If there is a poor man among your brothers within any of the gates in the land that the LORD your God is giving you, then you are not to harden your heart or shut your hand from your poor brother. Sermons
I. GENEROSITY SHOULD NOT BE TOO CALCULATING IN ITS TURN. Doubtless, often times it receives a noble return, but this should not be too much regarded, lest the speculative spirit mar the motive altogether. Nor again should we harden our hearts under the persuasion that our generosity is misspent, and that we shall never be repaid in any way. God has himself shown us true generosity in making his sun to shine on the evil as well as on the good, and in sending his rain upon the unjust as well as the just. And hence we are exhorted to "lend, hoping for nothing again; and your reward shall be great, and ye shall be the children of the Highest: for he is kind unto the unthankful and to the evil" (Luke 6:35). There is something noble in an uncalculating generosity. II. IT IS THE NEED OF THE POOR BROTHER WHICH WE ARE BOUND TO SUPPLY. That is, we are asked to supply him not with the luxuries or comforts of life, as if to these he had a right; but with his needs. The open-handedness will be considerate so far as not to encourage unworthy dependence. The brother will be helped in a brotherly way - enabled to help himself, and having his needs only supplied. This principle has been urged in connection with our national poor-law system. If it is lost sight of, then a premium is paid to idleness, and the "ne'er-do-wells" become the favorites of fortune. Our Father in heaven acts in the same wholesome fashion. "He supplies all our need according to his riches in glory by Christ Jesus." He supplies us with salvation because we cannot save ourselves; he supplies us with what enables us to help ourselves. He could keep the whole world in idleness, "ladies and gentlemen at large," but he prefers to keep the whole world in work. Our reliance on God is for our need. III. OPEN-HANDEDNESS FOR GOD'S SAKE IS SURE OF ITS REWARD, "The liberal soul shall be made fat." "He that watereth others shall be watered also himself." "There is that scattereth and yet increaseth." In this way the Lord showeth in both dispensations how "he loveth a cheerful giver." When a religious man, acting on principle, lives an open-handed life, he has the finest business stimulus. He works that he may have the more to give, and thus be the more God-like. There is nothing so hallows business in all its ramifications as this desire to be able to help those in need. IV. IT IS A SOLEMN THOUGHT THAT THE POOR ARE NEVER TO CEASE OUT OF THE LAND IN THE PRESENT DISPENSATION. The unequal distribution of wealth, the improvident habits of many, and the pressure of population upon subsistence seem destined to keep the poor always with us. And in consequence our Savior stepped out of his rich condition in the bosom and home of the Father and became poor, that he might call every poor man a brother, and leave the poor his legatees after his departure. We need the spectacle of poverty to move our hard hearts to the generosity required. Were abundance the rule, and no human being wanted bread, the selfishness of the race would know no bounds. But the poor ones call for the sympathy which Jesus so abundantly deserves, and we can now sell our spikenard and give to them with all the careful calculation which a Judas once desired (John 12. l-8). Let our help to others be systematic, because conscientious, and then shall it prove a perennial rill, benefiting the lives of many as it wends its way down the vale of years to the ocean that engulfs us all. - R.M.E.
Save when there shall be no poor among you. These two sentences (vers. 4 and 11) seem, at first sight, to contradict one another. There are three ways of reading the fourth verse. "Save when there shall be no poor among you," says the text. "To the end that there be no poor," reads the margin. Howbeit, there shall be no poor with thee, runs the Revised Version. The explanation may be briefly put thus: There would always be poor people among them; "howbeit, they must not let them be poor, i.e. not let them sink down in poverty.I. THE EXISTENCE OF POVERTY. My own experience has been that those who are most hurt cry out least. The most deserving, and generally the most pitiful, cases of distress have to be looked for. But, say some, is it not their own fault that they are so badly off? No doubt it often is so. Idleness, drink, waste, folly, incapableness may all cause poverty; but what of that? We cannot stand by and see people starve. It would be easier to die by hanging than hunger; but we do not even hang people except for high treason or murder. Much more must we not by any sin of omission condemn the innocent to suffer with the guilty — the hardworking wife or the helpless children for the sake of the worthless husband or father. The fact is that poverty is largely the consequence of an unequal struggle between the strong and the weak. II. THE DUTY OF RELIEVING POVERTY. Look at what Moses taught the Israelites. 1. That prevention is better than cure. There was never to be a "bitter cry of outcast" Canaan.(1) We may use our influence to encourage better education. With the next generation more intelligent, temperate, and capable, pauperism will be less.(2) We may exert our influence towards giving the labourer a heartier interest in the land he tills.(3) We may inculcate a love of independence. Poverty is no sin, but pauperism is a reproach, and should be felt as such. 2. That each nation, or community, or church, should care for its own poor. 3. That charity should be systematic. The time was precise — every third year; the quantity was precise — one tenth; the object was precise — "thy poor brother."Contrast with these laws of Moses the teaching of Christ. 1. The law of Moses aimed at preventing poverty. Christ came and found men poor. He did more than prevent; He cured. To heal sickness is a harder task than to maintain health. To deliver the needy when he crieth is often more difficult than to preserve him before he has had occasion to cry. Moses provided for keeping people up who were not overthrown; Christ actually went down to the low dark depths, and raised those who were sunk there. 2. Moses taught that each nation, or community, or church, should care for its own. To go beyond that was permitted, but not enjoined. Christ taught a much broader truth than that — charity without distinction. Our neighbour is not the person who lives next door to us, or who has most affinity with us; but the person who is nearest to our helping hand, even though he be a Jew and we are Samaritans. Our first duty is to our own, but not our last. Charity begins at home, but does not end there. 3. Moses was systematic, but Christ was above systems. There was no fixed standard with Him, except this. "Sell all that thou hast. and distribute unto the poor." There was no stint in His giving. It was not certain objects of His kindness whom He blessed: "Whosoever will, let him come." It was not every few years merely that He was benevolent; but "yesterday, today, and forever." (Charles T. Price.) Homilist. I. THE RULES THAT ARE HERE SUGGESTED FOR THE RELIEF OF THE POOR.1. Contiguity. It is the poor "in thy land." Those living nearest us, other things being equal, have the first claim on our charity. Let it bless as it goes; work as the leaven in the meal, from particle to particle, until it gives its spirit to the mass. 2. Heartiness. "Thou shalt not harden," etc. The heart must go with the deed. 3. Liberality. "Open thine hand wide unto him." The liberality of men is not to be judged by the sums they subscribe, but by the means they possess. II. THE REASONS THAT ARE HERE SUGGESTED FOR THE RELIEF OF THE POOR. 1. Your relationship to the poor. "He is thy brother." He has the same origin, the same nature, the same great Father, the same moral relationships, as thyself. 2. The imprecation of the poor. "And he cry," etc. 3. The blessedness insured to the friend of the poor. 4. The Divine plan as to the permanent existence of the poor. (Homilist.) I. GOD'S PEOPLE EVER HAVE SYMPATHY WITH THEIR BRETHREN. 1. If we belong to the people of God — if this were so in Israel, much more should it be among Christians — then there will be in our hearts a tender feeling toward our fellow men — a feeling implanted by God Himself. The heart will say: "This is thy brother; help him." This results from God's love in the heart, which leads the brethren to "love one another." 2. But this tender-heartedness can be destroyed and the heart be hardened, even among Christians, and this against the light of conscience. They often do as it is rumoured the New Zealanders did with their children. They pressed down the necks of the children under a flinty stone in order to harden them, so Christians make their hearts sometimes hard as flints through avariciousness. The avaricious heart ever thinks: "This belongs to me and to no one else, and none shall share it." 3. This is not well-pleasing to God. He sees that by covetousness men are led to destruction, and to reject His love toward them. For when men are so hard-hearted, how can they have the love of God in them? II. THE HEARTS AND HANDS OF GOD'S PEOPLE ARE OPEN TOWARD THEIR BRETHREN. 1. When this is so, then the love of God has full scope in their hearts; and thus He causes through those open hands and hearts much good to flow out into this evil world. For to His children who are ever ready to give to those who need He will give yet more, so that from their increased store they may give yet more fully to others, and that thus these also may learn to praise God. 2. Therefore he who has a kind heart and open hand will experience and receive a blessing. As he gives, so he receives. It is with such as with Cornelius: "Thy prayers and thine alms are come up before God." Thus, too, the way is made open for the reception of God's gifts both temporal and spiritual. Let us all, then, endeavour to preserve a tender heart, arid not let our heart be hardened. (J. C. Blumhardt.) And he cry unto the Lord against thee Homilist. The poor cry to heaven — from the scenes of oppressive labour, from wretched hovels, from beds of straw, shivering in the cold, from the depths of starvation, they cry! Many a poor mother in these blood-freezing nights hugs to her shivering bosom her starving infant, and tries to hush its cries of cold and hunger with the wails of her own broken heart. God alone knows the cries that rise and pierce the heavens every night from this "great country" — as the cant is. Alas! Alas! that from this land, overflowing with luxuries and burdened with wealth, such wails of wretchedness should rise! Against whom do they cry? Against their Maker? No! The most unobservant of them can scarcely fail to discover that He sends food enough for all. Besides, deep and ineradicably rooted in the heart of all is the sentiment that God is good — a sentiment this, which seems to me the core of conscience. Against the overreaching monopolist, the iron-hearted miser, the ruthless oppressor, the man who has the power to help but not the heart. Against all selfish men and unrighteous laws that grind the people down, they cry — and cry with unremitting vehemence too. Will He hear? Is the ear of Him who heard of old the cries of the enslaved millions in Egypt, and interposed with avenging thunders for their rescue, grown heavy? Nay, modern oppressor! Those cries shall be answered; not a solitary wail shall die away unheeded. Woe to the nation that oppresses the poor! Woe! and again, woe! when retribution comes, as come it must.(Homilist.) The poor shall never cease out of the land I. THE PERPETUAL EXISTENCE OF THE POOR AMONGST US. You must become reconciled to your poverty. And if you would become really reconciled to it do not regard it as something inflicted by the misgovernment or the management of your fellow men. Put it before you in the light this text puts it, as God's ordinance and God's will concerning you; as something that rulers and governors can no more drive out of the world than they can drive midnight out of it, or sickness, or pain, or sorrow. Poverty is to be alleviated, and it is to be removed if honest industry will remove it; but if not so, it is to be welcomed and borne. I could tell you where it often comes from. From the poor man's own idleness, improvidence, intemperance, and waste; from the foolish indulgence of children; from the still more criminal indulgence of self. But even then it is from God; it is God's way of showing displeasure against these things. And when it comes not from these things, where does it come from? Often from a love that neither you nor I, nor any angel above us, can measure. The same love that provided a Saviour and built a heaven for sinners now sends poverty often to sinners, to turn them to that Saviour and heaven.II. OUR DUTY TOWARDS THE POOR. Now if we looked only at the declaration in the first part of the text, and were disposed to reason on it, we might say, Be our duty to the poor what it may, we must not interfere with their poverty; it is God's will they should be poor, and we must not interfere with His will. This would be like saying, God has sent sickness amongst us, and we must not make use of any means to cure or relieve it; or, He has made the winter, and we will do nothing to mitigate the rigour of it; or, He has created the darkness, and it is wrong to have lights in our dwelling to enlighten it. Many of what we call the evils of our condition are designed of God to bring into lawful and healthy action the powers of man's mind and the feelings of man's heart, and this evil of poverty among the number. "The poor shall never cease out of the land"; that is My will, says God. "Therefore I command thee" — what? to let the needy alone in their poverty? No; I have placed them in the land to call forth and exercise thy bounty. The painful work is Mine — I have ordained poverty; the pleasant work shall be thine — thou shalt relieve it. "Thou shalt open thine hand wide unto thy brother, to thy poor and to thy needy in thy land." It is a touching circumstance that not only is the general duty of what we call charity to the poor enjoined in Scripture, but so great is the interest God takes in it that the measure and manner of it are strongly enjoined. Here we are told, in the first place, that it must be liberal. "Thou shalt open thine hand wide unto thy brother." And it must be extensive charity; that is, as extensive as we can make it. "I will not give my money," we sometimes say, "to this man or that; he has no claim on me; I must keep the little I have to spare for those who have claims on me." But look again, "Thou shalt open thine hand wide unto thy brother" — to "thy brother" first, to those who from relationship or from some other cause seem to have claims on thee; but not to "thy brother" only, "to thy poor and to thy needy in thy land." The words are multiplied; to those who have no claims whatever on thee but their poverty and their need. And it must be also a cheerful charity. III. We may go on now to THE MOTIVES BY WHICH WE ARE URGED TO THE EXERCISE OF THIS GRACE. For these, some of you may be ready to say, I must turn to the Gospel. But no, the God of the Gospel is the God of the law also, the God of the Christian Church was the God of the ancient Church, and there is no motive urged now on us in these Gospel days which was not urged in substance on the Jews in the days of old. 1. For instance, to begin, our own mercies are made use of under the Gospel to impel us to show mercy to others. "Freely ye have received," our Lord says, "freely give." Now look at this chapter. "Thou shalt open thine hand wide unto thy brother, to thy poor and to thy needy" — why? "For the Lord thy God," the sixth verse says, is opening His hand wide unto thee; He "is blessing thee," and blessing thee as abundantly as He said He would; "the Lord thy God blesseth thee as He promised thee." 2. But again, the special love of God to the poor is another reason why our hands should be opened to them. Of all the books that were ever written, no book manifests such care for the poor as the Bible. This has often been noticed by those who have closely studied this book, and many others with it, as one of the many internal evidences of its Divine original. But turn to the tenth chapter of the part of it now before us, the nineteenth verse. "Love ye therefore the stranger," says God. And why? Ye yourselves, He adds, "were strangers in the land of Egypt." But this is not the only reason; read what goes before. The Lord Himself "loveth the stranger." "The Lord loveth the stranger," "love ye therefore the stranger," says God. And this applies with much greater force to the widow and fatherless. If natural feeling, as we call it — if our own parental feelings — do not incline us to open our hand to them, let the feelings of God towards them incline us to do so. I love the fatherless, He says; let us, for His sake, because He loves them, love them also. 3. But here is a third motive pressed on you; this "opening of our hand" to the poor will lead the Lord to open His hand to us. "For this thing," we read in the verse before the text — "for this thing the Lord thy God shall bless thee in all thy works, and in all that thou puttest thine hand unto." This is the legal promise, you may say. And true, it is; but the Lord is not less bountiful or less generous under the Gospel than under the law. (U. Bradley, M. A.) Consider —I. That poverty is a real evil which, without any impeachment of the goodness or wisdom of providence, the constitution of the world actually admits. II. That providential appointment of this evil in subservience to the general good, brings a particular obligation upon men in civilised society to concur for the immediate extinction of the evil wherever it appears. (Bp. Horsley.) "The poor shall never cease out of the land." That is a remark which is not understood. Poverty is not an accident; there is a moral mystery connected with poverty which has never yet been found out. The sick chamber makes the house, the infirm member of the family rules its tenderest thinking. Poverty has a great function to work out in the social scheme, but whilst we admit this we must not take the permanence of poverty as an argument for neglect; it is an argument for solicitude, it is an appeal to benevolence, it is an opportunity to soften the heart and cultivate the highest graces of the soul. It is perfectly true that the bulk of poor people may have brought their poverty upon themselves, but who are we that we should make rough speeches about them? What have we brought upon ourselves? If we are more respectable than others, it is still the respectability of thieves and liars and selfish plotters. We, who are apparently more industrious and virtuous and regardful, are not made of different clay, and are not animated by a different blood. It is perfectly true that a thousand people may have brought today's poverty upon themselves, and they will have to suffer for it; but beyond all these accidents or incidents there is the solemn fact that poverty is a permanent quantity, for moral reasons which appeal to the higher instincts of the social commonwealth. We have that we may give, we are strong that we may support the weak, we are wise that we may teach the ignorant. "Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus." No man has the slightest occasion or reason for reproaching any other man, except in relation to the immediate circumstance. If the assize were on a larger scale, and we were all involved in the scrutiny, the issue would be this, "There is none righteous, no, not one."(J. Parker, D. D.) Open thine hand wide unto thy brother I. IT IS DUE TO THE CONSTITUTION OF SOCIETY. "The poor always ye have with you." We shall perhaps think correctly on the subject if we admit as the will of God that in every state of society there shall be poor, and that a provision for the production of this fact is laid in the gifts of His providence, in the constitution of men, and in the scheme of His moral government.II. CHARITY IS DUE TO OURSELVES. It is due to ourselves, as we would wish with uprightness to discharge the duties of that station in which we are placed. To administer relief to the poor is graciously connected with our present comfort and our future well-being. The very act of charity is accompanied with the most refined complacency; it is answering that sympathy which is born in the heart of every man, and which, unless stifled by unnatural discipline, calls loudly for gratification. They are happy who are the objects of your bounty, but ye who have experienced it can tell that "it is more blessed to give than to receive." Connected with this is that blessing over our worldly concerns "which maketh rich, and to which is added no sorrow." And let it be remembered, that prosperity is but for a season; now, therefore, it is time to lay up a store of good deeds, the remembrance of which shall be the best support when misfortune overtakes the prosperous. Let it be remembered yet again that what possessions men have are not their own, but are the property of their Master, who hath committed it to their stewardship. All their opportunities, and all their means of doing good, must he accounted for. III. IT IS DUE TO RELIGION — to a religion which is in its origin, its effects, its principle, and its precepts a system of charity; a religion which, originating in the love of God, proposes to restore to happiness and dignity those who are "poor, and miserable, and wretched, and blind, and naked." They to whom mercy is shown should be merciful. This is what Christianity requires, nay, what it affirms to be the amount and the criterion of a genuine profession. IV. IT IS DUE TO THE POOR. As a something voluntary is implied in the idea of charity, it may sound paradoxical to speak of the rights of the poor on the charity of the rich. But the incongruity is only in sound, for it is an acknowledged maxim of civil economy that the poor (the industrious poor, of whom only I now speak) have an absolute right to be supported by the State, whose agriculture, commerce, and manufactures have benefited by their exertions. Further, the poor have a right as brethren, and this is a right which the heart of a Christian cannot deny. V. IT IS DUE TO THE AGE IN WHICH WE LIVE — an age characterised for beneficence, an age distinguished above all others for the magnitude of its political events, for the advancement of science, for the general diffusion of literature, and more especially for a spirit that has amalgamated all classes of society, the most opposite ranks and professions, into one mass, and stamped the whole with benevolence. (A. Waugh, M. A.) It is of importance not only that we should do good, but that we should do it in the best manner. A little judgment and a little reflection added to the gift does not merely enhance the value, but often gives to it the only value which it possesses, and even prevents that mischief of which thoughtless benevolence is sometimes the cause.1. Mankind can never be too strongly or too frequently cautioned against self-deception. If a state of vice be a state of misery, a state of vice of which we are ignorant is doubly so, from the increased probability of its duration. It is surprising how many men are cheated by flighty sentiments of humanity into a belief that they are humane, how frequently charitable words are mistaken for charitable deeds, and a beautiful picture of misery for an effectual relief of it. 2. Another important point in the administration of charity is a proper choice of the objects we relieve. To give promiscuously is better, perhaps, than not to give at all, but instead of risking the chance of encouraging imposture, discover some worthy family struggling up against the world, a widow with her helpless children, old people incapable of labour, or orphans destitute of protection and advice; suppose you were gradually to attach yourselves to such real objects of compassion, to learn their wants, to stimulate their industry, and to correct their vices; surely these two species of charity are not to be compared together in the utility or in the extent of their effects, in the benevolence they evince or in the merits they confer. 3. The true reason why this species of charity is so rarely practised is that we are afraid of imposing such a severe task upon our indolence, though, in truth, all these kinds of difficulties are extremely overrated. When once we have made ourselves acquainted with a poor family, and got into a regular train of seeing them at intervals, the trouble is hardly felt and the time scarcely missed; and if it is missed, ought it to be missed? 4. These charitable visits to the poor, which I have endeavoured to inculcate, are of importance, not only because they prevent imposture by making you certain of the misery which you relieve, but because they produce an appeal to the senses which is highly favourable to the cultivation of charity. He who only knows the misfortunes of mankind at second hand and by description has but a faint idea of what is really suffered in the world. We feel, it may be said, the eloquence of description, but what is all the eloquence of art to that mighty and original eloquence with which nature pleads her cause; to the eloquence of paleness and of hunger; to the eloquence of sickness and of wounds; to the eloquence of extreme old age, of helpless infancy, of friendless want! What pleadings so powerful as the wretched hovels of the pool, and the whole system of their comfortless economy! 5. You are not, I hope, of opinion that these kinds of cares devolve upon the clergy alone, as the necessary labours of their profession, but upon everyone whose faith teaches And whose fortune enables him to be humane. 6. Nor let it be imagined that the duties which I have pointed out are much less imperative because the law has taken to itself the protection of the poor; the law must hold out a scanty relief, or it would encourage more misery than it relieved: the law cannot distinguish between the poverty of idleness and the poverty of misfortune; the law degrades those whom it relieves, and many prefer wretchedness to public aid; do not, therefore, spare yourselves from a belief that the poor are well taken care of by the civil power, and that individual interference is superfluous. Many die in secret, — they perish and are forgotten. 7. Remember that every charity is short-lived and inefficacious which flows from any other motive than the right. There is a charity which originates from the romantic fiction of humble virtue and innocence in distress, but this will be soon disgusted by low artifice and scared by brutal vice. The charity which proceeds from ostentation can exist no longer than when its motives remain undetected. There is a charity which is meant to excite the feelings of gratitude, but this will meet with its termination in disappointment. That charity alone endures which flows from a sense of duty and a hope in God. This is the charity that treads in secret those paths of misery from which all but the lowest of human wretches have fled; this is that charity which no labour can weary, no ingratitude detach, no horror disgust; that toils, that pardons, that suffers, that is seen by no man, and honoured by no man, but, like the great laws of nature, does the work of God in silence, and looks to future and better worlds for its reward. (Sydney Smith, M. A.) People MosesPlaces Beth-baal-peor, EgyptTopics Amongst, Brethren, Brother, Brothers, Cities, Close, Countrymen, Gates, Gives, Giveth, Giving, Harden, Hardhearted, Heart, Needy, Poor, Shut, Tightfisted, Towns, WithinOutline 1. The seventh year a year of release for the poor7. one must be generous in lending or giving 12. A Hebrew servant, except by choice, must be freed in the seventh year 19. All firstborn males of the cattle are to be sanctified unto the Lord. Dictionary of Bible Themes Deuteronomy 15:7 5963 sympathy 5449 poverty, remedies 5289 debt Library Homiletical. Twenty-four homilies on miscellaneous subjects, published under St. Basil's name, are generally accepted as genuine. They are conveniently classified as (i) Dogmatic and Exegetic, (ii) Moral, and (iii) Panegyric. To Class (i) will be referred III. In Illud, Attende tibi ipsi. VI. In Illud, Destruam horrea, etc. IX. In Illud, Quod Deus non est auctor malorum. XII. In principium Proverbiorum. XV. De Fide. XVI. In Illud, In principio erat Verbum. XXIV. Contra Sabellianos et Arium et Anomoeos. … Basil—Basil: Letters and Select Works Civ. Jesus Arrives and is Feasted at Bethany. Secondly, for Thy Words. 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