But God has so designed this present dispensation that, in several ways, He needs us.

The foolishness of preaching
Many who have preached the gospel have experienced great difficulty. In Paul’s day, "The Jews require a sign, and the Greeks seek after wisdom: but we preach Christ crucified, unto the Jews a stumbling block, and unto the Greeks foolishness" ( I Cor. 1:22-23).

That the Messiah should die hanging on a tree was unthinkable to the Jews, for by so doing he was cursed by the Law. The preaching of the gospel had to overcome this offensive concept. That the Savior from sin and future king of the world should die a criminal’s death at the insistence of his own people was incredible to the Greeks. Their heroes died heroic deaths, not the ignominy of crucifixion.

Given these problems, it would have made preaching much easier if the risen Lord Jesus had not ascended to heaven but had continued to walk among men. Then they could have been convinced by his presence, which would provide direct evidence he was the risen, immortal Lord of glory. This was not God’s method, however; it was by the foolishness of preaching He had determined His message would be spread.

In our situation, we don’t have the same problems as the apostle, but we do have great difficulty explaining the Truth to people burdened with sophisticated atheism or with apostate teachings promulgated and elaborated over the millennia. How many times we have yearned for the Bible knowledge to recall the right passages at the right time and to eloquently verbalize the doctrines we know to be true. If only an angel or the Lord Jesus himself would appear to confirm the Truth, it would be so much easier to convince people of the gospel.

But God is not spreading His word through angels or through the visible presence of the risen Christ; He is doing it by human beings. In adopting this method, God is dependent on fallible, mortal men and women to do His work. Clearly, if God’s work is to do done in this regard, we must do it.

God’s weapons of righteousness
In Romans, Paul makes another telling comment: "Neither yield ye your members as instruments [weapons AVmg & Gk.] of unrighteousness unto sin: but yield yourselves unto God, as those who are alive from the dead, and your members as instruments [weapons] of righteousness unto God" (Rom. 6:13).

The point is easily seen in respect to iniquity. Sin does not exist in the abstract nor in the actions of animals or machines (even computers don’t misbehave, they only malfunction). Sin only exists through the instrumentality of human beings. In fact, taking the meaning of the Greek, humans are the weapons used by unrightousness to accomplish its purpose.

In the case of God, we may feel the point is not so clear since He has many instruments at His disposal to accomplish righteousness -- angels, the forces of nature, His word. Yet who is going to visit the sick, console the weary, preach the Truth, train up children -- who are God’s instruments in these areas? We are! Who are His weapons to dispel ignorance, protest against wickedness and stand up for right? We are!

At the present time, if love is to triumph over hate, generosity over greed, compassion over selfishness, holiness over lust, it will be done through the instrumentality of converted human beings. In these matters, God is relying on us to do His work.

Keeping God’s promise
The Lord’s instruction is difficult to keep: "Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you shall eat or what you shall drink, nor about your body, what you shall put on" (Mt. 6:25 RSV). To make obedience possible, he balanced the teaching with a promise: "Seek first his [God’s] kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things [the necessities of life] shall be yours as well" (Mt. 6:33 RSV).

For years, we felt God kept this promise by providing enough to each individual believer by a job, or help from his immediate family or from social welfare programs of the state. Then circumstances occurred which brought us up short and opened our eyes to an obvious fact which is clear in scripture, even though we had not seen it.

If God worked the way we initially thought, there would have been no need for a Jerusalem poor fund. The brethren in Judah and Jerusalem would have been given adequate help from local resources, but they were not. Paul went to much effort to collect money from ecclesias in Macedonia and Achaia and conveyed it 800 miles to Jerusalem, risking great personal harm. He did so on the basis of a fundamental divine principle:

"I do not mean that others should be eased and you burdened, but that as a matter of equality your abundance at the present time should supply their want, so that their abundance may supply your want, that there may be equality. As it is written, ‘He who gathered much had nothing over, and he who gathered little had no lack’" (II Cor. 8:13-15).

The apostle’s reference to the wilderness experience is enlightening. We may have thought there was something like a magical shrinking of manna for those who gathered much and a magical expansion for those who gathered little. That’s not how Paul sees it; he saw that enough manna was supplied in total so that all would have enough, assuming those who had surplus shared with those who lacked. That is the way he applied the Old Testament passage to the first-century ecclesia. While the Judean brethren were impoverished, God had given enough to the ecclesias in total so that there was sufficient for all, if those with abundance would share with those who had need.

In the case of the household of faith at this present time, it is evident the principle has not changed -- in total, God has given amply to the brotherhood so that all can be adequately supplied, if those who have abundance share with those who have need.

This presents many of us with the glorious opportunity of being God’s instrument for keeping His promise. Some of us delight in expounding the doctrine of God manifestation; surely here is another opportunity to be a living part of God’s work on the earth.

What happened in Israel when the welfare laws collapsed in the face of selfish greed? The righteous were sold into slavery and the poor froze without their coats (Amos 2:6,8). What happens when we don’t share within the household today? Brethren live lives of bitter destitution and some starve to death.

God has so designed this present dispensation that, in some matters, He relies on us to do His work.

We make particularly pointed mention of this last area for a specific reason. The CBMA is about to assume responsibility for preaching and pastoral work throughout the Caribbean area. In the existing mission areas under the CBMA, welfare needs have been relatively small. This will no longer be the case. In some areas of the Caribbean, poverty is rampant and the brotherhood is affected. We will be called upon to help through the instrumentality of the CBMA. Let us seize the opportunity to work for God, to be vehicles through whom He keeps His promise to provide the necessities of life for every one of His servants.

Let’s share of our abundance to be a living part of the manifestation of God’s loving care to His people.