p. 7 | How We May Increase the Income by W. H. Branson

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · May 21, 1914

How We May Increase the Income

By W. H. Branson

W. H. BRANSON

"Honor the Lord with thy substance, and with the first fruits of all thine increase: so shall thy barns be filled with plenty, and thy presses shall burst out with new wine." Prov. 3: 9, 10.

THE individual who takes God into partnership with himself in all his business relations, and who recognizes God's ownership by honoring him with the first fruits of all his increase, need have no fear as to how his business will succeed. When others are suffering from storm, pestilence, flood, and many other disasters; when property is swept away, and men and women are dying for want of food and shelter, he has the blessed promise that "bread shall be given him; his waters shall be sure."

To those who do not thus honor God, but feel perhaps that they cannot afford to pay into the treasury of the Lord that portion of his goods which he claims as his own, the following words are spoken: "Now therefore thus saith the Lord of hosts: Consider your ways. Ye have sown much, and bring in little; ye eat, but ye have not enough; ye drink, but ye are not filled with drink; ye clothe you, but there is none warm; and he that earneth wages earneth wages to put it into a bag with holes. . . . Ye looked for much, and, lo, it came to little; and when ye brought it home, I did blow upon it. Why? saith the Lord of hosts. Because of mine house that is waste, and ye run every man to his own house. Therefore the heaven over you is stayed from dew, and the earth is stayed from her fruit." Haggai 1: 5-10.

How many have passed through just such an experience! Feeling that they were too poor to pay tithe and to make freewill offerings to the Lord, they have retained the Lord's portion of their goods and their income, and have appropriated it to their own use. And behold the results! In many instances the Lord has simply blown upon all that they possessed, and, lo, it was gone! They have failed to recognize the principle set forth in the following words of inspiration: "There is that scattereth, and yet increaseth; and there is that withholdeth more than is meet, but it tendeth to poverty."

A failure on the part of many of God's people to recognize this principle has shut them off from his blessing. In Malachi we read: "Even from the days of your fathers ye have gone away from mine ordinances, and have not kept them. Return unto me, and I will return unto you. . . . But ye said, Wherein shall we return? Will a man rob God? Yet ye have robbed me. But ye say, Wherein have we robbed thee? In tithes and offerings. Ye are cursed with a curse: for ye have robbed me."

From this language it is clear that God will not commend an individual who has thus robbed him. But the case is not hopeless. "Return unto me, and I will return unto you. . . . Bring ye all the tithes into the storehouse, that there may be meat in mine 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. And I will rebuke the devourer for your sakes, and he shall not destroy the fruits of your ground; neither shall your vine cast her fruit before the time in the field, saith the Lord of hosts. And all nations shall call you blessed: for ye shall be a delightsome land, saith the Lord of hosts."

Surely it will pay from a financial as well as a spiritual standpoint to return unto the Lord in this manner. Israel of old apostatized and gave up the tithing system. God accordingly withdrew his blessing from them, and they passed through a time of great poverty. Many suffered terribly from hunger, crops were cut off, and it seemed that they would all perish. The priests and singers, who were supposed to live upon the tithe, were forced to abandon the services of the temple and the work of teaching God's truth, and every one fled to the country to try in vain to earn a livelihood. Of this condition and the way they came out of it the prophet says: "And I perceived that the portions of the Levites had not been given them: for the Levites and the singers, that did the work, were fled every one to his field. Then contended I with the rulers, and said, Why is the house of God forsaken? And I gathered them together, and set them in their place. Then brought all Judah the tithe of the corn and the new wine and the oil unto the treasuries." Neh. 13: 10-12.

Again in the days of Hezekiah we read of a like condition: "Moreover he commanded the people that dwelt in Jerusalem to give the portion of the priests and the Levites, that they might be encouraged in the law of the Lord. And as soon as the commandment came abroad, the children of Israel brought in abundance the first fruits of corn, wine, and oil, and honey, and of all the increase of the field; and the tithe of all things, brought they in abundantly. And concerning the children of Israel and Judah, that dwelt in the cities of Judah, they also brought in the tithe of oxen and sheep, and the tithe of holy things which were consecrated unto the Lord their God, and laid them by heaps. . . . Then Hezekiah questioned with the priests and Levites concerning the heaps. And Azariah the chief priest of the house of Zadok answered him, and said, Since the people began to bring the offerings into the house of the Lord, we have had enough to eat, and have left plenty: for the Lord hath blessed his people; and that which is left is this great store."

There is not one who is too poor to pay a tithe. Nine tenths of what little we have will be worth far more to us with God's blessing upon it and upon our families than the whole amount would be if God's blessing were withdrawn and his curse placed upon it. Liberality in dealing with the Lord will bring large returns, both spiritual and temporal.