God’s grace, it is yours, as is peace, from God our Father, through our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.
Our texts for this morning’s Divine Service come from Proverbs 25 and from Psalm 2. Here is one verse from each of them.
“Remove the wicked from the king’s presence and his throne will be established in righteousness.” “All who take refuge in him are happy.” These are the words of our Lord.
My dear fellow subjects of Christ, the King of Kings, I have a Bible question for you. Do you think it’s right, and important, and necessary to take the words of the Bible and adjust those old words so that they fit our lives and our context here in the world today?
No, it is not right. It is not right to do this, and I will show you why from our Lord’s Word.
One of the examples that I would offer for a place where we might feel we should make a change in God’s Word, but it would do harm to the Gospel, is with the word king. We don’t have very many kings in the world today. I am not certain, but I don’t think I have heard about a king in Africa right now, though I admit I may have missed a small country or two.
Does that mean, though, since what we know today are presidents and countries or nations, that we should change the Word of God to talk about God as our president and to talk about the place that he rules as a nation? No. The direction of understanding comes from God’s Word into our lives. It comes from God’s words into the languages into which you and I translate God’s Word so that it may be heard by all the peoples of Africa.
It starts with God’s Word. It relies on God’s Word. Our very concepts and understanding of the most important words for us as human beings and the most important words that there are in Africa, the source for that is God’s Word.
So let’s talk about it; no, let’s bow down and hear about the concept and the Word of King from our texts for today. You could say that our text has two acts or two scenes. One scene is at King Solomon’s throne.
That’s what we’re going to look at first from Proverbs. Then we are invited, and my goodness, is this reason to bow down and to listen quietly and respectfully and fearfully. Then we are invited next to be at the throne of the triune God in Psalm 2. So, let’s begin with Proverbs 25.
“Remove the wicked from the king’s presence and his throne will be established in righteousness.” Now, the king who is being talked about first is King Solomon himself, who is writing the book of Proverbs. You’ll actually see that there’s a reminder that these passages from God’s words in Proverbs were very, very important, but were not always held to by the children of Israel.
If you want to look it up right now in your Bible or if you want to check it out later on, you’ll see that at the beginning of this chapter we hear: “These too are Proverbs of Solomon, which the men of King Hezekiah of Judah copied.” So may I take you back to our recent reading of 2 Chronicles here in the LST Chapel? We read about the evil kings, and there were many of them who followed Solomon, and we read about the very few good kings, such as King Hezekiah.
So we’re being reminded that these words of King Solomon were very important down the line for God’s people, and whenever they were brought to repentance, the words of God were brought out again, and the people were led to rejoice and to follow him, that is, to follow God. Now this first verse that I read, though, has a whole sermon inside of it. “Remove the wicked from the king’s presence and his throne will be established in righteousness.”
As I said, Solomon is the first king that’s referred to, the most obvious one in here, but it’s also referring to Jesus as the King of Kings. You can see that in two ways in the text. First of all, the notion of being king in Judah, king over Israel, king from Judah, is so important in the Old Testament because in the New Testament, that’s Jesus.
He is the King of Kings and Lord of Lords, as we love to sing and to pray in the Psalms and our hymns. So just like the sacrifices in the Old Testament worked, they really did forgive sins – because of Jesus, the ultimate sacrifice in the New Testament, which affects all of God’s work in history, right? It’s also the case that Solomon was an important king because he was a king put there by Jesus. So Jesus the King is coming up later for us to see him in the Incarnation, but the King of Israel was to be a model, just like the sacrifice was a model, a working model of Jesus’ work in the New Testament.
Now the second part of this verse is, I think, especially helpful. “Remove the wicked from the king’s presence and his throne will be established in righteousness.” Now I know what all the students are thinking.
You’re thinking that we should do the First Act of the Mind on that verse and then we will all understand what God’s Word is for us and for us to teach and preach. Possibly the most important word in here at the moment is the word and. It’s actually one consonant in Solomon’s Hebrew, but the question is, “What’s going on with that conjunction or link in there?” “Remove the wicked from the king’s presence and his throne will be established in righteousness.”
Is it saying that if Solomon can get rid of all the wicked people that were gathering around him, that then he would have a righteous and a just rule? Probably, but what it’s mostly saying is the and is explaining something about God’s righteousness. When you see righteousness in the Bible, it is always, always, always about God. It’s either about how people are living on their own righteousness and not listening to God’s gift of forgiveness and justification, or it’s all about how God’s gift of righteousness, justice, justification – how this affects a good king or how it affects all of us as subjects, as disciples in the kingdom of Jesus.
So Jesus’ throne will be established in righteousness, and as we’ll hear in just a few minutes in Psalm 2, the wicked people are those who are opposing the gospel. Those who oppose the gospel are going to be removed before Jesus’ presence at Judgment Day, or at their deaths really, and that means that Christ’s righteousness will prevail. And right now as we’re reading this, this is a call to believe in what we know from the New Testament is the teaching of justification.
It brings God’s righteousness, to put it two ways. In writing to the Corinthian congregation, you know these words from St. Paul, “God made Jesus, who had no sin, to be sin for us in our place, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” As dear to God as is his only begotten Son – because his only begotten Son credited, gave, gave by grace, his gift of complete forgiveness to us all.
The other passage to think about with the throne being established in righteousness, where righteousness is the gift of God’s forgiveness, would be from Romans. “There is no difference, for all have sinned.” All of us are wicked as human beings who inherited sin from Adam and Eve.
“All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God and all are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.” So the wicked people are the disbelievers. The righteous people are not people who have done the right things to earn their place in the presence of the King, but who have simply believed what he said.
Solomon goes on, “Don’t boast about yourself before the King and don’t stand in the place of the great, for it is better for him to say to you, come up here, than to demote you in plain view of a noble.” So this is the King’s job. The King can say, “Come up here, my friend.”
“Come up here, my dearly loved one. Come up here, my disciple, and be with me.” But the arrogant person who doesn’t want Christ’s righteousness wants to put himself up there, and Solomon is saying, “This is not going to work because the King is going to send you back down out there where you belong.”
Sound familiar? Yes, it does. These are the words of the King of Kings. This is Jesus.
We just had one of those many stories about Jesus talking with the Pharisees after Jesus healed a precious soul on the Sabbath day. The Pharisees are quibbling about the Word of God. They don’t want to hear, but where’s their King? Where’s the King there? Well, it’s not Solomon.
It’s Jesus. The King is talking with the Pharisees and the scribes, just as he’s talking with us right now through his Word. And the question is, “The King of Kings is speaking, so are you being good?” And I don’t mean earning a place there.
I mean being faithful. Are you following the King? Are you listening to his words? There’s more. Solomon goes on.
Remember, this is over 900 years before Jesus was born of the Virgin in Bethlehem and then did his earthly ministry. “Don’t take a matter to court hastily. Otherwise, what will you do afterward if your opponent humiliates you? Make your case with your opponent without revealing another secret. Otherwise, the one who hears will disgrace you and you’ll never live it down.” Are these the words of a king? Yes, they are. These are the words of King Solomon.
Are these the words of the King of Kings? Yes, they are. Remember the Gospel of Matthew. In Matthew 18, Jesus points out, if your brother has something against you, go and see to the reconciliation.
In Matthew 5, the Sermon on the Mount, we have a reminder of something in here, and this is the one-on-one business. It’s “you” singular. This is not something about problems in the church with a bunch of people. This is a private matter between two individuals.
King Solomon, the King of Kings, Jesus is speaking, so be good. Listen. And Solomon goes on.
“A word spoken at the right time is like gold apples in silver settings” – something very, very precious. “A wise correction to a receptive ear is like a gold ring or an ornament of gold.” How can we tell whether we’re “casting our pearls before swine,” as Jesus says? In other words, “Don’t waste the word to people who just will not listen right now, and are not interested in being led to repentance.”
Well, Solomon’s wisdom seems to show up at a number of times in the New Testament when we hear about leading people to repentance and how covering over their sins is a glorious thing in front of God and how the angels rejoice. To those who send him, Solomon goes on, “A trustworthy envoy” – now that would be an ambassador or a messenger or an apostle or a prophet or a divinely called pastor. “To those who send him, a trustworthy envoy is like the coolness of snow on a harvest day. He refreshes the life of his masters.”
And then the conclusion for this section. “The one who boasts about a gift that does not exist is like clouds and winds without rain.” Now what is Solomon talking about? He has not switched his topic.
The book of Proverbs is not a bunch of very wise little bits and bytes and single sentences or phrases here and there. It’s all connected. “Remove the wicked from the king’s presence and his throne will be established in righteousness.”
The King of Kings is speaking through his Word, so everybody must listen to the words of Jesus, the King of Kings. And those who don’t listen, those who boast about a gift that does not exist, are like clouds and wind without rain. Who are these people? Well, let me show you from the New Testament.
This is Saint Peter. Saint Peter is writing in his second Epistle, so this is 2 Peter chapter 2. We could read the whole chapter to great benefit, so you read the whole thing later on, and I’ll just read the part of it so you remember what this is about. Peter writes this,
Bold, arrogant people, they are not afraid to slander the glorious ones. However, angels who are greater in might and power do not bring a slanderous charge against them before the Lord. But these people like irrational animals, creatures of instinct, born to be caught and destroyed, slander what they do not understand, and in their destruction they too will be destroyed. They will be paid back with harm for the harm they have done. They consider it a pleasure to carouse, [to party and engage in all sorts of sins in broad daylight]. They are spots and blemishes, delighting in their deceptions while they feast with you, while they go to the Lord’s Supper with you. They have eyes full of adultery and never stop looking for sin. They seduce [that means that they trap into the sin against the Sixth Commandment] unstable people, and have hearts trained in greed. Children under a curse. They have gone astray by abandoning the straight path, and have followed the path of Balaam, the son of Basur, who loved the wages of wickedness, but received a rebuke for his lawlessness. A speechless donkey spoke with a human voice and restrained the prophet’s madness. These people, these people are springs without water, mists driven by a storm.
That’s the verse from Solomon in our text from Proverbs. Who are these people? They are people in the church. These are false prophets. These are lying pastors. These are people who delight in leading others into sin and acting all big and important as if everything is fine. These are people who pretend to be leaders in the church, but are not.
They are harming God’s people, and they must be silenced because, well, this is what Jesus means in the Sermon on the Mount when he says, “By their fruit you will know them.” They promise fruit. They promise that they will bring you good things from God.
They promise that they will make your life happy, but do they deliver? They do not. They destroy. They harm.
They are unrighteous people in the presence of the Word of the King of Kings himself.
Now let’s turn a page. You’re going to need less preaching from me and simply more time hearing the words again from Psalm 2, now that wise King Solomon has prepared us to realize the King of Kings is speaking, so we need to be quiet.
Here’s Psalm 2, the first two verses. “Why do the nations rage in the people’s plot in vain? The kings of the earth take their stand, and the rulers conspire together against the Lord and his anointed one.” This psalm is written by David.
If you’re looking at the very beginning of the psalm, you may be looking for where it usually says who the author is, and you see that there’s no mention of David there, but we actually know from Acts 4, when Peter and John were preaching, they said this psalm was written by David. So we know this is a psalm of David leading us into the book of Psalms, and what is the problem? Nations are raging, kings of the earth are taking their stand. What are they doing? They’re saying, “Let’s tear off their chains and throw their ropes off of us.”
Luther says, “What’s going on here anyway?” What’s happening in this psalm? The people of the world, the kings of the earth, very much unlike King Solomon, very much opposed to the king of kings, they are saying, let’s get rid of the chains of God’s Word. Let’s throw off the ropes of the gospel. Jesus says, “Take my yoke upon you, for my burden is easy,” and these people say, “Oh, get this heavy load off of us! Get these ropes off of us. We hate this. We despise this. We want everybody to get rid of this.”
Luther also says a very alarming thing here: “Let’s tear off their chains and throw their ropes off of us.” “This,” Luther said in his day, “is the sin of Germany.” The gospel had been recovered for them in the Lutheran Reformation. The people didn’t want to be bothered by it.
What about today, we ask? Well, you’ll have to take this with you as I will. What about things in the United States? What about things in Africa? Can it ever be said that this is the sin of this place, where we teach here in Africa? Well, the psalm continues. It shows us God’s reaction.
“The one enthroned in heaven laughs.” The Lord ridicules them. Then he “Speaks to them in his anger and terrifies them in his wrath. I have installed my king on Zion, my holy mountain.” What does that mean for God to laugh? These little rulers and kings who think that they are everything and everything centers in them, they want to get rid of the gospel. They don’t want people to hear God’s Word anymore. The only time that they’ll use the Word of God is to lead people astray. And how does God react? Ah ha! This is quite funny. This is not what we expected, but God is giving, of course, the reaction of God to this nonsense.
There’s something more. Luther says that it’s a good thing that he was laughing. First, because we believers, we faithful subjects of the King of Kings, can take comfort in this.
But the other thing is, as long as God is laughing, he is not damning these people to hell yet. There is a brief little window of opportunity. You and I should preach this.
One response to false doctrine is, “Ha! How silly! How ridiculous! What do you imagine God thinks of this?” You don’t have to imagine. Look at Psalm 2. He is laughing at you. Then God speaks in his anger, and his anger is a terrible thing and terrifies them in his wrath.
And what does he say? Again, he does not say, “I damn you false prophets to hell.” That may be coming if they will not repent. But right now he’s saying, “No, I have done this.”
“I have established the King of Kings. I have established the Anointed One. That person you want to get rid of, that Word you don’t want to hear, that’s from me.”
Does he have to say, “You better listen very quickly here. I have installed my King on Zion, my holy mountain.” It’s the Trinity, isn’t it? The Father having installed the King who is Jesus, the Son of God. And Luther says, when you get the details about the place and these words for the church, this is the Holy Ghost telling us and inspiring us with what’s going on.
Now here comes another voice. This voice is also the voice of God, but it’s not the voice of the Father. This is the voice of God the Son:
I will declare the Lord’s decree. He said to me, you are my Son. Today I have become your Father. Ask of me and I will make the nations your inheritance and the ends of the earth your possession. You will break them with an iron scepter. You will shatter them like pottery.
I will give you another Bible passage instead of a long explanation. Think about Daniel chapter 2. During the Babylonian captivity, there is this huge statue that appeared to Nebuchadnezzar by the Lord’s will.
In Nebuchadnezzar’s dream, Daniel, a man of God, put there for this very purpose, told the king what the vision was, and then he told him what it meant. The gold head, do you remember this? The gold head, the silver chest, the bronze center, then the legs of iron, and then the feet of iron and clay, and then the Rock. This Rock cut out, but not by human hands.
This Rock that struck the kingdoms of this world at the time of the Romans and shattered that whole statue and then took over the whole world. That’s this passage, the shattering, the work of Christ, and Christ is speaking right here and right now in Psalm 2.
And finally, there’s still another voice. It’s a different king.
It’s a king who is a king connected with the King of Kings. This is King David, so this is Solomon’s father. Psalm 2 was written before Proverbs, and here is what David says, “So now, kings, be wise.”
Doesn’t that sound like the opening of our reading from Proverbs? “Receive instruction, you judges of the earth. Serve the Lord with reverential awe and rejoice with trembling. Pay homage to the Son, or he will be angry, and you will perish in your rebellion, for his anger may ignite at any moment.”
So King David, wise King David, an anointed king of God who had his authority from Jesus, who was still to come from our viewpoint, in the incarnation, he tells us what to do. Have you ever heard so much wisdom together in one place? Solomon, David, two kings of Israel, telling us everything they can about the King of Kings.
The King of Kings is speaking, so be good.
And here’s the thing, he is still speaking. For all of our sinfulness, for all of the rebellions of nations, for everything that Pontius Pilate and Herod, those Gentiles, did to oppose the gospel of Jesus, Jesus himself, and to throw off those “fetters and those ropes” of the gospel of the Son of God, here we are. God’s Word is still being spoken.
His Word is in your hands and in your hearts. That leads to this. As we think about ourselves, first in the throne room of Solomon, listening to his God-given wisdom, then being invited in to listen to God speaking from his throne in Psalm 2, we can now take the Word out – the Word about the Anointed One.
To all of these people in Africa, all of these people we can reach with his Word. Isn’t this worth all of the hard work, all of the days and nights, all of the years together here in this wonderful place, to work to bring happiness in Christ to Africa, happiness for this life in faith, happiness for eternity to come with the King of Kings around his throne in heaven?
Here’s the last verse of Psalm 2 for you: “All who take refuge in him,” Christ the Anointed King of Kings, “all who take refuge in him are happy.”
Amen.
The peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through faith in Christ Jesus. Amen.