Make weighty the Lord, glorify the Lord with everything. What shall I study? What career shall I follow? Where shall I live? What shall be my interests? How shall I give my time? What shall I do with such abilities as God has given me? First say – what am I to do for the Lord? – that is the Christian life, and here then is the promise. What does grain stand for, and full barns? What does it suggest? In ancient times, there were no banks as there are today, and pensions and so on. If I had my barn filled it meant I was secure, I could feed my family, this year, next year. What if the crop fails next year, what if there is blight on the harvest? What if something goes radically wrong? My barn is full, my family will eat, my little ones, we are secure, it is a picture of provision and security. Give your life to the Lord, do not be half a Christian, be all of a Christian, live for him, serve him, he comes first, have an avenue of Christian service. Bless the Lord, glorify him, honour him, right across your life, and you will be secure as a Christian. He will keep you, he will provide for you. He will provide you the best of the wheat from his word, your understanding will be increased, you will be blessed in every way.
The idea of some is that if you tithe heavily and if you give generously, God will prosper you and make you rich. Is that right? Is the way the so-called Prosperity Gospel people use this promise right? Well they have not even read the title of the book, let alone the book, Proverbs, parables, similes, figures. A right understanding of the Scripture should warn them that it is not right, because when these laws were first given in the Pentateuch, such promises were not attached. And interestingly when the prophets, particularly Malachi and Joel, actually quote these promises from Proverbs they take them figuratively and spiritually and apply them to how God will give the blessings of the New Testament age, the gospel of Christ, and salvation to the Gentiles, and much spiritual blessing poured out from heaven, and that is clearly how Solomon meant them. Solomon says, ‘Honour the Lord with … your firstfruits’, indeed, the firstfruits of everything. He seems to extend the law, and then he says what God will do for you. He will cause your barns to overflow, that is what is implied in the Hebrew. He will make your presses burst out with new wine – a very strange promise of God, if it is meant to be literal. Steward to me, and I will give you more money than you know what to do with. Steward to me and I will give you more substance and wealth and things than you can handle. That is not the way the Lord normally speaks. Indeed, if that was the promise, then it was not even kept in the perfect glorious Saviour because he walked as a poor man, practicing great self-denial. The apostle Paul was poor, and often not provided for. So if the promise means prosperity and plenty, God failed to keep his promise, which is impossible.