Rules for Prosperity

by Charles Spurgeon

Only be thou strong and very courageous, that thou mayest observe to do according to all the law, which Moses my servant commanded thee: turn not from it to the right hand or to the left, that thou mayest prosper whithersoever thou goest. (Joshua 1:7)

Yes, the Lord will be with us in our holy war, but He demands of us that we strictly follow His rules, Our victories will very much depend upon our obeying Him with all our heart, throwing strength and courage into the actions of our faith. If we are halfhearted we cannot expect more than half a blessing.

We must obey the Lord with care and thoughtfulness. “Observe to do” is the phrase used, and it is full of meaning. This is referred to every part of the divine will; we must obey with universal readiness. Our rule of conduct is “according to all the law.” We may not pick and choose, but we must take the Lord’s commands as they come, one and all. In all this we must go on with exactness and constancy Ours is to be a straightforward course which bends neither to the right nor to the left. We are not to err by being more rigid than the law, nor turn out of levity to a more See and easy way. With such obedience there will come spiritual prosperity. O Lord, help us to see if it be not even so! We shall not test Thy promise in vain.

Thank you, Chuck!  Okay, I’ve never referred to Charles Spurgeon as “Chuck” before and will refrain from doing so again in the future, but this piece is like a good personal friend when compared to the “prosperity” language we often hear from the likes of Joel Osteen, Creflo Dollar (really his name), Kenneth Copeland and Joyce Meyer.  

These prosperity proponents use biblical principles and faith as if its a force to make things happen financially / physically in your life.  Do they emphasize obedience and following Christ in and through difficulty?  No.  They try to give you a way out of difficulty as if trials are never from God and only a result of Satanic attack.

If you use the force as your local TV “Yoda” instructs then you will have all you want.  If you don’t get it, then use the Word of Faith as your “light saber” and you are guaranteed to speak into existence what doesn’t exist…sounds awfully god-like doesn’t it?  That’s okay, though, because Copeland and Meyer especially espouse the fact that we are “little gods.”  They do this by taking WAAAAAAY out of context, John 10:34, “Jesus answered them, ‘Is it not written in your Law, “I said, you are gods“?'”  They use this to say that you have power over poverty and sickness because you’re a little god, because you’re made in His image.  

The problem is, Christ is speaking this to the Jews who took great offense at his equating himself with God.  Christ quotes, here, Psalm 82:6-7, “6 I said, “You are gods, sons of the Most High, all of you 7 nevertheless, like men you shall die, and fall like any prince.”  The reference “you are gods” speaks to those who have been given charge by God to administer his law.  Christ is showing the Jews in his day their hypocrisy of not rightly administering their God-given roles to rightly administer and interpret the law!  Besides that, the Psalmist (Asaph) goes on to say that they’ll die like any other man because they are taking advantage of the needy and weak!

According to Asaph, this is a statement of judgment on those who have been given responsibility by God, but have taken it to prey on the poor and weak!  Is that not what many of these prosperity teachers do?  They prey on the weak and helpless, exploiting them and their desperate situations in order to have financial gain.  

1 Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, for many false prophets have gone out into the world. 2 By this you know the Spirit of God: every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, 3 and every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the antichrist, which you heard was coming and now is in the world already. 4 Little children, you are from God and have overcome them, for he who is in you is greater than he who is in the world. 5 They are from the world; therefore they speak from the world, and the world listens to them. 6 We are from God. Whoever knows God listens to us; whoever is not from God does not listen to us. By this we know the Spirit of truth and the spirit of error.

John 4:1-6