Earthly Blessings and God’s Favor
May 7th, 2008 by Nathan White
I often times find it hard to escape poor theology surrounding God’s love/favor. It just seems to be ingrained in our heads (and in our culture) that material blessings always equal God’s favor towards us.
Take the excerpt below for an example. In the book A Treatise on Earthly-Mindedness, the Puritan Jeremiah Burroughs states:
“For example, suppose a man or woman has troubling thoughts about the things of the earth [Material goods or needs]. It may be that, by their inordinate thoughts, cares, and affections about some earthly things [anxiety], they contract much guilt [about being anxious]. Yet after this, perhaps, God gives them that earthly thing [that they were anxious over]. Now when they have it, if they have any light in their consciences, their convicted consciences will then reflect thusly: “I have this indeed, but do I have it with the blessing of God? I have it in my custody, but I got it dearly; it cost me such thoughts and cares and affections [such sinful anxiety]. Now I have it, but I cannot say it comes out of God’s love. I rather fear that God has given it to me in His wrath because I got it in such a way.” - Jeremiah Burroughs
Here’s what I’m thinking: our culture, and our Christian culture, is convinced that decent people are decently blessed with material wealth/provision by God, and that abundant blessings are most often a sign of God’s favor. Indeed, I myself have often had trouble escaping this kind of thinking.
But the words above by Burroughs kind of cut right to my heart: how do we know that our material blessings are not sometimes/oftentimes a sign of God’s wrath against us, rather than His love? I know that thought seems foreign to American Christianity, with its middle-class dominance, TBN, and tithe-fanatics, but we must admit that our thoughts are light-years away from God’s.
Recently I have been thinking about these things, and I’ve been scolding myself for seemingly always believing that material blessings, and even the provision/material wealth that comes after prayer, are always and definitely a gift/blessing from God. Do we ever consider that God may have given us something that makes our lives easier, more comfortable, or more luxurious, simply to chasten us for sin or, in the case of an unbeliever, to poor out His wrath?
So the infinite distance between our thoughts and God’s is unfathomable; it continues to amaze me in every area of life and doctrine. May we ever keep this distance in mind and thoroughly search our hearts and lives when blessings (or curses) come our way, pitting what we find there against the objective Word. Otherwise, when we’re blessed, we’re bound to think that we are right with God –and will thus risk going seriously astray if we’re wrong.
“Consider the dangerous ensnaring temptations attending a pleasant and prosperous condition. Few, very few of those that live in the pleasures of this world, escape everlasting perdition. “It is easier” (says Christ) “for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of heaven.” “Not many mighty, not many noble are called.”
We have great reason to tremble, when the Scripture tells us in general that few shall be saved; much more when it tells us, that of that rank of which we are, but few shall be saved…So when the Scriptures come so near as to tell us that of such a class of men very few shall escape, it is time to be alarmed…O how many have been wheeled to hell in the chariots of earthly pleasures, while others have been whipped to heaven by the rod of affliction! How few, like the daughter of Tyre, come to Christ with a gift! How few among the rich entreat his favor!“- John Flavel, Keeping the Heart
I suppose that everyone finds out eventually what Scripture says, With riches come travail, but when God gives the increase he adds no trouble to it. (myaphrz).
We just don’t know, I think is the point of Solomon. Whether it is riches or poverty, he said they both end up in the same place. If we take it to the Judgement seat, then it is not going to be the condition of our lives, but the condition of our hearts. There is in the course of the apostle’s life where he “learns” to be content no matter what the circumstances. Discontentment is a disturbing sign of one who believes he deserves riches. What great blessing is there then when God gives us relief from the desires that keep us busy about many things. The disciples had it right when they said “Who then can be saved?” Realizing that we are all are as rich toward ourselves as God was toward Solomon. How hard it is to get to heaven. But then, what God uses to break a man can also be that thing which he uses to harden another. But such are the forturnes of the plagues that man brings upon himself.
Remember that it is one of the greatest plagues on this side of hell, to be given up to our own desires, and that by [our] eagerness and discontents [we] provoke God thus to give [us] up…. God may give you that which you so eagerly desire, as he gave “Israel a king, even in his anger,” Hosea. 13:10,11. Or as he gave the Israelites “their own desire, even flesh which he rained upon them as dust, and feathered fowls as the sand of the sea; they were not estranged from their lust but while their meat was yet in their mouths, the wrath of God came upon them, and slew the fattest of them,” Psalm. 78:27, 29-31. “They lusted exceedingly in the wilderness, and tempted God in the desert, and he gave them their request, but sent leanness into their souls,” Psalm. 106:14,15. God may say, Follow your own lust, and if you are so eager, take that which you desire; take that person, that thing, that dignity which you are so earnest for; but take my curse and vengeance with it: never let it do you good, but be a snare and torment to you.
Richard Baxter “Directions Against Sinful Desires and Discontent”