And I can hear your voices a little bit clearer. Okay, this morning I want you to take your Bibles and turn to Proverbs 29. Between books of the Bible, I just got done with 2 Peter, heading to Jude, I'd like to do some other things. And one of the things that have been on my heart is some things about what happened, some of the things that are happening in the culture and also happened last year because of COVID. And just wanting to talk about from Scripture the benefits when governments uphold justice and the folly of those that don't. But let me pray first. Lord, thank you this morning for bringing us here together. Thank you, Lord, for the warm weather and nice weather that you've given us. Thank you, Lord, that we're able to meet together without masks if we don't have to wear one. and the Lord also with the Word of God and the fellowship of believers without all the restrictions. And I thank you for that. And I pray, Lord, you continue to bless us and encourage us and move us on so we can serve you with our whole heart. And I pray you would make us attentive this morning to the Word of God and help us to understand and put it into practice. And I pray in Christ's name. Amen. Now, the Apostle Paul told us in the Book of Romans that God ordained governments and that governments are to uphold the line of justice. All of us are aware and concerned that our government would do the right thing so that a sense of balance and well-being is maintained throughout the nation. Now when justice is maintained the people can expect to experience certain positive benefits to life. But where justice is not maintained, the people can expect to experience certain negative backlashes to life when justice breaks down. The Proverbs are calling all people to live in the fear of God. That's how it starts off in chapter one. so as to live righteously. Everybody who's on this earth is responsible to the Creator. The wise who desire to live this way will always be the stability of a country and of governments. But the fact is all people are not righteous. In this way they do not fear God. They have turned to their own ways. This Lord's Day Let's examine some of the positive benefits when justice is maintained from the Book of Proverbs and then identify the backlash when it is not maintained. Chapter 29 of Proverbs reveals really three positive benefits when justice is maintained in society. When it is present, even in small degrees, it makes life much more livable. When there is the fear of Yahweh, there also exists righteousness, well-being, and security. Now, before I look at the text, there are some things I need to mention about the Book of Proverbs. In my study of Proverbs, I have found there are certain observations that are helpful, so you handle the book correctly. The first observation is this, it is teaching about wisdom. Wisdom means being skillful and successful in one's relationships and responsibilities. It involves following the Creator's principles of order in a moral universe. This order manifests itself in God's wisdom, which is available to all people. So to the extent that man follows this order, if they do, they are wise. Heeding the wisdom of the Book of Proverbs then brings harmony to one's life. The contrast, failure to heed God's divine design results in disorder. Lack of compliance with God's wise ways brings unpleasant and often disastrous consequences. A second observation is this. There's a certain nature to proverbs. A proverb is a brief saying that is used to communicate much truth in a concise and a striking way. Truth that is expressed as caught by the mind and retained by the memory. It's meant to be remembered. That's why there's pithy short sayings. So these observations of life They are generally true, but not ironclad promises. So don't ever take Proverbs as promises, ironclad promises. They have truth in it, but they are not ironclad promises. Proverbs deals with generalities, while Job and Ecclesiastes deals with the exceptions. A third observation is that Solomon, who wrote most of the Proverbs, had a worldview in mind. And his worldview included God as the creator. The universe is Yahweh's creation. And because the Lord created the world in a purposeful way, the world is not random and meaningless. The order that God established when he made the world provides the ground for human significance in this world. He also included order in his writings, that Yahweh is sovereignly in control of the world. There is a predictable relationship between acts and consequences, which holds true in most situations in life. This order encouraged the search of the teacher, this wise teacher, to regulate life in accordance with the intrinsic order already in the universe. And then he included also in his worldview a rationality, that the Lord's world is knowable, yet it is mysterious. We can't know everything, but we can know everything that God wants us to know. And so because Yahweh created the world and he is sovereignly in control of it, the world is knowable, at least in part. That means that the universe manifests intelligent design in its order. And this fact is the foundation for human understanding of the cosmos that we live in. He also included in his worldview the fear of God. Humans must reverence God in their lives. The fear of the Lord is the implication of his creation in the universe. Because the Lord alone fashioned the world. All of life proceeds from him. So that means then, he has foundational authority for the whole ethical system of wisdom. And then the last observation is that there are three levels of foolishness in Proverbs. If you Chapter 1, verse number 22 says this, How long, O naive ones, will you love simplicity? And scoffers delight themselves in scoffing, and fools in knowledge. So the levels of foolishness in Proverbs are the naive person, the simpleton, easily enticed and misled, believes everything, including bad counsel, lacks moral prudence and needs discernment, but is capable of learning. It's usually the wide-eyed youth who is headed for trouble unless he listens to wise counsel. Second level is the fool. A moral and spiritual... He's actually morally and spiritually dull, and it's by choice. His problem is not mental, his problem is spiritual. He has no desire for wisdom or correction. And then we have the scoffer. The scoffer cynically and defiantly is a free thinker who ridicules the righteous and everything for which he stands. Like it says in Proverbs 19.25, strike a scoffer and the naive may become shrewd, but reprove one who has understanding and he will gain knowledge. So my question Questions this morning, considering the passage that we're going to look at in Proverbs, is what happens when too many fools get into leadership in our country, in any country? What happens then to the positive benefits of justice? And what negative backlash occurs when governmental leaders skirt justice? So that's what we're going to look at this morning. So I want you to take your Bibles, look at Proverbs 29, and I'm going to begin with verse number 2. And here's the first positive benefit when justice is maintained, the benefit of happiness. And I'm going to read just the half of the verse, and then I'll look at the other half a little as I go along. Proverbs 29 verse 2, it says, when the righteous increase, the people rejoice. Stop right there. The Hebrew word for increase really means to become many, become numerous, to multiply. So when a society is filling up with righteous people, the life of the community will be influenced for good. The increase here includes the increase of power. and of social effectiveness. That means this is very beneficial for a culture when the righteous do increase, when the wise person increases. So when a society is like this, the people, what do they do? They rejoice. They're glad. They have a calmness to their spirit, a society in which good, right, and just things are done and the opposite are not done, is a happy society. In an atmosphere like this, people tend to trust and help one another. In other words, there's a sense of community when this mindset and this heart attitude is prevalent. There's a sense of purpose. There's a direction in life. There's a sense of hope for the future when the righteous are in the majority. But according to Proverbs, this is God's desire for individual people and for nations. That's how He designed it, when we do it according to His way. In fact, look back to Proverbs 21, look at verse number 3. It says there, it says, to do righteousness and justice is desired by the Lord rather than sacrifice. So these fixed pair, righteousness and justice, are the heart of biblical religion, summing up the proper attitude toward God. And to live in accord with them is really to make of one's own life an offering to God. This is what God is pleased with when we live righteously and justly. Now, it says that these two qualities in that verse I just read are desired by the Lord. And the Hebrew word here for desired really means to be chosen. That means that God will choose righteousness and justice before external forms of piety through the observation of religious ceremonies. See, ceremonies matter little to God in comparison with true devotion of an obedient heart before God. David, the king, understood that his sacrifices offered up to God while at the same time being involved in known sin becomes unacceptable to God. That's why he writes Psalm 51 where he says there, for you do not delight in sacrifice, otherwise I would give it. And you are not pleased with burnt offerings. or he would give that too. And then he says this, the sacrifice of God are a broken spirit and a contrite heart. He will not despise that. And when my heart's like that, then he'll receive my sacrifices. The prophets understood the same thing and spoke against God's people when they slipped into a religious regularity or formality with no heart devotion. Where it says in Hosea, I delight in loyalty rather than sacrifice and in the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings. So what happens when the righteous triumph, if you look at Proverbs 28 verse number 12, it says, when the righteous triumph, there is great glory. So here we have the reaction of the people to the political rise and fall of the wicked and righteous. It affects what they do and how they respond. When the righteous triumph, and that word triumph in English means to win a victory, but here in the Hebrew, the word literally means to rejoice, to exult, to be jubilant. Again, the same thing. And the word glory gives a sense of triumph, something that we can boast about. It is more than a sense of simple celebration, but a sense of beauty that comes closer to the creation ideal, the way God intended things to be. Therefore, when the righteous are jubilant about what is going on, then what happens to the people? The people have confidence. And that confidence is contagious amongst the population. And they're excited about things. They want to be part of what is happening. They come close to the ideal God desires for people, his design in the creation order. Now, saying all that, what about when justice breaks down? What then? Well, let's go back to chapter 29 and verse number 2, and I want you to see the second part of the verse. It says, When the righteous increase, the people rejoice. But when the wicked man rules, what do people do? They groan. The people groan. That is what happens. As a matter of fact, it pushes out rejoicing. And all that people do is groan. They mourn. It is actually a word also used in scripture to translate it as sighing, sighing over present evil and also evil that may come. They see what's happening. They see what's going to, the results of how the leaders of the country are making decisions, and they see where it's heading. It's like when the people were leaving Egypt, or when they were in Egypt. Joseph had died, and the king that was over Joseph had passed away. And it says this in Exodus. Now, it came about in the course of, of those many days that the king of Egypt died and the sons of Israel sighed because of the bondage. They cried out. They cried for help because of their bondage and that cry rose up to God. In other words, they saw what was going to take place after Joseph dying and after the pharaoh or the king that was reigning while Joseph was alive and they forgot about all that and now The slavery just abounded, and they saw it was coming, and they sighed. See, that's what happens when things go bad. But there's another thing that happens, and that's back in Proverbs 28, in verse number 12, where the second part of that verse is, when the righteous triumph, there is great glory, but when the wicked rise, men hide themselves. Now, this is a very interesting passage of Scripture. So that means when justice breaks down, the creation ideal breaks down and there is no longer jubilance, no longer rejoicing, no longer happiness. A little injustice throws the whole balance of humanity off. And government ceases to function for good, they begin to function for evil. Now look what happens when the imbalance takes place. Men hide themselves. The Hebrew word actually means to search out or to search for. Commentator Dan Garrett suggests that this is not just good men hide themselves when the wicked are in power. It's not that good people are afraid, although that could be true, what is really happening here is humanity itself is hard to find. In other words, we recognize as human beings, as God's creation, there's something wrong going on. We may not be able to put our finger on it right away, but there's something wrong going on. And so humanity, that should be evident in society, disappears and things become wacky and things become unclear. In other words, you can't find it. Where is the humanity that God gave us in creation? What happened to it? See, so that means humanity itself is hard to find in the sense that institutions are dehumanized. Man as he came from the hand of God as the Lord formed the man from the dirt of the ground and created man in his image and called him good. That creation ideal is no longer evident in society as society sinks to a level of bestiality. We look like the animals, not like human beings. So a degenerate society will cast off any thought of God. And any thought of what is actually normal and natural that comes from God, or anything that is required of God, they will cast off. So when justice is out of balance, the skill of living diminishes. It was Bruce Walkie in his commentary on Proverbs who said, the skill of living out life beautifully so that it demonstrates a beauty about it. The beauty goes. Solomon wrote this book so human beings have the knowledge on how to live life in a purposeful and a skillful way which looks good. People will recognize that and say, I like that. When a child behaves and is honorable to their parents and is respectful to other human beings when they meet them, we say, I like that. I like that individual. There's something. And that shows us humanity. That shows what God intended it to be. But when that's not there, it's frightening. What will take the vacuum? So living according to God's creation ideal has order and beauty to it, like jewelry. And that's what Proverbs sometimes brings up, jewelry. Wisdom is like attractive jewelry on the body for all to see. Like he says in Proverbs 4, 9, she will place on your head a garland of grace. She will present you with a crown of beauty. It's just signifying that many times these things are gives thoughts of just skill and structure and beauty to it. So proverbs teach there's a skill for living. And jewelry symbolizes fidelity to parents and authority. A obedient child they will conduct themselves with dignity and because of that there will be a beauty about their life. Fearing God and acting upon parental instruction has an eye-catching beauty about it. Obedience is beautiful and makes a person delightfully outstanding many times above others. This is lost when leaders play foolish. This is lost when we have fools in authority. When they play the fool, there is no beauty. There is no rejoicing. There is only mourning and sighing and dysfunction. That's what we see. Only when the wicked die and diminish in number will righteousness be seen, as it says in Proverbs 28, 28. When the wicked rise, man hides himself. but when they perish, the righteous increase. In other words, when righteousness comes back in, things get back to normal. Society gets back to normal. People's lives get back to normal, as God intended it to be. So that's the first positive and negative of when justice is either followed or not followed, that its benefit is rejoicing, it is happiness. Positive benefit when justice is maintained is the benefit of stability notice in verse number four of Proverbs 29 it says the king gives stability to the land by justice so that is the king is the government and And when justice is upheld, there's a stability in the land, so that here, the administration of justice is in the hands of the governing authorities. In this case, the king, who really had sovereign rule over the whole kingdom. And when the king does what is right, that is, does what is right before the creator, stability is granted by God. Just like it says in Proverbs 29, 14, if the king judges the poor with truth, his throne will be established forever. So the eternal establishment of the throne is the stability that God gives to a government when they do the right thing. But what about when justice breaks down? Again, verse 4 of Proverbs 29, the king gives stability to the land by justice, but a man who takes Bribes overthrows it. So the temptation to those in power is to abuse power for their own enrichment, usually. And this can be done by more evident, maybe, than bribes. Now today, we don't usually call it bribes in government. We call it earmarks. We call it pork barrels. in budgets and bills, making favors with other officials throughout the state, saying, if you do this for me, I'll do this for you. So passing laws favorable to one section of the community in return for cash. Or making judgment in court in favor of those who pay for them. When this happens, justice is toppled, it's ruined and destroyed, It really destroys the whole process. So bribes cause government officials to disregard God's standard, as it says in 1 Samuel. It says, His Samuel's sons, however, did not walk in His ways, but turned aside after dishonest gain, took bribes, and perverted justice. And then bribes also cause government officials to turn aside the poor. In Amos chapter 5 verse 12 it says, for I know your transgressions are many and your sins are great. You who distress the righteous and accept bribes and turn aside the poor in the gates. And then bribes also within government shows how absent God is in that particular system and that particular society. where Ezekiel the prophet said this in Ezekiel 22 verse 12, in you they have taken bribes to shed blood. You have taken interest and profits and you have injured your neighbor for gain by oppression and you have forgotten me declares the Lord. You forgot that you're responsible to the Creator. And then look over to Proverbs 17 and verse number 8 concerning this topic of a bribe. It says in Proverbs 17 verse 8, a bribe is a charm in the sight of its owner. Wherever he turns, he prospers. Now, notice the term used in the New American Standard Bible picked to translate the Hebrew word, the word charm. It simply means a stone. It is used here as a stone of favor, equal to a stone that brings favor or a lucky stone, a magic stone. The Hebrew expression does not occur in this sense elsewhere in the Old Testament. But we do know that the Israelites used amulets and charms and sometimes made precious stones as these charms that they used. Even Ezekiel in the King James Bible says, and say, thus says the Lord God, woe to the woman who sews magic charms on the sleeves. So from this, the thought is that a bribe is a source of good luck. That in the estimation of the briber, whenever he depends on the charm, it brings success. It is clearly not just the monetary value of it that is in view, but the idea that a bribe works like a charm. Or like magic, a bribe can really cut out all the red tape that you have to deal with and get quick results. No paperwork to fill out. No debate to have on the issues. You know, backdoor deals being done that you find out about later. See, bribery, when it takes place within a government, overthrows justice. It looks like it gives success on every side, but in the end, it will cause a nation. Remember, righteousness exalts a nation. That kind of thing really brings a nation down. And then in Proverbs 21, verse 14, it says, a gift in secret subdues anger and a bribe in the bosom strong wrath. That means that the wickedness of a bribe lies both in the means and its end. Here in this passage I just read, it has to be given and received in secret. Literally out of the bosom, a picture of the briber taking money from under his skirt and the bribe slipping it into the pocket inside the coat of the other person. It's done in secret. So wherever Whatever it means of bribery, it blinds the people to truth and encourages them to twist the words of the righteous. And we know from the Old Testament law that bribery in all forms was forbidden and a path really the wives really should never, ever take. I remember getting a call at 2 o'clock in the morning, one many years ago from a missionary, and they Because of the time difference, it was 2 o'clock in the morning, and this is when we had landlines, you know, where actually you had to pick up the phone, and there was a wire that connected to the wall. That's for the younger people, you know? And I was talking to him at 2 o'clock in the morning. That conversation went on for two hours, and the subject was bribery. He says, I can't get anything done. Everywhere I go, people want their palm greased. What do I do? I says, well, you do a lot of praying, and you don't give in to them. So he called me back later and he says, you know what, I really put that stuff into practice and I found out that they didn't want to deal with me and they gave me what I wanted anyway without giving them a bribe. So we have to do what's right because Deuteronomy tells us in chapter 16, you shall not distort justice. You shall not be partial. You shall not take a bribe. For a bribe blinds the eyes of the wise and perverts the words of the righteous. Now, getting back to Proverbs 29 in verse number 4, where it says, the king gives stability to the land by justice, but a man who takes bribes overthrows it. That wherever justice is distorted, stability is no longer a benefit. In fact, in verse number 20, verse number 8 of Chapter 29, it says, scorners set a city aflame, but a wise man turn away anger. That means a scorner who sets a city aflame. That means when corrupt leaders, scorners, mock at justice, this action destabilizes the community and the country and stirs up the city that inflames the people to break into factions. And of course, remember, the level of foolishness, a scoffer is the worst level. A scoffer just does what they want. So when government officials do not uphold justice and refuse to act with justice, it throws off the whole balance of justice. And if imbalance is not checked, it will inevitably lead to the next thing, and that's violence. Proverbs 21 verse 7, the violence of the wicked will drag them away because they refuse to act with justice. So that's what's happening. You have all this breakdown in the government all the way down. And what do you have on the ground level? You have chaos. You have violence. You have destruction. You have lawlessness. You have, at every angle, that's not good for our country. That doesn't give signs that a country is doing well when those things take place. In fact, the word violence coupled with the word wicked, that one is guilty of sin, is really referring to a hardened criminal. As it says in Proverbs 24, 1 and 2, do not be envious of an evil man, nor desire to be with them for their minds devise violence and their lips talk of trouble. These are the scoffers of Proverbs. The root reason for their conduct of violence goes back to their past. They refused to learn something while they were in the molding process as a youth. They refuse to act justly and proper and fitting. And they end up becoming what? Belligerent, self-centered, and violent people who must be dragged off from their crimes. They don't even want to give them up. They must drag them away from those crimes. So sometimes these very people get into public office and end up being a menace to society. So how has our culture today been distorted? How has it become unrecognizable? Gladness has turned into mourning. The humanity of God as he intended is unrecognizable. Well, confused First of all, the definition of marriage, away from its original design, and the whole institution is discredited. The family is under attack, divorce, one-parent families, child abuse, juvenile crime, child trafficking. And the list goes on and on. But remember, God clearly defines marriage as a monogamous union between one man and one woman. So defending and promoting marriage according to God's design is actually doing justice. It's actually showing the world this is what God intended. This is the way it's supposed to look. This is real humanity. What about abortion? One million babies a year are killed in the United States of America. And now we have late-term abortion. How heinous is that? And yet God created all human beings in his image. The word of God clearly indicates that he forms children in their mother's womb. And all human beings are totally human, ripe from fertilization. So standing up for the helpless is doing justice. And then brainwash the culture with gender fluidity. And the children will actually lose their identity. Deceive the children, lie to them, and they will be disillusioned and lose all hope. And yet God clearly made people as distinct men and women in his image so that these two genders as gifts of God's grace are given to us and must be kept and honored in every person. And to think otherwise is evil, wrong, and disingenuous. And doing it the right way is justice. And it does look like humanity when that takes place. And then saturate everything with the wicked and demonic critical race theory. That's been all over the news. So that division amongst the population will grow deeper and more violent. Now, I just want to say something about it because you may not know what it is. Critical race theory is actually an American invention. In the 1970s, a study began as why the civil rights era victory stalled, which led in to the 1980s, where the students at Harvard Law School protesting at the lack of racial diversity in the curriculum, student body, and faculty, and out from these circumstances rose what is called today the critical race theory. And the bottom line And the bottom premise of this theory is that the most important thing about you is your race. So then everything is decided by race, the color of your skin. Not on your character, not on your environment, not on your values, not on your behaviors, not on your achievements. That means nothing to them. No, everything is examined by one's race. And if you are part of the minoritized race group, you are a victim of a system that is rigged against you, a system that does not want you to succeed. And that's where we get the term being thrown around today as systemic racism. On the other hand, if you are race privileged, you are an exploiter whether you intend to be or not. So the critical race mindset assumes that racism is present everywhere always and if a situation arises they will find it if no one else can. So the critical race theory is a unique un-American because it rejects the core tenements really of the American classically liberal Judeo-Christian value system. That means that there is order, like the Declaration of Independence tells us that all men are created equal and are endowed by the Creator with unalienable rights, the right for life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. They deny that. That's why they become haters of America. Also, the critical race theory blames the imperial European powers on how the Constitution framers designed the Constitution, that the system that they designed is rigged against people. Also, the critical race theory avoids recognizing America has spent a lot of time and a lot of money to break free of the racist past. Instead, they want to cancel history, rewrite history, They want to cancel culture and reinvent things. In fact, they don't even agree. They actually don't agree at all with Martin Luther King's civil rights movement, where his dream that people would be judged by the content of their character and not by the color of their skin. They think he was naive and wrong. In critical race theory, they They concluded that this 40-year American experiment is a failure and needs to be scrapped. So this particular mindset, really what it does is elevates storytelling over evidence and reason. It really rejects the concept of truth and merit and facts. It poisons and produces hatred and disunity and violence within a culture. And it definitely fails to see racism as a matter of the sinful heart. And the answer is the gospel of Jesus Christ, because the gospel of Jesus Christ will change your heart towards people, and you will start loving all people as God loves us. And it does this. It violates the two great commandments. to love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, all thy mind, all thy soul, and all thy strength. And the second, to love your neighbor as yourself. Those are God's commandments. See, when those take place, life looks like it ought to. When they don't take place, it's unrecognizable. That's what I'm saying, unrecognized humanity. And when I look out sometimes and I hear the news, I don't recognize any of that stuff because it's all distorted. That's not the way it's intended to be by God. So, you know, what we really need to do is we need to refuse to accept this kind of teaching. And we should not be bullied into being racist when we're not, or a victim when you're not. This kind of thinking has no place whatsoever in the church. When we become Christians, we are brothers and sisters in Christ. because we're connected to our Lord Jesus Christ by his death in our behalf, his resurrection, his shed blood to wash away our sins, right? And he gives us the word of God and the hope of eternal life and a world that righteousness dwells in the new heaven and new earth. We're not going to find it here, but we are promised that righteousness someday. In fact, in scripture, it says in 2nd Corinthians 5.16, when someone gets saved, it says, therefore, from now on, we recognize no one according to the flesh. That means people are not looked at as Jew and Gentile and bond and free and rich and poor and pagan and barbarian, nor the color of their skin, whether it's red or yellow, black, brown or white. The unsaved are looked at by us as lost in darkness and in bondage, and they need the gospel. And the saved are looked at as being in the same family of God, and hence brothers and sisters in Christ. So see, our culture has become, in some ways, unrecognizable. because of the distortion of the truth, because of the order that God's given us in creation has been turned over and justice is not being held anymore. So lie to the people and say it enough times that they'll accept it as the norm. And the more and more people will give heartily approval to it or they'll just simply ignore it. But remember, the gospel makes clear that God has made all people equally in his image, so racism is wrong and is an issue of the heart. In fact, if you look at Proverbs 29, verse 12, it says, if a ruler pays attention to falsehood, all his ministers become wicked. And then you add to all that a hybrid socialism. And the socialistic mindset has been taught, really, in our schools and institutions of higher learning for the past 25 to 30 years. If this mindset becomes dominant, we will no longer have an America as founded by the founding fathers as seen in the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution of the United States. The goal of democratic socialism is to have full control over your life. In other words, the state is the march of God for the world. And the end result, according to Hegel, is that he saw the state or government as a replacement of God on Earth. And any political leader ascribing to that concept they will be against righteousness, and ultimately against Christianity. It was funny, I was reading some definitions of different things like, you know, socialism, communism, fascism, and somebody kind of summed it up in a kind of a tongue-in-cheek manner, but the truth is there, and this is what, how they define socialism. You have two cows. The government takes one and gives you, gives the other to your neighbor. Communism, You have two cows, the government takes both and gives you some milk. Fascism. You have two cows, the government takes both and sells you the milk. Nazism. You have two cows, the government takes both and shoots you. Bureaucracy. You have two cows, the government takes both, shoots one, milks the other and throws away the milk. Waste. Capitalism. You have two cows, you sell one, buy a bull, start a business, so that you don't become dependent upon the government. I thought that was unique. And of course, if we go further than that and you want to defund the police, then you're going to have anarchy and violence. You're going to have lawlessness. And a violent person will not come easily, as the scriptures tell us. They must be dragged from their violence. Because they think what they're doing is the right thing. Now, if all these things take place, who will they hurt the most? They will not hurt the elite. They will not hurt the rich. But the rights of the poor people in society, who have no power or no voice. That leads me to the last positive Benefit where justice is maintained and that's this the benefit of social concern Notice what it says in verse number seven. It says the righteous is Concerned for the rights of the poor. Let me stop there. That means that real justice is to see the poor are not falsely condemned or misused or Inhumanly treated because of their weaknesses. Where there is justice, the poor have no, where there is justice, the poor are actually the weak, the feeble are being taken care of with, and there is a kind of a genuine solution looked at. But what about when justice breaks down? Look at the rest of verse number 7. It says, the righteous is concerned for the rights of the poor, the wicked does not understand such concerns. So what happens is that when justice diminishes, concern for the vulnerable individuals in society and those groups are not taken care of. And the problems are not solved. And what do you have? What do you have rampant going on even in our country right now? Rampant homelessness. Why? Because they don't even know how to fix it. Because that's not their concern. So homelessness is out of control with no desire to fix the problems because there is no real concern on the side of governing authorities. So you see that the wisdom of Proverbs really lays out what happens when justice is pushed aside. And all these things go on, and we see it right before our eyes. We need to pray for our country. And we need to be praying we're part of the solution as a church. And believe me, the gospel of Jesus Christ is the answer. And the true church is the answer, because it is the gospel of Jesus Christ that will maintain happiness and gladness in the heart of people. It's the gospel that will maintain stability and give joy and the promise of eternal life. It is the gospel who will love God and love people and take care of the needs. It's the gospel that will do that. So the hope of the world is the church and the person of Jesus Christ. So this morning, I just wanted to lay those things before you to show you that we really need to pray for our country. And we need to bring our country and its leaders before the Lord every day and every Wednesday when we pray, and every time we can, and be part of how can we be part of the solution. Part of that solution is you living the way God intended. And then people see that and say, that's the way it ought to be. Amen. Let's pray. Let's pray. Father, we thank you. We thank you this morning for the wisdom that comes from the word of God. We thank you, Lord, that the wisdom exposes when things are out of balance. It shows us what's not right. It also shows us your intention. to have order in the universe, to present humanity in a way where it is recognizable. Yes, those are the things are right, and those things will bring not only beauty to those who see, but it will bring honor to your great name. So I just ask you, Lord, that by your divine design, that your church would be the light in a dark world to bring the gospel to the people that would change their whole mindset and worldview and reverse the way they were thinking and the destruction of their thoughts to that of thoughts of being which will produce joy and rejoicing, which will produce stability and will produce concern for the glory of God and the problems and issues of people. And I just ask this in the name of our precious Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, Amen.