Proverbs 12:3, A man shall not be established by wickedness: but the root of the righteous shall not be moved. 

Bumper stickers seem to be going out of fashion these days but I remember one which said: 

 God said it, I believe it, that settles it. 

I remember Dr. Hobbs telling someone about that statement saying that it didn’t matter whether you believe what God said or not for what God said was settled totally without any opinion or verification of yours. 

So the saying should have been, God said it, that settles it. 

In other words if God said it, that which He said, is established without any outside participation.

Paul was elated to say in Romans 11:33,34,  O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! how unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past finding out!  For who hath known the mind of the Lord? or who hath been his counsellor?

God is fully in the establishment business and he needs no help. 

 When he lays the bricks of His word those bricks are there to stay and nothing shall move them. 

 Jesus Christ when He established his Church said this to Peter,

 Matthew 16:18, And I say also unto thee, That thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.

 His church is also called His body to show us its permanence, its perfect establishment.

God uses the word “establish” when he says I will establish my covenant, I will establish thee an holy people, I will establish my word, my kingdom, I will establish Jerusalem, I will establish thy seed, I will establish equity, judgment, and righteousness.

 When God says this he is saying that any establishment of his is eternal. 

To establish is to set and fix firmly or unalterably.  

 It means to settle permanently.

 This word established as used in this proverb means that which is straight up, that which is perpendicular, that which is fixed in the strongest position.

 It means that which is established does not lean to the right nor to the left.

 It means to be upright, to be erect for anything that is not erect is subject to falling.

 And God provides the Bible as His standard to insure erectness, to insure establishment, to insure a fixed position. 

 Every builder strives to establish, every building code is designed to promote that goal. 

 But God in his wisdom teaches us that what we establish in our own flesh will not last and in doing this He brings us to desire His eternal establishments. 

 I dare not trust the most established man made frame but I must wholly lean on Jesus name.

 In other words only that which is established by God will last.

 A modern transportation device called the Segway provides an interesting example of something that has within it the ability to establish itself even though it ought to tip over with the slightest push.   

But the whole purpose of this self-balancing human transporter is to stay upright.

 It has only two wheels yet it manages to stay upright by itself for it is constantly measuring its perpendicularity.

 It has been made to mimic your body’s ability to stay upright for God has made your brain to know when you are out of balance because fluid in your inner ear shifts, so it triggers you to put your leg or arms forward and stop the fall.  

 Walking is a series composed of the beginning of falling and then regaining your balance.

 God has given each of us a kind of level in our inner ear that works with our visual and sensory systems to keep us upright.

Every time we move our head this level communicates to our brain our position and this is augmented by what we see or feel. 

So God has given us the tools to maintain uprightness in the physical world.

The Segway transporter does pretty much the same thing, except it has wheels instead of legs, a motor instead of muscles, a collection of microprocessors instead of a brain and a set of sophisticated tilt sensors instead of an inner-ear balancing system.

Like your brain, the Segway knows when you are leaning forward.

To maintain balance, it turns the wheels in whatever direction that is needed to so you remain upright. 

And in this way you and the device are established.

And that establishment comes by small adjustments in accordance with a preset standard of uprightness. 

So the Segway has been programmed to be upright just as your body is programmed to stay upright as you walk. 

It is an amazing thing to understand that all this goes on without any real consciousness on our part.  

But the more amazing thing to ponder is how the natural man concludes that all of this happened by chance. 

Can there be any greater wicked thinking than this than to deny glory to our God as our maker?

So God gives us the ability to stay upright and established in the physical world and does not neglect us in the spiritual world for God in His wisdom also gives us in full measure that which keeps our spirit upright and established.

God tells us to study His word to show us what He approves in order that we will be a workman who is not ashamed.   

God’s word is the level that you and I are to use to maintain uprightness in order to be established.

Like a Segway device which studies every move it makes in order to maintain uprightness. 

The Segway studies any shift forward or backward and makes adjustments to maintain perpendicularity. 

And this is what God provides through his word for the man who is established.

As we are told in Proverbs 4:26,27, He is to: Ponder the path of his feet, and let all his ways be established.  He is to Turn not to the right hand or to the left; he is to remove his foot from evil.

 And therefore the root of the righteous man shall not be moved. 

But the workers of iniquity, those who desire establishment by wickedness, are not so, for they lean and tilt, they are crooked, they are double minded, they are unpredictable for they operate according to the dictates of other men who are also unstable.

For in other men there is no fixed standard by which to measure themselves.

 Paul warned the Corinthians of this foolishness in 2 Corinthians 10:12, For we dare not make ourselves of the number, or compare ourselves with some that commend themselves: but they measuring themselves by themselves, and comparing themselves among themselves, are not wise.

 Children proclaim often, Why can’t I do that! 

 Everyone is doing that! 

 In this they enter the arena where all are measuring themselves against others who are measuring themselves against others.   

This is not wise but very foolish for any measure taken in this manner is always subject to change and that change is governed by a sinful nature.  Always!

 For they choose to have no eternal standard by which to measure uprightness so there is no result to be found other than crookedness.   

They get their desires fulfilled by hypocrisy and iniquity but this always leads to destruction as their portion.

 The workers of iniquity have no eternal strength for the only way they have to contemplate is their own way or the way of fallible men who follow and promote other fallible men. 

 They are blind and always look for other blind men to lead them.

Jesus spoke of them as having no root in themselves.

Matthew 13:21, Yet hath he not root in himself, but dureth for a while: for when tribulation or persecution ariseth because of the word, by and by he is offended.

It is of the sinful nature to have no root in ourselves. 

It is impossible to be established in ourselves.

Jude calls the wicked raging waves of the sea, foaming out their own shame, wandering stars, to whom is reserved the blackness of darkness forever. 

But in contrast to the wicked man the root of the righteous shall not be moved.

 God chooses to bring the root to our minds for when we think of the root we think of that which is established. 

 The plant is grown in the greenhouse until it takes root and is established. 

The righteous man has root. 

 He is like a tree planted by the rivers of waters with roots that are never neglected and always nourished and fed.

 Paul spoke of being rooted when he wrote the Ephesians in:

Ephesians 3:17-19, That Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith; that ye, being rooted and grounded in love, ¹⁸ May be able to comprehend with all saints what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height; ¹⁹ And to know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge, that ye might be filled with all the fullness of God.

 Rooted and grounded in love speaks of Jesus Christ for in many places of scripture Jesus Christ is pictured as the root.

 And it all depends on the root to keep a tree from falling. 

 Jude 1:24 reminds us that He, as the root: ……is able to keep you from falling, and to present you faultless before the presence of his glory with exceeding joy,

The righteous and the wicked come equipped with a sinful nature but the root makes all the difference between the two.

Isaiah spoke of Christ as a root out of dry ground, that dry ground being Israel. 

He spoke of Him as a root of Jesse to which the Gentiles would come. 

Paul spoke of Jesus Christ as the holy root and the righteous as branches from that root. 

John saw Jesus Christ, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, as the only one worthy to loose the seven seals, and Jesus told John, I am the root and the offspring of David, and the bright and morning star.

So the root of the righteous shall not be moved for it is established upon a rock and that rock is Jesus Christ who promised in John 10:28: 

^….. I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand.

 If a man is saved his root is established and no man nor any power can pull that root up.  

 As a tree loses its leaves, as the branches of the tree may be blown and twisted by tempests, as a tree suffers through all kinds of tribulation and hardship the righteous man may also suffer.  

 But nothing can topple the tree rooted in Christ. 

 That root is planted deep upon the principles of life given by God in His Holy Word. 

 His Holy word shall not be moved and when that word is planted in the heart that man also shall not be moved.

 Upon that we can be sure. 

Colossians 2:6,7, As ye have therefore received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk ye in him: Rooted and built up in him, and stablished in the faith, as ye have been taught, abounding therein with thanksgiving.

Proverbs 12:3, A man shall not be established by wickedness: but the root of the righteous shall not be moved. 

Jesus is my Savior, I shall not be moved;
In His love and favor, I shall not be moved,
Just like a tree that's planted by the waters,
Lord, I shall not be moved.