Righteousness Exalts a Nation

Thoughts on Proverbs 14:34

America’s Founding Fathers were concerned not just about their own generation but also about posterity—about future generations. In fact, when they wrote the U. S. Constitution, they candidly acknowledged that they had done so in order to “secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity.” Reflecting this concern, in an Election Sermon preached to the Connecticut legislature, the Rev. Mathias Burnet admonished citizens and leaders:

To God and posterity you are accountable [for your rights and your rulers]. . . . Let not your children have reason to curse you for giving up those rights and prostrating those institutions which your fathers deliv­ered to you. ¹

He reminded citizens that while they would give an account to God for whether or not they had preserved the rights He had entrusted them, they would also answer to posterity.

Patrick Henry held identical sentiments. When he passed away in 1799, his personal legal documents and his will were opened and publicly read by his executors. Included with his will was an original copy of the 1765 Stamp Act Resolutions (early precursors to the American Revolution) passed by the Virginia Legislature, of which Henry had been a member. On the back of those resolutions Henry penned a handwritten message, knowing it would be read at his death. He recounted the early colonial resistance to British policy that eventually resulted in the American Revolution, and then concluded with this warning:

Whether this [the American Revolution] will prove a blessing or a curse will depend upon the use our people make of the blessings which a gracious God hath bestowed on us. If they are wise, they will be great and happy. If they are of a contrary character, they will be miserable. Righteousness alone can exalt them as a nation [Proverbs 14:34]. Reader!—whoever thou art, remember this!—and in thy sphere practice virtue thyself and encourage it in others. P. Henry ²

Whether or not America will prosper into the future depends on its righteousness today. But how is national righteousness measured? Dozens of Bible passages (Deuteronomy 28, 1 Kings 18, 1 Chronicles 21) affirm that the righteousness of any nation is defined by its public policies and how well they conform to God’s standards. As Samuel Adams affirmed, only God-honoring policies can exalt a nation:

[Divine] revelation assures us that “Righteousness exalteth a nation” [Proverbs 14:34]. Communities are dealt with in this world by the wise and just Ruler of the Universe. He rewards or punishes them according to their general character. ³

Across the pages of American history, this verse has been regularly cited by both political and religious leaders. For example, Frederick Douglass, a minister of the Gospel who also served as a political leader long before and after the Civil War, told citizens:

I have one great political idea. . . . That idea is an old one. It is widely and generally assented to; nevertheless, it is very generally trampled upon and disregarded. The best expression of it, I have found in the Bible. It is in substance, “Righteousness exalteth a nation; sin is a reproach to any people” [Proverbs 14:34]. Sir, this constitutes my politics – the negative and positive of my politics, and the whole of my politics. . . . I feel it my duty to do all in my power to infuse this idea into the public mind, that it may speedily be recognized and practiced upon by our people. ⁴

Douglass believed that every political concern should be guided by issues of righteousness, but too often today, political concerns (and even citizen votes) are guided instead by issues of economics—what is good for the economy, my job, my pocketbook, etc. When Jesus’ disciples became focused on such worries—on their food, clothing, income, lands, and homes—He reminded them that if they would “seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness,” then all of their economic concerns would be provided for (Matthew 6:33). Strikingly, when a nation pursues economics over righteousness, it generally loses both. Notice how frequently secular nations find themselves facing burgeoning and unsolvable economic problems. The only way to preserve economic prosperity is by pursuing righteousness in public policy.

The Rev. Francis Grimke understood this. Born to a slave mother in 1850 in South Carolina, he served as a valet in the Confederate army until Emancipation. After the war, he attended Lincoln University, Howard University, and Princeton Theological Seminary, and became a minister in Washington, D.C. He not only lived through the Civil War as a boy, but as a young man survived the barbarity of the Ku Klux Klan over the two decades following the War. Then in the early 1900s, as an older adult, he watched the second revival of the Klan as it marched openly in parades in Washington, D.C., with many Members of Congress participating.

Having personally witnessed the literal splitting apart of America, and now seeing the resurgence of the Klan with the same tone and rhetoric as fifty years earlier, he was convinced that this time the nation would remain united. But in a sermon delivered in 1909, he warned what America’s future would be should we ever depart from righteousness:

The Stars and Stripes—the old flag—will float . . . over all these states. . . . If the time ever comes when we shall go to pieces, it will . . . [be] from inward corruption – from the disregard of right principles . . . from losing sight of the fact that “Righteousness exalteth a nation, but that sin is a reproach to any people” [Proverbs 14:34]. . . . The secession of the Southern States in 1860 was a small matter with the secession of the Union itself from the great principles enunciated in the Declaration of Independence, in the Golden Rule, in the Ten Commandments, in the Sermon on the Mount. Unless we hold, and hold firmly to these great fundamental principles of righteousness . . . our Union . . . will be “only a covenant with death and an agreement with hell” [Isaiah 28:18]. If it continues to exist, it will be a curse and not a blessing. ⁵

When selecting public officials, Christians must make their first and foremost concern not what can be done for their pocketbook or their job, but rather whether that official will advance policies upholding Biblical standards of righteousness. Biblical rights and wrongs on moral issues must always take precedence over economic, environmental, health care, energy, or any other issues. Whether and in what condition America will continue to exist into the future is completely dependent on how strongly citizens will embrace and apply Proverbs 14:34 in both their private and their civic lives.

Endnotes

¹ Matthias Burnet, An Election Sermon, Preached at Hartford, on the Day of the Anniversary Election, May 12, 1803 (Hartford: Hudson and Goodwin, 1803), 27.

² Patrick Henry, Patrick Henry: Life, Correspondence and Speeches, ed. William Wirt Henry (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1891), I:81-82, from a handwritten endorsement on the back of the paper containing the resolutions of the Virginia Assembly in 1765 concerning the Stamp Act.

³ Samuel Adams to John Scollay, April 30, 1776, The Writings of Samuel Adams, ed. Harry Alonzo Cushing (New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1907), III:286.

⁴ Frederick Douglass, speech delivered at Ithaca, New York, October 14, 1852, The Frederick Douglass Papers, ed. John Blassingame (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1982), 2:397.

⁵ Rev. Francis J. Grimke, from “Equality of Right for All Citizens, Black and White, Alike,” March 7, 1909, Masterpieces of Negro Eloquence, ed. Alice Moore Dunbar (New York: Dover Publications, Inc., 2000), 246-247.