You Will Tip Twenty Percent But Fight Ten

Transcript

Welcome Back And Why The Pause

unknown 0:23

Hello everybody.

SPEAKER_00 0:24

Welcome to today's episode of Walk With Me. I am your host, JJ. So good to have each and every one of you here. I am glad to have you along with for the ride. Thank you all for watching, listening, and sharing, and and even those of you who have uh contacted me on the side uh about why there hasn't been any episodes lately. Thank you all so much for your concern. Basically, I'm just gonna say this, we're gonna move on. Had a lot of uh family activities. It wasn't an emergency, anything like that. I basically just ran out of time and didn't want to just throw together a haphazard episode. So I decided to just take that regard. Love each and every one of you. Thank you all for your love and your concern and sharing and all of the things. Thank you so much. Thank you so much. Because this show is for you as well as it is for me. Y'all just don't get it. I I, you know, this show helps you to study and be more approved for the word of God as well. So love each and every one of you. Thank you all. Thank you all. Um, and now that we have finished our end times question and our end times Bible study, I'm moving on to a new question. And I thought I could answer this question in like one or two verses, but apparently I can't. So, today's question will be about tithing. Yep, that dreaded word

Why Tithing Becomes A Fight

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tithing. Now, let me just say this. Um, this is one of the things that we Christians argue over that makes no sense to me. It absolutely makes zero sense to me. Why? Um, because first off, let's talk about what tithing is, and then I'll tell you why it doesn't make any sense. Tithing states that you are to bring a tenth of your increase, which in modern times we would say a tenth is ten percent, because ten percent of a dollar is one is is ten cents, and that means a tenth is ten cents, right? All right, so that being said, that is a thing we argue about so much that we shouldn't bring 10% to God. But the same people who will argue over this 10% will support tipping 15% or 20%, have no problem um running up credit cards with 30% interest, and then when they get into a financial bind, the first thing they'll do is ask God for money. I so please understand, I I just don't understand this argument. I do not understand why we argue over this thing. And whether or not yes, I and just to kind of you know kind of cut off a an argument here because this guy hit threw up on at me too. Well, you're not supposed to tithe, you're supposed to kill cheerfully. Well, you're supposed to tithe cheerfully, you can do two things at the same time. Now, if you are saying, oh, well, I have to pay tithes, and you look at it that way, you're really not um doing it in the full, you're not gonna get the full benefit, but you are going to get benefit for the act of obedience, because the Bible does say obedience is better than sacrifice, you're doing it because God said to do it. Um, and so rather than not doing it, but if you do it cheerfully, you get a bigger blessing. So let's establish whether or not God says to tithe. And I have no idea. Well, let me rephrase that. I know exactly where this comes from. I what I don't know is that why Christians are willing to accept it. So I what is tithe? Tithe again is 10%. Where are we told to bring tithe into the storehouse, into the church, or what is our tithe supposed to be? What is tithe and and what are we supposed to do with it? Now, the old go-to um verse is Malachi 3.10. Now I'm gonna read it in the King James Version, and then I'm gonna read it in the New Living Translation. And like I said, I like New Living Translation because this sounds more common speak. Well, let's get started. Malachi

Malachi 3 And The Storehouse

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3.10 and 11. Bring all the tithe 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 the windows of heaven and pour you out a blessing, that there shall not be room enough to receive it. And 11, and I will rebuke thee, devourer for your sakes, and he shall not destroy the fruits of your ground, neither shall your vine cast her fruit before the time in the field, saith the Lord of hosts. Now I'm going to read this, and I'm going to come back to especially verse 11. But I'm going to read this in the New Living Translation, too. Bring all the tithe, the tenth, into the storehouse, so there may be food in my house, and test me now in this, saith the Lord of hosts. If I will not open the windows of heaven and pour you out a great pour out for you so great a blessing until there is no more room to receive it, then when I rebuke the devourer, insects or plagues, for your sake, and he will not destroy the fruits of your ground, nor will your vine in the field drop its grapes for harvest, saith the Lord of hosts. And just for the sauce on the hot dog here, all nations shall call you happy and blessed, for you shall be a land of delight, say the Lord of hosts. Now, that right there is actually where God is commanding people to bring their tithes to the storehouse. Now, all of a sudden, we start trying to parse this thing out. Okay, what is tithe? 10%. Well, he's he's talking about fruit and and vegetables and stuff. Well, let's go back to where you first start seeing tithes. The first time you see tithe is in Genesis, and it was Genesis in Genesis where Abraham uh tied to Melchazedek, and this is gonna be in uh Genesis 14, 18 to 20. Wait, hold on. Before we do that, there is a rule on this podcast, and if you're brand new, if you if we're coming back, if you're coming back, you pretty much know this rule but already. But there is a rule on this podcast that you always uh read a verse or two above and a verse or two below, but preferably the whole chapter. Why? Context is key when you're talking about the word of God. I can take anything you say, or you can take anything that I say, take one line out of it, put it with another line, and make it say whatever you want it to say. Now, is that what I said? Absolutely not. Same thing I can do to you. I can take anything you say out of context. We see it all the time. This guy says a word over here and a word over there, and then they take a bit of a bit and piece out of it, and they add their own flavor to it. And before you get to not uh before you get to anything, something completely said that was never said, and now it's a complete lie. So remember, verse or two above, verse or two below, but preferably the whole chapter. So let's go back to the first time we see the word tithe in the word of God. That's Genesis chapter 14. And it is written that Belzedek brought out bread and wine and blessed Abraham, saying, Blessed be the Abraham of God, or Abram of God, most high, possessor of heaven and earth, and blessed be the most high who has delivered your enemies into your hand. In response, Abraham then turned around and gave a tithe of everything he had received in battle to Melchazedek. Now, what I read to you was out of the New King James Version. Now, Abraham had just rescued Lot and defeated kings who had taken Lot captive, and Melchazedek acknowledged God's sovereignty and blessed Abraham. And this is what gave Abraham the prompt to give the 10% of the spoils. But he did it as an act of worship and an act of recognizing God's providing. So the idea was God gave me 100%, I give back 10%, and God still gave me 90%. Does that make sense? God gave me 100%, I gave back 10%, I still keep 90%, I still came out ahead. Right? And on top of that, God gave me the victory to do it again. So I can have more income, more spoils. Okay, as a matter of fact, um, Paul recognizes this in the book of Hebrews, 7, uh chapter 7, 1 to 3, where he actually draws a correlation, a comparison to Melchizedek being a type of Christ, because Melchizedek was a king and a priest, like Jesus Christ is a king and a priest, and this represents God's eternal uh priesthood in Abraham's life. So this is where we first start

Reading Scripture With Full Context

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seeing the word tithe. Now I would like to, and and the question was thrown at me: well, Abraham didn't make a law. Okay, there was no real law then, just whatever God said, Abraham did it, right? There was sin because remember, God went down and destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah because of the sin that they had, and he God told Abraham about it, and he went and did it. So, what is um the next thing that happens? We don't see Isaac doing a tithe, right? But we do see Jacob doing a tithe, and I'm gonna I wish I had time to come back to what happened to Isaac because if he didn't tithe, but that's neither here nor there, and I don't have the time for it right now. However, we do see Jacob tithing. So, the question is if Abraham was the first to do it, and Isaac was the I'm sorry, and Jacob was the second to do it, who would have told Jacob how to do it? Obviously, it was Abraham that did it. Oh, wait, hold on. You don't know you you don't know where Jacob tithes. Okay, well, Genesis 28, chapter 28, verses 20 and 22. He makes a vow after he has that dream. He promises God, if you will be with me and watch over me on this journey and give me food to eat, clothes to wear, um, and help me return safely to my father's household, which is Jacob. I'm sorry, which is Isaac, then the Lord will be my God, and this stone I will set up as a pillar to be God's house. That's important, God's house, and of all that you give me, I will give you a tenth. Right there, she's where Jacob had vowed to tithe. So remember now, we are still in Genesis, we're not in Exodus, we're not in Leviticus yet, we will get there. We're not in Malachi yet, we're not in Hebrews yet. So this tithing thing came all the way from the beginning, okay? So this is a vow of a commitment to God, and

Abraham And Jacob Tithe First

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again, it's acknowledging God's sovereignty and the way He provides. So it's very important to understand that this is we are just in the beginning parts of tithing, right? And the tithing has always been consistent. Bring me a tenth, bring me a tenth, and Malachi explains it to the fact well, if you bring me a tenth, I will bless you beyond your wildest measure. Let me just stop right here because this is the part that I really don't understand. I first got the Holy Ghost in 1994, right? I got to the Holy Ghost in August of 1994. I started paying tithes. I was making like $5.25 an hour. I was married, wife wasn't working, and I was able to take care of everything and still pay tithes. And I didn't fully understand it yet, so there were some mistakes I made. So, that being said, let me just pick and put an aside there that even if you make a few mistakes in how you're paying tithes, you've never done it before, God is going to give you some leniency on it. But the idea is that you are being obedient to the concept of paying tithes. Here's where your problem comes in. If you start to spend your tithes, then you owe God more. And I'll we'll talk on that. I'm getting ahead of myself. But what I was gonna say is ever since 1994, when I paid my tithes faithfully, listen to me very careful, Walkers. Very carefully, Walkers. Please listen to me if you don't hear anything else. Because the one of the one of the devil's arguments is well, well, people are struggling, so they can't pay tithes. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. So you don't pay tithes based on what is left over. You take your tithes off of what is the what comes in there first. You take it off the top. Now, we're not gonna argue if it's post uh pre-tax, post-tax, that's something you talk to your pastor about. Because I kind of do both, because then I tithe on the tax income tax refund too. So then there's that. So that being said, what I have noticed since I started paying tithes in 1994, when I paid tithes faithfully, I had no financial problems. Furthermore, people who have paid tithes that I have watched pay tithes, and I mean two, three, four hundred dollar tithes, never had a problem paying or with financial problems, even when their tithes was five dollars because they only made fifty dollars that week. And I'm thinking about you, Tim. Um, so when when you he had a $50 check and was still able to make his ends meet until the next check. So I'm I'm saying this because we have to understand that obeying God has his own rewards, but when I backslid, and yes, I I was I've said it before on this podcast, I will say it again. When I backslid because I thought I was full of myself and didn't pay tithes, that's when I had the financial problems. And I the only thing I could say, because I I never changed anything, I didn't start doing drugs or smoking cigarettes or whatever. I I'm just saying it just seemed like the blessings of God was not on my life, and therefore I had financial problems. So I had to literally go back into paying tithes on purpose off the top, and then started getting the blessing again. I and I just wanted to address that because that was that's about 30% of the argument that I get. Okay. The other, I would say another big part of the argument, I'll say another 30%, is people saying, well, these preachers are doing the bad stuff with their money. Let me explain something to you. We still have to go back to obedience is better than sacrifice. Um, because a lot of people tell you, well, Malachi 1 and 2 talks about how corrupt the priest system was. Please understand, walkers, chapter 3 comes after chapter 1 and 2. Why is that important? Because God is saying it doesn't matter what the preacher does with your money, that's between that preacher and God. That has nothing to do with what you do, with your tithes that you owe God, that God has already blessed you with. That preacher goes now. That preacher, you don't like the way that preacher flies around his own private jet and has two Teslas, a Laborgini and a Bentley, then go to if well, if if he's preaching a false doctrine, then you just go find you another church. If you don't like that, because if he's preaching false doctrine, now God can bless preachers just like he can bless you. You want a nice house, a nice car, but you don't think the preacher should. See, that right there is another spirit. That's another devil I don't want to get into yet because we're already more than halfway through, and I have a lot of ground to cover. Alright, so let us define tithe. Tithe is biblically speaking, a tenth of your increase. Now,

Off The Top Giving And Obedience

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this is a problem that another a lot of other scoffers will run into. See, Leviticus says in 27, 30 through 32, that a tenth of the tithe of the land, whether grain, fruit, or animals, be brought to the Lord, and it is holy to the Lord. We ain't supposed to be touching anything that's holy anyway. We should be holy, but don't take God's holy, because our remember, our holiness is filthy rags, we ain't worth it. So please understand that book is about Leviticus. That's not to say that that it only applies to Leviticus to the Levites. That's not what I'm saying. What I'm saying is this book is about how to take care of the church or the house of God. Granted, back then it was called the temple or the tabernacle, or a lot of different words for it. Today it is the house of God, it's the church of God. And why? Because the Levites had no inheritance. The Levites couldn't, we're not supposed to work. Their primary job was to take care of the house of God and do the things that the children of Israel needed for salvation. That was their job. So how are they going to eat? They're eating off the 10% of everyone else, which still puts them below the rest of the um the rest of the tribes. What what do you mean below? Because 10% from 12 from 11 tribes is 110%. Because their job, believe it or not, Levites had a deadly job. Because if they didn't do everything right, God killed them. Boom. DN. End of story. So they still had to put everything together. They had to do do the all the priestly duties, all the cleansing rituals, all the praying, all the slaying of the sacrifices, and and all of everything for the people to be saved. Now, I'm run I'm running out of time, but I would just want to cover a couple other things. Because some people someone said, well, the tithe is for the church, but you don't want to ties to the church, but you want the church to be able to help you when you need help. Well, let me ask you this, y'all. This was this is by far the most out-of-the-way argument I've ever heard. How is the church supposed to help you if you're not paying the tithes? Where is the money supposed to come from? Malachi 3.10 says, Bring the tithe to the church so that there might be meat in my storehouse. God didn't necessarily say bring the meat. As a matter of fact, let's look at Deuteronomy. Um it's gonna be in uh what is that? Deuteronomy 14, uh, verse 26. And it's gonna be 25, I think it's 24 to 26. And let me uh pull it up, let me pull it up myself first because I don't want to misquote it, because then you'd be like, JJ, you a liar. Deuteronomy chapter 14. Let's start at verse 24. No, actually, let's let's go with uh I don't know how I ended up at Amplify. All right, so it is 24. Okay, so and if the way be too long for thee that thou art not able to carry the tithe, because that's what they're talking about, uh you can't carry a land for 220 miles while you're walking. So please understand. So we're this is where we're at Deuteronomy chapter 14, uh verse 24. And if the way be too long for thee that thou art not able to carry it, or if the place be too far from thee, which the Lord thy God shall choose to set his name there, which we are talking about here, the tabernacle, the house of God, the temple. All right, so his name is there. We say it's the house of the Lord, church of God. You know that so his name is there, right? So this is what the Lord chose. So you're supposed to take this here, but if it's too much for you to take here, chapter verse 25, then thou shalt turn it into money, bind up the money in your hand and shall go to the place which the Lord thy God shall choose. Wait a second. How do you turn a sheep into a dollar? You have to sell it. How do you turn turn a basket of wheat into money? You have to sell it. So and you bringing, and once you sell that, that's your increase. You you're not so you're not gonna eat 200 acres of corn. That's it that's retarded. You you would literally be 900 pounds. But what you do is you sell that corn

Levites Support Money Tithes Offerings

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to other people who can buy the corn, then you take the money, that's your increase. You take the 10% to the temple, to the church, to the tabernacle, whatever you want to call that place where God's house is. That's where the use of money comes in. And guess what? Now the the church takes that money, the temple takes that money, the tabernacle takes that money, and then buys the things that it needs to sustain itself, but it's not necessarily for the poor. Wait a minute, what? Because in addition to the ties that you're supposed to have, there are other rules for how you are not supposed to use up everything that you have. In other words, um, as a matter of fact, the story of Ruth is based on this uh subject, and we this is only as far as I'm gonna be able to cover it today, uh we're gonna have to finish it next week. The story of Ruth is based on this thing called corner gleaning. What does that mean? So, what one of the things that God told the children of Israel to do, and I will look up the chapter and verse, um, what they what they told the children of Israel to do is when you go to harvest your field, do not gather the corners. Right? And if you're gathering it and wheat fall off or grapes fall off the off the basket or whatever, leave it. Because what happens is once the harvesters go through the fields, the poor, the widow, the sick are supposed to come and then clean up the rest of it. Wait, what? Oh, yes, you we didn't get we don't hear that part, we don't hear anybody talk about that part. That's our not that's our modern day tithe. I'm sorry. Uh uh. That's our modern day offering. So we have our tithes that we've we've already gone through and did the offer the harvest, so we take the 10% of the increase, we went and got our paycheck, we went and we worked on 12 hours at our job, we got paid $150, so we give our $15 tithes, and then because we are responsible with for our money, we give a little extra. Because the corners are supposed to be for the poor, for the infirm. That's the entire that's how Ruth met Boaz. Because her and Naomi were gleaming the corners of the field. So it's important to understand that one of the things that this tithing and gleaning is teaching us, and and we're still gonna talk more about tithing because it's not this is not the only two places we have it. It's about having a proper place for your money. God is not saying for you not to work, God is not saying for you to um be stingy with your money, or nor is He also saying to be wasteful with it either. Okay, that being said, we're coming close to the end of our session here, but very, very carefully um read these passages and pray about these passages. Talk to your pastor about these passages because it is very important, and especially if you've been having financial problems, and I am not, please understand, I am not that guy that is going to be talking about prosperity doctrine. I think that's the doctrine of the devil. Sorry, but you want to you want to do it the right way, pay your tithes and pay your offering. What is the offering? I don't know. Some people, some I've heard some people say it's an additional 5%. I don't know. I just think that the offering part is is what you what you're letting your heart to give. And so a lot of people will use some of the new scripture, new testament scriptures that we're going to talk about to try to correlate them to tithe, and that's not how it's supposed to be. The offering is supposed to be from your heart, the tithe is by the book. All right. Love each and every one of you. I love each and every one of you. Thank you all for. I know we went a little bit long today, but I hope, I hope you got something out of it. We are not anywhere close to being done. I think we're about a third of the way through.

Next Steps And Sponsor Thanks

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So I love each and every one of you. See you all next week. Make sure you take care of our sponsors, two bars, the lyrics, exquisite creations. They love you and they thank you for your patron, your patronage. God bless you. See you on the next one.