The Lord cares for the poor and the afflicted. He has identified Himself so closely with them that whosoever gives to the poor is considered as lending to the Lord. Jesus Christ was on this earth as a poor man, so that “he that oppresseth the poor reproacheth his Maker.” Proverbs 14.31. “The Lord heareth the poor.” Psalm 69.33. “The needy shall not alway be forgotten; the expectation of the poor shall not perish for ever.” Psalm 9.15. “The Lord will maintain the cause of the afflicted, and the right of the poor.” Psalm 140.12. “For the oppression of the poor, for the sighing of the needy, now will I arise, saith the Lord; I will set him in safety from him that puffeth at him.” Psalm 12.5. “Lord, who is like unto Thee, which deliverest the poor from him that is too strong for him, yea, the poor and the needy from him that spoileth him?” Psalm 35.10. With the Almighty God so interested in their case, what a pity it is that the poor are so ill-advised as to seek to right their own wrongs.
The Lord says: “Go to now, ye rich men, weep and howl for your miseries that shall come upon you. Your riches are corrupted, and your garments are moth-eaten. Your old and silver is cankered; and the rust of them shall be a witness against you, and shall eat your flesh as it were fire. Ye have heaped treasure together for the last days. Behold the hire of the laborers who have reaped down your fields, which is of you kept back by fraud, crieth; and the cries of them which have reaped are entered into the ears of the Lord of Sabbath. Ye have lived in pleasure on the earth, and been wanton; ye have nourished your hearts as in a day of slaughter. Ye have condemned and killed the just, and he doth not resist you.” James 5.1-6
This is a terrible indictment against the oppressors of the poor, and those who have defrauded them of their rightful wages. It is also a promise of sure judgment against them. The Lord hears the cry of the poor, and He does not forget. Every act of oppression He considers as directed against Himself. But when the poor take matters into their own hands, meeting monopoly with monopoly, and force with force, they put themselves in the same class with their oppressors, and thus deprive themselves of the good offices of God in their behalf.
To the rich oppressors God says, “Ye have condemned and killed the just, and he doth not resist you.” The injunction, “I say unto you, That ye resist not evil,” means just that, and nothing else; and it is not out of date. It is just as applicable to day as it was eighteen hundred years ago. The world has not changed in its character; the greed of men is the same now as then; and God is the same. Those who heed that injunction, God calls “the just.” The just do not resist when they are unjustly condemned and defrauded, and even killed.