Episode Transcript
Proverbs chapter 14, God willing will be expounding verse 31 tonight.
Proverbs chapter 14, verse 31, as we go verse by verse through God's precious word.
Title of the message tonight is The Law of Christ.
We begin with the phrase, he that oppresseth, he that oppresseth And if you were to, if you don't mind writing in your Bibles, you can take your pens and underscore these letters in the word of preseth.
P-R-E-S-S.
Hannah that spells press, doesn't it?
There you go.
She knows.
He that oppresseth.
And so the the Hebrew word translated oppresseth here, it really means to press down on something.
So it's easy to see why it's translated oppress us in the English, because our word oppress also means to press down.
It has the idea of pressing down on someone the way a heavy burden, if you had a heavy burden you were having to carry, it through gravity presses down on your shoulders And so when you oppress someone, you're putting that burden on their shoulders.
And people who carry burdens through life.
They struggle with the load they carry.
And sadly often it's people rather than circumstances.
Circumstances are heavy enough.
Man, life's bad enough.
You know, as it is, but unfortunately it's often people, not circumstances, who place those burdens on other people's shoulders.
Last week I learned about a woman that I know who is leaving her husband after about 36 years of marriage.
And her husband's provided well for her over the years.
And now he's ill.
He's sick.
And she's leaving him while he's struggling with health issues.
She wants to sell the house And now he's got to find a place to live, dealing with health issues, and now losing his wife and having to find a home at his age.
And that's not because of some tragic accident.
It's not because of some disease beyond his control.
It's because a person decided to heap a heavy burden on this man and not keep her a vow for better or for worse As children of God, we need to practice relieving burdens from people, not heaping burdens on people.
When you're looking at oppressing or oppression in the Bible, he that oppresseth.
You can look at the work of God and the work of the devil, or the work of the kingdom of God and the work of the kingdoms of men, however you want to put it, the work of the spirit, the work of the flesh.
The work of God is to lift, to raise to take that burden off.
The work of the flesh, the work of the devil, the work of the kingdoms of men is to press down.
Put the burden on men.
Now, if you'll understand that, that'll make a whole lot of things in the scriptures make sense to you.
And we'll learn that in this little proverb tonight.
We're going to see two key actions tonight.
One is oppress and the other is to have mercy, which basically is the opposite of that, which is to relieve that oppression, to lift. to raise that burden off.
You look at religions.
If you want to know what the true gospel is, If you won't know what the man-made gospel is, if you won't know what God's truth is, what the religion of God is and the religion of man is, what Cain and what Abel is, you won't know what the difference is.
It's real simple.
One presses down, the other raises up.
It's that simple.
Man, I tell you what, when I was struggling over my salvation years back, I was trying my best to be saved.
Do you know what the law was to me?
God's law?
It was very heavy.
It was just pressing down.
Because I got caught up. with legalistic religion.
And that legalistic religion kept heaping burdens burdens on me.
Kept trying to put the law on me to be justified by the law.
And the law is not oppressive.
The law is not even heavy, really, when you think about it.
The Apostle Paul said the law of God was ordained to life, but he found it to be to death.
And the reason is, is because of our flesh.
Our flesh is contrary to the law, the Bible says.
And because our flesh is contrary to the law, that makes the law, which was never meant to be heavy, heavy on our shoulders Because we kick against the prick, so to speak.
We're contrary.
These things are contrary the one to the other, so that you cannot do that which you would.
Why?
Because it pushes down a burden you cannot bear It's the work of Satan to burden men.
And so the work of Satan's religions heap heavy burdens on men Matthew chapter 23, verse 1 through 4.
Matthew 23, verses 1 through 4.
Then spake Jesus to the multitude and to his disciples, saying, the scribes and the Pharisees sit in Moses' seat.
They sit in a position of religious authority.
They sit in a position and um uh uh present themselves as being the teachers of Moses' law.
Verse 3.
All therefore, whatsoever they bid you observe, that observe and do.
If they're teaching God's law, observe God's law.
But do not ye after their works, for they say and do not.
For they, and here it is, bind heavy burdens and grievous to be born.
When people ride in to our website for help with their salvation, they're burdened.
They have great burdens.
And the the the one of the biggest hurdles I have to get over with people when I'm talking to them. is when they finally realize, or they're beginning to realize, that salvation truly is a free gift, that Jesus truly did all the work.
That it is by grace through faith trusting in what he did, the work he did, not the work we do When they finally start to let that sink in, they hesitate a lot of times and they'll say, this sounds so good.
It just seems a little too good to be true.
And I say, no, that's why it's called the good news.
The gospel of Jesus Christ.
It's really that good.
The religions of men, they bind heavy burdens and grievous to be born.
What does Jesus say?
Come unto me, all ye who are weary and are what?
Heavy laden.
And I will give you rest.
Rest from what?
Rest from that heavy burden.
I'll take it off of you.
He says, for they bind heavy burdens and grievous to be born and lay them on men's shoulders, but they themselves will not move them with one of their fingers.
It's the work of God through the gospel. to relieve the burdens that sin has brought upon men, every one of them.
That's what the second coming of Christ is going to do.
It's going to take away every burden that sin has ever put upon the human race.
That's the work of Christ, therefore that's the law of Christ.
That's the law of Christ.
That's Jesus' work for us is to relieve burdens.
Therefore, that's Jesus' commandment to us to relieve burdens.
When we preach the gospel, we're relieving burdens.
When we help our fellow man in a practical way, we're relieving burdens.
So as we have had burdens taken from us through Christ, that is his law to us that we relieve them as well.
God never intended for us to be burdened at all.
He intended for us to thrive in the freedom of his blessing, his love, and his grace.
And sin brought every burden upon man and Jesus came.
To help us with those burdens now by relieving our conscience.
And by the grace of God relieve those burdens practically through the power of the cross when he returns.
No more tears.
There'll be no more burdens.
Now it's bad enough to burden ordinary people with our sinful and selfish choices But it's far worse to burden people who are already burdened by the circumstances of life.
And that's why Solomon tonight is speaking about those who press heavy burdens down upon.
Look back in your text.
The poor.
He that oppresseth.
He that presses down upon the poor.
Now there is the poor in spirit.
Blessed are the poor in spirit, right?
So there are the poor in spirit, and the very worst Thing that a person can do when they oppress the poor is to oppress the poor in spirit.
It's to take someone who has a sensitive conscience toward God.
And then do like the Pharisees and bind the heavy burdens on them.
He that oppresses the poor, you know, the people who think they're rich.
Are the people who are actually poor spiritually, the people who th believe they're poor, the ones who in Christ will end up being rich.
Blessed are the poor in spirit, Jesus said.
But that's the absolute worst type of oppression you can do is to oppress the poor in spirit But not only the poor in spirit, there's also the poor in this world, and it's people who can't get out and make a good living like other able-bodied people.
My wife and I, when we were in Indiana Last week we were on the service road off I-70 and there was a woman.
I bet she weighed I bet she weighed at least 250 pounds.
And she's out there with a sign that says hungry.
Anything will help.
And I tell you what, it it She could have gone a while, but she was able-bodied.
No telling how long she'd been standing there on the side of the road Then here pretty soon looked like come her boyfriend.
He took the sign and relieved her and she went off and had a shift change.
Well those folks need to get out and get a job.
They're not poor, they're lazy.
There's a difference.
But poor people are folks who can't get out and make a good living like able-bodied people.
The poor are those who are burdened down with physical disabilities, with mental disabilities. with illnesses or some type of life hardship that prevents them from providing a good living for their families.
And they have a hard enough time trying to make ends meet on their own.
So they sure don't need somebody else making it any harder on them and pressing down on them.
There's a man I know who's mentally slow But he's able to drive.
I think he's still living.
You remember David?
Is he still living?
Yeah.
Well he he's uh he's uh uh mentally challenged, but he's able to drive.
And the last I saw him, he was driving an old jalopy I mean, it was rough.
It looked like it it belonged in the junkyard.
He's just very, very poor.
He doesn't have the ability to get out and make a living like most people do.
And he had a tail light out and he got stopped by the police department.
And uh they wrote him a ticket for his taillight being out.
And if that would have been me, or if that had been Brother Shepherd.
I think I know what Brother Shepherd would have done if you saw that someone was a little mentally challenged and they're very, very, very poor, and they have a taillight out.
Well, if they go pay for that taillight ticket, they're probably not going to be able to buy a tail light.
And so it's better to either have something worked out with the judge So that if they do get a ticket, they get it dismissed when they get the taillight fixed.
Or, if you know them, write them a warning and let them go get a taillight.
So in a situation like that, that's a thing to do, you know.
You don't want to burden the poor, to oppress the poor.
A friend of mine had a grandfather once who worked in a mine back in the old days, back before they had unions.
If you work in a mine now, I mean you got all kinds of benefits, but back then you didn't.
And he lived in the miner's camp.
He slept in the miner's tent.
Guess where you went shopping at?
The miner's store.
So everything you got your paycheck from the mind, and then everything you spend on housing, on food, on whatever goes back to the mine And so you can get yourself in a situation if they only pay you just enough to live and not enough to get off the reservation, so to speak, you can keep that person in perpetual poverty.
And we don't want to oppress the poor like that.
Trying to keep poor people poor is oppression.
The government does a very good job of it.
The government loves to keep poor people poor.
They want to make poor people dependent on them.
They call it benefits.
They say we'll give you these benefits.
And if you work and if you make so much money, you're no longer qualified for these benefits.
Therefore they discourage people from working and making more money because they don't want to lose their benefits, and the benefits are simply traps. to keep them in bondage so that they can say, Brother Shepherd is running for my office against me.
He wants to take away your benefits.
He's mean.
You need to vote for me.
I'll make sure you keep your benefits.
Brother Shepherd actually wants to lift them out of poverty and calls them to be independent and responsible people.
Whoever re oppresses the poor, the Bible says, look back in your text, reproacheth his maker.
Reproacheth his maker.
If you do what we're talking about tonight, you're reproaching your maker.
And to reproach means to treat someone with scorn or contempt.
Every person was made in the image of God.
God loves and he sent his son to die for every single person. that he created.
So every single person that God created deserves to be loved, deserves to be respected, deserves to be treated as someone else who was made in the image of God.
Just like us.
The poor person is made in the image of God just like the rich person.
Jesus loves and died for poor people just like rich people.
In fact, Jesus said it's hard for a rich man to even get into heaven.
So whoever reproaches the poor, the least of these, if you could think of it that way They reproach God, who made those poor people, and the Savior who came and died for those poor people And what you do to the least of the children of men, Jesus says, what do you do?
You've done it unto me.
You do it unto God.
My wife says all the time.
My wife says People appreciate it when you see them, when they see you love their children.
Someone comes to church and they see you caring for their children, they're going to appreciate it.
If you're out in the world and you care for somebody's children, they're going to appreciate it.
When we see our children hurt, then we the parents we also hurt, don't we?
You can't hurt my kids without hurting me.
You can't reproach my children without reproaching me.
When we see our children rejoice, we rejoice.
Because I love my children, it's impossible for someone to treat my children badly without treating me badly.
Even so, when we reproach God's children, we're reproaching him So we better treat them well.
He that oppresseth the poor reproacheth his maker.
Look back in your text.
But he that honoreth him That is not reproach the maker, not reproach your maker, but the person who honors the maker, the one who created you.
Who is the person that honors their maker?
It's not the person who sits in the seat of Moses like the scribes and Pharisees.
They had authority.
So what they taught as far as the law of Moses, that was legitimate.
What they did as far as fulfilling it was illegitimate.
Because they taught, they were good at binding burdens, but being ignorant of the Son of God, they weren't any good at relieving those burdens.
They understood the commandments, they didn't understand the sacrifices.
The sacrifices were meant to take the burdens away and point people to the Lamb to come.
They weren't any good at doing that.
And when the Lamb came, they crucified him.
And not so he could be a sacrifice The one that honors God is the one who has mercy, it says on the poor.
Look back in your text.
But he that honoreth him hath mercy on the poor.
So the best way to understand mercy as we looked at earlier as we we began with our preface of the message is that to oppress means to push down.
To have mercy is to relieve the burden.
It's to do the opposite in the sense of oppressed.
As oppressed means to press down, creating a burden on someone, so mercy in this text means to lift that burden off.
Or at least bear it alongside the person.
There's some things you can't lift off of people.
I was talking to a man the other day. who called me.
It was a pastor who called me.
And boy was he burdened.
I tell you it broke my heart.
And when he when he called, I thought he was going to ask me a a doctrinal question or something, Brother Shepherd, I could help him with.
I thought this is going to be nice.
Help his young pastor with a doctrinal question.
This would be real nice.
And I hadn't spoken to him in years.
And I was surprised he was reaching out.
But when he reached out, it was a very dark conversation, a very sad conversation.
And my heart was so burdened But I told him, I said, brother, there's some things you've just got to go through alone Nobody can take it from you.
I said, but I'll promise you this.
If you'll stay faithful to God and if you'll follow his word in this dark, trying time.
He will prove himself faithful to you in the end.
He has me every single time.
There's some things you just can't relieve from people.
Like Job, as Brother Shepherd's teaching through the book of Job on Sunday morning in the Sunday school.
His friends could sit with them They could maybe try to encourage them.
They weren't very good at it, but they could maybe try to encourage them.
But nobody could take those boils off of them.
Nobody could give his children away. uh back.
Nobody could make his wife straighten up and get spiritual.
But if you can't relieve a burden, You can always come underneath it and maybe take a little of the weight off, you know.
And the best I could do for that man was to give him counsel from God's word and to pray for him and to keep praying for him.
We got off the phone.
He said, that's not what I wanted to hear, but it's what I needed to hear.
You know what?
That's okay.
You know what that tells me?
Through the scripture, little little weight come off the shoulder there.
Little weight Instead of burdening people with unkindness, instead of burdening the poor with unkindness, instead of burdening the poor with with uh uh uh trying to keep them poor and and and and putting them in a position that we use them uh uh to our advantage but to their disadvantage, as many people do.
We should be relieving their burdens, either by bearing the burdens alongside them, or when we can, and if possible, by God's grace, doing away with those burdens altogether The book of Galatians, chapter 6, verse 2, says, bear ye one another burdens.
And so fulfill the law of Christ.
There's the law of Christ.
Look at that.
And now notice the difference as we close Between what Jesus said about the scribes and Pharisees and what the Apostle Paul is now saying, both Jesus and Paul address the law.
The Pharisees were teaching the law of Moses.
They sat in the seat of Moses.
In teaching the law of Moses only.
I like what the psalmist says.
Blessed is he whose iniquity is forgiven, whose sin is covered, right?
Blessed is the man to whom the Lord will not impute sin.
Now, if you have that kind of understanding of the law, you have your burden gone.
You live during the time of the law under the dispensation of the law, but you're relieved by the promise of the sacrifice to come.
There's one thing that law did, and I'm teaching this, I'll be teaching on this Sunday in Sunday school through our Genesis to Jesus class.
Last Sunday I was teaching on the promulgation of the law, God giving that law from Mount Sinai.
And it's such a beautiful passage in Scripture because the mountain is shaking.
Earth's trembling.
Lightning thunder's cloud, sound of a trumpet.
It's blasting their ears.
And there's this death penalty to anyone who would even dare touch the mountain that God was on And what so beautiful was when that law was given, when those ten commandments were given, it said the people removed and stood far off.
Wow, I had to go back away from that mountain.
Couldn't even get close to it.
And they said, Moses, you go speak to God for us.
Because we can't, you're going to have to go in between us.
We can't go directly to God.
We're afraid we're going to die.
And I got the opportunity to teach that class that the law does not bring people to God.
It drives them away.
It shows them their sinners, and they become strangers and foreigners and distance from God.
But ye who sometimes were far off The Bible says.
Or what?
Made nigh by the blood of Christ, made near, right nigh by the blood of Christ.
And so when God gave that law, On Mount Sinai.
The people had to go away.
But you know what?
That wasn't the end of the law God immediately followed the law by giving another law.
The law of the priesthood.
The law of a day of atonement.
The law of sacrifice and propitiation.
The law of a scapegoat that one is slain and the other is taken far off.
Now the sin's far removed A law that can bring people to God to the sacrifice of an innocent substitute And that was one part of that law the scribes and the Pharisees that sat in the seat of Moses did not. understand nor communicate.
And that is why they could only bind the burdens But then the apostle Paul comes around and he starts teaching about the law of Christ.
The law of Christ is the opposite of the law of Mount Sinai.
One drove away The other bore the condemnation of those commandments that drove those people away.
And now says, come unto me, all ye who are weary and heavy laden, I'll give you rest.
That's the law of Christ.
To take the burdens that are heaped upon man because of his flesh, because of his sin. because of the fall of man and through his death, burial, and resurrection, and second coming, to totally remove them forever.
If that's what Jesus did for us through the gospel, that being the gift of Christ, that is now what we should be doing to others in his name. fulfilling the law of Christ.
With that, we'll close in prayer.
Father, we thank you so much for your precious word.
We thank you, dear Lord God, for the two sides, Lord. of the flesh and the spirit, of carnal religion, and of the spirit of truth and grace For the law came by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ.
We thank you, Lord, that we have not been called to oppress the poor in spirit.
But to show mercy on them.
And the mercy we show is the mercy you provided.
The one who fulfilled the law of the mercy seat, which we now teach.
We thank you for that in Jesus' precious name Be with this church, Lord, both those who are watching online tonight and those who are here in person.
Those who are here, we pray you'll give them a safe trip home Bring us back together, Father, in person Sunday morning.
Will we open your word again in Jesus' precious name?
Amen.
