January 10

Psalm 10
David Hannum, P.T. Barnum’s rival in the Cardiff Giant Hoax is reported to have said, “A sucker is born every minute.” It was eventually revealed that Hannum was the sucker. Perhaps Barnum could have added to the quote, “And two out looking for him.” That is a very cynical view of life, but probably fairly true. Have you ever wondered why payday loan stores and pawn shops are usually located in or near a low income community? One reason is that the rich do not need them. Another reason is that the rich are rich because they understand the principle of unreasonable usury. If the rich need a loan, they know how to and are able to get a low interest rate and to borrow only what they know they can pay back. They know that if you convert the fees and charges of a payday loan that it would convert into an APR that would be equal to 50-200%! On the other hand the poor are usually desperate and make desperate decisions in order to make ends meet now.
Jesus said that the poor will always be with us. It is easy to make a simple claim that the poor are with us because, as the first thirteen verses of this Psalm indicate, the wicked are abundant and seek to take advantage of those who have the propensity to fall into poverty. Indeed, that is one of the reasons that the poor are with us. But there would be those who are in poverty whether or not the wicked were there. Otherwise, how could the wicked crouch and wait to catch the poor in his net? It is also easy to make a simple claim that the poor are with us because of their own poor decisions. And that would very often be accurate. So it would seem that the poor will always be with us because of two reasons. The poor are desperate, and the rich are heartless.
Why doesn’t God do anything? Is it His place? To the degree that He is the Great Judge of all the earth. It is His place. And because we are moral agents, He delays His judgment for at least two reasons, to reveal our hearts and to give us time to repent. During that delay, it appears that God doesn’t care. But let us not be deceived. God is a judge and a help, particularly to those most vulnerable, the fatherless and the oppressed. They are in poverty not by choice but by circumstance. A simple view of the Lord as our King and Judge forces us to declare and ask that He will bring do something about the poverty. When we ask Him to do something, He calls us to join in with Him in doing something. He asks us to work with Him in seeing His glory in the way He works to rescue the perishing. That is His glory! Indeed we serve a glorious King. Speak His glory to someone today!
--Pastor john