Proverbs chapter 30. Proverbs chapter 30, and we will just read the first nine verses of Proverbs 30. Proverbs 31 through 9, and the text is verses 8 and 9. These are the words of Agur. We don't know much about this Agur, but he was a man given wisdom, and a man that shows us how to pray. in the latter part, or in verses 8 and 9. So that's why we read this. Proverbs 30, the words of Agur, the son of Jaca, even the prophecy, the man spake unto Ithiel, even unto Ithiel and Uccle, surely I am more brutish than any man, and have not the understanding of a man. I neither learned wisdom, nor have the knowledge of the holy. Who hath ascended up into heaven, or descended? Who hath gathered the wind in his fists? Who hath bound the waters in a garment? Who hath established all the ends of the earth? What is his name? And what is his son's name, if thou canst tell? Every word of God is pure, He is a shield unto them that put their trust in Him. Add thou not unto His words, lest He reprove thee, and thou be found a liar. Two things have I required of thee. Deny me them not before I die. Remove far from me vanity and lies. Give me neither poverty nor riches. feed me with food convenient for me, lest I be full and deny thee, and say, Who is the Lord? Or lest I be poor and steal, and take the name of my God in vain." So far do we read God's Word. The text is verses 8 and 9. Remove far from me vanity and lies, Give me neither poverty nor riches, feed me with food convenient for me, lest I be full and deny thee, and say, Who is the Lord? Or, lest I be poor and steal, and take the name of my God in vain." Today is prayer day, which is a wonderful day. Prayer is an amazing thing. Prayer is talking to God. First God speaks to us in His Word, telling us who He is, what He's done. Then we talk back to Him. And that's called prayer. That's what Agur does in Proverbs chapter 30. God has spoken to him in the Word. He talks about that Word in verse 5. And then Agur speaks back to him in verses 7-9. He prays. And that's what we got to do tonight too. It's what we get to do. It's what we focus on on prayer day. Prayer is talking to God. And God is pleased to provide as we pray to Him. Jesus says in Matthew 7 verse 7, Ask, and it shall be given you. Seek, and ye shall find. Knock, and the door shall be opened unto you. Think of that. We have so many great needs. And God, Almighty God, is pleased to provide us with what we need as we pray to Him for them. And as we pray, the way that He tells us to in His Word. God is pleased to provide as we ask Him in the way He has commanded in His Word. So to have a prayer day service is a good thing. We get to pray together, and we get to pray together especially for physical things. Because prayer day was started by Reformed people long ago that wanted to have a day where they could come together and pray that God would bless them during the planting season. God would provide the things that they needed. We get to do that tonight. In addition to praying together, we also get to hear a sermon that reminds us how to pray in our own personal life. and what attitude we are to have when we pray. And especially what attitude we are to have as we pray for physical things. And God uses that word so powerfully so that he strengthens us to go forward praying and to pray with the right attitude in the right way. So it's good to have prayer day. And in the text, Agur, he gives us great instruction. He shows us what to pray for regarding physical things. And he shows us the proper attitude we are to have as we pray for physical things. Again, we don't know much about Agur, except that God used him to write his word, and that God showed him how to pray so that the words of this text that we have are a right prayer, a prayer that we can learn from and grow from. So may the Spirit work powerfully through the Word now to give us that right attitude towards things and to pray properly for them during this planting season and beyond. Let's consider the text under the theme, Neither Poverty Nor Riches. First, the request. Second, the concern. And third, the power. The request, the concern, the power. We're going to look at three parts to the request that he makes in the text. In Proverbs 30, verse 8b, Agur begins his request by saying, Give me neither poverty. Give me not poverty. This is the first part of the request we look at. Now, one who has poverty is one who finds himself constantly lacking the basic earthly necessities of life. Finds himself constantly lacking the basic earthly things that you need to live. Sometimes poverty in scripture refers to a spiritual poverty. But that's not this text. This text is talking about a physical poverty. And we know that because the end of verse 8 talks about feeding me with food convenient for me. And that word food there means bread. So this is referring to physical things. Agur's talking about physical poverty in verse 8. Again, that's lacking the basic earthly things you need to live. That's such an important point. because we can have a misunderstanding of what it means to be in poverty or what it means to be poor today. So, we might think today that someone is in poverty if they can't afford a new cell phone, or if they live in a tiny house, or if they can't go out to eat at this or that restaurant. I may think that person's kind of poor or in poverty. But poverty in the text, the biblical idea of poverty is that you lack the basic necessities of life. You lack food, drink, shelter. Things like that. Agur prays here in the text, give me not poverty. Some would argue that's a wrong request. There have been those in history that say you should be in poverty as a spiritual person because that's what is the best thing spiritually. Some think that riches are what makes a person sinful. So, that has been an idea in the Roman Catholic Church throughout history. Some take a monastic vow of poverty in the Roman Catholic Church. And the idea behind that is that will bring you to seek the things of the kingdom if you're in poverty. But poverty does not guarantee spirituality. Give me not poverty is not a wrong request. It's a scriptural request. It's a request that we must follow and we must make. It's a request we must make to Jehovah. Jehovah, give me not poverty. Jehovah is called God in verse 9. That means that He is the Mighty One. The name God in Hebrew has that idea, the Mighty One. He is the Almighty One who has the most power and is really the power behind all the power that you see on this earth. He waters the hills with rain from the skies. with plentiful grass and herbs he supplies." He's the one who makes poor and makes rich, according to 1 Samuel 2, verse 7. He's in control of the distribution of all things. So we, along with Agur, must pray, give me not poverty. Follow Agur's example. But there's more to follow here from Agur. He first prays, give me not poverty, and then he adds, give me neither riches, give me neither poverty nor riches. That seems strange to say, give me not riches. Riches are referring to many physical refers to physical wealth. It's an abundance of physical things. To have riches means that you have a nice house, you have great toys in your house, you have a nice vehicle and you can go on nice vacations, you have lots of good food, you have riches. Now, who in today's world would say, give me not riches. Think of that. Who would say that? The poor today in today's world, the poor want to be rich and the rich want to be richer. That's the way it is. Greed abounds in the world today. Millions of dollars are spent every day and gambling and on lotteries. Millions of dollars are spent on that and they're gained and lost through gambling and lotteries every day. People work to get wealth. That's their motivation in getting them up in the morning. And they work multiple jobs because they want wealth. So the world, you can understand this, the world would certainly find this request of agar in the text very strange. But even to us believers, the request might seem kind of odd. Riches, to have riches is not a sin. It's not a sin to be rich. 1 Timothy 6 verse 10 says, the love of money is the root of all evil. The love of it is the root of all evil, but to have riches itself, that's not a sin. Abraham and Job and many others in the Bible were rich, and that was not wrong for them to be rich. We're required to labor diligently in this world, and if God uses those labors to give us much earthly gain, that's not wrong. That's His will for us. And in many ways, it sounds good to us to be rich. We would not have to be concerned with how much we spend on this or that item that we want. We could just get it. If we want it, we can buy it. So we can have the beautiful home to relax in with our family, a wonderful place to entertain our guests, and we can buy many fun things to do with them. We can get clothes, and the clothes we want, really, whenever we desire. Send our kids to the best colleges, and go to great restaurants, and take wonderful vacations. We can do all of that if we're rich. Sounds good. But Agur's prayer in Scripture, which again, Scripture is the rule for faith and life. Agur's prayer in Scripture says, give me not riches. What does that mean? Well, Agur is saying with this prayer that he does not desire to be rich. That's what he's expressing, that he does not desire wealth. He doesn't long for it, and he's not going to pray for it. And verse 7 shows that this desire is sincere. This is not just something he's saying that's not really from the heart. It's sincere. Look at verse 7. Agur says, 2 things have I required of thee, God. That's what he's saying. 2 things have I required of thee, or I've requested of thee. Deny me them not before I die. Agur, here, is sincerely pleading that God does not make him rich. Now his desire and prayer here are the opposite of what proponents of the health and wealth gospel or prosperity gospel today teach. So there are actually many that believe this prosperity gospel teaching. One of their most famous preacher of the prosperity gospel is Joel Osteen. And you can find him on TV some days. Joel Osteen preaches to a church in Texas that has 45,000 people come to it every Sunday. And his gospel teaches that if you ask God for wealth, and you trust that He's going to give it to you, and you do what the church here says, then you will be given wealth. You'll be given prosperity. However, In Proverbs 30 verse 8, Agur says the opposite of what the prosperity gospel teaches. He does the opposite of what Joel Osteen says to do. He does not ask for wealth. He says, give me not riches. The Christian's desire and prayer must be the same as Agur's. Don't seek wealth. And we have to hear that, and we have to hear that really often, because we, by nature, do. Left to ourselves, riches are what we want. Riches are, to get them, is why I would work hard, why I would get multiple jobs. I'm going to do this or do that for extra spending money for me, so that I can do this and I can do that. How easy it is to have that thought and that desire. How easy it is to have the thought and desire that we or our children would somehow strike things would just work out the right way and one of us would become rich. And then we could have all these things. My child will be successful and then we can get this and get that. It's so easy to think that way. But put away a desire for riches and don't ask for them. 1 Timothy 5 verse 9 says, they that will be rich fall into temptation and a snare and into many foolish and hurtful lusts. So it's wrong to will or desire to be rich or to have wealth. Instead, express to God in prayer that you don't desire wealth and express that sincerely. We're to do that following Agger's example. And note this, that when we do not sincerely desire wealth, we will be a very generous person if we are given wealth. Sometimes God does give His people riches. He has given wealth to many of us so that we have nice homes, nice clothes, We maybe had a great meal before we came here. Lots of good food. Nice vehicles. Many nice things. Far more than we need. One who truly does not desire riches or desire wealth, following the example of Edgar here, one who is like that is very generous in his life. with what God's given him. He doesn't say, oh, they have enough. I live on this much. They should be able to figure this out. No, he gives much to collections at church. He thinks this way, he thinks, I'm going to give to the Christian school teachers at the Christian school here, knowing what they do every day, seeking to teach the covenant children for hours and giving their life to that. I'm going to give them gifts and make sure that they're paid properly. I'm not going to be stingy thinking about myself and what I want to do with this for me. I'm going to give to others so that they can live comfortably. I'm going to think about them. That's the attitude of someone who does not desire riches and wealth. That's so hard. That's so hard. not to seek wealth, so pray for strength in that. And really the prayer of Agurot to lead us to examine ourselves tonight, and as we go forward into the planting season, to keep examining our own hearts. Am I seeking wealth in my daily labors? Am I being stingy with others because I'm really thinking about me, and how I want this extra thing, and this, and this, and this. Examine yourself, pray for forgiveness in the blood of Jesus, and may Agur's prayer lead us to pray for strength, to pray what he prayed. May Agur's prayer lead us to pray for strength, not to seek wealth for ourselves. In Proverbs 30, verse 8, Agur prays, Give me neither poverty nor riches, Feed me with food convenient for me. That's how verse 8 ends. Feed me with food convenient for me. And that literally means, feed me with the food of my portion. Feed me with the food of my portion, or in other words, feed me with the food I need. Feed me with the food that thou dost know I need. Thou dost know my needs, feed me with that. My portion. Know that food here at the end of the verse means bread and stands for all of our earthly physical needs like shelter and clothing. Things like that. The basic earthly needs. That's what bread stands for. Now the amount that one needs of physical things varies according to one's circumstances. So at It's different for the one who's married as compared to one who's unmarried, and from one who has one child to many children, or from one who has no children to many children. There are many various circumstances, and one's needs certainly vary. But the prayer of the text is, give me what I need to be nourished and to live comfortably on this earth. Nothing more than what I need, nothing less. Give me what I need. Agger's prayer here in verse 8 is at the end, feed me with food convenient for me, is really the Old Testament version of the fourth petition of the Lord's Prayer. Give us this day our daily bread. So we are to follow Agger's example and make the same petition that he did, and are to do it daily. Most of us have many physical things in our homes right now, but we really must remember that we are just creatures whose lives are really quite fragile. There could be an economic disaster later on this week, or in this month, and it could become very hard for us to even buy anything at the store. It could happen that there's a tornado, or there's an ice storm, or there's a flood, or a drought this year that makes it very difficult for us to keep the food even that we've stored up. It can lead to a loss of shelter and many other things. God alone controls everything. And He alone can supply us with the food and drink we need daily. He alone can make the rainfall, the grass grow, and the crops grow. He alone can give us the shelter from the cold and from the sun and from the snow. He alone can uphold all these things in the creation so that the things we do have aren't spoiled or destroyed. He rules. So ask Him, the one who controls everything, God Almighty, ask Him to supply food convenient for you every day. In that prayer that you make, acknowledge your human frailty, that you don't control these things, and ask Him to give rain and sunshine this growing season so that we have the food and drink we need. Ask Him to control the economy in our city, in our nation, in the world, so that we can continue to buy the things that we need with the money we make. Ask God for convenient, for food convenient for you. And in doing so, what you'll be saying, when you just ask for that, you'll be saying, I don't desire riches. Lord, just give me what I need. Give me my daily bread, my portion. That's the proper prayer. Proper request. Now Agur prays for God to give food convenient for him, nothing more and nothing less. And then voices this spiritual concern in verse 9. In verse 9 he says, lest I be full and deny thee and say who is the Lord? So one who is full, having many physical things, It's easy for him to deny God and to say, who is the Lord? The word deny in verse eight actually is, excuse me, the word deny in verse nine is actually the word deceive in the original language. Deceive, and one might wonder what that means, lest I be full and deceive. Well, the idea is that when you become rich, You can easily start to fly in the face of the facts and deny God. You can start to fly in the face of the facts. The facts are that you can't cause the rain to fall, you can't make the sun shine or the crops grow, you can't control the economy so that your money actually is worth anything in the grocery store. Only Jehovah controls those things and can provide. Those are the facts. But when you become full, it is very easy to fly in the face of those facts and live a lie. So, you stop thinking about God and your need for Him. You ignore Him. You don't pray to Him for daily bread. And when you do, maybe, you don't pray it sincerely. You pray those words with hardly a thought, just going through the motions, not really looking to Him to provide, just saying it because you know that you should say something about that in prayer. So, what you're doing is you're acting like you don't need Him to provide for you. You fly in the face of the facts and deny Him. And by ignoring Him, What you're really saying is, who is the Lord? I don't really know Him. I don't really need Him. Who is the Lord? This text shows to us, it alludes to the dangers of riches, spiritual dangers of it. But it's not just this text. There are so many passages in Scripture that talk about the dangers, spiritual dangers of riches. According to Deuteronomy 6, verses 10 through 12, God warned Israel that when they entered the promised land and they became full, and there was all this abundance of the crops and of the plants, that they would easily deny Him. And what happened? Well, when Israel went into the land of Canaan and all these things started to grow, they started to deny him. And they began worshipping idols instead of the Lord, and they forgot about him. Kids, you know that history. Worshipped idols instead of God. Matthew 19, verse 24 says, Riches often even lead one away from a trust in Jesus alone for salvation. You can understand how that would happen. You're not looking to God for the physical things that you need. You've got it. You're good. Well, that easily leads to you not looking to Jesus either. You're not even thinking about God or your need of Him to save you in Jesus Christ. Just forget about Him. You're self-sufficient. You're good. Wealth easily leads one away from true service of the neighbor, too. So you give something for those who are in need, maybe in Christ's kingdom, but it hardly affects your own pocketbooks. And then you start to think, well, that brother in the church, he's got to start pulling his own way. He's got to start doing something. You hold back. You hold back from giving. You want to use your money on your own things, on your own trips. And often the more you have, the more you want, so it's easier and easier to become selfish, more and more selfish. And if we're honest, we'll see that tonight, that riches have been dangerous for us in our spiritual life, that we've really experienced this difficulty that there is with having riches. We've gone through it. and still do. Many of us have had success in our work. We've made lots of money. We have houses full of food. We can really buy what we want and go on nice vacations. Most, if not all here, really have security, financial security. In the situation we are in, it has been so easy to deny God and really say, who is the Lord? It's very likely that we have all gone days without even praying for God to supply daily bread. That is the physical things that we need to survive. It's very likely we've gone many days without even praying for that. And it's even more likely that we have prayed for that some days, but when we prayed for daily bread, we don't pray it sincerely. We hardly think about what we're saying. We know about the dangers of riches and it leading to self-dependence and the forgetting of God, the forgetting of our need for him. Can easily think I got a full freezer full of food. Forget about Jehovah. Because of the dangers of riches, Agur prayed that he not be given them. That's why he says what he does, give me not riches, because he's aware of the spiritual danger involved. He knew his own sinful nature very well, and knew that riches could lead him to deny Jehovah. So he asked only for what's convenient for him. So you can see that a spiritual life of thanksgiving to God. That's what was most important to Agur. Not getting wealth. What's most important to him is the service of God in his life. So that even when he prays about physical things, what's on his mind is that those physical things he's given would not lead him away from God, would not hurt him spiritually. What he's thinking about, even as he prays for physical things, is that whatever he's given would only help him serve the Lord and not hinder him. Agur must have known his salvation in Jesus Christ. Knowing it, he hated, he abhorred the thought of denying his God and his covenant friend. He wanted so badly to live a life of thankfulness for Jesus Christ, and thus he didn't ask for riches, but only his portion. And we can learn from that, so much from that. have that same spiritual concern that Edgar did, so that when you pray, even when you pray for physical things, you're thinking this. You're thinking, I want to be given not too much and not too little, so that my spiritual life is not hurt. I want to be given the right amount, so that I will serve the Lord in my life. That's my chief concern. We are those who know salvation in Jesus Christ too. We're believers in the Lord Jesus Christ. We know that He came and He suffered to pay for our sins, that He finished that work of paying for all our sins. He finished that work so that we're not going to howl when we die, but instead we're going to paradise. He finished that work, so now we live with the Lord. We enjoy His presence. That's Jesus. We know that salvation in Him. Knowing Him, may thankful service to God be our number one priority. Not piling up things, not getting this or that, but pray that you be given only what is convenient for you, with the proper desire regarding physical things. Agur prays for food convenient for him lest he be rich and deny God. And he prays for food convenient for him lest, this is the end of verse 9, lest I be poor and steal and take the name of my God in vain. Again, a spiritual concern. When one is poor, he often steals. Again, poverty means that you don't have the basic necessities of life. When that happens, and it's happened throughout history, a person steals. Maybe he steals from the store, he's dishonest in how he buys and sells things, seeking to make more than what he should, or get more from the store than what he should. He takes advantage of the customer or the person he's buying from. Or it can be that because he considers himself poor, he doesn't give to kingdom causes like God commands him to. Even when he doesn't have much. So he's stealing from God and from the church. And verse 9 indicates that another temptation that comes along with poverty is taking the name of God in vain. It says, lest I be poor and steal and take the name of my God in vain. God's name is what He uses to reveal Himself to us. God's name includes His proper names. God's name includes the name Jehovah, which reveals that He is unchanging. He's the unchanging, faithful friend of His people. Well, the phrase, take his name in vain here literally means to seize his name. So you don't set it apart using it with respect, but you seize it. That means you take hold of it with violence and you use it how you want. Use it poorly. When one becomes poor, it's easy to take God's name in vain by complaining Maybe you don't say it with your mouth, but we can easily think, God doesn't know what He's doing. God's an unkind God. Look what's happening to me. We take His name in vain. We seize upon Him with violence. Or, simply this, when we complain as Christians about what's happening in our lives and all these troubles we face, others can hear that. And maybe someone in the world says, They don't have much of a God. They're Christians, but look at all that's happening to them. Their God isn't much, and so we've led others to think badly or speak badly about Jehovah, taking his name in vain, doing violence to his name. So understanding the spiritual dangers and spiritual temptations that come along with poverty, Agur prays, give me not poverty, but food convenient for me. He abhorred the idea that he would take the name of his covenant God who was sending Jesus for him, that he would take that God's name in vain. And may we have the same spiritual concern again as Agur, so that when we're praying for our daily bread, we're thinking, too, about how we want God to make this serve to our good spiritually. We don't want to be hurt spiritually by what we're given. We want to be helped spiritually to serve Him in our life in gratitude. Now what empowers us to desire and pray for only what we need is God's Word. That's the power behind this. God's Word. The Word empowered Agur. He did not have the power himself to put away a desire for riches and to pray only for what he needs. Agur, by nature, was dead in sin. Agur, by nature, loved riches, which is what every man loves and desires by nature. That's what he was like. But verses 5 and 6 show that Agur knew the Word. Verse 5 says, every word of God is pure. Verse 6, add thou not unto His words. He talks about the Word in the context. He had heard from the Word the truth that Jehovah is Lord and Ruler and Provider. He had heard from the Word the promise of the seed of the woman, Jesus Christ, coming to save believers from their sins and from hell. He had heard from the Word God's commandments and how to live in gratitude for salvation. He had heard the Word and that Word empowered Agur to look to God for the physical things he needed and to seek to live a thankful life of service to that great God and have that be number one in his life, that thankful life of service. He didn't want to be given too much or too little so that his spiritual life was hurt. He wanted to be given just the right amount so that he might walk in a life of thankfulness. He had that right attitude only because God worked in him through the Scriptures. And the same thing is true with us. We are reminded from the very prayer that we read tonight in the Word, we're reminded that God is the provider. We're not in control. We're reminded tonight, we've been reminded through the Word about Jesus Christ and his finished work at the cross, paying for the sins of us believers. We've been reminded of our salvation. Through the Word, we're strengthened then to pray only for what we need, desiring that the things we're given do not hinder us spiritually, but only help us serve Him in thankfulness for Christ. Only help us seek the things of His kingdom and praise God. Knowing that power of the Word and God's work through it, that's why we come here. That's probably part of why we come here tonight, part of why we come here every Sunday. Because we've got to hear that Word. It is so easy, and we do so quickly become worldly when we're not hearing the Word regularly. So easily our minds and our hearts drift towards that seeking of wealth and riches. Because that's where our hearts are by nature. So come here and come here with your children often to hear that word that empowers us to live in thankfulness for Christ and seek the things above. Go forward making the prayer of agar your morning prayer. Pray that God will provide you with the food convenient for you, nothing more, nothing less. And that will help you go into the day with the right attitude towards your work and why you're going to it. And why you're going to work hard. And that will help you not be focused on getting things, but serving the Lord and His church in thankfulness. Start your day with this prayer of agar every day. Now, it is true that God sometimes gives poverty or riches to us. One of those extremes that can certainly happen in our life does happen. But look to God to strengthen you through the word, to do what's right with what you have. So if God does give you poverty, or even you have that right now, if God gives you poverty, trust that his way is good, that he knows what he's doing. It's your covenant, father and friend. And pray constantly that you would not take the name of the Lord in vain or steal. Turn to the proper places for help. The family first, and then to look to the deacons for help. The church. Those are the ones that God has put in the place they're in to help. Our God's put them there to help, so go to them. And if God gives you riches, which he has to many of us, pray mightily and pray constantly that God would work in you not to deny him, not to say, who is the Lord, but instead to use what you've been given to serve his kingdom, to be very generous, help others. God is pleased to strengthen us for Jesus' sake and pleased to do so as we hear the word and pray to him for help. Amen, let's pray. Our Father which art in heaven, Lord, we pray that thou wilt give us neither poverty nor riches, but will give to us the food convenient for us. We lean on thee for thou art ruler, not on ourselves. And we ask, Lord, that If thou dost give to us riches, which thou hast given to many of us, we pray that we may be those who use what we've been given to serve thy church, to serve thy people, to look for ways to help others around us, and be very generous to thy glory. Forgive our sins, in Jesus' name alone we pray all these things, amen.