The King's Delight: The Currency of Truth Text: Proverbs 16:13
Introduction: The War on Words
We live in an age that has declared war on words. Our entire civilization is embroiled in a massive, chaotic, and ultimately suicidal attempt to detach words from reality. We are told that men can be women if they say so, that truth is a personal preference, and that a nation's treasury can be filled with imaginary money. The lie is the official language of the state, the academy, and the media. They are not just telling lies; they are attacking the very possibility of truth. They are sawing off the branch they are sitting on, and they are expecting us to applaud their commitment to progress on the way down.
Into this babbling confusion, the book of Proverbs speaks with the clarity of a trumpet blast. The wisdom of God is intensely practical, and it understands that a society is built or destroyed on the integrity of its words. Words are not arbitrary noises we make with our mouths. Words are the tools God used to build the cosmos, and they are the tools we use to build civilizations. When our words correspond to the reality God created, we build things that are solid, stable, and beautiful. When our words are lies, when they are detached from the created order, we build nothing but ruins.
This proverb before us today gets right to the heart of the matter. It deals with the intersection of speech and power, of words and governance. A society's health can be measured by the kind of speech that its leaders value. When a king, a president, a governor, or a CEO delights in lies, flatteries, and propaganda, that kingdom is rotting from the head down. But when a leader delights in righteous lips, in straight talk, that kingdom is founded upon a rock. This is not just good advice; it is a law of the universe, as fixed as gravity. A government built on lies will inevitably collapse into tyranny and chaos.
So let us attend to this wisdom. We must understand what righteous lips are, why they are a delight to a godly king, and what this means for us, whether we are magistrates or mechanics, pastors or parents. For we all live under authority, and we are all called to exercise authority in some sphere. The currency of God's kingdom is truth, and we must learn to speak it and to love it.
The Text
Righteous lips are the delight of kings,
And he who speaks uprightly is loved.
(Proverbs 16:13 LSB)
The Royal Appetite (v. 13a)
The first clause sets the principle before us:
"Righteous lips are the delight of kings." (Proverbs 16:13a)
The word for "delight" here points to a deep pleasure, a royal satisfaction. This is what the king enjoys, what he finds pleasing. And what is it? "Righteous lips." This refers to speech that is just, true, and aligned with reality. It is speech that is not bent or twisted to manipulate, to flatter, or to deceive. It is straight talk.
Now, this proverb operates on two levels. First, it is descriptive of a good and wise king. A godly ruler, one who understands that his throne is established by righteousness (Prov. 16:12), knows that he cannot govern justly without accurate information. He cannot make wise decisions if he is surrounded by sycophants who tell him only what he wants to hear. A wise king despises flattery because flattery is a form of treason. It builds a fantasy world around the leader, insulating him from the consequences of his decisions until it is too late. A righteous king, therefore, creates a court where truth is rewarded and lies are punished. He wants advisors who will tell him the truth, even when it is hard. He delights in the man who says, "Your Majesty, that bridge is not safe," or "Your Majesty, the treasury is empty." Such a man is a greater asset than a thousand flatterers.
But this proverb is also prescriptive. It is telling us what all kings ought to delight in. And by extension, it is a sharp rebuke to all those rulers who delight in the opposite. The wicked king loves the smooth talker, the propagandist, the court prophet who says "peace, peace" when there is no peace. He surrounds himself with yes-men who will rubber-stamp his folly. Think of Ahab, who had 400 prophets willing to tell him he would be victorious at Ramoth-gilead, but he hated Micaiah, the one man who told him the truth that he would die (1 Kings 22). Ahab did not delight in righteous lips, and it cost him his life. Our modern political landscape is filled with such men, rulers who live in a bubble of their own making, sustained by a media apparatus that feeds them a constant diet of lies. They delight in unrighteous lips, and they are leading their people to ruin.
Ultimately, this proverb points us to the King of kings. God Himself is the ultimate king who delights in righteous lips. "Lying lips are an abomination to the LORD, but those who deal faithfully are His delight" (Proverbs 12:22). God's entire kingdom is built on the foundation of His Word, which is truth. Jesus is the Logos, the very Word of God incarnate. He is the truth. Therefore, to be a citizen of His kingdom is to be committed to the truth. Our speech must be righteous, not because it earns our way into His favor, but because it is the natural consequence of being transformed by the God of truth.
The Beloved Counselor (v. 13b)
The second clause parallels and intensifies the first:
"And he who speaks uprightly is loved." (Proverbs 16:13b)
Here the focus shifts from the speech itself ("righteous lips") to the person who speaks ("he who speaks uprightly"). The word "uprightly" carries the sense of what is straight, correct, and plain. This is the man who doesn't deal in ambiguities, innuendos, or half-truths. He calls a spade a spade.
And what is the result? He "is loved." A wise king not only finds this kind of speech delightful, he loves the man who provides it. He values him, treasures him, and promotes him. This man becomes a trusted counselor, an inner-circle advisor. Why? Because such a man is loyal in the truest sense. His loyalty is not to the king's ego, but to the king's throne, to the good of the kingdom. The flatterer is a parasite, feeding on the king's vanity for his own gain. The upright speaker is a pillar, supporting the king's reign with the strength of reality.
This is a profound lesson for all of us in our various stations. If you are an employee, do you speak uprightly to your boss? Not with insolence or disrespect, but with honest assessments and faithful reports. If you are a friend, do you love your brother enough to speak the truth to him, even when it might be awkward? "Faithful are the wounds of a friend, but deceitful are the kisses of an enemy" (Proverbs 27:6). If you are a citizen, do you demand and reward upright speech from your political leaders, or do you fall for the candidate who tells the most pleasing lies?
Of course, we must recognize that in a fallen world, speaking uprightly is often not loved by fallen kings. John the Baptist spoke uprightly to Herod and was rewarded with a prison cell and a beheading. The prophets spoke uprightly to the kings of Israel and were persecuted and killed. Jesus Himself, the only one who ever spoke with perfect uprightness, was crucified. The world, in its rebellion against God, hates the truth and hates those who speak it. This proverb describes the divine ideal, the way things ought to be, and the way things are in the court of the heavenly King.
When we speak the truth, we may not be loved by the world, but we are loved by the King. We have the favor of the One whose opinion is the only one that ultimately matters. And that love is not just a pleasant feeling; it is our shield and our defense. The love of the eternal King is worth more than the fleeting favor of a thousand earthly princes.
Conclusion: Speaking Truth in a Crooked World
So what does this mean for us? It means our relationship with words must be fundamentally reshaped by the gospel. We live in a world that is drunk on lies, and the only antidote is the bracing sobriety of the truth.
First, we must be people of the truth. This begins with our hearts. Our speech is an overflow of what is inside us (Matt. 12:34). We cannot have righteous lips if we have deceitful hearts. The gospel is the power of God to give us new hearts, hearts that love the truth because we have come to love the God of truth. We must repent of our flattery, our exaggeration, our spin, and our gossip. We must ask God to set a guard over our mouths (Psalm 141:3).
Second, we must delight in the truth. We must cultivate an appetite for righteous lips, both in ourselves and in others. We should be thankful for the friend who corrects us, for the preacher who convicts us, for the writer who challenges our comfortable assumptions. We must learn to love the truth more than we love our own egos. This means we must be reading and marinating in the Word of God, which is truth itself. It is the standard by which all other words are to be judged.
Finally, we must speak the truth. We are called to be witnesses. In our homes, in our workplaces, in the public square, we must speak uprightly. This does not mean being obnoxious or needlessly offensive. Righteous speech is not rude speech. It should be seasoned with grace (Col. 4:6). But it must be clear. We cannot mumble or equivocate when it comes to the great truths of creation, the fall, and redemption. We must speak of sin and judgment, of the cross and the empty tomb, of the lordship of Jesus Christ over every square inch of this world.
The kings of this earth may not delight in such speech. In fact, they may hate it. But the King of Heaven does. And when we speak His truth in love, we are aligning ourselves with the grain of the universe. We are participating in the great work of the Logos, who is, right now, putting all things to rights. He is building a kingdom that will last forever, a kingdom where righteous lips are the native tongue and where those who speak uprightly are loved, not for a fleeting moment, but for all eternity.