Proverbs. We've been working our way through Proverbs, as you know, and our approach so far from chapter 11 all the way to chapter 29 has been to find themes that are predominant in different chapters of Proverbs, pull those out and then gather all the other Proverbs on that theme. And so we really only have one more of these left next Lord's day And by the end of next Sunday night, we will have looked at every proverb in the book of Proverbs up through chapter 29. That's the goal anyway. But it occurred to me with that approach, we might have lost sight of the, forest for the proverbial trees.

Oh, come on now. And Proverbs does have a certain break up to it. Proverbs one through nine is very much the chronological introduction to Proverbs. There is a sequence to it. Proverbs one is the invitation to wisdom.

It's from the voice of a dad, come and find wisdom. Proverbs two is about all the ways wisdom will protect you, throughout the life, the virtues of it. So it's almost like you've got a parent telling you, hey, you really should go after this in your life. Proverbs three has this ring to it of, a final commitment, like commit yourself to wisdom and be united, to her. Proverbs four, if you remember when we looked at Proverbs four, it has the tone of almost a, a grandfather talking to the son on the eve of his wedding.

This is advice to have a good marriage. So there's this idea in Proverbs three and four that you're marrying wisdom and you're gonna be delighting in her the rest of your life. Then Proverbs five comes in with adultery, how you'll wreck your marriage. Proverbs six talks about other dangers, dangers of being friends with the world. And so you really can't see this kind of chronology here from here's wisdom, go after her, marry her.

Here's advice for a good marriage. Delight in your marriage. Also, adultery will destroy your marriage. Friendship with the world, how you navigate friends inside of marriage is a huge part of wisdom. Proverbs seven goes back to sexual immorality again.

Proverbs eight talks about Jesus as wisdom incarnate, the Son of God. All wisdom comes from Him, so it's sealing your relationship with the Lord. And then Proverbs nine kinda takes you to the finish line of a life well lived in wisdom. That leads you to Proverbs 10 all the way really through chapter 22, the first half of chapter 22. Those are almost some people call them random proverbs.

They're generic proverbs. Proverbs about life in the world. That's 10 through the middle of chapter 22. They're elementary proverbs. Proverbs about speech.

Proverbs about stewardship, work, all that kind of stuff. We looked at those as we went through it. The second half of Proverbs 22 all the way through chapter 29 is more advanced Proverbs. So you make it through chapter the first half of chapter 22, you've graduated from Proverbs one zero one school. The second half of '22 through '29 is more sophisticated.

Things about friendship, things about discernment, knowing when to cover sin, things that require more sophisticated reasoning than maybe the young person that was targeting in chapters one through nine and then kind of the generic memorized proverbs of 10 through 22. Chapters 22 through 29 is more advanced. Maybe a wisdom that's a little bit deeper than that age in life could handle. It's targeting a higher shelf, so to speak. And that's what maybe you've noticed when you've been going through those last few weeks.

They're more sophisticated proverbs, less about gossip and how to know how to engage wisdom in the world, and the things we've looked at the last few weeks, like friendship, for example, parenting, that kind of thing. But there is a shift in Proverbs that happens in verse 25. And I do want to draw your attention to it as we get into the Proverbs about leadership in Kings tonight. Chapter 25 verse one. These also are the Proverbs of Solomon.

So that word also there is letting you know chapter one through 24 has been from Solomon. Of course, we've we've talked about that many many times. But now there's a change here. There are also the Proverbs of Solomon, chapter 25 forward, which the men of Hezekiah, king of Judah copied. So now you've got a shift in Proverbs from chapter 25 forward.

These are also from Solomon, but they were comp you know, compiled, centuries, three hundred years between Solomon and king Hezekiah to put in the form that you have now from chapter 25 forward. And that's because these proverbs specifically, 25 through 28, are large part about being a king. They have a target audience, those in leadership. These are proverbs that have affected all of Israel throughout the centuries. But now king Hezekiah is kind of corralling those that are fit for a king.

And you see that really clear in verses two through five, for example. It is the glory of God to conceal things, but the glory of kings is to search things out. As the heavens for height and the earth for depth, so the height, so the heart of the kings is unsearchable. Take away the dross from the silver, and the smith is material for a vessel. But if you take away the wicked from the presence of the king, his throne will be established in righteousness.

Don't put yourself forward in the king's presence or stand in the place of the great. It's better to be told come up here than to be put lower in the presence of a noble. What your eyes have seen, don't bring hastily into court for that which you'll do in the end. What will you do in the end when your neighbor puts you to shame? Instead, deal with this yourself before you get in front of the the king is basically the point of those proverbs.

And we looked at those earlier. But do you see the shift here from how you use your money and how you work? Now we're talking specifically to kings. This is the kind of thinking you need to have to reign over your people well. And so much of that's gonna capture Proverbs 25 all the way through, to chapter 28 and chapter 29.

Some of the chapters 25 is on the screen for you. But you get back into this in chapter 28 verse two. If you flip over, when a land transgresses, it has many rulers. But with a man of understanding and knowledge, its stability will long continue. A poor man who oppresses the poor is a beating rain that leaves no food.

That's talking to to a king here. You want a good stable rain? Then don't oppress people. Let your nation your nation have a legacy. And again, so much of Proverbs 28 is written towards kings.

We've looked at them one at a time throughout the last several months, but I just wanna frame tonight's lesson by talking about how these two chapters in particular, twenty eight and twenty nine, are geared towards kings. Jump down in your eyes to chapter 29 verse one. He who is often reproved yet stiffens his neck will suddenly be broken beyond healing. This is speaking to a king who won't take correction. When the righteous increase, verse two says, the people rejoice.

When the wicked wicked rule, the people groan. He who loves wisdom makes his father glad. A companion of prostitutes squanders wealth. By justice, a king builds up the lands, but he who exacts gifts tears it down. And there's many more of these throughout the chapter.

Do you see how the flavor of these proverbs starts to change? And there's some irony with this being from Solomon, a a companion of prostitutes will dilute his reign. Certainly, Solomon experienced that. The kingdom was divided after he died. And yet by the time Hezekiah Hezekiah becomes king, God tells both Hezekiah and Asa that you're going to have stability, not necessarily because of anything in you, but because I remember how I remember David.

I remember David's godliness. It's almost as a token here of Hezekiah's love and affection towards David that he corrals these proverbs of Solomon and puts them towards the king. It's almost like the law has been recovered and now it's being handed down for us. And so to get the most out of tonight, I wanna give a kind of a heading here, wisdom's leaders. There's so much in Proverbs that are is about leadership, but specifically chapter twenty twenty five.

There's much in chapter sixteen and eleven we'll look at also. But specifically, chapter 25 forward has a lot to say about how to be a good leader. What kind of king? And, of course, we know a godly king is the word of God over his head. And so it's almost worth it to take a step back and ask ourselves what kind of kingship, what kind of leadership does God describe for his people to thrive?

I think we'll have seven points tonight if the Lord waits long enough for us to get through all seven. The first, just a big picture observation. It is good to have a king. It's good to have a king. Israel did not necessarily believe that lesson at the beginning.

They wanted a king to be like all the other nations, and I know we often say, that it was God's judgment on them to give them a king. That's not exactly true. The law was written with a king in mind. So much of Deuteronomy was given for a king. God's savior was going to be from the king.

We know this back from Judah, that the scepter will not depart from Judah. God will establish a king. And the King will reign. The judgment on Israel was that at first they didn't have a king because they were all doing what was right in their own eyes. They didn't coalesce around each other.

They didn't take on a national identity. It was tribe against tribe. And at the end of the book of Judges, remember, they actually wipe out a tribe. They refused to recognize that God wanted them to have a king. Their first so called king was Gideon's son, you know, Elimelech, which means my daddy is king, which lets you know how Gideon presented himself.

And that was judgment, and of course crushed by the millstone, pushed by the lady, that whole thing that you see in the middle of the book of Judges there. Israel was in disarray. After Judges comes the book of Ruth, which tells you where David comes from and it starts the kingly promise. Then you get to first Samuel. In first Samuel, of course Hannah prays and the Lord hears Hannah's prayer and that brings out the prophet Samuel who will anoint the next king.

The next king being Saul. Saul, not a good king. So when you talk about what judgment was, judgment was on Israel not to give them a king, but to give them Saul as a king. That was the judgment. Not the identity of a king, but the specific king of Saul.

It is good indeed to have a king. And so many Proverbs point to this. And for example, Proverbs fourteen twenty eight, this is kind of big picture here. In a multitude of people is the glory of a king. But without people, a prince is ruined.

This is almost just axiomatic. Kings want to be big. They wanna have bigger empires. And people can glory in their king and a king can glory in his people. That's a healthy relationship.

You want to be proud of your ruler. And I'm gonna keep using the word king tonight, but I understand every every culture, every government looks different from a chief in some tribal cultures to, you know, in our country, you know, the whole argument is the president's king? You know, maybe. Is the district court judge king? More likely.

I don't know how it works exactly. I hear some people argue, no, the people are king in our in our culture. The people have the final voice of authority. I mean, that's so diluted though it misses the point. The reality is that whoever has authority and leadership to make decisions and represent his people to the world, That's a king and so it applies probably in our culture most closely to the president, not that I'm making a political argument that a president should be a king or anything.

But you'll see how a lot of these apply. In a multitude of people there is glory for the king and the people really if they have a good king. But without a people, the prince is ruined. You know, what kind of king doesn't have any people? It's like a mayor of no town.

An army with a general with no soldiers. Proverbs fourteen twenty eight says good kings have good people. A prince without people is like a bee without a hive. Proverbs fourteen thirty four through 35. Righteousness exalts a nation, but sin is their approach to any people.

A servant who deals wisely has the king's favor, but his wrath falls on the one who acts shamefully. Righteousness exalts a nation is this point. Exalting is being good. It's a good thing to be exalted in this sense. A king who is acting righteously will bring his nation up.

You can look at this proverb and ask in what way is a nation exalted? Well, a nation is exalted by the confidence it has, by the pride it has, by the power it has, by the esteem, the the ethos of the people. Of course, there's a matter of wealth and military influence and powers and all that. But, basically, a nation can pull itself up in its own estimation by righteousness. And you see that even in the king's inner circle here.

A servant who deals wisely has the king's favor. In this kind of righteous environment, a servant who is skilled and ethical and wise will earn favor with those above him. You certainly see this with Daniel, don't you? Daniel had his political enemies, but because he acted wisely and had integrity, even the king was on his side. Even the king who sentenced him to death threw him in the lion's den was the first one to meet him in the morning, you know?

There's a certain sense in which that a person's ethics and competency let them curry favor even of the king. But the king's wrath falls on someone who acts shamefully. Basically, people are confident when their nation is righteous. And so much of this falls under what we call second table righteousness. I don't know if you've heard that expression before.

First table being the relationship with God. First table being worshiping the true God. Not worshiping with idols. Not taking the Lord's name in vain. Having a day of worship.

It's the first table. The second table is about a family, protecting the family, protecting human life, protecting marriage, punishing lawbreakers, those who steal, those who murder, those who covet. That's second table righteousness. Isn't that that phrase first and second table comes from the 10 commandments and how they're divided. A nation can have can grow in its power and its esteem and in its exaltation based upon second table righteousness.

How the government punishes evil and frees people to live their life. That importance of dividing first and second table righteousness helps you because that gives you a grid to understand that to be a good leader, you don't need to be saved. A leader can lead ethically and righteously on the second half of the the commandments. Now, of course, we know this. A saved leader should, in theory, lead better than an unsaved leader.

Amen? But I'm telling you, history is filled with so called Christians that were very poor leaders. This was Luther's dilemma. Luther, who's the Protestant Reformation is happening and Germany is throwing off the yoke of the Catholic church, and the peasants are, are revolting, and the peasant revolt is is coddled really for a while until it's finally crushed in a brutal way. And Luther was just it was seared into his conscience that, man, Luther came away from that whole thing saying I would rather have an unsaved person who leads morally and ethically and with convictions than a saved person who leads like a butterfly.

And there's probably some truth to that and people have responded to that by viewing this through a second table kind of righteousness. That second table kind of righteousness can truly exalt a nation. That's also true on a micro level. What's true in macro is true micro. When a servant in the king's house acts well, he gets esteemed by people and the people rejoice over that.

You know how excited are people when somebody who's respected with integrity rises through the ranks, so to speak? And we see this in Israel, the thing of the cheering that happened when Mordecai was finally vindicated. All the parties, the celebrations. You see this with Joseph, the celebrations when he's vindicated, how eager the servants in Pharaoh's house were to serve him because of how he had served them. Daniel is met by the king and the lion's den.

Meanwhile, when a servant acts shamefully, people rejoice in his downfall for sure. Proverbs nineteen ten, It's not fitting for a fool to live in luxury, much less for a slave to rule over princes. There's a certain propriety to having gifted, regal people leading and ruling. There's a certain egalitarianism that might be romantic that, you know, any any American could be king. Any American could be president.

That certainly is appealing in some level. But you recognize, if you just pulled a name out of the hat or out of the phone book, sometimes we feel like you choosing one random person would do better than what we have. I I grant, sometimes you feel like that. But you also recognize that that in practice would not be effective. It'd be a shame to people if you said, hey, a random person would do better than the best we have to offer.

And the narcosyndicus commune is no way to run a government. I'll tell you that. People respect a leader that represents them well by pulling them up and not down. Second point. It's almost axiomatic here.

Wise rulers are good. Bad rulers are bad. Wise rulers are good. Bad rulers are bad. This seems pretty obvious, doesn't it?

This is basically a tautology, but there's truth in tautology. Wisdom is always often disdained in society, But when society loses wisdom, it does so to its own harm. Hours 11, verses ten and eleven. When it goes well with the righteous, the city rejoices. Yay.

When the wicked perish, there shouts of gladness. By the blessing of the upright, a city is exalted. By the mouth of the wicked, it is overthrown. There's a certain sense of joy that people recognize. We have a good leader who's doing good things and they celebrate.

People understand the general appeal of righteousness. There's a certain protective function of government. When the government has that, there's peace. That's second table righteousness. When the government has that, the people celebrate.

This goes back to Genesis eight and nine at the end of the flood. As God sends them off the ark, he establishes through the sacrifices, he establishes the freedom to worship, the freedom to have a family, to have possessions, to have your your life secure. This is all very early when the establishment of government, they will bear the sword to protect people. That's ingrained in the whole world. Whether or not people are inside a covenant relationship with God, every nation, every government has that concept that it should check evil.

It should guard the family. It's a basic function of government. And when that is lost, rebellion comes shortly thereafter. That's the point of this proverb. When the wicked are there, people root for their overthrow.

They root for their demise. Proverbs 28 verse two. When a land transgresses, it has so many rulers. But with a man of understanding and knowledge, its stability will long continue. Do you understand this?

When you have kings that are sinning and the people are sinning, there is no stability. They overthrow themselves. There's a lot of that in the Bible. There's turnover at the top because of sin. I remember when we preached through the book of first Kings, you get to first Kings fifteen and sixteen.

It's just a long list of kings, and it jumps back and forth between Israel and Judah. But then you get to Asa in Israel, and he's gonna reign for, I don't know, thirty, forty years or something. But then you get to the list of kings in Judah, and those guys are like it's like a clown car of kings. I mean, the list of kings in Israel. It's like a clown car of kings.

There's one king after another. Some of those clowns reign for, like, five minutes. Meanwhile and it says at the end of each one, and Asa was still reigning in Jerusalem. And this next dude, you know, murdered his friend, became king for seven days, then Asa was still reigning in Israel. You go through the list.

Nadab was king for two years, murdered by one of his advisers. Baasha was barbaric, ruled for a short time, replaced by his son, Elah, who ruled for two years, got drunk, and then killed by one of his soldiers named Zimri. Zimri, he lasted a whole seven days. Do you remember his story? He lasted seven days after he'd killed the the king, locks himself in the citadel in, like, the barracks, and they burn it down.

Seven days into his reign. He was replaced by Omri, who got twelve years before he died. The whole time Asa was reigning in Judah. It was a hot mess. That's because the people were sinning.

When there's that kind of sin, there's that kind of turnover. Proverbs twenty eight twelve, when the righteous triumph, there's great glory. But when the wicked rise, the people hide themselves. Again, that's axiomatic. When there is righteousness at the top, the people delight, and the whole nation is lifted upwards.

Think of the celebration, like I said, with the Jews when Mordecai was vindicated. Proverbs twenty eight fifteen. Like a roaring lion or a charging bear is a wicked ruler over a poor people. A ruler who lacks understanding is a cruel oppressor, but he who hates unjust gain will prolong his days. Proverbs twenty eight twenty eight, when the wicked rise, people hide themselves.

When they perish, the righteous increase. Proverbs twenty eight twenty eight and twenty eight fifteen is more or less the same. Twenty eight fifteen is more colorful language. You know, the lion is roaring on the street. There's a bear charging around everywhere, and people are terrified.

They groan. On the other hand, people rejoice in righteousness. And rejoice in righteousness. Wise leaders good, bad leaders bad. Third, wise leaders listen to wise counsel.

Wise leaders listen to wise counsel. A strong leader is a blessing, but an arrogant leader is a curse. A strong leader is a course of virtue, but an arrogant leader who thinks his word is final and takes no input is obviously a curse. There's no shortage of examples in that. Beginning, of course, with Rehoboam.

It wasn't that Rehoboam was arrogant that he himself had all the right answers. He was arrogant that he rejected the wise counsel. His father, the wisest person ever, surrounded himself with the wisest counselors ever. Rehoboam traded him out like that and replaced him with his friends, his frat brothers, and of course his kingdom was marked by division and fight. Proverbs eleven fourteen describes it this way, where there is no guidance a people falls, But in abundance of counselors, there is safety.

David lived that out. He had his mighty men who advised him. Solomon lived that out. Wise kings understand that they're wise because they recognize their limitations and they don't have all the knowledge in the world. So they surround themselves with people who do.

And that's especially that's especially true when it comes to war plans. You see that in Proverbs 20 verse 18. Plans that are established by counsel, by wise guidance wage war. Because when you're thinking even of how to engage in a military operation, you need other people who know your enemy. You need them.

Proverbs 24 verse six. By wise guidance, you can wage your war, and in abundance of counselors there is victory. It is good for leaders to receive counsel. Next, wise leaders free the economy. Wise leaders free the economy.

They govern in such a way that allows economic productivity to increase and people to gain and accumulate wealth for the purpose of passing it down. That brings stability to a nation. Proverbs eleven twenty six. The people curse him who holds back grain, but a blessing is on the head of him who sells it. Notice it's not him who gives it here.

The idea is that a king, if he's doing well, is allowing the company to grow economically. It's not about simply food. That's not the goal of a wise leader here, is to feed his people. The goal of a wise leader is to feed his people by their own investments, by their own business. High taxes is the holding back of grain.

The low taxes and yet protecting capital, that's allowing people to sell it and prosper. That proverb is succinct. That proverb is Reaganomics right there. Like, let the economy run. Proverbs 16, verse eleven and twelve.

A just balance and scales are Yahweh's. All the weights in the bag are His work. It's an abomination that kings do evil, for the throne is established by righteousness. Now you might think this is a proverb about integrity. Like, don't put your your finger on this scale.

But the truth is there's a sense in which basic justice is required for the for the economy to function. That there is such a thing as the Department of Weights and Measures. I mentioned this before earlier as we looked at this proverb a couple months ago, but I have a friend in in Los Angeles who works for the LA County Department of Weights and Measures. And that guy, if you met him, you would completely believe this. But this is his job.

He would go to a gas station and pump up a gallon of gas and make sure that the thing there matched what he put in his gas tank. He gives a little calculator out, little scales out. This he would go to Target, buy a massive shopping cart of things, and then say, I would like the manager's receipt. And then go through everything one line at a time to make sure the price is on the shelf or what isn't this was his job. And that seems a little bit pedantic, but you understand how a culture that has regulation that protects consumers allows the economy to flourish.

Meanwhile, it's an abomination for kings to exploit that for their own good. Proverbs 29 verse four. By justice, a king builds up the land, but he who exacts gifts tears it down. Notice the contrast here between bribery and justice. It's not just to ask for a bribe.

It ends up hurting people to ask for a bribe. I used to work for a short term missions organization, and we would take trips to The Philippines and, all the time. In fact, I was there for six months. I bet I oversaw maybe 20 different teams that came to The Philippines there. And it started to become very common for the border people in The Philippines to ask for bribes for our kids coming through.

You know, we had all the documents from the Filipino government. We had the right to bring them in and everything, a notarized letter from their parents, the right visas and everything. And then some of the guards just say, oh, this doesn't look in order, you know. I'm gonna need a fine. Well, we did that for a while, but eventually you realize, like, let's stop sending groups to The Philippines.

How often is that gonna be with tourists? Tourists go somewhere and they get they get shaken down and then they don't go there anymore. And that kind of thing corrupts an economy. That's why it's paired here. I'm not saying that Solomon understood the nature of short term mission trips or a tourist economy, but Solomon definitely understood that when a government is taking bribes, it corrupts its people.

Wayne Grudem in his, book, The Poverty of Nations, what a what a great book that is on economics. It's a massive book. Do you remember a few years ago we had him here in the atrium and he gave a lecture on it. I I was tremendously encouraged by it. But he has a story in that book where he follows a shipment of Newcastle beer to a Western African nation.

And the cost of that beer, the import tax they pay, and he follows the beer through the nation. What that, you know, what is required to get the beer through customs at the front end and how much that raises the cost. And then he follows it on the roads up through all these little roadblocks where people would put blocks across the road and want money for maintaining the road so the truck can go by. And then there's the highways of course are bad despite those bribes and bottles get broken and beer gets spilled and there's another tariff over here and another fine over here. He follows this all the way to the northern border of that country.

And he realized by the time it gets to market, so to speak, it's three times more expensive. It becomes known as a as a as a rich person's beverage, which is, you know, from the ethics side. You could make a strong argument for that too, I suppose. But his point was from the the economic side that those kind of bribes have a devastating effect on a country. Devastating.

Solomon understood that. Those kind of things corrupt a nation and bring them down. I mean, how many nations in the world have wealthy wealthy leaders and poor poor people? And it's not because of a lack of money invested in the country. I mean, Haiti is, what a incredible example Haiti is.

We've probably invested more money in Haiti than arguably any other nation in our in our hemisphere. And, I mean, how much that money actually makes it into Haiti anyway? It's just off the top, off the top, off the top, and what's left there is nothing. Nations get corrupted by that kind of economic system. Next, number four or five, leaders, well, leaders lead.

Leaders lead. Leaders are capable of making decisions. That's sort of the job requirement of being a strong king. And that can be extrapolated to any kind of leadership. Leaders are expected to lead decisively with character, with ethics and convictions, but they are expected to lead.

Proverbs 16 verse 10. An oracle is on the lips of a king. His mouth does not sin in judgment. Notice what this proverb is saying. The king can make a declaration or make a verdict or even make a prediction, set a direction.

That's an oracle. It's something that's gonna happen. The king can say, I want this to happen. No. He's not being a prophet.

He's setting a course. And notice that Solomon says, in wisdom, he's not sinning. It's not bad for a king to chart a direction. It is good for leaders to lead. Good leaders make good decisions.

Great leaders make great second decisions. Bad leaders don't make decisions because they're paralyzed. People can so easily get decision paralysis, where they're afraid of mistakes. They're frozen from hypotheticals. Frozen from hypotheticals.

Elon Musk had an interview recently, I'm sure many of you saw, where he talked about why government is set up to make very, very bad decisions because there's only incentives, to not do anything. There's punishment if you do something and it breaks. And so before you make any decision, you make a list of 17 things that could go wrong, and you figure out how to mitigate against all 17 of those. And by the time you're through that list, nothing happens. Whereas, good leaders make a decision to think maybe three or four of those things will happen, and we can fix them tomorrow.

It's a pretty insightful description of leadership. I don't think he knows the book of Proverbs, but it's true. Leaders make good decisions, and they don't sin in their verdicts. The word judgment here is used back in Proverbs chapter one, a few times in chapter one. Remember chapter one verse four, that when you're wise, you're able to make good verdicts.

That's why it's rendered judgment. It's not an ethical judgment here. It's a it's a we're doing this and lending a verdict on it. Government is notoriously bad at that. But God says that wise leaders make wise decisions.

And like I mentioned, it's not that their leader their decisions are infallible. Sometimes they make bad decisions, and they recognize that and they make even better second decisions. Proverbs 20, verse eight. A king who sits on the throne of judgment winnows all evil with his eyes. In other words, the king is sitting there doing work.

He's looking at you, but his mind is working. He is making decisions. The idea is that it's expected of a leader to make moral decisions, to suss out evil, and to deal with it. That's how leaders actually lead. They make decisions and they chart directions.

They're driven by convictions. They know what right and wrong is. They know what furthers their agenda. They assess the direction they're going. And they don't sin while they're doing that.

That's what they're supposed to do. You really can divide all leaders. And this isn't just true to the king. This is true in every sphere in the whole world, from the PTA association to your pool. You can divide all leaders into two categories.

Those that make decisions based on convictions and those that are constantly trying to find the path of least resistance. That second category, those people are leaders in name only. Their eyes might winnow out evil, but they're afraid to act on it unless they put the evil to a vote. They're frozen by a lack of making decisions. They don't want to cross anybody.

They don't want to ruffle any feathers. And of course, that kind of leader is put in a situation of always coddling the people who least should be coddled. And your whole business or your whole company or your whole pool gets frozen by the lowest common denominator because those at the top are afraid to make any decision that might upset anyone. This is so different in the way a wise king leads. A wise leader makes decisions based on his convictions and leads.

And as I mentioned, he does not sin in doing it that way. Proverbs sixteen fifteen, in the light of a king's face there is life, and his favor is like the clouds that bring the spring rain. Behind this proverb is the reality. The kings get things done. That's why this person is attracted to the king.

You get an audience of the king. You're like, this is a person who can actually do something for me. They can bring joy. You see the king and you say, this is the person who can help. Proverbs 20 verse two.

The terror of a king is the opposite of Proverbs sixteen fifteen. Proverbs 20 verse two. The terror of a king is like the growling of a lion. Whoever provokes him forfeits his life. The flip side of that is if you get in front of a king and you cross him, it's all over for you.

Now we don't have that in our culture today. Right? No matter how much of a dictator you think your current president is, you can't just assassinate somebody in the Oval Office for being late. You know? It's a small window in how the king represents God, though, this proverb.

God can. Nobody can stand before God. You cross the Lord and you forfeit your life. The wrath of a king melts those before him. He has the power of life and death in his hand.

Number six. Wise leaders execute judgment. Wise leaders execute justice. It's unfortunate the word execute here can be taken positively or negatively. I mean it positively.

Wise leaders actually carry out justice. That's the backbone of political leadership. The main role of government, as I've said many times even tonight, is to punish evil. So that's really where you see how things are going in the government. You wanna know how well the government is run?

Is evil punished? That's the question. Proverbs seventeen twenty six. To impose a fine on a righteous man is not good. To strike the noble for their uprightness.

When you're punishing the good people, that means your country is broken. And here you see the preferential way that marks all of government. People are at work to crush their foes. And if a good man gets ruined for political gain, so be it. That's the Uriah affair, where David never stopped to ask, is Uriah actually a virtuous man or not?

There's no shortage of people in government who will do unjust things because it furthers their own agenda. They don't care who they trample over. And that's sin. And that corrupts a nation. Warren Bennis, an author on leadership, writes: managers are people who do things right and leaders are people who do the right thing.

I'll say that one more time. Managers are people who do things right and leaders are people who do the right thing. There's good managers that know how to successfully execute a very wrong plan. But they're in a position of being a manager because they know how to carry out plans. But leaders can chart the right course.

Proverbs 20 verse 26. A wise king winnows the wicked and drives the wheel over them. Ouch. A wise king discerns the evil in front of him and punishes them, punishes the evildoer. A discerning king knows how to examine an affair and find the evil in it and deal with it.

He makes an assessment from his own knowledge of right and wrong. That's wisdom. He's developed his own character. And we understand character is a conviction of the heart, a condition of the heart. And a wise leader has that.

And he draws people close to him that have character that matches his own. And that lets him lead. And when evil, wicked people get in front of them, he does crush them. Proverbs twenty one thirteen. Whoever closes his ear to the cry of the poor will himself call out and not be answered.

A righteous man knows the rights of the poor, is Proverbs 29 verse seven. A wicked man does not understand such knowledge. This is just generic. Not every case is before a king at every moment. And so how a king navigates the issues of the poor reflects his leadership.

You know, the poor is such a pretty clarifying intersection here of ethics and leadership. Because the poor, in a sense, if you exploit them, what are they gonna do? If you're not in a democracy, what are they gonna do? They can't do anything. They can riot, I guess, at some point.

That's about it. A king who doesn't care about right and wrong will exploit them for his own benefit. And that's why Solomon says in Chapter 21 and through Hezekiah in Chapter 29 that a righteous man knows the rights of the poor and protects them. Proverbs 20 two:eight, Whoever sows injustice will reap calamity, and the rod of his fury will fail. The Scriptures have their own indication here of seedtime and harvest, their own metaphor here.

You reap what you sow and the harvest will be like the seed. You plant injustice, you will reap injustice, and what you reap will be like what you sowed. Injustice today rises up into the revolts of tomorrow. This language, a leader has a rod of fury that is effective only for a season, and then it fails. A leader can lash out and kill everybody in the room with him if he wants to.

It's not gonna keep expanding, though. Eventually he's gonna be lashing out at more people than he can handle and it will come back on his head. That's his proverb. This is very apt in a democracy. Right?

Leaders can make bad decisions for a period of time and their followers will go along with it. But eventually, they'll cross a threshold where they've alienated more people than will help. So this is a democracy is a less bloody way of enacting this proverb. You don't need to actually rise up with swords. But our democracy is born out of this because the American Revolution kind of falls under this heading here.

People often ask I have been asked so many times. It's kind of a silly question, I think, but it's important to some people. Was the American Revolution sinful? Like, is it sinful to try to overthrow your government? Doesn't the scriptures say submit to your governing authorities?

So how come Christians can overthrow them? And I get that argument. But the flip side of that is proverbs like this. A government can only mistreat people that are so far away from them for so long before, obviously, they're going to revolt. That's what's described in Proverbs like this.

You mistreat people, eventually they lash back out. Proverbs 29 verse 12. If a ruler listens to falsehood, all his officials will be wicked. A ruler who falls for lies will surround himself with liars. A ruler who is gullible will surround himself with manipulative people that will manipulate him.

The contrast is that a good leader drives out wickedness. Part of this is what Al Mohler, in his book on Leadership, which is an excellent book, he calls this convictional intelligence. And he says you really see the essence of a leader and how well they can size people up. Bad leaders are terrible at sizing people up because they insist on kind of objective criteria. They'll be around someone that is subverting them and subversive around them and they can't act on it because they say, you know, I don't have objective criteria to measure his subversiveness by.

And they just get frozen. So he calls this convictional leadership that you have this intelligence of people around you to tell who is trustworthy and who is not. And he compares it in his book to musical intelligence. I have none of that. Spatial intelligence, logical intelligence, linguistic intelligence, and then what he calls convictional intelligence, the ability to see the trustworthiness of people.

And that's what this proverb has in mind. Proverbs 29 verse 14. If a king faithfully judges the poor, his throne will be established forever. Like I said, how you interact with the poor is such a character revealing trait. The leader's responsibility is to have character, and nothing reveals it more than how he interacts with people when one of the parties is powerless.

And finally, finally, I feel like this sermon is lasting longer than a term of Congress. Wise leaders lead under the sovereignty of God. Wise leaders lead under God's sovereignty. Ultimately, this is the mystery that ultimately God raises up kings for his own purposes. This is what Augustine wrestles through in his book City of God.

His, you know, the 14 volume work of that. He goes through that, and the basic gist of what he's arguing here is when Rome was at its strongest, it was at its least Christian. When Rome had no wars, periods of peace, a functioning senate, and all of that, they had almost no Christianity. They were severely persecuting Christians. But when Christianity became the religion of the day and emperors start getting converted and allowing churches and Christian councils, Rome falls.

What do you do with that? Because, you know, because we as Americans are coming at this with, you know, if we repent and turn to the Lord, we'll have a nation that lasts forever. No, we won't. Nations rise and nations fall, and it's relatively independent of the religiosity of the people there. That's Augustine's point in the city of God.

And that's true. Nations come and go. Nations come and go. Yet, any particular person that exists in covenant love with God will be upheld. By steadfast love, a leader's throne is upheld.

How shameful is it to have a king who's sinful or a godly king who acts sinfully. As I open tonight, Luther would say, it's much better to have a godless king who rules well. And when I say a godless king who rules well, you know what I mean. Obviously, a godless king who rules well is enacting the second table of the law. And yet the first table of the law is what's mentioned in Proverbs 20 verse 28, God's covenant love, bringing people into a relationship with Him.

So what king comes to your mind when you think of God's covenant love? I hope it's the Lord Jesus Christ And his throne is upheld forever and ever because of the covenant he has in heaven. Our final proverb on leadership, Proverbs 21 verse one. The king's heart is a stream of water in the hand of Yahweh. He turns it wherever he will.

That's the providential mystery to all of this, that God makes nations rise and fall according to nothing but his own decree. Kings love to take credit for any success and shift any blame off of themselves, but above them all is God. In his successes and failures, God is the one who reigns. And it's compared to a river here. And a river or stream is such a good metaphor.

A stream in the hand of water. Not a river, a stream. A stream is small. Streams have but a single source. They come from the spring.

There's one source. And yet the stream grows, other tributaries feed it, it grows and grows and grows and it forgets its source. Of course it does. A king can provide safety for his millions of citizens or jobs for hundreds of thousands of his citizens and think that he's the one in charge. But the truth is after all is said and done, he is just a stream in the hand of the Lord who does whatever he wants to with him.

Of course, water flows naturally and it seems prone to forget the spring, But the godly leader won't do that. The godly leader remembers his relationship with the Lord. God, we're grateful that you have given us a world with people above us in authority, in politics, and in our nation. We're thankful for our own country, which has a really bloodless way of these kind of political transitions. We're grateful for that.

We're thankful that your wisdom transcends culture, that these proverbs are true in a democracy, in a monarchy, and any situation around the world. Wisdom is wisdom. We pray for our hearts, pray that you would make them soft towards wisdom so that we can be steered by you. We ask this in Jesus' name. Amen.

And now for a parting word for pastor Jesse Johnson. If you have any questions about what you heard today or if you wanna learn more about what it means to follow Christ, please visit our church website, ibc.church. If you want more information about the Master's Seminary or our location here in Washington, DC, please go to tms.edu. Now if you're not a member of a local church and you live in the Washington DC area, we'd love to have you worship with us here at Emmanuel. I hope to personally meet you this Sunday after our service.

But no matter where you live, it's our hope that everyone who uses this resource is involved in their own local church. Now may God bless you this week as you seek Jesus constantly, serve the Lord faithfully, and share the gospel boldly.