest of them, it has the same basic theme of glory. As the heavens for height, the earth for depth, so the heart of kings is unsearchable. Take away the dross from the silver and the smith is material for a vessel. Take away the wicked from the presence of the king and his throne will be established in righteousness. Well, all right. We want gold. That’s what glory is, right? Gold is glorious. It’s heavy. That’s what the word meant in the scriptures. A heavy, beautiful, shiny thing. A hunk of gold is what glory is. The king doesn’t try to establish his own glory. But what he does do is punish the wicked and make them either change or at least go back into hiding.

And when he does that, his reign has become more glorious, not his purpose. His purpose is doing the Lord’s will and establishing Christ’s kingdom, making it manifest in the world. But the end result of that is a more glorious place. And what we have now is just the reverse. This state has shame on its face now because those that do wickedness and rebellion to Jesus Christ in terms of, you know, marrying the wrong person, the wrong sex, these are now being condoned and actually encouraged by the civil magistrate.

That’s shameful. These things are clearly associated homosexuality with shamefulness. Now, you know, there’s lots of shameful things we all do, and I’m not beating up on just them. But I am saying that right now the civil magistrates in the process of calling something shameful good and trying to add the glory of marriage to it. And the end result of that is that the governor’s administration becomes shameful and not glorious.

So, the king is being taught about glory here. We’re being taught about how to achieve a glory. You get rid of dross to make a coin more glorious. And you get rid of the wickedness of men. You drive it out of the public arena.

Verse 6. Don’t put yourself forward to the king’s presence. Stand in the place of the great. It’s better to be told, “Come up here” than if you put lower in the presence of a noble. What your eyes have seen, do not hastily bring into court. This is a way. Well, and let’s just continue to read. For what will you do in the end when your neighbor puts you to shame? So, you know, you don’t exalt your own glory by sitting at the head of the table. You sit at the foot of the table and it’s training for you at the meal or in the presence of the king to not seek your own glory. Let another glorify you. That’s what the Lord Jesus did. Set aside his own glory, gives of that and his Father glorifies him. So this is what the nature of how to rule and reign is to be service-oriented, not you know bringing forth your own glory.

And verse 8 regards the same theme. Don’t hastily bring into court what will you do in the end? when your neighbor puts you to shame. Shame is the opposite of glory. So, you’re not going to get glory if you strive with your neighbor quickly, hastily. You’re not going to get glory if you tell somebody else what your neighbor’s doing wrong. That’s going to bring shame on your head, not glory on your head. Don’t reveal another secret, lest he who hears you bring shame upon you.

Verse 10. You see, it’s the opposite of glory. A word fitly spoken is like apples of gold in a setting of silver. That’s glory. That’s glorious. We’re not sure what that word apple means, but it’s some kind of beautiful golden ornament in the context of a setting of silver. The temple is that. It’s beautiful gold in the middle and there’s silver sockets to it. The silver other elements of silver in the context of the temple. So beautiful illustration here of what really glory is. And what it tells us is the most glorious part of yourself are the words that you speak either fitly or rashly. You your words like a gold ring or an ornament of gold.

Verse 12, is a wise reprover? Like an earring of gold and an ornament of fine gold to an ear that listens, or an ear that’s listening. You see, to use our words correctly or even in rebuke at times, this is what brings glory. This is what brings goldenness to us. Whether it’s an earring, an apple, and a set of silver, whatever it is, like the cold of snow in the time of harvest is a faithful messenger to those who send him. He refreshes the soul of his master. It’s an example of a word fitly spoken. Be a faithful messenger of the King, King Jesus to this particular area. And God says, “This is a glorious thing to do.” Then you’re going to be like, you know, something gold and something beautiful.

Like clouds and wind without rain is a man who boasts of a gift he doesn’t give. He boasts of his own glory. He doesn’t have it. With patience, a ruler may be persuaded. A soft tongue will break a bone. Beautiful imagery, right? How do you achieve rule and reign? You do it primarily through your speech. How can you persuade an ungodly king? A soft answer, right? A soft tongue, something as seemingly unable to do anything as your tongue can actually affect the breaking of a person’s bone, their fundamental basis of who they are. You can get to that through a word fitly spoken, through glorious speech.

The way to establish civil rule is to speak forth God’s word. in a way that is respectful in treating and all that stuff of a civil magistrate that speaks the truth and gets down to the presuppositional level of where a man is at and to break his bones. You see, so the word of God tells us here that our speech is the way to exercise and receive proper glory. And then we have proverbs about not being in the neighbor’s house too long. It’s like it’s like eating too much honey.

Here some things that are being developed is the idea of context. Whoever sings songs to a heavy heart is like one who takes off a garment on a cold day like vinegar and on soda. When you speak forth words to be that will add to your glory instead of make it more shameful for you. You understand the context into which you’re speaking. The context. You don’t just say well let’s get down in front of the courthouse and go protest this homosexual thing and hold up a sign and yell at people. I mean sometimes that’s the right thing to do in a given context. Maybe listen to it. I’m not saying that tactic is always wrong.

But I’m saying if that’s the only if that’s the only way you know how to speak, then just stay out of the way. You know, let the mature Christians handle it because we understand that the word of God tells us there’s importance to our speech being modified for the context of what we speak to. It’s not always good to sing a nice happy song to somebody to to come to them. Singing songs to them when they have a heavy heart is like one who takes off a garment on a cold day, you’ve produced the opposite effect of what you’re trying to accomplish.

So the way to affect civil rule and reign is through speech. Speech that understands the importance of context. So these proverbs are about glory and they’re about the wrong way to seek glory and the right way to go about accomplishing glory for yourself and the culture. You know, when you when you look at that when we read verse 24, for instance, it’s better to live in a corner of the house stop that a house shared at the Coralson wife. that makes us ponder and meditate. Again, this is in a section viewing the civil rule. And while there’s an immediate application to a home, it also has an application to a civil ruler. And what he’s being told is that if he doesn’t attend to the state of his flock, so to speak, if he doesn’t seek to get rid of the wicked and get and punish the contentious, and he allows the civil public to become contentious, He’s like the guy going off in the in the governor’s mansion or whatever it is and having that kind of trouble.

So, it opens up a little broader application of these than not.

Verse 26, like a muddied spring and a polluted fountain is a righteous man who gives way before the wicked. And unfortunately, that’s what the church has become, a muddied spring, giving way before the wicked in terms of civil policies. Not good to eat much honey, nor is it glorious to seek one’s own glory. So, chapter 25 begins the second section of talking about kings and it says a king has to understand how to accomplish glory and how not to accomplish glory.

It is the king’s glory to understand the importance of speech. However, speech alone will not affect what he wants to do as we read later as we read in chapter 29. He has to combine that with corporal punishment for the wicked as well.

We’ll touch very briefly now on the next section chapter 26 and then we’ll be then we’ll close. Chapter 26 has also a very clear structure to it and I provided this on your outlines. There are four kinds of people that the king has to understand are going to inhabit his community. Fallen humanity is kind of pictured, I think, in these four types of people. You know, the altar is a representation of humanity has four forms, four corners to the world. We have four kinds of men given to us here that seem to represent that a king has to learn how to deal with fallen humanity.

The king understands fallen humanity. He can deal with it. He understands the fool first of all in chapter 26: verses 1 to 12. Like snow and summer, rain and harvest. So honor is not fitting for a fool. Now did you see that word honor? Honor is a word linked to glory. Honor and glory are synonyms. And so what this verse is, again, looking at the structure of these things, this verse ties what’s going to follow, which is a new subject. It’s not going to be glory now. It’s going to be the kind of manifestations of the fall that happen in a particular community of people. But it ties it back to glory. You see, so it stitches together chapter 25 and chapter 26 because it says like snow and summer harvest. So honor glory is not fitting for a fool. So it stitches it together.

We’re still talking about the civil ruler. Like a sparrow in its flitting like a swallow in its flying a curse that it has caused us doesn’t like. Why does it say that? Well, because earlier in Proverbs it told us that the fool is the one who likes to speak forth curses against people. He rails against people. And the fool’s curse against the king won’t lie. You see, the fool’s curse against a good guy won’t come to rest. A whip for the horse, a bridle for the donkey, and a rod for the back of fools. Got to apply corporal punishment.

Answer not a fool according to his folly, lest you be like him yourself. Answer a fool according to his folly, lest you be wise in his own eyes. The fool in Proverbs is not somebody who lacks intelligence. The fool of proverbs in the scripture Old Testament is somebody first of all God is not in all his thoughts Psalm 14 verse 1 God is not in all his thoughts and secondly the fool in proverbs is the wicked man remember we talked about this wisdom and folly get associated immediately as you go through proverbs to righteousness and wickedness which is actions of correct relationship or incorrect relationship to other people so the fool doesn’t consider God in his thoughts and as a result he acts wickedly in terms of other people.

And so that’s who the fool is. And for that fool, you have to have a rod for his back. And there’s ways to talk to him as well. And you talk to him along two lines of argumentation. You take his own folly and you expand out. Well, yeah, if we believe that love is the basis of marriage, Brad brought this up Friday night at our men’s discussion. Two people that love each other ought to be able to get married.

Well, what about two sisters? What about two brothers? Would that You take the line of reasoning and you show them the folly of that line of reasoning. You answer a fool according to his own folly. But then you have to show them more than just the foolishness of that. It’s not the faith is not a negation. The faith is the establishment of truth. The faith is the proclamation of Christ and his wisdom. And so you tell a person, well that’s not what marriage is in the scriptures. It is a particular kind of love and it is a particular kind of covenant and it must be a man and a woman. And so you then show them the folly of what they’ve done. You answer them according to their own folly. You show the implications the king must. To achieve civil rule, we must. But then you also show them where their presuppositions, which bones need to be broken by your by your tongue. You see what are they basing their arguments on? Show them the foolishness of it. Show them the way of God. And in doing that, a soft tongue crushes bones.

Whoever sends a message by the hand of a fool cuts off his own feet and drinks violence. He’s like a lame man’s legs. When hang useless is a proverb in the mouth of fools. Like one who binds the stone and the sling is one who gives honor to a fool. Back to honor again. Over and over again the civil magistrate is warned not to be surrounded by fools either wicked men or people that are not who do not comprehend God who the thought of God is not in all their thoughts. Atheists in other words very clearly here are not to be in the company of a righteous ruler nor men who actually engage in wickedness. So fools. and that goes on through verse 12.

You see a man who is wise in his own eyes, there is more hope for a fool than for him. As bad as a fool is, the worst kind of person you have to deal with in the context of dealing with humanity is the person that’s wise in his own eyes. And that sets us up for the sluggard in the next four verses, verses 13, 14, 15, and 16.

The sluggard says there’s a lion in the streets. There’s a lion in the streets. That’s his council. That’s what he believes. It results from cowardice and a lack of desire to work, but he claims any excuse. As the door turns on its hinges, so does a sluggard on his bed. The sluggard works to avoid work. He turns on his bed to avoid getting out of the bed. The sluggard buries his hand in the dish. It wears him out to bring it to his mouth. Guy that can’t get out of bed and doesn’t even have the desire to feed himself. He’s so slothful. What is that? We call it clinical depression. The Bible calls it slothfulness. The Bible calls it laziness. And then the Bible gives us a solution. How do we take care of people that are lazy?

We look at verse 16. The sluggard is wiser in his own eyes than seven men who can answer sensibly. You see, he’s the one that is wiser in his eyes than anybody else. The sluggard. He is in worse position than the fool. The slothful man who has seven reasons for why he doesn’t do what God has called him to do. The king has to learn to deal with these kind of people. We have to learn to deal with these kind of people. We have to learn that this is what the Lord Jesus Christ has delivered us from. He’s delivered us from the folly of not having God in all of our thoughts and not having God as the one who is to determine what we do in terms of civic responsibility or if we’re even involved.

The church has been redeemed from that through the work of Christ. And we’re to appropriate that redemption. The church has been redeemed from the foolishness of thinking what we know. in our own selves what should be done and what shouldn’t be done. The church has become slothful in this important arena and the Lord God is giving us what we need now by striking the back of the foolish church and by telling the sluggard that his walls are broken down and his vineyard and his field are now trampled under by the godless.

Lord Jesus Christ is calling his church back to his wisdom. He’s King of Kings, Lord of Lords, and he expects us to attend to it.

The culmination of all this is in chapter 27. Consider the state of your flock. It’s an excellent example to us as men in our homes. It’s important for the elders of the church to consider the state of the people that God has called us to exercise a servant rule to. And it’s also important for the civil arena. It’s important for us to recognize that the church from one perspective is the head already. Judgment begins at the house of God because the house of God is responsible for everything else in the culture. Not always our fault, always our responsibility.

And in this case, the case of what is going on in the civil arena from here to the other side of this country, it is our fault. It is our fault because we have lost heart for the task of engaging the civil arena with the message of Jesus Christ. It’s our fault because we get so engaged on the family that we forget our civic responsibilities. It’s our fault because we have been so foolish as to not have the thoughts of God from his wisdom literature drive us towards some degree of interaction in that particular part of our life.

But the Lord God is gracious. He is merciful. He brings his rod down upon the back of a foolish church. Not to the end that the fool will simply repent and say, “I’m sorry.” But to the end that the fool will consider the thoughts of God driving us to apply the faith in this particular part of who we are, granting us success and victory as we apply the wisdom of God in the civil arena as well. That’s what God is doing in our times.

Let’s pray. Father, we thank you for your rod upon your church. And we pray Lord God that the repentance of your church across this country would include an understanding that this has happened because we failed to address this arena. We thank you Lord God for chapters 25 to 29 of your wisdom literature. We thank you Lord God for the many and varied instructions there as to how to accomplish achieve and maintain civil rule. May your church listen to it. May we each, Lord God, in our homes see the importance of raising up our children with an obligation to know that they are to be involved in civil matters as well.

And help us, Father, to train them from the proverbs as to how to accomplish that in a victorious way for King Jesus. In his name we ask it. Amen.

It shall be thy royal throne. It shall be thy royal throne. Take my love, my Lord. I for at thy feet it treasure store. Take myself and I will be ever only all for thee. Ever only we all for thee.

Context of our prayer this morning will be Psalm 150. Let us pray. Praise you Lord. Praise you in the sanctuary of Mount Zion, your church. May praises to you resound from corner of this city today throughout Oregon and the Pacific Northwest and across this great nation. Founded in your name.