"Wisdom's Contentment" Proverbs 11-12 Sunday Evening Worship Service

Proverbs 11, I'm gonna read the first eight verses.

We're gonna work our way through the whole book of Proverbs.

We've already done for chapters 1 through 10, and then we broke for the summer.

Now we're gonna do 11 all the way through verse or chapter 31.

The way we're gonna do it is more or less a theme at a time, but the themes are kind of co-located in a chapter.

So tonight is Proverbs 11.

We'll talk about truth and lies, greed, contentment with God, and what Proverbs has to say about that.

Proverbs 11, verse 1: a false balance is an abomination to Yahweh, but a just weight is his delight.

When pride comes, then comes disgrace, but with the humble is wisdom.

The integrity of the upright guides them, but the crookedness of the treacherous destroys them.

Riches do not profit in the day of wrath, but righteousness delivers from death.

The righteousness of the blameness keeps his way straight, but the wicked falls by his own wickedness.

The righteousness of the upright delivers them, but the treacherous are taken captive by their lusts.

When the wicked dies, his hope will perish.

And the expectation of wealth perishes too.

The righteous is delivered from trouble.

The wicked walks into it instead.

Pilate asked one of the most important questions in the history of the world: what is truth?

The irony of Pilate's question to Jesus is that he asked it with truth incarnate in front of him.

Jesus, we know, is the way, the truth, and the life.

By that, Jesus means that he is the road to God.

But more than that, he means that he is the standard by which truth is measured.

When Jesus says he is the truth, that means he is a standard by which everything else is measured.

A math student might have the answer key to the questions.

Something is true in as much as it conforms to the answer key.

The answer key isn't the definer of reality, though.

The answer key is revealing the truth that's behind it.

Two plus two equals four, not because the answer key says so, but because it's revealing a deeper truth that governs the whole universe.

And so it is with Jesus.

When he says he's the way, the truth, and the life, he's saying that he is indeed the answer key.

As the Son of God, he's merely revealing the truth that is eternal in the form of the Father.

Something is true in as much as it corresponds to God, something is measured as true in as much as it corresponds to the Son.

This is why Jesus can say in John 17, verse 3, that to know the Father is to know the Son, and to know the Son is to have life.

John 17:3

This is eternal life, Jesus says, the knowledge of the Father.

And of course, no one can know the Father unless he's drawn to the Son.

John Murray writes, quote, truth is absolute, ultimate, eternal, in contradistinction from all that is relative, derived, partial, and temporal.

That's truth.

Absolute, eternal, unchanging.

Truth exists in its entirety before the creation of the universe.

Even things like the news, even things like how long it took you to drive here, that existed as truth before the creation of the universe, in the sovereign decree of God that covers all things through all time in all ways.

So every detail of this creation is settled in the mind of God before he first spoke the world into existence.

So in that sense, truth truly is eternal.

It is set in heaven before all time and it governs all things.

And of course, ultimately, truth is a person.

The sovereign decree of God that governs all the affairs of the universe, that is inter-trinitarian.

That's between the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

But that truth is incarnate in this world as a person.

The very eternal truth of God comes to earth, takes on a human nature as Jesus Christ.

So he can truly say that he is the way, the truth, and the life.

Therefore, any lie is an attack against the whole Trinity.

Any lie is an attack against the Father as the source of truth, the Son as truth incarnate, the Spirit as the Spirit of Truth.

A lie is partial.

A lie is temporal.

Lies perish.

Lies are not forever.

The word of God, that's forever.

Lies, they, I mean, they're gone when this world is gone.

When the world melts away, all the lies melt away.

When a liar dies, his lie dies with him.

Truth is usually uncovered.

That's why I love Murray's term that a truth is in contradistinction from everything relative.

If something is relative and changing, it is not the truth.

Truth is revealed and acknowledged and reflected back again.

In other words, the language of the Trinity.

Truth is revealed by the Father through the Son, reflected back through the Spirit of Truth.

So you could say it this way: to delight in God is to delight in truth.

Or to delight in truth is to delight in God.

This is why the first sin to enter the world was to question God and his truth.

The devil comes and asks the form, uh, the question, Did God really say?

It's an attack on the integrity of God.

It's an attack on the word of God, it's an attack on the timeless truth.

To reject God is to reject truth, or the corollary, to reject truth is to reject God.

If to delight in truth is to delight in God in a true sense, then to reject truth is to reject God.

The first sin is to reject truth, and you see this pattern throughout the Bible.

If someone needs to get rid of God, they need to get rid of truth.

To reject Jesus Christ, they have to come up with a lie about something he did.

They can't tell the truth and get a conviction, so they lie about him.

Joseph, how the book of Genesis comes to his crescendo with the Joseph narrative, and his brothers, of course, lied about him.

And you think back, why did his brothers lie about him?

What were his brothers doing lying about Joseph?

He wasn't kidnapped.

I mean, ultimately, ironically, it turned out that is exactly what happened, but they threw him into a pit.

Why did they lie about him?

Well, they lied because they didn't like God's plan as revealed through his dreams and Jacob's knowledge.

They didn't like it.

They had a different plan for the hierarchy of the brothers.

Their plan didn't include Joseph being their prince.

And so they wanted to kill him.

They wanted to be done with him in his dreaming ways.

They rejected God, but they can't throw God in a pit.

They can't throw Joseph in a pit.

You know, it's murder, of course.

It's selling him into slavery, of course, but it's a lie at its heart.

This is why Jesus refers to the devil as the father of lies.

Lies are from him.

If God is the fountain of truth, Satan is the fountain of lies.

And because lies are against God, all liars have their place in the lake of fire.

The Bible ends with that declaration.

The liars will have their place in the lake of fire, because lies are contradistinct, is Murray's word, from God and his truth.

Now, because lies are against God, lies then become the source of so many other problems.

When you look at Proverbs really 11 all the way through chapter 30, there's a lot of themes in there.

A lot of themes are taking place in Proverbs 11 through 30.

There's been a lot of attempts to categorize those Proverbs, uh, and I have gone through and made my own list of categories.

So my plan over the next several months is to cover every single Proverb from chapter 11.

We did chapter 10 before, because chapter 10 does kind of fit together as an intro, but to cover every Proverb from chapter 11 all the way through 30, and then Proverbs 31 will stand alone at the end of our time together.

And so I've broken up all the Proverbs tonight.

We're starting with where chapter 11 starts, which is with this idea of deceit and greed coming from a heart that rejects truth.

It's not a coincidence that this is where the sundry Proverbs, that's what a lot of commentaries call them, sundry Proverbs.

Kind of random Proverbs from chapter 11 all the way through through verse 30.

Many people, better than me, have lost their minds trying to categorize the Proverbs.

But it's not a coincidence that it starts in Proverbs 11 with truth.

You might think, you know, of starting it differently with the contrast between the righteous and the wicked, and of course, some of that's alluded to in chapter 10.

But no, it starts with truth because that's where the Bible starts.

It's where this first sin comes from.

Um, and when you think about the bigger picture of wisdom, as we talked about in Proverbs 1 through 9, remember, the bigger picture of wisdom is wisdom is the capacity to understand the world as God made it, and to know the kind of life that thrives in this world.

Wisdom is the capacity to look at the world, to see the patterns and the principles that work in the world, and then to put your life in accordance with those so that you can have a fruitful and harmonious life with the way God made the world.

So wisdom is ultimately moral because it's recognizing God is the source of all of it.

Non-Christians in that sense can't have true wisdom, but non-Christians can borrow wisdom from the Word of God by applying these proverbs to their life, and when they do, their life goes smoother because they're living in accordance with the way God made the world.

So a non-Christian can figure out pretty quickly that lies end up hurting me, they get exposed, I get fired, I lose my friends, etc.

And so can realize, hey, life goes better when you don't lie.

And this is true with all the categories of wisdom.

You know, a non-Christian can realize, hey, when I work, I have things to eat, my family likes me, life is better.

That's not you don't need a PhD in wisdom to figure that out.

A non-Christian can figure that out.

But we recognize the moral element behind that.

The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, the fountain of Yahweh is the source of wisdom, so you recognize that this is all coming from the way God made the world.

Wisdom is personal in Proverbs 8.

Wisdom is a person, of course.

And so to put your life in harmony with God and His Son, wisdom, you put your life in harmony with truth.

That's why Proverbs 11 starts with the liar.

And it starts with something very, you know, it seems like out of left field.

A false balance is an abomination to Yahweh.

Well, where'd that come from?

A false balance.

I mean, that's how you weigh food at the market.

You you mail something.

And we have the scale in our mail room here, and I might weigh a package, and I go to the post office to buy a stamp for the package, and I'll be darned if the scale at the post office doesn't charge me more than the one in our office does.

Michael Connor says that the uh our missions pastor says, and in many of the countries of the world, they'll never dust those scales because they can get like a good ounce or two of dust on the scales working against you.

The trick is to always dust the scale before you email a package from Zimbabwe.

A false balance is an abomination of the Lord.

That's an odd place to start.

The reason a false balance is an abomination from the Lord is because all lies are against God.

You might think an abomination is over a kill.

You have a dusty scale to measure out your meat at the market that charges you 25 cents more than it should.

But is that really an abomination before Yahweh?

And yes, it is, because God is a source of truth, and even dust on the scale is contradistinct from truth.

Ultimately, it's about God's sovereignty.

Ultimately, it's about God's sovereignty.

Verse 2, and pride comes before disgrace, where the humble is wisdom.

The humble person lowers himself before the authority of God.

The proud person elevates himself above the authority of God.

Now you know how that story will end.

Uh we'll have our own message on pride in the book of Proverbs later, but you know how the proud person ended.

It doesn't go well.

That's a theme throughout all the Bible.

The Lord brings the proud person low.

This morning in scripture reading and in worship service, we read what, Daniel 4, right, where Nebuchadnezzar lost his mind because he elevated himself above everything else in the world, and God drove him out into the wilderness.

Pride comes, then the fall.

That's the pattern.

It is the humble person who submits himself to the word of God.

So, generally speaking, remember, all Proverbs are generally speaking, they're not promises.

Generally speaking, it is wise to live in accordance with the way God made the world.

Generally speaking, the way God made the world reflects truth.

Generally speaking, sinners go against that, and so they have a hard time in this world.

And generally speaking, the humble person in verse 2 submits himself to the way God made the world and finds that he's swimming with the current now instead of against it, generally speaking.

Of course, there's persecution against Christians in the world.

Of course there is, and we'll look at some passages about that tonight, too.

But generally speaking, when you live your life in accordance with truth, things go well with you.

But there are people who don't like the way things are in the world, like Joseph's brothers.

They had a different plan for their life.

They think they should be in a different class than they are, they should have different more money than they do.

They just think the truth should correspond to them more than them to truth.

They don't like something.

Maybe they don't like something that happened at work, so they lie about it.

They don't like something that happened in their childhood, so they lie about that.

They wish they were from somewhere else, so they lie about where they're from.

They wish they had a different job than they do, so they lie about that.

They lie about silly things.

You know, maybe you've had somebody lie to you about seeing a movie.

Did you ever see this and they say yes?

And then through the conversation you realize they've never seen it.

Why in the world would you lie about whether or not you've seen a movie?

Because they kind of wish they did.

They were just at that moment, they're not thinking this out, but at that moment they think, you know what?

I kind of wish I was the kind of person that could say yes to that question.

So, yes, there you have it.

I love that you guys laugh at that.

I mean, that is normal worldly behavior right there.

Behind it is this idea that you are not satisfied with your life.

When a person rebels against their situation in life, they steal.

When they rebel against a situation that happens to them, they lie about it.

That's why Proverbs 13, verse 5 says, the righteous hates falsehood, but the wicked bring shame and disgrace.

Proverbs 13:5

The righteous person rejects what is false, hates it even, because it's against God.

The righteous person hates lies in all of their flavors.

But the wicked will bring shame and disgrace.

Why will they bring shame and disgrace?

Because the wicked follow lies.

They'll heap lies upon their head, and they'll eventually be exposed.

So, what kind of things do people lie about then in the book of Proverbs?

What kind of things do people lie about?

I'm going to give you, I think, four or five as we go through tonight.

The first is people lie, there's lies about acts.

What I mean by that, there's lies about things that happened.

I was going to say facts, but I guess all lies are against facts, or all lies are against truth.

What I mean specifically here are these there's a whole section of Proverbs that are lies about things that happened.

So something happens and people lie about it.

I mean, really, it's just as simple as this Proverbs 14, verse 5.

Proverbs 14:5

A faithful witness does not lie, but a false witness breathes out lies.

Like that's what I'm talking about.

You see something, you're called to testify about it, a faithful person actually testifies about it.

A false witness lies about it.

A faithful person is brought before the judge and says what happened, even though it puts them in a bad light.

You know, you were texting when the other car ran the light, that car hit you, you lie about texting because you didn't, you don't want to expose you.

It was that guy's fault after all, anyway.

That makes you an unfaithful witness.

You're breathing out lies.

It's impossible for a judge as a third party to sort through what is you're saying is true and what you're saying is not true because ultimately all the facts aren't going to add up.

A righteous person doesn't do that.

A faithful witness just doesn't lie, tells truth even to his own harm.

Now, why would somebody tell truth if it's going to end up harming him?

Because he recognizes that big picture to tell the truth is to be in accordance with the will of God.

And that ultimately it will go better for him if he tells the truth.

There might be some immediate punishment for lying, I mean for telling the truth.

There might be an immediate punishment.

You lie and you confess to something that you did wrong that you could have covered up, and now you've told the truth about it, now you're going to be punished for it.

There's an immediate punishment, sure, of course.

But you recognize, the faithful person recognizes that, zoom out a little bit, a year from now, five years from now, ten years from now, or in eternity, my life will be better by living in accordance with truth.

And so the faithful person doesn't lie.

In contrast, the false witness breathes out lies.

There are several other verses that say the same thing.

Proverbs 21, verse 28, a false witness will perish.

Proverbs 21:28

But the word of a man who hears will endure.

In other words, the false witness says he's going to die.

That's where his story ends.

And his place as a liar is in the lake of fire.

But the man who hears, and here hearing is talking about truth.

And in the context of Proverbs 21, specifically it's talking about rebuke and correction.

The person who puts himself under rebuke is conforming his life into the direction of the Word of God.

He's submitting to the will of God, and he's going to endure.

The Lord rises up the humble and crushes the proud.

That's another way of saying the same thing.

Proverbs 13, 17 a wicked messenger falls into trouble.

But a faithful envoy brings healing.

A wicked messenger?

Why would a messenger be wicked?

Why would a messenger lie?

Because he doesn't like what happened.

He wants to change it.

Maybe he wants to make himself the hero of the story.

And of course, your mind has got to go here to the death of Saul.

When the messenger runs to tell David and elevates his own role in Saul's death, makes it sound like he's the one who dispatched Saul as an act of mercy.

And remember what happens to that dude?

David kills him.

He was a little bit too happy for his version of the story.

And, you know, you read that, you know, we live in a culture that loves lies.

So we read that story, and isn't our first as an American, isn't our first instinct when we read 2 Samuel 1 and we see the messenger put to death, we're like, but he didn't actually kill Saul.

He just said he did.

Killing him is a total overreaction.

You're believing his story.

You're believing a story.

A wicked messenger will fall into trouble.

Maybe he won't get killed.

But the faithful messenger will bring healing, even if it's bad news.

Even if it's bad news.

It ultimately will work in accordance with God's will for God's purposes.

Proverbs 14, 25.

A truthful witness saves lives.

The one who breathes out lies is deceitful.

The witness who tells the truth will ultimately end up saving lives.

The one who sounds the alarm for judgment, use Ezekiel's language, sounds the alarm from the wall, that's gonna rouse people and says the building's on fire.

That's gonna get people out.

But the one who breathes out lies is deceitful.

Bottom line, things that took place that don't accord with our plans for life and happiness, the liar says they must be altered.

The witness who sees things even though they might be harmful or hurtful to their own reputation, their own pride, but speaks the truth about them, is speaking in accordance with God's will.

And is going to be blessed.

And is going to be used by the Lord.

If your happiness comes from an alterated version of truth, you are a liar.

And you're not going to be happy either.

If your happiness comes from delighting in who God is, then you're going to be more comfortable with the truth, even if it brings temporary temporary problems.

Well, one thing people lie about is acts.

Another thing people lie about, people will often lie about cash.

They tell tell lies about their money.

They tell lies about their money.

And this there's an order to the way I put these here.

They're not happy with the way the world is, so they lie about it.

But even a more narrow category of that is they lie about their money.

And you're back to the scales here.

You know, you just want a little bit of extra money.

You think you're the meat you're selling is worth a little bit more.

The figs you're selling are worth a little bit more than the going rate, and so you have an unjust balance, of course.

Verse 3 of chapter 11, the integrity of the upright guides them, but the crookedness of the treacherous destroys them, then we're talking about that.

But then look at verse 4.

Riches don't profit in the day of wrath, but righteousness delivers from death.

You know, the the person who is not happy with their life often places their lack of contentment in money and thinks if I had more money, then I would be happier.

And this is not just the quintessential American dream, it's the quintessential Israelite dream.

Remember, in Solomon's day, there was money everywhere.

Silver was as common as stones.

You know, if you saw like a block of silver on the ground, you wouldn't pick it up because it's like a it's like a penny right now.

You know, whatever.

It's not worth it.

Two blocks of silver, maybe I'll get two of them.

They were flush with cash.

And nevertheless, people still blame their lack of happiness on their lack of funds.

You see this in the end of the book of Haggai.

Remember in Haggai, people won't rebuild the temple because they don't have enough money.

And so God blesses them with more things, but they spend it on themselves.

And the language Haggai uses is they're walking around with holes in their pockets.

They get holes in their pockets.

It wasn't true.

The thing about them not having enough money, that wasn't true.

They had enough money.

But you know, you never you never have enough money, right?

You think if I just had a little bit more, you know, the guy with one camel, a camel with one hump wants a camel with two humps.

And then he gets Camel two humps, he needs a garage for it.

And for long, he needs a two-camel garage.

Now he's got to feed his camels organic feed so they live longer.

And he need the second servant for the camel, so there's somebody always watching them, you know?

It always grows in the American culture.

It always grows.

You know, first you'll be happy if you just have the minivan and the garage for the minivan, and then the right soccer team for the kids in the minivan to play on, and all this costs money.

So people pursue money to make them happy.

Twice in Proverbs, almost the identical verse, twice Proverbs 20, verse 10, and then again in verse 23, unequal weights and measures are both alike and an abomination to Yahweh.

Proverbs 20:10

And that's plus chapter 11, verse 1.

And so, really, three times in Proverbs, you have the same verse.

And that's what's behind it.

This idea that people are seeking money to make them happy.

It's idolatry, it's rank idolatry.

And again, it's not in conformity with the way God made the world.

And you see that very clear in Proverbs 28, verse 25.

Proverbs 28:25

The greedy stir up conflict.

But those who trust in Yahweh will prosper.

The person who's not content with where they are becomes greedy, and now they're going against the stream of God's design for the world.

They're swimming upstream, and that's going to cause strife.

It's going to cause conflict.

If there's 12 of you that are all have the same job and you're all paid the same, but you want more in your salary, how do you approach your boss and ask?

You don't want the other 11 people to find out you asked.

Unless you're asking for all 12 of you, but then you just do a quick math.

You know, if there's this much money to spend and I get all of it, I get this much raise that that divided by 12 doesn't mean anything.

And so you're deceitful when you ask for the raise or you try to cover it up.

And when it gets exposed, it causes conflict on your team.

It causes conflict with whatever you're doing at work.

It strains your working relationships and all that's knit together.

And what's behind that is you're not content with what you make.

Meanwhile, those who trust in Yahweh who say, I'm okay with the way things are going right now because it's God's will, I'm content in the Lord, they're going to be the ones that end up prospering ultimately.

The contrast of verse 4, riches do not prosper in the day of wrath.

You can't take it with you.

You'll be judged.

When the wicked, verse 7, in Proverbs 11, dies, his hope will perish.

And the expectation of wealth perishes too.

The dead person doesn't get his raise.

In other words, you have to really like the way Solomon words these, don't you?

The wicked person, he's gonna die.

No more raises for him.

It's true.

That's why it's a proverb, you know?

It's true.

It just corresponds with the way the world works.

The guy keeps living for the next paycheck and then he's dead.

That's the way it goes.

They lie about cash because they're not content with the world.

Thirdly, they lie about their station.

What I mean by station here is they lie about, you know, where they were where they were born, they lie about what kind of person they are, what kind of job they have.

They don't like where they are.

We don't have, strictly speaking, a class-oriented society.

And I recognize that some of these concepts are twisted to justify slavery, you know, to tell slaves if you were born into slavery, you should just be happy to stay as a slave and trying to get out of slavery as a rebellion against God's plan for your life, because if you didn't want you to be a slave, you wouldn't have been born a slave.

Like people said that.

That goes against teaching in the New Testament.

Remember, 1 Corinthians 7.

Well, in addition to going against all the passages about slavery, which is for another time, it goes against 1 Corinthians 7, where Paul very clearly tells the slaves, if you have an opportunity for freedom, take it.

Take it.

So take that section out and just deal with talking.

I'm talking to you guys here.

People lie because they're not happy about their station in life.

They're not happy with what kind of money they have, what kind of parents they have, what kind of country they're born into, what kind of opportunities they have.

Now, of course, somebody who works hard can get more money and more food, and that's the way God designed the world.

But there is no promise of the American dream in Proverbs that if you work really hard, you can totally change your situation in life and climb from bottom to top.

That's not a promise.

In fact, in Proverbs, you climb from bottom to top by being humble at the bottom, and you'll eventually be elevated.

But that doesn't sit with a lot of people.

And so, Proverbs 11, 18.

The wicked earns deceptive wages, but one who sows righteousness gets a sure reward.

The wicked earns deceptive wages, but the one who sows righteousness gets a sure reward.

The wicked is lying to get more money.

In contrast with the righteous person who gets a sure reward.

Here's a very clear one about lying about your station.

Proverbs 13, 7.

One pretends to be rich yet has nothing.

Another pretends to be poor, yet has great wealth.

Some people will act richer than they are.

And you see this in the American culture.

You see it especially with cars, because you can get a car with almost no money.

You know, car dealerships around the end of the month are so desperate to unload cars, they're like, leave your tennis shoe as collateral.

It's good with us, man.

You roll out there in some kind of BMW 7 series with$50 down.

And everybody, your neighbors think, oh, he must have got a race.

He must be wealthy.

You know, you really should flip that on your head.

You know, you see your neighbor with a nice car and you're tempted to think, oh, they must have so much money.

You know, flip that on their head.

You see your neighbor with a nice car, you should really think, oh man, they must have so much debt.

How foolish that person is to have that car.

How foolish.

One pretends to be rich, yet has nothing.

I used to work at a BMW dealership, and you know, there was a very strict hierarchy there when somebody showed up to buy a car.

Um if they looked like the real deal, the sales manager got there first, and then the salesman more or less in order of you know hierarchy.

If they look like a total poser, like a college student or whatever, then they would send out one of the, you know, the lot keepers, like one of the interns in sales, like the guy who's on the computer looking for used cars from Canada or something.

That guy has to go deal with the person who's looks like he's gonna be a punk.

And you can always misjudge it.

You know, you'll see the person in the nice fancy suit, and you do the credit check, and he's got, you know, like 400 credit score.

And you see the guy who walks in with overalls and you know, dirt on his hands and you know, just oil stains on his pants, and you're like, I'm not gonna go talk to that dude.

And he ends up buying some, you know, he owns a whole farm of a million acres or whatever, and he ends up rolling out of there in the most expensive car in the lot.

And the sales intern is like, yes.

There's a proverb about that.

Some people pretend to be rich, they don't have anything.

You know, there was uh an idiom that the sales manager taught us at the BMW dealership.

The more somebody talks about their money, the less they have.

Just remember that.

Proverbs 13, 7 captures that.

And what does the rich person do?

He downplays his wealth.

The one with actual money downplays his wealth.

The one who's opposer elevates his wealth.

Proverbs 12, 13 says something similar.

Whoever is wicked covets the spoil of evildoers, but the root of the righteous bears fruit.

That gets to the heart issue.

The wicked person, man, he's he wants anything ill-gotten.

But the right the righteous, the root of the righteousness, is what bears fruit.

Not the ill-gotten gain, but the heart of righteousness is going to be fruitful in his life.

This is why verse 13 of Proverbs 12 an evil man is ensnared by the transgression of his lips, because he's lying.

The righteous person escapes from trouble.

From the fruit of his mouth a man is satisfied with the good, and the work of a man's hand comes back to him.

So you get kind of all them grouped together.

I know my categories are somewhat arbitrary, right?

Like where do you draw the line between lying about facts and lying about cash and lying about your station?

They're all three are in Proverbs 12, 13 through 14.

You've got the dude being a false messenger, lying about what has happened, that's gonna get him into trouble.

You've got the guy who wants more money, so he's coveting the spoil in verse 13, that's gonna get him in trouble.

But ultimately, the righteous person is content with his situation in life.

It's his work that's gonna come back to him.

He's content with who he is and how God made him.

Next category: people lie about justice.

They lie about justice.

And you need kind of a working definition of justice here.

God made the world, first of all, within he made the world, there were no courts, there was no governments, there was no laws.

Don't eat the one tree was about the extent of the law they got.

People rebelled against that, the world was engulfed by violence, murder, treachery.

Until after the flood, after the flood, God establishes a new order.

Whoever sheds man's blood by man's hand shall his blood be shed.

It's a new order.

Proverbs 12, verse 17.

Proverbs 12:17

Whoever speaks the truth gives honest evidence, but a false witness utters deceit.

When you speak the truth, you're acting in accordance with justice.

What you say is going to be used by justice, which is how God is checking evil in the world.

So the person who is a false witness in court is perverting justice, is undercutting the way God is suppressing evil in the world.

You want the world to be like the pre-flood era, then lie in court.

You want the world to be like it was when violence ran everywhere, then don't give an honest answer to the government.

A false witness utters deceit.

And it's perverting justice.

It's lying about justice.

And it goes back to contentment.

You're not content with the way God made the world.

You don't want justice enacted.

You want to subvert justice or get around it, even when it's towards you.

Proverbs 17, 13 captures this really well.

The wicked accepts a bribe in secret to pervert the ways of justice.

That's what's going on.

The wicked person doesn't want justice to be enacted.

And if he can make money on it, even better.

He cares more about greasing his own pockets than he does about justice.

I used to live in Mexico, and a common thing where I was in Mexico outside of uh Tuxel Gutierrez, southern Mexico, a common thing was for the police to pull you over, especially cars with out-of-state plates.

They'd pull them over and they would tell them you have to pay the fine and you have to follow them to the police station.

Okay, so at some point you're supposed to cave in, and the police would justify it by saying, Oh, we're just charging fines to the out-of-state plates for using our highways here that our local people paid for.

That was the way they justified it.

I'm not sure many of those fines made it to the highway department.

Well, those guys had nice police cars, I'll tell you that.

So you follow them to the police station.

They drive to and fro around the streets, and supposedly you're supposed to give in at some point and just offer them to, oh, can you just take it for me and be done with it?

But if you didn't want to do that, you do they would whine drive you up and down the roads to the most random fields, the most circuitous routes imaginable.

Like an hour later, you're still driving in a circle around the town.

They just want your money.

They don't care about justice.

That's what Proverbs 17, 23 is about.

If justice is a tool the Lord has implemented to rule his people, a person who lies doesn't care about that.

The reason they don't care about that is because they want their own cash.

Now, the flip side of this is also true, and Proverbs recognizes we lives in a fall, we live in a fallen world.

So about bribes, real quick.

Proverbs 17, verse 8.

Proverbs 17:8

A bribe is like a magic stone in the eyes of the one who gives it.

Wherever he turns, he prospers.

Proverbs gets both sides of the equation.

Some cop is leading you on like a, you know, a one-hour drive through the fields.

If you give him the bribe, you're free.

You can get out of there.

Proverbs 17 isn't saying that's a good thing to do.

It's just saying there's some circumstances you are in where it's what has to happen for you to get on your way.

The guy who takes it, of course, is going to be judged by the Lord, but sometimes you find yourself in that situation.

Both are taught in Proverbs, and wisdom is knowing how to apply them.

But you can see why a king would be very upset about this dynamic, wouldn't you?

If you're in charge and you have the kind of people that have to take, have to give bribes, and this is true in our own nation.

I said Mexico earlier, but when they built the Nat Stadium, I was reading a story about how much it cost them to build the stadium, and like 20%, the guy like straight up in his business proposal, the owner of the Nats said that something like 20% or whatever of the money went to uh local resource allocation, is what he called it.

Greasing the skids in DC to get the stadium approved.

You know, our country works the same way, but the people who pay it will end up prospering, assuming owning the Nats is a prosperous situation.

The government is not going to be happy with this.

This is captured in Proverbs 19 28.

A worthless witness mocks justice.

The mouth of the wicked devours iniquity.

Contrast, Proverbs 16, verse 13, righteous lips are the delight of the king.

Proverbs 16:13

Man, he loves him who speaks what is right.

The king just the king wants someone to tell him the truth.

A good king, anyway.

But if you got people taking bribes and lying about justice, then you don't even know what's happening.

And so people lie about justice because they would rather get away with it for the moment than be a blessing to the king.

So how do you battle all these temptations in your own life?

The solution to all of this is contentment.

The solution is contentment.

You see this in Proverbs 11, verse 8, if you're still open today, the righteous man is delivered from trouble.

Proverbs 11:8

He'll be delivered from it.

Your hope is in God.

You're not, it's not going to perish when you die, like verse 7 says, but verse 8, you're just ultimately delivered from all of this.

The righteous person avoids all of the trouble with the king.

He avoids all the trouble with the bribes.

He avoids all the trouble with the lies and the truth.

He doesn't have to worry about what's going to happen to the messenger if he says this or that, because he just says what happens and trusts the Lord.

He's content.

And the book of Proverbs kind of wraps up with that point in Proverbs 20 and 20.

A faithful man will be adorned with blessings, but whoever listens to the rich will not go unpunished.

A faithful man, he's going to be robed with more integrity than the rich guy.

The rich guy's going to die and be punished by God, but the faithful guy, he has so many blessings.

Because he didn't get them by lying.

I mean, you want to be blessed?

Tell the truth.

Even if it's uncomfortable for the moment, tell the truth.

You see all this put together in Proverbs chapter 12.

Proverbs 12 · chapter mention

I want you to turn over to Proverbs chapter 12, starting in verse 19.

Proverbs 12 · chapter mention

Truthful lips endure forever.

It's not hyperbole.

The person who speaks the truth is conforming his Jesus way, the truth of life in the Old Testament.

The truthful lips will endure forever.

They have eternal life.

A lying tongue is only for a moment.

It's gone when the guy dies.

Deceit is in the heart of those who devise evil, but those who plan peace have joy.

Notice that language, those who plan peace.

The guy with the evil heart is going to be undone by it.

But you want a peaceful life, just plan truth.

You'll have joy.

It's more joyful to delight in the truth with little than it is to have an abundance through deceit.

And that's because of verse 21.

Nothing ill will befall the righteous, but the wicked will always be filled with trouble.

Verse 22, lying lips are an abomination to Yahweh, but those who act faithfully are his delight.

That's the reality.

You want to be an abomination to God, then you go against him, you fight against his will, and you won't be remembered.

You want to have peace in this world and joy in the next and conform your life to God's truth.

Proverbs 30, verse 8, kind of at the end of the written Proverbs, the sundry Proverbs and Proverbs, it closes out with this Proverb, which is kind of a good capstone.

Proverbs 30:8

Proverbs 11 starts it, Proverbs 30, verse 8 can close it.

Proverbs 30:8

Remove far from me falsehood and lying.

This is such a good prayer.

Remove far from me falsehood and lying.

Give me neither poverty nor riches.

Feed me with the food that is needful for me.

That's a happy heart right there.

Lord, I I'm not saying I don't want to be rich, but I'm definitely saying I don't want to lie to get rich.

Because it's just got so much troubles with it.

So much troubles.

Lord, feed me.

Feed me.

I don't want to be poor.

I don't want to have to steal, so feed me.

Feed me with what I need, and I'll be happy.

Keep lying and falsehood far away from me.

A person who says that is a truly content person, and their life is in conformity with God and in his word.

Lord, we're thankful that the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God through faith in Christ is eternal life.

Because our sins are forgiven, we delight in the truth.

Jesus rose from the third day, on the third day, so we preach that as truth.

Your Spirit convicts us of sin, so we confess our sins truthfully one to another and then to you.

We confess our sins honestly.

We don't want to hide things, Lord.

We know there is spiritual growth where things are exposed, so keep us from deceit.

We delight in you and your goodness and your plans for our life.

Amen.

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

Thanks for joining us.

If you're in the Washington, D.C.

area, I would love to see you at Emanuel Bible Church.

For more information on our church or our current service times, go to IBC.church.

For more information about the Master Seminary and their Washington, D.C.

location, go to TMS.edu.

I hope this resource has been a blessing to you and it helps you seek the Lord daily, serve others around you, and share the gospel with boldness.