A VERY COMMON PROBLEM FOR WIVES TO BLAME HUSBANDS FOR ALL THINGS
SHARING A LETTER OUR MINISTRY RECEIVED |
by David Wilkerson | July 31, 2013
"Dear Pastor David, A few years ago my husband lost a job that was very important to him. This was tragic for him, as he lost all his self-esteem and his good income, and he has never recovered. Even though he's employed, his present salary is less than half of what it was. Now I am the family’s primary breadwinner.
“A few weeks ago I was looking for something to read when the Lord led me to a box of papers I had kept. I pulled out one of your old sermons, ‘A Place Called Wits’ End.’ As I read this message, God's Spirit ministered to me that that's exactly where I am—at my wits’ end!
"God showed me through your message that I've turned in anger against my husband. I've been depending on him—that is, on the flesh. I need to turn to Jesus alone as my hope, as the only one who can provide for me and bring me out of these problems. I know now that my husband can never bring me out. Yet as I read your message, I received assurance that God is with me.
"I'm not through my trial yet. It's still very hard. Sometimes when I look down the road, I see potential disasters hemming us in like the children of Israel. Yet God has shown me I have doubted His love for me and His faithfulness to provide for me.
"I've also realized, as you've taught, that I've been good at suppressing my fears and have never dealt a deathblow to my doubts. Now I want to put an end to all that. I choose to praise God for loving me and providing for me, even though I haven't seen the provision yet.”
Dear saint, you may have more bad days coming. But you must come to the place where you can say, "Jesus, I cast all my cares upon You now. I'm an heir to the riches of God in Christ Jesus. And I know those riches include full supply of all my physical needs."
You can believe and trust God for that!
God's Promise of Prosperity
God’s plan for each and every believer is prosperity. Even though there are those who are opposed to the prosperity message, it still does not deny the reality of God’s Word. Let’s look at some basic biblical truths concerning prosperity.
1) God desires for us to prosper.
Let them shout for joy and be glad, who favor my righteous cause; and let them say continually, “Let the LORD be magnified, Who has pleasure in the prosperity of His servant” (Psalm 35:27).
2) God teaches us to profit.
Thus says the LORD, your Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel: “I am the LORD your God, Who teaches you to profit, Who leads you by the way you should go” (Isaiah 48:17).
3) Receiving is the result of giving and God wants us to give.
Give, and it will be given to you: good measure, pressed down, shaken together, and running over will be put into your bosom. For with the same measure that you use, it will be measured back to you (Luke 6:38).
4) God adds things to us when we seek first His kingdom.
But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you (Matthew 6:33).
5) We are commanded to tithe on our increase. Therefore, increase must be of God.
Honor the LORD with your possessions, and with the firstfruits of all your increase; so your barns will be filled with plenty, and your vats will overflow with new wine (Proverbs 3:9,10).
6) God empowers us to get wealth.
And you shall remember the LORD your God, for it is He who gives you power to get wealth, that He may establish His covenant which He swore to your fathers, as it is this day (Deuteronomy 8:18).
7) God gives us all things that pertain to life.
As His divine power has given to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of Him who called us by glory and virtue, by which have been given to us exceedingly great and precious promises, that through these you may be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust (2 Peter 1:3,4).
8) God’s blessing is riches without sorrow.
The blessing of the LORD makes one rich, and He adds no sorrow with it (Proverbs 10:22).
9) God supplies all my needs according to His riches.
And my God shall supply all your need according to His riches in glory by Christ Jesus (Philippians 4:19).
10) Jesus delivered us from poverty.
For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though He was rich, yet for your sakes He became poor, that you through His poverty might become rich (2 Corinthians 8:9).
There are hundreds of references in the Word of God that clearly tell us that prosperity should be the lifestyle of every believer. Just like salvation, we receive prosperity by grace, the awesome power of God. But it is through faith that it is activated. Faith is the catalyst that activates the promise of prosperity in God’s Word in your life.
Remember faith is hearing, believing, speaking, and acting on God’s promises.
"Lord, If It Be Thy Will"
And lest I should be exalted above measure by the abundance of the revelations, a thorn in the flesh was given to me, a messenger of Satan to buffet me, lest I be exalted above measure. (2 Corinthians 12:7)
For the first few years as a Christian, I believed that if you were sick, or if you were praying for someone who had a sickness, the proper way to pray would be to say this. "Lord, if it be Thy will..." The reason I prayed this way was because I was taught to pray that way.
While it is true that we must ask for His will to be done when we pray, we must not use the phrase, "If it be Thy will" as a substitute for knowing His will. God’s Word is His will and as a believer we have a responsibility to know what the Father loves and what He hates. There is no reason why a Christian should not know God’s will concerning health, prosperity, and relationships. All of these areas are addressed clearly in His Word.
When man bases His beliefs on what he sees or on his experiences, his beliefs will not always line up with the Word of God. At that point, a decision must be made. Either beliefs must be changed to match the Word, or the Word is altered to match our predetermined beliefs. Because of pride, insecurities, and the unwillingness to change, all too often man attempts to change the Word of God. Actually, the Word will always change the heart of the hearer if the hearer has a submissive heart for God. Only a hardened heart resists God’s Word and refuses to believe what God’s Word says.
"Paul’s thorn" is a perfect example of what I am talking about. Over the years I have heard countless ministers explain that sometimes God heals and sometimes He doesn’t. Some have even been so bold as to say that there are times when it is God’s will that you be sick and diseased. Nothing could be further from the truth.
All through God’s Word His desire has been that His children experience health and healing. When the Hebrews left Egypt, God healed them all. When Jesus entered towns and villages, He healed all who were sick and oppressed. Jesus said that He only did what the Father told Him to do and we never find one instance where Jesus commanded sickness. Jesus healed eyes and never made anyone blind. He touched deaf ears and people could hear. He caused the lame to walk but never made anyone lame. Jesus told the woman with the issue of blood, "Your faith has healed you." A touch from Jesus always brought deliverance, healing, and removed pain.
Jesus said that one of the signs of those who follow Him would be this. They would lay hands on the sick and the sick would recover. There is not one place where Jesus ever commanded believers to lay hands on the well and make them sick.
In the Book of James, the church is given instructions on what a sick believer should do. A sick believer is commanded to go to the elders and upon being anointed with oil, the prayer of faith would bring healing. There is no record in the scriptures anywhere of believers being instructed to go to the church and have hands laid on them in order to receive sickness and disease.
Likewise, the church was given nine gifts of the Holy Spirit. These gifts are listed in 1 Corinthians chapter 12. One of the gifts is called "gifts of healings," implying that within that one gift are many gifts and all the gifts contain healing. You will find in this listing of nine gifts that there is not a gift called the gift of sickness, there is not a gift called the gift of disease, nor is there a gift called the gift of pain.
That’s because God is the giver of good gifts. James 1:17 says that every good gift comes from the Father and then it goes on to say that God never changes. God’s gifts are good, they have always been good, and they will always be good because God does not change.
Cancer, tuberculosis, diabetes, tumors, disease, and pain are not good gifts. Therefore, they must not be from God.
Now back to Paul’s thorn. There should be no debate on what Paul’s thorn was. Why? Because as soon as Paul said that he had a thorn in the flesh, he immediately said what it was. Paul said his thorn was a messenger (angel) from Satan sent to buffet (torment) him. "And lest I should be exalted above measure by the abundance of the revelations, a thorn in the flesh was given to me, a messenger of Satan to buffet me, lest I be exalted above measure." (2 Corinthians 12:7) This demonic spirit had an assignment and this assignment was to create havoc in Paul’s life.
In Chapter eleven Paul lists all the things that the enemy did to him, trying to take his life. Paul said he had been put in jail, whipped, faced death, been beaten, stoned, shipwrecked, put in prison, left for dead, received forty stripes minus one from the Jews, faced danger from robbers, flooded rivers, the Jews and Gentiles. He faced danger in the cities, in the deserts and on stormy seas, and from men who claimed to be Christians, but were not. He had lived with sleepless nights, been hungry and thirsty, faced cold without enough clothing to keep warm, had been in hunger and thirst, and in cold and nakedness.
There is not a sickness nor a disease in Paul’s list of attacks against him. Rather, he lists the attacks from the angel sent by Satan that was assigned to him to destroy his ministry. Make no mistake about it. The devil is a bad devil whose mission statement is to steal from you, to kill you, and to destroy your life and ministry. On the other hand, God is a good God Who is using every available method to get blessings and goodness to you.
So the next time you hear someone say, "I wonder what God’s will is?" or "I wonder if God wants to heal me?" then open the Word and show them God’s will in His own words. God’s will is healing.
Reject the Curse of Debt
I have exciting news for you. Jesus has redeemed us from the full curse of the law – not just part of it, but all of it! Let me explain.
The curse of the law, as described in Deuteronomy chapter 28, involved three things: 1) death, 2) sickness and disease, and 3) poverty. Jesus paid the price in full so that we could exchange the curse for the Blessing. Instead of 1) death, 2) sickness and disease, and 3) poverty, He wants us to have 1) life, 2) health and healing, and 3) prosperity. Of course, the thief comes to steal, kill, and destroy (John 10:10), but that is totally irrelevant. It doesn't matter. The price has been paid. We have been redeemed from the curse.
We were redeemed by Jesus taking on the fullness of the curse so that we could walk in the fullness of the Blessing. He substituted Himself for each of the three parts of the curse and through His substitution He became our propitiation and redeemed us from the curse. He paid the price we could not pay. He did what we could not do. He completed what we could not complete.
But how did He do this? He became our substitute for the first third of the curse. He died so that we could live. He took on death on the cross so that we could take on life for eternity. When we receive Jesus as our Lord and Savior, death is no longer in our future, because our old man was crucified on the cross with Jesus.
Jesus also substituted Himself for the second third of the curse. According to Isaiah 53 and 1 Peter 2:24, He sacrificed His body, He took on our infirmities, He took on our pain so that we could walk in the fullness of health and healing. By the stripes He received on His back we were healed.
Likewise, Jesus took on the last one third of the curse. According to 2 Corinthians 8:9, even though He was rich, He became poor so that we, through His poverty, might become rich. Jesus, the King of Kings, was the one who had gold and precious spices delivered to Him as a child, the one who had a treasurer, and the one who owned clothing so valuable it was not divided at His death. This same Jesus was stripped of all His earthly wealth, hung naked on a cross in poverty, and buried in a borrowed grave. This same Jesus took on the curse of poverty that paid the price for our prosperity.
I am always amused when someone asks me if I am one of those "health and wealth" preachers. What is the alternative? Do they really want to follow and listen to a "sickness and poverty" preacher? Or do they want to receive the Blessing of God? Of course, we all want the Blessing!
While I do not feel that borrowing money is a sin, it is definitely under the curse. The Word says that we are to be the lenders and we shall not borrow. We are to be above and not beneath. We are to be the head and not the tail.
When you return from a few days away from home and your little dog runs into the yard to greet you at your car, what do you do? I have seen people pick up their little dogs and rub their faces together, letting the little puppy lick them over and over. Have you noticed that when the dog is picked up it is always the head that gets all the attention? The tail goes unnoticed. In fact it is completely avoided. No one wants to have a relationship with the tail. It is the head that is honored. We are to be the head and not the tail. We are to be the lenders and not the borrowers. We are children of the King, and heirs of His promise. We are not beggars. We must walk in the Blessing.
Every Christian believes that Jesus died for their sins and they walk in the Blessing of eternal life. Some believe that He bore our sicknesses for our healing, but sadly even fewer believe that He became poor so we could be rich.
Once I heard a preacher say that Jesus became poor spiritually. How absurd! Jesus said, "If you have seen Me you have seen the Father for the Father and I are one." God, who spoke the universes into existence, has never been, is not, and will never be poor spiritually. That is impossible. Jesus became poor financially and paid the price to redeem us from poverty and by faith we can receive prosperity.
The Bible tells us that as a man thinks, so is he. God wants us to think the fullness of the Blessing. He wants us to quit thinking the curse (death, sickness, and poverty) and start thinking the Blessing (life, health, and prosperity). When your back is against the wall financially, don't think "borrow." You can not borrow your way out of debt. It only takes you deeper into the snare of the curse. However, you can give yourself into the Blessing.
All through the Bible we see this theme. If you take care of God's house, He will take care of your house. Your road to prosperity and out of the bondage of the curse of poverty and debt is through seeking His kingdom first. Only when we believe His Word and act on what we believe will the curse of poverty be broken.
Statistics tell us that 97% of all Christians are in debt. The first step in getting out of the pit of debt is to quit digging. When a person digs with a shovel, they are constantly looking down. God will take you out of the pit, but first you must put away the shovel, and start looking up.
Satan is a liar and sadly, too many Christians have believed his lie instead of the truth. Satan says, "If you don't borrow, you'll never have a house." Satan says, "The only way you can own a car is through debt." Many Christians buy their food with a credit card. All the while Satan tightens the noose bringing them further into bondage. The truth is, you can have a better house, a better car, and a better life by not paying the usury of the Babylonian system.
Jesus paid the price, but our receiving is directly connected to our actions that result from the belief in our heart. In your thinking, get debt and borrowing moved to the curse side of the ledger. Quit rejoicing when you get a loan. Recognize the curse for what it is. Reject what Jesus defeated. Walk in the victory of the Blessing. You are the head and not the tail.
WALTER KAMBULOW
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