By Olatokunbo Odunuga
What a blessed day it was on 19th June 1834 when a baby boy named Charles Haddon Spurgeon was born in Essex, UK. He was converted at the age of 16 when he heard a primitive Methodist preacher on “Look unto me and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth”. Charles said, “I look to Him; He looked on me, and we were one forever”. That was the turning point in the life of the boy who later came to be world-renowned as the Prince of Preachers. Whatever future ambition he might have been nursing were swallowed in his passion to preach the gospel.
While still 16, he became a lay preacher at the Baptist community in Cambridge. His fame as a preacher grew consistently that at 17, he became pastor of the Waterbeach Church. At 20, he was invited to pastor the “dying” New Park Street Chapel, later named London Metropolitan Tabernacle, on six months probationary basis. His impact was so overwhelming that he was retained for the next 37 years when he passed on. About six months into his service, the once ailing Church became too small for the population. They had to secure a bigger place downtown but right from the first service, the new auditorium became also too small.
At 20, he was reputed to have the large congregation in the whole world. During Sunday services, he would be pleading with those in the Church not to attend service the following Sunday, until a fortnight later, in order to give room for the thousands sitting on the windows, on the aisles, on the trees and on the roofs of the adjacent buildings. He read the Bible so much that, while other people were holding birthday parties, he held a banquet to mark his first 100th reading of the Bible. He declared that he had spent so much time with the Bible that his blood had become bibline; that his language had become biblical and that the very essence of the Bible oozes as aroma from his body. In his brief lifespan, he must have written more books than any human being dead or alive since Adam, except most probably Witness Lee. During my three year training at LIFE about 25 years ago, I became virtually intoxicated with C. H. Spurgeon that his name was virtually on my lips continually on the campus.
Now with that brief background of C. H. S., our present “chat” is related to a statement he made about 160 years ago. He declared, “The Old Testament was a covenant of Prosperity while the New Testament is a covenant of Adversity”. Some may not subscribe to this based on present personal experience but statements such as this should be considered from the comprehensive global experience of genuine disciples of our Lord, not hypocrites, boot-lickers or men-pleasers who have one eye on the Lord and the other on the gravy that will flow from the Church authorities.
Old Testament scriptures on prosperity
In dealing with this topic, let us first consider the O. T. Scriptures especially as regards the experiences and testimonies nationally and of frontline personalities.
¶ “And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great…..” -God to Abram [Genesis 12: 2]
¶ “And Abram was very rich in livestock, in silver and in gold” -[ Genesis 13: 2]
¶ “And the man [Isaac] became rich and continued to grow richer until he became very rich”- Genesis 26: 13
¶ “Then from what he [ Jacob] had with him, he took a present for Esau his brother: 200 female goats, 20 male goats, 200 ewes, 20 rams, 30 nursing camels and their young, 40 cows and 10 bull, 20 female donkeys and 10 male donkeys.-Genesis 32: 14-15.
¶ “And Jehovah will make you [ Israel] the head and not the tail, and you will tend only upward…..” -Deuteronomy 28: 13
¶ “But you shall remember Jehovah your God, for it is He who gives you the strength to gain wealth, so that He may establish His covenant… “-Deuteronomy 8: 18
¶ “Thus Jehovah blessed Job’s latter end more than his beginning, and he had 14,000 sheep and 6,000 camels and 1,000 yoke of oxen and 1,000 female donkeys -Job 42: 12
¶ “As for the Temple, by my efforts, I [David ] have accumulated more than 3,400 metric tons of gold, and over 34,000 metric tons of silver to be used in building it. Besides that, there is an unlimited supply of bronze and iron….” -1 Chronicles 22: 14.
¶ “And Solomon’s provisions for one day were 30 cors of fine flour and 60 cors of meal, 10 fattened oxen and 20 pastures oxen and 100 sheep besides deer and gazelles and roebucks and fattened fowl-[ I Kings 4: 22-23]
The last book of the Old Testament is Malachi universally popular for its promise of windows of heaven from which can be poured down bountiful blessings that cannot be easily contained. After Malachi, there was no prophetic voice heard from heaven for about 460 years till the voice of one crying out in the wilderness, with John introducing the transition to the New Testament. This John’s mansion was a cave in the desert; diet was locust and wild honey and his wardrobe probably contained one or two garments of camel’s hair with leather girdles. He was a forerunner to Jesus our Lord who formally declared his asset as having no wife, no child, and no place he could call his own. Let us now see the lot of the disciples who were in the forefront of the New Testament.-TO BE CONTINUED