Proverbs 20 in verse eight. A
king that sitteth in the throne of judgment scattereth away all
evil with his eyes. A king that sitteth in the throne
of judgment scattereth away all evil with his eyes. He doesn't even have to say anything. But of course, kings do say things,
but there's a principle being taught here. Did any of you ever
have a parent like me that all they had to do was look at you
when you were doing something bad or even just thinking about
doing something bad? They could stop you in your tracks
with just a look? Well, that's the thought of today's
text. That's authority. being a deterrent to evil. And you know why that worked. You know why that look worked.
The reason that was a deterrent is because of what had happened
before that. Many times. The look doesn't work the first
time, but it starts to work, doesn't it? It's a reputation
that makes that look work. That look is what it is because
of consistent action in the past. And from experience, I can tell
you that when discipline of your children in a home, in
the family, and that's where, let's face it, that's the base
form of authority. You're born into this world,
ideally at least under the authority of parents, And when that's done right, and
when I say by experience, I know what happens when it's done right.
That doesn't mean that, you know, we were real good at it. It's interesting that nobody
tells you a lot of things. It's happened over and over and
over again, and still nobody tells you when you're a new parent
what's going to happen. You just have to experience it
for yourself. But when your children are young,
and discipline is done right, Then later on, it just takes
a look. It just takes a look. In the home, the establishment
of authority and accountability in the home is a work of love. And it's a work. The reason I
think that there's not much accountability or authority, discipline in homes
today It's because they're just people that don't care that much.
I mean, that's really evident. It's work. It's work. And it's a work of love. It's
not done out of pride and anger. It is, but it shouldn't be. A terrible parent is gonna discipline
their child out of anger, out of who are you to backtalk me,
you know, pride. and anger, that's not parenting,
that's not God's authority. It's a work and it's a work of
love. It's a work knowing that accountability
is necessary, that discipline is necessary, that it's safe,
that it's even comforting. Those of you who have had children
and tried to train them up in the way of the Lord, you know
that boundaries, accountability is comforting to them. They desire
that. That doesn't mean they're gonna
enjoy a whooping if you're doing it right. But they do enjoy the
fact that you love them that much. And they get that even
when they may not have it all up here yet. But our Lord teaches
us to bow to authority in the home. He teaches us also to bow
to authority in society. And that only happens if it starts
in the home. If it doesn't start in the home,
it's not gonna happen in society. That's why jails are overflowing
and crime is rampant and lives are destroyed all around us every
day. It's a lot complicated. And all right authority is of
God. That's clear from the scriptures.
All evil authority is of God also. He raises up one and puts
down another. It's not Satan that does that.
God gives authority, whether it's good or evil. It gets a
little bit more complicated if it's evil authority, because
ultimately we serve God, and we're not to obey anyone in defiance
of God, but though ultimately we bow and serve only one authority,
God Almighty, if God says, obey your parents in the Lord, for
this is right, then to not do that is not obeying
God. If he says, let every soul be
subject unto the higher powers, and he does, for there is no
power but of God, then you're obeying God by obeying them. Unless, of course, there's conflict
between the two, and then we obey God. God with his eyes scattereth away evil. just with
his eyes, because he's revealed his judgment, hasn't he? We know
how God deals with sin. We know how he deals with evil.
He's revealed his judgment upon evil cities like Sodom and Gomorrah
and others. He's revealed his authority and
wrath upon evil kings, many of them. But most importantly, where
is God's wrath revealed? Where is his authority and his
judgment revealed more clearly than at Calvary? God has revealed his judgment
against sin by pouring out his wrath upon his only begotten
son. When the Lord Jesus Christ took our place and bore our sins
on the cross there, really there can God's authority and judgment Really only there can it be seen
completely. That's only a deterrent. The
cross is only a deterrent from evil if you believe. Those who
don't believe are not motivated by that, by God and what he said. The message of his whole word
is the gospel. It's Christ crucified. Paul said
we preach Christ crucified. It's that simple because there
is no other message from God. But those who don't believe are
not motivated to live godly at all by that. Ecclesiastes 8,
if you wanna turn over there, Ecclesiastes 8, 11. Listen carefully, unless you
wanna look at it yourself, because
this is the principle talk. in our text, Ecclesiastes 8,
11. Because sentence or judgment
against an evil work is not executed speedily, therefore the heart
of the sons of men is fully set in them to do evil. Now you think
about that. If every time somebody robbed
a store, broke in and looted or murdered somebody on the street,
or even assaulted somebody, if every time a crime was committed,
the wrath of God fell upon that person and burnt them up on the
spot, how much crime do you think there would be? It wouldn't take long for people
to figure out, we're not gonna do that. And that's how it is
in the home. That's the authority that's established
in the home. When your children do something,
especially something that's dangerous, but really anything, if they
don't obey you in the little things, then when you say, don't
go there, don't do that, don't go play in the street, then they're
not gonna listen to you then either. And your job as a parent is to
make sure that the last thing they ever wanna do is disobey
you again. And I always have to, I feel
like I always have to stipulate because people are learning how
to parent from the world. And the world doesn't have a
clue about that. The word of God teaches us that. And children will get railed
on and angered and, you know, Punishment from parents for spilling
a glass of water at the table. That's a mistake. That's not
disobedience. That's not evil. That's a little
kid not being coordinated. If they do it every time you
eat, then they're probably doing it to get attention or something.
And they'll get the attention that they deserve if they do
it at my table. But you understand what I'm saying? It's disobedience. It's willful disobedience that
our hearts are full of by nature. David said, in sin did my mother
conceive me. That doesn't mean she sinned
when she conceived me. That means when she conceived
me, I was full of sin then. My nature is evil because of
Adam, because of me. I can't blame it on Adam. But
it's what we are. It's not just what we do. We
do what we do because of what we are. But you see how that
king that just has to look is one that If God struck us down the minute
we did something evil, that put a lot of fear in people, wouldn't
it? But because he doesn't do that, people are just doing what
they want to do. They're doing that which is right
in their own eyes. It doesn't mean that God is not
dealing out justice. Justice comes. He just does it
in his own time. So they're fully set in them.
And look at verse 12. "'Though a sinner do evil 100
times, "'and his days be prolonged, "'yet surely I know that it shall
be well.'" Look, you watch somebody that sins every day, I mean outwardly,
we all sin every day, we all sin with every thought we have,
it falls short of God's glory. But somebody that's constantly
just looking for something evil to do, and they do it all these
times, and they do it 100 times, that's not a specific number
for the sake of, That's just like, they just keep doing it.
And their days are prolonged. They don't seem to suffer any
consequence for it. He says, though that happened,
here's something I know. I know that it shall be well
with them that fear God, which fear before him, but it shall
not be well with the wicked. You might get confused about
that. Like the writer of Psalm 73, the wicked are prospering. And he stumbled at that, it grieved
his heart. But we know something when we
see that, we know that it's not gonna be well with the wicked,
it's gonna be well with the righteous. And we know that all of us are
sinners by nature and by practice. It's only gonna be well with
those in Christ, that's who's righteous. There's one human
righteousness, and it's the righteousness of Christ. And we must be found
in him, as Paul said, not having our own righteousness, which
is of the law, but the righteousness, which is by the faithfulness
of Jesus Christ. Neither shall he prolong his
days, which are as a shadow, because he feareth not before
God. But you see the principle here, they get away with it.
They get away with it, and so they just keep on doing it. That's
important now to remember. Nothing happens presently. There's nothing present with
them. They do it and they get away with it, and so they think
that they're gonna continue to get away with it. Unbelieving
sinners have no view by faith of Christ crucified. They don't
understand sin, they don't know what it is, they don't know its
consequences, and they don't care. They flat don't care. If God doesn't put them out of
business, they'll continue to do evil, as the scripture says,
with both hands earnestly. But God has ruined that for his
people. He flat ruined us when it comes to open, wanton, willful,
unrestrained sin. He ruined it for us. How did
he do that? By revealing Christ. It's not that we're scared that
God's gonna pour his wrath out on us. If we've seen Christ,
if we believe on Christ, He revealed his son to us and what happened
on Calvary by his spirit that dwelleth in us so that what happened
on Calvary never fades in our hearts. That word speedily there
in Ecclesiastes 8, there's nothing current, there's nothing present,
there's nothing top of mind to deter evil men, but for the people
of God, the cross is always top of mind. The glory of God is top of mind. There's one last thing that we
need to be careful to understand about this. When we look at the
cross and we see our savior there, that is literally the only deterrent. It's the eyes of the king that
sits on the throne of judgment that scatters our evil. When
we look at the cross and we see our savior there, that was the
judgment of God, both good and bad. Judgment is not always wrath. It's also mercy. Judgment just
means that God decides. That's what it means. He's the
judge. He's the one that decides the case. So we look at the cross,
we see our Savior there. We see the pouring out of God's
wrath upon Him as our substitute. It's not fear of God's wrath
that motivates us to godliness. We see our wrath being endured
by the Savior. It's not that we think in our
hearts, what terrible punishment, we don't want to suffer like
that. What motivates us is the knowledge that we will never
suffer like that. We will never suffer the wrath
of God because Christ Jesus suffered his wrath for our sins in our
place according to the scriptures. It's not fear, but it's the love
of Christ that constraineth us. That's what we see in his eyes. We see in the eyes of the one
who sits on the throne of judgment, his love in pouring out his wrath
upon his son, his grace. The only thing, the only thing
that will stop a sinner in his tracks when he finds himself
caught up in evil of some kind or contemplating it or even failing
to honor the King of glory is love for God's son. And if we
love Him, it is because He first loved us. It's love for Christ. The scriptures are clear about
that. Do you think it was anger in the eyes of the Lord that
made Simon Peter's heart break when he denied the Lord for the
third time? And the scripture says, when
he denied, when he said, I don't know the man, he cursed and denied
the Savior. And it says in the scriptures
that the Lord turned and looked upon Simon. You think it was
anger in his eyes that caused Peter's heart to break? Look
at all the scripture regarding how our Lord had dealt with Peter
before that. In his rebellion, he was a very
impetuous, just like we are, rebellious, self-righteous. They'll
deny you, but not me. His failures, in all of his failures,
look how the Lord dealt with him, and think again if you think
it was anger in the eyes of the Lord. When Simon put himself above
his brothers in pride and self-righteousness and said, I'll stand with you,
and they may not. Somebody's gonna deny you, it
ain't gonna be me. The Lord said, yeah, it's gonna
be you. You're gonna deny me. But I will go and prepare a place
for you. And when I do, I'm going to come
again and receive you unto myself. Fear not. Fear not. Don't let
your heart be troubled. Don't worry. You're a failure.
You're going to deny me. You're weak as water. You're
a feather in the wind. But I've got you. I've got you. So you think it was anger? It never had been before, had
it? Not one time. You study the life
of Peter sometime. Never had it been anger. Even when he said, get thee behind
me, Satan, because Simon was thinking about what was good
for him instead of what was glorifying to God. He said to Simon, Satan
hath desired you that he might sift you as wheat, but I pray
for you. I pray for you. Not anger. That's not the look
that causes his people to heart to break over their own sin. And that keeps us constrained to do that which honors him.
The love of Christ constraineth us. And there's only that one way,
I'm telling you right now, there's one way that we think twice.
In our pride, in our rebellion, in our self-righteousness, in
the evil nature of our hearts, If it's ever gonna be restrained,
it happens one way, and that's if our king that sits on the
throne of judgment, as our text said, in his perfect, holy judgment,
spared not his own son for us, but delivered him up for us all. If he looks upon us with that
divine love in his eyes, And with our faith, with the eyes
of the faith that he gave us, we behold his eyes and his hands
and his feet and his side. That's what broke Simon's selfish
heart. That's what brought Thomas in
his refusal to believe Christ to the feet of the Savior. And that's what will melt our
hearts of stone. It's the only thing that will. And will scatter
our darkness. The word scatter there is winnow,
W-I-N-N-O-W. It's when the chaff gets winnowed
away from the wheat. The Lord's doing that in our
hearts. He's refining the gold that he has made. Our Lord in his judgment, in
his deciding of the matter, sitting on the throne of judgment will
separate the chaff from the wheat on the last day. In other words,
some sinners from others. In that parable of the sower,
he talked about the wheat that he planted and the chaff that
Satan planted that looks just like wheat. And the disciples
said, shall we go in and cut away the chaff so the wheat can
grow better? No, leave it alone, let it grow
up together. Because if you do that, you'll
cut down some of the wheat. We don't know the difference.
There is a difference, but we're not the judge. We're not the
one who decides, he is. He sits on the throne of judgment,
and he's gonna do that on the last day. He's gonna winnow the
chaff from the wheat, but also may he always winnow
from our hearts the chaff of the flesh. and keep us close, keep us looking
to Him, keep us, keep top of mind His love for
us. That is the reason for our love
for Him. Amen, let's pray.