In this sermon, Pastor Joe Babij examines select verses from Proverbs 29 regarding the benefits of true justice for society. Along with considering some of the cultural issues facing Christians today, Pastor Babij outlines three benefits for a government/society that practices righteousness:
1. The Benefit of Happiness (v. 2)
2. The Benefit of Stability (v. 4)
3. The Benefit of Social Concern (v. 7)
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okay this morning i want you to take your bibles and turn to proverbs 29.
between uh books of the bible just got done with ii peter heading to jude i’d like to do some other things and one of the things that have been on my heart is some things about what happened some of the things that are happening in the culture and also are happening happened last year because of covet and just wanting to talk about from scripture the benefits when governments uphold justice in the folly of those that don’t but let me pray first lord thank you this morning for bringing us here together thank you lord for the warm weather and uh nice weather that you’ve given us thank you lord that we’re able to meet together without masks if we don’t have to wear one and the lord also with the word of god and the fellowship of believers without all the restrictions and and i thank you for that and i pray lord you continue to bless us and encourage us and move us on so we can uh serve you with our whole heart and i pray you would make us attentive this morning to the word of god and help us to understand and put it into practice and i pray in christ’s name amen now the apostle paul told us in the book of romans that god ordained governments and that governments are to uphold the line of justice all of us are aware and concerned that our government would do the right thing so that a sense of balance and well-being is maintained throughout the nation now when justice is maintained the people can expect to experience certain positive benefits to life but where justice is not maintained the people can expect to experience certain negative backlashes to life when it when justice breaks down the proverbs are calling all people to live in the fear of god that’s how it starts off in chapter one so as to live righteously everybody who’s on this earth is responsible to the creator the wise who desire to live this way will always be the su stability of a country and of governments but the fact is all people are not righteous in this way they do not fear god they have turned to their own ways this lord’s day let’s examine some of the positive benefits when justice is maintained from the book of proverbs and then identify the backlash when it is not maintained chapter 29 of proverbs reveals really three positive benefits when justice is maintained in society when it is present even in small degrees it makes life much more livable when there is the fear of yahweh there also exists righteousness well-being and security now before i look at the text there are some things i need to mention about the book of proverbs in my study of proverbs i have found there are certain observations that are helpful so you handle the book correctly the first observation is this it is it is teaching about wisdom wisdom means being skillful and successful in one’s relationships and responsibilities it involves following the creator’s principles of order in a moral universe this order manifests itself in god’s wisdom which is available to all people so to the extent that man follows this order if they do they are wise heeding the wisdom of the book of proverbs then brings harmony to one’s life the contrast failure to heed god’s divine design results in disorder lack of compliance with god’s wise ways brings unpleasant and often disastrous consequences a second observation is this there’s a certain nature to proverbs a proverb is a brief saying that is used to communicate much truth in a concise and a striking way truth that is expressed as caught by the mind and retained by the memory it’s meant to be remembered that’s why there’s pithy’s short sayings so these observations of life they are generally true but not iron clad promises so don’t ever take pr proverbs as promises iron-clad promises they have truth in it but they are not ironclad promises proverbs deals with generalities while job in ecclesiastes deals with the exceptions a third observation is that solomon who wrote most of the proverbs had a world view in mind and his world view included god as the creator the universe is yahweh’s creation and because the lord created the world in a purposeful way the world is not random and meaningless the order that god established when he made the world provides the ground for human significance in this world he also included order in his writings that yahweh is sovereignly in control of the world there is a predictable relationship between acts and consequences which holds true in most situations in life this order encouraged the search of the teacher this wise teacher to regulate life in accordance with the intrinsic order already in the universe and then he included also in his worldview a rationality that the lord’s world is knowable yet it is mysterious we can’t know everything but we can know everything that god wants us to know and so because yahweh created the world and he is sovereignly in control of it the world is knowable at least in part that means that the universe manifests intelligent design in its order and this fact is the foundation for human understanding of the cosmos that we live in he also included in his world view the fear of god humans must reverence god in their lives the fear of the lord is the implication of his creation in the universe because the lord alone fashioned the world all of life proceeds from him so that means then he has foundational authority for the whole ethical system of wisdom and then a lab’s last observation is that there are three levels of foolishness in proverbs if you chapter 1 verse number 22 says this how long o naive ones will you love simplicity and scoffers delight themselves in scoffing and fools in knowledge so the levels of foolishness and proverbs are the naive person the simpleton easily enticed and misled believes everything including bad counsel lacks moral prudence and needs discernment but is capable of learning it’s usually the wide-eyed youth who is headed for trouble unless he listens to wise counsel second level is the full a moral and spiritual he’s actually morally and spiritually dull and it’s by choice his problem is not mental his problem is spiritual he has no desire for wisdom or correction and then we have the scoffer the scoffer cynically and defiantly as a free thinker who ridicules the righteous and everything for which he stands like it says in proverbs 19 25 strike a scoffer and the naive may become shrewd but reprove one who has understanding and he will gain knowledge so my question questions this morning considering the passage that we’re going to look at in proverbs is what happens when too many fools get into leadership in our country in any country what happens then to the positive benefits of justice and what negative backlash occurs when governmental leaders skirt justice so that’s what we’re going to look at this morning so i want you to take your bibles look at proverbs 29 and i’m going to begin with verse number two and here’s the first positive benefit when justice is maintained the benefit of happiness and i’m going to read just the half half of the verse and then i’ll look at the other half a little uh as i go along proverbs 29 verse 2 it says when the righteous increase the people rejoice stop right there the hebrew word for increase really means to become many become numerous to multiply so when a society is filling up with righteous people the life of the community will be influenced for good the increase here includes the increase of power and of social effectiveness that means this is very beneficial for a culture when the righteous do increase when the wise person increases so when a society is like this the people what do they do they rejoice they’re glad they have a calmness to their spirit a society in which good right and just things are done and the opposite are not done is a happy society in an atmosphere like this people tend to trust and help one another in other words there’s a sense of community when this mindset and this heart attitude is prevalent there’s a sense of purpose there’s a direction in life there’s a sense of hope for the future when the righteous are in the majority but according to proverbs this is god’s desire for individual people and for nations that’s how he designed it when we do it according to his way in fact look back to proverbs 21 look at verse number three it says there it says to do righteousness and justice is desired by the lord rather than sacrifice so these fixed pair righteousness and justice are the heart of biblical religion summing up the proper attitude toward god and to live to live in accord with them is really to make of one’s own life and offering to god this is what god is pleased with when we live righteously and justly now it says that these two qualities in that verse i just read are desired by the lord and the hebrew word here for desire really means to be chosen that means that god will choose righteousness and justice before external forms of piety through the observation of religious ceremonies see ceremonies matter little to god in comparison with true devotion of an obedient heart before god david the king understood that his sacrifices offered up to god while at the same time being involved in known sin becomes unacceptable to god that’s why he writes psalm 51 where he says there for you do not delight in sacrifice otherwise i would give it and you are not pleased with burnt offerings or he would give that too and then he says this the sacrifice of god are a broken spirit and a contrite heart he will not despise that and when my heart’s like that then he’ll receive my sacrifices the prophets understood the same thing and spoke against god’s people when they slipped into a religious regularity or formality with no heart devotion where it says in hosea i delight in loyalty rather than sacrifice and in the knowledge of god rather than burnt offerings so what happens what happens when when the righteous triumph if you look at proverbs 28 verse number it says when the righteous triumph there is great glory so here we have the reaction of the people to the political rise and fall of the wicked and righteous it affects what they do and how they respond when the righteous triumph and that word triumph in english means to win a victory but here in the hebrew the word literally means to rejoice to exalt to be jubilant again the same thing and the word glory gives a sense of triumph something that we can boast about it is more than a sense of simple celebration but a sense of beauty that comes closer to the creation ideal the way god intended things to be therefore when the righteous are jubilant about what is going on then what happens to the people the people are have confidence they they have and that confidence is contagious amongst the population and they’re excited about things they they want to be part of what is happening they come close to the ideal god desires for people his design in the creation order now saying all that what about when justice breaks down what then well let’s go back to chapter 29 and verse number two and i want you to see the second part of the verse it says when the righteous increase the people rejoice but when the wicked man rules what do people do they groan the people groan that is what happens there’s a matter of fact it pushes out rejoicing and all that people do is groan they mourn it is actually a word also used in scripture to uh translate it as sighing sighing over present evil and also evil that may come they see what’s happening they see what’s gonna the results of of how the leaders of the country are making decisions and they see where it’s heading it’s like when when uh the people were leaving egypt or when they were in egypt joseph had joseph had died and the king that was over joseph had passed away and it says this in exodus now it came about in the course of of those many days that the king of egypt died and the sons of israel sighed because of the bondage they cried out they cried for help because of their bondage and that cry rose up to god in other words they saw what was going to take place after joseph dying and after the pharaoh the king that was reigning while joseph was alive and they forgot about all that and now the slavery just abounded and they saw it was coming and they sighed see that’s what happens when things go bad but there’s another thing that happens and that’s back in proverbs 28 and verse number 12 where the second part of that verse is when the righteous triumph there is great glory but when the wicked rise men hide themselves now this is a very interesting passage of scripture so that means when justice breaks down the creation ideal breaks down and there is no longer jubilance no longer rejoicing no longer happiness a little injustice throws the whole balance of humanity off and government ceases to function for good they begin to function for evil now look what happens when the imbalance takes place men hide themselves it actually the hebrew word actually means to search out or to search for commentator dan garrett suggests that this is not just good men hi good men hide themselves when the wicked are in power it’s not that good people are afraid although that could be true what is really happening here is humanity itself is hard to find in other words we recognize as human beings as god’s creation there’s something wrong going on we may not be able to put our finger on it right away but there’s something wrong going on and so humanity that should be evident in society disappears and things became become wacky and things become unclear in other words you can’t find it where’s the humanity that god gave us in creation what happened to it see so that means humanity itself is hard to find in the sense that institutions are dehumanized man man as he came from the hand of god as the lord formed the man from the dirt of the ground and created man in his image and called him good that creation ideal is no longer evident in society as society sinks to a level of bestiality we look like the animals not like human beings so a degenerate society will cast off any thought of god and any thought of what is actually normal and natural that comes from god or anything that is required of god they will cast off so when justice is out of balance the skill of living diminishes it was bruce walke in his proverb his commentary in proverbs who said the skill of living out life beautifully so that it demonstrates a beauty about it the beauty goes solomon wrote this book so human beings have the knowledge on how to live life in a purposeful and a skillful way which looks good people will recognize that and say i like that when when a child behaves and is honorable to their parents and is respectful to other human beings when they meet them we say i like that i like that individual there’s there’s something and that that shows us humanity that shows what god intended it to be but when that’s not there it’s frightening what will take the vacuum so living according to god’s creation ideal has order and beauty to it like jewelry and that’s what proverbs sometimes brings up jewelry wisdom is like attractive jewelry on the body for all to see like he says in proverbs 4 9 she will place on your head a garden uh a garland of grace she will present you with a crown of beauty it’s just signifying that many times these things are gives thoughts of of just skill and structure and beauty to it so proverbs teach there’s a skill for living and jewelry symbolizes fidelity to parents and authority uh obedient child they will conduct themselves with dignity and because of that there will be a beauty about their life fearing god and acting upon parental instruction has an eye-catching beauty about it obedience is beautiful and makes a person delightfully outstanding many times above others this is lost when leaders play foolish this is lost when we have fools in authority when they play the full there is no beauty there is no rejoicing there is only mourning and sighing and dysfunction that’s what we see only when the wicked die and diminish in number will righteousness be seen as it says in proverbs 28 28 when the wicked rise man hides himself but when they perish the righteous increase in other words when righteousness comes back in things get back to normal society gets back to normal people’s lives get back to normal as god intended it to be so that’s the first positive and negative of when justice is either followed or not followed that it benefit is rejoicing it is happiness the second positive benefit when justice is maintained is the benefit of stability notice in verse number 4 of proverbs 29 it says the king gives stability to the land by justice so that is the king is the government and when justice is upheld there’s a stability in the land so that here the administration of justice is in the hands of the governing authorities in this case the king who is who really who had sovereign rule over the whole kingdom and when the king does what is right that is does what is right before the creator stability is granted by god just like it says in proverbs 29 14 if the king judges the poor with truth his throne will be established forever so the eternal establishment of the throne is the stability that god gives to a government when they do the right thing but what about when justice breaks down again 20 uh verse 4 of proverbs 29 the king gives stability to the land by justice but a man who takes bribes overthrows it so the temptation to those in power is to abuse power for their own enrichment usually and this can be done by more evident maybe than bribes now today we don’t usually call it bribes in government we call it earmarks we call it pork barrels in budgets and bills making favors with other officials throughout the state saying if you just do if you do this for me i’ll do this for you so passing laws favorable to one section of the community in return for cash or making judgment in court in favor of those who pay for them when this happens justice is toppled it’s ruined and destroyed it really destroys the whole process so bribes cause government officials to disregard god’s standard as it says in first samuel it says his samuel sons however did not walk in the ways in his ways but turned aside after dishonest gain took bribes and perverted justice and their bribes also cause government officials to turn aside the poor in amia amos chapter 5 verse 12 it says for i know your transgressions are many and your sins are great you who distress the righteous and accept bribes and turn aside poor the poor in the gates and then bribes also within government shows how absent god is in that particular system and that particular society where ezekiel the prophet said this in prophet in ezekiel 22 verse 12 in you they have taken bribes to shed blood you have taken interest and profits and you have injured your neighbor for gain by oppression and you have forgotten me declares the lord you forgot that you’re responsible to the creator and then look over to proverbs 17 and verse number 8 concerning this topic of a bribe it says in proverbs 17 verse 8 a bribe is a charm in the sight of its owner wherever he turns he prospers now notice the term used in the new american standard bible picked to translate the hebrew word the word charm it simply means a stone it is used here as a stone of favor equal to a stone that brings favor or a lucky stone a magic stone the hebrew ex expression does not occur uh in this sense elsewhere in the old testament but we do know that the israelites used amulets and charms and sometimes made precious stones as these charms that they used even ezekiel in the king james bible says and say thus says the lord god woe to the woman who sows magic charms on the sleeves so from this the thought is that a bribe is a source of good luck that in the estimation of the briber whenever he depends on the charm it brings success it is clearly not just mon the monetary value of it that is in view but the idea that a bribe works like a charm or like magic a bribe can really cut out all the red tape that you have to deal with and get quick results no paperwork to fill out no debate to have on the issues you know back door deals being done that you find out about later see bribery when it takes place within a government overthrows justice it looks like it gives success on every side but in the end it will cause a nation remember righteousness exalts a nation that kind of thing really brings a nation down and then in proverbs 21 verse 14 it says a gift in secret subdues anger and a bribe in the bosom strong wrath that means that the wickedness of a bribe lies both in the means and its end here in this passage i just read it has to be given and received in secret literally out of the bosom a picture of the briber taking money from under his skirt and the bribe slipping it into the pocket inside the coat of the other person it’s done in secret so wherever whatever it means of bribery it blinds the people to truth and encourages them to twist the words of the righteous and we know from the old testament law that bribery in all forms was forbidden and the path uh a path really the wives really should never ever take i remember getting a call at two o’clock in the morning when that one many years ago from a missionary and they because because of the time difference it was two o’clock in the morning and this is when we had land lines you know we’re actually you had to pick up the phone and there was a wire that connected to the wall wall that’s for the younger people you know and uh it i was talking to him at two o’clock morning that conversation went on for two hours and the subject was bribery he says i can’t get anything done everywhere i go people want their palm greased what do i do i says well you do a lot of praying and you don’t give in to them so he he called me back later and he says you know i really put that stuff into practice and i found out that they didn’t want to deal with me and they gave me what i wanted anyway without giving them a bribe so we have to do what’s right because deuteronomy tells us in chapter 16 you shall not distort justice you shall not be partial you shall not take a bribe for a bribe blinds the eyes of the wise and perverts the words of the righteous now getting back to proverbs 29 and verse number 4 where it says the king gives stability to the land by justice but a man who takes bribes overthrows it that wherever justice is distorted stability is no longer a benefit in fact in verse number 20 uh verse number eight of chapter 29 it’s it says scorners set a city aflame but a wise man turn away anger that means a scorner who sets a city aflame that means when corrupt leaders scorners mock at justice this action destabilizes the community and the country and stirs up the city that inflames the people to break into factions and of course remember the level of foolishness a scoffer is the worst level a scoffer just does what they want so when government officials do not uphold justice and refuse to act with justice it throws off the whole balance of justice and if imbalance is not checked it will inevitably lead to the next thing and that’s violence proverbs 21 verse 7 the violence of the wicked will drag them away because they refuse to act with justice so that’s what’s happening you have all this breakdown in the government all the way down and what do you have on the ground level you have chaos you have violence you have destruction you have lawlessness you have from ever at every angle that’s not good for a country that doesn’t that doesn’t give signs that a country is doing well when those things take place in fact the word violence coupled with the word wicked that one one is guilty of sin is really referring to a hardened criminal as it says in proverbs 24 1 and 2 do not be envious of an evil man nor desire to be with them for their minds devise violence and their lips talk of trouble these are the scoffers of proverbs the root reason for their conduct of violence goes back to their past they refused to learn something while they were in the molding process as a youth they refuse to act justly and proper and fitting and they end up becoming what belligerent self-centered and violent people who must be dragged off from their crimes they don’t even want to give them up you must drag them away from those crimes so sometimes these very people get into public office and end up being a menace to society so how has our culture today been distorted how has it become unrecognizable gladness is turned into mourning the humanity as uh of god as he intended is unrecognizable well confused first of all the definition of marriage away from its original design and the whole institution is discredited the family is under attack divorce one one-parent families child abuse gender juvenile crime child trafficking and the list goes on and on but remember god clearly defines marriage as a monogamous union between one man and one woman so defending and promoting marriage according to god’s design is actually doing justice it’s actually showing the world this is what god intended this is the way it’s supposed to look this is real humanity what about abortion one million babies a year are killed in the united states of america and now we have late term abortion how heinous is that and yet god created all human beings in his image the word of god clearly indicates that he forms children in their mother’s womb womb and all human beings are totally human right from fertilization so standing up for the helpless is doing justice and then brainwash the culture with gender fluidity and the children will be will actually lose their identity deceive the children lie to them and they will be disillusioned and lose all hope and yet god clearly made people as distinct men and women in his image so that these two genders as gifts of god’s grace are given to us and must be kept and honored in every person and to think otherwise is evil wrong and disingenuous and doing it the right way is justice and it does look like humanity when that takes place and then saturate everything with the wicked and demonic critical race theory that’s been all over the news so that division amongst the population will grow deeper and more violent now i just want to say something about it because you may not know what it is critical race theory is actually an american invention in the 1970s the study began as why the civil rights era victory stalled which led in to the 1980s where the students at harvard law school protesting at the lack of racial diversity in the curriculum student body and faculty and out from these circumstances rose what is called today the critical race theory and the bottom line of and the bottom premise of this theory is that the most important thing about you is your race so then everything is decided by race the color of your skin not on your character not on your environment not on your values not on your behaviors not on your achievements that means nothing to them no everything is examined by one’s race and if you are part of the minoritized race group you are a victim of the system that is rigged against you a system that does not want you to succeed and that’s where we get the term being thrown around today as systemic racism on the other hand if you are race privileged you are an exploiter whether you intend to be or not so the critical race mindset assumes that racism is present everywhere always and if a situation arises they will find it if no one else can so the critical race theory is a unique un-american because it rejects the core tenements really of the american classically liberal judeo-christian value system that means that there is order like the declaration and independence tells us that all men are created equal and are endowed by the creator with unenviable rights the right for life liberty and the pursuit of happiness they deny that that’s why they become haters of america also the critical race theory blames the imperial european powers on how the constitution framers designed the constitution that the system that they design is rigged against people also the critical race theory avoids recognizing america has spent a lot of time and a lot of money to break free of the racist past instead they want to cancel history rewrite history they want to cancel culture and reinvent things in fact they don’t even agree they they actually don’t agree at all with martin luther king’s civil rights movement where his dream that people would be judged by the content of their character and not by the color of their skin they think he was naive and wrong incredible race theory they they concluded that this 40-year american experiment is a failure and needs to be scrapped so this particular mindset really what it does is elevates storytelling over evidence and reason it really rejects the concept of truth and merit and facts it poisons and produces hatred and disunity and violence within a culture and it definitely fails to see racism as a matter of the sinful heart and the answer is the gospel of jesus christ because the gospel of jesus christ will change your heart towards people and you will start loving all people as god loves us and it does this it violates the two great commandments to love the lord thy god with all my heart all thy mind all my soul and all thy strength and the second to love your neighbor as yourself those are god’s commandments see when those take place life looks like it ought to when they don’t take place it’s unrecognizable that’s what i’m saying unrecognized humanity and when i look out sometimes and i hear the news i don’t recognize any of that stuff because it’s all distorted that’s not the way it it’s intended to be by god so you know that what we really need to do is we need to refuse to accept this kind of teaching and we we should not be bullied into being racist when we’re not or a victim when you’re not this kind of thinking has no place whatsoever in the church when we become christians we are brothers and sisters in christ because we’re connected to our lord jesus christ by his death in our behalf his resurrection his shed blood to wash away our sins right and he gives us the word of god and the hope of eternal life and a world that righteousness dwells in the new heaven and the earth we’re not going to find it here but we will we are promised it of that righteousness someday in fact in scripture it says in second corinthians 5 16 when someone gets saved it says therefore from now on we recognize no one according to the flesh that means people are not looked at as jew and gentile than bond and free and rich and poor and pagan and barbarian nor this the color of their skin whether it’s red or yellow black brown or white the unsaved are looked at by us as lost in darkness and in bondage and they need the gospel and the saved are looked at as being in the same family of god and hence brothers and sisters in christ so see our culture has become in some ways unrecognizable because of the distortion of the truth because of the order that god’s given us in creation has been turned over and justice is not being held anymore so lie to the people and say it enough times that they’ll accept it as the norm and the more and more people will give heartily approval to it or they’ll just simply ignore it but remember the gospel makes clear that god has made all people equally in his image so racism is wrong and is an issue of the heart in fact if you look at proverbs 29 verse it says if a ruler pays attention to falsehood all his ministers become wicked and then you add to all that a hybrid socialism and the socialistic mindset has been taught really in our schools and institutions of higher learning for the past 25 to 30 years if this mindset becomes dominant we will no longer have an america as founded by the founding fathers and as seen in the declaration of independence the constitution of the united states the goal of democratic socialism is to have full control over your life in other words the state is the march of god for the world and the end result as according to hegel is that he saw the state or government as a replacement of god on earth and any political leader ascribing to that concept they will be against righteousness and ultimately against christianity it was funny i was reading some definitions of uh different things like you know socialism communism fascism and somebody kind of summed it up in a kind of a tongue-in-cheek manner but the truth is there and this is what how they define socialism you have two cows the government takes one and gives you gives the other to your neighbor communism you have two cows the government takes both and give you some milk fascism you have two cows the government takes both and sells you the milk nazism you have two cows the government takes both and shoot you bureaucracy you have two cows the government takes both shoots one melts the other and throws away the milk waste capitalism you have two cows you sell one buy a bull start a business so that you don’t become dependent upon the government i thought that was unique and of course if we go further than that and you want to defund the police then you’re going to have anarchy and violence you’re going to have lawlessness and a violent person will not come easily as the scriptures tell us they must be dragged from their violence because they think what they’re doing is the right thing now if all these things take place who will they hurt the most they will not hurt the elite they will not hurt the rich but the rights of the poor people in society who have no power or or no voice that leads me to the last positive benefit where justice is maintained and that’s this the benefit of social concern notice what it says in verse number seven it says the righteous is concerned for the rights of the poor let me stop there that means that real justice is to see the poor are not falsely condemned or misused or inhumanly treated because of their weaknesses where there is justice the poor have no where there’s justice the poor actually the weak the feeble are being taken care of with and there is a kind of a genuine solution looked at but what about when justice breaks down look at the rest of verse number seven it says the righteous is concerned for the rights of the poor the wicked does not understand such concerns so what happens is that when justice diminishes concern for the vulnerable individuals in society and those groups are not taken care of and the problems are not solved and what you have what you have rampant going on even in our country right now rampant homelessness why because they don’t even know how to fix it because that’s not their concern so homelessness is out of control with no desire to fix the problems because there is no real concern on the side of governing authorities so you see that the wisdom of proverbs really lays out what happens when justice is pushed aside and all these things go on and we see it right before our eyes we need to pray for our country and we need to be praying we’re part of the solution as a church and believe me the gospel of jesus christ is the answer and the true church is the answer because it is the gospel of jesus christ that will maintain happiness and gladness in the heart of people it’s the gospel that will maintain stability and give joy and the promise of eternal life it is the gospel who will love god and love people and take care of the needs the gospel that will do that so the the hope of the world is the church and the person of jesus christ so this morning i just wanted to lay those things before you uh just to show you that we really need to pray for our country and we need to bring our country and its leaders before the lord every day and every wednesday when we pray and every time we can and be part of how can we be part of the solution part of that solution is you living the way god intended and then people see that and say that’s the way it ought to be amen let’s pray let’s pray father we thank you we thank you this morning for the wisdom that comes from the word of god we thank you lord that the wisdom exposes when things are out of balance it shows us what’s not right it also shows us your intention to have order in the universe to present humanity in a way where it is recognizable yes those are the things are right and those things will bring not only beauty to those who see but it will be bring honor to your great name so i just ask you lord that by your divine design that your church would be the light in a dark world to bring the gospel to the people that would change their whole mindset and worldview and reverse the way they were thinking and the destruction of their thoughts to that of thoughts of being which will produce joy and rejoicing which will produce stability and will produce concern for the glory of god and and the problems and issues of people and i just ask this in the name of our precious lord and savior jesus christ amen