Proverbs 14:34, Glory or Gloom!

September 4, Proverbs 14:34

Rom. 1:22-32 “For the righteous Lord liveth righteousness” (Ps. 11:7).

Glory or Gloom!

The meaning of this proverb requires little explanation. Preachers have often used it as a sermon text. Still, it carries an imperative warning for our day.

1. A Righteous Nation: Was there ever such a nation? Can there be such a nation today? The O.T. testifies to the unique place of Israel as a theocracy (2 Chr. 17:2-6, 11-12; Jer. 18:7-10). Their kings were exalted or reproached as they led the nation in righteous or in the sinful ways of idolatry. Yet there was always only a remnant of the righteous at any given time. God would have saved Sodom if Abraham had found ten righteous in it, but Abraham never found how low God would have gone! He left off asking before God left off giving. We remember Elijah, and the seven thousand that bowed not to Baal, and Gideon’s three hundred, by whom God would save Israel! May we not speak of a righteous nation if there is a righteous remnant in it? There was only such a remnant in Britain when politicians openly upheld God’s Laws in the Mother of Parliaments. There was only a remnant in many other countries whose Founding Fathers had strong Christian roots that made for righteousness. Is not God still calling out His remnant in every country, and He will continue to do so until the Last Trump. Instead of giving in to despair, let all who are on the Lord’s side be faithful in prayer and life, and be that faithful remnant that can make a nation righteous. “God is still on the throne, and He will remember His own!” He still calls all the shots. “God gives sleep to the bad that the good may be undisturbed.” The wicked have their day.

2. A Reproached Nation: The Hebrew word reproach is the same word often translated loving kindness, but it has a very different sense here. Its basic meaning is goodness, hence nouns like mercy and kind. This other meaning is very rare. The verb is used in Pr. 25:10, put to shame, and the noun appears in only one other place (Lev. 20:17), translated a wicked thing. Mercy rejected becomes a wicked thing, a thing of shame. It suggests good gone bad. An evil has become a festering wound in the body politic. What was before an occasion of mercy and grace, has become a place where envy or reproach has taken control. As we witness the moral and spiritual decline of once great nations, is this not evidence of good gone bad? Nations that flourished under the good hand of God, forgot the Giver. They wanted more and more for less and less. The moral and spiritual standards were cast aside, and gradually rejected as a hindrance to progress. Greed and envy turned good into evil that has become a reproach. Edmund Burke, though not a Christian, remarked, “Whatever is morally wrong, cannot be politically right.” The righteous must repent of their lack of dedication. Remember, “God works in us and with us, not against us or without us” (John Owen). “Conformity to the world can be overcome by nothing but conformity to Christ” (Andrew Murray).

Thought: “God’s deeds of mercy should move us to deeds of mercy.”

Prayer: Lord, raise up leaders who will once again stand up for righteousness.