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SOWING AND REAPING
Tabernacle Sermon by 'Reb. Len G. ‘Broughton, D. D.
Text: “He which soweth sparingly shall reap also
sparingly; and he which soweth bountifully shall
reap also bountifully.’’
N plain words, I am going to talk to
you about giving, and I am thoroughly
aware that when a minister announces
that he is going to speak on giving,
there is a very perceptible chill in the
atmosphere. People just simply don’t
like to hear an announcement' like that.
I know that, and am thoroughly pre
pared to appreciate the fact, and yet,
I
why is it true? There is not a man of us who does
not know’ that it takes money to run as big a thing
as the church of the Lord Jesus Christ, and if you
will stop for a moment and think of the bigness of
the proposition that the Lord has entered upon
through His church, you would be ashamed if you
ever have been in that class that helps to create a
chilly atmosphere under such circumstances.
Just think for a moment of the bigness of His
work. The church itself has to be supported. The
cause of Christian education has to be looked after.
Colleges and schools in w’hich Christ figures as the
center of light and truth, are to be provided for
and maintained. Missionary enterprises at home
and abroad are to be projected and supported. Hos
pitals, asylums, orphanages, homes of the indigent
and helpless are to be provided for if Christianity
is applied and if the church fulfills its mission as
announced by Him w’ho founded it. Now 7 , these
things call for money. Houses are not to be built
without it. Men are not to be supported without it.
Schools are not to be carried on without it. Great
missionary enterprises the w’orld over can not live
w’ithout it. God has so arranged that all these
things are to be a part and parcel of our work and
of our substance. So why should any one experi
ence a chill when it is announced that God is to
speak through His Word and through His servant
concerning the matter of giving?
COMPLETE CONSECRATION.
And then, friends, giving is an essential part of
our consecration. I know’ a great many good peo
ple who are very ready to listen to you when you
discuss full and complete consecration, and yet shud
der the minute anything is said about money, as
if there could be any such thing as complete con
secration w’ithout complete willingness to give. No
man was ever yet consecrated unless with the con
secration of his heart there went the consecration
of his money. As if there could be any such thing
as complete consecration without complete giving!
And so it is absolutely essential in the life of any
people endeavoring to understand the will of God
and to grow in the grace of the Lord Jesus that
they should have a clear and a concise spiritual,
Scriptural understanding of the great question of
giving.
Now, the Apostle Paul, in this ninth chapter of
second Corinthians, is dealing with the question of
giving, and he is doing it very astutely. He is
doing it in away worthy of your study and of
mine. He is addressing a letter to this church w’ith
respect to the question of giving. He has to take
a collection on a given occasion; the occasion is
provided for, and this letter is sent to the church
instructing them concerning the manner and the
matter of giving. And in this the apostle sets us
a very good example, to say the least of it. He
goes to work to prepare his people for a collec
tion, and, mark you, this collection that he is speak
ing of is not a collection for their own city, or
for their own church. It is for the poor saints in
Jerusalem —a foreign mission collection —a collection
to help the poor saints in Jerusalem support the
gospel in their midst.
I say, he goes to work to prepare his people for
this collection. One great trouble with us today in
our giving is that it is not of the prepared char
acter. I wonder how many of us pray and ask for
The Golden Age for January 23, 1908.
Steaographically reported for The Golden Age.—Copyright applied for.
guidance before subscribing to a collection? I do
not know, but this I do know, that the apostle pre
pared this people for that collection. I would have
you look carefully at the points that he makes in
this letter sent to them concerning it. I would
have you to note the arguments that he puts forth
in behalf of a large collection for this cause, for
these arguments are the arguments of inspiration,
and are therefore applicable to all people for all
time, anywhere and everywhere.
Observe first that he uses the argument of their
reputation. He argues that they have a reputa
tion to sustain. Some people would say that this
is an unholy motive for giving—that it is beneath
the dignity of a Christian; that he should have a
higher motive than that. With this I agree in
part, and yet let us not forget that this was the
motive used by the inspired apostle. The maintain
ance of their reputation—a reputation already
gained in the world concerning a liberality of giv
ing, and he bases his appeal for a large collection
upon the reputation that they had made in the
world.
There is nothing more potential in life than hu
man influence. There is nothing today so power
ful in the formation of an atmosphere of a com
munity as influence. It has a great deal to do
with our conception and our conduct. I had an op
portunity recently of talking with a man who, in
my early life, inspired me as no other man ever
has. I can remember distinctly those childish feel
ings as I looked up to him and studied his life
and profited by his example. It was the highest
ambition of my boyhood heart and head to follow
in his footsteps—to be just such a man as he was.
In many respects I have failed, but even where I
have failed, I have felt that the ambition that I had
has been to my profit. That man never knew that
there was a little tow-headed, freckled-faced chap
watching him, walking in his footsteps. That man
never knew until a short while ago, when I w r as
privileged to talk with him about it, just how his
life has helped me.
THE POTENCY OF INFLUENCE.
Just as it is true of individuals, it is true of
churches, as churches are nothing more nor less
than the grouping together of many individuals in
which all together share in the dispositions and
tendencies and characters of the whole; and churches
find themselves influenced by other churches, and
other churches are influenced by still others. There is
no man that liveth to himself, and there is no church
that liveth to itself. If- so, then it must be dead,
for life will find expression, and expression will
create impression.
I can think of churches here and there that have
helped me to form my conceptions of church work
and life. There are some churches whose influence
has had more to do with ' the formation of this
church than anything else in the world.
They have had' to do with it in that they have
formed and fashioned our ways of thinking. We
have seen their success and have been stimulated
by their undertaking, and we have been fired with
ambition because they have done things we have
concluded that we can do. And just as it is true
that w r e have received inspiration from other
churches, it is equally as true that some other
churches have received inspiration from us, and so
it goes. Oh, the value of the church life! Oh, the
tremendous influence that a church sends forth!
How careful it should be; how prayerful it should
be!
Then again, you will observe that the apostle
stresses the law of Christian benevolence. 4 ‘He
which soweth sparingly shall reap also sparingly;
and he which soweth bountifully shall reap also
bountifully.” Here we find the law of Christian
benevolence as beautifully and as forcefully stated
as we can find it anywhere. It is a law of God
that in proportion to the faithfulness with which
we give, He gives back to us. This is illustrated in
every phase of' life. Nature abounds with illus
trations of this great law. I see a tiny plant. 1
regard it, perhaps, as a worthless and insig
nificant thing, but as I study it and examine it I
find that though it may have no other mission in
this world, it is the mission of that tiny, little, in
significant thing of breathing out through its little
mouths the oxygen that charges the air which we
ourselves breathe into our lungs, which purifies our
blood and builds up our tissue and supports our
life. Then, as I think of that little plant sending
out this great blessing to mankind, I think of the
fact that it is equally as dependent upon us for its
sustenance and life, for we breathe out carbon-diox
ide, which the plant needs to sustain its life and
build up its tissues and harden its fiber, and so
as we exchange with each other we are all sup
ported, all privileged to live.
A LESSON FROM NATURE.
We can see this illustrated beautifully in the hu
man body. In studying anatomy in the dissecting
room I have seen as beautiful and as forceful an
illustration of the apostle’s teaching as I have ever
seen anywhere. Here in our left chest i< a great
pump which we call the heart. It is the greatest
muscular organ of the body. It is made up of the
strongest fibres; it is for the purpose of giving the
blood that is necessary to sustain life-; and yet, this
muscular pump is so unselfish in its life as not to
retain one single solitary drop of the blood that
passes through it. But the heart las to live. Its
muscles and fibres have to be fed by blood. The
moment the supply of blood is ;ut off, death en
sues —but it does not retain one drop of this life
giving fluid.
But God has so ordered it, in keeping with His
great irrevocable principle, that it must give in
order to live. As it would seem, lie ’'ants to teach
the lesson that in order to live it must give all that
it has. All the blood that goes into the heart is
pumped out into the great aorta, which supplies
all other blood vessels of the body, where it comes
in contact with a tiny little coronary artery, which
forces the blood back into the muscular wall of
the heart, where it supplies its food, and feeds
the heart.
Suppose that this pump should act upon the
principle that the average man and the average
church and the average country is acting upon
today. Suppo’se it should say, “I propose to hold,
first of all, to a sufficient supply of blood to take
care of emergencies in my own case, and after 1
have laid up a sufficient supply to care for my
own emergencies, if they should come, then I will
give out of my supply to the rest of the body.”
If the heart should act upon this principle, which
is your principle, and mine, to too great an extent,
I say to you that the moment that happened death
would ensue. It is only in proportion to the way
that the heart fulfils the great principle of God
of giving that it gets itself fed and can live. If
the heart should fail to pump its last drop into
the great vessel, the vessel would not be filled, and,
failing to be filled, the little artery would not
be supplied, and hence there would be no food
for the heart.
Aside from the question of supporting the mis
sions and saving the heathen, there is the ques
tion of our spiritual life. In order to maintain
that, we must give.
BALANCED GIVING.
Then, again, let me say that we have got to give
in the way which is most unselfish. The apostle
here brought this argument to bear concerning the
gifts to be taken out of their city over into Jerusa
lem, where the poor saints needed help. It was an
entirely unselfish appeal that he was making. Af
ter all, that is the real giving—giving to a cause
from which you will receive nothing whatever. That
is the giving that brings the greatest reward. Os
course, there is a reward for giving to our own
