The Ultimate Audit: True Currency on Judgment Day Text: Proverbs 11:4
Introduction: The Great Deception
We live in a world that is obsessed with accounting. Men spend their lives meticulously tracking every digit in their bank accounts, every fluctuation in the stock market, every asset in their portfolio. They believe that a man's worth is the sum of his possessions. Our entire culture is a grand conspiracy to convince you that the man who dies with the most toys wins. This is the great deception, the lie that props up our entire godless, materialistic age.
But the book of Proverbs is a book of spiritual accounting. It is God's ledger, and it operates on a completely different set of principles. It teaches us that there is an ultimate audit coming, a final reckoning. On that day, all the currencies of this world will be revealed as play money. All the gold, all the real estate, all the retirement accounts will be shown to be utterly worthless. There is a coming day of wrath, and on that day, only one currency will have any value at all. This proverb sets before us a stark choice between two treasuries. One is filled with what our age considers everything, and the other is filled with what our age considers nothing. But in the economy of God, these valuations are precisely reversed.
The world tells you to secure your future with wealth. God tells you that this kind of security is a house of cards in a hurricane. This proverb is not offering gentle financial advice. It is a bucket of ice water in the face of a slumbering generation. It forces us to ask the most fundamental question: What are you banking on? What is your hope? Because a day is coming when every man's portfolio will be tested by fire, and most will discover, to their eternal horror, that they have invested everything in assets that are about to go up in smoke.
The Text
"Wealth will not profit in the day of wrath, But righteousness will deliver from death."
(Proverbs 11:4 LSB)
The Worthlessness of Worldly Wealth (v. 4a)
The first clause of this proverb delivers a devastating blow to the materialistic worldview.
"Wealth will not profit in the day of wrath..." (Proverbs 11:4a)
The word for wealth here is broad. It means riches, substance, sufficiency. It is everything that a man might trust in to secure his place in the world. The world operates on the unquestioned assumption that wealth is profitable. And in a limited, temporal sense, it is. Wealth can buy you a bigger house, a faster car, and better medical care. But the Bible is constantly reminding us that this world is not the ultimate reality. There is a "day of wrath" coming.
This "day of wrath" can refer to any time of divine judgment. It could be a personal crisis, a national collapse, or the final judgment at the end of history. In any of these scenarios, the point is the same: when God settles accounts, earthly wealth is useless. Your money cannot bribe the angel of death. Your stock portfolio cannot appease the wrath of a holy God. On the day of judgment, all the gold you have in your pockets is going to melt and run down your leg. It is, as another proverb says, "balloon juice."
This is not to say that wealth is inherently evil. Scripture teaches that wealth obtained through diligent labor and godly wisdom is a blessing from the Lord. A good man leaves an inheritance for his children's children (Prov. 13:22). The problem is not the wealth itself, but rather trusting in it. "He that trusteth in his riches shall fall" (Prov. 11:28). The man who makes wealth his god, his security, his hope, is a fool of the highest order. He is like a man trying to buy his way off the Titanic with a briefcase full of cash. The currency is worthless because the entire system is going down.
Our secular age has forgotten this. It has no category for a day of wrath. It believes that history is just one thing after another, with no final exam. But Scripture is clear. There is a day when God will visit the world in judgment, a day when all accounts will be settled. And on that day, the only thing that will matter is whether you are rich toward God.
The Enduring Value of Righteousness (v. 4b)
In stark contrast to the fleeting value of riches, the second clause presents the only asset with eternal worth.
"But righteousness will deliver from death." (Proverbs 11:4b)
Here is the great exchange. While wealth fails, righteousness delivers. The word "righteousness" (tzedakah in Hebrew) is a rich, covenantal term. It means right standing with God, which manifests itself in just and upright living. It is about conformity to God's standard, both in our legal standing before Him and in our ethical conduct in the world.
And what does this righteousness do? It "delivers from death." This is the ultimate profit. Death is the final enemy, the ultimate consequence of sin. Wealth is powerless before it, but righteousness is its conqueror. This points us in two directions, both of which are essential.
First, it points to the necessity of imputed righteousness. On our own, none of us are righteous. "All our righteousnesses are as filthy rags" (Isaiah 64:6). If we stand before God on the day of wrath with only our own good deeds to offer, we will be undone. The only righteousness that can withstand the fire of God's judgment is the perfect righteousness of Jesus Christ. This is the righteousness that is credited to us by faith. God "made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him" (2 Corinthians 5:21). This is the great deliverance. The final judgment of God has already fallen on Jesus in the middle of history, so that if you are in Him, you have already passed through the day of wrath.
Second, this imputed righteousness is never alone. It always produces the fruit of practical, lived-out righteousness. The one who has been declared righteous by God will begin to live righteously. He will pursue honesty over profit. He will be generous to the poor. He will deal justly with his neighbor. This practical righteousness is the evidence of the first, and it also brings its own deliverance. A life of integrity delivers a person from the "death" of a ruined reputation, a guilty conscience, and a life that rots from the inside out (Prov. 10:7). A throne is established by righteousness (Prov. 16:12), and so is a life.
Conclusion: The Only Sound Investment
So, this proverb places before us two investment strategies. The world's strategy is to accumulate wealth, believing it will provide security. God's strategy is to pursue righteousness, knowing it is the only security there is.
You cannot have both. You cannot serve both God and mammon. The man who pursues wealth without righteousness will find that his great revenues are a net loss. But the man who pursues righteousness, even if it means having little in this world, will find that he has everything. "Better is a little with righteousness than great revenues without right" (Proverbs 16:8).
The ultimate question this verse asks is this: what is your treasure? Where are you laying it up? Are you investing in the fleeting, temporary currencies of this age, which will be worthless on the day that matters most? Or are you investing in the eternal, unshakable currency of the kingdom of God? That currency is the righteousness of Christ, received by faith, and worked out in a life of faithfulness.
On the day of wrath, many who were considered rich in this life will be exposed as utterly bankrupt. And many who were considered poor will be revealed as heirs of an eternal fortune. The only deliverance from death is righteousness. And the only righteousness that will suffice is the righteousness of Christ. Flee to Him. Trust in Him. For He is the only treasure that will profit in the day of wrath.