Robert McLaughlin Bible Ministries
I have come to know how to be humbled and also I have come to know how to live in prosperity. Part 2. .
Thursday, December 30, 2004
PHI 4:12 – “I have come to know how to be humbled” [his Jerusalem reversionism] and also I have come to know how to live in prosperity [Paul’s experience as a mature believer being blessed by God].
Pres-pass-inf – tapeinoo = “to receive humiliation”
Pres-act-inf – perisseuo = “to be blessed” because of the positive decisions you make.
KJV – “I know both how to be abased, and I know how to abound:”
So many people are afraid to fail in certain areas – when the only real failure in life is the failure to try.
In great attempts, it is good even if you fail.
Theodore Roosevelt – “Man in the Arena” Speech (April 23, 1910) “It is not the critic who counts nor the person who points out how the strong person stumbles or where the individual who is trying hard to do good deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the person who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood. The crown belongs to the one who strives valiantly for the cause of Christ; who makes mistakes and errs and comes short again and again. There is not effort without error and no success without shortcomings. The ones who actually strive to do good deeds; who know the great enthusiasm, the great devotion, of what it takes to live and to endure the spiritual life, who spend themselves in a worthy cause, who at best know in the end the triumph of victory, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly. Your place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat, who sit in the seat of Moses and judge others for doing what’s right.”
PHI 1:15-18 Some indeed preach Christ even of envy and strife; and some also of good will: The one preach Christ of contention, not sincerely, supposing to add affliction to my bonds: But the other of love, knowing that I am set for the defence of the gospel. What then? notwithstanding, every way, whether in pretence, or in truth, Christ is preached; and I therein do rejoice, yea, and will rejoice.
Pres-act-inf – perisseuo = to have more than enough; to have prosperity.
Also I have come to know what it is to live in prosperity.
Prosperity here is the result of his spiritual victories in supergrace.
Humiliation here, is not the humble grace orientation, but the result of discipline in reversionism.
1. Individual prosperity testing, in which some form of success challenges the top priority of doctrine.
2. Collective prosperity testing, in which a city, state, nation, or group becomes very prosperous.
It may be the GIVING of prosperity which might change the believer’s LIFESTYLE or it may be the REMOVAL of the prosperity that the believer was enjoying.
Even if you do not understand what you are going through remember God is good to His people.
There are certain people who prosper even though they are wicked, and this is also a part of your prosperity test.
They do not have that peace that goes beyond understanding, PHI 4:6.
ECC 2:10 And all that my eyes desired I did not refuse them. I did not withhold my heart from any pleasure,
“They speak from on high” = their arrogance.
PRO 6:19 One who spreads strife among brothers.
MAT 23:15 “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, because you travel about on sea and land to make one proselyte; and when he becomes one, you make him twice as much a son of hell as yourselves.”
PSA 14:1 The fool has said in his heart, “There is no God.”
Once he came back into the sanctuary or the place where God’s
Word was taught, his eyes were opened again to the truth.
They were standing on a smooth place, but smooth places can be very slippery.
JER 23:12 “Therefore their way will be like slippery paths to them, They will be driven away into the gloom and fall down in it; For I shall bring calamity upon them, The year of their punishment,” declares the Lord.
ECC 8:11 Because the sentence against an evil deed is not executed quickly, therefore the hearts of the sons of men among them are given fully to do evil.
“There’s a year for their punishment” = every person who is anti-God and has negative volition has a year assigned by God for their punishment.
When the person awakes, a dream is forgotten quickly – so will the wicked be and their prosperity.
“Beast” – behemah – the water ox or the hippopotamus – a plump colossus of flesh = an emblem of colossal stupidity.
KJV – PSA 73:22 I was as a beast before thee.
There will be some weeping and some emotional response of shame on the part of many, 1JO 2:28.