The First Open Door

Welcome to Worship in the Word with Pastor Robert Morris. We have been listening to Pastor Roberts' Free Indeed series about the spiritual doors we inadvertently leave open to the enemy's influence and how God wants us to live free instead. In today's message, Pastor Robert is going to talk about the very first sin in humanity and how that sin opens wide doors of greed, unbelief, and fear.

Well, this message is absolutely incredible, so let's join Pastor Robert now. So we've been talking about open doors, and a few weeks ago we talked about pride. Well, I want to talk to you today about the first open door. This is, pride would have been the first door Satan opened, but this is the first door mankind opened, Adam and Eve. First door, and it is such an important door in our lives. And before we get to Genesis 3, let me just read you a Scripture to clarify how we're going to talk with this and what we're going to talk about next weekend, all right? First John 2 16 says, for all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life is not of the Father, but is of the world. I believe these are the three major doors that the enemy comes in through. We talked about the pride of life. We're going to talk about the lust of the eyes today, and then next weekend, the lust of the flesh, and how to deal with these three open doors, all right? The lust of the eyes manifests three different ways.

Here's number one, greed. Now look at Genesis chapter 3 verse 1. It says, now the serpent, that's Satan obviously, was more cunning or more subtle than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made. And he said to the woman, has God indeed said, I just want you to notice the first thing he does is cast doubt on the word of God. Did God really say, you shall not eat of every tree of the garden? And the woman said to the serpent, we may eat the fruit of the trees of the garden, but of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God has said, you shall not eat it, nor shall you touch it, lest you die.

Then the serpent said to the woman, watch very carefully, you will not surely die. Directly contradict the word of God. Now let me just stop just for a moment, because we're going to talk about tithing some in this message. And it is amazing that it is completely clear that we open ourselves to a curse, that God doesn't curse us, but we open ourselves to a curse when we don't tithe. And it is amazing how many people and even leaders will say, oh, you won't be cursed. It's amazing that they absolutely contradict the word of God.

It's the exact same here. No, God did not mean that. That's not true. Even though God said it, that's not true. He says, you will not surely die. For God knows, let's keep going, that in the day you eat of it, your eyes will be open. We're talking about the lust of the eyes. And you will be like God, knowing good and evil. So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, that it was pleasant to the eyes.

We're talking about the lust of the eyes. And a tree desirable to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate. She also gave to her husband with her and he ate.

They both fell at the same time. Now Satan's strategy again is to simply get you to doubt or question the word of God. She saw that it was pleasant to the eyes. Now here's what's amazing. Most people think that this was the only tree pleasant to the eyes.

Let me read you another scripture. Genesis 2 9 says, out of the ground, the Lord God made every tree grow that is pleasant to the sight. Pleasant to the sight.

They were all pleasant to the eyes. There wasn't anything different, but Satan convinced her there was something different about this tree. This word pleasant, by the way, is sometimes translated, you're ready for this? Greed, or lust, or desire. The word lust many times is translated desire. It was desirous. There was something about it. She thought that something else would make her happy.

Would make her happy. That's greed. She thought God's holding out on me. Why would God hold out on us?

That's what we think sometimes. What kind of God would say to us, you can have all of this, but not that, that's mine. Here's what Adam and Eve did. You know what the first open sin was? They took what belonged to God.

That's the type. This is just what they did. God said, you can have it all except that one.

And that's the one they took. Now why would God do that? He does it according to Deuteronomy eight and other scriptures. He says to test you so I can bless you because God blesses us when we believe. He blesses us when we live by faith. When he tells us to do something and we do it, then we're blessed. All God's simply doing is testing us and every two weeks or how often you get paid, you take a test. Whom are you going to thank? Whom are you going to honor? And will you believe that 90% with God's blessing will go farther than 10%?

That's the test. Are you going to live your life by faith or by what the enemy tells you? Because see, here's what God said. You remember there were two trees, the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Let me just classify for you the tree of life and the tree of death. He said, you eat this tree, you die. God says, this tree is not good for you.

Satan said, no, it's good for you. Are you going to believe God? And then their children did the same thing. At least one of them did, Cain did. And let me show you, God represents the tithe through the principle of the firstborn and firstfruits. Let me show you a few scriptures before we get to Malachi. Exodus 13, verse one. Then the Lord spoke to Moses saying, consecrate to me all the firstborn. All, by the way, all. Whatever opens the womb among the children of Israel, both the man and beast.

Now watch this. It is mine. In other words, it belongs to me. You have to give me, you have to return to me the firstborn because it belongs to me. Exodus 23, 19. The first of the firstfruits of your land you shall bring into the house of the Lord your God. And I want you to notice when it talks about the tithe, it never uses the word give.

Here's the reason. It always uses the word bring because you can't give what doesn't belong to you. So let me show you what happened with Cain and Abel right after the parents took what belonged to God. Watch what Cain does. Genesis chapter four.

You can just flip there. It's just one chapter. Verse three. And in the process of time, now that's very important, these words. In the process of time, it came to pass that Cain brought an offering of the fruit of the ground to the Lord.

Notice it never says first fruit. Abel also brought of the firstborn of his flock and of their fat and the Lord respected Abel and his offering, but he did not respect Cain and his offering and Cain was very angry and his countenance fell. Now watch very carefully what God says. So the Lord said to Cain, why are you angry? And why is your countenance falling?

If you do well, will you not be accepted? And if you do not do well, now watch, we've been talking about open doors. Watch. Sin lies at the door and its desire is for you, but you should rule over it. Now this word desire, it says it's desire. It's the desire to rule. Satan wants to rule over you.

He's right at the door and here's how he does it. Here's the first sin. You take what belongs to God because of the lust of the eyes. You see something you own, a barbecue grill, a car, a house, something. You lust for it in your eyes. So you take what belongs to God.

You steal it and you buy something with it. And I told you the firstborn and firstfruits, but let me just show you just so you know for sure that the tithe belongs to God. Leviticus 27, 30 says, and all, all the tithe of the land, whether of the seed of the land or of the fruit of the tree is the Lord's. It is holy to the Lord. Holy is the big word that means set apart. It's set aside for the Lord. Okay, so greed is the first open door of the lust of the eyes.

Here's number two, unbelief. Why would a person not tithe when the Bible is so clear? Well, really it's because they don't believe it's for today. They're not bad people. They're really not. I met a lot of people that have a disagreement with me on this issue.

They're not bad people. Pastor, I just don't believe that that's for today. Okay, I just want to show you this principle though goes all through scripture. God said, bring all of the silver and gold from Jericho into the house of the Lord. Why did he do that?

Why didn't he say 10%? It's very simple. Jericho was the first city they conquered.

Here's what he's saying. You give me the first one, the rest are blessed. Joshua 6 19 says, but all the silver and gold and vessels of bronze and iron are consecrated, that means set apart, to the Lord. They shall come into the treasury of the Lord. Again, that's the temple.

And then Joshua 7 verse 11, God said, Israel is sinned, and they've transgressed my covenant, which I command in, for they've even taken some of the accursed things, now watch this, and have both stolen and deceived. Now, how can you still accept that it belongs to someone else? And they have put it amongst their own stuff. They bought stuff with it themselves. He put it in his tent, but they put it amongst their own stuff. Therefore, the children of Israel, now watch, this is how it opens a door. I told you I'd show you clearly. Therefore, the children of Israel could not stand before their enemies, but turned their backs before their enemies, because they have become doomed to destruction, because they took the tithe.

Doomed to destruction. Here's what he's saying. I wanted to bless them, but they stole.

They took what was mine. Therefore, they can't stand before the enemy. God wants to bless you. He does. But he can't bless a thief. Can I say something very strong here? We're the most like God when we give, because God's the love of the world that he gave. We're the most like Satan when we steal. By the way, God begins with a G, give begins with a G. Satan, S, steal, S. Just so you can always remember. If you steal, you're opening a door to Satan, the thief. If you give, you're opening the door to God, the giver. Now, look at Malachi 3. This is very, very strong in the area of stealing, but it's going to take it to another level that I've preached on this for many, many years, and I've never seen this level until this week. Never.

Malachi 3, look at verse 7. Yet from the days of your fathers, you have gone away from my ordinances. Look at me just for a moment.

Let me explain something to you. The word ordinance means ordinary principle. It's an ordinary principle, and he's about to talk about tithing. It is an ordinary principle for God's people to return the tithe to him, the first timbers of the income.

That's an ordinary principle. By the way, one of the New Testament scriptures on tithe, it has the word tithe, is in red, just Jesus. And you know what he said? You ought to tithe. It's Matthew 23, 23. He said, you tithe on all this stuff, but you neglect this. This you ought to do without neglecting the other.

Okay. That right there, that one scripture would be enough for me because I was lost. I don't know how lost you were, but I was lost. And the one who saved me said you ought to tithe. That's enough for me. That's enough right there. That's Matthew 23, 23.

That's New Testament, and it's in red, if you like red. Okay. You have gone away from my ordinary principles, and you've not kept them. Return to me, and I will return to you, says the Lord of hosts.

But you said, in what way shall we return? Now watch what God's answer is. It's not my answer. It's not a preacher.

It's a God. Will a man rob God? Notice how many times you see the word rob or form of the word rob. Yet you have robbed me. But you say, in what way have we robbed you? In tithes and offerings. You are cursed with a curse. This is God talking.

For you have robbed me, even this whole nation. Bring all the tithes, that's the whole tithe, not two percent, three, five, or eight. Bring all the tithes into the storehouse, that's the house of God, that there may be food in my house. Now look at me just for a minute. One of the great things I love about Gateway Church is we have food in the house.

Do you like being fed? Okay. Okay. One of the reasons is because the majority of Gateway tithes. He says if you tithe, there'll be food in the storehouse.

Okay. And it's a spiritual principle. Not natural. It's not because we have finances.

It's because it's a spiritual blessing. And watch what he says. And try, this word try means test.

Test. It's the only place God says you can test it. Test me now in this, says the Lord of hosts, and see, in essence, what he's saying, if I will not open for you the windows of heaven and pour out for you such blessing that there will not be room enough to receive it, and, and, it's kind of like if you call right now. And if you want to see closing the door, we're talking closing the door, watch what he says, and I will rebuke the devourer for your sakes. In other words, I'll close the door to Satan's attack on your life. So that he will not destroy the fruit of your ground, nor shall the vine fail to bear fruit for you in the field, says the Lord of hosts, and all nations will call you blessed, for you will be a delightful land, says the Lord, Lord of hosts. Now, again, I preached in this past.

In the meantime, I saw something I'd never seen, and the Lord had to actually remind me of something that's not a great memory for me, but I'm going to tell you anyway, because all of you know I have a bad past. He uses the word robbed here. There's a difference between theft and robbery. Theft is, let's say someone leaves his garage door open, and you go in, even if the garage door is open, not even breaking and entering, but you take something that doesn't belong to you from someone who's not at home. That's a theft, okay? But if the man is asleep in his bed, and you take something out of his garage, and the garage was open, and you didn't wake him up, and that was just, okay, I'm going to forgive him. But anyway, the point is, that charges robbery, okay? I found that out, that there's a difference between theft and robbery, because the guy was asleep in his bed, and I never woke, I mean, the guy that did this never woke him up.

But there's a difference. Robbing is when the guy's home. God says you've robbed me. You want to know why?

Because he's in the house. And we come to the house of God, and we walk past the offering box with the tithes still in our pocket. That's robbery.

I've never seen that before in my life. It's not just stealing. It's robbing. And God's the one, I did not use these words. God said, you've robbed me. You took what belonged to me. And you brought a curse on yourself, and I don't want you to be cursed. Matter of fact, I want you to be blessed, and I would like to rebuke the devourer for your sake. But you'll have to bring the tithe into the storehouse for me to be able to do this. I've seen this in the meantime. I'm not saying everything's perfect in my life.

I'm not saying that I've had the perfect life because I've been a tither. God can protect you, but sometimes He can't protect you from yourself. You ever seen that? One time, Debbie and I were going to clean the garage out, so she said, back the cars out. So I backed one car out, and then I backed the other car out into the car I just backed out.

That's a tough call to make to the insurance company. I hit someone. Who'd you hit?

Me. And the guy didn't get it. He said, is the other person insured? I said, he has the exact same coverage I have. So I'm not saying that everything has gone perfect.

I'm not saying that. I'm not saying everything goes perfect when you tithe. But I also remember one time that Debbie and I had a contract on a house that we thought was the perfect house, and there was a big flood before. And the house we had the contract on, Debbie was actually on the phone, and on the news came the house that we had the contract on. The helicopter was showing that house, and it had four foot of water in it.

And of course, we got out of the contract. But I remember saying to the Lord, and I was thinking like a man, and I shouldn't have been, but I was thinking about the money God saved me. Here's what the Lord said to me. He said, son, you were out of town, and you had three small children, and that water rose four feet in 20 minutes. He said, I'm going to save you financially.

I saved your kids. All right, let me show you the last open door here for the lust of the eyes, fear, fear. Luke 22, Luke 22 says, and I'll just read it to you.

You might not have time to turn to it. It says, then Satan entered Judas. That shows he enters humans. Surname Iscariot, who was numbered among the 12. So he went his way and conferred with the chief priests and captains how he might betray to them, and they were glad and agreed to give him money.

Okay. Was there an open door in his life? I think it was fear, and I'm going to read you a little more about Judas. John 12, verse 1 says, then six days before the Passover, Jesus came to Bethany, where Lazarus was, who'd been dead, whom he'd raised from the dead. There they made him a supper and Martha served, but Lazarus was one of those who sat at the table with him. Then Mary took a pound of very costly oil of spikenard, anointed the feet of Jesus, wiped his feet with her hair. The house was filled with the fragrance of the oil. By the way, this represents a tithe. I think it means the house is filled with the presence of God, the presence of the Holy Spirit when we all tithe. But one of his disciples, Judas Iscariot, Simon's son, who would betray him, said, why was this fragrant oil not sold for 300 denarii, by the way, that's a year's wage, and given to the poor?

Now watch very carefully. This he said, not that he cared for the poor, but because he was a thief. Remember who else is a thief? And Satan entered a thief. And he had the money box, that's the offering box. They didn't have it on walls because they traveled around.

They carried it around with them. And he used to take what was put in it. He used to take money out of the offering box. Now, I don't think anyone here would take money out of our offering boxes. I really don't think that you would do that.

But let me just ask you something. That money in the offering box belongs to God. It's the tithe that belongs to God. Is it the same when we don't put money in the offering box that belongs to God?

Is it the same as if we took it out? Are we becoming thieves and giving Satan the right to enter us? Because that's what happened with Judas.

Let me show you just a hair more about what he sold him for. I think he did it for fear. I think he realized Jesus wasn't going to set up an earthly kingdom, so he was trying to, he was afraid. And a lot of people don't tithe for fear of the future.

That's the open door, fear. Matthew 26, 15, Judas said, what are you willing to give me if I deliver him? And they counted out to him 30 pieces of silver. Matthew 27, three, then Judas, his betrayer, seeing that he'd been condemned, was remorseful and brought back the 30 pieces of silver to the chief priests and elders saying, I've sinned by betraying innocent blood. They said, what is that to us?

You see to it. Then he threw down the pieces of silver in the temple, he's in church now in the temple, and departed and went and hanged himself. But the chief priest took the silver piece said, it's not lawful to put them into the treasury because they're the price of blood. Okay, listen, do you know where they got the 30 pieces of silver in the first place? From the treasury.

They said, it's not lawful to put it into the treasury or back into the treasury. So they went and it says, and they bought a field and it's prophesied in scripture, they do it, it's called the field of blood. Okay, I'm gonna tell you something maybe you've never thought of or heard in your life. They took tithe money to betray Jesus. Now here is what most of us here would think, I would never do that.

But I'm gonna ask you a very, very hard question. Would you betray Jesus for 10%? And if you would, you're opening a door to say, by the way, do you know what 30 pieces of silver is? Do you know why it was exactly 30 pieces of silver? Exodus 21, 32 says, if the ox gores a male or female servant, he shall give to their master 30 shekels of silver and the ox shall be stone. Okay, here's the 30 pieces of silver was the price of a slave. We're talking about bondage, believers being in bondage. Listen very, very carefully.

Please, please, please hear me. They betrayed Jesus with the tithe. It was 30 pieces of silver. Listen, it's the price of bondage. That's what it is. When you don't return to God what belongs to God, you become a slave.

You go into bondage. Please hear me. If you don't know me well, you might think I'm preaching to get more offerings. That's the furthest thing from the truth.

If you know me well, you know it's the furthest thing from the truth. I'm preaching this because I love you. I don't want the devourer having an open door in your life, and I have watched hundreds, probably thousands of people close this door to Satan and their whole life change. Don't leave the original door that was open to Satan.

Don't leave it. We want you to take a moment to think about what Pastor Robert shared today, and really listen to what the Holy Spirit is saying to you. If you want to connect with us or check out some of Pastor Robert's other messages, visit pastorrobert.com. And if you haven't already, go follow us on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter so we can be a part of your community. Thank you so much for being with us today. Next time Pastor Robert is concluding this series with a message about the empty promises of lust and how we can close that door too. We pray that you have a blessed week.