Proverbs 14

Proverbs 14:34-35

SHALL TAMMANY RULE? Sermon preached on September 30, 1928, elicited by the candidacy of Al Smith, Governor of New York, Tammany representative, Romanist and anti-prohibitionist, for the presidency of the United States. Proverbs 14:34-35IN discussing the question “Shall Tammany Rule?”, I can easily anticipate my critics. Some of them will be saying that it is a subject with which the pulpit has nothing to do; that it is our business to preach the Gospel and keep our mouths sealed on public affairs. Such critics are poorly familiar with the Word of God. The Old Testament Prophets dealt constantly, not only with questions of morals and questions of religion, but with questions political and governmental. Our text is an instance of this fact; for, here, Solomon, the wisest of men, the greatest of rulers and yet a Prophet of God, is employing his pen to express a truism of government, “Righteousness exalteth a nation, but sin is a reproach to any people”. Solomon was not dishonoring his prophetic office by so speaking; on the other hand he was revealing the fact, and fact it is, that God’s Prophet is interested in every phase of human life, the personal, the collective, the governmental, for in them all, man’s interest is involved.The preacher has no place in partizan politics. If I appeared today in this pulpit as a Republican, to advocate the triumph of that party as against the Democratic, I should be open to just criticism, for no question of morals, or ethics, or of religion would be involved as between the two. Neither of them has morals enough to be boastful of the same; and so far as I can find out, neither of them has any religion at all.I am not here then, as a partizan; I am here as a preacher of the Gospel, as a man interested in his fellow-men, in the affairs of his State, and in the good name of his Nation. So long as I am accorded citizenship, I am under obligation to the State and should be its defender against any and all foes; therefore I speak!I shall attempt, I trust successfully, to combine a rational interpretation of this text and a proper reply to this question; and in doing this let us consider the text under three heads, namely, The Exaltation of the Nation: the Degeneration of the Nation : and the Divine Favor and Wrath.THE OF THE NATION The text says “Righteousness exalteth a nation”. I looked up, in my dictionary, the definition of the word “righteousness” imagining that the definition might bring with it definite suggestions; and it was even so.Following the dictionary definition, I find three things clearly set forth and they give special meaning to the text. 1—Righteousness is conformity to right laws. 2—Righteousness is conformity to God’s revealed will. 3—Righteousness is the common product of a personal faith in Christ.To that order then:Righteousness is conformity to right laws. The dictionary says “Conformity to law, or to right and justice”. In the judgment of many of the best men, living and dead, the three great events in American history are the Declaration of Independence, the Emancipation act, and the liquor prohibitory law, known as the Eighteenth Amendment. By the first we declared our personal freedom: by the second, we accomplished the freedom of our black brothers, and by the third, we threw off the galling and infamous yoke of the legalized saloon. If there ever were just and righteous acts these three can be so denominated.We come now to this question, Shall a Tammany representative be elected to the chief office of the United States, its presidency, and be permitted to treat the Eighteenth Amendment with the contempt he has been showing for it in the State of New York? If so, then we prove our antipathy to this text and announce another philosophy— an infamous philosophy—of government.It is hardly worth while for men who would save a political party at any cost, to attempt the justification of that course by explanation of a presidential candidate’s position on the drink question. If ever a man settled anything, he has settled that, not only by his recent speeches, but by his entire political course. His record also is no better on other forms of evil.It is rather late for such a man to be telling us that “the saloon ought to be a defunct institution” in this country, since he did his best, as long as it existed, to keep it not only afloat but fruitful. For the man who has made this record in defense of liquor to be exalted to the first place in the one nation that has washed its hands of this accursed traffic would astound the other governments of the world, and would lead them to believe that either we had been insincere in our prohibition of the saloon, or else had been convinced of the Nation’s mistake in its abolition.

What good citizens wish to give to the world either impression?But again we find the dictionary has a further definition.Righteousness is conformity to God’s revealed will. The exact language of the dictionary is this: “A state of acceptance and harmony with God” God’s will is known to us through God’s Word.

Let us see what that will is. We are told that our candidate only wants light wines and beers. It is a question, however, whether only light wines and beers would meet his personal demands. But, if they did, it would be difficult to defend their approval and be in accord with the plain Word of God. I am speaking to you from Proverbs 14:34. Turn now if you please to Proverbs 23:20, “Be not among winebibbers” is the Divine injunction. “The drunkard and the glutton shall come to poverty” is the assertion of the next verse. The same chapter continues,“Who hath woe? who hath sorrow? who hath contentions? who hath babblings? who hath wounds without cause? who hath redness of eyes? “They that tarry long at the wine; they that go to seek mixed wine”. Then the man of God continues“Look not upon the wine when it is red, when it giveth his colour in the cup, when it moveth itself aright. “At the last it biteth like a serpent, and stingeth like an adder”. Isaiah wrote:“Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter. “Woe unto them that are wise in their own eyes, and prudent in their own sight! “Woe unto them that are mighty to drink wine, and men of strength to mingle strong drink: “Which justify the wicked for reward, and take away the righteousness of the righteous from him! “Therefore as the fire devoureth the stubble, and the flame consumeth the chaff, so their root shall be as rottenness, and their blossom shall go up as dust: because they have cast away the Law of the Lord of hosts, and despised the Word of the Holy One of Israel” (Isaiah 5:20-24). Again the Book of Proverbs (Proverbs 20:1) declares “Wine is a mocker, strong drink is raging; and whosoever is deceived thereby is not wise”.These are but a few of the multiplied passages that may be brought from the sacred Book, but they suffice to show what God’s will is.Possibly our Presidential candidate does not know what the Book contains. Unfortunately for him he has been brought up by a pagan Christianity that takes the Bible away from its children and leaves them in ignorance of its sacred precepts, save as they hear them from Protestants. But even if one were ignorant of God’s Word upon the subject, his own observation should suffice, and his own conscience should speak on the subject of strong drink. Apparently the man who would fain occupy the presidential chair, after next March, has either failed of observation, or liquor has dulled his sense of its sinfulness and he stands before the American people today its shameless advocate.. It is not at all probable that we are going to put into the White House a man who will make every national interest answer to the question, “Would God approve this law or this action?” but it certainly ought not to be our willingness to put in one who, upon his nomination, has declared himself in opposition to the known will of the Creator.But I look back to our text a third time and read, “Righteousness exalteth a nation”, and then turn again to my dictionary and I find“Righteousness is the product of a personal faith in Christ.” Now at this point it is not my purpose to discuss the question as to any candidate’s acceptance or rejection of Jesus of Nazareth. The church of which one of them is a member has erected so many unsaintly saints, introduced so many unbiblical ceremonies and accomplished so many unchristian objectives, that one finds it difficult to imagine that it could point a man to the true Christ of the Bible, the Son of God, born of the virgin Mary, a worker of miracles, the Victor over the grave and death, the ascended and soon-coming Lord.This, however, we think may be said without fear of successful contradiction, namely, that in many of the positions taken by this man there is little clear hint that he desires for himself or for his State or his Nation, the righteous will of a triumphant Christ.Going back into American history it could easily be shown that our greatest presidents have been Christian men, and that many of the most outstanding of them truly desired to discover and do God’s will, and sought to so lead the Nation as not to contravene the same.

There is a disposition at this time to deflect the Nation from that objective. Not a few of our University professors have been inveighing against calling America a Christian nation, or recognizing in our Constitution any God at all. In fact, one of these men, whose text-book was employed a few years ago in the State University of Minnesota, raged against the whole idea; desired to have the phrase “In God we trust” taken from our coins, and every sentence that committed us to a Christian course, stricken from our Constitution.Till this good hour this land, settled by the Christian believers who fled the Old World to escape the tyranny of the government and the martyrdom of the Romish church, has never given the least hint that it would consider either the establishment of a kingly throne, or the temporal supremacy of an alien pope. The democratic party has made a good many mistakes in its history. It mistakenly defended slavery and thereby lost its prestige; for a good many years it annually declared itself “against sumptuary laws.” But no political party known to the American people can carry the combination of rum and Rome to the presidential office; for the majority of the people still believe that “righteousness exalteth a nation”.But to turn to our text again:“Sin is a reproach to any people”. The sin here referred to is not the sin of the individual, but national sin. Now, what is sin? These are days of all sorts of definitions.“Sin is a quest after God”, according to the Modernist, Reginald Campbell. That is new theology with a vengeance; and, it would be difficult for new theology, famed as it is for nonsense, to exceed it.“Sin is a fall upward” according to the evolutionists.This is, like all else that they formulate, a contravention of facts. You can’t fall upward! Nature opposes and makes such a fall impossible!We turn now to what the Bible has to say, and also to the testimony of human experience, and we find sin is the violation of a righteous law.In view of that definition, shall Tammany rule in America?

Quite a few people have said recently, What is Tammany?“Tamani” was the chief of a Delaware tribe of Indians. We have Anglicized his name into Tammany.

When this political organization was effected in New York City, it affiliated itself with the Democratic Party, and took its name from Tammany Hall, its meeting place. It was born April 30, 1789, as The Columbian Order, but some years since adopted as its patron saint the Indian Chief, whose apocryphal history had just then been published.The original intention of the Society was charitable and social; but it finally came to be purely political, and eventually to represent corruption in politics.Unfortunately for his candidacy, the Democratic nominee is the special pet of this organization, and it has backed him in his ambitions, exalting him to the office of governor, and now would fain make him President of the United States.In listening over the radio the other night to the candidate’s address in St. Paul, I was interested in what he had to say on the subject of aliens. He knew that he stood at the center where thousands of Old Country born people had selected to live, and he also knew that it was good politics to remind them of the fact that the man who is born in another land, but selects to live in this, and to accept its flag as his flag, is as good an American as the native.No one questions that proposition. The truth is that America has been made after that exact manner. The forefathers of us all were at one time aliens; and by their1 very choice of America as their resident place, proved their fitness for citizenship in the same.But the Governor very carefully disregarded the fact that as there are natives and natives, so there are aliens and aliens, and the Protestant Scandinavian population of the Northwest is not to be reduced to the low level of the alien Roman population of New York; a population that has been brought over from South Europe; a population that has been steeped in ignorance through the superstitions arid oppressions of Rome; a population that has little respect for law, and less love for any flag of government and seldom educates its children in the public school.

It was the latter sort of alien population that gave to Governor Smith his governorship. The sober, saloon-hating, clean-living Scandinavian of the Northwest will not lend his influence after like manner.There are many Minnesotans who imagine that the demonstration at Smith’s appearance indicates Smith’s strength in this State, and their fears are excited accordingly.

It doesn’t mean that to me at all. I have noticed that a minority quite often makes up in sound what it lacks in size. People who are in danger of defeat behave as I used to do when, as a small boy, I had to pass through dark woods at night; that is, they make lots of noise. The object is to create the impression of bigness and power.In connection with the last election of the governor of the State of Minnesota, I was traveling the State over in a series of lectures. Everywhere I went I heard the name of his opponent and placards announcing his candidacy and declaring a certain victory, faced me at every turn. Our Governor’s name I scarcely saw on a bill board or the back of a car, and I confess I had a certain degree of alarm lest he should be defeated; but when the votes were counted, it was proven again that majorities sometimes move like heavenly bodies, with a force as great as their silence is awe inspiring.I predict that the national election will prove the principle.

I frankly confess that such is not only my expectation, but my ardent hope; for I want to see the righteous laws of the land maintained, and I believe an abolition of the Eighteenth Amendment, or even a tampering with it and its essential corollaries, would be contrary to the interests of my beloved government and would result in moral and national degradation.Then, again, sin is the sworn enemy of the individual.This truth Solomon both experienced and proclaimed. The Proverbs are replete with emphasis of that fact.

In the first chapter he writes:“My son, if sinners entice thee, consent thou not. “If they say, Come with us, let us lay wait for blood, let us lurk privily for the innocent without cause: “Let us swallow them up alive as the grave; and whole, as those that go down into the pit: “We shall find all precious substance, we shall fill our houses with spoil: “Cast in thy lot among us; let us all have one purse: “My son; walk not thou in the way with them; refrain thy foot from their path: “For their feet run to evil, and make haste to shed blood” (Proverbs 1:10-16). Of these he says:“Therefore shall they eat of the fruit of their own way, and be filled with their own devices. “For the turning away of the simple shall slay them, and the prosperity of fools shall destroy them” (Proverbs 1:31-32). In the second chapter of Proverbs he writes:“My son, if thou wilt receive my words, and hide my commandments with thee; “So that thou incline thine ear unto wisdom, and apply thine heart to understanding” (Proverbs 2:1-2), “Then shalt thou understand righteousness, and judgment, and equity; yea, every good path” (Proverbs 2:9), “For the upright shall dwell in the land, and the perfect shall remain in it. “But the wicked shall be cut off from the earth, and the transgressors shall be rooted out of it” (Proverbs 2:21-22). In the third chapter he writes:“The curse of the Lord is in the house of the wicked” (Proverbs 3:33). In the fourth chapter, he writes:“Hear, ye children, the instruction of a father, and attend to know understanding” (Proverbs 4:1). “Enter not into the path of the wicked, and go not in the way of evil men. “Avoid it, pass not by it, turn from it, and pass away. “For they sleep not, except they have done mischief; and their sleep is taken away, unless they cause some to fall. “For they eat the bread of wickedness, and drink the wine of violence” (Proverbs 4:14-17). In the fifth chapter, he writes:“My son, attend unto my wisdom, and bow thine ear to my understanding: “That thou mayest regard discretion, and that thy lips may keep knowledge. “For the lips of a strange woman drop as an honeycomb, and her mouth is smoother than oil: “But her end is bitter as wormwood, sharp as a two-edged sword. “Her feet go down to death; her steps take hold on hell” (Proverbs 5:1-5). The Book of Proverbs has in it thirty-one chapters, and they are devoted almost solely to warning us against sin and declarations of certain judgment against those who join therein.In spite of all that the philosophers are now saying, and their soft and sentimental definitions of the word itself, Solomon’s language is hardly strong enough to express the frightful fruits of sin.Ten or twelve years ago I became very suddenly acquainted with a man who hung around my church neighborhood. He had no vocation, as far as I could find out. Where and how he got his money no one seemed to know; yet he was fairly well dressed, seemed to be in fair degree of health, but was famed with those who knew him for his sneaking iniquities.A few; days since I passed that man on the street. He, who ten years ago was described to me as a moral wreck, is today a mental and physical wreck as well. Sin has put its indelible marks on him. He sowed to the winds, and he is reaping a whirlwind.Society is made up of individuals.

Sin affects its members and finally involves the entire body, hence the fact, Sin may become a reproach to a nation. America at this moment is providing the most painful illustration of this truth that the centuries have seen. Our grafters in business, our charlatans in politics, our hypocrites in churches, our multiplied hold-ups, our organized banditry; our newly developed racketeers; our murder-marked metropolises—how they loom; and what a reproach to our nation!The record that Chicago and New York are making is bringing us into increasing disgrace in the eyes of the civilized world. Our corruption in government is as sickening as shocking, and for this country to take one step that looks in the direction of “liberties” that mean “license of evil,” is perilous to the point of national disaster, yea, even of national death.If there ever was an hour when such an organization as Tammany, New York, should have nothing to say in government, that hour is on now. If there ever was a day since America was born, when the lawless, lust-loving, liquor-vending louts should have no consideration save that of judgment speedy and adequate, that time is on now.To exalt to their chief office, one who has had his throne in Albany, a town that enjoys the unsavory reputation of having a section in it into which officers of the law hardly dare to enter for the execution of the same, chosen as governor by a highhanded if not a red-handed political organization that has never touched questions of state save to pollute them—to take the representative of such, and place him in the position of power and presidency over our nation, is an act in which the best citizenship of America can have no part, and for which, were such a procedure possible, the party becoming responsible would be held forever in judgment by the more civilized nations of the earth.Again I declare my conviction that the twentieth century will not see my own loved land brought to this reproach.But to the next suggestionTHE DIVINE FAVOR AND THE DIVINE WRATH Mark the verse:“The king’s favour is toward a wise servant: but his wrath is against him that causeth shame”. The wise ruler will have God’s favor. When have we ever seen the failure of this fact? England had a checkered history as long as her rulers were men of little or no character. Her glory began when a godly woman came to her throne, just exactly as the glory of Israel began and continued under David and Solomon, men who trusted God and sought to make operative His Word.It has been equally true in America. We have taken our greatest steps under such men as Washington, Lincoln, Roosevelt and Wilson. “The king’s favour is toward a wise servant”.The ruler who favors sin produces shame. “God’s wrath is against him that causeth shame”, and when the great day of His wrath comes, who shall be able to stand?Here again let governments teach us.Babylon once ruled the world, and its form of civilization was the very first in all the earth; but, its rulers forgot God, delighted themselves in strong drink, indulged themselves in Bacchanalian occasions, and the handwriting appeared on the wall, and Babylon went down.Medo-Persia followed, and in her sinful impenitence, the mightiest people of past ages perished.Greece came with her culture and almost uniform education, and produced the greatest names of human history, but her sinfulness not only ended in shame, it eventuated in national degradation, and practical death.And then Rome! She ruled the world, but she ceased from righteousness, forfeited her position, and perished as had her predecessors.If the past does not impress us, and the revealed will of God recorded in His Word does not guide us, America will not fare better than her great proto-types and predecessors.