THE CRIES OF THE POOR

₦Sermon 32

THE CRIES OF THE POOR

“Look! The cry of the people of Israel has reached me, and I have seen how harshly the Egyptians abuse them”.  Exodus 3:9
      Reading Text: Deut. 26:5-9

The poor in spirit are the God’s own children whose needs are always taken care of by their Creator. They are the ones that Christ came on earth to save. The Scripture says: “He was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, so that by his poverty he could make you rich. Helping the poor was one of the gospel messages that Christ preached. He having seen the infirmities and afflictions of the poor, tried to comfort them in his sermon on the mount: “Blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of God”.
_Our emphasis today is on both the rich and the poor who are irrationally condemned and abused for the sake of the Messiah. The Israelites who were in Egypt were severely oppressed day and night but when they sobbed and cried out to God, He heard their cries and saw their hardship, toil and oppression (Deut. 26:7) and delivered them. God did not only hear their cries nor only saw their hardship but he also sent them a liberator who was Moses to speak to the king of Egypt who gave orders how the poor Israelites should be enslaved and maltreated. In the land of Egypt, the poor (Israelites) did not have any right nor power to do anything on their own to nullify the hash labour which were given to them to do as a task of their enslavement. They laboured day and night for their masters and mistresses. By crying to the Lord of the host implies their total submission and humility to God. It reveals the troubling heartbroken of the Israelites and their total repentance from their waywardness.

There are many ways the poor are maltreated here on earth.
Those who work for the rich without being paid (James 5:1-6, Jer. 22:13): King Jehoiakim hired labourers who toiled day and night working in his field but he paid them not. Instead he built his house without righteousness and justice for he made his hired labourers to go on hungry. When they worked with hopes that they would be paid and therefore eat something today with their children, their employer refused to pay them their wages. Their hope and aspirations are shattered by their employer. If the poor cry to God about the deleterious injustice, God will never abandon them but will hear their cries. James is emphasizing the need for the rich to pay their labourers. He says it in such a way that the rich who don’t want to repent from their evil desires should be prepared to face God’s Judgement. This is because they withhold their labourers’ wages. The labourers work in order to earn a living. At times, they would work without eating anything and such labourers most of them have children to feed, but the money which they hope for to feed their children is withheld by their employers. At times, they would be cheated. Those that do not know how to count money because of their illiteracy, they were been cheated. They may even say to them you did not work well, you did not finish your work in time and therefore, you won’t be paid complete. These innocent souls cry to God for being cheated by their employers and their cries reach the ears of the LORD of   Heaven’s armies.

Many employers today have poisoned their workers to death whose wages accumulated to a huge amount of money. Their employers don’t want to pay the debt and wouldn’t like them to disturb them for their money, James 5:6.

I remember a man who was hired by a wicked rich man to work for him. This poor man worked for so many months without pay. But his employer kept on promising to pay him. When the month the employer promised to pay his labourer reached, what we heard was that the labourer was poisoned and had no money for treatment and he died. This is one of the things that James was preaching that : “You have spent your years on earth in luxury, satisfying  your every desire, you have fattened yourselves for the day  of slaughter, you have condemned and killed innocent people, who do not resist you”, James 5:5, see also Mal 3:5

Those who work for daily bread but are disappointed: Leviticus 19:13 says: “Do not make your hired workers wait until the next day to receive their pay”. Most people employ labourers to work in their farm, vineyard, and offices and they are supposed to pay their labourers promptly day based on their agreement. But after the labourers would have worked, toiled in the duty post, they are disappointed. When such labourers cry to God, He will answer them. Deut. 24:15 says: “You must pay them their wages each day before sunset because they are poor and are counting on it. If you don’t they might cry out to the Lord against you and it would be counted against you as sin”.
       
We must be careful with our labourers to pay them their wages. If we have no money we shouldn’t think of employing them unless you employ them based on agreement which will be fulfilled when due.

The Poor whom we neglected at the time they are in need: Proverbs 21:13 says: those who shut their ears to the cries of the poor will be ignored in their own time of need”. When you ignore to give the poor food to eat when they’re hungry, God will also ignore your prayers when you are in such hopeless situation. He’ll also shut his ears from you because the poor around you are snubbed and overlooked at the time of their need. Proverbs 3:27 says: “Do not withhold good from those who deserve it when it is in your power to help them”.

The poor we mocked and insulted because of their appalling plight, Deut. 19:14: Some poor people have been insulted because they are blind. The book of Deut. 19:14, says: “Do not insult the deaf or cause the blind to stumble”. Some of us call all sorts of egregious and outrageous names as to ridicule or bring reproach to the poor because they are helpless. We call them onye anya mpi (a person whose eyes are condemned, onye ukwu aru (a person whose legs are bad) etc. At times, we bring some plank or wood and put on the way of a blind man to stumble. Proverbs 17: 5 says: those who mock the poor insult their maker; those who rejoice at the misfortune of others will be punished. What if you’re the blind, how would you feel when people do to you as you are rightly doing to the deformed ones?

The poor who are indebted but have nothing to pay, whose only cloth is taken away from them — Deut. 24:17: The poor whose justice has been perverted in a law  court Exodus 2:3:6. We should learn to forgive and forget what the poor owes us and hope in God for our great reward.

Brethren, let us try as much as possible and as our Lord Jesus has blessed us remember the poor and hear their cries of help.
       
May God be with you!

—————Meditation Point—————
O God, help me to help the poor through my poverty. Defend the poor and the fatherless and may you vindicate the afflicted and the poor! (Psalm 82:3). This I ask through the name Jesus Christ our Lord, amen!