USA > Virginia > City of Staunton > City of Staunton > The First Presbyterian Church, Staunton, Virginia > Part 9
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VI. My sixth proposition is :
At one time in the history of the world a system of re- ligious finances was in operation which embodied these fea-
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tures. It was instituted by divine command, and it is the only system that we are sure God ever appointed.
I refer, of course, to the tithe law of the Israelites. When an Israelite received the product of his labor, of whatever kind it might be, whether grain or oil or wine or lambs or whatever else, before using from it himself, he set aside a definite fraction of it for the worship of God. That fraction was one-tenth or a tithe. That tenth belonged to God. It was consecrated; it was holy. "And all the tithe of the land, whether of the seed of the land or the fruit of the tree, is the Lord's; it is holy unto the Lord. And if a man will at all redeem aught of his tithes, he shall add thereto the fifth part thereof. And concern- ing the tithe of the herd or of the flock, even whatsoever passeth under the rod, the tenth shall be holy unto the Lord. He shall not search whether it be good or bad, neither shall he charge it." (Lev. xxvii, 30-32). There was also set apart in Israel about one-tenth of the people (to be exact, one tribe out of twelve, the tribe of Levi) whose duty it was to do all the official acts of religion. To these Levites God gave the tithes of the rest of Israel for a means of living. They had no inheritance in the divis- ion of the land and their living came from these tithes. (Num. xviii, 24). Here then is a system of religious revenues that God appointed at one time and it bears the stamp of God's approval as a just and wise system. It is the only system that does thus bear the clear and un- questionable approval of God. It has been maintained that God has withdrawn that system and substituted another for it, but there is at least a doubt or question as to whether He has done so or not. There is no doubt that He at one time ordained the tithe law. So that law has the distinction of being the only system of religious finances concerning which there is no doubt that God did appoint and approve of. I shall return to the question of
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whether or not He has supplanted that system with another.
There are some popular misconceptions of the nature of these tithes. 1. Some have understood the tithe to be a tithe of one's surplus earnings. I have had right wealthy men to tell me that they practiced the tithing plan, when I knew perfectly well that they did not do so. If they had tithed, their offerings would have amounted to several hundred dollars, whereas they did not give, at the most, more than $100. They were not telling a known falsehood. They simply failed to understand what the tithe meant. They thought it meant a tenth of the surplus. They paid their family expenses, improved [their homes, decorated these homes, purchased books and pictures, indulged in luxuries, took pleasure trips, gave presents, and when
they had spent all they could in these ways and had a few hundred dollars left over, they gave a tenth of that to the Lord and then imagined that they were tithing as the Israelites did. But the tenth which the Israelite gave was not a tenth of his net profits or his surplus, but of his un- used, undivided, gross income. He deducted the Lord's tenth before he took any part for himself. Of course it is proper to deduct the business expenses or those expenses incurred in the actual making of the income. That cannot be fairly reckoned as a part of the income itself. But while the business expenses are deducted the personal and family expenses ought not to be.
2. It has sometimes been supposed that the tithe was exacted for both religious uses and civil taxes, because there was an alliance between the church and the State in Israel. Acting upon that theory, some men claim to pay a tenth because when they add their taxes and their contri- butions to religious purposes they amount to a tenth of their income. Now this is a misconception also. Whatever may have been the relations between the church and the State under the old dispensation, their revenues were kept dis-
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tinct. The tithes were assigned to the Levites as their living and these Levites were religious and not civil officers. They were not numbered among the soldiers, they had no in- heritance or landed property, they performed no offices of a civil or secular government. They were set apart for religious duties. All the duties mentioned as proper for them were of a religious kind. They were to bear the ark, attend upon the tabernacle, minister to the Lord and bless the people. . On the other hand there were civil officers distinct from these, such as judges and kings. They exacted taxes of their own. The great quarrel which the ten tribes under Jeroboam had with Rehoboam was be- cause of the taxes. They demanded that Rehoboam should reduce the taxes his father Solomon had imposed and he would not do so, but increased them. We do not read of their appropriating the tithes nor sharing their taxes with the Levites. Uzziah, the king, was stricken with leprosy, which clung to him throughout life, for dis- regarding this distinction between the civil and religious officers in the matter of offering sacrifices. The tithe then was a religious tax, and he does not tithe in the Bible sense who divides his tenth between the taxes and religious officers.
3. It has sometimes been supposed that when the Israelites paid a tenth it was devoted to both charities and public worship. There were three kinds of offerings in Israel-tithes, alms and free-will offerings. The first of these was compulsory and the last two voluntary as to quantity. "The tenth shall be holy unto the Lord. The tithe is the Lord's." It did not in any sense belong to the man on whose place it was made. It was not his to make charitable offerings out of. Suppose you own a farm and you put a tenant on it, agreeing to give him one-half of the yield for the other. When you go to make a settle- ment with him at the end of the year, you find that he has a large share and has assigned you a small one. When
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you inquire the reason, he tells you that he has been help- ing the poor in the neighborhood out of your half, and that is the explanation of its being so reduced. I think you would give him to understand that hereafter if he wished to be charitable he must show that charity out of his half of the property, and if you wish any of your half to be spent in that way you would prefer to distribute it your- self. The case is exactly analogous except that God said to the Israelite, "I will allow you nine-tenths and you must reserve me one-tenth." If the Israelite wanted to be chari- table and give alms he must do it out of his nine-tenths and leave the Lord's tenth alone. That was God's in such a special sense that if a man took it, it would be stealing. That is the very language God's word applies to it. "Ye have robbed me," God said to Israel. They replied : "Wherein have we robbed Thee ?" He answered : "In tithes and offerings." Wherever else of the tithe law may or may not have survived, this much at least has. What- ever is contributed for religious uses is contributed to the worship of God and not as a charity. The minister, for in- stance, is not an object of charity. He may in the provi- dence of God become an object of charity. He may be- come disabled through disease or injury, and may not have any friends to whom he can properly look for assistance and he may have to go to the almshouse. When that time comes it is his duty to go, and not to go rebelliously, but go rejoicingly as to the new sphere in which God permits him to labor and suffer for His glory. But so long as he re- tains the use of brain and muscle sufficiently to earn his own living, he ought to scorn a charity as an affront to his manhood and an impeachment of his integrity. What the Christian people contribute to the support of religion is the tribute they pay to God, and when they have paid it to Him He gives it to the minister, as He formerly gave the Lord's tenth to the Levite.
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VII. There are those who claim that the tithe is still binding, and they present a strong argument in support of this claim.
1. It is claimed that the tithe law was not repealed along with the other regulations belonging to the Mosaic dispensation, because it did not belong specially to that dispensation, but it existed before it. Like the Sabbath law, it was in operation before the Mosaic law, and there- fore, like the Sabbath law, it is intended to continue after the Mosaic law is repealed. (I once asked a gentleman who held these views, why it was that the tithe law was not put in the Ten Commandments just as the Sabbath law was, if it was intended to be so much like that law. He answered : "It is in the Ten Commandments. It is represented in the eighth commandment which says, 'Thou shalt not steal,' for the tithe is the Lord's and it is just as truly stealing to take what belongs to God as to take what belongs to man." I throw out that sugges- tion for what you may think it is worth.) Now if we ask these advocates of the tithe law what is their ground for saying that there was any tithe law before the time of Moses, they cite the case of Abraham's paying tithes to Melchisedec. The tenth which Abraham paid Mel- chisedec was not a voluntary offering. As the Greek word in the seventh chapter of Hebrews shows, Mel- chisedec "tithed" or exacted tithes of Abraham, showing that there was a law or a divine command working in that case. Another instance of the operation of the tithe law before the time of Moses was that of Jacob's paying a tithe. Was it merely by accident that Jacob decided to offer to the Lord exactly the same portion which God had demanded of Abraham and which was afterwards fixed in the law of Moses ? In further proof of the statement that the tithe law did not belong specially to the Mosaic law and therefore was not repealed with that law, they refer us to the fact that the practice of tithing was not confined
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to the Israelites. A great many nations practiced it. Some claim that the practice has been universal. I have never been able to verify that claim. It is not necessary to prove that it is universal, for it is remarkable if it proves to be general. The question arises, "How did so many nations get the idea that a tenth was the proportion of the income which they ought to give to religious pur- poses ?" When the question is asked, "How did the nations get the idea of animal sacrifices ?" we answer that they received it by tradition from Adam. Adam was taught to shed the blood of animals in expiation of sin and as a type of the sacrifice of Christ, and the custom was handed down from father to son till it prevailed in nearly all nations. If this is a satisfactory account of the pre- valence of animal sacrifices, why is it not an equally satis- factory explanation of the prevalence of tithing, thus tracing the custom back to a probable origin in Eden ?
Another argument by which they seek to prove that the tithe law is still binding upon us is that there is no sentence in the New Testament expressly repealing that law, and if it is repealed no other plan for raising money has been substituted for it. It has sometimes been sup- posed that the law was formally set aside and a new one put in its place by the command in I Cor. xvi, 2: "Upon the first day of the week let every one of you lay by him in store as God hath prospered him." It is very hard to see how this language can be regarded as opposed to tithing. Even if the apostle were here discussing the raising of money for church purposes, the language ap- plies to tithing. If you make a thousand dollars and give one hundred to the church, and I make five hundred and give fifty, we are giving as "God hath prospered us." But the truth is the apostle is not discussing the raising of money for the church at all, but for a merely charitable purpose, as will be seen by examining the first and the third verses of the chapter. If then the law is not ex-
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pressly repealed and no other has been put in its place, what right have we to say that it is not in force to-day ?
3. Another argument that is used to prove that tith- ing was intended to continue as God's plan for raising the revenues of the church is the language of the apostle in I Cor. ix. 13-14 : "Do ye not know that they which min- ister about holy things live of the things of the temple? and they which wait at the altar are partakers with the altar? Even so hath the Lord ordained that they which preach the Gospel should live of the Gospel."
Now I will not claim that such arguments prove that the tithe is still binding. I promised at the beginning of the discussion that I would not lay down a single main proposition, but such as I felt sure I could secure your ab- solute concurrence in. I can see how this reasoning, strong as it is, may fail to convince you, so that I content myself with a statement of the position without claiming that it has been established. But if I am not prepared to take that position, I am prepared to take a safer and a stronger one, and now I proceed to announce my eighth proposition from which I do not see that there can be any escape.
VIII. Christians should not be satisfied to give less than a tenth.
1. If the advocates of a tithe law have not proved that such a law is obligatory, they have presented an ar- gument so strong that no one can, in the face of it, assert that the tithe law has been repealed. Such is the state of the case that no one can affirm with confidence that he knows it has been repealed. And if there is any uncer- tainty about it, we dare not withhold the tenth lest we rob God. The bare doubts as to whether God laid a special claim to that tenth or permitted me to use it, would make me afraid to touch it, just as I would have been afraid to touch the ark of the covenant after Uzziah had been stricken dead for laying his hand upon it.
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2. Again, either the law has been repealed or it has not. If it has not, then we are bound to give the tenth. If it has been repealed, why has it been? Doubtless in accordance with the analogy of all repeals, it has been removed to make way for something larger. The Passover has been taken away to make room for the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper. Bloody sacrifices have been abolished because the great antitypical bloody sacrifice has come. The temple has been removed that Jehovah might fill the earth with His presence, that those who wish to worship Him might worship Him in spirit and in truth. So if the law of the tenth has been withdrawn, it is doubtless to prepare for larger and not smaller offerings.
Everything else has expanded in the Christian dis- pensation. The sphere of worship is enlarged. Formerly it was confined within the narrow limits of Palestine, but now national boundaries have been broken, and it is to go into all the earth. The motive is increased. If a tenth was a fitting tribute of worship to the Jew, who knew the Christ only through the obscurities of symbol and of prophecy, what should be the measure of our gratitude when we know the dying love and tender sympathies of Jesus and the gracious influences of the Holy Spirit?
3. The appeal becomes even stronger yet when we contrast ourselves with the heathen. The Egyptians paid tithes to the worship of an ox, the Greeks and Romans paid tithes to the worship of their unclean deities, the Mormons pay tithes to support their infamous religion, and when we think of all the glories that invest our re- ligion, and with which it will invest us, can we yield prec- edence to these heathen religions? Blood-bought servants of Jesus, shall we not remove this dishonor from us that when all restrictions are removed, and we are left to choose what amount we shall give as an expression of our love and a symbol of our liberty, we give less than the heathen do?'
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At three different times I have made a special study of this subject, and each time the study has been as ex- haustive as I could make it. Each time I have accompa- nied the study with a special prayer that I might be guided to see the truth, to know whether this law has been repealed or not. I have asked for views upon that question so clear that I might not only know how to act myself, but, as a public teacher, I might be able to point out the path of duty to God's people and say to them con- fidently, "this is certainly the truth." God has not seen fit to answer the prayer in that way, but he has answered it in a better way. He has not shown me certainly whether the law is binding or is not, but instead of giving me a strong probable argument on one side or the other, he has enabled me to plead for the practice of tithing by an argument that is to my mind irrefragable. The rea- soning seems to me so compact that I do not see a crevice in which the point of a needle may be inserted.
It is proper at this point to allude briefly to some of the common practical objections to tithing. I might say in general that all the objections brought against the practice of tithing in this day, could have been brought against it with the same force in ancient Israel.
1. There are some who say : "I am too poor to pay a tenth of my income." But they are not really poorer than many who had to pay tithes in Israel. They are not poorer than the laborers who "earned a penny a day," when Christ was on earth.
2. Others object that they do not know what their in- come is and so cannot give a tenth of it. I admit that there is some practical difficulty here, and there are differ- ent kinds of difficulties in different kinds of business. No general rule can be prescribed. Each man will have to settle this question for himself and by the help of such information as his account books give. But it is possible in every case, by a close study of the situation, to reach a
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safe working estimate. The Jews, no doubt, had the same sorts of difficulties in making an estimate that we have. From the circle of my own acquaintance I recall ministers, lawyers, physicians, merchants and farmers who have practiced it. It has been suggested that if the case were reversed and God had offered to add a tenth to our income instead of subtracting a tenth from it we would very readily make some sort of satisfactory estimate.
3. It is sometimes objected that tithing is wrong in principle, since it creates the impression that only a tenth belongs to God, whereas all that we have is His and all must be used for His glory. In reply to this objection, I would ask if it is not true that God owned everything that the Israelites owned too ? And yet God said, "The tithe is the Lord's." That tenth was the Lord's in a sense in which he did not lay claim to the remainder. That tenth was simply a tribute, it was a token of the fact that God had a title to the whole. We call the Sabbath "The Lord's Day," but we do not mean thereby that only one day in the week is the Lord's. That day is specially consecrated to him in token of the fact that he owns all our time. Now the question for us as Christians is, when we go to consecrate a part of our substance to the Lord as an acknowledgment that He has a right to it, what is a proper proportion ? Should we give more or less than the Israelite did ?
IX. Tithing brings a blessing both spiritual and ma- terial.
I need hardly discuss the spiritual benefit that would accrue, as that is almost self-evident. Every act of con- secration whether of ourselves or of our susbtance is attended with spiritual blessing. The remarkable thing about tithing is that one does not lose, but rather gains by it financially. If it had been desirable to do so, I could have occupied the whole hour I have been speaking with the recital of the cases of persons who have been blessed
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with success in business as the result of their paying tithes. The first case I met with in my own experience was that of a gentleman, 75 years of age, who was quite a wealthy man. He told me that after he began to pay tithes his contributions were seven or eight times as much as they had ever been and he felt the loss of what he gave less than he had ever done. A few years ago, when this subject was discussed throughout our church, a minister wrote a number of postal cards to eminent ministers in the church asking their opinion of the practice of tithing. He was particularly anxious to see the answer of a vener- able minister, who was reputed to have made a great deal of money during his life. This was the substance of the answer he received ; "For several years after I entered the ministry I had a hard time. I received a small salary and found it very hard to make it support my family. At last I began to pay a tenth of my salary to the worship of God. I then began to feel a relief from the strain of poverty and even to accumulate a little. As this re- lief and success came, I increased my contributions beyond the tenth, and the more I gave the more I made until now I am considered rich. So that my experince has led me to object to the practice of paying one-tenth to the Lord. I think that is too little." I know a young lawyer in the Southwest whose friends once asked him how it happened that he always gave so readily and so generously to every religious object that was presented to him. They could not understand it be- cause he did not seem to have any better clients nor any more of them then the other lawyers in the town. He said: "Whenever I get any money I always put a tenth of it into a box by itself. So when I am asked to make a con- tribution there is always plenty of money to do it with, and it does not hurt me to give it because the money is already consecrated to the Lord, and I could not use it for any other purpose anyhow." A gentleman has sent out a
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circular to thousands of people in this country advocating the custom of tithing and challenging the production of a single case in which a man had proven a failure in business who gave a tenth of his income to the worship of God. Though that challenge had been standing now for years and the circular is all the while actively sent out in every direction, not one such case has ever been reported to the author. Sometimes it has been reported that the success of such persons is not uniform and unbroken. Sometimes they meet with business reverses, such as will come to the most prosperous men, but in all cases they recover from their embarrassments and start again at once on the up- ward grade. If the rule even had many exceptions it would be wonderful, how much more wonderful when it has no exception.
It would be wrong in me not to give you the benefit of my own experience. If I should give you that experience it would not be a violation of the Saviour's command, "'Let not thy left hand know what thy right hand doeth." That commandment refers to alms and not to what is paid to the worship of God, which was a public act. Every word I bring you this morning, I bring from the hotly con- tested battle-ground of a personal experience. I come to tell you of victory, but a victory achieved through absolute surrender, and of relief from financial straits brought about by giving to the Lord the honor due to him.
Some will doubtless say that this is an appeal to a wrong motive. But ought we to characterize it in this way when God distinctly appeals to this motive in his Word ? He makes that very appeal in the verse which I have chosen for a text for this sermon. "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. iii, 9. "There is that scattereth and yet increaseth ; and there is that withholdeth more than is meet, but it tendeth to poverty,"
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Prov. xi, 24. "Give and it shall be given unto you ; good measure, pressed down, and shaken together and running over, shall men give into your bosom," Luke, vi. 38. "Bring ye all the tithes into the store-house, 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, Malachi iii, 10.
Now I have concluded what I proposed to say on this important subject, I have presented the subject in a series of nine propositions as follows :
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