True Prosperity in the Gospel

We need wisdom deep within, at an intuitive level, as we hurry from one complex decision to the next, moment by moment, in the concrete realities of our daily lives. (Without God’s wisdom, many difficulties in life will remain confusing and threatening.)

With God’s wisdom entering our hearts, we get the hang of how life really works, and we come alive more and more.

Irenaeus, the early Christian theologian, famously said, “The glory of God is man fully alive.” That is where wants to take us.

So while chapter 2 deals largely in nega

(Overview)

: offers wisdom that protects/delivers from evil

: positive/education in life at its best

How to live well in every area of your life (work, school, home, etc.)

vs 1-8

God is showing the way into peace (shalom) (vs 2)

favor/good success (vs 4)

refreshment (“marrow”) (vs 8)

But let’s be honest… You can’t read this proverb and not be immediately intrigued by

vs 2 - length of days/long life

vs 4 - wordly success

vs 10 - barns filled with plenty and presses (vats) bursting with wine

vs. 16 - riches and honor

Is Proverbs preaching a prosperity gospel?

The prosperity gospel is known by many names...

Name it & claim it, blab it & grab it, health & wealth gospel, or even “positive confession theology”

Perhaps you know it by its teachers… The man who could be considered the father of modern prosperity gospel teaching is Oral Roberts. The faith-healing evangelist became so influential that he started his own school that paved the way for...

The man who could be considered the father of modern prosperity gospel teaching is Oral Roberts. The faith-healing evangelist became so influential that he started his own school, Oral Roberts University (ORU). At the height of his influence, Roberts oversaw a ministry that brought in $110 million in annual revenue.

Kenneth Copeland, Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker, Benny Hinn, etc...

Kenneth Copeland, a student at ORU who served as a pilot and chauffeur for Oral Roberts, also became one of the most notorious (and wealthiest) of prosperity preachers. These men paved the way for the televangelists who became famous in the 1980s, including Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker, Benny Hinn, Pat Robertson, and Robert Tilton.

Today, some of the best-known prosperity teachers are Creflo Dollar, T. D. Jakes, Guillermo Maldonado, Joel Osteen, and Paula White.

Benny’s nephew Costi Hinn was actually marvelously converted to true Christianity out of the prosperity gospel “world” and he recently wrote a wonderful book outlining the dangers of the prosperity gospel, and he refers to the Prosperity Gospel as “the #1 US export worldwide.”

So is this teaching that God is out to make you healthy and rich and comfortable and put you on top of the heap because you are his child. Is this passage saying that? Can we trust this counsel? Can we swallow it whole? I offer two answers.

The prosperity gospel is found nowhere in the Bible.

The prosperity gospel is nothing but a coldhearted materialistic wolf clothed in the sheepish clothing of religion.

While it uses select Bible verses to fit it’s name it and claim it philosophy, it does not love God.

The rewards of are good.

God offers them out to His wise children as he sees fit.

Every believer is also a sinner = AKA “it’s complicated”

We will see later on in this passage that God send us pain too (something the PG doesn’t tell you)

Preaching the Word: Proverbs—Wisdom that Works Chapter 6: The Wisdom that Helps Us (3:1–8)

Is this the prosperity gospel? You know what I mean—the idea that God is out to make you healthy and rich and comfortable and put you on top of the heap because you are his child. Is this passage saying that? Can we trust this counsel? Can we swallow it whole? I offer two answers.

God sends both earthly blessings and earthly sorrows. Think of Jesus. He both suffered at the cross and prospered in the resurrection. And the resurrection is the prosperity you will want when your health utterly fails, as it will, and very soon.

Second, the rewards God offers us here in are good. He will give them out to his wise children, as he sees fit. But every believer’s life is complicated. God sends us pain too. Verses 11, 12 are clear that God disciplines us. God sends both earthly blessings and earthly sorrows. Think of Jesus. He both suffered at the cross and prospered in the resurrection. And the resurrection is the prosperity you will want when your health utterly fails, as it will, and very soon. If your story is limited to the blessings of the here and now, you are in trouble, because your vats bursting with wine will also run dry. But if your life in this world is only the title page to your eternal story, and God also gives you some barns and vats for the present, okay. Just be sure you set your heart not on the gift, which will certainly fail you, but on the Giver, who will certainly never fail you. C. S. Lewis counseled us wisely:

Ray Ortlund said it rightly, “If your story is limited to the blessings of the here and now, you are in trouble, because your vats bursting with wine will also run dry. But if your life in this world is only the title page to your eternal story, and God also gives you some barns and vats for the present, okay. Just be sure you set your heart not on the gift, which will certainly fail you, but on the Giver, who will certainly never fail you.”

So we need to approach Proverbs from the right perspective, otherwise we can be tempted to mine wisdom from its pages for the sole purpose of the here and now. Such an endeavor is short-sighted (and misguided) at best and self-serving and heretical at its worst.

In Proverbs, wisdom is compared to precious jewels, but if divorced from the overall redemptive narrative of Scripture, such a treasure hunt is sure to disappoint when the seeker realizes that his gold eventually tarnishes as he puts into a bag with holes.

C. S. Lewis counseled us wisely:

The settled happiness and security which we all desire, God withholds from us by the very nature of the world; but joy, pleasure and merriment he has scattered broadcast. We are never safe, but we have plenty of fun, and some ecstasy. It is not hard to see why. The security we all crave would teach us to rest our hearts in this world and oppose an obstacle to our return to God; a few moments of happy love, a landscape, a symphony, a merry meeting with our friends, a bath or a football match, have no such tendency. Our Father refreshes us on the journey with some pleasant inns, but will not encourage us to mistake them for home.

So while this wisdom is for us right now, it wasn’t created merely for a temporal world.

This wisdom is what happens in the heart of man when a man’s heart is in lock step with the law of God. The law of God was simply God revealing His true nature and glory to man.

He wasn’t saying, “Do this and I’ll love you.” He was saying, “Because I love you, I’m going to show you what you had fellowship with before sin ruined it all...”

That’s why, just as Phil pointed out last week, that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. Because to fear God is to obey His law.

That’s why, just as Phil pointed out last week, that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.

The

Which we know from Romans was given to us, in part, to show us that we actually can’t keep the law.

If you started today and set out to obey every jot and tittle of the law of God, you would be still be an offender. There is none righteous...

And even if you could keep it perfectly outwardly (which you can’t), how do you account for your heart? Obedience isn’t just outward… the fact is: You WANT to sin. And so I.

So we need new hearts, not just renewed motivation to obey.

Why do we need to know this? Because...

is about being in a faithful relationship with God – a covenant.

2. God’s part in the covenant (3:2,4,6,8,10)

3. The reality of the covenant in a fallen world (3:11-12)

Israel was in a covenant relationship (marriage-like) with the Lord that was established with Moses at Sinai during the exodus.

4. Jesus’ part in the covenant

Like most covenants, this covenant involved vows and commitments that were to be upheld by both parties involved – by God and by man.

In our modern English translations, we see these obligations organized very clearly.

is about being in a faithful relationship with God – a covenant.

Odd number verses reveal some of the human part of the covenant

Even numbers verses reveal some of the divine part of the covenant

Our part in the covenant (3:1,3,5,7,9) – These are the obligations we are to live up to if we are in a covenant relationship with the Lord.

Vs 1 – 3:1 My son, forget not my law; But let thine heart keep my commandments:

King Solomon to the Crown Prince

says that keeping the law is the wisdom of Israel

commands parents to teach the law to their children

commands the king to be a man of the law

Solomon is obeying all of this in Proverbs by showing how wisdom is obeying the law in daily life

He exhorts his son, as we just pointed out, that the law of God is the heart of God and that the commandments need to be kept at a deeper level than just outward (“forget”/ “heart”)

The law must be internalized to be obeyed… and both talk about this. This is what we would call “regeneration”

We see this not only in verse 1, but also verse 3

5 Trust in the Lord with all thine heart;

Vs 3 Let not mercy and truth forsake thee: Bind them about thy neck; Write them upon the table of thine heart:

And lean not unto thine own understanding.

God’s teachings must be written on your heart – a NEW heart.

7 Be not wise in thine own eyes:

Fear the Lord, and odepart from evil.

Verse 3 is covenant language – don’t forsake mercy and truth (loyalty/faithfulness)

It was well known in Solomon’s day that the best way for a Kingdom to flourish was to have everyone – from the king to the common man – to believe in the covenant relationship with the King and people at a heart level.

Tie them around your neck – - where the law was to be bound on the hand and inscribed on a frontlet for the eyes

Tablet of the heart – The 10 Commandments

The people didn’t obey them

Scripture promises that a day is coming when the covenant will be written on the tablet of the heart so that one can truly obey fully 100% of the time...

And with the firstfruits of all thine increase:

WANT to

Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, That I will make a new covenant With the house of Israel, and with the house of Judah: 32 Not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers In the day that I took them by the hand To bring them out of the land of Egypt; Which my covenant they brake, Although I was an husband unto them, saith the Lord: 33 But this shall be the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel; After those days, saith the Lord,I will put my law in their inward parts, And write it in their hearts; And will be their God, And they shall be my people. 34 And they shall teach no more every man his neighbour, and every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord: For they shall all know me, From the least of them unto the greatest of them, saith the Lord: For I will forgive their iniquity, And I will remember their sin no more.

31 Behold, the days come, saith the Lord,

That I will make a new covenant

With the house of Israel, and with the house of Judah:

32 Not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers

In the day that I took them by the hand

To bring them out of the land of Egypt;

Which my covenant they brake,

Although I was an husband unto them, saith the Lord:

33 But this shall be the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel;

After those days, saith the Lord,

fI will put my law in their inward parts,

And write it in their hearts;

And will be their God,

And they shall be my people.

34 And they shall teach no more every man his neighbour, and every man his brother, saying,

Know the Lord:

For they shall all know me,

From the least of them unto the greatest of them, saith the Lord:

For I lwill forgive their iniquity,

And I will remember their sin no more.

So Proverbs is in line with the message of the rest of Scripture – we need inward-out transformation; not behavior modification

Proverbs is showing our need for regeneration before the rest of this can be followed.

HOW DOES THIS HAPPEN? (see i under c)

vs 5 Trust in the Lord with all thine heart; And lean not unto thine own understanding. vs 7 Be not wise in thine own eyes: Fear the Lord, and odepart from evil.

Trust the Lord instead of yourself

vs 7 Be not wise in thine own eyes: Fear the Lord, and odepart from evil.

One preacher said that if you could boil the whole of Proverbs down to one morsel of truth, it would this truth: Obedience to the law starts with faith.

Wisdom starts with realizing you don’t have it and that God does.

The way that seems right to your pre-regeneration heart is always going to end in death

We think we need independence, autonomy, and to feedom and power to choose our own will for our lives. Proverbs says that is suidcial

Solomon ends this little section with one practical example of how inward transformation leads to outward obedience to the law… Verse 9.

vs 9 Honour the Lord with thy substance, And with the firstfruits of all thine increase:

Generosity

Again; covenant language

God has given to you – give back to Him out of all He has given you.

Give the first fruits, not leftovers

Giving at the top of your budget, instead at the bottom after everything else is covered demonstrates gratitude for your current blessings and faith that God will continue to provide.

God’s part in the covenant (3:2,4,6,8,10)

vs 2 – For length of days, and long life, And peace, shall they add to thee.

“For” = why/motivation

Following this law will add days, years and peace to your life

Just like the 5th commandment, you obey your dad = longer/better life

In Proverbs, Solomon does give general advice for healthy living, that if followed, will increase your chances of a full life

I.e. if you unwisely make choices toward drugs, fornication, addictions, greediness/love of money, etc… it can cut your life short.

For length of days, and long life,

Ultimately, vs 2 is about eternal and abundant life.

A return to Eden/shalom (peace) – the way things were and are supposed to be

Complete harmony with God

vs 4 So shalt thou find favour and good understanding

Reward for covenant loyalty

Wisdom about right relationship with God and others

vs 6 In all thy ways acknowledge him, And he shall direct thy paths. In the sight of God and man.

Divine protection for our daily lives

In the sight of God and man.

And peace, shall they add to thee.

vs 8 It shall be health to thy navel, And marrow to thy bones.

Reward for fearing the Lord and not being wise in your own eyes

The picture of all of these is that wisdom reverses the cruse of sin, death, and sickness.

Wisdom is a return to paradise.

vs 10 So shall thy barns be filled with plenty, And thy presses shall burst out with new wine.

And pmarrow to thy bones.

Finally, we see the reward for generosity to the Lord...

Obedience leads to God giving us more

So if we obey God by doing the odd numbered verses, we will get the rewards of the evens

Is this really true? What about instances where things don’t work this way?

The reality of the covenant in a fallen world (3:11-12)

11 My son, despise not the chastening of the Lord; Neither be weary of his correction:12 For whom the Lord loveth he correcteth; Even as a father the son in whom he delighteth.

Are these verses teaching a prosperity gospel? Are they teaching that we should trust and obey the Lord and in return he will give us health, wealth, and happiness? The answer is, “Yes, of course!” But there’s a problem. This doesn’t always work out immediately in a fallen world. Sometimes you can believe and obey, and things go bad for you. You get cancer instead of health. Despite your great generosity to the work of the Lord, you get laid off. Sometimes we suffer now and receive the rewards only in the next life. So it’s not your best life now; it’s your best life later and forever.

Are these verses teaching a prosperity gospel? Are they teaching that

we should trust and obey the Lord and in return he will give us health,

wealth, and happiness? The answer is, “Yes, of course!” But there’s a

problem. This doesn’t always work out immediately in a fallen world.

Sometimes you can believe and obey, and things go bad for you. You

get cancer instead of health. Despite your great generosity to the work

of the Lord, you get laid off. Sometimes we suffer now and receive the

rewards only in the next life. So it’s not your best life now; it’s your best

life later and forever.

The proverbs are generally

Vs 11-12 - Don’t get mad at God when he allows discipline in your life because he does so for your good

He will allow hardship in our lives to produce something in us

- He tells the children of Israel that he let them endure lean times os they wouldn’t forget him when they had times of plenty

He rewards us, but He gives us not what we want, when we want it… but what we need exactly when we need it.

Jesus’ part in the covenant

Jesus Kept the Covenant for You

The false gospel of the prosperity preachers misunderstands that none

of us are faithful covenant-keeping sons. None of us have been perfectly

obedient to the Lord. None of us have perfectly trusted God instead

of ourselves. None of us have perfectly turned from evil or been completely

generous as we should be. This covenant relationship between

the Father and the Son is not kept by God’s firstborn son Israel, nor is it

kept by David, Solomon, or Solomon’s sons. Jesus is the Son who finally

keeps it. shows that he is the Son of Solomon who grew in

wisdom and in stature and in favor with God and people (cf. )

(Goldsworthy, Tree of Life, 57–58). He is the King with the covenant on

his heart (3:3; cf. 20:28). So he is the one who gets the blessing, not us.

The good news is that he represents us before the Father in this

covenant relationship. He lived up to our obligations for us, and then

he took the curses of covenant breaking in our place. He experienced

sickness, sorrows, enemies, and a premature death for us (see –

53:12). He offers full pardon to all covenant-breakers who believe in

him. His righteous record of keeping the covenant is credited to the

account of all who are united to him by faith, and as a result they will

experience the blessings of covenant faithfulness by his merits not their

own! And if you are joined to him by faith, God will do the work by

the power of the Spirit to conform you into the image of his covenantkeeping

Son—sometimes through discipline.

As sons of the Father in Christ Jesus, this is how we are to live—this

is now how we can live. Your Christianity has never been about keeping

the rules in order for God to save you. Christianity is about how God

saves you through his Son and then molds you into his image so you can

live out the life God meant for you to live. As we live out this covenant

by the power of Jesus’s Spirit—obeying the law, trusting in the Lord,

looking away from ourselves, and being generous to those in need—

we recognize that the rewards will work out now or later. This is about

faith, not effort. Faith is the key to obedience. Radical confidence in our

rewarding God will be the means by which you keep his commands. You

will give because you trust him to continually provide. You will forgive

because you trust him to be a good and fair judge. That’s how God’s Son

lives. That is how we live in him.

Conclusion

The problem with the prosperity gospel is not that it wants us to be

physically blessed. God has promised that we will be. The problems with

this false gospel are (1) it misunderstands life in a fallen world where

the righteous suffer, (2) it bypasses Jesus who is the only one who has

fulfilled these obligations, and (3) it doesn’t promise enough prosperity.

The true gospel says that the faithful Son had his life cut short in

the short run, but he was raised to an indestructible life to inherit the

cosmos. That’s a prosperity worth having, and it’s available in Christ.

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