Falling From Grace Through Tithing
Tithing provided food for those who made animal sacrifices. To restore the Tithe is to repudiate the once for all sacrifice of Christ.
There are no POSITIONS in the church similar to business.
C. Bruce White: Someone says it is Old Testament and means nothing now.Do you believe that the rainbow is a sign that the earth will never be destroyed by water again? Where did you learn that? Do you believe that seed time and harvest time will come each year? Where did you learn that?
Do you believe that God will pour out abundant blessing upon the person who brings the tithe (10%) into the storehouse? Where can you learn that?
The Old Testament is given for our learning, I Corinthians 10:11.
Take care in deciding what is ceremonial law and what is a declared promise of God.
- We have reviewed some of Dr. White's preaching plan for Sunday elsewhere.
- The 10% was only food only grown on free farms only in Canaan. The third year tithe went to the Levites, two tithes were consumed by the priest-teachers and the poor in one's own village, there was no 7th year tithe and no 50th year tithe.
- We are not Jewish farmers and therefore do not tithe.
- Dr. White is not a member of the Tribe of Levi and therefore, he does not receive the tithe.
- Church does not make sacrifices and therefore there are no hired priests or Levites.
- Lucky that we know what happened under the law and therefore know that the example is directly related to losing God's grace because of musical worship and being turned over to idolatry and the need for human mediators.
- The EXAMPLE was the musical idolatry at Mount Sinai.
- Because of this transgression of musical idolatry, God took away the covenant of Grace,
- made the nation into "strangers"
- and placed the tribe of Levi between the people and God's symbolic presence at the Tabernacle.
- The EXAMPLE which we are to learn is that WITHOUT THE MUSICAL IDOLATRY there would have been no tribe of Levi to MEDIATE between the "strangers" and God.
- And without the Levites there would have been NO EXAMPLE of tithing. (No, Abraham's tithe was giving 10% of the king of Sodom's recovered loot to the King/Priest in Jerusalem).
- The Death of Lord Jesus Christ fired the priesthood and the "doctors of the Law" who just took away the "key to knowledge."
- Now, each priest can come boldly before the throne of Grace without a mediating priest (preacher) or Levite (singers). In fact, no singers could EVER enter into the Holy Place as the type of the Church. They were quarantined to the place or type of MAKING SACRIFICES and were there to MOCK Jesus while He was being sacrificed.
- Church history is almost universal in seeing "music" as Mocking Christ Who is supposed to be the ONLY Teacher when we assemble.
- To impose the singers, priests or the TITHE clearly repudiates the once for all sacrifice of Christ Whom we meet in the Most Holy Place or our own spirit as the ONLY place where worship takes place and no priest or musician can accompany us. The EXAMPLE of the law is that even under legalism they would have been put to death for such presumption.
Rubel Shelly: And those experiences can teach us: "For whatever was written in former days was written for our instruction, so that by steadfastness and by the encouragement of the scriptures we might have hope" (Rom.15:4).- The command to build the Ark was written for our instruction; we do not rush out and build arks.
Paul had something else to complete his thought:
- For whatsoever things were written aforetime were written for our learning, that we through patience and comfort of the scriptures might have hope. Romans 15:4
- Now the God of patience and consolation grant you to be likeminded one toward another according to Christ Jesus: Romans 15:5
- That ye may with one mind and one mouth glorify God, even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Romans 15:6
- That does not mean "solo" singing but all voices merged, according to history, that it sounded like one voice: unison.
- This is equivalent to the "singing" passages which are really speaking or preaching passages:
- Speaking to yourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord; Eph 5:19
- "For whatsoever was written" now becomes the golden-age as our pattern.
- However, we noted that much or most of the Bible is corrective: they made the mistakes and we can learn from their error and NOT that we are authorized to repeat their failures.
- Ephraim Syrus On Our Lord Warned of Sinai
- "For grace loaded them beyond their power, so that they should be ashamed, while laden with Thy blessings, to deny Thy person.
- And also Thou didst have mercy on those, whose lives had been made food for dead idols. For the one calf which they made in the desert, [Exod. xxxii. 4.] pastured on their lives as on grass in the desert.
- For that idolatry which they had stolen and brought out in their hearts from Egypt,
- when it was made manifest,
- slew openly those in whom it was dwelling secretly.
- For it was like fire concealed in wood, which when it is gendered from within it, burns it. For Moses ground to powder the calf and caused them to drink it in the water of ordeal; [Exod. xxxii. 20.] that by drinking of the calf all those who were living for its worship might die.
- 19. But when Moses came down, he saw their heathenism revelling in the wide plain with drums and cymbals.
- Speedily, he put their madness to shame by means of the Levites and drawn swords.
- So likewise here, our Lord concealed His knowledge for a little when the sinful woman approached Him, that the Pharisee might form into shape his thought,
- as his fathers had shaped the pernicious calf.
- John Chrysostom notes of the musical idolatry.
- What wonder that ye know not Christ, seeing ye knew not Moses, and God Who was manifested by such wonders? But they not only knew Him not:
- they also insulted in another way, by their idol making.
- "Then God turned, and gave them up to worship the host of heaven" (v. 42.)
- Hence these same "customs" date their origin, hence the sacrifices:
- they were themselves the first that made sacrifices to their idols! For that is why it is marked,
- The unforgivable sin was musical idolatry: the sacrifice and the TITHE were the MARKS.
- Over and over in the Bible and in commentary, music is the MARK as it is that of Apollo (Abaddon, Apollyon) who had his early SEEKER-CENTER.
- Romans 10 is equivalent to 1 Corinthians 10 which defines the musical idolatry which destroyed Israel at Mount Sinai:
- Now these things were our examples, to the intent we should not lust after evil things, as they also lusted. 1 Cor 10:6
- Neither be ye idolaters, as were some of them; as it is written, The people sat down to eat and drink, and rose up to play 1 Cor 10:7
- Play is pagan revelry or musical idolatry.
- "The triumphal hymn of Moses had unquestionably a religious character about it; but the employment of music in religious services, though idolatrous, is more distinctly marked in the festivities which attended the erection of the golden calf." (Smith's Bible Dictionary, Music, p. 589).
- Neither let us commit fornication, as some of them committed, and fell in one day three and twenty thousand. 1 Cor 10:8
- Neither let us tempt Christ, as some of them also tempted, and were destroyed of serpents. 1 Cor 10:9
- Neither murmur ye, as some of them also murmured, and were destroyed of the destroyer. 1 Cor 10:10
- Now all these things happened unto them for ensamples: and they are written for our admonition, upon whom the ends of the world are come. 1 Cor 10:11
- No, good doctor, they were written for our instruction and warning: they were NOT written for our imitation by letting the effeminate RISE UP TO PLAY in singing, playing and clapping hands.
- Paul doesn't describe a Christian pattern, but describes the common Egyptian or Babylonian form of musical worship. "Sending across the sea" or from afar for someone to teach us the free Word (Isaiah 55) is a repudiation of God's Word which Moses had delivered to them.
- Dr. Shelly's "don't question anyone" is: They are encouraged to experiment both with new ways of doing old things and new types of behavior. However, Paul said as clear as daylight:
- Don't experiment with the Old Exodus And Wilderness Wandering as a Pattern!
- We deny that Paul ever said that the Exodus event was a positive model for worship:
- Wherefore let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall. 1 Cor 10:12
- Paul also spoke to this pagan idolatry in Romans:
- For Moses describeth the righteousness which is of the law, That the man which doeth those things shall live by them. Romans 10:5
- But the righteousness which is of faith speaketh on this wise, Say not in thine heart, Who shall ascend into heaven? (that is, to bring Christ down from above:) Romans 10:6
- Or, Who shall descend into the deep? (that is, to bring up Christ again from the dead.) Romans 10:7
- But what saith it? The word is nigh thee, even in thy mouth, and in thy heart: that is, the word of faith, which we preach; Romans 10:8
- Paul quoted Moses who condemned the musical idolatry at Mount Sinai. In the ancient religions "going west" or "sending across the sea" to get a guru or dead god to teach you was repeated by the Israelites as they had worshiped in Egypt.
- After Israel lost the Covenant and were given The Book of The Law Moses warned: "Don't experiment again."
- If thou shalt hearken unto the voice of the Lord thy God, to keep his commandments and his statutes which are written in this book of the law, and if thou turn unto the Lord thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul. Deut 30:10
- For this commandment which I command thee this day, it is not hidden from thee, neither is it far off. Deut 30: 11
- It is not in heaven, that thou shouldest say, Who shall go up for us to heaven, and bring it unto us, that we may hear it, and do it? Deut 30: 12
- Neither is it beyond the sea, that thou shouldest say, Who shall go over the sea for us, and bring it unto us, that we may hear it, and do it? Deut 30: 13
- But the word is very nigh unto thee, in thy mouth, and in thy heart, that thou mayest do it. Deut 30: 14
- This paganism believed that music could jack you up into the presence of God. It was written so that we don't experiment again by "jumping off tall buildings."
- The total FALL FROM GRACE through musical idolatry as that TRANSGRESSION and all MUSICAL examples in the Old Testament are directly related to and are the MARK of people refusing to listen to the WORD of God amply proven by simple sermons and self-composed, erotic praise songs.
- The fall back into musical idolatry proves that the TITHE is God's sign that: "you have fallen and, like the Israelites, you will never get up."
- The Exodus as Legalistic Pattern for the Community Church. The message is that rejecting the Word and give TEACHING a second incarnation as "holy entertainment" is the MARK that one has FOLLOWED the pattern of "rising up to play" and God has turned us over to worship the starry host.
- Once again, the TITHING was the direct result of rejecting the Word of God and the BOOK OF THE COVENANT and returning to Egyptian musical idolatry.
- Tithing, therefore, was the RESULT of the MARK of the beast of Remphan, Chiun or Molech representing Satan or Lucifer as the "musical enchanter" in the garden of Eden.
- We respectfully submit that Dr. White has used the PROOF TEXT which refutes the whole thesis of church as "theater for holy entertainment." It denies that "the Word is very nigh unto thee, in thy mouth, and in they heart, that thou mayest do it."
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