Pastor, teacher, and author Adrian Rogers has introduced people all over the world to the love of Jesus Christ and has impacted untold numbers of lives by presenting profound truth, simply stated. Thanks for joining us for this message.
Here's Adrian Rogers. Go to chapter 24. Go down to verse 56, and I'm going to read that verse.
Then later on, we'll get into the entire chapter. We're talking to you about prosperity and five principles of prosperity. Notice in this verse that I'm referencing here, how would you like to be able to say, listen, God has prospered my way. Now, the Bible teaches clearly and plainly that God takes pleasure in the prosperity of his servants. And the first Psalm in the Bible, Psalm 1, speaks of the man who's like a tree planted by the rivers of water. And that Psalm ends with a gigantically glorious promise.
Listen to it. Don't try to water it down. It says this, and whatsoever he doeth shall prosper. So, don't tell me that God doesn't want you to prosper. God takes pleasure in the prosperity of his servants.
Are you ready for these five principles of prosperity? They're going to come out of this chapter. And let me give you the background for the chapter. Abraham is the father of the Jewish nation. He has a son of promise. That son's name is Isaac. Isaac in the Bible is a type or a figure, an illustration of the Lord Jesus who is to come because both of these sons were sons of promise, sons of miracle birth, and sons of sacrifice and so forth.
We don't have time to get into that, but just put it in your mind that Isaac is a picture of the Lord Jesus Christ. Now, Isaac needs a bride. And the desire of the father, Abraham, is to get a bride for his son, Isaac.
Do you know what the desire of our heavenly father is? A bride for his son, Jesus? And the church is the bride of Christ.
Now, guys, I don't know whether you like the feeling or not, but you, too, are a bride. We are the bride of the Lord Jesus Christ. And what is the desire of the father? Well, the father wants a bride for his son. Now, this is the background of this, and so Abraham chooses his most trusted servant, whose name is Eliezer, and he sends him off on a mission to get a bride for his son.
And he comes back with a beautiful girl named Eliezer. Now, Abraham typifies and pictures God the father. Isaac pictures God the son, and Eliezer pictures God the Holy Spirit. Well, what is the purpose?
What is the office work? What is the motivation and the high privilege and responsibility of God the Holy Spirit to seek a bride for Isaac? And so the Holy Spirit is working here today just calling out a bride for the Lord Jesus Christ. And so Eliezer is going now to seek a bride for Isaac.
Now, that is the background. And God prospered Eliezer, and God gave Eliezer good speed. God gave Eliezer prosperity, as he said, The Lord hath prospered me in my way. Now, we can look at that, and we can find five principles of prosperity. Are you with me so far? Principle number one, establish your cause.
Put it down in your notes or put it down certainly in your mind. Establish your cause. Now, you've got to have something that motivates you, something that drives you. Every person needs a cause, a reason, a God-given goal and purpose for his life. Read now the first four verses.
The first verse, that thou shalt not take a wife unto my son of the daughters of the Canaanites, among whom I dwell, but thou shalt go unto my country, unto my kindred, and take a wife unto my son, Isaac. Now, clear, beyond any stutter, stammer or apology, Eliezer had a cause. He had a mandate. Question, do you have a cause? I mean, are you just drawing your breath and drawing your salary, fighting to live and living to fight? And you don't have a cause through life.
You're just enduring life. Have a cause in your life. You need goals in your life. And beware of vague goals. Most folks could not write down what they intend to do, what they want to do, what they feel God has called them to do.
This is wandering generality. Tiger Woods is supposed to be a great golfer, is that right? But I can beat Tiger Woods playing golf if you let me set the conditions. All I do is just take Tiger Woods and I'll blindfold him, first of all. And then I'll turn him around about 15 times and keep the blindfold on and I can beat him. I can beat him because he wouldn't even know which way the pin is, you see. Now, I mean, the best golfer, if he's blindfolded and he can't see the goal, he's not going to make it. If he can't, if I can beat Tiger Woods when he can't see the goal, how are you even going to succeed if you don't even have a goal? Much less one that you cannot see. You've got to have some goal in your life.
And it's got to be specific. If you don't have that, you're like a ship at sea on a dark night without a goal. Without a rudder, without a chart, and without a compass. Most people don't plan to fail.
They just don't plan anything. Well, you say, sure, you're a pastor. You ought to have some goals. Mothers ought to have goals. Teachers ought to have goals. Students ought to have goals. Athletes ought to have goals. Medical doctors ought to have a goal in their life.
And a church, in general, ought to have goals. Is your goal your cause? Specific enough, you could put it on paper this morning.
Suppose I would just pass out paper this morning and say, all right, write it down. What are you all about? What motivates you?
I mean, what are you trying to do? Number one, you must establish your cause. Beware of vague goals and even more, listen carefully.
Beware of unworthy goals. I mean, what is success? What is success?
How many people have the wrong idea of success? Somebody said, you know that you're important and successful if you're invited to the White House for a conference. Somebody said, no, that's not success. You're successful if you're invited to the White House for a conference and you're in the Oval Office. And that red phone rings and the president is so interested talking to you, he doesn't even answer the red phone, the emergency phone. Somebody said, no, that's not success. You're in the Oval Office, you're talking to the president, the red phone rings.
He does pick it up and he says, here, it's for you. Now that, in the eyes of the world, is success, but not necessarily so. You can be important and not successful. You can be rich and not successful. You can be notorious and not successful. You can have power and not be successful. What is success?
Listen very carefully. One definition of failure is succeeding in the wrong thing. That is failure. If you are succeeding in the wrong thing, a wise man has said, whatever a man does without God, in that thing, he will do one of two things. Either he will fail miserably or succeed more miserably. Are you listening? Failure is often success at the wrong thing. Now, I've said that you need to have a specific goal, but do you have a worthy goal?
Really? Do you have a worthy goal? May I ask you to ask yourself some questions this morning? Is your goal, is your cause, is it God-given?
Is it? I mean, does the thing that moves you, is it God-given? Number two, does it create in you enough motivation necessary for its fulfillment? It's not a worthy goal if it doesn't motivate you enough to fulfill it. Number three, does the cause that you serve demand of your very best? Is there anything that demands of you every inch, every nerve, every ounce, every sinew, every corpuscle of your body to say this one thing I do? Number four, in the cause that you have, can you pray and ask God to help you with the thing that melts your butter, the thing that motivates you, the thing that drives you?
Can you honestly get on your knees and say, Almighty God, in the name of Jesus, in the authority of Jesus, help me to do this thing? Beware, friend, of vague goals. Beware of unworthy goals.
Many folks are listening to radio station W-I-F-M. What's in it for me? Rather than wanting to do the will of God, beware. I say beware of vague goals. Beware of unworthy goals. And listen, precious friend, be unaware of unbalanced goals. You need to have goals for every area of your life, not just for one area, not just physically, not just financially, not just domestically, not just spiritually, but your entire life needs to be a life of boundless.
That's why God gave you two legs. There's an old story of the school college dean who came to the football coach and said, you're a star athlete. I want to tell you about him. Here's his report card. He's got four Fs and a D. What do you have to say about that?
The coach said, well, looks to me like he's concentrating too much on one subject. Your goals need to be balanced. Now, what we're saying is this, you have to establish a cause.
There was no ifs, ands, and buts about it. Eliezer knew what he was about. He knew what his cause was. Establish your cause. May I ask you some questions about what you're doing right now?
I want to ask you three questions. If you get to where you're going, and everybody's going somewhere, if you get to where you're going, where will you be? You think about it. You're headed somewhere. Everybody is headed somewhere. If you get to where you are going, and I'm not just talking about heaven or hell. I'm talking about what we call in this life. If you get to where you're headed, where will you be? Second question, if you accomplish your goals, what will you have? What will you have? Then when you consider what you will have, here's the big question. Are the things you're living for worth Jesus dying for? When you get to where you're going, where will you be? When you achieve what you want to achieve, what will you have? And are the things you're living for worth Jesus Christ dying for? Principle number one, therefore, is establish your cause.
Number two, principle number two is this, examine your condition. Now, this is what Eliezer had to do. He knew what his cause was, and then he had to see where he was right now. Verse five, and the servant said unto him, peradventure, the woman will not be willing to follow me into this land. Must I needs bring thy son unto the land from whence thou camest? In other words, if Rebecca won't come back with me, will I take Isaac to Rebecca? And Abraham said unto him, beware that thou bring not my son thither again. No, you can't take Isaac back to where I came from. You've got to bring Rebecca here. I will be from my father's house, and from the land of my kindred, and which spake unto me, and that swear unto me, saying unto thy seed, will I give this land, and he shall send his angel before thee, and thou shall take a wife unto my son from thence. And if the woman will not be willing to follow thee, then thou shall be clear of this my oath, only bring not my son thither again, and so forth. I could read this more, but what is obvious is this, is look, this is a problem. You're asking me to go to a land, meet a girl that I've never met, establish a relationship with her, and convince her to come and marry a man she's never met, and to leave father, mother, houses, lands, brothers, and sisters, and come with me. That is my job.
That's what I've got to do. Now, those were the conditions. You have to see where you are this morning, not where you want to be, not where you wish you were. Take an honest inventory and see where you are right now, this moment. If you were to call me on the phone, and maybe you're from out of the city, and you were to call me on the phone and say, where are you now? Where are you now? Because I cannot give them direction to get to my house unless I can, first of all, help them to establish where they are right now. And you can't get to where you need to be until you understand where you are. That's very obvious, and we need to take an inventory of ourselves and find out where we are.
Now, therefore, you need to diagnose your problems. Here was Eliezer. He had to find the right girl. He had to convince her. He had to find the right girl. He had to convince her parents.
He had to take care of all the details. And in your life, it's not just enough to establish your cause. You have to ask yourself, what is standing between me and that cause? What are the obstacles? What are the roadblocks? Now, the roadblocks don't mean that God is not with you. Eliezer had difficulties.
He didn't mean that God was not with him. Paul said, there's an open door set before us, and there are many adversaries, and the door to the room of opportunity swings on the hinges of opposition. And really, problems are just opportunities in reverse.
Did you know that? If you're in business, you say, my business has problems. Thank God your business has problems. You have a job, you say, my job has problems. Thank God your job has problems. If there weren't no problems, you wouldn't have a job.
Did you know that? Do you think people pay you for doing nothing? Do you think people pay you for those difficulties? That determines your worthwhileness to organization. And listen, if your job didn't have any problems, somebody, or if it had few problems, somebody with a lot less ability than you and a lot less pay than you're getting would do that job. It is your ability to meet and solve problems that constitute your job, so quit griping about your problems.
No. See where you are. And look at yourself and design a plan to meet those problems. If you begin in this chapter, in chapter 10, and see that Eliezer saw his problems, and then he got a plan, and the servant took 10 camels of the camels of his master and departed, for all the goods of his master were in his hand, and he arose and went to Mesopotamia, under the city of Nahor, and so forth and so forth. He had a plan.
He was going to find the right girl, then he's going to get invited to her home, and then he was going to share the promises of God with her, then he's going to pop the question, and then he's going to get, he's going to ask her parents for permission, and then he's going to bring her back to Isaac. Now, there's nothing wrong with planning. Planning is not unspiritual. Planning is very spiritual. God planned my redemption before he made the world.
I was in the heart and mind of God. The Lord says, Which man intending to build a tower doesn't sit down first and count the cost? You make plans.
I've already told you, to fail to plan is to plan to fail. A man asks a girl, How do I get to the county fair? She was a beautiful girl.
The man had a pig in one arm, a chicken in the other arm, and a basket. He was going to the fair, and the girl said, Well, you go down here a mile and turn left and go another mile, you'll come to the county fair. He said, Couldn't I just take a shortcut through the woods? She said, Well, yes, but you might get lost in the woods. Well, he said, Couldn't you go with me through the woods and guide me through those woods? Well, she said, No, I couldn't do that. He said, Why not?
Well, she said, You might take me out there in the middle of the woods and try to kiss me. He said, Now, listen, how could I do that? I've got this pig in one arm, a basket, and a chicken. That'd be impossible. Oh, she said, I don't think so. Said, You could put the chicken on the ground and put that basket over that chicken, and I could hold that silly old pig. That'd be done.
No. You have to see what your condition is and know again that the door to the room of opportunity swings on the hinges of opposition. Number three, encourage your confidence. You know, many of us just, we just think we can't do it. We don't think that God wants us to prosper, but encourage your confidence. Now, how do you encourage your confidence?
Number one, there's the promise factor. Get a promise from the Word of God. Look, if you will, in beginning about verse five. And the servant said unto him, Peradventure, the woman will not be willing to follow me into this land. Must I needs bring thy son again into the land from whence thou camest?
Now notice this. And Abraham said unto him, Beware that thou bring not my son thither again, the Lord God of heaven, which took me from my father's house and from the land of my kindred, and which spake unto me, and swear unto me, saying, Unto thy seed will I give this land. He shall send his angel before thee, and thou shall take a wife unto my son from thence.
Do you know what he's saying? Hey, this is based on the Word of God. We have got a promise from the Word of God.
Do you want to encourage your confidence? Get in the Word of God. Read the Scripture. Saturate your soul with the Scripture. You want a promise for a new millennium? Listen to Joshua chapter one, verse eight.
The book of the law shall not depart out of thy mouth, but thou shalt meditate therein day and night, and that thou mayest observe to do according to all that is written. For then shalt thou make thy way prosperous, and then shalt thou have good success. What we see right here is an illustration of that wonderful promise in Joshua one, verse eight. And so we're talking about encouraging your confidence. And there's the promise factor. Wait before God until you get a promise.
And let that promise somehow come out of the Word of God. And then not only is there the promise factor, but here's another way to encourage your confidence. There is the profit factor.
Now, I said that some people attuned to radio station WIFM, What's In It For Me. But there is a sense in which you need to ask, What's In It For Me, in the right sense. You need to ask yourself this question. Where's the payoff? What is the bottom line?
Why am I doing this? And real motivation comes from proper motives. Number two, there would be a bride for Isaac.
Number three, God would be glorified, and therefore Eliezer could have the joy. You see, we all serve for reward. It's not wrong to serve for reward if your reward is to hear Jesus say, Well done, good and faithful servant. If your reward is for the glory of God, listen, once you see what the prophet is, what the payoff is, what the bottom line is, what really counts of a worthy goal, once you get that established, you determine the why, and God will show you the how.
I believe that with all of my heart. You determine the why. Why am I doing this? What is the promise factor? Do I have a basis in the Word of God?
What is the profit factor? Am I doing this for the glory of God? Bottom line is my whole life built around bringing a bride to Jesus. I mean, is that why I'm doing this?
Is everything else contributing to this one thing? There's the profit factor. And then last of all, we're just talking about encouraging your confidence. There's the prayer factor. When you pray over what you want to do, then you're going to find out that you're encouraged as you pray. Notice, go down to verse 12, and he said, this is Eliezer, and he's praying, Oh, Lord God, and my master Abraham, I pray thee, send me good speed. Translate that, send me prosperity. Send me, oh my God, success. That's the reason that you've got to have worthy goals, a goal that you can pray over. And when you pray, the Spirit of God comes into you to encourage you, to motivate you, to drive you, and you're not doing it alone, and you and God are doing it together, and you can say with the apostle Paul, I can do all things through God who strengthens me.
Get those things together now. We're talking about encouraging your confidence. There's the promise factor.
There's the profit factor. There is the prayer factor. And by the way, if you're not praying about your cause, you know what it shows me? Either that you, you know that your cause is not God-given or that you're not really depending upon God for the fulfillment of it. You've got to have a desire when you pray.
Mark 11, verse 24, Jesus said, and I say unto you, what things soever you desire when you pray, believe that ye receive them and ye shall have them. You will encourage your confidence through prayer. Now, number four, you must enforce your character.
You're not going to drift into success, I can tell you that much. You read this story, it's very, very obvious that this man was a man who enforced his character. What I mean is he disciplined his life.
He disciplined his decisions. Look in verse 21, and the man wondering at her held his peace to wit whether the Lord had made his journey prosperous or not. He's looking at Rebecca, and I wish I could tell you the background for this, but this verse is sufficient right now.
He's looking at her and he's saying, I wonder, is she the one? He's not making a snap judgment now. He's wanting God to affirm this. Here's a man that's disciplined. He's not just getting on a horse and riding off in all directions. He disciplined his appetite.
Look, if you will, in verse 33. In the midst of all of this, they're trying to get this servant to eat, and there was set meat, food before him to eat, but he said, I will not eat until I've told mine errand. There are times when we have to set aside food, television, ball games, vacations, whatever. There's no cheap way. There's no easy way.
There's no lazy way. He disciplined his appetite. He disciplined his time. Look, if you will, in verse 56.
That's what we read to begin with. They're trying to slow him down a little bit, and he said unto them, hinder me not, seeing the Lord hath prospered my way. Don't waste your time. Boy, I get under conviction about this one. I preach there's enough time in every day to do gracefully everything God wants us to do. Don't you dare insult God by saying you don't have enough time. Do you think God will tell you to do something and then not give you enough time to do it? There's enough time in every day to do gracefully everything that God wants you to do, and here's this man says, look, no, I'm not going to turn to the right hand.
I'm not going to turn the left. Hinder me not, the Lord hath prospered me in my way. Don't waste, don't squander your time.
Now, all of this I'm just simply saying is that you have to enforce your character. There's no cheap way, no easy way, no lazy way, and so you have to ask yourself this question, where do you need to grow? Where do I need to grow personally? You remember we said, examine your condition and look at those obstacles. Part of that may be something in your character, some lack of discipline.
Ask yourself, where do I need to grow? A wise man has said, when your professional life outpaces your personal life, you will have stress. And you will bring stress to other people. When your professional life outpaces your personal life, you will have stress and you'll bring stress to other people. Prosperity and success is not the best, it is my best.
It is your best. And so I need to enforce my character. And this means that I must pay the price. Look, if you will, in verse 53 of this same chapter. And the servant brought forth jewels of silver and jewels of gold and raiment and gave them to Rebekah. He gave also to her brother and her mother precious things.
Now listen to this. Abraham said to Eliezer, look, I'm going to load you down with gifts. He took these camels laden with treasure and sent him off to do something. That is, he did not send him off to get the job done without equipping him and without giving him gifts. Now when God the Father wants to use Adrian Rogers to bring a bride for the Lord Jesus Christ, do you think he told me to do that and didn't give me the time or didn't give me the giftedness to do that?
No. He's given every one of us spiritual gifts, has he not? He's given me some, he's given you some. But God the Father has given us gifts and these gifts are tools, not toys. What they're to be used for, everything that God has given us is to be used for the glory of God the Father and we must be willing to release that. We must count the cost and pay the cost and pay the cost.
There are a lot who are squandering the God-given gifts that they have and they're giving away so much and getting so little. We need to give all for the Lord Jesus Christ. Enforce your character. Last of all, enlist your comrades.
Enlist your comrades. Eliezer, when he went to get a bride, and I don't have time to even open the scripture, I just want you to suggest that you read it in about verse 49 and go on. Read the whole chapter when you get home. He knew that this was not a one-man show. He knew that in order to get this done, he had to get her father, her mother, her brothers to cooperate. He knew that he needed to get helpers to get the thing done.
You can't do it by yourself. When people are prosperous doing the things of God, do you know what God does? God makes us dependent one on another. That's the reason that we have a church. The eye can't say to the hand, I have no need of thee.
The ear can't say to the foot, I have no need of thee. You find people who think they don't need one another, and I'm telling you, they will not succeed. Ask yourself this question, am I a cooperative person? Have I learned to enlist others? Have I learned to depend upon others? Have I learned to delegate?
Have I learned to cooperate? My heart almost jumps out of my throat as I look at this congregation and think, what can be done if we would all do it together? A single snowflake isn't much, but you get enough of them together, they can stop traffic. I mean, that's together. God brings us together.
Now, that's the end of the message. Those are five principles of prosperity. They're found right from the Word of God.
Just make certain that it's not fool's gold. Just make certain that it's real prosperity that you get. Now, the bottom line is this, the bottom line, men interested in the bottom line, in the Bible, the Lord Jesus Christ told of a rich man. His barns were filled.
The Dow Jones and Nasdaq were, they were topping the record. And this man, Jesus said, he got in his hammock and got him a glass of lemonade, and he built bigger barns to store everything. Now, you realize this is the Adrian version. But he got in his hammock, and he stretched out, and a big smile went ear to ear, and he said, soul, eat, drink, and be merry. And God said unto him, thou fool, thou fool, this night, thy soul shall be required of thee.
Then who shall those things be which thou hast provided? That, my friend, was a successful fool. Remember what success is, the progressive realization of the will of God for your life.
Failure, failure is succeeding at the wrong thing. Soon and very soon, soon and very soon, and very soon, I mean soon and very soon, sooner than you think, we're going to stand before God. And when you die, you're going to leave behind everything you have, and you're going to take with you everything that you are. And then you'll find out whether or not you've been prosperous.
Do you agree with that? I hope you do. Let me tell you, the first step is to give your heart to Jesus Christ. For Jesus said, what should it profit a man if he should gain the whole world and lose his own soul?
Or what should a man give in exchange for his soul? Would you pray a prayer like this? Lord Jesus, I'm a sinner, and I need to be saved. You died to save me, and you promised to save me if I would trust you.
I do trust you, Lord Jesus. I believe you're the Son of God. I believe you paid for my sin with your blood on the cross.
I believe that God raised you from the dead, and now I receive you by faith now as my Lord and Savior. I turn from my sin to you, Lord Jesus. Save me by your grace. I receive the gift of salvation, and from this moment on, I will live for you, not in order to be saved, but because I am saved. I will live for you, my Lord, and help me never to be ashamed of you. In your name I pray, amen. Amen.
