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Transcript 130B — The Question of Tithing
HC: Good evening. Welcome to Open Forum.
CALLER: Good evening, Brother Camping. I'd like to ask you a question about tithing to the church. I realize that it says to give a tenth to the church. If you're financially unable to do this, what happens? We give what we can, and it is kind of hard for us. But this is what we want to give, and we do give this. But I hear that if you give a tenth, the Lord will help from then on. But if we were to do this, financially it would be impossible for us to meet our monthly bills. I was wondering what you thought of this.
HC: The question that is raised is concerning tithing. What do we do when we have our bills to pay, and it takes almost everything that we earn in order to pay these bills. And if we would actually pay a tenth to the Lord, then we know that we would not have sufficient money for our bills.
Actually, there is a prior question that must be raised. Are we living beyond our means? How did we get ourselves into this situation, where we have all of these bills to pay? You see, the problem is that we live in a world which we like, and we like the products of this world. We like to own a home, and we like to have a home that is a decent home. We like to have a refrigerator. We like to have a television set. We like to have a certain kind of a car. We like this, and we like that. And we feel very comfortable with these things, because this is what everybody else is doing, this is what our fellow Christians are doing, and therefore we don't really give it a second thought. We like these things, and we very quickly use up all of our resources. We go to the very extreme of our resources in achieving what we like.
And then suddenly it occurs to us. Wait a minute! Wait a minute! We've got to give to God. We ought to have something for Him. But unfortunately we've already committed ourselves up to the hilt. We're already in so deep that now we're struggling with the question, "If I pay to the Lord, then I can't pay my debts that I've contracted, and now what do I do?"
So really the first answer to the question is that we've got to back up and say, "Well now the first thing I've got to do is get my standard of living corrected. I'm living beyond my means. I've committed myself for too much." Now let me ask you. What would happen if you became ill and you weren't able to work. What would happen? Well, you might have to sell your TV set. The creditors would take it back. You might have to sell your house, because you couldn't make the payments. And so you'd have to go into a rental. You would make certain moves, wouldn't you? Of course you would. You'd have to, because you've become ill.
Because you were forced to make certain moves, you would make them. Now the honorable thing, and it's not an easy thing to do, of course, the right thing to do, if we're really going to be very candid about it, is to as quickly as possible get to a place where we can do it right. Namely, we've got to reduce our standard of living. We've got to give up some of these things that we've bought on time. We can't pay for them. We shouldn't have bought them. We ought to live in a lesser home, or we ought to live with an older car, or whatever it is. Now that would be the courageous and right thing to do, I feel very convinced. Not many of us would be willing to do it. I admit that. I'm part of the human race also. But I believe that would be the correct thing to do
That is, to live in a way that would be God-honoring, in everything that we are doing. And if we did it that way, then we would also find that there is sufficient to give to the Lord.
Now the wonderful thing is that when we work out our life so that we are God-honoring in what we give to the Lord, we also experience blessings that we never anticipated. Now I'm not speaking right now of the idea that God is suddenly going to make us rich physically. I'm not talking about prosperity. That may come or may not come. God doesn't promise us physical prosperity. There are Christians who are in concentration camps who are enjoying fantastic blessings of the Lord.
But the blessings of God are, first of all, spiritual blessings. There is a peace in our heart, there's a security, there's a joy of obedience that we never knew could be there. We are secure in God, because we know that we are doing it God's way. We know that we have been sold out to Christ. We have committed ourself to Him. And that joy, that peace is so marvellous as compared with the joy we thought we were getting because we were buying things, because we bought some more new clothes or because we bought a nicer car, or because we bought some new furniture. That kind of joy is just for the moment
Have you ever had this experience, that you just desired and desired and desired that boat or that car or that new TV set or that hi-fi equipment, or that new carpet, or whatever it is. And once you owned it, and it became just a little bit older, just a little bit older, after you'd only owned it a short time, all of the joy you were anticipating you were going to have in owning this really didn't amount to much after all. You've almost forgotten about it. Okay, yes, we have the car, but you know, it's just a car. That kind of joy is not lasting.
But the joy of obedience, that is lasting. That is deep and secure. And that's the kind of joy we ought to be looking for. If we get ourselves into a situation where we cannot give to the Lord as we should, the opening shot is to look at our whole financial situation, our whole commitment that we have made and say, "Look. We've overextended. We've gotten more bills than we can stand. We've got to back up and straighten this out as soon as we can." And then you're going to find that you have enough to do what you have to do in giving to the Lord.
Now God tells us that we are stewards of our time and of our energies and of our wherewithal. God purchased us by the price of His blood, and everything we own belongs to Him. And God has given us the responsibility and the privilege of using all of this, of using our lives to get on with the Gospel. No, not all of us are going to be missionaries and ministers. But we are all to be concerned, as a primary concern in our life, with the spreading of the Gospel. And when we contribute to the mission program of our church, when we contribute to mission organizations that are bringing the Gospel, we are actively obedient to God in the mandate He has given us to bring the Gospel.
And so we want to make sure that we don't get so intrigued by and fettered to this world that we are limited in our ability to get on with the major task of bringing the Gospel.