"Wisdom's Review" Proverbs 29:27 Sunday Evening Worship Service

Proverbs twenty-nine, verse twenty-seven.

An unjust man is an abomination to the righteous, but one whose way is straight is an abomination to the wicked.

Proverbs, if you recall, ten through twenty-nine are the random proverbs, people call them.

And the proverbs that don't seem to have much of a flow to them between 10 and 29.

And over the course of the last several months, we've taught through almost all of them.

We'll finish the rest of them tonight.

And you will have noticed, I'm sure, that while there is not necessarily a flow to them, there is a building of them.

That the beginning, chapter 10, and 11, 12, 13, 14 starts relatively easy.

And then you start to scale the mountain.

The end of Proverbs being 22 to 27 becomes more complex, Proverbs and 28 and 29 is kind of the graduate level course in wisdom.

But this last verse, how that section of Proverbs closes out.

An unjust man is an abomination to the righteous, but one whose way is straight is an abomination to the wicked.

That takes us back to the beginning.

We've circled around now.

It's just a clear-cut distinction between the glories of those that walk in righteousness contrasted with the glories of those who are wicked.

Now, if you remember at the beginning of Proverbs, chapter 1, verse 3, one of the promises that Proverbs offered you was the ability to grow in discernment.

Proverbs 1:3

That was the invitation that the parents were giving.

You remember when this all started, we started our study nine months ago, but when this all studied started, it was a conversation between a dad and a teenage, and we said maybe 13, 14, 15-year-old son.

Not that the wisdom in Proverbs is, you know, if you're older than 17, it's too late.

Although in the the way that Proverbs is functioning is a book, there's a sense in which it is.

It is an appeal for a young person at the beginning of their life to make a commitment for wisdom, to walk in wisdom, and to live in wisdom throughout their days.

That's why the book of Proverbs ends in chapter 31 with, given all that's gone before us now, this is the kind of wife that person should marry.

There's very much this implication.

That's not it's not written to people that are in their 20th year of marriage like I am.

It's not, you know, hope you chose this kind of person.

It's going back to the beginning of your life.

The beginning, before you were married, an appeal from a parent to their teenage son saying, please choose wisdom.

And one of the components of that invitation was if you choose wisdom, you will grow in discernment.

Now, discernment, as promised, is this the ability to distinguish between good and bad.

Wisdom is the ability to navigate life in a fallen world.

And of course, wisdom is the theme of Proverbs.

It's been offered over and over and over and over and over again.

Wisdom is the ability to understand how God made the world and to live in light of that.

Wisdom is the ability to navigate God's fallen world in a way that honors and pleases God.

But at the most basic level, wisdom is the ability to live in a fallen world in a way that corresponds to God's original design.

And the analogy that I've often used through the book of Proverbs is if you imagine the world as a river, the way God made it as a river, wisdom is the ability to go with the flow.

Now, I don't mean with the flow like you correspond your life to the world.

I mean with the flow, you recognize how God made the world and you live that way.

Folly is swimming upstream.

Folly is the fish trying to go against the way God made the world and wondering why he keeps getting battered against the rocks.

If you drop something, it falls.

Wisdom is knowing that.

Folly is dropping something and being surprised every time.

Or worse than that, a fool drops something and expects it to fly.

Wisdom is the ability to recognize how God made the world.

You see this?

This is why the most common theme in the beginning part of Proverbs is adultery.

Wisdom is the ability to be satisfied and content within your marriage.

Knowing that your life actually legitimately goes better that way.

Folly is adultery.

It burns your own house down, it hurts your own family, and ultimately it hurts you.

You set a fire in your lap and you're surprised when you get burned.

Now, I mean that's perhaps the most basic example of this.

But the book of Proverbs multiplies those examples.

Wisdom is the ability to have your life correspond with God's design and direction.

Now, discernment is similar to wisdom.

Wisdom is more about knowing how to act in a given situation, knowing which proverbs to apply, perhaps.

So if you finish a study in the book of Proverbs, wisdom is the ability to be in a difficult situation and to know which proverbs to grab.

I mean, there's a proverb.

There's a proverb for every season.

In fact, one of the proverbs says even that.

Wisdom is the ability to know which one to get off the shelf.

And again, an example I've used throughout the year, wisdom is the ability to know there's a fool talking right now.

Should I confront him so he's not wise in his own eyes?

Or should I walk away from him and leave him in his own futility?

Proverbs tells you to do both things.

You just have to know which one at the time.

Is this a walk-away fool or is this a confront fool?

That's wisdom.

You see this with confronting sin.

Wisdom is the ability to know when to confront sin and when to cover sin.

Wisdom is discretion.

Folly is not caring about wisdom.

So wisdom is knowing which proverb to choose.

Folly is not caring about proverbs.

You're not a fool if you take the wrong proverb.

You know, do I confront this one or ignore this one?

Choosing the wrong answer does not make you a fool.

Wisdom is choosing the right answer, but the opposite of wisdom is not choosing the wrong proverb, the opposite of wisdom is closing the book of Proverbs and walking away.

Wisdom is righteous, folly is an abomination to the Lord.

Folly is sin.

And discernment is the big picture.

The helicopter surveying the scene, being able to figure out who's on what side.

That's discernment.

Wisdom is on the grounds, a tactical awareness of what's in front of you.

Wisdom is discernment is from the air.

More of a strategic idea to know which side is good and which side is bad.

Scripture has a lot to say about discernment.

And of course, there's some discernment knowing the difference between truth and error.

There's doctrinal discernment, talked about in Hebrews 5, that you would study theology so that you would grow in your ability, your strength of discernment is the language of Hebrews 5.

Paul in Philippians praised that believers would grow in their discernment, their capacity for discernment.

But when you've completed a study for Proverbs, it's worth cycling back and looking at the collection of Proverbs that give you a contrast between wisdom and folly.

And that's what we'll do tonight.

It's a comparison between wisdom and folly.

Now, this is not practical.

Like Proverbs 10 through 29, we're all practical chapters.

They were kind of boots on the ground, how to make friends, how to speak to your friends, how to let love cover sins, how to confront sins, how to work hard, how to be a good steward of money, how not to love money.

That's the practical Proverbs from 10 through 29.

We've looked at all those.

So while this is not practical in the abstract sense, it has tremendous practical implications.

To zoom out and to know, can you recognize the difference between wisdom and folly?

And not just recognize them, but appreciate the difference between wisdom and folly.

The first distinction is walking in trouble.

Walking in trouble.

Folly is marked in the book of Proverbs by people who are continually in trouble.

Now, this gets you back to the basic distinction between wisdom and folly.

To begin with, remember, wisdom was living in accordance with the way God made the world.

Folly is, or foolishness is going against that current, and so foolishness is always at odds with the world around it.

Foolishness is never quite fitting in, always feeling like the current is pulling against you.

That's foolishness.

So here I'm mixing my metaphors here.

Alex Haregrove would be very upset with that.

I'm switching from swimming against stream to walking.

The foolish person is always walking in trouble.

That's because they're walking against the flow, but wherever their feet go, it always seems to be going poorly for them.

Proverbs 11:8 says uh says it this way.

Proverbs 11:8

The righteous is delivered from trouble, but the wicked walks into it instead.

Now, a little bit of this is axiomatic or a tautology, just the same statement said again, that when you think about what it means to be a fool, what it means to be a wicked person, this proverb is axiomatic.

It's just saying the same thing.

A wicked person walks towards sin.

A wicked person is inclined towards sin.

So when it says the wicked person walks into trouble, it's just playing a little trick here of saying the word sin and swapping it out for trouble.

But that's the way of wisdom.

The wise person avoids trouble because they're wise.

It's not an end in and of itself.

It's not like the wise person is avoiding trouble because they just don't want to stub their toe, although that too would be wisdom.

The wise person is avoiding trouble because they love God.

That's the fear of the Lord, is the foundation of wisdom.

But the fool with no such foundation always seems to be walking towards trouble.

The wicked walks towards wickedness.

But sometimes it's lost on them that walking towards wickedness is walking into trouble.

That's the way God made the world.

You're a high school student at a party you shouldn't be at.

The police come to the party because of noise complaints from the neighbors.

You weren't even doing anything wrong there, except being there.

But you get rounded up with everybody else.

The police call your parents, and what do you try to tell your parents?

Oh, I wasn't doing anything.

I was just with my friends.

This is the example of Proverbs 11:8.

Proverbs 11:8

The wicked walks into trouble.

By putting yourself in a foolish situation, you, in that example, it's a kind of a high schoolish example, but hence is Proverbs, you're literally walking yourself into trouble.

You can make all the protestations all you want.

Your feet put you in a bad situation.

That is the pattern of the wicked person's life.

They don't outgrow it when they graduate high school.

They keep finding themselves in situations where they get in trouble.

Proverbs 11:27.

Proverbs 11:27

Whoever diligently seeks good seeks favor.

But evil comes to him who searches for it.

This is the same contrast we saw in Proverbs 11.8, only on steroids.

It's Proverbs 11:8, but it took protein powder.

Proverbs 11:8

Before it was the righteous person, just, you know, things go well with them, and the wicked person is always in trouble.

Now the righteous person is diligently looking for favor.

He's going out, he's not just looking for what's good, he's diligently searching for ways to be righteous.

The wicked person who is also grown up is doing the opposite.

He's diligently searching for evil.

Scripture over and over says that for the righteous person, God's will is not far from them.

Righteous people are not finding themselves in situations where they can say, like, I just don't know what God's will is.

I mean, there might be a difficult situation every now and then that you need wisdom from others for, of course, but generally speaking, obedience is not like that.

Generally speaking, obedience is very near to you.

It's in your conscience, it's on your heart, it's on your tongue.

The Spirit of God dwells in you, you need no one to teach you.

He convicts you of sin and compels you in righteousness.

But for the evil person, it's the same way.

The evil person doesn't have to search that hard.

And they'll always find it.

Evil is always an uber call away.

Proverbs 11:31, if the righteous is repaid on earth, how much more the wicked and the sinner?

Proverbs 11:31

We understand that good things come to those who do good.

That's not works righteousness.

That's just the cycle of kind of cause and effect in the world.

Your neighbor's dog gets out and you bring him back, your dog gets out, your neighbor brings him back.

That's just kind of the way the world works.

And wisdom is recognizing that.

Again, works righteousness is your neighbor's dog gets out and you bring the dog back so that God loves you more.

That's works righteousness.

Wisdom is your neighbor's dog gets out and you bring it back because one day you think your dog will get out too.

And if you think right now, if you're listening to me say that and you're like, but I don't even have a dog.

Well, there's some wisdom in that, but you are a fool.

It's not about the dog, it's just about the normal way that life works.

But the same is true for the wicked.

If the righteous person will have his neighbor help him when his dog gets out, what do you think will happen to the wicked person?

The wicked person sees his neighbor's dog out and is like, I don't have time for that, and keeps going on.

Well, how soon until the wicked person's house catches on fire?

Maybe lit by his neighbor.

Is the neighbor gonna be inclined to help?

Or is he just gonna film?

That's the point here.

If the righteous is repaid on earth, how much more do you think wickedness is gonna be a boomerang?

And hit them on the head?

How many times can you throw a rock at a dog before one of them bites?

That's the nature of the wicked person's life.

How many enemies can you make until one of them leapfrogs you at work?

You're like, oh my, my boss doesn't like me.

Well, you've been making enemies at your company for ten years.

Now suddenly your boss doesn't like you.

Where do you think that came from?

Proverbs 13, verse 6.

Proverbs 13:6

Righteousness guards him whose way is blameless.

And we'll look at that part later, but for now, sin overthrows the wicked.

So notice how this is still growing.

Proverbs 11, the wicked always seems to find trouble.

And then later, Proverbs 11, 27, they're diligently searching for trouble.

Then Proverbs 11, 31, they're in trouble and nobody's helping them.

And now Proverbs 13, 6, trouble's gonna win.

Do you see how it's been progressing?

When you start to map out these Proverbs like this to the book of Proverbs, you see how they do grow.

They may not correspond in what's right before it and what's right next to it, but you do see these themes grow through Proverbs, and this is just one example of that.

Ultimately, sin will overthrow the wicked.

Avoiding sin is some way a protection in and of itself.

Righteousness guards him whose way is blameless.

That's not works righteousness again.

It's just the basic principle that when you live life the way God meant life to be lived, things tend to go better for you.

But if you go against that, it's only a matter of time before you get swept away.

Lack of restraint and lack of discernment leads to a colossal downfall.

How many times have you heard someone caught in sin, an addiction, drug abuse of some kind, an affair, something like that?

And, you know, their friends say, man, the way he was he was living towards the end, he was living so out there, it was almost like he wanted to get caught.

Now, if you were to ask him, did you want to get caught?

he would probably say no, but that's what Proverbs 13 is about, that eventually sin overwhelms you like a tidal wave.

In some sense, just by the choices they're making, I suppose they did want to get caught.

I mean, do they think they would be the first person to fight sin and win?

Proverbs 13, 21, disaster pursues sinners.

But the righteous are rewarded for good.

So now the the sinful person, the fool, is thinking they're avoiding their colossal downfall.

They're staying one step ahead of it, but sin doesn't go home and take a nap, man.

It stays on the course.

Disaster pursues sinners.

Sin has brought friends.

It's not one sin that's after you, but it's a colossal downfall.

It's a disaster.

Your one sin has grown into a disaster that's chasing you.

The person walking in sin or folly seems like the hounds are always on his trail.

Disaster is never far away.

Proverbs 17, 13.

If anyone returns evil for good, evil will not depart from his house.

So now disaster is one, and now we're going into generational curses here.

Your neighbor finds your dog and gives it back to you, and so you steal your neighbor's dog, kind of thing.

See how it's growing?

You're repaying good with evil.

Somebody does good to you and you call it evil.

There's a special category of wickedness.

One category of wickedness is walking in sin, but another degree of wickedness altogether described in Romans 1 is not just walking in sin, but insisting on calling sin good and then insisting that other people call it good too.

That's returning evil for good, to use the language of Proverbs 17.

And when you get to that level of depravity, evil is not coming away from your house.

Meaning your kids are going to grow up with that.

It's not that God punishes your kids for your sins, it's that your kids are watching you and they're learning.

And when you die, your kids still will have learned your habits.

Proverbs 18, verse 3.

Proverbs 18:3

When wickedness comes, contempt comes also.

And with its honor comes disgrace.

Your neighbors don't like you, that's the contempt.

And your whole conduct is a disgrace.

It's a generational catastrophe now.

It's not just that you wanted to get caught and your sin has been exposed.

It's that you've brought disgrace into your name and to your family because of how your children themselves act, which they learned from you.

So I hope you see how folly, you might think I'm walking in trouble for this moment.

No, it grows and grows and grows until it takes you down and takes your kids down and takes your reputation down and your last name down.

Proverbs 28:10.

Proverbs 28:10

Whoever misleads the upright into an evil way will fall into his own pit, but the blameless will have a godly inheritance.

Now at the end of Proverbs, we're into the Proverbs about leadership there.

If you remember Proverbs 27, 28, 29, even are about a king and leadership.

If you have influence over people and you lead people in a wicked way, God's going to judge you.

Jesus says, if you cause one of these young people, one of these children in Matthew 18 is standing in for a new believer, an immature believer, if you cause one of them to sin, better to have a millstone tied around your neck and cast into the sea.

If you mislead an upright person, you're going to be brought down with them.

You're pushing the person off the bridge, but you don't realize you're tied to them.

Meanwhile, the blameless person will have a godly inheritance.

The blameless person will have a legacy of worship to pass down in his own family.

The downfall of the foolish person is inevitable.

But the blessings of the righteous person are likewise promised by God.

So walking in trouble gives way to ending in trouble.

You're not just walking in trouble for the fool, but their life will end in trouble.

Eventually they're overtaken by their sin.

And it's not just that their sin will live on in their family, but that they personally will face the eternal wrath of God.

Proverbs 13, verse 9.

Proverbs 13:9

The light of the righteous rejoices, but the lamp of the wicked will be put out.

When Jesus uses this proverb, he changes it to countenance, and some English translations might even give you a footnote there for countenance.

It's the idea of your disposition.

The righteous person, the eye is a window to the heart, is Jesus' use of this.

And the righteous person has a joy in their life.

But the wicked person, it's not just that they're joyless, but it's that their light will be darkened, snuffed out.

This is speaking of God's judgment.

The wicked person will face the eternal wrath of God.

Proverbs 14, 14.

The backslider in heart will be filled with the fruit of his ways.

A good man will be filled with the fruit of his ways.

The backslider in heart, the person who abandons his covenant with God, will be filled with the fruit of his ways.

And they don't experience the fruit entirely in this life.

Some of the fruit is held for the harvest of the next life.

Jesus tells the parable of the vineyard workers that will bind up the, the angels will come and bind up the wheat and bind up the shaft.

The wheat will go into eternal life.

The chaff will be thrown into the blaze of judgment.

Proverbs 14, 19.

The evil bow down before the good.

The wicked will be at the gates of the righteous.

Can be reminded of the parable of the rich man and Lazarus, the rich man who receives good things in this life and the next life is begging for Lazarus to just dip his finger in the water and touch his tongue.

Perhaps in this life, through poverty and needing help from the righteous, but certainly in the next.

The wicked and the righteous each will go to their own proper places.

The point of that proverb.

Proverbs 14.32 is a similar one.

The wicked is overthrown through his evil doing, but the righteous finds, and check out this phrase, refuge in his death.

What?

When you're reading through the Psalms, refuge is from death.

But the righteous person finds refuge in his death.

And you have to read the Psalms in this light, too.

You know, David is loved and protected by God, whether or not Saul gets to the top of the mountain or not.

You know, Saul gets called away at the last minute, and David, the mountain, is his refuge and his stronghold because Saul couldn't get it.

But even if has Saul gotten him, God is still his refuge.

God is his refuge and ever-present help in time of trouble.

That's a consistent promise.

Even when you die, I mean, what's supposed to separate you from the love of God in Christ?

I mean, what's supposed to separate you from the love of God in Christ Jesus?

Can angels, can principalities, can death separate you from God's love?

Of course not.

And here you see that in Proverbs 14, 32, the righteous finds a refuge in death.

Well the wicked, notice his death, it's spoken of as an overthrowing.

Proverbs 29, 16.

Would the wicked increase?

Transgression increases, but the righteous will look at their downfall.

That should be 29.16.

When the wicked increase, transgression increases.

That's the king Proverbs again.

The section of Proverbs about kings.

When the wicked keeps increasing, transgression increases.

But guess what will happen?

The righteous person will see the wicked kings and the wicked people cast down in judgment.

Downfall, that's the language used for Satan.

Satan wanted to be king of earth and God cast him down.

Righteous people will always see that.

So the fool walks in trouble and ends in trouble.

What of the righteous?

The righteous walks in joy.

The fool walks in trouble, the righteous person walks in joy.

What a contrast.

What a contrast.

Proverbs 15, verse 6.

Proverbs 15:6

In the house of the righteous there's much treasure.

But trouble befalls the income of the wicked.

Every time you compare, the comparison always turns on the righteous.

That's the point of this proverb.

Every category of comparison imaginable.

Here it's financial.

That doesn't mean the wicked people can't have short-term game.

You can do tax evasion for a few years, and eventually you'll probably get caught.

And if you don't, you end up in hell.

That's kind of the idiom here.

Even if it's not financially, if it's with the joy and delight in this life.

Proverbs 15, 15, all the days of the afflicted are evil, but the cheerful of heart has a continual feast.

It's not talking about money.

It's not talking about how big the turkey is on the table.

The feast it's talking about is the joy and delight in your life.

Righteous people have joy.

They might have troubles in this life.

As sparks fly up for so people are prone to trouble.

We do live in a fallen world, and the wise person knows that.

But the righteous person has a confidence that God is in control, that God is good, and so he has joy.

The evil person has no such confidence, and so his days are always evil, is the word here.

They're just, it's just hard all the time.

Proverbs 21:8.

Proverbs 21:8

The way of the guilty is crooked, but the conduct of the pure is upright.

The righteous person is walking in an upright way.

That's the point of this.

They're walking with their head up.

They're walking morally upright.

And so there's a joy that comes with that.

Proverbs 21, 18.

The wicked is a ransom for the righteous and the traitor for the upright.

This is another, we're getting into the middle part of Proverbs where they get more complex and a little harder with this kind.

But the idea is that, you know, somebody will pay a ransom for a righteous person.

They'll be less inclined to do that for a wicked person.

Probably the wicked person might be the very one given as the ransom.

Proverbs 28, 4 through 5.

Those who forsake the law praise the wicked, and those who keep the law strive against them.

Evil men do not understand justice, but those who seek Yahweh understand it completely.

So here we're back in the King Proverbs again.

The wicked forget the law.

But those who keep the law are always confronting evil people, of course, but they have a certain understanding of justice that they're walking in.

And that leads, of course, to joy and delight in life.

And it doesn't mean there's no conflict.

The righteous people have conflict all the time, too, against the wicked.

But they have joy.

Proverbs 29, 6, an evil man is ensnared in his transgression.

But a righteous man, and this is probably the best proverb for the idea of righteousness brings joy.

Evil people, they're always caught in some trap.

They're always lugging some trap around the back of their leg.

Some bear trap is on their ankle.

But the righteous person, what's he doing?

He lugs around songs and joy.

The wicked person lugging his trap around.

The righteous person has always got a song in his mouth.

He's so joyful.

He's walking with the knowledge of God.

And that again serves as a transition verse.

He's walking with the knowledge of God.

Well, he's not just walking in joy, but number four, he's walking in fellowship.

He's walking in fellowship, and this is fellowship with God, is what I mean by here.

There is fellowship.

It talks about the righteous person is enjoyed by his neighbors.

I didn't choose that Proverbs tonight.

We used that one earlier.

But the idea tonight is that he's walking in fellowship with God.

I'll give you some examples of that.

Proverbs 12 has a longer section.

Proverbs 12, 2, a good man obtains favor from Yahweh.

But a man of evil devices he condemns.

So look, the good man is experiencing God's blessing in his life.

No one is established by wickedness, but the root of the righteous will never be moved.

You know, sin never gives you a sure foundation because you can always get caught.

To use the analogy of tax evasion again, the wicked person can build a house through tax evasion, I guess, but he never has confidence in it because it can be taken from at any moment.

What a contrast with the righteous.

He might have a smaller house, but it's on a firmer foundation.

The thoughts of the righteous are just, the counsels of the wicked are deceitful.

His thinking is righteous.

Because he's meditating with the Lord.

This all goes back to Proverbs 12, too, that he's obtained favor from Yahweh.

He understands that the foundation of his house and the thoughts of his heart are gifts from the righteous God.

The wicked are deceitful.

Proverbs 14, verse 2.

Proverbs 14:2

Whoever walks in uprightness fears Yahweh, but he who is devious in his ways despises him.

So now we're on to like an actual emotion.

You're walking in the fear of the Lord.

There's a certain blessing in your life.

The devious person, he's always contrary to God.

This reminds you again of the stream analogy, the flow of the water, the river.

The river's never the same one second to the next.

When you recognize how God made the world and you're going with it, it's because you fear Yahweh.

But to fight against it, you're just fighting upstream.

You're devious in your ways, and that's because you hate the stream.

I mean, that's what Proverbs 14.2's point is.

The person who's always in trouble with the way God made the world, it's not because they just can't tell which way the river flows, it's because they hate the source of the river.

The immoral person in Romans 1, it's not just because he can't tell which gender he's supposed to marry, it's because he hates the Lord of gender.

That's the point.

Proverbs 15, verse 9.

Proverbs 15:9

The way of the wicked is an abomination to Yahweh.

But he loves him who pursues righteousness.

The person who keeps walking in trouble is continually confounded by God, and he keeps accumulating wrath for himself on the day of judgment.

His way is an abomination.

Yahweh can't bear to look upon evil.

But he loves him and pursues righteousness.

Notice the opposite of God's viewing the wicked as an abomination is not, okay, I can look upon you, I can tolerate you, but it goes all the way to redemption and adoption.

The righteous person is redeemed by God and adopted into his own family and called the Son.

There's a loving relationship with God that comes through the righteousness that God gives.

Which leads to our final contrast, our fifth point.

It ends in deliverance.

You can compare the ending of the righteous versus the ending of the fool.

Notice it's still on the screen, point two, the fool's way ends in trouble.

And that trouble, remember, was disaster-winning.

God snuffing out his light and sending him to an eternal judgment.

What a contrast with the righteous person.

His way does not end in an eternal judgment, but in eternal life.

Proverbs 11, 19 through 21 is a little section on this.

Whoever is steadfast in righteousness will live.

Now, steadfast is talking about the character of your life all the way to the end.

And so it's talking about a life that comes at the end of life.

But he who pursues evil will die.

And again, this is the contrast.

In life he's pursuing evil, he will die, and he will die spiritually as well.

Those of crooked heart are an abomination to Yahweh, but those of blameless ways are his delight.

So we're back to God delighting in the righteous person.

Be assured, an evil person will not go unpunished, but the offspring of the righteous will be delivered.

There's an eternal judgment for those who walk in sin.

And don't, you know, don't get the let the lead get buried here.

The lead here is that righteousness delivers from death.

That's verse 19.

The righteousness are delivered.

Righteous people are delivered from an eternal spiritual death.

They will live even though they die.

Jesus says, Lazarus will live.

Mary says, I know he'll live at the resurrection.

Even she understood.

That's what you're dealing with here.

The righteous person lives at the resurrection.

And she wasn't wrong, by the way.

Lazarus did live at the first resurrection and the second.

Proverbs 11, 23.

The desire of the righteous ends only in good.

The expectation of the wicked ends in wrath.

So it's very clear here, we're talking about end-of-life judgment.

You're talking about when all of your desires are finally met for the righteous person, they are met in eternal life.

Only good.

You know, Solomon didn't have the book of Proverbs, or I mean the book of Revelation.

He doesn't have the ability to describe what heaven will be like.

And even John, when John sees heaven, is only describing with nose.

You know, there's no sun, no sea, no division, no, no, no.

You can't even put positive words to it.

That's where Solomon is.

You know, when I die in righteousness, I don't know what heaven's going to be like, but I know it's going to be good, okay?

Is there going to be coffee in heaven?

Yes.

And guess what?

It's going to be good.

I mean, what can you say about heaven except it's good?

That's the point of this.

The wicked person expects only wrath.

In any comparison, wisdom wins.

The desire of the righteous person is in this proverb is pulling you ahead.

Charles Bridges says of this proverb, but really a line I still don't have quite have my mind fully around, but I've been thinking about it.

Desire is the wing of the mouth, he says.

I think by that he means that desire is coming from the heart and it's taking you forward.

All things work to good of those who are called by God.

What a contrast with Matthew 24, 28, where the corpses the vultures will gather.

That's your contrast.

For the righteous person, all things work for your good and God's glory.

For the wicked person, where the corpses are, the vultures are.

Proverbs 12, 7.

The wicked are overthrown and are no more.

But the house of the righteous will stand.

That stands indefinitely.

It's standing in this world and the next.

We will reign with the Lord.

Revelation 2, 26.

The one who conquers and who keeps my works until the end, to him I will give authority over the nations, and they will rule with me, and they will rule them with an iron rod, Jesus says in Revelation.

That's this the wicked will be overthrown, but the righteous will stand forever and ever and ever.

Proverbs 12, 28.

And the path of the righteous, and the path of righteousness is life.

And in its pathway, there is no death.

So you want a big picture view of the book of Proverbs?

You can have Proverbs 29, 27, an unjust man is an abomination to the righteous.

And you can have Proverbs 12, 28.

And the path of righteousness, it's life.

It's life in this life, it's life in the next life.

But for the wicked, there's only death.

Now I know this contrast between righteousness and wickedness, it can rub people the wrong way.

It can rub, you know, the kind of the gospel-centered language people where everything is gospel-centered.

It's hard to make the book of Proverbs fit into a gospel-centered approach to life.

Because a pushback I have heard many, many times through a study of Proverbs, is it sounds like you're extolling righteousness, and yet the gospel is that we're all sinners and we need faith.

We don't try hard to be righteous.

We repent from trying and receive God's forgiveness.

And that is true.

You do not earn righteousness with God through your own effort.

You receive righteousness through God by faith.

So the wicked fool in the book of Proverbs, you understand this?

The wicked fool in the book of Proverbs can turn from his wickedness, confess his sins, and be saved, and receive the free gift of eternal life.

But depending on how old he is, he is going to keep experiencing the consequences from his sins throughout his life.

You live like a pagan sinner for 70 years and repent on your deathbed, then you will receive forgiveness of God for sure.

And if you live another 20 years, let's say, you have all of those habits from your whole life after you, all the enemies you've made, your whole life after you, all the relationships you've burned, your whole life will be after you.

Even though you trusted in God by faith.

At age 70, your last 20 years are going to be spent living the fruit of the sin of the first 70.

Proverbs isn't undoing the gospel.

Trust God at any age.

Trust God at any stage of life.

From cradle to grave.

Put your faith in Christ at any stage of life.

No one is beyond the reach of the Lord for salvation.

That's for sure.

But a life that's built on wisdom starts early.

Wisdom comes in this sense, I would want to say it like this: wisdom comes after gospel.

You believe the gospel, you put your faith in Christ.

The Bible has a lot to say about how to live your life from that point forward.

Yes, you always go back to the gospel.

Yes, you confess your sins all the time.

Don't hear me say anything other than that.

You always go back to God and confess your sins.

But wisdom is how you lead your life moving through.

From that point forward, from your conversion forward.

And I do fear, this is what I hope that you take from the book of Proverbs.

We've spent nine months in this book.

And I do hope that you take from this that the Bible has a lot to say about how you live your life in light of the fear of the Lord.

And I'm afraid that too often believers nullify what's in the book of Proverbs by saying, oh, that sounds like work righteousness.

The wicked will have a hard time in life.

That sounds like works righteousness.

No, it's the way God made the world.

Wisdom is recognizing that.

Putting your faith in Christ.

And then living your life, building your life, building the legacy of your life in righteousness.

As Proverbs 12, 28 says, and the path of righteousness is life.

And in its pathway there is no death.

God, we're grateful for your word.

And it is an invitation to life.

Your word asks us to come and live.

And so we're thankful for that.

I pray for anyone here tonight who's never trusted you with their life.

I pray that they would turn from their sins and believe in you.

They would recognize how folly and sin are tearing their life apart.

They would see the effects of sin in their life and they would confess it.

For believers here tonight who have been in the grip of sin, I pray that you would awaken their conscience to see the effects of folly in their life.

We all have sin, of course.

Anyone who says they have no sin makes God out to be a liar and himself is a liar and the truth is not in him.

So we know we're we are aware of our sin, Lord.

I pray that you would make us even more aware.

As we prepare our hearts for the Lord's table, we want to keep short accounts with you, Lord, so we confess our sins to you, knowing that you are faithful and just to forgive us of our sins.

We give you thanks for this in Jesus' name.

Amen.

And now, for a parting word from Pastor Jesse Johnson.

If you have any questions about what you heard today, or if you want to learn more about what it means to follow Christ, please visit our church website at ibc.church.

If you want more information about the Master Seminary or our location here in Washington, D.C., please go to TMS.edu.

Now, if you're not a member of a local church and you live in the Washington, D.C.

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.