Good afternoon, everybody, and what's that fast Baptist church?
Great to see everybody here.
Once we find a seat, let's grab a hymnal and we'll start this afternoon's song service
out with 432 in your hymnals.
Number 432 angels from the Lord, we love you so much and we just thank you for this great
church.
Thank you for everything you're doing here, Lord.
Thank you for allowing everybody to gather here safely tonight.
We just ask that you fill this room with your spirit and help us sing out unto you this
afternoon.
In Jesus' name we pray.
Let's go to our black binders.
Towards the back, you'll find, "Oh come, come, Emmanuel."
Time's singing it, so no excuses, let's sing it out loudly.
Church, if you didn't already get a bulletin, you would like one, just lift up your hand
nice and high.
One of our ushers can come by and get you guys a bulletin.
We have our new Bible memory passage, Romans chapter.
Anybody can quote the entire chapter to a non-family member, can receive a prize.
There's service time, soul winning times, church stats, heap of the great work, soul
winning.
Also on the right is a list of our expecting ladies.
Please be in prayer for our church and all those who are expecting, we have several to
pray for.
On the upcoming events, our kids choir is going to be performing this Sunday.
Just a quick announcement, if you are performing for that, will you please be here by 10 a.m.,
just so that way we can do a quick rehearsal.
My wife will be doing a quick little practice run with you, so 10 a.m. this Sunday.
Then also this Sunday is our cookie bake-off, so make sure that in the evening service you
bring us lots of cookies, okay?
So we were going to try and burn off all those calories from Thanksgiving, and we're going
to add them back.
But honestly, it's a really fun event, so if you'd like to participate, just bring
whatever cookie.
There's really almost no rules.
People have asked, "Can I bring two different kinds or whatever?"
You can do whatever you want, bring as many cookies as you'd like.
We're never going to say no to cookies, so again, there's three ways that you can win.
Of course, you can just bring cookies because you want to bring cookies, but all of them
will be voted on as far as just declaring a couple winners.
Best tasting, there's best decorated, and then there's most creative, so we give out
prizes for those.
We're really looking forward to our cookie bake-off.
Christmas candlelight service is next Wednesday, so one week from today, we'll have a candlelight
service that Wednesday evening, just immediately following the service.
We have men's preaching and pizza December 31st.
There's a marriage workshop that our church is offering for free January 23rd to the 24th.
You do need to register at least like, I can't remember, like five or ten days beforehand,
so if registration is free, please go out there and register if you are planning on
attending.
We'd like to make sure that we are going to accommodate everybody, going to be a fun event.
There's a sign-up sheet if there's any young singles or adults or people that just would
like to help volunteer.
We are just going to do some kid activities to help couples to be able to just get some
time to just focus on working on their relationship.
We have a do-it-yourself missions trip to the Philippines January 26th through the 4th.
And so if you'd like to participate, ask Evangelist Furr about that and he can give you some details
about their group.
I think it's pretty close to about a dozen people from our church going out for this
particular event.
So just pray that it goes well.
And then if you had any gift that you had picked up for one of our expecting ladies
off of the tree, please just make sure to get that to us by this Sunday.
That way we can hand those out.
And then on the back is our prayer list.
We'll continue to go through this on Wednesday nights.
We have the Carlson's parents we've been praying for and also Brother Jared for his
work.
We've been praying for Brother Scott's parents, Brother Horace and Miss Grace.
We've been praying for the Garcia's for Brother Tony's health.
Please continue to pray for the Foley's father-in-law and dad for his kidney disease.
Please pray for Brother Paul.
Continue to pray for the Goodwin's family, her sister-in-law's husband had passed away
so we're praying for her and for their entire family.
Please continue to pray for the Rose for the passing of their husband as well.
Please pray for Brother Burns, Brother Joe, and for his health complications.
Continue to pray for the Warner family for their work and vehicle and then we're praying
for Brother Jameson for his dad's health.
Please pray for Brother Jimmy for his work and then also if you pray for Brother Sue
Hale, had a prayer request for his mom's health and then if you also pray for Brother Billy's
mother who has a spinal issue in a doctor apartment upcoming right before Christmas.
So we'll just keep all of them in our prayers and we'll just say a quick word of prayer
now as a church family.
Thank you Father so much for Steadfast Baptist Church, thank you so much for all these ladies
that we have in our bulletin that are expecting.
I pray that you please bless them, please also bless those that have recently given
birth.
I pray that you'd be with them.
I pray that you would also be with our church family and friends that are struggling with
these cancer issues and these serious health issues.
Father, if you could just give them health, if you could give them recovery, please give
them some kind of peace in this difficulty.
Those who are needing jobs or work changes, I pray that you just please bless them.
Give them favor.
Give them wisdom.
Help them to be in the right position.
I pray that you'd help those that have a need, whether it be a car or other financial need.
Please just bless them, Lord.
Please just help them.
I pray that you'd also just bless our upcoming events and our evangelists in the Philippines
and the work he's doing out there.
And I pray that we would just finish the year strong and we would think about the gift that
you gave us, the unspeakable gift of your son in Jesus' name we pray.
Amen.
That's pretty much all I have as far as announcements.
Go ahead and sing our Psalm of the Week, Psalm 148, it's in our special binders.
In our Psalm binders, Psalm 148.
Psalm 148, in your binders or in your King James Bible, Psalm 148.
Go ahead and open your Bibles to the book of Deuteronomy.
Chapter number 12, the book of Deuteronomy chapter.
These are the statutes and judgments which ye shall observe to do in the land.
To the Lord God of thy fathers giveth thee to possess all the days that you live upon
the earth.
You shall utterly destroy all the places wherein the nations which ye shall possess serve their
gods upon the high mountains and upon the hills and under every green tree.
And ye shall overthrow their altars and break their pillars and burn their groves with
with fire, and ye shall hewn down graven images of their gods, and destroy the names of them
out of that place.
You shall not do so unto the Lord your God, but unto the place which the Lord your God
shall choose out of all your tribes to put his name there, even unto his habitation.
Ye shall seek, and thither thou shalt come, and thither ye shall bring your burnt offerings
and your sacrifices and your tithes and heave offerings of your hand, and your vows and
your freewill offerings and the firstlings of your herds and of your flocks.
And there ye shall eat before the Lord your God, and ye shall rejoice in all that you
put your hand unto, ye and your households, wherever in the Lord thy God hath blessed
thee.
Ye shall not do, after all the things that we do here this day, every man whatsoever
is right in his own eyes, for ye are not as it yet come to the rest and to the inheritance
with the Lord your God giveth you.
But when ye go over Jordan and dwell in the land which the Lord your God giveth you to
inherit, when ye giveth you rest from all your enemies round about, so that ye dwelt
in safety, then there shall be a place which the Lord your God shall choose to cause his
name to dwell there.
Thither ye shall bring all that I command you, your burnt offerings and your sacrifices,
your tithes and the heave offerings of your hand, and all your choice vows which ye vow
unto the Lord.
And ye shall rejoice before the Lord your God, ye and your sons and your daughters and
your men servants and your maid servants and the Levite that is within your gates, for
as much as he hath no part nor inheritance with you.
Take heed to thyself that thou offer not thy burnt offerings in every place that thou seest,
but in the place which the Lord God shall choose and of thy tribes there thou shalt
offer thy burnt offerings, and there shalt thou do all that I command thee.
Notwithstanding, thou mayest kill and eat flesh in all thy gates, whatsoever thy soul
lusteth after, according to the blessing of the Lord thy God which he hath given thee.
The unclean and the clean may eat thereof, as of the roebuck and as of the heart.
Only ye shall not eat of the blood, ye shall pour it upon the earth as water.
Thou mayest not eat within thy gates the tithe of thy corn, or of thy wine, or of thy oil,
or the firstlings of thy herds, or of thy flock, nor any of the vows which thou valest,
nor thy freewill offerings, or heave offering of thine hand.
But thou must eat them before the Lord thy God, in the place which the Lord thy God shall
choose, thou and thy son, and thy daughter, and thy manservant, thy maidservant, and
the Levite, that is within thy gates, and thou shalt rejoice before the Lord thy God
in all that thou puttest thine hands unto.
Take heed to thyself that thou forsake not the Levite, as long as thou livest upon the
earth.
The Lord thy God shall enlarge thy border as he hath promised thee, and thou shalt
say, "I will eat flesh," because thy soul longeth to eat flesh.
Thou mayest eat flesh whatsoever thy soul lusteth after.
If the place which the Lord thy God had chosen to put his name there be too far from thee,
then thou shalt kill of thy herd and of thy flock which the Lord hath given thee, as I
have commanded thee, and thou shalt eat in thy gates whatsoever thy soul lusteth after.
Even as the roebuck and the heart is eaten, so shalt thou eat them, the unclean and the
clean, shalt eat of them alike.
Only be sure that thou eat not the blood, for the blood is the life, and thou mayest
not eat the life with the flesh.
Thou shalt not eat it, thou shalt pour it upon the earth as water, thou shalt not eat
it, that it may go well with thee and with thy children after thee, when thou shalt
do that which is right in the sight of the Lord.
Only the holy things which thou hast, thy vows, thou shalt take and go unto the place
which the Lord thy God shall choose, and thou shalt offer thy burnt offerings, the flesh
and of the blood upon the altar of thy Lord thy God, and the blood of thy sacrifices
shall be poured out upon the altar of the Lord thy God, and thou shalt eat the flesh.
Observe and hear all these words which I command thee, that thou may go well with thee, and
with thy children after thee forever, when thou doest that which is good and right in
the sight of the Lord thy God.
When the Lord thy God shall cut off the nations before thee, whither thou goest to possess
them, and thou succeedest them, and dwellest in their land, take heed to thyself that thou
be not snared by following them, after that they be destroyed from before thee, and that
thou would inquire after their gods, saying, How do these nations serve their gods?
Even so will I do likewise.
Thou shalt not do so unto the Lord thy God.
For every abomination to the Lord which he hateth, have they done unto their gods.
For even their sons and their daughters, they have burnt in the fire to their gods.
What things, soever I command you, observe to do it.
I shall not add thereto, nor diminish it from it.
This is about our heads in prayer.
Heavenly Father, Lord, I pray that you bless this service.
I pray that you bless Pastor Shelley tonight, and I pray that you open our minds and hearts
to hear the word tonight, to learn something new, and to take it with us, Lord, in Jesus'
name we pray.
Amen.
Deuteronomy chapter 12, the Bible says in verse 1, "These are the statutes and judgments
which he shall observe to do in the land, which the Lord God of thy fathers giveth
thee to possess it, all the days that ye live upon the earth."
Now, in chapter 11, we're coming into chapter 12 from a big admonishment in chapter 11,
saying that God is going to bless you based on keeping his commandments.
It's pretty much just the main emphasis of chapter 11.
He doesn't really get into the details or the nitty-gritty of what statutes and judgments
he wants you to keep, just the basic principle of keeping God's commandments and his statutes
is going to give you blessing from God.
Look back at chapter 11 verse 14, "That I will give you the reign of your land in this
due season."
So he says, "When you keep the commandments and statutes, I'll give you reign."
Look at verse 27, "A blessing if you obey the commandments of the Lord your God, which
I command you this day."
So notice he's emphasizing in chapter 11, you're going to be blessed, you're going to
get the reign that you need, what you are going to basically have success is through
keeping my commandments.
And you know, when it comes to chapter 12, we're going to kind of make the transition
now to talking about specifics when we talk about those statutes, specifics when it comes
to those judgments and commandments that he's wanting you to observe.
And notice in verse 1 again, it says all the days that you live upon the earth.
Notice that these commandments are not, well, you just do it one time.
No, just you're supposed to continually do this.
As long as you're alive, you're supposed to follow all these rules, all these commandments,
all these judgments.
Number two, you shall utterly destroy all the places where in the nations which ye shall
possess serve their gods upon the high mountains and upon the hills and under every green tree.
And you shall overthrow their altars and break their pillars and burn their groves with fire.
And you shall hew down the graven images of their gods and destroy the names of them out
of that place.
So what is the Bible saying?
The Bible is saying that we're not allowed to tolerate false religion, false gods, that
whatever place of worship or whatever area they were performing sacrifices or doing anything
pertaining to their religion, when they came into this land, they're supposed to destroy
it and just completely eradicate it.
Now again, think about what we said in verse number one.
It says that you're supposed to do these things all the days that you live upon the earth.
So some people could take this and say, oh, well, that was just for then.
No, every single day that you're alive, this commandment and statute should still be observed.
And you know, it's a shame and embarrassment to the founders of our country that we allow
Islam and Hinduism to be in America, because you know what?
Their false religion should be burned to the ground.
It should be burned to the ground.
All of their graven images, all of their worshiping of false gods, Bohemian growth should be burned
to the ground.
You shouldn't be worshiping an owl statue.
This is false religion, this is Satanism, and hey, let me tell you another religion.
How about Judaism with their synagogue?
That should be burned to the ground as well.
All false religion should be completely eradicated from America.
If we were going to be right in the sight of God and be right with Him, this is how
God would want us to live, and you know, as a nation, that's what we should do.
Now I'm not saying that we should just take the law into our own hands and just start
burning down all of the mosques and everything else.
I do not recommend that, I'm not supporting that, I'm not going to participate in that,
but if it was legal, I would participate in that, absolutely.
And I think that we should pass laws and legislation.
I think our nation should wake up and become a Christian nation again and say, hey, we
are going to eradicate Islam from our nation.
We are going to eradicate false religion and Hinduism and all these false gods.
We will be a Christian nation and you know what will happen as soon as we start burning
those buildings down, God will give us rain to basically fix the problem.
He's going to give us a blessing.
Our nation will be blessed if we eradicated Islam and Hinduism and Judaism from our nation.
You want to be blessed?
You want to make America great again?
Start there.
That's how we should start.
Now, since we can't necessarily do that in our individual lives, what you could do though
in your personal life is any attachment that you have to any kind of false religion from
your past or anything like that, you should destroy.
You know, if you were Catholic in your past, don't hang on to that Mary shrine or that
Mary graven image or something like that.
You should destroy it and utterly get rid of it.
You know, you should just get rid of your rosary, get rid of your crucifix, get rid
of any tie that you have.
Hey, if you are a pagan, if you are a Hindu, if you had some other false religion before,
you need to eradicate that from your life and have nothing to do with it.
Burn the grove, burn the idolatry, burn the graven image, have nothing to do with it whatsoever.
Smash it, destroy it.
I think that's how you should apply this in your own personal life.
And you know, some people really have that kind of a background.
Well, it's okay.
Just get rid of it.
Just destroy it, burn it, have nothing to do with it.
In fact, we do this even with bad translations of the Bible.
You know, we've had, you know, for years, basically an annual just getting rid of the
NIV and the ESV and the HIV and all the other versions that they have out there.
Just getting rid of all of them because, you know, hey, we're King James only here.
It's only by what we need.
You know what's not helping America?
The NIV.
Right.
You know what's not helping America?
The ESV.
You know what's not helping America?
Any of these modern versions today, they should be burned with fire.
And you know, that's another great place to start in fixing America.
Man, just imagine what America would be like if we could get rid of every modern translation,
all of Hinduism, Islam, and Judaism in America.
That would make it base.
That would make it a really great nation again.
And you know, hey, I'm on board.
I'm just trying to get other people on board of this program.
We need to get more people saved so that they can get on with this program.
But even if the heathen, even if a lot of people in America aren't going to do this,
we can at least take application or own lives and have nothing to do with false religion
anymore.
You know, totally eradicate it, stay away from it.
This is how God feels and this is how you're going to be blessed.
God's going to bless you when you reject false religion and you just stay away from it.
You know, I'm not going to go and hang out at the Catholic church with my family.
I'm not going to go to some other, you know, false religious ceremony or situation.
You know, I'm going to stay as far away from that as possible and have nothing to do with
it.
When it comes to God himself, verse four, he says, "He shall not do so under the Lord
of God."
What does this mean?
We should never desecrate or harm the things of God.
You know, we don't want to harm the church of God or where he's going to set up his place
of worship.
We want those things to thrive.
So he's contrasting false religion with true religion.
True religion, we never want to harm that and we only want to harm false religion.
False religion, extreme.
Burn it with fire.
God's religion, we want to bless it and do good unto it.
Verse 5, "But under the place which the Lord your God shall choose out of all your tribes
to put his name there, even under his habitation shall ye seek, and thither thou shalt come.
And thither ye shall bring your burnt offerings and your sacrifices and your tithes and heave
offerings of your hand and your vows and your free will offerings and the firstlings of
your herds and of your flocks.
And there ye shall eat before the Lord your God and you shall rejoice in all that you
put your hand unto ye and your households wherein the Lord thy God hath blessed thee.
Now, the Bible brings up a lot of different offerings here in the text.
Verse 6 says your burnt offerings, your sacrifices, your tithes, your heave offerings, your vows,
your free will offerings.
I'm not going to go into entire depth here, but the Bible basically would talk about bringing
offerings as a result of sin.
Because of your sin, you'd have to offer a sin offering.
Then additionally, the Bible brings up the idea of a tithe.
That's 10% of all your increase.
So whatever your increase is for the year, you'd bring 10% of that and you'd offer your
first of the flock or your first fruits under the Lord.
That's the tithe.
The word tithe means 10th.
It's just a literal word for 10th.
Then additionally, you have something that's called a vow.
What's a vow?
It's just anything that's not a tithe.
Tithe is its own separate category.
Sin offering is its own separate category.
So then there's another group where it would be vows.
This is just anything that you just decide, you know what, I just want to give this to
God.
And so I'm going to make a vow, which is a promise that I am going to give this to
God.
It's not that you have to.
It's not that it's necessary.
It's not that it's something that's commanded.
It's just you and your own desires, you and your own wishes.
You just say, you know what, I want to vow this to God or I want to, I want to bless
God with this particular thing.
You bring that unto God.
Pretty similarly would be where the Bible just says your free will offerings.
Now again, Calvinists have no idea what I just said.
Free will means that God didn't force you to do it.
You decided you wanted to do it of your own free will.
So again, this would be separate from your ties.
This would be separate from something that is a sin offering.
This is separate from a vow only in the context of that a vow, once you utter by your mouth,
you say I'm dedicating this to God or I'm vowing this to God, it's no longer yours.
You have to give that to God.
You have to then sacrifice that to the Lord.
This is kind of brought up in the New Testament a little bit where the Pharisees are kind
of teaching this weird doctrine to people so that they don't have to honor their parents
because he would say, "Oh, anytime your parents are asking for money or needing something,
you say, 'Oh, I've already vowed that unto God, so I can't give that to anybody else.'"
Because once you vowed to God, it's no longer yours anymore.
It's now dedicated to the Lord.
But the reality is, since you have to travel a distance, you have to take these things
to wherever God's at, and you have to offer these sacrifices, it's not instant.
You know, you can't just go online and donate a cow.
You can't just go online and necessarily transfer that.
So sometimes what you vowed to God would be in your possession for a while until you had
the opportunity to actually bring it unto God.
So then in this transitory period, they're basically using this as some kind of a scapegoat
to lie unto their parents and say like, "Oh, no, no, that's vowed to God.
I can't give that to you," because your parents couldn't take something that's vowed to God
because it's dedicated to God.
So then a free will offering is perhaps a little different in the sense that it's not
necessarily been vowed, right?
It's just maybe you showed up at the temple, you showed up at church, you showed up at
the congregation, you just decided, "Hey, I have this extra money, I just want to give
it to God."
It's just a free will offering of your own volition.
The woman, the poor woman just gives two mites, she just gives all that she has, just a free
will offering, she's just kind of giving whatever she has.
Ananias and Zephyra are in theory doing a free will offering by selling a possession,
selling a piece of land, then they're going to bring it to God and give it to him, and
then they tell everybody about it.
Now, this is kind of interesting because biblically speaking in the book of Acts, there's nothing
wrong with them having sold the land, there's nothing wrong with them even telling people
how much they sold it for, there's nothing wrong with them even telling everybody how
much they're giving to the church.
We don't know the numbers, we could just make up any numbers, but let's just say that they
said like, "Hey, I sold this piece of land for a million bucks and we're giving the million
bucks to church."
But the reality is they actually sold it for like 1.5 million and they're coming and they're
saying, "We're giving all of this to the church, we're giving all one million."
But really, it was 1.5 and they're keeping back part of the half a million and they're
lying about how they gave everything to God.
Why?
Because they just want people to think that they're awesome or something.
Which is kind of silly to me because I'm thinking like, even if you sold for 1.5 and you gave
a million, I would still think you're awesome.
Like, it's not like I'm thinking like, wow, you're, you're so lame.
You didn't give the whole 1.5, you know, or whatever.
But in their mind, you know, they just decide to kind of hold back part of the price and
kind of pretend like, oh, we just love God so much for giving all.
And because they lied under the Holy Ghost and they lie into the church, God just kills
both of them.
That's a crazy story.
And even whenever Peter's confronting them, he's saying like, hey, when you sold this,
it was in your possession to do whatever you wanted with it.
You didn't even have to give it to church.
God did not kill them because they didn't give all their money to church.
He killed them for lying, which is a kind of, you know, really the big issue that's
brought out in the book of Acts.
Because God doesn't really need a certain amount of money.
God's not just demanding all of your money.
The reality is God's doing this for a couple of different reasons.
Number one, God's wanting them to do all these sacrifices to picture Jesus Christ.
That's one of the things.
The sin offering component is to picture the Lord Jesus Christ.
And you know what, praise God in the New Testament, we don't have to pay sin offerings.
Jesus Christ is our once for all offering for sin.
And so because he's already paid all of our sin, then whenever we sin, we need to go to
God and we need to pray and ask for grace and to seek the Lord's favor through the
offering of the Lord Jesus Christ.
And then the Bible makes a big deal about this in the book of Hebrews saying that, hey,
you know, you don't want to do sin willfully because you're doing despite the spirit of
grace.
I mean, when you realize that there is no more offering for sins anymore and you just
keep just happen to use the Jesus token every single time and willfully, then, you know,
it could make God really mad and God could punish you severely.
And it's a fearful thing to fall in the hands of living God.
And that's the whole essence of Hebrews chapter number 10 that since there is no more sin
offerings that you offer, it was already what Jesus already did.
You don't want to just keep piling on that debt.
You don't want to just keep doing any more than you have to.
And obviously, no one's gonna be perfect and we get that.
But willful sin in the Bible is a big deal that God takes seriously and we don't want
to go down that road.
But praise God that, hey, even when I do screw up, even if I did willfully sin, I don't
have to make any kind of offering.
All I do is just ask for God's mercy through the sacrifice that's already been made through
the Lord Jesus Christ.
Now when it comes to the tithe, that is just a carryover that really has nothing to do
with just the law period of time.
It's always been there.
You could go all the way back to Cain and Abel and you have both of them making sacrifice
to the Lord and Cain's is not accepted, Abel's is accepted, his is the first of the fruits,
Abraham pays tithes, Jacob pays tithes, this is way before the law.
Then you have the law paying tithes, then in Proverbs it brings up tithes, then in the
New Testament it brings up tithes again in Hebrews and we'll probably talk about that
here in a minute, but that's a separate issue.
Then again in the New Testament you still have the opportunity to either vow something
to God and/or give free will offerings, that would be apart from or separate from the tithing
system and that's where you bring up Ananias and Sapphira and other situations where people
are just simply dedicating things to God, giving of their own free will offerings, okay.
And so in the New Testament sense we don't sacrifice animals, we don't bring any of these
things but it still has a modern application for us today that hey we go to the house of
God, praise God we don't have to bring a sin offering but we can bring our tithes and our
offerings unto the house of God in the same way that they would bring their offerings
to the house of God.
Now in this particular chapter it said in verse 5 that it says even unto his habitation
shall you seek. Notice that you can't bring your tithes and your offerings wherever you
want. You have to go to his habitation. You have to seek his habitation. That's where
his tithes and offerings are accepted. They're not accepted everywhere else. I have to use
one of my friend's analogies. Pastor Anderson has always told me this and I like this analogy.
But it's kind of like you have to understand that God, it's almost like he doesn't bank
at every single bank when it comes to tithes and offerings. So it's like, hey, if I bank
at Wells Fargo, you can't go put a deposit at Chase and it goes into my account. In the
same way, if God's banking at Wells Fargo, you can't go down to some other random bank
and make a deposit in this account. You have to go to his bank to make a deposit. In the
same way, you go to Gateway, you're not going to be depositing in God's bank. You go down
to the synagogue, you're not depositing in God's bank. You got to go to an actual institution
where God banks if you're going to actually bring your tithes and offerings to the Lord.
Otherwise, you're bringing your tithes and offerings to Satan, Bibi Netanyahu, same person,
you know, whatever. You're just bringing it to someone else. You know, that's not where
God banks. That's not where God establishes His covenant. Now, I don't think that God's
like so strict on this that they have to have every doctrine right or something like this.
Look, if it's a church that's in the name of Christ and they're saved or whatever, if
you're depositing there, hey, I think God can still bless you. But at the end of the
day, you know, you don't want to be doing this at the Catholic church. He doesn't bank
at the Catholic church. He doesn't bank with Joe's witnesses. And at the end of the day,
I want to go to the bank institution where I know that most of my deposits could actually
go to the Lord, not going to be siphoned off with fees and to the managers and middle management
and all this other kind of nonsense they have going on. I want to actually do something,
you know, with that money. So I might as well go to the banking institution and this proverb,
this parable that I'm teaching you, okay. I want to go to the church that's doing the
most for God and I feel like, you know, they're going to actually do something with that money
that's going to serve the Lord. But at the end of the day, hey, tithes and offerings,
you got to do it no matter what. If Hathni and Phineas are your pastors, you're still
supposed to give the sacrifice, you're still supposed to give the offering. And yeah, it
makes you kind of a whore, happen to give tithes and offerings to Hathni and Phineas.
But you know what? I'd rather give money to Hathni and Phineas that's being received
by God than not tithing and not offering unto the Lord. Okay? Because that's just a commandment
to go. Just like I'd rather go to a lame church than not go to church. I'd rather do whatever
I can to serve God in the best that I can. And you know, there's always an excuse to
not go to church. There's always an excuse not to read your Bible. There's always an
excuse not to go soul winning. There's always an excuse not to go to church or read your
Bible or tithe or do any of these things. But you know what? Where there's a will, there's
a way. And it's way easier for you to serve God right now than it's been for basically
the entire history of Christianity. Like, oh man, it's so hard to do these things today.
You think it was easier to live in the Middle East and have to actually cart animals across
the country to bring in your tithes and offerings? Like, come on, you're just not even being
realistic with the scenario we have today. Oh, well, the economy. You think the economy's
always been great, you know, throughout history? I mean, look, we have it really good. We have
it about as best as you probably could have ever had it. If you want to make an excuse,
make an excuse. But you know what? God doesn't like people that make excuses. God likes people
that figure out a way to serve him. Let's keep reading here. It says in verse eight,
you should not do, after all the things that we do here this day, every man whatsoever
is right in his own eyes. Now a couple points I want to make in this verse is this number
one that sometimes things change. He's saying, hey, we're not going to do everything that
we're doing right here like this forever. When y'all go in the promised land, things
are going to change. Things are going to evolve. And right now people are just kind of doing
whatever they want. Wrong. We shouldn't do whatever we want. We should do whatever God
wants. Not what's right in your sight, what's right in God's sight. Now again, you could,
you know, sometimes people come up with doctrines that maybe don't fit every single scenario
or every single situation throughout history, but that's okay because it doesn't matter.
Sometimes things change and sometimes things evolve a little bit. Okay. People would think
like, oh, well, how are we supposed to handle this situation? You know, when in times past,
you know, there wasn't a great church everywhere or there wasn't, you know, how did the pilgrims
do what y'all are doing? Well, I don't know how they did what they were doing, but I know
what we're going to do right now. I know what's right right now. You know, they're like, Oh,
you guys think that pastors should be ordained by pastors. What about every single scenario
that's ever happened in history? Well, I don't know what every single situations ever happened
throughout history, but I know what's right and we're going to do right now. Okay. So
it's like, sometimes people try to dream up a scenario of, well, maybe it was different
in the past. Okay. Well then that it was different, but this is what the Bible is saying. This
is what we're going to do. Just like, Oh, well in the wilderness, how are they doing
all this stuff? Maybe they weren't doing everything exactly the way God wanted in the wilderness.
He's saying, but when you get in the promised land, it's going to change and you're going
to do it this way. Okay. So, Oh, well in the book of acts, we don't see all the pastors
over all these churches, right? I mean, you read the epistles to Corinthians and Galatians,
all this, they're not talking about the pastors and all this stuff. It's like, okay, but we're
not going back to acts. Chapter number two to set up our church. We're using Titus and
Timothy to figure out how we're going to run churches and what pastors are supposed to
look like. Hey, maybe things got better over time. Maybe the first church service wasn't
the best church service ever. Maybe the first time the apostles met together in a house
somewhere wasn't the best church service ever. Maybe they got better. Maybe they had new
songs. Maybe they did things a little bit different. Maybe they evolved. Maybe they
got better. Maybe they improved. You know, don't have this idea that things can't improve
or change or alter, but at the end of the day, the thing that matters is what does
the text say? Oh, what about tradition? Well, what does this say? He's saying, Hey, you're
not going to do what you've been doing. Tradition, we're going to change when we get in the
promised land. You're going to do what I think. You're going to do what I say. You're going
to go where I want you to go, and you're going to do what I want you to do. That's God's
attitude here in this particular verse. It's important. Verse nine, "For you're not as
yet come to the rest and to the inheritance, which the Lord your God giveeth you. But when
you go over Jordan and dwell in the land, which the Lord your God giveeth you to inherit,
and when he giveeth you rest from all your enemies round about, so that you dwell in
me, then there shall be a place which the Lord your God shall choose to cause his name
to dwell there. Thither shall you bring all that I command you, your burnt offerings and
your sacrifices, your tithes and your heath offering of your hand, and all your choice
vows which ye vow unto the Lord. And ye shall rejoice before the Lord, your God, he and
your sons and your daughters and your men servants and your maids servants, and the
Levite that is within your gates for as much as he hath no part nor inheritance with you.
So notice again he's emphasizing in verses 11 and 12 that you can't just do your sacrifices
and your offerings wherever you want. Wherever God picks, that's where you have to go and
that's where you have to make these offerings. Now specifically the tribe of Levi is not
going to inherit any part of the land. They're not going to have just this giant section
of just all this land that they get, some big land grant. They have no inheritance.
They simply have to just serve at the altar 24/7.
Now no individual is doing it 24/7, but just as a group, as a collective, they're just
focused on the house of God, they're focused on serving God, the tabernacle and all the
different sacrifices that are happening.
But here's the thing, if no one brings sacrifices, then what are they going to do?
They have nothing to sacrifice.
They're not out on the land actually raising the cattle, raising the goats, raising the
sheep, growing the wheat to actually bring in the sacrifices.
They perform the sacrifices, but they're not raising the wheat, they're not raising the
cattle, they're not raising the goats, they're not raising the sheep.
So if the people don't actually bring their tithes and offerings and their sacrifices
in, the Levites have nothing to do.
And this actually happens at one point in the future where essentially no one's bringing
in their tithes and offerings at all.
So then the Levites have to basically abandon the house of God, go out to the field and
actually work the field so that they can then bring in the sacrifices so they can actually
just do anything.
Because at some point the Levites are going to just sit around waiting for someone to
show up with a sacrifice and just die.
So if no one's bringing anything in, then I guess it's just not going to work.
So for the house of God to operate, people have to be bringing their tithes and their
offerings into the house of God in the Old Testament for it to even work, for it to even
function.
It just cannot function without this.
What's the parallel in the New Testament?
Well, in the New Testament, it's the same way.
The house of God isn't going to thrive if the congregation isn't bringing in their
tithes and offerings into the church.
And what do the tithes and offerings do?
They help the church to flourish and to do well.
Think about this.
The Levites are also, they're eating these sacrifices every single day.
Every single day, they're eating the absolute best cattle, best sheep, best oxen, best
wheat, best everything.
I mean, they are having the absolute cream of the crop when it comes to food because
you're not allowed to offer anything that has a blemish or has some kind of a spot or
has some kind of an issue.
Now, the Bible describes this, though, as when the children of Israel would come in to
offer their sacrifice, they ate with them.
So everybody gets to partake, right?
I bring in my sacrifices and offerings, I get to eat, the Levite gets to eat, okay?
I leave and go back to my field and whatever, but then another guy shows up.
He eats with the Levite, but then the Levite is just basically sharing in the portion with
those people.
That's just how it works.
When people are bringing the tithes and offerings, the house of God goes well.
When they're not bringing it in, it's going to go poorly because they just don't have
anything to sacrifice, don't have anything to offer.
Same way it works in America and works in the world today is that when people forsake
church and abandon church and don't want to support church, what happens?
Church diminishes.
You know what's sad is how many false churches are thriving today and how many fake religions
are thriving today.
Then the house of God is being abandoned and being deserted and not being taken care of
in many places in this world.
You know what?
It takes a group of people to say, "Hey, we are going to rebuild the house of God.
We are going to take it serious and we're going to furnish it with the sacrifices and
the offerings and the tithes that God deserves."
Because you know what?
I don't want the great attraction of the Dallas Four, the area to always just be the Dallas
Cowboy Stadium and AT&T Stadium and the American Airlines Center.
And look, I'm not mad at those places existing, but you know what?
Wouldn't God, we'd have great churches in this area too.
Wouldn't God, we could rebuild the house of God again.
You know, praise God for people like Pastor Jack Hiles who built a great church in America
and was one of the most thriving churches in times past.
You know, wouldn't God, every independent funnel Baptist would have a desire to build
a big church like that again and to bring a bunch of people in the house of God and
to send tons, I mean, he sent so many people out to start so many churches.
You know, one of his disciples, Brother Kevin Wynn, building a huge church in Mexico City
and reaching a lot of people, you know, people should have a big vision to build the house
of God.
They dedicate themselves to the things of God.
And notice when you do this, you're going to rejoice, your sons, your daughters, your
men's servants, your maidservants, the Levite.
What is the commandment here?
Don't forsake him for as much as he hath no part nor inheritance with you.
You know, you need to be thinking about the house of God and the people that are dedicated
themselves to the things of God.
Verse 13, "Take heed to thyself that thou offer not thy burnt offerings in every place
that thou seest, but in the place which the Lord shall choose and one of thy tribes there
thou shalt offer thy burnt offerings and there thou shalt do all that I command thee."
So again, you can't just worship God wherever you want.
You have to worship God where He sees fit, where He decides is the place to worship Him
and He's really making it strict here.
Verse 15, "Notwithstanding," so this means even though you're not allowed to make any
sacrifices or kill anything, you know, that's an offering to God, except for the place of
God, He says, "Notwithstanding, thou mayest kill and eat flesh in all thy gates."
What does this mean?
He's saying that, yes, you're only supposed to sacrifice your animals that are your tithes
and offerings in the place of God, but that does not mean that you can't eat meat wherever
you want.
Okay, you can still take the things that are not the tithes, not the offerings, not the
vows, not whatever is offered to God, and eat that whenever and wherever you want as
you see fit, you have free will to do as you want with your flesh, with your cattle,
with your sheep, with your oxen, with whatever.
It says, "Whatsoever thy soul lusteth after, according to the blessing of the Lord, thy
God which ye have given thee, the unclean and the clean may eat thereof as of the roebuck
and as of the heart, only ye shall not eat the blood, ye shall pour it upon the earth
as water."
So what are you saying in verse 15?
The unclean and the clean, this is just saying that a person who is unclean or clean, they
can eat whatever they want, whenever they want, however they want.
Now what is the exceptions to this?
You're not allowed to eat blood, anything that's vowed to God or tithed or sacrificed,
you can't eat that, those have to be done in a specific place.
And then of course if we keep reading in Leviticus and stuff in the prior chapters, prior books,
it would say that you can't eat unclean beasts.
So there was specific dietary restrictions, he's bringing up some of the clean beasts
that you can eat.
But when it says unclean and clean, it always threw me off when I read this because I was
thinking like, is he saying unclean animals can be eaten now?
No, no, he's saying the unclean person.
So an unclean person, according to the Bible, there's lots of ways you can be unclean.
You touch a dead animal, you defile yourself with a dead person, dead body, or you know,
you're just dirty in general.
I mean, when you think what's unclean, just dirty.
You're dirty, you can still eat, it doesn't matter.
When you go to perform sacrifice for the Lord or when you went to the temple, you could
not eat if you were unclean.
You had to do a cleansing, you had to purify yourself through washings.
That's why the Bible talks about carnal washings, diverse washings and carnal ordinances.
There were certain things you had to do before you came into the house of God, came into
the temple area or the tabernacle or whatever.
You didn't have to do that at home.
At home, you can just do whatever you want.
You can eat however you want.
And again, it's kind of funny because even the Pharisees, don't they criticize Jesus
Christ disciples for eating with unwashing hands?
And then the Bible actually says in the Old Testament that, hey, even if you're unclean,
you can eat whatever you want.
It just shows another point that the Pharisees don't read the Bible, they don't really care
what the Bible says.
They made up their own traditions that contradicted what the Bible actually said because the Bible
says that the unclean can eat whatever he wants.
Verse 17, "Thou mayest not eat within thy gates the tithe of thy corn, of thy wine,
or of thy oil, or the firstlings of thy herds, or of thy flock, nor any of thy vows which
thou vowest, nor thy free will offerings, or heave offering of thine hand.
But thou mayest eat them before the Lord thy God, and the place where the Lord thy God
shall choose thou, and thy son, and thy daughter, and thy man servant, and thy maid servant,
and the Levite that is within thy gates, and thou shalt rejoice before the Lord thy God,
and all that thou putest thine hands unto."
Just notice again, you cannot eat your tithes and offerings at home.
Those are supposed to be brought to the house of God.
Again, in the Old Testament, especially during this time, money may not be exactly how we
have money today.
Pretty much we don't really barter, we don't really deal in a lot of goods, where we're
like trading goods in order to get money.
We just all have monopoly money, okay?
We just have digital money that's not even real at all, and we just pretend like it's
real, okay?
And that's the reason why it works, is because we all pretend that it's real.
This is why things like Bitcoin, which are completely fake, work, because people just
all agree it's accepted, you know?
So at any point that people decide it's not accepted, it doesn't work.
Money is just kind of a weird abstract idea in and of itself anyways.
It always has been some kind of an abstract idea, and I'm not saying that money didn't
exist in these times, but why do we have a fiat currency?
Why do we have paper money?
Why do we have digital money?
All these things were inventions just to make merchandise that much more accessible.
Why do they invent credit cards so that your wife could spend money?
Just kidding.
She would figure out a way even if they didn't have them.
Why do they have all these different services and things?
Because they just want more purchasing, more capitalism, more of this stuff happening.
But you know in times past, the flow of money wasn't necessarily as readily happening, it
wasn't happening as often perhaps.
People aren't just carrying around tons of shekels and gold all over them necessarily.
So a lot of times their money is just literally physical things.
You know, possessions, animals, meat, food, just different kind of stuff.
So when it comes to them showing up at church, they're not showing up with a bunch of money
typically.
They can, and the Bible brings that up, but I'm just saying there are a lot of times just
literally just bringing goods.
So again, when they show up with all these goods, then they eat those goods.
You know, here, praise God, we don't have like a farm in the back that you're just bringing
all these animals in through or whatever.
You know, today we live a little bit different.
People are giving actual money, cash, online donations, whatever is typically what's happening.
And then that money is then turned into whatever we need, right?
Chairs, hymnals, plane tickets, you know, whatever it is that we're doing here to basically
accommodate.
But there, it's food.
Well, here's the thing, food doesn't last forever, so it's got to get eaten.
So they show up, everybody eats it all.
Okay?
And that's just kind of how the system works.
So it's like everybody gets the kind of benefit from the church.
Now think about that, you know, in today's situation, it seems like today, you know,
most churches, and I've grown, I've gone to a lot of different churches, I grew up
in church.
Most churches, I wasn't really getting much out of the church, financially speaking.
In fact, you had to pay for literally everything.
I mean, the churches that I went to, everything was for sale.
You know, you go in, the coffee's for sale.
You go in, the books are for sale.
You go in, every meal they've ever provided is for sale.
Everything is just always for sale, and it doesn't really seem to match, in my mind,
kind of this picture.
You know, in my mind, it makes more sense that whatever ties or offerings are given,
that we all get to partake in to some degree, right?
And so you know what?
You go to a new IV church, it's going to be a different experience than most other
churches, where you have tons of fellowships and foods and outings and things that you
don't even have to pay for.
But it's not that your ties and offerings aren't helping that happen, they are.
It's just like we're not asking for an extra nickel and diming you, we're not nickeling
and diming you after that on top of that, right?
You're actually getting to be blessed through that.
So I think it's biblical for churches to have food fellowships and pay for meals and
buy people, you know, meals in the context of church, you know, church setting events
because that's the model that we see here.
Now, does that mean that every time we get together, the church is going to feed everybody?
No.
Is it a soup kitchen?
No.
The New Testament makes it really clear that you have houses to eat and to drink in.
Okay.
I get that.
There's a difference there.
But I also think that, hey, we should allow the congregation to benefit from the offerings
and the tithes of God.
And you know what?
I think this church does a lot of that.
You know, just in context and contrast of other churches that I've been to, I have not
seen churches do these kind of things.
I've been a part of the nickel and dime program.
Who's been part of the nickel and dime program before of other churches?
Yeah.
Everything is just kind of for sale.
Even the tracks.
I've heard of churches charging for the tracks.
You know, I'm again, I'm not going to say those churches are evil or wicked or something.
I just don't agree with it.
I don't like it.
I don't want to do that here.
And so we try our best to make everything, you know, just free, free, taken care of,
provided for.
But then, you know, that doesn't necessarily accommodate everything, you know, in the same
context.
Why do they have these big fancy buildings?
Because they make you charge for everything, right?
You know, what do you want?
The big fancy, nice building and then nickel and dime to death or just you don't have to
worry about that.
I guess it's just to each their own, right?
But for me, I like our program.
I like our style.
They bring all their ties and offerings.
They get to partake in those as well.
Now he says here in verse number 19, "Take heed to thyself that thou forsake not the
Levite as long as thou livest upon the earth."
So obviously we're bringing our ties and offerings and sacrifices and vows to God for God.
Like, that's the point, right?
That should be the meaning.
But then, of course, God is just a practical God and he recognizes that by doing this,
you're blessing the Levite.
And by not doing it, you're forsaking the Levite.
You're harming your brother, and it would be harmful to churches if people just stop
giving money to church or stop tithing.
This is a big controversy.
I think because of prosperity preachers and some other churches that just focus on money
as the only thing they focus on, they've caused some people to have a bad taste in their mouth.
I can't tell you, of doctrines that I fight with people on that don't come to church and
stuff, this has got to be number one.
People get so mad and just frustrated about the idea of tithing, or like giving money
to church, or any kind of things like this.
And it's just like, well, the Bible's like explicitly saying that you shouldn't forsake
the Levi.
I mean, you know, oh, well, that's the Old Testament.
Okay, I get it.
But what other, you're just going to do that to the entire Bible now?
Tattoos, Old Testament, you know, incest, that's Old Testament, brother.
You know, like, which ones are you going to do that to?
Okay.
I mean, it's like, gross, you know, why can't we just believe all the Bible?
Like, why won't you have a consistent application?
It's like, incest's wrong, I'm going to keep that, right?
Hey, tithes and offerings, I'm going to keep that.
I'm just going to keep everything, eating blood, what, are you going to be a vampire
now?
And in fact, the New Testament, of course, explicitly agrees with that again, and even
restates that.
It brings up tithing again and restates that in the book of Hebrews.
It's not like it's not mentioned.
It's mentioned prior to the law, during the law, in the book of Proverbs, and in the future.
And at the end of the day, this is what the chapter is about.
I'm not inserting any kind of idea here.
We're just hammering tithes and offerings.
Think about it.
He says, you're going to be blessed if you keep my statutes.
What's the first thing he brings up?
Tithes and offerings again.
Again, this is the first thing he brings up.
The Bible emphasizes being the first fruits, the firstlings of thy flocks.
In fact, he wants the firstborn.
And what he told the children of Israel, instead of you actually having to kill your firstborn
son, you can offer an animal in place of him.
But you had to offer the firstlings of your flock basically to redeem your firstborn child,
your firstborn son as a substitute, as a replacement.
And again, what is that picturing?
The Lord Jesus Christ.
Why?
Because he's the firstborn.
He's that firstborn offering that, that picture of the animal sacrifice, the lamb of God
to take away the sin of the world.
And that redeems your son, that redeems your children and my children, because by the blood
of the lamb is what gives us that salvation.
Also it's all those pictures, right?
Of course in the New Testament, we don't have, you know, most of us don't have cattle.
Most of us don't have cows.
We don't have animals.
Most of us make money in a completely different way.
But it's still the same principle.
It's still the same thing that's being brought up.
And then practically speaking, it allows the house of God to go well.
Now here's the thing, if every single person in this church gave $0, I'm still going to
keep going.
Now what's going to happen is things are going to change though, you know?
Things are going to get cheap real fast.
You know what I mean?
And at the end of the day, God won't bless you because you're forsaking the house of
God.
You're forsaking these principles, obviously not the Levite literally, because no one here
is a literal Levite.
I'm not even a symbol of a Levite.
But the Levites pictured people that were dedicated to the house of God and the priesthood,
and we are priests in the New Testament, so there is a parallel there.
But you know, we're after the order of Melchizedek in the New Testament.
Okay, I get that.
The Levitical priesthood has been done away with.
But the principle of the priesthood, the principle of the house of God, still applies in the
New Testament.
And I believe by forsaking, you know, the tithes and offerings, you're forsaking the
house of God, you're forsaking the priests of God, the men of God, and the work of God.
Okay?
And it just doesn't make sense.
You know, the Bible says that the men of God that are doing a good job, that they're
worthy of double honor, according to the Bible.
The apostle Paul brings this up, that, you know, who goes to warfare and, like, pays
their own way.
You know, in 1 Corinthians chapter 9, it brings up this principle.
I mean, this is a big thing in the Bible.
It's a constant mention.
Why?
Because we want the house of God to thrive.
The person that doesn't want a tithe doesn't want the house of God to thrive.
The person that doesn't want to give offerings or financially, you know, do these things
doesn't have the right heart.
And this is what's silly about it, biblically speaking, they're withholding themselves from
being blessed by God, because the whole point is being blessed by God.
So here's the thing, if I don't preach about tithing because I don't personally, you know,
care that much, I'm withholding blessing from you though, by not warning you and teaching
you that you should do it.
You know, and I grew up in church, I've tithed my entire life.
As far as I can go back in memory, I've always tithed and, you know, for the first 27 years
it was to bad churches, okay, I'll be honest, but I didn't know any better and I think God
was probably merciless with me in my ignorance, especially as a child, you know, giving money.
You know what?
I've always been blessed and I've always been financially doing well.
Not to say that I haven't been stolen from and ripped off and bad things.
I'm just saying I've always had what I needed.
God's always blessed me greatly and you know what?
To me, you're robbing yourself when you don't honor the Lord and you really don't have much
faith because, you know, frankly speaking, He could take away everything you have like
that anyways.
Look at Job, he had a lot of money, gone like that, it can happen to anyone.
So these are important principles but again, why do you want your Levi, why do you want
your priest, why do you want your pastor, why do you want your church to be forsaken
anyways?
It just doesn't make any sense.
It says in verse 20, "When the Lord thy God shall enlarge thy border as he hath promised
thee, and thou shalt say, I will eat flesh because thy soul longeth to eat flesh, thou
mayest eat flesh whatsoever thy soul loves another."
You know, I like God.
God's just like, "Hey, you want something?
Have it."
I love the Bible.
The Bible's not just sitting here like, "Oh, you want this?
You can't have it."
Uh-huh.
Uh-uh.
You know, say the magic words.
No, no, it's just like, you want it?
You have it.
Okay?
You want steak?
Have steak.
You want lamb chops?
Have lamb chops.
You want quail?
Have quail.
Right?
You want brisket?
As long as you make it Texas-style, you can have brisket.
Okay?
You want chili?
No beans.
No, I'm just kidding.
You can have beans.
You can have whatever.
If you want beans, have a bean only chili.
Okay?
I don't care.
You just love beans so much.
Have 20 beans in it, 20 different kinds of beans, no meat.
Okay?
Have lentils.
You know, just be like, just be like Esau.
Just selling your inheritance for a bowl of lentils or whatever.
Okay?
But whatever you want, you get.
That's the God of the Bible.
Verse 21.
"If the place which the Lord thy God hath chosen to put his name there be too far from
thee, then thou shalt kill of thy herd and of thy flock which the Lord hath given thee
as I have commanded thee.
And thou shalt eat of thy gates which serve of thy soul lest it after."
So again, I think you have to understand verse 21 in this context.
Some people may have lived so close to the house of God that no matter what they were
going to kill, they always did it at the house of God.
Just every meal.
But he's saying for most of you, you're not going to live that close to the house of God.
So you know, whenever you're just not close, you just eat whatever you want whenever you
want.
No big deal.
Bless God at your house.
But this is not saying the sacrifice is enticed, it's not contradicting the entire point of
this particular passage.
Verse 21, "Even as the roebuck and the heart is eaten, so so they'll eat them, the unclean
and the clean shall eat of them alike."
Now again, that's another proof to the fact that he's not talking about the beast because
the roebuck and the heart are both clean beasts.
They're the deer, as you would think of.
That's the roebuck and the heart.
A lot of people like deer.
Who likes deer in here?
Yeah, a lot of people, a lot of people like deer.
You can have it whenever you want, okay?
Even if you're unclean, even if you're kind of dirty and smelly, you can still eat it.
That's what the Bible says.
Verse 23, "Only be sure that thou eat not the blood, for the blood is the life and thou
mayst not eat the life with the flesh.
Thou shalt not eat it, thou shalt pour it upon the earth as water, thou shalt not eat
it."
Man, he really doesn't want you to do it.
"That it may go well with thee and with thy children after thee, when thou shalt do that
which is right in the sight of the Lord."
Isn't it so interesting that satanic cults love eating and drinking blood?
And then God's just like, "Don't do it, don't do it, don't do it, don't do it, don't do
it."
And they're just like, "Yeah, I want to do it."
That's the Satanism.
It's just the antithesis of the Bible.
It's the antithesis of the Word of God.
Let's just do the most horrific things that the Bible says not to do.
We'll do all of them.
That is what true Satanism and that's what cults are like.
They drink and eat blood.
Anybody that's trying to entice you to eat or drink blood, you should be very nervous
about that person immediately.
Get away from them, stay away from them.
It's real that people are like this.
Foreign countries, pagan, idolatrous, false religions, will eat and drink blood to stay
far away from these people.
Verse 26, "Only thy holy things which thou hast and thy vows thou shalt take and go
unto the place where the Lord shall choose, and thou shalt offer thy burnt offerings,
the flesh and the blood, upon the altar of the Lord thy God, and the blood of thy sacrifices
shall be poured out upon the altar of the Lord thy God, and thou shalt eat the flesh."
So again, notice he says, "Only thy holy things do you have to take to the house of God."
What does holy mean?
Set apart.
So it's sanctified, it's set apart.
You're setting a portion apart, and then you're taking that to the house of God.
Everything else is on the table, whenever, however, free will God.
Free will God.
Verse 28, "Observe and hear all these words, which I command thee, that it may go well
with thee, and with thy children after thee forever, when thou doest that which is good,
and right in the sight of the Lord thy God.
And the Lord thy God shall cut off the nations from before thee, whither thou goest to possess
them, and thou succeedest them, and dwellest in their land.
Take heed to thyself, that thou be not snared by following them; after that they be destroyed
from before thee, and that thou inquire not after their gods, saying, How did these nations
serve their gods?
Even so will I do likewise.
Thou shalt not do so unto the Lord thy God.
For every abomination the Lord which he hath, he hateth, I'm sorry, have they done unto
their gods, for even their sons and their daughters they have burnt in the fire to their
gods.
What things soever I command you observe to do it, thou shalt not add thereto nor diminish
from it.
So again, when you're encountering false religion, the Bible says that we should be simple concerning
that which is evil.
We don't really want to figure out everything that they're doing.
If we had opportunity to burn Bohemian Grove, I don't want to know all the things they were
doing in there.
Just burn it.
Just get rid of false religion.
You don't need to know all their ways, learn all their ways, figure out all their practices.
Just burn it, forget it, get rid of it.
That's the principle that he's laying down and he's saying, notice that those nations
did everything.
He says, "For every abomination of the Lord which he hateth, have they done unto their
gods."
They did every horrific thing imaginable.
You read Leviticus chapter 20 at the end, it says all the nations did all of that.
And I mean, you read Leviticus 20, it is crazy.
It is a crazy, horrific list.
It is just like witchcraft, every horrific option of incest you could ever dream up,
and things you did not dream up.
All kinds of sodomy and bestiality, and just worshipping the god of Moluk by sacrificing
children.
And let me tell you something.
There are people in this world doing this kind of creepy, weird, disgusting, filthy,
abominable stuff.
You know, and it is usually happening in the sewers of New York City probably too.
I mean, why do you think that a bunch of rats crawl out of there and they find mattresses
with blood stains on it and child baby, like, chairs and all kinds of stuff?
Weird satanic stuff going on down there.
It should just be burned with fire.
You know, you wonder, like, why would God just, like, nuke, you know, Babylon off of
the face of the planet?
I'm going to tell you, the tunnels is one reason.
It might be all the reasons.
I don't know.
But I'm telling you, there's some sick, sick, disgusting stuff out there.
Some weird stuff, you know, there's always this label out there that Jews get mad at.
It's like, oh, we're always falsely accused of blood libel, blood libel.
Who's ever heard of this blood libel?
The word libel means lie, like it's basically just a false statement of slander.
Someone says, I'm accusing you of libel or this person committed libel.
It means they committed slander or lies.
Jews will say, oh, there's all these blood libels about us saying that we've done horrific
things, OK?
But it's like-- I think it was the ADL.
They had this web page dedicated to this where they basically just outlined all the things
that they had done.
And then they would tell you all that they did, and they'd just be like, yeah, but that's
not exactly what happened.
But there's a really famous one called Simon of Trent.
Who's ever heard of the Simon of Trent, OK, anybody?
You don't want to know.
But essentially, there's just a famous story in Europe where a young boy was basically
slaughtered by a bunch of Jews, and they're performing, like, drinking his blood and all
kinds of weird stuff.
And they got caught.
And that's why there was just all this anti-Semitism and just, like, all this pushback toward Jews
where they became illegal to be a Jew in many countries.
They were forced out, kicked out of 109 nations, and, you know, basically just a lot of persecution.
Because who wants to be around people killing children, drinking blood, doing all these
kinds of abominations?
And yet, in Christian churches today, they're saying we should give money for these people
and pray to these people, you know, and bless these people and bring them on our stage and
have them do Hawk Flem and whatever, and blow a little trumpet.
And it's just like, that's disgusting.
We don't want to know anything about what you're doing.
I don't want to know about your old practices or whatever.
And of course, Jerusalem does this.
Jerusalem ends up doing all of this horrific stuff that these foreign nations did.
That's why God destroys Jerusalem in the future.
You know, Ezekiel is told to like, he's like, picked up by the hair, you know, passed me
his cool sermon, he has the like, head.
It's like God picked him up and just drug him underneath the temple to show him all
the horrific things that were being done.
That's the stuff that's being mentioned, saying, "Hey, that's what those people were like.
They did these wicked, evil abominations."
Why did God just genocide the Canaanites?
Because of this horrific stuff, okay?
It's weird for us to then be like, "We should be friends with these people.
We should bless these people.
We should do good."
God's saying, "Destroy everything about them.
Forget everything about them."
That is the true Christian attitude.
That's the true Biblical attitude.
And you know, whatever God commands us, we are supposed to just observe.
Notice in verse 32, we're not supposed to add to it or diminish from it.
I'm not supposed to diminish from Leviticus chapter 20.
I'm not supposed to diminish from this particular chapter.
You know, again, I'm not supposed to diminish from tithing.
I could sit here and say like, "Oh man, tithing's got a bad rap because of false preachers so
I'm not going to preach it."
But you know what, that would be a bad attitude.
I'm supposed to say exactly whatever God said.
If God says tithe, then tithe.
If God says don't eat blood, don't eat blood.
If God says you can eat whatever you want, then you can eat whatever you want.
I'm not going to diminish from that either.
Hey, whatever food you like, as long as it's sanctified by the Word of God and prayer,
you can eat whatever you like whenever you would like it.
The clean and the unclean.
You know, God gives us all kinds of free will.
We're not supposed to add our rules.
"Hey, well, you shouldn't do this."
Okay, chapter and verse.
A lot of preachers, a lot of pastors
adding to God's word and diminishing from God's word.
You know, they add all these extra rules,
all these extra layers, extra layers to marriage.
Well, here's other things you're not allowed to do
or you can't do.
It's like chapter and verse.
You know, somebody was saying like,
"Oh, you know, you think because you're one flesh
and because you have power over your wife's body,
you couldn't technically kidnap your wife."
And I'm thinking like, "You're right.
I can't kidnap my wife.
She's my wife."
You know, that would be weird.
You know what I can't do?
I can't steal my car.
I can't rob my own bank account, okay?
I cannot kidnap my wife.
There's a thing, I can hurt my wife, right?
I can do bad things to my wife.
I can be a crappy husband.
I can be a jerk.
But you know what?
There's just some things you just can't do, okay?
And look, there's people out there just preaching
whatever they think, whatever they dream up,
whatever weird ideas they have.
You can't spank teenagers.
You know what?
That's not true in my house.
Now, I don't have a teenager yet, but when I do,
it's legal and it's real, okay?
Hey, you know, I don't have to follow man's rules.
I can follow whatever God said.
I'm not gonna add to God's rules.
I'm not gonna diminish from God's rules.
I mean, the Bible says,
"He that hated his son, spared his rod."
He that spared his rod hated his son.
And then you're gonna tell me that
if you spank your teenager, you're not right with God,
you're diminishing from God's word.
'Cause it doesn't say,
as soon as they turn a magical age of 13,
it's now not a proverb or something in your Bible.
You know, that's just nonsense, okay?
And you know, I get mad at people
taking away from what God's word actually says.
You know, tithes and offerings is biblical.
I don't care what you think.
I just care what the Bible says.
Now, let's go to a few places.
I wanna continue this thought for a moment.
Go to Judges chapter 17, Judges chapter 17.
Again, I'll remind you,
Abel offered the firstlings of the flock,
Abraham paid tithes to Melchizedek,
Jacob in Genesis chapter number 28,
he said that he would pay God a 10th
of whatever he blessed him with,
which means what, tithe, okay.
Then you have other examples of this,
but of course then you have the law
bringing this concept of again, this principle again.
And you kind of have to ask yourself this question like,
well, I don't really agree with it, okay,
but who cares what you think?
You don't do whatever's right in your eyes,
you do whatever's right in God's eyes.
And this principle is brought up in Judges,
look at 17 verse six.
In those days, there was no king in Israel,
but every man did that which was right in his own eyes.
Now there's nothing, is Judges a book of just like,
success and awesome things that happen,
or is it just a train wreck?
It's a train wreck.
Doing whatever you think is right in your own eyes.
Look at chapter 21, verse 25.
Judges chapter 21, look at verse 25.
Again, this is the principle that's brought up
in Deuteronomy chapter 12 is,
don't do what you think is right in your own eyes,
do what's right in God's eyes.
Ties, offerings, not forsaking the Levi.
Judges 21 verse 25, in those days,
there was no king in Israel,
every man did that which was right in his own eyes.
If you read Judges, it's just a train wreck
after train wreck after train wreck, why?
Because everybody did that which was right in his own eyes.
They're not doing what's right in God's eyes.
They're forsaking the house of God.
They're not following his commandments.
They're not following the statutes.
And as a result, it's a train wreck, no blessing.
They're under heavy oppression.
If you don't pay tithes and offerings,
will God then just bring in 40% tax, oppression?
You think that you have it better by not obeying God?
Well, that's never been the case.
Proverbs chapter 21, go to Proverbs chapter 21.
We're gonna see this principle again.
Well, you know what, church is a little far for me.
I don't wanna go to church.
Wrong, you go to church wherever God puts it.
Well, it's a little too far, then move.
Get a bigger car, get a bigger gas tank.
I don't care, get a plane.
I mean, I'd rather you own a helicopter
and go to church than not go to church.
Well, I'm having church at home.
Wrong, you have church wherever God has church.
That's where you have church.
Proverbs 21, look at verse 25.
The desire of the slothful, I'm sorry,
maybe I have the wrong verse here.
I wrote this down wrong probably.
Oh, Proverbs 21 verse two.
I'm just looking at the wrong verse.
Every way of man is right in his own eyes,
but the Lord pondereth the hearts.
Look, obviously everything you think is right,
you think is right.
Otherwise you wouldn't think that.
Challenge yourself for a second.
Everything you think is right right now
is because you think it's right.
But that does not mean it's right.
You know what you're supposed to do?
You're supposed to challenge yourself with the Bible.
Okay, go to Proverbs chapter three,
go to Proverbs chapter three,
probably the most famous verses on challenging yourself.
And look, that's why we have a King James Bible.
Because when you don't have a King James Bible
and you're not King James only,
you still do that which is right in your own eyes.
Because if you don't like what the verse says,
you go find a translation that agrees with you already.
Whereas with the King James,
if he doesn't agree with you, you're wrong, Bible's right.
So you change.
That's how you can actually change your mind.
And what the Bible says is you're supposed to trust
in the Lord.
Look at it says in verse five,
trust in the Lord with all thine heart
and lean not unto thine own understanding.
So the Bible's saying when I'm reading something
in the Bible and it's different than what I think,
you have to change.
That's what it means to trust in the Lord.
Well, I don't think that that's right.
I don't like that.
That doesn't make sense.
Economy, history, tradition, my friends,
whatever this person's doing.
I don't care.
Don't do what's right in your eyes and your understanding.
Do what's right according to the Bible, period.
In all thy ways acknowledge him
and he shall direct thy paths.
Be not wise in thine own eyes.
Fear the Lord and depart from evil.
It shall be health to thy navel and moral to thy bones.
Look at verse nine.
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.
You think that's a coincidence?
You think it's a coincidence that the Bible
is just hammering, trusting in the Lord and not yourself?
And then it just brings up onto the Lord with thy substance,
with the first word.
And then what do you get?
You get blessed.
Like, it's not like God's just saying like,
man, I know the economy's rough.
I just wanna kick you while you're down.
I know, I just wanna like take away even more from you.
I just wanna make it a little bit harder on you.
What is he saying?
He's saying if you put me first,
then I'll give you more than you even could ever handle.
What does he say?
He says, so shall thy barns be filled with plenty
and thy presses shall burst out with new wine.
He says, you're gonna have more
than you know what to do with.
You're gonna have plenty and then you're gonna have more.
It's gonna be running over
if you honor the Lord with thy substance.
And with the first fruits,
notice this of all thine increase.
That's what the Bible teaches.
Go if you would to Jeremiah chapter seven.
Go Jeremiah chapter number seven.
So again, what is the Bible hammering here?
Go to church, pay your tithes and offerings.
And then what?
You'll be blessed.
Don't go to church.
Forsake church, forsake tithes and offerings,
forsake the Levite, and you're going to be cursed.
And then pretty soon you'll just go follow some other false
religion and do all kinds of weird nonsense that they're
doing, sacrificing their children into the fire.
Then you basically become pro-abortion, planned
parenthood, just destroying our country.
I mean, this is the pathway that it leads to.
We need to actually put God first.
Now, I brought up Jeremiah seven just because of the
church issue that we've been talking about as well.
But God at first did not make Jerusalem the house of God.
He actually made Shiloh.
Look at Jeremiah chapter seven verse 12.
"But go ye now unto my place, which was in Shiloh, where I
set my name at the first, and see what I did to it for the
wickedness of my people Israel."
So at first he set up Shiloh.
But they forsook the things of God.
They didn't do what God said.
They forsook them in tithes and offerings even that's
brought up in Malachi.
And as a result of them just going after a whoredom and
just all kinds of false religion and idolatry and just
forsaking God, he ends up just greatly destroying them and
wipes out Shiloh and has to pick a new place.
So think about this.
At some point, it was Shiloh.
That's where he served God.
Then he just moves it.
And geographically, Shiloh's not next to Jerusalem.
I mean, it's a pretty good distance away from Jerusalem.
You had to travel.
And you know what?
Sometimes that's how God is.
It's just like, hey, worshipping God was in
Hearst, now it's in Whataga, now it's in Cedar Hill.
Who knows where it's next?
But at the end of the day, it's like, hey, sorry, that's
how God works.
Hey, in the wilderness, they had to wander all kinds of
places.
In the new promised land here, they have to move and
migrate.
God kind of makes people move around and have to travel
distances to serve Him.
There's at least a little bit of sacrifice to serve in God.
But you do it.
And if you don't, what does He say here in verse 13?
And now, because ye have done all these works, say the Lord.
And I spake unto you, rising up early and speaking.
But ye heard not.
And I called you, but ye answered not.
Therefore, what I do unto this house, which is called by my name,
wherein ye trust, and unto the place which I gave to you and to your fathers,
as I've done to Shiloh.
So then, just as I destroyed Shiloh, now I'm going to destroy Jerusalem.
Because you won't listen, you won't hearken, you won't come back to me.
And so, I'll just destroy this place now.
I just want to go to one, let's go to Matthew chapter six.
I think we'll just finish there.
Hebrews also, again, for sake of time, I'm not going to go there.
But Hebrews chapter seven brings up paying tithes to Melchizedek.
And the text says that here, men that die receive tithes.
And that's true.
Now, obviously, with Melchizedek, kind of an enigma, he's kind of a difficult character.
I pretty much always consistently said it's been the Lord Jesus Christ or the pre-incarnate
Christ.
I still lean in that direction, but I could be wrong, could have just been a regular person.
But either way, the Bible is just kind of insinuating, let's assume that it's the Lord
Jesus Christ.
Well, you're paying money to God directly, like, you know, obviously you're not worried
about it getting mismanaged, when you're just giving your tithes and offerings directly
to God, right?
But then they had to give it to the Levites.
Here men that die receive tithes, the Levites are there.
Sometimes it got mismanaged.
Haphni and Phineas of course screwed things up.
In the New Testament though, you know, the priesthood changed.
The Bible says of necessity, the priesthood being changed, there's also made a change
of the law.
So, things have changed, but you know it never brings up tithing as being changed.
It's just instead of it being under Levi, it's now under Melchizedek.
And again, same principle though can apply that men here that die receive tithes of their
brethren.
But who really receives them?
God.
God is the one that's receiving them.
God is the one that's going to bless you for the tithes and offerings that you give.
The poor widow woman that gave two mites, God said that she was going to have the best
blessing or the best reward.
She gave more than they all, and she was going to have the greatest reward in heaven for
what she gave.
She didn't directly give it to God.
She gave it to men here that die.
Okay, those are the people that received that particular offering.
Obviously, and Niceneus the Viral, giving money.
Many people sold possessions and gave a lot of money to the church in the book of Acts.
Obviously, people were getting that, but it's not about that, it's about giving it unto
the Lord.
And you know, we put money in bank accounts, we put money in investment accounts.
We can store up money on this earth, and there's nothing wrong with having a savings account,
there's nothing wrong with having an investment account.
Don't hear me wrong.
There's nothing wrong with buying stuff.
But at the end of the day, the Bible just explicitly tells us that that's not our life
goal, that's not what we should be striving for.
Matthew chapter number six, look at verse number 19, "Lay not up for yourselves treasure
upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal.
But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt,
and where thieves do not break through nor steal.
For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also."
We should be careful that if we just lay up too much money on this earth and earthly possessions,
that it could affect our heart.
That if all your money is just about your house or your boat or your 401k or your condo
or your timeshare, never buy a timeshare, okay?
But whatever it is, wherever you're putting that money, if you actually have it, most
of us probably don't have any money, so I'm preaching to you rich people, okay?
I'm just saying if you ever had it, sometimes that's where your heart is, and the Bible
is saying we should not do that.
We should be careful.
If you're putting, think about it, if you're putting all your money and effort and energy
and time into church, that's where your heart's going to be.
You're putting all your money, time and effort and energy into something else, that's where
your heart's going to be.
Whatever that is, it could be literally anything.
She's like, "I don't like this, I don't like giving money to church, I don't think we should
give money to church."
Well, that means that your heart's not in church, that's what the Bible says.
Well, my heart's in God, I tithe with my time.
I've heard this, people are like, "I don't tithe money, I tithe with my time."
That's not a thing.
And number one, number two, show me the person that's giving God 2.4 hours every day, because
that's what a tithe is, it's 10th.
This person that, quote, "ties" with their time, I would love to see that.
Or sometimes people will be like, "Oh, I gave five dollars to a drunk on the corner.
I tithed.
Wrong."
In fact, you actually sinned because the Bible is like commanding you not to give money to
people that won't work.
So like, look, I'm just telling you these are real things.
People come to me like, "Oh, I don't tithe, I just give money to, you know, people on
the corner or whatever."
And I'm like, "Wow, that's stupid."
I'm like, "If you're not going to tithe, still don't give money to those people.
Like, you're not helping anyone.
You're hurting society, you're robbing yourself of money, and God doesn't bank at the homeless
man's hand."
That is not where God banks, okay?
You know, you should tithe to the New Testament local church.
And look, I've said this and I consistently believe it, I think you should tithe to whatever
church you're going to, okay?
That's where you should bring your tithes and offerings.
No, look, obviously you can always give money to another church.
I'm not against that.
Some people like to bless other churches.
People that listen online give us money.
I'm not mad at you.
But at the end of the day, you know, wherever you're going to church, you should get excited
about that church.
You should give money to that church.
You should bless that church.
You should do good under that church.
You know, that's what I believe.
That's the principle that I follow and abide by.
And you know, at the end of the day, I just don't want to diminish anything from what
the text says.
And whether I'm your pastor or not, I believe this doctrine.
I've always believed this doctrine.
I've always followed this doctrine.
I always will follow this doctrine.
And the person that doesn't like this, number one, they're.
Your heart's not in the things of God.
Number two, they're not going to be blessed themselves, okay?
They're going to be cursed by God for not following this.
And number three, how do you practically think the things of God are going to go well if
everybody was like you?
You know, if you don't give a dying to this church, how, how in the world would the church
operate if everybody was like you?
I mean, where are we going to sit?
Where are we going to?
You know, I like church.
I like coming here.
I like having fellowships.
I like doing all these things.
You know what?
You should always ask yourself this question.
If not everybody was like me, what would it be like?
If everybody was like you, if we were all like certain people in this room, none of
us would be married.
I'm just kidding.
Hey!
I'm not down on single people.
I'm just making a joke.
Okay.
But I'm just saying, think about it.
Hey, if we were like you, that doesn't go sowing, then no one gets saved.
If we were like you, we didn't give a dime, we wouldn't have a Vangus Urbanic in the Philippines
getting to do all the work that he's doing out there, because he doesn't have to spend
much time working.
We're paying his way.
We wouldn't get to go to the Bahamas and do all the things that we're doing.
We wouldn't get to go to Barbados next year and do all the things.
We wouldn't have all these conferences and events and workshops and free things and all
the tracks and the materials that we're constantly delivering.
We wouldn't have all that stuff.
So don't get negative on this attitude.
Don't do that which is right in your own eyes.
Just do whatever the Bible says.
And just trust in the Lord.
Have faith in the Lord.
Most people that I know that serve God greatly, they seem to like this doctrine.
So even from an anecdotal perspective, I've never seen anybody get mad about this or really
struggle in this area.
It's usually the people that are kind of on the fence.
Just get all the way in and then your heart will be here with you.
Alright, let's close in prayer.
Thank you, Father, so much for all that you've given us.
Thank you for what you've blessed us with.
We live in a fallen world and a dark place, but I pray that you could help us to be a
bright and shining light.
I pray that you would help us to put our heart in the things of God and in the house of God.
I pray that you would help us to have faith, to trust in you.
And I pray anybody in this room that is tithing and blessing the Lord with their money and
their offerings, I pray that you would just pour them out a blessing.
I pray that you would just help them in a miraculous way, that you would just do good
unto them, that they could see your guiding and your provision that you give them.
I pray that those that come to church and are faithful to church, that you would help
them to find good work and to be blessed in their life and be blessed in the things that
they do.
I pray that those of us that are seeking you first, that you would give us all the other
things that we need.
That's what you promised us.
And I pray that we would get our hearts right.
Those that are struggling in this area, I pray that you give them faith, to trust in
the things of God.
I pray that you would help us to build a great house of God, since you are a great God, and
that we could use the money, and the tithes, and the offerings, and all the things you
give us to bless the congregation, to bless our area, and to bless the lost by giving
them the gospel.
In Jesus' name we pray, amen.