Posted on 10/30/2019 5:09:14 AM PDT by Pilgrim's Progress
“Two things have I required of thee; deny me them not before I die: Remove far from me vanity and lies: give me neither poverty nor riches; feed me with food convenient for me: Lest I be full, and deny thee, and say, Who is the LORD? or lest I be poor, and steal, and take the name of my God in vain” (Proverbs 30:7-9).
First, here's the request verse 8, “Remove far from me vanity,” stuff that’s useless. I wish everybody would pray that. A lot of things we do in this life are just vain. They just don’t amount to anything.
“Remove far from me vanity and lies: give me neither poverty nor riches; feed me with food convenient for me.” What this guy realizes is that prosperity will spoil us: “But Jeshurun waxed fat, and kicked: thou art waxen fat, thou art grown thick, thou art covered with fatness; then he forsook God which made him, and lightly esteemed the Rock of his salvation” (Deuteronomy 32:15).
“Jeshurun waxed fat,” when you get fat, you get sassy. You’ve heard them say, “fat and sassy?” That’s the way folks are. They get wealthy, they get high and mighty. Agur realizes that prosperity spoils you. He then tells us this in verse 9, “Lest I be full, and deny thee, and say, Who is the LORD?”
There's a man in the Bible that makes that statement exactly and it's an Exodus 5:2, and it was a man who was full of himself. That man was Pharaoh. He asked, “Who is the Lord?” Well, he found out in the middle of the Red Sea; he found out the hard way. He found out that the Lord was the Lord of glory, He is the Lord of judgment, and He is the Lord of justice and Pharaoh found that out the hard way.
“Behold, this was the iniquity of thy sister Sodom, pride, fulness of bread, and abundance of idleness was in her and in her daughters, neither did she strengthen the hand of the poor and needy. And they were haughty, and committed abomination before me: therefore I took them away as I saw good” (Ezekiel 16:49-50).
This man realizes that prosperity will ruin a man. He said, “Give me neither poverty nor riches; feed me with food convenient for me,” which is what I need. That's a good admonition. You get what you need and give the rest to missions, give the rest to the Lord. Let something be done good with it. If you just keep spending on things and food more than is needed, that's vanity. You're feeding a dead body.
Let’s read a chapter of Proverbs a day and see what God might have for us. As the Lord leads, share with us what God has shown you in a special way and by His grace let us build up a devotional repository. Let’s keep our knives and forks handy for some daily bread!
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