25 - Prosperity Testing and Self-Deception - Part 2 [B]

Prosperity Testing and Self-Deception; 1 Kings 11:1

In life God takes us through various circumstances which provide us with opportunities to trust Him. What makes a test a test isn't that it is something difficult. What makes it a test is that we have a choice to make, and whether or not we pass the test depends on the resources we use in the decision-making process of how we handle the process. We solve the situations in life, good or bad, always through the Word of God.

The doctrine of prosperity testing (cont.)

3.  In adversity we are often in desperate situations—failing health, loss of money, loss of a job, loss of friends, loss of family, things we often measure happiness by. When these are threatened or gone  we cling to God more consistently to provide us with that stability and happiness we desire. We recognise when we have nothing that God is our source of meaning and purpose, but when we have these things we get distracted and think that we get meaning and value from the possession of the details of life.

4.  When these details of life are present they provide a different kind of test. Four different ways in which the details of life test us: a) The test of distraction. It is interesting that one test of distraction is having children. Anything can become a distraction when it keeps us away from the priorities in life that we know the Word God wants us to have; b) The test of arrogance. It is a subtle form of arrogance because often in life God will bless us in the area where we have worked to achieve. Look what I did! All of a sudden the focus is no longer on God but we begin to think that we did something to gain these possessions, that we had something to do with getting them, and it is just one more step before we think we are entitled to these things. This is the arrogance test, the entitlement test—thinking that we have the right to happiness in terms of these possessions and details of life. Then what happens is God has a way of taking those things away from us, and suddenly the issue is: Are we now going to become angry with God? Or, are we going to relax and say, like Job, the Lord gave, the Lord takes away; blessed be the name of the Lord; c) The test of reliance upon God. It is a dependence test. Once we have all these temporal resources it is easy to think that now I have X number of dollars in the bank, etc. I don't need to depend on God quite as much as I did before. We forget to depend upon God because the immediate pressure and the threats of failure are not present anymore; d) The test of boredom. We reach a level of achievement where perhaps we have more financial resources and are able to hire someone to take care of things and now there is a lot of extra time left over. When we reach a level of boredom it is easy to look to some illegitimate area of happiness to get the thrills, stimulation and excitement that gives us a sense of vitality in life. It is easy to get into things that just basically support our sin nature lusts.

5.  Another element that occurs that makes us think the pressure is off and we relax and let down our guard is that we think we are outside the battle zone. We just don't realise that the enemy is now attacking from another direction. We let our guard down and it is subtle. The problem with many people is that they reach a level of satisfaction in their spiritual life where they have the trappings of success, the details of life that they have always wanted, and the intensity of that relationship with God begins to become less and less. It doesn't happen over night. But then one day five or six years later they wake up and wonder what in the world ever happened to that real sense of happiness and stability they once had. It is because they are no longer focussed on that relationship with God. It is subtle, a very slow erosion of that spiritual life and growth. We forget that the battle has gone from a more overt attack to a very subtle, covert attack.

6.  Few people ever pass the prosperity test. No nation has ever passed the prosperity test. People just don't want truth anymore, they just want either a magic pill, to feel good, have social connections with people who are somewhat like-minded, but they don't really want to have an in depth, day by day walk with the Lord Jesus Christ. This some because their lives are filled with distractions. They are just too busy, they have too much, or they come to the arrogance test and they think that everything they have basically comes from their own hard work. They have failed to rely upon God.

7.  When we fail the prosperity test God frequently brings discipline and judgment through loss in our lives in order to refocus our attention. He wants us to realise that we have been dependent upon these things and now we have we have to refocus and become dependent upon Him.

8.  Riches, abundance, material possessions, family, children, friends, or social life are not an entitlement. (Comment from seminary professor: "Men, of you don't have a view of God's plan for your life and your ministry that entails the idea that success for you is faithfully teaching five people for forty years in a village in India that nobody ever heard of, then you don't have a proper perspective of God's plan and meaning and purpose of a ministry.") So many people put their focus on success measured in terms of numbers, size of the church, size of tape ministries, whatever it may be, but faithfulness in God's plan is determined by faithfulness to God's Word and faithfulness in serving Him whether it is in a little or a lot. We have to recognise that the ultimate meaning and purpose in life is dependent upon serving God in whatever capacity that might be. God wants us to understand that the details of life are just that: details. That is an extremely hard lesson to learn as we advance into spiritual maturity. We have to recognise that riches and abundance of material possessions, all these things, are not our entitlement but they are on loan from God so that we will use them for His honour and glory. That is not to say we can't enjoy it, that we can't have nice things and enjoy luxury items, but it is to say that we have to recognise that there is a responsibility there to use a portion of what God blesses us with for His honour and His glory—the doctrine of stewardship. We have to be a good manager of what God has provided for us because He has provided it in part so that we use it for the furtherance of the gospel and to glorify Him.

9.  Once get our eyes off of God and on to the details of life we are living on the basis of the sin nature. Every time we are looking to something other than God for meaning, for value or significance in life then the result is idolatry. That is a function of the sin nature. Proverbs 14:12; 16:25 ^NASB "There is a way {which seems} right to a man, But its end is the way of death."

10.  The more we live on the basis of the sin nature to handle the details of life then the more we become comfortable with habits—not just physical habits but thought habits, where our attention isn't on God but on the details of life.

We protect our souls from the assaults of the world around us by means of the soul fortress.

1)  The filling of the Holy Spirit, i.e. that relationship we have with God the Holy Spirit is the foundation for everything else that we do in the spiritual life. Without dependence on the Holy Spirit, walking by the Spirit, there is nothing else.

2)  The way to get into the soul fortress is through the drawbridge of confession. 1 John 1:9. We have to construct the fortress through the doctrine that is in our soul—learning doctrine and using it, which is how things are built. 

3)  The faith-rest drill.

4)  Grace orientation.

5)  Doctrinal orientation.

6)  A personal sense of our eternal destiny.

7)  A personal love for God and an impersonal love for all mankind.

8)  Occupation (mental focus on) with Christ.

9)  Sharing the happiness of God.

When we are behind the walls of the soul fortress it protects us and we use these skills to stay inside the soul fortress. Staying inside the soul fortress is comparable to walking by means of the Holy Spirit, to abiding in Christ. When we are there it is God who protects us. We are in that defensive position that Paul talks about in terms of spiritual warfare in Ephesians 6—putting on the armour of God. When we sin what happens is that we go outside of the soul fortress and we are trying to survive on our own, and that makes us vulnerable to the world, the sin nature and the devil.

Four summary principles

1)  The construction of the soul fortress takes a lifetime. We never get it completed in this life.

2)  The construction of the soul fortress is piecemeal and dynamic. That is, we don't have to have the faith-rest drill mastered before we can move on to doctrinal orientation, and so on. That is the logical way in which these relate to one another but that is not how we learn them and it is not how we grow spiritually. We get elements of each skill all along the way.

3)  Utilisation of the spiritual skills, the problem-solving devices, enables us to stay inside the fortress. That is how we stay in fellowship, to continue to walk by the Spirit. We face the challenges of life by responding to them using these skills. When we fail to use those we are out of fellowship, operating on the sin nature, and we are vulnerable to damage from sin, the world and the devil.

4)  When we fail to utilise the spiritual skills to solve our problems then we are using arrogance skills to solve the problems. Then we have all the damage that we do to ourselves as a result of the arrogance skills—self-absorption, self-pity, etc. We focus on the problems and not God as the solution. 

Review of the problem-solving devices

The foundation, which is the second problem-solving device, is the filling and walking by means of the Holy Spirit. When we sin then that growth producing ministry is stifled, quenched, grieved, and it is not until we are back in fellowship that we can go forward. We have to remember, secondly, that whatever is done in the power of the Holy Spirit is termed gold, silver and precious stones in 1 Corinthians 3:11-15, and that has eternal value. Whatever is done in the power of the sin nature is wood, hay and straw, and it has no lasting value; it will be burned up at the judgment seat of Christ.

Verses for walking by the Spirit: Ephesians 5:18 ^NASB "And do not get drunk with wine, for that is dissipation, but be filled with the Spirit." Colossians 3:16 ^NASB "Let the word of Christ richly dwell within you…" One verse focuses on the spiritual aspect of what fills us and the content is what is in the other passage. So the Holy Spirit fills us with the Word of God. When we are in fellowship in rapport with God, walking by the Spirit, then the Holy Spirit is helping us to learn, retain and to recall the Word of God. He is the one who makes it understandable to us and stores it in our souls so that it can be recalled for application. Galatians 5:16 ^NASB "But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not carry out the desire of the flesh." As soon as we stop walking by the Spirit the default position is the sin nature. Walking demands concentration and focus and dependence on the Holy Spirit.