Would you believe it that this is our third heart-to-heart talk regarding that eighth
commandment in a series of messages on God's ten rules for living?
Would you ever have believed that in those four words that constitute the eighth commandment,
thou shalt not steal, that we are now beginning our third heart-to-heart talk?
Oh, I'll tell you, when God laid out his plan of economics for humanity, he knew exactly
what he was doing, but we have gotten so far away from God's rules for living that they
seem almost inconsistent to us.
They are so far beyond even our reason.
But the trouble doesn't lie with God.
The trouble lies with humanity.
That's the reason we've gotten ourselves into such a mess that even our keenest minds
cannot solve our problems and...
Well, we're kind of in a jam with the whole thing, you know it?
And why? is because we've let God's plans and God's rules and we've said, God, you
didn't know what you were doing and we've got a better idea as to how to run our lives
and run our nation and run our economics and we have run it right straight in the hole.
And here we are.
We didn't like what God had for us and we wouldn't like our own way better and since
we have it, we don't like it, but we don't know what to do with it.
And we're just in a mess with the whole thing.
So here we come in this eighth commandment and we see God's great economical plan for
humanity.
And right at the beginning, we see that God gives us a recognition of property right.
We have a right to possess property, to be the owner of property.
But we also see that God's word denies all right to property except that of gift or work.
No place in God's scheme of things does he have even the slightest opening for laziness.
No, sir, I'll tell you.
Search the Bible from the beginning to the end and you'll not find where God has left
the slightest opening for a lazy man or a lazy woman.
No, we've gotten to the place that it's our theology is just put it in my pocket, but
that isn't in God's plan of things.
Work six days shalt thou labor.
That commandment is twofold.
There cannot be a glorious Sabbath without six days of work.
Exactly the same thing when it comes to owning property.
Let him that stole steal no more, but rather let him labor, working with his hands the
thing which is good that he may have whereup to give to him that hath not.
In God's great plan, we see that we are to possess, to pass on to others, and we are
to possess only as we work for that position or if it is given to us as a gift of love.
But we are to possess and he blesses us for one reason, that we might pass on to others
that which we say is ours.
You cannot absolutely, you cannot beat this thing of giving.
You cannot out give yourself.
You can't do it.
You try it.
Just try it.
You cannot out give.
No man has ever given himself poor, but there is such a thing as giving yourself rich.
I promise you understand it.
I can understand it, only that it's one of God's rules.
It's one of his laws.
You cannot give yourself poor, but you can give yourself rich.
Now here we come very definitely to another phase of this thing, another phase of God's
great economics.
Now in this first part when he says that we are to give to those who have not, well now
that includes your wife's mother, that includes poor relatives, that includes those neighbors,
that includes the folks down the street.
There comes your charity.
That includes, that's somebody else that you feel needs your help.
Don't bring that part into God's part.
God has a part separate and a part to this part of his plan for giving.
Will a man rob God?
Those very words are startling.
My goodness alive, it's bad enough to rob your brother.
It's bad enough to steal from your enemy.
But the very idea of a human being to rob God, pause a minute, we need to get back again
and have a full realization of who God is.
He who spoke the world into existence, it is in his power to give life, to take life.
He alone can bless one.
The most high God, God Almighty, the very thoughts of a human being robbing him.
Could you ever imagine in your wildest imagination someone stepping behind the throne of God
and stealing something from off of the throne or stealing something from the person of God
Almighty?
Oh, but watch what God says.
Will a man rob God?
And then he continues, yet ye have robbed me.
He makes a very definite statement.
Ye have robbed me.
But ye say, wherein have we robbed thee?
And he answers in a very definite statement in tithes and offerings.
Bring ye all the tithes where?
Now your wife's mother is not included in this.
She is included in that part that we had in our last heart to heart talk.
Those who have less than you have and those that you can help.
The tithes and the offerings are to be brought into one place and used for one purpose.
Bring ye all the tithes into the storehouse.
And the storehouse is where you get your spiritual food.
That there may be meat in mine house.
This is how God's work is to be supported.
It never was in God's plan that we had to go out with a little tin cup and beg for God.
This brings a reproach on the ministry.
It is absolutely contrary to the word of God for preachers and for priests and for God's
workers to beg and beg and plead.
Every time you tune in a broadcast and they are using some kind of gimmick and they're
begging for offerings, beloved, all those things are bringing a reproach on the Lord's
work.
No preacher should ever get up in his pulpit and beg and plead and plead the people for
money that never was in God's plan.
Never.
In God's great plan of economics, he made provision for the preaching of the gospel.
He made provision for his church.
He made provision for the preaching of the word.
Bring ye all the tithes into the storehouse that there may be meat in mine house.
And prove me now, herewith saith the Lord of hosts, if I will not open you the windows
of heaven and pour you out a blessing, that there shall not be room enough to receive
it.
Is that the end?
No, he continues because God is practical.
And I will rebuke the devourer for your sakes.
And he shall not destroy the fruits of your ground.
Neither shall your vine cast your fruit before the time in the field, saith the Lord of hosts.
In other words, if you'll be obedient, if you will follow me blindly, and that's exactly
what it is, if you will take me at my word, if you will dare to prove me, and this is
the challenge, this is the greatest challenge that any human being can ever receive.
The challenge comes from God Almighty.
Now there's many a man who may challenge you, but he cannot back up his word.
He doesn't have the wherewithal to back it up.
But when God Almighty challenges you and me to dare to prove him, we may have to do it
blindly because from our point of view, we don't see how we can do it.
Don't argue with him.
Never argue with God.
You don't have to.
Look up and say, all right, you've said it.
I accept the challenge.
I'll do it.
If you will bring the tithe, the offering into the storehouse, the place where you are
getting your spiritual food, it's not to be used for any other purpose, but for the preaching
of the gospel into his storehouse where men and women are being saved, lives transformed
with the power of God.
It is a storehouse, and be sure it is God's storehouse, that there may be meat in my house.
Believe me now, right now, not after you get home to glory, but now, this very moment.
And he says, I will pour you out such a blessing as there shall not be room enough to receive
it even to the rebuking of the devourer for your sakes.
And he shall not destroy the fruit of your ground, neither shall your vine cast her fruit
before the time in the field, saith the Lord of hosts.
This may seem so inconsistent to you, but watch.
It's the most reasonable thing.
It's the most consistent thing that I know anything about.
Why tithe?
Why?
What something?
Because life, property, money, talents, everything in the world, all that we have, all that we
are come from God and prospers only by the blessing of God himself.
Never was man possessed of a more stupid delusion than the delusion of self-sufficiency.
Oh, I've heard them say, what I have earned are, what I have cultivated are, what I have
done in myself is the most stupid language that man can ever permit to leave from his
lips.
The most egotistical, stupid bit of humanity.
Just to think that you are self-sufficient.
Is your heart?
If your land has produced an abundant harvest, you might do well to remember that even the
land you claim as yours is not yours.
The earth is the Lord's.
And remember, it was his sunshine, his air, his rain that germinated the seed and matured
the harvest.
Until you can create your own land, your own sunshine, air and moisture, and create your
own seed, germinate it, and mature the harvest, your boast of independence is stupid to the
point of insanity.
I don't care who you are.
I don't care how keen your intellect may be.
You may be considered a very intellectual person.
You may be considered a very successful person.
And yet, you are dependent on the mercy of God for even the air that you breathe and
the next beat of your hutch.
Any amount of millionaire who was sufficient in himself, when that moment came and he knew
the old ticker was taking his last tick, would have exchanged every dollar that he had in
his possession for just a few more ticks of the heart and just a few more days in which
to breathe God's air and yet when God says it's enough, he realized perhaps the first
time in his life that he was absolutely utterly dependent on Almighty God.
That's something.
I love to think that the greatest reason in the world to tithe is because in tithing,
we admit our dependence on Almighty God.
Your tithe is to practice putting God first.
The first day of the week when you come, bringing his part, never take anything out of your
paycheck until you take God's part out first.
Here it is, Lord.
I bring my tithe, I bring my offering into the storehouse, God first.
Tithing puts God first.
And you want to know something?
God first, the Bible says, and all these things shall be added unto you.
Accept that challenge and I promise you, he will keep his word.
A God who cannot lie and who has promised will keep his word with you.
Amen.