Welfare Of The Poor Series

Theme: Welfare of the Poor

Text: Psalm 112:1-10

I greet you all in the name of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. We praise God the grace given to all of us to cope up with Lockdown for more than 68 days. By the grace of God, we are privileged to participate in the online Sunday Services and listen to the Word of God.

During May 2020, we had several sermons based on many important Welfares, namely, Welfare of the Kingdom of God (Seek First things First), Health of the Believers, Welfare of a City, Personal Welfare, Welfare of a Nation, Economical Welfare, Welfare of Many, Welfare of Ecosystem, Welfare of Poor, and finally, in the evening we are ending with Welfare of Missionaries. If you missed any one of these series, kindly visit Annanagar Methodist Church MC YouTube Channel. If you have not subscribed, please do so for immediate updating.

Today, I would like to meditate with you all on the “Welfare of the Poor” based on Psalm 112:1-10. Psalm 111 and 112 are composed alphabetically with twenty-two letters of Hebrew language. Psalm 111 exalts God as Righteous and Holy and Psalm 112 depicts characters of God’ children.

I am using the word POOR as a representative word for People living with poverty, and categories of widows, neglected, downtrodden, differently-abled and even-aged who are denied the rights and privileges and oppressed by the Powerful of any kind for various reasons. Begging is an entirely different industry who are engaged based on troubled backgrounds, too lazy to find the job, or forced by others, I am not touching that subject today except a few references to it.

I would like to divide this Psalm 112 into three parts as

Psalm 112:1-4 titled ‘Heed to the Commands of God’,

Psalm 112:5-8 titled ‘Listen to the Demands of Poor’, and

Psalm 112:9-10 titled ‘Live as Brands of Generosity.’

1. HEED TO THE COMMANDS OF GOD – Psalm 112:1-4

Reading the scripture leads us to have an understanding of God’s commands. Here, the Psalmist describes the attitude of the blessed man in verses (Psalm 112) 1-5. He fears the Lord, he delights in commands of God. He is gracious, compassionate, generous and just. The word generous means kind. He is kind to the poor. So he is blessed. His children are mighty. Wealth and riches are in his house. Light dawns for him in Darkness.

Enduring Word commentary says ‘delighting in the commands of God’ implies being practical to God’s call and will. Spurgeon says ‘Hypocrites enjoy in doctrines but not in Commandments’. Delight comes by reading, heeding and observing the commands of God, the joy is multiplied when the commands are obeyed.

A passage in Talmud (body of Jewish civil and religious laws) reads Moses gave six hundred laws to the ancient Israelites. As these laws and commands proved too numerous to memorize, to remember and to observe. So, King David brought them into eleven in Psalm 15. Prophet Isaiah further reduced them into six (Walks righteously, speaks right, rejects gain, keeps hands free from Bribes, stops ears from plots to murder, shuts his eyes contemplating evil) in Isaiah 33:15. Prophet Micah reduced them into three (Act justly, Love mercy and walk humbly) in Micah 6:8. Prophet Third Isaiah brought them as two (Maintain Justice and do what is right) in Isaiah 56:1. Prophet Amos reduced as only one (seek me and live) in Amos 5:4. However, Prophet Habakkuk interpreted it as “The just shall live by his faith” (Habakkuk 2:4).

The acts of Just is redefined here as being mindful of poor. Giving attention to them. Deuteronomy 15:4-11 express the heart of God; In v. 4 God desires ‘there should be no poor among you’ but because of the evil nature and wickedness of the human race, in v. 11 God said, ‘there will be always poor people in the land’. So, in v. 7. God commands, ‘Do not tight fist your hand to the poor.’ We live in a very busy world and no time even to look around. God reminds us to think about the welfare of the poor and needy.

According to Proverbs 31:8-9, we must defend the rights of the poor. Isaiah 1:17 says, defend the cause of the oppressed and fatherless. Psalm 82:3 calls to defend the cause of the weak and fatherless, maintain the rights of the poor and oppressed. One of the rights of the poor is to enjoy the harvest from the fields (Exodus 23:11, Leviticus 19:9-10). Yahweh defends the cause of the fatherless and the widow, and loves the alien, gives food and clothes (Deuteronomy 10:18). Even Paul writes to the Galatians to remember the poor (Galatians 2:10). Righteous considerate the cause or rights of the poor (Proverbs 29:7) because Yahweh judged the cause of the poor and needy (Jeremiah 22:16).