How should Christians view refugees?

There are some real opportunities right on your doorstep. The Lord has opened the door for mass migration into many richer, nominally Christian countries. Many immigrants know precious little of the host language: the need for so many is to learn English – could you not start a free class in the meeting room? Use for example Luke’s gospel as a base textbook to start with … and with a little kindness your efforts will soon be rewarded. Invite the students to the meeting, invite them home for a meal. Perhaps there are single parent families in the area – could not a work with the children bring contacts and souls for your hire? Perhaps you have a room or two to spare, could these be made available for some energetic and faithful younger brothers and sisters to stay for a week or two in order to engage in street evangelism – tract distribution among the neighbourhood or in the town centre: 60,000 homes can be reached within 6 weeks of steady work by a team of ten. The scope and possibilities are endless. But who will go, who will give their spare time and resources for this good work? Will you give up a gap year to serve the Lord?

It is, at once, interesting and edifying to notice the way in which Moses sets the divine example before the people as their model. Jehovah "loves the stranger, in giving him food and raiment. Love ye therefore the stranger; for ye were strangers in the land of Egypt." This is very touching. They were not only to keep before their eyes the divine model, but also to remember their own past history and experience, in order that their hearts might be drawn out in sympathy and compassion toward the poor homeless stranger. It was the bounden duty and high privilege of the Israel of God to place themselves in the circumstances and enter into the feelings of others. They were to be the moral representatives of that blessed One whose people they were, and whose Name was called upon them. They were to imitate Him in meeting the wants and gladdening the hearts of the fatherless, the widow, and the stranger. And if God's earthly people were called to this lovely course of action, how much more are we who are "blessed with all spiritual blessings in the heavenlies in Christ Jesus." May we abide more in His presence, and drink more into His Spirit, that so we may more faithfully reflect His moral glories upon all with whom we come in contact!

The aged among the people were to be held in honour and respect. In eastern countries today people are more careful about this than in the west. Also, when a stranger came to reside in Israel he was to be treated with respect and courtesy, in fact, Israel was told to "love him as yourself" (v. 34). If this was true in Israel under law, how much more emphatic it should be for Christians who are "under grace."

(2) They indeed knew God in His wonderful work for them, as well as in the commandments which displayed His character. They were called to imitate Him. If He cared for the fatherless and widows, and for the stranger, they too must care. And had they not known what it was to be strangers in that land out of which (marvelously multiplied amid all their suffering) He had delivered them with an outstretched arm?

Then not only is the eating of anything with the blood forbidden, but enchantments and auguries, and heathenish ways in trimming of heads and beards, cutting of the flesh and tattooing, as opposed to Jehovah. So too the devoting of a daughter to whoredom, as not immoral only but "profane." So as His sabbaths were to be kept, and His sanctuary reverenced, they were to shun necromancers and soothsayers as polluting (vers. 26-31). The same authority of Jehovah, which proscribed those heathen enormities, calls for honour to the hoary head and the face of the old man, coupling them with the fear of "thy God" (32). And what strikingly cuts off by anticipation the narrow and base pride of the Talmud, "a stranger" that might sojourn in their land was not only to be allowed there unmolested, but to be loved as one born among them. "Thou shalt love him as thyself; for ye were strangers in the land of Egypt: I [am] Jehovah your God" (33, 34). How touching to remember their oppression in Egypt, not for resentment but for compassion!

"Thou shalt neither vex a stranger, nor oppress him: for ye were strangers in the land of Egypt. Ye shall not afflict any widow, or fatherless child. If thou afflict them in any wise, and they cry at all unto Me, I will surely hear their cry; and My wrath shall wax hot, and I will kill you with the sword; and your wives shall be widows, and your children fatherless. If thou lend money to any of My people that is poor by thee, thou shalt not be to him as an usurer, neither shalt thou lay upon him usury. If thou at all take thy neighbour's raiment to pledge, thou shalt deliver it unto him by that the sun goeth down: for that is his covering only, it is his raiment for his skin: wherein shall he sleep? and it shall come to pass, when he crieth unto Me, that I will hear; for I am gracious." (vv. 21-27.)

The stranger comes first, and the remembrance of what they had been in the land of Egypt was to govern their conduct toward such. They had been in bitterness of soul through hard bondage when under the iron yoke of Pharaoh, and they could therefore enter into the feelings of those who were strangers in a strange land. The helpless are next commended to their hearts; and of all the helpless ones that appeal to our compassion, surely the widow and the fatherless have the first claim. God thus surrounds them here with the powerful defence of His own arm. If any should afflict them, they should be killed and their wives and children should become widows and orphans. Throughout the whole of Scripture these two classes are ever indicated as the special object of God's care, and hence should be objects of our compassionate concern. James accordingly says, "Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father, is this, To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world." (James 1:27.) The two following directions concern the poor — the first, to save him from extortion as well as to prevent the rich from making gain of his poverty; and the second, to secure him from destitution and nakedness. These laws, spite of the fact that the children of Israel were now governed from Sinai, permit us to see into the depths of the heart of God. What inexpressible tenderness in the provision that a pledged garment should be given up "by that the sun goeth down: for that is his covering only, it is his raiment for his skin: wherein shall he sleep? and it shall come to pass, when he crieth unto Me, that I will hear; for I am gracious." The heart of God must be expressed by His people, and He is touched by the sight of one who has nothing to cover his body when he lies down to sleep!

And how touching is the plea of the 19th verse,which reminds us not so much (as it is usually taken) of man's transience on earth, as the divine care for the stranger-guest in Israel, as the provisions of the law manifest it. We are apt to judge things rather by the narrow and sectarian spirit actually manifested by the nation in its later history than by the precepts of the inspired lawgiver. Yet, separated as they were by the law itself from the abominations to which the nations in their departure from God had given themselves up, He had placed them upon the very lines of intercourse between these nations, and at the throbbing centre of the world's traffic. Here was their mountain fastness in which the Word that was entrusted to them was to be maintained for the blessing of the whole human race; and here, in the presence of all the powers of the world, so frank an asylum was offered to the one who sought it, that a mere fugitive slave escaping there was sheltered and free to find his home under the protection of the Lord God of Israel, and no man might deliver him up. (Deut. 23:15-16.)

Israel themselves had known the "the heart of a stranger" by bitter experience, and God declared Himself to them as One that "loveth the stranger in giving Him food and raiment." They are exhorted, "Love ye therefore the stranger: for ye were strangers in the land of Egypt." (Deut. 10:18-19.) Nay, they were taught still to account themselves as strangers, even in their land, and to prove to themselves that love of His to strangers of which He speaks: "The land shall not be sold for ever: for the land is Mine: for ye are strangers and sojourners with Me." (Lev. 25:23.)

Israel of old had been taught to love the stranger as one born among them, for they had themselves known the heart of a stranger. And in the mercifulness of Him Whose they were, and Who feedeth the young ravens that cry unto Him, and openeth His hand and filleth all things living with plenteousness, they had been thus commanded, "When ye reap the harvest of your land, thou shalt not wholly reap the corners of thy field, neither shalt thou gather the gleanings of thy harvest; thou shalt not glean thy vineyard, neither shalt thou gather every grape of thy vineyard; thou shalt leave them for the poor and stranger" (Lev. 19:9-10).

This first section ends with throwing the protection of the law over one who might be a stranger in Israel, and therefore likely to be treated differently. In this we see the compassionate interest of our God for those outside "the commonwealth of Israel" (Eph. 2:12).

This great God of Israel who shows no partiality nor takes a bribe, is shown rather to administer justice for the fatherless and widow and shows love toward strangers (v.18). How totally in contrast to this are the great majority of rulers in the world today! Law courts too frequently show sad disregard for justice. The poor will commonly suffer gross injustice while the wealthy use their money to pervert judicial action in their own favor. Believers may well be deeply thankful for a God who is perfectly just and faithful.

Because God loves strangers as well as Israel, then Israel is told to love the stranger, for they were at one time strangers in the land of Egypt (v.19). They should therefore understand the feelings of a stranger. Showing kindness to strangers would be consistent with their fearing the Lord and serving Him, as well as taking oaths in His name (v.20). Taking oaths was consistent with their being under law, but the Lord Jesus changed this in saying, "But I say to you, do not swear at all, neither by heaven, for it is God's throne; nor by the earth, for it is His footstool; nor by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the great King. No shall you swear by your head, because you cannot make one hair white or black" (Mt.5:34-36).