There's nothing wrong with having it. In fact, Everybody needs it. but the desire for it can be destructive. It's money. And today, on Turning Point, Dr.
David Jeremiah sheds light on what the book of Proverbs has to say about wealth. how to gain it, and how to govern it. from powerful principles from proverbs. Here's David to introduce today's message. Power up your wealth.
Proverbs about prosperity. Would you believe the book of Proverbs will teach you how to manage your resources? It will help you make good decisions about the blessings that God has given to you and how you utilize them for the right reason in the right way. I hope that you will stay tuned for these principles as we open them up today and tomorrow and talk about prosperity. Hey, before we get into the lesson today, I want to just take a moment and invite you to come and visit us if you're in the area.
If you come to the West Coast, you should come to San Diego. In a little village not too far from San Diego, just on the outside circumference of the circle, is a place called El Cajon. And there in that city, we minister every week. And we have people that come to see us and visit us from all over the world. And we would love to have you when you have the opportunity.
I hope you will come and be sure and let us know that you're there and where you're from. And it's such a wonderful thing to meet you. And some of you will be traveling here for vacation. Don't forget to make your visit to Shadow Mountain one of the stops along the way, and we'll look forward to seeing you. Here is Part 1 of Proverbs About Wealth and Prosperity.
In the movie Wall Street, starring Michael Douglas, there is a speech. That is taken from real life. The speech goes like this. Grade is good. Greed is right.
Greed works. Greed cuts through and captures the essence of the evolutionary spirit. Greed in all its forms, greed for life. Greed for money, greed for love, greed for knowledge has marked the upward surge of mankind, and greed, you mark my word. Will save the USA.
End of quotes.
Now, this speech was incorporated into the movie. But it came from an actual speech by a man named Ivan Bosky. The investment banker who was arrested in the 1980s for insider trading. After his arrest and his imprisonment, Barbara Walters interviewed his wife, and in that interview, This broken woman began to share what her husband had done. She said he would use friends, he would use his family.
He would use work associates. She even confessed through tears that he used me to get anything that he wanted. He was a man whose life was controlled by greed and by a desire for prosperity. And when he was arrested, he began to turn evidence on all of his associates in order that he might get a lighter sentence, not caring at all what would happen to his so-called friends. How many of you know that the desire for riches can be deadly?
If you go through the Bible, you will discover in the Old Testament that Gehazi, Elisha's servant, was struck with Naaman's leprosy. because he could not pass up a reward. And in the New Testament, Ananias dropped dead. Because of a desire for money that caused him to lie. The rich young ruler couldn't enter the kingdom of God because of his desire to be rich.
and the rich man who feasted sumptuously and neglected Lazarus, was tormented in Hades because he could not give up his wealth. And in the New Testament, Paul warns us. That if we are not careful, our desire for wealth can be destructive. In writing to Timothy in 1 Timothy 6, 9, we read these words. 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.
Now he didn't say that those who are rich Drowned in perdition. He said, Those who desire, those who lust after it as if it were the only game in town, those are the people who can be destroyed by it. And probably all of us here have illustrations that we can name of people. who were good people, who got off on this track. of lusting after wealth, and in the process, their own lives were destroyed and devastated, and their families were ruined.
And everything that was good about them before this started was disannulled. A few things. are so much at the mercy of life's fluctuations as money. And in a society which is governed by investments and profit and loss and interest dividends. It is inevitable that some will get caught in the web of greed.
What can money do for you? Its road is full of mirages, bright and Enticing gleams of water which vanish as soon as you draw near. One after another, the alluring pools turn out to be hot glowing sand. The conditions into which riches lead you only intensify your thirst for more. and you can never have enough.
Somebody said that millionaires who laugh heartily are rare. And what are they doing if they are not laughing? They are carrying burdens which crush all of the laughter out of them. They are carrying the very thing which promised to carry them. And the book of Proverbs makes numerous references to wealth and riches and poverty.
In fact, there are at least two proverbs that speak pointedly to the issue of greed and the lust for money. Proverbs 15:27 says, He who is greedy for gain troubles his own house. But he who hates bribes will live. And this is one for all of us modern workaholics. Hell and destruction are never full, so the eyes of man are never satisfied.
The problem with the wealth game is there is never enough. No matter how much you get, you always want more. And once you get into it, some people that I know who have gotten caught in this have told me it no longer is the money that's the issue, it's the game, it's the desire to accomplish more, and to get more, and to accumulate more. Proverbs 23, 4 is also for the overworker. It says, Do not overwork to be rich.
Because of your own understanding, cease. It's a good proverb, isn't it? It's possible to get so caught up in this that it consumes your whole life. It destroys your family. It tears apart all of your relationships because all you care about is prosperity and more and getting to the next level and to the next investments.
Now, while no one should assume that the book of Proverbs is the final exhaustive treatment of the subject. Of prosperity and wealth, and all of that. It contains many of the core principles that are expanded upon in the rest of the Word of God. In other words, the Proverbs are gathered around several key concepts. And as we select the Proverbs and as we collect them, We will interject other key passages from the rest of the Word of God, and we'll see that the book of Proverbs is right in sync with all the rest of the Bible.
How many of you know the Word of God stands or falls as a whole? You don't just take one section of it. You're not going to find something in Proverbs that's going to undo something you find over in the New Testament. The whole of it stands together, it is the plenary inspiration of the Word of God.
Now, let's begin before we get into our outline today with a very basic truth about prosperity found in Proverbs 22, verse 2. Here's the basic core truth. The rich and the poor have this in common. The Lord is the Maker of them all.
So, if we're going to look at indications of wealth and poverty. We need to recognize that the one who's making these statements. Is the Holy Spirit, Almighty God. He's the one who created both the rich and the poor.
So we have every right. under the laws of evidence to listen carefully to what he has to say.
So let's talk for a few moments about the proverbs about how we gain money, how we gain prosperity. How do we get rich?
Well, the Bible in the book of Proverbs has some keys for us to understand. First of all, prosperity comes from the hand of God. How many of you know that? Proverbs 10, 22 says, The blessing of the Lord makes one rich. The blessing of the Lord makes you rich.
And this is something that's been inculcated into all of the Old Testament scriptures. It is the generalization that piety brings plenty and it chimes in with much of the scripture. And I want us to turn in our Bibles. To the book of Deuteronomy. And I want to read beginning at chapter 28.
And I want to read the first 14 verses. And if you have your Bibles, you can follow along, even if you don't have the New King James Version, which is what I use. You follow in your translation, whatever it may be, and it'll be close.
Now it shall come to pass, if you diligently obey the voice of the Lord your God, to observe carefully all his commandments, which I command you today. that the Lord your God will set you high above all the nations of the earth. And all these blessings shall come upon you and overtake you because you obey the voice of the Lord your God. This is the Lord speaking to the nation of Israel, but it's the principle I want you to note. Blessed shall you be in the city, and blessed shall you be in the country.
Blessed shall be the fruit of your body, and the produce of your ground, and the increase of your herds, and the increase of your cattle, and the offspring of your flocks. Blessed shall be your basket, and your kneading bowl. Blessed shall you be when you come in, and blessed shall you be when you go out. The Lord will cause your enemies who rise against you to be defeated before your face. They shall come out against you one way and flee before you seven ways.
The Lord will command the blessing on you in your storehouses, and in all which you set your hand. He will bless you in the land which the Lord your God is giving you. The Lord will establish you as a holy people to himself, just as he has sworn to you, if you keep the commandments of the Lord your God and walk in his ways. Then all peoples of the earth shall see that you are called by the name of the Lord, and they shall be afraid of you. And the Lord will grant you plenty of goods in the fruit of your body, in the increase of your livestock, in the produce of your ground, in the land of which the Lord swore to your fathers to give you.
The Lord will open to you his good treasure, the heavens, to give the rain to your land in its season, and to bless all the work of your hand, and shall lend to many nations, but you shall not borrow. And the Lord will make you the head and not the tail. You shall be above only and not beneath. If you heed the commandments of the Lord your God, which I command you today, and are careful to observe them, so you shall not turn aside from any of these words which I command you this day. to the right or to the left to go after other gods or to serve them.
Now what's this passage all about? This passage is all about God's promise to the people of Israel, to the Old Testament believer, if you will. That if they followed the will of God, if they followed God's commands, that He would bless them. In fact, the word blessing is over and over in this passage. And so we understand that one of the fundamental principles in the Old Testament for being blessed and for the prosperous life is that God blessed those who followed Him.
You say, Well, I know people who follow the Lord who aren't blessed. This is not the prosperity gospel. Hear me carefully. God is not saying he wants you to be rich. God is saying He wants to bless you so you can be the vehicle of blessing to others.
The only reason God ever blesses anyone is not so they can sit back and count what they have, but so they can be a channel, a conduit through which God can send. His wealth, his prosperity for the needs of people. But the point you need to understand from this simple proverb is that God honors us, and when He honors us, our blessing comes from God. If you've been blessed of God with any of the good things of life, Then you have to look up and say, This is because of God. God has been good to me.
Every good gift, now watch this, and every perfect gift, where does it come from, class? It comes from above, doesn't it?
So don't ever forget, when we ask, where does prosperity come from? Prosperity comes from the hand of God. And this passage, filled with the blessing of God, is a reminder to us that God wants to bless his people. And then the Proverbs teaches that prosperity comes from honesty and integrity. I was really surprised to discover how many different ways God in the book of Proverbs reminds us that there's a certain thing He expects of His people.
How many of you know that God is not only interested in the end, God is also interested in the means? God cares not only what we get, He cares how we get it. It's not enough just to have a lot. It's important how you got it. And now, watch carefully how the book of Proverbs warns us against certain kinds of activities.
These should be printed on the front pages of the newspaper these days so everybody could read what God has to say. Notice, first of all, in Proverbs 22, 1. A good name is rather to be chosen than great riches. loving favor rather than silver or gold. Proverbs 16, 8.
Better is a little with righteousness than vast revenues without justice. Proverbs 15:6: In the house of the righteous there is much treasure, but in the revenue of the wicked is trouble.
Now listen, Proverbs 11, 1. Dishonest scales are an abomination to the Lord, but a just weight is his delight.
Now, you have to translate that into our culture. Cheating somebody at business in order to get rich according to the word of God is an abomination to the Lord. God expects us as His people to do business righteously and justly and fairly, and most of all, honestly with integrity. Proverbs 16, 11 says, Honest weights and scales are the Lord's. All the weights in the bag are his work.
Proverbs 28, 6 says, Better is the poor who walks in his integrity than one perverse in his ways, though he be rich.
So, the Bible teaches us in the book of Proverbs that we gain prosperity, first of all, by the honor of God, and then we gain it through honesty and integrity. God's people ought to be men and women of honesty and integrity. I am not somebody who rails against the issues of the day unless they come before us in the scripture. But I want to tell you: if you're a Christian, you shouldn't be messing around with the lottery. You've got no business doing that.
That is a waste of your money and a waste of your time, and it's a disobedience to the Word of God. Dishonesty and greed causes us to do things. that we should never do. And so we get prosperity according to the book of Proverbs by being honored of God. And by honesty and integrity, and then there's one other little thought that we ought to throw in here: prosperity comes from hard work and diligence.
How many of you know that? Prosperity comes from hard work and diligence. Chapter 13, verse 11 says, Wealth gained by dishonesty will be diminished. But he who gathers by labor will increase. How many of you know the book of Proverbs is filled with truth about laziness?
There are so many different metaphors for it in the book.
Some guy who's laying in bed in the morning, he's supposed to get up and go to work, and the proverb says he won't go out in the street because he fears there's a lion in the street.
So he stays home. And he goes poor. You know, sometimes lazy people get blessed. But it's accidental, it's not on purpose. Amen.
And you probably know somebody. They don't work, they don't do anything, they just sort of have fallen into it. Maybe they have a big inheritance. But by and large, the Word of God says, if you don't work hard, You go poor. And the way you get prosperity according to the word of God is from the honor of God, through honesty and integrity, and through hard work and diligence.
Amen?
So we're all together there.
So far, nothing's been too convicting, right? But hang on, all right. Number two, the book of Proverbs tells us how to govern our money. And I just want to say one thing here because there's just one principle here that's really important for us to get a hold of, and we'll come back to it at the end of the message. And that is when we get our money.
Are not to put our trust in it. Proverbs 11, 28 says, He who trusts in his riches will fall. But the righteous will flourish like foliage. You see, there's not anything wrong with getting riches. There's an awful lot wrong with putting your trust in them.
If you began to trust your riches, you will start to distrust God. And one of the reasons that we have so much in the Word of God warning us against greed is because God loves us so much, He does not want anything to come between Himself and us. And when prosperity becomes our hope and our trust, when our Almighty bank book becomes our source of strength, Then we have pushed God aside and we've moved Him out of the center place of our life. And when we begin to trust in riches that God has provided for us instead of the one who provided them. We are in deep trouble.
The old adage is: don't trust the gift. Trust the giver. Amen. Trust the one who provided it for you.
Now The majority of the proverbs that have to do with wealth and riches and prosperity. Have to do with how we give it away. It's an interesting thing. And so, I want to talk with you thirdly about Proverbs about how we give away our money. You say, once you get it, why would you want to talk about giving it away?
Because the only way you can ever keep it is to give it away. The only way you can ever get anything that's worthy in your life is to give away what you already have. If God has given you friends, You yourself must give that friendship away. Whatever you have in your life, you have to give it away so that it can come back to enrich you even more. And the book of Proverbs tells us.
Many, many things about how we're to handle the money God gives us and how we're to discharge it. If we are collecting and hoarding in a miserly way, counting all that we have, instead of being aware of the fact that God has given us this stewardship. then we'll never be happy no matter how much we have. In fact, I've learned in my life one of the best ways to guard against greed is to give something away that you really don't want to give away down in your heart. You give it away sacrificially, and God blesses you for it.
Now watch what the Bible says about the purpose of giving. Why do we give? Why do we give away what we have? We do it first of all to honor Almighty God. Proverbs 3:9 says, Honor the Lord with your possessions and with the first fruit of all your increase.
Now, once again, I want you to follow me as I read an extended passage from the book of Deuteronomy because I want you to see that this is a truth that goes way back to the very beginning: that God wants us to honor Him with what we have. You say, how do you do that? You make it available for God's use. You bring it to Him. You give it back to Him.
Turn back in your Bibles now, Deuteronomy chapter 26. And while this is an Old Testament offering law, the principle here is so very clear in its incredible passage of Scripture, just like the other one in Deuteronomy chapter 28. And the reason I love to read to you from Deuteronomy is because most of you don't normally turn there to read in your own reading every day. It's kind of like second on your list next to Leviticus. How many of you know that when the Lord was tempted in the wilderness by the enemy?
And he said, It is written. Remember that? Satan came and tempted him, and the Lord said, It is written. Do you know what he quoted when he said it is written? All of the quotations are from the book of Deuteronomy.
So if the Lord Jesus thought Deuteronomy is pretty good, we should think it's pretty good too, shouldn't we?
Now, let me just read to you Deuteronomy chapter 26. Remember, what we're talking about here is that one of the reasons we give is to honor God. Listen to this. And it shall be when you come into the land which the Lord your God is giving you as an inheritance, and you possess it and dwell in it, that you shall take some of the first of all the produce of the ground which you shall bring from your land that the Lord your God is giving you, and put it in a basket. and go to the place where the Lord your God chooses to make his name abide.
And you shall go to the one who is priest in those days and say to him, I declare today to the Lord your God that I have come to the country which the Lord swore to our fathers to give us. Then the priest shall take the basket out of your hand and set it down before the altar of your God. And you shall answer and say before the Lord your God, My father was a Syrian about to perish, and he went down to Egypt and he dwelt there, few in number, and there he became a nation, great, mighty, and populous. But the Egyptians mistreated us, afflicted us, laid hard bondage on us. Then we cried out to the Lord, God of our fathers, and the Lord heard our voice and looked on our affliction and our labor and our oppression.
So the Lord brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand and with an outstretched arm, with great terror and with signs and wonders. And he brought us to this place and he has given us this land, a land flowing with milk and honey. And now, behold, I have brought the firstfruits of the land which you, O Lord God, have given me. Then you shall set it before the Lord your God and worship before the Lord your God. And you shall rejoice in every good thing which the Lord your God has given to you and to your house, you and the Levite and the stranger who is among you.
And when you have finished laying aside all the tithe of your increase of the third year and the year of tithing, and have given it to the Levite and the stranger and the fatherless and the widow so that they may eat within your gates and be filled, then you shall say before the Lord your God, I have removed the holy tithe from my house and have given them to the Levite and the stranger and the fatherless and the widow according to all your commandments which you have commanded me. I have not transgressed your commandments nor have I forgotten them. You know, it's very, very difficult for people with wealth to discover that there are rules about life. And rules that govern how you do what you do with the wealth that God has entrusted to you. One time I was with a person who was quite wealthy, and he made this comment.
He said, Having a lot of money is both a blessing and a burden. He said, The burden is the responsibility you have to do with what God has given you, what you know God would want you to do. I'm sure that is a challenge that many of you understand as well. And by the way, thank you, so many of you who have used some of that wealth, some of that giving ability to help Turning Point be strong. We have just had one of the best years we've ever had in our history, and that is because of your faithfulness and your.
gracious generosity. I believe God is honored by that and we thank you. Hey, don't forget to join us next time for the final part of this message on the wealth. power. It can be yours.
in God's way. See you next time. For more information on Dr. Jeremiah's series, Powerful Principles from Proverbs, please visit our website where we also offer two free ways to help you stay connected: our monthly magazine, Turning Points, and our daily email devotional. Sign up today at davidjeremiah.org slash radio.
That's davidjeremiah.org slash radio. Or call us at 800-947-1993. Ask for your copy of David's inspiring new book, God's Heart for Israel. It's yours for a gift of any amount. You can also purchase the Jeremiah Study Bible in the English Standard New International and New King James Versions, complete with notes and articles from Dr.
Jeremiah's decades of study. Get all the details when you visit our website, davidjeremiah.org/slash radio. This is David Michael Jeremiah. Join us tomorrow as we continue powerful principles from Proverbs on Turning Point with Dr. David Jeremiah.
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