Episode 1. Lies, Damned Lies and Statistics
I’ve been asked this week to talk about a very special subject. It’s a subject that I know is very dear to Gods heart, it’s a subject that’s having a devastating impact on the …
I’ve been asked this week to talk about a very special subject. It’s a subject that I know is very dear to Gods heart, it’s a subject that’s having a devastating impact on the lives of many, many people, in fact many people listening today. And yet, for others, it’s a subject that they may not really want me to talk about. That subject is poverty. In fact poverty sounds a bit much like a concept, something that politicians deal with rather than ordinary folk like you and me.
Let me make it a whole bunch more personal. What I’ve been asked to talk about today are the poor … poor people.
People who don’t have enough food to eat today.
People who don’t have clean water to drink.
People whose children are dying from disease and malnourishment.
Children whose parents have died through the AIDS epidemic or through war.
People who are marginalised, people who are rejected.
People who are traded as slaves and herded like cattle from one camp to the next.
People who’ve lost their dignity and worth in their own eyes and in the eyes of the world.
And the reason I want to talk with you about the poor today and this week on the program is because, well they are so incredibly dear to Gods heart.
Now it’s a tricky thing for me to do on this program, to talk about the poor. Whether you realise it or not, this program is aired, not just on this station but on over 750 stations in 120 countries around the world. Millions of people will hear this program, most of them poor. I was talking, just the other day, with a program director of a station in Liberia who airs this program and he was sharing with me the responses he receives from people in refugee camps. I shared the other day, a rebel fighter in the Congo sent me an email and I know that there was a wealthy businessman in Chicago listening to the program on his I Pod.
The reason I’ve been asked to talk about the poor is because Micah Challenge, a Christian organisation that’s helping the poor across the globe, is about to release a music album with songs that worship the God who has the most amazing heart for the poor. So it’s a tricky thing for me to do. How do you talk about the poor and poverty to both poor and rich?
If I were talking only to the rich, well that would be easy, if I were talking only to the poor, well that’s never easy for me, I don’t have a whole bunch of platitudes but at least I would know what to say. So, I’m not sharing this with just the rich or just the poor, I am sharing it with both, I’d like you to understand that.
Now it’s easy for us to over spiritualise the gospel message. You can see that as you look back throughout Church history. People, well meaning people get so focused on preaching and sharing the good news, we forget that we’re not just spiritual beings, we’re also physical beings with physical needs. We need air, water, food, shelter, protection, sleep. And we’re emotional beings, we have emotional needs. We need love community, nurture, connection, encouragement.
One of the things I really, really love about God, when you read His word, the Bible, He doesn’t over spiritualise. He deals with the whole person and the God that I read about is a God who wants to bless every part of our lives; physical, emotional and spiritual. He wants to make sure that we have enough food to eat, He wants to make sure that we have jobs and dignity and community around us.
Just before Israel crosses over from the desert into the Promised Land, Moses says this to them, you can read it if you like; it’s in the book of Deuteronomy chapter 28.
The Lord will command the blessing upon you in your barns. You expect the Lord to bless you in your barns (This was where God was going to bless them, in their barns) and in all that you undertake He will bless you in the land that the Lord, your God, is giving you.
In other words, He wants to bless them with enough to eat. So how come then there are so many people starving on this world? If I were to ask you, how many people in the world today are malnourished, what would your estimate be? How many just don’t have enough food to eat? 100,000,000? 200,000,000? 500,000,000? How many?
Well the World Health Organisation estimates that one-third of the people in this world are well fed, one-third are under fed and one-third are starving. With a world population of around 6.6 billion, that means that 2.2 billion people are starving and fully 4.4 billion are either underfed or starving.
‘Ah, it’s too big to deal with. Lies, damned lies, statistics’. If you’re wealthy maybe you want to run away from that, maybe you think ‘well it is too big, there’s nothing I can do about it. What I’ll do is I’ll retreat to the comfortable cocoon of wealth; I’ll just ignore it. I’ll change the channel when the images of starving children flash up on the evening news’ And if you’re poor, the 4.4 billion, doesn’t matter that much. What matters is your family, your children, the hunger in your stomach.
What do you do with numbers like that? What do you do with them? So many people experience a sense of powerlessness, ‘ah, it’s Gods problem, it’s not my problem. Anyhow, how can He allow this to go one? I know, I know what I’ll do, what I’ll do is I’ll go down to the coffee shop and plan the purchase of my latest I Pod or maybe a holiday in the Caribbean or maybe a new pair of shoes’. And that, I have to tell you, is what many rich people do because they can’t see how to make a difference. They deal with it by not dealing with it.
If you’re in that category let me share these two things with you. Firstly, in the time that we will have spent together today, 174 children will have died of starvation. And before you run away from these lies, damned lies and statistics let me share this with you from Gods word. Proverbs chapter 21, verse 13:
If you close your ear to the cry of the poor, you will cry out and you will not be heard.
If you close your ear to the cry of the poor, you will cry out and you will not be heard.
On the other hand, if you’re listening to this with a hungry stomach, with a sick child, without a roof over your head, without any hope for your future, then I want to share this with you. These are the words that Jesus spoke when He began His public ministry. You can read them in Luke chapter 4. He said:
The Spirit of the Lord is upon me because He has anointed Me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent Me to proclaim release to the captives, recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lords favour.
God is a God who wants to bless the poor, to feed the poor, to hold the poor close to Him and the way that He always, always sought to do that is through His people, through those who call themselves by His name; Christians, and His call to each one of us today is to step up to the plate, to get involved and to do all that we can do. Micah chapter 6, verse 8 says:
He has told you O mortal what is good and what does the Lord require of you? But to do justice and to love kindness and to walk humbly with your God.
Comments
Berni Dymet
Rob, we all want to be good stewards of what God has given us and there are many stories that you hear of people giving, for example, to disaster relief, only to discover that the money went in a different direction or ended up sitting in a bank account without being distributed. Personally I investigate the ministries that I support to ensure that the funds are being well spent. So, ask questions and satisfy yourself that this ministry that you want to support, that you feel led by God to support, is what it says it is and does what it says it does with your money. Blessings, Berni
Rob Messmer
Hey Bernie
Love what you’ve been sharing BUT how do we give and know that our money will get to where it needs to go. Thought you might be a help in this area. Where. Whats the address?
Brenda Harvey
Thanks for these messages Berni. My heart says Amen to all that you are sharing this week. Your messages are encouraging me to want to give even more as I understand more clearly God’s heart for the poor and needy. My husband and I have seen time and time again that God’s generosity to us encourages us to be even more generous to those in need both near and far. I believe that God calls his people to be open handed and open hearted to those in need around us. Blessings to you. Brenda