God's Plan for Giving, Part 2

Luke 6, 38, Give and it shall be given unto you. Do you see the principle there?

You don't have to be a banker to figure out that that is the principle of investment. You give to God and it shall be given to you. This is Grace to You with John MacArthur.

I'm your host, Phil Johnson. The Bible says you should not store up treasures on earth. But what exactly does that mean? Do you have to get rid of all those nice wedding gifts you haven't used yet? Or do you have to avoid investing in mutual funds? Or don't get a fancy car or house? Or don't ever buy diamonds or pearls or gold or the things we traditionally think of as treasures? Well, today on Grace to You, John MacArthur shows you what the Bible means when it talks about laying up treasures on earth. And he looks at how to honor the Lord with your finances, no matter the size of your bank account. John's titled our current study, God's Plan for Giving.

So with a look at what Jesus has to say about money, here's John. There are many things in the Word of God that are specially emphasized in terms of the blessing that attends them, and giving is one of them. And I recognize that the subject of giving is like all other subjects in the Bible.

It's the revelation of God and it needs to be understood. And as the Apostle Paul was able to say to the Ephesian elders, so must I be able to say to you, if I have fulfilled my ministry, I have not failed to declare unto you the whole counsel of God. And not to declare unto you these principles would be to rob you of blessing in the area that God has allowed for such wonderful blessing. And I think it's important for us to put this in perspective because I think most Christians have been seriously done in on the teaching of giving. As you reflect back on your church life in the past, you will find that your thoughts about giving will vary in many different areas, but much of the time our relationship to giving in a church can be very distasteful. There are some churches, for example, that you've been in and that I've been in that are preoccupied with money. But it seems like everything that goes on has dollar signs involved. The success of anything is measured in how big the offering was.

No opportunity is ever lost for making appeals and every possible and conceivable approach and gimmick is used to make those appeals effective. Whenever large crowds gather for any meeting of any kind with any purpose in mind, it seems to be an opportunity to make money or to take large offerings. Constant efforts at publicizing and raising money through many, many means are laid at the feet of the people. And many people have been a part of systems in churches that have exacted money in ways that are not biblical. Another thing that I think is important and has put the thing out of perspective is that in many cases churches fall into the danger of partiality to the rich. I would have to say that it is true that in many churches the wealthiest people dictate the theology and the policy.

And some of you maybe have seen this happening. John Murray said, "'Perhaps few weaknesses have marred the integrity of the church more than the partiality shown to the rich. The church has compromised with their vices because it has feared the loss of their patronage. Its voice has been silenced by respective persons and discipline has been sacrificed in deference to worldly prestige.'"

And I think that that's kind of like James 2. Have not your faith in terms of respective persons. If a man comes in and has a gold ring, don't give him the best seat and say that the guy who has lousy clothes sit under my feet. That's having respective persons.

There's no place for partiality, but only for impartiality. I think when a church is partial to the rich, it isn't any different than selling indulgences. Now there are other churches that trade on spiritual fear, that attempt to pressure people to give, and this is equally wrong. The right thing to do in the area of giving is to teach the truths of the Word of God and then leave it to the Spirit of God to generate the response along with all the rest of the fruits of spirituality. And so we teach the Word of God. We don't use gimmicks.

We don't use programs. We just teach the Word of God, assuming the Spirit of God will produce in the lives the kind of giving commensurate with the kind of life. Now we said that the giving patterns of the Scripture in terms of Revelation fall into three categories. In the first part, we studied category one, which was giving from the book of Genesis to the time of Moses, the first phase of giving in terms of God's history. The second phase was from Moses to Christ, the time of the Law. And we saw that in both of those phases of giving, there were two kinds of giving taught in the Word of God. First was required giving, and we said that required giving was always connected with taxation, didn't we? That any time there was a stipulated percentage, it had to do with taxation. Whether it was the 20 percent income tax exacted in Egypt in Genesis 41 or 47, which is before Moses and before the Mosaic Law, whether it was a 23 or so percent exacted on Israel through the three tithes that they paid in addition to some other taxes, in both cases exacted giving, that which was required, that which was dictated, was the required giving of the Old Testament.

The free will giving was something again. It was always spontaneous, voluntary. No amount was ever stipulated. No frequency was ever stipulated. The only motive was never law.

The only motive was a thankful and loving heart. So the two kinds of giving in the Old Testament required giving, which was taxation. Tithing under the Mosaic Law was never giving. The reason tithing isn't giving is because the tithe didn't belong to the people so they couldn't give it. Over and over again we saw the Old Testament say the tithe is whose?

The Lord's. And if you didn't give the tithe to the Lord, according to Malachi 3, you robbed God because the funding of the national entity, the government was funded by the tithes of the Jews. The three tithes took care of the salaries and livelihood of the ministers of the government who were the priests and Levites. The second tithe, the second ten percent, took care of the social and religious life of the nation in providing the feast in Jerusalem.

The third tithe paid every third year was for the welfare system. That is never to be confused with free will giving or offerings to God. Tithing in the Old Testament was taxation, not giving.

And so we saw that last time. We covered then the fact that the Old Testament teaches two things. Required giving, that is, pay your taxes. Free will giving, that is, give to God whatever your heart desires to give Him.

No frequency was prescribed and very little was said other than to say generosity and liberality will be rewarded. Now this morning we come to the New Testament and we're going to study what the New Testament has to say about giving and let me just begin by saying this. It says exactly the same thing the Old Testament did. There have been a lot of people who said, well, Old Testament giving was one thing and New Testament giving is something else.

That isn't so. New Testament giving is more clearly defined, but it is the same. There are two kinds of giving stressed in the New Testament. One, pay your taxes. Two, give God whatever you want.

There is no amount. Let's begin by looking at the required giving of the New Testament. What was required in the New Testament? To begin with, let's look at Matthew chapter 17.

We are introduced to the subject in the New Testament of required giving. Now remember, the tithes that were exacted from the Jews along with the temple tax, along with the land Sabbath rest, along with the special prophet sharing tax where a man couldn't harvest the corners of his field, he had to leave them to the poor. All of this was taxation. And in the New Testament times, in the times that the gospels were written primarily, the Jews were still under these laws. And so it was proper for a Jew to continue to pay his tithes to Israel, to support the priests, to have money for the poor, to take care of the feast in Jerusalem.

These things continually went on. The taxation system in the time of Christ was still going. The temple treasury, the court of the women still had those thirteen little trumpet-shaped receptacles and the people still came there and they still put their tax money in those things. In addition to that, however, the Romans were exacting taxes from them and that was becoming an absorbent thing. But they were still under the obligation of Mosaic law to pay their taxes. And Jesus remarks regarding this repeatedly in the gospels.

Let's look at Matthew 17, 24. And when they were come to Capernaum, they that received the tax money, tribute means taxes, came to Peter and said, Does not your master pay taxes? Now these were the tax collectors. And they came to Peter and they said, What about your master? Does he pay taxes?

I like this. He said what? Yes, Jesus paid his taxes. We ought to pay our taxes.

He did. And I think it's so exciting to see Matthew present this because Matthew, you see, is involved in declaring Christ as king. And even though he is king, in fact, king of kings, he still subscribes himself to that which was right in terms of paying the required legal taxes. Jesus paid his taxes. Now I want you to see how he paid them.

This was kind of interesting. And when he was coming to the house, Jesus spoke first to him saying, What are you thinking, Simon? Of whom do the kings of the earth take custom or tribute? Of their own sons or strangers? Well, obviously, kings don't tax their own sons.

They work around that. Strangers. Peter said unto him, Of strangers, Jesus said unto him, Then are the sons free. In other words, he's making a little analogy really that we don't need to pay their taxes.

We're truly the family of the king. But in spite of that, lest we should offend them, go out of the sea, cast a hook, take up the fish that first comes up, and when you have opened its mouth, you shall find a piece of money. Take that and give to them from me and you.

Now friends, that's the way to get your tax money. I mean, if that was still in vogue about April 1st, the beaches would be lined with Christians from San Diego to San Francisco, you know. We have to admit that God is not still operating on that basis. The point of the passage is simply this. Jesus paid his taxes. Jesus again advocating what the Father advocated in the Old Testament Mosaic time, what the Father instituted in the pre-Mosaic time, pay your taxes.

This is required giving. Now go to Matthew chapter 22 and let's look at it again. Another passage related to the same thing, Matthew 22 15. Then went the Pharisees and took counsel how they might entangle Him in His talk, which of course was ridiculous. They never did succeed.

They sent unto Him their disciples with the Herodians, the family of the Herod's, saying, Master, we know that Thou art true and teach us the way of God in truth. And this just drips with hypocrisy. And you're not caring for any man. That means that you don't care for one man over another. You don't regard the person of men. In other words, you treat everybody equally.

If everybody's equal then tell us therefore what do you think about this? Is it lawful to give tribute to Caesar or not? Should we pay our taxes or not to Rome? Well, you see, if Jesus says pay your taxes, then the Jews are down on Him. He's pro-Roman. If He says don't pay your taxes, the Romans are down on Him. So they think they've got Him between a rock and a hard place. But Jesus perceived their wickedness and said, Why are you testing me, you hypocrites?

Used the direct approach. Verse 19, Show me the tax money. Give me a coin. They brought Him a denarius. And He said unto them, Whose is this image in superscription?

Whose picture is on this coin? And they said, Caesars. He said unto them, Render therefore unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's and unto God the things that are God's. And really that was a tremendous answer, much more insightful than it sounds. This stuff can go to Caesar, the important stuff, give to God.

When they heard these words, they marveled and left Him and went their way. Taxation is necessary. And Jesus said, Pay your taxes. Pay your taxes.

Do what's right. That's required giving. Matthew 23, 23 makes reference to this. Jesus says to the Pharisees, He calls them hypocrites again for the fifth time in the same conversation and He's got three more to go. You pay your tithes of mint, that's the little herbs, and anise, that's plants, and cumin, that's seeds. Here they were, if they had ten seeds, they were giving one seed to the priests. If they had ten herbs, they were separating their tea leaves is what it amounted to, see. And this is great, you know, you're doing this, but you've omitted, you know, the way to your things such as justice, mercy, faith. Those were so legalistic. Now, He doesn't condemn the paying of the tithes.

It was right for them to do that. Jesus acknowledges that. This was their taxation system.

He just says that you've ignored the things that really matter. That's why you're to be called hypocrites. But notice the tithing here was in reference to giving, not free will, but that which was required, the tenth of everything a man had, everything that grew, everything he possessed to be given. This continued in the New Testament time under the economy of Israel because this was taxation. Again you have in Luke 18, 12, another reference to tithing and this is the only other mention of it in the Gospels at all. There is no exacting of the tithe on the church anywhere in the New Testament. It is never required of the church. It is always in reference to Israel's economy in the Gospels and in the book of Hebrews. It is only mentioned in reference to Melchizedek and Abraham way back in the book of Genesis.

It has no bearing on the church at all. And here it's in connection with boasting and hypocrisy. 18, 12, this Pharisee came to the temple, prayed to himself and said, I fast twice a week. I give tithes of all that I possess. And here he's boasting about his tithing. He paid his taxes. Well, listen, friends, paying your taxes wasn't anything to boast about.

You're supposed to do that. So the Gospel, that's all the Gospel says about tithing. The four books that we know as the Gospels, that's all it has to say. And all of those incidents in reference to Israel's paying its taxation to the national government or to Rome, giving them what is due then. And as I said, in the book of Hebrews chapter 7, the only other mention of tithing has to do with what Abraham did in Melchizedek's case. And that was Abraham gave a tenth, not because God told him to. It just so happened that he gave a tenth.

He volunteered to give that amount. At no time does the New Testament ever suggest or even hint, and there are plenty of places where it might have, but it does not, that the tithe is exacted upon the Christian. And incidentally, I told you that the tithe in the Old Testament was 23%, not the 10%, we think, because it was three tithes.

All right, in Romans 13, let's find out what the New Testament has to say in the epistles to the church about this required giving. Now we're not under the Jewish economy. You say, wow, I'm not a Jew. I'm not living in Israel.

I don't have to pay my taxes anymore. That's the national government of Israel. That was for the funding of that nation.

I'm in America. We don't have a religious theocracy here. That's for sure. That still doesn't mean anything. It doesn't mean that you're not on the hook for taxation. Verse 1 of Romans 13 says, there's no power but of God, the powers that be ordained of God. If you resist that power, verse 2, you're going to receive judgment. Now go down to verse 6.

For this cause, pay your taxes. For they, that is the ministers of the United States government or whatever government you're in, are God's ministers. You say, oh, no.

Oh, yes. You say, but they're not very godly. You're right.

In many cases that is true. Nevertheless, God has designed human government as a force to keep society together, to punish the evil and to support the good. And in that sense, not in the sense that I'm a minister of God, but in the sense that they rule in the place of God through an institution of God called human government, they are His ministers.

Remember this. When you pay your taxes, you are in the truest sense supporting the work of God. Now I know that comes as a shock, but it is true. You say, well, if I cheat a little on my taxes here and cheat a little on my taxes there, I'll get more money for the Lord.

No, no, no. You will rob the Lord. You will fall into the category of Malachi 3 by not paying your taxes. The plan is to be funded by the people, listen, especially Christian people.

Now we know the God who has set the government up. Don't cheat the government. You just cheat yourself out of blessing. You take to yourself what belongs to God. Actually, you ought to figure out every way you can pay your taxes. It's a terrific opportunity. I think I got a little mixed emotion on that. Render therefore to all their dues, tribute to whom tribute is due, custom to whom custom, fear to whom fear, honor to whom honor.

It's right across the board. Honor the government. And God will bless you because you've been obedient to His principle and you've supported His ministry. All right, now that takes care of required giving and all it says about required giving in the New Testament is, friends, pay your taxes.

That's God's design and you'll be blessed. Now let's go to free will giving. And here we enter the category of the giving that is truly giving to God. There is no reference about tithing in any passage at all in the New Testament that talks about Christian giving.

Absolutely none. Jesus never made the tithe incumbent. Paul never made an incumbent. Peter, John, James, nobody. The writer of Hebrews, none of the writers of the New Testament.

Jude made it incumbent. Luke who wrote Acts, none. Let's look at the 10 principles then that the New Testament does give for Christian giving. Ten of them listed.

Now we'll go through them rather quickly and I think you'll find it most helpful. Point number one, giving is investing with God. Giving is investing with God. Luke 6 38.

Now this is a terrific verse. Luke 6 38, give and it shall be given unto you. Do you see the principle there?

You don't have to be a banker to figure out that that is the principle of investment. You give to God and it shall be given to you. How? Good measure. It'll be measured out good. Pressed down. You know what that means? It means that it won't be, you know, like the crackers that you buy at the market that you get home and you open the box and there's a little pile at the bottom, right? But that when God gives back to you, it'll be pressed down, jam packed in the vernacular, shaken together. If they shake those crackers before they sell those packages, you'd really know what you're getting.

They'll be shaken together, packed down and still what? Running over shall men given to your bosom. You see, God will move upon others to support your needs far beyond what you gave for with the same measure you measure, it shall be measured to you again. What you invest with God, you receive dividends on. What you don't invest with God, you don't get any dividend on. Now there's the biblical principle in the New Testament that's at the basis or the heart of the whole of Christian giving. Giving is investing with God and the return is an eternal yield, an eternal dividend.

Now I want you to look at Matthew chapter 6 verse 19. Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth. Don't invest your fortune in the earth. Some of you have done that and now you wish you hadn't.

Don't do it. Lay not up for yourselves treasures on earth where moth and rust doth corrupt and thieves break through and steal. But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven where neither moth nor rust is corrupt and where thieves do not break through nor steal.

For where your treasure is there will your heart be also. In other words, be sure that your priority is investing with God because wherever you put your treasure, that's where you're going to put your heart. Let's say that I take $20,000 and I say, all right, I have two choices. I can put my $20,000 in an earthly investment. And so I take this $20,000 of precious commodity and I put it into an earthly investment.

You know what I'm going to do? You know, I'm going to start thinking about that $20,000. Every time I get the paper I'm going to find out where the stocks are and what the thing is and find out about my money. And pretty soon that $20,000 is going to start running my mind. And I'm going to start plugging into what's happening economically and I'm going to start biting my economic fingernails and I'm going to start worrying about my $20,000. And all that does is generate my attitudes and actions and responses toward the world because that's where I put it. Let's say I take the same $20,000 and I give it to God. Then where does that generate my attention? I'm going to say, Lord, you remember that $20,000 I gave you?

Boy, I hope you're seeing some return on that and it generates my relationship to Him. You see? That's what it means when it says where your treasure is. That's where your heart's going to be.

For wherever your investment is, you're going to be preoccupied with wanting to see the dividends on your investment. So you lay up for yourselves treasure in heaven. Now the point is in verse 24 at the very end of this little session. He says, No man can serve two masters, that is two lords, two people of absolute authority over him. For either he'll hate one and love the other, else he will hold to the one and despise the other. You can't be a slave to God and money.

It's one or the other. If we would learn to invest with God, it would generate activity going that way because we'd be checking in on our investment all the time. Believe me, I would much rather give my money to God than to any organization I know that runs on an economic base. Wouldn't you think God's more trustworthy? I know that God is a secure investment. So investing with God is a basic premit. That's John MacArthur here on Grace To You. He's Chancellor of the Masters University and Seminary. Today he considered God's plan for giving.

That's the title of our current series. And John, in light of the current subject, I think it would be helpful for our listeners to hear about Grace To You's philosophy on giving. We are listener-supported. We don't hide that fact, but we are not the first organization people should think of when they consider their giving to the Lord.

No, and we've made that clear through all the years. The first ministry that you need to support is your local church. You need to support the shepherds and pastors and people and ministries and outreach of your local church.

That's the priority. And then, as the Lord makes it possible for you to support us, we receive those gifts with great joy and gratitude. We want to be not a replacement for the church, not by any means. We want to be simply a supplement where you can find the teaching of the Word of God and spiritual resources that are going to help you to grow in grace and the knowledge of Christ so that you're even more effective and more valuable to your local church. We know people hunger for God's Word. We know that every day. And through radio, books, MP3s, downloads, CDs, television, our website, we're proclaiming, explaining, and delivering God's truth to His people. That's our ongoing commitment. We are not the church.

But we also know that this teaching needs to be available all the time, because so much garbage is available all the time. If all people had of the teaching of the Word of God was a Sunday morning message and a week in between, and that was it, they wouldn't be able to counter the powerful influences of evil that come against them through all the media in the culture we live in. So I think God has raised up the opportunity for all of us to draw down spiritual truth every day of the week through ministries like Grace To You. And we're grateful for how God has grown Grace To You over the years, from a simple church tape ministry to a global ministry now of spreading the Word of God across the planet in multiple languages. We are so grateful that He has done this. This is not our plan.

This is not our design. This is God spreading the truth far and wide, because that was His desire and His plan. It wouldn't have been possible without radio station partners, and it wouldn't be possible without friends who support Grace To You with their prayers and their gifts. So we say thank you. Thank you for the partnership. God is doing mighty things across the world through the ministry of Grace To You and through your support of this ministry. We thank you from the bottom of our hearts.

Yes, we do. And friend, thank you again for your generosity. Your financial gifts allow us to take the gospel to unbelievers, to help Christians apply the Bible to their lives, and also to strengthen churches around the world, to partner with us in ministry and help make a difference in people's lives in your community and beyond.

Contact us today. You can mail your tax-deductible gift to Grace To You, Box 4000, Panorama City, CA 91412, or you can express your support online at gty.org or when you call us at 800-55-GRACE. And thanks again for helping us connect Christians everywhere with Bible teaching that transforms lives. Again, to stand with us, call 800-55-GRACE or go to gty.org. And while you're at the website, make sure you download the Grace To You app if you haven't done that already. The app allows you to listen to this broadcast wherever you take your cell phone, and you can also listen to all of John's series, including popular titles like The Fulfilled Family, The Believer's Armor, and Chosen for Eternity. The Grace To You app, it's one of thousands of resources available free of charge at gty.org. Now for John MacArthur, I'm Phil Johnson. Keep in mind, you can watch Grace To You television this Sunday on DirecTV channel 378, or check your local listings for Channel and Times. And then make sure you're here next week. John's going to show you how to make spiritual investments that lead to eternal rewards. It's another 30 minutes of unleashing God's truth, one verse at a time, on Grace To You.