The sermon by Peter Allison focuses on the application of wisdom from the Book of Proverbs, particularly chapters 28 and 29, to rulers and those in authority. It emphasizes the importance of righteousness and justice as foundational concepts for a prosperous nation. These values are not only applicable to those in power but also to the general population, as the prosperity of a nation depends on the righteousness of its people. The sermon contrasts wisdom and folly on both personal and national levels, highlighting that true justice and righteousness must align with God's Word rather than human interpretations. It warns against pride, using historical examples like Pharaoh and Nebuchadnezzar, to illustrate the destructive nature of hardening one's heart against wisdom and correction. The sermon concludes with a call for self-reflection and repentance, urging individuals to seek humility and align their actions with divine justice and righteousness.

Our scripture reading this morning, and I apologize, I forgot to send out a note to let everybody know that we would be back in Proverbs. I'm sorry about the lack of notice there, so that you could have been prepared. But we are back in Proverbs, we begin reading at Proverbs 28, beginning at verse 27. Hear God's word, He who gives to the poor will not lack, but He who hides his eyes will have many curses. When the wicked arise, men hide themselves, but when they perish, the righteous increase.

He who is often rebuked and hardened to his neck will suddenly be destroyed and that without remedy. When the righteous are in authority the people rejoice, but when a wicked man rules the people groan. Whoever loves wisdom makes his father rejoice, but a companion of harlots wastes his wealth. The king establishes the land by justice but he who receives bribes overthrows it. A man who flatters his neighbor spreads a net for his feet by transgression an evil man is snared but the righteous sings and rejoices.

The righteous considers the cause of the poor, but the wicked does not understand such knowledge. May the Lord revive our hearts according to His loving-kindness. Almighty Heavenly Father, we thank You that You have preserved Your Word these thousands of years. We thank You that Your Word endures forever. We ask that now you would instruct us out of it.

May ask that you would guard my lips, that keep them from error, sanctify my sinful lips that they might proclaim your grace. And Lord, may you grant us faith to hear and to and to do as Your Word teaches. In Jesus' name, Amen. Well, this 29th chapter is the last chapter in this fifth section of Proverbs. The section that began in chapter 25.

And it consists of a second set, second batch of Proverbs of Solomon that were collected and arranged by Hezekiah. And This second section of Solomon's Proverbs deals largely with the application of wisdom to kings or to rulers. We used to think we don't have a king in our land, but I'm beginning to wonder. But whether we do or not, this is a reference to those who bear rule, princes, or those who bear rule in the land, those who are in authority. This section deals with the application of wisdom in these situations.

What makes for a peaceful and a prosperous country. Everybody today seems to think that they know what would make our country peaceful and prosperous. Everybody has a different idea about what will make our country peaceful and prosperous. Some people think this world would be much safer if everybody just got a COVID injection. Other people think this world would be much more peaceful if we didn't have police officers.

If we took their money and their funds away. That their injustices are the source of unrest. And other people think that this country will be safer if we have more policemen. And not just local policemen, but national policemen. Who have heavy armor to break down buildings.

And it goes on and on and on. I couldn't even begin to catalog this morning all of the different ideas that people have about what's wrong with our land and what we need to do to make it peaceful and prosperous. But this passage of the Word of God gives us two key concepts that undergird a prosperous nation. Righteousness and justice. Righteousness and justice.

And justice. Righteousness and justice. When a nation, verse 2 says, when a nation is populated by the righteous, people rejoice. See, it's not just a top-down thing. It's not just a matter of who we have in authority.

As we'll see, this is referring to the people themselves. When a nation is populated by the righteous, the people rejoice. And in verse 4, the land is established by justice. In Amos 5, God told the Israelites, I hate, I despise your feast days. I do not savour your sacred assemblies.

Though you offer me burnt offerings and grain offerings, I won't accept them." God had commanded them to offer him grain offerings and burnt offerings. They were required. It was a part of their duty, their moral duty to God to offer these things. But God is saying to them, I don't like them. And if you offer them, I won't accept them.

Nor will I regard your fattened peace offering. So peace offering was so the peace offering was that which all the was a where all the offer also partake partook of that sacrifice. So it is speaking of a covenant fellowship. And the peace offering represented this covenant fellowship where all partook. God had a part, the priest had a part, and the person bringing the offering had a part, and they all ate together.

The burnt offering spoke of, it was a sweet smelling savor, that burnt offering spoke or referenced the righteousness of Christ. That was offered. As opposed to the sin and trespass offerings that were atonement for sin. God is saying these sweet-smelling, savory offerings, I'm not going to accept them. I don't want them.

I despise them. I don't savor these offerings that were a savory offering. Take away from me the noise of your songs. God does command us to sing praise to His name. God told them, I don't want to hear that.

Take them away from me. For I'm not going to hear the melody of your stringed instruments, He told them. Even though many times in the Psalms, God commands us to praise Him with stringed instruments. An instrument of ten strings and so forth. That's really what the word psalm means.

It's something that's sung to musical accompaniment. God is telling them, I don't want to hear him. I don't want to hear your melodies. I don't want to hear your Psalms. This is what I want, he says.

Let justice run down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream. See, that's what God was seeking from them. Justice. That justice run down like water, righteousness like a mighty stream. All this other stuff, He had no regard for it.

If it didn't come from a people who were righteous, and if there was no justice. In other words, he's not willing to receive the praise of people who come to church and sing of his justice when they would turn around on Monday and act unjustly toward their neighbor. You see, when God promised to restore Israel in Isaiah 28 through Christ, He made this promise. He said, Therefore, thus says the Lord God, Behold, I lay in Zion a stone for a foundation a tried stone a precious cornerstone a sure foundation and who was that well that was Jesus Christ Jesus Christ is that foundation stone that cornerstone It was a stone of stumbling to the Jews and a rock of offense to the Gentiles. He says, whoever believes will not act hastily.

And also I will make justice the measuring line and righteousness the plummet. Or we would say a plumb line. You know what a plumb line is? It's a string with a heavy weight on the bottom. I think sometimes people use lasers now.

But before the days of lasers, you had a plumb line. I think people still use them. You put a heavy weight on the bottom, a couple pounds, and that string will hang straight up and down. That's a plumb line. And you use it if you're a mason and you're laying a stone or brick wall.

You have a plumb line there to guide you so that you build the wall straight up and not out one way or so on. God says, let justice run down, sorry, whoever believes, I will make justice the measuring line and righteousness the plumb line these are the these are the guides now everyone actually recognizes that these qualities are the foundation of a prosperous people. The Marxists talk a lot about justice and righteousness. Even these BLM people, who are Marxists, talk a lot about justice and righteousness. But the question that we need to answer is, righteousness by whose definition justice by what standard and of course we know the answer to that I I expect even the littlest among us that can speak would know the answer to that.

How do we define righteousness? How do we define justice? Well these must be defined by the Word of God. These must be defined by the Word of God. And yet even the most mature of us can forget that.

We can forget that justice is defined by the Word of God and not our ideas or concepts about what might be just or not just. What does righteousness look like? Well, this passage begins to answer those questions. It gives to us in a picture of what the righteous, what righteousness looks like. Now this little section that we read in our scripture reading, before I get to, before we get into the meat of that, I just want to point out that as so often in Proverbs, this section is a chiasm, and it really helps in our understanding of how these proverbs are fit together and what the message of the proverbs is when we can see these chiasms.

A chiasm, you remember, is just a symmetrical structure where the beginning and the end have some connection and the second to the end and the second from the beginning have some connection and so on and to get to the middle which is where the main point was where the emphasis is. And so there is a chiasm here. There are actually at least three interlocking chiasms in this chapter. We've run into that before as well where there's multiple chiasms going on and they all interlock in kind of neat ways. But they do help a lot with understanding the message of the text.

Because proverbs, it's not just a string of pearls, as some like to look at it, of all these little pithy sayings that are just kind of thrown like beads in a box. You can just take them out and look at them. Now there is a structure here and there are many proverbs that are repeated multiple times, two times. And yes we do need repetition but when we see these chiasms we see that those principles are being repeated in a different context, and so there is a little different application. And that's the same thing that we see here.

There are some Proverbs in this passage that have been stated before, but the context is different and that context is is shown to us in these these chiasms, chiasmus. And so in this case verse 27 of chapter 28, the first verse we read, and verse 7, deal with one's treatment of the poor. Verse 28th and verse 6, verse 28 of chapter 28 and verse 6 of chapter 29, contrast righteous and wicked populations. Contrast righteous and wicked populations. Populations.

We'll see why that is. And then verses 1 and 5 in chapter 29 deal with pride. Pride and its effects. Verse 1 speaks of him who hardens his neck and verse five speaks of a man who flatters his neighbor. Verses two and four contrast wicked and righteous rulers.

So we have one pair contrasting wicked and righteous populations and the other in verse two and four contrasting rulers. And then verse three, which is the central point, the center of this structure, it's the main point, is the admonition to choose wisdom and to reject folly. To choose wisdom and to reject folly. Proverbs 9 contrasts these two, this wisdom and folly on a personal level. This section and on down contrasts these two things on a national or a cultural level.

If you look in Proverbs 9, I know it's been a long time since we've been back there, but you may remember that passage. It's Proverbs 9. Wisdom has built her houses, she has hewn her seven pillars, she has slaughtered her meat, she has mixed her wine, she has furnished her table, she has sent out her maidens, she cries from the highest places of the city, whoever is simple, let him turn in here. And as for him who lacks understanding, she says to him, come, eat of my bread and drink of the wine I have mixed. Forsake foolishness and live and go in the way of understanding." There's this appeal to wisdom.

Right, that in verse 3 here, it's whoever loves wisdom makes his father rejoice, but a companion of Harlots wastes his wealth. In chapter 9 of Proverbs verse 13 and following, speak of this very same thing. A foolish woman is clamorous. She is simple and knows nothing, for she sits at the door of her house on a seat by the highest places of the city to all those who pass by, who go straight on their way. Whoever is simple, let him turn in here.

As for him who lacks understanding, she says to him, this foolish woman, stolen water is sweet, and bread eaten in secret is pleasant. But he does not know that the dead are there and that her guests, the guests of this foolish woman, are in the depths of hell. There is this contrast between wisdom and folly on a personal level. This section speaks of wisdom and folly and its effects at a national level but this center verse, verse three, is the heart of this call, of this passage. It's a call to wisdom.

It's a call to wisdom and to reject the folly of harlot tree. Who loves wisdom makes his father rejoice, but a companion of harlots wastes his wealth. OK, so we ask the question, what does righteousness look like? In verse 27 of chapter 28 and verse 7, give us one answer, one aspect of what righteousness looks like. Righteousness, righteous people take pity on those who are poor.

The righteous take pity on those who are poor. Righteousness sees all people as made in God's image. They don't have a class mentality that primarily sees people through the lenses of class, like rich or poor, liberal or conservative, Yuppie or redneck, black versus white, young versus old. And today, those who love their fellow man and get the COVID injection and those who don't love their fellow man. And don't get that.

See, these are all ways of, unrighteous ways of looking at people. By looking at them as a class. Not somebody who is made in the image of God. Not somebody who is an image bearer. And who needs to be renewed in knowledge and righteousness and holiness after the image of God.

You see, capitalism, as it's practiced in our land today has very much the same view of people. View of people. Those who have great wealth, who have an immense prosperity, and who own oftentimes large sections of capital, have often looked very much down upon people that work for them. And you can easily go back and find many so-called capitalists who have greatly abused the people that work for them, even sending armies against them, oppressing them through their work practices, oppressing them through the conditions under which they forced them to work. The history of unions arose out of people who looked down on the working class that labored for them.

That labored for them. And this sort of class division is the starting point of all ungodly cultures and philosophies. On the other side, you might say, is Marxism or communism that sees people as the proletariat and the bourgeoisie? According to Marxism, you know, capitalism is based on the exploitation of the workers whom Marx called the proletariat. Exploitation of the workers by the capitalists or the bourgeoisie.

The proletariat, these are the workers who don't own the means of production and who must use the property of others to produce goods and services in order to earn their living. In other words, they're selling their labor. The capitalists are taking that labor along with their capital and taking what is produced by the labor of these people and then according to Marxists, they're selling it and they're making obscene profits on the backs of the workers because they're paying these workers less than what their labor is worth. And so Marx called for all these oppressed people, all these oppressed workers to unite, to gather together, and to overthrow this exploitative system, And to bring in a system where everybody owns everything in common, then you're not going to have rich and poor. And that was his vision for how to have a prosperous society.

That was his vision of how you were to handle poor people. Just take everything away from everybody. So nobody has anything. Everybody owns everything in common. If you have people that own things, that's just going to breed jealousy by the people that don't own things.

And they're just people that own the things who are going to exploit the people that don't. And the Marxists can make a very strong appeal with passages such as this one or passages such as Micah or Amos that we read, I mean, let justice flow like water, or he who gives to the poor will not lack. And they can point to abuses by people, by so-called capitalists, But neither is right. Both ways of looking at things are looking at people as a class instead of a person made in the image of God. And someone on whom we personally should have mercy.

See, neither group is willing to do that. The people that are always crying out, well, we need to pass this law or do this thing for the poor, They're the ones who are often least concerned about the poor. They're not the ones who give of their wealth to help those who are poor, who are in need. When was the last time you saw any of these Marxists taking the shirt off their back to give it to somebody who is in need. See, righteous, the righteous are those who give to the poor so they don't lack.

The righteous, verse 7 says, considers the cause of the poor. It's not just a corporate thing, somebody else, we, but it's I. I, the righteous, considers the cause of the poor. The wicked does not understand such knowledge. They're always talking about the poor, but they don't care.

They don't consider their cause. And generally, what they end up doing only hurts the poor. Right? It's the poor, the poor. We need to raise the rate that other people pay for their labor.

We need to raise the minimum wage. In other words, that's putting the burden on somebody else. I'm going to help the poor by passing a law that other people have to pay the poor more. And in reality, it only hurts the poor more. Because the very people that need that work now are unemployable because their skills are not worth the minimum wage.

And the employers are not able to benefit from those kind of people who they could hire to do work that isn't worth the minimum wage. And so what happens is, those jobs that are not worth the minimum wage to do, they don't get done and everybody suffers. The wicked doesn't understand these things. They don't understand that the very things that they're trying to do to help the poor are hurting the poor. The ascendancy of the wicked drive people into hiding.

Verse 28, when the wicked arise. Now, that word is plural. It's plural. And other times the word wicked is used, it's singular. What it's saying here is when the wicked are allowed to increase in number because they are not being held accountable, because there is no standard of justice, because God's law is not being recognized and applied, then when that happens, the wicked increase in number.

The wicked arises. Plurality. The wicked proliferate. God's law is a restraining force on sin. Good example is our abortion laws.

We, our laws condone the killing of the unborn. And so there are many people, many women, that get themselves in a pickle, yes, due to their sin, oftentimes, not always, but most of the time, due to their fornication. And they see the laws that condone and promote abortions, murder of the unborn, and they can do it without their parents knowing about it, if they're minors. And they see that as a solution. And so they become a murderer, killing their own baby.

But a godly law would have said killing your baby is murder. And it would prevent many women from becoming murderers. And all of the guilt that that brings upon them. Opening the door and giving a legal foothold to the evil one. See, The ascendancy of the righteous happens when God's law is ignored.

And when that happens, men hide themselves. The righteous begin to hide their thoughts. They're not free to speak with out recrimination. So they take bumper stickers off their cars so they don't get keyed. They take down their blogs and their articles so the FBI doesn't show up at their door.

They stop going, they stop speaking out about the wickedness in the land. The Justice Department, I'm sure you all heard, recently announced that they will be prosecuting mothers that are angry with school boards. Now they didn't say it that way. What happened is the Marxist agency that represents school boards wrote a letter to the Justice Department that there were new domestic terrorists in the land and they needed to take extraordinary measures to protect the peace of our land. And a couple days, two days later, the Department of Justice came out and announced that they were going to be using the agencies that were created to deal with the Islamic terrorists, the so-called Islamic terrorists, to battle these domestic terrorists who were intimidating and terrorizing the school boards.

And who are the people that were interrogating and intimidating these school boards? They were angry mothers. Angry, justly angry at the wickedness being taught to their children. Now, the righteous hide themselves. Now, it's an easy solution for those mothers, they just need to remove their children from the government schools, but that's another matter.

You see, Islam, You see, Islam, even these organizations that were created to fight terrorism, really The only reason they were terrorists, the only reason there was any danger from us is because we were unjustly invading their nations, but that's another matter as well. When the wicked arise, men hide themselves, but when they perish, the righteous increase. Judgment on the wicked encourages the righteous when the wicked when evil is punished by the civil magistrate the righteous are encouraged in righteousness and more people turn to it. Now. Sin.

Sin brings a snare. And sorry, verse 1 and verse 6. Verse 1 and verse 5 deal with the with pride. He who is often rebuked and hardens his neck will suddenly be destroyed and that without remedy. Sudden destruction and no remedy.

That's a terrifying thought. Suddenly to be suddenly destroyed with no remedy. This is very descriptive of Pharaoh and his nation. God said he would harden Pharaoh's heart. In Exodus 7 he said he would harden Pharaoh's heart and multiply my signs and wonders in the land of Egypt But Pharaoh will not heed you Why?

So that I may lay my hand on Egypt and bring my armies and my people the children of Israel out of the land of Egypt by great judgments. Pharaoh hardened his heart and he hardened his heart again and again ten times. He hardened his heart in the face of God's warnings, in the face of God's judgments. And when he hardened, as a result of his hardening his heart again and again and again, there was a sudden and terrifying destruction that came upon them that destroyed and shook the very nation to the depths of its foundation. Pharaoh's entire as a result of Pharaoh's hardness of heart his entire army was drowned in the Red Sea.

A body of water that we know is very deep. Very deep. We call it today, it would be known as the Gulf of Aquaba. And There have been people searching there to find some of the remnants of his army. But we know from history that Egypt was decimated by that.

They never rose to great power like that again. Pharaoh hardened his heart. He was often rebuked. And he was suddenly destroyed in that without remedy. The root problem that this is addressing is pride.

It's pride. And I have a choice to make here. I see that we are really running out of time. And if I jump into this next point on pride, I wanted to spend some time looking at pride because it's such an insidious sin. It's so hard to recognize it.

Sometimes we don't even realize that what we have is pride because it looks like the opposite. Pride is easily recognizable when it's like when it's like Pharaoh's pride, the brash or Nebuchadnezzar's pride, another example of a man who was suddenly destroyed because of his pride. But there's another other kind of pride that is like the man who flatters his neighbor spreads a net for his feet. Outwardly, it may look very humbling. It may look like somebody is being humble.

But they're really not. It's really pride. The military is not known for their virtue, but I recall there are a couple points that they were right, and one of them is in what they called the sea lawyer. A sea lawyer is somebody who defends what they're doing. And that arises out of pride.

And for me, it was a realization to even realize I had that inner lawyer. It's an inner lawyer that we need to fire. But you can't fire him if you don't realize that you don't have it. So the first step is to even realize that we have that inner lawyer that arises from our pride, that wants to justify ourselves and what we've done. Have we fired, have we fired our inner lawyer who is always trying to justify our mistakes or minimize our sins and the seriousness of them?

Well, we're going to, I'm going to pause here and we'll pick this message back up next week, Lord willing, because this is an aspect of, this pride is an aspect of what makes a righteous people. When the righteous are in authority, when the righteous are prosperous and numerous, when they proliferate in a land, That brings blessing on a land. But pride is set opposed, is opposed to a righteous people. It's the opposite of a righteous people. A proud people are not a righteous people.

And so when we look at what makes a nation prosperous, this matter of pride, which begins with us and ourselves, has to be the first place that we look. And Lord willing we will we will pick up with that next week. Let us let us pray. Almighty Heavenly Father, we thank you for the for the wisdom of your word. We thank you for the conviction of your Holy Spirit that does show to us our pride and does and in your grace Lord you enable us to mortify it.

We ask that as we look around at the abominations that abound in our nation, that we might remember that judgment first begins with the house of God and that it begins with us. So may you give to us Lord, may you search us and try us if there is any wicked way in us may you bring it to our may you may you in your mercy grant us repentance bring it to our awareness and grant us the humility to with brokenness and contriteness turn from it. I pray this in Jesus name. Amen.