The Public Square Is Not Neutral: On Cursing Wickedness and Blessing Rebuke Text: Proverbs 24:23-25
Introduction: The Poison of a Crooked Standard
We live in an age that has declared war on definitions. Our entire civilization is engaged in a high-speed, headlong flight from the fixed, objective standards given to us by God. We are told that partiality is empathy, that calling wickedness righteous is compassion, and that reproving evil is the only unforgivable sin. The spirit of the age despises a straight line, a clear distinction, a firm verdict. It prefers the swamp to the sidewalk. But God is not the author of confusion, and His Word is a plumb line, revealing just how far out of true our walls have become.
The book of Proverbs is intensely practical. It is not a collection of esoteric platitudes for personal devotion; it is divine wisdom for the public square, for the courtroom, for the marketplace, and for the family dinner table. These sayings of the wise are not suggestions. They are descriptions of how the universe is wired. To defy them is not to be a maverick; it is to be a fool who saws off the branch he is sitting on.
The passage before us today deals with the foundation of any just society: impartial judgment and the courage to call things by their proper names. Our generation has inverted this wisdom entirely. We have institutionalized partiality under the guise of "social justice," which is nothing more than institutionalized envy and respect of persons. We have made a public virtue of calling the wicked righteous, celebrating what God condemns and condemning what God commands. And as a result, the curse described in this passage is not some far-off threat; it is settling upon our nation like a thick fog. When a people refuses to make right judgments, they lose the capacity for judgment altogether. They become incapable of distinguishing friend from foe, good from evil, blessing from curse.
But God's people are called to be a people of the Book, a people of the straight edge. We are to be the ones who maintain the standard, who speak the truth, and who are not afraid to reprove wickedness, knowing that in so doing, we are walking in the way of blessing.
The Text
These also are sayings of the wise.
To show partiality in judgment is not good.
He who says to the wicked, "You are righteous,"
Peoples will curse him, nations will be indignant with him;
But to those who reprove the wicked, it will be pleasant,
And a good blessing will come upon them.
(Proverbs 24:23-25 LSB)
The Sin of the Tilted Scale (v. 23)
The passage begins with a foundational principle of all justice.
"These also are sayings of the wise. To show partiality in judgment is not good." (Proverbs 24:23)
The phrase "to show partiality" means, literally, "to recognize a face." It is the act of looking at who a person is, their status, their wealth, their poverty, their group identity, before looking at the facts of the case. It is to put your thumb on the scales of justice. The Mosaic law was unflinchingly clear on this: "You shall do no injustice in judgment; you shall not be partial to the poor nor defer to the great, but you are to judge your neighbor fairly" (Leviticus 19:15). Notice the balance. Justice is not a tool for class warfare. You are not to favor the rich because of their power, and you are not to favor the poor because of their poverty. Justice must be blind to persons and focused on the truth.
This is the absolute antithesis of the modern social justice movement. The entire premise of critical theory, intersectionality, and all its ugly offspring is the "recognition of faces." It demands that we judge not by the content of character or the facts of a case, but by one's position in a manufactured hierarchy of oppression. It is institutionalized partiality. It is a system that declares from the outset that the scales must be tilted to favor certain groups and to disadvantage others. This is not justice; it is vengeance, and it is a profound evil.
The text says this is "not good." This is a classic Hebrew understatement. It is like saying that jumping into a volcano is "not good" for your complexion. To pervert judgment is to attack the character of God Himself, for He is the ultimate Judge, and with Him there is no partiality (Romans 2:11). When a society abandons impartial justice, it abandons God, and the entire structure begins to rot from the head down. Every lawsuit, every business contract, every political decision becomes a raw power play, because there is no longer a transcendent standard of righteousness to which all men are accountable.
The Public Curse on Cowardly Affirmation (v. 24)
Next, the proverb gives us a specific and damning example of this partiality in action.
"He who says to the wicked, 'You are righteous,' Peoples will curse him, nations will be indignant with him;" (Proverbs 24:24 LSB)
This is the great sin of our time. This is the diseased heart of our therapeutic, affirming, non-judgmental culture. We have become a society that specializes in telling the wicked that they are righteous. We tell the sexual deviant that he is brave. We tell the lazy man that he is a victim. We tell the abortionist that she is a champion of healthcare. We tell the man who thinks he is a woman that he is stunning. We have exchanged the truth of God for a lie and have become professional flatterers of sin.
This is not a private matter. The consequences are public and widespread. "Peoples will curse him, nations will be indignant with him." Why? Because this kind of lying is corrosive to the social fabric. When you call wickedness righteousness, you are not just being "nice." You are poisoning the well. You are erasing the moral map. A society that does this cannot long survive, because it has lost its immune system. It can no longer identify threats. The common man, the "peoples," eventually sees the chaos this creates and curses the leaders, the judges, the pastors, and the intellectuals who told him these destructive lies.
The indignation of the nations is the natural result of a society that has lost its mind. When men can no longer trust the courts to be just, or the teachers to teach truth, or the pastors to preach righteousness, a deep and burning resentment builds. This is the kind of widespread societal breakdown that leads to revolution and collapse. The people feel, in their bones, that they have been betrayed by those who were supposed to be guardians of the truth.
The Public Blessing on Courageous Rebuke (v. 25)
But there is another path. There is the path of the faithful man, the man who fears God more than he fears the angry mob.
"But to those who reprove the wicked, it will be pleasant, And a good blessing will come upon them." (Proverbs 24:25 LSB)
Here is the sharp antithesis. The world tells you that confrontation is hateful and rebuke is harmful. God says that, for those who practice it rightly, it is pleasant and brings a blessing. To "reprove" means to bring a charge against, to convict, to expose. It is the act of shining a light on wickedness and calling it what it is. This is not the same as being a cantankerous crank. This is principled, courageous, and necessary truth-telling.
The world promises you popularity if you will only flatter its sin. But that popularity is fickle and ultimately turns to curses. God promises that if you are faithful to rebuke the wicked, you will find true delight and a good blessing. This is not necessarily the blessing of an easy life. The prophets who reproved wicked kings were not often invited to the best parties. John the Baptist's rebuke of Herod cost him his head. But there is a deep pleasure, a settled joy, in knowing that you are aligned with reality, that you are pleasing your Creator, and that your words are a bulwark against the encroaching chaos.
And a "good blessing" will come upon them. This is covenantal language. When God's people walk in His ways, upholding His standards of justice and truth, He blesses them. He blesses their families, their churches, their businesses, and their lands. A society that has men who are willing to stand up and say, "That is wicked and this is righteous," is a society that can be healed. A society that silences such men is a society on its deathbed.
Conclusion: The Ultimate Judgment
This passage forces a question upon us. In our judgments, both public and private, whose face do we recognize? Do we recognize the face of the rich, the poor, the popular, the marginalized? Or do we recognize the face of God, who is no respecter of persons?
The ultimate act of partiality, the ultimate perversion of judgment, occurred at the cross. The perfectly righteous one, Jesus Christ, stood before a corrupt court. The judge, Pilate, recognized His innocence but, showing partiality to the mob and to Caesar, condemned Him. The wicked one, Barabbas, a murderer and revolutionary, was declared righteous and set free. The world looked at the Son of God and called Him wicked, and looked at a son of rebellion and called him righteous. This was the greatest judicial travesty in the history of the world.
And yet, in this very act, God was performing the ultimate act of just judgment. He was not showing partiality. He was treating His Son as though He were wicked, laying upon Him the iniquity of us all, so that He might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus. He did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all. God, in His perfect justice, poured out the curse we deserved upon Christ, so that the blessing promised in this proverb could come upon us.
Because of the gospel, we are now free to obey this proverb. We are no longer slaves to the fear of man, which leads us to flatter and show partiality. We are free to speak the truth, to call sin sin, and to reprove the wicked. We do this not with self-righteous arrogance, but as forgiven sinners who know what it is to stand under righteous condemnation. We reprove the wicked in the culture precisely because we want them to find the same grace we have found. We uphold God's standards of justice in the public square because we love our neighbors and do not want to see them drowned in the chaos that comes from calling evil good.
So let us be wise. Let us judge with righteous judgment. Let us stop affirming the wicked, and let us faithfully, lovingly, and courageously reprove them, trusting that the good blessing of God will come upon us, our children, and our land.