A giving God

[AI translation] In connection with worship and all the manifestations of church life, the unpleasant subject of giving is always mentioned again. At the end of every service there is the call to sacrifice and the promise that "God loves a cheerful giver" 2 Cor. 9,7 . We have heard these appeals so many times that they have become familiar, boring and sometimes even unpleasant and annoying. That is why the Spirit has been urging us for some time now to talk for once about the essence of true Christian giving. That is why God has chosen this interesting story of the widow of Sarepta to me, as a living illustration of the oft-heard saying that "God loves a cheerful giver". So I wanted to talk about the giver. Yesterday, when I dug into this story, I saw that it is not really about that, but about the giving God! Because our God is so wonderfully loving and powerful that he gives even when he asks. He gives to us by asking us!The story goes that there was a terrible drought in the Holy Land at that time. The rivers dried up, the vegetation burned, famine and even starvation threatened the land. And then the prophet Elijah, a man of God, was living for months with a poor widow. At a worse time, there could not really have been a guest in the house, for the widow had nothing more than a handful of flour in her cup and a little oil in her jar. This was what she was about to prepare as the last food in this life for herself and her only son, so that they too might bid farewell to this sad world and await a cruel death. And now Elijah, this stranger, is taking this last little meal from those who are suffering in their final hour of need, in the name of God! From a secular point of view, something outrageous and annoying is happening here. What a ruthlessness to ask for support from someone who should be in need of support himself! To almost take the last bite out of his mouth! You're really robbing that poor woman! And a man of God is doing it in the name of God! That's more than enough!
How can God ask for such a sacrifice, especially when He should urgently help a poor family not to be destroyed? Yes, that is the way the world thinks. Because it does not know - and how could it know - that God asks precisely because He wants to give. He demands sacrifice precisely because He wants to help the widow's misery! And if the widow had thought as the world thinks, and had indignantly refused this absurd request, and had not given her last morsel, she would have been very wrong. She and her son would have eaten the last of it and then waited until they were dead. But how fortunate this woman was that God asked her for her last morsel, for only in this way could the miracle of a handful of flour and a drop of oil not have been consumed for months. Incomprehensible as it may seem, that is the miracle! The reason that the little food lasted longer than he had calculated in advance was that he could give it away. A realistic calculation would have been that the whole stock could have made a single dinner for two people. But it was because God had asked for enough for a third, and the woman had accepted the sacrifice, that there was much more.
Do you feel enlightened by this otherwise obscure saying: "For to every one that hath shall be given, and multiplied: but from him that hath not, even that which he hath shall be taken away" Mt 25:29. This woman had no provision to give of which she could have given with great grace, but simply gave what she had at God's request, and in this very way it was given to her and multiplied for her. This does not mean that he made a good business, that he became rich by it, but that he thereby became sufficient. It is enough for himself and his son that he could give it to others. If he had not given it, he would not have had enough for himself!
I don't know how the Lord God does it, but He always does!
It is certain that no one has ever been paid to open their hearts and pockets to God's pleading word! The same thing happened once at the Lake of Galilee, when a little boy gave Jesus the five small barley loaves and two small fish that his mother had packed for him as a day's food for the journey. When Jesus then began to distribute the daily ration of one man, five thousand people were well fed (see John 6:3). It is a great mystery and a miracle, but it is true! And it was not only true then, it is true today! So when the Lord God brings a cause before you and asks you to contribute, to give financially, when God asks you to give to His cause, never forget that He asks because He wants to give! Let us listen to the story! Elijah's request puts the woman to an ever greater test. First he says to her, "Please bring me some water in a vessel." 1Kir17,10. Well, there must be some way to do that! Although it was not easy, because there was a great shortage of water in the whole country because of the great drought. And the woman immediately set off willingly. But then the prophet cries after her, "Bring me, I pray you, a piece of bread in your hand" 1Kir17,11. "Will this not be enough? For this will cut into the whole household, and upset the whole calculation! And now the request goes even further: 'But first bake me a small loaf of it and bring it here, and then bake it for yourself and your son' 1Kir 17,13. Of course it stops, because here the miracle begins! We too, when the bushel is held out to us, think: well, something can be done about this! But then they also come for the church tax, it's getting too much! And on top of that, they keep asking us for donations for the charity work of the church! Isn't that insatiable? How can they ask us in the name of God now, at a time when we ourselves do not have enough? How can anyone give when he can barely afford to support himself? How can one ask of those who are poor themselves, and would rather need help than give themselves?
If thoughts like these come to you when you hear God's plea, think of this anonymous old woman, and think of God: can you imagine that God wants to rob you? For it is not God who plunders and shames, but God who gives and enriches, who in His giving love has gone so far as to give you the most beautiful piece of Himself in the person of Jesus! To you He has given all the results of Jesus' death and resurrection, the merit of His holy and pure life! Out of pure love, He has written in your name the whole heavenly inheritance of Jesus! He has given you the innocence of Jesus to cover the ugliness of your own sins! The Scripture says in one place, "He who did not please his own Son, but gave him up for us all, how shall he not with him also give us all things?" Romans 8:32 If you have come to know Him in this way, by receiving His greatest gift, Jesus Christ, then you will know that He is a God of lavish abundance, who always gives, even when He asks! For He never asks you for a sacrifice so that you may not have any left over, but so that He may multiply what little you do have. For to him who has to give, to him who dares to give, it is given and multiplied!
So it is not only with money, but with everything else that we give to God at His request! So it is with time, for example. As soon as I give my time to God, not just a minute or two, but a serious amount of time, an hour or two, I suddenly find that I have more time to do other things with my precious time! Whatever I put into God's hands as an offering, be it time, money, service, talent, or whatever, is returned in some incomprehensible way, multiplied. As long as one dares to give in faith to the Lord's request, the miracle always happens that the fool's flour does not run out, nor the jar of oil become scarce! So there is no need to be afraid, let alone annoyed, when the Lord asks something of us! For He still gives, and He gives in this way!
But for this miracle to happen, there is something else that must be taken very seriously! Elijah said to the widow, "First bake me a little cake and bring it to me, and then bake it for you and your son." 2Kor17,13. If this is a crescent, no miracle will happen! Many people only go so far as to give from the surplus. They give if they can spare it. But it is not a sacrifice, it is an alms we give to God! There's no blessing in it! That is why the stream of giving in our Hungarian Reformed Church is so narrow that without external help it could not even carry a modest congregational charity work on its back. If the principle guiding our giving is that I first meet my own needs and then give what is left over to God's request, imagine how little the result is! After all, what is left in one's pocket today after one's own needs have been met? Nothing, because we do not observe the order of first to God, then to ourselves! We have run out of our flour and our oil. So give me first, says God, and not only if there is any left! The rest is not God's, but the beginning, the very beginning! And if you dare to live it, then the miracle will happen, that there will be some for others, and some for you!
There are many people all over the world, and more and more of us in this congregation, who put the principle of "God first" into practice by offering the tithe to the Lord. What this means is that one takes one-tenth of all one's income, that is, one-tenth of one's salary, one-tenth of one's other income, separates it from the nine-tenths, and gives it to God as God's money, treating it quite separately. The tithe-payers could tell many blessed miracles to prove that the flour of the Ark does not indeed run out, nor the oil of the jar become scarce, if it had been given first at God's request. A very low-paid clerk once told me that since he had found, by the grace of God, that he was allowed to tithe, he did not know how, but he was getting on quite well on the salary on which he had never been able to live before.
Of course, it's not a business, and it's certainly not compulsion. If you want to do it because you have to, don't do it! Let only those who are eternally grateful to God, who gives abundance of grace, and who can rejoice in their hearts that God asks of them and that they are free to give to God, follow the example of the tithe-payers! One thing is certain, however: the man who gives in faith comes to know God, who gives in grace, in a more majestic glory every day.
Amen.
Date: 1 August 1948.