"Use Yo Mouth. Word To Yo Motha!" - Brown Boy

2/24/2012

Proverbs 31:8- “Speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves, for the rights of all who are destitute.”

Interpretation: King Lemuel’s mother has told him in the four previous verses not to partake in drunkenness and to leave that for those who are perishing lest he forget what the law decrees and deprive the oppressed of their rights. Here she takes it one step further than just a warning to not deprive the oppressed of their rights, but tells him to actually speak up for those who can’t speak for themselves, and to speak up for the rights of those who are famished or impoverished. People who have no money and no solid source of income really have no say in where their lives are leading them. They do everything they can just to survive and people pass by their empty cups on cold street corners with judgmental hearts and refuse to give them what they need. So it is with the spiritually starving. There are people in this world who live in lies and bondage lacking the freedom that comes only in a relationship with Christ. Thus they have no understanding of where their lives are taking them, and how devastating spiritual bankruptcy is. They drink to fill the hole that is “God deficiency,” but it never holds true sufficiency. They get drunk to forget their misery, and scrape by day by day simply surviving on this earth, but eternally going nowhere good. It is so easy to pass a quick judgment on someone who does not know the Lord, or someone who even claims to hate him, like a homeless man who refuses to eat the food someone buys them, but we must remember that Jesus came to show us his love for us, even if that meant his life as he knew it would end. I think of being in the grocery store- how many people sit waiting with empty cups? How many people sit begging outside the gate called Beautiful when really all they need is someone to offer them a say in things, give them the truth, and to have the boldness to share the saving truth of Christ? King Lemuel’s mother tells him it is not okay for kings and rulers to drink. As for us true leaders and disciples, we should abstain from drinking like those who are in anguish, and reach out and share hope, give a voice to the voiceless, and fight for the rights of those who are spiritually, physically, and emotionally destitute, oppressed and controlled by the enemy without a say in what they shall do and an awareness of what they truly need.

Application: I shared Christ with a boy I went to high school with a few nights ago. He is like the homeless man wandering the streets- trying to survive but never understanding that God wants us to come into his home and be at rest. I will pray for him throughout my day today, I will be a voice for him because he cannot use his own voice to defend himself before God. I will pray for the softening of his heart and ultimately his salvation.