What Test? January 10, 2016
Pastor David Koch Introduction: The title of this message comes from a question I asked in school a lot when I was a student….what test? You walk into class and everyone has their book out studying and the teacher says, “put away your books, it’s time for a test and you say…What test?” I was not the highest achiever when it came to grades in school. There were times I didn’t at all understand what to study for a test, and I’d do poorly. It wasn’t till I was in college that I finally started to understand how to study and answer the questions on tests. The reason why I have titled this sermon “what test” , is because many believers don’t know there is a test in the Bible and you take this test every time you get paid. Let’s take a little survey here. How many of you get paid once a month? Let me see your hand. How many get paid every other week or twice a month? Let me see your hand. How many get paid every week? How many of you never get paid? If you ever get paid, you’ll take a test. The test is whom are you going to thank for your income? You take that test by what you do with the first 10% of your income. Some people pay visa first. But Visa doesn’t have the power to bless your finances but God does. Who are you going to thank and who are you going to worship? I want to show you this morning that tithing is Biblical and it is part of living the blessed life. If you have your Bibles, turn to Malachi 3:6 II CHRON 31 We are going to go through a lot of scripture in this message; I want to show you that tithing is scriptural.
Malachi 3:6-12 “For I am the LORD, I do not change; therefore you are not consumed, O sons of Jacob. 7 Yet from the days of your fathers you have gone away from my ordinances and have not kept them. Return to Me, and I will return to you,” says the LORD of hosts. “But you said, ‘in what way shall we return?’ Before we read verse 8 let me remind you that this is God talking. This is the God who does not change. A preacher did not make this up. This is God speaking. Verse 8: 8 “Will a man rob God? Yet you have robbed Me! But you say, “in what way have we robbed You?’ In tithes and offerings. 9 You are cursed with a curse, for you have robbed Me, Even this whole nation. 10
Bring all the tithes into the storehouse, that there may be food in My house and try Me now in this,” says the LORD of hosts, “If I will not open for you the windows of heaven and pour out for you such blessing that there will not be room enough to receive it. 11 “And I will rebuke the devourer for your sakes, so that he will not destroy the fruit of your ground, nor shall the vine fail to bear fruit for you in the field,” says the LORD of hosts; 12 “and all nations will call you blessed, for you will be a delightful land,” Says the LORD of hosts.
This is God talking, that God who doesn’t change. He says you have gone away from my ordinary principles of behavior. Many people think that Christians can’t be under a curse. When we come to Christ and give Him our lives, we are no longer under the curse of sin but we can’t disregard the principles of God’s Word and live our lives like we want to, disregarding what God says in His Word. You can’t live anyway you want and pretend it won’t affect you! That is craziness! If we steal, there are consequences. A curse is a consequence. What if you steal from God? The Lord owns it all and he gives us stewardship over itbut He reserves 10% of what He gives us is for His house and if we keep it we are stealing from God and there are consequences. Joshua 6 and 7 tells us that Israel had withheld bringing the tithe and God’s Word says, “Israel has stolen”. Those are strong words. I didn’t make this up. Yet God indicates in Malachi that it was not His desire that His people live under a curse. “I don’t want you under a curse.” You are voluntarily placing yourself under a curse when you don’t follow my principle of ordinary behavior. The greatest argument I’ve heard from people who justify ignoring the principle of tithing is because it is in the Old Testament.
I. Tithing is a test. God is testing our hearts. Even when a person argues about this, I wonder why would we argue about this? Why are we arguing? Why argue when God gave His Son and we won’t give 10%? Mahaushra is a Hebrew word which means tithe or tenth part. One tenth. Why did God pick a percentage? Because it is fair to everyone. Whether you make $10 or $10,000 one penny on every dime, one dollar on every 10 belongs to God. It’s the same for every person. One penny on every dime. I think God chose 10 because it represents testing. Let’s take a little quiz. I’m going to ask you a question and you say your answer out loud: How many plagues in Egypt 10 (numbers 14) How many times did God test Pharaohs heart? 10
How many commandments -10 There is a pattern in Numbers 14 How many times did God test the people of Israel in the Wilderness 10 How many times were Jacobs wages changed? 10 How many days was Daniel tested 10 How many virgins tested –in Matthew 25 -10 How many days of testing in Revelation 10 How many disciples were there 12 Tithing is a test. Actually it’s a two way test. This is the only place in scripture that I’ve found where God says, “you can test me.” Tithing is a two way test – God tests us but God wants us to test Him to see if He is pure. This word try or test comes from the word of how you test a metal: how you test Gold to see if it’s pure. God wants us to test Him to prove to us He is pure. I want to open the windows of heaven and rebuke the devourer for you but it depends on you trusting me and letting me show you that 90% will go farther with my blessing than 100%
will without my blessing. We open an area of faith when we do this.
You give me I will surely give a tenth to You.” The tithe goes to God’s house.
Tithing was before the law, under the law and after the law. The principles are the same under the law. Tithing was way before the law, under that law and in the New Testament.
…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 is holy to the LORD. All the tithe of the law is the Lord’s It belongs to God, It is holy it is set apart. a tithe is the Lord’s and when we don’t give it to God’s house, we are stealing it. Lev 3. Deut 26:1-2-13 “And it shall be, when you come into the land which the LORD your God is giving you as an inheritance, and you possess it and dwell in it, 2 that you shall take some of the first of all the produce of the ground, which you shall bring from your land that the LORD your God is giving you, and put it in a basket and go to the place where the LORD your God chooses to make His name abide. Then you shall say before
I don’t understand the argument that people use that tithing was under the law and we are in the dispensation of grace. Listen, there are many law principles that we still observe today. Under the law it was wrong to commit adultery, so you are saying that because we are under grace now, we can commit adultery? Thou shalt not murder was under the law. Does that mean we can kill now that we are under grace? That is crazy. The same is true for tithing. II. Tithing is biblical. You are not a bad person if you don’t tithe, you are not a rebellious person if you don’t tithe but a lot of people don’t believe it’s in the Bible. They don’t believe it’s for us today. Genesis 14:18-20 18 Then Melchizedek king of Salem brought out bread and wine; he was the priest of God Most High. 19 And he blessed him and said: “blessed be Abram of God Most High, possessor of heaven and earth; 20 and blessed be God Most High, who has delivered your enemies into your hand.” And he gave him a tithe of all. Abraham is a type of our spiritual father. Melchizedek is a type of Christ. Our spiritual father gave 10% before the Law. 430 years before Moses, Abram routed the armies of 4 kings with 318 trained men to rescue his nephew Lot. Hebrews 7 tells us what happened when Abraham met Melchizedek on the way home after this victory. Abraham gave him a 10th of everything. Why? Because Abraham was grateful to God for His victory and had a heart after God and tithing was in the heart of God from the very beginning. This is Jacob speaking 400 years before the Law in Genesis 28:22 – 22 And this stone which I have set as a pillar shall be God’s house, and of all that
the LORD your God: ‘I have removed the holy tithe from my house, and also have given them to the Levite, the stranger, the fatherless, and the widow, according to all Your commandments which You have commanded me; I have not transgressed Your commandments, nor have I forgotten them.
Let me ask you a question. If Jesus Himself said you ought to tithe would you tithe? Here’s the sad part – some of us still have to think about it. If Jesus said it in the NT in red letters would you do it? Matthew 23:23 23 “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you pay tithe of mint and anise and cummin, and have neglected the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faith. These you ought to have done, without leaving the others undone.
You give tithes of your first fruits and of the spices. But you have neglected mercy, justice and faith, you should do that but don’t leave the others undone. Jesus said – you do this, but don’t leave this undone. This is Jesus new Testament. Jesus is our Melchizedek. Hebrews 7:8 – 8 Here mortal men receive tithes, but there he receives them, of whom it is witnessed that he lives. On earth, mortals receive tithes but Jesus Christ there in heaven receives the tithe I bring to Him, and the tithe you bring to Him. III. Tithing is a blessing.
II Chron. 31:4 4 Moreover he commanded the people who dwelt in Jerusalem to contribute support for the priests and the Levites, that they might devote themselves to the Law of the LORD. Hezekiah sees these scriptures and there is an economic recession and he realizes they had not been tithing and were under a curse. Malachi said bring the tithe into the store house that there might be food in my house. Spiritual food – someone is paying for it. Someone is paying for the staff, the ministry, and the electric bill. Would any of you here go to a restaurant, eat a meal and then leave without paying for it? Any of you do that? We wouldn’t think of it, yet some Christians do that every week. They go to church, eat a meal and don’t pay the tab. I’m telling you I’m doing this to help you. This will change you, your family, your business, etc. Everyone needs to bring the tithe. 5
As soon as the commandment was circulated, the children of Israel brought in abundance the first fruits of grain and wine, oil and honey, and of all the produce of the field; and they brought in abundantly the tithe of everything. And the children of Israel and Judah, who dwelt in the cities of Judah, brought the tithe of oxen and sheep; also the tithe of holy things which were consecrated to the LORD their God they laid in heaps. 7
In the third month they began laying them in heaps, and they finished in the seventh month. 8 And when Hezekiah and the leaders came and saw the heaps, they blessed the LORD and His people Israel. 9
Then Hezekiah questioned the priests and the Levites concerning the heaps. 10 And Azariah the chief priest, from the house of Zadok, answered him and said, “Since the people began to bring the offerings into the house of the LORD, we have had enough to eat and have plenty left, for the LORD has blessed His people; and what is left is this great abundance.”
Here is what happened – the king sends out this commandment. They started in the 3rd month and continued till the 7th month. He saw the heaps. The king wanted to know if the people were ok and asked the priests about the people. The priests answered, as soon as the people started, God blessed them so much. This is just the tithe, you should see the heaps left over after the tithe. I have been in ministry since 1975 – that’s over 40 years. There are two testimonies I’ve heard consistently when it comes to tithing. Those who tithe consistently say, “We are so blessed. It all changed when we started tithing.” Non- tithers have said – “I can’t afford to tithe.” You will never be able to afford to tithe until you tithe. Tithing breaks the curse of the devourer. “I can’t afford to tithe.” Illustration: I’m going away and wanted to channel funds through two of my friends, Steve and Trenton. $10,000 a month each. He said, “I want you to give my wife 10% of the 10,000 each month for her support”. So I asked my wife – how are funds coming in? Steve gave $1,000 a month Trenton gave 1st month 700, 2nd month 400, 0 the third month. I’m giving him 10,000 and asked him for 10% for my wife. I will not send him any more money as he’s proven to me that he can’t be trusted and I’ll give it to Steve. Jesus said – I’m going away – I’m coming back. While I’m gone, I want you to take care of my wife. 10% goes to her; you can keep the other 90%. Is the church the bride of Christ? Tithing is probably more personal to Jesus than you think. Read the parable of the talents. He wants to provide for you, but why would he provide for you if you don’t care about His wife?
Conclusion: Tithing is a test. It’s a test and it’s important that we pass the test. Ask God what is He saying to you? Don’t feel condemned if you struggle in this area. I do want you to be convicted. Even if you have to sell something to do
this. I’m sharing this for your good. You are not going to steal from God. But I’m asking you to make a commitment to do it God’s way. Change your life style. Honor the Lord, don’t steal from Him.