Dennis Tuuri

# Sermon Transcript: “The Bible and Family Camp”
Deuteronomy 14:22-29
Pastor Dennis R. Tuuri
February 2, 2014

Sermon text is Deuteronomy 14:22-29 and our topic is the Bible and family camp. Please stand for the reading of Deuteronomy 14:22-29. You shall truly tithe all the increase of your grain that the field produces year by year. And you shall eat before the Lord your God in the place where he chooses to make his name abide, the tithe of your grain and your new wine and your oil, of the firstborn of your herds and your flocks, that you may learn to fear the Lord your God always.

But if the journey is too long for you, so that you are not able to carry the tithe to the place where the Lord your God chooses to put his name, if it’s too far from you, when the Lord your God has blessed you. Then you shall exchange it for money. Take the money in your hand and go to the place which the Lord your God chooses. And you shall spend that money for whatever your heart desires, for oxen or sheep, for wine or similar drink, for whatever your heart desires.

You shall eat there before the Lord your God, and you shall rejoice, you and your household. You shall not forsake the Levite who is within your gates, for he has no part or inheritance with you. At the end of every third year, you shall bring out the tithe of your produce of that year and store it up within your gates. And the Levite, because he has no portion or inheritance with you, and the stranger and the fatherless and the widow who are within your gates, may come and eat and be satisfied that the Lord your God may bless you in all the work of your hand which you do.

Let’s pray. Lord God, we thank you for the wonderful truths found in this and the blessings, the satisfaction, the joy, all of these things based upon the fear of you that obeys your commandments with faith. Bless us, Lord God, as we understand this text and as we then apply it to our situation, this side of the cross and specifically here in terms of Reformation Covenant Church. In Jesus name we ask it.

Amen. Amen. Amen. Please be seated. I was listening to a sermon by Doug Kelly on this text very late last night after all my work was done on sermonaudio.com. Doug Kelly is a great man. We’ve had him preach in our pulpit years ago, and he’s an excellent guy. He was talking about this text and you know, he believes as I do that the text is found at the very beginning of this section of Deuteronomy that goes through till chapter 16:17, and it’s all an exposition of the fourth commandment.

You know, Deuteronomy, most of it is set up as a series of sermons going through the Ten Commandments. At least that’s how I understand it. Many people do these days, and this section is fourth commandment stuff. So it’s really the beginning of a description of Sabbath, and we’ll talk about some of that in a couple of minutes. But he said that, you know, the two great activities that we’re to engage in that are so tied to our sense of enjoyment of life, rest, and blessing and satisfaction.

The two activities are tithe and Sabbath, which you know, this addresses tithing and it’s in the context of Sabbath. You know, God taxes our time, so to speak, and our money. But in both those things, that tax is actually a tax that brings us into rest, relaxation, enjoyment, satisfaction, blessing, etc. So these are the two things and of course, these two things are obviously in a post-Christian culture, these two things are under a lot of attack in our land as we move away from a Christian culture.

In the context of this, he was talking about how both these things predate the giving of the Mosaic law. And again, we’ll talk about that in a couple of minutes. And the Sabbath of course is actually a creation ordinance, and he was mentioning that along with the Sabbath, marriage is another creation ordinance. And he said that the old Puritans used to say that the Sabbath and marriage are these two sweet relics of the garden that we still have this side of the development of creation and redemption history. Two sweet relics of creation.

And now we know that the first of those, the idea of a Christian Sabbath or Lord’s Day has been pretty much obliterated in our country. And now the second of those two sweet relics, marriage is under similar attack obviously and in fast decline in terms of people understanding it and entering into it in a Christian way, etc.

This text today is one that will help us a lot to understand why we have family camp the way we do and why we say it’s okay to use some of your tithe money to pay for it. But it’s a text that’s law, right? This is the law of God. They’re about ready to enter into the promised land. Moses is preaching a sermon. So it’s not like a statute book we have here. It’s a sermon, but it’s a sermon that is law for us—it’s a series of commands.

So I wanted to talk very briefly at first, and I mentioned this last week as well, about our relationship to the law itself. RJ Rushdoony says that what we have here, if we appreciate what this text is telling us about, is that it drives us toward a calendar of hope rather than cycles of despair. A calendar of hope rather than cycles of despair.

But because this is a text that’s found in Deuteronomy, you know, many so-called New Testament Christians don’t have a lot of use for it. And that’s because we have this strange view of the relationship of our lives to law generally, and somehow we’ve not understood the grace of God’s law anymore. So I just wanted to read a couple of verses about law here and I’ve got them referenced in your handout for today.

And these verses, actually I prepared for last week’s sermon. You remember that Paul is accused in Acts 25:8 about being against God’s law, and he says, “I’m not against God’s law. I’m not breaking God’s law.” And he makes, you know, positive statements about the law of God. Interestingly, by the way, in terms of defense of the faith or witnessing, you know, Paul could have gotten up and said, “Look, the gentile guy wasn’t with me in the temple because that was one of the charges against him, right? He could have done that. Completely taken that argument away.” He didn’t do that. Why didn’t he? He had bigger fish to fry than whether he brought a gentile into the temple or not. He wanted to get at the underlying issues of their pride of Jewishness and no desire to see that Messiah had come and was bringing Gentiles and Jews together. He got to the big issue by what he was presenting.

So, you know, when we interact with people, we don’t want to just stop at what they’re complaining about us or the Bible about. We want to get to the big issue in their life. And one of the big issues in Christian life today is the place of law in the life of the believer. I mean, law generally. And the scriptures of course are very pro-law. There are lots of pro-law statements. For instance, Psalm 119:97. “Oh, how I love your law. It is my meditation all the day.” Can you say that with the psalmist? I mean, ultimately with Jesus, these are his thoughts. I believe his mind. Can we say that we love the law of God and that we meditate on it all the day?

Romans 7:12, Paul says, “The law is holy, the commandment holy, and just and good”—three four-letter words about the law. What’s our attitude toward law, God’s law? You’ve got to do all that, understand it. Can’t just cut and paste out of Deuteronomy to today. Understand that. But it’s still God’s law. And the basic law repeated over and over again in the Bible is to love God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength. Love your neighbor as yourself. And when we look at these laws in Deuteronomy, this tells us how to love God and how to love our neighbor in that particular context.

So we’re not trying to get rid of law. God doesn’t want us getting rid of law. He wants us to say, “Oh, I love your law. I want to meditate on it a lot.” And then he wants us to say with Paul, “The law is holy, the law is just, and the law is good.”

Now, right away, I’ve probably might have lost some of you, but we would have lost at this point a lot of people in the extended body of Christ. This is a critical point that we have to readdress again: is to say how there is grace in law and commandment.

Romans 13:8 Paul says, “Owe no man anything except to love one another. For he who loves another has fulfilled the law.” So he ties together the law and the fulfillment of it with loving one another. Now this verse is read the other way around. This verse is read to say, “Well, all I got to do is love my neighbor and I can just forget about the law.” I love my neighbor’s wife, too. I love her a lot, in fact. And you know, so, you know, if we don’t have the law, what do we have left to help us understand what biblical love is all about? What actual love toward your neighbor is? So Paul is not doing this to get rid of the law. He’s getting it to help us understand what love is and how love is not opposed to law, and that God’s law, you know, when he tells us what to do in all 66 books of the Bible, he’s telling us how to love one another, right?

The elders of Reformation Covenant Church said this morning, here’s how you got to love each other. You’re going to come here at 11:00 and get together and worship God. You’re not going to do it at 11:15. You’re not going to do it at 10:45. We established a law, a commandment to call you here at 11:00. And that’s how you can love one another and assemble as a congregated host, not just willy-nilly on your own. Small example, but the point is this relationship between love and law.

Romans 13:10, “Love does no harm to a neighbor. Therefore, love is the fulfillment of the law.” Same point. We know how to love people when we look at the law of God and properly understand it. Right? Today we’re told how to love our children in Deuteronomy 14. How to make them rejoice. The rejoicing that goes on there is with your household. How do you love your kids? You approach the Lord’s day and any other festivals that the church establishes or calls you to—family camp, the agape, whatever it is. You try to teach them to love that and to have joy in it, right? In the particular way it’s structured in the law of it, so to speak. So that’s what you’re to do. You’re supposed to teach your kids this relationship between law and love. And you’re supposed to love your children by helping them think about the law of God and helping them do the things that God wants us to do: tithe and Lord’s day.

Galatians 5:14. “All the law is fulfilled in one word. Even in this: you shall love your neighbor as yourself.” See, there’s no distinction between these two. It’s not that we had law in the Old Testament, love in the New Testament. That quote is from Leviticus, the book of God’s law: love your neighbor as yourself.

James 2, verse 8, “If you really fulfill the royal law according to the scripture, you shall love your neighbor as yourself. If you do that, you do well.” So it’s the king’s law. It’s a royal law. It’s King Jesus’s words to us as we properly understand and apply them.

John 14:15, our savior says, “If you love me, keep my commandments.” Don’t tell me you love Jesus if you’re not going to obey his commandments. “Well, I love Jesus a lot, but there are things I want to do with this or that person.” Well, you know, don’t tell me you love him a lot if you’re not willing to keep his commandments relative to our interactions with people, control of our desires, all that stuff.

James chapter 1:25 “He who looks into the perfect law of liberty, continues in it, and is not a forgetful hearer, but a doer of the work, this one will be blessed in whatever he does.” So he refers to the law as the law of liberty. When we understand what God tells us we’re supposed to do, what commandments to follow, that gives us liberty. And for some reason, the culture has picked up from the church that if we want freedom and liberty, we want to get rid of the idea of law. It’s a horrific notion and it plunges people into disorder, unloving actions, and the breakdown of culture and society. That’s what is happening in our day and age. Okay?

So that’s how we’re supposed to relate to the law. We love it. It’s totally just and good. It gives us freedom. It’s the royal law. We love Jesus. We keep his commandments.

Now, having said that about law, how do we relate to Mosaic law, right? To the Mosaic law, the portions of the law, like the one we read today—the portions of God’s word that are given to Moses in that particular time and place. And I’ve said this before, and I hope I’m not belaboring the point, but on your outline today, I’ve got a little diagram where I’ve attempted to overlay a little prism over that middle section. And there are several things we could say about Mosaic law, but for today’s purposes, one of the things I want you to think of about Mosaic law is again, and I’ve mentioned this many times, this idea that it’s kind of a prism, right?

So, you know, we’ve talked about worship and how before Moses, right, with Abel, long before Moses comes along, Abel is sacrificing a lamb, or at least maybe it’s not a lamb, it’s a flock animal as opposed to a herd animal, but we’d call it a lamb. And then when Moses gets the law from God on Sinai and for a particular people in a particular place, right? Then all of a sudden there are several sacrifices. I mean, there’s different kinds of animals, there’s flock, there’s herd, there’s grain, there’s all kinds of stuff going on, and they’re very specific set of offerings you’re supposed to do in a particular order.

So you go from purifying the worship environment to transformation, ascension offering—the going up offering—you give tribute to God in one of the offerings, right? You have this peace where you can eat part of the offering. There’s a series of offerings. Well, all of those ultimately, that’s a refraction of the single lamb that Abel offered. And then Jesus comes and this side of Mosaic law things get brought back together into a single point—the once-for-all work of Jesus sacrificing himself on the cross and in the heavenly temple. We can say there the value of that is that it helps us to understand all the implications of Jesus’s work, that it’s not just purifying us from sins. It’s transformation. It’s making us children of a kingdom, and paying a tribute to the king, and it’s peace. The right ordering of the world is affected through that sacrifice. It’s all there in Jesus’s sacrifice.

So the law does that, right. The Mosaic law, I mean, it kind of is this prism. Same thing with Sabbath, right? So obviously the Sabbath is a creation ordinance. And then what happens is in this section in Deuteronomy 14-16, well, there’s all kinds of things going on. And there’s a yearly calendar, right? There are seven feasts listed in Leviticus 23. And those feasts, you know, for a couple years you’re doing them in a certain way. Then in the third year, things change a bit. Today’s text says two years you go to the central sanctuary. Third year, you do it in your gates. And then two more years, you go to central sanctuary, sixth year, now you do it in your gates, and the seventh year, that’s a year of release—we’ll read later on in Deuteronomy. So there’s a seven-year cycle that’s going on, and then there’s a forty-nine-year cycle. We find out there are lunar festivals, there’s all kinds of stuff happening, right? That’s the prisming effect of the Mosaic law. And we come this side of the cross and we’ve got verses that tell us now, you know, don’t do that—days and years and moons and stuff anymore. It’s now come down to a single event: the Lord’s day, right?

Just the way we had a single sacrifice with Jesus. But what it does is it tells us that the Lord’s day has all that stuff going on, you know? So it’s first fruits and it’s Passover—from life, death to life, right? It’s trumpets—the world’s being gathered. It’s atonement. It’s feast of booths or tabernacles—or tents, cabins, right? All that stuff is going on now with the single Lord’s day activities.

So Moses is a prism. The same thing’s true of the tithe. The tithe predates Moses by at least 500 years or more, right? I mean, you know, where do we read about it? First, Abraham is tithing to Melchizedek, right? And then after that, Jacob is tithing to God. “Since you’re going to take care of me, I’m going to give you a tithe of everything I have.” The tithe is not Mosaic initiated. In Moses, though, the tithe gets again prismed out.

And in today’s text it says use part of your tithe for rejoicing with me. Use part of your tithe to help the poor people in your village—the widows and the fatherless and the immigrants, right? So these different aspects. And we know it from Numbers, the tithe is supposed to be used primarily to support the Levites, teach you the word. And then the Levites are supposed to tithe to the Aaronic priesthood, who are doing the sacrificial stuff in the temple. So we’ve got all kinds of details about the tithe. The single tithe is refracted out to multiple portions or aspects of the tithe. And then this side of the cross, what happens? Well, we get it all funneled back to a simple tithe again. But what does it do? It informs us what that simple 10%—that’s what tithe means—what it is. It says, well, there’s all these other aspects going on. And part of your tithe is involved in joy. Parts involved in supporting the Levites, parts involved in financing convocative times together, part of it’s involved in helping poor people, right? It tells us different aspects to it.

So when we look at Mosaic law, that’s the way we got to think about it. How does this text reflect Jesus? How? Well, first of all, what does it say? What’s it saying? And then secondly, how does that reflect Jesus? And third, how do we apply it to where we’re at today, this side of the cross? And then specifically, where we’re at as a church.

So that’s the idea. Okay. Okay. So let’s talk then about the basic text so that we understand it.

And first of all, the basic commandment is to tithe. The text begins by saying “you shall truly tithe.” Tithing, you shall tithe. Surely you shall tithe. Strong statement, command, right? So the basic commandment is to tithe. And as I’ve said, we know that tithing predates these regulations. We’ve already talked about that a little bit, but the point is this is not optional. This is a mandatory requirement. This is God’s tax on our money, just like the Lord’s day is God’s tax on our time. This isn’t optional, right?

And if you have difficulty with your financial situation doing it, we’re all help. We’re all grace. We want to help you do that very thing. And if you need help from us to help you pay for bills or putting food on the table, boy, you’ve got a community of people that’ll love you. That’s what we want to do. But we don’t want you taking the tithe that belongs to God to do that. What you’re supposed to do is pay God his tithe, which if you don’t have much income, won’t be much. Number one, it’s a simple 10%. And then relying upon the grace and benevolence of the extended body of Christ to assist you with financial difficulty.

So this is not optional. It’s not restricted enough—like, “You’ve got so much money, you should tithe. No, it’s a very simple command: Tithing, you shall tithe. Okay. Surely you shall tithe. It’s a command that, you know, this is at the beginning of the section on Sabbath. So we can look at that and think, well, what Moses is telling us is there’s a relationship between trusting God with our money and trusting God with our time, and there’s a relationship between that and rest and joy and an extension of that joy to other people. That’s what the fourth commandment’s all about.

And we kind of know that right away because it’s placed here. And we’ll see that as the text moves along. It tells us exactly that this isn’t given to us as some kind of burdensome thing. This is given to us as a source of joy and satisfaction, the extension of grace and blessing, all that stuff. It’s essential to a Christian community and families. That’s what he’ll be talking about—the family and the community.

And so this simple law is exceedingly important. It’s something that just has to be done.

Now I said Numbers—I mentioned Numbers 18:21-24 is the basic law of the tithe during the same period of time. And it says there that you’re supposed to tithe to the children of Levi, okay. So the Levitical priesthood is tithed to. They turn around and tithe to the central sanctuary priests, and that’s the way the system works. That’s why certain pastors, you know, receive tithes from the church and then their income they tithe to national ministries. It’s the same idea of trying to apply that distinction between Levites and the national ministers at the temple.

Now, another important point to mention about the tithe before we move on: the tithe that Moses is talking about is Levitical. You’re tithing to Levites. And in one sense, you still do that. The ministers of the church are compared in the New Testament to Levites and teachers. But Hebrews makes it quite clear that Jesus is not Levitical. He’s a Melchizedekian priest. And it says in Hebrews that because the priesthood is changed, the law changes.

And it says in that same context—I believe it’s Hebrews 7—that Abraham had within him, within his loins so to speak, his gene pool, I guess we could say, Levi. Okay. So the Levites would eventually come from physical descent from Abraham. And in Hebrews it says Abraham, who had Levi with him, tied to Melchizedek. So the Levitical priests tithed and acknowledged the king of righteousness. That’s what the name means—Melchizedek. And they tithed to him, okay.

So whoever wrote Hebrews, the point of that is everybody knew, if they were reading their Bibles right, that when Jesus comes and he’ll be the great Melchizedek—Psalm 110—that the tithing will go back to this single tithe like Abraham did to Melchizedek. He’s a Melchizedekian priest. And the law of the offerings will change when Jesus comes. So that ties together this single tithe being understood by the multiple Levitical tithes. And now that we’ve got Jesus, Melchizedekian priest, we tithe to him and his church, his body, as this single tithe. Again, hope that makes sense to you.

But so the basic idea, the commandment here, the simple commandment is to tithe. And the context for these particular verses here are the general use of the tithe to support Levitical ministers.

Now we go on then to talk about the particular case that’s described here. So you shall surely tithe. Then it says, “You shall eat before the Lord your God in the place where he chooses to make his name abide,” right? Okay. So they’re going into the land. They’re about ready to go in. And God says, “There’ll be a central sanctuary. My name will abide there.” Remember Psalm 138? “You’ve magnified your word above your name” in exile. You’re away from the place where God has placed his name. But it’s okay. You have his word and his word has been magnified above his name.

Well, in any event, he says, “Okay, so you’re going to go into the land. There’s going to be a central sanctuary there. The tabernacle will actually be set up first in Shiloh. Eventually the temple will be built, but there’ll be a central sanctuary where the offerings are going to go on. And when that happens, he says, “You take your tithe up there and eat in the presence of God.” It says specifically the tithe of your grain, your new wine, and your oil.

Well, see, right away we’re thinking of Jesus, right? Grain and new wine—Jesus is the new wine. We have grain. Oil is always that third component, the Holy Spirit that draws all this stuff together. But in any event, he says when you get a central sanctuary once a year, your whole family is supposed to go up there.

Now, if you’re going to collect your tithes together for one year, when are you going to bring it? Which feast? Well, it’s going to be the last one in the agricultural cycle. And that’s the feast of booths. Not booths, booths—tabernacles, cabins. You’re going to go, you’re going to build a structure, probably have some palm branches ’cause you’re a heavenly people. You’re reminding yourself you’re meeting God in heaven. You’re going to get together.

First of all, the trumpets are going to blow. It’s going to gather the whole world symbolically. Trumpets will blow. Atonement will be made. The day of atonement will happen. Then you’ll go into this week-long celebration in the presence of God living in little tents, not your normal houses. And of course, during that week, they’ll be teaching you the Bible. They’ll be reading the Bible. They’ll be talking about the Bible. You’ll be getting together with your friends and your family because everybody’s going up for the yearly feast.

And when you go up there, God says, “Bring your tithe and eat a bunch of it in my presence.” Well, he’s just given us a command. And then he immediately tells us that the way he wants us to work out the command is to eat over one billion chicken wings, which I understand is what’s going to be consumed today in America. Over one billion chicken wings. Big party today, right? Well, this was their big party. Okay. This was the big rejoicing party. All the harvests have come in. All the tithe has been saved up. We’re going off to Jerusalem or Shiloh, wherever the tabernacle temple is, we’re getting together and having a party.

So the particular case is God has established a central sanctuary, okay. So now our side of it, when we don’t have central sanctuary, that portion is changed, right? Where’s the sanctuary today? Well, it’s decentralized. But in any event, it says here that when God has the centralized sanctuary, you go up there and you take your tithe and you eat your tithe in that place with a big party with all my people brought together. Okay? So that’s the particular case.

In Deuteronomy 16:16, three times a year all your males shall appear before the Lord. And it says that this is at the feast of unleavened bread, later at the feast of weeks, and then later at the end of the harvest year, feast of tabernacles. And he says, “You shall not appear before the Lord empty-handed.” So they’re supposed to bring something every time, but this is the end of the year.

Now, it’s not just the men that are supposed to go up. It says you’re supposed to rejoice, you and your household. So all your family’s going up on that feast of tabernacle deal at the end of the year. And so that’s the particular case, okay.

Now, the purpose is given to us next in the text, right? Well, the context, by the way, is that God has blessed you, right? He says that well, just a bit ahead of myself. Sorry about that. Now I’ve lost my text. Okay, here it is. Yes, going on in verse 23. Okay. So you’re supposed to do this and the purpose it goes on to say: you bring out the firstborn of your herds and your flocks. Why? “That you may learn to fear the Lord your God always.”

Now, again, the modern church doesn’t want a whole lot to do with fear of God, right? And this isn’t a fear of like somebody that’s going to kill you or torture you or anything, but this is fear of someone who is way above you. He’s your creator. You’re his creation. You fear him. When he says, “Do this thing,” you should do it. You’re in awe before him, right? And you fear him.

There’s so much buddy stuff now in the Christian church with God that this whole thing—the first purpose of these verses is fear. And it goes on to talk about joy, blessing, and satisfaction. But I’m convinced, brothers and sisters, if we’re not God-fearing first, right? Fearing God, fearing our savior, properly fearing him, properly respecting his majesty. He’s the king, okay? If we don’t start with that first purpose—fear—I don’t think we’re ever getting to true Christian joy, Christian satisfaction, Christian blessing.

So it starts here. And the purpose here is explicitly given as that you might fear the Lord your God, right? It’s a test of your reverence for God whether you tithe or not. It’s that simple. It seems in the text here it’s a question of whether you really believe him or not and whether you believe his interests are proper and whether you acknowledge his sovereignty, you know, his transcendence over you, and that he’s given you something to do and he’s not going to be pleased if you don’t do it. Okay.

So fear of God, okay.

Now, the next thing it talks about is after this purpose statement, there’s another case, right? So the first case is just in general the centralized sanctuary—this is what you do. The second case says well, if the journey’s too far for you, that you’re not able to carry all the tithes—this is another case. You don’t live now in near Shiloh or near Jerusalem. So in this particular case, what does it say to do? And here’s the context: it’s blessing. It says, “When the Lord your God has blessed you, then you shall exchange the tithe for money. Take the money in your hand and go to the place which the Lord your God chooses.”

So now you exchange, you know, your lambs and oxen and wheat and whatever you got there, the tithe of your harvest, you turn it into money. And it wasn’t money like we think of it, by the way. That didn’t happen till after the exile. It was probably bracelets and stuff. But anyway, you shall spend the money for whatever your heart desires. For ox, for sheep, for wine, or similar drink. Similar drink there is probably strong beer—it’s translated in some modern translations as intoxicants.

Exchange your money for wine or intoxicating beverage. And it was probably beer. There were no distilled spirits yet. So it’s probably beer is what’s being talked about there. So again, it makes it a very topical sermon for today. Get together and drink some beer or whatever, or for whatever your heart desires. You shall eat before the Lord your God and you shall rejoice, you and your household. Okay.

So now this gives us some more information about the proper use of the tithe. And the proper use of the tithe means a portion of it is for your heart’s desire. You know, trust in the Lord. He’ll give you the desires of your heart because your desires will be more like his desires now. And he tells you here, whatever it is, have a good time. Whatever’s going to make you happy going up to Jerusalem once a year. When you get there, that’s what you buy. Cheetos, buffalo wings, or whatever it is, you know, that you really like to eat. And by the way, your kids there, you’re supposed to rejoice with your household.

What do they like? That’s why some people, by the way, bring corn dogs ’cause kids like them, okay? Adults don’t for the most part. But in any event, but the point is it’s an example with a purpose. You know, when you get, when you’re going to apply this text, then when you teach your kids about the tithe, you want to teach them that part of it is so that they can buy what they really like to eat. God’s a good God. God commands us to use his special tax money. Now, the IRS doesn’t do that. Wouldn’t that be funny? April 15th, you pay your tax bill, but you can take off whatever you spent for your festival on April 15th and whatever your heart desired, you don’t have to pay that, you know. No, the government doesn’t, but God’s like that. God’s a giving God. God wants you happy. God wants you to rejoice. And yeah, he even wants, you know, a good many of you having a little wine, a little beer, and making your heart merry before him, okay?

That’s what he wants. Now, we’re not talking drunkenness, not intoxication by drunkenness, but something that gives you a little bit of a happy heart, okay? That’s the purpose of it. Okay?

So this in this case, it tells us more about the proper use of this tithe. God wants us to rejoice. So this is the second case as the text moves along, and we learn lots of stuff here. We learn that you can eat whatever your heart desires, that a portion of your tithe is used that way, okay. And this gives us the second purpose of the tithe then, which is family rejoicing.

So the end result of this: “You shall rejoice, you and your household.” So the purpose of this in the old law—the horrible thing we don’t like anymore and we want grace—you know, the purpose of this is actually if you fear God, do what he tells you to do, you’re going to end up rejoicing with your family, okay? That’s the point. You’re going to have a happy household, a joyous household, okay?

Then he moves on to another situation, the third case, and this is the third or sixth year found in verse 27 and following. “You shall not forsake the Levite who’s within your gates. He has no part or inheritance with you. And at the end of every third year, you shall bring out the tithe of your produce on that year. Store it up within your gates”—not up, you don’t use that one to finance your trip to Jerusalem that year. “And the Levite, because he is no inheritance or portion with you, and the stranger and the fatherless and the widow who are within your gates, may come and eat and be satisfied.”

So here’s another purpose statement: satisfaction. Now in Deuteronomy, this is fourth commandment stuff. And the fourth commandment is a little different in Deuteronomy compared to Exodus 20. Deuteronomy 5, a little bit different. And in Deuteronomy 5, the very heart of the fourth commandment is not you taking rest. It’s you extending rest to your servants, okay. So the focus in Exodus 20 is personal rest, satisfaction. But the focus in Deuteronomy now moves to the extension of rest to others, to others, to others. And that’s what’s going on here.

The tithe, when thought about in relationship to the Sabbath, is to be a means of extension of grace and mercy to other people. You’re supposed to give them food now so that they can eat and come to satisfaction. So you start with the fear of God. The end result of that is joy in your family, extension of grace in your community, and satisfaction for those people. And you’re going to feel pretty good about it, too. People that don’t give to poor people are diminished people. They don’t feel as good about life, okay?

And so this is, and you know, this is why we have welfare in this country or food stamps or any of that stuff—because the church doesn’t do this. We’ve got no use for the law. We want grace, and we’ll give whatever we want to give and whoever we want to give it to. But if we understand the principles or equity of this law, it tells us to use some of God’s special money. 10% is all, not like the IRS. 10%—use some of that, not only to feed yourself and have joy, but to give money to people that they might be satisfied.

When we don’t do that, then the state takes over. And really, there’s no satisfaction. Every email I get from Bread for the World or whatever it is—we need more funding, more funding, more funding for food and this and that and how stingy the government is. There’s no satisfaction that comes out of doing it the wrong way. When we embrace the law of God, then we embrace a law that says extension of grace to others is central to what’s happening here.

So that’s the next case, and so we see there this application of the fourth commandment and the extension of grace to others. Okay.

So the purpose here is extension of satisfaction and God’s blessing on our labor, okay. Well, that’s the text.

Now this text, you always want to think about the text in relationship to Jesus, right? And I mean, I don’t need to tell you much here, do I? I mean, all of this is, you can just sort of think about it and start to see all the things that are being taught about Jesus in this text. Why are they going to the central sanctuary? Because that’s where the sacrifices are going on. Those sacrifices are pointing to Jesus, right?

The tithes themselves are put in sacrificial terms: wheat, wine, oil, and then we’ve got lambs and bulls. Well, why lambs and calves? Cattle. They’re tithed, but they’re also part of the sacrificial system. And Jesus is the Lamb of God. You know, he is the son of the herd, which is the word about young cows that are sacrificed. He’s the son of the herd. He’s the son who dies for our sins. He’s the one that brings joy to us and our families. He’s the one who brings satisfaction. And apart from Jesus being at the core of our lives and what we do when we get together on the Lord’s day, when we go to family camp, whatever it is, without Jesus at the heart, without a proper fear of him and a keeping of his commandments as we go about doing our events, then there’s no satisfaction or joy or blessing at the heart.

But with him, he’s the source of satisfaction, joy, and blessing. So, and you know, I’m sure that we could probably make a list of about 40 things from this text, how they’re all really prefiguring the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ and what he does to bring us satisfaction, joy, and rest.

He’s the firstborn. And there’s another element you might not have thought here, but God, you give God 10%. He gives you back some of it and says, “Go buy food with it.” What’s that food costing you? Nothing, right? It’s God’s money. You owe him 10%, and he says, “Now, how I’m going to have you use this timber?” He says, “I’m going to give you back some, right? And you’re going to use that to buy not just food, but whatever your heart desires.” How much did that cost you? Nothing. That’s God’s tithe that he gave you to use for that purpose.

What, you know, how do we have the blessing of this table where God graciously gives us life in Jesus? It’s not because of our works, right? What price have we paid for the covenant meal that we’re going to have here with God? Nothing. That’s the point. The text shows grace. And that grace is founded in the person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ. More about that at the table in just a couple of minutes here. It’s a final gathering too, by the way.

So the cycle is a calendar of hope. Just before the feast of tabernacles, there’s the feast of trumpets. And they blow the trumpets and the idea is all the nations come together. That’s what’s going to happen over time. Not just the, you know, people from Israel, but everybody’s going to gather together. And then there’s the day of atonement, Jesus all the way. And then there’s the great feast, right? It points us toward the fulfillment and culmination of history in the Christianization of the world and then the return of the Lord Jesus Christ.

That is a good reason, by the way, getting into my next topic, how this applies to our family camp. That’s why it’s a good idea to have missionaries there because family camp is kind of, you know, churches, whether they like the law of God or not, they all sort of do this very thing. They all get away. Most of them have a Bible camp in the summertime sometime or maybe in the fall, you know, late fall. But we just tend to do this. It’s in our bones. It’s what the spirit wants us to do—to get together with other Christians, have a good time.

We’re in different sort of houses that are a little more rustic than the places we live in. We go to cabins or tents or whatever they are, and we get together with other Christians. We hear some talks about the Bible and applying them to our life, and we talk about that and we talk about our lives, and we just hang out and have a good time, right? Christians do this all the time anyway, right?

But one thing that this text reminds us of, since it’s tied to that calendar and the feast of ingathering, or the trumpets and all that stuff rather, is this missionary idea of having, in this case this year, Yavor from Bulgaria coming over to talk about work in Eastern Europe. That’s a good thing because it’s central to what really the feast of tabernacles had at its core. And again, there it teaches Jesus to us, that Jesus is in the process of the trumpeting of his word, bringing together all peoples and nations to come before him. For what purpose? To serve him slavishly? No. To have wonderful lives of satisfaction, joy, and blessing.

So at RCC, try this text. You don’t have to do it. You know, this isn’t, our family camp is not the feast of tabernacles, but it kind of is modeled after that somewhat, right? And so at RCC, we think this is a text that tells us why we think the elders have told you that it’s proper for you to use a portion of your tithe to go to camp. And in fact, we would encourage you to do that. If for some reason money is going to be a hiccup to you coming to camp—now, I know, you know, vacation schedule and if you’re self-employed in a lot of yards, it’s tough. I understand that. But what I’m saying is we see this as an important deal.

You know, our community groups, we have monthly sync meetings where we sync up the vision of the church and get together and kind of work out with the leaders what we’re doing. This is like an annual sync meeting, a family camp in a way. You can think of it that way. And so we try to bring in good speakers. Jason Farley, a CRC pastor from Santa Cruz, will be there to talk on the family. We try to have a missionary, more often than not. Yavor will be flying in from Bulgaria with his wife, and he’ll have a lot of good stuff to say about what’s going on in that part of Eastern Europe.

And so we encourage you to be setting aside or sending it in—whatever you want to do—your some of your tithe money to pay for camp registration. And then we encourage you to use some of your tithe money on the way to camp, right? The week getting ready for it, ask your kids what would make you happy. You know, Tootsie Roll Pops. Well, okay, but the wrappers can be a problem. Make sure you pick up your wrappers. But the idea is to do that. And the same thing’s true of the agape. We think it’s fine and a good thing for you to do, in light of the principles of this text, to use a portion of your tithe money to finance the food you bring to the agape, okay?

And again, there one thing we do at our family is we tended to, when the kids were little of course, have Sunday candy. We have a candy bar every Sunday. What kind do they like? Because we remind them that the Lord’s day is a day of joyous gathering together. So that’s why we think at camp, when we gather together with God, we gather together with his word. His word is at the center. We’re never going to get to the place of just hanging out and partying at family camp. We’re always going to have instruction about some aspect of the word because the word has to be the center of who we are as a community, okay?

That’s why we want some part of the word going on in your community groups. It’s the center. It’s what drives everything else. So we meet together with God’s word and God’s people at family camp in the same way they sort of did this in Jerusalem in today’s text.

At camp we can focus on God the whole week in a little more directed fashion than we can in our normal sorts of time. At camp we have cabins. It’s kind of a more of a rustic place, the way that the tabernacle tents were built of rustic materials. God wants us to help others to have joy. So we want to help people get to camp and we want to encourage people to do that.

So that’s the application. You can register now. Our church app is not up yet, but you can—the family camp registration form is up at the website. There are details there.

One other change I might mention about this year’s camp: we’re going to have one main talk every day, but the other half—the one we normally do for the second talk—that’ll be a series of breakout sessions, maybe three or four breakout sessions every day. And the major focus of those—the focus of the talks will be the family, Christian family, and the focus of the breakout sessions will be family and vocation. So we’ve got lined up some pretty interesting sets of guys to bring stuff on vocation that would be helpful to you. I think some panel discussions, that kind of stuff.

So I think it’s going to be a great camp, and it’d be wonderful if you all could be there. And I hope that you see how taking this text, applying some of the basic principles of the text leads you, encourages you to try really hard to get there if you can. And, you know, if you’re having trouble financially, let us know. You know, we want to extend joy, satisfaction, and rejoicing to you and to your kids. And that’s why we would love it if you would come to camp.

Okay, last thing. Deuteronomy 14:21b says, “Don’t boil a kid in its mother’s milk.” Well, I preached a whole sermon on this, which I encourage you to go back and listen to. But I believe that actually is where our text should have started today. Several of these commandments that Moses gives—these sermons for—start with a little sermon illustration, we can call it, okay. And so I think this boiling a kid in his mother’s milk is at the very beginning of this whole section on Sabbath and tithes. And what’s the significance?

Well, the Bible has a lot to say about animals, are kind of like people, and a kid is like a child, right? And mother’s milk is nourishment, and we give nourishment to our kids. And I think that God is setting us up for both tithe and Sabbath by telling us this: I’m giving you mother’s milk here. Parents of the congregation, adults of the congregation, I’m giving you mother’s milk, and I want you to give this mother’s milk to your kids.

The end result of tithe and Lord’s Day done correctly will be joy and satisfaction. Don’t screw it up. Don’t make it into some kind of grievous thing that they’ve got to do that produces death instead of life. Mother’s milk is supposed to bring nourishment, life, growth. Don’t take this wonderful thing and let people speak against it in a negative way, right? Continue to minister it in a godly way where people just like I’m telling you—the purpose of this is your joy and your satisfaction. Make sure your children know that as you obey my law, as you take the law and apply it to your particular situation, this side of the cross, if you do that, joy and satisfaction are the result.

Don’t make it like at least the stories we hear of years gone by, generations gone by, that made the Sabbath some kind of onerous, burdensome, okay, to ski to church if you’re the pastor, but not if you have a good time doing it. No, the whole purpose of our agape meal together downstairs, of our family camp, is to bring us to rejoicing, satisfaction, a further knowledge and growth in a community of God’s world.

May the Lord God grant us to minister family camp, the agape, the worship service itself, our tithes, and our use of the Lord’s day in a way that brings life, nourishment, joy, and satisfaction to our children.

Let’s pray.

Father, we thank you for the wonderful way this text describes who you are in relationship to us. We thank you, Father, for mother’s milk and the wonderful delight that is. Bless us, Father, in the rest of this service. May we rejoice in you. In Christ’s name we pray. Amen. Amen.