GIVE! GIVE!

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Aug 3, 1869

Fellow-Christians! give of your money to sustain and extend the cause of your divine Redeemer. It is your duty, and you cannot neglect it without being guilty of the basest ingratitude; you cannot neglect it without imperiling the interests of your souls, and even injuring yourselves in temporal things.

The Scriptures appeal to your sense of gratitude to enforce the duty. “Ye know the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for our sakes he became poor, that we through his poverty might be made rich.” And the apostle, after urging the Corinthian Christians at much length to give to God, adds: “Thanks be to God for his unspeakable gift.” It was as if he had said, “What are all your gifts to God in comparison with God’s gift to you?” And how true this is; and therefore those who refuse to give to God are guilty of the basest ingratitude. It is also injurious to the interests of their souls.

No Christian would expect to prosper in spiritual things if he neglected the duty of prayer. No Christian would expect soul prosperity, if he were habitually engaged in cheating his neighbors. Well, giving to God’s cause is just as closely connected with receiving spiritual blessings as is praying. “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.” In the one case, we must ask that we may receive; in the other, we must give that we may be blessed. Nor should we forget that withholding the tithes is cheating God out of his portion of our property. Aye, he calls it by a harsher name than that. He calls it robbery. “Will a man rob God? But ye have robbed me. But ye say, Wherein have we robbed thee? In tithes and offerings.”

Again, your temporal prosperity is concerned in the matter. Our temporal blessings come from God, and he can give riches, as he did in Solomon’s case, and he can send poverty, and he says: “Honor the Lord with thy substance, so shall thy barns be filled with plenty, and thy presses burst forth with new wine.” This is the promise of a faithful God, and he has verified it in every age of the church, and thousands have testified that it is most true: “He that soweth sparingly shall reap also sparingly, and he that soweth bountifully shall reap also bountifully,” in temporal as well as in spiritual things. And, fellow-Christian, you cannot complain of the rule by which he asks you to give. It is as you have been prospered. Those who have been blessed with thousands are required to give thousands; but if you have but a mite, give it.

“He knows if you blush to bring Him Your poverty’s stinted store; Just give yourself with your farthing, And then he will count it more.”

Fellow-Christian, we are persuaded that neglect to give of our substance as God has prospered us, is one of the causes which is eating out the life of the church of God in this present time. Let us determine that it shall do so no longer. Let God’s people fill his treasury with their gifts, and we feel sure he will be faithful to his promise, and will open the windows of Heaven, and pour out a blessing, until there shall not be room enough to receive it.