King Louis IX dispensing justice.

King Louis IX of France was named a saint just twenty-seven years after his death in part because he pled the cause of the little guy. He appointed just men to hear grievances throughout his kingdom. There are instances in which he punished powerful lords for contempt of the laws, compelling them to pay compensation to those they had trampled upon. If they were acting on an order from a previous king, he paid the compensation himself. As a consequence of his even-handedness, he was even asked to arbitrate the quarrels of other nations.

No one, however, embodied this dictum more faithfully than Christ, who not only spoke up for all of us, poor and needy in our sin, but died for us and remains our advocate to this hour in heaven.

John Nelson Darby

Two of the most influential theologians of the 19th-century were probably not men you would have felt comfortable with for any length of time. J.N. Darby and Arthur Pink each felt they had the corner on truth and had no use for anyone who didn’t hold their opinions and methods. It was a sad spectacle to see how each narrowed their circle and narrowed it again until almost no one remained in it. Darby, who had once been a leader in the Plymouth Brethren, formed his own small exclusive group of churches called Darbyites. Pink and his wife moved to an island to live alone, refusing association with any church at all, although issuing an influential teaching newsletter.

You have to realize that the men they were renouncing were of the caliber of George Mueller and D. L. Moody.

Contrast that with their Lord, who took a much broader view. When John told him “Master, we saw a man casting out devils in your name, and he does not follow us: and we forbade him, because he does not follow us.”

But Jesus said, “Don’t forbid him: for there is no man who will do a miracle in my name, that can lightly speak evil of me. For whoever is not against us is for us.”

Godless Cardinal Wolsey

Cardinal Wolsey, after a long life of wickedness, which included every kind of self-indulgence, extortion, political maneuvering and worldliness, fell afoul of his master, King Henry VIII. The King summoned him to London to give an accounting.

Knowing that he would most likely be found guilty and executed, the churchman dosed himself so heavily with purges that he died. Before death took him, he said, “Had I but served God as diligently as I have served the king, he would not have given me over in my gray hairs.”

What a contrast Christ Jesus presents to Wolsey. Because of his faultless and disciplined life, which sacrificed everything for obedience, God did not allow him to see corruption, but raised him from the dead, to reign forever and ever. He had no lament of failure as he went to his death.

King Alfred the Great, a stickler for justice.

This proverb tells us how it ought to be, not how it is. Many kings have created injustice from their thrones.

One who genuinely tried to scatter evil was King Alfred the Great. Ruling at a time of war with serious social breakdown, he was determined to restore justice in his land. Consequently he required all his judges to learn to read the law, or to have it read to them. An old document says he hanged forty-four justices in a single year for sentencing men who had been acquitted, for allowing irregular juries, for sending a madman and a minor to death, for punishing a man for an offense committed by his wife, and for usurpation of jurisdiction. He also ejected a number of judges for lesser abuses.

When Christ comes, he will judge his church with faithful justice. There will be no eluding his piercing eyes and complete knowledge not only of our actions but of our motives. He is the ideal king who fulfills this verse perfectly.

Paul preaching in Athens.

Preaching to the Athenians (Acts 17), Paul quoted their sages as saying of God, “In him we live and move and have our being.” The quote has been traced back to Aratus, an Athenian philosopher who lived nearly three centuries earlier and was echoed in Cleanthes’ “Hymn to Jupiter.” It goes without saying that since God is everywhere, nothing can be hidden from Him. Unfortunately, because He cloaks himself in invisibility, however much we know His oversight to be a fact, none of us live consistently as if we believe it. And yet the Lord sees everything.

Christ by his teaching and by his behavior affirmed this proverb. First, look at his teaching. He endorses the idea when he says, “your Father in Heaven, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you openly.” Jesus taught us to act on the principle of God’s oversight.

Second, look at Christ’s behavior. Jesus had limited his divine abilities in becoming a man; thus he often had to ask questions in order to elicit details. Nonetheless, he modeled this proverb. In the power of the Spirit, he described Nathanael’s actions under a fig tree and declared Lazarus’ death from a great distance. He knew of Peter’s exchange with the priests over the temple tax before Peter said a word.

At other times, Jesus kept his eyes open as any man might, marking both good and bad. Thus he noticed the good act of the widow dropping her two little coins into the temple treasury, and the childish behavior of the Pharisees who grabbed the highest seats at dinner–not to mention their many acts of hypocrisy. If Solomon had not penned this proverb, we could derive it from the behavior of Christ Jesus.