I heard a “preacher” just today speaking on one of the Word of Faith networks (which one I shall refrain from saying). He was talking about the ridiculous concept of “a financial anointing.” He had seven points (which I did not bother to listen to) but he used one verse as a promise for those who get into the financial anointing: Isaiah 45:3. He said that this tells us that God will give “secret riches” to those who have an impartation of this so-called financial anointing.
Without going into the ludicrous nonsense of a financial anointing, I want to look at the concept that he used to arrive at this promise. It is a very common use of Scripture to pull promises out of context and claim them for oneself. I have heard people advised to choose a verse that relates to their need and claim the promise of the verse for themselves.
Is this a valid way to use Scripture? Is this what God gave us His Word for and how he intends us to use it?
The short answer is “No. No. No.” But we need to expand a little bit on that brief reply.
First, when we see a promise in the Bible, we need to understand to whom it was given and under what circumstances. There are general promises (“Whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.”); however, there are also promises that are specific to a certain person, place, time, or circumstance.
Let’s look at the aforementioned verse in Isaiah:
Thus says the LORD to his anointed, to Cyrus, whose right hand I have grasped, to subdue nations before him and ungird the loins of kings, to open doors before him that gates may not be closed: 2 "I will go before you and level the mountains, I will break in pieces the doors of bronze and cut asunder the bars of iron, 3 I will give you the treasures of darkness and the hoards in secret places, that you may know that it is I, the LORD, the God of Israel, who call you by your name."Isaiah 45:1-3
To whom is the verse given? Cyrus of Persia.
Does it apply to anyone else? No.
The whole context militates against applying this to me or to anyone other than Cyrus. I cannot legitimately appropriate this verse to myself. I cannot take this verse any more than I can take Exodus 3: 17 to mean that God is going to carry me to Israel. Or to believe that God will give me twice as much as I once had if I will only pray for my friends because of Job 42: 10. Nor would it be appropriate for me to “claim” the promise of Acts 27: 24 in order to assure people on a ship with me that none of them was going to die even if the ship sinks.
When looking at Bible promises one must determine if it is extended to more than just the originally intended person(s). To ignore the context is very dangerous and quite silly.
So in reality, every promise in the book is NOT yours or mine. There are “many great and precious promises” which we can hold to and on which we can stand securely. Others, however, are not ours for the taking and no matter how much faith we have, we cannot legitimately make them our own.
