Joseph Prince - Can You See That It's In God's Heart to Bless You?
This is an excerpt from: Prosperity With A Purpose
So, is this teaching of prosperity in the Bible something that, God is saying to us that it's not His will for us to prosper and, to be poor is to be humble, poverty is holiness? You don't find that in the Bible, you don't find that in the lives of our, the patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob. Even all the heroes of faith in the Bible, the Bible says, you know, all of them prospered in their various fields. Whether, you know, they are a king when they walked with the Lord, they began to prosper. In fact, there's a verse about one of the kings of Judah. "As long," notice the way it's phrased, "As long as he sought the LORD, God made him to prosper".
Notice that? How that seeking the Lord and prosperity is tied up together? So, child of God, God wants you to be encouraged, God wants to prosper you. The reason this is such a burden, if I can say that, for me, burden that I want to dispense of, you know, it's not a heavy burden, but, you know, it's like, God arrested me recently and told me, "It's time," for me to preach this in its Biblical context, amen. That there is an extreme, of course, you know, where people talk about prosperity, it's always about, receiving, and it's always a blessing, one person or just a group of person and not having a vision for the gospel, it's all about me, my, and it's about possessions and more possessions, that's not God's idea of prosperity.
God's prosperity is to prosper you, first and foremost, in your walk with Him, in your life with Him, amen. And that's what happens when you become righteous through Jesus' blood, amen. For God made Jesus to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him. Amen. So, we are righteous, that's the greatest prosperity of all. In fact, with that righteousness comes all the blessings of the righteous. Like the Bible says, "Blessings are upon the head of the righteous". That's you, that's me now, amen. We can receive those blessings, amen. And then the Bible says about our children, "The seed," that's your seed and my seed, our children, "The seed of the righteous will be delivered". Amen, we can claim that. It is ours now. When we pray, we can know this in our hearts that God is hearing our prayers, and our prayers avail much, why? "The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much," and you are that righteous man now, I am that righteous man, amen.
The Bible says in Proverbs, "The wealth of the sinner is stored up for the righteous". Who is the righteous? You and I. We are the righteous. Look at that, is that in the Bible? Yes, it's in Proverbs 13, verse 22, it's right there. Why is God encouraging us? What is He saying to us? That there's a transfer taking place here. The wealth of the sinner, the sinner is tasked with gathering and gathering and working hard and, doing all he can to get a lot of wealth, but God is saying he's storing that wealth for, who? For the righteous. Is there only one verse in the Bible that says the wealth of the sinner is stored up for the righteous? No, we have other verses, like in Ecclesiastes. The Bible says that, exactly what I just said. "But God gives wisdom and knowledge and joy to a man who is good in His sight". Who is that? The man who is righteous.
Notice God gives him wisdom, knowledge, and joy, "But to the sinner," what does God give? "To the sinner He gives the work of gathering and collecting". So, when you see the sinners working out there, you know, and they gather a lot of wealth, don't be envious and don't be jealous. Just know in your heart they're gathering for you, amen. There's going to be a transfer taking place, and we'll see in a while when that transfer's going to take place. But to the sinner, God gives the work of gathering and collecting. Now, watch this. "That he," the sinner, "may give to him who is good before God".
Now, this is vanity and grasping for the wind as far as the sinner is concerned, amen. Everything that he does, all his hard work comes to nothing, amen, because a transfer will take place. Has this happened before? Yes. Remember in Exodus 12, the night of the Passover, the Bible says the transfer took place. Years of slaving, amen, under the hard taskmasters of Egypt. For about 400 years the people of God were afflicted. The Bible says on the night of the Passover this happened. "The children of Israel had done according to the word of Moses, and they had asked from the Egyptians articles of silver, articles of gold, and clothing. And the LORD had given the people favor". What did God give the people?
Now, note this, this is important. "The LORD had given the people favor". That's why the Egyptians gave them the articles of silver, articles of gold, and clothing, because "The LORD had given the people favor in the sight of the Egyptians, so that they granted them what they requested. Thus they plundered the Egyptians". Now, there's no unrighteousness here, people. For 400 years the people of Israel were afflicted under the Egyptians. All this is actually the back pay plus interest of all those years of working and slaving, building up all the monuments and statues, all right, under the hard, you know, whips of the taskmasters. And now they are receiving their pay with interest.
So, there's no injustice here, people. In fact, God will always make sure that at the end it will all be restored to you. Who is the you here? The righteous. And you, my friend, you are the righteousness of God in Christ. Now, in fact this is not, a simple, incident that happened, just so it happened. God prophesied specifically that His people would come out of Egypt with wealth, with great possessions. Remember that 400 over years before this, before this slavery in Egypt, God actually appeared to Abraham.
Now, Abraham lived before the Egyptian captivity, all right, and Abraham had a dream from God one night, and this is what God said to him. God said to him, "Know certainly," God told Abraham, "that your descendants will be strangers in a land that is not theirs, and they will serve them, and they will afflict them," the Egyptians will afflict them, "four hundred years". Imagine all those years of toiling, laboring without pay, 400 years. "And also the nation whom they serve I will judge; afterwards".
Child of God, there's always an afterwards that's coming for you and me. Amen, believe God. I believe it's gonna happen in the end times, why? Because the story of Exodus, it wasn't in the beginning of the plagues, it wasn't in the middle of the plagues, amen, it was the last plague. It was the end times that this transfer of wealth took place. Mm, hallelujah, amen. Are you ready? So, unless we preach it, people's hearts are not open to receive it, amen. And, of course, God will do it justly. God does everything righteously and justly, ok. Let me finish that verse. God said to Abraham in this dream, "Afterwards they shall come out with," what? "Great possessions".
Now, if God didn't want them to have great possessions, why even prophesy about it as if it's something important? Because there are only that many important things to say, you know, when God appears, usually you'll find that He doesn't give a long discourse, all right. His words are measured, and usually it's a short, prophecy, right, when He appears. Notice, of all the things that He could have said, "Afterwards they shall come out with joy," you know, or something else. No, it says, "Afterwards they shall come out with great possessions". Why did God say this? And we see the fulfillment of it just now in Exodus 12, that "That night," the Bible says, "God gave them favor with the Egyptians".