Remember the Lord thy God, for it is He that giveth thee power to get wealth.
To remember God is the way to get wealth
1. The duty enjoined. Thou shalt remember the Lord, etc.
1. In point of contemplation to remember Him, that is, to think of Him, and to have Him often in our minds. There’s no man that forgets his treasure; wherever that is, there will be also his heart, as our Saviour tells us. We need not call upon worldly men to remember their gold and silver and riches, they will think upon these of their own accord, and all because such things as these are dear with them. In like manner will it be with us to God; if He be our treasure, we shall remember and daily think of Him, as it is fitting for us to do.
2. As in point of contemplation, so also in point of affection. We are said to remember anyone, not when barely we think upon him, but when we think upon him with respect, when he is not only in our thoughts but in our hearts. And thus likewise are we said to remember God.
3. In point of obedience to remember God is to be subject to Him, and to do that which He requires. Those that Walk in ways of opposition and contrariety to God, they are said to forget Him. Consider this ye that forget God (Psalms 50:22).
4. In point of address and seeking to Him, and reliance and dependence upon Him. When anything is to be done by us, or for us, that we be sure to call upon God Himself for the prospering of it to us (Proverbs 3:5-6).
5. In point of thankfulness and acknowledgment we are then said to remember God, when we own Him in all the mercies which we enjoy from Him. This is the proper drift of this present Scripture, as we may see by the context, in Deuteronomy 8:10-11, etc., of this chapter. When thou hast eaten and art full, thou shalt bless the Lord thy God for the good land which He hath given thee. Beware that thou forget not the Lord thy God, in not keeping His commandments and His judgments, etc. Because, indeed, it is that which we are naturally and commonly too prone and subject unto.
(1) From His sovereignty, that He is the Lord, we should remember Him for that, and accordingly yield all respect and acknowledgment to Him.
(2) From the word of propriety, and that interest which He has in us and we in Him: Thy God.
II. The reason annexed. For it is He that giveth thee power to get wealth, which passage may be considered two ways. First, in its absolute consideration; and, secondly, in its connexion. We will look upon it first of all in the former consideration, as it is absolute, and by way of proposition.
1. Emphatically. When it is said here He gives power, this power, it may be said, laid forth according to sundry explications.
(1) He gives the skill and faculty which does tend and conduce hereunto. All your arts and trades of your several societies in the city, and ability for the managing of them, God is the author and giver of them. And being the giver of them, He is also consequently the giver of that wealth that comes by them. He gives thee power to get wealth, while He gives thee skill and understanding. And this again not only in the general habit, but also as to the particular act and improvement and the exercise of that habit which is in Him.
(2) He gives thee power to get wealth, that is, He gives thee occasion and opportunity to do so. Thus in a way of husbandry, there is the seasonableness of the weather. Thus in a way of merchandise, there is the favourableness of the seas and waters and winds, which are at God’s command and disposing.
(3) The power of success: it is He that gives this likewise, when all things are prepared in the means as much as can be, yet there is a further blessing which is required for the perfecting of them. And this is also from God Himself. It is the blessing of the Lord that makes rich, and adds no sorrow with it, as Solomon tells us (Proverbs 10:22).
(4) It is God that gives thee power to get wealth; that is, that gives thee grace, and makes thy gettings to he lawful to thee. To get wealth in God’s way and according to His approbation; this is power to get wealth indeed. And this also, together with all the former, is the gift of God.
2. Exclusively. When it is said here that He gives this power, this is to be taken not only emphatically, but exclusively; and so there are these intimations in it.
(1) That wealth and riches and great estates they are not matters of mere accident, and casualty, and chance; but that there is a special hand of Providence in them.
(2) It is not from ourselves neither, that we do any time come to be rich and to Increase in wealth. It is the gilt of God.
(3) It is not from other men neither, it is exclusive of them. Parents and friends and progenitors, and such as these. Indeed, Solomon tells us in one place that houses and riches are the inheritance of fathers (Proverbs 19:14). But this must be understood so far as they are able to make them, which is not absolutely, but with its restriction. How many have there been in the world who, though they have had great estates left them by others, yet notwithstanding have been poor themselves; and have not known either how to increase or how to keep that which has been left them. We have seen how He does it emphatically; He is not wanting in doing it; we have seen also how He does it exclusively. There is none to purpose that does it but He. First, He gives thee power to keep it; and, secondly, He gives thee power to use it. (T. Horton, D. D.)
The theology of money
What a blow this text strikes at one of the most popular and mischievous fallacies in common life, namely, that man is the maker of his own money! Men who can see God in the creation of worlds cannot see Him suggesting an idea in business, smiling on the plough, guiding the merchant’s pen, and bringing summer into a brain long winter-bound and barren. Lebanon and Bashan are not more certainly Divine creations than are the wool and flax which cover the nakedness of man. To the religious contemplation, the sanctified and adoring mind, the whole world is one sky-domed church, and there is nothing common or unclean. God wishes this fact to be kept in mind by His people. In this instance, as in many others, God makes His appeal to recollection: “Thou shalt remember.” The fact is to be ever present to the memory; it is to be as a star by which our course upon troubled waters is to be regulated; it is to be a mystic cloud in the daytime, a guiding fire in the night season. The rich memory should create a rich life. An empty memory is a continual temptation. Mark the happy consequences of this grateful recollection. First of all, God and wealth are ever to be thought of together. “The silver and the gold are Mine.” There is but one absolute proprietor. We hold our treasures on loan; we occupy a stewardship. Consequent upon this is a natural and most beautiful humility. “What hast thou that thou hast not received?” When the trader sits down in the evening to count his day’s gains, he is to remember that the Lord his God gave him power to get wealth. When the workman throws down the instrument of his labour that he may receive the reward of his toil, he is to remember that the Lord his God gave him power to get wealth. When the young man receives the first payment of his industry, he is to remember that the Lord his God gave him power to get wealth. Thus the getting of money becomes a sacred act. This, then, is the fundamental principle upon which Christians are to proceed, namely, that God giveth man power to get wealth, and consequently that God sustains an immediate relation to the property of the world. Take the case of a young man just entering business. If his heart is uneducated and unwatched, he will regard business as a species of gambling; if his heart be set upon right principles, lie will esteem business as a moral service, as the practical side of his prayers, a public representation of his best desires and convictions. In course of time the young man realises money on his own account. Looking at his gold and silver, he says, “I made that.” There is a glow of honest pride on his cheek. He looks upon the reward of his industry, and his eyes kindle with joy. Whilst he looks upon his first-earned gold, the Bible says to him gently and persuasively, “Thou shalt remember the Lord thy God; for it is He that giveth thee power to get wealth.” Instantly his view of property is elevated, enlarged, sanctified. He was just about to say that his own arm had gotten him the victory, and to forget that, through the image, is Caesar’s yet the gold is God’s. What, then, is the natural line of thought through which the successful man would run under such circumstances? It would lie in some such direction as this: What can be the meaning of this word “remember”? Does it not call me to gratitude? Is it not intended to turn my heart and my eye heavenward? As God has given me “power to get wealth,” am I not bound to return some recognition of His goodness and mercy? “Honour the Lord with thy substance, and with the first fruits, of all thine increase.” Supposing this to be done, what is the result which is promised to accrue? That result is stated in terms that are severely logical: “So shall thy barns be filled with plenty, and thy presses shall burst out with new wine.” The text has called us to an act of remembrance, and in doing so has suggested the inquiry whether there is any such act of remembrance on the part of God Himself? The Scripture is abundant in its replies to this inquiry: “For God is not unrighteous to forget your work and labour of love, which ye have showed towards His name, in that ye have ministered to the saints, and do minister.” Jesus Christ Himself has laid down the same encouragement with even minuter allusion: “Whosoever shall give to drink unto one of these little ones a cup of cold water only in the name of a disciple, verily I say unto you, he shall in no wise lose his reward.” (J. Parker, D. D.)
The philosophy of worldly success
1. How worldly success is to be obtained. By strict obedience to God’s laws; by this only. Work is what He demands, and work is the only condition under which the prize may be won.
2. The nature of the profit we are to look for. Not merely worldly profit. No life so dreary, so deadly as that of the mere millionaire. The joys of the true man’s life he cannot taste; the holy fellowships of spiritual being he cannot enter,: God stamps him reprobate. There is a vast wealth of faculty in him, “fusting” from want of use. And power unused soon gets acrid, and mordant, and gnaws and wears within.
3. Why we should remember the Lord God. Because--
(1) It will bring us out at once into the glad sunlight, and will make even our toil lightsome.
(2) It will spare us all wearing and crushing anxieties.
(3) It will save us the shame and anguish of finding ourselves bankrupt at last and forever. (J. B. Brown, B. A.)
God acknowledged
When Speaker Crooke was presented to Queen Elizabeth in the House of Lords on the occasion of his election, he said that England had been defended against the Spaniards and their Armada by Her Majesty’s mighty arm. The Queen interrupted him and from her throne, said: “No; but by the mighty hand of God, Mr. Speaker.”
God the original source of wealth
He that would thus critically examine his estate upon interrogatories, put every part of it upon the rack and torture to confess without any disguise from whence it came, whether down the ladder from heaven, or up out of the deep--for there it seems by the poets Plutus or riches hath a residence also--by what means it was conveyed, by whose directions it travelled into that coast, and what the end of its coming is, and so learn the genealogy as it were of all his wealth, would certainly acknowledge that he were fallen upon a most profitable inquiry. For beside that he would find out all the ill-gotten treasure, that gold of Toulouse that is so sure to help melt all the rest, that which is gotten by sacrilege, by oppression, by extortion, and so take timely advice to purge his lawful inheritance from such noisome unwholesome acquisitions, and thrive the better forever after the taking so necessary a purgation--he will, I say, over and above see the original of all his wealth, all that is worthy to be called such, either immediately or mediately from God, immediately without any cooperation of ours, as that which is left to us by inheritance from honest parents--our fortunes and our Christianity together, mediately as that which our lawful labour, our planting and watering hath brought down upon us, wholly from God’s prospering or giving of increase.