“For the waywardness of the simple will kill them, and the complacency of fools will destroy them”. Proverbs 1:32.
The true gospel of Jesus is concerned with repentance toward God and faith in our Lord Jesus Christ Acts 20:21.
This is the core message of Christianity and this is why evangelism that calls sinners to repentance is close to the heart of God. This was also the secret of the success of the early church.
Unfortunately, the zeal among modern-day believers to call sinners to repentance and to know about the essence of Jesus and the horrible nature of sin has been pushed to the background.
These days there are many competing messages and information that threatens to drown the message of true repentance in favor of a message of prosperity and ease therefore the lifestyle of a Christian can hardly convict sinners of sin anymore.
Now prosperity is good and it is the will of God to prosper us if we have an obedient heart that is willing to serve God – “Let the LORD be magnified, Who has pleasure in the prosperity of His servant.” Psalm 35:27.
But with God prosperity goes beyond material success. The greedy heart of man through his preaching and as interpreted by shallow listeners have reduced prosperity only to material success to the exclusion of spiritual well-being, which is the prosperity of the soul.
John the Apostle’s prayer for believers was not limited to financial prosperity or healing alone but equally captured the prosperity of the soul. 3 John 1:2.
But what is the use of prosperity in the hand of a sinner or a man who once knew Jesus as his Lord and savior but only to have lost his zeal to backsliding and worldliness?
Such was Jeshurun (a poetic name for Israel) and the Bible clearly describes the situation of that backsliding nation that was called to take the light of God to gentile nations:
“But Jeshurun waxed fat, and kicked: thou art waxen fat, thou art grown thick, thou art covered with fatness; then he forsook God which made him, and lightly esteemed the Rock of his salvation”. Deuteronomy 32:15.
The prosperity of sinners will only further bring them to destruction and to commit more apostasy and Israel clearly demonstrated this when they lost the vision of God in the days of their prosperity. Proverb 1:32
Whenever a Christian has had a shallow foundation of the gospel of salvation to holiness any superstructure of material prosperity thereafter will most likely bring him to spiritual ruin eventually.
When a man is immersed in the constant teaching about the saving grace of Christ and His holiness he would most likely maintain the love for Christ in the days of prosperity.
Over the years most Christians have shown more success in bearing adversity with hope and resilience but have fallen flat in the days of prosperity.
One rightly said that “ we endure adversity, we are corrupted by prosperity, and prosperity or ease makes fools (sinners) mad and this false security of the prosperous sinner is illustrated by our Lord in his parable of the rich fool.
Many talk about the days of adversity but there are also the days of prosperity for those who work hard and for those who pray to God to open for them the gates of success – the danger is that these would be slippery days and only a firm commitment to the core message of the gospel on daily basis can keep such men from falling.
“Now unto him, is able to keep you from falling, and to present you faultless before the presence of his glory with exceeding joy, to the only wise God our Saviour, be glory and majesty, dominion and power, both now and ever. Amen”. Jude 1:24-25
Reading.
Luke 12:16-21.
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