Episode Transcript
Proverbs chapter 14, verse 34.
Proverbs chapter 14, verse 34.
The title message tonight is the highs and lows.
We start with the word righteousness in verse 34.
Righteousness.
And remember, the word righteousness means that which is right.
Is when people do what is right.
But in order to have righteousness, there must be an unquestionable standard. of right and wrong.
There must be an absolute, unchanging, and authoritative boundary.
Within which you know when you are right and when you cross that boundary when you are wrong.
And without this clear and authoritative standard, there would be no righteousness.
All there would be would be personal preference. which would change from person to person and from day to day.
But fortunately, we do have a fixed, authoritative standard of right and wrong.
In Genesis chapter 1, verse 14, God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven.
To divide the day from the night, and let them, those lights, be for signs and for seasons.
And for days and years, my mother gave me a beautiful clock to hang on the wall years back with a pendulum that swings.
And in the past year or so it hasn't been keeping time very well.
So I replaced the motor in it recently.
And it keeps time perfectly again.
And I put new hands on it, new motor. and that pendulum back and forth, and each time that pendulum swings, it moves those hands a little bit further, a little bit further.
But when I look at that clock, it's the hands and the pendulum that are for the time, for the telling of time.
And all my attention's focused on those hands.
And when God put those lights, the sun, the moon, the stars in the heavens.
He did them for signs.
We see those signs in the book of the Revelation.
We see them in the book of Matthew as well.
You see them when Christ was born.
And for seasons, and also for days, and then those days accumulate into years.
We have to understand that, like the hands on that clock, the sun and the moon are the standard of what a day and a week and a year are.
We have solar calendars, we have lunar calendars.
But there's not 24 hours in a day just because somebody, some king a while back Gave a law that there's going to be 24 hours in a day.
There's 24 hours in a day because it takes 24 hours for the earth.
To rotate around in a circle like this.
But the key is we determined that day.
As it rotates in relation to the sun, this object, not in relation to anything else.
You know, when the sun, when the earth rotates in relation to stars, is not the same amount of time as when it rotates in relation to the earth.
But God put that sun there as a standard.
We rotate once In relation to the earth, I'm sorry, in relation to the sun, that's a day.
We go around it like that, and that's a year.
And God put those there for fixed standards.
Or else we wouldn't know what a day was, or what a week was, or what a year was.
It would be all subjective, but we know exactly what it is.
When someone asks us how old we are, we can tell them exactly how old we are because of that fixed standard that God has given.
So we're thankful for that.
And in the same way, if there was no sun, there could be no day.
And if there was no God, there could be no righteousness, because God is the fixed standard of right and wrong.
Speaking of Jesus in the book of Jeremiah, I love this.
Speaking of Jesus in the book of Jeremiah, the Old Testament, the Bible says, quote, in his days, Judah shall be saved, and Israel shall dwell safely, and this is his name whereby he shall be called, the Lord our righteousness.
God isn't simply a righteous person.
God is righteousness.
We see in the Bible that God is love.
We see in the Bible that God is light.
You know what else God is?
He's righteousness.
The great thing is, he's our righteousness.
It's even better.
Not righteousness that belongs to something else or is given to someone else, but he's our righteousness.
And so since God is righteousness, then righteousness is godly.
Make sense?
And righteousness, therefore, is that which aligns with God's character.
In righteousness, the Bible says, takes an action.
It has verbiage.
Righteousness does something.
And what is that next word?
Righteousness, what?
It exalts.
See it?
Look in your scripture.
Righteousness exalteth.
So righteousness has the quality of exalting.
That means elevating.
It has a quality of lifting something up.
The Bible says in the book of Genesis chapter 14, verse 18, we're going to see why righteousness lifts up.
Genesis 14, 18, and Melchisedech, king of Salem, brought forth bread and wine, and he was the priest of the most High God.
Now, why would righteousness lift something up?
Why does it exalt or raise up?
Because God is righteousness.
What else is God?
He's high, isn't he?
He's as high as you can go.
And so that means righteousness is as high as you can go, right?
Because God is righteousness.
So those who do righteousness do what?
They ascend.
It's just the nature of righteousness.
God is righteousness, and God is Most High, and those two things cannot be separated one from the other.
So righteousness by its divine nature is elevated.
Therefore, when someone does righteousness, they are elevated as well.
It's beautiful.
You can't be righteous without being exalted any more than you can fly a plane without being above the ground.
Righteousness exalts.
And in our text tonight, righteousness exalts.
A nation.
A nation.
Now the Hebrew word translated nation here is literally speaking about somebody's back.
And that may sound a little strange, I know, but we use the same idea in our English language all the time, not just in the Hebrew.
If we squeeze a group of some thing together, such as songs, for example, if you were to squeeze a group of songs being played on the radio, you would say they were played how?
Back to back.
And so when you look at the word nation here, you're looking at people squeezed together.
You're looking at a group of people.
So righteousness exalts a group of people.
And in this case, it's used, it's translated as nation.
And by the way, this is the same Hebrew word that's often translated as Gentile or heathen.
When I grew up, if someone wanted to say something ugly about someone, they say that old heathen.
Well If you're in a people group, and that's a heathen.
That people group is a heathen.
Except they didn't always pronounce it properly.
They used to say heathen or something, or Gentile.
It's the same word.
Gentile means a people group, back to back, a people group.
And when you look at the word.
Gentile or nations, you're looking at that assembly of people groups.
Genesis 10:32.
These are the families of the sons of Noah.
Now, this is before the Jews, right?
After their generations.
Now, let me get them all trusty.
Brother Neil, are you the one that got me this?
I thought so.
I'm still using it, brother.
These are the families of the sons of Noah after their generations.
In their nations, that's our word tonight.
Righteousness exalts a nation, exalts a Gentile, a heathen, whatever.
And by these were the nations divided.
So, same word here, nations.
Now I want you to watch the association in the language.
It's beautiful.
When you see nations, think of the word Gentiles because it's the same thing.
Can you picture the word Gentile in your mind right now?
G-E-N-T-I-L-E-S?
Now watch.
Slip up here from this.
G E N Generation Generate.
Right?
So when we think of being born again, we call it a regeneration.
To generate means to bring forth, right?
And so when you're looking at a gen tile, You're looking at people who have been brought forth, people groups who have been born and then assembled together.
That's all it is.
Righteousness exalts.
A group of people.
It doesn't matter if they're Jews.
It doesn't matter Gentiles, the reason that non-Jews are often referred to as Gentiles.
If you'll look here, as we're looking here in Genesis 10, these are the families of the sons of Noah after their generations in their nations.
Now the Jews belong to those nations.
Because Abraham came out of that, right?
Abraham came from Noah just like the rest of us.
But what happened is this: the reason they're called Jews and not referred to as Gentiles.
Is because God called them out of the nations so that they would no longer be identified as the sons of Adam.
But when you look in the book of Exodus, God said, Israel is my firstborn.
That's what he told Pharaoh.
The beautiful thing is this.
God called them out of those nations.
And you know what the word church means?
It's ecclesia, and that means called out.
So we also have been called out of those nations.
That's why in Christ there's neither Jew nor Greek.
We're all called out.
But righteousness exalts a nation.
It exalts any people group.
And therefore, it exalts any person, any individual.
It's a wonderful, wonderful truth.
All life was.
Generated by God, Gentile, generated by God, who is righteous, thus, righteousness exalts all people.
So it doesn't matter what people, group, what country, what family, clan, or tribe you belong to, righteousness will exalt your nation.
You can have a group of people who are dumb as a rock, and righteousness will exalt them.
If they follow the principles of God's word, it's going to happen.
You can have an individual who's been morally bad in the past, completely uneducated.
But if that person will take hold of God's word, and if they'll follow it with all of their heart, they will, by the grace of God, rise to be a person worthy of honor and respect.
Whether a man or a nation, righteousness will exalt them.
A few nights ago, Tammy and I were listening to a historian speak about the fall of certain empires, in particular the Roman Empire, but he he addressed other empires as well.
And he seemed to think, he seemed to have the idea that these empires could have simply held their position in the world.
They could have just maintained their power forever had they only held to certain Economic policies.
No, it's righteousness.
That blesses a nation.
Now, why did God raise to power unrighteous nations?
So that he could punish other unrighteous nations.
But the reason they didn't sustain that power is because they themselves were not righteous.
And so, what God ends up doing in Scripture is punishing the one He used to punish somebody else.
He'll tell Israel, this is, I'm going to take this nation, I'm going to do this to you with that nation.
And after that, I'm going to do this to the nation that I use to do that to you.
He says that.
So the reason rising nations fail to continue to rise is because they fail to follow God's word.
That's why the kingdoms of this world continue to rise and fall.
And that's why the church Is going to be exalted above all people in the end, and then we're going to continue forever.
When Jesus comes, because we'll forever be righteous.
If you want to rise as a man or as a family or as a nation, then you simply need to obey God's word.
It's funny, but we talk about the time of someone's success, and we will call it their rise to power. or they went up the corporate ladder.
Isn't that something?
But when we speak of someone's failure, we speak of their fall.
Or they're going down, you know.
But righteousness exalts.
Sin, on the other hand, look back in your text, but sin And what is sin?
It's the opposite of righteousness.
Now, if sin is the opposite of righteousness, and righteousness raises up, then what does sin do?
It's going to bring down, that's right.
It's going to bring down.
So, sin, look in your text, is a reproach.
Now, when we think of the word reproach, we think of shame.
But the word reproach here, and it's true, it is shame.
The word reproach here comes from a Hebrew word that essentially means to be brought low.
It's most often translated as some form of kindness or mercy that's being shown.
It's just two times.
In the Bible, is it referred to as something like this, like reproach?
Usually it's kindness.
But if you'll remember when I've taught on the word kindness before in here, That Hebrew word, I've used the example because that Hebrew word that the word kindness comes from, it has the idea of stooping or bowing.
And I've used the illustration of God so high in His mercy and kindness, He stoops to help us in need.
And so that kindness has the idea of stooping down to help someone in need, like someone who's fallen.
With that in mind, When you stoop, you go low, don't you?
And so sin is a stooping to any nation.
Make sense?
Sin is a going down to any Nation.
So we understand righteousness raises, sin stoops.
If you'll get that in your heart and let it just be branded there in your mind, It will really help you through life.
This is an undeniable law.
Of morality.
Righteousness raises sin stoops.
You can't get around this any more than you can deny the fact.
We've got a steep stairwell that goes up there to our tech room.
And there's only so much you can do with stairs.
But I'll tell you one thing about stairs, and you can't deny it.
Stairs are either going to take you up or they're going to take you down.
It all depends on what you do with them.
The stairs are going to take you somewhere.
They'll take you up, they'll take you down, and in the same way, God's word is like those stairs.
It's going to take you somewhere.
It all depends on what you do with it.
God's word is either going to take you up, that's if you obey it, or God's word is going to take you down.
That is, if you disobey it.
And you can't just sit on the stairs and say, I'm not going to do anything, because God's Word commands us to be proactive about certain things, doesn't it?
So you can't just say, well, I won't do anything.
Well, if you do that, then you're not obeying God's word, therefore you're going down.
So here's a kingdom truth for you tonight.
You cannot obey Scripture without ascending, and you can't disobey it without descending.
You can't obey Scripture without ascending.
You can't disobey Scripture without descending.
Sin is a reproach.
It takes you down.
When we speak of someone being really bad, we may say they're low down, they're a low down person, or we may say they're low class.
But we think of the being low, and his righteousness exalts any group of people, any bunch of people at all.
Then sin is a reproach.
Look back to your text to any people.
You see?
Any people at all.
It doesn't matter.
I like how it says, not just to people, to any people.
It doesn't matter who you are.
Sin will bring you down.
Your country can have the greatest GDP.
You can have the best educated people.
You can have the strongest military, but sin will bring it down.
You can have the finest marriage.
But sin will bring it down.
You can have a wonderful church, but sin will bring it down.
Righteousness will raise and sin will stoop every time.
And with that, we'll close for tonight.
And Lord willing, take back up in our next verse, next Lord's Day.
Thank you, Father, so much for your precious word.
Thank you, Lord, because this is both a wonderful promise and a wonderful warning at the same time.
The stairs are before us, the stairs of your word.
Every commandment is a step.
Every promise is a step.
And Lord, we can take it in whichever direction, Father God, our willful obedience or willful disobedience takes us.
Father, I pray, I thank you, Lord, for the promise that obedience will always bring us up.
I thank you for the faithful warning that disobedience will always take us down.
We can never sin without stooping.
Though Satan promises, Lord, as he said in his own heart, I will ascend.
But Lord, we know he was cast down.
And Father, Lord, may we take that to our hearts and joyfully follow your word higher and higher.
In Jesus' precious name we pray.
Amen.
