At thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore (Ps. 16: 11)

“Take away the wicked from before the king, and his throne shall be established in righteousness” (Prov. 25:5).

There is a saying in American politics that represents yet another way of pointing at the truth represented by this proverb, and that proverb is that “personnel is policy.” In the government of any complex society, the chief magistrate is going to be dependent upon his cabinet officers and advisors. There will be people he trusts, and there will be people he does not trust. The reasons for the presence or absence of trust may vary, but by the end of the day, every chief executive is either advised by the wicked, or the wicked have been removed.

When the wicked have access to the throne room, one of the results is that righteousness is resisted. When the wicked are driven away from the throne, then the rule of that king, or president, or prime minister, will be established in righteousness.

The recent history of our various presidential administrations provides a good illustration of this. The point being made is not that a particular political party is an adjunct to the kingdom of God, but it is to say that you can expect better things from a magistrate who excludes those who do not fear God. And in Democratic administrations, evangelical believers in the government are as rare as a blue comet. When the Republicans are in power, the administration is crawling with them.

And one of the more difficult things to get across to the average Christian voter is the truth that we are not simply voting for “a man.” Rather, we are voting for the population that will gather around this man, as opposed to the population that will accumulate around that one. This is a truth we need to reckon with because, after all, personnel is policy.

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At thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore (Ps. 16: 11)

“Every man shall kiss his lips that giveth a right answer” (Proverbs 24:26).

“Whoever gives an honest answer kisses the lips” (Proverbs 24:26, ESV).

A kiss on the lips is pleasant, and there are times when it is a pleasant surprise.

Honesty is refreshing. Straight talk is like a fresh breeze off the bay. Frankness is a virtue that is greatly appreciated by the honest listener.

By way of contrast, when someone is not willing to give a straight answer, the results are convoluted and messy, hard to follow, and lead straight into the muddle.

A straight answer need not be rude. Rudeness, no doubt, takes away the pleasant effect of the honesty, and is more like a punch in the mouth than a kiss on the lips. It is possible to give the right answer, the honest answer, while remaining diplomatic. If you are a guest at someone’s home, and they ask you what you thought of the soup, it would not be appropriate to appeal to this proverb as your justification for saying that it was “the worst sludge you ever had to deal with in your life.” It is possible to be truthful, to meet the terms of this parable, and say something like, “to be honest, pureed beet goulash is not my best. I am sure someone with adequate training would rate it more highly than I could do.”

There is an English proverb that touches on this principle—“honesty is the best policy.” It really is.

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At thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore (Ps. 16: 11)

“Who hath woe? who hath sorrow? Who hath contentions? who hath babbling? Who hath wounds without cause? Who hath redness of eyes? They that tarry long at the wine; They that go to seek mixed wine. Look not thou upon the wine when it is red, when it giveth his colour in the cup, when it moveth itself aright. At the last it biteth like a serpent, and stingeth like an adder. Thine eyes shall behold strange women, and thine heart shall utter perverse things. Yea, thou shalt be as he that lieth down in the midst of the sea, or as he that lieth upon the top of a mast. They have stricken me, shalt thou say, and I was not sick; They have beaten me, and I felt it not: When shall I awake? I will seek it yet again” (Proverbs 23:29–35).

Unusually for the book of Proverbs, we have an extended bit of wisdom here. Most of the time in Proverbs, the pith is summarized in one verse, or occasionally in two. Here we have extended teaching over the course of seven verses, all of which are on the folly of drinking too much.

Who has trouble, sadness, unnecessary quarrels, complaints, random wounds, and red eyes? The answer is those who linger over wine, those who hunt down mixed wine (vv. 29-30). These are people who are fooled by how good it looks before they take a sip (v. 31) . . . later on in the evening, it bites like a snake (v. 32). Your eyes and heart go all weird on you (v. 33), and your sleep will be like trying to doze on the top of a mast in heavy weather (v. 34). As you toss and turn up there, and are tossed and turned as well, your murmured dream refrain is that you got beat up, but did not feel it (v. 35). When you wake up, it is time to go do it all again (v. 35).

When I was in the Navy, I remember a bleary machinist’s mate come into the crew’s mess one morning, and I cheerily asked if he had a “good time” last night. He said, “I must have. I don’t have any money.”

Reformed Christians are not of the teetotaling brand of Christian, and this is all to the good. God gave wine to gladden the heart of man (Ps. 104:15). We may take that as a given. But we must not let the excesses of the abstainers make us blind to the many cautions against drink that are in the Bible. Drunkards, after all, will not inherit the kingdom of God (1 Cor. 6:10). Deacons may not be given to “much wine” (1 Tim. 3:8). In the same way, older women must not be given to much wine either (Titus 2:3). Remember there would have been a great temptation for people to self-medicate as they aged . . . that was a world without Tylenol. All Christians are told not to be drunk with wine, but rather to be filled with the Spirit (Eph. 5:18).

We have the liberty to drink, that is quite true. But I have unfortunately known of more than a few Christians who have exercised this liberty in a way that presents one of the few good arguments that the teetotalers have. And Scripture even indicates that it is an argument that might have something to it. “Let not then your good be evil spoken of” (Romans 14:16).

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At thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore (Ps. 16: 11)

“Train up a child in the way he should go: And when he is old, he will not depart from it” (Proverbs 22:6).

This is a proverb that has been attended by some debate. The question is whether this is a statement that includes the spiritual state of the children, or if it is more of a practical promise.

A practical take would say that if you evaluate your child’s aptitudes wisely, seeing that he has a real mechanical talent, and you train him up accordingly, then he will grow up into real productivity. He won’t depart from what he was clearly made for. But if you try to make your philosopher into a back hoe operator, then it will just be grief all around.

Others, like myself, don’t exclude this kind of practical parenting, but also want to include the most important thing about raising children, which is bringing them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord (Eph. 6:4).

This is a sensitive subject because when parents are dealing with the grief of a wayward child, one who isn’t walking with God at all, this proverb would appear to lay the responsibility for the apostasy squarely at their feet. Why was the promise not fulfilled? Well, it appears that somebody didn’t bring them up right.

Wayward children are already a grief to their parents, a point that is made over and over again in Proverbs. “He that gathereth in summer is a wise son: But he that sleepeth in harvest is a son that causeth shame” (Proverbs 10:5). But why would we be ashamed of something that somebody else did? Clearly the parents had something to do with it, which they instinctively know. Given this, it is not our place to rub it in. We should interact with such parents with grace and sensitivity. But at the same time, we shouldn’t shy away from the teaching of Scripture just because of this problem either. When addressing the subject of child-rearing, the book of Proverbs does not detach a person’s destiny from how they were brought up (Prov. 23:14).

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At thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore (Ps. 16: 11)

“The desire of the slothful killeth him; For his hands refuse to labour. He coveteth greedily all the day long: But the righteous giveth and spareth not” (Proverbs 21:25–26).

We see here two basic worldviews. One of the worldview of me, me, men—a worldview and outlook that simple wants to gather by grabbing. This is coupled with a refusal to do that which would result in him having what he would have. He refuses to labor, but he greedily covets—all day long—those things which labor would obtain for him. His lust for stuff is mentioned twice. The proverb begins by saying that his desire is the thing that is killing him. It kills him that he wants and cannot have.

The contrast with the righteous is pronounced, presumably in both way. The righteous gives, and is able to giving without stinting. The reason he is able to give without stinting is that he has a lot. He has a lot because of the implied contrast here with the slothful one, the one who is unwilling to work with his hands. Not only is the work profitable, but so is the generosity.

Scripture teaches us that work brings in an income. In addition, we learn that generosity functions like compounding interest. Works adds, and generosity multiplies. We think again of Bunyan’s short little poem about the man, “some thought him mad, the more he gave, the more he had.”

God’s way to wealth has safeguards built into it. The short term thinker is the one who wants to “get rich quick” now, and is constantly on the lookout for short cuts. Ideally, the way to wealth is to win at Powerball—a tax on people who are bad at math. There are no guardrails here, and the fact that the person concerned doesn’t have any money does not prevent him from being in bondage to it. The guardrails for the godly are build into the nature of the case—work hard, over an extended period of time, and make sure to be generous all along the way. When you arrive, your money won’t have you by the throat.

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