Lending to the Lord

Lending to the Lord and the Food Pantry’s Final Day

Please turn your Bible to Proverbs 19 .17, Proverbs 19 .17. You may remain seated for a moment as I tell you the occasion for this sermon. As you know, yesterday was the first time in a very long time that we have not had the food pantry.

The food pantry started in late 2020 when another church was not able to do the pickup for the food pantry. And so, our church was asked whether or not we'd like to come get the food. Sarah went and came and got the food, but didn't really know what to do with it.

And then figured out, okay, we're supposed to just invite people to the church to go ahead and pick it up. And that grew as the ministry of the church, as the preaching of the Word, and to my surprise, to some degree, and to my great blessing, many people in the church came to help with that work until it was not something that was falling squarely on the shoulders of those who had begun that work, but it was being carried by many more sharing that burden, caring for those needy people who would come.

Many people came and very much appreciated it. This final time when we announced that this would be the end, many people came to let us know that they very much appreciated all the work that you all had done to support the food pantry.

A lot of people, it was important for them to get through the end of the month, and they let us know that. I know that some folks here gave in very sacrificial ways. It's no small thing to give on a regular basis your Saturday mornings, your gas if you're driving, your time and energy to do such things for the needy.

Hebrews 10 .24 tells us, in the context of gathering together, to stir one another up to love and good works, and so my aim with this sermon is to show God's view of such service in the past, but then also to encourage you further to good and even greater works in these.

When you have Proverbs 19 .17, please stand for the reading of God's Word. "'Whoever is generous to the poor lends to the Lord, and He will repay him for his deed.

Amen.'.

You may be seated.". Well, very simply put, there are two implicit principles in this passage, "'Whoever is generous to the poor lends to the Lord.'". The implicit principle here in this first half of the verse is that the poor serve as representatives for the Lord.

Principle in the second half, "'And He will repay him for his deed, so that God rewards those who do good to Him.'". Okay, so the first principle is that the poor serve as representatives for the Lord.

Second principle is that God repays those who do good to Him. There are also two assumed principles. My understanding is that one who comes to this proverb is also supposed to come with two assumed principles that are not mentioned here but are playing elsewhere in Scripture, and that is that usury is forbidden, point one, and two, that the debtor is slave to the lender, that usury is forbidden and the debtor is slave to the lender.

So I'm going to walk through these principles, both those two that are implicit in the passage itself, and two that I believe are supposed to be assumed and brought to the passage with you in order that you might fully appreciate this verse and that it would be an encouragement to you to give to the needy, to be kind to the poor.

The Poor as Representatives of the Lord

So first, "'Whoever is generous to the poor lends to the Lord, and the poor serve as representatives of God.'". We see this a couple of times in the Proverbs, "'On account of the Lord having been their maker.'".

Proverbs 22, 2 says, "'The rich and the poor meet together. The Lord is the maker of them all.'". So the rich and the poor have the same maker. They are similar in that way. Proverbs 14, 31 says, "'Whoever oppresses a poor man insults his maker, but he who is generous to the needy honors him.'".

So the way that you treat a poor man has implications for the one who made that poor man. If you oppress him, then you insult his maker. If you are kind to the poor, then you honor his maker. Now, this is the case in general.

It is especially the case of believers. Matthew 25, 40 says, "'Then He will answer them, saying, "'Truly I say to you, as you did not do it to the least of these, you did not do it to Me.'". The least of these being the poor, Christ speaking of His brothers.

And so there is a sense in which those poor Christians are representatives of God in an even greater way than just the poor in general. Hebrews 13, 2 also alludes to this. It says, "'Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for thereby some have entertained angels unawares.'".

Now who is it that they're the most direct representatives of God in some sense? It is His messengers. A messenger is one who goes and speaks on your behalf. And so, what do angels do? Angels, the word angel even meaning messenger, is one who goes and speaks on God's behalf.

And so, Christians should be hospitable toward other Christians in the context that it's talking about other Christians. Should be hospitable towards other Christians who come from other places because by this many have entertained angels unawares.

What does this mean? Is that the one who does this is entertaining a representative of God, that you should approach this as though you were, as though you could be hosting an angel himself. Now this is the case because there is a very real way that all of humanity is a representative of God, having been created in the image of God.

In the image of God, God created man, and so mankind is a representative of Him. When you are kind to another human being, you are expressing your view of God Himself since that one mark with His image is a representative of God.

And this is, of course, especially true in believers because who is it, though that image is corrupted through sin, has that image restored and renewed and made more and more into the image of Jesus Christ?

It is the believer. So all this to say that this is why the poor is a representative of the Lord, because all men are representative of the Lord, but the poor is one who is especially needy, and you have a special opportunity to speak to him as a representative of the Lord.

Okay, so that's the first principle. The poor serve as representatives of the Lord. Second principle is the Lord repays for good done to Him. It says, and He will repay him for his deed. Proverbs 3, 9 through 10 says, honor the Lord with your wealth and with the firstfruits of all your produce.

Then your barns will be filled with plenty and your vats will be bursting with wine. Bible repeatedly talks about God repaying those who do good to Him. It says in Hebrews 11, 6 that without faith it is impossible to please God because the one who comes to Him must believe that He is and that He is a rewarder of those who seek Him.

This is a fundamental aspect of the faith. Your faith is not real faith if it does not recognize that God is a rewarder of those who seek to Him. If you come to Him, the only reason that you would come to Him, if you recognize there is some good in coming to Him.

People do things that they recognize that there is some goodness to it. You will recognize that there is some goodness to coming to God if you recognize that He is a rewarder of those who seek Him. And so, this is important for us to know because that is what motivates us, is knowing that we are creatures in need of God's goodness towards us and that He rewards those who seek.

Him.

There are many rewards in this world which come naturally, even naturally through obedience. You know, if you serve God in various ways, if you are diligent in your work, then you will have more things.

And so, the reward is very natural. But in this case, we are talking about a supernatural reward. We are talking about God working in ways beyond that which is merely natural. And so, all this, and I'll point out that this is especially the case with something like the food pantry.

This is not something where you expect to get any kind of reward out of it. There's one older gentleman, I forget his name, who mentioned to us that he had written our church in his will because of what we were doing.

I have no idea if that will pan out to anything, but in general, it is not the case that there is any kind of earthly natural reward that comes from good done to the poor. You have to rely on God supernaturally giving some kind of reward.

And so, putting all this together, if the poor serves as a representative for God, and you do good to the poor, and the Lord rewards good done to Him, then when you do good to the poor, God regards that as good being done to Him, and He rewards generously.

He repays generously. Hebrews 6 .10 says,. For God is not unjust so as to overlook your work and love that you have shown for His name, and serving the saints as you still do. So God, and while this speaks of saints, this is true in general, that if you work and show love for God's name and obeying any of His commands, He is not so unjust as to overlook that.

Now, why would that be unjust? Does God owe people for any kind of good works that they do? There's a sense in which you could say, no, He does not. He's creator over everything. He does not owe anyone anything.

Yet, at the same time, because He has bound Himself by His promises to reward, we know that it would be unjust for Him to overlook those good things because He has made these promises to us. So because He has made these promises to us, it would be unjust for Him.

But He is just. He is righteous. He does reward. And Scripture also tells us that this is something that happens. There is a justice involved here. Proverbs 28 says,. So in other words, the one who is not generous to the poor, that will be punished by everything that he builds up through that, going to the one who is generous to the poor.

This is the guarantee of how God accomplishes this. And this is stated in the New Testament very plainly. And if you lend from those to whom you expect to receive, what credit is that to you? Even sinners lend to sinners to get back the same amount.

But love your enemies and do good, and lend that you may be sons of the Most High, expecting nothing in return. Your reward will be great. You will be sons of the Most High, for He is kind to the ungrateful and the evil.

So God has guaranteed that the reward will be great for doing good to those who are in.

Need.

Now those are the two implicit principles, two implicit principles, that the poor service representatives for God, God repays good done to Him. Now the first assumed principle that I believe you are supposed to be coming to this passage with that would make it more profound for you is that usury is forbidden.

Usury Is Forbidden in the Law of Israel

Okay, now what is usury? You may recognize that word from Psalm 15, which we just sang before this. Usury, if you look up a dictionary definition, it is any kind of lending at an oppressive interest rate.

So this has been variably defined in different cultures, what an oppressive interest rate.

Is.

In the Bible, what is forbidden in particular in Israel is lending at any interest rate to the needy. Okay, so this definition biblically is lending at any interest rate to the needy, but rather the command is to lend, to give back no more than what you had lent.

Now, this is dated in the law and the prophets a number of times, I'll just read one verse. Exodus 22, 25 says, if you lend money to any of my people with you who is poor, you shall not be like a moneylender to him, and you shall not exact interest from him.

Okay, so if anyone's poor, you shouldn't be like a moneylender to him, you're not supposed to exact interest from him. Now, this is forbidden because there is a particular kind of desperation that leads one who, you know, needs money, needs food in order to survive to go to you for help, and because he does not have many options, you can take great advantage of this.

But God has determined that such things are oppressive and wrong, and therefore you ought to be generous and be kind to those who are in need. Now, there are several things that this is not forbidding.

Okay, the first is this is not forbidding investments. Some people imagine that what is being forbidden here is any kind of giving of money with an expectation of some level of interest. That's not what it's talking about.

We see that in, yeah, we see that in, for example, the parable of the talents, right, in the parable of talents in Matthew and Luke. The master says, well, if you had just given my money to a bank, then you could have collected it with interest, right?

There's an understanding that it would be appropriate to give money to a bank. It would get interest. How is the bank getting interest? Through some kinds of investments. This is appropriate. Additionally, this is not forbidding lending where you would get back the same amount.

Psalm 37 and 26 says, he is ever lending generously and his children become a blessing. This is speaking of a righteous man. Psalm 112 .5, it is well with the man who deals generously and lends who conducts his affairs with justice.

So, this is not forbidding lending altogether, and it's not forbidding some kind of investment that would have some sort of reward of interest. Neither of those are the case. In addition, it is worth pointing out that this is something that is particular to the law of Israel.

This is not necessarily, you know, well, different nations have prerogative to prevent oppression in different ways. This is not something where such an absolute kind of forbidding, I believe, would be appropriate for…not every nation would be authorized to do this, as Israel was authorized to forbid.

This.

The purpose of this was to set Israel apart as a holy nation. And so, you see that this provision was particularly against their brothers. They were allowed to lend at interest to foreigners, but not to their brothers.

Additionally, if you think about this, this is a charity to lend to no longer have your money and to not see any reward from your money. This is a charity, and in a sense, it is a…yeah, it is a mandated charity by the law in Israel.

And the scope of that command seems to be those who would be part of your own household or employed underneath you. In Leviticus 25, 35 to 37, it says, If your brother becomes poor and cannot maintain himself with you, you shall support him as though he were a stranger and a sojourner, and he shall live with you.

Take no interest from him or profit, but fear your God that your brother may live beside.

You.

You shall not lend him your money at interest, nor give him your food for profit. Okay, so there's a particular scope. You know, not every man is capable of lending to every person in need. So what is the scope of this?

Scope in the law of Israel seems to be those who are particularly under the employ or under the household of the individual who would lend to them. And we see that this is permitted for foreigners. Deuteronomy 15, 3, Of a foreigner you may exact it, but whatever of yours is with your brother, your hand shall.

Release.

Deuteronomy 23, 20, You may charge a foreigner interest, but you may not charge your brother interest, that the Lord your God may bless you in all that you undertake in the land that you are entering to take possession.

So why is it that this is wrong? Why is it that this is frowned on in Scripture? The way that many have thought about this, even Christian thinkers, you see up until about Calvin, they all quote Aristotle on this.

Aristotle spoke of money as being something that is made to exchange with other things. And so if you use money to in and of itself make more money without there being some kind of exchange, that it is unnatural and it is as though you are making it into being a living.

Thing.

You know, making things after its own kind, money should not make things after its own kind. And you go and you read a lot of Christian theologians all the way up prior to the Reformation, they almost always are repeating the words of Aristotle.

What Calvin points out is that it is not that lending for an interest is in any sense, is wrong in that sense, because you can imagine, you know, you would buy a field and then you would rent it out and you would get some kind of money from the rent of the field, and there's nothing inappropriate about this, that what is going on here is that there needs to be a love for a brother that is bringing about this command that you would not harm him in this way of lending to him with interest so that you can get something out of him, so that you can take advantage of his desperation.

And we see this, we see in the New Testament that concern, right, in the New Testament it says, give to the one who begs from you and do not refuse the one who would borrow.

From you.

You heard it from a moment ago, the statement from Luke 6, and if you lend to those from whom you expect to receive, what credit is that to you? Even sinners lend to sinners to get back the same amount.

Okay, so this is saying even the same amount, no interest, go even beyond that, give without expecting anything in return. And so this is a high generosity that the people of God are called to, the people of God are called to, a high generosity that would love one another, and there are many goods from this.

You know, I talk about the supernatural reward from God that happens, yes, there is a supernatural reward from God, but in addition to that, many people know that if you lend to someone and you expect back interest, or even if you only expect back that same amount, what it can do to a relationship, especially if someone is in need and they come to you and they already know you and they're your friend, and so you try to help them out in that way.

There's the, I think I mentioned this recently too, you know, there's the famous joke that, you know, if you lend your brother-in-law $20 and you never see him again, was it worth.

It?

Right? The idea being that someone is inclined not to speak to you again once you lend to them because then they owe you, right, and then they feel on the hook and they don't like you anymore. Even though you were trying to help them, it creates attention.

And so in a natural way, there is even some good for this, but consider the great supernatural good that is available with giving to the poor. It says, your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High, for He is kind to the ungrateful and the evil.

God rewards those who give to the poor. God rewards those who would lend expecting nothing in return. So consider this from these various vantage points. If you are an unbeliever, right, and you see the poor, what you see is opportunity.

You see opportunity. I can take advantage of his desperation, I can lend him money, charge him an interest rate that's a pretty large interest rate because what's he going to do about it? He needs this right now, and I can take advantage of that.

Okay? Now, if you are a believer who is sensible to the law of God but not necessarily to all the promises of God, how would you see it? Well, now the poor is a liability, okay? They're not, there's no opportunity, there's just duty to give to him and get nothing back.

Maybe you might get the same thing back, maybe nothing at all, okay? And so if you're a believer who's sensible to the law of God but not to the promises of God, this is how you're going to approach this.

But consider the law of God, or consider the promises of God here in this passage. The one who is generous to the poor lends to the Lord. Here was a situation where, if you're sensible to the law, there's no opportunity to lend, there's no opportunity to take advantage of this situation and get anything out of it.

There's only liability, only loss. But what God is saying is that when you give to the poor, you are lending, you are lending to the Lord. There is an opportunity, an investment opportunity, and you will get much out.

In fact, you will get far more out than you would out of a typical lending opportunity because the Lord repays generously. He rewards richly. You know, you call someone who does this kind of predatory lending, you know, a loan shark, and you think poorly of someone who would so opportunistically look for these advantages to take, you know, these opportunities to take advantage of people and lend to them with this high interest rate.

But this is, you know, a mirror image, perhaps, of what it should look like for the Christian. You should be not avoiding these opportunities, you should be, you know, almost in a predatory sense, right?

Be like looking for those like a hawk, right? Looking for these opportunities to give because you know that they are opportunities. Though this is forbidden to lend and oppress in this way, you may give and you are lending to one who is incredibly wealthy and able to give back and has never defaulted on any loan, and so it becomes a great opportunity.

The one who does not put out money at interest is considered righteous in Scripture. Consider the psalm we just sang, who does not put out his money at interest and does not take a bribe against the innocent.

This is one who is able to come before the mountain of God. Ezekiel 18, 8 through 9 says, He does not lend at interest or take any profit, withholds his hand from injustice, executes true justice between man and man, walks in my statutes, and keeps my rules by acting faithfully.

He is righteous. He shall surely live, declares the Lord God. But then those who are wicked are those who are prone to want to take advantage of the.

Poor. Right?

Ezekiel 18, 13, just a little later in that says of the wicked. He exacts interest. He takes profit. Shall he then live? He shall not live. He has done all these abominations. He shall surely die. His blood shall be upon himself.

Abominations, abominations to take advantage of the poor in this way. And consider one of the main scenes in the New Testament and the Gospels is the Pharisees trying to gobble up widows' houses, taking advantage of the poor any way that they can.

But God has given us an opportunity to receive great things when we see the poor. There is an opportunity for advantage for us if we understand that when we give to the poor, they serving as representatives of God, we are lending to Him.

The Debtor as Slave to the Lender

Now the second truth that I believe you are supposed to take to this Scripture that would make it more impactful and profound for you is that the debtor is slave to the lender. Okay? This is a proverb.

You may be familiar with it. Proverbs 22, 7, the rich rules over the poor and the borrower is the slave of the lender. Now that was Proverbs 22. You might be looking at this and saying, well, we're in Proverbs 19.

How are you supposed to know that and be bringing that to that text if that's a couple of chapters later? It's three chapters later. That is what I thought for a long time. For a long time I thought the debtor is slave to the lender is a very clever observation and an interesting metaphor that is not intuitive.

The more I think about it, the more I realize it is a very plain truth more than it is a metaphor. And it is also naturally the way Scripture speaks, even if you're reading the law before coming to Proverbs, you would have been told this many times.

This is not a truth that is isolated in the book of Proverbs, it's actually throughout Scripture in many occasions. So first of all, just think, what is a slave? Slave is someone whose life, all of their work, all the fruit of their labor, you know, beyond that small amount that they get to eat, right, goes to their master.

Okay, this is what a slave is. And what is a debtor? A debtor is who is being charged interest, right? Some portion of the fruit of their labor they do not get to enjoy. It goes to someone else. So if you're being charged 15 interest, you're a 15 slave, right?

If you're getting charged, you know, if 99 of your life is owed to someone else, then you are pretty much completely a slave at that point. And so really, any kind of debt is just a kind of slavery.

This is just a very natural way of thinking about it, once you put these categories together and you realize what debt is and what slavery is, they really are one and the same. Many debts being small enough that you wouldn't want to use a big word like slave, but they really are just on the same sliding scale of what they are.

You do not get to enjoy the fruits of your labor, but somebody else does because they are owed to someone else. So that is the case very naturally. But then, even as you go through the law, Leviticus 25 and elsewhere, the laws that permit you to charge interest to foreigners, but not of other Israelites, are paired with the laws that allow you to make slaves of foreigners, but not of fellow Israelites.

Those two go hand in hand when you look at them. And so the way the law is written, it sees these as pretty much the same thing. It's talking about that sliding scale, smaller kind of slavery, and then it talks about the larger kind of slavery where they're living in your house because they owe so much to you, okay?

These are just two different kinds. And consider, in Nehemiah, what has happened after the people have been in slavery and they have been bought out of slavery by the Lord, why there is such a commotion when people start charging each other interest.

Listen to these words, Nehemiah 5, 7 through 10. I took counsel with myself, and I brought charges against the nobles and the officials, and I said to them, you are exacting interest, each from his brother.

Okay, this is precisely what was forbidden in the law, right? Charging interest from your brothers, from your needy brothers. And I held a great assembly against them, and I said to them, we, as far as we are able, have bought back our Jewish brothers who have been sold to the nations, but you even sell your brothers that they may be sold to us.

They were silent and could not find a word to say. So I said, the thing you are doing is not good. Ought you not to walk in fear of God to prevent the thoughts of nations and our enemies? Moreover, I and my brothers and my servants are lending them money in grain.

Let us abandon this exacting of interest. And so, what does he say? Exacting interest is the equivalent of selling them, right? Of selling them into slavery, right? Of purchasing and buying men. So that equation is being made here even in Nehemiah 5, that this is the case.

So the one who is, and this is why it is to some degree the case that the sin is not just on the lender, right, who would take advantage of someone and oppress the needy and not have a heart of generosity towards them, but the sin is also on the one who would negligently give himself up to such a condition where he owes someone else in such heavy measure,.

Right?

In 1 Corinthians 7 .23 it says, you were bought with a price, do not become bond servants.

Of men.

Right, you were bought with a price, so don't become a slave of men. You should not become a slave, you should avoid slavery. Romans 13 .8 says, owe no one anything except to love one another, for the one who loves has fulfilled the law.

Now consider also that this truth is that the debtor is slave to the lender is reinforced and made a very natural biblical way of speaking by the way that the Bible speaks of the relations between nations.

I was confused as a Bible reader for a very long time because I would look at passages about other nations being made the slaves of Israel, but then I would never see, you know, people being taken away in chains and working in the various houses and things like that, and it didn't make a lot of sense to me until I began to realize that this is just spoken of interchangeably with the notion of tribute.

When the king imposes a tribute on another nation so that they have to give money they aren't able to enjoy the fullness of the fruit of their labors but have to give some percentage of it to the king, they have become a slave.

That nation has become a slave of this other nation. Okay, so Scripture speaks of these two interchangeably many times. This is not just a very clever observation from Proverbs 22 .7. This is something that Scripture observes on numerous occasions that the notion of debt and slavery are interchangeable, and that's why even in Romans 13 when it talks about owe no man anything, that's in the context of taxation, of tribute, right, it is equating debt and tax, right, and it is equating, and elsewhere you see tax and slavery, right, have these equations, sliding scales, right, the degree to which they happen.

We live in a culture that treats debt as very, treats debt very negligently, as very, as just a normal part of life, and in a sense it is a normal part of life. It is a, it is natural that there would be people who have needs and that there would need to be some kind of lending to help them, et cetera, but we treat it as a small thing for even those who, yeah, should not be going into any kind of debt, even those who are rich go into debt, right, in order to give themselves some kind of score to let everyone know how good about going into debt they are, right, I'm this good at getting into debt, and if you think about why are, why are houses as expensive as they are, because it is assumed that this would be done in a form of debt.

Now, you know, mortgages in a sense are like an investment, so I'm not, I'm not trying to impose some kind of negative, completely negative stamp on them, but at the same time consider that part of the reason why the, why they are so normal is because the government has heavily subsidized those mortgages, the risk of those mortgages, to encourage people to take on larger and larger financial burdens, right, to, that which has increased the housing market more and more and more, really, think about it, people were only, only buying what they had on hand, the prices people were, would be charging for houses would be much smaller, so we live in a culture that really does not think this way about debt, it does not see debt as something that ought to be avoided, that is associated with the same kind of shame as slavery, right, we're a society that has, that has put a shame on slavery that is, that is very, very high, right, and very, very low on debt, but these are, these are really one in the same concept, you just tend to use one for different parts of a sliding scale, and so what does all this, what does all this mean?

If the, to read this verse again, whoever is generous to the poor lends to the Lord and He will repay him for his deed, the reason why one should not lend to his brother, in particular, we see in Israel, should not lend to his brothers because he cares for his brother, he does not want him to go into slavery, and so when we lend to God, think about how profound that is, to lend to God, that God makes him one who owes another, that these concepts of debt and slavery, which are interchangeable, God applies to Himself as owing people, now that might even seem blasphemous to you to speak of, of God as having, in some sense, a slavery, but He has put Himself by means of covenant, by means of His promises, in a position of owing His people.

And consider also that He is not, none of this can be oppressive towards Him since He has no lack of anything. When He owes, it is not out of desperation, it is not out of any kind of, there's no chance that He would not have what He needs to give, and that He has entered into this completely voluntarily, not out of desperation, not out of people taking advantage opportunistically and predatorially, but rather He, of His own volition, has put Himself in this position, in His kindness towards us.

And this is the same one who has sent Jesus Christ, the one who said, "'Blessed are those servants whom the Master finds awake when He comes. Truly I say to you, He will dress Himself for the service and will have them recline at table.

He will come and serve them.'". All right, Jesus Christ has come not to be served, but to serve and to give His life as a ransom for many. Jesus Christ, even before we had done any good, even before all that, He comes and He serves.

The one whose sandal straps we are unworthy to untie comes and washes feet. And this is all prior to the situation described in this proverb where one has done good to the poor and thereby is owed by God because God has promised this.

This is before any of that. And so, how much more do we have to look forward to from the One who became flesh in order to give Himself in this way, in this particular kind of service, and yet is raised above all, outside of humility, but still has bound Himself to His people in this way, out of His kindness, so that though we cannot, though it is wrong to take advantage of others, lending to them with oppressive interest rates, needlessly enslaving others, needlessly enslaving brothers, God has made it so that we may take opportunity, may take advantage of these opportunities to give to the poor and to have Him answerable to us for these debts.