By George Kulp
The Church of God should never have to appeal to unsaved men for money, for the money thus given is not acceptable unto the Lord. "Obedience is better than sacrifice, and to hearken than the fat of rams." And money of the unconverted accompanied by the bleating of sheep and the lowing of the oxen, is inviting the curse of God. No wonder we have thousands of vacant churches in the land, and "Ichabod" written on the walls of many more. The Word of God is ignored, the meeting-house is turned into a play-house -- the pool-room and the billiard-room are installed, and the latest idea comes from a pastor in Boston who proposes to open "courting parlors" as an inducement to the young men and women to attend "the house of God"!
Unconsecrated money given by unconsecrated men to carry on the work of God is contrary to the expressed teachings of the Word of God, and appeals to them are inconsistent, misleading, and hurtful to the spiritual interests of the Church. There is a standard in the Bible for all human conduct, and there is also "the shekel of the sanctuary" as the standard that God sets. We are to build according to the pattern shown us on the mount, and obedience here means a blessing to the one who minds God -- a blessing spiritually, a blessing physically, and a blessing temporally.
Let us now proceed to the proofs of this statement.
First -- God blessed the giving of tithes. This is made plain all through the Old Testament. When God promises blessings He can always be depended upon. Abraham gave tithes to Melchizedek, and he was one of the richest men in all that country, plead with God for Sodom, and held Omnipotence at his will until he ceased to make requests.
Jacob returned with several bands across the brook that in former years he crossed with but a staff in his hand. He had been blessed and owned and protected by the God of Heaven to whom he gave the tenth.
Victory came to Israel under Hezekiah after the tithe of all had been brought in abundantly. The temple worship was restored, their enemies were overthrown, and in every work that the king began in the service of the house of God, and in the law, and in the commandments, he prospered.
Search the Word through, and it is apparent that when people were faithful in bringing in the tithes they were most abundantly blessed, and God withdrew His blessing when they were unfaithful. "There is that scattereth and yet increaseth there is that withholdeth... and it tendeth to poverty," is most conclusively proven in the history of the chosen people. We cannot put our own substitutions for what God so clearly demands and commands. We cannot place one-tenth of our time or talents at God's disposal and say we are meeting the commands of the Word. God requires tithes of wealth, substance, actual money.
Oftentimes I have seen an outpouring of the Spirit after a liberal offering was made unto the Lord by a people who were denying self to give. I have also seen men of God go to work at the carpenter's bench and in the harvest field to eke out an existence, and as a consequence the Church suffered in its spiritual condition. Personally, I have no sympathy with the closed-fisted parishioner who continually quoted Paul making tents and living in his own hired house. I believe every man of God who is called of God to preach the Gospel can do more for the cause of Christ and the salvation of souls by study of the Word, and heart interviews with God in prayer.
If it was not meet for the Apostles to "serve tables," neither is it meet for a minister of the Gospel to pursue secular avocations today. If it was profitable for the Apostles to give themselves "wholly unto the Word of God and prayer," it is certainly profitable today. Where the people measure up to the Word. and bring in the tithes to the storehouse, the man of God can devote himself to the work of the ministry.
Nehemiah saw the house of God forsaken, and contended with the rulers, censuring them because, owing to the failure to bring in the tithes, "the Levites and the singers were fled everyone to his field." (See Neh. 13.) "Thus saith the Lord of hosts; Consider your ways. Go up to the mountain, and bring wood, and build the house; and I will take pleasure in it, and I will be glorified, saith the Lord. 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 into his own house. THEREFORE the Heaven over you is stayed from dew, and the earth is stayed from her fruit. And I called for a drought upon the land, and upon the mountains, and upon the corn, and upon the new wine, and upon the oil, and upon that which the ground bringeth forth, and upon men, and upon cattle, and upon all the labor of the hands." (Hag. 1:7-11)
Where people honor the Lord with their substance and with the firstfruits of ALL their increase, the blessing is sure to follow; the liberal soul is made fat. "He that watereth shall also be watered himself." If they sincerely desire to know why the Church is so badly crippled, why with all the clubs, societies, leagues, brotherhoods, cultured ministers and choirs there is so little return, let them stand in the old paths and inquire for God's thought, let them return to scriptural methods and they shall see.
The clamor today is for twentieth century business methods introduced into the Church, as though God was smiling upon the business methods of today which have produced a vast number of very poor, more distress, and more wickedness, along with the multi-millionaires who have used the godless twentieth century business methods, while the cry of the toiler is ascending to the God of Sabaoth. Nineteen Hundred and Twelve has been the greatest crop-producing year this country has ever seen. and it has also broken the record for high prices for the necessities of life. Not twentieth century methods, but back to the first century, and God, and Pentecost, and scriptural methods of giving, then shall men "eat their meat with gladness and singleness of heart." Missionary fields shall blossom as the rose. The hands of the toilers shall be upheld, and the Church shall have her old-time victories.
Because tithes are withheld, churches today are suffering from spiritual drought and decline, treasuries are empty, missionary appropriations are decreased, many ministers are distressed financially, the missionary fields are neglected, the work burdened, and the needy and perishing are entering eternity without the Gospel.
There are more vacant churches in this country than ever before in all its history -- two thousand vacant Presbyterian pulpits. The Methodist Episcopal churches in Michigan and Wisconsin in the years gone by were wont to send to Canada far their needed ministerial supplies, but today there is a dearth of younger ministers in that country, and they have sent to England for one hundred and fifty men to fill their pulpits, and received but forty.
It takes God-given revivals to produce ministers and missionaries, and nothing can take their place. The devil's substitutes for old-fashioned revivals may fill the church parlors, and keep church kitchens busy on the night of the church social, but they produce barrenness spiritual barrenness -- and death in Zion.
Not twentieth century business methods, but, back to the Bible, back to the teachings of the Word of God, and the practices of the Wesleys, and Whitefields, and Asburys, and Finneys, and Pitmans. THEN shall the altars again become places of prayers, the mourners'-bench will become popular, old-fashioned conversions will follow, and ministers will be raised up who will not only sing, "Where He leads I'll follow," but will obediently go at the Divine command, even to the uttermost parts of the earth. Back to the Bible, and again I say, Back to the Bible.
Twentieth century thinking has given us the book, "Modern Thought and Traditional Faith," written by a minister of one of the leading denominations -- a book of which Dr. Munhall has said: "It will do more to curse the world than anything written since Paine's 'Age of Reason.'"
Listen to JEHOVAH as He declares the truth for the ages: "Be thou strong and very courageous, that thou mayest OBSERVE TO DO according to all the law... turn not from it to the right hand or to the left, THAT THOU MAYEST PROSPER WHITHERSOEVER THOU GOEST. This book of the law shall not depart out of thy mouth; but thou shalt meditate therein day and night, that thou mayest observe to do according to all that is written therein, for then thou shalt make thy way prosperous, and then thou shall have good success." The sweet singer, of Israel said the "blessed" man DELIGHTS "in the law of the Lord, and in it doth he meditate day and night; He shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water, that bringeth forth his fruits in his season, and whatsoever he doeth shall prosper." Spiritual and temporal prosperity are the result of walking obediently in the light of God's Word.
William Arthur, author of "Tongues of Fire," in his tract on "Proportionate Giving," bases his entire argument on the Word of God. He says, "If Christianity has left benevolence entirely to private decision, it also follows that while those branches of expenditure which regard our self-interest are regulated by fixed circumstances, that which is for the glory of God is at the mercy of chance. Three circumstances decide for each of us, to a great extent, the scale of many items of our outlay. Your rent is tolerably well fixed from year to year. Your board is not very uncertain. Your dress, and every other, claim of self-interest, has its proportion not ill-defined, and while it is probable that every outlay that nourishes self is regular, that only outlay which tends to free you from earth, and to connect your hopes with a better country, is precisely the one which the religion of Jesus has left to be the football of passion, or of accident. Suppose that a Christian, without offending against his religion, may spend on self-interest, more than nine-tenths of his income, then it follows that it is lawful for a Christian to be more selfish than a Jew. This conclusion may not be very flattering, but it is very clear. Every Jew was blessed with a religion which checked his downward and earthward tendency, at the very least to this extent, that one-tenth went to sacred things and thus connected them with his affections and hopes. Less than that he could not consecrate to the service of his God without a trespass against his religion. If a Christian may give less, his religion elevates him in a lower degree, leaves him to be more earthly without guilt, and less noble without reproach. One other consequence follows:-- if a Christian may, according to his religion, lawfully devote less than a tenth of his income to holy purposes, then Christianity has lowered the standard of a virtue, and that the virtue of liberality. The Jew who gave less than one-tenth was branded by his religion as a sinner. That system we regard as so much more earthly, so much less spiritual and heavenly than ours, ever held the standard of pecuniary self-denial up to that point at the very least."
