Christ’s Righteous Kingdom

He shall spare the poor and needy and shall save the souls of the needy. Amen. He shall redeem their soul from deceit and violence and precious shall shall their blood be in his sight. He shall live and he shall live and to him shall be given of the gold of Sheba. Prayer also shall be made for him continually and daily shall he be praised. There shall be an handful of corn in the earth upon the top of the mountains.

The fruit thereof shall shake like Lebanon and they of the city shall flourish like grass of the earth. His name shall endure forever. His name shall be continued as long as the sun and men shall be blessed in him. All nations shall call him blessed. Blessed be the Lord God, the God of Israel, who only doeth wondrous things. He and and blessed be his glorious name forever and let the whole earth be filled with his glory. Amen and amen.

The prayers of David, the son of Jesse are ended. Let’s pray together. Our dear Lord, we come to you now and we just wanna take a moment to commit this time to you as we look into your word. Lord, we acknowledge we have no power. We’re weak creatures, Lord, not only myself as I try and bring the word, but also, Lord, our hearing is dull very often and we’re tired and distracted.

So, Lord, help us. Help our ears not to be dull, but to be sharp and ready to hear. Help us to have hearts that are inclined, Lord, to your truth. And, Lord, I pray that you would would give us your grace to help us to focus our mind and hearts away from things that might distract us, that you would rebuke the efforts of Satan to discourage us and to distract us from the things that are before us here and now. So bless our time together in your word. We ask, please be our teacher. We pray in Jesus name.

Amen. Amen. Now, you’ll notice in this Psalm, as I said, this is a Psalm for Solomon and it was written about Solomon as in his place as king. In fact, it’s a prayer of David, that’s kind of what it is, a prayer slash prophecy of Solomon in his place as the king of Israel in David’s stead. And as we read through this Psalm, you might have noticed that there’s a few verses that kind of stand out as as they can’t. They cannot apply to Solomon.

They cannot apply to Solomon. Now, if you if you just look at a few of them, look at verse number five. They shall fear thee as long as the sun and moon endure throughout all generations. You see that? And then you go down to verse number seven, it says this, in his days, that is the days of Solomon, shall the righteous flourish and abundance of peace so long as the moon endureth.

And you know that times is still it still existing to our day because the moon still endures our our day. You go down to verse number eight, notice what it says, he shall have dominion from also from sea to sea and from the river, that’s apparently the River Jordan unto the ends of the earth. Now, Solomon’s Solomon’s reign was quite extensive. It went all the way down to Egypt from the Mediterranean. If you’re looking at, if you’re envisioning a map from the Mediterranean to the Jordan and then from down to Egypt, the border of Egypt all the way up to the border of Euphrates which is in Syria.

So, this quite a large stretch, much larger than the current nation of Israel but Solomon’s reign was not to the end of the earth. Without without question. He had a he had a quite a large rain especially for that time period in history but he did not have a rain all the way to the end of the earth like the verse says. Verse number 11, yea, all kings shall fall down before him.

All nations shall serve him. Now, Solomon was revered, that’s for sure, but verse 11, that’s definitely not true of Solomon. As as great of a man and great of a king as he was, Then you go down to verse number 17, his name shall endure forever. His name shall be continued as long as the sun and men shall be blessed in him and all nations shall call him blessed. Again, it’s just what I’m saying is, as we read these several verses, verse verse number five, seven, eight, 11, and and 17. What you see is these these verses obviously have a scope far beyond just the man Solomon and his 40, fortieth year reign over Israel.

So, when you see something like this in scripture, especially in one of the prophetic portions of scripture, the poetic, this is a poetic portion of scripture, that should be an indicator that something else is going on here, and this Psalm is a perfect example. Also, one minute, I read to you verse number 11, not 11, verse number eight. Note, read verse number eight to yourself. It says, he shall have dominion also from sea to sea and from the river unto the ends of the earth. Okay? Now, hold your place here and go to Zechariah.

Go to Zechariah, that’s the almost toward the very end of the Old Testament. Zechariah chapter nine. Now, by the time Zechariah, Zechariah is writing in the in the post exilic period, that is after the Babylonian exile, right? Zechariah is at the very end of the Old Testament period. Like right around right around Malachi, which is of course why he’s listed at the very end of the Old Testament. So, this is far past Solomon’s reign. This is hundreds and hundreds of years past Solomon’s reign.

Notice Zechariah chapter nine verse number 10. Zechariah nine ten says, And I will cut off the chariot from Ephraim and the horse from Jerusalem and the battle bow shall be cut off and he shall speak peace unto the heathen and his dominion shall be from from sea even to sea and from the river even to the ends of the earth, right? That’s verse eight of of our Psalm, right? It’s the same, basically the same words as in verse number eight. But in in in Zechariah, not only are we way past Solomon’s life, and so obviously this cannot refer to Solomon just for the chronological issue, but then you go to the previous verse which is verse number nine, look at what verse number nine says.

Rejoice greatly, oh daughter of Zion, shout, oh daughter of Jerusalem, behold, thy king cometh unto thee. He is just and having salvation, lowly, and riding upon an and upon a colt, the foal of an Now, who is this referring to? This is obviously referring to Jesus. How do we know that? Well, because Jesus actually did ride into Jerusalem on a donkey and when he did, Matthew pointed out that this scripture in Zechariah nine ten was fulfilled.

So, okay. So, you put those two together, we go back to Psalm 72 and we read verse number eight, it says the same words in Zechariah that refer to Jesus and it tells us that there are parts of this Psalm that are not referring to Solomon at all but are actually referring to Jesus Christ and we know that because of verse number eight but and Zechariah but we also know it because there’s a number of elements that can’t refer to Solomon but must refer to another king. A king whose reign is far greater than Solomon’s and this is what we call and this is how you identify what we call a dual reference.

One passage of scripture that is speaking simultaneously of two different things. And they these are fairly common in the Bible. Fairly common especially when you’re in prophetic scripture, you’ll see this and so as you read through this, you can read through this and if you put in your mind, I’m reading about Solomon, you can see certain things and then if you put in your mind, I’m reading about Jesus, you’ll see, you’ll see different things although they are some in some way related.

Now, Not only that, when you when you read the Psalms, this Psalm in particular, you’ll see sometimes where we recognize that Christ is being referred to but there are times in which you see attributes given to Christ that actually make it hard to differentiate him from the lord, from the almighty and we know Christ and and that shows us his deity. For instance, look at verse number five, they shall fear thee as long as the sun and moon endure throughout all generations. You might ask yourself, who are we talking about here? Are we talking about the lord? Are we talking about Solomon? Are we talking about Jesus Christ?

It’s not clear. Then, you go to verse 15 and he shall live and to him shall be given of the gold of Sheba. Prayer also shall be made for him, excuse me, continually and daily shall he be praised. So, again, is this the Lord? Is this Jesus Christ? Is this Solomon? It blends together and it does that on purpose. That’s that’s kind of the way a dual reference works.

For instance, Isaiah twenty four twenty three says this, then the moon shall be confounded and the sun ashamed when the lord of hosts shall reign in Mount Zion and in Jerusalem before his ancients gloriously. So, when you see that, it actually, it doesn’t say the king will reign in in in in that Isaiah passage, it says, the lord of hosts will reign which is that that leaves no doubt as to who the identity is and then you read this and you read the same kind of thing. Who’s reigning? Is it Jesus? Is it? Well, yes.

Yeah, it’s just all of the above. D, it’s it’s all of them because Jesus, of course, is god. Now, as we look through this Psalm, as I said, you can you can look at Solomon’s reign which we’re not going to spend very much time on Solomon’s reign from this Psalm because I don’t think that’s the main thrust. I think the big picture, the bigger scope is is talking about the reign of Christ. Specifically, the reign of Christ on Earth. What we call the millennial reign of Christ.

So, you can look at Solomon’s kingdom, you can look at Christ’s kingdom, and then you can take the principles and truths we see here and we can apply them in at by application, we can apply these principles to government in general and I do want to do that tonight. I do want to do that because there there, in other words, when you look at the kingdom of Christ, here’s what you see. All the different features and and it’s just, I mean, maybe it’s not fascinating to you but it’s fascinating to me when you read Isaiah and Zechariah and and and various Psalms and different places in scripture that prophecy about Christ coming kingdom and that’s not a spiritual kingdom.

Even in this Psalm, some people would try to maybe spiritualize it and say it should to to argue that this is referring to Christ reigning over the church as the king over the church and that’s a kind of spiritualizing these words but when you actually read the Psalm and you read how the nations come to him and bring gifts and you see those things and you take them as they’re written and face value. What you see is this is an actual literal kingdom not to diminish Christ’s spiritual kingdom because that’s a thing too but this this what we read in the Psalm is is the ultimate fulfillment of Christ’s kingdom on Earth.

When it’s not just spiritual, it’s also physical. It’s in every way he rules, right? Okay. But when you when you read those fascinating passages of scripture that describe Christ’s kingdom, At that point, you know that everything that is being done, every law, every principle, every truth, every policy that’s being instituted by the Lord Jesus Christ while he’s ruling, you know that that policy, that principle, that characteristic is good, right? It is right. So Christ’s reign stands as an ideal reign, as an ideal world, right?

You understand that? Now, that tells us something. The ideal method of government is a theocracy in which Christ is at the top. Amen. You say, well, why don’t we do this in America? Well, because he’s not here. Amen. And you know what? When he comes, he will do that very thing. Amen. He will do that very thing, right? Christ did we we have Christ by means of the Holy Spirit, right? That’s true but when Christ comes, he will not need us to help him reign. He will reign as we read a minute ago from Zion. Okay. So, so as we look at the kingdom of Christ as an ideal kingdom, we know that the ideal kingdom is a theocracy in which god is the supreme ruler and all the laws of all the laws, the civil laws that govern his his his kingdom and his dominion are God’s laws, which are perfect and righteous. Can I get an amen? God’s laws are righteous. They’re perfect. There’s no there’s no lack. The law of God is is perfect, converting the souls to what the Bible says. Right?

And so we have that law is a is a perfect law. And so the way Christ reigns will be a perfect reign. So we take those principles that are right and are good and are the ideal, and then we cannot apply them to government that we live in right now. Some of us might think, well I don’t think the best form of government, as Americans, I don’t think the best form of government is an absolute autocratic rule.

Well, maybe in the world in which we live right now, because we have fallen man at the heads of our governments, and we have fallen men all throughout government. We don’t have a perfect savior. We don’t have a perfect lord with perfect laws reigning over us. No matter who you who you voted for or what you think. And so we have fallen man throughout. So, the point I’m making is is that we’ve been told as Americans that the best form of government is a is a constitutional republic and maybe it’s the best under the circumstances and the founders understood that. Our founders understood that this is the best we can do to preserve the individual rights of man under the circumstances of a fallen world. That’s maybe that’s a brief summary of of their worldview concerning civil government.

But the ultimate and the ideal is Christ’s reign. Right? That’s what I want us to see. And we can understand things about our own government and about the rule of man in the earth by looking at his ideal. Look if you would at verse number one. I want to show you one particular. We’re going to look at two characteristics of this government that are emphasized in this. Look at verse one.

Give the the king thy judgments, oh god, and thy righteousness unto the king’s son. Notice, note the word righteousness. Verse two, he shall judge thy people with righteousness and thy poor with judgement. Verse three, the mountains shall bring forth peace to the people and the little hills by righteousness.

Verse three, I’m sorry, verse seven. In his day shall the righteous flourish and abundance of peace so long as the moon endureth. Now, we read a minute ago but notice the first part of the Psalm in particular emphasizes the righteousness of his kingdom. You see, in Christ’s kingdom, the the key one of the primary principles and characteristics of Christ’s kingdom is righteousness and by the way, that is also true of Christ’s spiritual kingdom in which we live now.

Right? The kingdom of god is righteousness, peace, and joy in the holy ghost. That’s a New Testament verse, is it not? In the kingdom of god is a spiritual kingdom, right? Where we are, we’re in the kingdom of god now but one of the characteristics of that is righteousness. That’s why god’s people who are citizens in in his kingdom should be moving toward righteousness, okay? But even in the civil realm, this is a characteristic of Christ’s kingdom on Earth.

Just a few verses to back this up, not not in this Psalm but in other prophetic scripture. Isaiah eleven four and five. Listen to this. Speaking of the kingdom of Christ, but with righteousness shall he judge the poor and reprove with equity for the meek of the earth. And he shall smite the earth with the rod of his mouth and with the breath of his lips shall he slay the wicked.

And righteousness shall be the girdle of his loins, and faithfulness the girdle of his reins. So how is the... In the kingdom of Christ, how is the righteousness of that kingdom expressed and seen and demonstrated? Well, obviously, in the laws but it’s also demonstrated in the judgment. You see, what we just read, it says, he will smite the earth with the rod of his mouth. In other words, here’s how a righteous kingdom works, Is it has righteous, just, godly laws, and those who violate those laws and this is also true in Christ kingdom. Those who violate violate those laws get swift and just retribution and did you know that is actually a feature of Christ’s kingdom on Earth? In the thousand year reign of Christ, there will be laws.

He will rule and those who step out of line, those nations who step out of line will be swiftly judged righteously. You see, righteousness without a righteousness is not just a in the positive sense, it’s also in the negative sense toward evil. Right? It’s not only doing the right thing, it is also the way we view the wrong. Righteousness goes both ways. And you can see that here. Revelation 19 verse 11 says this, and I saw heaven opened and behold a white horse and he that sat upon him was called faithful and true and in righteousness, he doth judge and make war. This is talking about Christ coming for his kingdom.

So, righteousness is a key characteristic of Christ’s kingdom. Now, notice again in verse number one, what righteousness? I wanna tell you something. If you were to go to every ungodly, devil filled, God hating politician in our country, and you were to ask them, do you think that your policies are righteous? Every one of them without exception would probably say yes. You know why? Because their standard of righteousness is a private standard of righteousness. But look at verse number one.

David prays about Solomon. He says, give the king thy judgments, oh God, and thy righteousness unto the king’s son. In other words, Solomon did not not need, he should not have his own standard of righteousness, but God’s standard of righteousness. Now do you see a disconnect in the in the country in which we live? Where evil is called good and good is called evil. And that is, listen, this is our country is getting worse and worse in that way.

Righteousness, the standard of righteousness has shifted. Now, it’s never been perfect, okay? It has never been perfect. But it has gotten further away from the true standard of righteousness, which is God’s righteousness. Don’t you know that the law of God, right, the law of God has as its standard what? God’s own character, his own righteousness. The law of God comes out of that. And so, when you see your... When we see our government going away from God’s standard of righteousness, they’re going away from God’s very character.

You can’t redefine righteousness willy nilly because it is linked to god’s character. And if you want to change the, if you want to change what righteousness is, you have to change god, right? Because that’s where the law of god comes out. It comes out from his own character. Note, notice also in verse verse one, he mentions, give the king thy judgments and thy righteousness unto the king’s son. Look at verse two, he shall judge thy people with righteousness and the poor with judgement. Notice the pairing of righteousness with judgement.

Righteousness with judgement. You see, judgement is based upon a right understanding of that which is right. Judgment is based upon a right understanding of that which is right. If your righteousness is unrighteous, then your judgment will be wrong and your judgment will be evil and when judges in our land or in any government pass a judgment based upon a standard of righteousness which is evil, the judgment then becomes evil.

Do you understand what I’m saying? And that’s exactly how we what has moved, right? This is Christ’s kingdom as the ideal. And these principles make for a happy and a good and a prosperous people in human government too. Do they not?

Do they not? Yes. Righteousness in a government makes for happy and prosperous people under that government’s rule. Amen. And that is what that is exactly what is moving. Our country’s standard of righteousness has shifted to something that is ungodly. And therefore, judgement is made upon that basis and the effects of it will have been and will continue to be felt by us who live under its rule.

You see, as goes righteousness, so goes judgment. Now, look at verse number two, he shall judge thy people with righteousness and thy poor with judgment. Now, notice this, the poor do not get special treatment because they are poor. Neither do the rich get favor because of their status. Righteousness is equally applied because it not not for equality’s sake but for righteousness sake. You can’t look at a poor a poor person because they’re down and out and you can’t say, oh, well, the evil that they do is not evil because they’re poor. You can’t do that because it’s not the you you haven’t violated the principle of equality. You’ve violated the principle of what? Righteousness.

You see. In our day, and I’ll say more about this in just a minute, but in our day, there is the philosophy at hand is to do things even harmful, even ungodly, even wicked things with the pretext of helping the poor. In other words, doing evil because you want to help the poor. And then when they take that principle of helping the poor and they throw it in the Christian’s face. See, you’re supposed to help the poor.

But listen, what verse two tells us is he judges the people with righteousness and thy poor with judgment. In other words, he’s not willing to do evil to aid the poor. In all cases, with all people, he is going to do right.

Listen to this. Now, going back to the Old Testament law, listen to this. Leviticus nineteen fifteen says this, you shall do no unrighteousness and judgement. Thou shalt not respect the person of the poor nor honor the person of the mighty but in righteousness shalt thou judge thy neighbor.

And see that’s exact... That’s exactly what’s happening. If a person can can can be in that category of poor, then there’s a different standard of judgment for the rich. The rich are evil, the poor are good. Brother brother Jim, is that right? Brother Jim who works with who works with often people who are down and out and on Skid Row and homeless. Are those people by default righteous?

No. No. Are the rich by default evil? No. There’s good, there’s evil in both, and they must both be judged according to what principle? Righteousness. Righteousness. Verse seven, look what it says, in his days shall the righteous flourish. So, not only are the laws righteous, the king judges righteous in Christ’s kingdom, right? But in a government in which there is righteousness, those in that society, in that in that that nation, who are righteous will flourish and that tells us something.

Where the rule is righteous, those who are righteous flourish and this is why state persecution of Christians is by itself without looking at anything else, a mark of an unrighteous government.

Amen. Any nation, I don’t care if it’s Islam, if it’s Buddhism, if it’s Hindu, if it’s communist, or or just strong man dictatorships that exist. Any government, any rule or dominion that that oppresses, I’m not talking about the poor, we’ll get to that in a second, but oppresses the righteous and they do not flourish is a government that is itself wicked. And those who rule in that way will give an account to God for that.

Now notice if you would in verse three, notice another pairing. The mountains shall bring, what’s the word? Peace to the people and the little hills by righteousness. Peace comes by by what? Righteousness. See that? Righteousness is the horse that brings peace. Look at verse seven, we just read it. In his day shall the righteous flourish and abundance of peace so long as the moon endureth. You see this other pairing, not only righteousness and judgment, you see a pairing of righteousness and peace.

Righteousness and peace. Isaiah 32 verse 17 says this, and the work of righteousness shall be peace. And the the effect of righteousness, quietness, and assurance forever. Let me challenge you to note that, to to note down that reference. This is a this is a profound principle. Profound principle. The work of righteousness shall be peace and the effect of righteousness, quietness, and assurance forever. You know what? That’s not only true in the civil government world but it’s also true in the personal realm.

It’s also true in the personal realm. Righteousness brings peace. In a in the personal realm, righteousness and we know that righteousness is required to be right with God. Right? The only way you can be right with God is if you have righteousness, because God has no fellowship with darkness. In him is no darkness at all. There’s no way we can fellowship with God and be right in a right relationship with God unless we have righteousness.

This is what Romans teaches us. And so the Lord provided a way for unrighteous man to be made and declared righteous in his sight by the merits of Christ on the cross. So, that unrighteous man, god could justify him and declare him righteous and still be righteous himself And being made righteous with god, we have peace. Romans five one. Therefore, being justified, righteousified. Therefore, being justified by faith, we have, what does it say?

Peace with god. Right? So, the the effect of righteousness is peace. Personal righteousness means we have peace with god and personal righteousness means we have peace and quietness in our in our soul too. So, this is true on multi multiple levels but think about it in the national level, in the government level.

It is unrighteousness that breeds, that produces the roots, that produce things like warfare, which rob quietness, which rob a nation of quietness and tranquility. Even in cases where you have a nation going to war justly, and there is a such thing as just war, there is a place for war in righteous government. Jesus himself wages war, right? When he comes, he wages war. So war is not all bad. War is not all bad.

Not scripturally, not doctrinally, The lord Jesus himself wages war. There is a such thing as a just war but the fact of unrighteousness, even if it’s not on this side but on the other in the other party produces a failure of peace because that produces a situation where now we must respond with war which is a lack of peace. So either either unrighteousness in us or unrighteousness in that party or both causes peace to flee away.

Because righteousness sometimes must confront unrighteousness. In the day of Christ’s reign, righteousness will be the character of his kingdom and that kingdom will rule to the very ends of the earth. Not only will be the character of his kingdom, but he will enforce it. And when Christ enforces righteousness among all the nations, there will finally be peace. You know why? Because there will be no unrighteousness. And that the effect will be everybody will finally stop fighting.

Isaiah two four, you’ve heard this verse but here’s the context of it. And he shall judge among the nations and shall rebuke many people. And they shall beat their swords into plowshares. That’s a that’s farm equipment and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation shall not lift up sword against nation neither shall they learn war anymore. You know, the only way that’ll happen. They’ve been trying to do it with the league of nations. They’ve been trying to do it with the with the the UN, and it’s just the UN is an an absolute mockery.

It is a it is a it is a grotesque, just absolutely filthy, full of just filthy representatives of the most ungodly people on earth. It is. There will never be peace so long as there is unrighteousness. Not personally, and not governmentally. Here’s sad part. As our government departs from the standard of God’s own character, which is righteousness, And as it embraces as righteous so many forms of evil, the thing, the effect will be the destruction of peace because the two are connected.

The two are connected. Tranquility will flee away because righteousness and peace go together, go together. You see, for Solomon, peace on all sides was a characteristic of Solomon’s reign. Remember, Solomon’s reign in this Psalm is kind of like a type or a picture of Christ’s reign. Solomon’s reign was a reign of peace. It was largely a reign of righteousness and so he had peace on all sides.

First first Chronicles 22 says this, behold, a son shall be born to thee who shall be a man of rest and I will give him rest from all his enemies, that’s peace, round about. For his name shall be Solomon. You know what Solomon’s name means? Peace. And I will give peace and quietness unto Israel in his days.

So, righteousness and peace go together. Think about yourself. Just think about yourself personally and then think about your your nation. As a believer, so long as there is unrighteousness in your life, peace will not be near you.

That’s just the way it goes. They’re connected. And when we look at our nation, any nation, not just ours, but any nation that embraces wickedness and unrighteousness, will suffer the effects of a failure and a crumbling of peace in their nation. In other words, the very thing they want, and this is what all the world wants, they want the peace part without the righteousness part. But as we see in Psalm 72, the mountain shall bring peace to the people. You say, yeah, that’s what I want, I want the mountains to bring peace and the little hills.

But it says, by righteousness. You can’t have peace until there is righteousness. The last thing I wanna show you is in verse number 12 because he does one of the other characteristics of Solomon’s reign and of Jesus’ reign is about the poor. Verse 12 says this, for he shall deliver the needy when he crieth, the poor also and him that hath no helper. He shall spare the poor and needy and shall save the souls of the needy.

He shall redeem their soul from deceit and violence and precious shall their blood be in His sight. You know, is the character of a righteous government that the poor are given handouts. No, no.

And this is a key thing to understand because Christians in our country are constantly manipulated, oh, you’re a Christian, that means you should do X, Y, and Z. I’m not gonna let this world tell me as a believer what God wants me to do. I’m gonna let his word tell me. You know, and one of the best things that you and I can do, if someone is poor and they’re asking for money so that they can get another hit of heroin or they can get another case of beer or bottle of liquor, the best thing we can do is say, no, I’m not giving it to you.

The way that Christians are leveraged and guilt tripped into doing supposedly good things for the poor is really sad. We ought to think more clearly than that. Second Thessalonians three ten says this, for even when we were with you, this we commanded you, that if any would not work, neither should he eat. You have an able-bodied man who refuses to work and wants you to give him money?

Don’t give him money. I don’t care if he’s poor or not, do not give him money. You see, we can’t in an effort to be kind and compassionate to the poor, cross the line into unrighteousness to relieve the poor. Remember, righteousness is the standard. But in Christ’s kingdom, like we see here, it is verse verse twelve and thirteen and fourteen. It is the character of a righteous government that the poor are considered and kept. Here’s the key, how are the poor helped in a righteous government? Here’s how the poor are helped in a righteous government.

The poor are protected and defended from exploitation and harm. Because it is a fact, and it’s true of you and it’s true of me. If the federal, if our federal government wanted to come after anyone of the, anyone of us in this room, they could absolutely obliterate our lives. Because they can have lawyers, they can have armies of lawyers tie you up in court until all of your your house is mortgaged, all of your bank accounts are empty, just so that you cannot go to jail. That’s what happened on January 7, January 6, the people in there.

It was not whether they did right or wrong, some of them did wrong, some of them didn’t do wrong. That’s not the point. The point is their life can be destroyed because compared to the bigwigs, they’re the poor and they know they can be exploited until all their money is gone and once all their money is gone, their life is wasted. Why? Because they can’t. You know what that is? That is unrighteous.

Amen. That is oppressive of the poor. You see, the poor are naturally vulnerable, are a natural naturally vulnerable group in societies. And so they don’t often have the means to defend themselves against those who have means and power that would do them harm. A wealthier person could actually defend himself. That’s why, for instance, Donald Trump, they sent armies of lawyers after Donald Trump and I’m not saying he deserves to be defendant. I’m not I’m not making a judgment on that at all. It’s not my point. My point is is this, he is a wealthy man and he could defend himself.

You and I can’t, right? The question is not whether he did it or not. The the question is, powerful people can defend themselves and the poor are vulnerable and that is a fact. That is a fact.

But what we see in our country today is not a government that’s seeking to righteously defend those without power from the oppression of those with. What we see is, we see our government using the poor as a pretext to gain power.

And even all of these proposals that are supposed to help the poor are actually often themselves unrighteous. Free abortion care. Free drug paraphernalia. Trans surgeries. You know what that is? You know, these are for the poor. Know it, it is wickedness. It is wickedness promoted by a government. It is unrighteous is what it is. You can call it poor helping the poor all you want, but helping the poor unrighteously is still unrighteous.

Right? You see, it is a duty of a righteous government to protect the poor. Look at verse 14, he shall redeem their soul from deceit and violence. It’s the duty of a righteous government to protect the poor from deceit and violence, from the oppressor, verse four. In other words, from those that would prey upon them, not to give them a handout, not to enable wickedness, not to approve of evil.

I’ll just I’ll say, listen, the leaders of our country are gonna give an account to god. And they have many of them on on the right and on the left have embraced the grossest forms of unrighteousness in an effort to maintain their power and it is not right and they will give an account to God for it. And a righteous government is a government that will experience peace and will experience prosperity and will experience the righteous flourishing.

And the sad thing is is what we have is in many of our leaders, they have completely shifted. Righteousness is no longer righteous to them. And is it not true that more and more people like you and people like me are becoming more and more rare in our society?

It is, it’s true, that believe the Scripture and believe in standards of righteousness. We believe, yeah, we still believe that you can’t, there are only two genders, sexes, it’s the same thing, We still believe that it is an abomination to god for men to carry on with men and women with women. Amen. It is still a wickedness for people to kill their children.

Adultery is still evil even if you’re a politician, switching husbands and wives is still a wickedness in God’s sight, right? These are things Christians have always believed, right? But man, it is totally changed out from under us, has it not?

So we would do well to pray for our country because we live in the same country as they do and the peace that comes or the peace that doesn’t come affects us just as much as everybody else, is it not? It really does. So we do have a prayer we can pray as we look forward to Christ’s kingdom, Lord, we know our country is not, our government is not your government. In other words, it’s not, you know, you don’t directly rule it.

There’s men who seek power, Lord, you can work righteousness even in our country and you can cause righteousness to increase. And so we should pray that way for our country. Let’s pray together.