Dennis Tuuri

Deuteronomy 26. And it shall be when thou art come into the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee for an inheritance, and possess 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 shall 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 shall 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, for 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, A Syrian 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 entreated 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 at 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.

And now Behold, I have brought the first fruits of the land which thou, O Lord, hast given me, and thou shalt set it up 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 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 mourning, 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 swearest unto our fathers, a land that floweth with milk and honey. This day the Lord thy God hath commanded thee to do all these statutes and judgments. Thou shalt therefore keep and do them with all thine heart, and with all thy soul.

Thou hast avouched the Lord this day to be thy God, and to walk in his ways, and to keep his statutes, and his commandments, and his judgments, and to hearken unto his voice. And the Lord hath avouched thee this day to be his peculiar people, as he hath promised thee, and that thou shouldest keep all his commandments, and to make thee high above all nations, which he hath made in praise, and in name, and in honor, and that thou mayest be an holy people unto the Lord thy God, as he hath spoken.

Let’s pray. Almighty God, we thank you for your scriptures. We take them from you gratefully and thankfully, Lord God. And we pray now for the blessing of your Holy Spirit that we would understand them to the end that we would praise you and worship you and also obey you. In Jesus name we pray. Amen.

This morning’s subject is the tithe. And I thought maybe it’d be worthwhile to tell you why we’re talking about the tithe today.

Couple of months ago, we were going through the Psalms. We got off for a while on the subject of what we should do in terms of the poor, the widow, the fatherless, the orphan, the stranger in our nation. There are definitely many verses, including one we read this morning from the book of Isaiah that talk about the necessity for certain action in relationship to those people in our land who are disadvantaged in some way that God determines.

At that time, we had wanted to eventually come up with a plan of action as it were. A lot of us have read Bringing in the Sheaves and we wanted to see if we as a church could do something along that line. Several of us met around that time and discussed bringing in the sheaves. And one of the things that came out of the discussion is that we should probably begin with some teaching from the word of God in terms of what those obligations are before we get into any programs or any action based upon this obligation to help the poor in some way.

And certainly one of the things we know is true that a portion of the tithe should be used for this same class of people that God designates in the other passages having to do with the poor and vulnerable in society. So in a long roundabout way is saying what I’m saying is that now we thought it’d be good at some point in time to address the poor tithe. That was one reason for getting into a study of the tithe.

The second reason is that we’re having an advance this weekend retreat. And I mentioned a month ago or so that I thought it was a proper use of the rejoicing tithe to use to fund that weekend at the beach with the church. And several people mentioned they didn’t really know what the rejoicing tithe was or how it was to be expended. Additionally, of course, other people had asked me during the same time frame, how the poor tithe is to be expended.

And so, I thought it’d be good for us to do some studying through that together on those two topics. However, I thought probably it’d be correct actually to put a general overview on what the tithe is first before we get to the specifics of both the rejoicing tithe and the poor tithe. The other portion of the tithe that is clearly enunciated in scripture has to do with the Levitical tithe, and we’ll talk about that as well.

So that’s why we’re talking about the tithe at this particular point in time. We’d finished a set of psalms that hopefully have brought us to the position where we can say, as we see read in Psalm 24, that we have enthroned Christ in his church and in our lives. We’ve recognized his reign over us individually and corporately as well. And now we’re going to talk about some of the specific areas over the next few months in which that’s to be manifested.

The tithe, the Sabbath, education, what offices the church has today and how do they relate to our institutional submission to Jesus Christ as king. So that’s why we’re speaking about the tithe today. We’re going to start then a series of perhaps four messages dealing with the tithe. I’m unsure exactly, but we’ll see how it goes. Today I want to give basically an overview of the tithe. Next week at the coast, the topic for our talk will be the priesthood of all believers.

That has to do with the fact that after the series on the tithe, we’re going to be talking about the offices of the Old Testament and the New Testament. I think it’s good to begin a discussion of the offices with understanding that we don’t want to somehow through the result of the study of offices in the Bible to ignore the fact of the priesthood of all believers. We want to understand how that relates to the special offices that God has given to his church.

So next week we’ll talk about the priesthood of all believers. The following week we’ll be talking about the Levitical tithe. The week after that we’ll be speaking on the rejoicing tithe and that will be Easter Sunday and it’s very appropriate to speak about rejoicing on that morning. And then we’ll follow that with the poor tithe. That’s basically the outline and then from the poor tithe we’ll then go to a discussion of the offices of the church.

So this morning we’re going to have an overview on the tithe. Basically there are three points I want to get across today and hopefully that from the word of God these things will be taught to us that we’ll obey them. The first point is that the tithe is obligatory for us today as Christians. The second point will be that the tithe is a covenantal law and the third point will be that the tithe belongs to God.

Before we get into all this, however, I want to give you some passages to write down. You know, words are real important. And I learned what two words meant this week, and maybe you already know what they mean, but I didn’t really understand what they meant, some of the implications of the definitions of the word. And one of those words is the word sophomore. Does anybody know what sophomore means, Bob?

Wise fool. Wise fool. That’s absolutely correct. “Sopho” is, you know, the same root word of sophisticated, wise, and then “more” is the same root as the word moron. So you’re like a wise fool. It’s important. They wanted to, you know, in the colleges for instance, it’s important once a person is a freshman, he has a certain amount of respect for the body of knowledge he’s beginning to acquire. But when he becomes a sophomore, usually he thinks now he’s got it made.

And it’s the intent of using that word to describe a second-year student is to remind him that he’s just a wise fool at this point in time. He’s going to lapse into foolishness if he sees himself as too wise. Well, the same thing’s true about any study of the scriptures. Of course, we can study the tithe in an overview and come away as wise fools if we don’t continue to study out the tithe in more detail in our own private lives.

Additionally, the doctrine of the priesthood of all believers and some of the things we talked about last week that believers are prophet, priests, and kings in Jesus Christ who is the ultimate prophet, priest and king. Those things place obligations on us and specifically upon the heads of households. For that reason, I wanted to have you write down some references to the tithe for your own personal study over the next few weeks.

I’ll just give the chapters. I’m not going to give the verses because that would make it easier for you and I want you to read the whole verse, the whole chapter, find where the verse is. Genesis 14, Genesis 28, Leviticus 27, Numbers 18, Deuteronomy 12, Deuteronomy 14, Deuteronomy 26, Nehemiah chapters 10, 12 and 13, 2 Chronicles 31, Amos 4, Malachi 3, Haggai 1.

If you missed any of those, you can ask me afterwards and I can give them to you. But I think it’s important that we try to avoid at all costs in this church believing what’s said from up here because it’s said from up here. We’re called to study these things out from the word of God. Okay?

The first point we want to start with today is that the tithe is obligatory for Christians living in 1984. You know, Judge Beers has meant a lot to this church. And I was remembering as I was studying through this, the first time I ever heard Judge Beers or saw him or anything was at I believe was at Cedar Mill Bible Church where we were attending at the time. We went to an evening service, and I bounced around a lot of churches at that point in time, not real satisfied. Went to this one evening service there and they were having a series of messages on the tithe.

And those of you who went to Cedar Mill probably remember that time in the evening service. That’s interesting that they put it in the evening service. Well, anyway, Judge Beers was one of the speakers during one of those sessions. And I think I don’t know, but I tend to think what he was doing primarily was reading passages out of Tithing and Dominion by R.J. Rushdoony and Powell. I know at the time that Cedar Mill was making copies of that book available to people to purchase, Tithing and Dominion. And that’s a very important book. I didn’t know much about it at that time.

But I remember I got real upset not with Judge Beers’s message but with another man who preached at the church talking about the tithe and the obligatory nature of it because it just seemed like hypocrisy to me for churches to believe in basic discontinuity between the Old Testament and the New Testament. Say all the laws of the Old Testament don’t really bind us anymore except these laws dealing with the tithe. I always found that rather interesting.

Chris W.’s parents thankfully bought one of the copies of Tithing and Dominion at the time and several months later when I understood who Rushdoony was, I went over there and snuck it out of their house. You know, they weren’t reading it anyway, I don’t think. And it’s a very good book.

I thought of that same basic point when I was remembering we canceled church several months ago because of the weather. Remember that day? It was just beautiful on the streets. Well, we thought it was going to be icy. Well, anyway, that morning I wanted to see if there was what the TV preachers were up to. So I watched I believe it was Kenneth Copeland on TV that Sunday morning and he was talking about the tithe and whether or not the tithe is New Testament and he basically spent most of the time talking about the fact that Jesus Christ had inherited the whole earth and was the owner of all the earth and that’s fine.

And then he got, remember now the message is supposed to be under the tithe New Testament, he gets down to the last part of the message he says well but is the tithe New Testament, is it for today? And he turns to Leviticus, the passage I just referenced earlier. It says the tithe is holy unto God. He says, “Well, if it was holy back then, it’s holy today, so it’s binding on us today.” Well, there’s all kinds of things that the word of God says are holy in the Old Testament that he doesn’t believe is binding on us today.

So, when you see that kind of inconsistency and exegetical approach, you begin to wonder about the presuppositions the person is bringing into it. I don’t know. But one reason for a pastor to espouse that the tithing is New Testament and that it’s to be given to the church is rather obvious. One reason that would lead them into that position. I don’t want to attribute motives to these individuals I’m talking about, but it is an interesting thing to think about that one of the very few laws of the Old Testament that are frequently referenced as binding today is the tithe, which results in monetary inflow into the church.

It might be appropriate now to talk about the second definition that I learned this week and that was really what sacrilege meant. Does anybody know what sacrilege means or what the root of the word means or where it came from? Robbing temples, right? Robbing temples out of Romans 2. He says, “You who don’t like idols, do you rob temples? Do you commit sacrilege? You commit sacrilege to steal something from God?” And we’ll talk about that a little bit more later on, but I think there’s an element of that in the uneven way that the Old Testament law is referenced in terms of personal aggrandizement or personal acquiring to themselves or to the churches of God’s wealth.

In any event, in this church, we don’t have those same sort of problems trying to find out if the tithe is binding on us today or not. Point 10 of the confessional statement of Reformation Covenant Church says this: We believe that Old Testament standing laws continue to be morally binding unless they are rescinded or modified by further revelation in the holy scriptures.

Now, basically what that means is we assume basic continuity in terms of the laws of God from Old Testament to New Testament. Unless God wants to change his mind on something, the basic approach used by many other people in churches filling pulpits this day is that it isn’t binding on us as New Testament Christians unless it’s repeated in the New Testament. In other words, God has to repeat it now in order for us to say it’s binding on us today. And we say, “No, that isn’t correct. Why should we assume that? Why should we assume that everything’s done away with until God repeats it in the New Testament?” God asserts basic continuity.

And hopefully, if nothing else, over the last couple years in this church, we’ve seen the beauty of the integrated position of God’s one word that he gives to mankind, his one Bible, all 66 books. To assume basic discontinuity, I think, is inconsistent with that consistency of the word of God. We recognize, of course, there are Old Testament standing laws, and by that, the only thing we mean is that there were laws given that were continued in effect.

In other words, God may have told somebody, “Go across this river.” That’s not a standing law. It’s given for a specific point in time. We know there are Old Testament standing laws, for instance, having to do with the Levitical system that were brought to fruition. I wouldn’t say they were abolished or done away with in Christ. They were brought to fruition or completed in the finished work of Jesus Christ.

And so, are there some portions of Old Testament law of course that have been changed or modified by God. It makes it clear that there are various sacrificial elements that God has changed or modified in the New Testament. But let’s assume you don’t have that position and that you’re very concerned that the tithe is, you know, part of this sacrificial system and all. Well, it has to be done away with.

I believe it was at Cedar Mill Bible Church where we were attending at the time. We went to an evening service and I bounced around a lot of churches at that point in time, not real satisfied. Went to this one evening service there and they were having a series of messages on the tithe. And those of you who went to Cedar Mill probably remember that time in the evening service. That’s interesting that they’d put it in the evening service.

Well, anyway, Judge Beers was one of the speakers during one of those sessions. And I think I don’t know, but I tend to think what he was doing primarily was reading passages out of Tithing and Dominion by R.J. Rushdoony and Powell. I know at the time that Cedar Mill was making copies of that book available to people to purchase, Tithing and Dominion. And that’s a very important book. I didn’t know much about it at that time.

But I remember I got real upset not with Judge Beers’s message but with another man who had preached at the church talking about the tithe and the obligatory nature of it because it just seemed like hypocrisy to me for churches to believe in basic discontinuity between the Old Testament and the New Testament say all the laws of the Old Testament don’t really bind us anymore except these laws dealing with the tithe.

I always found that rather interesting. Chris W.’s parents thankfully bought one of the copies at the time and several months later when I understood who Rushdoony was, I went over there and snuck it out of their house. You know, they weren’t reading it anyway, I don’t think. And it was a very good book.

In process of time it came to pass that Cain brought of the fruit of the ground an offering unto the Lord. And Abel, he also brought of the firstlings of his flock, and of the fat thereof. And the Lord had respect unto Abel, and to his offering.

Now, the only thing we want to point out there, we talk a lot about Cain and Abel, but the point is that they brought forth their first fruits. There was a system in place where they were bringing forth first fruits, which as I said is related to the tithe. In Genesis 7, there’s another interesting verse that I was talking to Roy about a little earlier today, relating to our meal next Sunday in Genesis 7 verses 2 and 3, God gives Noah commandments regarding the animals to bring about the ark: of every clean beast thou shalt take to thee by sevens, the male and his female, and of beasts that are not clean by two, the male and his female. And then talks about birds. The point is there’s a distinction prior to ceremonial law between clean and unclean.

And after Noah of course comes to rest on the dry ground, he offers up some of the clean animals to God. What we’re trying to say here is that there’s a distinction prior to the giving of the formal ceremonial Levitical law between clean and unclean. And by the way, one of the implications of that is that you cannot find in the abolishment of the fulfillment of the Levitical law, you cannot use that specific completion of Levitical law as a basis for rejecting clean unclean distinctions in regards to food today. Do you understand what I mean by that?

Clean unclean preceded ceremonial law in terms of Levitical structure. So if you want to get rid of the ban on pork, you can’t do it by saying Levitical law has been completed in Jesus Christ, that priesthood has been accomplished because it predates the Levitical priesthood. Now, it’s obviously ceremonial in nature. And there are other ways you could approach that question, but I want you to be careful you don’t make that position to somebody because it isn’t, it won’t stand.

Well, these things are kind of like little hints. It is were the tithe may have been in effect at the time. In Genesis 14, we have the obviously the first reference in the scriptures to an actual tithe or tenth. The word tithe, of course, means tenth. Genesis 14, you have the battle of the kings. You have the kidnapping of Lot. And again, there’s lots of stuff in here to talk about. We’ll restrict our comments to the tithe and some of the implications of what occurs in the giving of the tithe.

The context of this is that in Genesis 13, Lot and Abram have separated and Lot has gone to live in a land out toward city of Sodom out that way. And he’s gone over there to live. It’s a good land. And it says that it was like the garden of the Lord in beauty because it was before the judgment God came upon Sodom. Like the Garden of the Lord, like the Garden of Eden, in other words.

Well, then some war occurs with the five kings and the four kings and there’s battle and Lot is kidnapped and Abram sends his men out to rescue Lot and of course he rescues him and in let’s see in verse 17, let’s see let’s back up just a little bit. We’ll start reading in verse 13.

And there came one that had escaped and told Abram in the Hebrew, for he dwelt in the plain of Mamre the Amorite, brother of Eshkol and brother of Aner. And these were confederate with Abram. And when Abram heard that his brother was taken captive, he armed his trained servants, born in his own house, 318, and pursued them unto Dan. And he divided himself against them, he and his servants by night, and smote them, pursued them unto Hobah, which is on the left hand of Damascus.

And he brought back all the goods, and also brought again his brother Lot, and his goods, and the women also, and the people. And the king of Sodom went out to meet him after his return from the slaughter of Kedorlaomer and of the kings that were with him at the valley of Shaveh which is the king’s dale. Now it’s interesting that the text tells us the king of Sodom is coming out to meet Abram. The place where he’s meeting him is the valley of the king’s valley. There’s an emphasis on kings here. And then in verse 18 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 unto thy hand.” And he gave him tithes of all.

And the king of Sodom said unto Abram, “Give me the persons, and take the goods to thyself.” And Abram said to the king of Sodom, “I have lift up mine hand unto the Lord, the most high God, the possessor of heaven and earth, that I will not take from a thread, even to a shoe latchet, and I will not take anything that is thine, lest thou should say, I have made Abram rich, save only that which the young men have eaten, and the portion of the men which went with me, Aner, Eshkol, Mamre, let them take their portion.”

So, what you’ve got going on here is you’ve got Abram being victorious. He’s got the spoils of the war, the what he has captured back, Lot and other things he’s captured, meeting in the king’s valley, two kings. There’s two kings here. There’s the king of Sodom and the name Sodom means burnt or scorched. And it’s should be a prophetic indication here that this place is going to end up being burnt or scorched.

We know in chapter 13 that Sodom has already been identified as a place where a lot of evil people live. People who sin grievously against the Lord live in Sodom. We’ve already told that in 13. And the name of the city means burnt or scorched. So, we know it’s a bad place and I think Abram knew it too. King of Sodom comes out. While the king of Sodom is coming out, the king of Melchizedek arrives at the same time.

See, these things are coincidences occurring at the same time. And Abram tithes to Melchizedek and Hebrews 7 interprets that for us and tells us some other interesting things about the passage. Hebrews 7 tells us that Melchizedek was the king of righteousness. Okay. And that he ruled over Salem. So he was the king of peace as well. King of righteousness, king of peace. Obviously, we’re talking here about Messianic, about Jesus Christ.

I don’t know the exact, I’ve not studied in detail the exact historical personage of Melchizedek. But it’s important that we recognize what’s going on here is you’ve got a king of the earth as it were of a fallen land, Sodom, the sinning king there. And he wants to give Abram some stuff. On the other hand, you’ve got the king of righteousness representing God, obviously the true king of righteousness and peace to come.

And Abram ends up tithing to Melchizedek. Now, that’s the initiation of the tithe. And that tells us that the tithe, well, at least in the formal sense of the scriptures, it may have been in effect prior to that as well. Well, this tells that the tithe is definitely pre-ceremonial law and therefore it is binding on us before the Levitical law occurs.

Hebrews 7 tells us that when Abram was doing that, the Levitical priesthood was in his loins as it were. Okay? And as it were then Levi, the whole Levitical order tithed to the Melchizedekian priesthood. He says without a doubt the tithe goes to the person who’s greater. And so We have here an acknowledgement the Levitical priesthood is subordinate to the Melchizedekian priesthood which is the priesthood of Jesus Christ. Christ came as the true Melchizedekian priest in that line. And so if the tithe was abolished because of Levitical function, it certainly is in place because of the Melchizedekian tithe and the requirement of God’s people to tithe to Melchizedek who represented Christ.

So in Hebrews 7, we’re told that the Levitical priesthood itself who received tithes actually tithed to God most high in the form of Melchizedek. And so we know that today the same thing is binding on us today. We have a king. We’ve been talking about that for the last few weeks. We have a king of righteousness and peace who reigns over us. And he owe we owe him that tax the king is due a tenth, 10%. What does Melchizedek give Abram in this exchange?

He gives him bread and wine, sustenance, communion, spiritual sustenance, physical sustenance as well. It’s an acknowledgement that God gives us those things. He gives us communion with him. He gives us sustenance for all our needs. And we recognize his kingship over us by paying the tax that’s due to him, the tithe 10%.

So the tithe precedes and follows Levitical order. Additionally, we look at Christ’s statements in Matthew 23, Luke 11, and we see there that Christ is and by the way, the context of this is that Christ is cursing, giving the woes to the Pharisees, people that broke God’s covenant law. It’s interesting that, you know, again, we see continuity with scriptures we see that the beatitudes God Christ comes preaching the blessings of God for covenant keepers the woes God come God in the form of Jesus Christ comes preaching the curses of God against covenant breakers and Matthew 23 and Luke 11 that’s the context of what Christ says about the Pharisees who tithe mint dill and cumin which is like caraway seed I guess and they tithe those things they neglected the weightier portions of the law now it’s interesting there too another thing you can get from that from the tithe is that they weren’t commanded to tithe mint, dill, and this sort of thing.

Those are, as Reverend Rushdoony points out, were garden crops. They were tithed to tithe specific field crops. And yet Christ says, “You should have done this. You should have tithed that stuff, but you shouldn’t have ignored the other, which is the weight of your portions of the law.” He’s not saying you shouldn’t tithe. You should just do the weight of your portions of the law bringing justice. He said you should tithe, and you should even tithe the garden fruit.

You should tithe everything that you get produce, you know, productivity from. And you should do the other as well. So Christ in no way diminishes the tithe in that statement, but actually reinforces it.

The tithe is God’s tax and we’ve said before that God is our king. We’re to enthrone God as king in our lives in this congregation and in our state ultimately as well. And God exacts a tax as king. The tithe is that tax and it is binding upon us as individuals.

The second point today is that the tithe is a covenantal declaration and this ties into the fact that the tithe is also a perpetual obligation. Back to Genesis 14, what Abram did there is, well, let’s see. When Abram tithes to Melchizedek, he takes the language first of all of Melchizedek. You notice that when the king of Sodom says, “Well, you keep everything. I’ll just take portion of this stuff.” He says, “Oh, no.” He says, “God’s the one who’s blessing me.

I don’t want people to say that you’re blessing me. God’s blessing me and I owe a tithe to God. I owe a tax to God. If you’d bless me, really implication, he’d owed a tithe to the king of Sodom. But this king of Sodom was one who had given him his increase. He I don’t want that to even be hinted at here. And he says that I have lifted up my hand unto the Lord the most high God, the possessor of heaven and earth.

That’s language that he just got from Melchizedek. He had learned from Melchizedek that name of God as it were and that relationship of God and this being possessor of heaven and earth. So Abram here, it’s a critical point. He rejects the kingship of Sodom and he accepts the kingship of Jesus Christ of the Messiah or of God, Jehovah God in covenant relationship to him. And this is followed in Genesis or chapter 15 with God coming unto Abram in a vision saying, “Fear not Abram.

I am thy shield and thy exceedingly great reward.” And there’s a relationship here and there basically the covenant is taking place here. God is formalizing his covenant with Abram. So the tithe is seen in relationship to the covenant of God that he makes with Abram in chapter 15. In Genesis 28, we have Jacob giving a tithe. And I think here too that needs a little bit of explanation.

Jacob is leaving now. It’s probably Esau probably wants to kill him. He’s leaving with the blessing and he lays down sleeps with the stone for his pillow. Lays down to sleep and he dreams. He sees this dream a ladder set up on the earth. The top of it reached to heaven. Behold, the angels of God ascending and descending on it. And so he has this dream in which he realizes that God has made himself known to him and he calls the place Bethel or house of God.

And Jacob’s response to all this in verses 19-22 and he called the name of that place Bethel but the name of that city was called Luz the first and Jacob bowed a vow saying if God will be with me and will keep me in this way that I go and will give me bread to eat and raiment to put on so that I come again to my father’s house in peace then shall the Lord be my God and this stone which I have set for a pillar shall be God’s house. And of all that thou shalt give me, I will surely give the tenth unto thee.

Now, some people think here that Jacob’s sort of making a deal with God. I don’t think that’s what’s going on at all. This man has just had an appearance of God to him in a dream. He’s understood the presence of God in that place. He’s understood the implications of the ladder with angels descending and ascending on it. He’s understood that God lives in that place and calls it Bethel.

He’s not now bargaining with God. That’s not the point. He’s saying God has promised the blessing to me and my father. He’s made himself known now. I maybe have been concerned or depressed about this since I had to leave the land and everything. Is God really going to give me the blessing that my father gave to me? And God says to him, I’m going to be your God in this dream. It’s a reaffirmation to Jacob of his blessed position with God.

In response to that, Jacob says, since God is going to do all these things, I think that’s the implication what he’s saying here. Now, if God’s actually going to be with me, he’s going to bless me. He’s going to be my covenant God. He’s going to take care of me. He’s going to bless me. I’ll come to this place in peace. Well, then surely I’ll give that tax to that king who’s going to do all those things for me. Jacob’s tithe here is a recognition of his covenant obligations to a God who has declared his covenant faithfulness to Jacob.

And so, Jacob owes God the tithe. The tithe is a covenantal fact. Deuteronomy 26 then really knots this all up in terms of the covenant. Ties it all together. I have mentioned before and I’ll give you again an outline here. The book of Deuteronomy relating to a covenant document. Let’s see the book of, now all of the scriptures of course are covenant document revealing the covenant keeping God and the one who initiates the covenant and then our relationship to him as the covenant people.

That’s what the scriptures are all about is a revelation of God and resulting obligations on our part toward God. Deuteronomy has a specific formalized structure of the covenant throughout it. And it’s good to note that now I’m going to give you an outline for the book of Deuteronomy that probably a lot of you already have, but I’ll give it to you anyway. There are basically, let’s see the first part of the book of Deuteronomy is verses 1-5 of chapter 1.

This could be seen as a preamble to the covenant document itself. The purpose of Deuteronomy is the, it’s means the second law. Deuteronomy it’s a renewal of the covenant and so it has a very formalized structure to it. Deuteronomy 1 verses 1-5 is the preamble and in Deuteronomy 1-5 you see the identification of the vassal, the suzerain and the mediator. Now those are terms relating the book of Deuteronomy to what’s known as a suzerain treaty.

So a very common form of treaty that they’ve discovered from that period of time. It was a covenant document between a suzerain or a ruler a vassal who is obviously inferior in terms of power and ability to keep the covenant and a mediator between the two of them. And so Moses here is acting as the mediator and he’s giving this formalized covenant document to the nation of Israel. So in verses 1-5 there he identifies fast the suzerain and the mediator in Deuteronomy 1 chapter 1 6 through 4:49.

There’s a historical prologue and we see there the recitation of the history of the covenant. Okay, there’s covenant history being taught in verses 1 chapter 1 6 through 4:49. The third portion of the of this covenant document are regard relate to stipulations of covenant life. Chapter 5:1 through 26:19. Those things all have to do with the laws of the covenant. Okay? The stipulations of covenant life on the vassal.

Verse the second or the fourth section of Deuteronomy deals with the sanctions. This has to do with the sanctions on the covenant itself chapter 27:1 through 30:20 and the last portion of Deuteronomy is 31:1 through the end which deals with the dynastic disposition in other words the perpetuation of the covenant relationship and it’s going to be perpetual how long will it last that kind of thing so you have the introduction to the to the covenant document a prologue a covenant history there then in the middle you’ve got the stipulations of covenant life then you’ve got covenant ratification and the perpetuation of the covenant relationship in the last and the fifth portion of the book.

Why is this all important to what I’m saying now? Because it’s important to recognize that the teaching on the tithe is at the end of the stipulations of covenant life. It’s the end of that whole section which God has given a large body of law to the vassal now to the person that he rules over. He’s instructing him how he will live in covenant relationship to himself. And so the tithe comes at the end of all that and it is an affirmation on the part of the person receiving the law that he’s walked in obedience to that whole law.

He’s to come before God as it were in the presence as talked about in 26. and he’s supposed to say these very formalized things saying basically we were nothing. We’re definitely a vassal because we were wandering Syrians in our covenantal fathers. We were wandering Syrians about to perish. Couldn’t take care of ourselves. We were slaves in Egypt and you brought us out and you gave us all these great things. We’re we agree with you. That is great. And you’re our king. You’re our commanding lord in this whole arrangement and everything you told us to do we’ve done.

That’s what’s going on here in Deuteronomy 26. The tithe is the affirmation then is an essential part of the affirmation of the part of the covenant party, the vassal, which is the church. Of course, obviously the tithe is an important part of the affirmation of covenant relationship with God. God. One of the ways in which he says, “We’ve done everything you’ve commanded us to do.” Is he says, “We’ve tithed. I’ve done all these tithes. It’s the third year, the end of the year of tithing. I performed all these things. I haven’t used what belongs to you. Haven’t stolen those things from you for my own pleasure or for whatever cause I’ve been depressed. I haven’t, you know, taken the fruit of the tithe of the wine. I haven’t drunk that when I’ve been depressed, for instance.” It’s an affirmation of covenant relationship on the part of God’s people to himself. And it shows that the tithe then is a covenantal fact and it’s an important covenant law. It embodies as it were the rest of the covenant stipulations. If you don’t tithe, you are in serious trouble in terms of covenant keeping.

You can’t make this statement. And if you can’t make that statement, what happens? Well, Deuteronomy 28 tells you what’s going to happen. Deuteronomy 28 tells the cursings of God against covenant disobedience. That’s the context of the verses in Malachi that Roy read this morning. The tithe is a covenant law and it should be an affirmation on our part of covenant obligation to him. This is seen practically speaking in the history of Israel.

Nehemiah 10, which we’ve read portions of Nehemiah 10 through 13 over the last month or so. Again, there you see the fact that when they retook the covenant, maybe I’ll just turn to that now. Nehemiah 10 is the retaking of the covenant. And again, here, see, it’s like a shortened form of the book of Deuteronomy. In effect, there’s this recitation of covenant history that precedes the taking of the covenant.

There’s a recitation of their own inability or unwillingness to obey God. They’re saying, “We repent. We want to be back in covenant relationship, and we retake the covenant here with you.” And in the midst of this covenant retaking, at the end of that portion, it says, because they mentioned specifically that we’re going to bring the first fruits of our ground from now on. In verses 37 verses 38 rather that we should bring the first fruits of our dough and our offerings and the fruit of all manner of trees of wine and of oil and the priests to the chambers of the house of our God and the tithes of our ground unto the Levites that the same Levites might have the tithes in all the cities of our tillage.

So again here in this formalized retaking of the covenant in the book of Nehemiah in the times of Nehemiah, there’s an affirmation of their desire to tithe because they recognize that what happened in Deuteronomy 26, they’d have to come up before God now and say if they were going to be in obedience after all. They have to come in and say, “We tithe.” So, they’re saying now when they retake this covenant, we’re going to tithe because we’re part of the covenant people again.

We’re returning to our covenant God. Same thing is true in the time of Josiah. We won’t look at the reference, but the same thing is true in 2 Chronicles. Time of Josiah, Josiah reinstituted the tithe. He re-provided again for the mechanisms of the tithe that God had provided for the Levitical order. That’s the background of Malachi 3. Malachi 3 is talked about a lot, talked about a lot rather in terms of the blessings that God will pour out on covenant keepers who tithe.

But of course there’s the other side of that. The word of God is blessings and cursings. In Malachi the third chapter presupposes the obligation of the people to tithe. It presupposes covenant relationship and it presupposes that the tithe is central to an affirmation of covenant keeping and therefore the ones who don’t tithe have robbed, have robbed God and as a result curses come upon them. Verse 9, ye are cursed with a curse for you have robbed me even the whole nation.

He says bring forth the tithes and I will rebuke the devourer in verse 11. Okay, 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 sayeth the Lord of hosts. It’s not like the devourer has come upon them apart from the action of God. He’s saying the devourer is there because you haven’t tithed. If you don’t tithe, you’re not going to prosper.

You’re not going to prosper because I’m personally judging you. I’ve sent the devourer to eat up your crops. Deuteronomy 28 talks about this specific kind of cursing with the fruit casting her fruit or the tree vine casting her fruit before it’s ready to be eaten. God’s cursing is upon the people in the book of Malachi because they haven’t tithed. And that means more than just not tithing. It means they haven’t kept the whole covenant obligations, the stipulations of the covenant in the book of Deuteronomy.

Tithing is a covenantal fact.

The third point is the tithe belongs to God. You know, it’s important as we rebuild things in our land to recognize the means whereby God desires to extend his kingdom. And in relationship to children for instance, it’s important to recognize that parents have should have the right to educate their children the way they see fit or be able to fulfill their obligations before God’s word in terms of educating their children.

And one of the things I’m going to be rejoicing before God for next week at the beach and in other weeks to come is that our homeschool bill has finally been brought to fruition. The administrative rules were adopted by the state board of education last Thursday. That whole thing is over at least till the next session of the legislature. But for now, it’s over. And it’s a great victory that God has given us.

I’m convinced of that. The results of that will be that nobody who follows the testing requirements in the law will be I don’t think hardly anybody, any child at all, probably none, will be remanded back to a public school or some other private school away from homeschooling. The requirements are that low. We’ve taken the hill there with God’s help. We’ve taken that hill and we’re going to have people coming up against the hill in the future to try to take it for the other side.

We can beat them off a lot better from the top. I bring that up because it’s important that in that whole process we talk about homeschooling to recognize that children do not belong to parents. We know they don’t belong to the state, but it’s also important to recognize they don’t belong to us. They don’t belong to the church certainly and the church often makes claims on our children that aren’t correct.

They don’t belong to us either. They belong to God. Children are possession of God. They belong to him. They’re given to us in stewardship and God’s very picky over how we exercise stewardship over the things that he owns, which is our children. Well, the same thing is true about the tithe. There are uses for the tithe we’ll be talking about in the next three or four weeks. But it’s important going into a discussion of those uses to recognize that the tithe belongs to God.

An institution cannot claim the tithe. An institution that is faithful to God’s calling that is acting in covenant keeping with the obligations of book of Deuteronomy for instance, then may be given a portion of the tithe by God in the law of the covenant. We have yet to see that. We’ve yet to talk about the implications of the tithe in terms of the church, the family, and the state. And we’ll talk about that in future weeks, and hopefully we’ll begin to study that out in your homes.

But the important thing I’m trying to get across here is that tithe does not belong to the institution. Let’s say the tithe belongs to the church, but God wants the tithe given to the church. Now, I’m not asking you to believe that at this point in time, but if that’s true, it’s only true in so far as the church obeys God. Okay? The same thing is true of our children. They do not belong to us regardless of how we treat them.

If we bring up our children to be heathens, we’ve broken God’s covenant with covenant obligations there. And he may likely pull them away from us. And there may be mechanisms in place to pull them away from us. In any event, the tithe belongs to God. Well, how do we know that? There’s all kinds of ways we know that. To begin with, of course, the original tithe of Abram to Melchizedek. You know, it’s often talked about the tithe today in terms of reconstruction.

That’s good and proper. It is true. Tithing and Dominion is probably the book that Judge Beers gave to most people, I think, as he as he interacted with them and did a tremendous amount of good by passing that book out to people. And it’s an important book to get in people’s hands to see this relationship between tithing and dominion. But, it’s obvious when Melchizedek is tithed to by Abram that there’s no social benefit to Abram in that context.

No overt social benefit I should say. In other words, today we know the tithe should be used for education and if the parents are educated they can educate their kids we’ll actually see benefits of the tithe direct benefits of tithing correctly as opposed to the state taking the tithe. But at the time of Melchizedek there was no direct benefits that occurred to Abram by tithing to Melchizedek. He didn’t do it to get benefits.

He did it because he owed it to Melchizedek as priest of God most high. He did it because the tithe belongs to God. And we’re to do it. We’re to tithe because it belongs to God. I remember um