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Biblical
Prosperity in Perspective 9
Developing the
Capacity to Prosper, Part Two
by Pastor John Hamel
In part one of this lesson, we saw that God is
not just going to dump millions of dollars into the hands of untrained
individuals. That would be a dangerous thing to do, indeed.
Many people would be so tempted by that much money they would be driven
right back into sin. They would literally become drunk with that kind
of power.
There is going to
be some testing and proving before God gives anyone anything that is
inherently dangerous. Money is inherently dangerous, particularly in
the hands of an untrained individual.
God is a good God. He is
going to see to it that you are properly trained and tested in the handling
of money. He does not want anything evil to happen to you.
Look
What Sudden Wealth Did to Untrained Israel
Israel lived in slavery
for over four hundred years. As a result, they also lived in poverty
during that entire period in history. Once God was finally able to
set them free, He instructed them to take all the wealth of Egypt with them.
As you read the narrative below, I will make comments.
“And the children of Israel did according to
the word of Moses; and they borrowed of the Egyptians jewels of silver, and
jewels of gold, and of raiment.” (Exodus 12:35)
The Hebrew word for “borrowed” actually
means, “Demanded.” The Hebrews actually demanded that the Egyptians
give them their wealth. Think about that. They demanded that
their captors give them all of their wealth as their reluctant captors were
setting them free. The Egyptians actually obeyed.
This is a
type or a picture of how Believers today can demand
that Satan take his hands off their finances. He will obey
even though he does not want to.
You, as a tithe payer and an offering
giver, can tell Satan right now, “Satan, loose my finances in Jesus’
Name. Angels of God, fix my finances in
Jesus’ Name.”
Things will immediately begin to come in line. Great
wealth will not come immediately but your needs will start being met.
Your debts will start being wiped out and then some.
“And the Lord gave the people favor in the
sight of the Egyptians so that they lent unto them such things as they
required. And they spoiled the Egyptians.” (Exodus 12:36)
The Hebrew word for “lent” in this verse
actually means, “To beg earnestly to take.” This means that when Israel demanded the
Egyptians to give them their wealth, the Egyptians said, in essence,
“Please, by all means, go ahead, take it. We
want you to have it. Really. We do.”
This is what God
makes Satan do on behalf of the Believer who learns how to handle small
amounts of money first
.
The word for “spoiled” in the above verse
is a Hebrew word that means, “To snatch, to strip away and to
recover.”
This is what Israel did when the
Egyptians begged them to take their wealth with them. They snatched
it, stripped it away and recovered it all.
Today we would say, “They
wiped them out. They cleaned up. They hit the big time.”
In less than one night’s time Israel went from the
poorest nation on Earth to the wealthiest nation on Earth.
Unfortunately, Israel was so accustomed
to lack and poverty that they were simply unable to handle such tremendous
wealth with wisdom, maturity and expertise. They
took it and made a mess of things. They simply had not yet learned
the difference between covetous and Covenant. They had no idea in the
world that God had given them that wealth for a
purpose, His Divine
purpose.
Moses, on the other hand, was trained in handling
finances. He grew up with tremendous wealth and ultimately spent 40
years working for a very wealthy father-in-law. Moses was to be Israel’s trained
financial overseer.
When Moses went up to Mount Sinai to pick up the Ten
Commandments, he was gone for less than 40 days. In that short amount
of time, Israel took all that
wealth and allowed it to drive them right back into sin.
Let’s look
at it in Exodus, chapter 32.
“And when the people saw that Moses delayed
to come down out of the mount, the people gathered themselves together unto
Aaron, and said unto him, Up, make us gods which shall go before us; for as
for this Moses the man that brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we wot not what has become of him.” (Verse 1)
Here we see Israel in possession of
tremendous wealth turning their backs on the Almighty and going right back
into the world of false gods and sinful living. Not
only that, but in their pride, they showed utter contempt for their leader,
Moses. They contemptuously referred to him as “this Moses” as if they
were better than him.
This happens to a lot of immature Believers who
get their hands on lots of money. Suddenly, they are too good to submit to the Pastor’s authority any
longer. God knows it, too. That is why He withholds the big
bucks from the big babies.
“And Aaron said unto them, Break off the
golden earrings, which are in the ears of your wives, of your sons, and of
your daughters, and bring them unto me.” (Verse 2)
Aaron showed absolutely no backbone here
when the people, in their pride, decided to revolt. He did as he was
told. Leaders who are swayed by the wealth and the greed of their
people are not leaders at all. They are bleeders. They bleed
themselves and their congregation of any Anointing and soon come to
demise.
Dr. Lester Sumrall was my Pastor for the last fifteen years
of his life. He used to say, “Shepherds who follow the sheep get
doo-doo on their feet.” He was right, too.
“And all the people brake off the golden
earrings which were in their ears, and brought them unto Aaron and he
received them at their hand and fashioned it with a graving tool, after he
had made it a molten calf: and they said, These be thy gods, o Israel,
which brought thee up out of the land of Egypt.” (Verses 3-4)
The word for “calf” in verse four is
actually “Apis.” That is the name of the
Egyptian bull god. The word “gods” in the same verse is “Elohim,” the Triune Name for the Most High God.
Israel, in their pride
and immaturity, backslid with all that wealth and used it to make an
Egyptian animal god. Then they dared to refer to it as the Most
High God Who had just delivered them from 400 years of poverty and
slavery. Talk about foolhardy.
This still happens today. Some people
come into what they consider to be great wealth after paying tithes and
offerings for a while and they backslide. They go right back into the
world of sin.
Oh, sure, some of them still go to Church. They
just go out and find new Churches that do not talk about tithes,
offerings, holiness,
obedience, etc. They have no idea in the world that God was
testing them with a small amount of wealth and that they failed the
test. They are believing the lie they passed
the test that they actually failed. God wanted to give them
more.
“And when Aaron saw it, he built an altar
before it; and Aaron made proclamation, and said, Tomorrow is a feast to
the Lord.” (Verse 5)
How dare Aaron include the Lord in his
backsliding and covetousness? Again, some do this today. God
begins to prosper them and they backslide with the money He gives
them. They then begin to look for ways where it looks like they are
still living for the Lord even though they are blowing Him off and doing
their own thing.
This is what the love of money will do to the
immature and untrained. It really is the root of all evil.
“And they rose up early on the morrow, and
offered burnt offerings, and brought peace offerings; and the people sat
down to eat and to drink and rose up to play.” (Verse 6)
This is exactly what the Lord does not want
to happen to His children when He gives them wealth. Wealth does not
come for the express purpose of eating, drinking and playing.
Tremendous wealth comes for the same reasons Jesus
came. Tremendous wealth comes to seek and to save the lost
first, to destroy the works of Satan in the Earth second, and that God’s
children would enjoy abundance of life third.
“And the Lord said unto Moses, Go, get thee
down; for thy people, which thou broughtest out
of the land of Egypt, have corrupted themselves: they have turned aside
quickly out of the way which I commanded them: they have made them a molten
calf, and have worshipped it, and have sacrificed thereunto, and said,
These be our gods, o Israel, which have brought thee up out of the land of
Egypt.” (Verse 7)
These untrained, undisciplined, unproven
individuals actually used the tremendous wealth that God gave them to
commit crimes against Him. They stole His Glory and gave it to a
statue of a stinking animal. They turned aside “quickly” and began worshipping
convenience gods who required nothing of them.
This narrative is in the Bible for a
reason. This is in the Bible so that we will understand why the
Almighty simply will not dump tremendous wealth into the laps of the
untested and unproven. There is going to be testing and there is
going to be proving if you expect God to bless you abundantly.
In the
meantime, through tithes and offerings and continued faithfulness, He will
meet your needs. He will wipe out your debts. He will give you
all you need and more. But only once you have been fully tested and
proven will He share with you the tremendous, tremendous wealth that is
presently in the process of being transferred from the wicked to the
righteous. (Deuteronomy 8:1-18)
Be blessed … John and Barbara Hamel
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