GOD’S WISDOM FOR YOU
PROVERBS 22:7-9
7 The rich rule over the poor,
and the borrower is the slave of the lender.
A poor person doesn’t need to apologize for his circumstance. Jesus was one of the poorest men who ever lived. But “a poor man is honored for his knowledge, while a rich man is honored for his wealth” (Sirach 10:30). That assumes that the poor man isn’t a fool. But it underscores that the rich, the famous, the beautiful, or the powerful are usually honored for all the wrong reasons. But a poor man? He is only honored if he shows his wisdom. Yet a poor man is usually ruled over by the rich in some way. Certainly, anyone who owes a debt understands this. Do not postpone paying a debt. But at the same time, never assume that a debt owed to a man is more vital to repay than a debt owed to God. If you make a vow, keep it at once, whether to God or to man, because death may appear like a snare snapping up to capture a bird, and you only embitter your family if you leave your debts to them (Colossians 3:21).
Above all, praise Jesus Christ for paying the debt of sin that you owed. Consider all those who reject Christ, or who know him and still reject the payment he made for their sins? What will become of them in the Judgment? They will be slaves of torture and punishment for all eternity, and all the more bitter because they had been told about Christ, confessed faith in Christ, but turned away from it in the end and brought all their guilt and shame back onto their own accounts. O Jesus, keep us steadfast in your Word! Keep us secure in our faith in your forgiveness, now and evermore!
8 He who sows wickedness reaps trouble,
and the rod of his fury will fail.
The first half of this verse is crystal clear. The second half less so. The phrase “the rod of his fury” can’t really be translated any other way. But what it means is a mystery. The most likely application is that a man who sows wickedness is a man who stirs up trouble wherever he goes—he carries a rod of fury with his mouth, or in the way he thinks about life, or maybe even in his hand. He is violent, and for the spread of the gospel, he is useless. But if the man reaps trouble, then this rod of his fury—his words, his way of thinking, or his actual weapons—will fail.
The rod of the Lord’s fury is never caused by arrogance or greed or fear. It is his justice. “With justice he will give decisions for the poor of the earth. He will strike the earth with the rod of his mouth. With the breath of his lips he will slay the wicked” (Isaiah 11:4). “He has set a day when he will judge the world with justice by the man he has appointed. He has given proof of this to all men by raising him from the dead” (Acts 17:31). The difference between God’s fury and man’s is that man’s fury is always the result of sin in man, and God’s fury is always the punishment of that sin. And it will never fail.
9 A man with a generous eye will be blessed,
for he shares his bread with the poor.
Why is this true? Because God provides for us most often through natural means, but when the poor have nothing, then God provides for them through his people.
How will we act when someone is in need? Our history in this nation is to be rough with the poor, especially when they appear at the doorstep. We tend to judge the poor without even listening to their story. Most of us do not realize that many of us—a great many of us—come from families that did not fare well in the past. The Dust Bowl, the Irish famine, the lean and dark years of the World Wars, and going back just a little further, the complete devastation of Europe when Bonaparte ransacked a continent and left a trail of blood and famine in his wake. It was the generosity of a very few, including the churches, that carried the poor through those dark times. When a nation like ours becomes more and more divided, there is a great gap between those who have and those who do not. When those who have—the rich—become convinced that the poor have nothing because they are lazy, then the rich have found an excuse to do what they want rather than what God wants. “Good will come to him who is generous” (Psalm 112:5). “A generous man will prosper” (Prov. 11:25). To those who want to be more generous than they are able, there is even this encouragement from Paul: “You will be made rich in every way so that you can be generous on every occasion, and through us your generosity will result in thanksgiving to God” (2 Corinthians 9:11).
When I know the depth of my sin, and the depth of God’s forgiving love, then shouldn’t my generosity find new depths as I live to thank God for what he has given me?
In Christ,
Pastor Timothy Smith
Archives by Wisconsin Lutheran Chapel: http://www.wlchapel.org/worship/daily-devotion/
Pastor Smith serves St. Paul’s Lutheran Church, New Ulm, Minnesota