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WEEKLY
Volume 1 Number 12
20 August 2006
Tithes and Offerings
(Message delivered by Pr Hien
Nguyen at the Sunday Worship Service, 2 pm, Aug 13, 06)
Text: Mark
12:41-44
What do
you think about tithes and offerings? In my country, many people go to
temples or pagodas to offer fruits and money with a desire, hope, and
prayer to obtain blessings from their gods. Besides those who do some
good works to earn their own merits to enter a better place after death
according to their belief, I saw other people give their offerings with
various motives. Businessmen want to have success and prosperity in
their business. Single people want to find a lover or a life partner.
Wives want their husbands to love them and be faithful to them. Students
want to pass the exams or enter university. The sick want to be healed.
The poor hope to get some luck, and even those who earn easy and
dishonest money want to ease their conscience. Their motives of giving
tithes and offerings are like an exchange for their salvation, wealth,
healing, protection, good luck, peace, etc. Sadly, their gods are not
the living and true God of the Bible and their understanding and
motives are not Biblical and
unacceptable to God.
How about
Christians? Does God expect us to offer something to Him like tithes and
offerings? What is the proper understanding of tithes and offerings? And
what proper attitudes should we have toward tithes and offerings?
Proper Understanding of
Tithes & Offerings
The word “tithe” means “one tenth.” It first appeared
in the Bible in Gen 14:20 when Abraham gave Melchizedek, the king of
Salem and the priest of the most high God, tithes of all the spoil,
acknowledging God as the Possessor of heaven and earth, and the Giver of
victory (14:19). Then Jacob vowed to give God a tithe of all that he
would possess if God would protect him in his journey, provide all his
needs and bring him back to his land (Gen
28:20-22). And after that God commanded Israel to give tithes of all
that they earn from the land, the herds, the crops and so forth to
honour God first and acknowledge God’s blessing with a thankful heart
and
then to maintain the order of worship (Lev 27:30-32;
Num 18:24-28; Deut 14:22).
Besides the tithes, Israel gave their gifts and
voluntary offerings or freewill offerings (Exod 25:2-3; 35:5,21-29; Lev
7:16; 23:38; Num 7:2-88) for thanksgiving, for a vow, for the building
of the tabernacle, and for the service of the sanctuary (Exod 35:21;
36:3; Lev 7:12; 22:29).
Then giving “tithes” to the Lord is the duty and
responsibility of God’s people and giving offerings is prompted by their
willing and thankful hearts. When the people of Israel failed to do
this, God said to them, “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”
(Mal 3:8-9).
God’s Priority
Be Reconciled to God
First: What does God expect
human beings whom He had created to do for Him? He wants them to love
Him, to obey Him, and to worship Him so that He may bless them more and
more. But sadly, the first human beings, Adam and Eve disobeyed God and
they were cursed. By Adam, “sin entered into the world, and
death by sin; and so death passed upon all men for that all have sinned”
(Rom 5:12). Due to human sinful nature, men became enemies of the Holy
God. But because of God’s love and through the death of the Lord Jesus
Christ we are reconciled to God, “For if, when we were enemies, we
were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, being
reconciled, we shall be saved by his life” (Rom 5:10).
Adam and Eve had two sons, Abel and Cain. Abel
offered a lamb, showing that he was a sinner deserving death and
that he only put his faith in the atoning
blood of Christ, his Substitute, and God accepted Abel and his offering
(Gen 4:4; Heb 11:4), but Cain offered the fruit of the ground, and God
rejected him and his offering as he proudly trusted in himself and the
labour of his hands without a spirit of repentance nor a sincere faith
in the
atoning blood of Christ. Many people are like Cain,
thinking that they are good and able to save themselves through their
good works without a need of the Saviour Jesus Christ!
My dear friends, tithes and
offerings alone cannot save you and me nor make us acceptable unto the
Holy God. Only after being reconciled to our Holy God by our
sincere faith in the Saviour Jesus Christ will our
tithes and offerings please the Lord.
Love God First and Above All:
When the scribe repeated what our Lord just said and added, “Well,
Master, thou hast said the truth: for there is one God; and there is
none other but he: And to love him with all the heart, and with all
the understanding, and with all the soul, and with all the strength, and
to love his neighbour as himself, is more than all whole burnt offerings
and sacrifices.” And the Lord Jesus said to him, “Thou art
not far from the kingdom of God”
(Mark 12:29-34).
Do we give tithes and offerings because we love God
and His kingdom?
Obey God First and Totally:
King Saul thought that he pleased the Lord when he spared the best of
the sheep and other livestock and even offered them as sacrifices to the
Lord while God ordered him to utterly destroy them. God rejected him and
said to him through the prophet Samuel, “Hath the LORD as great
delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices, as in obeying the voice of
the LORD? Behold,
to obey is better than sacrifice,
and to hearken than the fat of rams” (1
Sam 15:22). My dear friends, are you and I totally or only partly
obeying God and His Word? No sacrifice to the Lord is better than our
wholehearted obedience to Him. We may obey him in giving tithes but how
about all God’s words?
Be True and Sincere:
Seeing that many believers sold their lands or houses and brought the
money to the apostles for the need of other brethren (Acts 4:34-37),
Ananias and Sapphira also sold a possession, but kept back part of the
price, and gave it to the apostles. Peter said to them, “Whiles it
remained, was it not thine own? And after it was sold, was it not
thine own power? Why hast thou conceived this thing in thine heart? Thou
hast not lied unto men, but unto God” (Acts 5:4). God does not
accept the tithes or offerings from an insincere heart. We should not
give just because others are doing it. We give because we desire to. We
must be true and sincere.
Proper Attitudes toward Tithes & Offerings
We have
understood how to give our tithes and
offerings acceptable unto the Lord. Now how about our attitudes?
With Faith and Love:
In the Bible text today, our Lord Jesus was sitting opposite the
treasury. According to the Talmudists, the treasury was in the court of
the women where stood thirteen chests, called from their shape
“trumpets,” into which the Jews cast their offerings (Zodhiates, The
Complete Word Study Dictionary, NT). Our Lord “beheld how the
people cast money into the treasury.” The verb “beheld” here means
to gaze, to look with interest and for a purpose, usually indicating the
careful observation of details (Zodhiates). So our Lord is today also
watching how we give our tithes and offerings. Many rich people cast in
much out of their abundance, but our Lord was touched by the offering of
the poor widow. Her husband was not around to support the family. She
had to support herself and she was poor, “but she of her want did
cast in all that she had, even all her living” despite her very
small amount, only two mites or two small coins. What about her living
expenses for the next day? Hers was an action of faith in God and love
for Him. Others might despise her, but our Lord honoured her. People
paid attention to how much they gave, but our Lord paid attention to how
much they kept for themselves. Truly God who takes care of the sparrows
would take care of that widow, and what she did was recorded in the
Bible! (cf. Luke 21:2-4).
My dear friends, if you are poor
and are able to offer just a little, please do not feel embarrassed as
our Lord knows and sees what you do for Him. If you are rich and are
able to offer more, please do not despise the poor and their small
offerings as our Lord weighs the hearts and does not count how much you
have given to Him but how much you have kept for yourselves.
With a
Willing, Thankful, Worshipful and Cheerful Heart:
Everything
we have, even our life and breath, is from the Lord, “A man can
receive nothing, except it be given him from heaven” (John 3:27),
and in God we “live, and move, and have our being” (Acts 17:28). If God
does not give us good health, skills, and
good opportunities, we cannot work to earn money. We
cannot give to God what we have not received from Him. Therefore, we
should give thanks to the Lord for the amount we get and offer back to
Him. David’s prayer to the Lord is so true, “But who am I, and what is
my people, that we should be able to offer so willingly after this sort?
for all things come of thee, and of thine own have we given thee”
(1 Chron 29:14).
Giving tithes and offering is also a part of our
worship, “Give unto the LORD the glory due to his name: bring an
offering, and come before him: worship the LORD in the beauty of
holiness” (1 Chron 16:29). And the Lord commands, “And none
shall appear before me empty” (Exod 23:15; 34:20), and “Honour
the LORD with thy substance, and with the firstfruits of all
thine increase” (Prov 3:9). The Lord is pleased with our worship in
spirit and in truth and with our thanksgiving offerings.
“Every man according as he purposeth in his heart,
so let him give; not grudgingly, or of necessity: for God loveth a
cheerful giver” (2 Cor 9:7). My dear friends, are you and I
cheerful when we offer our tithes and offerings to the Lord? The Bible
says, “Then the people rejoiced, for that they offered willingly,
because with perfect heart they offered willingly to the Lord:
and David the king also rejoiced with great joy” (1 Chron 29:9), and
“they offered great sacrifices, and rejoice: for God had
made them rejoice with great joy…so that the joy of Jerusalem
was heard afar off” (Neh 12:43). Truly, money is not everything. It
can buy pleasures and entertainments but it cannot buy true joy, peace
and happiness in our hearts (John 14:27; 16:22).
With Faithfulness and Responsibility:
God has given us life, time, talents and His blessings, not to mention
His great salvation and eternal life, so that we may use them wisely for
Him and for the extension of His kingdom. We should be faithful stewards
since we will give an account to the Lord for what we have done not only
with our money but also with our time and talents when He comes (Matt
25:14-30; Luke 19:11-27). Seven days has 168
hours, then shall we spend at
least one-tenth (more than 16 hours) in our daily devotion, family
worship, Bible study, Prayer meeting and Sunday worship every week? Many
Christians spend much time watching TV or chit-chatting or doing their
hobbies easily but just little time for the Lord and their spiritual
growth! Many Christians also think that as they have offered tithes to
the Lord, all the rest of their money belongs to them and they can use
it as they like according to their will. Many others also do not care
how their offerings may be spent regardless of unfaithful and ungodly
leaders! Then without their responsibility, how can they give an account
to the Lord?
Not with an Attitude of
Exchange:
Several years ago, a lady in America sued her pastor for her loss of
money in offerings! She accused her pastor of telling lies to tempt her
to give tithes with this promise, “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 host, if I will not open you the windows of
heaven, and pour out a blessing, that there shall not be room enough to
receive it” (Mal 3:10). She said that she had tried for several
years but she was not richer at all! My dear friends, that lady was just
like Cain, and her offerings were rejected. God’s promise is true when
we love Him, honour Him, and do not expect material blessings from Him
as an exchange for our tithes and offerings. Truly, “God is able to
make all grace abound toward you; that ye, always having all sufficiency
in all things, may abound to every good work” (2 Cor 9:8).
Conclusion
My dear friends, giving tithes
and offerings alone is not a means to please God, to earn God’s
forgiveness or salvation, or to obtain God’s blessings, but it is an
opportunity to honour God, praise Him, thank Him, serve Him, support
the ministry of His servants and help our brethren in Christ. God does
expect us to offer our lives and bodies to Him as a living and holy
sacrifice acceptable unto Him (Rom 12:1). While we are still living on
this earth, we are expected to use what God has given to us even our
time, talents and money wisely and responsibly as a faithful steward.
May God help us do everything for Him with a willing, thankful,
faithful, obedient, and cheerful heart, knowing that what we have done
for Him and for His glory is recorded in His Book and when our Lord
Jesus comes, we will greatly rejoice to meet Him without any regret.
Amen.
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