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As a child watching Robin Hood on TV during the 1960s much of what was happening “behind the scenes” was lost on me. However the one thing that was not lost was the main message that it is good to take from the rich and give to the poor. Enter stage right Robin Hood who gladly and fearlessly set about robbing the wealthy to give the treasures to the less fortunate. Wow what a man of action! I really liked that the poor people were given something. It did not occur to me that the rich would miss their possessions because they still had plenty. I just wanted both parties to have enough so that everyone was happy. After all, it was strongly instilled in me to share with my younger sister and brother. My young mind had not thought of how the wealth was acquired in the first place nor had I any thoughts that ran any deeper than the poor would be pleased, comforted, and all would then be “put right” — or would it? Furthermore, it is embarrassing to admit that as a child I didn't even “blink an eye” over whether the victims experienced any trauma or suffering because it never even occurred to me. I was fully absorbed in wanting to give to others who needed help rather than thinking about the method used.
Of course robbery is wrong. Robbery is stealing and God says we should not steal. This is one of the 10 Commandments — number 8 in fact and can be found within the Bible from Exodus 20:15 and also in Deuteronomy 5:19. Have you ever given any consideration to or wondered if God wanted the poor to be poor and the rich to be rich? Shouldn’t we all have the same amount in life and definitely enough to get by on? Why does God allow the poor to struggle? There are many questions we may have. We are all loved by God and He desires all to acquire their needs and wants through being industrious by working honestly to obtain our daily food, clothing, bedding, household items, property, vehicles, pets, farm animals, and anything else we may choose (Ephesians 4:28). Through accident or injury many cannot work and need support from their loved ones — this is a Godly principle to care for parents and family members. Then there are the homeless people of the world. Are they our responsibility? We cannot help everyone. What should we do?
For now we need to know what God thinks. There is an absolute wealth in scripture regarding the poor and the rich from within the Bible. God tells us that we will always have the poor amongst us (Deuteronomy 15:11). The take away and consistently overwhelming message is that giving to others is good and we should according to our means by opening wide our hearts and arms in order to be generous while doing so (Hebrews 13:16, Ezekiel 18:5,7). However, wisdom is needed too. Handing out cash to a person who is addicted to drugs or alcohol is not wise. This enables them to buy more of the substance they crave instead of purchasing what they should. Giving them a hot nutritious meal is better, or perhaps a salad sandwich, providing juice or clean water to drink, or anything that they can consume to nourish their wasted or malnourished body from the ravages of deficiencies in vitamins and minerals. They may need a warm coat or shoes if living on the streets. We care by taking notice of the condition of their clothing and if they are wearing any shoes at all which should spur us into action.
The action we take will be influenced by many things. Our personalities are different, our talents and our gifts from God are diverse and mean that some are athletic, while others are musical, sing with beautiful voices, or yet others are artistic creating gorgeous paintings, and some are incredibly gifted wordsmiths able to write “best sellers” and/or interesting books. No matter who you are, we each have God-given abilities and should make the most of them to ensure we can strive to help ourselves and also help others. Imagine a world where there is no diversity and everything is equal. That would be boring and rather depressing actually. This is known as Socialism which is defined as “a political and economic theory of social organization which advocates that the means of production, distribution, and exchange should be owned or regulated by the community as a whole”, as stated at Dictionary.com.
Socialism seems to be rearing its ugly head again as seen on TV during the recent pre-election riots in America from the noticeably disgruntled and rebellious youth and others who do not fully understand about those who have already lived through socialist regimes such as that in Central and South America, where people have suffered devastating and crippling conditions, where there is general apathy and no desire or motivation to produce when there are no incentives. It would be a massive understatement to say that socialism not only doesn’t work, it is harmful to the individual as well as the greater community. Yet the people are rebelling against the present system which also does not work. All the systems in the world that humans devise or think will be a good idea will fail because they are fraught with human logic and ideas, imperfections, and are open to corruption, greed, and danger (Jeremiah 10:1-23). Human nature does that. Just what is the solution? We need God. We are incomplete without God and until Christ returns to establish His Kingdom everything will fail. There will be wars, factions, jealousies and pride amongst nations, and deals done behind closed doors that the general public have no idea about. Nobody wants to rationally and willingly sell off parts of their beloved country to foreigners who plan to build their power and might for the takeover of the world to control vast populations; and yet this has been happening and will continue to happen until things reach a very ugly conclusion and life as we presently know it will change for the worse.
Tragically, so many lives have been lost through fighting in revolutions in order to redistribute wealth down through the centuries. One such revolt occurred in the late 18th century, and as we learned during history classes in high school, it was called the French Revolution. We were left with indelible images of the guillotine; we sang the French Revolution song “La Marseillaise”; and we understood that the French peasants' resounding message to King Louis XVI and his Queen, Marie-Antoinette demanded “off with their heads” in January and October 1793 respectively. According to the online site https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_Revolution “Historians generally view the Revolution as driven by the failure of the Ancien Régime to manage increasing social and economic inequality. Their causes included rapid population growth, high food prices and economic depression, largely driven by an inability to finance Government debt. Combined with a highly regressive tax system and resistance to reform by the ruling elite, the result was a crisis Louis XVI proved unable to manage” while his Austrian wife only exacerbated and fueled the hatred by the French people for her self-indulgence of obscene, vain and lavish excesses while the people were starving and miserable with little or no hope.
Getting back to the Robin Hood character who was promoted as righteous because he was giving to the poor, but truly we know he was a thief...the movie industry made an animated picture some years ago with Disney placing an endearing larrikin type of character in the role as a fox so that children, who generally love animals, would warm to him and think of him as cute and charming. They may be able to fool kiddies and blur the message for a time, but eventually these impressionable ones mature into adults and see the lie for what it is. Taking is not godly but giving to others is. The moral of this story is to freely give to others in need by first acquiring the goods in honest labour rather than in wrongful possession (Proverbs 13:11). When we see or come to know of a person without basic needs we do what we can, what is within our power, and hope that they will accept. It may not be much in monetary terms but it is more about caring for another human being and the compassion for their plight in order to take the time to stop and help fill a need by doing something. Giving of our time is so precious and valuable. We cannot get back time so we are to use it wisely, with purpose and diligence, and in service to others. If we can afford to live in a home with running hot and cold water, electricity, furniture, own an iPad, computer, mobile phone, or tablet, eat every day, and wear clothing that is in good condition, then by the world’s standards we are the rich and incredibly blessed.
God is watching us intently to see what we think, say, and do towards others and this certainly includes the poor. Just read through Proverbs and see the many instances of what is said in connection to those less fortunate — there are 31 Proverbs, one for each day of the month if you would like to take up the challenge of becoming familiar with what God says. We do have a responsibility to care yet still we have a choice on whether we will be hard-hearted or whether we take heed to God’s Word and help. So, instead of robbing from the wealthy, we should choose to give from our own efforts and substance for which God has blessed us in order to help those without or less fortunate (Titus 3:14, 1 Timothy 6:18). This can be a great motivator to work well and very productively in order to have more to tithe and more to give in offerings to God, our brethren, and our neighbours, some of whom are struggling in these COVID times (Galatians 6:10, Luke 3:11, Acts 20:35).
God’s people know that robbery is clearly wrong by His standards and even by the world’s standards as it breaks the law. Robin Hood was not the wonderful hero he was falsely portrayed to be, but a law-breaking scoundrel. Kings and Queens on earth are allowed their position by God for now and have a huge responsibility and need to rule well in order to have systems in place that help their subjects rather than ignore their extreme poverty and plight. Socialism is a terrible thing to live through and we should all be very wary of this even though it may sound like a good solution to some of our problems. Instead, it will only cause other problems to spiral out of control by sinking nations into a foul cesspit orchestrated by the devil’s desire for us to fight one another, tear each other apart through hatred, killing, lies, corruption and murder, as he hates the whole of humanity with diabolical insanity on a scale we can only imagine. The only way out is to stay close to God and remain close until Jesus ushers in The Kingdom of God on earth (Revelation 11:15; 21:1-7; Daniel 7:27). When He returns we hope to hear the words from Matthew 25:31-40 rather than Christ’s words in Matthew 25:41-46.