Dr Greg Bahnsen - Proverbs: Proverbs 15:25; 22:28; 23:10-11 (Widows and Property Rights) (Part 69)

Proverbs 15. At the 25th verse, Hear God's word. Jehovah will root up the house of the proud, but he will ascend her of the wicked. Excuse me, of the widow. And then to Proverbs 22, verse 28, Remove not the ancient landmark which thy fathers have set. And then Proverbs 23, 10, 11, Remove not the ancient landmark, and enter not into the fields of the fatherless, for their Redeemer is strong, and he will plead their cause against thee. And for our New Testament reading, turn again this week to James the first chapter. James, chapter one, where I'll read just verses 26 and 27. If any man thinks himself to be religious while he bridles not his tongue, but deceives his heart, this man's religion is vain. Pure religion. And undefiled before our God and Father is to visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unspotted from the world. And thus far the reading of God's word. This morning I wish to address the subject of widows and property rights, as I've already announced. But before I do, I suppose something needs to be said about that subject and its appropriateness for this worship service. The subject seems out of place to most people in a church worship service to get down to the details and the legal ramifications of property and property rights and. And how to deal with one particular segment of our society, one slim portion of our congregation, that having to do with widows. The preconception of many people, I think, is that religion, religion deals with things that are, first of all abstract or platitudinal. Religion deals with broad concepts, general ideas. Religion doesn't get down into the nitty gritty details of life. Religion doesn't deal with those things that are concrete or particular. And of course, that's why many people find religion such a amenable subject, something not at all challenging or upsetting discussion would ever step on their toes or create any animosity or disturb them anyway. Their sins would never have to be revealed. We'd never say anything from the pulpit, being religious, that would upset them. Religion just stays up there in the sky, as it were. Just real vague, real ambiguous, real general. This is kind of ooey gooey love and dependence upon a power beyond us. You've all heard that before, haven't you? I mean, and of course, that's the essence of all religion, isn't it? Once you denude Christianity of its particularity, once you make the religious essence of Christianity, nothing more. But this ooey gooey feeling of love and some vague dependence on a power beyond us. It's not at all hard to think that all religions are essentially the same because. Because Christianity is like others, just this ooey gooey feeling of love and some vague dependence on a power beyond us. The Bible shatters those conceptions. The Bible steps on toes. The Bible gets real detailed, real down to earth. Here we have a heavenly message that has some earthly implications. I say the preconception of many people is that religion deals with abstract and platitudinal things, but their misconception and preconception is also that religion must be otherworldly. We're going to talk about religion. We're going to talk about things pertaining to a life beyond this life. We're going to talk about heavenly matters or about God, whoever he or it or she may be somewhere, somehow, you know, beyond the blue, as it were, somewhere over the rainbow someday. I mean, as long as we can keep it in this kind of Broadway musical, happy ending kind of thing, then religion's all right. As long as it's otherworldly, as long as it's not right here. And the Bible, you see, also shatters that preconception because the religion that comes from beyond the revelation of God and his transcendence has to do with a lot of very imminent here and now details, touches us in this world and impinges upon the way we live our lives. It's very concrete, very here and now, in fact, the subject of the proper treatment of widows as we want to look at today. Far from being outside of the realm of this vague, ooey gooey, otherworldly religious view that most people have, this subject of widows is nothing more but a continuation of last week's message about vain religiosity. What did we just read in our New Testament reading in the Book of James? Pure religion and undefiled before our God and Father. What now? Last week I preached on this subject. I preached on that text. Touched by that. I appreciate your talking about the sanctifying effect of considering what was laid before you from God's word. We all are guilty of vain religiosity, going through the motions, carrying our Bibles and giving testimonies and praying. And yet the substance, the weightier matters of the law are not there. And here's James. He comes along and he says for you, now look, pure religion is this. How many of us went out this week, even those of you touched by the message and said, what can I do to visit the AFFLICTED what can I do to relieve those who are oppressed? What can I do for widows? You see, we still, even in our best intentions, we still, after conviction from a sermon like that, have a tendency to want to otherworldly ize. I know that's not a verb to make otherworldly. Our idea of sanctification, too. God wants us to get involved in the here and now, to get our hands dirty, to get involved with people, to do things that are inconvenient. Isn't that the problem? We want convenient religion. Remember very well how Jesus cleared the temple of those who were selling sacrificial animals and the money changers. And most of us, I think, have a very general conception of what that meant. You need to understand what the offense was. Of course, the money changers often were people who cheated in the exchange. And so you might say, well, Jesus was upset with theft, but he was upset with much more than theft. You see, the reason there were people there selling animals is that the law of God prescribed that you were to take the best of your flock and you were to bring it for sacrifice. But you see, the Jews of that day, that was inconvenient, especially if you lived away from Jerusalem. Here, he'd have to bring this. This sheep or this goat, or even if it was a pigeon, whatever it may be, you'd have to carry it all the way up to Jerusalem. And it's kind of awkward. They didn't have cars and they didn't have refrigeration, and it was. It was a tough job. Plus, it was inconvenient to take the best from your own flock. And so what people would do is they'd go through the vain religious exercise of making their pilgrimage to Jerusalem, and then they would just buy a convenient sacrifice there. Kind of like, you know, buying your mother's Day gift on the way to your mother's house. You know, anything that you can find a way, you know, to kind of go through the motions, well, that's the nature of their religion. It wasn't a Mother's Day gift. It was actually their gift to their heavenly father. But what they said is, we'll get to Jerusalem. What a spot. It was convenient religion. What did Jesus think of convenient religion? He wanted nothing to do with it. In fact, you'll find the end, all the gospels right there. He hates those who want a convenient religion. He. He drove them out of his father's house. This is to be a place of prayer for all nations, he said. And so we have to ask ourselves Is that our problem? When it comes down to the nitty gritty of life getting our hands dirty, our religious commitments are just inconvenient. It's hard to help people. It's hard to go out of your way to defend their rights, to support them and their physical needs or whatever it is. And yet, as James tells us, that's what pure religion is all about. An undefiled religion that we visit the fatherless and the widows in their affliction and keep ourselves unspotted from the world. You know, it's interesting to me that the early church had a very special point of attending to the needs of the widows and supporting them. Come to the Book of Acts, chapter 6. And most Presbyterians tend to look at that as opportunity to learn about church government and how the deacons were chosen and how that office came about. And that's fine because it does teach us that. But the occasion of the diaconal office being established is fascinating because we don't have any lead up to this. Luke doesn't give us any kind of background to say, well, of course they had a meeting one day and said, you know, we really should start loving the widows and do this sort of thing. And you know, things degenerated and they finally needed officers. It starts right in, in verse one of Acts 6, talking about the daily ministration to the widows. That wasn't something that needed discussion, that wasn't something that had to be explained. It was taken for granted that Christian faith deals with the widows. And if you look at Paul's exhortations to Timothy in First Timothy Chapter 5 is a lengthy discussion of how widows should be dealt with in the church and who is truly a widow, and so forth and so on. That was of some concern in the early church, and it's not of much concern in our church today at all, or in many churches. A religious faith that is only dealing with abstract platitudes about a God somewhere out there and some feeling of love, that kind of religious faith that has nothing to do with widows, that has nothing to say about property rights here and now, is just too heavenly minded to be of any earthly good. And God wants nothing to do with it. Pure religion starts with dealing with the here and now in a religious way, helping the widows. And so this morning, no more apologies. We're just going to talk about widows and property rights and see if we as Christians can come to conceptions which would be more pleasing to God and to a behavior that would be more honoring to God as a result of It. In the book of Proverbs 15:25, we see a specific word about wisdom and the treatment of widows. Jehovah will root up the house of the proud, but he will establish the border of the widow. Let's understand who the widow is and why the widow is given special attention in the book of Proverbs. In this verse, who is the widow? The book of Proverbs is written for the most part in terms of literary style called parallelism. I've mentioned this to this congregation before. To remind you, parallelism often is of the sort that duplicates in a second line an idea found in the first, or concepts in the second line are repeated from the first. Sometimes the parallelism is what we call antithetical. That is what you have in the second line is stands over against the first line. It's not a repetition or a synonymous expression or another way of saying it, but it puts it the other way around or it reverses things. And so we have antithetical parallelism used very effectively here, where the two kinds of people dealt with in the verse are the proud and the widow. The proud on the one hand stands over against this category of the widow. The word that is used for proud in this proverb is the same that you'll find in chapter 16, verse 19, where we read better it is to be of a lowly spirit with the poor than to divide the spoil with the proud. Here the word proud is connected with a high handedness dividing the spoil, taking unjust gain from people, and so understanding that this word proud has the sense of arrogance that high handedly makes prey of other people, then you understand why you have the proud in this verse and the widow in this verse set over against each other. Because the widow is the easy prey of the high handed person who arrogantly would take advantage of her. Widows easily become prey to high handed people. I think you know that you don't have to watch TV where it is portrayed often enough. You don't have to watch tv. You know that from your own experience. I'll bet you know that from your own family. You probably know widows in your own family who've been taken advantage of by people in the family. Widows are easy prey for high handed, manipulative, arrogant or proud people. I believe that the widow is referred to here as a leading illustration, but only an illustration, only one illustration of those in society who have no voice, who have no influence, who have no protection. I bet you've seen that too. Not many widows are listened to, you know. We do have the Gray panthers and, you know, groups like that that have done a little bit to overcome that. But for the most part, those who are in their elderly years and especially those who are females that have lost their husbands, their voice is gone, their influence is gone in this society and their protection is pretty low. What you have in the illustration of the widow is the helpless, the one who's the easy prey of the arrogant, who takes advantage of them. We have people here who are readily exploited because of their social disadvantage. It's a social disadvantage that leads to their being not just exploited. Many of us are exploited, but readily exploited because of their awkward situation or their influential situation, or to put it very briefly, because they just don't have a voice, they're not heard. The example that we read in Proverbs 23:10, which is also to be considered this morning, says, remove not the ancient landmark and enter not into the fields of the fatherless. There's another classification in society, not just the widow, but the fatherless, Those who are exploited. In ancient Israel, a child without a father and a woman without a husband were especially vulnerable to abuse, the abuses of the crafty and the cruel. For you see, widows and orphans didn't enjoy male leadership in the home. And lacking that male leadership, they were deprived of protection. They were easily taken advantage of in our own culture. I think the principle then of the widow and the fatherless is illustrated by other, it seems to me, socially disadvantaged people who are easily made prey of. It's not just the widow we must be concerned with in our society. I think of people like the poor, and I mean the financially poor, those who just don't have a lot of, you know, punch in the courts of our land, those who are not often, except when liberals want to trot them out as they're convenient little illustrations, don't appear before senate committees, don't have lobbies and so forth. And get to. Have you ever noticed just the way the bureaucracy works? Do you know what it takes order to get through to someone who's a governing authority in our society? No, I don't think you do, and I know that I don't. And I'm preaching this as much at me as I am at you, believe me. Because we just take for granted that we have telephones and that we can make long distance calls and we can be put on hold and that we know what it is to be bounced from one office to another and finally get the person you need to make an appointment, if they will make an appointment. You see, we have that kind of pushiness and stick to itness. But if you're poor, if you're uneducated and you don't even have a telephone, then you have to walk, of course to the senator's office and then hope that someone will pay attention to you and listen to you. I'm telling you, the poor do not have a voice in our society except again as they are the convenient illustration of those who are really manipulating them. And that irritates me as much as the fact that they don't have the voice in the first place. We think of the handicapped as another disadvantaged social group or the racially despised, whatever the race may be. And in our day and age, that's one thing you can say about racial discrimination. It's taking a variety of forms. But the fact is there are those who because of their race, one way or another, are and do not have a voice in our society. Now what does the Bible tell us about such people who are socially disadvantaged? Proverbs 15:25. Jehovah will root up the house of their oppressors of the proud, who make spoil of them. And he will establish the border of the widow. The attack upon the helpless in society is usually an attack upon their property. Now I don't deny for a moment that there's also violence that is suffered against the person or persons of the helpless. Violent crimes like rape and assault. The poor and the widow and the racially despised do have to put up with that as well. However, what I'm getting at this morning is that the violation of their property takes place far more often, statistically. So much so that that if your property is violated in the city of New York today, you need not even call the police. I mean that's just a dime a dozen report anymore. I'm hoping they will listen to assault and rape charges against people or the accounts of them. But the fact is, if your house is broken too by the police, and that's not a joke, that is the fact, they will call you and tell. I mean, you call them, they'll say there's nothing we can do, forget it. That's how often it takes place. And it's not just in New York. The point is it's easier to attack the property of the poor. And by the way, probably offers greater long term satisfaction to the exploiter as well. Apart from sexual satisfaction from rape, which psychologically is not usually the issue in rape anyway. Apart from that, you see, the attack upon the person of the poor might happen in terms of a momentary flare up of Anger or violence or retaliation. Usually the poor are taken advantage of. The widow is taken advantage of not because you can beat this person up or rape this person, but because they have something you want and they're easy to get it from. Proverbs 15:25 effectively places in parallel. You notice the words house and border. Jehovah will root up the house of the proud. And then here's the parallel. He will establish the border of the widow. The emphasis, of course, is upon property, upon real estate and the dwelling. Obviously, the ethical principle applies generally to all kinds, but here specifically, the widow's real estate is at stake. And what we learn is that God will uproot the house and the household of those who would exploit widows. And yet he will establish their borders. He will establish their real estate and their boundaries. Very good example is found in 1 Kings chapter 21, which we won't turn to to read, but I can recount for you. In 1 Kings 21, we have the story of King Ahab, the last story about King Ahab before he goes up to war at Ramoth. Gilead gets Jehoshaphat involved with him, and Ahab dies in that battle. So the last or, if you will, penultimate story in King Ahab's life, what is it? Well, it turns out that King Ahab is known to secular historians, to those who wrote history, or we have evidences of his life outside the biblical text itself. Known for in extra biblical accounts are his exploits in war, for his victories, for his being a warrior, a victorious one. What's the Bible remember Ahab for? What's the last thing Ahab did that leads to his death? Well, the story is 1st Kings 21. Ahab was up at his northern palace, his summer palace, and he looks next door and he sees this vineyard. And he really likes it, but belongs to a man by the name of Naboth. And so he goes over to Naboth, and he tells Naboth how much he really admires this piece of land and this vineyard that's there, and that he would like to have it. And Naboth says, no, I can't do this. It belongs to my family. It would be an offense, not only against my family, but against the Lord who gave us this property. No doing, Ahab. I want this for my own. So Ahab goes back. Here's an amazing thing. Here's this mighty warrior. The Bible portrays him going back and sulking. His wife Jezebel, finds him and says, what are you down in the mouth about Ahab? What's the matter here. He says, naboth won't give me the vineyard. Jezebel says, well, just who do you think you are, Ahab? You're the king. You can have anything you want. And so here, I'll tell you, here's what you do. And we don't have to go through all the details, but they have a party, and Naboth is invited over to the party. In the midst of the party, certain wicked men stand up and bring false accusation against Naboth, that he has cursed God and the king, and he's judged right there on the spot. And they take him out and execute him. Ahab takes the property. There you go. Violation of property rights. This guy didn't just nudge the borders of the property. He just consumed it, took it to be his own. And you look in 1 Kings 21, 17, 22, Elijah, the man of God is sent. And he says, jehovah says to you, in the place where the dogs licked Naboth's blood, the they'll lick yours next. Well, I'll tell you, that should send chills down your spine when God says, the dogs will lick your blood for what you've done. Secular historians remember hab for one thing. But God has a different scale of values. God doesn't care how successful you are in life. God doesn't care how much you've accomplished or what your great reputation is. Historically. God says, here's what I remember. You afflicted somebody in terms of their property rights, and for this, the dogs will lick your blood. And they did. In Israel, God had granted to each family their own plot of land, and that plot of land was supposed to be treated as inalienable. In Leviticus 25, verse 23, it says that they held their land in perpetuity. That's a good word to try to say a few times. Perpetuity. They could not give up their land altogether. When an Israelite would give up his land, he had to do it on what we today would call a lease basis. You could lease your land, but in the 50th year, in the jubilee year, it had to come back to the family. Now, you can lease that again if you want, but there had to be this constant reminder that God had granted this land, and so you could not give it up. It was inalienable. It was considered an inheritance from God. Joshua 14:1, this is your inheritance from God. God has given you this land. And therefore, it's not just a general ethical principle. It is that. But it's more than a general ethical principle that's involved when the law of God forbids the tampering with landmarks as a way of stealing your neighbor's property by redefinition of the borders. Turn to Deuteronomy 19:14. Deuteronomy 19:14 says, Thou shalt not remove thy neighbor's landmark, which they of old time have set in thine inheritance, which thou shalt inherit in the land that Jehovah thy God giveth thee to possess it. See, that was a convenient way to increase your acreage without paying a cent. See, you set a pile of stones here for the corner of your field and another pile of stones for the other line, and that becomes then the border. And what happens is every week or every month, you go over and you move the stones over a yard. Okay, well, what's the problem? You know, one yard, I mean, we're talking about a big plot, few acres here. One yard taken this month, and another. It's what we call the salami game, right? Slice by slice by slice. What you do is you just nudge. You just nudge the border. Just push it over a bit. Some of them are harder to move than others, but the principle is the same, no matter how difficult it was. It was a way to reduce your neighbor's property, to increase your own and not pay a cent for it. It was theft. Redefinition of the property is theft. And this practice was to be corporately cursed by God's people. In Deuteronomy 27:17. I hope you know this passage where God's people are called together and they are to curse certain things. The third thing in the list, that's to be cursed, Verse seven.