Welcome to Unveiled Faces, a Redeemer Presbyterian Church podcast. Please enjoy each presentation. Because of the transgression of a land, many are its princes. But by a man of understanding and knowledge, right will be prolonged. Let me read that again. Because of the transgression of a land, many are its princes. But by a man of understanding and knowledge, right will be prolonged. Let us pray. Heavenly Father, Lord, we thank you that you have given us this verse, this passage, for our contemplation. Father, we know that you do not give needless words in the Scripture, but that every word, as God breathes, is active, is able to pierce into the division of even the bone and the marrow, the body and the soul. It is living, and therefore it has application to our life. Father, we pray that today would be no exception to our constant petition to you to show us your truth and to apply it to our life. Father, we pray that we would understand you more clearly by virtue of this text. And not only would we understand you, but we would respond to you in an appropriate way. We pray this in Jesus' name. Amen. Well, the proverb that serves as our sermon text this morning identifies a relationship between the ruler of a land and the people of that land. It tells us that when sin and transgression are the character of the people, then there will be many princes, as it puts it. The condition of many princes can manifest itself in different kinds of ways. One of the ways is in a high turnover of civil rulers. And this might happen When insurrectionists rise up from amongst the people and overthrow the government. We've seen this happen in some of the African countries in recent years. Political coups, civil wars, these cause great instability and turnover within the civil government. The condition of quote unquote many princes can also occur when certain political families compete for the throne. This is what happened in the Roman Empire, where assassinations and exiles and these form of so-called political maneuvers were the standard. And yet another way many princes might come about is when a foreign king or multiple foreign kings overpower a particular nation and rule over it. This is what happened to certain European countries, most notably during the 20th century. And when these type of things happen, there's a turnover of rulers. And as one ruler is removed from the throne, another is seated on a throne, and the lack of consistent leadership results in an unstable social structure. And so ultimately, it's the people of that land who suffer from many princes. Yet there's another way that God brings, or I should say, this is one of the ways that God brings judgment upon a nation, a land. This is one of the ways that God punishes a wicked, the way He disciplines the backsliders. But there's another way that many princes will manifest within the land that's characterized by sin. And it doesn't necessarily need to be that there's a succession of turnover of princes, of rulers, but in some cases, it's the multiplication of princes. It's when a nation creates a larger and larger civil government, adding quote-unquote many princes over the people, who will then enforce an ever-growing body of laws and regulations. This is the condition that we have here in the United States. At the municipal level, at the county level, at the state level, at the federal level, we have many princes who are ruling over us. And we keep expanding the number of princes at each of these levels. We continue to create offices, we continue to create departments, which are then delegated with the authority to rule over the people. Big government, as it's sometimes called, is God's judgment upon the sins of the land. You might think that a government grows because people have different political views. Some people perceive benefits that come from a big government. Other people don't. If it's a republic or a democracy, when you get enough people to vote for a bigger government, then the government grows. If it's a monarchy, when the king decides he wants a bigger government, he makes it happen. But those are only the medial causes. The ultimate cause is much deeper than that. You need to account, when addressing the situation, you need to account for the activity of God in this matter. You need to account for the judgment of God in this matter. And what our sermon text is telling us is that when a land is characterized by sin, God brings judgment upon that land by giving them an oppressive government. Because of the transgression of the land, many are its princes. Now to understand how this works, we need to understand what freedom is. God created man to live in freedom. Prior to their fall into sin, Adam and Eve enjoyed an extremely high level of freedom. And that was God's original design for man, to enjoy freedom. And when Adam and Eve were created, God established them as his vice regents over the earth. God gave Adam and Eve dominion over the entire earth, commanding them to subdue it and to rule over it in a righteous manner. But God did not define every little detail of how that they were going to go about doing this. That's because Adam and Eve were created with the ability to know what is good and to understand what proper dominion is. And so God gave them the freedom to exercise dominion according to their knowledge and according to their understanding. God gave them the freedom to arrange the affairs of their life according to their own ambitions and their own creative design. So long as those ambitions and designs were in conformity with the righteous principles and commandments that God had given. That's freedom. That's what freedom is. Now somebody might say, well, Adam and Eve didn't have true freedom because there were still things that they couldn't do. There were things that God told them not to do. For example, they were not to eat of the tree that was in the middle of the garden. So can you really say that Adam and Eve enjoyed freedom? Well, this question highlights the need for us to be precise in our definition of words. If by freedom, you mean that there are no limitations, no restrictions, no laws, no restraints that would prohibit a certain decision or action, then we'd have to say that only God has that type of freedom. For God is not answerable to anybody. God has no authority higher than himself. There is no law outside of himself. Psalm 135, six says, whatever the Lord pleases, He does in heaven and in earth. Whatever He pleases. He's not accountable to anybody. So if you're gonna define freedom as being able to do whatever you please with no accountability to anybody else, then no created being can ever have freedom because every created being is under the authority and rule of the Creator. But the Bible tells us that man can experience freedom. Certainly, we can all agree that God alone has ultimate freedom in the strictest definition of the word, but there are other recognizable levels of freedom that man can enjoy while still living under the laws and governance of God. Freedom, therefore, is not what we would call a binary proposition. It's not a yes or a no. It's not an on or an off. It's a continuum, which is to say there are varying degrees of freedom. Prior to the fall, Adam and Eve experienced the highest degree of freedom that a human being can possibly experience here on Earth. They could do essentially whatever they wanted to do so long as it was within the boundaries that God had revealed to them. And prior to the fall, those boundaries were pretty wide. There was a lot of latitude and longitude within those boundaries. The thing that destroyed Adam and Eve's freedom was not the fact that God had given them commandments. But what destroyed their freedom was their disobedience to God's commandments. Sin is the destroyer of freedom. And the Bible says that fallen man is in bondage to sin. Bondage, as you know, is the exact opposite of freedom. And therefore, the man who is in bondage to sin is incapable of experience freedom, the very freedom that God had originally created mankind to experience. And so, what does this have to do with many princes ruling over a land? What does this have to do with big government? It has to do with God's judgment. Big government always brings oppression on the people. The larger the government becomes, the more laws it creates, the more regulations it enforces, laws and regulations that are restrictive to society, restrictive to individuals, laws and regulations that limit the freedom that man has to function within. And so if freedom is to be understood as God's blessing upon the land, and oppression is to be understood as God's judgment upon the land, then big government is God's judgment upon the land, because big government is oppressive to the people. Please turn in your Bibles to Romans 13. In just a minute, I'm going to read a few verses from Romans 13. So if you can, I'd appreciate it if you'd be ready to follow along. And as you're turning there, see if you can answer this question. Where does the Bible describe the first civil government being established on Earth? To give you a little help, remember that there are three spheres of government that God established on the earth. There's the family, the church, and the civil state. At creation, Well, let me ask this way. I'm giving you the answer. When did God establish the family on this earth? That's at creation. At creation, when God officiated the marriage of Adam and Eve. Not only did He join Adam and Eve together at that time as husband and wife, but in creating, therefore, the first human family. But God spoke about how the family will continue to be perpetuated from that point forward. He said, therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife and they shall become one flesh. That's Genesis 2.24. So that's when the family was established. But what about the church? When was the church first established on earth? Well, this happened directly after the fall. In Genesis 3.15, God preached the very first gospel sermon. He prophesied that a Savior was going to come, and God promised that the seed of the woman would bruise the head of the serpent while the serpent bruised the heel of the Savior. And the Lord also performed, at that same occasion, the first animal sacrifice. He shed the blood of an animal in order to create coverings for Adam and Eve's nakedness. And this was, of course, a shadow of the blood that Jesus would shed to provide covering for the sins of his elect. So that's when the church was first established on this earth. But when was the first civil government established? This also happened in Genesis 3, right after God had driven Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden. Verse 24 says, he drove out the man and he placed cherubim at the east of the Garden of Eden and a flaming sword which turned every way to guard the way to the tree of life. Now cherubim are angels. That's just a plural form of cherub. So there's more than one angel. These angels wielded a flaming sword to guard the way to the Tree of Life. That was when the institution of the civil government was first established on earth. What I want you to notice is the function of the sword spoken of in Genesis 3.24. The sword is the defining characteristic of the civil government. The sword represents the power and authority that God gives to the civil government to punish evildoers, even to the point of using physical force that results in death. It's not a mere coincidence, therefore, that Romans 13 describes the civil authorities as possessing the power of the sword. That's the description which is founded in the flaming sword described in Genesis 3.24. And this tells us a lot about the role and the function of the civil government, doesn't it? The sword is given to punish evildoers. Please follow along as I read from Romans 13, reading verses three and four. For rulers are not a terror to good works, but to evil. Do you want to be unafraid of the authority? Do what is good, and you will have praise from the same. For he is God's minister to you for good. But if you do evil, be afraid. For he does not bear the sword in vain. For he is God's minister and avenger to execute wrath on him who practices evil. Notice how in verse four, it refers to the civil authority as a quote-unquote minister of God. In fact, those words are used two times in verse four. As ministers of God, civil authorities have the same job that those angels had back in Genesis three. It's to enforce the civil law of God by using the sword upon those who practice evil. Now what determines a righteous civil government from an oppressive civil government? It has everything to do with which laws they enforce with the sword. There is such a thing as a righteous civil government. You may not know it by looking at the political world around you, but there is such a thing as a righteous civil government. When the government functions according to God's directives, enforcing only those civil laws which God has empowered them to enforce, then that government is a blessing to the people of the land. The blessing comes in a form of protection. Protection from those who would harm or steal or perform other acts of wickedness against the people. But when the government forgets that it's a minister of God and begins to use the power of the sword to enforce its own laws and its own agenda, then that's when the government becomes oppressive to the people. How is it oppressive? Because it stifles freedom, the very freedom that God has blessed his people with. It uses the power of the sword to penalize and to punish people who are doing what God tells them to do or gives them the freedom to do. Proverbs 29 too describes this difference, the difference between a righteous government and an oppressive government. I'll read it for you. When the righteous are in authority, the people rejoice, but when a wicked man rules, the people groan. We lost the high level of freedom that God had originally blessed Adam and Eve with. We lost it. As I've already stated, that freedom was destroyed by sin. But the good news is that Jesus has overcome sin. God did not leave his people to remain in bondage to sin. Instead, he sent his son, Jesus Christ, to redeem those who by faith repent of their sins while calling upon the name of the Lord Jesus. Listen to the way Hebrews 2.15 puts this. It says that Jesus, and I quote, releases those who through fear of death were all their life subject to bondage. Who were all their lifetime subject to bondage. Have you been redeemed by God? Have you received the saving grace that comes through Jesus Christ? If so, then you have been released from a lifetime of bondage to sin. This means that you've been restored to a life of freedom. You're now a new creation in Jesus Christ, equipped with a new heart that loves the Lord and a mind which is being renewed to do the good and acceptable and perfect will of God. As a redeemed person, you have the freedom to pursue your calling according to the ambitions and creative desires God has placed within your heart, just so long as those ambitions and creative desires are within the boundaries established by God. It is a contemptible abuse of power when civil authorities use the power of the sword to suppress the righteous freedom God has restored to his people. You hear that? It is a contemptible abuse of power when civil authorities use the power of the sword to suppress the righteous freedoms that God has restored to his people. Remember, the civil authorities call him minister of God, according to Romans 13. He is God's minister to you for good, it says in Romans 13.4. And God gave him the power of the sword for the sole purpose of executing wrath upon evil. Yet civil governments all around the world are using the sword for their own purposes. They're using it to enforce their own laws, their own regulations. Proverbs 29.2 tells us that when this happens, the people groan. Why do they groan? Because wicked men are ruling over them. Wicked men are oppressing them with burdensome laws that go beyond the boundaries of God. Beyond the boundaries of God. That's what our sermon text is identifying as a deplorable condition. The more princes that are added to the civil government, the more oppression which is added to the people. Now let me direct you to some of the finer details of our sermon text to see if I could further reinforce this point. First thing I want you to notice that this proverb is an antithetical proverb. And this means that the proverb contrasts two opposite positions in order to establish its main point, the main point of the proverb. And you really can't discern the main point of the proverb until you first recognize the contrast that's within the proverb. So let's turn our attention to our sermon text and identify this contrast. The first line of the proverb introduces the first position of the contrast. Because of the transgression of the land, many are its princes. The second line introduces a second position of contrast. But by a man of understanding and knowledge, right will be prolonged. Now, our job is to parse this out. Our job is to parse out the different components that are being contrasted here. And when we do that, we see that there are four such components. There is the number of rulers. There are the characteristics of the rulers. There's the results of their rule. and there's the catalyst for the rulers being in office. You don't become aware of all these different components for each of these different types of rulers unless you take the proverb as a whole, understanding that some of the information is implied by virtue of the antithesis. So let me show you what I mean. Let's begin to fill in these blanks up here, and let me do this by looking at the second line of the proverb first. But by a man of understanding and knowledge, right will be prolonged. What is the number of rulers here? One, right? What are the characteristics of this ruler? Well, it says that he's a man of understanding and knowledge. What's the result of his rule? He prolongs what is right. And what is the catalyst to him being in office? No, it doesn't actually specifically say. But it's implied by the antithesis. And so we'll discover the answer to this component once we've identified the contrast within this component. So let's now consider the first line. Because of the transgression of the land, of a land, many are its princes. What are the number of rulers here? Many, many are its princes. What are the characteristics of these rulers? Well, it doesn't specifically say, but since this is an antithetical proverb, the implied characteristic is that these rulers lack understanding and knowledge. What's the result of their rule? Well, once again, it doesn't specifically say, but the antithesis supplies the answer. These rulers do not prolong what is right. And what's a catalyst to so many princes being in office? Well, here the text is very clear. Because of the transgression of the land. Because of the transgression of the land, there are many rulers. Now we can deduce from what the catalyst is for the man of understanding and knowledge to be in office because of what was written in the first line here. God placed him in office because of righteousness in the land. Or maybe it would be better put to say that because of repentance in the land. Think in terms of 2 Chronicles 7.14 right now. This is the passage that we've looked at a couple times during the past year or so. If my people who are called by my name will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways. Let me just pause there for a second. What's another word for what that is describing? What's another word for humbling ourselves and seeking the Lord's face through prayer and turning from our wicked ways? Repentance, of course. That's what repentance looks like. If my people who are called by my name will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and I will forgive their sin and heal their land. Notice the healing of the land only happens after the people of God repent. So coming back to our sermon text, The catalyst to the land being healed is God's people's repentance and pursuit of righteousness. So when the people repent, God blesses them with a righteous leader who will then make them rejoice. And when the people live in unrepentant sin, then God curses them with the oppressive leaders who will make them groan. And the character of the civil rulers, therefore, is a reflection of God's disposition towards the land. Or perhaps I should put that in slightly different terms. The character of the civil rulers is a reflection of the people's disposition towards God. When people love and obey God, He gives them a righteous civil government. And when the people hate God and transgress His commandments, He gives them an oppressive civil government. And this spiritual truth then demonstrates that the people of the land definitely do have a voice concerning who their leaders are. You hear that? They do have a voice concerning who their leaders are. Only their voice is not heard in the voting booth, Their voice is heard in the prayer closet. Oh, how many people fail to cast their vote in the prayer closet? How many people fail to fall down on their knees in repentance for their sins? And what they don't know is that the pride and arrogance which keeps them from repenting of their sins is a vote for a prideful and arrogant civil government. God will give them the rulers who are after their own heart. God will give them rulers after their own heart. And the character of the civil rulers is a reflection of the people's disposition towards God. And the deeper and the more profound message here is that our Lord God reigns. His throne has been established from old, and He is the everlasting King of kings. Proverbs 96.10 says, say among the people, the Lord reigns. The world also is firmly established. It shall not be moved. He shall judge the peoples righteously. You see, one of Satan's most effective lies is the one that's rarely spoken, but so often implied. God is not active in the world today, they say. God does not have anything to do with the leaders of our land. God does not bring judgments upon sinners in this world. They rarely say it, but they imply it. And even within the church, there's a Christianized version of the same lie. Sure, God used to be involved in the affairs of nations, raising up a king or bringing an end to a dynasty, but that was back in the Old Testament. That was back in the days of Israel. God doesn't do those things anymore. That's called functional atheism. Regardless of what the person says he believes, he functions as an atheist. He'll sing the songs that affirm God's sovereign reign over this world. Crown him with many crowns. Oh, worship the king. How great thou art. But as soon as he closes the hymnal book and walks out the back door of the church, he lives his life as if God does not even exist. Brothers and sisters, beware of this lie. Know that the church is riddled with functional atheism. And it's worth noting that in Psalm 14.1, a psalm many of us know, says, the fool says in his heart, there is no God. Where does the fool say this? In his heart. This applies to functional atheists. Had Psalm 14.1 said, the fool says with his lips, there is no God, then only those who profess to be atheists would be deemed fools. But because the Psalm drills down to the level of each person's heart, The man who says he believes in God, but then goes out and lives his life as if God does not exist, the functional atheist, he also is a fool, according to this psalm. You want to know whether there's any functional atheism in your life? Ask yourself, how often do I pray? That'll tell you really quickly, really quickly. The person who prays is a person who says in his heart, there is a God. I'm going to seek his strength and guidance for my life because he's the one who arrays the lilies of the field. He's the one who feeds the birds of the air. Not a sparrow falls to the ground without the will of God. And the king's heart is in his hand. It's like rivers of water. He turns it, the king's heart, wherever he wishes. This God, the God to which we pray, is the King eternal, immortal, invisible. He alone is wise. He is God of gods, Lord of lords, a great God, mighty and awesome. To Him be honor and glory forever and ever. That is the prayer. That is the God to whom the person who is not a functional atheist, a true genuine Christian who trusts in the Lord, that is the God to whom he prays. A functional atheist attacks the world by his own strength. He sings the songs, closes the hymn book, and goes into the world according to his own strength. Our sermon text is calling us to contemplate our nation's disposition towards God. It's telling us to look at the number of princes ruling over us, ruling over our land, as an indication of the people's disposition towards God. And what we see is that we have many princes in our country. That can't be denied. We have many princes. This points to transgressions within our land. This points to our need to humble ourselves, seeking the Lord's face in prayer as we repent for these transgressions in our land. We need to beg the Lord to have mercy upon our nation, to give us righteous civil authorities who are true ministers of God, rulers who do have understanding and knowledge, rulers who will uphold the civil law of God, rulers who know how to praise those who are good and how to avenge wrath upon those who do evil. In short, we need rulers who will cause our nation to rejoice. that this nation is going to receive these blessings from God. It's not going to happen because we all voted for the conservative political candidate. It's not going to happen because we compiled a certain number of signatures on a petition. Nor is it going to happen because we all showed up at a town meeting or at the Capitol building for a rally. It's going to happen because we showed up in our prayer closet. It's gonna happen because we have fallen on our knees in repentance for the sins of our land. It doesn't matter if you contributed to those sins or not. It's the sins which characterize our land, and you're part of this land. God's people need to lead in repentance. Let me encourage you to pray in this manner. Pray privately, pray as a family, and let's not forget to pray as a church. So won't you join me as we pray? Won't you join your hearts with mine as I lift up our prayer to the Lord? Let's pray. Most high God, Master, Creator of the universe, we humbly bow before You and ask that You hear the prayers of Your children. We praise You for Your incredible freedoms that you have given to us. Freedoms not to be a law unto ourself, but freedoms to be enjoyed, liberties to be enjoyed within the boundaries of your revealed law to us. Father, we praise you as well for the incredible rights and privilege that you have given to us to walk directly into your presence, the presence of the King of Kings and Lord of Lords, in order that we may ask you for Your grace and Your mercy. You have afforded us this privilege through the blood of Jesus Christ. Father, help us to pray in faith. Sovereign Lord, we begin by confessing our own personal sins. We've been reminded this morning of the sin of functional atheism. Father, we take too much credit for what we ourselves are able to do. You have created us to be beings who are dependent upon You. We have never been, in our sinful state and even in our redeemed state, capable of proceeding and preserving ourselves according to our own strength. It is you who preserve us and persevere us. And so, Father, we confess to you that we far too often take refuge in our own strength, and when the cares of the world overcome us, and anxiety begins to build within our hearts and minds. This is the result of us thinking that we must do something about it, seeing our own inability and realizing that we're incapable of controlling the circumstances. But Father, when we take refuge in You, when we understand that you are the sovereign over this world, that you do control all things, in fact, work all things together for the good of those who love you according to your good plan. Father, there's no room for anxiety. There's nothing for us to be anxious about. So Father, we confess to you that we trust too often in our own strength, not enough in your strength. Gracious Father, we also confess to you the sins of our nation. We have not honored you as we should. We have not obeyed your commandments. We have not placed you first in our lives. We confess that our nation has erected altars of idolatry to the gods of secular humanism. We tried to remove you from every aspect of our daily public lives. And the pride of arrogance is within our minds. The lust of the flesh is within our hearts. The blood of the innocence is on our hands. Deceit is on our tongues. Our yes is not a yes, and our no is not a no. So, gracious God, we sincerely repent of our personal and our national sins. Please have mercy on us. We beg you for your grace and your mercy. We are undeserving of your mercy, but your holy word says that you are patient, kind, loving, merciful, and long-suffering. And because of who you are and not because of who we are, please hear our prayer and grant our petition this day. We know you will hear from heaven and will forgive our sins and heal our land if we humble ourselves, pray, seek your face, and turn from our wicked ways. And so, Father, we wait patiently for you to heal our land. We ask you that you will make us a nation of people whose hearts love you and who will follow the biblical mandate to submit to you in obedience to your commandments. We ask that you give us your grace in overcoming the temptations of the world, the flesh, and the devil. May you get all the glory, honor, and praise. May your kingdom come and your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. We pray this prayer with a great hope and expectancy, looking to Christ as the King of kings, our Lord of lords, the one in whose kingdom we currently labor, the one in who this prayer is offered up to your ears. This has been a presentation of Redeemer Presbyterian Church. For more resources and information, please stop by our website at visitredeemer.org. All material here within, unless otherwise noted. Copyright Redeemer Presbyterian Church, Elk Grove, California.