The Relation of Giving to the Perennial Revival
A mine is only “worked out” when it yields unprofitable ore, or no ore. The second chapter of Acts, into which we have descended so often in the course of this volume, has not yet failed to repay our pains. Going into it again, we find it ready to yield valuable contribution to the subject,” Giving and the Perennial Revival,” for therein we read: “All that believed were together, and had all things common; and they sold their possessions and goods, and parted them tO’ all, according as any man had need... And the Lord added to them day by day those that were saved.” It is not claimed that the contributions of these Christians are related to the accessions to the church as cause to effect, but no one will question that giving, on the part of God’s people, was one of the factors in this continuous revival; perhaps all will concede that it was a most important one. In such an opinion we are confirmed by a further study in Acts. In the fourth and fifth chapters it is recorded: “ The multitude of them that believed were of one heart and soul: and not one of them said that aught of the things which he possessed was his own; but they had all things common... For as many as were possessors of lands or houses sold them, and brought the price of the things that were sold, and laid them at the apostles’ feet; and distribution was made unto each, according as any one had need... And believers were the more added to the Lord, multitudes both of men and women.”
The sample features of this first New Testament church profoundly impress all good students of the Scriptures; and to pass over the relation that giving there sustained to the perennial revival would be to ignore the evident mind of the Holy Ghost. In the elaboration of this theme let us think of the grace of giving, the gospel of giving, and the God of revivals,
The Grace of Giving
Inspiration names “giving’’ a grace. Paul, in his Second Epistle to the Corinthians (8: 7), says to the members of that church: “As ye abound in everything, in faith, and utterance, and knowledge, and in all earnestness, and in your love to us, see that ye abound in this grace also.” “ This grace “is the “liberality” which had characterized them in their offerings, concerning which he bore them witness that “according to their power... yea and beyond their power, they gave of their own accord.” When writing to the Romans, the same apostle mentions “giving” as worthy a place with “ prophecy,” “ministry,” “teaching,” “exhorting,” saying, “He that giveth, let him do it with liberality” (12: 8). If all graces found their highest expression in the character of Christ, let it be remembered that chief among them was this grace of giving. “For ye know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that, though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, that ye through his poverty might become rich” (2 Cor. 8:9). “The grace” of our Lord Jesus Christ is the capital grace of every Christian who possesses the same.
This grace originates in regeneration. It cannot be claimed that all unregenerate men are stingy souls; nor yet that all regenerate men are generous spirits, but it can be successfully shown that all Spirit-begotten men are quickened in benevolence by the new birth. When Paul writes regarding the liberality of the Corinthians, he assign it not to a nature, naturally generous; on the contrary, he reveals the relation of the new birth to- benevolence by saying: “First they gave their own selves to the Lord, and to us through the will of God” (2 Cor. 8:5). It matters little how loud one may be in his professions of loyalty to Christ; only let it be known that he is penurious, and the public, in the church and out, will question his conversion. Familiar as that public is with how Christ surrendered up all — all honor, all riches, all comfort — to complete his great gift to men, it demands a kindred spirit on the part of the professed follower of the Nazarene, and is likely to twit the covetous and greedy, with the text: “If any man hath not the Spirit of Christ he is none of his.” Evidently Ananias and Sapphira were members of the old First Church at Jerusalem, but when they attempted to make a show of Christianity by professing great liberality, while practising, in secret, commercial economy, they fell under the condemnation of their fellow Christians, and more serious still, under the condemnation of the Holy Spirit. On his own confession Zacchseus must have been both close-fisted and oppressive before his regeneration. When, however, he received the Lord Jesus, generosity displaced greed, and he gave back to the world four times as much as he had ever taken from it by false accusation. There are a number of scriptural tests of one’s regeneration. John, in his First Epistle, makes mention of three or four of these, and of them this one is prominent: “Hereby know we love, because he laid down his life for us: and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren. But whoso hath the world’s goods, and beholdeth his brother in need, and shutteth up his compassion from him, how doth the love of God abide in him? My little children, let us not love in word, neither with the tongue, but in deed and truth” (3: 16-18).
This grace is accentiLated by the enduement of the Spirit. There were many disciples before the day of Pentecost; liberal giving, however, appeared only after the Holy Ghost had come upon them. We may discuss the question as to whether a stingy man has ever been saved, but no one ever thought of discussing the question as to whether a stingy man had ever been Spiritfilled. In fact, there is such an incongruity between the practice of stinginess and the infilling of the Spirit that few parsimonious souls have ever had the temerity to make such a profession. Men commonly believe that George Müller was Spirit-filled, and ground that opinion, in part surely, upon his splendid liberality. Among other evidences that John Wesley was Spirit-filled is the fact that he spent no more when his income was $2,500 per annum than when he received but $250. The increase went wholly to the service of the Lord. None dispute that Lady Huntington was Spirit-filled, because her $500,000 upon the altar of God was good evidence, while the sale of her jewels that she might erect chapels for the poor, the sacrifice of her residence and the dismissal of her liveried servants, that God might get the more, were indisputable arguments. The songs of love to the Lord sung by Frances Ridley Havergal have about them the very breath of the Spirit-filled, but when she makes the couplet.
Take my silver and my gold,
Not a mite would I withhold,
more than sentiment by packing up every piece of silver and gold, including a jewel cabinet fit for a countess, dispatching all to the church missionary society to be sold and invested in foreign missions, and adds, “I never packed a box with such pleasure,” she provides a proof that will persuade most men. Any grace worthy to be named “the grace” of our Lord Jesus Christ, and to be assiduously cultivated by the Holy Ghost, should be ardently coveted by all Christians.
Let us seek, therefore, to discover the divinely appointed method of its impartation.
The Gospel of Giving
There is a “gospel of giving.” In this use of the word “ gospel “we do not employ the old sense “good news or tidings,” but the more modern thought of “any doctrine concerning human welfare that is agitated as of great importance.”
The importance of giving has been proclaimed by prophet, apostle, and Lord. Yea, it antedates all of these and was first voiced by God the Father. An offering was required from Cain and Abel. The first fruits of the flock were not asked then because there were either poor or heathen in the world, but rather for the good of the givers. Tithing was not born with the Levitical system, as men commonly imagine. Long before Moses saw the light Jacob was saying to God: If you “will be with me, and will keep me in this way that I go, and will give me bread to eat, and raiment to put on, so that I come again to my father’s house in peace; then shall the Lord be my God: and this stone, which I have set for a pillar, shall be God’s house: and of all that thou shalt give me I will surely give the tenth unto thee” (Gen. 28: 20-22). Solomon, the wise man, said: “There is that scattereth, and yet increaseth; and there is that withholdeth more than is meet, but it tendeth to poverty. The liberal soul shall be made fat; and he that watereth shall be watered also himself” (Prov. 11: 24, 25). The last prophet of the Old Testament gives eloquent voice to this same gospel of giving. After Malachi’s charge to the people of having robbed God, he becomes the mouth
piece of Jehovah to voice the words: “Bring ye all the tithes into the storehouse, that there may be meat in my house, and prove me now herewith, saith the Lord of hosts, if I will not open you the windows of heaven, and pour you out a blessing, that there shall not be room enough to receive it.”
Some of the things which the apostle Paul said upon this subject we have already studied. But the language of cur Lord is never to be forgotten in this connection. “ Give and it shall be given unto you; good measure, pressed down, and shaken together and running over” (Luke 6 :• 38). If the example of the ancients, the letter of the law, the plain language of prophet, the appeal of apostle, and the call of Christ can combine properly to impress any great truth, the gospel of giving should be familiar tO’ God’s men and women everywhere.
This gospel provides for proportionate giving. In the Old Testament economy the rich brought the bullock, while the poor were accepted with the turtle dove, or the bit of flour. The New Testament law is, “Every one... according as God has prospered him.” It is often said there is no rule but has its exceptions. There were no exceptions under this rule. The poor could bring an ephah of flour, but not a word about those who could bring nothing. The widow at Zarepta was in extreme poverty, and yet had she declined to give, she would have only further impoverished herself by missing the divine favor. The expensive offering that Mary brought for Christ’s anointing, the sweet spices of Joseph, must have been approved of God, but the most honorable mention was reserved for the widow who cast into the treasury two mites, all she had. God never intended to convert the world to righteousness through the magnanimity of the rich. If he had, Jairus, Zacchseus, Joseph, and Nicodemus would have belonged to the apostolate, while Peter, James, and John would have been left with their nets. God meant to make the rich and poor cooperate in this colossal work, and, by the gifts of both, pave the way for the coming King. If there is any one place at which the rich and poor ought to meet together in recognition of the Lord as the Maker of them all, it is before the contribution-box, since it is as serious for the one as for the other to forget that “every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights,”
This gospel is linked to the most sacred events of Christianity. When John would remind us of our obligation to give, he speaks of that God who so loved us as to send his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. When Paul would stimulate us in this grace he refers to the same infinite sacrifice. Our day is characterized by committees on systematic beneficence. Many of these are appointed on public occasions, appear once or twice during the year to speak before inspiring audiences, and then, at the annual gathering, render an eloquent report on “How Men Should Give.” The best committee on systematic beneficence would be composed of not more than two, the individual Christian and the Holy Spirit. The Christian should attend that meeting to get counsel, and the Holy Spirit would attend it to give the same; and every meeting of this sort would be followed by conduct sO’ improved as to demonstrate the value of the commission. It was after some such session as this that Phelps could say:
Saviour, thy dying love
Thou gavest me.
Nor should I aught withhold,
Dear Lord, from thee:
In love my soul would bow,
My heart fulfil its vow,
Some offering bring thee now.
Something for thee.
The God of Revivals
Having called attention to the grace of giving and the gospel of giving, it remains to lay further emphasis upon the relation which giving sustains to the perennial revival.
With the command to “give” God associates a covenant of revival. If, in the Old Testament those who honored the Lord with their “substance and the first fruits of all their increase” found their “barns filled with plenty” and their presses “bursting out with new wine,” the Lord changed the form of the promise, and by the pen of the last of his prophets offered in exchange for tithes an open heaven. (Mai. 3: 10.) The words of Jesus to the rich young ruler, “If thou wilt be perfect, go and sell that thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven,” have bothered many. Men ask. What did Jesus mean here? Why should he lay such unusual exactions upon this youth? Why ask him to make so great a sacrifice? The exactions were not unusual. The sacrifice was not great when compared with the suggested reward. Jesus was saying the same thing to this young man that Jehovah said to the people of Malachi’s time, Give up your gold, which perishes with the using, and take in exchange immortal souls, saved through its sacrifice. What is the “treasure in heaven” for which any Christian may look forward? Not the mansions that await him, nor yet the precious stones which shall greet his eyes as he treads the golden streets of the Celestial City. The same Master who spoke to the rich young ruler of the treasure in heaven employs the parable of the evil steward to teach us what he means by that treasure, saying of him who had made friends out of the mammon of unrighteousness, that they might receive him into their houses when he should be put out of his stewardship: “And I say unto you, make to yourselves friends by means of the mammon of unrighteousness; that, when it shall fail, they may receive you into the eternal tabernacles.” If the princess who heard others boasting their diamonds could point to her two children saying, “Behold my jewels!” shall we not gladly expend our wealth to convert sinners into children of the King, that we may find our silver and our gold in the far city, where it will come back to us, as the gold of Silas Marner returned to him, in the radiant forms who shall fill our eternal home and our immortal hearts with everlasting joy.
God links the salvation of sinners with the sacrifices of the saints. We have seen how the Scriptures affirm this fact. We have beheld how the New Testament church illustrated it. The church of our century has demonstrated this relation again and again. Theodore Cuyler, in his little volume, “How to Be a Pastor,” records the outbreaking of revival upon revival in the midst of his people when there had been no special plans looking to these refreshings. In 1866, such a work of grace was upon them that three hundred and twenty souls were added to their membership, one hundred of them heads of families. Men wondered at these results; but when one reads the record of this church all surprise is set aside, and he sees the relation between Christian giving and church growth. In the thirty years of Cuyler’s pastorate his people contributed $700,000 for the maintenance of the sanctuary, its worship and work, and gave $640,000 more to missionary effort at home and abroad. There is a bit of history which many public speakers have employed, and yet one worthy repetition here. It is the history of a revival in the Clarendon Street Church, Boston. Doctor Gordon tells how they had prayed for a revival in his church, and it had not come. By and by the date for the annual offering to foreign missions was approaching, and in speaking of it the pastor astonished his congregation by expressing the hope that they would contribute that year $10,000 for that one cause. It seemed an impossible thing. There were only a few wealthy men in the church, and they were not given to large sacrifices. But when the offering was all in, $20,000 had been contributed, and that without having privately solicited a man. In writing of it Gordon said: “It was simply a great impulse of the Spirit, and the astonishment of all still continues. Now is coming a gracious ingathering of souls.” We have long prayed for the opening of the windows of heaven, and for a blessing above room to receive it. Our prayers will be answered when we bring our tithes into God’s storehouse. Campbell Morgan, in his little volume entitled “ Wherein,” speaks of that little couplet, often sung in conventions:
My all is on the altar,
I am waiting for the fire,
and says: “It is an absolute absurdity. Nobody ever waited for the fire when ’ all ’ was on the altar. Let a man sing, if he like:
A part is on the altar,
I am waiting for the fire.
I do not know that he ought to waste the time in singing even that, but bestir himself to get the other portion on the altar. That is his business. When you and I put our all upon the altar the fire falls directly... God’s conditions being fulfilled, God’s promises never halt.” Bring in the tithes, that is our part — and the windows will open, that is God’s promise.