What the seekers of God understand (Prov. 28:1-7)

What the seekers of God understand

[Proverbs 28:1-7]

What do you understand about yourself? Is there something that the indwelling Holy Spirit is giving you an understanding of yourself through the word of God? In my case, the Holy Spirit often makes me understand my own folly through the word of God. So I personally hold on to James 1:5, “If any of you lacks wisdom, he should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to him,” and ask God for wisdom. In the midst of that, I meditate on the books of wisdom in the Bible at weekly Wednesday night prayer meetings for several years. However, the more I meditate on the books of wisdom, the more I understand my folly. Therefore, I have no choice but to ask God for wisdom more and more. How about you?

As I was meditating Proverbs 28:1-7, I checked my own personal blog and wrote down the word ‘understand’ in the search and found the short writing that I wrote on April 2nd, 2006. The content of the short writing was about the understanding God gave me while proclaiming the word of God during a sermon in the Korean worship service on Sunday. At that time, I preached under the title of ‘God of Joseph,’ centering on the words of Acts 7:9-16. But when I proclaimed that the God of Joseph is the ‘God who is with us,’ I understood something precious. That understanding based on ‘God made Joseph prosperous by being with him’ (Gen. 39:2, 3, 23) was the fact that the prosperity stated in the Bible isn’t a change in Joseph's circumstances, but is the fact that God was with him. Joseph’s circumstance was that he was a servant of the Egyptian military commander Potiphar (vv. 2-3), and later was unjustly accused and in prison (v. 23). We would not consider Joseph prosperous who was in this circumstance. We may think that the prosperity we think is that God blessed us when it becomes a problem-solving and circumstantial change in the direction we want. However, the Bible says that because God was with Joseph, He made him prosperous. In other words, the prosperity that the Bible says is that God is with us.

What do you understand in the past or these days? What is the understanding God gives you? If we look at Proverbs 28:5, the Bible says, “Evil men do not understand justice, but those who seek the LORD understand it fully.” I would like to receive a lesson given by meditating on the four things about what the seekers of God understand, under the heading “What the seekers of God understand”.

First, what the seekers of God understand is that the righteous are bold.

Look at Proverbs 28:1 – “The wicked man flees though no one pursues, but the righteous are as bold as a lion.” I still remember the time when I was teaching the Gospel of John to local Christians servants in the mission field where my father was residing. I remember when the police men dropped in without warning after I taught them the word of John 16:33 – “I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.” I remember that I made up my mind, saying ‘I have to be bold and not be afraid’ since I taught them the word of John 16:33. So I acted boldly and pretended to be sleeping in the room where I was staying. When one of the police men came in, I got up from bed and showed my passport, thinking that if I show my U.S. passport and speak in English, he would leave. Then I remember being told to come to the police station because it became a problem. Haha.

In Proverbs 28:1, the Proverbs writer says, “The wicked man flees though no one pursues, but the righteous are as bold as a lion.” What does it mean? Here, the Proverbs writer is contrasting the wicked with the righteous. In particular, he contrasts the fleeing of the wicked with the boldness of the righteous. Why would the wicked flee even though no on pursues? Is it not because he has sinned? If we sin, our human instinct is to hide the sin. And because of the penalty for the sin we commit, we will not be able to sleep comfortably because we dwell in fear. That’s why there a Korean proverb saying, ‘The one who hits can't stretch his legs, and the one who gets hit sleeps with his legs stretched out.’ If we look at Leviticus 26:17, we can see a good example of the wicked man who flees though no one pursues (Prov. 28:1). A good example is that at the time of the Exodus, the Israelites didn’t obey all God's commands and violated God's covenant (vv. 14-15). What was God's punishment on the Israelites at that time? Look at Leviticus 26:17 – “I will set my face against you so that you will be defeated by your enemies; those who hate you will rule over you, and you will flee even when no one is pursuing you.” One of God's punishments was that the Israelites who sinned against God would run away even if no one was chasing them. This is what the Bible verse 36 says: “As for those of you who are left, I will make their hearts so fearful in the lands of their enemies that the sound of a windblown leaf will put them to flight. They will run as though fleeing from the sword, and they will fall, even though no one is pursuing them.” Eventually, the reason why the sinful Israelites run as through fleeing from the sword was because God made their hearts so fearful. Therefore, the wicked flee even if there is no one pursuing them.

But the righteous are bold like a lion (Prov. 28:1). What could be the reason? Why can the righteous be bold like the lion? The reason is because the righteous live by obeying the word of God. Therefore, since the righteous have no sins and their conscience is clean, they don’t need to flee in fear like the wicked. In other words, the righteous man with clean conscience is as bold as the lion. In order for us to be bold like the lion, we must have clean conscience. And in order to have clean conscience, we must obey God's word. If we commit a sin by disobeying God's command like the Israelites at the time of the Exodus, God will make our hearts fearful, and we would be easily surprised and flee without anyone pursuing us. Therefore, we must obey God's word. And like the apostle Paul, we must strive always to keep our conscience clear before God and man (Acts 24:16). Also, we must fulfill our duties to God in all good conscience (23:1). Then, through God's grace, we who have been justified by believing in Jesus will be able to be bold like the lion.

Dr. Yoon-sun Park says that there are two reasons why we Christians become bold: (1) It isn’t that we are bold because we feel our own strength, but rather it is because we feel our own weakness. In other words, when we feel our weakness and believe in God alone, we gain righteousness and God empowers us. That is why the apostle Paul confessed in 2 Corinthians 12:9-10, “my power is made perfect in weakness” and “For when I am weak, then I am strong.” Because we know that we are weak, we become strong and courageous by fully trusting in the Lord. (2) It is that we become strong and courageous because we love God. Look at 1 John 4:16-17: “And so we know and rely on the love God has for us. God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in him. In this way, love is made complete among us so that we will have confidence on the day of judgment, because in this world we are like him.” God is with us who love the Lord (Jn. 14:21, 23) and He makes us bold. We must be Christians who seek God. And Christians who seek God understand that the righteous are as bold as a lion, but the wicked flee even if there is no one who pursues them. I hope and pray that we all love God, who strengthens us when we are weak, so that we may obey His word and always strive to be free from our conscience.

Second, what the seekers of God understand is that with an understanding and knowledgeable leader, the nation will maintain order for a long time.

We are praying for our beloved homeland, the Republic of Korea, even though we live in this land of America and the United States that we love. In particular, we cannot but pray for the leaders of both countries. The reason is because the role of a country’s president is very important. Personally, it is the character that I think is important to myself as the pastor of a church, as well as to the president, the leader of a country. That’s why I am praying to God for a change of my own character, especially praying to God to imitate Jesus' humility. Perhaps that's why it is the character of the person that I value when I elect the president of the United States or Korea. And in that character, I see how the person's truthfulness is. If the presidential candidate makes this and that pledges to citizens during the election season and doesn’t go forward as president afterward, the citizens will have no choice but to doubt the truthfulness of that person. But my personal opinion is, I think I can tell if the presidential candidate is truly a truthful person or a person who keeps lying without hesitation. In particular, when we hear about the candidate through the news, I think that we can judge each of us in our own way, at least a little bit. Besides truthfulness, we often pray for the God-fearing leaders when we pray for our country's president and his leadership community people. The reason is because we believe that when they are wise leaders who fear God, they can govern this country wisely and well according to God's will. However, the reality we see is that when we look at the presidents of United States and South Korea, we don’t see the wisdom of fearing God (in our view?), and there are times when we question whether they are truthful in character. Then we can surely be disappointed. But on top of that, the more disappointing reality is that politicians quarrel, fight, criticize each other, and so on. We seem to lose hope when we see that they cannot become one, the factions are divided and criticized and quarreled with each other, and don’t take care of people's lives and serve the citizens.

Look at Proverbs 28:2 – “When a country is rebellious, it has many rulers, but a man of understanding and knowledge maintains order.” I thought about this word in two ways:

(1) If the country is rebellious, the regime is often replaced (v. 2).

What sins can be in the country? There may be not only corruption, but all lies and evil. The more leaders of the country who commit these sins, what will happen to that country? Among them, there are officials who oppress the poor (v. 3). These officials themselves were also the poor men in the past. Nevertheless, they don’t understand and compassionately helps the poor, but rather oppress them. Such people are by no means people without understanding and knowledge (v. 2). They are foolish leaders. They are “like a driving rain with leaves no food” (v. 3). Sometimes when I look at Korean news, I see farmers are interviewed by a report after all the crops are destroyed due to heavy rain. I can't help but agree that officials who oppress the poor are like heavy rains that ruin agricultural products. If there are many such country leaders, how hard would the citizens suffer?

The Bible Proverbs 28:2 was translated in the Korean Revised Version: ‘If there is sin in a country, there is the increase of rulers ….’ I compared this translation with the Korean Modern Bible translation: ‘If there is sin in a country, even if the regime is changed often ….’ I think the both translations have the similar meaning. Whether there is increase of rulers or the regime is changed often, both mean that the country isn’t stable because of sin. Not only that, but if there is sin, how divided will the leadership of a country be and will fight in partisans? Dr. Park said, ‘The fact that there are many factions in a country is God's punishment for the sins that have already existed in that country’ (Park). As an example, the Israel was divided into North and South Israel after the death of King Solomon, who committed idolatry in 1 Kings 11 and 12. In fact, the Bible twice said that the division of the nation of Israel was caused by God's punishment (1 Kgs. 12:15, 24). According to Dr. Park, he said ‘Therefore, when there is a civil war or partisanship in any country and there is no peace, all the people, including the ruler, should deeply reflect on the sins of that country and repent’ (Park). What do you think about what Dr. Park say? When I think about the divided country of Korea and America now, don't we all think that we should deeply reflect on our sins and repent to God? I remember what Jesus said in Matthew 12:25 – “Jesus knew their thoughts and said to them, ‘Every kingdom divided against itself will be ruined, and every city or household divided against itself will not stand.’” How can a family, a church or a county stand firm if people fight each other and divide. The family, the church, or the country divided by conflict can never stand firm. Therefore, if there is sin in the country, the regime is inevitably changed often. And if the regime changes often, the country cannot stand firm. The reason is because the country is divided by sin. And the divided country can never be stable. As a result, the citizens are bound to be anxious. In addition, the citizens are bound to feel exhausted, discouraged, and frustrated by the constant partisan fight in the politics amidst anxiety and worry.

(2) If there is an understanding and knowledgeable leader, the country will remain stable for a long time (Prov. 28:2).

Considering this word that if a country’s leader is understanding and knowledgeable, then that country will remain stable for a long time. As citizens of a country, do we want this leader to become the president of our country so that the country can regain stability as soon as possible? It would be great if not only the president but all those who assist the president who lead our country with the understanding and knowledge that God gives them. But on the contrary, what would happen to this country if the president and the people who support him lack understanding and knowledge and try to satisfy their own self-interest in their folly? So, when we pray to God for our country's leaders, we must pray that God will give them understanding and knowledge. Applying in a word, we must pray that God will give them wisdom when we pray for our nation's leaders.

Before, I have received five lessons under the title of “A wise king” centered on Proverbs 20:26-30. Here's a quick review:

(a) The wise king discerns and separates the good from the wicked and punishes the wicked (v. 26).

If the president of a country cannot discern between the good and the evil, what will happen to that country? So what would happen if we put the wicked people in important positions in government? What King Solomon asked of God was “discernment in administering justice” in order to judge the Lord's people (1 Kgs. 3:11). When we pray for the president of our country, like Solomon, we must seek discernment in administering justice. Then the president will rule the country well and establish order and justice.

(b) The wise king conscientiously rules the kingdom before God (Prov. 20:27).

The wise king, as a righteous man, rules the country with a good conscience, revealing the darkness of the wicked since he looks into the deep inside of the wicked. And because the wise king punishes the wicked with justice, he turns off the lamps of the wicked. In other words, the wise king will strive to be free from his conscience before God. And he will conscientiously rule the kingdom before God. Therefore, the light of the righteous will shine brightly, and the lamp of the wicked will go out.

The wise king defends his throne with love and faithfulness and strengthens him. Also, the wise king loves the people and faithfully does what he promises them. The wise king with this love and faithfulness protects himself, and strengthens his throne.

(d) The wise king has strength and wisdom (v. 29).

In other words, the wise king has strength and wisdom through many experiences.

(e) The wise king disciplines (v. 30).

The wise king disciplines his people in order to drive away the foolishness in their hearts. The reason he does so is because “beating purge the inmost being” (v. 30). He discerns and separates the good from the wicked and disciplines the wicked with justice. Therefore, he protects the citizens of his country and establishes the order of his country.

Don't you want the president of our country to be such a wise president? Christians who seek God understand that a wise leader with this understanding and knowledge, when established as president of a country, maintains recognition for a long time as that country. Not only that, but Christians who seek God know that if there is sin in the country, especially among the president or his aides and leaders, the regime is short-lived and has no choice but to be replaced. Therefore, we must seek God. In the midst of that, we must pray for the understanding and knowledge of God to our nation's leaders.

Third, what the seekers of God understand is that it is better to act faithfully, even in poverty, than to be a rich man whose ways are perverse.

Is it important in your eyes to be rich or is it important to act with integrity? What would you do if you couldn't get rich no matter how hard you are to work? Will you abandon integrity and try to become rich by speaking and doing falsely? The Bible teaches us that rich and poor aren’t the most important things, but whether we are faithful or wise is more important. Look at Proverbs 19:1 – “Better a poor man whose walk is blameless than a fool whose lips are perverse.” Look at Ecclesiastes 4:13 – “Better a poor but wise youth than an old but foolish king who no longer knows how to take warning.” Looking at these words, the Bible instructs us that a wise man who lives truthfully even though he is poor is better than a foolish man who is lying and dull and doesn’t know how to be warned. That is why truth and wisdom are so important.

Look at Proverbs 28:6 – “Better a poor man whose walk is blameless than a rich man whose ways are perverse.” When this word is translated into Hebrew, it is ‘Better a poor man who acts truthfully than a rich man who deceives in two ways. Here, ‘to walk in two ways’ means ‘in fact, he only pretends to walk on a good way while walking in an evil way” (Park). Then, what is the evil way for the rich who walks in these two ways? As Proverbs 28:3 says, one of the evil ways of the rich who walks in two ways is to oppress the poor. For a more specific example, James 2:6 says: “But you have insulted the poor. Is it not the rich who are exploiting you? Are they not the ones who are dragging you into court?” The rich man who walks in two ways not only despises them in oppressing the poor, but also torments them, and causes harm by even taking them to court. Can’t you imagine? On the outside, the rich man seems to do good deeds in front of people. But on the inside when nobody sees him, he oppresses the poor (skillfully). This is “a rich man whose ways are perverse” (Prov. 28:6), that is the rich man who walks in two ways.

What do you think of the rich man walking in two ways? How would you react when you realize that he is doing a lot of good deeds in front of people on the outside, but in reality he is accumulating wealth by doing evil behind them without their knowledge? The Bible says that the poor man who acts truthfully is better than this rich man. The lesson that this word teaches us is that it is more important to act truthfully than to be rich and poor, or to act falsely while hypocritically deceiving people's eyes. Those who seek God understand and know this fact. Not only that, Christians who seek God are striving to understand this truth and act truthfully and faithfully, even if they are poor.

We should strive to be truthful and faithful people rather than trying to get rich. We shouldn't be rich who walk in two ways. On the outside, we should not become rich people who pretend to walk the good way in front of people, but actually walk the evil way. Since we seek God, we must understand the word of God that with the wisdom that God gives us, the poor man who walks faithfully is better than the rich man who walks in an evil way. This is what Proverbs 19:22 says: “What a man desires is unfailing love; better to be poor than a liar.” I hope and pray that we will act faithfully and truthfully which God requires of us.

Fourth and last, what the seekers of God understand is that he who keeps the law is a wise man.

Who is the “legalist” you think of? Perhaps when we say “legalists,” we Christians will think of the Pharisees in the New Testament Gospels. And we may think the Pharisees were “legalists” because they kept the law thoroughly. However, as we already know, the law that they kept thoroughly was not God's law, but human tradition. How do we know it? Because Jesus said to the Pharisees, “And why do you break the command of God for the sake of your tradition?” (Mt. 15:3) In other words, Jesus pointed out to the Pharisees that they had broken God's commandments in order to keep the traditions of the elders. From this fact, we can say that the Pharisees, who were legalists, didn’t strictly obey God's law, but that they strictly obeyed man-made laws. Another thing we can know about the Pharisees who were legalists through the words of Jesus is that Jesus referred to them as “hypocrites” (7:5, 15:7, Luke 6:42, 12:56, etc). For example, in Matthew 23:27, the Bible says, “Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You are like whitewashed tombs, which look beautiful on the outside but on the inside are full of dead men's bones and everything unclean.” The Pharisees, who were legalists in the eyes of Jesus, were hypocrites. They looked beautiful on the outside like whitewashed tombs, but inside were full of dead men’s bones and and everything unclean. The apostle Paul said in Acts 23:3 – “… God will strike you, you whitewashed wall! You sit there to judge me according to the law, yet you yourself violate the law by commanding that I be struck!” Indeed, the Pharisees boasted of the law (Rom. 2:23), and while teaching others, they didn’t teach themselves (v. 21). For example, they were stealing even though they preached against stealing (v. 21). So we are bound to have negative thoughts about the "legalists" Pharisees. Maybe that's why we don't even have very positive thoughts about the law. In particular, when it comes to “law,” we may think that we don’t have to obey the law since the law is from the age of the Old Covenant and we are now living in the New Covenant. For example, since we think that in the New Testament, Jesus replaced the Moses’ ten commandments with His twofold command, “’Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind’; and, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself’” (Lk. 10:27), we tend to not value Moses’ ten commandments any longer and only try to keep Jesus’ twofold command. However, this is an out of balance misconception. We must obey both Moses’ 10 commandments and Jesus’ twofold command. Of course, I am not saying that all the laws in the Old Testament must be obeyed even now. While there are laws to be observed now (continuity), there are laws that no longer need to be observed (discontinuity). For example, even though we should still thoroughly obey the law such as the Ten Commandments, but there are such laws like a food law in the Old Testament that we no longer need to observe. One thing we must point out is the 'function of the law'. Calvin said there are three functions of the law: (1) The function of the law is to serve as a reminder of sin. (2) The law, together with our conscience, serves to prevent people from becoming terribly corrupt. (3) It is to tell God's will how those saved by faith can please God (Internet).

Look at Proverbs 28:7 – “He who keeps the law is a discerning son, but a companion of gluttons disgraces his father.” What does it mean? First, “a discerning son” mentioned here refers to the one who fears God. How to know it is because in the first half of Proverbs 1:7 the Bible says that “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge” (here “knowledge” refers to “wisdom”). And the wise man who fears God in this way isn’t companion with gluttons who is disgraces to his father (28:7). Here, “gluttons” refers to a person who is prodigal man who squanders his wealth in wild living like the prodigal son of the second son in the third parable that Jesus spoke of in Luke 15 (Prov. 23:20-21) (Park). The reason why the wise man who fears God doesn’t associate with a man who squanders his wealth in wild living is because he hates evil. In a word, because the wise man knows that fearing God is hating evil (8:13), he doesn’t associate with a prodigal man who squanders his wealth. This is what the Bible Proverbs 3:7 says: “Do not be wise in your own eyes; fear the LORD and shun evil.” And this is what Job 28:28 says: “And he said to man, ‘The fear of the Lord--that is wisdom, and to shun evil is understanding.’” Therefore, the wise son, which is spoken of in Proverbs 28:7, not only isn’t companion of gluttons who squanders his wealth but also leave him.

So how can we attain this heavenly wisdom? Of course, we must first hold onto the promise of James 1:5 and ask God for wisdom. Look at James 1:5 – “If any of you lacks wisdom, he should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to him.” When we feel more thoroughly that we lack wisdom in ourselves, we should continue to seek wisdom from God, who gives generously to us without finding fault. But we shouldn't stop here. What should we do? We must obey the law [“He who keeps the law” (Prov. 28:7a)]. In other words, we don’t end by asking God for wisdom, but we must keep and obey God's law. The reason is so that we will become wise. So Moses told the Israelites at the time of the Exodus, “Observe them carefully, for this will show your wisdom and understanding to the nations, who will hear about all these decrees and say, ‘Surely this great nation is a wise and understanding people’” (Deut. 4:6) According to this word, we must observe the law carefully. Then the people of the world will say ‘Surely these Christians is wise and understanding people.’ Then Moses went to the next verse, Deuteronomy 4:7 and said, “What other nation is so great as to have their gods near them the way the LORD our God is near us whenever we pray to him?” When I think of these two verses (Deut. 4:6, 7), I again confirm that what is important to God's people is obedience and prayer. And when it comes to wisdom, I learn once again that I must not only ask God for wisdom, but also keep the His word. Those who become wise by obeying the law in this way fear God and resist the wicked. Look at Proverbs 28:4 – “Those who forsake the law praise the wicked, but those who keep the law resist them.” How can those who keep the law praise the wicked? How can those who keep the law praise those who do evil by violating the law of God? The Bible says clearly that those who keep the law are against the wicked. What could be the reason? This is because the wise man who keeps the law understands “justice” (Prov. 28:5). In other words, the wise man who seeks God (v. 5) and keeps the law (v. 7) opposes the wicked because he understands justice that the wicked don’t understand (v. 5). That is, the wise man who fears God do justice. He who seeks God understands and knows that he who keeps the law is wise. And because the wise man fears God he hates evil and opposes the wicked. Hence, the wise Christian who keeps the law isn’t companion of those who squander their wealth in wild life (v. 7). The reason is because the wise man knows that it is disgrace to Heavenly Father (v. 7).

I personally have the joy that God gives me by grace. The joy is reading the Bible, meditating on the word of God, and the Holy Spirit gives me valuable understandings. However, the problem is that the joy I enjoy by obeying the word I have come to understand is far less than the joy I enjoy by understanding the word. We meditated on the four things that those who seek God understand under the heading “What the seekers of God understand” based on the words of Proverbs 28:1-7: (1) They understand that the righteous are bold. (2) They understand that with an understanding and knowledgeable leader, the nation will maintain order for a long time. (3) They understand that it is better to act faithfully, even in poverty, than to be a rich man whose ways are perverse. (4) They understand is that he who keeps the law is a wise man.