One Hundred and Fifty Thousand Dollar Fund by W. J. Stone

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · May 30, 1907

One Hundred and Fifty Thousand Dollar Fund

By W. J. Stone

For Special Work at Home and Abroad

Evidence of Sincere Love

SIMPLY saying that we love God or our fellow man is not real evidence of our love. The Lord says that if we see a person in need, and simply say, “Depart in peace,” but do not give him the things he needs, it profiteth nothing. Here we are taught that giving is the evidence of our sincere love.

In the eighth chapter of Second Corinthians, the Lord commends the spirit of giving as manifested by the churches of Macedonia, and tells us that the grace, or love of God, bestowed upon them, was manifested in the riches of their liberality. Verse 2.

Their great love for the cause which they had espoused led them to pray Paul with much entreaty to receive the gift, and as Paul witnessed the blessed fellowship and willing sacrifices of these brethren, he desired Titus to labor for the perfecting of this grace also in the Corinthian brethren, that as they abounded in every other grace, to see that they abounded in the grace of giving also.

He further says that there is no commandment that they should give, but he urges it that they may prove the sincerity of their love. Then, if giving proves the sincerity of our love, what does withholding prove?

In the ninth verse, Paul reaches the climax of the proof of love, and says, “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 be rich.” Christ made the greatest sacrifice ever made by any being in order that he might save a rebellious world, thus proving the sincerity of his love. The great plan of salvation was laid in sacrifice, the greatest sacrifice ever witnessed in the universe of God, and it is to be carried forward by sacrifices; and when poor mortal man is genuinely converted, and has the love of Christ shed abroad in his heart, he will possess the same spirit of giving as did the brethren of Macedonia.

There will be no wishing that the calls would not come so often, and no shirking of responsibilities, when we are genuinely converted; but it will be a pleasure to give, and such a one will have a happy realization that it is more blessed to give than to receive. God asks no man to give more than he is able. God’s plan is, “first a willing mind,” then “it is accepted according to that a man hath, and not according to that he hath not.”

In the raising of the $150,000 it is not the plan that each person shall pay a stipulated sum of three dollars, more or less; for that is not the Bible plan. The pro-rata method was adopted simply as a convenience to apportion the full amount to the several union and State conferences, that they might have a basis upon which to work. The Bible plan is for persons to give as God hath “prospered them,” that there may be “equality.”

A man who has an income of fifty dollars a week can give ten times as much as the man whose income is only five dollars, and there would be no equality in expecting the same gift from each; so in making our gifts to this fund there are those who can pay from ten to one hundred dollars easier than others can pay from one to five dollars.

We are glad to say that in Indiana this spirit has been manifested to quite a degree. Those who have means have helped to make up the lack of those whom God has not blessed with so much of this world’s goods. Persons have given all the way from a few cents to five hundred dollars, and by so doing there has been an equality, and the Scriptural injunction fulfilled, that the “strong ought to bear the infirmities of the weak;” and God has greatly blessed, so that we have now raised over four thousand dollars, or about three fourths of our apportionment, and a few weeks will witness the completion of our portion of this fund.

For months we have printed in our conference paper a tabulated report of what was being done, and it has had its influence, and I am glad that the end of this task is now so near in our conference. I might add that while our brethren have been giving so liberally to this $150,000 fund, our tithe has been larger than during any other corresponding month in the history of the work in the Indiana Conference. So we have the evidence that giving does not impoverish or lessen the funds to our regular channels. May the Lord hasten the completion of this work.

W. J. STONE.