Pondering Proverbs – Witness (8)

 

“There is one who scatters, and yet increases all the more, and there is one who withholds what is justly due, and yet results only in want. The generous man [lit. soul of blessing] will be prosperous [lit. made fat], and he who waters will himself be watered. He who withholds grain, the people will curse him, but blessing will be on the head of him who sells it.” Proverbs 11:24 – 26, NASB.

 

What is it that “is justly due”? In the context of witnessing, it is sharing the Gospel of Jesus Christ in word and deed. Paul writes, “I am a debtor both to Greeks and to barbarians, both to the wise and to the foolish. So, for my part, I am eager to preach the gospel to you also who are in Rome” (Rom. 1:14 – 15).

 

When Jesus gave us the Great Commission (Matthew 28:18 – 20), He placed us under obligation to Himself and to mankind; to Himself in terms of obedience and service, to mankind in terms of serving it with the Gospel, and this includes “teaching them to obey all that I commanded you.”  Again, I want to stress that obedience and service are in both word and deed, in deed and word – they cannot be separated, one validates the other, they are two wings of an airplane. An airplane may fly without two functioning engines, but it cannot fly with one of its wings missing.

 

We teach by our words and we teach by our example, we teach by our example and we teach by our words; we see this in the Incarnation – the Word became flesh, and we should see this in Christ’s continuing Incarnation within us, both as individuals and as His People.

 

It is our equitable and just and reasonable obligation to share Jesus Christ with others, it is our calling, it is an element found deep within the core of our identity in the Trinity – which gives and gives and gives. “God so loved the world that He gave…” He gave the world Jesus Christ His Son, and now in Christ He gives the world His sons and daughters, His corporate Son with Christ Jesus the Head.

 

In the Wilderness, people gathered manna for themselves and their families, not for their neighbors. In the Kingdom of God, Jesus Christ is our Manna (John 6:51), and we gather Him not only for ourselves, but for others – what we gather in Jesus Christ we give away to others, and in giving Him away we find that He gives us even more of Himself.

 

Congregations that withhold “what is justly due,” that is, congregations that withhold the Gospel in their communities, that are not “going” into all the world – beginning in Jerusalem, beginning where they are – these are congregations “in want.” This “want” may not be apparent and the congregations themselves may have no sense of being in want, in fact the congregations may be growing numerically…or they may be declining in numbers.

 

Consider the church in Laodicea (Rev. 3:14 – 22). This people were saying, “I am rich, and have become wealthy, and have need of nothing.” Yet Jesus says to them, “You do not know that you are wretched and miserable and poor and blind and naked.” Our natural eyes can deceive us, and we are very good at lying to ourselves.

 

When we substitute what we think is success for the Bible, we deceive ourselves. Christ in the Scriptures calls us to worship, to build one another up in Him, and to go and make disciples of all peoples. Christ calls us to be people who scatter Him and His Word as a Way of Life, always giving, always giving, always giving.

 

We are to be generous, to be “souls of blessing,” to those around us, and in doing so we will be prosperous in Jesus Christ, we will grow in Him as individuals, marriages, families, and congregations – our souls will grow, our spirits will soar, our hearts will be rich, and our minds will be renewed and transformed.

 

O dear friends, we will never meet a person for whom Christ did not die and whom God does not love. We will never meet a person who does not need Jesus Christ. The word we speak today is a Word that may fill the sails of a life, helping it to find the Harbor of Jesus Christ. We will never pass a person for whom we cannot pray.

 

Most, if not all, of the great structures the world values are actually mausoleums and dead people live and work in them. The automobiles around us are nothing but hearses carrying us to our graves – we may dress them up, we may equip them with high-tech gadgets, some may pay more for them than others, but they are hearses for they carry dead people.  People vying for power are foolish, in that they are dead people wanting to rule dead people – how absurd.

 

Let us not forget that we were all dead in our sins (Ephesians 2:1 – 3) and living (if it can be called such) “according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, of the spirit that is now working in the sons of disobedience.” Shall those of us who have been given life in our Lord Jesus Christ, not by our merit but by His grace (Eph. 2:4 – 10; Titus 3:3 – 7), selfishly live, hoarding, as it were, the love and life and grace of Christ? If we do live like this, we can be sure of two things, eventually people will curse us (Proverbs 11:26), and we will most certainly give an account of our lives to God (2 Cor. 5:9 – 11).

 

As we ponder Proverbs 11:24 – 26, 30, are we among those who scatter or among those who withhold what is justly due? When the angels see us, what do they see?

 

When God sees us, what does He see?