Let's turn in our Bibles now to Proverbs 11. Let's hear God's word. Dishonest scales are an abomination to the Lord, but a just weight is his delight. When pride comes, then comes shame, but with the humble is wisdom. The integrity of the upright will guide them, but the perversity of the unfaithful will destroy them. Riches do not profit in the day of wrath, but righteousness delivers from death. The righteousness of the blameless will direct his way aright, but the wicked will fall by his own wickedness. The righteousness of the upright will deliver them, but the unfaithful will be caught by their lust. When a wicked man dies, his expectation will perish, and the hope of the unjust perishes. The righteous is delivered from trouble, and it comes to the wicked instead. The hypocrite with his mouth destroys his neighbor, but through knowledge the righteous will be delivered. When it goes well with the righteous, the city rejoices, and when the wicked perish, there is jubilation. By the blessing of the upright, the city is exalted, but it is overthrown by the mouth of the wicked. He who is devoid of wisdom despises his neighbor, but a man of understanding holds his peace. A tale-bearer reveals secrets, but he who is of a faithful spirit conceals a matter. Where there is no counsel, the people fail, but in the multitude of counselors there is safety. He who is surety for a stranger will suffer, but one who hates being surety is secure. A gracious woman retains honor, but ruthless men retain riches. The merciful man does good for his own soul, but he who is cruel troubles his own flesh. The wicked man does deceptive work, but he who sows righteousness will have a sure reward. As righteousness leads to life, so he who pursues evil pursues it to his own death. Those who are of a perverse heart are an abomination to the Lord, but the blameless in their ways are his delight. Though they join forces, the wicked will not go unpunished, but the posterity of the righteous will be delivered. As a ring of gold in a swine's snout, so is a lovely woman who lacks discretion. The desire of the righteous is only good, but the expectation of the wicked is wrath. There is one who scatters, yet increases more, and there is one who withholds more than is right, but it leads to poverty. The generous soul will be made rich, and he who waters will also be watered himself. The people will curse him who withholds grain, but blessing will be on the head of him who sells it. He who earnestly seeks good finds favor, but trouble will come to him who seeks evil. He who trusts in his riches will fail, but the righteous will flourish like foliage. He who troubles his own house will inherit the wind, and the fool will be servant to the wise of heart. The fruit of the righteous is a tree of life, and he who wins souls is wise. If the righteous will be recompensed on the earth, how much more the ungodly and the sinner? May God add his blessing to his word tonight. We will be concentrating on verse 11 here. By the blessing of the upright, the city is exalted, but it is overthrown by the mouth of the wicked. We see here in Ohio just recently, people in high places are agitating for gambling again. While we have it even from the Capitol building and from the state's governor, we hear it coming from Lorraine and from down in Cincinnati and so on. People are saying why it would be good to do because it harms no one and it will help bring in more revenue to the state and we won't have to raise taxes dot dot dot. Besides that all kinds of people at least in the southwest part of the state go over to Indiana and Indiana gets all that money that we should be getting in Ohio and everybody in the northwest part of the state goes up to Detroit or goes to Windsor and it's money that's even going out of the country that shouldn't be staying here. Why, we need our own gaming. We need our own gambling. And it hurts no one. Why, this cry that such and such a thing harms no one is the plea for a lot of things. These are what people call victimless crime. They say these things are called crimes by the state, but there is no victim. People go willingly into these sorts of things, and how can we call these a crime when there is no victim? Why, this is the justification, for example, for so-called mercy killing. This was Judge, this was Dr. Kevorkian's attempted defense. There is no victim here. No one is murdered. This person wanted death. So-and-so and I in particular merely helped them in what they were seeking and what they were wanting. Where is there a victim? We see all kinds of other things that people will say, well, you shouldn't be trying to repress that. You shouldn't be trying to suppress that. why it is a so-called victimless crime. I want us to see that if something is condemned by the Word of God, it is neither victimless nor is it something to be left alone. If God declares it to be criminal, criminally it is to be taken care of in a proper way. We read here By the blessing of the upright, the city is exalted. Let's look at that first. What does it mean to be exalted? I wonder if some of you children know what that word means. It means to be lifted up. Now, I could take this pencil that's here on the pulpit and exalt it in kind of a physical sort of way. However, we can think of this in other ways. How might we lift something high without actually picking it up? Well, we can do it by praising it. We can do it by honoring it. We can exalt someone or something by praising it. And that is more what the word here is meaning. By the blessing of the upright, the city is exalted. What city? Why any city? A place that is characterized by the righteous dwelling there. People who know the Lord Jesus. People who are seeking to live according to God's word. That makes a town that people praise. They lift it up in its morals. People are known there for being honest. People are known there for being trustworthy. People are known there for being gentle. They are known there for being hospitable to strangers. It is known as being a good place to live. filled with good people and others look at that town and they think what a wonderful place to live, what a wonderful place to visit, what a wonderful place that is and they talk to others and they sing or at least tell of its praises because it is composed generally of truly good people. Because of that, there are other things, not just that the people are this way, but it makes life there a lot nicer. I remember reading in Ian Paisley's book on the 1859 revival in Northern Ireland how righteousness in general overwhelmed Northern Ireland because the work of the Holy Spirit came upon the people generally in Northern Ireland and many, many, many people were touched, were brought to Jesus Christ. and their lives were changed. Because they had new hearts, because they were given new lives by the grace of God, that worked out in new actions. They thought in different ways, they spoke in different ways, and they acted in different ways. Not only were they more moral, such as we were talking about, and that naturally comes when someone comes to Jesus Christ, but life there got better physically speaking. For a long time, there were hardly any court cases because people weren't getting drunk, people weren't fighting, people weren't acting like jerks. The Protestants and the Catholics were getting along. because the Protestants were truly Christian, not in name only, and were treating the people of the Roman Catholic Church not as though they thought everything was fine with them, because theologically they were not, but they were still treating them kindly, and treating them fairly, treating them as though they were not subhuman, as many were doing previous to that. And through some of that even, some from the Roman Catholic Church came to Jesus Christ. People whose lives were changed were no longer wasting their money on gambling and on drunkenness, and so they were able to save their money and use it for good things, such as buying land, buying homes, providing for their elderly parents, and things of this sort. Because they were godly now, they had the motivation to try to make things better, and they went out and did that. They objected to all kinds of evil as well. It was the case that many bars and taverns, or what they called public houses or pubs, went out of business. All this because not just one city in Northern Ireland or one town or one village, but much of the province was overworked what was worked over, that's more what I want to say, by the Holy Spirit who came and brought people in a saving relationship with Jesus and they then began to live holy lives. By them, as we read here in our scripture, the city is preserved and enlightened as well. This is some of the exaltation here. Now, do you children know what I mean by preserved? If you take some meat, let's say that you butcher a hog, and you leave the meat out in the warm summer air. Yes, I see someone sticking their tongue out. It turns kind of green, and it smells horrible, and it's awful. But if you have worked a lot of salt into it, That won't happen. The salt preserves it because it kills the germs that lead to decay. Jesus has told us that we are the salt of the earth and we are the light of the world. If we who are in Jesus Christ are in the world, we are the ones whom God uses to preserve this theoretical city here. We can think of a Bible example. Think of the wicked cities of the plain, where Lot lived. Sodom and Gomorrah, I can't remember the other three, but there were five of these towns. They were characterized in many ways by wickedness. They would have avoided judgment though if only a few people would have been found there. Do you remember the story of how God and Abraham talked? And Abraham with, of course, much reverence, and of course, with much seeking to honor God, kind of, we would say in a human sense, bargained God down so that if there were only ten godly people out of all the people of these cities, God would not destroy them. Sadly, As far as I know, there was really only one, and that was Lot himself. Certainly it wasn't his wife, and it wasn't his daughters who acted in a wicked way once they were rescued. No, it was only one, and he was preserved. Lot was preserved. But sadly, there weren't even those ten. Had there been, though, out of all the people living in those towns, if only ten had been godly. That would have been enough salt to keep the towns from being destroyed. And you know, if there's just a little bit of light, you can see in the darkness. I think you children know. You guys who are Boy Scouts know. I keep my little flashlight in my pocket. And here the sun has gone down. It's not altogether dark outside this evening yet, but it will be in a short while. Once it's entirely dark, if we were to turn off all the lights in here, it gets pretty dark. That's why, since I'm the one who turns off all the lights, I have to use my flashlight in order to guide myself down the steps. It's just a little thing. It just has one little bright white LED in it, and uses a little AAA battery. But with that light, I can see where I'm going. And with that light, wherever I am, the darkness is pushed away. That is the picture of the way Christians are, and how the righteous exalt the city. When left to themselves, people are in deep darkness of sin. Yet Jesus, who is the light of the world, shines through us, and the light within the city then, that is brought about by the righteous, those who know him who is the light of the world, lightens, brightens, illuminates all the town. This is the effect of having the upright within a place. This is your blessing, folks, to our area. This is your blessing and the blessing of fellow believers who are living consistently to our country. We continue to maintain this preservation. We continue to maintain this light so that some is retained within our land and it is this reason Perhaps not the only reason, but this is one reason why our land is preserved despite the darkness and rottenness around, and you can think of all the darkness and rottenness that there is. In contrast to this we read, but it is overthrown by the mouth of the wicked. You children know perhaps what it means to overthrow something. It means to destroy it. to destroy it. The city is destroyed, in other words, by the mouth of the wicked. Now how does this happen? It's because the wicked start talking up evil and wickedness. Maybe it's just common people who are wicked. Even worse is it when it is leaders who are supposed to be leading their people into godliness. But the leaders begin, or others begin, to try to persuade people to go into sin. They may try to tell them that these are new ideas and we need change. And I do want to make sure that I am not being seen as attacking any one particular politician right now. You have to know that there's someone running for, well a couple of someone's running for president right now who are saying, I am the one who will bring change. No, I am the one who will bring change. And they might. But change is not always good. There can be a change from good. If something is in good shape to change it is a bad thing, isn't it? And so it is that people will say, let's try something new, let's change it. Sometimes the wicked will persuade people because they say, if you do it my way, you'll make more money. or you'll have more pleasure, or you'll have more fun, or you'll have more power. There are all kinds of things that the wicked will use to try to persuade, and they will use the best talk that they can, the most persuasive arguments that they can dream up. They will do this to try to persuade people into evil courses. The very fact that they are doing this, if there were no other evil than that, this is evil in trying to exhort people to do evil themselves. They try to persuade others and do exactly what God has forbidden when He told the people through Moses, you shall not follow after a crowd to do evil. what comes about when these wicked ones begin to persuade people. It brings the whole area to judgment. When people are persuaded that a certain practice or a certain way of doing things, even though God's Word condemns it, is a good thing, is a desirable thing, or at the very least it won't hurt anyone or hurt anything, it leaves them down And certainly it's not the case that there are no victims. They themselves are led on into judgment, and their city, or their society, or their culture is destroyed. This is true even in so-called, and in some ways this is the case especially, with so-called victimless crimes in which people say, no one is harmed. No one is harmed. Where is the crime? God has declared that he hates it. God has declared that he will judge it. God has said in many of these that the civil magistrate, the ruler, is to judge it and to eradicate it. Now, by indulging in these sins, people may not be, quote, harmed. That is, they don't have pain, maybe. And they don't miss the property that they lose or whatever. But they are certainly harmed in another way. God's judgment is upon them. When they transgress his law, when they seek to do which is sin, God's judgment is upon them. And in general, God's judgment is upon the general society. for allowing this to go on. Now there are a number of societal sins within our country that we tolerate and sometimes as a nation, as a society, we not only tolerate but to a large extent we even, oh I suppose the word is encouraging, These things bring judgment from God. They are often, though, the result of having let earlier sins go, and they are not so much that which brings judgment, well they will that, but they themselves are a judgment upon the city and upon the society. God brings this judgment, and it is needful for this city to repent. It is needful for this society to repent. Not to continue on, but to repent. To stop listening to the so-called voice of reason. To stop listening to the voice of change. No, they should be listening to the voice of God which is found in his inerrant word in the scripture. Because you see, God judges, God brings difficulty God brings destruction to the city and society who will continue on in sin. It must not be encouraged. It must not be coddled. Rather, it's to be confronted. And the society is to be pointed to Jesus Christ. He is the one who, after all, reigns over all things for the sake of His Church. He is the one who speaks to people even today through the scripture. He is the one whom the Father has set, as we often sing in Psalm 2, upon his holy hill. He is the one who reigns over all things with his rod of iron, his scepter by which he judges and destroys nations, destroys those who will not kiss him before he becomes angry in the way. It's given us a task to do as well. Too often, Christians are afraid to say much. Too often, believers go right along with things. Perhaps they think that if they go along just a little bit, they can gain a hearing for the gospel. If they somehow make little compromises, perhaps people will be more open to them. This is particularly the case in those denominations and in Christians who are more thinking that God is not sovereign in salvation, it is man's free will that determines his own eternal destiny. And therefore he must be persuaded When we remember that it is the Spirit of God who must come sovereignly, when we remember that it is ultimately the election of the Father that determines who it is that shall and shall not be saved, we can be bold in confronting sin, not of course being obnoxious But we can be bold in confronting sin, knowing that God will use it for His glory, knowing that God will use it even, yes, to be saving souls. People must be confronted over their sin, the society must be confronted sin, and must be pointed to Jesus Christ. How can we do this in our day? There are some practical ways you can. You can deal with people one-on-one. That's probably the easiest way and the one that maybe comes to your mind the most. You know, when you're talking to someone, let's say the issue of abortion comes up. There's a so-called victimless crime, nobody's harmed. That's what they say. Well, you can talk to a person and show them that really this is murder and it's condemned by God and their very own attitude needs to be changed and they need to be conformed to the mind of Jesus Christ. But that doesn't confront it throughout all society. There are other ways as well. We've just had in many churches, well, it's March now, I started to say last month, but last month was now February. Back in January, there was the Sanctity of Life Sabbath, supposedly. Well, that is remembering the Roe versus Wade decision, which was made in January of 1973. And it's been 35 years now. You can yourself participate in protests. This is right to do. You can yourself write letters to the editor. You can do these sorts of things to confront sin. You can do this with other things as well. But ultimately, you need to be pointing people to Jesus Christ, because that's the only place where real and deep down change will come, when people's hearts are changed. That is how they change from having wicked deeds, wicked mouths, wicked minds. This comes from a wicked heart. The only way they can be upright is if they come to the Lord Jesus Christ. You can be a big agent of societal change by telling people about Jesus. According to this verse, and we must trust it because it is the Word of God, we must believe it because it is the Word of God, there are ultimately for a city or a society two paths. WRECK, W-R-E-C-K, or revival. Which shall it be for our land? We need to make sure that we are the upright. By us, if we continue to labor for Jesus Christ, the city will be exalted. If we lay down, roll over and play dead, or if we yield to the blandishments of the wicked, that's when overthrowing comes and destruction. Jesus Christ, be assured, can go on without the United States of America. The gospel shall conquer without our land if it should come to that. May it not be, though. May it be that our land which was once known for sending out gazillions of missionaries, sending them out to the ends of the earth, may it be that our land should be known once again as a Christian land, a land that is guided by the word of God, where the rulers yield themselves to Jesus Christ, and may it be, and may it not be long, that our nation will be covenanted to serve Jesus Christ as its rightful King. There is no such thing as a victimless crime. May it be, friends, that we shall be exalting Jesus so that more and more our land shall not be characterized by victimless or any other crime, but by godliness, by uprightness, that which brings the city to be exalted and God to be glorified. Amen. Close up now by singing from Psalm 94 part B. This psalm is talking about the judgment of the wicked and the exaltation of the righteous. So, it sure seemed to me that this was an appropriate psalm. Let's sing then the second part of this, Psalm 94B.