Justice for the Poor - God's Way

This is what I want us to do. I want us to turn to two places in the scripture. I'm gonna give multiple scriptures up on the screen tonight, but I want you to turn to Galatians chapter 6 because that's a verse I want you to see. I want you to mark and I want you to know. I want you to... You know, we have those verses we know them, we memorize them, we might not can quote them word for word, but we know where they are and we definitely know the teaching. That's one I want you to have. Galatians chapter 6 and I will show you the verses a little later. But then mark that and turn to Proverbs chapter 22. Proverbs chapter 22.

Now it's been a while since we have been in Proverbs together, really since before the summer we've had a good break. Now let me show you what I mean by a good break. Sometimes when we're in a lengthy study it is good to take a break from that. But you've also had a good break, our adults have had a good break by being in the book of Exodus. I have really been excited that Brother Keith's been able to teach our adults and to study the story of redemption even in the Old Testament and so much in the book of Exodus does point us to Christ. And so I have been excited about that break.

And for me I really enjoyed all summer being with our teenagers. I enjoyed teaching them, I enjoyed getting to know them and I'm glad that they got to know me in that setting. So we've had a break this summer and it's been good. Now because it's been a while since we've been in Proverbs together, I want to remind you of our approach. Now for some that maybe have not been a part of the study of Proverbs this will be new information. But if I were to ask us or ask you what the book of Proverbs is about, many of you would would respond with one word. You would probably say wisdom or you might even say it's a book of wisdom.

And that is a good answer, that's true. The book of Proverbs is a book which contains lots of practical teaching. I think we've had 30 plus sermons out of the book of Proverbs in a year. Really we've taken some breaks obviously. But I think every one of them you would say have been very, very practical. And the goal of Proverbs is to develop practical Christian living, practical as in it doesn't just come in our minds, it doesn't just stay in our hearts, but it comes out in our lives. It is very, very practical. That's why the title of the series is what it is.

The title of the series is "Wisdom for Christian Living." Because look, none of us, we don't want to be a Sunday morning Christian. So we want to live for Christ wherever we go. Teenagers, I want you to live for the Lord in school, on the football field, the basketball court, at home, when we're on the job, when we're young, when we're old, it's about Christian living and we want wisdom for Christian living. Now real quick I want to touch on my approach. Now first of all, my approach in teaching the book, I've not gone verse by verse. There are many of the books in the Bible, we will go verse by verse by verse.

We were in the book of the Gospel of John for over four years. We've been in a sermon on the Mount, verse by verse, word by word, slowly. But what I've done with Proverbs is really I just study through, I read through, and I'll look at some verses that I think will speak to us and I purposely don't cover everyone. And so what I'm doing it through the week is I'm reading a chapter or two ahead. I'm reading back in some of the other chapters that we've studied. And I'm just seeing what comes to the surface and sometimes we'll have one, two, or three messages, a chapter.

Now, but the second thing I want to remind you of, and I brought this to you at the beginning of the series, I want you to develop four disciplines. Discipline is a good word. You can call it habits. Discipline, a habit, something that you do regularly. First of all, I want to encourage you to read and meditate through the book. I've said hundreds of times we're in Psalm 22, or Proverbs 22, this week you can read into Proverbs 23 this week. You can read back into the other chapters, read a little bit ahead, read a little bit behind, and develop that type of a habit. Whatever we're studying, read a little bit ahead.

I hear some of our adults say that to me, and I've said that over and over and it needs to be said. Also take good notes when we're in any kind of study together. We all learn differently, but when we're writing notes, that's part of the learning process. And many people, I know, in the life of the church go back and study their notes. And then third, there are some scriptures I don't cover. And if you're diligent to read, you'll probably think, "Why didn't we preach on these verses? What about this subject?" Because in Proverbs, when you read, you'll notice subjects.

You'll see verses here and there and they come together, and you might even think, "Why didn't he study that?" Well, if you come to that place, that means you need to study it. So you look at the verses that we do not study in this setting and develop the discipline of studying on your own. And then share. Share what you're learning. Share. I know the first night Brother Keith started in the book of Exodus. I came in here from being with our teenagers and I saw Brother Keith and some other adults talking about what they were studying. I heard conversations.

Make it a part of your conversation and when you share things that you've learned with other people, God will use it. Now, believe it or not, what we're going to look at tonight connects with what we looked at Sunday morning. So think about what we studied Sunday morning. Remember, I brought to our attention the fact that we have a very big movement going on in our culture. It is the movement for social justice. And I talked about how it relates to us. But specifically, I talked about how this move for social justice relates to the gospel and it relates to the church. Really, you can say it like this and I think this is a good way to say it.

We're studying how social justice relates to the message of the church and the mission of the church because there are some that confuse that. There are some that really have warped the message and the mission of the church by integrating the message and the message and the mission of the church with the social justice message. Really, when you boil it all down, we learn that the idea of social justice is a fairy tale. It's not possible to attain. Not that we would ever want injustice for someone. We would never want anybody to be treated unfairly. We do not ever want any group of people to be treated unfairly.

Now, let me give you an example and I think this will help you. You know, we as Bible Christians do not believe in homosexuality. God created Adam and God created Eve. God created one man and one woman for life. And homosexuality is a perversion and it is a horrible sin. And it's been pushed and pushed and pushed in our culture. But you know, think about it. Even though someone could be a homosexual, we would never mistreat them, would we? We would never mistreat them. That would be wrong. But think about this. In the life of a church, we would never hire someone who was homosexual to work in the church. Why? Because that behavior is sinful.

That behavior is dangerous. It contradicts what the church stands for and what the church teaches. But see, by today's social justice standard, we would be treating them unfairly. We would be discriminating against them. And listen, by that standard, they would be wronged. They would be a victim. You see? That's why these issues are important. Now tonight, we're going to look at justice and injustice as it relates to poverty. Tonight, we're going to look at justice and injustice as it relates to poor people. And it's right here in Proverbs. And this is much needed today.

Now, by today's standards, these social justice standards, the rich have too much and the poor, they need to be compensated. If you keep up with the news, I know some of us adults do. We will hear rhetoric or language from the political left. And these are very loud voices and they are pushing for more and more taxes on the wealthy. And then they want to take that tax money and give more and more to the poor. Social justices believe that the rich shouldn't be rich and the poor shouldn't be poor. They just believe that it should all be even out. But as Christians, we must examine all things and ideologies in culture from the word.

Teenagers, when I was a kid growing up, my mother would make cakes and pies. She still does. Matter of fact, at Christmas and Thanksgiving, she just makes some really good ones. But growing up, my mother had this sifter. And it had to be her great, great, great, great grandmothers because it looked that old. And she would take any flour when she was baking and put it in that sifter and she would sift the flour trying to get the impurities out. Now, as a kid, I often wondered, was there rocks in the bag of flour? I never remember seeing her getting the impurities out. But I also know it was to break up the flour, get the clumps out of it.

But she would sift it, you see? And if there was anything in that that shouldn't be there, in the flour, she'd get it out. Isn't that right? It was a sifter. But see, that's what we do with God's word. God's word sifts what we hear out there, what we're taught out there. And with these subjects, this subject, we're going to let God's word sift what we think, OK? And how we view the poor and how we should react to the poor. Now, I'm going to go ahead and give you the title of what we're going to look at. I call this justice for the poor God's way, not the world's way, OK?

Remember, social justice today says the rich shouldn't be rich and the poor shouldn't be poor. We just need to even things out. But we have to ask the question. Remember, we're going to sift it through God's word. Is that what God's word says? So we're going to look at justice for the poor God's way. Now, I'm going to look at six verses in Proverbs 22. I'll give you some other verses. And if I give you a verse that I don't put on the screen, you can write it down for your own study. Now, before we really get into the passages in Proverbs, we need to come to a biblical understanding that is vital if we're going to be right here, OK?

This understanding really contradicts, again, what we have been taught in society. Look at verse 20 or look at verse 2 in chapter 22 of Proverbs. Look at verse 2. "The rich and the poor meet together." Almost like a picture of a street, you know, society in the market. They didn't have Walmart that day. "The rich and the poor meet together. The Lord is the maker of them all." Now, right off we see here that all men are on the same playing field. Y'all know what a playing field is. You know what I mean by that terminology. God made all men and all men are the same. We've learned this when we studied race and racism.

All men in mankind are created by God and all are in the image and likeness of God. Acts 17, 26 says that from one man, the King James uses the word blood, but from one man came all of the nations, all of the peoples. So from one man, that would have been Adam, all of the peoples and nations came. We learned that just a few messages ago. So applying that to this verse, "Rich and poor alike came from one man," and that's Adam, "but rich and poor alike, no matter where they are in the world, they have one thing in common, and that is this, sin." All men are ultimately sinful.

Rich or poor, no matter what people or people group they may come from. But the text is not saying that verse. It's not saying that God made certain men poor. It simply says the rich and the poor exist side by side in life. Again, almost picture like a street or a market. They're just living life together side by side and they are all created by God. This is a fact of God, a fact of life, a part of life. And we talked about this this past Sunday. This is part of the providence of God. God governs all things. You know what we mean when I say backdrop or context? Let me give you a current word.

We have to wear masks in certain circumstances today, right? If we could go back in time, if someone would walk in here with a mask on, that wouldn't make sense, would it? Because we didn't have to wear masks a year ago, right? But we understand the context today, right? So a mask makes sense, whether we like it or not. That's context. So if we were to reach back and get somebody from another time and bring them to our day, they would say, "Why is everybody wearing a mask?" Well, you don't get it. I saw a new story. I wish I would have looked at it. It's a good example. It was a new story of a man who had disappeared. He had disappeared.

Nobody knew where he was. His family reported him missing, and he'd been living in the woods for six years. A friend of mine made a comment, "Imagine living in the woods for six years and coming back and coming back in 2020." He wouldn't have a context for this. Context and background makes a difference. Now, here we need to see the background of this teaching. The background of Proverbs is the Old Testament. And in the Old Testament, they had an understanding of the poor. Within the Old Testament prophets and the teaching in the Old Testament, we see the accepted fact that the poor are a normal part of life.

Nowhere in the Old Testament do we just see the prophets or any other teaching pushing for social reform. Nowhere in politics or economics. Now, the prophets of God did push Israel, God's people, to be obedient to God's word, which would affect their politics, and it would affect how they dealt with the poor. But those leaders never pushed for social or economic reform to eliminate poverty. They never did. So a question. In the Old Testament, how did they deal with poor people? The Old Testament and the Old Testament leaders never tried to fix the problem of poverty.

They always taught against abusing the poor and they always taught for ministering to the poor. The Old Testament is full of teaching against abusing the poor and for ministering to the poor. A couple of examples. A few weeks ago, I referenced the book of Amos, and one of the men who attends says, "Man, I had to go back and study the book of Amos because it's pretty bad." Well, in the book of Amos, the prophet Amos is prophesying judgment against Israel, and one of the things that he prophesied, starting in verse six of chapter two, he speaks about how they were abusing the poor. They were contradicting what God taught. The prophet Micah.

Micah condemned God's people when they were abusing the poor. And see, there were all kind of laws. We have the laws in the Pentateuch, the first five books of the Bible. And those were laws given by God for specific reasons in how the people would live. And there were provisions for the poor. Y'all heard of Ruth, the Moabites, the story of Ruth? Remember her story? Her husband died and she goes to live with her mother-in-law's people, so she goes as a Moabite to live in Israel. But we find her gleaning or harvesting in the field of Boaz, and they were taught when they harvested the fields to leave the corners, and that was for poor people.

And the poor people would come and they would have a harvest because they didn't have means. And so we see Ruth, she's harvesting or gleaning in the fields as a poor person. That was part of the provision under the law of God for poor people ministering to the poor. So in the Old Testament, and in the world of the Jews, God's people, poor people were a part of life. Nowhere in the scripture does it say to fix society. It was a part of life. And there was teaching against abusing the poor and teaching for calling God's people to minister to the poor, but there was no teaching or teacher that called them to fix the problem sociologically.

So that background makes a difference, especially for some of you when you heard the story of Ruth because maybe you didn't realize what that meant. Now, we're gonna look in Proverbs at three things. We're gonna get into the practical looking at some of the verses, okay? And you see that before you on the screen. We're gonna look at what I call the norm, then we're gonna look at the warning, and then we're gonna look at the instruction, the norm, the warning, and the instruction. Now, let me tell you how you can write this down. You can write it down simply, but as I teach, you'll begin to see how you can write that warning out differently.

You can add to that. I encourage you to do it. That helps you remember. So look at verse seven of chapter 22. The rich rules over the poor and the borrower is the slave of the lender. So number one, this is what I call the norm. This is one normal relationship between the rich and the poor, and that is the rich ruling over the poor in power. Now, notice this. In society, wealth brings power. It brings economic power. It brings political power. In any society, we see wealth brings opportunity and opportunity for power and advancement in society. And normally, it is the wealthy who manage the affairs in culture. Now, not all of that is bad.

Not all of that is bad. As a matter of fact, it can be good, but sometimes it is bad, but it is a reality in every culture. Me and you teenagers know that I went to India, and in India, they have what's called a caste system. It's a class system. You can't move from the low class or low caste up. You can't. You're there. It's fixed in with their religion. That's a long story. So in India, if you're low caste, you can't move up to what's called high caste. You can't. That's all rigid. But in America, think about it. You can be born dirt poor, the son and the daughter of convicts, and because of our culture, you can ascend where?

The sky's the limit, you see? But what I'm trying to show you is there's this norm, and that is the rich ruling over the poor. But in reality, now look at the verse. In the reality here, we can see that the rich can lord over. In a bad way, the poor. See, it's bad at times, but sometimes it is not. Now, what do we need to see here? Many times, it's the poor that end up in debt to those who are rich. Many times, it's the poor who are slaves to the rich in debt. I'll give you an example. Any of y'all see those check cashing businesses?

You know, I never forget, I was talking to a man years ago, and he had a family member who had one of those businesses, and he was talking about the exorbitant interest that they charged. And what that is is that's a trap for poor people. They will come and they will cash checks, and they charge a hefty fee, or they'll borrow money, and they're charged exorbitant interest. And what it is, it's the rich taking advantage of the poor. They can't go to a bank and get money like you or not can. That's a great example, but let me turn it around.

Someone who was poor in our country can get maybe a government grant, money they don't have to pay back to go to college. That's the opposite. That's the opposite. Now, what do we need to see here in this verse? The normal relationship between the rich and the poor. Not normal in that it is always good. That's not what I'm saying. Why it is usually true that it is the rich who rule over the poor. We did see that the Old Testament, and the Old Testament prophets always condemn the oppression of the poor. We just need to see that it is usually the case in society, and that is the rich ruling over the poor.

Now, think about different places in society. It goes on all the time. I never forget years ago, when I think back to where I grew up, I knew a man who owned a particular business, and he had an older man, a minority man. He was an African American, a black man, and he was totally ignorant, very uneducated, and that man took advantage of him. He treated him almost like a modern day slave. Did he physically abuse him? No, but he just manipulated him, and he used him for his own purposes. Rather than being good to the poor man, he used the poor man. You see, that's what this verse is talking about. It goes on in politics.

Many times, politicians, they take advantage of the poor. The poor don't really see it. I never forget growing up, too, in my hometown. There was this particular lawyer who always had a reputation. If a poor person came in and needed law work, and they had land, the story was he would always get that land, and the story, the reputation in town was he would take advantage of the poor, and he'd get that 30 acres or 40 acres or 100 acres. I'll give you another example. You hear stories sometimes of coaches.

In athletics, they will have players that'll come from impoverished situations, and they're not very educated, and sometimes they'll take advantage of them for their talent, you see. What I'm trying to show you is this. It is the rich, they rule over the poor, and many times, they take advantage of them, whereas it's not always the case. But I'm calling that the norm. Now, I got a good story to go along with this, and we'll hold on to it after we deal with number two. Notice number two, this is what I'm calling the warning. Look at verse eight and verse six.

"Whoever sows injustice will reap calamity, "and the rod of this fury will fail." And then look at the next verse, verse 16. "Whoever oppresses the poor to increase his own wealth "or gives to the rich will only come to poverty." Now, I call this the warning. This is a warning about unjustly abusing or using the poor. Here in both verses, it's almost like the writer has someone in mind. He uses a personal word. Whoever, I mean, think about that. Today, I was meditating on that. Whoever, whoever abuses the poor, certain things are gonna happen. That's what he's saying. So this is a personal warning. I want you to see it in two ways.

First, we see the law of sowing and reaping. Teenagers, you really need to get that. The law of sowing and reaping. Look at verse nine. "Whoever sows injustice will reap calamity." You know what it's like to sow seeds, plant seeds? Well, what do you reap, a harvest of, whatever you planted? So we see the law of sowing and reaping. It's all in the Old Testament and the New Testament. Job 4.8, "Those who plow iniquity," that's sin, "sow trouble and we reap the same." Sowing and reaping. "They're plowing sin, they sow trouble, and then they reap the same." Hosea 8.9, Hosea, the book of Hosea was all about the prophet condemning Israel.

They had left God. But Hosea 8.7 says, "For they," that's Israel, "sow that seeds, they sow the wind and they will reap the whirlwind." You see, judgment. And then we're gonna hold on to Galatians 6. Because Galatians 6 speaks about the law of sowing and reaping. I have it there 'cause I wanna mention it to you, bring it to your mind. We're gonna see this in verse nine. So we have here an important law. Always mark it down, young people. The law of sowing and reaping. What a person plants, they will harvest. They'll harvest.

And in the context of the rich oppressing the poor, those who sow the seeds of injustice will reap calamity and correction. We see that at the end of verse eight. "Whoever sows injustice will reap calamity and the rod of his fury will fail." Well, two questions there. When will they get calamity? How will they get calamity? They're taking advantage of the poor. Well, how are they gonna reap calamity? Well, that's up to God. The how and the when is up to God. So the first thing I want us to see in the warning, we see the law of sowing and reaping. Second, we see the use of poor for personal gain. Look at verse 16.

"Whoever oppresses the poor to increase his own wealth or gives to the rich will only come to poverty." Here the teaching is obvious. Those who take advantage of the poor for personal profit. Now I read commentators, I read scholars, I like to just see other people's insights. And one of the commentators that I read this week talked about a progression here. I think it's really good. I'm really putting it in my own words. Now this scholar says it like this, talking about using the poor for personal gain. He says it starts off in attitude. He says it starts off with an attitude. Maybe it seems harmless.

They're poking fun at the poor, they're making fun of the poor. And then there's the next step. It grows to an attitude of pride and really contemptuous attitudes towards the poor. They start off making fun and then they hold on to prideful, arrogant attitudes towards poor people. And then this writer said it blooms like a flower. We've seen a flower bloom, but it blooms like a flower. And when it blooms, it turns into actively oppressing the poor. I think that's very good for us to see because we need to see the important. Why is it important to see the progression? Because it helps us see how this works.

To take advantage of someone starts in the mind, it starts in the heart. Okay, think about that. Now we need to see what's going on with these warnings. Two things, the law of sowing and reaping, whoever sows the seeds of unjustly treating the poor will suffer consequences. That's God's thing, God's timing, God's business. And then the warning not to profit at the expense of the poor. And look, that can be a temptation. Now I wanna ask a question of us all, not one to answer. What circumstances in life can this apply? It's a warning, you reap what you sow. And the other warning is this, don't use poor people for personal gain.

Where might we apply this in life? Put this in your mind because what'll happen is opportunities will come up and this will be in your mind. Remember you, whatever you sow is what you will reap. And also remember that you can't use poor people for personal gain. It starts off in the mind and then it comes out in the actions and think about the opportunities that could come your way. Now I wanna give you all a good story here, okay? Remember I showed you the norm. The norm was in verse seven and that is people with wealth usually manage or rule over the poor.

And then this warning of the law of sowing and reaping and using people for personal gain. So let me show you this story to illustrate this. I got a friend back home that has a farm, a blueberry farm, almost a 20 acre blueberry farm. That's a lot of blueberries and a lot of blueberry bushes. And when my friend that has the blueberry farm, when harvest season comes, he harvests two ways. He hires pickers, that's people that pick by hand and he has a machine and it's a big operation. And when the berries come, they gotta pick every day, every day, every day. I mean the conditions have to be right, it can't be raining. It's a serious business.

Well my friend was telling me about a few years ago when it was harvest time and he had people everywhere. I mean he had to pick, he had to harvest because it's money. And he said all of a sudden somebody drove up two or three cars, drove up to the gate of his farm and he has a gate there and there were about three black cars with tinted windows and they pulled into his property. They got out and they closed the gate and they locked it. And they drove up and asked for the owner. He said he was scared of death. They had on uniforms, guns, and they were from the Department of Labor. They were federal. They came to inspect his farm.

They had the authority to shut him down, arresting everything. They asked for his tax records. They asked for his payroll records. How many people were working? They examined everything. Because all of the laws tightly regulate how you hire, listen, migrant farmers, minorities. 'Cause a lot of people will hire people from other countries. Sometimes they're illegal and they will take advantage of them. Poor working conditions, work their children and all that. And my friend, you know what he told me? He thought I'm going to jail. I don't know if I've done it right or not. But you know what happened?

Because my friend is a Christian, this is what happened. Eventually, after they set him down and they interviewed all of those people, they set him down and they said, why do you have that children's playground over there? He said, oh, when my workers come, they need to have somewhere for their kids to stay. And I got them a nice playground. And he said, why do you have those golf carts with all the Gatorade and water on that? He said, oh, when they're out there harvesting, I got people that'll ride by and give them all the Gatorade and water they want. He said, why do you have that pavilion over there?

He said, because I want a restaurant in town and I bring food in and I feed them right there. I feed them chicken strips and hamburgers and all that. And he said, why do you have two bathrooms over there? He said, well, I got a men's bathroom and a women's bathroom. And they looked at him and they said, sir, you know you don't have to have all that. All you got to do is have water. All you got to do is have one bathroom. You don't have to have playground for those kids. You don't have to feed these people. They said, why do you do that? He said, I'm a Christian. They looked at his payroll. They said, why do you pay him this much?

You don't have to pay him that much. He said, I want to. They're good workers. I'm a Christian. And they sat down and they said, we've never seen a farm like this. Everybody should come look at your farm. And then all of a sudden the workers started coming up and saying, no, no, you don't understand. We love this man. He lets us come over here and fish in his pond. When he kills deer, he gives us deer 'cause we like deer meat. He said, we love him. He's our friend. You see? Now I taught you a lot, but see how that applies? You reap what you sow. You don't take advantage of the poor.

And those are minority peoples and he could take advantage of them. And you know why he went the extra mile? It's because he loves them. So you see the norm in society. Notice many times it's the wealthy that govern and the wealthy who have the poor under them. And then there's the warning, you reap what you sow. And then within that warning, what do we see? You don't use the poor for personal gain. Now just that one story fleshed it all out for you and it helped you see just how it does relate. Now not quite through. Give me your attention and I got another story. Next is the instruction. Verse 22 and verse 23.

You gotta turn over, at least I do in my copy. Verse 22 and 23. Notice it says, do not rob the poor because he is poor or crush the afflicted at the gate. For the Lord will plead their case and rob of life those who rob them. Now this is the instruction how not to treat the poor. You might say, brother Chris, you've already told us that. Well, it's a little bit different. This is a flat out instruction. Why? Because of the two words there, do not. I looked at multiple translations. They all say the same thing. Do not. When you see a do not or you hear a do not, you know it's an instruction. Isn't that right young people?

So we've seen teaching that should show us this instruction but God, he gives us this because he knows we need to see it. Now there are three specifics I want us to see here and this is really good. This is all right here under the instruction. It's a command, then the context and then the caretaker. First the command. This is simple and it's all on top of what we've studied and we should get it. The verse says, do not rob the poor because he is poor. Now remember, I've said it over and over, remember who usually has the power, the prestige in society. Most of the time it's not the poor. So the command is this.

I want to turn it around and I'm gonna put it into my words. Just because someone is poor and probably has no power in life, don't rob them and don't take advantage of them. See the command, don't do it. Remember the story of the lawyer who always ended up with the land, he needed to hear this. Instead of working with the poor people so they could pay their bill, he would seize grandma's land that they inherited. So see the command. Then second the context. Look at the end of the verse. What does that mean? Look at verse 22. Do not rob the poor because he is poor or crush the afflicted at the gate. What does that word mean?

See in their culture, many things took place at what was called the city gate, the entrance of the city. They would have a main city gate, a main city entrance. And this pertained to two circumstances. First of all, this would be where the beggars would be. The poorest of the poor would be the beggars. They'd be at the city gate and they could beg when the people would pass by. But also the city gate, it was where civil and legal and other government business was conducted at the gate. I don't have this in my notes, but let me go back. Remember the story of Ruth, poor, a Moabite, and she's harvesting in the corners of Boaz's fields.

He was very wealthy. And to fast forward the story, they were related and he could redeem her, take her as a wife. And when he went to do that business, he went to the city gate because that's where you did the business, city business. But notice, this was like city hall or the courthouse in their day. So notice how the context, me explaining that, helps you see the instruction. At the city gate, you would have the more wealthy and the powerful and the poor and the powerless. They could be made, that could be a ready-made circumstance for the wealthy to take advantage of the poor. The temptation was right there under their nose.

It was right there. See the context? And then third, what I call the caretaker. The caretaker is in verse 23. "For the Lord will please plead their cause "and rob of life those who rob them." That could be seen as a warning. This is the Lord. When no one on earth will take care of the poor and the oppressed, the Lord will plead their case. It says, "The Lord will rob the one who robs them." That's a promise. "The Lord will rob the one who robs them." Well, what about those questions? When and how? How's God gonna do that? Well, that's God's business. Now we need to see what's happening here. This is the instruction. Do not.

When you're in a circumstance where the opportunity comes where you could take advantage of the poor because they are poor, when that circumstance is right there, God is saying, "Don't do it." And when you see it, you know that God will take care of them. So let me ask you this. What circumstance, what opportunity could come in your life where the poor could be right under your nose, right there at your fingertips? It's right there. There's a circumstance, there's a context. One day it's gonna happen and you're gonna know right there, they're right in front of you, and you're gonna think about the city gate. No, we could be right there.

Here's my other story. My grandfather, growing up, grew up close to my grandfather on my mother's side, and my grandfather owned a farm. It was a tree farm. When I was a little kid, he had cows. Wasn't much of a cow farm. But my grandfather grew up poor. He was born in 1908, and any of you who understand the depression, he was a young man during the depression, the Great Depression. Stock market crashed in 1929, and country went through years of one of the most difficult economic depressions. And he said, man, I was poor before, and poor in the middle, and poor after. His father was a sharecropper.

What that meant was his father used a piece of land, farmed the land, and shared what he harvested with the owner, sharecropper. He never made any money. Never owned anything. So my grandfather grew up poor. Well, in 1941, he bought 500 acres of land, and he was really proud of that property. But when he bought that land, it was a part of an old plantation that was broken up. And one of the children, one of the descendants who inherited the land, barred money against it, and they couldn't pay the money back. So he bought the land, and there were five sharecropper families on it, and they were black sharecroppers. And they were extremely poor.

They were more poor than the white sharecroppers. And it was at the end of a particular time in American history, the end of the sharecropping era, that came after slavery. But my grandfather used to always talk about those sharecroppers, how poor they were. They didn't have anything. He took care of them. Took them to the doctor. He didn't make them pay rent. Built them houses when their houses fell in. He repaired them. And he used to always talk about how poor they were, how they didn't have anything, how uneducated they were. And he just always took care of them, because he felt sorry for them. They were uneducated.

Now what am I trying to show you? He did not take advantage of them. He didn't take advantage of them. You see, he would have lived this verse. The context was there. They were right under his fingertips. They lived on his land. He used to talk about how he would take them to the doctor and pay for the medicine, whether they took the medicine or not. You see? That's a great example of another time in a bygone era, but it is a good example. All right, now how do we begin to wrap all this up? This is where I'm gonna get real practical. And I want you to listen close, 'cause this is gonna get good, okay? Got just a few more minutes.

How do we begin to wrap this up? First of all, wealth and poverty are a part of life. It is a part of life. There is no sin in wealth and there is no sin in poverty. Teenagers, listen to me. It's not a sin to be wealthy, and it's not a sin to be poor. It's a part of the providence of God. Do you think people in North Korea have it pretty bad? What about people in Iran? Do you understand world history, geography? You know, we've got it pretty good here. But let's look at wealth for a second. First, wealth. We should see wealth in three ways. First of all, wealth is not a sin unless wealth is your God. Wealth is not a sin.

Second, wealth is an opportunity to do good to others. And then third, wealth is an opportunity to share the gospel. But then look at poverty. We should see poverty in two ways. First, if you are poor because of laziness, well, that's a sin. But then second, if you are poor because of unfortunate circumstances, that is not a sin. Now, when we help others, we must keep three things in mind. First, we do not reward laziness. Second, we do not able the one that is in need. We don't wanna keep giving them and keep giving them and keep giving them. And then third, we do not let the help turn into a bad pattern.

I've known people that somebody helped them and they helped them and they helped them and they stayed poor and it was a bad pattern, you see? Now in closing, remember our Old Testament backdrop? Remember that context? It was part of life. Don't abuse them. You minister to them. Well, what about the New Testament? Look at this verse, Mark 14, verse seven. What does Jesus say? "For you always have the poor with you and whenever you want, you can do good for them." That sounds just like the Old Testament. They always had the poor, you see?

And Jesus is saying the very same thing that's in the Old Testament, the poor will always be a part of society. Look at the next verse, James 1, 27, religion or Christianity that is pure and undefiled before God the Father is this, to visit orphans and widows and their affliction and to keep oneself unstained or uncontaminated by the world. In that day, the worst position to be would be a widow and an orphan. You had no means of income. They were the worst, the poorest of the poor. And James is saying that true Christians keep themselves pure from the world and minister to the afflicted.

But here's the worst I really want us to land on, Galatians 6, 9 and 10. Let us not grow weary in doing good for in due season we will reap. Remember that? If we do not give up. So then we, as we have opportunity, let us do good to everyone and especially to those who are in the household of faith. This is important, this is where we've got to land with all of this. We meet the needs of the poor, we help the struggling, the disenfranchised, first in the church. In the church. If we've got plenty, we help people in the church. And then second, we do, we meet needs of the poor and the struggling, the disenfranchised in the world.

Look back at verse 10. So then, as we have opportunity, let us do good to everyone, especially to those in the household of faith. So if we're gonna help the poor, we start at church and then we go outside the church. Now let me close with this. This is how we use our wealth and our possessions to help the poor. First in the church and second in the world, never at the expense of our families and never at the expense of the work of the church. Always with the goal of sharing the gospel where it is needed. Someone's outside of the church and you help them, your neighbor, a family member, oh, you give them the gospel.

Remember my friend with the blueberry farm? I can't tell you how many times he shared the gospel with those workers because of how good he was to them. They would look up to him and say, "Mr. Purvis, why are you so good to me?" It's because God's changed me and let me tell you about Jesus. You see? You see what I mean? It's an avenue to share the gospel. And then second, listen, it's a blessing to brothers and sisters in Christ. So being obedient to the word, listen, we never try to change the society trying to just get rid of poverty. No, it is a byproduct of us being a Christian. Now let me close. Remember my blueberry farm friend?

He said that the top officer, federal officer, was a little short lady, gone on her side. She got out of that car. He said, "Man, she was on her face." He said, "Man, I'm going to jail. "I'm going to jail. "I know I'm going to jail." But then at the end, she was the very one that sat down said, "I want you to tell me all about everything you do "'cause I'm gonna use your story in other places." See, helping those people was a byproduct, a byproduct of his Christianity. So what's the title of what we've looked at? It's right there on the screen or I'll put it back up. Justice for the poor.

The world screams for justice for the poor, But God's told us how we do it. God's way, okay? It's God's way.