The Blessing Of The Lord It Maketh Rich

[Pastor Dave]

RevRattlesnake's topic The Worst got me to thinking about how many people actually believe that YHVH does not want them to be wealthy. I thought about how I could best convey this truth to all of you. I prayed to my God and the first thing he impressed on my spirit was that He wants you all to know that He wants all of his children to be healthy, wealthy, and full of joy. He also impressed on me that you can not recieve from Him what you can not believe He wants you to have. I thought about just giving a sermon filled with scripture after scripture such as the one used in the title of this thread;

Proverbs 10:22 The blessing of the Lord, it maketh rich, and he addeth no sorrow with it.

That seemed a little to common. I then thought about telling you about how my life has went from being poor (I mean really poor) to living a very comfortable lifestyle. That too didn't seem like the right way to go even though I'm sure the changes in .my life are due to God, and that there is no way I could have changed my life this much on my own. Instead I'm going to tell you all a story of two men. Two men who started life with the same limitations and the same opportunities. These two men are people I know well. These two men are my identical twin uncles, Wes and Les.

Wes and Les are my youngest uncles. There is no history of one being favored over the other while they were growing up. Like many identical twins, they have similar interests, similar personalities, and similar tastes. After they grew up they both married and moved away from each other. Les became a Christian, Wes didn't. Now I'm not saying Wes wasn't a good person, he was. In fact, by most peoples standards both were good men. Neither of them were alcoholics, nor drug abusers, not thieves nor murderers. I know of no adultry commited by either of them. They were not liars, abusive, nor law breakers. None the less after Les's conversion the differences began to become apparent.

Wes found a good job with a good company and worked there until retirement. He bought a piece of property (5 acres) and built a 3 bedroom frame house.

Les started working in construction. Within a few years he became the general contractor of his own business. He bought a piece of property (10 acres) and built a 4 bedroom brick home.

Wes and his wife were unable to have children of thier own so they adopted a baby boy.

Les and his wife had 3 beautiful girls.

Wes built his son a 2 bed frame house on the 5 acres.

Les built his daughters each a brick home on his 10 acres a 3 bed, a 2 bed. & a 2 bed.

Wes's son didn't get much use out of his house because he spent more time in jail than out.

Les's daughters and their husbands all lived in the house that daddy built until they were ready to get out on their own.

Wes worked for that company until he reached retirement age (I think he was 65).

Les was semi retired before he was 40 (He worked when he wanted to, usually only 1 or 2 jobs per year).

Wes sold his place after retirement. The proceeds were gone in a few years.

Les still owns his 10 acres and 4 brick homes with 3 of them providing a steady income as rental property.

Wes now lives on his Social Security with little more than the contents of the home he lives in to show for his life.

Les is a millionaire living off of the money from his rental property who will leave behind an inheritance for his children and grandchildren.

Now some of you might say this was all coincidence.

Others might attribute this to luck.

I am here to tell you that this is a result of the Blessing of the LORD!!!!!

[Ex Nihilo]

Did tithing play a part in his blessing?

[Pastor Dave]

Did tithing play a part in his blessing?

Absolutely. Uncle Les tithed faithfully, he gave to the missions fund, he gave to the building fund and volunteered his services when it came time to use that money. If there was a special speaker, guest minister, or singing group at the church he always gave generously. If there was a need at the headquarters he was always a major donor. He would sometimes travel for hours to attend services with evangilists and still give generously when the plate got passed around.

[Ex Nihilo]

Malachi 3:10

[Pastor Dave]

That is absolutely, without a doubt, one of the scriptures I would have used had I went the way of the sermon, RevRattlesnake. During the early years of uncle Les' conversion there weren't any prosperity preachers on tv every day. None the less, Les was generous and always gave cheerfully. He applied the same principles being taught by prosperity teachers today, and God richly Blessed him. While some may see television ministers as simply trying to get your money to make themselves rich it simply isn't true. In fact most ministries I've researched use all donations to farther the ministry ... not fill the ministers bank account. Now if you buy books, CD's, DVD's or other learning materials from them then they will profit from that, but donations to the ministry are just that donations to the ministry.

BTW, It might be interesting to note that every preacher (prosperity or not) that I've heard teach on

Malachi 3:¹⁰ Bring ye all the tithes into the storehouse, that there may be meat in mine house, and prove me now herewith, saith the Lord of hosts, if I will not open you the windows of heaven, and pour you out a blessing, that there shall not be room enough to receive it.

will tell you that the Tithe belongs to your local church. They do not ask you to send them your tithe.