God’s Wisdom For Human Government: Proverbs

This Tuesday is the 2024 election.

For those of you who haven’t already gone and early voted, you are going to be heading to a polling place on Tuesday, and you are going to be pulling the trigger for some candidate to take up the highest office in the American political system.

You are also going to be voting for congressional candidates, senatorial candidates, high court judges, and so many other positions.

You are going to be going to the polls and playing your part in choosing who is going to rule us for the next several years.

That is an unbelievably important responsibility. That is a sacred responsibility. We’re going to talk about that a little later in this sermon.

And so for those of you who weren’t planning on voting, I would strongly encourage you to rethink that.

I would strongly encourage you to go to the polls and add your voice to the chorus.

But in the midst of all of this, as we make our way through our Proverbs series, one of the issues that the book of Proverbs tackles is the government.

God’s word is not silent on the issue of government.

God’s word is not silent on what the government is, and what the government is for, and how the government works, and how to engage with the government as people living in a fallen and sinful world.

And what we are about to do is, we are going to open up the Proverbs and let the Creator of the universe shape our politics this morning.

Because the proverbs are a wealth of Godly wisdom for human government, and we are going to mine that Godly wisdom for human government together this morning.

We’re actually gonna have to split this into two sermons, because there is just too much here to cover all in one sermon—and that’s just the Proverbs!

But over the next 2 sermons, we’re going to mine God’s wisdom on what government is for.

We’re going to mine God’s wisdom about who belongs in government.

And we are going to mine God’s wisdom about how to live wisely in a fallen world filled with imperfect governments.

Sound good?

All right.

Let’s dive right in.

A Political System Coming Unglued

But before we can get into the meat of what God’s word has to say about politics, and government, and the rulers we place over us, we have to recognize just how badly we need God’s wisdom in these areas.

Because I don’t think we realize just how serious our situation is.

Know what I’m talking about?

Because as we go to the polls on Tuesday, we are not voting as members of a vibrant and flourishing nation, we are voting as citizens of a political system that is coming increasingly unglued.

You know what I’m talking about?

Our political system has come increasingly unglued.

And if that is news to you, then you need to pay closer attention.

We are in an era of decline. We are not in an era of prosperity.

64% of Americans believe that US democracy is in crisis and at risk of failing.

Only 22% of Americans trust the government in Washington to do what is right most of the time. That means almost nobody trusts the government to do the right thing in most situations.

67% of Americans say that they do not trust the people in our government to be ethical or trustworthy.

42% of young Americans feel that their vote doesn’t make a difference, so there’s no point doing it.

76% of Americans believe that political instability within the US is a bigger threat to our country than foreign adversaries. They’re not worried about China or Russia or Iran—even though those countries are literally constantly making threats against us and trying to destabilize us—they’re worried about political instability within the country. They’re worried that the country is going to collapse from the inside.

And 47% of Americans believe it is likely that there will be another civil war within our lifetime.

That is a portrait of a political system that is coming unglued.

That is a portrait of a political system that is coming apart at the seams.

And that’s a really scary thing to think about, but it shouldn’t be surprising.

Know what I’m talking about?

None of these things should be surprising.

It makes sense that we would feel this way, because we have spent the past several decades watching our political system fail us in almost every conceivable way.

You know what I’m talking about?

We have watched our political system fail us in almost every conceivable way over the past several decades.

Fifty Years of Political Failure

Just think about the last 50 years of our history as a nation.

We had the 1972 Watergate scandal. We learned the government was using its power to spy on its political opponents.

We had the 1985 Iran-Contra scandal. We learned the government was secretly funding terrorists in Iran and Nicaragua to overthrow their duly elected governments on the taxpayer’s dime.

We had the 1998 Clinton sex Scandal. We learned that the President of the United States was having an affair with a 19 year old white house intern in the oval office.

We had the 2005 Hurricane Katrina scandal, where the state of Louisiana was basically destroyed and the government did nothing. 19 years later, there are still people who were displaced by the hurricane who haven’t been restored to their homes.

We had the 2007 wiretap scandal. We learned that the government was wiretapping US citizens without a warrant.

We had the 2008 financial crisis. Government policy toppled both the housing market and the stock market so that millions of people lost their homes and their entire life savings. That’s why you have all those 80 year olds working as Wal-Mart greeters.

Why didn’t they save for retirement? They did. But the government lost all their money.

We had the 2013 IRS scandal. The IRS was caught illegally auditing conservative organizations and slapping them with heavy handed penalties on silly technicalities—all while turning a blind eye to left wing organizations doing all the same things.

We had the 2013 Obamacare scandal. During the government rollout of the new healthcare system, the website didn’t work, the coverage mechanism was finicky, and to this day millions of people who signed up still haven’t actually gotten the coverage they are legally entitled to by law.

We had the 2014 Flint Water scandal. They found dangerous amounts of lead in the Flint Michigan water supply, and countless people were found with lead poisoning as a result.

We had the 2010 Citizens United scandal. We learned that a tiny group of corporations fund almost all the political candidates from both major parties throughout the entire country—and as a result, normal people like you and me have almost no say over who actually ends up in the running.

We had the 2020 Covid-19 scandal. Some people blame Donal Trump and say he didn’t do enough early on, some people blame Joe Biden and Anthony Fauci for things like vaccine mandates, other people think the whole pandemic was blown way out of proportion by the government so they could seize more control over our everyday lives—but wherever you fall on any of that, the one thing almost everybody agrees on is that the government handled it the wrong way.

And amidst all this, we’ve had the shutdown crisis: There have been constant government shutdowns that just keep getting more frequent through the years. The 2018 shutdown lasted 35 days straight.

We’ve had the Supreme Court crisis. Almost every Supreme Court nominee in the past 15 years has been blocked by the opposing party—not because of anything related to their qualifications, but because the opposing party rejects them on political grounds.

We’ve had the impeachment crisis. Three presidents in the past 30 years have had impeachment campaigns brough against them.

And we’ve had the congressional crisis. We’ve watched the two major parties in Congress lose the ability to do anything together, and as a result, no meaningful legislation ever gets passed anymore, and so no serious problems ever get solved in the halls of Congress anymore.

And that’s just scratching the surface, isn’t it? We could name about 100 other things, couldn’t we?

But the result of all this is that through the years our faith in the American political system has been radically shaken.

Right?

Our trust in the American political system has eroded further and further and further with each new way that it has colossally failed us.

And we can see that in the fact that the American people have just kind of tapped out.

Know what I’m talking about?

The American people have just kind of decided to get off the train.

On the one hand, we have declining voter participation.

With each new election, a smaller and smaller percentage of the population actually bothers to go to the polls, because it just kind of feels like there’s no point.

And on another hand, we see that voters have flat out lost their trust in the electoral system, right?

Half the country believes the 2020 election was stolen. The other half of the country believes the 2016 election was stolen.

And on another-another hand, we see increasing political violence in the wake of these elections.

On the left, you have groups like Antifa and the Freedom Road Socialist Movement violently agitating and rioting.

And on the right you have groups like the Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers and Boogaloo violently agitating and rioting.

These are all symptoms of a deeply sick political system where the people have fundamentally lost trust in our own electoral system.

There is no other way to put all of this: Our political system has come unglued.

But the thing that we really need to drive home this morning is that it’s come unglued for a completely different reason than you think.

We Have Lost Sight of God’s Will for Government

There are a million different factors that we could point to to explain why our political system has been coming unglued for the last 50 years, but there is one reason that stands above all the other ones.

There is one reason that all of this roots back to, and that all the rest of these things flow out of.

And the reason is actually unbelievably simple: It’s because we have completely lost sight of God’s will for government.

I’m going to say that again.

Our political system has come unglued because we have completely lost sight of God’s will for government.

Our political system has come off its axis because we don’t want the God of the universe to reign over it.

You know what I’m talking about?

We have come to a place where we don’t just ignore God’s will for government, we actively reject and oppose God’s will for government.

America is in the position that it is because we don’t want the God of the universe to reign supreme in the halls of power.

Here’s a case in point: During Justice Amy Coney Barrett’s supreme court confirmation process Senator Dianne Feinstein objected to her nomination saying that her devout Catholic views have no place on the Supreme Court.

Here’s another one: During Russel Vought’s confirmation hearing for the role of Deputy Director of the Office of Management and Budget, Senator Bernie Sanders asked him if he believed in hell.

He said yes.

And Senator Sanders said, “There is no place in the Office of Management and Budget for views like yours.”

He said that Russell Vought was too Christian to handle mundane money issues.

We don’t just ignore God’s will for government, we flat out reject God’s will for government.

Let me ask you a very serious question: How could we possibly expect God to bless us if that our attitude?

The American political system is coming unglued because we have completely lost sight of God’s will for the government.

Which forces us to ask a really important question: What is God’s will for government?

Have you ever seriously asked yourself that before?

What is God’s will for government?

Not the Republicans’ will for government.

Not the Democrats’ will for government.

Not the founding fathers’ will for government.

What is God’s will for government?

What we’re gonna learn this morning is that we don’t have to wonder, because the Proverbs tell us exactly what God’s will for government is.

And we are gonna spend the rest of our time together this morning dead sprinting through a little bit of the wisdom that it offers to us.

Are you ready?

Here we go.

Government Exists to Promote Good and Restrain Evil

Before anything else, we need to talk about what government is for.

The Proverbs tell us that government exists to promote good and restrain evil.

Real quick, say that with me:

Government exists to promote good and restrain evil.

Proverbs 14 says:

“Righteousness exalts a nation,
but sin is a disgrace to any people.”
—Proverbs 14:34, WEB

Hold that in your head for a moment, and listen to Proverbs 11. It says:

“When it goes well with the righteous, the city rejoices.
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.”
—Proverbs 11:10–11, WEB

What is this saying?

It’s saying that a nation is exalted by righteousness, but it is disgraced by unrighteousness.

It’s saying that when a nation rewards the righteous, it brings about rejoicing and blessing and exaltation.

But when a nation promotes and caters to the wicked, it brings about its own destruction.

And because that is true, the government of that city or the government of that nation has a responsibility to promote the good and to restrain the wicked.

We see that in Proverbs chapter 20. It says:

“A king who sits on the throne of judgment
scatters away all evil with his eyes.”
—Proverbs 20:8, WEB

That proverb was written to kings.

It was written to rulers and for rulers.

And so if you were being raised up to be a ruler, they would have taught you that as a king or a judge or a ruler of any kind, it is your responsibility to seek out the evil in your community, to seek out the wickedness in your community, to seek out the injustice in your community—and fix it.

It’s your job to find where righteousness is not being done and fix it.

You have to restrain the wicked and promote the good.

And in the same way, Proverbs 22 says:

“He who loves purity of heart and speaks gracefully
is the king’s friend.”
—Proverbs 22:11, WEB

They would teach this proverb to people who were being raised up to be rulers, so that they would know, “You need to find the pure in heart and promote them.”

You need to find those who are gracious in their speech and promote them.

As king, as Judge, as ruler, you must be a friend to the pure and a friend to the righteous and a friend to the just—but you must never be a friend to the wicked.

That is the core, baseline purpose and responsibility of all human governments: Government exists to promote good and restrain evil.

Who Belongs in Government?

And because that is true, God’s word is extremely clear about who belongs in government—and who absolutely doesn’t.

Proverbs lays out a stunningly clear roadmap on what it means to be a worthy ruler.

We are gonna talk through some of this roadmap together this morning.

I’m just gonna dive straight in and start naming them off.

Are you ready?

Here we go.

1. If You Want to Be a Ruler, You Need to Be Righteous

I’m gonna say that again: The Proverbs tell us that if you want to be a ruler, you need to be righteous.

Here’s something that may seem obvious, or it may be shocking: The Proverbs tell us that the only way for a government to be righteous is to fill it with righteous people.

I’m gonna say that again: The only way for a government to become righteous is to fill it with righteous people.

I’m gonna say that one more time: The only way for a government to become righteous is to fill it with righteous people.

And that’s a hard thing to do.

Isn’t it?

But it’s worth it.

Because the Proverbs say that when the government is led by righteous people, beautiful things happen.

Listen to Proverbs 29:

“When the righteous thrive, the people rejoice;
but when the wicked rule, the people groan.”
—Proverbs 29:2, WEB

Now, we know the second half of that is true because we’ve been living under wicked rulers for decades, and we’ve been groaning as a result of it for decades.

Right?

But when the righteous increase in our government system, what happens?

We rejoice.

Aren’t you tired of not rejoicing?

Aren’t you tired of groaning?

I am.

But we can rejoice again if we seek out righteous people and then work to put them into our government.

We see that same thing in Proverbs chapter 20. It says:

“Love and faithfulness keep the king safe.
His throne is sustained by love.”
—Proverbs 20:28, WEB

What happens when the righteous rule?

What happens is that the people rejoice, because the nation begins to flourish.

What happens is that the nation begins to heal.

And the Lord upholds his throne, and the Lord prolongs his days.

There are so many good things that lie ahead of us as Americans, but all of those things require us to stop embracing wicked rulers and to start seeking out and supporting righteous, godly rulers instead.

That’s number one: If you want to be a ruler, you need to be righteous.

2. If You Want to Be a Ruler, You Need to Be Wise

Again: The Proverbs tell us that If you want to be a ruler, you need to be wise.

Proverbs eight says:

“By me kings reign,
and princes decree justice.
By me princes rule,
nobles, and all the righteous rulers of the earth.”
—Proverbs 8:15–16, WEB

They say that if you want a good ruler, you need a wise ruler.

You will not get a nation that flourishes when stupid people are running it.

This comes back to God’s design for the universe: God designed the universe to flourish when the wise rule and to suffer when idiots rule.

Which makes sense, doesn’t it?

How can a wise government flow out of a stupid governor?

How can wise policies come from stupid policy makers?

A cup can only spill what it contains, and that means that foolish rulers can only rule foolishly.

And that means that foolish rulers cannot truly promote the good or restrain the wicked.

They might have some coincidental success.

Sometimes this foolish ruler over here might do a little bit of good amidst the ocean of bad.

That foolish ruler over there might be a little better than this foolish ruler over here.

But they cannot heal our nation.

They cannot glue our political system back together.

All they can do is break it in different ways.

No.

All of the good things that lie ahead of us as a nation require us to stop tolerating fools in the halls of government—and instead seek out wise people and then place them in positions of power.

That’s number two: If you want to be a ruler, you need to be wise.

3. If You Want to Be a Ruler, You Have to Be a Truth-Seeker

That leads us to number three—and here’s where they start to sound a little weird, but bear with me: If you want to be a ruler, you have to be a truth-seeker.

Know what I’m talking about?

Proverbs says that if you want to be a ruler, you have to be a truth-seeker.

Proverbs 25 says:

“It is the glory of God to conceal a thing,
but the glory of kings is to search out a matter.”
—Proverbs 25:2, WEB

What is this talking about?

It’s talking about the fact that there are things out there that are difficult to understand.

There is wisdom out there that is difficult to attain.

There is knowledge out there that is difficult to grasp.

But if you are going to be a ruler, you have to be in the business of searching for it.

You have to be in the business of searching for the truth.

A ruler has to care about the difference between truth and falsehood.

Know what I’m talking about?

A ruler has to care what is true and what is not.

That’s a far cry from our current political system, isn’t it?

Right now, if you’re a ruler from this political party, you just take up the party’s talking points and you bark them out at every opportunity, whether they are true or not.

Right?

If you’re a Republican, you believe Republican talking points.

If you’re a Democrat, you believe Democrat talking points.

Problem is, a lot of Republican talking points are flat out lies, and a lot of Democrat talking points are flat out lies.

And so a genuine ruler has to be willing to say, “Forget the Republican and Democratic talking points—I want to know what’s true.”

A genuine ruler has to be willing to say, “I want to know what’s true, and I want to rule based on facts—not propaganda, not party talking points.”

All of the good things that lie ahead of us as a nation require us to stop tolerating liars who blur the line between truth and falsehood—and instead look for truth-seekers and then place them in positions of power.

That’s number three: If you want to be a ruler, you have to be a truth-seeker.

4. If You Want to Be a Ruler, You Have to Be Sober-Minded

Which leads us directly to number four: If you want to be a ruler, you have to be sober-minded.

Again: Proverbs tells us that if you want to be a ruler, you have to be sober-minded.

Listen to Proverbs 31. It says:

“It is not for kings, Lemuel;
it is not for kings to drink wine,
nor for princes to say, ‘Where is strong drink?’
lest they drink, and forget the law,
and pervert the justice due to anyone who is afflicted.”
—Proverbs 31:4–5, WEB

What is that talking about?

It’s talking about a couple things.

One, if you are going to rule a country, you need to literally be sober.

Because you can’t rule wisely when you’re drunk.

Right?

You can’t rule wisely when you’re high.

Intoxication impairs your judgment.

Which is a problem because if you are going to rule you need to have good judgment.

You need to make your governing decisions out of good judgment.

But that means that this actually goes way beyond intoxicating substances.

Doesn’t it?

This is not fundamentally about alcohol or drugs or anything like that.

Because you don’t have to be drunk to have bad judgment, do you?

You don’t have to be high to have skewed judgment.

No. This isn’t just about sobriety, it’s about sober-mindedness, and that basically comes down to your temperament, doesn’t it?

A ruler needs to have a sober minded temperament.

A ruler needs to be even-keel.

A ruler needs to be reasonable.

A ruler needs to not constantly overreact to everything.

A ruler needs to not be easily distracted.

And more importantly than anything, a ruler needs to be in control of their emotions.

Because if they’re not, then they are incapable of ruling with good, sound judgment.

And all of the good things that lie ahead of us as a nation require us to stop tolerating silly, hysterical, unstable people who can’t control their emotions long enough to exercise good judgment—and instead look for sober-minded people and then place them in positions of power.

That’s number four: If you want to be a ruler, you have to be sober-minded.

5. If You Want to Be a Ruler, You Need Wise, Godly, and Competent Advisors

And that leads us to the most important quality of all: If you want to be a ruler, you need to surround yourself with wise, Godly, and competent advisors.

I’m gonna say that again: The Proverbs tell us that if you want to be a ruler, you need to surround yourself with wise, Godly, and competent advisors.

There is no greater red flag than when a ruler surrounds themselves with Yes Men.

You cannot govern wisely if your entire cabinet is filled with people who will never say no to you.

You cannot govern wisely if all of your advisors are sycophants who want your approval and do whatever you say.

You need wise, godly, and competent advisors, even if that means they tell you things you don’t want to hear sometimes.

Listen to what Proverbs 29 says:

“If a ruler listens to lies,
all of his officials are wicked.”
—Proverbs 29:12, WEB

It says that if you’re a ruler and you surround yourself with wicked people, you are never going to be able to trust the counsel that they give you.

You see that same thing in Proverbs 25. It says:

“Take away the wicked from the king’s presence,
and his throne will be established in righteousness.”
—Proverbs 25:5, WEB

It’s saying that so many of the problems that we see in human governments come down to the fact that rulers surround themselves with advisors they should not trust.

They surround themselves with bad influences.

They surround themselves with evil men and women, and it sabotages their ability to rule well.

But it doesn’t have to be that way.

Because Proverbs 16 says:

“Righteous lips are the delight of kings.
They value one who speaks the truth.”
—Proverbs 16:13, WEB

That is once again a proverb written to people being raised up to rule.

It’s saying, “Look for people with righteous lips. Look for people who speak the truth. Look for people who are willing to give you hard truths and bad news, who are willing to tell you how it really is even if it’s unwelcome and you don’t want to hear it—that is who you need to surround yourself with. Those are the advisors you need to look for.”

All of the good things that lie ahead of us as a nation require us to stop tolerating weak, fragile, thin-skinned leaders who surround themselves with Yes Men—and instead look for people who surround themselves with good influences and then place them in positions of power.

That’s number five: If you want to be a ruler, you need to surround yourself with wise, Godly, and competent advisors.

Seeking Godly Rulers

And we have just barely scratched the surface, but those are five of the attributes that God’s word says every ruler must have.

Not should have.

Must have.

And the reason that we are spending SO much time talking about this is because our country has been falling apart in the absence of rulers like this.

The reason our country is in such bad shape is not because the wrong party keeps winning.

It’s because we haven’t been putting Godly men and women into power.

And because that is true, we won’t be able to fix our country just by getting the right party to win instead of the wrong party.

No.

The only way that we are ever gonna glue our country back together is if we start seeking Godly rulers.

Now, we are still only halfway through mining God’s wisdom for human government here in the Proverbs, and so we are gonna have to finish the second half next week.

Because next week we’re going to talk about our role in all of this.

We’re going to talk about how to live wisely in a world filled with imperfect—and often wicked—governments like our own.

We’re going to talk about how to live wisely in a world that does not have wise and righteous and godly leaders right now.

And so come back next week, because there is so much more territory within scripture that we still need to explore so that we can wrap our heads around God’s wisdom for human government and human politics.