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purpose, seems to confuse a great
many today. And the New Testa–
ment teaching for Christians about
tithing is understood by only a very
few.
God said in essence to ancient
Israel in Leviticus 26 and in Deu–
teronomy 28: " If you walk in my
statutes, and keep my command–
ments ... then 1 wi ll give you rain
in due season, and the land shall
yield her increase, and the t rees of
the field shall yield their fruit. "
God Almighty promised that
obedience to his laws would mean
prosperity. Do you know that if you
could just believe him, you would
be more prosperous, you'd have
fewer troubles, you' d be happier,
you'd find life more worthwhile?
Millions of you believe in God, yet
you still do not believe him. You
don't believe because you don't put
into practice the laws of God as
taught in and through the Bible.
In the Bible, God reveals to man
that he never has given to man the
whole of what he produces and
earns. The first tenth of all that you
produce from the g round-of your
wages, your salary, your profi t,
your i ncome- that f irst tent h
remains wholly to the Eterna!. And
that he has reserved for himself, for
his holy and his spiri tual use.
After man has paid to God that
first tenth, which belongs only to
God and which never belonged to
the man, then the remaining nine
tenths God gives to man. It's a
good deal like Adam and Eve in the
garden of Eden and the first sin.
The garden was beautiful beyond
description- just one tree in all the
garden, however, God reservcd for
himself. That remained God's. And
that God never gave to Adam and
Eve. That they had no right to
touch or to use. All the rest God
gave to them, but they were not
satisfied with what was theirs–
ample though it was. Fi lled with
greed to possess all, they reached
out and they took the fruit of that
one forbidden tree that belonged to
God and was not theirs. And that
was stealing- the very first human
sin .
And today, the same Satan who
deceived Mother Eve has deceived
thís whole world into belíeving that
all of each man's farm, or each
man's business, or each man's mon-
October 1984
ey or property, or whatever he may
have belongs to him- that the
whole of a man's income is hís own.
The dívíne and original truth of
ownershíp has been hidden from
the people through the deceptions
of the god of this world .
What God Does wlth the Tlthe
But why does God retain for hím–
self the ownershíp of that fírst
tenth- that tithe- of your in–
come? Here, again, comes the truth
that man would never know and
could not fi nd out except by God's
revelation to man.
God has a great purpose he is
working out here below, and he
reveals it in his Word , his revela–
tion, the Bible. For the carrying out
of God's holy purpose, in placing
mankind upon this earth, God has
always had a priesthood- a minis–
try- representing him on this
earth, serving him, carrying out his
mission for mankind. In the d im
antiquity of patriarchal times,
God's high priest, his representa–
tive on earth, was Melchizedek.
During tbe national dispensation
of Israel under the covenant made
at Sinai, the tribe of Levi consti–
tuted the ministry of God, known
as the Levi tical priesthood. And
then later, when J esus Christ arose
from t he dead, he ascended to
heaven as the living high priest.
And today he calls into his true
Church those he intends to use, as
his true representatives in a dark–
ened and a Satan-deceived world,
to carry on his plan. Today, the
Melchizedek priesthood is restored
in J esus Cbrist (see
Hebr~ws
7).
lt
costs money to carry on the
work of God. And so in order to
provide for the fi nancing of God's
ministry, God has, from the very
beginning, retained for himself the
first tenth of the income of every
human being on earth. The owner–
ship of that first tenth of income is
God's.
How then can you pay that tenth
to God? Since you can't see God,
you can't go to God's throne up in
heaven, God instructs you in his
revealed Word to pay it to bis
Churc h as his representative, just
as a collector of sorne business fi rm
to whom you pay a debt represents
the company to whom you owe that
particular amount of money.
Once paid, so far as you are con–
cerned you have paid God's tithe to
God. The question now is, Wbat
does God do wi th it? Why does he
want it? God uses it for his minis–
try, for carrying on his work. The
nature of God's ministry on earth
has changed with changing c ircum–
stances.
Not much is revealed as to how
God's ministry was carried on in
patriarchal t imes. We know Mel–
chizedek was then the high priest.
All we know of those days of the
d im, d istant antiquity is that the
t ithes were paid to Melchizedek- a
d ivine being- for tbe service of
God's ministry for that time.
But beginning with Moses, God
formed ancient Israel as a civil
nation and also as a church, as you
read in Acts 7:38. Between Moses
and J esus Christ, under the Sinaitic
covenant, God's minist ry was pure–
ly national.
lt
was for ancient Israel
alone. T here was no gospel being
preached to the world.
It
was pure–
ly material, not spiritual.
As a c hurch o r a congregation,
Israel was given a constant round of
physical ceremonies and rituals–
animal sacrifices, meat and drink
offerings, carnal ordinances (see
Hebrews 9: 10)-that were of a
material and not of a spiritual
nature. Consequent ly, the ministry
in ancient Israel was one of minis–
tering to the Israel ites only. There
was no spreading of the gospel. The
ministry, rather, was largely a mal–
ter of physical labor, pertaining to
animal sacrifices, meat and drink
offerings, administering the differ–
ent washings, physical ordinances
and rituals.
For this service, God himself
selected his ministers. The people
had no choice as to who their min–
isters were to be. For this service,
God took one whole tribe of the 12
tribes of lsrael-the t ribe of Levi.
And d u ring these years, from
Moses to J esus Christ, God himself
paid his Levítica! priests by turning
over to them a ll of his tithes.
The Work of God Today
Now, today, we are in the age of
the New Testament Church- the
New Testament gospel dispensa–
tion- and today t he Levítica!
priesthood is go ne , and J esus
Christ is head of the Church, and
9