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Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Everyone, welcome to Stonewall Baptist Church. We'll be right here. The song of 159. The song of 159. Blessed be the day. The song of 159. Church, let's sing this out with all our hearts. All praise to him who reigns above, and majesty supreme. Give his son for man to die, and be my family king. Blessed be the day. Blessed be the day. Blessed be the name of the Lord. Blessed be the day. Blessed be the day. Blessed be the day. Blessed be the day. Blessed be the name. Blessed be the name of the Lord. His name above all things shall stand. Exalted fore and fore. Let God, the Father's, own right hand where angels once adored. Blessed be the name. Blessed be the name. Blessed be the name of the Lord. Blessed be the name, blessed be the name, blessed be the name of the Lord. Retain her, save her, friend of men, with spirit by the fall. Thou hast been my salvation's plan, for thou hast died for all. Blessed be the name, blessed be the name, blessed be the name of the Lord. Blessed be the name, blessed be the name, blessed be the name of the Lord. Right church on this last wall we got. Blessed be the name, blessed be the name, blessed be the name of the Lord. Blessed be the name, blessed be the name, blessed be the name of the Lord. Blessed be the name, blessed be the name, blessed be the name of the Lord. Blessed be the name of the Lord. Some 140 in the evening, some wonderful. On the first, we have the reindeer moving the storms of life. When the clouds unfold, there leads us north. When the strong tide's left, then the rainbow streams. When the reindeer drift, the work begins. We have to be firm and ease the storm. Stead past the shore while the yellows roll. Pass it to the rock which cannot move. Round and firm and deep in the Savior's blood. He safely boards the storm. It's fair for to dwell, set forth by the Savior's hand. When the tempest break, then wild waves blow. Not an angry wave, sure the Lord will. We have to be firm and ease the storm. Stead past the shore while the yellows roll. Pass it to the rock which cannot move. Round and firm and deep in the Savior's blood. With our eyes we roll through the gathering night. The city of gold, our harbor bright. We shall anchor fast, but can't be sure. Till the storms all pass forevermore. We have the earth that keeps us whole. Stead past the shore while the yellows roll. Pass it to the rock which cannot move. Round and firm and deep in the Savior's blood. Amen. All right. Welcome to Strong Old Baptist Church. Glad you all could be with us this morning. At this time, we'll go through our announcements. So if you don't have a bulletin, you can slip your hand up real high, and one of our ushers will make sure that they get one to you. If you open up to the first page, you will see our service times listed there as always Sunday morning at 1030, Sunday evening again at 5 o'clock, and then Wednesday night at 7 is our Bible study. We're going through the book of Jeremiah chapter by chapter. We are in chapter number five this week, so I hope you can make it out for that. The sowing opportunities are listed there, as well as the salvations and the baptisms for the month of July, both for our church here and the church plant in Norcross in Greenville. If there's any salvations to report for the week, just quickly slip up your hand. We'll get those counted up. Anything at all? Yes, sir. Two for... One on Thursday and one for Saturday. Amen. Thank you. One on Saturday. Anyone else have anything to report for the week? Excellent. All right. Very good. Keep up the good work. Obviously, preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ is the most important thing that we can do as believers, and if you are new to this or you haven't done that before, if you're not really exactly even sure what we're talking about, it's where we go out and open up our Bibles and try to show people how they can be saved just by putting their trust in Jesus Christ as their Savior, and we will show people as many verses as they need to understand the concept and understand salvation and to call in the name of the Lord. So, love to encourage you to come and join us, and if you have any desire to want to do that at all, just join us. You don't even have to say anything. You could be a silent partner, and you could see how we preach the gospel to people and hopefully be able to learn something and be able to spread the good word yourself. Continuing on, we've got the offering totals received through the month of July down there, and then the sword drills. Brother Lance has kind of started this new event for the kids to do some sword drills, Bible memory, trivia. It's kind of a mix of different fun things to get the kids excited about learning about the Bible and give them a chance to maybe get to know each other if they don't all know each other already. That takes place here at one o'clock in the auditorium, so you're kind of meeting right up near that main entrance in that back area by the chairs there, so there's prizes to give away. There's all kinds of fun stuff, so I encourage you, families, to let your kids be a part of that. It is a lot of fun, so I know a lot of kids get excited about that. Continuing on the next page here in our prayer list, I don't really have any updates. We haven't added anyone new. We added some people last week. Brother Logan, how's your wife doing? Is she kind of the same, not doing well? We're really sorry to hear that. We added her last week, so we've got her in the prayer list this week, so please pray for the pains that Mrs. Logan is suffering. Does anyone else have any updates for the people who are on the prayer list? Yes, sir. Mr. Meeko, they were sharing it, but Derek and Darlene had their date. Oh, they did? Okay, cool. So Darlene Hyde had her... Yeah, we had an estimated due date here of August. We didn't know exactly when, so that's great. Do you know what day that was or no? You can find out. You can find out, okay. Awesome. And while he's looking that up, we always try to provide meals for families that have babies. It's always very helpful when, after the baby's born, to bless that family with some food, to just ease the burden a little bit while mom's recovering. And so if you want to help with that, we will be starting that up. Thursday and a boy. Thursday and a boy. Do you got the name or no? They haven't picked out a name. All right. Little Hyde. Awesome. Well, that's exciting news. I assume everyone's okay. Mom and baby are fine. No problems. Excellent. Well, yeah, that's probably, that's pretty normal. Pretty standard stuff there. So I'm really, really happy to hear about that. Appreciate your prayers, those of you who have been praying for Mrs. Hyde. Continue to pray, of course, for the rest of the ladies here that are with child. We have many people who have been praying for Mrs. Hyde. We are with child. We have many people who are pregnant in our church. Pray everything will go well there. And then, of course, continue to pray for everyone who's got some very, very serious problems, very serious health concerns. So please pray for all of them. Is there any other updates? Did I miss anyone that had an update? All right. Very good. Continue to pray for our church plant there. I'm keeping them on our list here as the churches and pastors are praying for. Evangelist Carter is doing a great job over there in Greenville. And there's a lot of just, we seem to be settling in to pretty good results there. It's essentially what we expected, which is great, because we had high hopes for that church plant. And on Wednesday, I looked at the numbers, just the attendance. And I didn't include the first weekend, because the first weekend we had a lot of people there supporting, a lot of people from here, a lot of people from traveling from out of town, and people supporting that church plant. But the rest of the weeks, after that first week, the average attendance was in the mid-50s. And I forget the exact number, but it's like 53, 54, which is awesome. So it's clearly a good need to have that there right off the bat, to have that many people attending. And there has been a lot of activity locally, visitors, pretty much every service. There's been a few baptisms and salvation. So continue to pray for that ministry, but things seem to be going really, really well over there. So it's just, it's really exciting starting a brand new church plant. On the next page, Fundamentals Conference. This is the, kind of the only real thing we have planned as of right now for this year. And this is going to be August 22nd through the 25th. This is going to be the very first conference we're really hosting here at our church. And this is pretty exciting. This has taken place in years in the past. And we have, the schedule right now is Pastor Enrique Reyes is going to be preaching on Thursday, August 22nd. And then on Friday night, Pastor Bruce Mejia will be preaching for us as well. So Thursday, Friday, we're going to be preaching. Seven o'clock start time is going to be the, when we start, pretty much like our midweek service, give you opportunity for those of you that work, especially if you're working late to try to get here. And it'll be a pretty much just run like a regular church service. We're going to have these guest preachers in town to preach for us. And then Saturday, we're going to do our soul winning marathon, which we try to do one per quarter anyways. So we're going to do this one in, at this time with the conference. And we go pretty much all day out preaching the gospel. So we're going to meet up here at 915, get you sent out by 10 o'clock with your maps and partners and where, you know, where you're going. We'll have a little bit of, we'll have a light breakfast for you here. We'll have lunch provided. And then we'll also have dinner provided for those of you that want to continue and go out for the whole event. And as we have offered in the past for people who travel long distances to attend church, we'll be offering some stays, a hotel if you need to, in order to make it to this event, especially with the soul winning and church the next day. So the conference literally goes through Sunday. I'll be preaching on Sunday, but it'll still be part of that fundamentalist conference. So I'm planning on making a video and sharing it today. So if you get that, you can, you can share that on social media as well. Get the word out. It's a little bit late with trying to inform people of the conference that we have coming up. And that's just because of all the work that was involved with the church plants was the priority for me. And I was unable to get this completely locked in with all the dates and times and everything until more recently. So, but it's locked in. I'm excited for this. I think it's going to be a great event and hopefully we can see you there. And if you're looking for the challenge for the month of August, August is our break month now. So we're not we're not doing a challenge this month. We do challenges every month. We have 11 out of 12 months. We do a challenge and we got one break month. So August is going to be the break this year. But there we just completed a visitor challenge in July. So if you were involved in encouraging someone that showed up during the month of July as a visitor, could you slip your hand up real quick? I just want to get a count because we have prizes that we're going to give for those people. So don't be shy. I'm getting my number right here, so don't just assume all pastor knows I already brought someone on that day. All right. I've got one more people brought visitors in July. We gave out more. He's not here. Is he is he back in Michigan temporarily? OK, we'll get him. We'll get him. We'll get him hooked up with something. Do you know how long or no. All right, cool. Excellent. Well, he just raised his hand. I got it. Thank you. Well, very good. I will get caught up on the prizes now soon. I'm going to be ordering them online and we'll be receiving them shortly. I know I owe for Bible memory passages and things like that as well. So I will get that all squared away here in the coming week or two. Very good. Continuing on, we've got the Bible memory passage there. We're on week four of memorizing Hebrews Chapter 12, the whole chapter. So if you could memorize this and quote it out loud before the deadline, obviously, you don't have to keep the pace that we keep here. We do two verses a week. If you would like if you're able to get this done, memorize the whole chapter, get it quoted before the 15 weeks. Obviously, you've met the goal. So that's we just we do this as a way to offer, I think, a very doable way to memorize scripture of just memorizing two verses every week. You've got seven days throughout the week. If you keep this at the forefront of your mind in general every day of the week and do your practicing and just keep trying to refresh those verses. You'll find out that when you take something that looks daunting, you're like, oh, man, you know, memorizing a whole chapter of the Bible, like, really? That's that seems difficult. But when you break it down into small pieces and you do it over time, it becomes very doable. I encourage you, if you haven't done much Bible memory to participate, do some Bible memory, because it's going to be a great blessing for you. You're going to learn things. I guarantee that you haven't thought of before. You haven't known really before when you start meditating on the word of God and committing it to memory and putting in your heart like that. It's different than just reading the Bible. Obviously, you could learn things. You ought to be reading your Bible regularly. But when you really focus on committing it to memory, it allows you to be meditating more, thinking more about the word of God. So it's something that I believe we all should be doing. I encourage you to do this. And you also get a prize if you're able to do it in our time frame that we list off here. So one more added benefit for doing the Bible memory passage. Down there at the bottom of the page, we have the birthdays and anniversaries for the month of August. We have Kristin has a birthday today. Of course, she just gave birth to a child about a week ago. And so happy birthday to Mrs. Miller. And then on the back, that's about it. So we've got sermon notes. If you want to take notes during sermon, I encourage you to do so. Write down the things that you hear, the references that we go to. Verify that what you're hearing is the truth. And because you need to know for yourself whether it is or isn't. And we've got that spot back there for you to check that. And one final note, we're going to have a baptism after service this morning. So it's really exciting, so stick around. And we'll have that where we normally do kind of right out here in front. So don't leave before we get that baptism done. All right, very good. With that, I'm going to turn the service back over to Brother Peter. And he will lead us in our next song. This is my father's world. This is my father's world. This is my father's world. This is my father's world. This is my father's world. This is my father's world. This is my father's world. This is my father's world. This is my father's world. This is my father's world. This is my father's world. This is my father's world. This is my father's world. This is my father's world. This is my father's world. This is my father's world. This is my father's world. Leviticus chapter 27. And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying, Speak unto the children of Israel, and say unto them, When a man shall make a singular vow, the person shall be for the Lord by thy estimation. And thy estimation shall be of the male from twenty years old even unto sixty years old. Even thy estimation shall be fifty shekels of silver after the shekel of the sanctuary. And if it be a female, then thy estimation shall be thirty shekels. And if it be from five years old even unto twenty years old, then thy estimation shall be of the male twenty shekels, and for the female ten shekels. And if it be from a month old even unto five years old, then thy estimation shall be of the male five shekels of silver, and for the female thy estimation shall be three shekels of silver. And if it be from sixty years old and above, if it be male, then thy estimation shall be fifteen shekels, and for the female ten shekels. But if it be poorer than that estimation, then he shall present himself before the priest, and the priest shall value him according to his ability that vowed shall the priest value him. And if it be a beast, whereof men bring an offering unto the Lord, all that any man giveth of such unto the Lord shall be holy. He shall not alter it, nor change it, a good for a bad, or a bad for a good. And if he shall at all exchange beast for beast, then it and the exchange thereof shall be holy. And if it be any unclean beast, of which they do not offer a sacrifice unto the Lord, then he shall present the beast before the priest. And the priest shall value it, whether it be good or bad, as thou valuest it, who art the priest, so shall it be. But if he will at all redeem it, then he shall add a fifth part of the relevant to thy estimation. And when a man shall sanctify his house to be holy unto the Lord, then the priest shall estimate it, whether it be good or bad, as the priest shall estimate it, so shall it stand. And if he that sanctified it will redeem his house, then he shall add the fifth part of the money of thy estimation unto it, and it shall be his. And if a man shall sanctify unto the Lord some part of the field of his possession, then thy estimation shall be according to the seed thereof, and Homer of barley seed shall be valued at fifty cycles of silver. If he sanctify his field from the year of Jubilee, according to thy estimation it shall stand. But if he sanctify his field after the Jubilee, then the priest shall reckon unto him the money according to the years that remain, even unto the year of the Jubilee, and it shall be abated from thy estimation. And if he that sanctified the field will in any wise redeem it, then he shall add the fifth part of the money of thy estimation unto it, and it shall be assured to him. And if he will not redeem the field, or if he have sold the field to another man, it shall not be redeemed any more. But the field, when it go out into the Jubilee, shall be holy unto the Lord, as the field devoted. The possession thereof shall be the priest's. And if a man sanctify unto the Lord a field which he hath bought, which is not of the fields of his possession, then the priest shall reckon unto him the worth of thy estimation, even unto the year of the Jubilee, and he shall give an estimation in that day as a holy thing unto the Lord. In the year of the Jubilee the field shall return unto him of whom it was bought, even unto him to whom the possession of the land did belong. And all thy estimation shall be according to the shekel of the sanctuary, twenty gires shall be the shekel. Only the firstling of the beast, which should be the Lord's firstling, no man shall sanctify it, whether it be ox or sheep, it is the Lord's. And if it be of an unclean beast, then he shall redeem it according to thy estimation, and shall add a fifth part of it thereto. Or if it be not redeemed, then it shall be sold according to thy estimation. Notwithstanding no devoted thing, then a man shall devote unto the Lord of all that he hath, both of man and beast, and of fields of his possession, shall be sold or redeemed. Every devoted thing is the most holy unto the Lord. None devoted, which shall be devoted of men, shall be redeemed, but shall surely be equal to death. And all the tithes of the land, whether of the seed of the hay land, or of the fruit of the tree, is the Lord's. It is holy unto the Lord. And if a man will at all redeem aught of his tithes, he shall add thereto the fifth part thereof. And concerning the tithes of the herd, or over the flock, even of whatsoever passes under the rod, the tenth shall be holy unto the Lord. He shall not search whether it be good or bad, neither shall he change it, and if he change it at all, then both it and the chains thereof shall be holy. It shall not be redeemed. These are the commandments which the Lord commanded Moses for children of Israel in Mount Sinai. Let us pray. Dear God, thank you for letting us gather here today. Please feel the passion of the Spirit and help us all be edified. Let us all learn your word today. In the name of Jesus Christ, amen. Alright, so this morning, I'll just give you a fair warning in advance. It might not be the most exciting sermon you've ever heard in your life. I'm teaching on this subject because, as I mentioned in the past, you know, I try as a pastor of church to bring up topics that I think are important that we need to cover from time to time. Sometimes I feel like I preach on a subject and I never want to preach on it again because I've already handled that. But it is good idea to make sure that our doctrine is clear, that we can refresh our minds on different things that we believe. And this subject in particular, it's something that people can get really upset about and irritated about, and I understand why. Because there are a lot of churches out there and there's a lot of false prophets and there's a lot of people that try to make merchandise of the congregation. And they don't really care about them, but they just care about the money. And there's plenty of churches that preach on money, money, money, money, week after week, week after week, and that's kind of all you hear about. And it gets annoying, and I get it, right? You don't want to come into a place thinking that you're going to be led and guided and getting a good spiritual meet and wanting to get guidance in your life. And then all you're hearing about is how you got to dig in your pockets and give more money, right? That drives me nuts, and it should probably drive you nuts too. However, there's a subject on tithing that is important to understand. It is a doctrine and something that's found in Scripture, and it's not just found in one verse, it's found throughout the Bible. And it's something that I do teach on from time to time. If you're a regular member here, you know I don't really bring up money a whole lot. But it is a part of our life, and it's something that we need to deal with anyway. So if you get offended, I don't know what to tell you. We don't cover this very much, and this is not that type of church. But the question I want to answer, because there's a lot of different ways that you could look at a tithe. And what I want to just answer, the goal of my sermon this morning is to answer the question, is the tithe done away in the New Testament? Is this something that we should observe, or is this something that we don't have to observe in the New Testament? So that's the goal. So we're going to be looking at a few different things. There's a lot of stuff I won't cover, and then there's some things I will. And essentially I'm going to try to answer the most common objections that I've heard where people try to tell you why. Because I'll tell you right off the bat, I do believe that tithing is something that every believer should be doing, participating in, in the New Testament. I don't think it's something that's done away, but I'm going to prove that case to you. So you decide for yourself, and if you walk away and you're not convinced, and you don't think it's right to tithe, then I don't know what to tell you. I mean, that's up to you to do what you want to do. I'm not going to be mad at anyone that believes different about this. But I do think it's important, just as much as any other commandment that I see in Scripture that we ought to be following. It's important. We ought to know what the Bible says about it. So here we go. Let's dive in. Now, we started in Leviticus chapter 27. There's a lot of detail here, and like I said, I'm not going to get into all of this detail. You see these estimations being made for livestock and for different things, saying, okay, here's how you value this and here's how you value that. Look, it was all important, and I still think that when we tithe, we look at the value of our increase, and we make estimations on what things are worth when we're making our offerings, when we're making our tithe. And you know what? Let me just correct myself right there. When I say offering and tithe, those are not exactly the same thing. An offering, as was in the Old Testament, you see this free will offering concept where you are able to bring in an offering to the Lord, and God had a specific protocol on how that ought to be done with the sacrifice and stuff, but if you wanted to do that, you can do that, and if you didn't want to do it, you didn't have to do it, and it wasn't any sin, whether or not you made that free will offering. But the tithe, the Bible is clear, belongs to the Lord. The tithe is the Lord's, and the main purpose of starting Leviticus 27 is just to illustrate that tithing is clearly a part of the Mosaic law. It's just something that was in here, it's something that was given to the children of Israel, and it was something that exists as part of God's law. And verse 30 there, the Bible says, And 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 belongs to God. It is holy unto the Lord. It's separated, it's sanctified for God. It belongs to him. And if a man will at all redeem aught of his tithes, he shall add thereto the fifth part thereof. 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. And that's what the tithe means. The tithe literally just means a tenth. So, God's saying, hey, whatever you have of the land, whatever you have of the herd, whatever you've been increased with year over year, a tenth of that belongs to God. God's saying, that belongs to me. She's saying, that's mine, I've blessed you. And why is that? Because God's the one who sends the rain, God's the one who gives the blessings. God's the one, ultimately, that provides for us. Okay, so what you do is we're recognizing, when you keep the tithe, that you say, okay God, thank you for providing for me, thank you for blessing me. This is yours, and God has a right to all of it, since God owns the cattle on Thousand Hills, God owns all of it. So, everything in this world belongs to him anyways. We come into this world naked, we leave naked, you know, whatever he blesses us with while we're here, amen, praise the Lord for that. But, he established this tithe in saying, look, I just want the tenth, I demand the tenth, it's part of the law, you give that to me. So, and this is one of the places we see that, again, not going to spend too much time here because I think it's pretty evident, I think most people agree already that, yeah, it was part of the law. But the question is, well, is that changed in the New Testament? And, we're going to go there in a little bit, more in depth, but Hebrews 7, verse 12, the Bible says, For the priesthood being changed, there is made of necessity a change also of the law. And especially in the book of Hebrews, you're going to find something, some aspects of God's law that changed because the Levitical priesthood, right, and we're in the book of Leviticus, right, so this law that was given with Aaron and Moses being the priests and then their descendants being the priests and then the rest of the Levites and their service to the Lord and offering up the sacrifice, all this stuff, right, they were the ones that were tasked with being the ministers of the Lord. And they didn't have any inheritance at all among the children of Israel because they were just dedicated to serving God. And as a result, God said, okay, well, if they don't have their own land, if they don't have their own stuff, if they don't have their own inheritance, they still need to be cared for, right, because they're serving God. And ultimately, as we see, and this is, again, a high-level overview, that is one of the reasons that the tithe was instituted. Not the only reason, but it was established to provide for them because they don't have their own stuff. They don't have their own inheritance. God says, no, I'm taking this one tribe and they're going to serve me. Well, in order to serve them, though, they need to be cared for. They still have their own needs that need to be met, and they have their own families that need to be cared for while they're serving God. Turn, if you would, to Numbers chapter 14. So you're in Leviticus 27, it's just a few pages to the right, Numbers chapter 14. Actually, no, go to chapter 18. I had this written in my notes wrong. And, you know, I'm just going to say to write this down in your notes, so you got that little part on your bulletin. You can read Numbers 18 later. I was going to read through all of this, but I don't want to just belabor this point. It gives a lot more details for the priests and the Levites in Numbers chapter 18. I'm trying to see if there's anything that's not in my notes right here that I want to just touch on real quickly. Because it talks about the different offerings, like in verse 9, This shall be thine, or verse 8, and the Lord spake unto Aaron, Behold, I also have given thee the charge of mine heave offerings of all the hallowed things of the children of Israel. That's his job. That's what he's supposed to do. Unto thee have I given them by reason of the anointing and to thy sons by an ordinance forever. This shall be thine of the most holy things, reserved from the fire. Every oblation of theirs, every meat offering of theirs, and every sin offering of theirs, and every trespass offering of theirs, which they shall render unto me, shall be most holy for thee and for thy sons. So now God's starting to delineate which of the sacrifices, which of the offerings, which of the various offerings that were made. These ones are set aside, he says, reserved from the fire, so you don't just burn it, because there's some whole burnt offerings. There's all kinds of different offerings in the scripture in the Old Testament of what they would do. And some of them you just burn all of it up, and that was completely for the Lord. And he's saying, but these ones specifically, these are going to be for you. And it's going to provide meat for you and for your household so that when they offer up, say, the sin offering, the trespass offering, the priests that are involved in that work, in the ministry, all that food that's generated from that animal that's being sacrificed, they're going to be able to take that home, and that provides food for them. And this is kind of outlining a lot of that. Jump over to verse number 30. Or verse number 28, excuse me, just two verses up. Verse number 28. Bob reads, Thus ye also shall offer and heave offering unto the Lord of all your tithes. Now this is like the tithe of the tithes. So all these tithes that come in by other people, by the nation of Israel, everyone, they're bringing their tithes in. Now he's talking to the priest saying, okay, now you're going to offer and heave offering unto the Lord of all your tithes, which ye receive of the children of Israel, and ye shall give thereof the Lord's heave offering to Aaron the priest. Out of all your gifts ye shall offer every heave offering of the Lord, of all the best thereof, even the hallowed part thereof out of it. Therefore thou shalt say unto them, when ye have heaved the best thereof from it, then it shall be counted unto the Levites as the increase of the threshing floor and as the increase of the winepress. And pay attention there when it says it's counted unto them. So when they receive the tithes, it's like their increase, because what's the tithe of? It's the tithe of the increase of the children of Israel from the threshing floor, the winepress, right? Or the fruits of the land or the fruits of the herd. And he's saying basically you're just going to consider what comes in just as if you had done the labor yourself in the land and this is what you brought in. Now the tithe is also done on the increase. So whatever you invest into the operation to make it profitable to produce, right? You get machinery, equipment, stuff like that, just like running a business. This is going to be your net profit. It's not your gross. It's not just everything that comes in. It's going to be expenses considered. That's what you've been increased with. And that's what you would consider for doing your tithe. Now, verse number 31 there, the Bible says, And ye shall eat it in every place, ye and your household. So it's not just the person doing the work. It's for the whole household. For it is your reward for your service in the tabernacle of the congregation. Clearly, again, from these passages and there's many other passages that talk about the tithe. We're not going to get into all of them. But clearly part of the reason for the tithe is to take care of the priests, take care of the Levites, take care of their households and to make sure that they're fed. Now, one of the objections is saying that, well, say this was just for the Levites and we don't have Levites anymore, right? And that's true. We don't have Levites. We don't have a tribe of Israel that is offering up sacrifices where they could then take of those sacrifices and eat them. That's clear, right? That's evident. However, when we look at the purpose of this, because that was one of the purposes of the tithe was to take care of the priests and Levites. Another one is to show the children of Israel just their obedience to God and their trust in the Lord. And we'll get into that in a little bit. Malachi shows this very clearly. We'll turn there later. That you need to trust in God and not trust in your own fleshly wisdom. Because when you show that obedience, you show that faith in God that He's able to take care of you, then God will bless you anyways. He'll bless you for that obedience. Don't think that you're struggling and, oh man, I need all of this for myself. Just trust God and He will provide for you because, and at the end of the day, He said it belonged to Him. But here's the thing. Okay. Turn to Genesis chapter 14. Because if the tithe is only for, or only recognized as being the law of God and started with the Levites, I would say the tithing in general did not start with the Mosaic law. And that's why we're going all the way back to Genesis because we're going to see someone who paid a tithe, and I'm going to argue he paid a tithe to Jesus Christ in Genesis chapter 14. So this is a precedent prior to the law of Moses being established with the Levites and Levitical priesthood that is something that cannot be overlooked when we're going to then consider, well, was this done away as just a Levitical thing that we don't have to observe anymore? Or is this something that goes beyond just a Levitical thing? Because obviously we're not offering lamb sacrifice, we're not bringing any animals and cutting their throats and spilling the blood and doing all that. That would be heretical. That would be blasphemous now because we know that Jesus Christ is that one sacrifice and he's already fulfilled that aspect of the law. And what we're going to find too is that when things are done away or changes made in the law, it's because they were fulfilled. So we stop the practice of the sacrifices because it's been fulfilled. It hasn't been just completely done away or changed, but once now that part of the law has been fulfilled because there was a foreshadowing of the Jesus Christ to come and die and pay for our sins, then it's no longer required to be observed. But Genesis 14, look at verse number 18. This is after Abram had gone after Lot because Lot was taken captive. There was this war with the kings of Sodom and these other kings. Five kings against four kings. And Lot was kind of caught up in the mix and had gotten taken captive. And Abram went out after Lot to save him, to go rescue Lot because he was taken prisoner. And he frees him, he brings his household, I think it was like 300 men with him. He goes and defeats these armies and saves Lot and saves all the rest of the captives and brings them back. And this is the part of the story in Genesis 14 where we're just kind of focusing in on verses 18 through 20. The Bible says, And Melchizedek, king of Salem, brought forth bread and wine, and he was the priest of the Most High God. And he blessed him and said, Blessed be Abram of the Most High God, possessor of heaven and earth, and blessed be the Most High God, which hath delivered thine enemies into thy hand, and he gave him tithes of all. So Melchizedek is blessing Abram. And even just in these few verses, and this is a sermon in and of itself, but king of Salem, Salem means peace, he's the king of peace. He's bringing forth bread and wine. I mean, obviously, if that's not symbolic of the flesh and blood of Jesus Christ, I don't know what is. He blessed Abram and we're going to see, like Hebrews really goes into Melchizedek. Hebrews 7, Hebrews 8 goes really in depth into who Melchizedek is. I believe it's an Old Testament appearance of Jesus Christ himself, because the Bible says he's without father, without mother, having either end of days or beginning of life. He abides a priest continually. That's Jesus Christ. The Bible says there in verse 20 that Abram essentially was blessed by God and has delivered the enemies in his hand. And then it says he gave him tithes of all. Abram gave Melchizedek tithes. So Abram paid those tithes. He gave him a tenth of everything, of all the spoil, of everything he recovered in that battle. The Lord had delivered him from the enemies and he gave that tithe to Melchizedek. Melchizedek's the one who received those tithes. And who's Melchizedek? Well, he's called the priest of the Most High God. So this predates the Levitical priesthood. There's a tithe being paid to Melchizedek. Now, turn if you would to Hebrews 7. Hebrews 7 is going to show us, well, what is the change? Why do we change things? What is the change from? Well, the change was from the Levitical priesthood now to a new priesthood, the priesthood under the order of Melchizedek. And as we read this passage, just keep that in mind, it makes sense to me if a tithe is being paid to Melchizedek before the Mosaic law, you've got the law period where all of the sacrifices are being done, Levitical priesthood, now the Levitical priesthood has ended, and according to Hebrews, we're going back to the order of Melchizedek. The priesthood's being changed, but who's it being changed to? The order of Melchizedek. Well, if tithes were given to Melchizedek in the past, why wouldn't they now continue again in the future? Again, this is one of my proofs as to why we should observe the tithe in the New Testament, why it's not done away. Verse number 1 of Hebrews 7, the Bible reads, For this Melchizedek king of Salem, priest of the most high God, who met Abraham returning from the slaughter of the kings and blessed him, to whom also Abraham gave a tenth part of all. The tithe, first being by interpretation king of righteousness, and after that also king of Salem, which is king of peace. So, yeah, I didn't have to know any foreign languages to know that because the Bible does the interpretation for us right here of what Salem means. He's the king of peace. Without father, verse 3, without mother, without descent, having neither beginning of days nor end of life, but made like unto the Son of God, abideth a priest continually. And again, who possesses the qualities of being without father, without mother, without descent, neither beginning of days nor end of life? God is eternal. No beginning, no end, that's who God is. So, I would say clearly Melchizedek is an appearance of Jesus Christ because that's the fleshly appearance there. Jesus Christ is that priest, and he's the king of peace. Verse number 4, now consider how great this man was, unto whom even the patriarch Abraham gave the tenth of the spoils. And Abraham obviously is highly revered and highly regarded, and especially whether it be in the Jews' religion, the Hebrews, he's speaking to the Hebrews, the book of Hebrews, Abraham is a patriarch, and he's highly exalted as being the friend of God, the father of faith, all these great things about Abraham because out of Abraham's seed came forth Israel and the tribes, and all of that stemmed from Abraham because of his faith, because he was a friend of God. And he's saying, well, how great is Abraham, but if Abraham is that great, but he's now giving tithes, then how much greater is the person that he's giving the tithes to, right? It says there in verse 5, And verily they that are of the sons of Levi, who receive the office of the priesthood, have a commandment to take tithes of the people according to the law, that is, of their brethren, even though they come out of the loins of Abraham. But he whose descent is not counted from them received tithes of Abraham and blessed him that had the promises. Abraham already had the promises, and he's getting a blessing from this other guy, right, Melchizedek, and he's saying, well, the law commanded that the Levites would receive the tithe, but wait a minute, why is this guy? He has nothing to do with those descendants. He's outside of that. But he's receiving this tithe, verse 7, and without all contradiction, the less is blessed of the better, right? The better is the one that's giving the blessings, and the less is the one receiving the blessings, and it's making Abraham less than Melchizedek. Why? Because Melchizedek is Jesus Christ. And here, men that die receive tithes, but there he receiveth them, of whom it is witnessed that he liveth. Again, pointing out the difference between Melchizedek and any Levitical priest. And as I may so say, Levi also, who receiveth tithes, paid tithes in Abraham. Before Levi was even literally born, but because he's in the loins of his father, he's going to be coming out of Abraham. He receives the tithes here, but he's saying, you know, he paid tithes. They all paid tithes to who? To Melchizedek. And now, as I referenced already, well, I thought there was a change. We don't have to offer the sacrifices anymore, that's correct. We don't have to observe the Sabbath day anymore. The dietary restrictions have been lifted, and we have verses in Bible in the New Testament to illustrate all of that. Which, again, it's outside of the scope of my sermon this morning. I'm trying to do the best I can with the time that I have. But every change that's made, and I think rightfully so, ought to have Scripture backing up why that is changed and why it's changed. So the Sabbath, the Bible says, hey, Jesus Christ is our rest. He fulfilled the Sabbath day because we enter, we labor, we enter into his rest. Well, Jesus is that rest for us, right? The dietary restrictions, you can see with the vision that the apostle Peter had, and he saw the unclean beast descending from heaven, and the Lord said, hey, Peter, rise, slay, and eat. And he said, not so, Lord, because I've never had any unclean animal come, you know, never eaten that. And God said, hey, what God has cleansed, that call that not thou common or unclean. And those things all had pictures. They were illustrative of greater spiritual truths. And it's something that God was teaching to his people through generations, hundreds of years, even thousands of years. These things are being taught, but now that they're fulfilled because of Jesus Christ, his death, burial, resurrection fulfilled much of this. Now they could see a little bit clearer. They don't need to observe those same aspects of the political priesthood, and they now are under, we are following the priesthood of Melchizedek. Look at verse number 10. For he was yet in the loins of his father when Melchizedek met him, verse 11. If therefore perfection were by the Levitical priesthood, for under it the people received the law, what further need was there that another priest should rise after the order of Melchizedek and not be called after the order of Aaron? For the priesthood being changed, there is made of necessity a change also of the law. And Hebrews does a great job. If you want to know a lot about the changes that were made, Hebrews, it's the book that was written to the Hebrews, the physical Hebrews, because they're the ones that had been practicing the faith since the law of Moses, right? They're the ones to whom the prophets were given, the law was given, so they're the ones that needed the most of the explanation and understanding of, hey, what's changed? Why are we doing things different now? Read the book of Hebrews. It gives the explanation. It gives most of what has changed. And if we don't see something specifically being changed, then why would we get rid of it? We don't just pick and choose, well, I don't really like this, so let's get rid of that. No, that's not how it works. And I think every Christian would believe we don't just toss out the whole Old Testament, right? I mean, that's pretty silly. But what I don't see, now, I see this statement that the priesthood's being changed, and I understand where people go to say, well, hey, it's not the biblical priesthood, but the tithe was paid for the Levites. I get that line of thinking. That makes sense to me. However, there was the tithe paid to Melchizedek, and the priesthood transferred from Levi to Melchizedek. There's also the understanding that the purpose of the tithe in the Old Testament, I'll read this for you. Turn, if you would, to Deuteronomy 26. I think I have an overabundance of some of these passages. I might skip over some of it again for sake of time. We have to look in chapter 26. I'll read from chapter 12 for you. Deuteronomy 12, 5, the Bible reads, 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, 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 ye shall rejoice in all that ye put your hand unto, ye and your households, wherein the Lord thy God hath blessed thee. So we see people are supposed to bring their tithe to the house of God and have it there. And it wasn't just, the tithe was only one aspect. He said your tithes, your sacrifices, your heave offerings, your vows and your free will offerings, like all these different things that bring all of that stuff with you to the place that God would have you to go. And then in verse 19 of chapter 12 the Bible says, Take heed to thyself that thou forsake not the Levite, as long as thou livest upon the earth. Don't forsake him, he's supposed to be doing the work of the Lord. Now if God had that much care, and this is just a logical argument, if God had that much care for the Levites and care that his work is done and care that the people who are dedicating their entire life to serving the Lord are cared for and it's a big deal for God, why would that change just because we don't have a Levitical priest who's offering up sacrifices and doing those specific customs, but is still teaching the Word of God, which the Levites did back in the Old Testament. Again, I mean there's just too many things I'm stating, I think, to prove all of it to you, but hopefully you understand that. It is in Scripture that they gave the understanding and they taught the people the Word of God and that the service, just because the way that we may serve the Lord, somewhat has changed, why would God not care anymore about the people doing the service of the Lord to be cared for and taken care of through his means. That's just something to chew on for a while, but we'll get more concrete here. Deuteronomy chapter 26, starting in verse number 1, Bob reads, And it shall be when thou art come in unto the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee for an inheritance and possesses it, and dwellest therein, that thou shalt take of the first of all the fruit of the earth, which thou shalt bring of thy land that the Lord thy God giveth thee, and shalt put it in a basket, and shalt go unto the place which the Lord thy God shall choose to place his name there. And thou shalt go unto the priest that shalt be in those days, and say unto him, I profess this day unto the Lord thy God, that I am come unto the country which the Lord swear unto our fathers to give us. And the priest shall take the basket out of thine hand, and set it down before the altar of the Lord thy God, and thou shalt speak and say before the Lord thy God, Assyrian ready to perish was my father, and he went down into Egypt, and sojourned there with a few, and became there a nation great, mighty, and populous, and the Egyptians evil and treated us, and afflicted us, and laid upon us hard bondage. And when we cried unto the Lord God of our fathers, the Lord heard our voice, and looked on our affliction, and our labor, and our oppression, and the Lord brought us forth out of Egypt with a mighty hand, and with an outstretched arm, and with great terribleness, and with signs, and with wonders, and he hath brought us into this place, and hath given us this land, even a land that floweth with milk and honey. So it's a little bit of a history here. Children of Israel being taken out of bondage, and brought into this great promised land. Amen. And now behold I have brought the firstfruits of the land, which thou, O Lord, hast given me. And this is what all the tithes are representing, and showing God you've given this to me, so I'm giving a tenth to you. And thou shalt set it before the Lord thy God, and worship before the Lord thy God, and thou shalt rejoice in every good thing, which the Lord thy God hath given unto thee, and unto thine house, thou, and the Levite, and the stranger that is among you. When thou hast made an end of tithing, all the tithes of thine increase the third year, which is the year of tithing, and hast given it unto, look at this, the Levite, the stranger, the fatherless, and the widow, that they may eat within thy gates and be filled. Then thou shalt say before the Lord thy God, I have brought away the hallowed things out of mine house, and also have given them unto the Levite, and unto the stranger, to the fatherless, and to the widow, according to all thy commandments which thou hast commanded me. I have not transgressed thy commandments, neither have I forgotten them. I have not eaten thereof in my morning, neither have I taken away, ought thereof for any unclean use, nor given, ought thereof for the dead, but I have hearkened to the voice of the Lord my God, and have done according to all that thou hast commanded me. Look down from thy holy habitation from heaven, and bless thy people Israel, and the land which thou hast given us, as thou swear'st unto our fathers, a land that floweth with milk and honey." Now turn to 1 Timothy 5. Besides taking care of the Levites, besides taking care of the ministers of God, what was the other purpose of the tithing? Because the tithing was given to not just the Levites, but the stranger, the fatherless, and the widow that they may eat. These are other functions that the food that's brought in, the tithe that's brought in is supposed to provide for the people that need help. Widows need help, right? And 1 Timothy 5 really goes in depth on a widow who's a widow indeed, and what are the things that we're looking for, when the church is supposed to provide, or in the Old Testament it was the church in the wilderness, it was the people of God, it was the house of the Lord where the tithes were brought into, would still provide for the widows that were widows indeed. It would still provide for the fatherless, right? Orphaned children. There's people who need help. You can't just send this fatherless child off to do work. They need care for. You need the widows to be cared for. You need even the strangers, the foreigners that come in, you show them hospitality and you care for them and help them get on their feet. That was part of the purpose of the tithe was to supply the need for all those things. Because in a nation, in a society, you're gonna need some kind of help for that. Now, it shouldn't be done at the hand of the government because there's no way of controlling that easily. It's something, I'm not gonna get it all political on you, but God provided a way for the people who need help to come and get help. You know, just like Jesus said, Hey, seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you. And there's a really good way of really getting people the help that they need, because most people, the help that they need is not a financial help as much as it is a spiritual help. That's what most people need, and at least through the hands of the church, through the hands of the people of God, you can say, Hey, we're here to help you. We're gonna fulfill the law of God. We're gonna do what the Bible says we ought to do, and we're gonna help where needed. But we're also not just an ATM machine that just says, Oh, you just walk in the door and you just say you need some money and we're just gonna give it to you. Absolutely not. Because there's a little bit more guidance from the word of God on how we ought to administer these things. And if you're in 1 Timothy 5, look at verse number 16. The Bible reads, If any man or woman that believeth have widows, let them relieve them, and let not the church be charged that it may relieve them that are widows indeed. So the first instruction here is saying, Look, if you've got a widow in your family, you take care of them. That we're not charging the church with the responsibility of caring for just because they're a widow. Look, if you can help in your family, then you do it. You take on that responsibility. And that makes a lot of sense. And this is something that I believe also would have pertained in the Old Testament as well. And then it says, Let the elders that rule well, in verse 17, be counted worthy of double honor, especially they who labor in the word and doctrine. For the scripture saith, Thou shalt not muzzle the ox that treadeth out the corn, and the laborer is worthy of his reward. And, you know, that's the elders, the elders of a church that are ruling well, ruling in the house of God. They're worthy of double honor. Honor does not just mean double respect, double thanks, double appreciation. It's a caring for the same way that you'd honor your father and mother as the Bible commands. And look, this is proven in scripture very easily. When the Bible, the Ten Commandments, the Bible says honor your father and mother, it's not just saying that you say, Yes, sir, and yes, ma'am. Now, you ought to do that. Absolutely. But that's not what it's just, that's not where it's really referring to and talking about. It's talking about caring for your parents when they become in need, when they get older, right? They're the ones that raised you. They brought you up from a baby. They're the ones that invested in you, cared for you, raised you up. Now, when they get into the later parts of their life, it's your duty and your God-given responsibility to care for your parents. That's right, and that's part of the Ten Commandments to honor your father and mother. And this is proven when Jesus Christ was rebuking the Pharisees and he said that their traditions that they had were they're making the word of God of none effect. When they said, if you remember this passage where it says, well, they consider it korban. That word korban is used. You do a word search in the Bible to find that. You'll find the passage I'm talking about here because they'll say that whatever, that they should consider it a gift when they help their father, they help their mother, that whatsoever thou mightest be profited by me, you consider that a gift. You consider that korban. So the Pharisees made this rule, made this law that they would abide that if your parents were in need, well, then you can give them something, but they just need to understand, hey, that's korban. Whatever you get by me is a gift. No, sorry, that's why Jesus rebuked them so hard because they made the word of God of none effect because God said, no, it's your duty. No, this isn't the Ten Commandments. No, you have to take care of them. And they said, no, no, no, whatever I give you, you just count your stars that I gave you something and I helped you out and that I'm blessing you with this. It's backwards. There's a duty, there's a responsibility to care for, and that's what the word honor means. That's why I bring this up is because here when I'm saying let the elders that rule well be counted worthy of double honor because they're also supposed to be cared for and taken care of by the church. Why? Because they're ministers of the Lord. Because they're serving God with their life that they ought to be cared for just like you care for the widows that are widows indeed. That's part of the responsibility of the New Testament Church. If the New Testament Church is tasked with this responsibility, just as the Old Testament, the house of God, was tasked with this responsibility, well, how did they provide for that in the Old Testament? With the tithe. But now in the New Testament you're saying, well, yeah, now God's demanding this but he hasn't also put in, kept in effect a way to make sure that that will continue to happen that way. That seems silly to me. That doesn't make any sense to me. Alright, I want to answer a couple more things before, I have a bunch of notes on this, but turn if you would to 2 Corinthians 9. I just want to answer these, make sure I get these answered before I continue any further. I probably won't get into some of these other notes that I have here and that's fine, but my main objective is to illustrate or prove why the tithe is not done away in the New Testament. Because the question that comes up, and look, I hope if you have that question or you come to a conclusion on that, if your conclusion is, nope, the tithe is done away, that your conclusion is because of what the Bible says and not for a carnal reason of not wanting to give a tithe or pay a tithe, right? So just make sure in your own heart, and only you're going to know that. You could only know that for yourself, no one else could know that about you. I would never, ever make the assumption on somebody that their intention is false as to why they don't want to pay a tithe. I don't know that. You know that for yourself, so if you think it's been done away, you don't think you have to do it, just make sure that you have the integrity of heart that just says, no, I think literally this is what the Bible says, then that's what everyone has to do for themselves. But don't let the influence on your belief be a financial thing, right? Don't think like, well, you know, I would really like for this to be the case because I don't really want to pay 10% of my income to God. So in a similar fashion that I would say other ways that you can be looking at the law of God or looking at the Bible, right? My Bible talks about drunkenness as an example, or drinking booze. Well, I really like drinking booze. So I'm going to choose to interpret the Bible this way because I like to do that, and I don't want it to apply to me, so I'm going to just say that it's okay. You see what I mean? If you have the integrity of heart with Scripture, then good, you need to have that. But here's one of the objections I get regarding the tithe and say, yeah, but doesn't the Bible say that God loves a cheerful giver, right? And that it's not required because He just wants you to give whatever's in your heart and that that's all you need to do in the New Testament because of what's in 2 Corinthians chapter 9. Well, let's look at the passage and look and see what it says because does God want a cheerful giver? Of course He does. But let's just see what this is talking about. Verse number 1 of 2 Corinthians 9, the Bible says, For as touching the ministering to the saints, it is superfluous for me to write to you. For I know the forwardness of your mind, for which I boast of you to them of Macedonia, that Achaea was ready a year ago, and your zeal hath provoked very many. Yet have I sent the brethren, lest our boasting of you should be in vain in this behalf, that, as I said, ye may be ready. Lest haply, if they of Macedonia come with me and find you unprepared, we, that we say not ye, should be ashamed in the same confident boasting. Now, there's a lot being said here, but essentially what's happening is the apostle Paul is writing to the church at Corinth to take up a collection for saints or believers in another location. This context, he's asking them, hey, can you take up what we would call a special offering because there's people in need at this other church. There are brothers and sisters. There are saints that have a need in this other place. And what he's saying is, I've been bragging about you guys because you're real generous. You love the Lord. You've got the zeal. And he's saying, but I gave you a little bit of a heads up. I gave you a little bit of notice because I've been telling the people of Macedonia how great you are and how generous you are, but I want to just make sure you're ready so that way when we show up and if they come with us, that you're not going to be ashamed. You're not going to be embarrassed. You're not going to be like, oh, yeah, we don't really have anything for you. This is what's happening in 2 Corinthians chapter 9. This is the context, literally, of what this story is in chapter 9. Verse number 5. Therefore, I thought it necessary to exhort the brethren that they would go before unto you and make up beforehand your bounty, right? That's the collection. That's the excess that they're giving for this cause. Where have you had notice before that the same might be ready as a matter of bounty and not as of covetousness? But this I say, he which soweth sparingly shall reap also sparingly, and he which soweth bountifully shall reap also bountifully. Every man according as he purposeth in his heart, so let him give, not grudgingly or of necessity, for God loveth a cheerful giver. So what people will turn to this verse and say, well, see, it says not of necessity. So if a tithe is in effect, well, tithe is a necessity because God's demanding it. God's saying, oh, you have to give this tithe. You're paying it to Lord. This is God's money. You can't steal from God. That's a necessity. And they'll say, but see, look, the Bible says right here, you're supposed to give not of necessity. But this isn't the tithe. That's what we have to understand is that what's being collected here is never called the tithe. It's not even the purpose of the tithe. Tithe goes to the house of God and primarily is going to care for the ministers, also the fatherless and the widows, right? As we saw already, that's the charge of the church. This is a special offering. This is a collection taken, hey, we've got brothers and sisters in need over here. Can you guys help out? Just like we have a missions offering that we give to supply the needs of people who go out and preach the gospel, that's not the tithe. My money that goes to supply the needs of a missionary is not a tithe. That's a free will offering. That's something, hey, I like the work you do. I'm going to support what you do. A free will offering. You could give an offering to say, you know what, here, I like what you guys are doing here. I'm going to support you. God bless you. And amen, that's great. But that's also not a tithe because a tithe is a tenth. It's what it is. And he's not saying get the tenth ready so that we could send it over to these people. He's just saying, hey, you know, we got a need. Can you help? And, yeah, when there's a need and people want to help, God doesn't want you thinking that you have to do it and being grudging and bitter about it because he doesn't want the bitterness towards the people who are going to be receiving the help. He wants you to understand, like, no, look, love them, be cheerful about whatever you can bless them with and be happy about that. Yeah, that makes sense. And God is able to make all grace abound toward you and that ye always, having all sufficiency in all things, may abound to every good work. As is written, he hath dispersed abroad, he hath given to the poor, his righteousness remaineth forever. And, look, this is something that's taught, this is a concept that's taught in Scripture in general that when you're generous, when you're tithing, when you're giving, when you're just being really generous and not just focused on the money, God will be generous with you. God takes care of you. God will supply your need. Right? That this is just something just all throughout Scripture is done. Now, again, the false prophets will take that and say, like, well, you know, so you need to give $1,000 and then you'll get $10,000. You know, they make these weird promises and just kind of, you know, kind of try to tell you how much money to give and stuff. It's like, look, no, don't, you know, don't do that, don't go there. If you're worried about your needs being met and you're being generous to help godly people, don't worry about your need. You know, God will help provide for you is essentially what's being taught. Turn, if you would, to Matthew 6 because here's one more place that I just wanted to make sure I covered where people are arguing against the tithe in the New Testament or they say it's contradictory where Jesus says, you know, don't let your left hand know what your right hand's doing. You know, si, ha, ha, ha. I mean, if you're not supposed to let your left hand know what your right hand's doing, then how could you tithe? Because you have to pay attention and get a tenth. Your left hand has to know what your right hand's doing in order to give a tithe. Makes sense. But let's look at the context and see if this is talking at all about a tithe or if it's talking about maybe a different kind of giving. Because these verses that a lot of people will bring up, I'm telling you, you check it out for yourself, it's different ways of giving. We already read that passage from the Old Testament that said, you know, that all the different sacrifices, right? You've got the trespass offering, you've got the free will offering, you've got the heave offering, you've got, bring all of these when you go, and the tithe was included in that, as a separate thing. So you're saying bring your tithe, which is one thing, bring your free will offering, bring your heave offering, bring your sin, you know, bring all of that when you go to the house of God. Well, it kind of makes sense that we would also have different types of giving as well in the New Testament. Verse 1 of Matthew 6, this is the key right here. Take heed that you do not your alms before men. Alms. Doesn't say be careful that you do not your tithes before men. It says your alms. Why? Because an alm is a specific type of giving. It's a charitable giving. This would be more akin to the free will offering. But specifically alms are meant for other people. Right, the free will offering goes to God, it's an honor to the Lord. An alm is, you see someone, you see someone that needs some food or something, and it looks like that water is overflowing, can we get that turned off? Thank you. That baptism cup is going to be ready. It is full. Someone's in need and you want to help them. Right? We might call this charitable giving. Yeah, I could help you out. Oh man, someone lost their job, I'm hungry, I'm even homeless, whatever. I'll give you some money. That's alms. That's alms. And Jesus said in Matthew 6, Hey, take heed that you do not your alms before men to be seen of them. Otherwise you have no reward of your Father which is in heaven, therefore what now doest thine alms do not sound a trumpet before thee as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets. Look, the alms, in the synagogues and in the streets. Who's paying their tithe in the street? They're not, because it's an alm. That they may have glory of men, verily I say unto you, they have their reward. But when thou doest alms, let not thy left hand know what thy right hand doeth, that thine alms may be in secret, and thy Father which seeth in secret himself shall reward thee openly. If you're helping someone out, you don't need to broadcast it. And that's what the phony hypocrites of the world do. They want to have the big, you know, shovel and the ribbon and the trumpet and say, I'm giving so much money for this cause here. I'm donating, look how good I am, because I'm giving a bunch of money for these people right here. That sounds the trumpet. Hey look, you ought to just, if you're going to help someone out and give to them, then just give to them. No one needs to know about it. Bless them, sure, but bless them with a good heart. And you know what? God will see what you do. And that's what really matters anyways, right? You shouldn't be giving to people just to make sure like, oh wait, we have someone in need here. Let me just see who's watching. Oh, is everyone watching me? Yeah, hey look, here you go, buddy. Here's some money. Did everyone get that? Is that on video? Can I post that to my social media now? Hey look, those phonies out there, don't get caught up into that. They want to make these videos. This is just a total side thing. I'm done with what I wanted to present this morning. Those guys that do the social experiments and they go up to these homeless people and like, hey man, you got a dollar? And then they're like, oh yeah, well here, oh man, here's $5,000 or whatnot. Yo, like, they want to get views. They want to tell you your heartstrings and they also like to make themselves look really good in the eyes of the world. It's blowing the trumpet. You know, and whatever, that's neither here nor there in general, but like, when you're giving to help people out, just give because you want to help them. But that's an alm. That's alms. That's not the tithe. They're not the same thing. To me, it just stands to reason. You're just saying that because you're the pastor. No, I'm saying it because it's alms. No, I'm saying it because it's what the Bible's teaching. I don't see how you could see this any other way. And like I said before, if you're not convinced and you think that, no, I don't have a tithe, then don't. If you don't think you have to, then don't. At the end of the day, that's between you and God. Because no matter what you give, it's not like I would know if it's a tithe anyways. You could give $1 and for all I know, that's a tithe. How do I know? And I'll tell you what, I don't care. I'm teaching this because it's in the Scripture. I'm teaching this because I think that we ought to strive to be right in every way possible with the Lord. And I didn't turn there, but I'll just read this for you in Malachi 3. This is in my notes. This is one of the reasons why I'm teaching this because when someone doesn't pay their tithes, according to Scripture, it's robbing God. So it is serious. I look at it from my point of view as not that big. Like you tithe or not tithe, I don't care. God's going to supply our need. I know we're doing the work of the Lord. God will make sure that our needs as this church goes and even my needs personally are going to be met. I know they are, because he made that promise. He says, seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness and all these things shall be added unto you, your food, your clothing. God will care for me as long as I'm seeking him first and doing what he wants. I know that I'll be cared for. I'm not worried about it. But I do care about what the Scripture says and if there's strong language being used about not doing something and then kind of getting the judgment of God in your life because you're not doing this, you ought to be warned about that because I do care about you and I do love you. And you judge in yourself and you come back, you listen to me week after week, hear what I preach, and you decide for yourself if you think I'm just some money-grubbing pastor who just wants to have more money, which is why I'm preaching on this, or not. Okay, I'll let you decide that for yourself. But what's more important is what does the Word of God say? That's what matters the most. So you take it and do with it as you will. Malachi 3.8 says, Will a man rob God, yet ye have robbed me? But ye say, Wherein have we robbed thee, in tithes and offerings? Ye are cursed with a curse, for ye have robbed me, even this whole nation. Now, I get it. This is an Old Testament reference. So if you're not convinced that the tithe is still applicable in the New Testament, you can still say like, Well, yeah, but that's Old Testament. Fair enough. But if I've convinced you that it applies in the New Testament as well, then this also still applies. Because then it's still the Lord's money, it's still his tithe, and it's still going to be, Hey, you're cursed with a curse because you've robbed me. Because God doesn't view a tithe as giving. He says, No, that's my money. That belongs to me. Bring ye all the tithes into the storehouse, that there may be meat in mine house, and prove me now herewith, saith the Lord of hosts, if I will not open you the windows of heaven, and pour you out a blessing, that there shall not be room enough to receive it, and I will rebuke the devourer for your sakes, and he shall not destroy the fruits of your ground, neither shall your vine cast her fruit before the time in the field, saith the Lord of hosts. Again, it's the promise here that, Look, if you just, if you obey what God's commanding, God will make sure you're taken care of. He'll bless you for it. And, you know, especially you think, Well, I'm too poor to tithe, I don't have enough money, I need every penny that I have to go for me. That's a foolish way of thinking, because God is the one that can bless, and what he's illustrating in Malachi 3 is saying, Look, just test it out for yourself, and see whether or not God is able to take care of you. And when he talks about, I'll make sure the devourer doesn't come, a lot of times people have financial problems, and needs and things just arise out of seemingly nowhere. Like, Oh man, I was just about to get real good at my finances, and now this came along, and now my car's broken down, and now that, you know, and I have all this financial turmoil, but God's saying, You know what? I'm able to prevent that stuff from happening. And obviously in Old Testament context, he's talking about, you know, with the crops and the land and stuff. What's the devourer? You could be any of the insects and the, you know, the things that would come along to destroy crops. It could be a lack of rain. It could be all this other stuff. He's saying, I can make sure that doesn't happen. Don't worry about it. I can make sure you've got your needs met. But one last point is, just remember, he's going to make sure that your needs are met. It's not always your wants, your desires. Okay? And in America, I have to repeat this, I think, over and over and over again. It's hard to find someone whose needs are not met in the United States of America, just because we've been blessed so abundantly that, I mean, even the people who aren't working have their needs met. And that can work and won't work, where the Bible says, hey, if a man won't work, neither shall he eat. But in this country, it's kind of hard to find someone. These days, people think, my needs aren't met because I don't have a smartphone. I have a cell phone, but I don't have a smartphone. I need it. Please. Please. All right, let's bow your heads, have a word of prayer. Dear Heavenly Father, thank you so much for your word. I pray that, pray that you please help us understand good doctrine. I pray that in all that we do, we can be right, that we can know exactly what you would have us to do, Lord, that there is no confusion, no doubt, and that we are doing right by you. And we need some clarification, we need some understanding, Lord, there's a lot of different thoughts out there and different various doctrines, Lord, so please guide us and help us lead us into all truth and wisdom and understanding. And Lord, we love you and of course, you deserve more than the 10th. You deserve it all. You paid for all of our sins. We owe everything to you. So I mean, money should be the least of our concerns. Pray that you please help us to have a heart that doesn't cling to the riches of this world and that's going to distract us from serving you, Lord, but that we can just freely give as we freely received. And God, we just love you. Please help us to reach more people with the gospel of Jesus Christ and to glorify your name. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. All right, we're going to sing one last song before we are dismissed this morning. Brother Peter, would you please lead us? All right, church. You can grab your headphones and open up the song number 124. Call 124. Call 124. We'll take care of you. Call 124. Let's sing this out with all our hearts. We love you sing what every time We love you sing what every time God will take care of you Beneath his wings a love of mine God will take care of you God will take care of you Through every day all the way He will take care of you God will take care of you There is a holy heart of fail God will take care of you With nature's fears your hand has sailed God will take care of you God will take care of you Through every day all the way He will take care of you God will take care of you One day He will provide God will take care of you Nothing you ask will be denied God will take care of you God will take care of you Through every day all the way He will take care of you God will take care of you No matter what may need a chance God will take care of you Be with one upon his breast God will take care of you God will take care of you Through every day all the way He will take care of you God will take care of you God will take care of you