By Stephen Green
First published in Christian Voice February 2012
What is loosely known as ‘prosperity preaching’ seems to be loved and loathed in equal measure today. With my usual delicacy I thought I should wade into this fight and see if I could string together some thoughts on the matter, which, if they are of the Lord, will be by his grace alone, and if they are of the flesh, no doubt members and friends of Christian Voice will put me right.
I think I can do no better than to start with the 1st Psalm:
Psa 1:1 Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful. 2 But his delight is in the law of the LORD; and in his law doth he meditate day and night. 3 And he shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water, that bringeth forth his fruit in his season; his leaf also shall not wither; and whatsoever he doeth shall prosper.
4 The ungodly are not so: but are like the chaff which the wind driveth away. 5 Therefore the ungodly shall not stand in the judgment, nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous.
6 For the LORD knoweth the way of the righteous: but the way of the ungodly shall perish.
It cannot be by accident that such a definite affirmation of the determination of God to bless the faithful is placed right at the start of the book of Psalms. We are meant to take notice of it. It is a divine principle.
I believe that God is involved with the whole of life, and that his blessings should be seen in the material as well as in the spiritual dimension. I reject the atheist taunt that Christianity is just “pie in the sky when you die”. I long and believe to see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living (Psa 27:13).
I believe that the very fact that God became one of us shows that he is involved in our material existence and that he longs to pour out a blessing on the faithful which is as relevant to this life as our eternal reward is to the next.
After all, the ministry of Christian Voice would make no sense if God were not actively involved in the affairs of men in this temporal realm. We have said, for example, that Tesco cannot expect to be blessed while following the paths of wickedness. We constantly urge Her Majesty’s Government to lead the nation in repentance back to faith in the living God that the nation might be blessed.
BALANCING CONTENTMENT AND AMBITION
Some of us may be reluctant to ask God for his blessing. I know I am slow to ask God for the material resources that both I and the ministry of Christian Voice need in order to function. When I do, I make it clear to the Lord that we need these things not for our own glory or material advancement, and in the case of the Christian Voice ministry, not for any empire building, but for God’s glory, for his kingdom and to see his will done on earth as it is in heaven.
While it is wrong to place our trust in our possessions, Ecclesiastes says that there is nothing better at the end of the day than to sit down and enjoy the fruits of our labours. It also says:
Eccl 5:12 The sleep of a labouring man is sweet, whether he eat little or much: but the abundance of the rich will not suffer him to sleep.
The words of the Lord Jesus and the Apostle Paul come to mind:
Mark 8:36 For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?
Matt 6:24 No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon.
1Tim 6:10 For the love of money is the root of all evil: which while some coveted after, they have erred from the faith, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows.
It is the love of money rather than the wealth in itself which places both the rich man’s sleep and his eternal destiny in peril.
We do not read that Abraham had any trouble sleeping. The ministry of the Lord himself was financed by a group of prosperous women who provided for him out of their substance (Luke 8:3). At one time in Israel the entire counter-cultural prophetic movement was financed and protected by one wealthy individual, king Ahab’s prime minister, Obadiah (1Kgs 18:4).
The Bible shows God transforming lives, and if he can save a sinner like me, make a shepherd boy the king of Israel or make a barren woman to be a joyful mother of children, then there is room for the ambition of Jabez:
1Chr 4:10 And Jabez called on the God of Israel, saying, Oh that thou wouldest bless me indeed, and enlarge my coast, and that thine hand might be with me, and that thou wouldest keep me from evil, that it may not grieve me! And God granted him that which he requested.
The Bible says:
Heb 13:5 Let your conversation be without covetousness; and be content with such things as ye have: for he hath said, I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee.
Clearly we need a degree of balance between ambition and contentment. In the more recent past, I have erred too much to the contentment end of the spectrum. These days I have rediscovered ambition both for myself and for the Christian Voice ministry. We can and must do things better. There is a lesson from Jabez, and from Jacob before him, striving all night with God and refusing to end the struggle save on one condition:
Gen 32:26 And he said, Let me go, for the day breaketh. And he said, I will not let thee go, except thou bless me.
THE ROLE OF THE CHURCH
There appear to me to be very few churches, certainly in the West, which devote themselves today to encouraging the faithful to better themselves materially as well as spiritually. There is a verse (rarely sung today) in All things bright and beautiful about “the rich man in his castle, the poor man at his gate” and how God “made them, high or lowly and ordered their estate”. Too many ministers give the impression that every poor man is destined to stay forever at the gate of the rich man’s castle.
The trend over the past hundred years has been to spiritualise the Christian faith away. The Church in general has retreated from an involvement in politics and public life confident in the righteousness of the laws of God in equal measure to the extent in which it has tended to urge the faithful to give up on this world while assuring themselves of a consolation to come.
It is almost as if they are leaning to the error of the Gnostics in which only the spiritual is good and everything material is bad. Now, this may be a reaction to the decadent materialism of the world. We do need to react against that, but by showing the breadth of the Gospel of Christ, not by veering to the other extreme. Gnosticism is a dangerous road to travel, on one level because it denies Christ’s humanity, but on another level because it ends up in the very decadence and materialism it claims to deny.
Now we turn to the other end of the spectrum. Sadly, many of those ministries and churches which do encourage material advancement focus almost exclusively on only one or two of the spiritual principles involved. The first of these is giving.
SOWING AND REAPING
The principle of sowing and reaping itself is entirely scriptural. It is not the end of the matter by any means but it is as good a place as any to start. These are the main scriptures:
Gen 8:22 While the earth remaineth, seedtime and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night shall not cease.
Mal 3:10 Bring ye all the tithes into the storehouse, that there may be meat in mine house, and prove me now herewith, saith the LORD of hosts, if I will not open you the windows of heaven, and pour you out a blessing, that there shall not be room enough to receive it.
Luke 6:38 Give, and it shall be given unto you; good measure, pressed down, and shaken together, and running over, shall men give into your bosom. For with the same measure that ye mete withal it shall be measured to you again.
2Cor 9:6 But this I say, He which soweth sparingly shall reap also sparingly; and he which soweth bountifully shall reap also bountifully.
It is not unusual in African churches for there to be a teaching on sowing and reaping before the offering is taken. Sometimes we all need reminding that everything we have is the gift of God and we only give him back what is his in the first place.
Now we know of the common grace of God, that he sends the rain on the good and on the wicked alike. The general principles of sowing and reaping may validly be considered as part of the common grace of God. Things have a tendency to come around for everyone. The bread cast on the waters returns. The wicked will come to judgment eventually.
It is important to remember that it is not just money we can sow. We can sow prayers, time, love, care, goodness and humility just as well as cash. We also need to be reminded that we can sow bad things as well as good. If we sow hatred, division, gossip and selfishness then that is what we shall reap.
SAYING, BELIEVING AND RECEIVING
The second principle which finds itself over-emphasised is that of attitude. The teaching of our blessed Lord on this matter is as unequivocal as possible:
Mark 11:22 And Jesus answering saith unto them, Have faith in God. 23 For verily I say unto you, That whosoever shall say unto this mountain, Be thou removed, and be thou cast into the sea; and shall not doubt in his heart, but shall believe that those things which he saith shall come to pass; he shall have whatsoever he saith. 24 Therefore I say unto you, What things soever ye desire, when ye pray, believe that ye receive them, and ye shall have them.
John 15:7 If ye abide in me, and my words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you.
Plainly, there is no point in praying for something and immediately disbelieving the prayer. It is possible to spoil a good prayer with a bad confession. Why pray for something you don’t believe the Lord can do in the first place? Nor should we launch prayers like a footballer taking a speculative shot at goal. Some people have a scattergun approach to prayer in which they fire off a couple of dozen in the hope that a percentage of their prayers will be in accordance to the will of God and therefore answered. The two can be combined: ‘Lord, please do such-and-such. Amen.’ (Aside) ‘I don’t think the Lord will do that, but it’s worth a try’. That is not how it works.
Attitude, they say, determines altitude. Even if that is just a clever play on words, the fact remains that the ten spies who said they could not enter Canaan didn’t. The two who said they could, did.
If you tell yourself you are addicted to smoking you will never give up. We saw last month how King George V cursed his eldest son and how effective that was. Our spoken words have a spiritual dimension and it is perfectly possible to curse ourselves. If we call ourselves stupid or unloveable or unreliable we can bring that on ourselves. In the context of asking for wisdom, James says:
Jas 1:6 But let him ask in faith, nothing wavering. For he that wavereth is like a wave of the sea driven with the wind and tossed. 7 For let not that man think that he shall receive any thing of the Lord.
So this principle of confessing, believing and receiving has foundation in Scripture. The problem comes when it is used like a sort of magic wand, as James says, to be consumed on our lusts. I think I have yet to hear a teaching on confessing, believing and receiving (save that of Andrew Murray) which acknowledges what the Lord Jesus himself said as a qualification. In John it was this:
John 15:8 Herein is my Father glorified, that ye bear much fruit; so shall ye be my disciples.
In other words, a big part of us receiving what we ask from the Lord is to enable us to bear fruit for the kingdom of God. In Mark, the Lord went straight on to say:
Mark 11:25 And when ye stand praying, forgive, if ye have ought against any: that your Father also which is in heaven may forgive you your trespasses. 26 But if ye do not forgive, neither will your Father which is in heaven forgive your trespasses.
He made the answer to our prayer dependent upon our nature of forgiveness. That is not what the people always want to hear.
A LIFE OF OBEDIENCE
So if giving and a certain kind of believing are over-emphasised by those teaching prosperity, which principles are not spoken of enough – or at all?
I believe the first is a life of obedience to and trust in God’s holy word. We Christians are constantly reminded of Paul’s exposition of how ‘Abraham believed God and it was counted unto him for righteousness’ (Gen 15:6; Rom 4:3). The dear Apostle wrote this explaining how we should have faith in the sacrifice of Christ. It was not intended to downplay the other important aspect of Abraham’s life, that of obedience:
Gen 18:19 For I know him, that he will command his children and his household after him, and they shall keep the way of the LORD, to do justice and judgment; that the LORD may bring upon Abraham that which he hath spoken of him.
God’s blessing fell upon Abraham because of his belief in God and because of his obedience to the laws of God. The same message is clear in Psalm 1, with which we opened, and all through the Psalms. It is set out in Deuteronomy, particularly in chapter 28, and in the prophets. If you can be argued to run through the whole of Scripture.
People encouraged into obedience to the word of God will be encouraged into biblical virtues of honesty and integrity which bring their own reward. We know that:
Heb 11:6 … without faith it is impossible to please him: for he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him.
But the seeking must begin in prayer and in his word and then be put into practice. Having faith in God and then ignoring his word and living in disobedience is to miss the mark. As the Apostle James says unequivocally:
Jas 2:18 Yea, a man may say, Thou hast faith, and I have works: shew me thy faith without thy works, and I will shew thee my faith by my works. … 20 But wilt thou know, O vain man, that faith without works is dead? … 26 For as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead also.
We need to be doers of the word not just hearers of it. (Romans 2:12; Jas 1:22) It is Christ which lives in me, so every aspect of my life is to be in obedience to his will.
GO TO THE ANT
After obedience, the second principle which does not get enough coverage is that of hard work coupled with diligence. It is not enough to go away from a church service, even having given a sacrificial offering believing for a Mercedes, only to get home, put on some uplifting worship music, sit down and wait for the car key to drop through the letterbox.
No doubt someone will email me with a story of a dear soul who did exactly that, but in general, as the Bible shows us, you have to get up and do something:
Prov 6:6 Go to the ant, thou sluggard; consider her ways, and be wise: 7 Which having no guide, overseer, or ruler, 8 Provideth her meat in the summer, and gathereth her food in the harvest.
9 How long wilt thou sleep, O sluggard? when wilt thou arise out of thy sleep? 10 Yet a little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to sleep: 11 So shall thy poverty come as one that travelleth, and thy want as an armed man.
In some places in the Far East, the Christians are resented by the fatalistic Buddhists because, free from the belief that life is a mere illusion, they actually go out into their fields, plant seed and reap a harvest.
That’s how it should be, but in other places Christians have let their piety rob them of their prosperity. They have become so heavenly minded they are no earthly use. People of other faiths and no faith are working hard and the Christians are wasting the Lord’s time listening to music, reading devotional books, holding meetings, praying aimlessly or whatever else eats into productive time.
Very few people are more passionate about reading the word of God than I am. I know the power of music, I know how books inspire, I know the power of prayer and the value of fellowship. Yet I can imagine somebody hearing a teaching around Genesis 8:22. A day later he is reading a book on ‘Receiving the Blessing’ and occasionally looking out onto his unkempt garden. The garden is crying out to be dug over and seeded at the real earthly seedtime, but our brother leaves that plot of land just as it is. Then he comforts himself by saying “the Lord will provide” and is last seen piously waiting for his harvest to arrive in the form of a gift from someone else.
You feel like saying “The Lord has provided you – with a garden. Why aren’t you planting in it?”
THE WISDOM OF ARCHDEACON GRANTLY!
The irony is that if those pastors who are preaching tithing and claiming would also preach obedience and diligence, and if they would set up schools to teach their people business and trade skills, then over a short period of time the offerings upon which they depend would increase dramatically.
John Wesley said: “Earn all you can, give all you can, save all you can.” I heard once that the early Methodist Church went from being working-class to middle-class in a couple of generations by adherence to the Wesleyan ideals of obedience and holiness, diligence and thrift. Not all the faithful will succeed in business or develop a trade, and the poor we shall always have with us, but could we not at least help the majority of the faithful set their sights a little higher? The Apostle John wrote to Gaius:
3John 1:2 Beloved, I wish above all things that thou mayest prosper and be in health, even as thy soul prospereth.
In my King James Bible, the editor, Spiros Zodhiates, writes a note against the misapplication of this verse to mean that God’s will for his children is always to prosper and be in good health, which he says would give credence to the belief in a “health and wealth gospel”. He says John is conveying nothing more than a wish that this letter might find Gaius well and in good health’.
Equally there seems to be nothing unscriptural about prospering and being in good health, as long as, or even because, we put the Kingdom of God first. The Lord Jesus said:
Matt 6:33 But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.
In the Psalms we have the same emphasis on putting the Lord and obedience to his word first and the same promise of prosperity:
Psa 37:3 Trust in the LORD, and do good; so shalt thou dwell in the land, and verily thou shalt be fed. 4 Delight thyself also in the LORD; and he shall give thee the desires of thine heart.
Two psalms earlier, David is inspired by the Holy Spirit to write this:
Psa 35:27 Let them shout for joy, and be glad, that favour my righteous cause: yea, let them say continually, Let the LORD be magnified, which hath pleasure in the prosperity of his servant.
There is no BIble verse which says that the Lord delights in the poverty of his servant. The virtues preached by John Wesley need to be heard in the church world-wide today. In Kenya, for example, Christians form 80% of the population but only own 30% of the wealth. It does not have to be like that, but us Christians need a paradigm shift in our thinking. I am not suggesting we become all ‘worldly’ as opposed to ‘spiritual’, but we need a bit more balance and a lot more of what God tells us in the Bible!
In his book Barchester Towers, Anthony Trollope’s Archdeacon Grantly says this: “If honest men did not squabble for money, in this wicked world of ours, the dishonest men would get it all; and I do not see that the cause of virtue would be much improved.”
I think there is more than a grain of truth in the archdeacon’s words. The work of ministry needs finance today just as much as the ministry of the Lord Jesus himself needed it 2,000 years ago – and got it from those with substance, including the wealthy women we read about in Luke 8:2-3. The Lord owns all the silver and gold. Why is the Church not doing more to encourage the faithful into the honest endeavour of bringing more of it into the body of Christ?
The author of this paper will be delighted to bring this message to your church or fellowship and encourage the faithful to prosper through Biblical principles including those idenitified above. Email info@christianvoice.org.uk
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