FBC Morning Light – October 11, 2022

Well, a good Tuesday morning to you. Hope your week got off to a good start yesterday. Today we're reading not only in the book of Ezekiel, but also in Proverbs.

Usually I end up focusing on some of those more major sections of our scripture reading, but today

I wanted to zero in on this one verse in Proverbs 28. Recently I saw a brief documentary of some of the most dangerous jobs in the world.

And I was really struck with what some people do just to put some food on their table.

I saw this one group of people from Indonesia whose job is to dig sulfur from this volcano.

It's an active volcano in Indonesia, and every day they climb up to the area where they can mine the sulfur.

It's not like they go down into the ground to mine it. They have to create these pipes where steam or vapor comes out, and then the sulfur accumulates at the bottom of these pipes, and then they have to dig it out.

But in the course of their work, they're constantly exposed to these very toxic fumes and so forth from the sulfur.

And they do all of this and make about $17 a day.

$17 a day. Their life expectancy is very short. And I thought about that, and then there was another occupation where these people harvested salt and showed how they spent six months working in these flat areas to bring out salt and then harvest it.

An incredibly difficult, back -breaking work. And again, it's very toxic to their health.

They have short life expectancies, and their six months worth of work may net them about $2 ,000 for six months of labor.

And these people are living hand to mouth. It's like the only thing they can do to put a little bit of food on their table.

They're certainly in no way, shape, or form being richly rewarded for so desperately risking their lives for their job.

So I saw that video, and then I read this passage in Proverbs 28, which says,

A poor man who oppresses the poor is like a driving rain which leaves no food.

And I thought about that video, and in both cases of these two jobs

I mentioned, the harvesting of sulfur and the harvesting of salt, the harvesters, the workers, they were completely at the mercy of the people who would buy the product from them.

And they were sure not to give them top dollar for that sulfur or for that salt.

They would try to exploit them and give them as little as they could get away with to get the product off of their hands and send them away.

And I thought about that oppression. I thought about how tragic that is.

And the people who are doing the oppressing are much better off than those who are the oppressed, obviously the poor.

And as grievous as that is, how much more grievous is it when it is somebody who is poor who is oppressing another person who is poor and taking advantage of him or her?

It seems to be so out of sync. It's like of all people who should understand the heartache and the difficulty of oppression, it would be one who himself is poor and suffers oppression.

You would think that they'd be far more compassionate and sensitive and tender. Well, they ought to be, and usually that ends up being the case.

Someone who suffers like that has a more likelihood of being sympathetic to those who are suffering, but not always.

Sometimes those who are poor can be more oppressive than those who aren't, taking advantage of others and being cruel and harmful to them.

Well, the writer Proverbs says, the poor man who does that, who oppresses the poor, is like a driving rain which leaves no food.

I think the idea here is, well, we just saw, for example, recently the effects of Hurricane Ian as the driving rains of that horrible hurricane pelted through Florida and just devastated everything in its wake.

All kinds of vegetation just destroyed from the driving rain that leaves no food.

This is what an oppressor is like. Well, I don't know what your financial status is.

I'm sure in the context of the world, any of us living in the

West are much better off than we realize, and we would not really be qualified as poor by the rest of the world's standards.

But I trust that whatever your status is, that you will be sensitive and thoughtful and compassionate toward those who have less.

And whatever we do, we do not want to take advantage of them, exploit them, or be oppressive ourselves.

How horrific such a behavior would be. So, may

God give us grace to be compassionate and generous with that which he's given to us.

So, our Father and our God, we thank you for your faithful provision for your people, for our needs.

You have blessed us abundantly and bountifully. I pray that as a response to that blessing, to that grace and kindness to us, we would be compassionate and generous with that which we have.

And we pray it in Jesus' name and for his sake. Amen. All right, well, have a good rest of your