SERMON XX. TRUE PROSPERITY.

Genesis, xxxix., 2.

The Lord was with Joseph, and he was a prosperous man.

If you were asked, brethren, to make a list of what you consider prosperous men, what kind of persons what you put into it? Those, I doubt not, with whom all goes smoothly, who come in no misfortune like other folk, who have riches in possession, acquire fame, are exalted in honour; whose wishes are largely gratified, whose every project succeeds; who, in short, experience no reverse, no temporary withdrawal or suspension of good fortune, and peace, and pleasure. What is the first prosperous man that comes into your mind? Perhaps, a successful speculator, who years ago made what is called a “lucky hit,” and has gone on repeating it, till he has become a millionaire. Perhaps, a professional man, whom fortune took by the hand as soon as he set out, and who has been hurried along with giant strides, favoured, flattered, well remunerated, till he has reached the summit of success. Perhaps, some uniformly thriving, respectable, happy tradesman, whose business prospers, who is always able to pay his way, can afford time and money for pleasure, and has good heart and health to enjoy it; in whose household there is no strife or division, no sickness, no vacated place; all present success, or bright hope. Or, perhaps, you fasten on an artisan, who is never out of work, who always meets with considerate and liberal employers, whose sobriety and uprightness, and other good qualities, are recognised and respected abroad, and rewarded by comfort, and affection, and well-doing at home.

But it is a clergyman who bids you select: so you must look about with a religious eye. Then you pick out, perhaps, those who are naturally endowed with good will and resolution, and are strong to perform it; who have been early trained in the right way, so that doing good has become habitual and comparatively easy; who have no overwhelming concern about the support of their lower life, are not distracted by worldly cares or by the claims of society upon them, nor much exposed to unspiritual influence; who have no immoderate passions, encounter no sore temptations, but can, without hindrance, and do, from desire, live calm, and easy, and creditable lives. These, you would say, are prosperous men, and so, in a sense, they are—very prosperous—and far be it from me to say, wrongly, or unhappily prosperous. We know, indeed, what snares riches bring with them, how many grave responsibilities are imposed upon all to whom much has been given, how dizzy one becomes through standing on a great height, and how easy and dangerous it is to fall from it. We know, too, that constant success is apt to make us self-reliant, forgetful of God, proud, imperious, uncharitable; and that uninterrupted peace and happiness in this world too often beguile us, softly indeed, but surely, out of all thought of heaven. And once more, we know that an even temperament and an untempted life may easily lead to routine-religion, to self-righteousness, to spiritual apathy and deadness. On these accounts, we must not count them surely happy who prosper in the world; but, on the other hand, we may not judge their state certainly unhappy; nor deem the desire to be like them necessarily wrong or unwise. If we can make sure of both worlds; if we can have the best of this, and not lose the other; if no harm will happen to our spiritual state, and no fitness for it be unattained and unkept; if God will be surely with us, while we thus prosper—then religion does not require, rather forbids, that we should give up our good things, that we should forbear to seek them, to use them, and to rejoice in them. All these various states may, or may not be, truly prosperous. Wherefore be not rashly carried away with admiration and desire of any of them; be slow to judge unfavourably of them, or to refuse, if you be called to any of them.

But what I would have you chiefly note now is that there are other kinds of true prosperity; rather, that if you would find out who truly prosper, and whether you yourselves are truly prosperous, you must look for other signs than those of worldly success and happiness; you must not conclude that the inward part, the very substance of prosperity, is wanting, because the outward life is sorely tried, and thwarted, and deprived, and saddened.

The Spirit of Truth describes, in the chapter of the text, a truly prosperous man. Three several times, in a few verses, is Joseph’s prosperity put prominently forward. Now just think what his life had been, and was, and was yet to be! He had been motherless from an early age; his father’s love made him the object of his brothers’ envy and hatred. He was thrown into a pit to die, and only escaped death to become a slave in a foreign land to a heathen master. Ere long he was made the victim of a foul accusation; he was thrust into prison, and there detained many long years; and when, at last, a hope of deliverance dawned upon him, he was cruelly disappointed by the king’s servant, whom he had kindly tended and reassured in trouble, and another two years of incarceration, of suspense worse than despair, had to be endured! Yet was he all the while—mark that!—a prosperous man. The Scripture does not say or mean that by and by he attained to a prosperity, in which all his former adversity was forgotten. It is of the present, not of the future, that prosperity is predicated. Nor may we suppose that there was but a show of adversity, that Joseph was really what we call prosperous all the while, in that he enjoyed many advantages, that he made steady way towards greatness, that his troubles were but as the toils and difficulties which, in a measure, the most successful have to encounter; or the just merits of misdeeds and the correction of faults. Up to the time of his release from prison, all through the years which Scripture says were prosperous, every hope and aim had been frustrated. It was not that he had difficulty in entering upon his work, that he had much to resist and suffer from its pursuit; but that after it was done, the reward of it was denied him: he only climbed the hill, to be rolled back, just as he reached the summit. His child’s life commended him to the love of his father, therefore he was thrust out. He won the good-will of his master, was diligent in his work, which prospered in his hand; was trustworthy and trusted, rose to be overseer of the house, and then, when he had good hope of his freedom and of returning to his yearned-for home, without any fault of his, he was degraded, branded with infamy, and cast into prison. Here, again, he deserved prosperity: the very jailor acknowledged it, and honoured and well treated him. The door, too, seemed to be opening for his deliverance, when a fellow-prisoner went forth full of his praise, an eye-witness of his sorrow, to make mention of him to Pharaoh—but alas! the most strange forgetfulness took possession of the butler, and for two years the name of Joseph never crossed his lips, nor thought of him entered his mind. And even when delivered out of prison, and exalted by Pharaoh, he became but a chief slave, next the throne in dignity, second to the king in power, but still not free to return to his home, still kept ignorant whether his father was yet alive! Was this what we can call, by any stretch or limitation, “prosperity”? And mark, that all his trouble came upon him, not only in, but for, his well-doing. In obedience to his father, he went to visit his brethren, and thus afforded the occasion of selling him into bondage; because he did his duty to Potiphar, he was put into circumstances of danger; by refusing to sin against God, he incurred the reproach and punishment of sin; by honestly asserting before Pharaoh, “It is not in me, I am nothing but a servant,” he lost the opportunity of obtaining what the king would have been most ready to give him, and afraid to refuse, absolute freedom.

My brethren, you and I can hardly bear with trials, and sufferings, and reproaches, and ill-treatment, when we dimly suspect, or are actually conscious, that we have deserved them. How should we murmur, and cry out, and kick, and rebel, if we were thus treated for well-doing! With what words should we answer him who sought to calm and comfort us in such trouble, by assuring us that we did wrong to count it adversity, that it was indeed prosperity!

Yet God says that Joseph was a prosperous man. It is evident, therefore, that we know not the meaning of prosperity, and must search in His dictionary for the interpretation of it. It is soon found: the first part of the text supplies it—“The Lord was with him.”

Ah! here is light from heaven. Prosperity does not mean the state of careless independence; being what we will, having what we desire, accomplishing what we propose: it means, the state of dependence, of being kept and ordered by God’s providence, treated as He wills, used in accomplishing His purposes. By right, we are God’s, by creation, and redemption, and sanctification, sent into this world, reconciled and restored after defection, enabled and commissioned to do the will of God. We are as much the agents of His purposes as the elements, or any other of His creatures; and it would be just as reasonable, were it possible, for the sun to complain that it is sometimes covered with clouds; the rain, that it has to descend and be absorbed in the earth, or lost in the sea, or scattered in snow; the wind, that it must blow when and where He pleases, as for us to say of any state into which we are brought, of any work to which we are put, or of any calling off from it, “I like not this; I am not prospered. All these things are against me”! We have no right to independence; we ought not to be independent, and if we are, it is either because we have forsaken our appointed service, or because God deems us unfit for it, and, therefore, uses us not! A chief part of Joseph’s prosperity, remember, consisted not in the advancement of himself, but in the accomplishment of God’s work: “That which he did, the Lord made it to prosper.”

But by privilege, as well as by right, are we God’s. We are not mere tools in His hand: we are living agents, intelligent to understand His will, free to do it or decline it, capable of loving it. We are, therefore, taken into His counsel, made fellow-workers with Him, treated all along by Him according to our merits, finally rewarded according to our work; not, however, in the way of our own choice, but of His. O if we realised this, and did our part according to the belief, we should never murmur at, or question anything that is appointed us, or befals us. For what does such questioning amount to, but an assertion that God does not make the right use of us, or that He does not treat us worthily? And what is that, but to deny His wisdom, His justice, and His love? No man, who is worth a thought, counts it adversity, that he is bound by the conditions, and must accept the trials, and do the work of his chosen earthly calling, that he is obliged, for instance, to serve in his shop, or pore over his books, or risk storms at sea, or face the dangers of war; that, in short, he cannot be and do what he will, but must obey the law of circumstances—why, then, should he reverse all this in his divine mission and heavenly calling, and demand a liberty, an immunity, a choice, which common sense would tell him should not and could not be granted?

But there is another, a chief consideration, which should incline us to be sure that the ordering of God’s providence is the conferring of True Prosperity. God uses us, indeed, as servants, and appoints us our individual work out of the several circumstances around us. But He likewise makes us His friends, and uses the circumstances around us, as ministers to us. It is in them that He speaks to us and visits us; it is by them, that He rewards and punishes us now; it is through them that He disciplines and trains us, and perfects us for heaven. We were not made for them, but they for us. And what shall we be saying of the Artificer and the Superintendent of their use if we question their general fitness, or the special application of them to ourselves? “Sorrow is not good for me.” “I am ruined by that disappointment.” “Through taking that stay from me, I am become helpless.” “Removing me thither is overwhelming me with adversity.” These, my brethren, are not only the expressions of ingratitude, and the reasonings of unbelief, they are the dictations of arrogant presumption dethroning the wisdom of God, and putting our folly in its place. We have no right to choose for ourselves: and if we had, how could we do it? Is not God wise to know what is best for us? Is not He good to apply it? Should we not fear the fulfilment of any hope, the accomplishment of any purpose of our own, and cry, “O Lord, not as I will, but as Thou wilt. Except Thy presence go with me, carry me not up hence”! Should we not accept with full resignation, with heartfelt gratitude, any imposed condition, and say, “It is the Lord, let Him do what seemeth Him good,” “It is good for me to be here.”

We may reason this out, and the example of others proves it, and our own experience confirms it. Admit the fact, that the Lord was with Joseph, i.e., that He used him as His agent, that He loved him, and designed to deliver him from evil, and to bless him to the uttermost; and then look along his life to see whether wisdom and love did not guide all his circumstances to this end. It was God’s will that Joseph should cause Jacob to come into Egypt, and should sustain him there. How every step of his seeming adversity helped to accomplish this will! The telling of his dream engendered the hatred of his brethren; that hatred sold him to the Midianites, the Midianites brought him to Potiphar, the false accusation cast him into prison, in the prison he interpreted the king’s butler’s dream, and therefore he was summoned to interpret the king’s dream, and for so doing made the ruler of Egypt, and the dispenser of corn to the famished nations. This brought the sons of Jacob to him: this enabled him to dispose of them according to the will of God. Thus, “that which he did the Lord made it to prosper.” And then of his personal prosperity. Was not his father’s preference likely to spoil him? Did he not run daily risks from the hatred of his brethren? Was his best state that of an honoured slave in Potiphar’s household? Was it well that he should daily encounter the temptations of his mistress? Was there no good discipline in that prison-life? Did not deliverance come at the fitting moment, rightly so late, under such circumstances? Supposing he had chosen for himself, what else could he have chosen that would have been better, or as good as God’s choice for Him? And if, brethren, we look along our lives in the light of God’s providence, is it not just so with us? Supposing us to be faithful servants of God, has not all that has happened to us been for our good? Was it not well for us that we were removed from the state in which we were being spoiled, becoming selfish and proud? Was it not good for us to be afflicted? Did not some earthly loss make us seek to fill the void with heavenly consolation? Are we not now better—better in fact—better in hope—because God has prospered us in His own way, than if we had had what we thought prosperity? Yes, surely; and had we been wise, in the hour of our worst trial, we should have known that we were truly prosperous, in that God was with us, that His jealous love had taken us from the foolish fondness that was spoiling us, from the bitter envy that would not rest till it had destroyed us, from the secular prosperity that would soon have made us forget our birthright, from the temptation that sought to defile us!

If we have been wanting in this wisdom hitherto, let us fill ourselves with it now. Let us accept everything that befals us in the path of faith and obedience as true prosperity; true prosperity, not only because it is accomplishing by us God’s wise purposes, not only because it is advancing us to glory, but because, it is the felt, the immediate, wise, loving operation on us of a present God, present to sustain, to comfort, to sanctify, to bless, present under a better covenant than that with Joseph, present more graciously, and more effectually; God the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, God the Son, who has given Himself for us, and has promised to be with us always even to the end of the world, God the Holy Ghost, proceeding from the Father and the Son, bringing near and applying true prosperity, and fitting us for it, and enlightening us to see it, and causing us to rejoice in it.

Glory be unto God.

F. Shoberl, Printer, 37, Dean Street, Soho, W.