GIVING THE LIMIT by Editor

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, Cal. · Dec 23, 1903

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 29, No. 51.

GIVING THE LIMIT.

By Editor

THE Gospel of God is founded on a Gift, a Gift conceived in love. Therefore giving is the key-note of the Gospel. God gave Himself in giving Christ, and Christ gave Himself; and in giving Himself, He "emptied Himself" of the glory that He had with the Father—gave up the glories of heaven for the poverties and persecutions of earth—all, that He might give to His followers a share with Him in the redeemed inheritance.

Therefore it is not strange that the followers of Christ should be asked to give—asked frequently; or that plans should be laid for systematic, continuous giving. No man has ever yet purchased salvation. It can not be done, no matter if the would-be purchaser had the whole earth with which to purchase it. Salvation is free. It must be given, or it can not be conveyed at all; it must be accepted as a gift, or it can not be obtained at all. A Vanderbilt, a Morgan, or a Rockefeller, is as poor at heaven's gate as the poorest peasant or the loneliest shepherd lad.

The limit of giving is the giving of the life. Christ gave the limit. "God so loved the world, that He gave His only-begotten Son." John 3:16. "Hereby know we love, because He laid down His life for us; and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren." 1 John 3:16. The first quotation tells what God did; the second what Christ did, and what is required of His followers. It is easy to remember these references, as they are the same chapter and verse in books bearing almost the same title—John and 1 John. It is well to refer to them frequently, and quote them together, thus bringing into closer contact God's doing and our duty.

In giving the limit, Christ left nothing He could give that He did not give. All things are in Him. In following the example, Christians should make all they have subject to the call of God, and that means to the needs of His work. Hoarding for gain, and grudging, or refusing to give are outside the purposes of God. He can not work through such a channel; and means so hoarded and so withheld shows a misapprehension of our stewardship. As heaven will be richer for the unlimited giving of God and Christ, so will the Christian's reward be greater for following the example of Him who has given us all.

Christendom has made this the season of gift-making. This is known as the holiday season, when the great mass of what is known as the Christian world gives gifts and expects gifts in return. While the Christian's life should be one continued gift, both of himself and his means, it is not inappropriate to make this season one of special giving and special consecration to the work of God. In fact a great good may be done by setting before the world an example in the right kind of giving in these days when such a large portion of the world is making gifts.

If Christmas were in reality what it purports to be, the anniversary of the birth of Christ, there would still be no honoring of Him in the mere giving of gifts to one another on that particular occasion; but by giving of our means to His cause at this time, we may influence others to put into that needy cause means which otherwise would go to minister to the pleasures of this life.

We have reached a time in the history of Christian work in this world when Christian men and women

—and children—must give as they have never given before. Why is that?—Because the riches of this world are being tied up as never before in the hands of the great men who are not interested in the spread of the Gospel. Their great ambition is to bring money under their control; and millions on millions are being heaped together to keep them out of the cause of God. The spirit that is working in the children of disobedience is the spirit that is inspiring this heaping, hoarding, shackling, and incarcerating of the money of the world. Look at the millions tied up in the ships of war and the armies of the nations, necessitating the heaviest possible burdens of taxation upon the people until their giving powers are shriveled almost to the point of dissolution.

The same spirit has entered the popular church, and millions are spent in maintaining "the form of godliness" where the power has long since been ebbing to extinction, and comparatively little goes into the work of promulgating the Gospel of peace. With the increase of that spirit, love has been waxing cold, spirituality has been declining, and the mass has thus lost the inclination to give for the prosecution of pioneer work. There never was a time when there was so much means in the world as now, nor ever a time when there were so many schemes on foot for tying it up and keeping it out of the Lord's work; never a time when so many men of means and powerful intellect were using every endeavor to corner the money of the world. Many who are not doing this are surfeiting, reveling, and running after the pleasures of this life.

Therefore we see the greater necessity for those who have enlisted in the service of Christ dedicating, as never before, their means and their all to the work that Christ has appointed for His followers to do. The tighter the purse-strings of the world are drawn, the more zealous liberality must the Christian exercise with the means committed to his charge. The faithful ones must shoulder the burden which the worshiper of Mammon refuses to bear. In doing this they receive the reward which such ones refuse to accept on the conditions laid down. In such work the Christian makes good his profession and silences the scoffer who would draw comparisons between Christians' professions and professed Christians' practises. "Give, and it shall be given unto you; good measure, pressed down, shaken together, and running over." This is the liberality of God toward us. Shall we not give of ours in this time of the world's greatest need?