Illustration results for Prosperity
Staff Picks of the Week:
Memorial Day 2013
Memorial Day 2013 Preaching Bundle »
Greater Love Video Illustration »
Everlasting God Worship Music Video »
Sabbath
Sabbath Preaching Bundle »
1 Outta 7 Video Illustration »
Before The Throne… Worship Music Video »
Jeff Simms
Proverbs 30:8-30:9
Matthew 13:22-13:22
Luke 15:11-15:32
Isaiah 26:3-26:3
Titus 2:11-2:15
(Suggest a Keyword)
In a speech made in 1863, Abraham Lincoln said, "We have been the receipients of the choicest bounties of heaven; we have been preserved these many years in peace and prospertiy; we have grown in numbers, wealth, and power as no other nation has ever grown. But we have forgotten God. We have forgotten the gracious hand which preserved us in peace and multiplied and enriched and strengthened us, and we have vainly imagined, in the deceitfulness of our hearts, that all these blessings were produced by some superior wisdom and virtue of our own. Intoxicated with unbroken success, we have become too self-sufficient to feel the necessity of redeeming and preserving grace, too proud to pray to the God that made us."
"If adversity hath killed his thousands, prosperity hath killed his ten thousands; therefore adversity is to be preferred. The once deceives, the other instructs; the one miserably happy, the other happily miserable; and therefore many philosophers have voluntarily sought adversity and so much commend it in their precepts."
"It is impossible to rightly govern the world without God and the Bible." --George Washington
"It cannot be emphasized too strongly or too often that this great nation was founded, not by religionists, but by Christians; not on religions, but on the gospel of Jesus Christ. For this reason peoples of other faiths have been afforded asylum, prosperity and freedom of worship here." --Patrick Henry
"We have staked the future of all our political institutions upon the capacity of each and all of us to govern ourselves, to control ourselves, to sustain ourselves according to the Ten Commandments of God." --James Madison
"There is a striking parallel between the condition of the country and the church. As the Constitution means little to Americans today, so too the Bible means little to the average church member. Church members generally are as ignorant of the Bible as are Americans of the Constitution. Too many people within our borders are Americans in name but un-American in their hearts and anti-American in their conduct. The church has a corresponding ailment, Christians in name, but in reality are only once -born children of Adam. The American spirit is sadly eroded today by distrust, by corruption in high places, by moral decay. It won’t be restored merely by flag-wavings and drum-beatings and Fourth of July speeches. It may not be possible to raise a new crop of patriots in such shallow soil. It may take disaster to make us realize what we had. There is also a Christian spirit in the church that has that need. When in the nation and in the church we humble ourselves, pray, seek God’s face, and turn from our wicked ways, then God will hear from heaven, forgive our sin, and heal our land." --Vance Havner
OUR DEPENDENCE ON GOD
“It is the duty of nations as well as of men to own their dependence upon the overruling power of God; to confess their sins and transgressions in humble sorrow, yet with assured hope that genuine repentance will lead to mercy and pardon; and to recognize the sublime truth, announced in the Holy Scriptures and proven by all history, that those nations are blessed whose God is the Lord.
We know that by His divine law, nations, like individuals, are subjected to punishments and chastisements in this world. May we not justly fear that the awful calamity of civil war which now desolates the land may be a punishment inflicted upon us for our presumptuous sins, to the needful end of our national reformation as a whole people?
We have been the recipients of the choicest bounties of heaven; we have been preserved these many years in peace and prosperity; we have grown in numbers, wealth and power as no other nation has ever grown.
But we have forgotten God. We have forgotten the gracious hand which preserved us in peace and multiplied and enriched and strengthened us, and we have vainly imag...
Sir John Templeton Chairman of Templeton Funds that manages over 15,000,000,000 (15 Billion) annually in investments said: "I have watched 100,000 families over my years of investment counseling. I always saw greater prosperity and happiness among those families who tithed than among those who didn't."
My favorite Bible teacher, Steve Brown, really understands the problem of "Prosperity Theology," the belief that God wants us to be wealthy, healthy and happy all the time. He says, "I just can’t see how things could be so good for the followers of a religion [speaking of Christianity] whose founder ended up on a cross and whose chief spokesman [the Apostle Paul] had a physical problem that God wouldn’t remove."
You have physical problems? That’s not unusual for those who worship God. You bear the sins of others? That’s also not unusual for those who worship God. Preparing for true worship of God is not about rejoicing in our life circumstances. We are to rejoice in the character of God, the work of God and our relationship with God.
“It is the duty of nations as well as of men to own their dependence upon the overruling power of God; to confess their sins and transgressions in humble sorrow, yet with assured hope that genuine repentance will lead to mercy and pardon; and to recognize the sublime truth, announced in the Holy Scriptures and proven by all history, that those nations are blessed whose God is the Lord.
We know that by His divine law, nations, like individuals, are subjected to punishments and chastisements in this world. May we not justly fear that the awful calamity of civil war which now desolates the land may be a punishment inflicted upon us for our presumptuous sins, to the needful end of our national reformation as a whole people?
We have been the recipients of the choicest bounties of heaven; we have been preserved these many years in peace and prosperity; we have grown in numbers, wealth and power as no other nation has ever grown.
But we have forgotten God. We have forgotten the gracious hand which preserved us in peace and multiplied and enriched and strengthened us, and we have vainly imagined, in the deceitfulness of our hearts, that all these blessings were produced by some superior wisdom and virtue of our own. Intoxicated with unbroken success, we have become too self-sufficient to feel the necessity of redeeming and preserving grace, too proud to pray to the God that made us.” Abraham Lincoln, Oct 1863
As President Washington proclaimed the 26th of November 1789 to be a day of thanksgiving. The last paragraph reads as follows: "And also that we may then unite in most humbly offering our prayers and supplications to the great Lord and Ruler of Nations and beseech Him to pardon our national and other transgressions; to enable us all, whether in public or private stations, to perform our several and relative duties properly and punctually; to render our National Government a blessing to all the people by constantly being a Government of wise, just, and constitutional laws, discreetly and faithfully executed and obeyed; to protect and guide all sovereigns and nations (especially such as have shown kindness to us), and to bless them with good gove...
Davon Huss
"This year will have a notoriety among its fellows as the year of calamities. Just as that season when man goes forth to reap the fruit of his labors, when the harvest of the earth is ripe, and the barns are beginning to burst with the new wheat, Death too, the mighty reaper, has come forth to down his harvest; full sheaves have been gathered- the tomb, and terrible have been the wailing which compose the harvest hymn of death. In reading the newspapers during the last two weeks, even the most stoic must have been the subject of very painful feelings. Not only have there been catastrophes so alarming that the blood chills at their remembrance, but column after column of the paper has been devoted to calamities of a minor degree of horror, but which, when added together, are enough to astound the mind with the fearful amount of sudden death which has of late fallen on the sons of men. We have not simply been stunned with the alarming noise of one terrific clash, but another, and another, and another, have followed upon each other’s heels, like Job’s messengers, till we have needed Job’s patience and resignation to hear the dreadful tale of woes."
F. This is not the word of an older preacher in our day. The year was 1861 and the preacher was Charles Spurgeon. On August 25 of that year, a nightmarish train crash in the Clayton Tunnel (a 1.5-mile long tunnel between London and Brighton) had claimed 23 lives. Another train wreck in Kentish Town Fields (in North London) on September 2 of that year claimed 15 more lives.
G. Such things as these have always happened in all ages of the world. K. Some are saying that God has thrown away the reigns of the world. No, he is still in control.
L. The world and nations go through times of peace and prosperity, and through times of war and poverty. It is the way of this old, evil world.
Jacob Golden, Jr.
Last month Charlie Summers, the pastor of Seigle Avenue Presbyterian Church in Charlotte, wrote an op–ed piece for The Observer that I wish I’d written. Charlie stands in an interesting place. He’s got one foot planted among the poorest folks in Charlotte, for Seigle Avenue is in the heart of housing project ghetto. His other foot, however, is in Davidson, where he teaches at the college and rubs elbows with some of the wealthier, more well–educated, and powerful members of the Mecklenburg community. Let me read to you a little of his article:
What puzzles me is that our current national prosperity is coupled with such a meanness of spirit. Business is good, inflation is low, we are not at war (hot or cold). Yet instead of celebrating these good times with thankfulness and compassion, we find angry legislators pushing to cut off aid to dependent children. Talk show hosts belittling the poor for being lazy. Letters to the editor call for taller fences along the U.S. border and more prisons in the state.
The new “welfare to work” legislation from Congress is so cold it should be entitled “Here’s a Quarter, Call Someone Who Cares”... “I got mine. You get yours”....
Stock values, CEO compensation and sales of luxury autos have soared in recent years. But the wages paid to poor people for long hours of work have barely moved. Now the prosperous are going to cut off even the few benefits that make up the safety net in our nation. Do the math. A full–time job (a rare thing in itself for low–income people) at $6 an hour pays only about $12,480 a year before taxes. How is a parent going to support children on a wage like that? No wonder so many poor people have to work two jobs just to get by.
This current climate might be called an era of “Grab.” If gratitude leads to compassion then grab leads to resentment. Grab asks, “Why don’t I have more? Why does that person have a bigger car, a larger house, or a better pair of Nikes?” Grab, in its resentment, looks for someone to blame....and the poor are easy targets. The national mood has moved from a War on Poverty to attacks on the poor.
