Dennis Tuuri

# Sermon Transcript – Reformation Covenant Church

Our subject for the sermon text will be from 1 Timothy chapter 5 and we’ll be talking about widows, the role of the family, the church, and the state relative to widows. And we’ll see in that text that widows are supposed to have lived life in conformity to God’s word in humility and service. That picture of the perfect bride of the Lord Jesus Christ, the perfect woman, perfect widow now married to the Lord Jesus is given to us in Proverbs 31.

And so I’ve chosen that for our responsive reading today. “Who can find a virtuous woman? For her price is far above rubies. The heart of her husband doth safely trust in her so that he shall have no need of spoil. She seeketh wool and fl—” I was at a meeting Friday night. I was at a dinner where Ocean and Dick and Dorothy Carmen, head of the umbrella organization for many of the support groups in the state—Christian support groups of homeschoolers—had a symposium on Saturday for leaders from homeschool support group leaders.

They had arranged to have three attorneys and one staff member fly out from the homeschool legal defense association, including the man who was the co-founder of that organization, Michael Ferris, J. Michael Smith and a couple of other attorneys. And so yesterday there was a presentation right in the morning till 5:00 and I came on at 3:30 to kind of give an overview of what our plans are for the homeschooling laws in the state and then was joined by the three attorneys on a panel discussion and question answers about the laws and that sort of stuff.

And Friday night we had a dinner with the board members of OCEAN and their wives. I was there and two of the attorneys were there and the staff member from HSLDA and that was—I didn’t realize that was sort of the preparation for Saturday so that I could talk specifically to the lawyers about our plans and get advice and counsel from them and commitments from them, by the way, to help us write the legislation.

So it was an excellent weekend for me. It made it very busy but it was good. We’re in the conversation Friday evening after the dinner and the discussion that was going on, one of the men asked—one of the board members from OCEAN asked the attorney, “What do you recommend or what do you have for people? I got a call from a single woman whose husband’s divorced her, whatever. She wants to homeschool her kids. What can we really do to help single women homeschool their kids?”

And the answer, you know, was, “Well, you know, there’s the family and other homeschool support groups.” And tangentially, the subject of the church came up and one of the attorneys said, “Well, you know, there’s something in the Bible about you know I think you have to be 60 years old or something but the church has a responsibility to widows as well and really the church should be more of the support mechanism for such cases but they’re not today and so you know the homeschool support group etc.”

There’s virtually no churches, they said, that you know would help a young widow in terms of her desire to keep her children out of government schools and you know I felt good. I sat back I didn’t say anything but I just felt good that I know of at least a couple of different instances here at Reformation Covenant over the last decade where we did have single women with children that had a desire to homeschool and the church institutionally did help and the church members helped and we were able to move to keep those children in the context of homeschool and even at Christ the Sovereign Covenant Church the last two years that same situation played itself out.

I’m also pleased that these single women that I’m thinking of also you know became married in the context of that time frame as well and another obedience in terms of Paul’s command we just read relative to young widows.

Now widows—I use the term widow to speak of one who is left alone and desolate either through the death of a husband or through the covenantal death, the excommunication of a husband or the forsaking of the faith.

And I just say that because I think it’s important to be thankful to God that as we look at this text first we want to see that yeah we as a church you know we’ve understood some of these things and we’ve done it in the power of God’s spirit and I’m pleased about that. I’m pleased about the members of this church and what this church has done and what Christ the Sovereign has done in years past in this particular topic.

I am sure of course though that our obedience is not full by any stretch of imagination and not mature. So I think it’s important to mature and I want us to talk about this subject today and actually next week as well. We’ll spend two weeks on this portion of scripture and I’ll deal primarily with the younger widows next week and the difficult phrase of what it means to wax wanton against Christ and suffer damnation and all that stuff that looks a little odd when you first look at it.

I’ll address it a little bit today but mostly that section next week.

Now before we get started I did want to say too that this is in the context of koinonia. This is in the context of chapter 5 which talks about the household life of the family of God. And we spent three weeks on verses one and two and last week talked a little bit more about brotherly love and I spent one of the main topics I talked about was stumbling blocks and then apparently I did use some illustrations that actually caused some people perhaps to trip a little bit.

So I wanted to apologize for that. I didn’t mean to recommend the Hunchback movie, the Disney version of that, particularly in the week following Southern Baptists. I don’t know if you know or not the Southern Baptists have been calling for a boycott of Disney because of homosexual approval by the Disney organization, etc., etc., etc. But anyway, I don’t mean to suggest that Hunchback is a great movie.

I mean, it’s typical Disney these days. It’s universalistic. The Esmeralda sings about how we’re all, aren’t we all children of God? You know, she’s in the cathedral and, you know, it’s universalistic. It’s not Christian by any stretch of the imagination, but they’re using a story that was written for more of a Christian foundation of the culture. So they’re stuck with the basic plotline. And so the illustration of Quasimodo could have been used just probably better from the book. So I wanted to make sure that I don’t convey the wrong impression here.

I also wanted to say that I have xeroxed off last week I quoted some from Hodge’s commentary in the book of Romans chapter 14 comments and practical application and it’s three pages and I’ve xeroxed that off. I’ve brought enough copies for every family. I think there was some discussion last week too that this whole concept of the weaker brother, stronger brother—what’s a stumbling block? What’s not a stumbling block?

You know, I think a stumbling block is not getting somebody to be upset in what you’re doing, but an inducement to them to sin. So some of that was left unclear, I think, because it’s maybe a somewhat new concept and maybe I wasn’t clear enough. But in any event, I brought copies of Hodge’s commentary, which I think are very, very good. So they’ll be available in the gymnasium on the handout table and I would encourage you all to go home and read those comments. Hodge was a great Christian man of the past century, a reformed man, believed in reformation truth as we do and I think his comments on Romans 14 are very, very good and applicable.

So I wanted to mention that.

Now, let’s go on to talk about this aspect of koinonia. You know, we were going to talk about koinonia family camp and we sort of got around to it a little bit in the devotional periods, but mostly we talked about courtship. But it’s interesting in the providence of God that really sort of kicked off this series on 1 Timothy 5, which is all about koinonia and the common faith we share and how it’s to manifest itself in the context of the household of God.

So you can see where I’m going with this text and let me say that not all commentators agree with my interpretation of the second portion of this, but everybody agrees with the first portion. What we have in this text is first of all a basic command relative to the church and their responsibility to support certain widows. Okay? So the basic command is to support certain widows. The basic command is stated positively that you are to honor qualified widows in the first couple of verses.

We’ll go over this more slowly, but I want to get to the flow of what we’re talking about here. And then go back over the details and talk a little bit about widows at the end of the sermon. Who are the ones who are the qualified ones? They’re ones who are desolate and who are godly. They’re all alone and they rely upon God. They don’t have a family. If they’ve got a family, they’re not qualified relative to church support.

The family should support them. And if they’re not godly, again, they’re not qualified for church support. Okay. So the two requirements posted for the qualified widows whom the church will support in the first verses 3-8 are desolation or being alone, no family and godliness. And then the command is stated negatively, you know, in terms of the disqualifiers and the fact that the family is supposed to provide for these things in verses 4 and 6 and then the implications of the family for churches are pointed out in verse 7.

“These things Paul tells Timothy give in charge that they may be blameless.” Who’s the “they”? Well, I think it’s the widows. It’s the children. It’s the parents of children who instruct their children. If Timothy is commanding the church to teach something, parents have an obligation to instruct their children in that thing. Parents have an obligation to honor their parents. Grandparents have an obligation in the text to be godly in the sense it’s placed here. Widows have obligations. The church has obligations. So the whole community of Christ at the local church level is to be charged these things that they might be blameless.

So the importance of the command for the family as well as for the church is pictured in verse 7. And then the implications of the command—rather, that all people should—then verse 8 tells us the importance of the command. If you don’t do these things, if you don’t provide for your own family, you’re worse than an infidel. You denied the faith. This is very important stuff.

I was at the homeschool meeting yesterday and Mr. Ferris, Mr. Smith at the end of his talks talking about the importance of maintaining and keeping homeschooling and not growing weary and not giving up. His last phrase was “after all it’s all about your children.” And there’s a sense in which we could say that after all it’s all about your faith. If you don’t provide for your children correctly in terms of their education and upbringing, if you don’t provide for your widows and if the church doesn’t do its job, it is a practical denial of the faith itself.

Why is that? We’ll talk about why that is a little later. But for now, you know, the law—this is the law of God that tells us about widows and about family support. That law says this is real important stuff, folks. This isn’t something to trifle with. Very important. It is central to the Christian faith. So that much all the commentators agreed on. The second half they’re not quite so agreed on.

But I’ll tell you what I believe. I believe we have a specific application of the general command that the church is to honor certain widows relative to church social security, checks. What I mean by that is a permanent role of widows—phrase means to lay down and mark out to enroll, like a soldier or something like that—to enroll a permanent enrollment of certain widows on the church support roles.

Now there’s obligations that those widows are continuing to be godly and of service to the church. But I think that the primary application area is this: which widows does the church know the church is supposed to help all widows? And if you’ve got widows whose families won’t help them, the church isn’t supposed to the church is supposed to ignore that, right? If the family won’t help the widow she doesn’t qualify but still the church isn’t going to turn away from that but she’s not qualified for this permanent role of being on the church support mechanism indefinitely.

I think that’s what’s going on in the second half of this text. Now it gives us truth about young widows as well but I think the primary thing going on is that there is to be a regular role of permanently supported widow class in the context of large churches with churches that have any widows at all who qualify. And so to this particular application there are three criteria. There is the desolate requirement from the first part of the teaching of the text.

There is also the requirement that she be 60 years or older however—an age criteria is placed for the permanent enrollment of certain widows.

Now, I see that all commentators don’t agree. What they don’t agree on is what that role is. Hendrickson and others think what that role is a role of service. It’s like an office almost, the office of widow in the church. They don’t think support is in mind. They think work is in mind. They think we move from support in the first half of the section to work of the widow in the second half of the section.

I think that work is implied, but the primary thing going on is still support. And I’ll tell you why I think that. I think that because the whole section is tied off in verse 16. “If any man or woman that believes has widows, let them relieve them, and let not the church be charged that it may relieve them that are widows indeed.”

He ends with a monetary example again. So I think the section begins and ends with the word honor. The base word for Timothy, you know, “timao”—to honor, to make an evaluation, to give money to—is what it frequently means and it ends with the family supporting church certain widows so the church doesn’t have to support certain widows. And if we find something here in the middle that’s unclear I think that those bookends tell us that what’s still being talked about in the role is financial support for those widows, okay?

So where I’m going is first half: older widow or widows rather in general—church is supposed to support some. Second half: there’s an additional—these widows have to be desolate and godly. Second half, they have to be desolate, godly, and be 60 years of age or older to be placed on the permanent support roles of the local church and the church’s administration of the portion of your tithe that’s supposed to go to widows, aliens, and strangers. Okay, so that’s what I think is going on here.

In the context of that, we learn certain things about why 60 years and older, what about young widows? What’s going on? And we’ll talk more about that next week. Okay, so you see generally where I’m going. And now let’s go more slowly through the individual text itself.

So in verses 3-8 we have the basic command stated and in verses 3-6 we read this requirement to honor certain widows. “Verse three, honor widows that are widows indeed.” Widows that are widows is what it says and then “indeed”—in fact. So the word widow means desolate, robbed of a husband.

But see she’s not totally robbed if she’s been robbed of a husband but has extended family that can help her. Because we go on to read in verse 3, “If any widow have children or nephews, let them learn first to show piety at home and to requite their parents for this is good and acceptable before God.” So we know that if verse 4 says the family is supposed to take care of widows in certain cases, that the charge to honor widows in verse 3 has as its specific application the church institutionally.

Paul is writing to a bishop and a pastor and he’s writing to him about the household of God and the requirements of that household. So he’s saying that the church institutionally is to honor widows that are widows indeed. And they’re not to honor those widows who have extended family. “If a widow have children nephew, let them learn first to show piety at home.” Who is “them”? I believe it’s the children or nephews.

Now the word “nephew” in the King James version, that word means grandchild. It doesn’t mean nephew. Means grandchild. And it’s not a mistranslation. In 1611, the word nephew meant grandchild. And if you look in dictionaries, older dictionaries, you’ll see that grandchild was an obsolete meaning of the word nephew. So in our day and age, the word nephew has changed. But they correctly translated it because that meant grandchild.

So what it’s talking about here is children and grandchildren. These children and grandchildren should learn first to show piety at home. The preeminence of the home. The home is the first church, first and best church for children. It’s the first and best state—disciplined and acted in the rules of justice laid out in the context of the home. And it’s the first and best school. That’s where their education begins.

And here they learn to show true reverence or piety. Remember that word—worship as it were. Piety toward the parent. That was a requirement of officers that they be they conduct themselves in a reverential way toward their family that their family might reverence them in their position of authority. These children are to show piety or reverence, honor, or worship to the widows. And to “requite” their parents, to pay back their parents is what the word means.

You know, you can requite evil upon somebody, pay them back evil. But this is a requirement. These children and grandchildren who are older now are supposed to support widows whose husbands have died and who they have no money to support themselves. It’s your obligation. If you’ve got a mother, adults here in this congregation who cannot support herself, it is not the state’s obligation through the social security system to pay for your mother. It’s your obligation. Okay? The state is nowhere in here. What’s in here is the family and the church.

But today, the family and the church are nowhere involved in the support mechanism for widows. As Al Gore said, everything that’s up is down, and everything that’s down is up. In our culture, everything’s topsyturvy. If you look at the home school laws, the Bible says the parents have authority over children. If there’s one group that should not have to prove anything to the civil state to teach their children by themselves, it is parents. Private schools, maybe you want to have some requirements. Parents should have requirements to let private schools teach. Government schools, if you’re going to turn over the head, covenantal headship in terms of education at the government school, you’ve got a right to insist that they meet certain criteria.

But what is it? We’re the only group that really has to demonstrate the kids have learned anything in the context of the state. The private schools don’t, the public schools don’t. Everything’s turned around. And the only way it’s going to turn back right again is if we do double duty. If we continue to pay our taxes because of our sin to pay for social security and then try to move ourselves and our parents and our children off of support by the civil state and get back to this principle.

These truths say that kids are supposed to pay their parents back. The idea is kids, your parents spent a lot of money raising you and a lot of sweat equity and a lot of other things they’ve done. And you’re supposed to pay him back when you get older. There’s an old proverb. It says that one father can support 10 kids, but usually it takes at least 10 kids to be able to support just one dad because the kids are so stingy and so non-liberal in their gifts to their older father when he’s aged and needs help.

That’s a terrible statement that’s a proverb, actually a well-worn phrase. It’s interesting, by the way, that I found out from another commentator that actually it’s a Dutch proverb and that’s kind of interesting because I wonder if there isn’t a bit of the law of the land—”lex loci”—at play there because the Dutch are notoriously stingy, for one of a better word, and maybe they raised their children to really know the value of a dollar and that kind of turns back on them when the children are older and they don’t want to spend the money on their parents.

But in any event, it’s a proverb that says that 10 kids usually are going to have tough time even supporting one father, not because they don’t have the means but because they don’t have the desire. But the scriptures say that it should not be so. Here at Reformation Covenant Church our children should be raised with the knowledge that if their parents are destitute in their old age those children have a positive obligation before God to requite their parents and to honor and reverence their parents and widows by providing support for them and this is good and acceptable before God.

The basic command is stated here: “She that is a widow indeed and desolate”—alone, no extended family, trust in God, and continue supplications and prayers night and day.

See, here’s the second requirement. First requirement for the church to get involved—no family to help out, or maybe the family doesn’t have the means, but no ability beyond the widow herself to provide for her support. Second qualification: “She that is a widow indeed and desolate trusts in God and continues in supplications and prayers night and day.” The word “trust” in God here is an aorist tense that says she has done it so long. She has hoped in God. Put her trust in God. Put her hope in God and not men. So long that it’s a regular thing. It’s part of who she is. There’s no will required on her part. She’s established a well-worn pattern of hoping and trusting in the Lord God. And the same with continuing in supplications night and day. That’s what she does.

So the second requirement for the basic command of church support of widows is that they be godly. That’s stated then negatively. “She that liveth in pleasure is dead while she lives.” Oh, that’s a tough phrase, isn’t it? Well, you don’t know the half of it yet till I tell you the half of it because it has implications for you. This word “pleasure”—it says that there’s some widow here that is the walking dead in the context of the church. That’s what it says.

Well, what kind of person is God going to describe as the walking dead? Must be a real bad person. Must be a widow who hates God or who robs from people or maybe she’s a prostitute or something. I don’t know. What kind of woman would it be that’s described by God as dead while she lives?

Well, this word “lives in pleasure” is only found in one other place in scripture and that’s James chapter 5. And I’m going to read verses 4 and 5 of James chapter 5. “Behold, the high are the laborers who have reaped on your fields, which is of you kept back by fraud, crieth out, and the cries of them which have reaped are entered into the ears of the Lord of Sabaoth.

So he’s talking here about businessmen who don’t pay their servants a good enough wage. And then in verse five, “You rich businessman have lived in pleasure on the earth and been wanton. Ye have nourished your hearts as in a day of slaughter.” Okay. So there’s a difference between living in pleasure and being wanton. Being wanton refers to perhaps sexual promiscuity. Pleasure might have a tinge of that context to it.

But the primary meaning of the word “pleasure” is a life of idleness. Idleness. Lensky in his commentary says this: “She’s the merry widow. Admirers give her a good time. The word is exactly right. It does not say that she is sensual, but somewhat suggests it. She is mostly full of gay pleasure and enjoys the money spent on her.”

Here’s what Calvin says about this word: “She leads the easy and luxurious life. Thus, in my view, Paul is criticizing those who abuse their widowhood in this way so that they lead a life of pleasant idleness, loosed from the marriage yoke and free from every annoyance. For we see many whose care is only for their own freedom and convenience and who behave with too much levity.”

Calvin goes on to say: “To me a more suitable meaning is the woman is said to be dead when she is useless and good for nothing. For what purpose is there in living except that our deeds should bear fruit?” Paul says that the widows who live in idleness, who think that now that they’re released from a husband, they got no work left to do in life, they’re retired. Retired widows who live in idleness and maybe are then lured into some degree of sensuality. But the primary meaning according to Calvin, Lensky and others is idleness or luxuriate. They luxuriate in their status of not having anything to do. And Paul says that’s the kind of wickedness in the world that describes somebody as the living dead.

Now, that’s interesting, I think, because we have an entire nation. Not everyone, but I mean the vast majority of seniors in this country—this is what the whole point is. Everything that’s up is down. What you should be doing in your old age is to show the strength of God to the next generation, to be faithful, reliant upon God, to serve the church of Jesus Christ, the body of Christ. That is done away with. And instead what you end up with—your whole goal is to retire at 62, 65, 70, whatever it is, and luxuriate. Your goal is to die before you die. Your goal is to die the first death first—in terms of being useless for the Christian kingdom—and then wait around for the visible manifestation of that.

I heard a joke this week. I think it was when Rush Limbaugh—Larry King was—I guess you know the gal that helped Mrs. Clinton have conversations with Mrs. Roosevelt was on with Larry King and Larry called up or had a conversation with Arthur Godfrey, radio person and TV personality of the past. He had a conversation with him and Limbaugh said, “We would have known that it was really a real conversation if Arthur Godfrey would have said, ‘Well, I’ll tell you what, Larry, there’s two people dead here and only one of us know it.’”

I don’t want to put Mr. King down, but his point was that in terms of actual work or productivity, Mr. King is not that productive. Well, that’s what’s being talked about here. You know, there are widows who die and are dead. There are widows who are alive and who just simply live in idleness, and they’re dead already, Paul says.

So that’s the basic command and the negative implications of it from verses 4 and 6. The family must provide. The widows must be godly or else they’re not qualified in the context of what this text tells us to do.

Now to read on then verse 7, “These things given charge, they may be blameless.” And as I said, here is really where it’s all about in terms of the application to us. I’ll come back to that in just a second. But the point of that text is that there’s a lot more going on than just instructions to the church individually, to everyone.

Verse 8, “If any provide not his house. If they don’t receive this instruction of verse 7, if they don’t receive in charge, and as a result are not blameless, but rather are blameful. If any provide not for his own, especially of those of his own house, he hath denied the faith and is worse than an infidel.” You know, the scriptures say we are supposed to deny certain things. The scriptures say in Titus 2:12 that God teaches us to deny ungodliness, to positively put off ungodliness, to deny it.

But if you don’t take upon the responsibilities of support of widows in your household. If you don’t grow up, if you children grow up and say, “Well, I’ll just let the civil state take care of them or I’ll just let the church take care of them.” If you don’t provide for those of your own household, you’ve denied the faith. It says you haven’t denied ungodliness or something in you’ve denied the faith. You’re worse than an infidel.

Why are you worse? Because you have increased knowledge, increased understanding of God’s word. If you drink from God’s word, you’re more responsible to act in conformity to it. The infidel has a degree of knowledge enough to condemn him, but he doesn’t have the specific knowledge that you have hearing this instruction from God’s word today. He doesn’t know what’s really right because he’s rejected God’s law. You’ve taken it upon yourself. You know what the law requires now. You have no ignorance excuse left.

If you’re sitting here and you think I’ve positively taught to you what these scriptures teach in terms of support of our older parents in their old age, you know you’ve got a requirement now. And if you deny it and you let your parents starve or turn to the church or to the state and receive the sustenance from them, then this text says, I mean, if you don’t care about those things, you’ve denied the faith. Who worships an infidel?

So it’s very, very important. I think, by the way, remember, we’re talking about the household of God, right? That’s what First Timothy is all about. And I think that this means that if a church has widows who are qualified—desolate and godly—and no help from their extended family and doesn’t help them with the church and instead links them up with the social security system, I think that the implications here is that church now has members in it, officers of it who have denied the faith worse than infidels.

I think that’s what it says. So I think the implication is both for the family but also for the family of God at the church. This is a very important thing is what I’m saying.

Then the second section begins in verse 9 and I think I’ll reserve most of that for next week except that we do see more of a description in verse 10 of what this widow who is a godly widow is all about. Looking in verse 10, that—well, actually reading in verse 9.

“If she’s to be taken to the roll she must not be under three score years old. She got to be 60 years old having been the wife of one man.” In other words a one-man sort of woman the way the elders be a one-woman sort of man. It doesn’t mean she can’t be divorced and remarried; it means that she always should have attended to one man, the wife of one man, “well reported of for good works”—that’s those are the two qualifications. She must be the wife of one man, faithful to her man and she must have had good works in addition.

And then he then he gives some questions to ask to determine if she really did have good works and here are the questions: “If she had brought up children—wives, I hope you take mothers, I hope you take great comfort in this verse.” You know, if you’re wondering about if you ever do good works for the kingdom of God, this text tells us explicitly the very first way, the very first criteria for manifesting good works on the part of a woman is to have brought up children. That’s what you’re about. It’s your vocation. It’s your calling before God if he so blesses you with children.

But that’s your first good work. And women in this church, don’t feel guilty if you’re not doing a lot of evangelism or Bible studies or neighborhood visitation. And that’ll come. But right now, you’re doing that stage of good work where you’re bringing up children. It’s a great work before God. It is the qualifying sort of work to say if a woman has been godly or not.

And I thank God. I thank God that this church has taken care of covenantal widows. I thank God that in the context of this church, the women of this church have gladly reared children and desired even more children. You know, this text is a ringing indictment against the women of our day and age who don’t want kids. They’ve rejected their essential vocation and calling before God for the sake of fulfillment as a person.

But God says that your first and best fulfillment is to bring forward and raise godly children.

Now it does go on from that. What else do you do in the context of as these things go? Maybe you don’t have kids. The children are grown up. What are some of the other questions? “If she has lodged strangers”—in order to receive benevolences from the church, she must have distributed benevolences to strangers. In order to get grace, you’ve got to give grace. Okay. So has she demonstrated that heart that understands the need to display what some have called the royal virtue of giving of grace to strangers?

“Has she lodged strangers? Has she washed the saint’s feet?” The first two had to do within the home. Has she raised kids in her home? Has she done the work that’s required as her husband wants to bring people home to lodge strangers and to show hospitality? And then outside of the home in context of the church, has she washed the saints feet?

This is a synecdoche. This is a phrase of speech that sums up all service in the context of the institutional church. Doesn’t mean has she literally washed all the people at church’s feet. It can be that in those day and age feet had to be washed as people came into a building. But what it’s talking about is ministering in the context of the local church. Works of service is what she’s supposed to engage herself in.

“If she has relieved the afflicted”—okay, actually gone out and helped other people who needed help and assistance in the context of the extended family of Christ and then the summation of that is “has she followed diligently every good work and then the younger widows refuse”—and we won’t deal with the younger widows today but I did want to go through some of those criteria for widows because that really is the picture, ladies, of who you’re to be in Christ.

That’s the picture of the extension of the great acts of mercy and grace that your life is supposed to be characterized by for the next 30, 40 years so that if God forbid somehow you end up penniless as a widow are still at RCC, this is stuff you’re supposed to look at to see how well they do.

Now, let me just briefly mention that if a person is newly converted to the faith, these are evidence. These are not requirements. Each one of them, these four questions, these “if” statements are statements to see if the widow is godly. She doesn’t have to do all four of them. There are four ways to indicate her godliness and her commitment to the Lord Jesus Christ instead of her idleness and luxuriating. Okay. So I’m not suggesting that if people haven’t done this, if a newly converted widow comes to the church penniless, we certainly should support her. And as she manifests godliness, we should add her to the permanent roll of support for the church.

That’s the idea. I’ll talk more about the idea of permanent versus non-permanent support of the church because of the young widow thing next week.

But I really have sort of reached an end of the text now to talk about the basic understanding of the command and then there are implications for all of us. I want to touch briefly before I close about this whole why widows are so important. Why is the failure to provide help for a widow a denial of the Christian faith and in fact put the person in a position of being worse than an infidel?

Well, let me read you first of all from the case law of the Old Testament a couple of references which you probably know. “Thou shalt neither”—this is from Exodus 22—”Thou shalt neither vex a stranger nor oppress him for you were strangers in the land of Egypt. You shall not afflict any widow or fatherless child. If you afflict them in any way, and they cry out at all unto me, I will surely hear their cry.”

If you don’t do what’s right toward the widow, she cries out to God. God’s going to hear. What’s he going to do? “My wrath shall wax hot, and I will kill you with the sword, and your wives shall be widows, and your children fatherless.” It’s a big deal. It’s a real big deal, our relationship to widows.

“Deuteronomy 24:17, ‘Thou shalt not pervert the judgment of the stranger, nor of the fatherless, nor take a widow’s raiment to pledge. But thou shalt remember that thou wast a bondman in Egypt, and the Lord thy God redeemed thee then. Therefore I command thee to do these things.’” And then “Deuteronomy 27:19, ‘Cursed be he that perverts the judgment of the stranger, fatherless, and widow, and all the people shall say, Amen.’”

The scriptures teach over and over again that widows are part of that class with strangers and the fatherless that are protectively protected by God. Why? Because they’re in a position of vulnerability. Why are we required to treat them differently and to extend more grace, more benevolences, more good works, more money to them than we are to the normal person?

The reason God says is because you were a stranger in Egypt. You, your father was a wandering Aramean before that, before God called him to his home. We’re the strangers and God has ushered us into his house. We’re the fatherless. Our father Adam, dead in his sins, covenantally cut off and God adopts us into his family. And I believe that there’s a sense in which we’re the widows as well—that are the picture in the scriptures of the ultimate vulnerability. A woman is more vulnerable than a man. A widow is more vulnerable than a woman who has covenantal headship or has early—young, or particularly an older widow that has strength.

So the old widow is the absolute picture of the poverty of all humankind to do anything to help itself. And God says that’s who we are. We’re widows in our natural state. We cannot help ourselves. We are thrown off. We’re unable to bring blessing to ourselves. And God has graciously showered upon you blessing upon blessing upon blessing.

When our Savior preached, as recorded in the book of Luke chapter 4, his sermon in the synagogue on the coming of the year of Jubilee and the year of release, they didn’t like it and he said, “Well, you know, there were many widows in Israel but God sent his prophet to one widow who was a gentile widow and there were many lepers but God sent the other prophet to a leper, a leprous gentile. You see, the leprous gentile, the leprous widow are the picture of all of us. And the Jews in Jesus’s hometown of Nazareth didn’t understand that because they believed they had some sort of natural privilege. They were better than Capernaum. They were better than those other cities.

God says, ‘Forget that. You’re that gentile widow. You’re that leprous gentile. Even if you’re born in Israel, even if you’re born in the context of Reformation Covenant Church, you’re that widow and that leper that God has relieved and redeemed. What did the prophet do for the widow? He gives her life from death. Her son dies and he brings the son back to life. And God pours his blessings out upon us.

Now, if you don’t open your hand and pour blessings to those who are leprous or those who are widows, you don’t understand what salvation is all about. You don’t understand the vulnerability, the complete death throws you were in as God came to you and called you to salvation. To deny the extension of grace to widows is to deny that God extended that grace to us, that we were ever in such a state to be fatherless, a stranger or a widow. And it’s to have pride and that’s a denial of the faith itself because the faith says that our salvation is totally of God’s grace.

You know, in the book of Acts, as Peter is concluding his ministry as recorded for us in the book of Acts chapter 9, there’s a couple of widows that are worked with in the context of the book of Acts in chapter 9. Peter goes to two people before he goes to Cornelius. Cornelius is a picture of the Gentiles, the first heading out to the Gentiles from Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria. And before he goes to the Gentiles, the two events listed before that are Aeneas who was indebted eight years with the palsy or paralysis—picture of the leprous man in essence a hopeless man—and to Dorcas or Tabitha who had died and who was one of the widows that we read about here.

She was a good widow and all the widows of the church praised her name and Peter raises her back to life. The leper, the sick man, paralyzed man, not actually leprous but still the state of illness before God and incapability, and the widow are shown as being raised up by Peter in preparation for the gospel going out to Cornelius. And later Paul’s ministry in the second missionary journey, he goes to Lydia, again a picture of a widow who was good and who showed hospitality to the church.

Widows are the picture of the gentile world and the picture of all men incapable of coming to salvation of their own. In Acts chapter 6, the mission to the world starts with the preparation of the church through the adding of the office of deacon to minister food to who? Widows. Gentile widows. Same thing. So from our Savior’s sermon through the book of Acts, the establishment of the church, the missionary journeys of Peter and then Paul, we see the prominence of widows as a picture of who we all are in the Lord Jesus Christ.

You’re that widow and God has extended grace to you. And the basis of that grace, you’re to demonstrate that with the proper attitude toward those widows in the context of the church.

Now, this text—I said—had implications for all. “Charge this,” Paul tells Timothy, “to everyone that they might be blameless.” If you’re a child hearing this message, you have an obligation to reverence and requite your parents. And you don’t wait till they’re old for that to begin. You show them reverence now. And the scriptures say that if your life is a habitual pattern of no reverence for your parents, and not try to pay them back for the good things they’ve done for you, then you’re denying the faith. You’re not understanding what the Christian faith is all about.

Children have an obligation according to this text. Parents have an obligation. “If any man provide not for his own household, he’s denied the faith. He’s worse than an unbeliever.”

Now, I know the immediate application is physical support of widows. But what’s more important, physical bread or the bread of God’s word? What’s more important? Well, obviously the bread of God’s word. Fathers, mothers, if you do not minister, provide for—the word “provide” in that text means to think ahead about and to do something about it.

Two things you got to think about: what your children need in terms of the word of God and in terms of all their life, but particularly I’m focusing on the word.