Welcome to the Hackberry House of Chosun. My name is Bob and thanking you for listening and asking you to please look around the site. We've got over 3,500 audios featuring great preachers, persecutions, stories from North Korea and other lands, Bible studies. My books are on amazon.com and you can contact me at bob.j.faulkner.72 at gmail.com. Please check out the new website also. It allows you to tune into the new Hackberry Radio. Just go to hackberryhouseofchosun.com and take a look and a listen. We're doing Charles Bridges again today. His commentary on the book of Proverbs. We're on Proverbs chapter 29. Charles Bridges was a leader of the Evangelical Party in the Church of England. He died in 1869. Proverbs 29, verse one. A man who remains stiff-necked after many rebukes, will suddenly be destroyed without remedy. The intractable ox becomes stiff-necked as a result of the yoke being put on him, but being stiff-necked is an apt picture of the stubborn sinner casting off the restraints of God. Such instances are frequent among the children of godly parents or the hearers of a faithful minister, when every means of grace is a solemn but despised rebuke. Aggravated sin makes the judgment of a righteous God more manifest. The more enlightened the conscience, the more stiff-necked the person becomes. An alarming illness, a dangerous accident, the death of a companion in wickedness is the rod and reproof that is intended to give wisdom. But if the fool continues to despise all of God's rebukes, his destruction will be sudden and without remedy. Verse 2. When the righteous thrive, the people rejoice. When the wicked rule, the people groan. The robes of honor to the righteous are the garments of gladness to the people. The scepter of authority to the godly is the staff of comfort to the people. On the other hand, the vestments of dignity to the wicked are the weeds that make the people groan. The throne of command to the one is the dungeon of misery to the other. The titles of honor given to the one are sighs and sorrows wrung from the other. What but righteousness can truly bless either an individual, a family, or a nation? It is no peculiar conceit, but a matter of sound consequence, that all duties are so much the better performed by how much the men are more religious, from whose abilities the same proceed. For if the course of political affairs cannot in any good sort go forward without fit instruments, Let polity acknowledge itself indebted to religion, godliness being the chiefest, top, and wellspring of all true virtue, even as God is of all good things. Thus, admirably, does our great Mr. Hooker insist that religion, unfeignedly loved, perfects man's abilities to all kinds of virtuous services in the commonwealth. Speaking of England, of course. What need we have to thank God that our guilty country, with so much to humble us in shame, should have been so long spared from the curse of the wicked ruler? The tyrant rules for his own sinful ends, the Christian sovereign for the good of the people. Verse 3. A man who loves wisdom brings joy to his father, but a companion of prostitutes squanders his wealth. The substance of this proverb has been given before, and yet the variations are instructive. Now you can look in 10.1, 15.20, 23.15, and verses 24 and 25, 27.11, and 28.7. The wisdom is here more distinctly described as loving wisdom, for he is wise not only who has arrived at a complete habit of wisdom, but who does love it, or desire it, and listen to it. Let this be manifestly our great object, not as a good thing, but the best, the principal thing. By justice, a king gives a country stability, but one who is greedy for bribes tears it down. The best laws are of little use when they are badly administered. Partiality and injustice make them null and void, and yet it requires great integrity and moral courage to withstand the temptations of worldly policy and self-interest. The article in our Magna Carta, We Will Sell Justice to No One, is but too plain evidence of the recklessness of all social principles before the great standard was erected among us. Let men of God be in our high places, and righteousness will then exalt our nation, and our church will be the joy and praise of the whole earth. Verse five, whoever flatters his neighbor is spreading a net for his feet. Most wisely were Bunyan's pilgrims warned, beware of the flatterer. And yet, forgetting to read the note of directions about the day and the way, they fell into his net, and even though delivered, were justly punished for their folly. The doctrine of man's goodness, strength or freedom, innocent infirmities, venial offenses, softening down the statements of man's total corruption, a general gospel without application, its promises and privileges without the balance of its trials and obligation, all this is frightful flattery. Unwary souls are misled. Religious flattery is a common snare for the Christian. It may be natural, perhaps well-intentioned, to be willing to profit by more advanced experience, and to inquire of a brother by what means he has been able to rise above the ordinary level, and indeed to even express our envy at his superior knowledge, faith, or love. But all this tends to cherish self-complacency, the bane to that self-renouncing confidence in his Savior that is the clear characteristic of the faithful follower of his Lord. Surely it is enough for us to have foes within and without to contend with, without having snares for our feet laid by our fellow pilgrims. Oh, it is a cruel thing to flatter. The soul is often more exhausted and injured by disentangling itself from these nets than by the hottest contest with principalities and powers. Those who have once known the torture the believer undergoes while this poison is pervading his soul, the bitter, lowering medicines he must take as antidotes, the frightful oblivion of lessons of humility that he has been studying for years, will, I think, unless much under the influence of the enemy of souls, not administer the noxious potion a second time. Verse six, an evil man is snared by his own sin, but a righteous one can sing and be glad. There is always a snare in the ways of sin, always a song in the ways of God. A sinner, think for a moment, what are the pleasures of sin compared to the pleasures of paradise? Remember, sin and ruin are bound together, and who can separate them? Is it not worth pursuing this dishonorable evil to its sources, whether remote or close to hand? Are we incapacitated or only disinclined to sing? Seek a clearer exercise of faith, to rouse from indolence and to remove mistaken apprehensions. And in the active energy of faith, repent. Return, watch and pray, modify besetting sins. Inquire seriously, are the materials for our song passed away? Are not the countless mercies yet remaining enough to swallow up the most bitter circumstances? Let faith be used in putting them together and in counting them. Surely under the deepest gloom that could ever rest on the soul, the harp would be taken down from the willows, and the righteous would sing and be glad. To some Christians of a morbid temperament, Bernard's advice may be important. I quote, let us mingle honey with wormwood, that the wholesome bitter may give health when it is drunk tempered with a mixture of sweetness. While you think humbly of yourselves, think also of the goodness of the Lord. Augustine said that always there are evil days in the world, always there are good days in the Lord. Verse seven, the righteous care about justice for the poor, but the wicked have no such concern. To respect the poor is as important as to honor a mighty person. The man of God will follow the example of the great king of righteousness. Let him have the conscience first, says Bishop Sanderson, and then the patience too, and if he has the conscience, certainly he will have the patience, to search into the truth of things, and not be dainty of his pains herein, though matters be intricate, and the labor like to be long and irksome. Selfishness, however, not truth, justice or mercy, is the standard of the wicked. But fearful is it to sit in the place of God as his representative only to pervert his judgment for selfish aggrandizement. For he who rejects the complaint of the poor, and beats them off with big words and terror in his looks, either out of the hardness of his heart or the love of ease, when he might have leisure to give them audience if he were so minded, and to take notice of their grievances, cannot justly excuse himself by pleading, ìBehold, we knew it not.î Most striking was Bishop Ridley's concern for the poor, imploring the Queen in his last moments at the stake on behalf of certain poor men's leases in his bishopric likely to become void by his death. In the same noble spirit was the remembrance of the dying Scott to his son of the arrival of the season when he would plant a root for the supply of the poor. Verse 8, mockers stir up a city, but wise men turn away anger. The comparison here is between proud, haughty scorners, in Hebrew, men of scorn, and wise men. The one involves public injury, the other public blessing. The one raises a tumult, the other quells it. The man who scorns being bound by common restraint will stir up a city by his presumption or set it on fire by bringing the fire of divine anger upon it. Happily, wise men are scattered through the land, and their energy and prudence turns away divine wrath. Proud and foolish men kindle the fire that wise and good men must extinguish. Verse 9. If a man, a wise man, goes to court with a fool, the fool rages and scoffs, and there is no peace. It would generally be far better not to meddle with such a fool, as is here described. We can only deal with him on very disadvantageous terms, and with little prospect of a good result. But what if I am appointed to contend with such fools? Can I return their unreasonable provocation with tenderness and compassion? Yes, when as the most effective means for their benefit I commend them to the almighty and sovereign grace of God. Can I forget that if this grace has healed my deep-rooted stubbornness, it is no less rich, no less free, no less sufficient for them? Verse 10. Bloodthirsty men hate a man of integrity and seek to kill the upright. The noble army of martyrs stands before us. See the intensity of malice in the contrivance of the variety of their torture. Bloodthirsty men hate a man of integrity. The innocency of God's saints is the only ground for hatred. On the threatened apprehension of any outbreak of evil, the cry of the bloodthirsty was, the Christians to the lions. And yet God is not unmindful of the troubles that threaten his servants. Saul sought to murder David, but Jonathan protected him. Jeremiah's enemies plotted against him, but Ebed-Melech saved his life. Herod sought to kill Peter, but the church shielded him with her prayers. Verse 11, a fool gives full vent to his anger, but a wise man keeps himself under control. Indeed, the words of the fool, as an old expositor remarks, are at the very door, so to speak, of his mind, which, being always open, they readily fly abroad. But the words of the wise are buried in the inner recess of his mind, whence the coming out is more difficult. This is wisdom to be valued and cultivated. Verse 12. If a ruler listens to lies, all his officials become wicked. The influence of the ruler's personal character on his people involves a fearful responsibility. A wicked prince makes a wicked people. In his more immediate sphere, if a ruler listens to lies that are contrary to the laws of God and of love, he will never lack those about him who are ready to minister to his folly. Lies will be told to those who are ready to listen to them. All in authority must learn the lesson of responsibility. Let Christian ministers especially not only hold the truth in its full integrity and take heed that their character will bear the strictest scrutiny, but let them turn away from the fawning flattery of those of whose uprightness there is at best but doubtful proof. And verse 13, the poor man and the oppressor have this in common. The Lord gives sight to the eyes of both. The teaching of this proverb, as of one similar to it in 22.2, seems to be the real equality of the divine dispensations under apparent inequalities. While these two categories of people are so different, they have this in common. They are on the same level before God. However much men may differ, one may oppress and despise, another may complain about the oppressive ways of his rich neighbor, the Lord gives sight to the eyes of both. God is no respecter of persons. Both classes partake in His providential blessings. Both are the subjects of His divine grace, members of the same body, animated by the same spirit, appointed for the same inheritance, partakers of the same great and precious promises. There was not one prize for the soul of the poor and another for the rich. There was not one table for the meaner guests, the lower class, and another for the greater. The beggar Lazarus and the rich tax collector Matthew have met together in one common home. Both are the undeserved monuments of wondrous everlasting mercy. The eyes of both are enlightened spiritually and eternally. We'll finish chapter 29 next time we do Proverbs. Thank you again for being here. And this is the Hackberry House of Chosun. Lord willing, we'll talk again real soon. Bye-bye.