This Week's Bulletin

Righteousness Exalts A Nation
David R. Ferguson

Proverbs 14:34 makes the point that "Righteousness exalts a nation, but sin is a reproach to any people." If there is such a thing as righteousness, then Someone sovereign must determine what it is. Humankind has a varied idea of what constitutes righteousness. We could never in a million years agree on what is righteous and what is unrighteous. God, however, is an authority on righteousness, and fortunately for us, God tells us what righteousness means in His holy word. Psalm 71:19 says, "Your righteousness also, O God, is very high, Who has done great things: O God, Who is like unto You!" "All Your commandments are righteousness," says the psalmist in Psalm 119:172. Psalm 98:2 adds, "The Lord has made known His salvation: His righteousness has He openly showed in the sight of the heathen."

It is a mark of a nation in decline that calls evil good and good evil. As Isaiah 5:20 says, "Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter!" The "bad guy" is now the norm; the "good guy" is the potential hypocrite who bears watching and extreme scrutiny.

"Sin is a reproach to any people." What is sin? Again, the Bible defines it: "Sin is the transgression of the law" (1 John 3:4).

Our society is in trouble because God's laws are just as real as the physical laws of science. They are just as real as the law of gravity. A society that is lying and cheating and stealing and promoting what God clearly has called a sin, homosexuality, as a civil right, then that nation is sowing the seeds of disruption and the seeds of its own destruction of everything in it that is solid and that is real. For Jesus Christ is the ultimate arbiter of what is right, what is wrong, and what is true, for He said to Pilate in John 18:37, "You say that I am a king. To this end have I been born, and to this end am I come into the world, that I should bear witness unto the truth. Everyone that is of the truth hears My voice." He also stated earlier in John 14:6, "I am the way, and the truth, and the life: no one comes unto the Father, but by Me."

The Bible tells us, "By the blessing of the upright the city is exalted, but it is overthrown by the mouth of the wicked." (Proverbs 11:11) "If the foundations are destroyed, what can the righteous do?" (Psalm 11:3) What we can do is turn to God as a people, and trust in Him. God tells us in 2 Chronicles 7:14, "If My people who are called by My name humble themselves, and pray and seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from Heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their land."

May the Lord bless you, and may He continue to bless us as a people as long as we are a nation turned to Him!

. . . Copied from Bulletin Gold #102 June 2009