“What am I to do for the widows and orphans?”

This blog comes from the talk I did at Rainstorm Youth Ministry last night. I hope one day we ask this question to ourselves and answer it for your self not just because it is important to someone else, but because it is important to you. And I will give you four things I found at the end of this blog. Putting together this blog (or talk if you were at Rainstorm) was a bit more of a difficult for me. But I hope it all works out in the end.

The talk was entitled “what am I to do for the widows and orphans?” There as a couple different reasons, I talked about this here are the reasons:

1. Next we are going to a place called Sew-on-Fire Ministries. It is a ministry based in Burlington. This is a ministry that puts together bags that go to other Countries to meet the needs of people. They will have things that we have here in Canada and they do not have them where they live.

2. I wanted to give Rainstorm a reason to why we are going to do that next week. To give is some purpose, because we think having a purpose behind something we do is great.

3. There is a thing coming up in early December entitled For Kids Only. Where children will come to St. Paul’s (a church in Dundas) on Saturday and they will be able to get Christmas gifts for their families. This event is going to include a few churches from the Dundas area, and I helping from my church. My job is to get youth to be elves to help to kids with their gifts and stuff.

4. When getting ready to do the talk I did on “The Power of the Tongue.” I came across a really cool verse that you can read near the end of this blog. That changes the way I view of what I am to do for widow and orphans.

So there are a few reasons that led me to ask this question. “What am I to do for the widows and orphans?”

When I asked that question, I thought I would look at what the Bible had to say about the topic. Here are a few passages that I came across and this not all of them.

The first one I found was in Isaiah 1:17 it says:

“learn to do right!
Seek justice,
encourage the oppressed.
Defend the cause of the fatherless,
plead the case of the widow.”

This passage tells us to defend the cause of the orphans (or fatherless) and pled the case of the widow.

The next passage I came around was found in Job 31:16-23 it says:

“If I have denied the desires of the poor
or let the eyes of the widow grow weary,
if I have kept my bread to myself,
not sharing it with the fatherless-
but from my youth I reared him as would a father,
and from my birth I guided the widow-
if I have seen anyone perishing for lack of clothing,
or a needy man without a garment,
and his heart did not bless me
for warming him with the fleece from my sheep,
if I have raised my hand against the fatherless,
knowing that I had influence in court,
then let my arm fall from the shoulder,
let it be broken off at the joint.
For I dreaded destruction from God,
and for fear of his splendor I could not do such things.”

Now to get to the really cool verse I found in James 1 and we are going to look at verses 26 and 27. If you read “The Power of the Tongue” you might remember vs. 26, but this is just to help us understand the verses.

James 1:26-27 says:
26 “If anyone considers himself religious and yet does not keep a tight rein on his tongue, he deceives himself and his religion is worthless.
27 Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.”

This passage tells us that pure religion that God look for is one that looks after the orphans and the widows. This changes the way I look at life now

One more verse I came across is found back in Isaiah 1:23 is says:

“Your rulers are rebels,
companions of thieves;
they all love bribes
and chase after gifts.
They do not defend the cause of the fatherless;
the widow's case does not come before them.”

This passage tells us that rulers are busy chasing after gifts to care about the widow’s and orphans. It tells us to defend the cause of the fatherless.

Growing up I always, thought oh someone else will look after the orphans and the widows that’s not my thing. The Salvation Army they do a great job with that I will not worry about that. After reading that verse in James it changed the way I thought about that. And I think we as a group (Rainstorm) need to at least twice a year right now, we need to help meet the needs of the widows and orphans. We do have them here in Canada too; you do not need to jump on a plane to someone else to do it.

These verses in James become very real to me this week when talking to my brother and mom. My brother has a friend who died. This friend had a girlfriend and she was pregnant when he died. Since then she has given birth to the child. My brother has been home for almost two weeks now, and he has been hanging out with the girl and the kid. One day after hanging out with her he came home and was talking about how great the kid is and stuff. Then he went on to say that my mom and him are going to open up a bank account for this kid so that when he is 21 he will have some money. I said to my mom so I heard you are opening another bank account. She was confused. Then I went on to say more, there are a couple reasons she is doing this. One to get my brother to save money but we can not tell him that. Number two because my brother and this guy were really good friends and she thinks it is a good idea. Number three she believes it is the Christian thing to do. She sees the need of this girl and her child and wants to meet it. She is putting James 1:27 in to practice and might not even know it.

Finally there is one more verse I found in Exodus 22:22 it says:

“Do not take advantage of a widow or an orphan.”

Last night I did not try to take advantage of orphans or widows, I did not use any pictures to make you emotional and get people crying. I wanted to get you to think about this topic and make the right choice and let God lead your heart to meet the needs of the orphans and the widows.

“What am I to do for the widows and orphans?”

1. Pled their case

2. Not to take advantage of them

3. Give them a voice

4. Look after them

I tried my best not to make this a social talk I would to keep it as Biblical as I could. I hope this make sense to you. I hope you understand you have something to do for the orphans and the widows. I hope you found some where were you can do this. This is what made it so difficult for me.

Next weeks blog. I will have to think about because I am not doing the talk Rainstorm. If you have any ideas. Leave them with your comments.

Thanks for reading please left a comment!

Thanks
Howden Matt Howden