God Cares for the Poor

Leviticus  •  Sermon  •  Submitted   •  Presented   •  1:04:23
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Introduction:
Have you ever driven in a poor part of town and seen all of those title loan and financing places everywhere. They are really nothing more than legalized loan sharks. They pop up in the poor parts of town because that is where people are the most desperate. This is not a judgment on them for going to those places, but they usually have bad credit and have borrowed money before from the traditional places like banks. They often have maxed out their credit cards and can’t borrow money from these places anymore. Their last resort is to turn to these extremely high interest rate loan places to try to pay for things.
These places will allow you to get an advance on your paycheck and borrow at incredibly high interest rates. But what does God think about this. I will tell you that I personally despise these places and feel that they are taking advantage of the poor. They aren’t helping them get their finances in order and budget their money to get out of debt. They certainly are not like the credit consolidation organizations that will help negotiate a lower monthly payment so that you can actually get out of debt.
Well, did you know that God actually has a lot to say about money in the Bible. He also has a lot to say about borrowing money and becoming a slave to the lender. He even gives us instructions on how we need to treat the poor and how we can help. Tonight that is what we will take a look at. We are going to see that God cares for the poor.
Leviticus 25:1–19 ESV
1 The Lord spoke to Moses on Mount Sinai, saying, 2 “Speak to the people of Israel and say to them, When you come into the land that I give you, the land shall keep a Sabbath to the Lord. 3 For six years you shall sow your field, and for six years you shall prune your vineyard and gather in its fruits, 4 but in the seventh year there shall be a Sabbath of solemn rest for the land, a Sabbath to the Lord. You shall not sow your field or prune your vineyard. 5 You shall not reap what grows of itself in your harvest, or gather the grapes of your undressed vine. It shall be a year of solemn rest for the land. 6 The Sabbath of the land shall provide food for you, for yourself and for your male and female slaves and for your hired worker and the sojourner who lives with you, 7 and for your cattle and for the wild animals that are in your land: all its yield shall be for food. 8 “You shall count seven weeks of years, seven times seven years, so that the time of the seven weeks of years shall give you forty-nine years. 9 Then you shall sound the loud trumpet on the tenth day of the seventh month. On the Day of Atonement you shall sound the trumpet throughout all your land. 10 And you shall consecrate the fiftieth year, and proclaim liberty throughout the land to all its inhabitants. It shall be a jubilee for you, when each of you shall return to his property and each of you shall return to his clan. 11 That fiftieth year shall be a jubilee for you; in it you shall neither sow nor reap what grows of itself nor gather the grapes from the undressed vines. 12 For it is a jubilee. It shall be holy to you. You may eat the produce of the field. 13 “In this year of jubilee each of you shall return to his property. 14 And if you make a sale to your neighbor or buy from your neighbor, you shall not wrong one another. 15 You shall pay your neighbor according to the number of years after the jubilee, and he shall sell to you according to the number of years for crops. 16 If the years are many, you shall increase the price, and if the years are few, you shall reduce the price, for it is the number of the crops that he is selling to you. 17 You shall not wrong one another, but you shall fear your God, for I am the Lord your God. 18 “Therefore you shall do my statutes and keep my rules and perform them, and then you will dwell in the land securely. 19 The land will yield its fruit, and you will eat your fill and dwell in it securely.

1. God Cares for the Land (vv. 1-7, 23-24)

A. God Owns the Land (v.1-2)

Leviticus 25:1–2 (ESV)
1 The Lord spoke to Moses on Mount Sinai, saying,
2 “Speak to the people of Israel and say to them, When you come into the land that I give you, the land shall keep a Sabbath to the Lord.
Leviticus 25:23 (ESV)
23 “The land shall not be sold in perpetuity, for the land is mine. For you are strangers and sojourners with me.
Psalm 24:1 ESV
1 The earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof, the world and those who dwell therein,
Application:
How does viewing all the land and our possessions as belonging to the Lord change the way we use them?
Would viewing our possessions as the Lord’s lead us to greater generosity? More humility?

B. God Regulates the Land

Leviticus 25:2–5 ESV
2 “Speak to the people of Israel and say to them, When you come into the land that I give you, the land shall keep a Sabbath to the Lord. 3 For six years you shall sow your field, and for six years you shall prune your vineyard and gather in its fruits, 4 but in the seventh year there shall be a Sabbath of solemn rest for the land, a Sabbath to the Lord. You shall not sow your field or prune your vineyard. 5 You shall not reap what grows of itself in your harvest, or gather the grapes of your undressed vine. It shall be a year of solemn rest for the land.
Because God owns the land, God gets to say what we should do with the land.
The regulations that God put on the land were for the preservation of the land and for the provision of the poor.
Pre-modern Agricultural Practices:
No Fertilizers or Pesticides
Needed Crop Rotation
Needed a Time to Rest
Spiritual Ramifications:
An act of faith and dependence on God
A time to create balance
God’s rules on redemption of property (vv.23-34)
Year of Jubilee:
Prevented the ability to have massive land holdings by a select few
Land was power in the ancient world
Provided a release from debt and a chance to start over (even if it was just for a season = sabbath + Jubilee)

C. God Blesses the Land

If the people would keep God’s commandments, God would keep them in the land and bless the land
Leviticus 25:6–7 ESV
6 The Sabbath of the land shall provide food for you, for yourself and for your male and female slaves and for your hired worker and the sojourner who lives with you, 7 and for your cattle and for the wild animals that are in your land: all its yield shall be for food.
Leviticus 25:18–22 ESV
18 “Therefore you shall do my statutes and keep my rules and perform them, and then you will dwell in the land securely. 19 The land will yield its fruit, and you will eat your fill and dwell in it securely. 20 And if you say, ‘What shall we eat in the seventh year, if we may not sow or gather in our crop?’ 21 I will command my blessing on you in the sixth year, so that it will produce a crop sufficient for three years. 22 When you sow in the eighth year, you will be eating some of the old crop; you shall eat the old until the ninth year, when its crop arrives.
Application:
God doesn’t work by the world’s economic rules.
God has called us as NT Christians to be generous and giving, both in our giving to the church and our giving to the poor. When we are obedient, God blesses us and allows us to be secure. When we disobey, God allows a curse upon our possessions (Mal. 2.2
Malachi 2:2 ESV
2 If you will not listen, if you will not take it to heart to give honor to my name, says the Lord of hosts, then I will send the curse upon you and I will curse your blessings. Indeed, I have already cursed them, because you do not lay it to heart.

2. God Cares for the Poor (vv. 8-22, 35-55)

If you are poor or have very little, know that you are very esteemed in the kingdom of God. God cares for the poor. Jesus was poor when He took on human flesh.
Matthew 8:20 ESV
20 And Jesus said to him, “Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.”
Gleaning laws were to provide for the needs of the poor. There were no social welfare programs. The two ways the poor were to be cared for was through gleaning and through the generosity of the people.
Notice that the gleaning laws still required the poor to go out and gather.
Ruth was a perfect illustration of someone who benefited from these laws.
Application:
If God cares for the poor, shouldn’t we? How can we be generous and not allow people to take advantage of our generosity at the same time.
Keep in mind that no matter what, when you lend to the poor, you lend to the Lord; and God will not default.
Proverbs 19:17 ESV
17 Whoever is generous to the poor lends to the Lord, and he will repay him for his deed.
Conclusion:
Leviticus may seem like an outdated book that has very little value to us, but we can clearly see that it still has much to say to us. We need to listen and pay attention to what the Lord would have us do.
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