and prosperity are all divinely related. After the initial shock of these ideas had passed, these fine people were greatly relieved and very happy that, at last, they no longer had to feel guilty about wanting to be prosperous. It was then that they began to experience the previously described results in rapid time.
Since that time, in my lecturing around the country, in private counseling and correspondence on the subject with countless people, in radio, television and newspaper interviews, I find that the same idea still persists. Perfectly wonderful people seem quite confused about whether prosperity should be considered a spiritual blessing. But how relieved they are when shown that it definitely is.
Poverty is a Sin
And so again I say: It is shockingly right instead of shockingly wrong for you to be prosperous. Obviously, you cannot be very happy if you are poor, and you need not be poor. It is a sin. Poverty is a form of hell caused by man’s blindness to God’s unlimited good for him. Poverty is a dirty, uncomfortable, degrading experience. Poverty is actually a form of disease, and in its acute phases, it seems to be a form of insanity. Poverty fills prisons with thieves and murderers. It drives men and women to drink, prostitution, dope addiction, suicide. It drives potentially fine, talented, intelligent children to delinquency and crime. It makes people do things they otherwise would never dream of doing. Communism, one of the most dread movements in the world today, often gets a stronghold as the direct result of poverty. The governments which have become Communist dominated have usually done so for financial reasons, believing it a way to financial security. The sinful results of poverty know no bounds. That is one of the reasons why, as a minister, I have felt so strongly led to do whatever I can to help people learn how to eradicate the sin of poverty from their lives. A doctor I know has said that he would have few patients if it were not for financial problems, which cause them worry, strain and tension, all of which lead to ill health. He states that our mental hospitals are filled with people who have found that financial strain over a long period impaired their minds and bodies to the point of incapacity. It has even been estimated that nine-tenths of mankind’s ills are caused by the strain, misery and unhappiness of poverty.
Let us be done with thinking of poverty as a virtue. It is a common vice. If you have been living in financial lack and limitation, you have literally been living in vice. That, too, is the shocking truth about prosperity. But you need not continue living in financial vice. There is a way out.
Prosperity Is Your Divine Heritage
The Bible is filled with rich promises regarding your potential prosperity, as a child of God. You should be prosperous, well supplied and have an abundance of good because it is your divine heritage. Your Creator wants you that way! That is the shockingly nice truth about prosperity.
Besides, you can’t be much good to yourself or to anyone else unless you are prosperous. The person who does not desire to be prosperous is abnormal, because without prosperity you live abnormally. You cannot live fully on the physical plane without proper food, comfortable clothing, warm shelter and without freedom from excessive toil. Rest and recreation are also needed for your physical life.
You cannot live fully on the mental plane without satisfying creative mental activity; without books and time to enjoy them; without time to enjoy music, art and other cultural interests; without opportunity and money for travel and intellectual association with others of similar interests. To live fully on the spiritual plane of life, you need time for quiet contemplation; for meditation, prayer, spiritual study, attendance at churches, lectures and satisfying association with others on the spiritual path. It is, therefore, of supreme importance that you be prosperous for your physical, mental and spiritual welfare and development.
Make no excuses for putting up with lack or accepting it as a permanent arrangement in your life. Do not go to the other extreme either, and talk of wanting to be prosperous for the good you can do. That is secondary. You want to be prosperous mainly because it is right that you should be. Prosperity is your divine heritage as the child of a King, as a son of God.
Success is Divinely Ordained
There is no reason for you to think of prosperity as something separate from your spiritual life or “beyond the pale” of religion. You do not have to try to live in two worlds where you run things for six days and then on the seventh give God a chance to show what he can do. Take God as a rich, loving, understanding Father into all your affairs each day of your week. Ask His divine instruction and guidance about all your affairs, financial and otherwise, and you will be pleasantly surprised how much better every phase of your life will become.
An analyst recently declared to me that he had found the most common cause of failure in people is the conflicting idea about whether success is divinely ordained or divinely damned. For instance, he stated that many had assured him that failure was more spiritually approved than success, since riches are regarded as an object of worship or as a false god. This doctor further stated that he has spent many an hour explaining to people who are not succeeding that being success-minded is not serving a false god, and that they should stop using God as an excuse for their failures.
When you realize that God wants you to be prosperous and that God, as the Creator of this rich universe, is indeed the Source of your prosperity, then you are not worshiping riches. You are not making prosperity a false god. You are simply claiming your prosperous heritage from the Source of all your blessings. God pointed out the right spiritual attitude toward prosperity when He told Moses to remind the Children of Israel: But thou shah remember the Lord thy God, for it is He that giveth thee power to get wealth. (Deut. 8:18 ASV) The word “wealth” means grand living, and that is what a prosperous thinker should be working toward and should be expecting as his spiritual right. Perhaps you are recalling, at this point, a statement I also heard as a child which confused me about prosperity being a spiritual blessing. People often said, “I am poor but I’m a good Christian.” Even though I come from a family that has produced several ministers, I always shuddered when I heard that statement. My immediate reaction was, “Why should Christians or any other group have to be poor? God isn’t poor and He is our loving Father.” Then, too, that statement made it sound as if all the rich folks were bound for hell. Somehow I could not figure out why rich people had to go to hell just because they were prosperous. It seemed rather inconsistent to me.
The Bible is a Prosperity Textbook
Upon entering the ministry, I decided to settle the issue within my own mind by studying the Biblical view of prosperity versus poverty. It was a pleasant surprise to discover that the Bible is the greatest textbook on prosperity ever written! The Bible clearly shows that you have not been pleasing God by settling for lack and limitation in your life, any more than you have been pleasing yourself. The very first chapter describes the rich universe created for man; the last book of the Bible symbolically describes heaven in rich terms. Most of the great men of the Bible were either born prosperous, became prosperous or had access to riches whenever the need arose. Among them were Abraham, Jacob, Joseph, Moses, David, Solomon, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Nehemiah, Elijah and Elisha.
Why Poverty Is Not Spiritual
You may wonder why there has been so much talk of sacrifice, persecution, and hard times as necessary phases of the spiritual way of life. History reveals that the inspired yet practical teachings of the Bible continued to be observed during the early centuries, but soon religion became more secularized, leading to variations and departures from the original teachings. Later, the feudal systems during the Middle Ages assured wealth only for the privileged few.
During this period, the teaching of “poverty and penance” was offered to the masses as the only way to salvation, in order to keep people
