Introduction to The Promises

In beginning this morning I just want to put before you some of the basic words or concepts that are used in this connection. They’re not all synonymous, they have different shades of meaning. I’ll deal with the positive and then I’ll deal with the negative. There are about four main groups of words on the positive side. Rich and riches; wealth and wealthy; prosper, prosperous, prosperity: that’s a verb, an adjective and a noun. And again, abound, abundant, abundance. Just let me repeat those once so that you can absorb them. Rich and riches. Wealth and wealthy. Prosper, prosperous, prosperity. Abound, abundant, abundance.

Now, there’s an important distinction. When we use the words rich and riches, wealth and wealthy, we speak about somebody who has considerable financial and material assets. But when we speak about prosper and the related words and abound and the related words it does not necessarily imply that the person who does that has a lot of money in the bank or owns great material possessions. So, there’s a difference. Actually, God’s promise is more specifically abundance than it is wealth. I think in a little while—maybe we should deal with that now.

Abundance really means that you have all that you need and something to spare to give to others. That’s the essence of abundance. I’ll say it again. It means that you have all that you need, there is no need in your life, no lack; and you have more than you need to give to others.

The word prosper, especially as it’s used in the Bible, has a connotation of success. It doesn’t necessarily mean tremendous material wealth or possessions. One of the most interesting examples—well, let me put two scriptures together. 

In 3 John 1:2. John says:
“Beloved, I wish above all things that thou mayest prosper and be in health as thy soul prospereth.”

I think that’s a beautiful statement of the will of God for the committed believer. Gaius, to whom that epistle was written, was a model believer. If you study the epistle, he was walking in all the truth that God had made available. The apostle John writing, I believe, as the mouthpiece of the Holy Spirit said to him, “Beloved, I wish above all things [or I pray above all things] that thou mayest prosper, be in health as thy soul prospereth.” Those are the three realms: the spiritual, the physical, the material. The will of God is good in every one of them.

The word that’s translated “prosper” there means literally to have a prosperous or successful journey. In Romans 1 Paul says, he’s praying that he may have a prosperous journey by the will of God to the Christians at Rome. It’s the same word. I believe God answered that prayer and you can find the answer described in Acts 27 and 28. But Paul did not travel first class, he traveled as a prisoner in chains. He went through a tremendous storm, it seemed as if the whole ship and all who were on it would be lost. They survived the storm, no one on the ship was lost, they arrived in the islands and had what you would call a spiritual revival and when they left, the islanders loaded them with all that they needed for the rest of their journey. He had a prosperous journey but it wasn’t exactly a comfortable journey and he didn’t travel first class.

So, I want you to see that when we use the words prosper and abound we’re not necessarily talking about people whom the world would classify as being very wealthy or very rich. So, just quickly again, to lay the basis, let’s take those four different concepts and I think now you can see a certain difference. Rich and riches. Wealth and wealthy. Those are basically synonymous. Prosper, prosperous, prosperity relates to doing the thing successfully. The opposite, in a sense, is failure. Abound, abundant, abundance means that you are not living in want or lack or frustration. You may not have much, you may not have anything in the bank. I always say about Jesus, he didn’t have a big bank account though they did have a bag in which they took the offering. But, my description of the way Jesus lived was he used his Father’s credit card and it was always honored!

Actually, very wealthy men really don’t need a lot of cash. I was with a wealthy man in one place once and he went into a restaurant and gave me a beautiful meal and he didn’t even produce a credit card, he just signed his name on the bill. That was enough, they knew it would be taken care of. So, let’s not just focus on the idea of having a lot of money in the bank, that’s not essentially what we’re talking about.

Let’s look at the opposite words which are pretty obvious, I think. The ones I’ve listed are as follows. Poor and poverty. Want, need, lack. Fail and failure. I think it’s pretty obvious how they relate to the other words that we’ve spoken about. I’ll just go through them again. Poor and poverty. Want, need, lack. Fail and failure.