The Lutheran Pioneer St. Louis — 1926, Page 138

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138

THE LUTHERAN PIONEER.

the first-fruits, according to which the first-born of
man and beast and the first-fruits of field, garden,
and orchard must be consecrated and given to God.

And when we give to God and His work the
first place, we find that, in some wonderful way,
that which is left after we have given to God and
His work goes farther than the whole under or-
dinary circumstances could ever have been made
to go. Those who give God first place in their
giving have experiences similar to that of the
widow at Zarephath, as we find it told in chapter
seventeen of First Kings: In the time of the
famine in Israel Elijah was told to go to Zarephath,
for the Lord had there selected a widow to sus-
tain him. When the prophet came to the gate of
the city, he saw the woman gathering sticks and
asked her to bring him a drink of water. As the
widow went on her way to fetch the water, Elijah
called after her to bring him also a little bread.
The widow told him that all she had in her house
was a handful of meal and a small portion of oil.
“And, behold,” she continued, “I am gathering two
sticks that I may go in and dress it for me and my
son that we may eat it and die.” LElijah’s rejoinder
was: “Fear not; go and do as thou hast said; but
make me thereof a little cake first and bring it
unto me and after make for thee and for thy son.”
It was not selfishness on the part of Elijah that
prompted him to speak thus, but only his desire to
test and strengthen the widow’s faith. Listen to
what more he said to the widow: “For thus saith
the Lord God of Israel, The barrel of meal shall
not waste, neither shall the cruse of oil fail, until
the day that the Lord sendeth rain upon the earth.”
And the widow did as Elijah bade her, and she,
her son, and the prophet ate for many days. The
meal did not grow less, neither did the oil fail,
according to the word of the Lord which He had
spoken by Elijah.

The thought we want to bear in mind in con-
nection with this story is that Elijah, the Lord’s
prophet, demanded of the widow, “Make me a little
cake first.” The lesson taught is this, that we must
ever recognize the priority of God’s claims. He is
the preferred Creditor of each of us. But if we
put God’s claims first, we shall never lack. If we
honor His claims, He will surely make true the
words of our Savior: “Give, and it shall be given
unto you; good measure, pressed down and shaken
together, and running over shall men give into
your bosom.” ;

And that reminds us of another little story:

Somewhere — we believe in the good State of

Pennsylvania — there lived an old farmer who was
a puzzle to all the people in the neighborhood.
What the neighbors could not understand about
this old farmer was that despite the fact that he
was always giving away more and more from year
to year, he always had more and more. When
people expressed their surprise to him because of
this, his ready answer was: “Oh, that’s easily
explained. You see I just shovel into God’s bin
a part of all I receive, and He keeps shoveling
back into mine; and Gop HAS THE BIGGER SHOVEL!”
God will not let the cheerful giver get ahead of
Him. God loves to give, and He loves the cheerful
giver. And so the cheerful giver will ever find that
God will always keep him His debtor. No MATTER
HOW BIG YOUR SHOVEL MAY BE, GopD’s SHOVEL IS
BIGGER.

The most shortsighted thing you can possibly
do is to excuse yourself from giving on the ground
of being in debt. Then, to keep from giving to
God’s cause, you would only need keep in debt all
the time. And what wonder could it possibly be
if God were to keep such an ungrateful person in
debt all the while? And thus such an ingrate
would have the desire of his heart fulfilled and be
forever deprived of the blessings which giving gives.
Probably the poor man would never know what he
had lost, though eternally poorer for it.

F.J.L.

What the World Owes to Missions.

In these paragraphs I do not wish to touch upon
the real purpose of missions. It is:rather my pur-
pose to call attention to certain “by-products” of
Christian missions, blessings the world owes. to
missions, which even those who do not care for
their soul and its eternal welfare must appreciate.

Missions have replaced witch-doctors and needle
images with surgery and modern medical science.
They have introduced sanitation and hygiene to
the open-sewer towns of South America, to the
crowded native huts of: Africa, and to the filthy
cities of the East. ‘They have lowered the death-
rate of Chinese babies; they have taken quinine
into fever-stricken Asia; they have taught methods
of combating diphtheria, hookworm, tuberculosis,
cholera, and plague. In one year mission hospitals
cared for more than 10,000,000 cases and per-
formed almost 28,000 major operations. A mis-
sionary living in a little hut that cost twenty
dollars is the only doctor in his section of Africa.
Another missionary doctor takes care of 1,000