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

“When righteous men do rejoice, there is great glory: But when the wicked rise, a man is hidden.”

Proverbs 28:12

In the life of nations, we frequently see oscillations between the times when the righteous are in control, and the times when the wicked hold the reins. Now of course, because this is a fallen world, we never see righteous rule that is absolute. Neither do we see times of absolute depravity. 

Nevertheless, there is a marked distinction between the righteous and the wicked, and the people can tell the difference—despite the propaganda. 

This proverb tells us that righteous men can see and identify when the rule is good. When they see that the trajectory of a particular policy is going to be very good, they rejoice over the fact. And when they rejoice, that generation enjoys great glory. Righteousness in the rule of a nation has ramifications. In a moment, we will compare it to the ramifications of the other kind of rule.

When the wicked are in the ascendancy, men go into hiding. Not only do they go into hiding, so does their wealth, their livelihood. When the Midianites were in charge, that was the time when Gideon thought it wise to thresh his crop in the wine vat. He was doing that to keep his sustenance from a predatory government. When the wicked rule, the innocent hide. 

So why is there great glory when the righteous rule? The answer is that people come out of hiding. When they come out of hiding, they can work productively, in the broad light of day, and not worry about the fruit of their labors being seized. 

This means that there is a difference between riches that have been seized and wealth that has been produced. In his wonderful book The Mystery of Capital, Hernando de Soto showed how many impoverished countries are in that condition because of how their envy-driven policies prevent all the wealth that is above ground from going to work on behalf of the people. But those who possess that kind of wealth are not going to invest it when the wicked have risen. And so everyone suffers. 

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

“An ungodly man diggeth up evil: And in his lips there is as a burning fire. A froward man soweth strife: And a whisperer separateth chief friends” (KJV).

Proverbs 16:27–28

There are times when dirty deeds are being done somewhere, and a noble soul comes forward to reveal that fact. We praise that person, and call him a whistleblower. But there are other situations where a situation was resolved and dealt with properly, and someone else came along in order to dig up the bones. 

This latter situation is what is being addressed by our proverb. It is not automatically virtuous to reveal evils, and it is certainly not virtuous to make up evils in order to reveal them. We can tell from this proverb what the sinful element is.

The ungodly man is described as having a burning fire in his lips. In other words, he wants to see things burn. He is headstrong, and he sows strife because he wants a harvest of more strife—thirty, sixty, and a hundred fold. In addition, his campaign of whispering is an instrument that is used by the devil to pry close friends apart. 

We are told in Scripture that love covers a multitude of sins. If it is not automatically virtuous to reveal sins, and if it is sometimes discreditable to hide them, then it becomes plain that we are going to need a great deal of wisdom when it comes to how we conduct our lives. When and how should we tell someone? When and how should refrain from telling anyone?

One of the ways we might test ourselves is by asking whether we always want to do the same thing. If we always want to tell, then we are what Scripture would call a talebearer. “A talebearer revealeth secrets: But he that is of a faithful spirit concealeth the matter” (Proverbs 11:13). Notice that. It is a faithful spirit that conceals a matter. But if we never want to tell, under any circumstances, then we are quite possibly the kind of person who will not enjoy the blessing of God. “He that covereth his sins shall not prosper: But whoso confesseth and forsaketh them shall have mercy” (Proverbs 28:13).

So there is such a thing as ungodly revealing and godly concealing. There is also such a thing as ungodly concealing and godly revealing. Telling the difference is why we need to be steeped in the Scriptures.  

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

“Righteousness exalteth a nation: But sin is a reproach to any people” (KJV).

Proverbs 14:34

One of the more common mistakes that Christians make about the Old Testament is the mistake of thinking that the law of God was a standard that only applied to Israel. The fact that most Gentiles nations were wicked and idolatrous is taken as somehow tacit permission for them to be that way. Nothing other than that was expected.

But notice what this proverb states. It says that righteousness exalts a nation. And it goes on to point out that sin is a reproach to any people. Not just Israel.

For example, the prophet Amos denounced the transgressions of Damascus, and said that they would be punished for them (Amos 1:3-5). He declares that judgment is coming down on the Philistine cities of Gaza, Ashdod, Ashkelon, and Ekron (Amos 1:6-8). He does the same thing with Tyre (Amos 1:9-10), and Edom (Amos 1:11-12). Then comes Ammon (Amos 1:13-15), and Moab (Amos 2:1-3). After all that, he then gets to Judah. The holy standards of God are the very definition of righteousness, and righteousness exalts a nation. 

The Queen of Sheba was consequently a blessing to her people when she sought out the wisdom of Solomon.

And so all this brings us to America. This verse was one that was frequently quoted by our founding fathers. They knew and understood that God is the governor of nations, and that His standards of righteousness were the standard by which He would either exalt a nation, or the terrible bar of justice that He would bring them to. And we are no exception to this pattern. Why would we be?  

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

“Wherefore is there a price in the hand of a fool to get wisdom, seeing he hath no heart to it?” (KJV).

“Why is there in the hand of a fool the purchase price of wisdom, since he has no heart for it?” (NKJV).

Proverbs 17:16

Translated into modern terms, this proverb would run like this: why does that fool have a tuition check in his hand when he has no intention of studying at all?

Coming at it from another direction, the question would be why would a person be willing to pay the price for an education in one way, when he is not willing to pay that price in another way—the most important and fundamental way?

And perhaps the question answers itself. The first way of paying the price for an education—the tuition check—has the appearance of seriousness, especially if the college is a high end college with sky high tuition. But real seriousness is measured in another way, and this is through the day-to-day commitment to discipline.

It is the difference between paying a one-time fee for a piece of exercise equipment, where the pain is fleeting and temporary. After that, the money is gone, and can be forgotten. But the discipline of getting up at 5:30 every morning in order to work out on the exercise machine is not an over-and-done exercise of discipline. It is a daily thing, and perseverance is required. 

So the heart for wisdom is something that has to be registered every day. You cannot decide to go out and buy some wisdom one day and then forget about it for six years. If you don’t pursue it daily, you don’t have a little bit of wisdom—rather, you have no wisdom, and exercise equipment taking up space in the garage.

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

“The heart knoweth his own bitterness; And a stranger doth not intermeddle with his joy” (KJV).

“The heart knows its own bitterness, and a stranger does not share its joy” (NKJV).

Proverbs 14:10

Whenever we encounter difficulties, one of our perennial temptations is to complain that others simply “do not know what it is like.” This is very true, as this proverb attests, but it is also beside the point. It is self-evident from the very fact of our individuality. If we knew what it was like to be somebody else, we would be that person. 

We can learn sympathy, of course, but when we sympathize we are reasoning by analogy, and what we grasp of the other person’s affliction is usually just a rough approximation.

The proverb tells us that our troubles are our own, and that our joys are our own. Inside each individual is a black box, and other people don’t have any access to it. We know, of course, that this does not include God, who knows and searches all hearts exhaustively. In fact, God knows our hearts better than we do. But the same thing cannot be said of others.

One of the reasons that our “rough approximations” of how others are suffering can be way off is that pain thresholds vary. Internal emotional resources vary. Think of it as a cash flow problem. A poor man who only has five dollars is going to be distressed by a ten dollar invoice. A rich man wouldn’t care about that at all—pocket change. He can be tempted to look on the poor man’s distress with contempt because “ten dollars is nothing to get worked up about.” Well, yes, for you. And the poor man can look with contempt at the rich man, assuming that it is not possible for him to have any troubles at all because he has a million dollars. But it never occurs to him that a man with a million dollars might be required to pay someone 1.2 million dollars. Big planes can also crash. No one outside knows the bitterness of a man’s heart.

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