Dr Greg Bahnsen - Proverbs: Proverbs 11:10-11 (What Is Needed for a Happy Society) (Part 40)

The 11th chapter we take as our reading verses 10 and 11. Proverbs 11, 10, 11. Hear now the word of God. When it goeth well with the righteous, the city rejoiceth. And when the wicked perish, there is shouting. By the blessing of the upright, the city is exalted, but it is overthrown by the mouth of the wicked. And thus far the reading of God's holy word. This morning I want to address you on the subject of what makes for a happy society. And it does not take great powers of observation to start out right away by observing that we don't have a very happy society. The unhappiness of our society is evident on all sides. And I want to suggest some reasons for that and some illustrations of that. The first of which is that we are a society without shame. We are a society that lacks a sense of shame. And this is evident on all sides. During this last week you may have noticed that the ratings week for TV has come around again. I forget how many times they do that a year, but you can almost always tell when that week is upon us. Because one, programs which are at least ballyhooed as being better than the normal fare that you see are being publicized, and two, there's going to be a great deal of sex in the media. On all sides, we see that sex is used to promote things. Of course we see that in advertising, and that's something that we complain about on an ongoing basis. But we see it more and more here in our clean upper middle class neighborhoods as well. In terms of what is available on the theater screens. It's just taken for grant granted that it's all right now for children to see nudity as long as it's not nudity of a certain sort in certain settings. It used to be that movies were rated in such a way that if there was any nudity, a child should not be there. But now you see, we've even lowered that standard a bit and it's gone further. Now we have it on TV as well. People can go and get 3D glasses so that they might be able to watch certain programs in a way which is not fitting for those who are wholesome of spiritual. And not only are we a society without shame because of the sex and the media, we're without shame because of the perversion of sex that we allow all around us. We have such things, abominable and detestable in God's sight as gay pride, weak. We have a society which not only tolerates but openly practices and promotes homosexuality I say we're a society without shame. Secondly, we're a society without honor. A society without honor. You remember how the Marines used to advertise that the government was looking for a few good men? Well, I suppose what we've heard most about the Marines most recently is there are very few good men around. The Marine Corps for years had prided itself and its patriotism, the fact that any number of tasks could be performed by someone who was a Marine, someone you could count on to defend this country. And we find out they've been selling us down the river. They've been giving up some of the most sensitive secrets our country needs for its military defense, for the sake of sexual favors with foreign women. We are a society that no longer understands the concept of honor, of doing what is right not simply when people are looking, not simply when you're afraid of the consequences of being caught, but doing what is right because it is right. We're a society without shame and without honor. And we're a society without fidelity too. That's evident, it seems to me, in the way marriage is handled in our society. One in two marriages will end up in divorce in our society. I teach at a Christian school where the larger number of families that send their children to our school are families that have seen divorce, either one parent families or families where there's been remarriage after divorce. It's a very difficult time in our culture. We don't understand what family loyalty and family ties are all about. We have television programs about family ties, but we don't know what it means from a heart to enjoy family life. We don't have fidelity in our contracts. We have people, high paid individuals on major television programs who sign contracts to do certain work, which contracts say that they will not honor, certain union picket lines, and yet they honor them anyway and expect their salaries to be paid and decry it as something terribly immoral when they're not being paid. We don't understand what fidelity is all about. This last week I was engaged in searching for and purchasing a new computer system. That's a sad story in itself, but let's not get off the track. The interesting thing to me is that as I'm comparing the various options that are out there, it is a terribly difficult job to keep straight on what is being offered and what you're paying for. The system that I ended up buying turns out to be in my sermon as an illustration this morning. But anyway, the system I end up buying advertises at a wonderful price and does all These things that others are doing. What you're not told is, however, you need to buy certain other things, you know, accessories to make it do all the things that are advertised. And so you end up comparing a price for a certain function and it's not really going to be given to you anyway. We live in a society which thinks it is just taken for granted that the buyer must beware of those sorts of things. We don't know what it is to live in troth toward one another, in truth and fidelity to one another. A society without fidelity. And it's a society without goodwill. Goodwill, of course, is the name of a voluntary organization that takes care of the needs of those who are economically depressed. Right? And that made a lot of sense. Goodwill has done a lot of good work over the years. But you see, we live in a society that doesn't really believe in the concept of goodwill, whether it's an organization or just an individual matter. We no longer believe in taking care of the needs of people because it's a voluntary opportunity to do what is right toward one another. And we need to be compelled to show goodwill. But of course, when you have to compel someone to show goodwill through the Social Security system or the welfare system of our nation, it's no longer goodwill anymore at all. We're without goodwill when it comes to charity. We're without goodwill when it comes to race relations. We have lost the idea of promoting the health of a society and the integration and happiness of the peoples in a society because it's the right thing to do. Because there's the influence of Christian organization and preaching and so forth. Again, we look to the government to compel that sort of thing. And we're a society without confidence. We look to the government so that we might have a risk free life, a risk free world, and then we end up paying the consequences and higher taxes that we belly ache about because we have to pay a government to be a big brother to us and to look out for us and to do all these services for us that we expect. We have a liability insurance crisis in our country today because people want a risk free world and when they don't get it, they're going to find somebody who's going to pay for it. And so we have a society that doesn't live in confidence and a society that doesn't live in integrity either. You know, you think of the duplicity of our politicians. It's devastating to us. Even those that we may like, that may be fairly popular with us, we can be told by the administrative head of our country that we don't exchange arms or money for hostages. And then we find out, lo and behold, we do anyway with great memory lapses that are just incredible to anybody. These are the sorts of things that we now just swallow and take for granted. We've come to expect that politicians don't tell us the truth. That's just one of the occupational hazards of it, right? I remember this line, which though I find rather catchy, nevertheless is very indicting too, on the end of the first edition of the Max Headroom show how this computer generated personality says, do you know how to tell when a network president is lying? His lips move. The idea here being is you just come to expect that from those who are in the media, you come to expect that from politicians. And we're a society that we laugh at integrity and then complain when people treat us in a certain way. And we're a society without security. We don't enjoy external security. Just look at the arms negotiation race that we engage in. It's kind of like who's lying to whom and who can get away with what. And who can write a contract ambiguously enough to do what you want to do, but keep the other guy from doing what he's supposed to do, defend himself. It's just a game because we don't have integrity and we lack security internally as well. Have you noticed the increase of incidents of mass murder in our nation just recently with a case we had in the newspapers, my local newspaper published as well, a little chart of the greatest mass murders of the last 15 years, as it were. Doesn't that devastate you that we could even publish? I mean, maybe it should be published, but that there is something like that to publish is overwhelming. The incidence of kidnapping is higher and higher. The incidence of children being killed by their own parents. Just this last week we hear of a woman who ran over her own child and threw the child in a dumpster. That's the kind of world we live in. And so I'm telling you, you don't have to be, you know, terribly awake to notice we live in an unhappy society. A society without shame, a society without honor, a society without fidelity, without goodwill, without confidence, without integrity, without security. And finally, and most importantly, a society without religious commitment. You see, I think this last one is tied to the previous ones. Our society lacks religious commitment. And what goes hand in hand with a failure to have religious commitment, there's a lack of shame and honor and fidelity and all the rest. The book of Proverbs has a message for us. When the righteous flourish, a society is happy. And when wicked men come to govern, then men will hide themselves and there'll be great shame. The Bible tells us that there is a way to make a happy society. But I'm afraid in our day and age, the direction that God's word has for us is the very last thing we want to hear, the very last thing we want to do as a culture. I think there's a very important reason for that. That resistance to letting the Bible direct our ways and righteousness become the path in which we walk. I think the most important reason for that is the polemic against the idea of public religion, or if you will, the polemic in favor of a privatized Bible. I don't know if you've heard that expression, but it's a handy label to get hold of here. Privatized religion or a privatized Bible. The idea is that we want the Bible to speak to us, but only in the private affairs of life. We want to quarantine the teaching of the Bible and quarantine the influence of religion from anything that has to do with what is open, visible, social, physical, material, what have you. We want a private religion, an internalized religion to which the Bible may speak if you happen to be inclined in that direction. But of course, no one else outside of your own private experience should be affected. We have forces which are overwhelming. In fact, I'll tell you how overwhelming they are. They're so overwhelming that it's difficult to get a handle on how to point out to people that this is the influence that comes upon your life. I mean, it's become what is called in some social circles a zeitgeist, the spirit of the age. Not something that comes in with a person standing up and saying, okay, now I'm going to give you an argument in favor of private religion. No, it doesn't come that way. It's just a mass influence upon us. It's just the way people think, and they take it for granted that religion must be quarantined. And the reason why we want religion to be quarantined is. Is due first of all to religious skepticism in our age, an agnosticism about the truth pertaining to supernatural or spiritual affairs. Our society has lost its confidence that it knows its way in the area of the supernatural. That is to say, there's been a colossal apologetical failure on the part of the Christian church. A colossal failure to be salt in a decaying world when it comes to promoting the truth and the defense of the truth. We've just taken it for granted that when someone says no one can know for sure, that there's no answer to that. No one really can know for sure. Isn't religion just a batch of hopes and faith and something very invisible and tenuous? But it's not at all. If you read the Bible, that's our culture's outlook. And I think this quarantining of religion is due to something beyond just our skepticism about religious truth. It's due to what I will call the democratic fallacy. The democratic fallacy says that since everyone has a right to believe what they want about religion, no one's right and no one's wrong. You see, that's a terrible fallacy. Everyone does have the right, at least from a social or governmental standpoint. Everyone has the right to believe what they want in their heart of hearts. That's true. But that does not infer, and it does not draw down the conclusion with any cogency that therefore no one's right and no one's wrong about religion. The democratic fallacy in our society suggests that you dare not stand up and promote your religion as being true and others being wrong because we live in a democracy. To which you should say, so what? We live in a democracy, and that's why we debate these things. But it has nothing to do with whether one's true and one's false. And I think the quarantining of religion is due to something beyond just the religious skepticism of our age and this democratic fallacy that we find all around us. It's due also to what might be called the imperial dynamism of humanism. By imperial, I mean humanism is not content to just stay where it is, in peaceful coexistence with its competitors. Humanism has an imperial dynamic. It wishes to conquer, it wishes to overcome, to create an empire. Humanism, in the very nature of the case, is evangelistic. If I could speak in a perverse fashion, of evangelism. And we see that imperial dynamic of humanism back in imperial Rome. Do you remember what the fate of Christians was in imperial Rome? Rome did not say you could not be a Christian. We totally misunderstand the dynamic of that day and of our own as well. By the way, if we think that the Roman Empire wanted Christians not to worship their God, they were free to worship their God. Jesus could be their God. Jesus could be their savior, as long as the Christians would also say, caesar is Lord. They wanted to add Jesus to the pantheon of Roman Gods, where Caesar reigns supreme over them all, that's fine. But when they said Jesus alone is Savior, Jesus alone is Lord, and when they refused to put a pinch of incense, you see, on the altar of Caesar and declare their loyalty to Rome, then they were traitors and then they were persecuted. Humanism must conquer. It must destroy its opposition. It must subjugate its opposition. And so, in our own day and age, because of religious skepticism, because of this democratic fallacy, because of the dynamism of humanism, the ACLU sees nothing historically relevant about Christianity. It's perfectly alright if we have textbooks that don't tell us the religious origins of our country. That's just irrelevant. In fact, you can even tell the original Thanksgiving story and somehow forget to mention to whom thanks was given on that original Thanksgiving Day. The ACLU is so close minded about teaching that it believes it's alright to teach only evolutionary science in the state schools and not even mention the attacks upon evolution which are made in a scientific vein by those who just so happen to be religious in their orientation. It's all right to be closed minded as long as you're evolutionary in your close mindedness. It's all right to teach history as long as everything having to do with the Christian religion is edited out. You see, we have to take the ten Commandments down from our bulletin boards in the state schools. You cannot display a cross in the state schools, but the writings of Karl Marx can be required reading. And so it turns out that our politicians as well dare not be religious fanatics. You know, and that's exactly what they'll be called, religious fanatics. If they would dare to act explicitly on the basis of a creedal conviction, if they were to say, well, I'm taking this stand because I believe the Lord Jesus Christ requires it of me in my public duty, they would be absolutely excoriated by the press. They would be considered persecutors, oppressors and driven from office. And so the legislature must balance the claims of a plurality of religions in our world, regardless of the fact that these religions make contradictory claims, and regardless of the fact that these religions are of a contradictory character to one another. But we want to serve all people, and so we have this freedom of religion. And no legislator would dare stand up and say, no, I'm preferring the Christian religion over against the claims of Buddhism, over against the claims of agnosticism or Hinduism or whatever it may be. You see, everything in public life must reflect a sanitized religious neutrality. That's what comes from having a privatized Bible. But you see, biblical religion burst such boundaries. Biblical religion cannot be confined within the private, within the secretive heart of a man. It cannot be confined within some narrow boundaries. Contrary to the prejudice of ancient Neoplatonism, Christianity does not view the Bible as a narrowly spiritual book, appropriate only to matters that aren't physical, aren't material, aren't public. And contrary to the prejudice of the Enlightenment, Christianity does not view the Bible as just one among many unverifiable religious options. The maxims of the Bible are not appropriate only to personal meditation and private thoughts. Contrary to the conventional wisdom of our day, the Christian religion does not teach that the Bible can be syncretized with all other faiths to form some civic, common religious denominator that all men can adhere to. Contrary to much of what is heard in the Christian church today, Christianity does not present the Bible as some holy book that is concerned simply with saving invisible souls and which is irrelevant to the visible society and human affairs that are all about us. Religion is not, and I want to insist upon this, religion cannot be, in the very nature of the case, confined within the walls of the church or confined within the chambers of the human heart. The word of God cannot be restricted to the privacy of inner religious experience, having no significance for public conduct, having no significance for public policy. And so this morning, if nothing else, would you please get from the Book of Proverbs this message to clear. Would you get it straight? Would you get it firmly embedded in your soul that we do not accept as biblical Christians this dichotomy. Private means religious, public means secular. That dichotomy which is all around us is not taught in the Bible, is not true to the lordship of Jesus Christ. It must be driven from your soul. That's why I'm here this morning. Private does not mean religious, and public does not mean secular. It doesn't fall out that way at all. That demarcation is one arbitrary and more importantly, it's rebellious against Jesus Christ and the claims that he makes. As you see, if humanism is imperial, Jesus Christ is more so. Jesus Christ does not settle to be the Lord over simply the inner dynamism and experience of the human heart. Jesus Christ does not settle to be Lord simply over what takes place in the confines of our little congregations meeting on Sunday morning in their isolated slots at just the right time, saying just the right things, but never have any effect on anybody else. Jesus Christ is Lord of Lords and King of kings, and he demands allegiance to him in every area of our lives, all of life. Is religious. And that means every bit of our human interpretation of what happens to us and what's going on, every bit of our conduct in this world is shaped by an ultimate commitment. You cannot escape that. Your ultimate commitment may not be to Jesus Christ, but you have one. Everyone has his religious commitment. Everyone has his ultimate commitment in life. And it is going to govern what he says and does. No one is neutral. And Jesus Christ claims to be the Lord overall. He claims that he should have our ultimate commitment and that he should be worshipped in the way we spend our money, in the way we raise our families, in the way we govern our society and the way that we go to church and the way we conduct ourselves in the arts, the way we pursue industry and education and everything we do. Jesus is to be the Lord. The Bible speaks clearly and the Bible speaks often to social life and to political issues. Now, you can take it or you can leave it, but you can't edit it out. You see, that's the one thing that's not legitimate. A privatized Bible is a massacred Bible. A privatized Bible that has everything cut out of it that might pertain to public life or social affairs or government or what have you. A privatized Bible is a Bible that's been cut to shreds. It's not the real Bible, it's not the historical Bible. And what you're going to get is not the message of the Bible. So this morning, as we look at Proverbs 11 and following, I want you to see the social message of God's word. It's very clear. Proverbs 11, 10, 11. We read, when it goes well with the righteous, the city rejoices. And when the wicked perish, there is shouting. By the blessing of the upright, the city is exalted, but it is overthrown by the mouth of the wicked. We have a problem in teaching virtue, a problem in teaching righteousness, because it seems so unexciting. If I come before my class, even at a Christian school, to be honest with you, if I want to teach publicly, if I want to write a book the public's going to read, I can choose to write on something that's wholesome, something that's good, something that's pure, that shows integrity, it's life as God intended it. Or I can choose to write a book or teach a lesson that's going to dabble in what may seem just a little dirty, maybe a little prurient, just a little bit off the line of righteousness and the path of Holiness. And which do you think people are going to buy? Which do you think they're going to sit up and listen to? Virtue doesn't seem exciting. But the Book of Proverbs tells us that even though virtue is unexciting, its benefits are silently appreciated in society. It may seem exciting that we don't have confidence all around us and we don't have a sense of shame and we don't have fidelity. That may make for an exciting society. We could write novels about all of our lives. But you see, all the novels would be tragedies. A society appreciates, even if it does so silently. Virtue. When it goes well with the righteous, the city rejoices. And notice the shouts for joy, how they accompany the elimination of the wicked with their contrasting influence. And when the wicked perish, there is shouting. You see, the day comes when a society learns its lesson and realizes these wicked people who are governing our thoughts, our attitudes, our desires, who are governing our lives politically, these people have brought us very low and have made us very unhappy. And when they perish from the scene, then we shout for joy. Book of Proverbs is real strong about that. We should look forward to the wicked being eliminated around us. That doesn't mean you go pick up a gun and shoot all the bad people around you. I mean, you'd have to start by shooting yourself and that would end that project. The Bible's not talking about that. But it does say that God removes them from positions of authority, removes them from positions of influence in a society. And when that happens, we shout for joy. The righteous attract society and, excuse me, attract success to a society and prosperity to a culture. Verse 11 says, by the blessing of the upright, the city is exalted. When there are good, wholesome, righteous people around, the city is exalted. It's lifted up, but it's torn down by the bad mouth of the wicked. But it is overthrown by the mouth of the wicked. You see, the wicked are mouthing all around us. They're mouthing on the evening news. They're mouthing their point of view in terms of the movies that we watch and the novels that are published and what is taught in our schools. The wicked are always bad mouthing. And a culture will be torn down by it. Turn to Proverbs 14:34, continuing this theme. The Book of Proverbs says, righteousness exalts a nation, but sin is a reproach to any people. Righteousness exalts a nation. The powers that be must take that uncompromising message into Account. In fact, stay at Proverbs 14. But you might notice that in Proverbs 16:12, we are told it is an abomination to kings to commit wickedness. For the throne is established by righteousness. Notice the throne is not established by public relations firms. The throne is not established by being on friendly terms with the media. The throne is not established by trying to satisfy all the conflicting moral demands of the people around you. The throne is established by one thing and one thing alone, and that's righteousness. Take away righteousness and your government is unstable. Take away righteousness and you don't have a future. Take away righteousness and you've lost your very reason and function as a king or a leader, a congressman or a judge, or what have you. The message of Proverbs is that righteousness exalts the nation. And when sin comes to take the place of righteousness, when a culture is dominated by the ways of wickedness and rebellion against the law which you have, is great disgrace. And that's true for every nation. Would you notice that? It's not just the holy nation of Israel. It's not just the chosen people of God in the Old Testament for which that was true. The book of Proverbs says it's true literally. The Hebrew says for peoples. Our translation is correct. When it says for any people, it goes across, you see the boundary lines of Israel. Every nation is exalted by righteousness, and every nation is brought low and disgraced by sin. When righteousness governs the affairs of our land, it's going to exalt us and elevate us, ennoble us and lift us up spiritually, in contrast to the reproach. Or you can translate that the disgrace that will come with sin. Turn to Proverbs 24, 23, 25, Proverbs 24:23. To have respect of persons in judgment is not good. He that saith unto the wicked, thou art righteous. People shall curse him. Nations shall abhor him, but to them that rebuke him shall be delight. And a good blessing shall come upon them. Do you want to see a good blessing come upon our culture? Do you want to see us have our reasons for cynicism and despair and unhappiness and pain and hurt taken away. Then you need leaders that will honor the law of God, who will not in the courts and by means of the laws that they pass, favor the wicked. You'll have leaders who will call wickedness wicked and righteousness righteous, who will not confuse light and darkness. But when you have Rulers you see who call the wicked good, then of course you're going to have pain for it. And what will happen is that peoples will ultimately curse him, nations will abhor him. It's going to eventuate in national abhorrence of our leaders. If the justice of God's law is laid aside in favor of the wicked, because, you see, blessing is tied to cursing. You cannot break that. Blessing is tied to cursing. If a society would be blessed, its rulers must curse the right people. If a society would be blessed, its rulers must rebuke the wicked. And then the message of Romans 13:4, Paul tells us that the sword is not carried in vain. When a ruler uses the sword to punish those, to bring vengeance upon those who violate God's standards, a ruler must be a joy to those who are good citizens, a joy to the righteous, and the ruler must be a great terror to those who are evildoers. And if you haven't got rulers that have that straight, Proverbs says you're going to scream about it, you're going to be unhappy about it, you're going to suffer because of it, and such rulers will ultimately be abhorred. I want to suggest to you that the reason why we have such great political cynicism in our day is not because of some kind of infection that the media has given us about rulers. I think they've advanced the cause of cynicism, to be sure. But you see, the reason why people are so cynical about political rulers today is because we've had so few good ones, so few men of honor and integrity who will stand up and on the basis of religious commitment say, this is righteous. This is what we shall do, and we'll prosper for it. We've had compromisers and liars who constantly embarrass us. And when they're out of office, we spend our time putting them down. And for some, we begin, even while they're in office, to do that. Proverbs is right. Nations will abhor men who don't rule in righteousness. Proverbs 28:12. 28. Proverbs 28:12 says, when the righteous triumph, there is great glory. But when the wicked rise, men hide themselves. Wow. Verse 28 of that chapter, when the wicked rise, men hide themselves. But when they perish, the righteous increase righteousness and wickedness, you see, cannot have a policy of detente. They cannot have peaceful coexistence. One thrives at the expense of the other. It's always that way. And when wicked men come to dominate a social setting, whether that means they're elected to office or they're the media leaders, whether they're the ones who set the artistic taste of our society, whether they're on the evening news, whatever it may be. When the wicked come to dominate a social setting, there will be a tendency for men to become secretive to make yourself seldom seen. I think I can illustrate this. For those of you who work for someone else, you've got a manager in your office or you've got a boss somewhere. Some of you are blessed and don't have that problem. But for most of us people in the world who have to answer to somebody. What happens when you have a wicked manager? A person who is unfair, a person who is dirty minded, a person who tends to try to lord it over people. What happens when you have a wicked ruler? Don't you tend to hide yourself? You say, oh, here comes so and so, you know, and you move away from the water cooler real quick. You try to get to your desk and put your head down and hope he doesn't want to say anything to you. I mean, we can. That's just a little slice of life in which we see it. But that principle applies all through life. When the wicked are in power, men tend to hide themselves. You don't want to be around when Congress is in session, right? What are they going to ask next from you? All of life is threatening when wickedness controls a social setting. Proverbs 29:2 says, when the righteous are increased, though the people rejoice. And when a wicked man bears rule, the people sigh. Verse 16 when the wicked are increased, transgression increases, but the righteous shall look upon their fall. You know, it's quite an indictment, this little humorous remark that was made by someone many years ago. The remark was, the well being of the nation is never so threatened as when Congress is in session. The well being of the nation is never so threatened as when Congress is doing its work. You know, and that's quite an indictment because it's so true. We might be much better off, at least in many ways, if Congress just didn't do anything than to do the wretched things that it does. So what does that say about our rulers? The book of Proverbs tells us, however, that when the righteous are increased, the people will rejoice. But when the wicked bear ruled, the people sighed. What do we need in our culture? We need righteous people and we need righteous conduct. And we need the promotion of that boring virtue that doesn't entertain but blesses a people. We need righteous rulers. We need prosperity for God's people. When that happens, a nation itself will prosper. Verse 16 tells us an interesting thing. It tells us that evil shall be outlived. The righteous shall see the downfall of the wicked. Book of Proverbs is a post millennial book. The Book of Proverbs does not tell us every single day of your life or every single week, or even every year, you're going to see the righteous finally triumph over the wicked. But it is a general truth in history that God puts the wicked down and the righteous will triumph over them. That is what's going to happen. We will outlive the wicked. Proverbs 29:8 Scoffers set a city in a flame, but wise men turn away wrath. If you were to call up the people who put on 60 Minutes. If you were to call up the people who put on 2020. If you were to call up the major news commentators of our land, the people who write editorials in the daily papers, and ask them who are the biggest troublemakers in this nation and who are they? Who are peacemakers in this nation? My guess is you would find out those terrible TV evangelists and those terrible bigots who call themselves Christians, and those people who go to church and want their evangelical born again religion. They're troublemakers, they're critical, they're narrow minded, they create difficulty for us. The peacemakers are those who are of a liberal bent, who want bigger government and higher taxes, who want nuclear disarmament. They're the peacemakers. Book of Proverbs tells you they've got it wrong. They've got it exactly wrong. They've got it exactly the opposite of what it is. But you see, a city is set aflame by those who will not follow God's law, by those who are wicked. But who is it that speaks peace to a city? It's the wise. Those who know the fear of the Lord as the beginning of wisdom. They are the ones who bring peace to a land. One more word. Proverbs 29:18. Where there is no vision, the people cast off restraint. But he that keeps the law happy is he. Where there is no vision. The word vision here quite literally means prophetic vision. That is the vision God gives to a prophet who brings an inspired word to God's people. It corresponds to the word law in the next line. And so where there is no prophecy, where there is no vision, he that keeps the law. What you have is your inspired word of God being spoken of in two different ways. The King James Version says that the people Perish without God's inspired word. But the verb in Hebrew doesn't mean to perish. It's a very colorful verb. It means to run wild, to have no discipline, to be unzipped. And when there is no word from God that is honored and submitted to. When the word of God is repudiated by a society in its public life, that society will soon be one that is licentious and undisciplined. That is a society very much like what I described at the beginning of this morning's sermon. Public morality. I don't care how old fashioned this sounds. Public morality depends very directly upon a knowledge of God and his word. And when you have a society that's been cut off from the Bible, does not understand the Bible, does not believe it, does not even study it, know what it teaches. When you have a society like our own that just basically illiterate when it comes to the word of God, you'll have a society overrun with immorality and a lack of self control. You'll have the day and age we've brought upon ourselves. And so you see the social message of Proverbs. When the righteous increase as society is happy, and when the wicked come to rule and exercise greater influence, then we suffer, then we smart for it, and eventually we'll hide from such men and we'll rejoice when they're off the scene. Proverbs is right down to earth. I mean, this is a real solid blow right to the stomach here this morning. It says righteousness is what we need in our land. And so how can the righteous increase and bring greater happiness in our own society? Let me end by suggesting seven things to you real quickly. If we want to see happiness in our society, first of all, we need to honor the social significance of evangelism. You understand what I'm saying? If our society is going to be more righteous, if the righteous are going to increase, we're going to need more righteous people. And that means we're going to need to evangelize a lot more. Evangelism is sorely missing. Now I realize there's evangelism. I mean, there are a dime a dozen evangelism programs. You can find them everywhere. But are we doing it? Are we pursuing it? Are we being consistent in it? Are we praying about it? Are we really pursuing saved souls? If you don't have righteous people, the society is going to be brought down. Evangelism is our number one need here. The political significance of evangelism is just that. If we don't change people's hearts. We're not going to change their conduct, lifestyle and their outlook on politics ultimately. Secondly, notice the critical need for Christian nurture of our covenant children. The Christianity that has infected our day, even in the Presbyterian Church, I'm sorry to say the Christianity that's infected our day lacks the vision of a covenantal outlook on life. Our children belong to God. Our children have been covenanted before God. They may grow up to be covenant breakers and we weep when that happens. We do everything we can to keep that from happening. But the fact is, the way we see our children, the way we raise them and the fear and the nurture of God is that they belong to Him. And that means we cannot just take it for granted that they're in a Christian environment so everything's alright in their lives. You see, children don't become Christians just because they're in the right environment, any more than you become a cookie because you sit in the oven. Children must be nurtured in the ways of God. You must talk to your children of the things of the Lord. You must point out for them where they have strayed, what they have done wrong. You must encourage them. You must tell them when they've done the right things. You must promote a life of prayer and Bible reading. You must tell them about our holy faith. You must instruct them in the theology of our denomination. You must catechize your children. How old fashioned, how stodgy, how absolutely necessary if we're going to have a generation that is better off than our own and our grandchildren's generation better off than our children's, and on and on and on. We need the nurture of our covenant children. And that's not just in the home, my friends. It's in school too. What is wrong with us that we believe we can turn over our children for how many hours a week to the state school system where they're going to be influenced repeatedly by those who don't care about the things of God, who ridicule virtue, have teachers who don't believe in religious commitment, who will teach contrary to it. And then we're surprised when our children grow up to renounce the faith. When our children grow up to say, well, it's okay if you want it, but it's not for me. That can't surprise you. Thou shalt have no other gods before me. And that commandment requires you do not turn over your children to Moloch. You don't turn over your children to a school system that does not honor Jesus Christ above All. And I'll be the first to tell you, Christian schools are not pristine. Pure Christian schools are not the be all and end all. They've got plenty of problems and plenty of sin. But for crying out loud, there's a huge difference between a doctor who prescribes medicine to heal people's bodies and makes a mistake here and there and taking poison. If righteousness is going to increase in our land, our children must be nurtured in the ways of God every hour of every day. And that means in their education. Thirdly, there's a demand for greater study of Scripture on our parts. I talked about the illiteracy, about the Bible in our land, but that's true of us, too. I know professing Christians who cannot tell you whether David or Abraham lived first in the Old Testament. Now you know the significance of that historical fact is not great when it comes to making a political decision. But it does illustrate how little we know of God's Word. If we don't know such basic things like that, it shouldn't surprise us that we don't know what to say about surrogate motherhood. Because, you see, we've lost our bearings. We are all babes when it comes to understanding these things. And now we're being called upon to make mature, adult decisions, and we can't. There is a demand that you stop making excuses and start studying your Bible every day. And I'm talking to every one of you because I know every one of you is weak in this area. There's a demand for practical obedience. We need to stop talking about transforming our culture and start walking like we're going to transform our culture. There has just got to be a far greater public display of righteous living from our congregation and every other one like us. For everyone who names the name of Jesus Christ as Lord. I think it was Chesterton who said, the only problem with Christianity is that it's yet to be tried. That's the truth. If righteousness is going to dominate the affairs of our culture, we need to start walking like righteous people. Stop saying, well, everyone else is doing it, so it's all right if I'm like that too. Fifthly, we need to see the call for a vocal Christianity. We have been browbeat, we have been shoved back. We have been silenced by secular prejudice all around us. And we need, in our day, a more vocal Christianity. Those who will stand up and say, yes, I am a Christian, I am not ashamed of it. It is the truth and it's the only way to happiness, and I'm promoting it. And when we see those who make contrasting claims, those who try to put down the word of God or the Lord Jesus Christ, we need to be people who say, that's not true. I'm here to tell you that's not true. We need to stand up and be counted. You know, we've heard for many years, you know, the problem of the silent majority. I don't know if we are the silent majority. I tend to think we're not the majority. I'm sorry to say that, friends, that may comfort us, you see, by thinking, well, we are the majority, but we're just not being vocal enough. I don't know that we really are, but I do know this. We have been browbeat by a very vocal minority who promote unrighteousness, who promote everything contrary to the law of God in our culture, whether it be through the arts or through politics or what have you. And it's time that we stop being browbeat. Even if we're the minority. Let's become a vocal one. So let's start pushing back. Sixthly, we need the propagation of Christian principles in all of our social spheres. We need those principles honored in the family. You've heard me talk about that. We need those principles propagated in the media. We need Christian news programs. We need Christian entertainment. Christian entertainment, by the way, does not mean having a movie about a Billy Graham crusade. That is not what makes a movie a Christian movie. But we need entertainment that is set in from a Christian perspective and which subtly but very definitely promotes Christian values and a Christian way of evaluating this world. We need the propagation of Christian principles in all spheres. I talked about the arts, but of course we need it in the state too, don't we? We need to be standing up and telling the state, you don't murder little children. You know, on the way to church this morning, I was amazed by this. I saw two bumper stickers. One that said, liberate lab animals and another one that said, cats are people too. Here we have two bumper stickers that are so concerned about animals, we're more concerned about animal rights, and we kill a million children every year. Do you think God is going to honor that? You think God is going to overlook the hypocrisy of that? We'd better stand up and be counted. We better promote Christian principles from art to the state, every sphere of life. And then finally, we need to campaign to bring the righteous into positions of leadership, the righteous into positions of visible example in our culture, so that the righteous, you see, will Bear rule. The righteous will set the direction and the tone of our culture. The righteous will be the ones we look up to. I started out by telling you what an unhappy society we have. A society that lacks shame, a society that lacks honor. A society that lacks fidelity and security and confidence and all the rest. And I'm telling you the reason is because we are societies that lack religious commitment. And it's time to change this morning, right now. In which of these seven areas do you see something you need to start changing this afternoon? I don't even want you to wait till tomorrow morning. What are you going to start doing this afternoon about the social significance of evangelism? What are you going to do about the critical need for Christian nurture in the home and school? What are you going to do about the demand for greater study of the Bible, the demand for practical obedience, not just talking it, but walking it? What are you going to do about the call for a vocal Christian witness, the propagation of Christian principles in all the spheres of life, and the campaign to bring the righteous into positions of visible leadership and example about you. I want to suggest that if you're too busy to start doing something this afternoon, there's probably very little hope for this generation. Because it's only when the righteous prosper that a society will be happy. Let's pray. Father, each and every one of us falls short of the mark. Falls short of your glory. Each and every one of us has sinned and been disloyal to you. We have been pushed around and shoved into a corner. And we've accepted our own private little religion. And Father, we now have to confess that it's not simply because of the hostile forces around us. It's because that's a very comfortable religion for us. A religion that does not make demands. A religion that cannot be checked up upon. A religion that doesn't call for any life changing changes. We ask that you would change our lives, though. That you would open our minds to see the vision of the lordship of Jesus Christ ruling over every area of life. That you would put confidence in our hearts. That when the righteous come to increase in a society both in number and influence, that we're going to see a reversal of the destructive trends all about us. The trends that make life in this world unhappy and threatening. Lord, we do pray that you would inspire us all today to begin doing works of public, visible righteousness. That you would inspire us today to promote a society full of more righteous people and thus to promote evangelism. That you would inspire us to nurture those who are Christians in the ways of the Lord, that you would inspire us to study your law, to promote its virtues, and to seek its influence in all areas. Lord, we do know how true it is that where there is no vision, the people run amok. We ask that you would give us a vision today from your holy word of a society that is full of virtue and because of that, security and happiness and prosperity in the Lord. And then teach us to pursue it with all of our hearts. In Jesus name we pray, because he's our Lord. Amen.