1 The king's heart is a stream of water in the hand of the Lord; he turns it wherever he will. 2  Every way of a man is right in his own eyes, but the Lord weighs the heart. 3 To do righteousness and justice is more acceptable to the Lord than sacrifice. 4 Haughty eyes and a proud heart, the lamp of the wicked, are sin. Proverbs 21:1-4 English Standard Version

There's a chapter in the Old Testament which is a good illustration of the verses we read in Proverbs today. In the book of 1 Samuel we read how King Saul of Israel was to be God's instrument of judgement on Amalekites, one of the nations of Palestine that had filled the land with pagan practices abhorrent to God. Even the cattle and sheep were to be devoted to destruction. But Saul didn’t do what God commanded and brought back oxen and sheep as spoils of war. When Samuel challenged Saul's disobedience Saul said he was bringing them back ‘for a sacrifice to the Lord’. But Samuel replied “Has the Lord as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices, as in obeying the voice of the Lord? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to listen than the fat of rams. For rebellion is as the sin of divination, and presumption is as iniquity and idolatry. Because you have rejected the word of the Lord, he has also rejected you from being king.” (1 Samuel 15:22-23)

That incident certainly covers vs 2-4 of our reading in Proverbs. King Saul thought he was doing what was best – but God saw through his motives. And, as Samuel said, God prefers obedience to sacrifices. In God's eyes rank disobedience is as sinful as witchcraft. Saul's rebellion and presumption stemmed from haughty eyes and a proud heart. In other words, being made King seems to have gone to Saul's head and he didn’t think he needed to do exactly as God commanded. When Proverbs says in vs 4 that 'the lamp of the wicked is sin' - I think one conclusion we can come to is that when people walk in the light of their own ways rather than God's, it leads to sinful results. The lesson for us is surely to walk in the light of God's word. We mustn’t think we are wiser than God and do things which His word has forbidden.

After Saul was rejected by God as King, Samuel was sent to appoint a new King from one of the sons of a man named Jesse. And we read that when Jesse brought his sons before Samuel “Samuel looked on Eliab and thought, 'Surely the Lord's anointed is before him.'” But the Lord said to Samuel, “Do not look on his appearance or on the height of his stature, because I have rejected him. For the Lord sees not as man sees: man looks on the outward appearance, but the Lord  looks on the heart.” (1 Samuel 16:6-7) The end result was that it was the youngest of Jesse's sons, a young man named David, who God chose to be the King to replace Saul.

So when the Lord 'weighs the heart' (as Proverbs say) it can be a good thing as well. Yes, sometimes it shows where our motives may have been self centred and sinful. But sometimes God see's something that others have missed. We may sometimes seek to do something for the Lord and be fiercely misjudged by others. Our encouragement then is that God knows our heart. He knows the reason why we said or did what we did. But one more important thing about the heart. What encouragement should we draw from vs 1?

Even the hearts of Kings are under God's control. God turned the heart of King Cyrus of Persia to let the Jews return to Jerusalem with instructions to rebuild their temple. He also softened the heart of King Ahasuerus (who reigned from India to Ethiopia) so that the King accepted Queen Esther when she entered his royal quarters without permission, an action that was punishable by death. And she was then used by God to save the Jewish nation from a terrible genocide. We mustn’t lose heart when Presidents and Prime Ministers come to power who may be hostile to God. Their hearts are in God's hands, and, if He wills, He will turn their hearts to do His purposes for the blessing of His people.