Dennis Tuuri

# Reformation Covenant Church Sermon – Pastor Dennis Tuuri

during this talk maybe I’m rather thirsty and so I’ve got the head against some water. We’ve been going through the confessional statement and covenant document of Reformation Covenant Church and um we’re coming now to that portion of the covenant statement that has specific directions for application of what we’ve been talking about in terms of belief systems and the confessional statement itself. Specifically this morning we’re going to talk about the tithe.

There’s a statement in the covenant agreement that says one pledges to give the tithe to God. So that’s what we’re going to spend our time with this morning. We’ll be kind of jumping around a little bit in 2 Chronicles to various chapters. So you might want to open your scriptures to 2 Chronicles if you’re not already there and get ready to do a little bit of jumping around.

I suppose that in light of some of the changes we made in the last few weeks and are contemplating now as a church, it may seem a little bit suspicious for me to talk on the tithe at this point in time. We’re going to be going probably to a new building at the end of this month, the first part of November, and there should be an increase in rent for the church. And then we also had a business meeting last Wednesday night and we considered—we started to talk about and threw it up for open discussion, more or less—the possibility of maybe going part-time here and then cutting back to part-time at the graduate center where I work.

So it may be my hope that you don’t have suspicions on the basis that that’s the reason we’re talking about tithing now. It’s not. It’s just what happens in the providence of God that this is the particular part of the confessional statement we’re at.

I considered not even addressing this subject because we in the church—I believe it was March or somewhere around there—we spent an extensive amount of time going through the tithe: the Levitical tithe, the rejoicing tithe, the so-called poor tithe, the application to widows, fatherless and strangers. And we spent a lot of time on the specifics of this subject.

If you have specific questions in terms of the distribution of the tithe, the portions to go to what sort of thing, are there one tithe or three tithes—the position that I took in that series of messages was that there was a single tithe and that tithe is established in the book of Numbers primarily for the support of the Levites in the Levitical system. And then in Deuteronomy, we see how that tithe is to be actually administered as they come into the land. So not second or third tithe—I don’t believe they’re all part of one tithe. But in any event, we’re not going to talk a lot about those sort of specifics this morning. And if you have questions along those lines, I’d refer you back to those tapes as maybe a beginning place to do your own personal study on what the scriptures teach about tithing.

We have all those tapes available, of course, in the church library. But this morning, I want to kind of give you an overview. We talked a lot about specifics then, and this morning we’re going to address some rather large areas or an overview of why the tithe is included in our covenant statement.

We have three points. First of all, the tithe is essential for Christian reconstruction. The second point will be that the tithe is essential for covenant affirmation. And the third point will be that it’s hard to tithe. And I’ll try to give you some motivation during that portion of the talk to go ahead and tithe.

So it’ll be the tithe and its relationship to reconstruction, relationship to the covenant, and then acknowledgement of the difficulty of tithing.

Now the first point is: the tithe is essential for Christian reconstruction. And I suppose by now it’s rather obvious that if you’re attending this church or have attended it for a length of time, that we believe it’s important to reconstruct all of our society—including ourselves individually first, of course, our families, our communities, our churches, and all of our country—on the basis of God’s word. And so we’re reconstructionist in that we believe that God is in the process of reconstructing things in accordance with his scriptures.

We have plenty of good role models in the scriptures, of course, for that sort of action, and the passage we read this morning dealing with King Hezekiah is an excellent case in point. Hezekiah was really a model of Christian reconstruction, and it would do us well—and I would suggest that perhaps this would be one Sabbath day activity you’d like to involve yourself in individually or in your families—to go through Hezekiah’s reforms in more detail and some of these other people we’ll be mentioning and talk with your children about them. Think about the implications of it for your own life as well as for the life of your community and your church.

But in any event, Hezekiah is a tremendous model of Christian reconstruction.

Now, Hezekiah’s reign begins in 2 Chronicles. The record of it in 2 Chronicles begins in 2 Chronicles, the 29th chapter. And the very first thing we’re told about Hezekiah, aside from his actual reforms themselves, we’re told in verse two that he did right in the sight of the Lord according to all that his father David had done. This is 2 Chronicles 29. And then in verse three it says, “In the first year of his reign in the first month he opened the doors of the house of the Lord and repaired them.”

Now that’s a great illustration of the beginning of reformation that’s going to come about in the time of Hezekiah. He went to the doors of God’s house and repaired them and opened them up. And so it is today. I think that it’s important that Christian Reconstruction acknowledges we must go to God. We must go to God’s scriptures. We have to be open to the things of God and open ourselves up to true worship of God.

Now he had to do that. And from the opening of those doors of the house of God, we’ll see how the law of God, as it were, flows out from that house of God into all the land in Hezekiah’s reforms and in other models of Christian reconstruction in 2 Chronicles as well. But it’s important to get that picture: that God’s doors of his house are being opened now and his great construction is going to occur in the land.

Now you might ask, why did he have to reopen the doors and repair them? And it doesn’t take much searching to find out that just previous to this chapter, we find out that Hezekiah’s father, King Ahaz, was a wicked king. And he did abominable things. And he just went from one thing to another in terms of his wickedness and continuing on, cycling down as it were in his perversity of wickedness.

And one of the last things he does in 2 Chronicles 28:24 it says, “And when Ahaz gathered together the utensils of the house of God, he cut the utensils of the house of God in pieces and he closed the doors of the house of the Lord and made altars for himself in every corner of Jerusalem.”

See, he was really cycling down now. He tried various alternatives to try to get help from various sources other than God for the distress that the nation of the Jew was in at that time. And yet all these things came to naught. But he wasn’t brought back to God through all that. Rather, he closed the doors of God’s house finally. And actually he had closed the doors, as it were, figuratively much earlier in his reign. But here, toward the end of his reign, he actually closes the doors of the temple itself and cuts the utensils to be used in God’s worship in pieces. And so that’s why Hezekiah had to reconstruct by beginning with opening the doors of the temple.

We’ve talked a lot in this church about the fact that the church has a greater responsibility in some ways than other institutions in society to preach forth the word of God and instruct the other institutions in their obligations. And as a result of that, the church has a greater judgment due from God. We talked about how judgment begins with the house of God. Well, it’s also true from what we find here in Hezekiah that reconstruction begins with the house of God. And that’s where Hezekiah’s reforms began—was opening the doors of the house of God.

And Hezekiah from there went on to do a great many things in terms of reconstructing. In the rest of this chapter we’re told in verses 4-11, he gives a charge to the Levites and to the priests in terms of what he’s going to be doing now in terms of reconstructing. In verse 10 of 2 Chronicles 29, we’re in now still. In verse 10, he says, “It is in my heart to make a covenant with the Lord God of Israel that his burning anger may turn away from us.”

So there’s a retaking of a covenant there, analogous to what happened in the book of Nehemiah. From that he goes on—verses 12-19 of this chapter—to cleanse the house of God. He cleaned house, as it were. And that’s a good—whenever you hear that phrase, you should think perhaps of some of these Old Testament kings that actually cleaned the house of God, tore out the idolatrous things that were there, and rebuilt and reconstructed.

And it’s necessary—we’ve talked about this a lot also in this church—for instance, in the time of King Josiah, it’s necessary to tear down the idols in the land as well as build up. And we’ll talk about that in a little bit. King Hezekiah cleaned house, as it were, in the nations and tried to root out the evilness in the land.

Verses 20 through roughly verse 30, there are offerings made. There’s a sin offering that’s made—a tremendous sin and burnt offering going on there with music with worship of God accompanying the burnt offerings. There’s praises sung to God in the context of these worship services they were conducting. Then in verses 31-35 there are free will offerings offered. There’s a great rejoicing occurring. This reform works through the worship patterns of the nation of Israel.

And we’ll talk about this again more next week when we talk about the obligation to attend the worship services of Reformation Covenant Church if you’ve covenanted in. We’ll talk about the fact that the church is a model for what happens in the world and what we do here affects how we go into the world.

So Hezekiah was beginning with the house of God and getting things in order. Acknowledging sin, acknowledging God’s provision of sin and the sacrificial system pointing to the Messiah to come and justification by faith. And then finally, in chapter 30, verses 1-26, there was a great Passover kept at the time of King Hezekiah—tremendous Passover celebration such as it never occurred before.

And then finally in verse 31, now he moves. After reconstructing, beginning with the house of God, beginning with reconstructing a proper concept of our sinfulness before God and God’s forgiveness offered through the sacrificial system. Beginning there at the central sanctuary, he then moves reforms into the countryside in chapter 31, which is the chapter we begin to read from this morning.

It says, “When all this was finished—all this being the Passover, the sin offerings, the burnt offerings, the reconstruction of the temple, the proper acknowledgement of their position before God—all Israel who are present went out to the cities of Judah, broke the pillars in pieces, cut down the asherim, and pulled down the high places and the altars throughout all Judah and Benjamin, as well as Ephraim and Manasseh, until they had destroyed them all. Then all the sons of Israel returned to their cities, each to his possessions.”

And now the reconstruction that Hezekiah began when he opened the doors of God’s temple goes forth into the rest of Judah then. And the reconstructed understanding of the person of God, the relationship to him then flows out into the rest of Judah and the cities surrounding, or the cities scattered throughout Judah. So the reconstruction reform permeates the countryside.

Then in verse two, regular worship is ordered. Verse three, King Hezekiah himself provides out of his own storehouses the king’s portion of his goods. He provides funding, as it were, for the regular worship to go on. And in verse four, as part of this reconstruction and reform going on in the time of King Hezekiah, he commands the people who live in Jerusalem to give the portion due to the priests and the Levites that they might devote themselves to the law of the Lord.

And so, as a vital part of King Hezekiah’s reform, he reestablishes the tithe and commands the people once again to give the Levites and the priests their portion for what purpose? That they could perform wickedly like they had in the past? No. That they might devote themselves to the law of the Lord.

Now in Acts 6 when we see the establishment of deacons there, it’s interesting to note that in Acts 6, verses 1-4, the deacons are initiated or instituted so that the elders might devote themselves to prayer and to the study of God’s word. And I think you can see a correlation there between the elders in the New Testament and the Levites and the priests here in the Old Testament. They are provided for so that they might devote themselves to the things of God’s word and the ministry of God’s word so that they then could go forth and further this reconstruction reformation that occurs on the basis of God’s word.

So King Hezekiah was involved in Christian reconstruction and an essential element of that was providing for the funding of the Levitical order that was going to be so they could apply themselves to the law of the Lord and then teach that law in all the cities that they were scattered amongst in the whole land of Judah. Very important for Christian reconstruction to acknowledge that.

Now, we talked a little bit now about the parallels to the time of King Hezekiah and the time of Nehemiah. And we’ve talked a lot about Nehemiah in this church—we talked about it in the context of our church covenant and the covenant that Nehemiah made in the time of Nehemiah. Also, it’s important to remember that reconstruction was going on there too. The nation retook the covenant and began to once again act in conformance to all things that God had taught them to do.

And an essential part of the reconstruction that occurred at the time of Nehemiah was also the reestablishment and the importance of tithing so that the Levites might devote themselves to the things of the Lord.

In Nehemiah, chapter 10, verse 37, we read about this reconstruction that was coming out of the importance of some of the things that were to remind the people of some of the things that were important for Christian reconstruction. Verse 37 says, “We will also bring the first of our dough and contributions, the fruits of every tree, the new wine, and the oil to the priests of the chambers of the house of our God, and the tithe of our ground to the Levites, for the Levites are they who receive the tithes of all the rural towns.”

Now, later on in the book of Nehemiah, Nehemiah 13:10, we read that when the Levites were not supported in that way, they returned to the fields. They returned to plowing instead of devoting themselves to the law of God, studying it and teaching it to the surrounding area. So if the Levites aren’t supported by the tithe, we don’t have Christian reconstruction because the teaching of God’s word ceases.

The communication belt, as it were, of God’s scriptures, their application to all of life, occurs through people that he has set apart to be studying the scriptures and applying them to things around them and teaching others to apply them to their trades. In Nehemiah 13:10, that ceased to occur and the Levites went back to their fields and Nehemiah took care of things.

Nehemiah 4:17, by the way, is a good illustration. Also, these nice word pictures the Old Testament has for us. Do you remember what reconstruction is all about? In Nehemiah 4:17, it talks about the fact that while they were building the wall, it says that “they which build on the wall and they that bear burdens with those that laded—everyone with one of his hands wrought in the work and with the other hand held a weapon. And there’s a publication—sword and trowel—and maybe you’ve always wondered what that meant.

Well, this is what that has reference to. Sword and trowel is the description of the people who are reconstructing on the basis of God’s word. That’s what was happening in Nehemiah’s time. On one hand, they were building the wall with the trowel and laying the mortar of the walls of God’s city, Jerusalem. On the other hand, they had a sword in their hand to beat off the enemies of God. And so Christian reconstruction always has those elements. And we saw that in Hezekiah: rooting out the evilness with the sword and yet building a godly foundation with provision of the tithe and proper worship at the temple.

So we have sword and trowel activity going on, and the context of that in terms of the tithe is the necessity of supporting the Levitical order and the necessity of tithing in that relationship.

Now Hezekiah was also preceded and followed by reconstructing kings as well. He’s not the only example. Neither is Nehemiah. We also have other kings of Judah who were involved in reconstruction. And in each of those areas, we see the same distinctives that were present in the book of Nehemiah and also in the time of Hezekiah in terms of reconstruction.

Josiah—we’ve talked a lot about the times of Josiah. He was, just to give you a historical perspective, Hezekiah was the 12th king of Judah from around 715 to 680 BC. Josiah followed later. He was the 16th king of Judah from about 639 to 608 BC. So after Hezekiah’s reign, there was a falling away again. And then four kings later, you have King Josiah come along.

And remember King Josiah—when we’ve talked about who, what did he do in terms of him being a godly man and seeking God with all his heart like his father David did. Again, one of the first things he does, he rebuilds the house of the Lord and they go in to clean it up and they discover the law of God. And we’ve talked a lot about how our nation today and the people that are understanding the necessity of building a godly society again are like those people of the time of King Josiah. They’ve rediscovered the law and hopefully that’s brought us to a godly repentance and it’s brought us to our knees before God, acknowledging our responsibilities before us. And that’s what it did in King Josiah’s time.

He rebuilt God’s house. He found the law. He recognized the potential judgment of God coming upon the nation. Even though he knew that judgment was going to come upon the nation of Judah for other great sins, yet he then, after being told that by the prophets, had a time of retaking of the covenant with the people again and rebuilding and reconstructing.

So even though we may be assured fact that God’s judgment will come upon this nation for what we’ve done, yet still we should reconstruct and rebuild.

So in the time of King Josiah we had the same thing. We had the covenant retaken, rooting out evil, building up the house of God. And again we had a great Passover that was kept at the end of this time. And it is in 2 Chronicles 35, verses 1-3, we read about Josiah reinstating priests and Levites back to their orders again.

In 2 Chronicles 35:1-3, just look at that for a minute. “Then Josiah celebrated the Passover to the Lord in Jerusalem. And they slaughtered the Passover animals on the 14th day of the first month. And he sent the priests in their offices and encouraged them in the service of the house of the Lord.”

You see that same encouraging—for the purpose of God’s work, the house of the Lord and the work of the Lord here given to the priests. “He also said to the Levites who taught all Israel and who were holy to the Lord, ‘Put the holy ark in the house which Solomon, the son of David, king of Israel, built. It will be a burden on your shoulders no longer. Now serve the Lord your God and his people Israel.’”

So Josiah in the midst of his reconstruction establishes the priests and the Levites and says, “Serve the people of Israel. Serve the people of Judah. Serve God who is your owner.” And their specific function was to teach all Israel from the scriptures. So we see the same thing going on in the time of king Josiah.

Now prior to Hezekiah, the fourth king of Judah from around 875 to 850 BC was Jehoshaphat. And the same pattern that we’re talking about here in Hezekiah, in Nehemiah, in Josiah—of rebuilding, beginning with the work of the house of God, establishing proper worship, establishing the sacrificial system, acknowledgement of their sins, and then going forth to carry out the reforms throughout the country—the same thing happens in terms of Jehoshaphat.

In 2 Chronicles 17, we read about Jehoshaphat and the same thing is true of him. He’s a reconstructing king, and important to his reconstruction was the tithe and the establishment of the tithe in the Levitical order. Specifically in terms of Jehoshaphat we read in 2 Chronicles 17:7 the following: “Then in the third year of his reign, he sent his officials—Ben Hail, Obadiah, Zechariah, Nethanel, and Micaiah—to teach in the cities of Judah. And with them the Levites—Shemaiah, Nethaniah, and Zebadiah—and goes on to give the list the names of the Levites.”

Jehoshaphat, as part of his reconstruction and reform, sent the Levites out into the towns to teach them the word of God in all the towns. And so again, the Levites were supported for the work of the ministry and that work involved teaching the people of God.

Additionally, in 2 Chronicles 19:8, “And in Jerusalem also, Jehoshaphat appointed some of the Levites and priests and some of the heads of the father’s households of Israel for the judgment of the Lord and to judge disputes among the inhabitants of Jerusalem.” Then he charged them, saying, “Thus you shall do in the fear of the Lord faithfully and wholeheartedly.”

So Jehoshaphat also reestablished the Levites and the priests. And also, in addition to their teaching ministry, we have their judging ministry. And we know—and we’ll talk about a couple of months here, in the next month rather—the Old Testament offices leading forward to the offices of the New Testament. You see this pattern of the Levites being supported so they could devote themselves to the law of God and affect godly reconstruction and reform. And their other function, besides teaching, is also judging. And so we see that in the New Testament in terms of the New Testament elders being supported for the purpose of teaching and judging.

So tithing is extremely important for Christian reconstruction. Christian reconstruction after all acknowledges God’s ownership of society, doesn’t it? Why are we reconstructing society? Because it’s God’s and he has given us commands in terms of the dominion mandate of all the earth and certainly our society. We acknowledge God’s ownership of our society and so we reconstruct. How can we do that if we fail to give God the tithe and acknowledge his ownership of our wealth and of our money?

If we deny God’s ownership of our money by failing to tithe, we have no basis to go forward and say that all of society belongs to God. We’re going to claim it for him.

Christian reconstruction acknowledges God’s law and its applicability to everything that we say and do. How can we go forth teaching God’s law if we don’t acknowledge God’s law in terms of his commands upon us to tithe and to give him his portion that he requires for his specific work in terms of his ministries of the word?

Christian reconstruction acknowledges the necessity of teaching God’s word. After all, Christian reconstruction is not, as is popularly portrayed, interested in a theonomic president primarily. We don’t want some kind of great person to sit on top of the country and enforce theonomic principles apart from the faith of the people. We know that Christian reconstruction occurs through the preaching of God’s word. And so we’ve tried to stress—with bringing Dr. Bahnsen up here—a proper perspective on postmillennialism. We don’t attempt to bring in the kingdom of God or further it by going out and slaying the infidels with actual swords.

We know that our King of Kings and Lord of Lords goes forth in the vision in Revelation as the one who conquers with the sword that comes out of his mouth. We know that the preaching of God’s word on the mouth of Christ through his church is what’s necessary to reconstruct society. How can we reconstruct society by preaching and teaching God’s word if we don’t support men to do that? If we don’t support the tithe? Levites go out into the countryside and teach the word of God and judge correctly.

Christian reconstruction is commanded of God. And in that context, it’s important to recognize that tithing is absolutely essential both in terms of practically advancing Christian reconstruction and of acknowledging as well God’s ownership of all society and our money as well.

It’s important though to recognize there’s another context to this whole thing of tithing going on in the context of Christian reconstruction. There’s some very important practical things, as we’ve talked about here, why Christian reconstruction won’t occur apart from a proper administration of the tithe. But it’s important to acknowledge that it’s not just a practical matter before God.

The second point we want to talk about this morning is that tithing is essential to covenant.

And after all, we’re in covenant relationship to God. And there is a thing that symbolizes that covenant relationship. We had better partake, but we had better engage ourselves in it or we deny the very foundation of rebuilding society and reconstruction.

Now in this regard I want to draw your attention just to the outline of Deuteronomy that we’ve talked about before. Well first of all, let’s notice that in the context of these things we’ve talked about—Hezekiah. Hezekiah, as we said, part of his reform was a retaking of the covenant. Hezekiah said, “I have it in mind to make a covenant with God again and so turn his wrath away from the people.”

In Nehemiah, the people retook the covenant again. They said, “For all our sins”—they made public confession of sins—”For all our sins, we know your wrath comes upon us. And yet now we pledge ourselves to be back in covenant relationship to you.”

And as we mentioned before, a specific element of that in Nehemiah was the pledge to reinstitute the tithe, the Sabbath, and not to marry unbelievers. In the time of Josiah as well, even though he knew judgment was coming, yet it was essential for reconstruction to retake the covenant and come back into right relationship with God through the retaking of the covenant.

So that’s the context of these reconstructing kings. And I think that if we look at the structure of Deuteronomy, we’ll see why the tithe is so essential in these times of covenant retaking and reconstruction.

In Deuteronomy, we see—well most of us were exposed at the time that Ray was here—from a structure of the book of Deuteronomy that talks about how it can be seen in terms of a suzerainty document. Now it’s important to recognize that Ray Sutton didn’t come up with that understanding of the book of Deuteronomy. Meredith Kline wrote a book, “The Treaty of the Great King,” in which he outlined this structure—I don’t know, maybe 20 years ago, 15 to 20 years ago—and it’s important to recognize that this is a useful device to look at the book of Deuteronomy and to outline it in its structure. It’s not necessarily the only device by which we can look at the book of Deuteronomy and understand the flow of what’s happening in the book of Deuteronomy, but it is a very helpful way to look at it.

And so we’ll just go through it briefly here again. It’s fairly easy to remember how many parts there are to this covenant agreement in Deuteronomy because it’s the same as the number of fingers on your hand. Five parts.

And it begins Deuteronomy 1:1-5 being a preamble. And I’m doing this by way of helping you to remember this structure. And it’s a very easy thing, by the way, to teach to your children. We went through our kids for a couple of months doing the five nights of the week using each night as a separate element of this covenant document. And it’s easier to teach kids that because you can just show them your hand and say, “Tonight’s Monday, the first night. What are we going to talk about tonight?”

And the first part of the covenant agreement that is found in Deuteronomy, the whole book is found in the beginning. It’s the preamble—the identification of who the Lord issuing the treaty is, and it’s God himself, of course. So the first thing that the book of Deuteronomy stresses is the person of God himself. It’s called by Kline the preamble. The covenant mediator—the suzerain, the suzerain rather—is identified in the first portion of the treaty. It’s not important that you understand some of those terms, but it is important that you understand that it begins with a proper understanding of the person of God himself.

He says, “I am God.” Okay. And on the basis of that, we’re going to have a covenant here.

The second part of the covenant is found in Deuteronomy 1:6-4:49. And that section Kline identified as the historical prologue. And this was true, as we said before, of other kings at the time, in the contemporary time frame to what these scriptures were written. Other kings would establish these sort of treaties with other nations that they subjugated to themselves.

But God says, “I’m God.” First of all, it’s important to understand who I am. And that’s what we’ve tried to do in this church—stress theology, a proper understanding of the person of God himself—as the basis for everything else that we do. Secondly, he says, “I’m the God who brought you out of Egypt. I’m the God who saved you. Here are the things that I’ve done for you in the past.”

In that section, Kline identified the historical prologue. So prior to the issuing of the rest of the covenant, he says, “I’m God. Here’s what I’ve done for you in the past.” And that’s Deuteronomy 1:6-4:49.

The third part, the bulk of the covenant, are stipulations. Deuteronomy 5:1-26:19. And God says, “On the basis of who I am and what I’ve done for you in the past, and the fact that I’ve saved you and brought you for a people to myself, here’s what I command you to do. Here’s the laws that I give you.” And so you have a whole section. Deuteronomy means “second law”—a second giving of the law to God. Deuteronomy law. Deuteronomy.

The fourth part of the covenant is sanctions. Deuteronomy 27:1-30:20. On the basis of what God has commanded us to do, there are sanctions attached to those stipulations, okay? God says who he is, tells us what he’s done for us, commands us to do certain things, and then tells us what will happen if we don’t do those things. Point number four—cursings and blessings, in other words, is what’s talked about in the fourth element of the covenant.

And finally, in Deuteronomy 31:1 through 34:12, we have dynastic disposition. The fact the covenant will be eternal and perpetuating and God will keep covenant with those who keep covenant with him and who are faithful, being covenant keepers. He’ll keep covenant with them. So it looks to the future.

So with your children, you can just go over this. You have God, history, law, blessings and cursings, and then the future. And it’s an easy format to teach your children some very essential elements of God’s covenant relationship to us.

As I said, it’s not ultimate. However—I mean, this is a device whereby we can study the scriptures and it’s helpful, but it’s not ultimate.