Forgetting God
In times of prosperity, we must pray for spiritual sight to avoid forgetting God and to behold the unseen through the seen.
John Henry Jowett preaches about the danger of forgetting the Lord in times of prosperity, using the analogy of a castle hidden by summer foliage to illustrate how material wealth can obscure our eternal treasure. He emphasizes the importance of maintaining transparency in our view of material blessings, allowing them to point us towards the unseen spiritual realities and our treasure in heaven, rather than becoming distractions that lead us away from God.
Text
DEUTERONOMY viii. 11-20.
"Beware ... lest when thou hast eaten and art full ... thine heart be
lifted up, and thou forget the Lord thy God." I was in a little cottage
near Warwick. I said to the good man who lived in it, "Can you see the
castle?" and he replied, "We can see it best in the winter when the leaves
are off the trees. In the summer time it is apt to be hid!" The summer
bounty hid the castle; the winter barrenness revealed it! And so it is in
life. In the season of fulness we are prone to be blind to "the house of
many mansions," and we forget the Master of the house, the Lord our God.
Our material wealth hides our eternal treasure.
What, then, shall we do in the days of our prosperity, when all our trees
are in full leaf? We must pray that material things may never become
opaque, that they may be always transparent, so that through the seen we
may behold the unseen. This is a gift of the Spirit, and it may be ours.
He will anoint our eyes with the eye-salve of grace, and everything will
become to us a symbol of something better, so that even in the midst of
material plenty our hearts will be with our treasure in heaven. Everything
will be to us "as it were transparent glass."
Sermon Outline
- I points: - The danger of forgetting God in times of prosperity - 'Illustration from nature: the castle hidden by foliage'
- II points: - The tendency to be blind to eternal treasure in times of material wealth - The need to pray for spiritual sight
- III points: - 'The gift of spiritual sight: seeing through material things to the unseen' - The role of the Holy Spirit in granting this gift
Key Quotes
“In the season of fulness we are prone to be blind to 'the house of many mansions,' and we forget the Master of the house, the Lord our God.” — John Henry Jowett
“Our material wealth hides our eternal treasure.” — John Henry Jowett
“Everything will be to us 'as it were transparent glass'.” — John Henry Jowett
Application Points
- We must pray for spiritual sight to avoid forgetting God in times of prosperity.
- We can cultivate spiritual sight by asking the Holy Spirit to anoint our eyes with the eye-salve of grace.
- By seeking spiritual sight, we can see through material things to the unseen and behold our eternal treasure.