2) EXPOSING Church Tithing!

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And now, your Truth Time host, Trey Searcy.
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All right, today on Truth Time Radio we're speaking out against pastors who are unfit for service.
Those who are merchandising Jesus Christ with their predatory tithing doctrines.
Truth Time is here to call you out of religion and into grace.
The Old Testament tithe was a tax to support Israel's theocratic nation and this tax was not money as most teach today.
This tax to support Israel is not for anyone on this side of the cross, not for any saved member of the church, the body of Christ.
Now listen, there were three Old Testament tithes, or taxes, we could call them that, in your Bible.
The Levitical tithe, that's where they gave 10% of their, listen, of their livestock and crops, Leviticus 27 verses 30 to 33.
There was the welfare tithe, the welfare tax, and it went to the poor and the widows of Israel, Deuteronomy 14 verses 28 and 29, and then we have the festival tithe slash tax.
It went to support Israel's religious festivals, Deuteronomy 14:28 and 29.
These tithes were a part of a taxation system put in place to support Israel as a nation.
And while you'll hear me mainly speak to these three tithes, we could actually say there were four found in our Bible.
There was one that came later after Israel decided that they wanted a king.
You'll find that in 1 Samuel chapter 8, so we could actually call this one the king's tithe, but we won't cover that today.
Now for years, I've challenged my listeners to show me with scripture just one verse where Israel's tithes, where Israel's taxes, were ever applied to non-Jews.
Just show me one verse.
A tithing was a law, and we mustn't forget that in Acts chapter 15, the Jews were trying to put Paul's Gentile converts under their laws.
What was the result?
Verse 28, For it seemed good to the Holy Ghost, now listen, listen how easy, how plain the Bible makes it.
If you want the truth, receive it.
It seemed good to the Holy Ghost and to us to lay upon you no greater burden than these necessary things.
Verse 29, that ye abstain from meats offered to idols and from blood and from things strangled and from fornication, from which if ye keep yourselves, ye shall do well.
Notice there's no mention of putting the tithe on the Gentiles.
No believing saved member of today's church, the body of Christ, should allow anyone, no matter how many doctorates they have hanging on their wall, don't allow anyone to put a yoke of bondage around your neck, one that the apostles themselves didn't even do.
Paul tells us how to give today, and please notice, please notice what's missing.
Second Corinthians chapter 9 verse 7, go to the word, check this out.
Second Corinthians 9:7, listen, Every man according as he purposed in his heart, so let him give, not grudgingly or of necessity, for God loveth a cheerful giver.
Now where is the percent?
There's no percent mentioned.
A tithe is a tenth, ten percent.
Where is it?
Paul said every man according as he purposed in his heart, not every man give a ten percent tithe.
This under grace giving principle is superior to tithing.
The tithe is not for the church, the body of Christ, the new creature.
And the sooner you get this, the sooner you can begin to enjoy the benefits you've been given in Christ.
And let me add this, when you give, make sure you're giving to support those who are preaching a salvation gospel.
If you're giving to a ministry that's not preaching the message of the cross in its fullness, then listen, you're not giving according to second Corinthians chapter 9 verse 7.
Paul's entire ministry, everything he wrote, everything he said centers around the finished cross work of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
So look up every passage that speaks to the subject of tithing and you'll quickly discover, as I did, that you were lied to.
The tithe always dealt with food and not your ATM card.
Money was never considered to be something that you could tithe.
Study to show thyself approved.
Do your own research.
Money was used to pay poll taxes, sanctuary dues, to buy land.
People paid fines with money, but they never used money to tithe.
So how about this, go to your church this Sunday and tell your pastor this.
See what happens.
Tell them over there that you've decided that you're going to start obeying the word of God when you tithe, and when they come around to take up the tithes, you go to the car and bring in a big basket of fruit and veggies.
This is not a joke.
This would be staying in line with biblical tithing.
I mean it's not for us today, but if it were, this is how you would do it.
You wouldn't get your checkbook out.
You would not start counting your greenbacks.
This is not the biblical way.
And if you'll study this out for yourself, you'll find that Bible tithes only came from Israelites.
How about that?
And Bible tithes were always food.
Food that was grown on a farm or killed from the herd.
And the reason I keep emphasizing Bible is this is not according to your denomination.
No, but according to the Bible.
You see, you thought these two lined up with one another, but sadly they don't.
And hear this, another good point of truth.
Bible tithes only came from what was called at that time the Holy Land, Israel.
And one more point I might add here.
In order to tithe, you must first fit the definition of a tither.
A tither was someone who owned land.
You had to own land.
There's countless Truth Time listeners that don't even own property.
We just sent out some material the other day to a listener that lives in an apartment.
If you were an Israelite back here in the Bible, back here when tithing was enforced, you would not even be expected to tithe.
How could you?
You had no land.
You had no produce.
You had no herd.
No livestock to offer for a tithe.
Those were the only things acceptable.
A tither had to be a farmer or a herdsman.
They were the only ones who tithed.
Why were you not told this?
So if the tithe didn't come from the land of Israel, God's Holy Land, it was of no value to him at all.
It was unacceptable.
If an Israelite, one that didn't dwell in Israel, if they lived somewhere else, they were actually forbidden to bring a tithe from any of their livestock.
No animals that had been raised outside of the land of Israel were accepted for a tithe.
Didn't happen.
They would be considered unholy, not titheable.
Now this gets even more interesting.
Please look at the book of Numbers.
Let's go there.
Numbers chapter 18 and starting here at verse 26, Thus speak unto the Levites, this is God instructing Moses, speak unto the Levites and say unto them, When ye take of the children of Israel the tithes which I have given you from them for your inheritance, then ye shall offer up an heave offering for the LORD, even a tenth part of the tithe, verse 27, And this your heave offering shall be reckoned unto you, as though it were the corn of the threshing-floor, and as the fullness of the wine-press.
Verse 28, Thus ye also shall offer an heave offering unto the LORD of all your tithes which ye receive of the children of Israel, and ye shall give thereof the LORD's heave offering to Aaron the priest.
Oh, this is a good time to insert another truth point here.
In the Bible, the tithe was never brought to the church.
The tithe was never brought to the church as we see it being done today.
Not at all.
The tithe was first brought to the tribe of Levi.
That's what we just read.
And then they would give a tithe from that tithe to the priest.
Get in this book.
Discover these things for yourself.
They tithed from a tithe.
Did you get that?
They tithed from a tithe.
Try pitching that to your church this Sunday.
See how well that goes.
We just read that's what they did.
They had a group that the tithe was brought to and then a tenth of that tithe was given to the priest.
This is not being followed today.
I mean, if you want to call yourself following God, you might want to follow the pattern that he laid out in scripture.
And if that's not enough, here's some more.
We see it again in Nehemiah chapter 10 verse 38.
And the priest, the son of Aaron, shall be with the Levites, when the Levites take tithes.
And the Levites shall bring up the tithe of the tithes unto the house of our God.
It was a tithe of the tithes.
So it was a tenth of what was collected.
It was the Levites who, after receiving the tithe, then they would take it to the house of God.
Not the people.
This was God's order of how the tithe was collected.
And the reason no one teaches this today is they're cherry pickers of God's word.
This is clearly not what today's churches do.
They're not obedient to these instructions.
First of all, they go to someone else's mailbox.
This is not even written to the church today.
They go to their mailbox and then only cherry pick certain parts.
Cherry pick certain parts of what they read.
They pick apart Israel's law.
I'll take this one, but I don't want nothing to do with that one.
Then they turn a deaf ear to what God says about it in James 2:10, which plainly says, ...for whosoever shall keep the whole law, and yet offend in one point, he is guilty of all.
Don't pretend to keep the law when you don't, because if you do, even if you offend in only one point, if you kept it all except for one point, you might as well not have kept any of it.
That's what the Bible says.
And would somebody please tell me just why is it that church pastors own property?
Why is that?
Pastors, if you're teaching the tithe and you own property, you're in direct violation of God's word.
In the church today, we see that this point of truth is totally ignored.
Pastors today do own land.
What's wrong with this picture?
Everything.
It doesn't fit biblical tithing.
I submit evidence from the book of Numbers in chapter 18, Numbers 18, look at verse 20, ...and the LORD spake unto Aaron, Thou shalt have no inheritance in their land, neither shalt thou have any part among them. I am thy part and thine inheritance among the children of Israel.
What say you, Pastor?
You who teach tithing is for today.
I've got a toll-free number for you, 1-888-988-9562.
Now what did it say?
They shall have what?
No inheritance in the land.
No land?
Not only do pastors have land where their home is, many have vacation homes, condos, rental properties.
And instead of someone pointing this truth out to them, most look at it as proof of what a successful pastor he is.
Now don't leave here today and get this all twisted.
I'm not saying there's a problem with pastors having nice things.
But what I'm saying, and backing up with scripture, is you're in serious violation of God's word if you have any of this while at the same time you're collecting tithes from your church members.
Thou shalt have no inheritance in their land.
You're in violation and someone needs to call you out.
If you're caught up in this nonsense, you should flee from this error today.
Flee from it and realize, just as the last verse in the book of Leviticus says, these are the commandments which the Lord commanded Moses for the children of Israel in Mount Sinai.
How plain does it have to be?
The last verse sums up the entire book.
The law of tithing was for them, not you.
And it's quite interesting how the tithe teachers have chosen that one law, the tithing law, but choose to abandon the rest of the book of Leviticus.
How convenient.
Oh yes, here we teach the tithe.
Yeah, but you don't tell them they can't eat fat.
Leviticus chapter 3 verse 17.
Oh, you teach the tithe, but you don't tell all the church females that they can't come to church until 33 days from giving birth to a male child, do you?
Leviticus chapter 12 verse 4.
Or 80 days after giving birth to a female child.
Verse 5.
And you certainly don't tell them they can't eat sausage.
Chapter 11 verse 7.
All your tithers would hit the door if you said that.
And chapter 23 verse 3 gets broken every week by all your church folk who work on the Sabbath.
So you're a cherry picker, aren't you?
Pick and choose, pick and choose.
I like this one.
This one, not so much.
There were strict conditions for tithing in the Bible.
It was exclusive to the people of Israel, it was food and never money, and the food had to be from the land of Israel.
Whether from their harvest or from their herd, it was mandatory that it come from within the land of Israel.
In part 1 I told you guys that fishermen did not tithe.
Peter was a fisherman.
A listener, Tony, after hearing part 1, called me a deceiver and went on to say that because Jesus tithed, so would he.
Tony, where did you pull that one out from?
Thin air.
Jesus was a carpenter by trade.
There is no way Jesus would have broken the law by tithing an unacceptable tithe.
His tithe as a carpenter would have been unacceptable.
There is absolutely nothing a carpenter would have to offer for a tithe.
The Lord didn't have a place to lay his head, let alone a piece of land where he could grow food and raise livestock.
Peter wasn't a tither, he spent too much time on the water.
Jesus wasn't a tither, he was a carpenter.
And Paul was not a tither either.
What tithable item would a tentmaker have?
Common sense folks, just common sense.
The idea that everyone in the Bible was a tither, and so should you, is a man-centered, man-made, vain imagination.
So what's the bottom line here?
The tithing principle only applied to land owners and herdsmen who lived within the boundaries of Israel.
This is Truth Time Radio.
To those who teach that the tithe is for today, I ask you this, are we saved by grace, but commanded to give by law?
Malachi chapter 3 verse 6 we read, Ye are cursed with a curse, for ye have robbed me, even this whole nation.
This wasn't for today, the church of the body of Christ, this was for the quote, whole nation, the nation Israel.
This is Israel under the law system, and these tithes were taxes for their national budget.
The national government of Israel, they were a theocracy, and the Levitical priest, they were a part of Israel's civil governing body.
And this tithe in Malachi 3 went to support the Levitical priesthood which was a branch of government.
There's no debate as to what the biblical tithe was.
God made it clear for us.
Anyone questioning what a tithe is, read your Bible.
Leviticus chapter 27 verse 30, read it sometime.
Moses wrote, And all the tithe of the land, whether the seed of the land, or of the fruit of the tree, is the Lord's, it is holy unto the Lord.
What was holy?
The seed of the land, or of the fruit of the tree.
Your money is not holy.
Could it be any clearer?
Where did the tithe come from?
From their bank account?
No, from their land.
Next time you're at church and they ask for a tithe, give them a bushel of corn, some squash, oranges, apples.
Again, the tithe is all about what comes from your land, cattle and sheep, fruits and veggies, spices, oil, and so forth.
This is real Bible tithing.
Church organizations, TV preachers, books have been written and contain misinformation about the biblical tithe.
It's shameful.
They counted on you not doing your own research.
So we have the one tithe that was to come from the gross, by the way.
It paid taxes and funded the government.
It's the same one that supported the priesthood.
Then tithe number two was a tithe from the net, and it was to be set aside for vacation.
God expected them to use the tithe to take three vacations a year to travel to Jerusalem.
Three times a year, there was a big street festival that went down in Jerusalem, and that's what this tithe was for.
Tithe number three was only given every three years.
Not every year, but every third year.
It was a tithe that came from their increase.
It was a welfare system for strangers, for the poor, the needy, and the widows.
So regardless of what some of you were taught by your sincere, but sincerely wrong, denomination,
what you're hearing today, this is biblical tithing.
All these tithes were obligatory.
They were compulsory, mandatory.
Wasn't a choice.
It wasn't 2 Corinthians 9:7, whatever you purpose to give.
It was a mandatory, compulsory tithe.
On this side of the cross, as revealed through our apostle Paul, that's not how we operate.
Our giving is not law-based, it's grace-based.
You see, it's not the amount you give, it's the attitude by which you give it.
As you purpose in your heart.
You don't give grudgingly, or of necessity, but you give because you want to.
And do know that Israel did some grace giving as well, but it wasn't under their tithe system.
It was apart from their mandatory tithing.
It was apart from the law.
But yes, Israel gave some offerings that was from their heart as well.
You'll find one in Exodus 25.
There the Lord told Moses to tell Israel to bring me an offering of every man that giveth it willingly with his heart.
Recently we had a listener, Manuel, who had a question.
He heard part one and he wrote to say thanks for the information, which he did agree with.
But then he goes on to say, what about Abraham and the tithes that he paid, which was before
the law?
Now actually this was before God called him Abraham.
At this time he was still Abram, just like Jacob before he was Israel, Saul before he was Paul.
Names were very important to God and their names meant something.
So this is a significant point that we mustn't overlook.
But Manuel, we thank you for your comments and your question.
And you're not the first to bring this up.
What some miss is Melchizedek was the king of Salem.
So now we're back to the government tax, the government tithe.
Abram simply paid a tax to the king.
This had nothing whatsoever to do with supporting a church.
Abram was tithing to his government.
Melchizedek was the king of Salem.
And if you remember, Salem later became what?
Jerusalem.
The tithe was something God gave to Israel for them to follow, not us.
So the best thing we can do is stop trying to be like Israel.
Stop trying to do their law and claim their promises.
Wake up and recognize our true identity.
If you're saved, you're a member of the church, the body of Christ, a church that was not even spoken of until the times of the apostle Paul.
A common misconception is that in the Bible there was only one church.
Not true.
Moses had, quote, The church in the wilderness, Acts 7:38.
Peter had, quote, The church which was at Jerusalem, chapter 8, verse 1.
And Paul had, quote, The church which is his body, Ephesians chapter 1, verses 22 and 23.
Isn't it nice to just believe the Bible for a change without adding or taking away?
This is great.
The church in the wilderness made a distinction between Jew and Gentile.
Peter's church at Jerusalem also made a distinction between Jew and Gentile.
But guess what?
Something changed.
Paul's church makes no such distinction whatsoever.
Galatians 3:28, There is neither Jew nor Greek. There is neither bond nor free. There is neither male nor female, for ye are all one in Christ Jesus.
See that?
What Paul is saying here is we're all one in the, quote, The church which is his body.
Neither Moses nor Peter would have said that prior to Paul because the change hadn't come yet.
These were different churches with different instructions.
They did not all do the same things.
And it's why you haven't, Acts 2:44, sold all your possessions and goods.
And it's also why you haven't been killed for not doing so, Acts 5, verses 1 to 11.
This was instructions to them, not you.
So the key to understanding your place in God's plan, your place in this book, is to learn to 2 Timothy 2:15, rightly divide the word of truth.
We can help you with that.
There was only one Lord-ordained apostle since the resurrection.
Who was it?
The apostle Paul.
And he is the 1 Corinthians 3:10, wise master builder of the church, the body of Christ.
If you're saved today, you were saved into this body of believers that the Lord began with Paul.
This church centers around the finished cross work of Christ, his death for our sins, his burial and resurrection.
It centers around works after we're saved, not works to be or stay saved.
It centers around grace giving, not law giving.
That's just about going to wrap it up.
If you're not saved, don't go another day without believing the gospel.
What is the gospel?
1 Corinthians 15 verse 1.
Paul says, I declare unto you the gospel.
Verse 2, by which you're saved.
Verse 3, how that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures.
Verse 4, and that he was buried, and that he rose again the third day according to the scriptures.
What saves today?
The gospel.
What is the gospel?
We just read it.
And Ephesians 1:13, After that ye heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, in whom also after that ye believed ye were sealed with that Holy Spirit of promise.
There's your assurance.
After you hear the gospel, you trust Jesus by believing what you heard about him.
So you place your total trust in him and him alone.
It's the best decision you'll ever make.