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Amazing Facts

Joe Crews

Tithe

Last year, the FBI records revealed that over 3 million cases of burglar were reported in the United States.

Yet the amazing fact is that at least another million people were involved in stealing which was never reported to the authorities.

I'll be back in a moment to talk about thieves in the Church.

Hello, this is Joe Cruz with the Amazing Facts broadcast, facts which affect you.

Today I am going to deal with a subject that will explain how to pay the preacher without using your own money.

Now surely a lot of you ought to be interested in this.

During the past few weeks we have been studying some of the internal spiritual characteristics of the true Church.

Today I want us to consider a very important aspect of the Church which relates to organization and finance.

Even such a sacred body as the Church must be based on sound principles of administration or it surely will be in difficulty.

God never intended that His work should suffer because of poor methods of finance.

For that reason, He laid down a blueprint in the Bible by which the gospel ministry can be supported in all of its various phases and activities.

After all, the preacher must live and eat just like other people.

Jesus said, The laborer is worthy of his hire, in Luke 10, 7.

Now right here I would like to explain something about the ministry which sets it apart from every other class of occupation or vocation.

It is not just an ordinary profession, such as a doctor or lawyer might follow.

The work of The gospel preacher is the call of God, and those who answer that call are constrained by deep spiritual promptings.

The true spirit of ministry is not in any degree based on material or commercial motives or on money.

Those who preach the living word of God are not to do it just because it provides a livelihood.

They are not preaching for money but for souls.

The offer of higher wages should not carry the least influence in the carrying out of their spiritual duties.

Now, friends, there is something wrong with a system that makes money a factor in the calling of a man to be a preacher.

How many times we have seen the arrangement whereby the pastor of 1 church is approached by delegates of another church with an offer of a better salary if he will come over and preach for them.

And after due consideration, that pastor will mount his pulpit to tell his congregation that God has called him over to that other church.

But instead of the call of God, in reality it was the call of higher wages that made him change churches.

Thus the work of God is brought into reproach and the sacred ministry is belittled.

Now that brings us to another question today.

How is the gospel minister to be paid after all?

I heard of 1 preacher who closed all the doors of the church and refused to preach until the offering goal of a certain sum was reached.

Other churches have resorted to religious fairs and lotteries and bingo and so forth to meet their pastoral financial obligations.

Is this the way He has ordained for the churches to meet the deficit in their budgets?

I protest against that kind of program, to raise money to pay the preacher.

Something is desperately wrong with the church that it has to bring the world into its operating plan.

If Christ should walk into some of these temples and cathedrals of our day, he would be just as indignant as he was in days of old.

And I think he would say once more, take these things hence, you have made my house of prayer a den of thieves.

What a tragedy it is that many young people have learned to be expert in gambling inside the walls of their own church!

And what a sad commentary on the state of modern religious leaders who encourage such demonstrations!

Is this what God expects from the people who are called by His name?

What does God want us to render to Him, friends?

In Psalms 116.12 I read this provoking question, What shall I render unto the Lord for all his benefits towards me?

Now notice that our eternal welfare depends on our faithfulness and our obligations to God.

I want to suggest 4 specific obligations that we must render to God as His children.

First, we should give ourselves to Him, our bodies, that is.

Notice this text in Romans 12, 1, I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, wholly acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service." Now God made us and breathed life into our bodies.

He keeps our heart beating and the blood flowing through our complicated body system.

We cannot treat these bodies as we please because we actually belong to Him, and He claims our bodies as the dwelling place for the Holy Spirit.

You read 1 Corinthians 6 to confirm that.

Now we come to the second claim that God lays upon us.

He requires that we give him one-seventh of our time.

The Sabbath day, with its twenty-four blessed hours, belongs to God in a special sense.

If we take that time and use it for ourselves, we are actually stealing something that doesn't even belong to us.

We are breaking the eighth commandment by taking time that God claims as His.

He gives it to us only to use as He directs us.

Then the third Christian obligation is presented in Leviticus 27, verse 30, All the tithe of the land, whether of the seed of the land, or of the fruit of the tree, is the Lord's, it is holy unto the Lord.

Notice here the Lord requires a tithe of all we possess to be returned to Him.

Read verse 32, And concerning the tithe of the herd, or of the flock, even of whatsoever passeth under the rod, the tenth shall be holy unto the Lord.

Now this means that one-tenth of all our increase actually belongs to God.

We may not have thought of it before, but really 10 percent of our income is not ours at all.

We can't keep it for ourselves without actually breaking that Eighth Commandment again and stealing what's not ours.

If a man earns $200 a month, $20 is not really his own.

If he earns $1, 000 a month, $100 is not his to keep.

Of course, only the profit or increase is subject to the tithe.

In other words, a businessman might realize an increase of $5, 000 a month, but maybe $2, 000 would be needed to pay the salaries of his helpers and other overhead expense, and in such a case he would only have to pay $300 as tithe on his profit for that month.

Now somebody is bound to object that tithing belongs to the Mosaic law, the Old Testament.

It does not apply to us in the New Testament at all.

But the fact is that this plan of tithing antedates the time of Moses by hundreds of years.

Abraham paid tithe at the Lord's own direction long before the days of Moses.

It was an obligation before the Jewish race and also even before the ceremonial law had come into existence.

But now let's read what Jesus had to say about tithing.

After all, He is the great guide and example for all of us in spiritual things.

And in Matthew 23, 23 we read these words from Jesus, Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites!

For ye pay tithe of ment and anise in common, and have omitted the weightier matters of the law, judgment, mercy, and faith.

These ought ye to have done, and not to leave the other undone.

Now please notice that Jesus told these people that they ought to tithe, and that word ought denotes obligation and immediately creates a moral basis for this doctrine.

It's moral because it involves stealing from God, as we're going to be reading in just a few moments right here in the Bible.

Now let's ask this question before we go any further.

What is the tithe money to be used for in the Lord's work.

Please turn to 1 Corinthians 9.13, Do ye not know that they which minister about holy things live of the things of the temple?

And they which minister at the altar are partakers with the altar?

Now here Paul is referring to the priesthood, of course, back in the Old Testament and how they received a livelihood for their work right there at the ancient altar by their own income from the church.

But now read the very next verse, verse 14.

It says, Even so hath the Lord ordained that they which preach the gospel should live of the gospel.

Now this text clearly teaches that the gospel minister is to be supported exactly the same way as the priests were supported in the Old Testament.

So let's go back to the Scriptures now in the Old Testament and find what God's plan was for the support of the ministry, both then and now.

In Numbers 18, verse 21, I read, And, behold, I have given the children of Levi all the tenth in Israel for an inheritance for their service, which they serve, even the service of the tabernacle of the congregation.

So there it is, the tithe of the other tribes was given to the tribe of Levi.

You see, they did not have any inheritance as the other Israelites did.

They did not have herds and no business ventures.

All the other tribes paid tithe, and that one-tenth was used to pay the priest, in lieu of the fact that they did not have their flocks and herds and fields.

All right, friends, remember God said, "...even so hath the LORD ordained that they which preach the gospel should live of the gospel." So Paul really said then that the tithe is not to be used for an education fund, a church expense, or a poor fund.

It's ordained of God only to pay the ministry.

God never intended for preachers to dabble in real estate, in car sales, or some other side business.

A man called of God should give his whole time to the ministry of the Word.

His livelihood, in other words, should be supplied by the divine plan of the tithing system.

Listen, this system eliminates 1 of the greatest temptations facing the modern minister of the gospel.

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