Biblical Prosperity

Some people say, “I can’t afford to tithe.” The truth is—they cannot afford to withhold the tithe. A tithe is money set apart for God. If we don’t give it to God, the devourer will consume it. Let’s read again what God says in His Word about rebuking the devourer when we give tithes and offerings into His storehouse. It is found in Malichi 3:10-11.

Test me in this,” says the Lord Almighty, “and see if I will not throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing that you will not have room enough for it. I will prevent pests from devouring your crops, and the vines in your fields will not cast their fruit,” says the Lord Almighty. 

The Lord has promised us that if we obey Him and bring all of our tithes into the storehouse, He will open the windows of heaven, pour out a blessing on us, and “rebuke the devourer.” Many people are struggling financially because the devil has been robbing and devouring them. The enemy has not been rebuked by the Lord, because they are not paying tithes into the storehouse.

The word devour in the original Hebrew text means to eat, burn up or consume. During the days of Malachi, God’s people were experiencing famine, scarcity, unseasonable weather, and insects that ate up the fruits of the earth. According to the above scripture, the enemy will devour our blessings when we choose to not obey God’s principles.

Larry Kreider says, “I’ve known some people who have said when they initially began to tithe, the enemy attacked them, and they found themselves worse off financially than ever before. The enemy may test us when we obey the Word of God. When Jesus was baptized, the heavens opened, and the Lord said, “This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased.” During the next forty days of His life, Jesus was tested by the enemy. Tests will always come; however, if we hold on, we will receive the financial blessing that comes from obedience. God’s promises always prove to be true!”

If we give God his 10%, the remaining 90% seems to be multiplied.

In Old Testament history, some of the Israelites were robbing God by selfishly holding onto money that belonged to God. They were required to give at least one/tenth of the livestock, the land’s produce and their income to the Lord. Malachi 3: 8-12 speaks to this…

Will a man rob God? Yet you rob me. But you ask, “How do we rob you?”

“In tithes and offerings. You are under a curse-the whole nation of you—because you are robbing me. Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house. Test me in this,” says the Lord Almighty, “and see if I will not throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing that you will not have room enough for it. I will prevent pests from devouring your crops, and the vines in your fields will not cast their fruit,” says the Lord Almighty. “Then all the nations will call you blessed, for yours will be a delightful land,” says the Lord Almighty (Malachi 3:8-12).

God cannot bless someone who is a robber! He is a God of covenant.

In Winds of Change, Rick Joyner says: Abraham the father of faith, paid tithes hundreds of years before the Law, which is noted in the New Testament (see Hebrews 7:8-9) because the writer of this book was reminding Christians of this…If this was not more clearly spelled out, it is only because it was so obvious that it did not need to be.

Bible teacher Jack Deere relates the story of how a local businessman in a church he once lead reacted to his teaching on tithing: First he went to every other pastor in the town (over 30 of them) and asked them if they believed that tithing was required by the New Testament. All thirty said that they did not believe that it was. This was more than a little curious to him, but being an astute businessman he noted that every one of these pastors and their churches were in financial trouble. This caused him to determine to at least try it. His net income from his business rose 75 percent the first year that he began tithing.

Harold Eberle relates that as a local church pastor he spent four weeks teaching every Sunday on the principle of tithing. He instructed everyone to write their current income inside their Bible cover. At the end of four months of tithing, 80% of the congregation saw an increase in their income or some kind of financial breakthrough.

Jerry Stoltzfoos is a friend who is an Assembly of God church planter and senior pastor from Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. He has planted multiple churches. He teaches on tithing and actually guarantees that the church will pay back a person’s tithe if the giver does not see a significant blessing or turn around in finances after starting to tithe. Gerry has been doing this for many years and has not paid back any tithes to date.

Simply stated, I am recommending that the number one building block of your personal financial budget should be the giving of a 10 percent tithe to God. The truth is 100% belongs to God. If you get involved in giving God 10 percent, he will get involved in multiplying the remaining 90 percent. There it is…Biblical, practical and true. The tithe is the doorway to prosperity and blessing.

Abraham gave Melchizedek a tithe before the Old Testament law had ever been written. Abraham was honoring the Lord and Melchizedek as the priest of the Most High God with ten percent of that which the Lord had given to him.

At the end of every month a Christian will face a stack of bills they need to pay. One of these bills is their bill to God. It is called a tithe. This tithe reminds us that everything we have belongs to Him. We can joyfully return 10% to the Lord. After all, Jesus has given to us 100% of Himself through His death on the cross. We are eternally grateful!

The Lord gives us the responsibility to manage the resources He gives to us. He has set up a system to constantly remind us of His ownership in everything. This systematic way to give back to God is a first step to allowing our resources to be used for God’s kingdom. It is called the tithe. 

The word tithe is first mentioned in Genesis 14:18-20. Then Melchizedek king of Salem brought out bread and wine. He was priest of God Most High, and he blessed Abram, saying, “Blessed be Abram by God Most High, Creator of heaven and earth. And blessed be God Most High, who delivered your enemies into your hand.” Then Abram gave him a tenth of everything. 

Note that it was after a victory…after God had delivered Abram’s enemies in to his hands that he tithed. So pay attention if you want victory in your finances. Sometimes Christians think the tithe is an old testament legalism, but no, Abram tithed to Melchizedek before the law was instituted and Jesus affirmed tithing, even after he replace the law.  It is a biblical principle that will allow you to prosper.

This principle was included in the law. The Israelites were required to give one-tenth of all their income to the Lord. The Hebrew word for tithe means a tenth part. This tithe (10%) opens up a way for God to pour out His blessings on us. Every time we give our tithes, we are reminded that all of our money and earthly possessions belong to God. We are simply stewards responsible for what the Lord has given us.

Alan Vincent gives the example of someone who came to him saying, “I can’t afford to tithe and make my house payments. Alan told him to tithe in faith and if he couldn’t pay his house payment then Alan would cover it. The young man started to tithe and he never came back to Alan because he couldn’t make the payment. In fact, Alan observed that he received a promotion and a new car. God still wants us to tithe today.

Did you know God associates our ability to handle spiritual matters with our ability to handle money? One day Jesus made some amazing statements regarding this principle.

Whoever can be trusted with very little can also be trusted with much, and whoever is dishonest with very little will also be dishonest with much. So if you have not been trustworthy in handling worldly wealth, who will trust you with true riches? And if you have not been trustworthy with someone else’s property, who will give you property of your own? No servant can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and Money (Luke 16:10-13).

Money, in terms of true value, is a “little” thing. However, faithfulness in little things (money) indicates our faithfulness in big things (spiritual values). Jesus said that those who are not trustworthy in the use of their worldly wealth will be the same with spiritual things. Jesus said that we cannot serve two masters—God and materialism. It is impossible to hold allegiance to two masters at the same time. God has given us a responsibility as managers of His wealth. It all belongs to Him. We should stop thinking like owners, and start thinking like managers.

Everything belongs to God. First and foremost, we must realize that everything we have belongs to God. We are merely stewards (managers) of any material goods we possess. God owns everything we have, but He makes us managers of it.

Let a man so consider us, as servants of Christ and stewards of the mysteries of God. Moreover it is required in stewards that one be found faithful. And what do you have that you did not receive…? (1 Corinthians 4:1-2,7b NKJ).

When I was elected to the Manheim Central School board, the money we were using was not our own; we were simply managing it. It belonged to the tax payers of the community. It is like someone who works at a bank. A bank teller understood that even though they handle massive amounts of money daily, the money is not theirs. It belongs to the bank. The teller understands they are a steward. I am a manager of the Lord’s money. In reality, the money in my wallet is not mine; it is God’s. Some Christians believe that ten percent of the money they receive is God’s and the other ninety percent belongs exclusively to them. They are mistaken. It all belongs to God.

We need to recognize His ownership in everything we have. This gives us a proper perspective on everything.

The Bible declares that Job maintained his integrity  and perseverance throughout this time of testing. At one point even his wife said, “Are you still maintaining your integrity? Curse God and die!” (Job 2:9). Wow….am I  ever glad my wife is a woman of faith and encouragement! Job had tasted of God’s goodness and he wouldn’t settle for less. He was holding out for the 140 years of God’s blessing and prosperity. As My friend Kevin Kazemi says, “This is an amazing truth that we often fail to see in the book of Job. James 5:11 says, You have heard of the perseverance of Job and seen the END intended by the Lord—that the Lord is very compassionate and merciful.” The END  was the 140 years.

Sometimes it seems like Christians walk in the fear of materialism. They fear If they are blessed financially it will cause them to backslide. Why should we be scared that God’s blessing will corrupt or contaminate us? Financial blessing did not corrupt Job. He is a great Biblical example of someone who didn’t allow his financial status in life, good or bad, to affect his character and integrity. There are a long list of others in the Bible as well. So if you do not feel you have received all that God has in store for you….hang in there…persevere for the END as Job did.

The entire book of Job is about a brief season in his life. Although the Bible doesn’t specifically say, most Bible scholars believe the whole book covers a time span of between three and eighteen months. In the first few chapters, it talks about the day his cattle and servants were lost. While he was still listening to that report another messenger came in stating his sheep were lost and the shepherds killed. And while he was listening to the sheep report, another messenger came and told him his camels were lost. Finally, while Job was listening to the camel report another messenger came and informed Job that his sons and daughters had been killed. All of this in the same day! And we think we have had some bad days?

His situation grew even worse. The next day, Job himself was physically attacked with sickness. All of this transpired in only two days. I am following the timeline of Job’s losses day by day to underline my point that the time of testing for him was a relatively short period of his life, and it affected more than his finances.

If we look at the end of Job it states that he lived 140 years enjoying the blessings of God in every way. The Bible teaches that Job lived most of his life full of prosperity and God’s financial provision. Perhaps this is a new way of looking at this Biblical story for you. Actually looking at the scripture will help us to see this point more clearly.

After Job had prayed for his friends, the Lord made him prosperous again and gave him twice as much as he had before. All his brothers and sisters and everyone who had known him before came and ate with him in his house. They comforted and consoled him over all the trouble the Lord had brought upon him, and each one gave him a piece of silver and a gold ring. The Lord blessed the latter part of Job’s life more than the first. He had fourteen thousand sheep, six thousand camels, a thousand yoke of oxen and a thousand donkeys. And he also had seven sons and three daughters. The first daughter he named Jemimah, the second Keziah and the third Keren-Happuch. Nowhere in all the land were there found women as beautiful as Job’s daughters, and their father granted them an inheritance along with their brothers. After this, Job lived a hundred and forty years; he saw his children and their children to the fourth generation. And so he died, old and full of years (Job 42:10-17).

Notice Job did not experience 140 years of having boils, poverty, despair and everything going wrong. No, it was a short season of his life in which he learned many valuable lessons. Job’s story allows the Christian today to learn many theological and doctrinal lessons about the nature and character of God. His actual time of testing was much like the occasional drought that causes the birds of the air to experience insufficient food supplies. The practical example of Job’s perseverance is one we can all honor and duplicate. More to come…

Let’s look at the book of Job in context. It is about a season of suffering and dryness in Job’s life. The lessons in Job are extremely valuable and the Bible would be incomplete without it. There are dry seasons when God is doing something in our lives to make our roots grow deeper into Him, and we need to discern and persevere our way through these times of drought. Many times pastors and spiritual leaders will help us through these tough, dry times. Just like the birds of the air suffer lack of food during an occasional drought, Christians also experience seasons of lack in their lives. But as we will see from examining Job’s experience, the general pattern of God’s heart for provision is one of abundance.

In the beginning of the book of Job, it is important to point out that God blessed Job with many financial and material blessings. It was only after the devil came on the scene that God’s blessings were interrupted. It was when Job was under the attack of the devil that he was poor, sick and experiencing calamity. This is what the Bible teaches us. Sometimes, Christians get confused about this and think Job is teaching we should be poor and sick. Just the opposite is true. The book of Job is the story of how a man overcame the attack of the devil and what he learned in the process. More to come…

Last week we read about God’s provision for the birds of the air in Matthew 6, but there is more. Let’s keep reading.

And why do you worry about clothes? See how the lilies of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? So do not worry, saying, “What shall we eat?” or “What shall we drink?” or “What shall we wear?” For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own (Matthew 6:28-34).

Do you think that Solomon had enough of clothes to wear as the king of Israel? In 1 Kings 10:14 it states that King Solomon’s income was about 250 tons of gold per year. (You can look it up.) What is the present dollar value of an ounce of gold? It is somewhere around $1,068 an ounce at the time of this writing. (You can do the math.)

If Solomon measured his income in tons of gold per year, it would appear like the King had more than enough financial capacity to provide more than enough clothing! When Solomon went out to battle, he might not have had his whole wardrobe available but it was only for a short time; he generally had more than enough clothes.

Jesus is talking about physical, natural provision here in Matthew 6. He did not use John the Baptist, who only had camel’s hair to wear, as His example. He could have, but instead He used Solomon as an example.