Dennis Tuuri

And I ordained thee a prophet unto the nations. Then said I, “Oh Lord God, behold, I cannot speak, for I am a child.” But the Lord said unto me, “Say not, I am a child, for thou shalt go to all that I shall send thee, and whatsoever I command thee, thou shalt speak. Be not afraid of their faces, for I am with thee to deliver thee,” sayeth the Lord. Then the Lord put forth his hand and touched my mouth.

And the Lord said unto me, “Behold, I have put my words in thy mouth. See, I have this day set thee over the nations and over the kingdoms to root out and to pull down and to destroy and to throw down, to build and to plant.”

Let’s pray.

Almighty God, we thank you for calling us into holy convocation this Lord’s day morning. We thank you, Father, for causing us as we come before your presence to acknowledge our own sinfulness and that we have failed to walk in perfect conformity to your law this past week. That we have sinned against you in thought, word, and deed.

We thank you, Lord God, for reminding us of your great holiness now and of our sinfulness. We also thank you, though, Father, for the words of comfort that you gave to Jeremiah, to Isaiah, and to the other servants that you have called forth to do your work. We thank you, Lord God, that you have touched our mouths and made us clean, that you have provided a covenant mediator for us that we might live in covenant peace with you and might do covenant service for you.

We thank you for the shed blood of Jesus Christ, that it made atonement for our sins once for all. We thank you, Lord God, for his imputed righteousness in which we now stand before you. We thank you, Lord God, for the covenant peace that he bought with his life of obedience and with his sacrificial death on the cross and by his resurrection and ascension. We thank you, Father, that we come not before your presence in our own works, but in the clothed righteousness that we have in Jesus Christ, our savior.

Father, we thank you for this and we acknowledge and confess before you that as Jeremiah was brought forth to life as it were to serve you, so we have been brought forth this day to worship you, to serve you in that way, and to take your word, to receive this day to all parts of the earth rooting up and then planting. Father, help us this day to worship you correctly. Help us, Lord God, to have open hearts to receive instruction from your scriptures, open ears to hear words from your Bible, and open hands as we leave this place to do your service.

We ask it in Jesus’ precious name. Amen.

Now, let us be comforted and be glad and hear the good tidings of the gospel.

Brethren, if any man hath sinned, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. And he is a propitiation for our sins, and not for our sins only, but also for the sins of the whole world. Believe the gospel and live in peace. Amen. Praise ye the Lord.

Blessed is the man that feareth the Lord. His seed shall be mighty upon earth. Wealth and riches shall be in his house. Unto the upright there ariseth light in the darkness. A good man showeth favor and lendeth. Surely he shall not be moved forever. He shall not be afraid of evil things. His heart is established. He shall not be afraid. He hath dispersed. He hath given to the poor. His horn shall be exalted with honor.

This is found in the book of Job, Job 31:16-28. Job 31, verses 16-28. Job 31, beginning at verse 16:

“If I have repelled the poor from their desire, or have caused the eyes of the widow to fail, or have eaten my morsel myself alone, and the fatherless have not eaten thereof—for from my youth he was brought with me as with a father, and I have guided her from my mother’s womb. If I have seen any perish for want of clothing or any poor without covering, if his loins have not blessed me, and if he were not warmed with the fleece of my sheep. If I have lifted up my hand against the fatherless when I saw my help in the gate, then let mine arm fall from my shoulder blade and mine arm be broken from the bone. For destruction from God was a terror to me, and by reason of his highness I could not endure. If I have made gold my hope, or have said to the fine gold, ‘Thou art my confidence.’ If I rejoice because my wealth was great, and because my hand had gotten much. If I beheld the sun when it shineth, and the moon walketh in brightness, and my heart hath been secretly enticed, or my mouth hath kissed my hand, this also were an iniquity to be punished by the judge, for I should have denied the God that is above.”

In his work entitled The Guide to the Reformed Tradition, Worship, notes the great stress of the reformers on the practice of almsgiving. In fact, in his book he devotes one of the ten chapters of the book strictly to this subject, the giving of alms. Other chapters that receive equal billing, so to speak, are chapters on baptism, the Lord’s day, the ministry of praise, the ministry of the word, the ministry of prayer, the Lord’s supper, and then daily prayer in the life of the believer.

Noting the importance then of this giving of alms in the Reformed tradition of worship, Martin Bucer, who we owe a great debt of gratitude to—he was a Swiss reformer in case you’re not familiar with him—he really did much of the liturgical work of the Reformation. Calvin really used a lot of his material when he got around to reforming the practices at Geneva. He really relied very heavily on Martin Bucer.

Bucer himself wrote a book in 1524 in which he talked about four constituent elements of necessary Christian worship. These elements were preaching and teaching—one element—the celebration of communion, prayer, and the giving of alms.

Now Bucer based this on Acts 2:42, where we read of the early church that they “continued in the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, in the breaking of bread and the prayers.” And he said on the basis of this, Christian worship has these four elements. You may ask, “Well, I can see where communion is—the breaking of the bread. I can see prayers. I can see teaching. Where is almsgiving in this passage?”

Well, the word translated “fellowship” of the apostles is the Greek word koinonia. And it has been translated “communion,” “fellowship,” “communicating,” etc. And Bucer, who is an excellent scholar by the way in the original languages, believed on the basis of his study of this passage and then the use of the word throughout the New Testament that the fellowship of the apostles included the sharing of the necessary elements of material life with the household of the saints.

And so he thought that the fellowship of the apostles here had a direct reference to almsgiving, at least as one item of what that fellowship would consist of. Because of the association then that is between fellowship or communion and the giving of alms, the reformers linked the giving of alms to the communion service itself. And so rather than have the offering in the preaching side of the service, they would have the offering either directly in the communion service or they would have a box at the back of the room where they would worship, and at the end of the communion service the people, upon leaving, would deposit their alms in that box.

It was separate from the tithes, though. In some Reformed churches the practice developed of the alms being brought to the front along with the elements of the communion elements themselves, which were provided by the congregation. And so they saw this relationship between communion and the sharing of possessions, which is almsgiving, which is the subject of our talk this morning as we go through, continuing our series on a biblical model for worship and reforming our worship to make it more biblical.

So this morning we’re going to talk about this practice of almsgiving. It’s not something we normally spend a great deal of time on, but the reformers thought it was quite important. I think it is quite important, and the scriptures do spend a lot of time on it for lots of reasons. And we’re going to discuss then almsgiving this morning.

Now, the word alms itself comes from the Greek word which has the meaning of mercy, and so the giving of alms is a merciful act. And that’s the essential meaning of it: giving material things to those who need things and being merciful to them. It’s not in relationship to their work necessarily. It’s rather the giving of gracious mercies to those who have material requirements.

Before discussing then directly almsgiving, I thought we could spend just a brief couple of minutes considering what I would call the sisters of almsgiving—the sisters of mercy, as it were—other practices commanded of the believer that are acts or demonstrations of mercy and compassion to other members of the covenant community. We’ll consider those things first. Then we’ll go directly to the requirements of almsgiving in the scriptures.

We’ll look primarily at the text from Job in which he gives us a picture of his own acts of compassion and mercy for those less fortunate in his society and his time. Then we’ll look at some of the theology behind this. We’ll look at the aspect of almsgiving as worship, and then talk about the necessity of almsgiving for Christian reconstruction.

So first we’re going to talk about the sisters of mercy, so to speak—three practices which are commanded of us which we’ll just do in review. Now there are tapes available on these, I think, at some length and from other sermons, but I do think it’s important that we review these things periodically to make sure we’re all tracking together.

First of all, there is the poor loan. And I’ve listed the references there from Leviticus 25 and Deuteronomy 15. And the poor loan is a requirement of believers who have the ability to loan.

In Leviticus 25:35, it says: “If thy brother wax poor and fallen in and is to fallen in decay with thee, then thou shalt relieve him. Yay, though he be a stranger or a sojourner, that he may live with thee. Take thou no usury of him or increase, but fear thy God that thy brother may live with thee.”

So this is a brother, member of the covenant community. He may be visiting. He may be from another area outside your tribe, but nonetheless you’re to extend a poor loan to him. If he is poor and has a tremendous emergency or need that can only be alleviated by a great inflow of money or some money, then it’s not an option for the believer, for the professor of faith, for a member of the covenant community to loan to him or not to loan to him. If you have the means, of course you’re not to impoverish your own family. But if you have the means, you are commanded here: “Thou shalt relieve him” when he comes to you for this sort of requirement.

That command is repeated in Deuteronomy 15:8, again talking about a poor man who’s in your gates of your land. And it says: “Thou shalt open thine hand unto him and shalt surely lend him sufficient to his need for which he wanted.”

And so the poor loan is one means of mercy or compassion to those less fortunate who have fallen upon very hard times.

Now, notice here in these requirements a couple of things. First, as I said, it is a command that you have to loan to the very poor. These loans that are required of them. Secondly, it is to the brother who has, in the words of Leviticus 25:35, “fallen in decay with thee.” So he is in an advanced state here of declension as he’s wasting away before your very eyes, so to speak. He has tremendous need for the material sustenance of life.

And so it’s a very wrenching sort of situation—wrenching poverty—the person finds himself in for whatever reason. Perhaps it’s a physical disability that he suffered. Perhaps it’s an act of God, a storm or something that’s destroyed his crops. Perhaps it was bandits or something. The point is you have a requirement to help that person in his need. And one of the means whereby these people are relieved is through the administration of a poor loan.

Note also, as I read from verse 36, that there is no interest allowed on this. Now you may say a loan isn’t necessarily merciful or gracious because you’re going to get the money back. Well, two things should be considered there.

First of all, when you make such a loan to a believer, to a brother in the Lord, you’re to exact no interest from him. That makes it an act of mercy. That makes it an act of helping him at the expense of yourself. See, money has an opportunity cost to it. If you have money, you can invest that money. You can invest the goods or services or the capital that you have, and those goods and services will then increase as you invest it. To loan somebody money for a period of time—six years or whatever it would be—means you don’t have the opportunity to use that money to make more money.

Remember, the unfaithful servant was the person that took the money, put it in the ground, didn’t even earn interest on it, didn’t invest in anything profitable. We’re to be using our capital that God has given to us productively. Of course, we know that’s a parable to our spiritual talents, but it has reality in the physical world as well, in the material world. We’re to use the talents God gives us productively. There’s an increasing amount of money produced from the money that he gives us. So we don’t get to do that with the money we loan to somebody, and so it costs us money really.

Secondly, this loan is to be forgiven in the sabbatical year. If the poor man couldn’t pay it back by the time the sabbatical year rolls around—the year of release, the seventh year—then the loan was forgiven. You had to just say, “Okay, well, you know, in God’s providence, you couldn’t do it. That’s okay.” So these things are at this—the poor loan is an act of mercy.

Now, the poor loan serves as a model to us, I think, as well as a requirement to us. It is a requirement in terms of a brother who is extremely poor, who decays away before our very eyes, as it were. If he comes to us and we have means to loan to him, then we should—we have to—that’s a requirement to us. But it also could serve as a model to us for loans within the covenant community.

Now, to meet the requirements of the poor loan, we have several factors here. We said the person has to be very much in need for sustenance of life itself—is the idea of the term. They’re decaying away. And as I said, there’s a sabbatical release of the debt. The loan has to be acquired by the poor person from a member of the covenant community. It’s not supposed to go to a non-believer for this. It’s within the covenant community itself. And then also, as I said, there’s no interest, and the release in the seventh year.

I guess I point out those requirements that seem rather obvious from the text here because sometimes people start thinking of poor loans in different ways. They start thinking of loans for houses or loans for other requirements that people have and call them poor loans. Technically speaking, the poor loan, which is a requirement again, is not these things. It’s the loaning of money to a person for an absolute requirement to keep him alive. Ownership of a house today is not necessary to keep a person alive, for instance, but so it’s not a one-for-one situation.

If a brother comes to you and says, “I need a house. Could you loan me money?” you have no requirement to loan to a person for that kind of need or for other sorts of needs that would capitalize themselves. But it can serve as a model to us. The idea of extensions of loans to brothers who have requirements such as houses or other things that they may want to invest in or might need to capitalize themselves—loans could serve as a model certainly. The prohibition of interest on loans within the covenant community I believe is a binding one from scripture.

I should say quickly that I don’t believe it’s a binding one outside of the covenant community. The parable seems to indicate that some interest on some loans are certainly appropriate, and it’s appropriate to have a person outside the covenant community. It’s appropriate to loan to him upon interest. That isn’t necessarily inflationary because the economy produces more goods and services as people work.

But in any event, the poor loan is a technical requirement for those in dire straits before us. And it is a model for us to help people within the covenant community obtain funds which they would otherwise have to go outside the covenant community to a banking institution or some other pagan structure or financial institution in today’s world. We’re to help them avoid that. We’re to help share our resources, invested as it were within the covenant community, graciously, not requiring interest for it.

Okay, so that’s one of the sisters of mercy, as it were, to almsgiving—the poor loan.

Secondly, there is gleaning, and the laws for it are found in Leviticus 19:9 and 10 as well as many other scriptures. And again here there’s a requirement that a person who owns land and has a field leaves the corners of that field for gleaners, for those who are poor among us.

Now this was the major means of alleviating poverty. The poor loan, as I said, is a rather unusual situation for a person who has a tremendous emergency that he needs money for right now. The normal means of alleviating poverty according to Old Testament standards was gleaning. The idea was you had productive land. You wouldn’t harvest the corners. People could come in and glean. Hard work, but still they could sustain their family that way through work. And this was the primary method of biblical relief of those who didn’t have the means independently to sustain themselves and their families.

Now, the act of gleaning had an obligatory nature to it. Again, you had to leave the corners of your field for the poor. And as I said, it was a means of sustaining people. But in addition to this, it was also a means of motivation. It was a means of motivation because the gleaning was to occur in the corners of the field and not in the center of the field—meant it was harder work. The corners of a field are harder to harvest.

There was work involved in that. Then he was able to sustain himself through work. The poor person was. But he was also encouraged to get his own field eventually so he could harvest the center of it more productively. And so gleaning was harder work than normally harvesting a field would be, and it was on the corner—that’s because it was on the corners of periphery. It was a fallback mechanism essentially for people outside, for whatever reason, have been removed from their normal vocational calling.

We have a fallback mechanism within the covenant community. Corners of fields could be gleaned and sustenance could be given to that family in exchange for work and some amount of benefit.

Now it was an act of grace though. It was an act of grace. It was a requirement to leave the corners of the field and not harvest them yourselves, but instead to let the poor people harvest them, and they could get—they then had all the means of—they could eat whatever they got or they could actually sell it for sustenance as well.

Like the poor loan, gleaning was required for the people of God. Now I believe that the gleaning law is a standing law that’s not been rescinded or changed by God, and so it remains enforced today. If that’s true, then we have to figure out how to apply it today. The poor loan is pretty easy. If you find somebody that’s real poor and needs a loan immediately, that’s a pretty easy thing to understand. But how would we understand gleaning?

Remember that the gleaning requirement is a law given in the book of Leviticus to a particular case or situation. And that situation was an agrarian economy where land was essentially the primary and virtually only means of production. And so the principle behind this is that you are to let other people less fortunate than yourselves involve themselves in the means of production that God has given to you by which you normally sustain yourselves.

And so today, if you own a business, for instance, you will have corners in that business—areas that you could take all the profit away from every little thing you do and do that and take that profit to yourself, or you could leave those corners of your business, as it were, for those other people who are poor in the community and who desire to sustain their families in a biblical fashion. Have those people come in and glean those corners of your field or of your business in that sense.

And so if you have a mail order business, perhaps there is labeling work or mailing work itself that you could have see as gleanable resources to become a community. If you’ve got a printing business, maybe there’s legwork that needs to be done that again would be seen as a gleanable resource. If you have a business that is ideally oriented but needs to be printed or maybe input into a computer or something, that could be seen as a gleanable resource to your business.

But even if we don’t own our own business, we still all of us have some degree of gleanable resources because we all have homes. We all have things that break around those homes, yards that need to be taken care of, etc. Now, we can save money if we do all that stuff ourselves and clean all the corners of our domicile, as it were. But if there’s a member of the covenant community who, for whatever reason, needs to sustain his family now, it is wise and appropriate and I think in obedience to God’s law to let him come into your home or to your business and glean those corners.

Now, this is a real practical thing that is very easy to implement within the context of the covenant community when people fall into periods of unemployment for whatever reason. We should all be thinking of things that we could have that person do around the corners of our house, so to speak, or the corners of our business, and we should pay them a good wage for that. To keep it motivational, however, unless it’s really the vocational calling of that person to do that sort of work, it probably the wage we give them should be less than what they normally would make in their vocational calling because the idea is they want to be motivated to get back and to look for work and continue to go back to the vocational calling that God has given them instruction in performing.

Okay. If you have questions with any of this later, please ask them. But it’s very easy to apply.

Now, the one thing the church can do to help in this matter is to be a resource conduit for information. If you have gleanable resources that come up at a particular time in your business or whatever, let the deacons know. Let myself know. And if you have a need for sustenance in your family and, for whatever reason, you need to get some work now to pay for the food, put food on the table, pay for the rent or whatever it is, again, if you can’t arrange an individual within the church, come to us. We’ll hook you up with people that have sustainable resources. Very easy to apply, and as I said, it’s the primary method in the scriptures of alleviating poverty—that is not chronic, wrenching sort of stuff like the poor loan would help—but rather means of sustaining people in periods where their productivity has diminished.

Okay. Third, we have the mercy aspect of the tithe—the mercy aspect of the tithe, which some have referred to as the poor tithe. I don’t believe it really is that. We’ve talked about this a lot in the church. I’ve listed the references there. A portion of your tithe was to be used in terms of the Promised Land when people of Israel were in the actual boundaries of the Promised Land where God had set up a central sanctuary in Jerusalem.

In that context, the tithe was to be distributed normally at Jerusalem, but then in the third year there would be the giving of a portion of the tithe to widows, to strangers or aliens in the land, and to the fatherless or the orphans. And so there was an aspect of the tithe that had a merciful thrust to it. The same way that a portion of the tithe was used to finance the going up to Jerusalem and rejoicing before God, so a portion of the tithe was to be used to demonstrate some amount of benefit.

Now, the theological basis of this is very important, and I want to read a passage that helps us understand why God requires these things of us. This passage is found in Ezekiel 16:48 through 50. Listen carefully.

“Behold, this was the iniquity of thy sister Sodom, pride, fulness of bread, and abundance of idleness was in her and in her daughters, neither did she strengthen the hand of the poor and needy. And they were haughty, and committed abomination before me: therefore I took them away as I saw good.”

So the sins that led to the destruction of Sodom were not just the sexual sins that we often talk about. Certainly those were involved. But notice here: they did not strengthen the hand of the poor and needy. That was part of the iniquity of Sodom. So the failure to help those less fortunate is grouped in with the other great sins of Sodom.

Now, I found in the book of Ezekiel 16:1 through 14 a picture of how God related to Israel, and I think it’s very helpful for understanding the theological basis of why we must give alms.

“Again, the word of the Lord came unto me, saying, ‘Son of man, cause Jerusalem to know her abominations.’ And say, ‘Thus saith the Lord God unto Jerusalem: Thy birth and thy nativity is of the land of Canaan; thy father was an Amorite, and thy mother was a Hittite. And as for thy nativity, in the day thou wast born thy navel was not cut, neither wast thou washed in water to supple thee; thou wast not salted at all, nor swaddled at all. None eye pitied thee, to do any of these things unto thee, to have compassion upon thee; but thou wast cast out in the open field, to the lothing of thy person, in the day that thou wast born.’”

So here we have the picture of an infant cast out. An orphan. An abandoned child.

“And when I passed by thee, and saw thee polluted in thine own blood, I said unto thee, when thou wast in thy blood, ‘Live; yea, I said unto thee, when thou wast in thy blood, ‘Live.’ I caused thee to multiply as the bud of the field; and thou hast increased and waxen great, and thou art come to excellent ornaments; thy breasts are fashioned, and thine hair is grown, whereas thou wast naked and bare.

“Now when I passed by thee, and looked upon thee, behold, thy time was the time of love; and I spread my skirt over thee, and covered thy nakedness: yea, I sware unto thee, and entered into a covenant with thee, saith the Lord God, and thou becamest mine.”

So God finds Israel as an orphaned, abandoned infant and takes her in as his own.

“And I anointed thee with oil, and clothed thee also with broidered work, and shod thee with badgers’ skin, and I girded thee about with fine linen, and covered thee with silk. I decked thee also with ornaments, and I put bracelets upon thy hands, and a chain on thy neck. And I put a jewel on thy forehead, and earrings in thine ears, and a beautiful crown upon thine head. Thus wast thou decked with gold and silver; and thy raiment was of fine linen, and silk, and broidered work; thou didst eat fine flour, and honey, and oil: and thou wast exceeding beautiful, and thou didst prosper into a kingdom.”

So God takes this orphaned, cast-off infant and elevates her to royalty. He provides for her every need. He clothes her. He adorns her with jewels. He feeds her the finest of foods.

Now, the way this relates to our obligation to give alms is this: I found in the beginning of Ezekiel 16 as God just finding his situation. We know that God in his providence brought all that to pass. He brought it to pass because he wishes to demonstrate his compassion and mercy. And so he brings us into a state of orphanhood. He brings us into a state of strangerness, as it were. Demonstrates compassion to us.

Jesus said that Elijah went to one widow. There were many widows. He went to one widow. And Jesus said, “I’ve come to a particular people, my elect community.” And so he describes us as a widow. Correlating it back to Elijah going to the widows. So God says, “I’ve made you no longer a widow. I’ve taken care of you. I’ve become your father. I’ve become your husband.” Jesus is our husband. “And I’ve made you—you’ve come into my land, you’ve become part of my family now.”

And that’s a demonstration of that at communion downstairs. It’s a very vivid demonstration that we sit at the table of the king, being made part of his family.

God has shown that grace and compassion to us. And if we believe that, then we’ll understand the great requirement we have to turn around and demonstrate that grace and compassion to those that, in God’s providence again, he has brought into our path and who are less fortunate than us and who have need to be shown grace and compassion.

You see, the theological basis to all this—as we acknowledge our own needfulness before God—we’ll get back to that in a couple of minutes.

Okay. So those are some of the requirements of the covenant community: poor loans, if you have means to make loans to people that are in very dire straits, can serve as a model to make other sorts of loans in the covenant community. Again, it’s prohibited to charge interest to a covenant member, and the sabbatical year of relief should be kept in mind.

Secondly, the idea of gleaning, and that’s the major way to alleviate poverty or times of need of sustenance for a family. You give gleanable resources to those that don’t have gleanable resources. And then third, the mercy aspect of the tithe, in which we extend grace and compassion, demonstrating that we understand that’s what our standing with God is—the basis of his mercy and compassion. So we demonstrate that by the giving of grace and compassion to those that God has brought into our paths who are less fortunate than we are again.

Okay? All requirements.

But there is another requirement here—the fourth of this set of four that I’m describing this morning. And this is the actual giving of alms. And this should be seen in differentiation from these other things. The giving of alms is not the giving of the mercy aspect of the tithe. It’s not your tithe. It’s not the tax that God levies on his people to do these things. It’s not the poor loan. It’s not gleaning. It’s something else besides that.

It is the giving of necessities to those around us—not based upon these other laws of God, but upon a lifestyle that seeks to identify and then meet needs.

Now, I’ve listed the first point under the giving of alms itself. Its requirements are, first of all, an accumulation of the means to give, and that’s a very obvious thing, I suppose, when we talk about Job. And we’re going to be talking now about the text we read from Job 31. Job was a man who had great means of giving, and so riches are not a bad thing from God. They’re a good thing that God has given to us, and one of the reasons he does give them to us is so we might share with those who don’t have things. And so we all should be seeking to increase our own personal property, as it were, for one purpose of which is to share with those who don’t have.

And so the accumulation of means is important to recognize in all this.

But secondly, there’s also the identification of the recipients and the recipients’ needs. And we go to the text now to understand who these recipients were, and we get some clues from who Job helped and who, as a model, we should also be helping with the giving of our alms today.

Job helped those who are truly needy. First of all, we read in verse 19, for instance: “If I have seen any perish for want of clothing or any poor without covering.”

We read in verse 17: “If I’ve eaten my morsel myself alone, the fatherless have not eaten thereof. Okay? He says no, I didn’t—I didn’t act like that. The fatherless was part of my family from the day I was young. He was brought up with me, and I guided the widow from my mother’s womb.”

So first, there are those who are truly needy. They need—they have requirements of the necessities of life. The verses as we just read talk about the physical covering necessary to protect us from the elements, the need for sustenance in terms of food to protect us from fainting away. The very term used for poor here has the idea of somebody kind of becoming narrower or shallower and kind of fading away again.

Now, in addition to these specific needs of food and clothing, there are a couple of other things here that may not at first seem obvious, but I think are very important to recognize.

First of all, there is counsel that is also seen as a need of the widow. Notice in verse 18, he says: “For from my youth, he that is the fatherless was brought up with me as of the father, and I have guided her.” That’s a reference back to the widow from my mother’s womb. So if part of the way that Job demonstrated compassion and grace to the widow was by guiding her, by giving her counsel—because her head, as it were, that God gave her to help her and to nourish her and protect her and to guide her in life—has been now taken away in God’s providence. And so the need for counsel for the widow is a real one that Job saw and met.

Additionally, there’s a need for justice demonstrated in these verses. Look at verse 21: “If I have lifted up my hand against the fatherless when I saw my help in the gate, then let my arm be broken.”

The gate here is the place of dominion or rule in the civil sense. And he says that even when—now this verse is interpreted a couple of ways by different people. One person thinks that even when the poor was unjust against Job, he would still demonstrate compassion to him, even when he could win a case of law against the poor person. Other people think that he didn’t make use of the power that people that are in positions of authority and power can wield over the poor and so trample their rights underfoot.

Either way, the point is it’s a judicial reference that’s being made here. Job, for whatever reason, could get help in the judicial case that he was involved with against the poor, but he didn’t make use of that help to oppress the poor.

And so there’s the sense here of justice being also a requirement of those again who have less external means of support than we do. Now we can see that in our land today, and you see it and you think this is necessarily new and novel. It isn’t. The poor have always suffered in courts of justice. If you’re rich today in America, you can afford a much better lawyer than if you’re poor. And so they have a need for justice.

The point is, when Job talks about these things in the context of his almsgiving and of his demonstration of grace and compassion to those less fortunate, he touches on some central aspects here. As I said, he touches upon food and clothing—those who were needy—and he touches upon their economic need. But he also touches upon their judicial need—of justice in the gate. And as we said in terms of the widow, he touches upon their intellectual need or their prophetic need of counsel.

If you’ll notice there, that matches up very nicely with the three-fold aspect of man. Man has been given a prophetic nature, a priestly nature, and a kingly nature. And in all those things, there are requirements. And the person who seeks to help those around us who are less fortunate looks for those central areas of need and then seeks to meet them through the means that God has given to him.

But there’s one final dimension to this that is very important for us not to ignore as well—a fourth dimension that Job adds to the other things that he helped the poor with—was a life of communion or a life of fellowship in the context of family.

Notice when he says in verse 17: “If I’ve eaten my morsel myself alone, and the fatherless have not eaten thereof.” And then he says to his defense: “Here, for from my youth he was brought up with me as with a father, and I have guided her from my mother’s womb.” The point is he included those people in his family from his earliest days. The fatherless was brought to his table, had table fellowship with Job. And table fellowship—hopefully remembering back to what we talked about a couple of weeks ago in communion and how meals are a sign of covenant and of family and coming under the jurisdiction and protection of the one who gives you food, etc.

You understand the basis of all this is that the people that were outside—we were outside—we found ourselves in the same state. We were—our natural parents forsook us. And God showed us mercy and grace. And that’s the basis of our obligation to the others that he’s brought into our path. And so we demonstrate by that by the giving of grace and compassion to those that God has brought into our paths who are less fortunate than we are.

So we have then the identification of the recipients—those who are truly needy in their food, their clothing, their economic needs, their justice, and their counsel needs. And then also there’s another important factor that we need to consider when we’re identifying recipients: there’s a moral or spiritual requirement involved as well.

Let’s look at verse 16. In the first half of that verse we read: “If I have withheld the poor from their desire.” Now, the word “desire” here is interesting. It’s not just any desire. It’s a desire that’s connected to their actual need. It’s a correct desire. For instance, if a person came to Job and said, “Job, I desire to have you give me money so I can go get drunk,” well, that’s a wrong desire. That’s a desire that’s contrary to the law of God. And we’re not supposed to give it to him. And that obviously is completely unbiblical to support somebody who would do that sort of thing and increase their bondage to a drug or to a sin.

But what Job is saying here is that he helps those poor who have correct desires—then who have a desire for sustenance, for justice, for correct counsel from him. And so that’s a criteria of those who are going to identify to be a recipient of our almsgiving. They must be identified through their correct desires. And that certainly puts a qualification upon just indiscriminate giving.

Okay. So you have to have accumulation of the means, identification of the recipients and the recipients’ needs, and then there is a development of the desire to help people. And this is very important as a counterbalance to what we just said in terms of discriminant giving, which is taught by the first half of verse 16.

We read of man in Matthew 6, verses 1 and following, where Jesus gives us instructions about alms—not to do your alms before men to seek external reward, but rather to do your alms in secret, and then God will reward us. The point of that is that our motivation for our almsgiving is essential to what we’re doing. If all we’re trying to do is be obedient and show people that we’re being obedient without any thought for the person that we’re giving the aid to, that is condemned by Jesus in Matthew 6 and many other scriptures as well.

2 Corinthians 9:7 says: “Every man according as he purposes his heart so let him give, not grudgingly or of necessity, for God loveth a cheerful giver.”

The word that’s translated “cheerful” there is the Greek word hilaros, which is the root word for our “hilarity” today. And so people have written about the idea that God loves a hilarious giver, who is absolutely joyful over the fact of giving his alms to those who could use those alms. And that is the context of 2 Corinthians 9. He’s not talking about somebody who’s joyful in giving the tithe. That’s expected. He’s talking about people who are joyful in giving above and beyond the tithe to help those less fortunate and that God has in his providence brought into their path.

Well, discretion, as we said, is extremely important. As we mentioned in the last point, a proper desire to give must be part of our mindset when it comes to almsgiving. We must actively seek out recipients of our aid.

Calvin comments on this in his sermon that he gave on this particular portion of Job. And I wanted to read from it. And you’ll notice here, if you’re familiar with Calvin, the typical way Calvin preaches—he kind of goes back and forth. He says, “Do this, but then also do this thing over here.” And I’ll read a portion of this now.

He says: “Must we give to all men without discrimination? The answer is that the Holy Spirit does not wish to take away discretion from all giving so that men would have no regard for how their goods are used. For if we should go to it without discretion, every man would be, as it were, drawn dry, and in the end the poor would be left helpless. For the boldest, as they say, would carry away everything. And what manner of men are the boldest? Such as are least able to be pitied, for they will pretend to be poor only to take all to themselves. Their only seeking is to have double and trouble, and they hardly care if other men suffer hunger and thirst.

Therefore, it’s said that men should be prudent and look carefully to whom they give, especially considering the lewdness that is nowadays in this world. For there are so many hypocrites that it is a pity to see. Hardly will a man find one among a hundred who is worthy to be helped.”

And we thought our times were bad. Well, pretty typical condition of sinful man, I suppose. He goes on to say: “For although they are poor indeed, yet no one knows how to do them good because as soon as they get anything, they fall to gluttony and drunkenness.”

And we would add drugs to that kind of drunkenness.

“And so God makes them waste it all away. To be brief, we have come to the full measure of all iniquity, in so much that we ought to use great discretion and carefully scrutinize when we give. But in the meanwhile, let us beware that we seek not cover for our stinginess under the shadow of prudence. For God does not condemn it that men should have regards to whom they give, so that the gift may be well bestowed.

No, but it behooves us first to be fully resolved after this manner in ourselves. As for me, I mind not to spare according to the measure that I have. I will do good according to my ability. I desire nothing more than to find where I may help. Meanwhile, our diligence and inquiry must not be too exacting. For in doing good, it is impossible not to be cheated. And though we may take pains and to discriminate, we cannot avoid giving some alms to those who are not worthy of them.

And this is also why St. Paul exhorts us not to be weary in well-doing in Galatians 6:9. But we shall have many hindrances in so doing. We shall see immediately that there will be wags who slander us. Unthankfulness will follow. All of which would discourage us.”

In summation, he says: “That is, that we should have a humane heart inclined to pity and compassion. That we should desire to do good and to help those who have our need of our aid and that we should not cause those who wait for us to languish, but rather we should have an open heart in order that the hand may be opened when necessity requires it. This in summary is what we have here to observe.”

So Calvin, in his typical back and forth fashion, is saying: “Yeah, you gotta be discriminant in your giving. You don’t want to give to people who are going to use up all your substance. You can’t help truly needy people who want to use that for proper means. But on the other hand, in our sinful nature, that’s a great excuse for stinginess on our part. And if you find yourself trying to help people after a period of five years or so, never having helped anybody because you never found anybody worthy enough, you’ve got to begin to suspect there’s sin in your heart.

What you’ve gotta do is purpose. And I want you to purpose this morning that you are going to give alms to people and you are going to help people. Be discriminant. Yes. But purpose in your heart to develop this desire to really help people that God sends in our path who have needs.

Now, Job says in verse 18: “From my youth he was brought up with me. I’ve guided the widow from my mother’s womb.” Job says that he had developed this desire early on in his life, and that should be a clue to us—maybe—that Job’s parents were pretty good people. Now certainly there could have been a gifting from God that is extraordinary being referenced here. But beyond that, Job’s youth, he helped the fatherless because his parents, undoubtedly, is the meaning here, helped him to understand the need to demonstrate compassion.

I was going to say this morning that this is very important for us to recognize that this is a central area of our Christian faith that we must teach to our children. We must teach our children the correct use of our resources. But then I realized that actually we do teach our children the correct use of our resources—or the incorrect use. Whatever we’ve done to this point in time with our children in our homes has taught them. And if they haven’t seen us demonstrating compassion and concern for those less fortunate—bringing in the fatherless or the widow or the poor who don’t have enough to eat into our homes for sustenance or for counsel or for help in courts of justice—if they haven’t seen us doing that, then we have instructed them that it’s not important to us.

Now, if that’s somewhat convicting, well, it is for me too. I happen to have a little boy who isn’t a lot like Job in this manner. He lately he’s taken to demonstrating his own selfishness and how he doesn’t want us to share what we have with other people. Well, I don’t say that to put down one of my sons that I’m talking about. I won’t tell you which one it was. But it—that is natural man speaking there, isn’t it? We all want to hold fast to what we have. We don’t want to give it to somebody else who might take what we have. That’s natural man. We’ve got an expected attitude in our children. We’ve got to teach them.

The word of God says we gotta demonstrate compassion and grace. And one of the great ways for doing that, as Job mentions here, is to have them in our house and have our children see what we’re doing in terms of the giving of homes and compassion. We should be—we should be developing the desire to help those in our community today with our children now, from this point on in their lives, the way that Job was developed in his desire to do that.

So there’s a desire that balances out the discrimination and giving that we’ve talked about. And then finally, there’s of course obedience to the command. It doesn’t do any good to have this great desire and compassion and to find people that have need and then not to follow through and to do these things.

And so there is obedience to the command. And as I said, this is an essential commandment or law to Christians. I’ve listed some verses there.

Jesus in Luke 11:41 is a very interesting verse. He’s telling the Pharisees: “You wash the outside of the cup and don’t take care of the internal part of the cup.” He talks about their hypocrisy. And then he says: “But you should rather give alms of such things as you have, and behold, all things are clean unto you.”

The point is that Jesus equates the giving of alms with salvation and with the purification of one’s heart from God’s good grace to us. You see, he’s told the Pharisees: “You should be believers in God and you should be submissive to his will and you should be renewed by God and have all things clean in your life.” And the demonstration of that is the giving of alms. It’s tied that much to the centrality of the Christian faith.

In Acts 9:36, we have the description of the disciples coming across a certain disciple named Tabitha, who is also called Dorcas. “This was full of good works and alms deeds which she did.” Good works and alms deeds. The two things go together as a demonstration of the Christian who understands the grace he’s received from God and gives that grace to others.

In Luke 19:8, we often think about Zaccheus, and we hear Zaccheus as a good proof text for a New Testament example of restitution according to the biblical laws. But Zaccheus is more than that to us because we read that Zaccheus stood and said unto the Lord: “Behold, Lord, the half of my goods I gave to the poor. If I’ve taken anything from any man by false accusation, I restore him fourfold.”

He made restitution. It’s important to recognize in obedience to the law of God. But also in obedience to the law of God, he gave half of his goods to the poor. He demonstrated the charity required of him by the giving of alms.

And so that’s what we have to do as a congregation. And individually, we’ve got to identify the poor in our land. We’ve got to identify the people whose desires are correct. We must be discriminate in our giving. We’ve got to identify the essential needs that they have. Those needs are certainly physical or material or economic. But they’re also judicial needs for justice in the courts, and they’re also prophetic—they’re also in terms of intellectual development. They need counsel and guidance as well.

We’ve got to find these things. The fatherless today—some of us, some people I didn’t, my daughters did, and I think some other people from church here participated yesterday in the walk for life. We said before that today the fatherless—the truly fatherless in our land—the great bulk of them are being aborted every year by their parents who have forsaken them.

And so working to get rid of abortion in our land is a demonstration of grace to the fatherless. And for every crisis pregnancy center person that goes into a CPC and gets counseled and decides not to abort the baby and instead to have it, there’s an act of grace and compassion shown to them by the people who have supported that CPC. That’s support for the fatherless.