It’s hard to believe that ministry to widows, single moms and fatherless children has anything to do with a US presidential election. But it does. Here’s why.
There’s nothing like a presidential election cycle to throw one into the doldrums. As I write, we have a week to go before the 2016 election is mercifully over. By the time you read this, we will have a new POTUS. While the outcome at the moment still hangs in the balance, one thing I know for sure is that our culture has sunk to new subterranean levels of morality and the Church’s inability to halt the decline, let alone reverse it, is breathtaking.
I would be in complete despair were it not for the clear and concrete instructions in Scripture about how to go about transforming a debauched culture such as ours. Thankfully, God has told us exactly what we should do in the present circumstances and it has to do with ministry to widows, single moms and fatherless children!
Not only do we have clear instruction in the Word of God, we also have specific historic examples of people taking these actions and then seeing their culture transformed. The instructions I’m talking about are found in the first chapter of the Book of Isaiah.
Isaiah prophesied in the eighth century BC, during the reigns of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz and Hezekiah. At the time Isaiah wrote his prophecy, the nation of Judah was in a state of severe moral decline.
Woe to the sinful nation,
a people whose guilt is great,
a brood of evildoers,
children given to corruption!
They have forsaken the Lord;
they have spurned the Holy One of Israel
and turned their backs on him. (Isaiah 1:4, NIV)
Judah’s religious institutions were also compromised.
When you spread out your hands in prayer,
I hide my eyes from you;
even when you offer many prayers,
I am not listening.
Your hands are full of blood! (Isaiah 1:15, NIV)
But suddenly, God offers the nation a glimmer of hope.
Learn to do right; seek justice.
Defend the oppressed.
Take up the cause of the fatherless;
plead the case of the widow.
Come now, let us settle the matter, says the Lord.
Though your sins are like scarlet,
they shall be as white as snow;
though they are red as crimson,
they shall be like wool. (Isaiah 1:17-18, NIV)
God is offering the nation a deal. It’s as if He is about to take the nation to court and seek a judgment. In Judah’s case, such a judgment would be another nation like Assyria to the north coming and conquering them. But God is saying, “Before I take you to court and judge you, here’s my offer: If you do good” (verse 17, the literal translation is , “Learn to do good.”), “I’ll transform your culture” (verse 18). (Many interpret Verse 17 as a reference to individual salvation. But the context clearly refers to the nation as a corporate entity.)
So there you have it: “Do good and I’ll transform your culture.”
What then is the good we are supposed to do? Verse 17 goes on to describe this good we are to do: “Seek justice, defend the oppressed. Take up the cause of the fatherless. Plead the case of the widow.”
The instructions couldn’t be more clear or concrete. Find a widow, find a fatherless child, and plead their cause. If we do that, God says He will transform our culture. Easypeasy.
So are there specific biblical examples of someone doing this and the culture being transformed as a result? The answer is yes. Here are three examples of someone pleading the cause of a fatherless child or widow and God responding by transforming the culture around them.
1. Judah pleading the cause of Benjamin
I’ve written about Judah pleading the cause of Benjamin in my last post: “God’s Word and the Word of a Man of God.” The story appears in Genesis 44 and is the climax to the story of Joseph and his brothers and also to the entire book of Genesis. In this part of the story, Benjamin is a de facto fatherless child. He’s about to be taken to prison in Egypt for theft. Judah could easily have left him behind. But instead, he offers himself up as a substitute for Benjamin, fulfilling his pledge to his father.
The result of Judah pleading the cause of his brother – a “fatherless child” – is a complete transformation of the relationship he and his brothers have with their father and with Joseph, laying a sound moral foundation for the descendants of Jacob as a race and eventually as a nation.
2. Ruth pleading the cause of Naomi
The book of Ruth takes place during the time of the Judges, a period of moral decline in Israel. And yet, just a few years after Ruth lived, Israel reached the apex of spiritual transformation during the reign of David. How did this happen?
The book of Ruth answers this question. It begins in chapter one by referencing the rule of the Judges, but ends in the last verse of the last chapter by mentioning David. In between these two periods is the action of Ruth, pleading the cause of a widow, Naomi. The book of Ruth is saying that it is Ruth’s act of compassion, love and commitment to a widow that resulted in the moral transformation of the entire nation.
3. The church following the example of Jesus pleading the cause of his mother
The last act of Jesus before he died was to plead the cause of a widow and single mother – his mother Mary. By entrusting his mother to John, Jesus set a precedent for the church to follow. Consequently the church made caring for widows its highest priority, in obedience to Isaiah 1:17. Every reference to good works and doing good in the New Testament is based on that verse, “Learn to do good.” The result? The church transformed all of Western Civilization.
It sounds too good to be true. But it isn’t. God’s promise to us is if we plead the cause of the widow and orphan, He will transform our culture. He’s done it before. He will do it again.
Are you pleading the cause of a widow or fatherless child? Tell us about it.
This post originally appeared in NewCommandment.org.
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Learn how to form teams of men for every widow, single mom
and fatherless child in your church at NewCommandment.org.
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