Sermon Tone Analysis

*The Life of the Church in Proper Administration*

*May 12, 2002*

* *

*Our Widows*

(80% of women are widowed by age 52)

 

Lillian

Janice

Janet

Dorothy

Tess

Flora

Carol

 

*Our Single Women*

 

Patricia

Ruth

 

*Illustrations*

 

The persistence of motherhood in providing, protecting, and caring for life:

 

            Milk cow with calf back home on the farm pinned me to the wall.

Sow with fresh litter of pigs put gash in my father's leg.

Pigeons trying to nest on our front porch.

Mothers in Africa holding on to infants nearly dead.

This is the persistence of life that "civilization" is trying, and succeeding in, perverting.

If our mothers persisted in caring for our lives, we must return this care.

It is the way God crafted them, and us.

If men are to administer they must also protect.

(The administrators of Enron didn't protect their company or their employees.)

Administration is a spiritual gift (1Cor.

12:28).

And in the church, whatever men are left must do so as long as they live and are able.

But each does their part.

Even the widows have a place in the church.

/"They love one another.

They never fail to help widows; they save orphans from those who would hurt them.

If they have something they give freely to the man who has nothing; if they see a stranger, they take him home, and are happy, as though he were a real brother.

They don't consider themselves brothers in the usual sense, but brothers instead through the Spirit, in God." /

/   -- Aristides Describing Christians to the Emperor Hadrian./

*Instructions About Widows*

* *

*God's Oversight:*

 

He defends the cause of the fatherless and the widow, and loves the alien, giving him food and clothing.

(Deuteronomy 10:18 NIVUS)

 

A father to the fatherless, a defender of widows, is God in his holy dwelling.

(Psalms 68:5 NIVUS)

 

The LORD watches over the alien and sustains the fatherless and the widow, but he frustrates the ways of the wicked.

(Psalms 146:9 NIVUS)

 

The LORD tears down the proud man’s house but he keeps the widow’s boundaries intact.

(Proverbs 15:25 NIVUS)

 

Leave your orphans; I will protect their lives.

Your widows too can trust in me."

 (Jeremiah 49:11 NIVUS)

 

"So I will come near to you for judgment.

I will be quick to testify against sorcerers, adulterers and perjurers, against those who defraud laborers of their wages, who oppress the widows and the fatherless, and deprive aliens of justice, but do not fear me," says the LORD Almighty.

(Malachi 3:5 NIVUS)

 

They devour widows’ houses and for a show make lengthy prayers.

Such men will be punished most severely."

(Mark 12:40 NIVUS) (Luke 20:47 NIVUS)

 

 

*God's Command:*

 

"Do not take advantage of a widow or an orphan.

(Exodus 22:22 NIVUS)

 

 Do not deprive the alien or the fatherless of justice, or take the cloak of the widow as a pledge.

(Deuteronomy 24:17 NIVUS)

 

 When you are harvesting in your field and you overlook a sheaf, do not go back to get it.

Leave it for the alien, the fatherless and the widow, so that the LORD your God may bless you in all the work of your hands.

(Deuteronomy 24:19 NIVUS)

 

 When you harvest the grapes in your vineyard, do not go over the vines again.

Leave what remains for the alien, the fatherless and the widow.

(Deuteronomy 24:21 NIVUS)

 

 "Cursed is the man who withholds justice from the alien, the fatherless or the widow."

Then all the people shall say, "Amen!"

 (Deuteronomy 27:19 NIVUS)

 

 learn to do right!

Seek justice, encourage the oppressed.

Defend the cause of the fatherless, plead the case of the widow.

(Isaiah 1:17 NIVUS)

 

 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.

(Isaiah 1:23 NIVUS)

 

 Woe to those who make unjust laws, to those who issue oppressive decrees,

to deprive the poor of their rights and withhold justice from the oppressed of my people, making widows their prey and robbing the fatherless.

(Isaiah 10:1-2 NIVUS)

 

 If you really change your ways and your actions and deal with each other justly,

if you do not oppress the alien, the fatherless or the widow and do not shed innocent blood in this place, and if you do not follow other gods to your own harm, then I will let you live in this place, in the land I gave your forefathers for ever and ever.

(Jeremiah 7:5-7 NIVUS)

 

 This is what the LORD says: Do what is just and right.

Rescue from the hand of his oppressor the one who has been robbed.

Do no wrong or violence to the alien, the fatherless or the widow, and do not shed innocent blood in this place.

(Jeremiah 22:3 NIVUS)

 

 Do not oppress the widow or the fatherless, the alien or the poor.

In your hearts do not think evil of each other.’

(Zechariah 7:10 NIVUS)

 

Now to the unmarried and the widows I say: It is good for them to stay unmarried, as I am.

But if they cannot control themselves, they should marry, for it is better to marry than to burn with passion.

(1 Corinthians 7:8-9 NIVUS)

 

 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.

(James 1:27 NIVUS)

*Famous Widows of the Bible*

 

*Tamar*

 

 Judah then said to his daughter-in-law Tamar, "Live as a widow in your father’s house until my son Shelah grows up."

For he thought, "He may die too, just like his brothers."

So Tamar went to live in her father’s house.

(Genesis 38:11 NIVUS)

 

 she took off her widow’s clothes, covered herself with a veil to disguise herself, and then sat down at the entrance to Enaim, which is on the road to Timnah.

For she saw that, though Shelah had now grown up, she had not been given to him as his wife.