Wednesday, April 3, 2024 PM

Justice, Idolatry, and the Prophetic Concern for the Poor

So, in Hebrew parallelism, he makes this first line, what is it? Wash yourselves, make yourselves clean, and then he explains the next line. Put away the evil of your doings from before my eyes. It's not washing your hands that God is saying to them, it's washing their lives through repentance, of throwing away all these evil things that they're doing.

And he's already said, your hands are full of blood. It wasn't the blood of sacrifices. It wasn't the blood brought on by blisters and hard work. It was the blood of the innocent. It was the blood shed by unjust doings.

So, he says, cease to do evil. Verse 17, he says, learn to do good. Seek justice, rebuke the oppressor, defend the fatherless, plead for the widow. So, in this list, we have the oppressor, who is doing what?

He is seeing people in difficult situation and then taking advantage of that and leveraging their difficulties against them to get some personal benefit for himself. He's learned a system of doing that and so he is just doing that to a whole lot of people.

So, this oppressor needs to be rebuked. The fatherless need to be defended. In this case, a family without a father would be a family or an individual or a child without somebody to speak up for that family or that child in the city gates.

Without someone to stand up and say, no, this is right or this is wrong. You're not going to do that to this child. So, the fatherless needs to be defended. The widow needs to be pled for. Who's going to be the voice for the widow?

Who's going to be the voice for the fatherless? Who's going to push back the oppressor? All of this is under the heading of learning to do good and seeking justice. So, learning to do good, the positive of loving your neighbor and seeking justice to push back against those who will be doing evil to the neighbor.

So, God says, this is what I'm interested in. This is what I'm interested in. If they go through the entire rhythm of the religious calendar that God gave them, that is shaped in the image of God, but they don't love God supremely and don't love each other rightly and they're using the created order for unjust means, then it's just pointless.

So, we see there's a connection between whether or not they're worshiping God supremely and whether or not they're loving others rightly. If they're full of idolatry, then they're going to be full of injustice.

Jeremiah on Wicked Men, Deceit, and Covenant Curses

Now, Jeremiah chapter 5 is another passage that will help add to this theme as we're trying to understand it about injustice and how the prophets preached. What were the concerns of the prophets? We're going to find that that was not the only time Isaiah talks about injustice.

Isaiah deals with the idolatry of the people. He also deals with the immorality of the people. He deals with the injustice of the people. It's a very strong theme, but he was not alone in that message.

Now, verse 26 of Jeremiah 5, God has already stated in the previous passage how they are experiencing covenant curses because they are failing to keep covenant with him by the treatment of the others.

Verse 26, For among my people are found wicked men. Okay, well, what do wicked men do? What's their pattern? They lie in wait as one who sets snares. They set a trap. They catch men. As a cage is full of birds, so their houses are full of deceit.

Therefore, they have become great and grown rich. In other words, they are handling their affairs in such a way as to deceive and entrap their neighbor so that by tricking their neighbors in some fashion through ostensibly some business deal or so on and so forth, they make themselves rich because they can get away with this scheme and that scheme.

It's all perfectly legal besides I have the judge in my pocket. This is kind of a wicked man who entraps people and has no fear. And so they've become great, meaning, oh, he's a very well-respected man, except for those that he's oppressing and he's grown rich.

They've done so by unjust means through deceit. Some men are great and rich through righteous means. But these wicked men are great and rich through unrighteous means. Verse 28, they have grown fat. They are sleek.

Yes, they surpass the deeds of the wicked. They do not plead the cause of the fatherless, yet they prosper. And the right of the needy they do not defend. Shall I not punish them for these things, says the Lord?

Shall I not avenge myself on such a nation as this? So what is similar to both passages are both the facts and the acts. There are the facts. There are the orphans. Orphans are there. Orphans are a part of their society.

Their fathers have died, perhaps through some disease, perhaps through war. Perhaps their mothers died giving birth to them. Perhaps their mothers died giving birth to their younger siblings. In any case, here's the facts.

There are orphans. There are the fatherless. Those are the facts. There are also the poor. There are those who don't have a lot, either in terms of knowledge, understanding, and skill, or resources, and so on, and they're just poor.

Those are the facts. They don't have the kind of character, energy, zeal, health, so on, to be more than what they are. There they are. There are the poor. Those are the facts. Also, there is the widows.

The widows who are needy, who do not have strength of their own, who need someone to take care of them. They are there.

Okay.

Those are the facts. This is not the evidence of an unjust society. The fact that there are orphans does not mean that that's an unjust society. The fact that there are poor, even generationally poor, does not mean that that is an unjust society that has poor among them.

There are widows. The fact that there are widows does not mean that the society in and of itself is unjust simply because of the fact that there are widows. The facts of hierarchy, that there are those who are wealthy, knowledgeable, skillful, who are powerful, and have that ability to rule, the fact that they exist does not make that an unjust society, that they are different than those who are poor and don't know a lot and are basically born to follow and make their way in a more subsistence level.

The fact that those disparities exist does not make the society unjust. God is not pointing the finger at the Israelites and saying, the poor ought not to exist. The fact that the poor exist means that you're unjust and you are a disgust to me.

That's not what he's saying. It's not the facts of those disparities and those hierarchies. It's the acts toward the poor, toward the widow, toward the orphans that God is concerned about. He's not calling for, as we would in Ezekiel 22, God rebukes the princes, those who had the title of prince and lord and ruler, and how they would respond and do this or that concerning the society that they were responsible for.

God is concerned about how they act towards the oppressed, how they act towards the widow, and so on. He's given a lot of instructions to Israel in their covenant about how to do that. We talked a little bit about that last time, about how they weren't supposed to reap to the corners of their fields and they were not to pick up the little bits of grain and things that they left behind that was for the gleaning.

They were not supposed to take a second pass over their vines and their trees to get every last fig and grape, but they would leave that for the poor, for them to work. The poor would walk through someone's vineyard and be able to eat a handful of grapes as they passed through.

There's a ton of rules about how to treat. If somebody was living on their daily wage and they had to work that day to get the food they needed for the next day, you never kept the wage with you. You always paid the man his wage as soon as he was done with his work.

There were all sorts of things that they were supposed to do as a society in their acts towards the poor, towards the orphan, towards the widow, and they were not doing that because they did not love God supremely.

Therefore, they did not love each other rightly, and injustice filled their society. Again, let's be clear. I'm trying to emphasize this. The facts of the poor doesn't make an unjust society. It's the acts of how we treat the poor.

Jethro’s Counsel and Fair Judgment in Israel

Another example out of the book of Exodus, also in Deuteronomy. Do you remember Jethro? What a great name, Jethro. How Jethro counseled Moses and says, Look, you can't just be the one judge for this great people.

There's too much. You need to appoint men who have good character, who are wise, who are just and fair, and you make them accountable and responsible for 10 men, and then for 100 men, and then for 1 ,000 men.

So you would have this system, a tiered system of judges, essentially, to hear cases and settle issues. Those judges were instructed and they were told to be fair and honest and true, to not be partial to the rich who could pay them extra money underneath the table, and they were also, it says, not to be partial to the poor.

Do not rule in favor of the poor because he is poor. Do not rule in favor of the rich because he is rich, but rule the truth. Those were the instructions given to God's people, how they were to treat one another.

So again, when God did that, he was not saying, Here are the judges for your people because your land needs justice. Why does your land need justice? Because of the facts that some people have more than others.

No, he didn't say that was injustice. He said how you treat those people will determine whether or not you are a just nation or an unjust nation. So I'm emphasizing that, I think, because you understand the modern context that we live in, that the common idea is that the very fact of poverty or the fact of authority disparity, just the fact that not everybody has exactly the same, means that there's injustice somewhere.

That's not biblical, that's Marxist. So when someone takes up the word of God and they look at the prophets and they say, Look, it says do justice, and we need to do justice, which means that we need to eliminate poverty.

They didn't get that from the Bible. Jesus says the poor will always be with you and you may do them good whenever you wish. Oh, that's awesome. What a freedom, what a liberty to be kind and do good for the poor whenever we wish.

That's a joyful thing, to be generous and to help the poor whenever we wish. Thanks, Jesus. What a load off my back. I get to do it for free, not because I have to eliminate disparity. You see the difference?

Micah’s Rebuke of Bribery, Bloodshed, and False Security

Let's take a look at Micah chapter 3, verses 9 through 11. It says, Now hear this, you heads of the house of Jacob and rulers of the house of Israel, who abhor justice and pervert all equity. God is holding the heads, the chiefs, the rulers, the princes of the house of Jacob and Israel.

He holds them accountable. Why? Because they hate, they abominate justice, they pervert all equity. Well, how did they do this? Verse 10, Who build up Zion with bloodshed and Jerusalem with iniquity. In other words, they seek to improve society, to advance society by means of bloodshed and iniquity.

Now, that is injustice, that is iniquity. Now, if you have somebody who is a leader, who is a chief, who is a head or who is a prince, the man in and of himself being endowed with so much authority is not unjust simply because he has authority.

The fact of authority doesn't make him unjust, it's how he acts with that authority. Now, how do these men of authority act? They try to build up Zion with bloodshed. Now, that's injustice. If a leader, if a prince, if a governor, if a president, if somebody who has a lot of authority decides to try to build up the country, build up the nation, build up the state or the city or whatever they're in charge of by means of bloodshed, they abhor justice, they pervert all equity.

So, anyone who tries to build a nation by means of bloody wars all over the planet, not just, they abhor justice, that's inequity. Somebody tries to build up a society by killing all the unwanted babies, that is unjust, that is iniquitous.

You can't build a just society that way. Now, verse 11 says, Her heads, the heads of Jacob and Israel, her heads judge for a bribe, her priests teach for pay, and her prophets divine for money. Okay, prophet, priest, and king, there you go.

We're dealing with everybody who's been anointed to lead out and trying to show the society really how to live as the image of God. Well, there's a problem. Those who have executive authority are doing what they do for a bribe.

And of course, you know the problem with that. Whoever gives the most bribe money is the one who determines how the person in authority is going to act. That's the situation we're in today. The higher up you are in political life, the more you are bought and paid for by all manner of people.

It's not about what's true, it's about how much money have you given to me. Her priests teach for pay, and her prophets divine for money. Well, wherever the money goes, that's how the sermon series goes.

Right?

Don't upset the money. If the money leaves, then there goes your influence, right? Now, what do they say while they're doing all of this? Yet, they lean on the Lord and say, Isn't the Lord among us? No harm can come upon us.

So, all the while that they do this, they're saying, God loves us all. God has truly blessed us. God is on our side. With God on our side, we can't lose. See, Israel and Judah had that problem. America has that problem, right?

We're not unique. How many times has this played out time and again? Now, it is unique in terms of God's covenant with Israel and with Judah that they had standards that they had to keep up. Otherwise, he would bring covenant curses down upon them.

Now, Jesus has gone to the cross to bear our curse so that we would know God's blessings through him. And God has also given all authority to Jesus, and he is at the right hand of the Father. All the nations are given to him, and he's ruling and reigning.

So, if Jesus determines as King of Kings and Lord of Lords that he's sick and tired of this group or that group doing what they're doing, it's his prerogative to take up his steel rod and bust that pottery however which way he sees fit.

And he's done so all throughout history these last 2 ,000 years, and he continues to do so. So, we ought to think about what would please Jesus Christ in our society, in our culture, in our families, and so on, because he's the King.

So, we all need to pledge our fealty to him and pledge our loyalty to him and be about his business in his way. But this threefold focus on idolatry, immorality, and justice, as we've said before, all deal with matters that are primary to the image of God.

And what God was calling Israel to do is to simply be faithful to the covenant. The covenant was crafted in the shape of the image of God. So, if someone wants to be godly, that's something that we would desire as Christians, to be godly, then it's wanting to live out how we're made, to live in the image of God, to live for his glory, to reflect God is to be godly, is to live in the image of God.

Which is why when we're told what the renewal is in Christ, it's the renewal into the image of the invisible God in Colossians chapter 3. So, this is very important that we focus in on this. As we said before, you become like what you worship.

So, idols make for death and destruction and disaster and immorality and justice. So, worshiping Christ, keeping our eyes upon Christ, means that we are ever more renewed into the image of God. That's the basic contrast that we're going to have.

So, when we come back to Isaiah and we come to these major themes time and again, we're going to be revisiting why those themes are significant. Next time, as the Lord wills, we are going to look at how the prophets prophesied about Christ.

So, we're going to start in Joshua. Remember, Joshua was the former prophets. And then we're going to work our way all the way through the scroll of the twelve to Malachi. And we're going to see some highlights about how the prophets preached Christ from the beginning, from the former prophets all the way to the end of the latter prophets.

Closing Prayer

Okay, let's go ahead and close with a word of prayer. Heavenly Father, we thank you for this day. We thank you for gathering us together to worship you and to rejoice in your truth. Thank you for the blessing of praying together for one another and for each other's burdens.

We pray all these things in Jesus' name. Amen.