One other passage is all that need be referred to in order to prove that the lesson of liberality which our Saviour taught is the same lesson which the Bible teaches everywhere. In Eccles. xi: 1, God says, "Cast thy bread upon the waters; for thou shalt find it after many days."
If we should see a man standing on the end of a wharf and throwing bread upon the waters, we should think that he was a foolish man, who was wasting his bread, or only feeding the fishes with it. But suppose that you and I were travelling through Egypt—the land of the celebrated pyramids and other great wonders. The famous river Nile is there. During our visit the inundation of that river takes place. It overflows its banks, and spreads its water over all the level plains that border on the river. This takes place every year. And when the fields are all overflowed with water, the farmers go out in boats, and scatter their grain over the surface of the water. The grain sinks to the bottom. The sediment in the water settles down on the grain, and covers it with mud. By and by the waters flow back into the river. The fields become dry. The grain springs up and grows. The mud that covered it is like rich manure, and makes it grow very plentifully, and yield a rich harvest. And here we see the meaning of this passage. God makes use of this Egyptian custom to teach us the lesson of liberality that we are now considering. He tells us that the money which we give to the poor, or use to do good with, is like the grain which the Egyptian farmer casts upon the water, and which will surely yield a rich harvest by and by.
This teaches us the lesson of liberality. And when we think of all these passages, we see very clearly that the Bible teaches the same lesson which Jesus taught when he said to his disciples, "Give, and it shall be given unto you." And what we learn, both from the teaching of Christ, and from the different passages referred to, is—that "giving is God's rule for getting."
And now, having seen some of the Bible, proofs for this lesson of liberality, or for this rule about giving and getting, let us go on to speak of some of the illustrations of this rule. These are very numerous.
And we may draw our illustrations from three sources, viz.:—from the Bible; from nature; and from everyday life.
There are two illustrations of which we may speak from the Bible. We find one of these in the history of the prophet Elijah. You remember that there was a great famine in the land of Israel during the lifetime of this prophet. For more than three years there was not a drop of rain all through the land. The fields, the vineyards, and gardens dried up, and withered, and yielded no fruit. During the first part of the time when this famine was prevailing, God sent Elijah to "the brook Cherith, that is before Jordan," I. Kings xvii: 7-17. There the ravens brought him food, and he drank of the water of the brook.
But after awhile the brook dried up. Then God told him to go to the city of Zarephath, or Sarepta, on the coast of the Mediterranean Sea, and that he had commanded a widow woman there to sustain him. He did not tell him the name of the woman; nor the street she lived in; nor the number of her house. Elijah went. When he came near the place he met a woman, picking up some sticks of wood. I suppose God told him that this was the woman he was to stay with. Elijah spoke to her, and asked her if she would please give him a drink of water. When she was going to get it, he called to her again, and said he was hungry, and asked her to bring him a piece of bread. Then she told him that there was not a morsel of bread in her house. All she had in the world was a handful of meal in a barrel, and a little oil in a cruse, and that she was gathering a few sticks, that she might go and bake the last cake for herself and her son, that they might eat it and die. And Elijah said, "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. 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."
This was a hard thing to ask a mother to do. It was asking her to take the last morsel of bread she had, and that she needed for herself and for her hungry boy, and give it to a stranger. Yet she did it; because she believed God. I seem to see her turning the meal barrel up, to get the meal all out. Then she pours out the oil from the cruse, and drains out the last drop. She mixes the meal and the olive oil together, as is the custom in that country still, and makes a cake which can soon be baked. She takes it to the man of God, who eats it thankfully, and is refreshed. Then she returns to the empty barrel and cruse, and finds as much in them as she had lately taken out. She prepares some bread for herself and her son, and they eat it thankfully as bread sent from heaven. The next day it is the same, and the day after, and so on through all the days of the famine. We are not told how long it was after Elijah went to the widow's house before the days of the famine were over. But suppose we make a calculation about it. The famine lasted for three years. Now let us suppose, that the first half of this time was spent by the prophet at the brook Cherith. Then his stay at the widow's house must have been at least eighteen months. And, if this miracle of increasing the meal and the oil was repeated only once a day, there would be for the first twelve months, or for the year, three hundred and sixty-five miracles; and for the six months, or the half year, one hundred and eighty-two more; and adding these together we have the surprising number of five hundred and forty-seven miracles, that were performed to reward this good widow for the kindness she showed to the prophet Elijah, when she gave him a piece of bread, and a drink of water! What an illustration we have here of the truth we are considering, that giving is God's rule for getting.
But the best illustration of this subject to be found in the Bible is given in our Saviour's own experience. He not only preached the lesson of liberality, but practised it. He is himself the greatest giver ever heard of. In becoming our Redeemer he showed himself the Prince of givers. He gave—not silver and gold; not all the wealth of the world, or of ten thousand worlds like ours; but "He gave Himself for us." He can say indeed, to each of us, in the language of the hymn:
"I gave my life for thee,