04.007. Conditions of Prosperity
Conditions of Prosperity Whatsoever he doeth shall prosper-- Psalms 1:3.
Three times, and at marked turning points in history, we have this lesson repeated. It was taught to Joshua as he assumed leadership of the Hebrew hosts; to David as he wrote the first of these spiritual lyrics, and to James as he left his witness to the New Testament Church; comp. Joshua 1:8, James 1:25. This psalm, however, reveals to us what are the conditions of such universal prosperity, under the figure of a tree. Nowhere else are they all presented at one glance, though elsewhere one, two, or even three of the four may be found. Here, in this first psalm, which is the natural vestibule to the whole collection, the grand factors that enter into the full conception of spiritual prosperity, all meet the reader.
Life. This is a living tree, not dead wood. There must be divine life in the soul.-- John 3:16
Health. This depends upon healthful surroundings. The tree is “planted”by the irrigating channels of the Word.
Growth. This depends on the assimilation of the Word to the inner life, as the water is transmuted into sap, and this into leaf, bloom, and fruit.
Fruit. The final outcome, “whose seed is in itself after his kind.”
It is interesting to trace in other passages of Scripture the partial lessons here taught as a whole. Thus, 1 Peter 2:2, 2 Peter 3:18, and especially John 15:1-10, the last the nearest in resemblance to the first psalm, and an advance upon it, because the personal abiding in Christ is an advance upon the planting by the water channels. Not until the Living Word was given could the full significance of the first psalm and its obvious reference to the written Word have their most illuminative exposition. But in both Scriptures we are taught that we must first of all live God’s life; that this life must have healthy conditions of meditative communion with the Word, and with God through it, in order to grow; and that on all these conditions depends the final result and crown of all, fruit abundant and constant.