This is a continuation of a previous broadcast in which I spoke about the tithe being a celebratory opportunity, where God has given us great symbols by which to celebrate eternal things. Now when it comes to being a son of God, God has given us an inheritance. We are not to bargain for that inheritance because you can’t bargain for an inheritance; it is a promise. As a son, that inheritance is given to you by your father and you may properly expect that that inheritance will attend you and that all you need for life and godliness is envisioned to be within that inheritance. (Inserted – actual verse—“His divine power has given us everything we need for life and godliness through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness.” – II Peter 1:3) We were saying that typically people bargain for what they get, especially in money and in money-terms, and they bargain in terms of thinking that they are getting God to agree to protecting the nation, to protecting their families, to supporting their finances and their economics, and to provide for them in health terms, for themselves and their families.
But I was pointing out: these things were exactly what God promised under the law in exchange for which, under the law, the tithe was one of the requirements for the support of the Levitical order. But as sons, we have an inheritance whether or not we give to God. The tithe is a way that God has given us to celebrate our sonship. Even in the situation that involved Abraham when he gave the tithe to Melchizedek, you will recall that Abraham was returning from the defeat of the kings who had abducted Lot and taken that portion of Abraham’s inheritance that Abraham had previously given to Lot. So in a sense, when Abraham rescued Lot, he retook his inheritance and out of that he tithed. The point is that there is a direct connection between your understanding that you are a son and the freedom and the opportunity to tithe.
You have the opportunity to celebrate the fact that you are no longer living under the curse of the sweat of your brow. “By the sweat of your brow you will eat bread.” (Inserted – actual verse—“ ‘By the sweat of your brow you will eat your food until you return to the ground, since from it you were taken; for dust you are and to dust you will return.’” – Genesis 3:19) You will recall that after the flood, in the book of Genesis, about the 7th chapter, God said, “I will no longer curse the ground for man’s sake.” (Inserted – actual verse—“The Lord smelled the pleasing aroma and said in his heart: ‘Never again will I curse the ground because of man, even though every inclination of his heart is evil from childhood. And never again will I destroy all living creatures, as I have done.” – Genesis 8:21)
The curse itself was revoked and where you are concerned as the sons of God, the Scriptures in Matthew 6 specifically says, “Your heavenly Father knows the things for which you have a need, such as: wherewithal shall you be clothed, what will you eat, what will you drink.” He says, “The Gentiles—the unbelievers in that category—the unbelievers worry about these things, but if you will seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness then all these things shall be added unto you.” (Inserted – actual verse—“So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.” – Matthew 6:31-34)
The belief that somehow you “give to get” is rooted in the mentality of slavery. To suggest that your inheritance is anything but a gift is to suggest that you have traded places from being sons to being slaves. Now what about this thing though that commonly occurs in Scripture about faithfulness in giving? The Word says, “If you are unfaithful with unrighteous mammon, how can you expect to receive the riches of the kingdom?” (Inserted – actual verse—“If therefore ye have not been faithful in the unrighteous mammon, who will commit to your trust the true riches?” – Luke 16:11 KJV) Begin with this fact: To receive money from God is to receive the lowest of the thresholds of blessings from God because the Bible describes money as “unrighteous mammon” and compares unrighteous mammon unfavorably to the true riches of the kingdom of heaven.
What are the true riches of the kingdom? Well they would include the character of God, would they not? And they would include greater endowments of your gift as a son—gifts to you as a son, of your inheritance—and your calling, where you are able to function in relationship to who God made you to be. So what is the relationship between being found faithful in unrighteous mammon and then being given the gifts of the kingdom? Well the relationship is this: God will test you with unrighteous mammon to see if you still put your trust in your ability to pay your own way as opposed to trusting God… to see if you are still there.
Here is how it works. This is found in II Corinthians, the 6th chapter. The majority of what God entrusts to you in money terms—finances—He means for you to consume as bread for food. That means when God gives you financial resources, God typically expects that you consume upon yourself and your family most of it. When He is starting out with you, He has two other requirements. One is that you give the tithe to celebrate your sonship so that you do not think that hoarding and keeping what you have is in fact how you are blessed.
People begin in the Spirit and they continue in the flesh. They begin to ask God for financial opportunities and when He gives them that they thank God for it and then pull it all in and say, “Okay, now I have financial opportunities. These are the ways I am going to support myself.” Not remembering that you first asked God and then He gave to you. How difficult is it for God to give you more if you are proven to be faithful? You know people settle for so little because they are not willing to move in faith beyond the little that has been given. They are prepared to consume the little and stay there, but if you will celebrate the fact that you are free from the sweat of your brow by giving the tithe—and that’s how you celebrate that—then you open yourselves for greater endowments of his grace. So part of it God will require you to give the tithe. It is not a law. It is not how you become a son. It is that because you are a son and you have this inheritance you are distancing yourself from a “works mentality,” and you are beginning to embrace the fact that whatever you need for life and godliness, your Father will give it to you. That’s what the tithe declares.
Now as God begins to test you, not only will He test you with the tithe but He will test you with something else. He will test you with offerings. He will give you all you need and then He will require you to sow a portion of it. Now if you eat all that He gives you, if you consume it all as bread for food, and you do not sow any of it there is no sin in that. You are not going to hell but what it does say is that you cannot be trusted to take care of people and to take care of things that God is interested in taking care of. So God will give you bread for food—and eat all the bread you get—but He will not begin to hand over to you the riches of his kingdom because in your failure to listen to the Holy Spirit with what He has given you… He allows you to consume practically all of it on yourself and your family but if you do not learn beyond that, to sow and to give the portions of it as offerings… He requires the tithe—again, not as a condition of sonship but in celebration of sonship—just like He requires baptism, like He requires that you partake of the Lord’s supper. Because when you do these things you are celebrating great eternal truths and it is in your celebration that these things become real to you.
If you never celebrate them then the idea of what these things represent will fade even from your memory and you as a believer cannot afford to fail to remember that you have been washed so that you may be sacrificed. You cannot afford to fail to remember that. You must also remember that you have been presented to God. You have been raised from the dead, and the Spirit of God has separated you from the world that you might be a son of God. You cannot afford to forget that. These things are critical to the understanding of who you are as sons of God. Similarly you cannot afford to go back to the mentality of being a slave, scratching and hunting and pecking to get your daily bread because then you can be controlled by your need and the fear that you won’t have enough. So that’s why God insists that you—in a habitual way—that you practice these things because they are the actual incidences of your freedom.
Now when God gives you this portion of money and you will give the tithe and you will sow with offerings, what God concludes is: here is a man, here is a woman who can be trusted to do with my resources the things I would have him or her do. In other words, they can be trusted to express God’s goodness in money terms. They can be trusted to express God’s love and kindness to people who have a need. Now when you are willing to do that God will increase your seed for sowing. God will multiply to you that extra that you need so that you may have all that you need and all that you need to supply on every occasion. So that you become a conduit of the blessings of God and you never fall prey to a hoarding mentality.
Unfortunately, when this is taught it is taught that you “give to get,” but it is not taught that you give as an indication that you can be trusted with unrighteous mammon as a prelude to God entrusting to you the greater riches of the kingdom of heaven which is: to have God’s heart and concern for the lost, God’s heart and concern for humanity and then be allowed by God to be the instrument by whom God supplies what is needed. This now becomes the foundation of your ability to serve God in a mature fashion. How can you expect to be handed over the true riches of the kingdom when you are unfaithful with unrighteous mammon? The reason men fail to be faithful with unrighteous mammon is because they go back to the mentality of slaves when it comes to money. They think that you have got to hoard it in order to have it. They do not realize that whatever you need will be supplied in a timely manner every time.
When I began to see the mentality of a slave, when I began to see the mentality of poverty, it was in this example: I once had a friend who—he and I were having a conversation one day, just about our childhood and he said to me, “Well, when I was a child I slept with a tortilla, with a piece of bread, under my pillow.” I was surprised by that. I thought it was some kind of a tooth fairy thing. So I said, “Well why? Why would sleep with a piece of bread under your pillow?” And he said, “So that when I awoke the next morning I would have something to eat.” And it was really my first face-to-face contact with the mentality of poverty… “So that I would have something to eat.” And I thought about my own childhood and how I never thought about needing something to eat when I woke up. I always assumed that when I woke up the next morning, when I got up, there would be breakfast.
I think of my own children and how they never think of how they have to take care of themselves. That’s their father’s responsibility. The mentality of a slave is: I must hoard what my Father gives me because tomorrow He will not give me bread for that day. Why do you think Jesus asked us to pray, “And give us this day our daily bread.” (Inserted – actual verse—“Give us today our daily bread.” – Matthew 6:11) Why do you think that manna came every day and the children of Israel were forbidden to collect manna for two days in a row except on the sixth day because on the seventh day they were required not to collect any manna and no manna came. God simply wanted them to understand that He, the Almighty, knows what is necessary for every day and when you assume that the Almighty cannot supply you fresh and new manna in every day then you have assumed a lack of capacity on the part of God that makes him less than God.
Your inheritance has to do with who your Father is, and when your attitude is that of a slave you cannot trust your Father. You cannot rely upon who your Father is. Earthly fathers are given to us to teach us about the character of our heavenly Father. I have a goal for myself in relationship to my children and that goal is: that because I raised my children in a manner that reflected the character of God, especially in regards to their supply, that they will grow up always assuming that God will supply them every day in regards to whatever they need in that day. That’s my goal: that they will never fail to believe who God is.
The hardest thing to change in the minds of Christians today is the mentality of slaves. Always anticipating that, by the sweat of your brow, when you “work it” you will have what you need. It isn’t just the law that deposits that legacy but Christian law is mainly to be blamed for that condition. What do I mean by Christian law? I mean all those teachers and all those doctrines that they teach to entrap your thinking into believing that if you will do “this, this, this and this”—whatever those things may be—that that’s how you get supplied. That’s utter rubbish and what it does is that it robs you of the standing as a son.
You’ve been routinely told that if you don’t tithe your finances will be cursed. That’s the Old Testament. That’s the law of Moses. When God said in Malachi, “Put me now herewith to the test. If you will bring the tithes and offerings into the storehouse, put me to the test and see if I will not open the windows of heaven and bless you.” (Inserted – actual verse—“Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house. Test me in this,’ says the Lord Almighty, ‘and see if I will not throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing that you will not have room enough for it.’” – Malachi 3:9,10) These people were not the sons of God. Do you understand what I am saying? They were not the sons of God. The law never made anyone into a son because the law created an indebtedness in which you were a slave. A slave cannot handle the inheritance of a son because the slave is never given the inheritance of a son. A slave hopes that the master will supply on the basis of the slave’s labor. But you are a son… you are a son.
The storehouse used to be the temple and the reason that they were required to bring tithes to the storehouse was because the storehouse… The nature of the tithe was that it was grain, produce, livestock and so on and if they left it out on the steps it would spoil. Today you hear pastors saying, “Bring the tithe into the church building and God will bless you.” I submit to you brothers and sisters: this makes you a slave. The model of this teaching is the Old Testament and law. That’s the model of it. You are a son and your supply does not depend upon whether or not you tithe. Your supply depends upon who your Father is. Your Father knows that you have needs before you ask. (Inserted – actual verse—“Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him.” – Matthew 6:8) I have children, they are adult children, but because I have been a young person I know when they have needs. They don’t particularly have to ask me. I mean if for some reason I overlook it and they ask me I will help them. I will give them the supply according to what they need. But I anticipate what they need because I am their father… I am their father.
In the New Testament you are treated as sons and not as slaves. The tithe is not about your supply; it is about your celebration of your sonship. You celebrate the fact that you have an inheritance from your Father. That’s what the tithe is and in that sense it is like the Lord’s Supper that celebrates your resurrection. It’s like baptism, which celebrates your separation from the world. “Offerings” is how God tests you to see if you may become a conduit of blessings to others. So God will give you bread for food and seed for sowing. He wants you to eat the bread that He gives you for food and for you not to worry about it, but the offerings—the portions that He would give you for offerings—He wants you to sow those into the lives of other people so that you might receive the blessedness—according to the Scriptures that say, “It is more blessed to give than to receive.” (Inserted – Acts 20:35b)
What is the blessedness? The blessedness is to stand in the place of God. “For God so loved the world that He gave…” (Inserted – John 3:16a) When you give, you understand; something is released in your heart concerning the understanding of the nature of God because everything you give as a gift is not something that somebody else has earned. It is generosity on your part toward them. If they earned it you shouldn’t feel good or bad about giving it to them because you are not entitled to feel like somehow you have done something wonderful. If I have workmen at my house and I pay them I should have no sense that I am some magnanimous person because I paid them their wage. But when I give I can see how God feels when He gives to us. That’s the blessedness; that is why it is more blessed to give than to receive.
So it is also why, as a partaker of the divine nature, God will give you some seed for sowing so that you can taste what it feels like to be on the side of the blessedness where God always is. Why? Because God is raising up sons as rulers… a royal priesthood. Royalty is about ruling. When you have not learned to give, you are still an infant son. An infant son is never concerned about the well-being of anybody else. An infant son’s favorite word is: “Mine,” because they only know how to receive. Well when you become mature you take over the responsibilities of your Father’s house because the house is yours and you are ruling it in a manner consistent with the character of your heavenly Father. That’s why the Scriptures say, “If you are unfaithful in unrighteous mammon, how can you expect to be given the riches of the kingdom?” (Inserted – Luke 16:11) Money is the lowest threshold and therefore it is an appropriate test… the tithe, the offering. The tithe will have you celebrate your sonship. An offering will have you celebrate the nature of God in his goodness. These are the realities of being a son of God. You have an inheritance. I’m Sam Soleyn. God bless you. I’ll see you again.
Scripture References:
II Peter 1:3
Genesis 3:19
Genesis 8:21
Matthew 6:31-34
Luke 16:11
Matthew 6:11
Malachi 3:9,10
Matthew 6:8
Acts 20:35b
John 3:16a
