Dennis Tuuri

# Sermon Transcript – Reformation Covenant Church
## Pastor Dennis Tuuri

Please stand for the reading of God’s word. 2 Chronicles 31, beginning at verse 1.

Now when all this was finished, all Israel who were present went out to the cities of Judah and broke the sacred pillars in pieces, cut down the wooden images, and threw down the high places and the altars from all Judah, Benjamin, Ephraim, and Manasseh, until they had utterly destroyed them all.

Then all the children of Israel returned to their own cities, every man to his possession. And Hezekiah appointed the divisions of the priests and the Levites according to their divisions. Each man according to his service, the priests and Levites for burnt offerings and peace offerings to serve, to give thanks, and to praise in the gates of the camp of the Lord. The king also appointed a portion of his possessions for the burnt offerings, for the morning and evening burnt offerings, the burnt offerings for the Sabbath and the new moon, and the set feasts, as it is written in the law of the Lord.

Moreover, he commanded the people who dwelt in Jerusalem to contribute support for the priests and the Levites that they might devote themselves to the law of the Lord. As soon as the commandment was circulated, the children of Israel brought in abundance the first fruits of grain and wine, oil, and honey, and of all the produce of the field. And they brought in abundantly the tithe of everything. And the children of Israel and Judah, who dwelt in the cities of Judah, brought the tithe of oxen and sheep, also the tithe of holy things which were consecrated to the Lord their God. They laid in heaps.

Let us pray. Lord God, we thank you for this historical record of reformation and transformation in the time of Hezekiah. Father, we thank you for bringing us to a consideration again today of our relationship to the created order by means of the tithe. We do pray, Lord God, for reformation, revival, and renewal and transformation, reconstruction in our day. We know, Lord God, that we are in a position in this country of judgment, and we pray, Father, that you would shine forth from your holy hill, from your holy mountain, that we might be saved, Lord God, from our sins and the sins of our culture.

Help us, Father, this morning by your spirit to understand the texts of Scripture we’ll be turning to, that we might understand how to apply ourselves to reconstruction and transformation in the context of our day as well. In Christ’s name we ask it and for the sake of the manifestation of his kingdom. Amen.

Please be seated.

Theocracy. The early ’80s, when we started Reformation Covenant Church, that was a scary term. We didn’t want to use theocracy. Oh, if they heard you were theocrats, that’d be a bad deal. Well, last Lord’s Day, I watched Meet the Press in the evening, which was a discussion with various clergy—Catholic, evangelical, Baptist, Jewish, and Muslims—about the religious state of America. One of the men there was a man named Richard John Neuhaus, who was the editor of First Things. He converted to Roman Catholicism from Lutheranism around twenty years ago, around the same time our church was getting started. Neuhaus was defending what he referred to as the theocons.

You know, you’ve heard of the conservatives—there was the old paleocons, the old-fashioned conservatives. The neocons are the new conservatives. And there are a lot of ex-Reagan Democrats actually—that’s who they are with different ideas about things. And so now the term is being bandied about—those that call for theocracy is what Neuhaus was talking about. This is now an accepted part of the political dialogue in the context of America. And we can thank God for that.

Now, no doubt it still gives the majority of the people in the country the willies to think that we want a culture run by God. And that’s what a theocracy is. Of course, it’s not an ecclesiocracy. It’s not run by the church. It’s an acknowledgement of the rule of God, which is there whether we like it or not.

Theocracy, theocons—there is this movement in the public sphere now to talk about the implications of Christ and the resurrection that we spoke of and proclaimed and rejoiced in last Sunday for all of culture. We are part of that movement in this church. I guess you could look at it that way. We do believe that as these young boys sang so beautifully earlier, that the Lord Jesus Christ is Lord of all. That there’s not one square inch of this earth that the Lord Jesus Christ doesn’t claim for his own.

We are in a series of sermons going through the book of Hebrews. And to remind us of the structure of that book, it begins at the bright shining forth of Jesus in the first of seven sections and concludes with a tremendous benediction that we’d be empowered for every good work to do the will of God through Christ. The second section describes who this Jesus is. He’s the Son of God and the Son of Man. He is the mediator between heaven and earth. And the sixth section, matching that, is a description of how we live out a heavenly community here in the context of earth. And so as the epistle moves to its end, it shows us what it means to live a heavenly life in the context of our lives here on earth.

Jesus, the mediator of heaven and earth, who is the Son of God and the Son of Man, has come that he might indeed make manifest his theocracy, his reign in the context of our lives, in every aspect of those lives.

And so in Hebrews 13, we’ve had a lot of, you know, stomping on toes. We’ve had the word of God tell us that it’s not up to us how we use our houses. They’re his houses. And he encourages us, he commands us to use them in hospitable ways to show grace and mercy to others, recognizing the grace and mercy he’s shown to us. He tells us not to draw back from members of the Christian church who are involved in being persecuted by the state, but rather to suffer with them.

And the early church took this quite literally. They could go to the jail or to the imprisoned place where the Christians were being martyred or imprisoned, and they would be right with them. He tells us that when we get to that moment in our homes where man and wife, husband and wife come together at the end of the evening and rejoice in the wedded bliss that they have in Christ, that this too is not an unmediated relationship. This is a relationship and activity that he claims priority over.

And so the Lordship of Jesus Christ extends from what we do in our homes in terms of hospitality. It extends to what we do in the most intimate part of our home, our bedrooms. And in that text, it goes on to talk about how the Lordship of Jesus Christ extends over our pocketbooks, what we do with our money. We’re to beware of the sin of covetousness. We’re to be content with such things as God has provided us.

Things are not bad. Things are good. The material order has been created good. Money is not filthy. It can be used for improper purposes and frequently is in our day and age. But it is a created thing by God and to be used in proper stewardship. That’s the intent of the verse. And the beginning of that—the beginning of the proper use of our time, the proper use of our tongues, the proper use of our relationships and community, and the beginning of the proper use of our money—happens right now. Happens today. Happens in this two-hour slot. That is the beginning of the rest of your life and forms the pattern for the rest of your life.

The proper giving to God of tithes and offerings is an indication of our commitment to the Lordship of Jesus Christ—not over the ten percent (that’s what tithe means, ten)—but rather over every nickel and dime we have. Properly understood, when you walk forward and give your tithes and offerings to God today or regularly do so, then what it does is it sets up an understanding on your part that when you give your five-dollar bill to the grocer or to the mechanic or to the video rental store, whatever you use your financial transactions and money for, it’s to be consecrated for the purposes of Jesus Christ.

There is no unmediated financial relationship you have. And the tithe is the part for the whole. It represents all of the claims of Jesus Christ over every bit of your money. And he says that you might understand that you give him the tenth. Not so that you can use the ninety percent on your own, but just the reverse. It’s a reminder of his ownership over it.

We need it again. In a theocracy, the tax is about ten percent. God’s tithe. That’s what a theocracy does. Now, there may be some support for other civil magistrates or whatever, some small part of that, but in essence, the tithe goes to fund social reconstruction and the transformation of a culture through ministers, Levites, and deacons, as we’ll speak about in a couple of minutes. And when the church fails to tithe, then somebody else does those jobs.

And in our day and age, the great idolatry is not Islam yet. It’s not New Age spirituality. You know, the old version had magic. The new version has genetic manipulation. We’re into that kind of stuff. But our idolatry today is secularism and specifically statism. The king provides, the state provides health, education, and welfare. And the state, of course, is supposed to be a bad taskmaster to remind us that we need to cry out to God for salvation.

If you elect a king like the nations round about you, which we have done, he’s going to take at least equal to that. And in our case, we just passed tax day. And I didn’t read the figures this year, but it’s always between forty-five and fifty percent and rising. The total amount of take from the production of the people of the United States given to various civil entities—forty to forty-five percent. We don’t want theocracy. We want democracy.

And as a result, we don’t pay ten percent plus a little. We pay forty-five percent. And the product we get for that forty-five percent is not so good either, is it? We’ve seen social welfare programs destroy the family in minority communities. We know that prior to the onset of the modern welfare system, even in poor communities, you could sleep outside in the hot summertime. It was no problem. Now you wouldn’t dare do that. So high taxation levels, lousy product at the end.

This is the judgment of God. It’s the judgment on a church that refuses to give the tithe to him, refuses to look to him for health, education, and welfare, and instead turns to a secular state. And that’s what we have today—that kind of radical judgment upon us.

We are sometimes gnostic when we come to this topic. I know it’s the big word that’s used a lot these days in our denomination, but I was amazed at a couple of situations I’ve been directly involved with over the last few weeks and months. And in one of them, the elders of the church have been engaged in things that honestly I think, if it happened in the context of a private business, it would have been out of business long ago, and the men may indeed be like Ken Lay—up on charges for improper stewardship responsibilities over money—incredible laxity, sins at least of omission if not commission.

It’s a serious thing because in the context of the church, people are urged to have great reverence and submission to their leaders. And so it makes leadership even more responsible for a proper use of the tithes of the people, to be transparent to them so that they don’t misuse that trust and then misuse the funds that God has given them.

In another situation, I know of a situation where a man has not seen the necessity of looking at financial arrangements in terms of major decisions in his life. Pastor, you know, there’s a tradition in the church coming from Europe—you know, where, for instance, the Dutch Reformed Church, the pastor was the domine. That indicated work, nor would his wife. They would have servants. They wouldn’t engage themselves. You know, if I’ve talked to Pastor Van Dyken and some of the old Dutch people—when they watch him fixing his car in his driveway, “Oh, you cannot be pastor guy, because domine doesn’t do that. He’s removed from those kind of things.”

And unfortunately, you know, this has infiltrated into the church. And so we don’t do economics well in the context of the local church, and people don’t trust the local church. And a lot of times that trust is not really been earned.

Years ago we went and spent a week with R.J. Rushdoony at his home, and we were talking then about elder training. How do we train up elders in the context of the church? And he said something that was a little surprising to us at the time. He said that the first thing we ought to do in training elders is to teach them economics.

R.J. Rushdoony was probably the original non-gnostic. He knew that the application of the faith to the supposed secular matters of economics were absolutely critical. Economics comes from two Greek words—the law of the home, oikos, and nomos, law. Oikos—household. The law of the household. And if a man can’t understand the financial arrangements of the church, the economics of the money of the church, how is he going to appropriately use the tithe that the people entrust to him? And how will that church then perform its obligations according to God’s truth?

We need to affect reformation and transformation. We need the shining forth of God upon us that we’ll be saved. And part of that salvific work of God is bringing us to an understanding of the crown rights of Jesus Christ over our finances. And we are to see those finances in direct relationship to the purposes of God.

You know, if there’s any part of the book of Hebrews that should have immediate and obvious application Monday through Saturday, it is this 13th chapter—whether it’s sexuality, community relationships, homes, or in the case of the topic we’ve been dealing with for the last couple of months, the use of our money.

You will immediately tomorrow—well, not all of you, but most of you, many of you—will tomorrow engage in some sort of financial transaction. You will give somebody money for something, or you’ll receive money from them. And properly understood, the tithe is a declaration by Jesus Christ of his ownership of that relationship and a call to you to exercise Christian stewardship with those transactions.

So if you don’t get anything else out of today’s sermon, most of you are already tithing, I think. But don’t let it stop there. See your responsibilities then, based upon that tithe, to oversee all of your commercial transactions, to think about them self-consciously this week. In the providence of God, we’ve been brought to this topic today, and that means that this week we ought to be thinking about our money. We ought to be trying to get out of debt. We ought to be trying to get good stewardship. We ought to try to evaluate our transactions.

And so this week, may the Lord God grant us grace that we evaluate these transactions carefully. And what I want to talk about primarily today—and the last time we talked about tithe, we sort of did a little review. The outline I’ve given you today has the stuff we talked about several weeks ago at the top in smaller type, and then the few texts we haven’t gotten to yet down below that in larger type with spaces for notes. So we’ve looked a little bit at what the tithe was. We’ve gone through about half of the scriptural references to the tithe. We’ve seen that the tithe means literally “tenth”—ten percent, one dollar out of every ten.

The tithe did not originate with the Mosaic covenant. The tithe originated before Moses. That’s important. It shows us that it’s not restricted to Mosaic covenant times. It’s applicable to the church. We can begin to make that assumption based on that.

So the tithe began before Moses. The first record of a person tithing is Abram—Abram, whose name gets changed to Abraham. Abram means “father,” and Abraham means “big father” or “big daddy,” father of many nations, royalty. But before his name is changed, it’s Abram who tithes to Melchizedek. So it begins with Abram. And if we’re of the faith of our father Abraham, if we see the direct relationship of the Abrahamic covenant to us, then the tithe becomes immediately applicable to us.

On the children’s outline, I have for number four who tithed at Bethel. I should have said who promised to tithe at Bethel, the house of God. Jacob is the answer to that. Of course, Jacob promised to give God a tithe since God was going to provide for all of his needs. And so Jacob is the one who follows up the faith of Abraham in tithing.

And then during the Mosaic administration, tithes changed. Worship changes from fathers to Levites. And in the Mosaic covenant directly, we saw many case law references and other historic references that the tithe was given to Levites.

The Levites. What were the Levites to do? Well, in Deuteronomy 33, listen to what Deuteronomy 33 says about Levi. Now Deuteronomy 33 is a series of blessings on the tribes of Israel. And each one of them has a particular kind of blessing attached to it. There’s a connection we could say between this and the blessing of Jacob on the tribes at the end of Genesis. There’s a very marked difference between the statement to Levi, which was a negative one at the end of Genesis because of their sin, and then here in this context we have a very positive blessing given to Levi.

We read in verse 8 of Deuteronomy 33:

“And of Levi he said, ‘Let your Thummim and your Urim be with your holy one, whom you tested at Massah and with whom you contended at the waters of Meribah, who says of his father and mother, “I have not seen them”; nor did he acknowledge his brothers, or know his own children.’”

So he’s saying that here’s going to come the blessing to Levi. This is what you’re going to do, and this is why it’s coming to you—because Levi didn’t place familial relationships above the glory of God. Remember the story of Phinehas—a spear through the fornicating couple, even though the man was part of his tribe. The test for Levi who had sinned in the matter of Dinah and the Shechemites—who had sinned, looking at his family interests, his sister’s interests, as more important than the glory of God, and so misused the sign of the covenant, circumcision, in a way that was very displeasing to God. He was judged for that. He got no inheritance in the land.

But now that judgment has turned, and it’s turned specifically because Levi did not ultimatize his family. He saw as most ultimate the glory and honor of God. He does not know his family. It’s important to us. We know that the family has fallen apart in our times. We know we need to strengthen the family, but we must never get to the place of ultimatizing our children or family.

My young men have been told by me—my daughters didn’t need it as much, I don’t know why, but my boys, you know, they will tell you—I’ve told them many a time, “Would you like to talk to some of the other elders at our church to straighten this matter out? This house has rules. The rules are based on the law of God. If I’m in error, the elders will help me think it through.” We should not draw back from doing that. We should be like Levites, those committed to the glory of God above our families and our children. And the end result of that kind of thinking and that kind of action toward family members is their well-being, their own well-being as well.

Levi put his family second to the glory of God. And then verse 9 says:

“They have observed your word and kept your covenant. Levi shall teach Jacob your judgments, and Israel your law. They shall put incense before you and a whole burnt sacrifice on your altar.”

Now we know burnt sacrifice is an ascension offering. That’s what it is. And then the blessing:

“Bless his substance, Lord, and accept the work of his hands. Strike the loins of those who rise against him and of those who hate him, that they rise not again.”

There’s a movement in the Mosaic covenant from patriarchal worship to worship now led by someone outside of the family—although still a tribal group. There was a further development of the Old Testament where specialized functions began to work into the mix, and by the time it comes to the New Testament, we have Levites in the sense of this particular function—not hereditary but rather called, gifted, and enabled by God for the particular calling in the church.

The tithe supported the Levites. The tithe supports ministers in the local church today.

And their particular function is very well summarized in the function given to Levi:

“They shall teach Jacob your judgments and Israel your law. They shall put incense before you in a whole ascension offering on your altar.”

Two tasks for the Levites. They were to lead in worship, and they were to instruct the people of God in the law of God. That’s it. That’s all they were supposed to do. And we can see this in the immediate context of the Mosaic covenant with centralized sanctuary—first at the tabernacle, but then later in the land, we have a centralized temple. Worship goes on there. And in the context of the synagogue, which is primarily a place of instruction in the word, we see the two functions of the Levites geographically or structurally—architecturally presented to us—as a synagogue meeting place in the villages and as the temple in Jerusalem. That’s what the Levites did. A specialized group performed those sacrifices and worship, and then the rest of them taught the law.

Well, this is what the New Testament minister does. The elders of the church, the Levites of the church, lead in the worship of God. And they teach Israel. They teach God’s people who are ruled by him and who rule for him. That’s what Israel means. They teach them how that works—how you’re to be ruled by his law and how you rule according to that law.

The Levitical tithe was given for the purposes of teaching God’s people how to live their lives. How do I figure out how these 66 books of the Bible apply to the situation I’ve got with a friendship with, you know, a person who may be in sin? I’ve got a homosexual friend at the community college. How do I talk to him? I’ve got a job opportunity here. I have a girl I’m interested in here. I’ve got a situation that’s come up with the extended family here. I’m having trouble with my vocation here. You see, what does the word of God have to say to these things? That’s what ministers are all about.

Monday through Saturday, they don’t have the rest of the week off after leading worship and preaching the word of God. No, they continue the instruction of the word as it relates to particular situations in the life of the congregation. They lead in worship, and they move people throughout the rest of the week in the context of applying the law of God.

The Levites led in worship. They taught the people the Bible. God said that the tithe goes for them.

Now, we saw last time we talked about this topic that the Lord God doesn’t want us to get the wrong idea about this tithe or the Sabbath. The Sabbath is, you know, there’s an old story of a Puritan preacher or somebody in colonial America. He couldn’t get to church. There was all this snow on the ground and stuff, so his horse couldn’t make it through the snow. He had to ski to the church, and then the elders had to figure out, “Well, is it okay to ski on the Sabbath, the Christian Sabbath, the Lord’s Day?” And they said, “Well, as long as he didn’t enjoy the skiing, okay.” Well, that’s not our view of the Christian Sabbath.

The Sabbath is a day of rejoicing, a day of joy. In fact, the Lord God instructed his people that the tithe was not some horrible, terrible obligation to give ten percent to his Levites, but actually a portion of that ten percent—some of it was to go to fund rejoicing. They were commanded to rejoice, and they were commanded to use a certain part of their money that was very explicitly now dedicated, consecrated, holy, we could say, to God. They were commanded to use that to eat good things, to drink wonderful food—or drink, rather, to eat great food.

And every Lord’s day, a portion of people’s tithe here at this church finances the agape, which reminds us that the Lord’s Day is a day of feasting, a day of celebration. Yeah, we’ve got a lot of work to do. We’ve got to come down off that mountain because there are demon-possessed kids, you know, people that we’re going to meet in the rest of the week. We’ve got ministry to the world. But this one day, we come together and we rejoice in the context of God’s truth and his people. And that joy of the Lord is our strength as we go about the task Monday through Saturday.

And that joy is financed by a portion of the tithe—the agape.

Family camps coming up. And as I said a couple of weeks ago, it is perfectly proper, very great application of Deuteronomy 14 to use a portion of your tithe to fund family camp—to go off once a year with God’s people, not by yourself on your own someplace, but to convocate with God’s people in a different sort of setting than what we have here. Like the Feast of Booths, living in tents or sheds or whatever it is, hearing the word of God preached, and rejoicing together at family camp, joy together.

And we saw that the implications of Melchizedek and Abram is that there’s this relationship, this transaction that goes on in worship between tithing and the reception of bread and wine. And so the clear implication of that is that if you don’t tithe—if you’re not going to give God Lordship over that money—now, if you’re studying it out, that’s different. But if you know this is what you ought to be doing and you don’t do it, you shouldn’t get this. That was the relationship between Abram and Melchizedek.

If we don’t tithe, then we shouldn’t eat the Lord’s Supper. Today, most of our tithes go to the local church. And this local church finances ministers of the word who lead us in worship and then teach us the scriptures as well.

Now, as we move ahead, remember—and we talked about this last time—but Deuteronomy 26 talks about fulfilling the three-year cycle of Mosaic tithing. So let me just say there was a change in administration of that ten percent during the Mosaic period specifically. Now we have centralized sanctuary, and there were elements of the tithe that were used for joy. There were elements of the tithe that were used in the third year to help the needy—not poor white men, but the widow, the fatherless, and the stranger. Okay? People that were here and didn’t know the culture and were able to be oppressed by others. Children whose parents were no longer there to take care of them, and widows whose husbands weren’t taking care of them.

There’s a grace aspect of the tithe. And there was a three-year cycle of how this worked. And in the third year, a major portion of the tithe went to show grace. And at the end of those three years, Deuteronomy 26 says that the faithful member of God’s community is supposed to say, “I’ve been faithful to your covenant, Lord God. I’ve kept the covenant. By your grace, I’ve walked in covenant obedience.”

And very specifically, the covenant was identified one for one with whether or not he kept the laws of tithing—whether at the third year he had refrained from eating a part of that tithe before it had been distributed to the poor, to the widow, fatherless, and sojourner in the third year. So the Bible makes a very close connection between covenant obedience and the tithe. It’s an important thing. It’s not one of those various things that we do that somehow, you know, all the implications of the scriptures are there, but it’s, you know, somehow a secondary matter.

The tithe is a primary matter to God. So much so that if we don’t tithe, then we haven’t really been covenant keepers. We’ve been covenant breakers. It’s that important to us.

And the text today from Hezekiah tells us one reason why that is.

We’re on the outline point now—Roman numeral 3. The tithe in two periods of covenant reconstruction. When God’s people had come upon difficult times—when statism or some other form of idolatry had overtaken them, and they needed to work through that and needed to reconstruct the culture they were in, or we might say transform it into something more beautiful and obedient to God—they would, we see in the accounts in both Hezekiah that we read from earlier as well as Nehemiah that we’ll turn to in a minute, we see that those times of transformational reconstruction were times when the tithe was reinstituted and made important.

We read from 2 Chronicles 31. Hezekiah establishes—what does he do in terms of trying to transform the culture back to a theocratic republic? He tears down false worship. He attacks the idolatry of the culture, and he empowers the true worship of God by restoring priests and Levites. In verse 2, that we read, he appointed the divisions of the priests and Levites according to their divisions. He institutes the true worship of God, tearing apart the false worship of God.

It all begins with worship. Remember when we spoke from Samuel’s defeat of the Philistines—God begins the defeat of the Philistines in that account, from 1 Samuel rather. He begins the defeat of the Philistines while the people are worshiping, while the sacrifices are being made, while the offerings are happening. While people are praising God, God then discomforts them. He attacks the Philistines and begins the battle that way. Now the battle’s got to be continued throughout the week.

But Hezekiah starts just where we would think he would start—tearing down false idolatrous worship and restoring the true worship of God. And as part of doing that, he says in verse 4 that he commanded the people who dwelt in Jerusalem to contribute support for the priests and the Levites to what end? That they might devote themselves—that they might devote themselves to the law of the Lord.

We read in the text at the beginning of the sermon that then he says, “Bring in the tithes of all the things.” This is how he’s going to support these men that they can be devoted to the law of the Lord. And then we read the account that this is what they did. They obeyed.

How’s reformation and transformation going to happen? It’s going to happen by the people of God seeing the crown rights of Yahweh over them in terms of their financial transactions. And they’re going to do that by restoring the tithe and the support of the Levites and the priests to the end that those men, those specialized functioning men, might devote themselves to the law of the Lord.

If so much stuff comes in that Hezekiah has to prepare new rooms in the context of the temple to hold all the substance that’s brought in.

Now I want to make a connection here—a little change to the outline just a tad—but this verse is a good verse to think about in terms of first of all, of course, that a time of transformation is a time of the restoration of the tithe. But secondly, this verse we just read, that they might devote themselves to the law of the Lord, should I think trigger a little bit of connection to Acts 6.

Acts 6, in the New Testament times, we have the apostles governing the church, and we read in verse 3:

“Wherefore, brethren, look ye out among you seven men of honest report, full of the Holy Ghost and wisdom, whom we may appoint over this business. But we will give ourselves continually to prayer and to the ministry of the word.”

So what is the role of the apostles, who would be followed by the pastors, the elders in the church—that they might commit themselves to prayer. Now, in the New Testament, I’ve said this over and over again, prayer as you know is a summary statement of what the worship of God is. The worship service of the church is a prayer service. The culmination of what we do in the service is that great pastoral prayer to God, and then he feeds us the Supper. So all of worship is referred to over and over again in the New Testament as prayer.

So we devote ourselves to prayer, worshiping on the Lord’s Day and leading that worship, and to the ministry of the word. Now, not distinct from the Lord’s Day—they would preach the word—but the ministry of the word, just like the Levite would do. He’d offer the sacrifices and then he would instruct the people in the application of the law of God in the context of the week.

So we see a connection between the elders of the church, the apostles, and the Levitical ministry of the Levitical leaders in the Mosaic times—in worship and instruction. But we also see a connection to this text from Hezekiah.

There are things that would prevent the elders from devoting themselves to the ministry of the word. And there are things that go on in the ministry of Hezekiah’s time that would prevent them from devoting themselves to the ministry of the word. They want to devote themselves to the law of the Lord. The elders want to devote themselves in Acts 6 to the ministry of the word.

Now, in Acts 6, the specific reference is the provision of men that could handle the financial administration of the church under their oversight. But in Hezekiah’s time, it’s very specifically aimed at restoring the tithe. And when men don’t receive—when God’s officers don’t receive the tithe—they cannot make the kind of commitment to God’s word, to lead in worship and the application of the word. And the whole of the theocracy then begins to unravel.

So there’s a portion on your outline where I make the case that the New Testament elders, the pastors of the church, are those who receive the tithes of the church. And the Acts 6 connection is one of those. Another one would be 1 Corinthians 16:2, where Paul said that on the first day of the week, let each of you lay something aside, storing up as he has prospered, that there be no collection when I come. That would indicate some kind of percentage—a tithe-like percentage—gathered on the first day of the week for Paul to receive.

So we seem to have these connections.

Additionally, in 1 Corinthians 9, we won’t go through the text now, but Paul, you know the text probably pretty well. Paul says that we as apostles, we as those who bring the word of God to you, have a right to eat and drink based upon that labor of the word. Verse 26, it says:

“Is it only Barnabas and I who have no right to refrain from working? Whoever goes to war at his own expense? Who plants a vineyard and does not eat of its fruit? Or who tends the flock and does not drink of the milk of the flock?”

So Paul then quotes an Old Testament case law: “Don’t muzzle the ox when he’s tramping out the grain.” And he says, “Who is this written for? Was it written for ox?” He says, “God doesn’t care about oxen. Now, it’s a relative statement. I mean, God cares about everything. But in terms of what Paul is saying is that that was not a case law written primarily for agricultural purposes. It was a case law, he says, written altogether for our sake—the ministers of the gospel—that we might receive those tithes and offerings of the people to the end that we might devote ourselves to the service, the worship service of the Lord, the prayers of God, and to the ministry of the word, teaching Israel, the law of the Lord.

So Paul makes a strong connection to ministerial support based upon their work. And in verse 13, he actually draws a direct parallel to the Levitical receipt of tithes and offerings. He says that those who minister the holy things eat of the things of the temple in the Old Testament. Those who serve at the altar partake of the offerings of the altar. Even so, the Lord has commanded that those who preach the gospel should live from the gospel.

So Paul makes a one-for-one connection to the Levitical receipt of their support—which we know comes from tithes and offerings—to the ministerial support of the pastors and elders of the church to the same end that there may be times of reconstruction and reformation in our day as well.

I have a brief reference as well to the support of deacons—without getting into a lot of detail on this. There were a number of Old Testament functions or offices in the church. But one was called an officer. And an officer was an administrator—a spirit-filled administrator. And we know that some of the Levites, in addition to being priests and instructors in the word, some of those Levites were administrators. They were those who would take care of the administration of the congregation in the particular city in which they lived.

And in our day, in our church at least, in our particular communion, we see those deacons as administrators of the church. And I’ve said this since day one of this church—that it seems perfectly appropriate if the church grows to a size. If you’ve got a church, for instance, up at Mars Hill, where you’ve got five thousand people, it seems perfectly appropriate to use the tithes of the church to support a full-time deacon whose task would be financial administration. Because the Levites are the ones that received the tithe, and most of them taught or led worship, but there were some who were administrators. And so support of elders and support, I think, of deacons in the context of the church are indicated with a whole Bible approach to ministers and what they do.

Let’s look at Nehemiah as well, for a time of reconstruction where the tithe is restored as well.

Look at Nehemiah chapter 10 in your Bibles if you would. Verse 28 talks about the covenant that these people are entering into. Verse 29 is from Nehemiah 10:29:

“These joined with their brothers, their nobles, entered into a curse and an oath to walk in God’s law.”

So this is the covenant retaking in the time of Nehemiah in chapter 10. And it says in verse 32:

“We made ordinances for ourselves—to exact, for instance, the yearly one-third of a shekel for the service of the house of God, the showbread.”

So they’re getting into very specific details of what it is that they covenanted to do before God. So this covenant retaking involves various aspects. Verse 35:

“We made ordinances to bring the first fruits of our ground, the first fruits of all fruit of the trees, year by year, to the house of the Lord.”

So first fruits, and then in verse 37:

“We made provision to bring into the storerooms of the house of our God and to bring the tithes of our land to the Levites. For the Levites should receive the tithes in all of our farming communities.”

And so again, in a time of reconstruction, rebuilding, transformation—the reestablishment of the theocratic republic under Yahweh—is a time when the tithe is central to the retaking of the covenant. And that’s why in our church covenant, we have a reference to the tithe.

Turn to chapter 12, and we see another reference to this. Chapter 12 of Nehemiah, verse 44:

“And at the same time some were appointed over the rooms of the storehouse for the offerings, the first fruits, and the tithes to gather into them from the fields of the cities the portions specified by the law for the priests and Levites. For Judah rejoiced over the priests and Levites who ministered.”

So again, a reference two chapters later to them bringing in the tithe to the Levites. But now continue on to chapter 13 of Nehemiah. Look at verse 10:

“I realized that the portions for the Levites had not been given them. For each of the Levites and the singers who did the work had gone back to his field. So I contended with the rulers and said, ‘Why is the house of God forsaken?’ And I gathered them together and set them in their place. And then all Judah brought the tithe of the grain and the new wine and the oil to the storehouses.”

And dropping down a verse or two:

“They were considered faithful. Their task was to distribute to their brethren. Verse 14: ‘Remember me, Oh God, concerning this. Do not wipe out my good deeds that I have done for the house of my God and for his services.’”

So this was such an important thing—Nehemiah saw to his task to lead the rebuilding of the theocratic republic—that he concludes this little section of the restoration of the tithe by saying, “Please remember me, Lord God, for my work. This is something good I did.” Of course, by the power of the Spirit and the grace of God—all that’s understood. He’s not a prideful man, but he’s a man who understood how important it was in terms of the restoration of the theocracy to establish the tithe to the end that these Levites and priests would not have to go to their own fields.

In other words, if you don’t pay Levites and priests to lead in worship or to take the Bible and apply it in all of life, then what’s going to happen is they’re going to find second jobs, or in some cases first jobs. Reconstruction and transformation will stop or be hindered when the tithe does not support the men, the incarnational work of men, to teach the people of God the application of God to them and to lead in the context of worship.

The tithe and the restoration of the tithe is essential to times of reconstruction, transformation, reestablishment of the theocratic republic.

We won’t look at it now, but I would remind you that this is also the specific portion of the book of Nehemiah where he also said that the other thing that had gone south with the tithe was the Sabbath—was the ceasing from buying and selling on the Lord’s Day—and he reinstituted severe prohibitions to men who would buy or sell on the Lord’s Day. He reinstituted that as well.

Now, there are many churches that want to talk about the tithe and look at Nehemiah for why we should have that and the importance. But somehow we end up skipping over the next few paragraphs of Nehemiah 13, where it’s essential for reconstructing a theocratic republic to take one day of the week—like we take one-tenth of our money—and take hands off of it. Give it to God and rest in him. “Honor the Sabbath day to keep it holy. Remember it to keep it holy.”

Our time is fully consecrated to God by that cycle of one day of the week—ceasing from unnecessary labor, ceasing from those elements of financial transactions that are not required. And we enter into paradise on the Lord’s Day—not working, not selling or buying. We have this wonderful day of restoration of our spirit before God, and the only transaction we enter into is we give God our tithes and offerings, and he gives us the wonderful gifts summarized, I suppose, at the Lord’s Supper.

So Nehemiah says that it’s absolutely essential for the restoration of a theocratic republic to reinstitute tithing. And part of that is just because people have to know that they’ve got to walk into Monday through Saturday and say, “Does this economic transaction make sense for the purposes of the kingdom of God? Does it make sense for that, for me to enjoy this pastime? It may well. Does it make sense to buy this kind of house or that kind of house? Do we pray about this? Do we ask counsel? Do we seek to glorify God in all the minute financial transactions?”

And all that, of course, is set up by the tithe. But beyond that, Nehemiah understood that the tithe established a group of men to lead in the worship and instruction of the word that would provide the absolute foundation for the restoration of a theocratic republic.

Now it does that three ways. It provides this foundation. I can think of three ways we can think of.

First of all, it empowers the men to lead in the worship of the church. And now, worship is great. A people who gather together in worship, who sing the Psalms, who sing hymns of praise to God, who subjugate, you know, their own fear of their own voice or whatever it is, to the group and become part of that host of God gathered together, and hear the victory of Jesus Christ trumpeted forth—this is an army ready to march into the rest of their lives. This is a theocratic army who will transform whatever part of the world they go into.

Right now, it doesn’t have to be some great thing. Jeremiah told the men when they went into captivity: “What are you supposed to do? Plant vineyards, build houses, get married, give your kids away in marriage, receive children for marriage, work for the peace of the city where God places you—Babylon—because in their peace you will find peace.”

Nebuchadnezzar thought he had conquered the people of God. But in fact, God had conquered Nebuchadnezzar by planting godly people who would do the simple things of life in a totally consecrated way, in a deliberate way, to honor God. And as a result, Babylon was transformed. Nebuchadnezzar was converted.

So I’m not talking about great things as we march into tomorrow, but worship prepares you as a congregation to do that necessary detail work of life in a way that is consecrated, wholeheartedly to God.

But more than that, the worship of God’s people is effective, it’s effectual, because God sees our prayers and our worship, loves us. And before we can go out the door, right—the Samuel text—before we can go out the door, the Lord God is establishing his theocratic republic. Before we can go out the door, the worship of God is effectual liturgical warfare for God, striking at his enemies who are our enemies as well.

The tithe enables us to worship in an increasingly mature way, calling upon God and believing that he will begin that warfare before we go out the door. And the tithe establishes the worship of the church so that we can be formed up as the army of God to march into all those detailed decisions of our simple lives in a way that will transform the modern Babylon that America has become.

It does that. But secondly, the tithe equips ministers to do that second part of the Levitical task, right? To lead in worship—important—but then to teach the Bible in the application of life so that what we do throughout the rest of the week is a continuation of the battle against the enemies of God.

The people went out of worship to discomfort the Philistines even more and to exert the power of the Lord in bringing judgment to them and the establishment of a theocracy—again, a theocratic manifestation there.

So the pastors of the church, the elders of the church, are able to work with you as you throughout Monday through Saturday do things in an increasingly self-conscious way, underpinned by the instruction of God’s word. So the tithe enables us to worship, start the whole process, and the tithe enables us to have men committed to understanding the scriptures and their application to how you engage in friendships at the community college. If you ask them, they’ll give you advice and counsel on what the scriptures have to say about that. So it continues to work.

And then third, at the end of the day on Saturday, we get ready to come back. And the tithe now represents the transformative power you have had on the world around you. Where does the tithe come from? It comes from the labor you did Monday through Saturday, the work you did, the vocation you did, whatever it was you put your hand to do. And God says that what you’ve done is transformed that part of your world, and I want you to bring it to me in worship, right?

The tithe offering is this: We bring a transformed world, changed by our labors done to the service of the God that we worship and the God who instructs us in the way we’re to do these things based on the scriptures. We transform the world through our labors, and we bring that world back to God in the tithe at the conclusion of this cycle and present the world to him.

We give little parts of the world. We bring a little globe, maybe, is another way to think of it. When we bring our tithes, we’re bringing a transformed world to God in worship. And he then empowers us to go back out. “You’ve been faithful in small things. You’re going to do more this week for me. And you’re going to transform more and more of the world in which I’ve given you to live. You’re going to work for the peace of this city, this state, this nation, and this world. And I’m going to establish you with strength to accomplish that and bring that back.”

That’s what the tithe is for. It begins, maintains, and culminates this cycle of our labors and what we do being effectual for the establishment of the theocratic republic.

Now that’s why when we come to texts such as Malachi and Haggai about the blessings and cursings of God, we have to think of them broader than in just economic terms, right?

Malachi 3 says: “To the days of your fathers, you’ve gone away from my ordinances. You haven’t kept them. Return to me, and I’ll return to you. Will a man rob God? You say, ‘How have you robbed me?’ Well, God says, ‘I’ll tell you how you’ve robbed me’—in tithes and offerings. You’re cursed with the curse, for you have robbed me, even this whole nation. Bring the tithes into the storehouse that there may be food in my house. And try me now in this, says the Lord of Hosts. If I will not open for you the windows of heaven and pour out for you such blessing that there will not be room enough to receive it. And I’ll rebuke the devourer for your sake, so that he will not destroy the fruit of your ground, nor shall the vine fail to bear fruit for you in the field.”

Okay, this text is preached all the time. “If you tithe, you’ll be financially prosperous.” Well, maybe yes, maybe no. I don’t know about that. Generally speaking, it’s true. We can’t ignore the first obvious application of the text that God will generally prosper a people financially if they honor him with their tithes. Same thing in Proverbs: “Honor me with the first fruits.” Well, but see, if that’s all we do is think about it that way, we’re thinking far too small about the tithe. Way too small.

The kind of blessing that God promises to pour out upon these people—he doesn’t restrict it to the financial blessings, right? We’re not Marxists. We don’t think of ourselves solely in economic terms. We don’t think of the tithe or the blessings for tithing in solely economic terms.

God says he’s going to pour out such a blessing you won’t believe it if you attend to this. Why? Because God knows that the tithe is established to move the culture into increasing manifestations of a theocratic republic. Is that what you want? You want Oregon City more and more self-consciously serving God and the Lord Jesus Christ. Tithe, God says. “And believe me, I will pour out a great, rich blessing upon you. Don’t tithe, and there’ll be curses upon you because you’re robbing from me.”

Do tithe. And the truth is repeated in Haggai. It’s repeated in Proverbs 3: “Honor the Lord with your possessions, with the first fruits of all your increase, so your barns will be filled with plenty, and your vats will overflow with new wine.”

That doesn’t happen today because we have the tax man who’s going to take forty percent of the barns, and he’s going to take forty percent of your grapes. In other words, it’s not just God is going to prosper you financially with the tithe. He will provide the underpinnings for a theocratic republic that will get the state eventually off your back as you honor God with your first fruits instead of the state. And as a result of that, he’ll rebuke the devourer.

What’s the devourer in our day and age? It’s that false god that we put up there. And God has that false god attack us. And God will rebuke the idols that we have turned to and constructed. He’ll help us to tear those things down. And as a result, the blessing won’t just be full barns and full vats. The blessing will be community and cultural richness and blessing like we have on the Lord’s Day. It’ll be comprehensive.

So God says that the tithe is absolutely essential for the purposes of reconstruction and transformation. The blessings that are attached to the giving of the tithe are comprehensive blessings, and the curses that are attached to the failure to tithe are comprehensive curses as well.

You can try a little exercise. Read the last four or five chapters of Judges—the appendices to the book of Judges—which shows what happens when Levites no longer attend to their duties. Judges 17 to 21. All the disorders in society are a result of the curse of God when men have not tithed, when they have not supported local Levites. The Levites were not doing their jobs in Judges 17 to 21. Why did every man, you know, do what was right in his own eyes? There was no king in Israel. Well, there was, but the king wasn’t acknowledged with the tribute. The king wasn’t acknowledged with the tithe. The Levites didn’t acknowledge the king. They went away and started serving private households and doing various jobs.

And all the problems that then we see—all the social difficulties of Judges 17 to 21—are tied back in a literary way to this message: that both covenant blessings and covenant cursings occur to a people on the basis of whether they honor God with their first fruits and provide the necessary underpinnings in terms of worship and instruction in the word to bring about the sort of manifestations of the theocratic republic that God promises to us.

We’re going to sing a very familiar psalm for the offertory. But listen to the words of it. Listen to what God calls us to do. Open saith the Lord, “Wide thy mouth, believing this my covenant word. I will, if thou plead, fill thine every need. All thy wants by feeding.”

He doesn’t promise just financial prosperity. And in fact, in Haggai, he says, “You eat, but you’re not satisfied.” What God promises is satisfaction to his people when they use the tithe for his purposes and see the blessings that he pours upon it.

“Oh, that to my voice Israel would hearken, then they would rejoice, walking in my ways. Bright and joyous days, narrow a foe would darken.”

That’s the covenantal comprehensive blessings that God speaks of in Malachi.

“Most abundant good, if wounds but prove me, eating the choicest food. Honey from the comb, wheat the finest known, I would pour upon thee.”

That’s what we want, right? We want those wonderful, magnificent blessings of God. And he says they’re coming. He said last Sunday, through you know a man on TV, it’s coming. The theocons are out there. The blessings of God are coming. God’s people are renewing themselves to the tithe. They’re renewing themselves to liturgical warfare. They’re renewing themselves to have men teach them the application of the word in their rising up and their sitting down, in their vocation, their recreations, their commerce, and in their communities. And God says that because of that, look forward expectantly to the truth of what we’ll sing now—that it is on its way from God, because he has raised up a spirited people today who are restored back once more to honoring him and looking for his blessings upon them.

Let’s pray.

Lord God, we pray that as we come forward with our tithes and offerings, we would do so happily, joyfully, knowing, Father, that as we’ve attended to these things, you have brought increased blessings to us. Help us to believe what we sing. Help us to look expectantly to the comprehensive blessings that attend to those people who trust your word and trust you to make provision not just of our finances, but of all of our needs. In Christ’s name we ask it. Amen.