Mingled with the continual barrage of telephone calls and other inputs brought to our attention of scam opportunities to get rich, almost overnight, are the ones who claim to have heard “the voice of God” and that sending “seed money” to them will bring prosperity to the donor as automatically as the sun rises tomorrow. But the question we must ask is, “Does this message from God also connect with what He has said already in Scripture?”

Are there two messages from God—ask and He will give it—also, “Seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness and all these things shall be added to you” (Matthew 6:33)?

Possibly between the two is that isolated B-attitude in Acts 20:35, “… And remember the words of the Lord Jesus, that He said, ‘It is more blessed to give than to receive.’”

Without question is the fact that God is a giver. John 3:16 says, “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believes in Him shall have everlasting life.”

As one of my long-time mentors has maintained, “If God is a giver, who is He going to give to…?”

Probably one of the most compelling promises along this line is Romans 8:32: “He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things?”

As believers, we are told in Galatians 4:7 (TLB), “Now we are no longer slaves but God’s own sons. And since we are His sons, everything He has belongs to us, for that is the way God planned.”

But let’s cut the distinction much closer to what is lacking—the balancing factor in God’s economy. Consider this: God is love, but God is also just. The two are inseparably linked; you cannot have one and not the other.

So why doesn’t God give us everything we want, since He made such strong promises? There are at least two reasons, I have come to believe. One is that with abundance comes responsibility, which a merciful God does not lay upon those who cannot handle it. Imagine for a moment how you would respond if your days were bombarded with requests for donations, and you honestly wanted to help those who were the most in need.

As the Apostle Paul confessed of himself and his team, “We are sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; poor, yet making many rich; having nothing yet possessing all things” (2 Corinthians 6:10).

At least I want to be of that mindset.

My name is on every donor list that is out there, it seems. Hardly a day goes by without a request for a donation in my mailbox. Donor lists are regularly sold, I understand, and they cover political, medical, social, charitable, religious and Christian organizations. Many are worthy, no doubt, but we know that some are mere fronts for self-indulging purposes. This whole scenario became apparent during the Internal Revenue Service scandal two or three years ago, when it was reported that some 400 organizations were lined up to be approved for nonprofit status recognition by the IRS.

Coupled with the numerous scams that are constantly operating in the economy, it seems that the golden rule is taking a beating: “Therefore, whatever you want men to do to you, do also to them, for this is the Law and the Prophets” (Matthew 7:12).

The second reason God does not readily lavish upon us whatever we ask for is clearly laid out in James 4:3, “You ask and do not receive, because you ask amiss, that you may spend it on your pleasures.”

In this response we have great protection from our selfish tendencies toward satisfying the lure of the flesh. God, who knows our hearts, merely says, “No.” It comes down to our willingness to let God be God in our lives.

“Having been born again by the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Spirit” (Titus 3:5), God, therefore, looks for us to make mature spiritual decisions. Proverbs 3:5-6 is a great directive for our daily caution in that regard:

“Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge Him and He will direct your paths.”

Someone once asked a millionaire what drove him to continue in his pursuit of wealth, for did he not have all that he needed? And his answer was, “more.” Jesus told a parable about that kind of person in Luke 12:16-21:

“Then He spoke a parable to them, saying: ‘The ground of a certain rich man yielded plentifully. And he thought within himself, saying, ‘What shall I do, since I have no room to store my crops?’ So he said, ‘I will do this: I will pull down my barns and build greater, and there I will store all my crops and my goods. And I will say to my soul, ‘Soul, you have many goods laid up for many years; take your ease; eat, drink, and be merry.’ But God said to him, ‘Fool! This night your soul will be required of you; then whose will those things be which you have provided?’

“So is he who lays up treasure for himself, and is not rich toward God.”

The law of the tithe was very prevalent in the daily lives of the Jewish people in Old Testament times, and it is almost a required law in New Testament churches. Yet, New Testament believers are not under the law, but under grace. The New Testament does not mention tithing as a directive for the believer anywhere, except in discussions of the law as it applied to the Jews and their practices under the law.

Paul gives us the requirement of grace in 2 Corinthians 9:7-8: “So let each one give as he purposes in his heart, not grudgingly or of necessity; for God loves a cheerful giver. And God is able to make all grace abound toward you, that you, always having all sufficiency in all things, may have an abundance for every good work.”

Paul wrote in Galatians 2:21, “If righteousness comes by the law, then Christ died in vain.”

We can see in the two previous verses that believers are in a relationship with God in which we are meant to make Spirit-led choices, not according to requirements of the law, but choices which do not contradict the laws of God.

As it says in Romans 8:1, “There is therefore now no condemnation to those who walk according to the Spirit and not according to the flesh.”

The gospel of redemption establishes the priority that submission to the Lord is first and foremost for the believer. This was brought out at the beginning of this article, but it also means that believers should submit to the sovereignty of God and His will for our lives—not making it a priority to search for wealth and abundance or anything else not in line with His desires for us. Romans 12:3 speaks to this:

“For I say, through the grace given to me, to everyone who is among you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think soberly, as God has dealt to each one a measure of faith.”

Recently I quoted John 16:24 to my Sunday morning Bible class: “Until now you have asked nothing in My name. Ask, and you will receive, that your joy may be full.” I then asked them what would they ask of the Lord that would make their joy full. As I expected, there was an extended silence as they embraced that question.

What would you ask of Him in that regard? Psalm 37:4 comes to mind: “Delight yourself also in the Lord, and He shall give you the desires of your heart.”

So then, what should we do if a doorway opens that would lift us upward out of our current situation? Am I willing to step out on faith and check it out? Paul speaks to this in 1 Corinthians 7:21-22:

“Were you called while a slave? Do not be concerned about it; but if you can be made free, rather use it. For he who is called in the Lord while a slave is the Lord’s freedman. Likewise he who is called while free is Christ’s slave.”

The Ask, Seek and Knock directive in Matthew 7:7-11 seems appropriate:

“Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; and he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks it will be opened. Or what man is there among you who, if his son asks for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will he give him a serpent? If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask Him!”

The Apostle, who bids us follow his example in our Christian journey, says of himself, “Not that I speak in regard to need, for I have learned in whatever state I am to be content: I know how to be abased, and I know how to abound. Everywhere and in all things I have learned both to be full and to be hungry, both to abound and to suffer need” (Philippians 4:11-12).

Perhaps out of that learning experience and observation he was able to conclude these truths that he wrote to Timothy:

“But those who desire to be rich fall into temptation and a snare, and into many foolish and harmful lusts which drown men in destruction and perdition. For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil, for which some have strayed from the faith in their greediness, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows. But you, O man of God, flee these things and pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, patience, gentleness” (1 Timothy 6:9-11).

The gospel of redemption has to do with long-term preparation for eternity, while the “gospel of prosperity” is temporary and does not equip one for that eternal home where believers will reside. Like that rich farmer in the parable quoted earlier in the article, who knows what tomorrow will bring to our lives?

Contact email:  andwegetmercy@gmail.com

 

 

God looked down on Earth and saw that the imaginations and thoughts of mankind were only evil continually (Genesis 6:5) and Called on a man named Noah to build an ark. There had never been raindrops before then, and it took Noah something like 120 years to complete the ark, a large boat. The earth had been watered by the mist from the ground. Who ever heard of such a thing—raindrops?

Peter wrote of that time when God’s patience and longsuffering waited until Noah had finished the ark, when the condition of mankind He had seen could be judged. That was a long time, for people in those days lived more than 900 years. But God was also making a way for the salvation of the righteous in that time.

Some people today are saying it has been a long time since the promise of Jesus coming to take out of this world those who belong to Him. “Where is the promise of His coming,” so they say, just as Peter proclaimed in 2 Peter 3:3-4. In somewhat the same way of delay, Jesus has held back His coming until a future “appointed time” in the hands of His Father, that He might “take out of the Gentiles a people for His name” (Acts 15:14-17). When the fullness of that number is completed, the “ark of His salvation” will be ready for boarding—in the twinkling of an eye.

As it was in the days of Lot, as soon as that “ark of His salvation” sets sail, God’s judgment will take place. In Lot’s day, as soon as Lot and his family were out of the city, destruction fell upon Sodom and Gomorrah; and nothing is left of those cities that is identifiable. As with those of Noah’s time, judgment came upon those left behind. (And remember Lot’s wife.)

Drip, drip, drip—in the last days perilous times will come (2 Timothy 3:1).

Drip, drip, drip—evil men will become worse and worse (2 Timothy 3:13).

Drip, drip, drip—the masses are calling good evil and evil good (Isaiah 5:20).

Drip, drip, drip—evil and injustice seek to rule the people (Job 34:17).

It was a sure thing. Late in the fourth quarter, Obama would make a “Hail, Mary” pass to Hillary Clinton, and she would continue the plan for complete destruction of American sovereignty. He gave it away in April and August, 2016. First, he could not contain his excitement over his accomplishments during his eight years, saying, “The end of the Republic has never looked better!” at the annual Correspondent’s Dinner in Washington, D.C. on April 30. Then, in August, it has been revealed, he knew the Russians were tinkering with the USA electoral process, but he did not let that information out since it was a sure thing that Hillary would win the election and take his program forward. Both of them are disciples of Saul Alinsky’s “Rules for Radicals.”

But did God intercept that pass in the hands of one Donald Trump? Frankly, I was caught by surprise as the election campaign unwound and Trump won the Electoral College votes. Obama had been “primed to lead us into a New World Order,” according to Henry Kissinger, after the sweep for Obama in 2008. Obama had campaigned on the promise to “fundamentally transform America forever,” and it looked like he was succeeding with little quiet allowance from anyone who could have taken a hand in any strong opposition. Obama thought so, too, as well as many prominent public leaders, having a “one-world-government” frame of mind.

No wonder candidate Trump’s promise to “drain the swamp” sent spurts of fear racing up the backbones of many who have hidden in that swamp for years.

It was not God’s timing for the rise of that Beast of Revelation, that end-time one-world-government. Forgotten was the declaration revelation of Jesus in Matthew 24:37-38 and Luke 17:26-37, especially the latter:

“And as it was in the days of Noah, so it will be also in the days of the Son of Man: They ate, they drank, they married wives, they were given in marriage, until the day that Noah entered the ark, and the flood came and destroyed them all. Likewise as it was also in the days of Lot – They ate, they drank, they bought, they sold, they planted, they built; but on the day that Lot went out of Sodom it rained fire and brimstone from heaven and destroyed them all. Even so will it be in the day when the Son of Man is revealed.

“In that day, he who is on the housetop, and his goods are in the house, let him not come down to take them away. And likewise the one who is in the field, let him not turn back. Remember Lot’s wife. Whoever seeks to save his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life will preserve it. I tell you, in that night there will be two men in one bed: the one will be taken and the other will be left. Two women will be grinding together: the one will be taken and the other left. Two men will be in the field: the one will be taken and the other left.”

In Noah’s day there was lots of time before judgment came, even after the rain began to fall. But in Lot’s time, judgment came immediately after he was out of the city. In the coming “return of the Son of Man,” the Apostle Paul tells it like this:

“For you yourselves know perfectly that the day of the Lord so comes as a thief in the night. For when they say, ‘Peace and safety!’ then sudden destruction comes upon them, as labor pains upon a pregnant woman. And they shall not escape” (1 Thessalonians 5:2-3).

In the context, beginning near the end of the prior chapter 4, he describes the time when all of His body of believers will be taken out of the path of judgment, just as he confirms in the verses following the quotation above. (This is when believers will escape the wrath of God, not between the 5^th and 6^th seal in Revelation 6, as some people claim in their “pre-wrath rapture” theory.) Here is that verse with its confirming declaration, and you can read more all the way to verse 10 for the full context:

“But you, brethren, are not in darkness, so that this Day should overtake you as a thief.”

The descriptions in the Luke 17 passage are portrayals of heightened economic and social activities that could only happen in a growing economy. It will definitely not be the picture of life during the last half of the seven years of the tribulation. Read again Revelation 13-19. The physical condition of the land and the seas and the freedom of mankind to “build and plant,” while enjoying “eating and drinking and marrying and giving in marriage,” makes a “post-tribulation rapture” position very illogical.

The pivotal clue is in that passage above, “when they shall say, ‘Peace and safety,’ then sudden destruction shall come upon them….”

Watch for it; for when the nations confirm a covenant with Israel, as Daniel 9:27 says, that exclamation will come forth from Israel, which has longed for peace for many years. This one will only last three and one-half years, however, and that with much tribulation.

Meanwhile, sinfulness of man becomes more open and with blatant “in your face” carelessness. Hidden secrets from the darkness—immorality and conspiracies that boggle the mind—are coming to the surface. It brings to mind this declaration in 1 Timothy 5:24. Is this another sign the end of days is upon us?:

“Some men’s sins are clearly evident, preceding them to judgment, but those of some men follow later.”

Drip, drip, drip—and God’s appointed time approaches.

Contact email: andwegetmercy@gmail.com