Proverbs 21:13

MAIN HOMILETICS OF Proverbs 21:13

THE CRY OF THE POOR

I. The cry of the poor may always be heard. “The poor,” said the Saviour, “ye have always with you” (John 12:8), and so long as sin is in the world it must be so. There are many whom sickness and bereavement makes poor, and many who are in need because of the sin of others, besides those who have been brought to poverty by their own wrong-doings. And from all these creatures of need there comes a cry—a direct appeal, it may be, for help, or the voice of lamentation because of their distress. This cry may be around us even when no appeal comes from the lip, and when no word of complaint is uttered. The wrongs of the oppressed and the miseries of the needy cry still when there is no speech nor language, and when no voice is heard.

II. No human creature can afford to stop his ears to this cry. Not one of the millions who walk the earth can reckon upon being always independent of the pity and help of his fellow-creatures. He may be almost certain that he will not be so. He is not sure, however rich he is now, that he may not have to cry for bread, or he may have to cry for help in sickness or for sympathy in sorrow. It is quite certain that he will at some period of his existence cry to God for mercy. If, therefore, he is deaf to the cry of those whose distress he can relieve, he is as unwise as that servant of whom our Lord speaks in His parable, who refused to have compassion on his fellow-servant to the amount of a hundred pence, while he himself stood in need of the forgiveness of a far heavier debt. (Matthew 18:23; Matthew 18:35). He who stops his own ears at the cry of the poor stops the ears of God against his own, for in the day when the favour of the King of the universe will be more precious than the wealth of ten thousand worlds, the charge will be brought against him, “I was an hungred and ye gave Me no meat; I was thirsty and ye gave Me no drink,” etc. (Matthew 25:42).

OUTLINES AND SUGGESTIVE COMMENTS

When we have reason to complain that we cry and shout, but God shutteth our prayer, let us consider our ways; perhaps we have shut our ears on some occasions against the cries of the poor. This was one reason why God accepted not the prayers and fasts of those people whom Isaiah speaks of in the fiftieth chapter of his book.—Lawson.

Did a rich man know for certain, that himself should be a beggar before he died, it would make him give to the poor when they cried, that others might give to him when he cried. Now the wise man here assureth every hard churl, that although now he be never so rich, yet shall he be a beggar.… The cries of the poor are but God’s proclamation, whereby He publisheth His pleasure for the relieving of them. It is God therefore Himself that is not heard when they are denied; it is God that is not heard in His command, as well as the poor in his necessity. And, therefore, being made deaf as it were with the loudness of His own crying, He doth not hear the uncharitable when they cry unto him.—Jermin.