Because I delivered the poor that cried.
The use and application of wealth and authority
These words naturally lead us to reflect on the noble use and improvement this venerable person made of his former prosperity; to consider our own duty as represented to us in his example; and the proper objects of our compassion.
I. The proper use and application of wealth and authority. The distinctions which arise from power and subjection, from riches and poverty, from ease and affliction, appear so unequally and irregularly divided among men, and with so little regard to moral reasons, that by some superficial observers they have been formed into an objection against the wisdom and justice of God. But they execute a wise and regular scheme of providence; are necessary to preserve the order and economy of human society, and unite and endear mankind to one another. Wealth and authority must be acknowledged to distinguish us only as superior servants, appointed by our common Master, to do justice in the family and give everyone their meat in due season. We are not to imagine these favours are indulged us merely for our own sakes, to enable us to live in splendour and ease. The poor have a right and property in the abundance of those who are better supplied. Neither is any man farther justified in engrossing and hoarding up the common bounties of heaven, than may consist with this claim. These pleas of natural reason and justice religion has enforced with the authority of a positive command. With regard to the object, we are to observe, that both the obligations of the duty, and the measures prescribed to it, are under some limitations; for though our benevolence is required to be universal, yet our abilities are confined to a much narrower compass, and therefore oblige us to choice and distinction in the external applications of our charity. The motives that should prevail with us to comply with these great obligations, laid on us by justice and our religion, are that inward joy and complacency which flow back upon the soul from acts of mercy and liberality; and above all, those inestimable rewards which the Gospel has taught us to expect from these duties; pardon of sin here, and the eternal treasures of heaven hereafter.
II. The words allow us to take some inferior views into the account. While we are employed in the exercise of beneficence and charity, we appear in the venerable character of substitutes of God, commissioned by Him to reach down and distribute His blessings among our fellow subjects. On the returns of gratitude from the objects of our charity, and from the world who are witnesses of it, we are permitted to reflect with pleasure as a present encouragement designed by God to excite and reward our virtue. The other motive here proposed for our encouragement, the blessings of those whom we relieve, is in its nature properly religious; derives all its force from a conviction of our dependence on Providence, and the efficacy of human prayers. (J. Rogers, D. D.)
Eyes to the blind
That is not egotism. It is not the utterance of a puffed-up spirit. Egotism is too frequently the child of the shallows. Rarely, if ever, does it issue out of a deep and troubled heart. Egotism flourishes best where profound sorrow is least known. And here is a man who is overwhelmed with sorrow. Death has darkened every window in his home, and he is burdened with the weight of an almost intolerable grief. This is no place in which to find light, egotistical speech. Whatever words this man may speak will be crushed out of him by the very burden of his grief. It is a man going into his yesterdays to find some solace for the sorrow of today. He is calling upon memory to provide a little heart’s ease for his present bitter distress. Thrice happy the man who can call such memories to help him in the hour of his distress! “The poor that cried,” and “the fatherless,” and “those ready to perish,” and the “widow” and the “lame” and the “blind” still make their appeals in the land, and it is true today as ever that the only Christian response is the one that was made by the patriarch Job. I have noticed that controversy about the distressed and the unfortunate is often regarded as a substitute for their relief. Abstract discussions often result in misty speculations which only obscure one’s personal duty. It is often the case that controversy abounds where sympathy should reign. Again and again we find this illustrated in the experiences of our Lord. You find controversialists discussing the abstract question why such and such a man was born blind, while the blind man himself was soliciting practical aid. I believe that there is a vast amount of suffering and distress which might be effectually checked by some rearrangement of our social and economic conditions. I do not think that in these matters legislation is altogether impotent. At any rate, we can see to it that legislation puts a premium upon virtue, and not upon vice. But when legislation has done its utmost, misfortune will still be with us. In the presence of these things, surrounded by them on every side, what is the Christian attitude? The attitude of the patriarch Job. Christianity is a gospel of compassion and practical help, and to be devoid of these things is to be altogether an alien from the commonwealth of Israel. This is not new. The youngest child in this assembly could tell us that Christianity without helpfulness is a great absurdity. But while we all know these things, the danger is that we have got the right ideas without the correspondingly right feelings. It is so easy to be orthodox in mind but heterodox in heart; to have Christian ideas, but non-Christian feelings. Our Christianity may be intelligent but not sympathetic. What we want is the orthodox feeling united to the orthodox thought. How is this to be attained? I do not think we shall ever have a really deep feeling for our fellow sufferers until we have deeply suffered too. You begin to pray for the sailors when your own boy is on the deep. When you have a crippled child what a heart you have for the maimed! It sometimes seems as though God cannot draw us together in common feeling without taking us through a common sorrow. There is nothing so welds hearts together. I know of nothing more pathetic in the life of Browning than the reconciliation of himself and the great actor Macready. They had been close and intimate friends, but for some trifle or other they quarrelled, and each went his own way, and for years their helpful intercourse was broken. Then came a great trouble. About the same time they lost their wives, and a little while after, as each was walking out in his loneliness in a quiet way in a London suburb, they suddenly met face to face, and Browning, with a great burst of emotion, seized his old friend’s hand, and said, “Oh, Macready”; and Macready, with an aching heart, replied, “Oh, Browning.” That was all they could say to each other, and in the fires of a great and common grief the two severed lives were welded again. But if we have not been deepened by suffering, we can do something to deepen ourselves. Let us get face to face with realities. First of all we can remember the old trite commonplace that “truth is stranger than fiction.” We can find more pitiful things to weep over in any one street in this city than in all the works of fiction which may issue from the press in the course of the year. I don’t know what Christ will have to say to people who weep over their novels, but who never weep over the great cities as He did because of their distresses and their woes. (J. H. Jowett, M. A.)
Sympathy should be practical
An Italian coastguard officer reported a shipwreck to his Government in these words: “We saw the wreck, and we attempted to give every assistance possible through the speaking trumpet. We shouted ourselves quite hoarse, and notwithstanding which next morning twenty corpses were washed ashore.” A well-known Scotch professor used to tell this story, and add: “Too much of our benevolence is of the speaking trumpet variety, and even this we boast about. The Samaritan of the New Testament represents the benevolence of which the world stands in greatest need.”
Piety and riches
I. The text shows the nature of a truly righteous and powerful character, aided by great secular possessions. Job was very rich; he was also very pious
1. His impartial justice.
2. His broad charity.
3. His timely assistance of the needy.
4. His exemplary leadership.
In all these we see a truly powerful and noble character. Piety, charity, justice, grandly blended and exemplified. We see at least” that there is no incompatibility between a holy character and vast secular wealth.
II. The text shows that the most perfect piety is no security against the loss of great secular abundance. Wealth may go, but piety shall remain.
III. The text shows that the rich pious man, being in danger of losing his wealth, should, while he possesses it, use it wisely. This should inspire us--
1. To promptitude and liberality in our gifts; and
2. To a right discretion of the objects we support. It would be difficult to estimate such a life as is here set forth. A rich good man abounds with resources of good in every direction of God’s glory and the welfare of man. And if so be that the wealth be taken from us, we never lose our piety, which is the far greater possession. (Thomas Colclough.)