First & Best
So now we are going to jump into week two of our series In God we trust. And for the next few weeks, we're going to be talking about finances. Okay, everybody, take a deep breath, smile at your neighbor, and we're going to do this. Why does it matter? We understand that one of the leading causes of stress, anxiety, depression, divorce and suicide in our culture, in America today is money. Stresses about money, anxiety about money, and we feel like it has to be talked about in church. If we're afraid to talk about it, people are left to struggle alone, and we are not going to do that. We are committed to talking about this from a kingdom mindset, from a kingdom perspective. So what we're going to do is we're going to go straight to the Word of God. We are going to read a lot of Scripture today. I know that all of you guys that have heard me speak are shocked about that, and we are going to be able to address this so that hopefully we don't have to walk in stress and anxiety. As Pastor Matt shared last week, Jesus talked a lot about money. In fact, he talks more about money than heaven and hell. The reference the Bible references over 2300 times, which is double the amount of references to faith and prayer in the Bible, 2300 times it's mentioned, and we truly believe that we're walking into a season where God wants to come through on behalf of his people, where he wants to expose the lies of the enemy, where he wants to take the lid off of what he wants to do in us and through us as a church. And so what we've done, our kingdom builders have come together, and they've actually got a gift for each member of our church, our family, we are so excited about this. So when you leave today, if you didn't get this last week, or if you lost it, you can grab another one. But we are giving everybody free access to financial peace, university, every dollar app and Ramsey plus, okay, this is a huge value, totally free. Our gift to you, because we are committed to helping us as a church, grow in this area. Okay? And if you're like, I don't need that, I still want to invite you to come on October 4, Friday night, we're gonna have dinner together. We're gonna have hostess at City impact, also in Seward here at broadcast, we're gonna host a dinner. We're gonna learn how to use all this stuff. I'm coming. I don't know how to use any of it. I'm excited to learn more about what it can do for our family and our finances. And so there's a QR code to sign up for that we do have childcare. It is limited, so be sure to sign up. It's totally free. Everything's free. We want it. It's a gift. We're committed to this. We're not going to shy away from this, but we're really going to dig in and see what the Word of God says. As I've been praying, I've just been praying that God would use my voice to speak and reveal truth and new truth and revelation about this in a way that we haven't heard before, fresh understanding about this topic. Okay, I am so passionate about this because I've seen God use it in our lives. I've seen God teach me so much, convict me. I've seen my life grow as God continues to reveal more and more truth about finances. I'm constantly learning and growing. And so today I want to invite you into this conversation with me, and we're going to look at what the Bible says, specifically today we're going to talk about understanding the tithe. So would you join me as we pray? Father, thank you for today. Thank you for your word. I thank you for the Bible, God that it is a gift to us. I thank you that you don't leave us empty handed, wondering struggling what to do, but you give us insight and wisdom into every area of our lives. You care so much about us that you gave us a road map so that we can live according to your standards and open the windows of heaven over our lives. God, I pray that You would speak today that our hearts would be open, that our minds would be open to receive what you want us to receive today in Jesus name Amen. Amen. Amen. Alright, look at your neighbor and tell him it's good to see you today.
You give him a smile. We're all going to have a fun time.So today, what we're going to do is we're going to talk specifically, like I said, about the principle of the tithe last week, Pastor Matt preached a really powerful message about trusting God. If you haven't had the opportunity to watch that, I would encourage you to check it out on the mercy City Church app or on YouTube. And I do want to tell you all of my notes will be on our app if you want to go back. And I encourage you to go back, read the scripture for yourself, dig into it. Okay, a few months back, I preached a message. I don't remember what it was called, but I do remember that I introduced a topic called the principle of first mention. Okay, does anybody remember that make me feel good? Okay, good. Everybody was listening. So basically, this is what this is it.The idea that the first time something is mentioned in Scripture, it sets us up to understand through the rest of Scripture that topic. So it's the filter that we read Scripture through, okay, the first time it's mentioned, God establishes truth about that thing. So that the rest of the Bible, which is one book, one continuous book, okay? It's not this and this and this. Okay? We believe that it is one thing, so God sets us up to have a filter to read Scripture. So that's what we're going to do. We're going to look at the first time that the tithe was mentioned in my heart today is that we would get a new understanding of why and what. Okay, why we tithe. Anybody ever wonder, what is this all about? I don't really understand it. I don't really get it. We want to talk about that today, not from my opinion, but from the Word of God. Okay, we're going to go directly to the word and see what God would say. Okay, so we're going to start with what is the tithe. Okay? This word literally means a tenth. And it says in, in, if you look it up, it says a tent or a part of the whole, a part of the whole last week, Pastor Matt talked to us about everything and belonging to God, that we give all to God, we surrender it all. But what the tithe is specifically, it's the Holy part, the set aside part that we give back to God. Okay, we honor him with the rest, but we give back to God, this 10th, this part of the whole, and you'll see as we look at this first time it was mentioned. It was never given out of obligation. It was not given as a response to a rule or regulation. It was given out of a heart of worship and gratitude, first by Abraham when he was this is Abram before he became Abraham returning home from a victory, and he gave a 10th of all plunder to the high priest. Okay, so we're going to be in Genesis 14, right at the beginning of Scripture. You probably never realized that it was already here on Genesis 14. It says this in verse 18. Then Melchizedek, king of Salem, brought out bread and wine. He was the priest of God, Most High and he blessed him Abraham, and said, Blessed be Abraham of God, Most High, possessor of heaven and earth. And He blessed and Blessed be God most high who's delivered your enemies into your hand. And he gave him a tithe of all, a part of the whole Abraham was giving thanks for a victory. He had won a battle, and he came, and he goes to the priest of God, and He gives a tithe out of a heart of gratitude, honoring God, saying, everything that we got, everything all the plunder that we got, it belongs to you. And he gave it back, and it was blessed because of that. The next mention of the tithe in Scripture is a few chapters later, when Abraham's grandson Jacob has an encounter with God. Okay, so Jacob has a dream. He goes to sleep, and it's a pretty cool dream, and God visits him, and this is the first time that he had an encounter with God for himself, and God says, I'm going to bless you. I'm going to be with you. We're going to have a great time together, and you're going to have be blessed and all these promises and all this good stuff. Okay, so we get to Genesis, 18, verse 16, and it says this. Then Jacob woke up from his sleep and said, Surely the Lord is in this place. And I wasn't even aware of it, but he was also afraid, and said, What an awesome place. This is It is none other than the house of God, the very gateway to heaven. The next morning, Jacob got up very early. He took a stone he had rested on his head on, and he set it upright as a memorial pillar. Then he poured olive oil over it, and he named the place Bethel, which means house of God, although it was previously called Luz, Then Jacob made a vow, if God will indeed be with me and protect me on this journey, if he will provide me with food and clothing, and if I return safely to my father's home, then the Lord will certainly be my God. And this memorial pillar I have set up will become a place for worshiping God, and I will present a tent of everything that he gives me. Couple things I want to point out here. This was the first time we see the house of God. Mentioned. What was the house of God? It was the place where God met his people. It was the place where he had an encounter with the Holy Spirit. It was a place where there was a visitation of God's presence. And what happened in the house of God was there was a response twofold. It was worship, and it was giving his response to experiencing the presence of God was that he worshiped God in God's house. Notice there was no building. It was a place where God was, where God established himself, and Jacob presented to God a 10th of what everything i.everything i. Yes, Jacob was making a vow here, and he was setting something up for us. He vows to serve and follow the Lord in exchange for protection and safety. Now this is interesting, because when Jacob had the dream, God said to him, you can go back and read this. He said, I will be your God. Where you go, I will go. I will protect you. I'll keep you safe. So Jacob was affirming that by saying, if you'll do that, then I'll do this, then I will serve you, then I will worship you, then I will give you a 10th of everything that I bring in. Jacob recognizes here that it all belongs to God, but the 10th is the holy part that set aside for the Lord. This is found in Leviticus 27 the tithe is holy. It's what's blessed. It's not just a flippant thing that we do. It's something that we give and that it is a spiritual thing. It is not just a natural check that I write or a card that I swipe or whatever. It has spiritual weight and significance it. There is a promises attached to it. There is blessing and protection attached to it. So don't even if you, even if you've given your tithe, I'm getting ahead of myself, but that's okay. This is for you too. Because I think sometimes we get going through the motions and we give it flippantly. We just swipe it, we just send it, we just give it, and we're don't recognize that this is a holy act. It's something that we do as worship to God. And I want to point out this happened before the Old Covenant was established. Now, if you don't know what that means, Moses came and had an experience with God, and God gave him the 10 Commandments, and they set up all the laws, right, all the rules and the regulations. This happened much later. The tithe was set up outside of this place of rules and regulations. It was never meant to be an obligation. It was only ever meant to be a form of worship and honor to God. Jacob's encounter with God moved him to a place of revelation of newness, of who God was, and the response was to worship and to give protection and provision are a blessing. According to this scripture, it is part of the tithe and it acts as a covering. We're going to talk about that more in a few minutes. So what I want to do today is I want to look at some more Scripture as God continues to set up for us. Why giving a tithe or a 10th matters in the kingdom? Okay? If we go to the book of Malachi, which many of you have probably heard these verses read before, if you've been at church for a while, but what I want to do is I want to give us some context of these verses. That's always really important to do when you're reading the Bible is to read above and to read after. It's really understand. We don't just take a scripture and we're like, this looks good. Let's use it. We really try to give the context of Scripture. So Malachi is one of the Minor Prophets. It's called. And a prophet is just somebody who hears what God says and delivers it to the people. There's nothing weird. It's literally just God speaking through him to the people. So it's a prophetic book that's actually pointing toward the coming of Christ. And this is actually the last book that's written before Matthew one, when Jesus comes and there was 400 years of silence. So in my mind, I think, well, this book, I want to know what it says, because if this is the final thing that God said until Jesus came. This is probably pretty significant, so we're going to look in Malachi three. Verse one we're going to start with. It says, Look, I am sending my messenger, and he will prepare the way before me. This is a prophetic word about John the Baptist, John B Not that one. John the Baptist, okay, if you're over a certain age, you won't get that, but okay, or maybe you won't, okay. He says, Look, I'm sending my messenger, and he will prepare the way before me. Then the Lord you are seeking will suddenly come to the temple, the messenger of the covenant. I love this. This is Jesus. He's talking about Jesus, the Messenger of the New Covenant, is coming. Whom you are looking for, so eagerly, says the Lord, but who will be able to endure it when he comes? Who will be able to stand in his face? Who will be able to face him? That's what he's saying for. He will be like a blazing fire that refines metal, or like a strong soap that bleaches closed, he will sit like a refiner of silver, burning away the dross. He will purify the Levites, refining them like gold and silver, so that they may once again offer acceptable sacrifices to the Lord. Then once more, the Lord will accept the offerings brought to him by the people of Judah and Jerusalem, as he did in the past. At that time, I will put you on trial. I am eager to witness against all sorcerers and adulterers and liars. I will speak against those who cheat employees of their wages, who oppress widows and orphans, or who deprive the foreigners living among you of justice for these people. People do not fear me. The Lord is talking specifically about acts that are happening, which show familiarity, which show that there's a lack of honor, which show that there is a lack of holy fear. What does holy fear do? It says, I love you so much. I honor you so much. I'm in awe of you in such a way that I want to walk in obedience. That's what holy fear is. God is refining and purifying his people, bringing them to attention of their lack of holy fear. Then we get to this isn't the Bible. Cool. I love it. Verse six, I am the Lord, and I do not change. Period. We could go home now. That means that everything that was said before this is still true, every promise, everything that God gave, every advice, every bit of wisdom in Proverbs, every bit of just exaltation in Psalms, every bit of blessing and cursing in Deuteronomy, all of it still is significant. It he does not change. That is why you descendants of Jacob. Interesting that it mentions Jacob. Remember who Jacob was? He was the guy back when God met him and he gave the tithe. Remember that interesting that he didn't say descendants of Abraham, which is what it normally it usually says that more times than not ever, since the days of your ancestors, you have scorned my decrees and failed to obey them. Now return to me and I will return to you, says the Lord of Heaven, armies. But how, how can we return to you when we have never gone away? Verse eight, should people cheat God? Yet you have cheated me. But you ask, What do you mean? When did we ever cheat you? You have cheated me of the Tithes and Offerings due to me. You are under a curse. For your whole nation has been cheating me. Bring all the tithes into the storehouse so there may be enough food in my temple. If you do, says the Lord of Heaven's Armies, I will open the windows of heaven for you, and I will pour out such a blessing so great that you won't have room enough to receive it, to take it in, try it put me to the test. He's saying in verse nine, you're under a curse. Now, God did not curse them. It doesn't say I am cursing you. What it says is, because you've chosen not to do this, you have exposed yourself to a curse. Okay? I want, I want to make that really clear. So how does bringing our tithe refine us and purify us? What does this have to do? It doesn't make sense in the natural it doesn't really, I don't understand it. Okay, this is what I want to do. I want us to understand how bringing our tithe is significant in your spirit. So you need to turn off your natural brain and engage with your spiritual mindset and ask God reveal this truth to me, because I believe it can change everything I've seen it in our lives. How does bringing our tithe refine and purify us. I've got three thoughts. Number one, bringing our tithe speaks of our relationship with God. I love that he says, he says, return to me, and I will return to you. And he's talking about the tithe. He's not saying, Give me all your money. I've got stuff to buy. He's saying, return to me and I will return to you. The issue is not that God needed their money. It was that failure to bring the tithe showed a lack of holy fear and a lack of relationship. They were ignoring God by not honoring him with their first and their best. The people were dishonoring him by not bringing their tithe. But when they brought their tithe to his storehouse, his house, it showed God that I have a desire to be in relationship with you. I'm going to trust you, and I'm going to fear you by bringing by bringing God the first and this is hard. This is hard for us. I know it's hard for me. It's a release of control. It's acknowledging that everything we have comes from God, that we are giving back what already belongs to him. It's an act of true surrender. Isn't it so interesting that it's easy to give God some things, but it's hard to give God our money. And I think that might be why it's mentioned so many times. It's the I feel like it's the last thing to get saved. You know what? I mean, it's like the last part of us. We're like, no, please, not that, anything but that. But it's an act of surrender to God. The second thing that we need to know about this is that bringing our tithe offers us protection. And I'm going to illustrate this. Okay, so we saw in these early verses, I'm going to open an umbrella in the building.We don't believe in superstition here. We believe in blessing. So we saw earlier that one of the blessings of giving, bringing your tithe, was protection, right? That really popped up. So if I give my. Hide. The Bible says that I'm under the blessing of God, that everything I have is covered. My home is covered. My family's covered. My marriage is covered. My stuff is covered. Everything I have is under the umbrella of what God has for me, okay, but God doesn't curse us, but what we do is when we don't put God first, we're saying I can take care of myself. I'll protect myself, and I leave a door open for the enemy to have access. He has access. Why not? Because the Lord said, Too bad for you. It's because I've given him access by removing the covering over my life, by walking in disobedience, you don't have to protect yourself. And can I tell you something? It's not easy. Pastor Matt shared a story of our life personally last week where we I'm not going to tell the whole thing. You can watch it, but we were in a place where we were really wanting to do some work on our house, and the Lord really told us not to. It was a whole thing, but we thought it would be a good idea to still do it. Okay? This was, like last month. So your pastor's also human. Okay? So we get into it, we get into it, and all of a sudden, there's emergency room visits, and there's doctor's visits, and our washer dryer broke. Our our we had a wedding, and our water didn't work for five days. I had to shower at the building before the wedding, like all this stuff happened. And I was like, What is going on? And I felt the Spirit of God say, you've begun protecting yourself. You've removed the covering in your disobedience. And I was like, I don't want to do that, Lord. So I real quick repented, and I said, I want to be under your covering, because then I know that I walk in Divine health, and I know that my stuff, the enemy has no access to it. I know that there is no nothing that the enemy can do to get at my stuff, because I'm covered with a covering that comes from God. This is a Kingdom Principle. The Bible says in Proverbs, 1124, it says, give freely and become more wealthy, be stingy and lose everything. This doesn't make sense, does it? If I give, I won't have enough. If I give, I won't be able to make ends meet. If I give, then what's going to happen? But here's the truth, when we store and hoard and withhold, we should have enough, but how often is there still lack? But when we give it is a biblical principle. When we sow, there is overflow that comes along with it. It doesn't make sense, but God said in His Word in Malachi, try it. Put me to the test. It's getting over that hump of fear and control and saying, Okay, God, here's what Pastor Matt and I got to. We got to the point where we thought, I don't have enough anyways, so we're going to give it a try, right? We're going to trust, we're going to trust, we're going to give God access to everything that we have. We're going to give him access. The third thought about this is this bringing our tithe opens the door to the commanded blessing of God. What doors open over your finances? Is it a door that the enemy has access to, or is a door that the Lord has access to? Because whoever has access is going to determine the course of your life. It's going to determine who comes in and who goes out. We've got to close the door to the enemy over our lives. We've got to open the door to what God says. It says, I will open the windows of heaven for you. I will pour out such a blessing so great. You won't have room enough to take it in Try me, put me to the test. Obedience opens the door to God's blessing. And I want to encourage you, remember, God is the same, and he doesn't change. So every blessing that we see in scripture we have access to, we have the opportunity, specifically, I encourage you to read Deuteronomy 28 it talks about the blessing and the cursing and all of those things, is still the blessing and the cursing that is talking about here. Look up whatever the Bible says blessed and claim it for your life. Once we get into alignment, we will see God's faithfulness over and over and over again, relying on money, relying on what's in your income, you will always come up short, because how many of you know it can be gone in a moment. It's not sure ground. But when we build our lives on the foundation that is the truth of God's word, we can be confident in that foundation, it will not move, it will not crumble, it will not shake, it will not crack. The Word of God is established forever. It is a firm foundation. And if we're going to believe any of the Bible, we have to believe all of the Bible. If you believe that Jesus came and He died for your sins, and you're going to experience new life in Christ, if you believe that I've been forgiven and I receive mercy, then we also have to believe that there is a blessing and covering attached when we walk in faithfulness of bringing God our first and our best 10% it we cannot say I don't believe that part. I'm just going to go with the new the NT. Me, right? Like I'm just going to stick in Ephesians. You like the good books, you know what I mean? Like that make you feel good. I like those books too. But we can't ignore God is the same, and he does not change. He established something at the very beginning that goes all the way through to the messenger of the covenant, that brings in the new covenant of God's word for us, this is to get something for your life. It will establish the truth of God's word. I am passionate about this because I have seen it work in our life. I've seen it work in the life of my parents. I've seen it work as a church when we're tight fisted as a church, we are in lack. But when we find places to give and sow and bless man, God brings it. God brings it. It is a faithfulness that we can walk in. And I want to continue to address this about the tithe. Many people had this misunderstanding that it's not for today, but it doesn't apply to us, but we've already established that it was outside of the law, outside of the rules and the regulations, outside of like the 10 Commandments, right? The New Testament actually, is really, really interesting, because we if we just look at the Gospels, Jesus told 38 parables. 16 of them were about money, almost half. He used this to teach a spiritual truth. When Jesus preached, roughly 15% of His teaching was about money. It was about finances. Nearly 25% of Jesus' words in the New Testament deal with biblical stewardship. It is a stewardship issue. Are we inviting God in? God knew why did he talk about it so much? Because he knew that it represented our hearts. It was true then, and it's true now, because it is such a huge part of life. How many of us think about our finances every day, multiple times a day, we wake up thinking about, I don't have enough. Like, if you have something come up, you're like, I've done it. I've woken up and I'm like, Oh, I feel anxious. I don't know what we're going to do. Like, when it's heavy, it's heavy, and it it occupies too much of our space. God knew that it could take over where our heart was. And so I want to look at some scriptures in the New Testament. I love this in Matthew six, and I'm sure you've heard this before, but now look at it in this context. Don't store up treasures here on Earth where moss eat them and rust destroys them, and where thieves break in and steal. What is that talking about? Oh, where thieves break in and steal. You're out of protection. Store your treasures in heaven where moss and rust cannot destroy and thieves do not break in and steal. Why? Because they're protected. Wherever your treasure is there, the desire of your heart will be also. If we're going to make a main bullet point about this, it would be this money doesn't matter on Earth, but when you put it in the right places, it can make a difference in eternity. Jesus is telling us this is so cool in this, and I just saw this this week. Is the way that we steer our desires. Is by where we put our treasure. What do you desire? Is it aligned to God's word? Is it more of him? Is it inviting him into your life, inviting him into that space? Or is it for more stuff, for more influence, for a bigger house, a better car? Is it selfish desires? Are they desires that honor God? I love this in Hebrews seven, eight, because a lot of things people think, people think, Well, I'm just giving the church my money. No, you're not. Look at this. Hebrews New Testament, seven, eight here. This is on earth, mortal men receive the tithe. So this is talking about, when you bring your tithe, you bring it to a church or to a ministry, and a man receives it, okay, but there he this is talking about heaven,and this is Jesus. Read it. Read the whole chapter, receives them, receives the tithe. Of whom it is a witness that he lives. When we bring our tithe, we are not bringing it in a natural sense. We're bringing it in a holy sins. We're saying, God, everything I have is yours. Everything that belongs to me is yours, and I want to honor you with it. This was so significant to us in our lives. I just want to share a little bit of what God's taught me over the last few years about our finances. We've made a dramatic shift in our finances. We we've always kind of, we've always tied I grew up. My dad every week they wrote their check, remember checks, and they put in an envelope, and this was before covid, and they passed the buckets, and my mom and dad put it in, and I saw him do that every week. So it was never a thing of, I didn't I wasn't going to do it. I knew I was going to do it, but I never knew why. I never understood. So I gave and pastor, Matt. Saw his mom give regularly and tithe regularly. So when we got married, it wasn't a question. We were like, This is what we do. We're always going to do it. We've always done it for 23, plus years, going on whatever, and we're going to continue to do that. But I didn't, I have an understanding of why, and I didn't really have it deep in my heart that it was a release of control. Because when I give God that bit I'm saying, I want you to bless the rest. I want to honor you with the rest. And so what happened was I was very controlling of our finances, very I didn't let pastor Matt. I was like, Oh, I got it. He didn't like doing it anyway. So it's like, I'll do it, you know? But really I wanted control. I wanted to know where the money was going. I wanted to know where what was happening. I wanted to be in charge of how we spent it. I mean, if he went to Casey's, I was like, what'd you get at Casey's? Why'd you spend 259 we have food at home. You don't need pizza, you know? Like, I was so controlling, you know, you've been there. Some of you guys are like, I do that. It pings on your phone. You're like, what are you doing? Why you at McDonald? I was so controlling, and God began to convict my heart, because I was saying, I don't want any help from anybody. I've got this. And then he made me do the hardest thing, and I had to tell pastor Matt that I was and I had to humble myself, I had to repent to the Lord, and I had to go and I had to invite him in to this, which, again, he didn't really want to be a part of it. So I said, Babe, I need you to do this, and I need you to pretend like you like it, because if you don't, I'm going to feel bad, and I'm not gonna, but I know God's saying we need to be in unity around our finances. We need to release all the control, and then we need to invite God into it. So every payday, we sit down at our kitchen table and he pretends, and he smiles like he's not annoyed that we're doing it, that my computer's taking too long. You know when you're like, the wheel of death and I'm like, I'm sorry. It's coming like, I'm trying to pay the bill like he we decided it was worth it. We decided that coming together. And we, before we start, we say, Lord, give us your wisdom. You know what we have. You know what's coming up. You know every situation that we're going to encounter. And so we want you to be a part of this. And then we and then we do it, and then we take care of our bills. We give. And all of a sudden, we weren't coming up short. All of a sudden, I can't explain it. We had a we were able to put money in a savings account. We were able to pay for things as they came. We had money to give more. God said give and save. That was the word for us. This year, give and save. We've been able to give more. Why not? Because we're making more, but because we put God first, because we invited him in. It's a I can't explain it. All I can say is it's a spiritual principle, and it works. I believe the Word of God. I believe that when he said, you can have peace, you can have peace. I believe that when he said, I'm Jehovah Jireh, I see in advance and I make a way. I believe that when I give him my first and my best, he sees what's coming, and he will make a way, and he will provide in a way that I never imagined possible. God is faithful to His word. So how I'm like, Okay, how do I wrap this up? Right? Here's my goal for today. This was to give you some understanding about what in the world is a tithe. They talk about it, but I don't really know about it. There is so much Scripture I've put even more in the app. Go and look at it this week. Read it. Let God speak to you. You need a revelation from heaven, whether you've been tithing or you haven't been Can I encourage you, there's still fresh revelation. There's still more. This is a holy gift that represents our heart of worship and our heart of surrender to God, and it's for all of us. Would you stand up on your feet with me today? This is the question that I really felt led to just ask in this moment. And I hope that that you see where what the Bible says and how it's so important, but here's, here's what I believe we need to remember is that it represents our heart. So today, how's your heart? How's your heart towards this? Is it hard? Is it closed or is it open? And saying, God, what do we what are we doing here? How do we do this? Just ask God to speak. Ask God give him the invitation. God is a gentleman. He's been standing at the door waiting for an invitation into this area of your life. This is a question that each of us has to ask, Are we gripping so tightly, or are we someone who God can trust to bring the resources to us so that he can get them through us? I'm going to pray, and as I do, if you're if you're in here, if you're with your spouse, just grab hands. I believe there's been some, some real. Disunity in this area, in our marriages and in our homes. If you're somebody who's single or or your spouse isn't here, has there been disunity between you and the Lord? Have you been unified with the Lord around this and I just as I pray, I just want you to open your heart and invite God into this space, Father, we honor you today, and I thank you that you are speaking to us, God, that this is a heart message, that this is a heart message. This is a surrender message, where we don't have to do things the way the world looks at them, the way the world wants us to but God, we can give you full access to every area of our lives, and you will open the windows of heaven over us. And you will bring such an increase, such an increased spiritual increase that there is not room enough to receive it. Lord, I pray that in our homes and in our families and through the people of Mercy city, that you would see us as good stewards, that you would give us what we need, the resources to make a kingdom and eternal impact. God, we want to be used by you. We want to have the opportunity to see this harvest come in, to see lost souls saved, to see them resourced with your word, God, we surrender to you today, and we thank you for using us. Speak to us and speak through us in Jesus name, Amen, amen.
You give him a smile. We're all going to have a fun time.So today, what we're going to do is we're going to talk specifically, like I said, about the principle of the tithe last week, Pastor Matt preached a really powerful message about trusting God. If you haven't had the opportunity to watch that, I would encourage you to check it out on the mercy City Church app or on YouTube. And I do want to tell you all of my notes will be on our app if you want to go back. And I encourage you to go back, read the scripture for yourself, dig into it. Okay, a few months back, I preached a message. I don't remember what it was called, but I do remember that I introduced a topic called the principle of first mention. Okay, does anybody remember that make me feel good? Okay, good. Everybody was listening. So basically, this is what this is it.The idea that the first time something is mentioned in Scripture, it sets us up to understand through the rest of Scripture that topic. So it's the filter that we read Scripture through, okay, the first time it's mentioned, God establishes truth about that thing. So that the rest of the Bible, which is one book, one continuous book, okay? It's not this and this and this. Okay? We believe that it is one thing, so God sets us up to have a filter to read Scripture. So that's what we're going to do. We're going to look at the first time that the tithe was mentioned in my heart today is that we would get a new understanding of why and what. Okay, why we tithe. Anybody ever wonder, what is this all about? I don't really understand it. I don't really get it. We want to talk about that today, not from my opinion, but from the Word of God. Okay, we're going to go directly to the word and see what God would say. Okay, so we're going to start with what is the tithe. Okay? This word literally means a tenth. And it says in, in, if you look it up, it says a tent or a part of the whole, a part of the whole last week, Pastor Matt talked to us about everything and belonging to God, that we give all to God, we surrender it all. But what the tithe is specifically, it's the Holy part, the set aside part that we give back to God. Okay, we honor him with the rest, but we give back to God, this 10th, this part of the whole, and you'll see as we look at this first time it was mentioned. It was never given out of obligation. It was not given as a response to a rule or regulation. It was given out of a heart of worship and gratitude, first by Abraham when he was this is Abram before he became Abraham returning home from a victory, and he gave a 10th of all plunder to the high priest. Okay, so we're going to be in Genesis 14, right at the beginning of Scripture. You probably never realized that it was already here on Genesis 14. It says this in verse 18. Then Melchizedek, king of Salem, brought out bread and wine. He was the priest of God, Most High and he blessed him Abraham, and said, Blessed be Abraham of God, Most High, possessor of heaven and earth. And He blessed and Blessed be God most high who's delivered your enemies into your hand. And he gave him a tithe of all, a part of the whole Abraham was giving thanks for a victory. He had won a battle, and he came, and he goes to the priest of God, and He gives a tithe out of a heart of gratitude, honoring God, saying, everything that we got, everything all the plunder that we got, it belongs to you. And he gave it back, and it was blessed because of that. The next mention of the tithe in Scripture is a few chapters later, when Abraham's grandson Jacob has an encounter with God. Okay, so Jacob has a dream. He goes to sleep, and it's a pretty cool dream, and God visits him, and this is the first time that he had an encounter with God for himself, and God says, I'm going to bless you. I'm going to be with you. We're going to have a great time together, and you're going to have be blessed and all these promises and all this good stuff. Okay, so we get to Genesis, 18, verse 16, and it says this. Then Jacob woke up from his sleep and said, Surely the Lord is in this place. And I wasn't even aware of it, but he was also afraid, and said, What an awesome place. This is It is none other than the house of God, the very gateway to heaven. The next morning, Jacob got up very early. He took a stone he had rested on his head on, and he set it upright as a memorial pillar. Then he poured olive oil over it, and he named the place Bethel, which means house of God, although it was previously called Luz, Then Jacob made a vow, if God will indeed be with me and protect me on this journey, if he will provide me with food and clothing, and if I return safely to my father's home, then the Lord will certainly be my God. And this memorial pillar I have set up will become a place for worshiping God, and I will present a tent of everything that he gives me. Couple things I want to point out here. This was the first time we see the house of God. Mentioned. What was the house of God? It was the place where God met his people. It was the place where he had an encounter with the Holy Spirit. It was a place where there was a visitation of God's presence. And what happened in the house of God was there was a response twofold. It was worship, and it was giving his response to experiencing the presence of God was that he worshiped God in God's house. Notice there was no building. It was a place where God was, where God established himself, and Jacob presented to God a 10th of what everything i.everything i. Yes, Jacob was making a vow here, and he was setting something up for us. He vows to serve and follow the Lord in exchange for protection and safety. Now this is interesting, because when Jacob had the dream, God said to him, you can go back and read this. He said, I will be your God. Where you go, I will go. I will protect you. I'll keep you safe. So Jacob was affirming that by saying, if you'll do that, then I'll do this, then I will serve you, then I will worship you, then I will give you a 10th of everything that I bring in. Jacob recognizes here that it all belongs to God, but the 10th is the holy part that set aside for the Lord. This is found in Leviticus 27 the tithe is holy. It's what's blessed. It's not just a flippant thing that we do. It's something that we give and that it is a spiritual thing. It is not just a natural check that I write or a card that I swipe or whatever. It has spiritual weight and significance it. There is a promises attached to it. There is blessing and protection attached to it. So don't even if you, even if you've given your tithe, I'm getting ahead of myself, but that's okay. This is for you too. Because I think sometimes we get going through the motions and we give it flippantly. We just swipe it, we just send it, we just give it, and we're don't recognize that this is a holy act. It's something that we do as worship to God. And I want to point out this happened before the Old Covenant was established. Now, if you don't know what that means, Moses came and had an experience with God, and God gave him the 10 Commandments, and they set up all the laws, right, all the rules and the regulations. This happened much later. The tithe was set up outside of this place of rules and regulations. It was never meant to be an obligation. It was only ever meant to be a form of worship and honor to God. Jacob's encounter with God moved him to a place of revelation of newness, of who God was, and the response was to worship and to give protection and provision are a blessing. According to this scripture, it is part of the tithe and it acts as a covering. We're going to talk about that more in a few minutes. So what I want to do today is I want to look at some more Scripture as God continues to set up for us. Why giving a tithe or a 10th matters in the kingdom? Okay? If we go to the book of Malachi, which many of you have probably heard these verses read before, if you've been at church for a while, but what I want to do is I want to give us some context of these verses. That's always really important to do when you're reading the Bible is to read above and to read after. It's really understand. We don't just take a scripture and we're like, this looks good. Let's use it. We really try to give the context of Scripture. So Malachi is one of the Minor Prophets. It's called. And a prophet is just somebody who hears what God says and delivers it to the people. There's nothing weird. It's literally just God speaking through him to the people. So it's a prophetic book that's actually pointing toward the coming of Christ. And this is actually the last book that's written before Matthew one, when Jesus comes and there was 400 years of silence. So in my mind, I think, well, this book, I want to know what it says, because if this is the final thing that God said until Jesus came. This is probably pretty significant, so we're going to look in Malachi three. Verse one we're going to start with. It says, Look, I am sending my messenger, and he will prepare the way before me. This is a prophetic word about John the Baptist, John B Not that one. John the Baptist, okay, if you're over a certain age, you won't get that, but okay, or maybe you won't, okay. He says, Look, I'm sending my messenger, and he will prepare the way before me. Then the Lord you are seeking will suddenly come to the temple, the messenger of the covenant. I love this. This is Jesus. He's talking about Jesus, the Messenger of the New Covenant, is coming. Whom you are looking for, so eagerly, says the Lord, but who will be able to endure it when he comes? Who will be able to stand in his face? Who will be able to face him? That's what he's saying for. He will be like a blazing fire that refines metal, or like a strong soap that bleaches closed, he will sit like a refiner of silver, burning away the dross. He will purify the Levites, refining them like gold and silver, so that they may once again offer acceptable sacrifices to the Lord. Then once more, the Lord will accept the offerings brought to him by the people of Judah and Jerusalem, as he did in the past. At that time, I will put you on trial. I am eager to witness against all sorcerers and adulterers and liars. I will speak against those who cheat employees of their wages, who oppress widows and orphans, or who deprive the foreigners living among you of justice for these people. People do not fear me. The Lord is talking specifically about acts that are happening, which show familiarity, which show that there's a lack of honor, which show that there is a lack of holy fear. What does holy fear do? It says, I love you so much. I honor you so much. I'm in awe of you in such a way that I want to walk in obedience. That's what holy fear is. God is refining and purifying his people, bringing them to attention of their lack of holy fear. Then we get to this isn't the Bible. Cool. I love it. Verse six, I am the Lord, and I do not change. Period. We could go home now. That means that everything that was said before this is still true, every promise, everything that God gave, every advice, every bit of wisdom in Proverbs, every bit of just exaltation in Psalms, every bit of blessing and cursing in Deuteronomy, all of it still is significant. It he does not change. That is why you descendants of Jacob. Interesting that it mentions Jacob. Remember who Jacob was? He was the guy back when God met him and he gave the tithe. Remember that interesting that he didn't say descendants of Abraham, which is what it normally it usually says that more times than not ever, since the days of your ancestors, you have scorned my decrees and failed to obey them. Now return to me and I will return to you, says the Lord of Heaven, armies. But how, how can we return to you when we have never gone away? Verse eight, should people cheat God? Yet you have cheated me. But you ask, What do you mean? When did we ever cheat you? You have cheated me of the Tithes and Offerings due to me. You are under a curse. For your whole nation has been cheating me. Bring all the tithes into the storehouse so there may be enough food in my temple. If you do, says the Lord of Heaven's Armies, I will open the windows of heaven for you, and I will pour out such a blessing so great that you won't have room enough to receive it, to take it in, try it put me to the test. He's saying in verse nine, you're under a curse. Now, God did not curse them. It doesn't say I am cursing you. What it says is, because you've chosen not to do this, you have exposed yourself to a curse. Okay? I want, I want to make that really clear. So how does bringing our tithe refine us and purify us? What does this have to do? It doesn't make sense in the natural it doesn't really, I don't understand it. Okay, this is what I want to do. I want us to understand how bringing our tithe is significant in your spirit. So you need to turn off your natural brain and engage with your spiritual mindset and ask God reveal this truth to me, because I believe it can change everything I've seen it in our lives. How does bringing our tithe refine and purify us. I've got three thoughts. Number one, bringing our tithe speaks of our relationship with God. I love that he says, he says, return to me, and I will return to you. And he's talking about the tithe. He's not saying, Give me all your money. I've got stuff to buy. He's saying, return to me and I will return to you. The issue is not that God needed their money. It was that failure to bring the tithe showed a lack of holy fear and a lack of relationship. They were ignoring God by not honoring him with their first and their best. The people were dishonoring him by not bringing their tithe. But when they brought their tithe to his storehouse, his house, it showed God that I have a desire to be in relationship with you. I'm going to trust you, and I'm going to fear you by bringing by bringing God the first and this is hard. This is hard for us. I know it's hard for me. It's a release of control. It's acknowledging that everything we have comes from God, that we are giving back what already belongs to him. It's an act of true surrender. Isn't it so interesting that it's easy to give God some things, but it's hard to give God our money. And I think that might be why it's mentioned so many times. It's the I feel like it's the last thing to get saved. You know what? I mean, it's like the last part of us. We're like, no, please, not that, anything but that. But it's an act of surrender to God. The second thing that we need to know about this is that bringing our tithe offers us protection. And I'm going to illustrate this. Okay, so we saw in these early verses, I'm going to open an umbrella in the building.We don't believe in superstition here. We believe in blessing. So we saw earlier that one of the blessings of giving, bringing your tithe, was protection, right? That really popped up. So if I give my. Hide. The Bible says that I'm under the blessing of God, that everything I have is covered. My home is covered. My family's covered. My marriage is covered. My stuff is covered. Everything I have is under the umbrella of what God has for me, okay, but God doesn't curse us, but what we do is when we don't put God first, we're saying I can take care of myself. I'll protect myself, and I leave a door open for the enemy to have access. He has access. Why not? Because the Lord said, Too bad for you. It's because I've given him access by removing the covering over my life, by walking in disobedience, you don't have to protect yourself. And can I tell you something? It's not easy. Pastor Matt shared a story of our life personally last week where we I'm not going to tell the whole thing. You can watch it, but we were in a place where we were really wanting to do some work on our house, and the Lord really told us not to. It was a whole thing, but we thought it would be a good idea to still do it. Okay? This was, like last month. So your pastor's also human. Okay? So we get into it, we get into it, and all of a sudden, there's emergency room visits, and there's doctor's visits, and our washer dryer broke. Our our we had a wedding, and our water didn't work for five days. I had to shower at the building before the wedding, like all this stuff happened. And I was like, What is going on? And I felt the Spirit of God say, you've begun protecting yourself. You've removed the covering in your disobedience. And I was like, I don't want to do that, Lord. So I real quick repented, and I said, I want to be under your covering, because then I know that I walk in Divine health, and I know that my stuff, the enemy has no access to it. I know that there is no nothing that the enemy can do to get at my stuff, because I'm covered with a covering that comes from God. This is a Kingdom Principle. The Bible says in Proverbs, 1124, it says, give freely and become more wealthy, be stingy and lose everything. This doesn't make sense, does it? If I give, I won't have enough. If I give, I won't be able to make ends meet. If I give, then what's going to happen? But here's the truth, when we store and hoard and withhold, we should have enough, but how often is there still lack? But when we give it is a biblical principle. When we sow, there is overflow that comes along with it. It doesn't make sense, but God said in His Word in Malachi, try it. Put me to the test. It's getting over that hump of fear and control and saying, Okay, God, here's what Pastor Matt and I got to. We got to the point where we thought, I don't have enough anyways, so we're going to give it a try, right? We're going to trust, we're going to trust, we're going to give God access to everything that we have. We're going to give him access. The third thought about this is this bringing our tithe opens the door to the commanded blessing of God. What doors open over your finances? Is it a door that the enemy has access to, or is a door that the Lord has access to? Because whoever has access is going to determine the course of your life. It's going to determine who comes in and who goes out. We've got to close the door to the enemy over our lives. We've got to open the door to what God says. It says, I will open the windows of heaven for you. I will pour out such a blessing so great. You won't have room enough to take it in Try me, put me to the test. Obedience opens the door to God's blessing. And I want to encourage you, remember, God is the same, and he doesn't change. So every blessing that we see in scripture we have access to, we have the opportunity, specifically, I encourage you to read Deuteronomy 28 it talks about the blessing and the cursing and all of those things, is still the blessing and the cursing that is talking about here. Look up whatever the Bible says blessed and claim it for your life. Once we get into alignment, we will see God's faithfulness over and over and over again, relying on money, relying on what's in your income, you will always come up short, because how many of you know it can be gone in a moment. It's not sure ground. But when we build our lives on the foundation that is the truth of God's word, we can be confident in that foundation, it will not move, it will not crumble, it will not shake, it will not crack. The Word of God is established forever. It is a firm foundation. And if we're going to believe any of the Bible, we have to believe all of the Bible. If you believe that Jesus came and He died for your sins, and you're going to experience new life in Christ, if you believe that I've been forgiven and I receive mercy, then we also have to believe that there is a blessing and covering attached when we walk in faithfulness of bringing God our first and our best 10% it we cannot say I don't believe that part. I'm just going to go with the new the NT. Me, right? Like I'm just going to stick in Ephesians. You like the good books, you know what I mean? Like that make you feel good. I like those books too. But we can't ignore God is the same, and he does not change. He established something at the very beginning that goes all the way through to the messenger of the covenant, that brings in the new covenant of God's word for us, this is to get something for your life. It will establish the truth of God's word. I am passionate about this because I have seen it work in our life. I've seen it work in the life of my parents. I've seen it work as a church when we're tight fisted as a church, we are in lack. But when we find places to give and sow and bless man, God brings it. God brings it. It is a faithfulness that we can walk in. And I want to continue to address this about the tithe. Many people had this misunderstanding that it's not for today, but it doesn't apply to us, but we've already established that it was outside of the law, outside of the rules and the regulations, outside of like the 10 Commandments, right? The New Testament actually, is really, really interesting, because we if we just look at the Gospels, Jesus told 38 parables. 16 of them were about money, almost half. He used this to teach a spiritual truth. When Jesus preached, roughly 15% of His teaching was about money. It was about finances. Nearly 25% of Jesus' words in the New Testament deal with biblical stewardship. It is a stewardship issue. Are we inviting God in? God knew why did he talk about it so much? Because he knew that it represented our hearts. It was true then, and it's true now, because it is such a huge part of life. How many of us think about our finances every day, multiple times a day, we wake up thinking about, I don't have enough. Like, if you have something come up, you're like, I've done it. I've woken up and I'm like, Oh, I feel anxious. I don't know what we're going to do. Like, when it's heavy, it's heavy, and it it occupies too much of our space. God knew that it could take over where our heart was. And so I want to look at some scriptures in the New Testament. I love this in Matthew six, and I'm sure you've heard this before, but now look at it in this context. Don't store up treasures here on Earth where moss eat them and rust destroys them, and where thieves break in and steal. What is that talking about? Oh, where thieves break in and steal. You're out of protection. Store your treasures in heaven where moss and rust cannot destroy and thieves do not break in and steal. Why? Because they're protected. Wherever your treasure is there, the desire of your heart will be also. If we're going to make a main bullet point about this, it would be this money doesn't matter on Earth, but when you put it in the right places, it can make a difference in eternity. Jesus is telling us this is so cool in this, and I just saw this this week. Is the way that we steer our desires. Is by where we put our treasure. What do you desire? Is it aligned to God's word? Is it more of him? Is it inviting him into your life, inviting him into that space? Or is it for more stuff, for more influence, for a bigger house, a better car? Is it selfish desires? Are they desires that honor God? I love this in Hebrews seven, eight, because a lot of things people think, people think, Well, I'm just giving the church my money. No, you're not. Look at this. Hebrews New Testament, seven, eight here. This is on earth, mortal men receive the tithe. So this is talking about, when you bring your tithe, you bring it to a church or to a ministry, and a man receives it, okay, but there he this is talking about heaven,and this is Jesus. Read it. Read the whole chapter, receives them, receives the tithe. Of whom it is a witness that he lives. When we bring our tithe, we are not bringing it in a natural sense. We're bringing it in a holy sins. We're saying, God, everything I have is yours. Everything that belongs to me is yours, and I want to honor you with it. This was so significant to us in our lives. I just want to share a little bit of what God's taught me over the last few years about our finances. We've made a dramatic shift in our finances. We we've always kind of, we've always tied I grew up. My dad every week they wrote their check, remember checks, and they put in an envelope, and this was before covid, and they passed the buckets, and my mom and dad put it in, and I saw him do that every week. So it was never a thing of, I didn't I wasn't going to do it. I knew I was going to do it, but I never knew why. I never understood. So I gave and pastor, Matt. Saw his mom give regularly and tithe regularly. So when we got married, it wasn't a question. We were like, This is what we do. We're always going to do it. We've always done it for 23, plus years, going on whatever, and we're going to continue to do that. But I didn't, I have an understanding of why, and I didn't really have it deep in my heart that it was a release of control. Because when I give God that bit I'm saying, I want you to bless the rest. I want to honor you with the rest. And so what happened was I was very controlling of our finances, very I didn't let pastor Matt. I was like, Oh, I got it. He didn't like doing it anyway. So it's like, I'll do it, you know? But really I wanted control. I wanted to know where the money was going. I wanted to know where what was happening. I wanted to be in charge of how we spent it. I mean, if he went to Casey's, I was like, what'd you get at Casey's? Why'd you spend 259 we have food at home. You don't need pizza, you know? Like, I was so controlling, you know, you've been there. Some of you guys are like, I do that. It pings on your phone. You're like, what are you doing? Why you at McDonald? I was so controlling, and God began to convict my heart, because I was saying, I don't want any help from anybody. I've got this. And then he made me do the hardest thing, and I had to tell pastor Matt that I was and I had to humble myself, I had to repent to the Lord, and I had to go and I had to invite him in to this, which, again, he didn't really want to be a part of it. So I said, Babe, I need you to do this, and I need you to pretend like you like it, because if you don't, I'm going to feel bad, and I'm not gonna, but I know God's saying we need to be in unity around our finances. We need to release all the control, and then we need to invite God into it. So every payday, we sit down at our kitchen table and he pretends, and he smiles like he's not annoyed that we're doing it, that my computer's taking too long. You know when you're like, the wheel of death and I'm like, I'm sorry. It's coming like, I'm trying to pay the bill like he we decided it was worth it. We decided that coming together. And we, before we start, we say, Lord, give us your wisdom. You know what we have. You know what's coming up. You know every situation that we're going to encounter. And so we want you to be a part of this. And then we and then we do it, and then we take care of our bills. We give. And all of a sudden, we weren't coming up short. All of a sudden, I can't explain it. We had a we were able to put money in a savings account. We were able to pay for things as they came. We had money to give more. God said give and save. That was the word for us. This year, give and save. We've been able to give more. Why not? Because we're making more, but because we put God first, because we invited him in. It's a I can't explain it. All I can say is it's a spiritual principle, and it works. I believe the Word of God. I believe that when he said, you can have peace, you can have peace. I believe that when he said, I'm Jehovah Jireh, I see in advance and I make a way. I believe that when I give him my first and my best, he sees what's coming, and he will make a way, and he will provide in a way that I never imagined possible. God is faithful to His word. So how I'm like, Okay, how do I wrap this up? Right? Here's my goal for today. This was to give you some understanding about what in the world is a tithe. They talk about it, but I don't really know about it. There is so much Scripture I've put even more in the app. Go and look at it this week. Read it. Let God speak to you. You need a revelation from heaven, whether you've been tithing or you haven't been Can I encourage you, there's still fresh revelation. There's still more. This is a holy gift that represents our heart of worship and our heart of surrender to God, and it's for all of us. Would you stand up on your feet with me today? This is the question that I really felt led to just ask in this moment. And I hope that that you see where what the Bible says and how it's so important, but here's, here's what I believe we need to remember is that it represents our heart. So today, how's your heart? How's your heart towards this? Is it hard? Is it closed or is it open? And saying, God, what do we what are we doing here? How do we do this? Just ask God to speak. Ask God give him the invitation. God is a gentleman. He's been standing at the door waiting for an invitation into this area of your life. This is a question that each of us has to ask, Are we gripping so tightly, or are we someone who God can trust to bring the resources to us so that he can get them through us? I'm going to pray, and as I do, if you're if you're in here, if you're with your spouse, just grab hands. I believe there's been some, some real. Disunity in this area, in our marriages and in our homes. If you're somebody who's single or or your spouse isn't here, has there been disunity between you and the Lord? Have you been unified with the Lord around this and I just as I pray, I just want you to open your heart and invite God into this space, Father, we honor you today, and I thank you that you are speaking to us, God, that this is a heart message, that this is a heart message. This is a surrender message, where we don't have to do things the way the world looks at them, the way the world wants us to but God, we can give you full access to every area of our lives, and you will open the windows of heaven over us. And you will bring such an increase, such an increased spiritual increase that there is not room enough to receive it. Lord, I pray that in our homes and in our families and through the people of Mercy city, that you would see us as good stewards, that you would give us what we need, the resources to make a kingdom and eternal impact. God, we want to be used by you. We want to have the opportunity to see this harvest come in, to see lost souls saved, to see them resourced with your word, God, we surrender to you today, and we thank you for using us. Speak to us and speak through us in Jesus name, Amen, amen.
Posted in In God We Trust
Posted in Tithe, Money, Umbrella of protection, Jacob, Principle of the tithe, Principle of first mention, Bible, God, Genesis 14, Melchizedek, Abraham, Genesis 18, Leviticus 27
Posted in Tithe, Money, Umbrella of protection, Jacob, Principle of the tithe, Principle of first mention, Bible, God, Genesis 14, Melchizedek, Abraham, Genesis 18, Leviticus 27
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