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

“Mercy and truth preserve the king: And his throne is upholden by mercy”

Proverbs 20:28

Thrones are established by two things. One of them is intuitive, and we understand it naturally, and the other is pretty counter-intuitive. 

First, kings are frequently established by strength, by conquest. That is pretty simple to understand. Either it happens, or somebody understands that this is how it frequently happens, and so they make their attempts on the basis of it. “Let us go up against Judah, and vex it, and let us make a breach therein for us, and set a king in the midst of it, even the son of Tabeal” (Isaiah 7:6).

The counter-intuitive way to establish a throne is pointed to by our proverb. Truth and mercy are a king’s preservation. One of the things that upholds his throne is mercy. 

In this, our thrones are like God’s throne. But what is counter-intuitive to us (because of our sin) is not at all counter-intuitive to Him. “Justice and judgment are the habitation of thy throne: Mercy and truth shall go before thy face.” (Psalm 89:14). Notice how these things harmonize—justice, judgment, mercy, truth. There is no discordant note there. 

“And in mercy shall the throne be established: And he shall sit upon it in truth in the tabernacle of David, judging, and seeking judgment, and hasting righteousness” (Isaiah 16:5).

Christian leadership understands that these things all go together. Righteousness and peace are friends, after all. They kiss each other (Ps. 85:10). This should not be surprising to any Christian, because when we petition the Lord for mercy, we are coming to a throne of grace. “Let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need” (Hebrews 4:16). An understanding of this should be down in our bones, in such a way as to enable us to petition the Lord for mercy with boldness. We must not come to Him crawling. His promises are stronger than that. His throne is mightier than that.

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

“Remove not the ancient landmark, which thy fathers have set”

Proverbs 22:28

This is a proverb from which we may draw two applications. The first is the obvious and literal meaning. It is a proverb that refers to the boundary markers for a piece of property, let us say the large boulder on the northeast corner. If an unscrupulous neighbor decided to enlarge his holdings, all he would need to do is move the boulder. But the children of Israel were commanded to honor the apportionments of their fathers, and to leave the ancient landmarks right where they were.

This proverb requires that the landmarks be honored, thus echoing the demands of the Torah. First, a curse is pronounced on the one who is guilty of this great evil, and all the people acknowledge the justice of the curse.

“Cursed be he that removeth his neighbour’s landmark. And all the people shall say, Amen” (Deuteronomy 27:17). 

The standard is also stated a few chapters earlier in Deuteronomy. 

“Thou shalt not remove thy neighbour’s landmark, which they of old time have set in thine inheritance, which thou shalt inherit in the land that the Lord thy God giveth thee to possess it” (Deuteronomy 19:14).

We have the same elements. The moving of the landmarks is prohibited, and the historical significance of the inheritance being platted the way it is is affirmed. In addition, it is emphasized that this legacy, with the markers just where they were, is the inheritance that the Lord God bestowed on them. The command not to steal is a command that presupposes private property, just as the command not to commit adultery presupposes the institution of marriage. God is therefore watching the person who moves that boulder.

Another similar proverb adds an additional element. 

“Remove not the old landmark; And enter not into the fields of the fatherless” (Proverbs 23:10).

Here it is assumed that this form of theft is being perpetrated on orphans—people who might be helpless to defend themselves in court. They might not be able to afford lawyers. Jesus says something in a similar vein about this kind of problem. 

“Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye devour widows’ houses, and for a pretence make long prayer: therefore ye shall receive the greater damnation” (Matthew 23:14).

No, it is not sharp business practices. It is theft, pure and simple.

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

“The glory of young men is their strength: And the beauty of old men is the gray head”

Proverbs 20:29

One way of looking at this proverb is to acknowledge that there is a time and a season for everything. There is a time to be young and limber, and a time to be old and creaky. 

But the proverb doesn’t put it that way. It does not compare this advantage to that disadvantage. Rather it compares a young man’s glory to an old man’s beauty. 

This proverb was probably in the mind of the apostle John when he wrote about children, fathers, and young men. First, the children were blessed because they were forgiven (1 John 2:12), and because they had known the Father (1 John 2:13). 

But then John gets to the same general categories addressed by our proverb, and the things he emphasizes map onto the proverb fairly well.

The young men are honored as those who have overcome the wicked one (1 John 2:13), and because the Word of God lives in them, because they are strong, and because they have overcome the wicked one (1 John 2:14). Strength is mentioned both in Proverbs and in this passage, and the fact of overcoming, which requires strength, is mentioned twice. 

John has written the fathers because they have known Him who was from the beginning (1 John 2:13, 14). The fathers were written because of their knowledge of God, because they were wise. 

Of course it is possible for a young man to use his strength in the wrong way, and it is possible for an old man to be a fool. But when young men are being what they ought to be—strong, aggressive, and not risk-averse, the Bible calls it a glory. And when an old man remembers what it was like to be strong and aggressive, and still carries the scars of not being risk averse, the symbol of that is his gray head—which Scripture calls beautiful. 

In the Lord, youth should not disparage old age, and in the Lord, old age must not disparage youth.

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

“There is gold, and a multitude of rubies: But the lips of knowledge are a precious jewel”

Proverbs 20:15

At first glance this proverb might seem to be just a simple comparison—as much as to say it is better to have this than that. Now of course there is something to that, and we can take this proverb at its face value. It is better to be knowledgable and wise than to have great riches. A man should always prefer one of them over the other, and if he does so, then he has already embarked on the path of wisdom.

But I believe that if we look closely, we can detect another layer of meaning, and that would be the distinction between riches and wealth. Riches would be having the money on hand. Wealth would be found in the knowledge of what to do with the resources that you have on hand. 

Put another way, we are not being told that riches are one thing and that knowledge is a completely different kind of thing, but a whole lot better. It would be more informative to see this as saying that knowledge is in itself “a precious jewel,” as the proverb expresses it. 

There is a difference between a redneck who won 10 million dollars in the lottery, and a diligent and hard-working person who bootstrapped himself up from his paper route as a teenager to a 10 million dollar fortune and a chain of successful retail stores. The difference between them is not to be found in the 10 million dollars. They both have that. The difference is that the second person has knowledge.

So put in a way as to make my point here, riches are riches, sure enough, but knowledge is true wealth—the very best jewel. But of course, in order for knowledge to be true wealth, it needs to be true knowledge.

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

“A king that sitteth in the throne of judgment scattereth away all evil with his eyes”

Proverbs 20:8

One of the tasks that God assigns to the magistrate is the tasking of scattering evil.

We are aware of one of the more obvious ways of doing this. Paul says that the ruler is appointed by God, and the one who does evil should be afraid—because the ruler does not bear the sword in vain (Rom. 13:4). This is a right-handed justice. When this does not happen, then public order starts to disintegrate. 

“Because sentence against an evil work is not executed speedily, therefore the heart of the sons of men is fully set in them to do evil” (Ecclesiastes 8:11). 

The second way this salutary thing can be accomplished is when a king does not tolerate wickedness in his cabinet, in his close circle of advisers. When a man assumes rule, what kind of men does he surround himself with? 

“Then said he unto me, Son of man, these are the men that devise mischief, and give wicked counsel in this city” (Ezekiel 11:2).

A ruler has a duty to listen to the counsel of good and wise men, and not wicked and mischievous ones.

But a third way of dealing with evil in a realm is by means of the bully pulpit. In our proverb here, the king scatters the wicked by means of moral authority. He causes the wicked to flee with his eyes, by means of his countenance. In Romans 13, as the deacon of God, he is charged with more than just punishing wrongdoers. He is to reward the righteous, and they are to receive this reward through the praise of the king (Rom. 13:3).

One of the best ways to discern the effete nature of our times is to look at a list of the recipients of the presidential Medal of Freedom. This is the highest award that can be given outside a military context, and so we should not be surprised that Richard Nixon gave one to Neil Armstrong, the first man to walk on the moon. But other recipients have included Lucille Ball, Bill Cosby, and Mr. Rogers—not to mention previous presidents. What goes around comes around. 

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