Tithing | R.T. Kendall | Malachi 3

ever again, but I'm going to repeat a sermon that you have heard. Actually, probably most of you haven't, but some of you will remember. And if you were here before and you have to hear it again, get over it. This is something I definitely feel led to do. I want to read to you from the Old Testament book Malachi chapter 3. It starts out with a question, "Will a man rob God, yet you are robbing me?" "How do we rob you?" you ask. "By not making the payments of the tenth in the contributions, you are suffering under a curse. Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse, the full tenth, so that there may be food in my house and test me in this way." The King James Version says, "Prove me." I'm using the Christian standard Bible and I'll tell you why I do it. This was given to me. Here, listen to this, presented to Dr. R. T. Kendall by Robin Galaty. So he gave me this. So I've been using it. Anyway, test me and see if I will not pour out a blessing. So open the floodgates of heaven, pour out so that you cannot even measure it. Well, may God be pleased to bless the reading and the preaching of this, his most holy and infallible word. Brief order prayer. Heavenly Father, I ask now for the sprinkling of the blood of Jesus by your spirit to rest upon every mind in this place in order that their perception of what I say will be received as you intend. Cleanse my tongue that I will be your transparent instrument to say everything that needs to be said, nothing that does it need to be said. Help me to be very, very clear, very, very simple. And I pray that this will be life-changing for those who need it, that I won't regret anything I said or regret anything that I should have said. But may this word bring great honor and glory to your name. I pray this in Jesus' name. Amen. I grew up hearing this story from my dad when I was, when my mother was six months pregnant with me. My mother and father were in a Nazarene church. For those of you who don't know, I was brought up in the church of the Nazarene. And my dad was so overcome with gratitude for the sermon he was hearing, and he tells me, as I say, I grew up hearing it all the time. He put his hand on my mother's tummy and said, "Lord, give me a son that will preach like this man." Well, fast forward 18 years. I'm now a student at Trevec and Nazarene College, here in Nashville, and had to go to chapel every day, heard hundreds of sermons. I remember only one sermon the whole time I was there. A sermon where the visiting minister preached from Hebrews, chapter 11, verse 5, about Enoch, who had this testimony before his translation

that he pleased God. Never will forget it. Of all the sermons. I remember him saying, doesn't say pleased his friends, doesn't say pleased his enemies, doesn't even say pleased his wife, but he pleased God. When I say that, I remember I was in Northern Ireland, and it came up to me after the service, and I said, can I ask you a question? I said, sure. He said, can your wife be your enemy? I said, yeah. He said, thank you. Well, so it doesn't say anything, please. only once. I rushed to my dormitory, got on my knees and said, "Lord, I want to be like Enoch. I want to please you." And it happened an hour later by coincidence that my father called me from Ashland, Kentucky. I'm from Kentucky. You all just get over that. My wife is from Illinois. She's a snob. She thinks she's a cut above the rest of you. She's from Northern Illinois. Somebody maybe put her in her place. My dad phoned me and I said, "While we were talking," I said, "Dad, I heard the most wonderful sermon today. I've never been moved by any sermon like it." And I told him what he preached. And then my dad said, "Who was the preacher?" I said, "A man by the name of C. B. Cox." Dad said, "Son, that was the man who was preaching." Well, I put my hand on your mama's tummy that you would, I'd have a son that would preach like that. Well, call that a coincidence. I can only tell you this. I think God gave me a head start while I was in my mother's room. I was prayed for. I've grown up with a desire. I claim no merit in it. I just had it to please God. That's what I've wanted to do. And so today I'm preaching this sermon to please God. And I think there's some reason for it. I pray that it will be a blessing. Now, my father always told me when he grew up, his first job was selling grit magazine, the newspaper that came out of Williamsport, Pennsylvania. And so when I was 10 years old, he said, "You can do it." So my first job was selling grit. And never will forget, I remembered as though it were yesterday. I sold all the newspapers I had to the neighborhood, came back, and had all the money on the dining room table. And to figure how much we send to Williamsport and how much I came. Well, I don't remember the exact amount, but it was very close to this. I think it might have been this, that I earned 10 cents. At that time, with all the money there, my father put his finger on a dime and said, "This, my son, is the Lord's." I said, "This is mine." No, this is the Lord's. No, this is mine. I earned it. This, my son, is the Lord's. Dad won. God won. I won. I've grown up with this conviction, and except for a couple of years

that I'll refer to, I've been a tiger all my life. Well, my dad held to this, you could call it a mathematical incredulity. He said that if you give God his one tenth and live on 90 percent, the 90 percent will go just as far as the 100 percent. He said, "Son, I think sometimes it goes further." But then my dad, who was a layman, he wasn't a preacher, and I learned it from him. And so it turns out I've been a tiger all my life, except that I will say this when Louise and I were first married. Back in Springfield, Illinois, we lived at the first church. Well, we were married in Sterling and moved to Springfield. I was deep in debt. The truth is, we should have waited. I should have waited till I'm out of debt, but nevertheless, we got married. In those days, I thought Jesus is coming soon, and we wanted to get married. That's what you're thinking. But you know what? For the first couple of years, I said, the most religious thing I can do is to pay my debts. And when I pay my debts, I'll start timing. Trouble is, a year later, we were deeper in debt. Two years later, deeper in debt. One day, by the grace of God, And that was like-- we've been married 68 years. That was about 66 years ago. And I've been a titer ever since. Now, here's what I want to do today. For those of you who may not have heard my first sermon, I'm going to assume you know nothing on this, that you've never heard a sermon on it. So I don't mean to insult you, but I'm going to spoon-feed you as if you knew nothing at all. So here's what the tithe means. That word tithe means 1/10. And when Malachi says, well, a man robbed God is because the Bible says that tithe is the Lord's. The tithe is the Lord's. So if you earn a dollar, then 10% is his. You learn $10, then $1 is his. You earn $100,000, 10,000 is his.

You learn 1,100,000 is his. Now, when it comes to the government internal revenue, they take it. With us, God puts us on our honor that we give back to him. And so if you earn $50,000 and you give God $3,000, you robbed him of $2,000. That's the principle. That's how you rob God, because he knows what you make. He knows exactly what you make. And he puts you on your honor that if you make $100,000, 10,000, not a penny less, goes to him. Well, today I'm talking about the solution nobody seems to talk about. When we first moved from America to England, I became the minister of Westminster Chapel in London. They're 25 years. And I discovered something immediately. They didn't tithe. Previous two famous, good man, men of God, but they just didn't preach tithing. And I thought, I believe I should do it. And I knew they'd question my motive since the chance I took. But I started preaching tithing. And I did something I never had done before or since. I called my publisher. I said, I want to write a book on tithing. Silence. Hello? Yes?

We'll call you back in a week. A week later, they called me. So you want to write a book on tithing? Yes. Would you be willing to buy 1,000 copies? Yeah, because they wanted their print run to be paid for. It's going to be a financial disaster, but to humor me, they print my book on tithing. And if I bought 1,000 copies, at least, they didn't lose anything. Well, here's what I did. I'm going to name drop. I got Billy Graham to endorse it. He did a beautiful endorsement. That book is still in print, you know, a funny thing. I've got 500 copies in our garage. I almost brought them, but I was afraid to use them. I really was afraid I'd be misunderstood. We'd sell them at cost, and I would have asked Robbie for it, and I just forgot. But the point is, Billy Graham endorsed it. Sir Fred Katharwood, Vice President of the European Parliament, he endorsed it. John Stahl endorsed it. That book is still in print. It was on the van. I can tell you now. It's the only book, I think, I think, on tithing. And it answers these questions. Well, it's the solution nobody talks about.

Back in Kentucky, there's a saying, when a fella says it ain't the money, it's the principle, it's the money. Voltaire, the atheist, is when it comes to money, every person's religion is the same. John Wesley, the last part of a person to be converted is his wallet. My friend Harlan Milby, you would not know that name, he founded two life insurance companies. He was a very close friend. He put us through Oxford University. He paid every penny of the tuition. And one day we were out fishing. I said, Harlan, how did you make your money? He said, "When all of an I first got married, we were deep in debt. And I read the verse," I think it's Samuel chapter 2 verse 30, "them that honor me, I will honor them that honor me, I will honor." He said, "We started tithing," and that's the story. Now, don't get the wrong impression, I'm not saying that if you start tithing, you'll be driving a Mercedes Benz next week. I can tell you this, you will always have enough. I'm not a rich man, I'm out preaching, I have to. I'm not a millionaire at all. My dad was not a wealthy man, but he always had enough. And here's the thing, seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, these things will be added. So this is not a sermon how to get rich, I'm telling you it's a sermon how to please God. Well, here's the thing. God gives you a dollar, a dime as His, He gives you a million dollars, a hundred thousand dollars as His.

He puts you on your honor to give Him every penny, and there's a way to know whether you give Him everything, and that's keep your seats and see if at the end of the year you know what you made, how much you gave to God that will tell whether you have robbed God. Now I want to ask this question, or deal with the answer, why some Christians don't tithe, and I've found out the reason. You know what it is? Most Christians don't tithe because they haven't been taught. They have not been taught, and that's the main reason. And so I started teaching it, had criticism from everybody. But you know what, twenty-five years later, after we decided to retire, by the way that was the decision we made, I could still be there today. We just thought twenty-five years long enough, and we came back to America. On the night of a farewell service with twenty-five hundred people filled Westminster Chapel, and many came by to say goodbye, we're sitting on the front row, I was amazed how many, one after another would say, "Thank you for teaching us to tithe." They didn't know. When I was pastor of Lauderdale Matters Baptist Church in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, that's where we were before we went to England, one of the members, his name was Bill Webb from Detroit. Never will forget it. He said, "Can I tell you how I started tithing?" Go on. He said, "The pastor of our church in Detroit says I want everybody to tithe for six weeks and then forget about it." He said, "We did, and we've done it ever since." The thing is, people need to be taught this, and encouraged one member of my church there in Fort Lauderdale, the name was Bob Walker. He said, "Hey pastor, I just want you to know I'll give five dollars a week." That's it. Well, at that time, that seemed to like a lot of money, he said, "If everybody did this,

you'd have plenty of money." He wasn't going by principle. He was just going, "Well, I give my five dollars a week. I'll come back to him." All right. Why most Christians don't tithe, they haven't been taught. There's a second reason, and that is a misunderstanding of the law. Now in my book, "Tithing," I go into detail that I don't have time to go into now, but I'll try to be brief on this. You see, there are those who say, "We don't tithe. This is New Testament. Tithing is in the Old Testament." Listen, they don't have a clue what they're talking about. Listen to me, the first tither was Abraham, true. He was in the Old Testament, but listen to me. Here's what happened. Lot, his nephew, foolishly pitched his tent toward Sodom. Abraham got caught in a crossfire between the king of Sodom and other kings. Lot ended up losing both his possessions and his freedom. Word of this got back to Abraham. phenomenal. Made him very, very rich. He got all the money from them. Out of the blue comes a mysterious figure called Melchizedek. Abraham gave 10% to Melchizedek. That was the first tither. How did he know to give 10%? Holy Spirit. Abraham, Isaac, Jacob was a tither. How did they know to give a tithe? It's the Holy Spirit. This is the way God wanted the work of ministry to be supported throughout history. What will we be today? But we're for that. It's God's idea, 10%. Now, the thing is, Moses made it legal, and that way you had to do it is under the law. But you know what? That was 400 years later. 400 years after Abraham, the gospel, Galatians chapter 3 verse 8, was started with Abraham. So Abraham did what he did voluntarily. He didn't have to. He did it. He was so thankful. We go back to Abraham, you're not required to do it. What would you do it? Out of gratitude. Because you're thankful. And so, it's been the biblical

pattern ever since, and that's the way the work of God should be supported. But it's for people who do it out of gratitude, so you're not required to do it. As a matter of fact, tithing will not get you to heaven. It won't even help. It could even hurt. How could it hurt if you think it can help? It hurts. Because your trusting works. I want to read to you, I've got this in my book, Tithing, a word from O.S. Hawkins. Some of you will know that name. Here's what O.S. said. The principle hindrance to advancement of the kingdom of God is greed. It is the chief obstacle to heaven sent revival. It seems that when the back of greed is broken, the human spirit sores into regions of unselfishness. I believe it is safe to say that there can be no continuous revival without hilarious giving. And I fear no contradiction where there is hilarious giving, there will be soon revival. Well, now I want to give you five reasons Christians should tithe. Number one, Jesus endorsed it. This is weighty. Jesus endorsed it. And it's interesting. It's in Matthew chapter 23. Matthew 23 will make you laugh when you see how he makes fun of the Pharisees. I think people are laughing their heads off the way Jesus made fun of Pharisees. He said, everything they do is to be seen a man. Point by point, he just tears him to pieces except one time. One time he says, well, the Pharisees tithe. He said that you should do. The only point he gave them, they were tithers. And so you need to know Jesus endorsed the tithing, but not only that, the apostle Paul assumed it. Listen, one Corinthians chapter 16 verse 1, we give according to our income. Have you ever thought about this? Tithing is the fairest principle in the world. When you go to Kroger's or Publix, and you get a pound of beef, a ground beef, the rich man pays the same thing you do for it. They don't say, oh, here's so-and-so coming, and he's a millionaire. This cost, the pound beef is going to cost you more. No, he gets it, whatever it's costing today. When you go to Philly station to get petrol, the millionaire pays the same amount per gallon as you do. And so, but when it comes to tithing, it's in proportion to your and come. Reason number one, Jesus endorsed it. Reason number two, Paul assumed it. Reason number three, because of what it will do for the work of God on earth. Now, for you that don't know, Louise and I are members of Long Hollow. We're tithers, and I happen to know, as you do, that you're on the brink of having the greatest ministry in Tennessee.

This church is growing like I've not seen much of this in my lifetime. God has blessed Robbie, but it's going to take a lot of money. I think I'm why I'm preaching this. I think you need it. I think it's the right time. And I can tell you what it will do for the work of God. It's all down to you. And reason number four, for what it does for God, you realize it pleases him. Let me put a challenge to you, which gives you more satisfaction when God is pleasing you or when he, you are pleasing him. Get your satisfaction from knowing you're pleasing him. This is something you do because it glorifies God, it honors him, it pleases him. And then there's a fifth reason. I could have put this first. I've put it last, but you know what it is? What it will do for you. What it will do for you. Listen, there's a principle that 90% will go as far, if not further. I can tell you another thing. You cannot out give the Lord, as I've been saying, and listen to this verse from 2 Corinthians chapter 9. The point is this. The person who souls sparingly will reap sparingly, and the person who souls generously will reap generously. And the Greek word for generous is the word that we get hilarious from. That's why OSU is that word, when you give hilariously, and God will bless you. This is God's word. This is his promise, doesn't say he's going to make you a millionaire, but he's going to tell you you're going to be blessed. And you just cannot out give the Lord.

And so why tithe because what it does for you, I'll tell you a kind of funny story. I mentioned Bob Walker a while ago. He said I give $5 a week. One day he said to me, "Hey pastor, Connie and I have started tithing." Oh, good. Nice to hear that. And guess what? What do you expect? He's going to give his testimony. He said, "We haven't missed it." That was his testimony. So, but he thought he would. He was afraid to do it. It surprises him. We haven't missed it. It's the point of living on the 90%. I'll tell you a story though. I'm a little embarrassed to tell this, but I'm in a way I'm not. When I was pastor of Lawton Elamana's Baptist Church, one Monday morning, the treasurer came in and said, "Aren't he? Would you mind watching the money?" Put all the money on a table, checks, cash, everything, so I'll be back in an hour. Just keep your eye on it. Okay. Well, I did something I shouldn't have done. I kept looking at that money and all those checks. I walked over and looked to see who gave and how much. I got the shock of my life. I couldn't believe it. The highest incomes in the church, men, were not tithing.

The tithers, it's enough to break your heart were the single parents, the divorces, the widows. They were tithing. And the ones with big incomes were not tithing. You know, the way they would look at it? Well, what we give is more than anybody else. I'm going to tell you something right now. You want to get God angry? You start taking like that. Here's the thing. What do you know about Ananias and Sephira? Acts chapter 5, Ananias and Sephira? I take the view they were Christians. and they were giving the impression that they were selling their property and giving it all, because that's what everybody was doing. It was under the leadership of the Holy Spirit at that time. And in us, the fire said, "But what we're giving is enough to cover for everybody else." But they held back if it had not been in a revival situation, then it got away with it. But Peter, full of the Holy Spirit, discerned exactly what happened, and said, "And I, as you've lied to the Holy Spirit, a book was struck dead." You see, they thought, "Oh, what we give is so much more than what anybody else gives." I have discovered, I've been preaching for 71 years, rich people, almost all of them, don't tithe. They say, "But we give is so much more. What would the church do without us?" And they don't know they're making God very, very angry. Listen to this, I'm going to read to you from Luke chapter 21. This is from Jesus. He said, "Jesus looked up and saw the rich, dropping their thousands into the temple treasury." He also saw a poor widow dropping in two tiny coins. The Greeks is two miters. Truly, I tell you, this is Jesus. This poor widow has put in more than all of the others. You see, this is the way God looks at it. You say, "Well, my little bit, what good is it going to do?" I've done some research. Do you know what the two miters are worth today? You want to know what the? Two dollars. Two dollars. And you may say, "Well, what I give is a long holiday, so much more." This is, listen,

your two dollars, if that's all you've got, that pleases God as much as the millionaire who gives a hundred thousand. Don't think, don't think, because you give more than anybody else, you're making God happy. You're making them angry. I wouldn't want to be in your shoes for anything in the world. You don't get caught. We're not in a revival situation. Nobody knows but God knows. This is the thing you give because God is watching. You know what moves me almost to tears? That poor widow. She had no idea who was watching her. She gives her two dollars, and Jesus commented to the disciples, "You see that widow? You see that lets you know. You don't realize the Son of God, the Creator, the water title, the cross face says, 'He's watching you.'" And that's who you're giving the money to. You're not giving it to the church. I wouldn't give it to a long holler, except I consider I'm giving it to God. Well, now that brings up the question, "Where does the tithe go?" The answer is, Malachi tells you. He says, "Bring all the tithe to the storehouse." What's the storehouse? Ask any rabbi. It's the local church, local synagogue. And so, my tithe goes to Long Hollow. Now, more than the tithe, you make more than the tithe, give it to the Gideon's. Give it to Billy Grep, but make your tithe to the storehouse. And when he says all the tithe, let me more like a point. There are people who say, "Well, when I go to church, I tithe that Sunday." Well, I'm telling you, you want to make God sick. You think, shame on you. How would you like it if your wife was faithful to you 51 weeks a year? Now, 51 out of 52, that's pretty high. And so, if you tithe 50 times, that's good. How would you like it if one week of a year you say to your wife, "Well, if you have an affair for a When it comes to money, we treat it lightly. You want fidelity from your wife, from your husband. What about money? It's God's money. Listen to me. This is serious stuff. And as I said, the reason you do it, you're giving it to God. You know that I go by initials RT. You probably don't know why. But I will tell you, my father named me

after his favorite preacher, who was Dr. RT Williams, General Superintendent of the Church of the Nazarene. And RT Williams told this story about a Nazarene business man who made a lot of money, made a million dollars, and had receipts to show for it. That man went bankrupt. And all his family came running and said, well, bet you wish you hadn't given all that money to the church. You know what he said? That's the only amount I kept. That's in heaven. Because if I hadn't given it to the church then I lost all of it. At least a tenth is treasure in heaven. You see, this is the thing you're giving to God. You will know who W.A. Criswell was. Probably first Baptist Church Dallas. Dr. Criswell tells this story. There was a preacher who had 300 members, pastor. Someone said to him, how many members in your church? He said 300. How many of the 300 tithe? He said 300, really? 300 members and 300 members tired? He said, yeah, about 150 of them give it to God and God takes it from the rest. [LAUGHTER] You see, be careful. God has a way of costing you. Well, you've heard of John Bunyan, the man who wrote

Pilgrim's Progress, he wrote a little poem. Most people don't know about it. You ready for this? There was a man. Some called him mad. The more he gave, the more he had. And one last very important point. Although I'm using the Christian standard Bible, you might like to know that in the King James Version, where it says, prove me, this verse says, test me. But I like to think of proving. Here's why I say it this way. Do you realize that in the Bible, you will not find one line where God tries to prove he exists? This is his word you'd think somewhere in here. There'd be something that will show you the God and prove that he exists. He doesn't bother. The philosophers do. The philosophers come up with the teleological proof of God, the ontological proof of God, the cosmological proof of God. Listen, do you know what Malachi says? The nearest God comes to proving himself is in Malachi 3, where he says, prove me. And see, if I won't pour out a blessing so great, you won't be able to contain it. Not by philosophical argument, the nearest God comes to proving himself, tithe, and watch what he does. That's the proof of God. OK, I'm about finished.

In fact, my sermon's over, but I want to say something. About this point that tithe won't get you to heaven, I can't finish the sermon unless I raise the question, what will get you to heaven? I'm going to ask you a question. Everybody here, this is not to the one next to you, it's to you. Do you know for sure that if you were to die today, would you go to heaven? Do you know that? If you were to stand before God, you will. And he were to ask you, he might, why should I let you into my heaven, what would you say? And by the way, you will stand before God, and I'll tell you another thing. This is sobering. supposed to say. You're going to stand before God alone." And suppose he says, "Why should I let you in?" You give the wrong answer. You go to hell. You don't need to go to hell. Why should he let you in? Now listen, I don't mean to be unfair, but if by now it is not already crossed your mind to say, "Because Jesus died from me, if that did not come to your mind, I wouldn't want to be in your shoes for anything." But that can all change. I'm going to give you a prayer to pray. Say it. If you may, don't need to say it out loud, but pray this prayer. Lord Jesus, I need you. I want you. I know I'm a sinner. I'm sorry for my sins. Wash my sins away by your blood. I invite your Holy Spirit to come into my heart as best as I know how I give you my life. That's it. Did you pray that prayer? Did you? Are you ashamed that you prayed that prayer? Why do you ask our team? Because Jesus said, "If you're ashamed of me, I'll be ashamed of you." So I'm going to ask you to do something you didn't prepare to do when you came in here today. But if you prayed that prayer and don't look around and see if there's others, if you prayed that prayer and not ashamed of it, in the next five seconds, I'm going to ask you to stand up. You sit in front of all these

people? Yep. Five, four, three, two, one. If you prayed that prayer, stand your feet. Okay. We made standing. We made standing. You that are standing, I would urge you before you go home to go over here in this section where I am pointing there will be somebody that will show you the next step forward.