The voice of God disregarded in prosperity.
I. GOD SPEAKS TO US IN OUR PROSPERITY.
1. There are important words which need to be spoken to us at such a time. We can never have all the wants of our souls supplied by the richest abundance of material good things, and we need heavenly words for our soul's sustenance then as much as in the conscious helplessness of trouble. We have special duties belonging to the time of prosperity. Prosperity brings talents, opens up opportunities for enlarged service, calls for renewed devotion of love and gratitude. There are also peculiar dangers attending prosperity, and it is well that we should hear a Divine voice warn us against them, and heed a Divine counsel which will direct us how to conquer them.
2. There are means by which God speaks to us in prosperity. He is ever speaking to us, even when we do not hear his voice—by the Bible we should be reading, by the ordinances of the Church and the institution of preaching, by the course of providence, by the life of nature, by the still small voice of conscience. But there are special voices of prosperity. Prosperity speaks to us of the goodness of God exercised towards us in spite of our ill-desert and in a degree beyond all reckoning.
II. THERE IS DANGER LEST WE SHOULD DISREGARD THE VOICE OF GOD IN PROSPERITY. God does not thrust his messages upon unwilling ears. We may refuse to hear. Yet he speaks so that we may always hear, so that if we do not heed his voice it must be because we will not hearken to it.
1. Prosperity may disincline us to do this because it seems to satisfy us without God. Really satisfy us it cannot. But temporarily it acts as an opiate, and when we do not feel the need of God we are tempted selfishly to disregard his voice.
2. Then prosperity is distracting. Sorrow is lonely and silent, and leaves us in the dark night to listen to heaven? voices and gaze on the wonders of the world above. The garish day of prosperity, with its noisy and dazzling distractions, withdraws our attention from such things.
3. Further, prosperity begets pride. It leads us to think much of self, to yield to self-will, and to rebel against the requirement to act as God's servants and stoop beneath the yoke of his will. Hence it inclines us to a rebellious disregard for his voice.
4. If men have been hardened against God from their youth, it is not likely that they will heed his voice in the time of prosperity. The longer we neglect this voice the more deaf do we become to it. It is terrible to think of the folly and wickedness of persistent disregard to God's truth while he is patient and long-suffering and persevering in seeking access to our hearts: Some great shock seems to be required to disturb this habit of hardened indifference. An earthquake of adversity may be required to break up such fallow ground. If trouble comes with this end it is a great blessing. The adversity of the Captivity was such a blessing to the Jews; it led them to regard the voice that was unheeded in their prosperity. So our sorrows are often blessings if they make us to hear the voice of our Father in heaven.