Viewpoint means a lot, depending on whose viewpoint you are thinking of—our viewpoint sometimes looks one way, and God looks at the thing a little bit differently.
It’s like a woman doing embroidery work: when you are little and your mom or grandmother does it you cannot see the outcome, you just think it is a mess. You cannot see the pattern.
Sometimes I look up and say, “Lord, are you doing anything, or are you making a big mess? From my viewpoint, things don’t look so good,” and then, He reassures me, … all things work together for good… whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son… Romans 8:28, 29. He must have a pretty good pattern He’s working on and we’ll trust it.
Now, I would like to give you a picture of God’s viewpoint from the book of Malachi. For I, the Lord, change not; therefore ye, O sons of Jacob, are not consumed. Malachi 3:6. You wondered why it was that you hadn’t lost out completely, didn’t you? The Lord doesn’t change. From the days of your fathers ye have turned aside from my ordinances, and have not kept them. Return unto me, and I will return unto you, saith the Lord of hosts. But ye say, Wherein shall we return? Will a man rob God? yet ye rob me, But ye say, Wherein have we robbed thee? In tithes and offerings. Ye are cursed with the curse; for ye rob me, even this whole nation. Bring ye the whole tithe into the store-house, that there may be food in my house, and prove me now herewith, saith the Lord of hosts, if I will not open you the windows of heaven and pour you out a blessing, that there shall not be room enough to receive it. And I will rebuke the devourer for your sakes, and he shall not destroy the fruits of your ground; neither shall your vine cast its fruit before the time in the field, saith the Lord of hosts. And all nations shall call you happy; and ye shall be a delightsome land, saith the Lord of hosts. Malachi 3:7–12.
I’ve often wondered if we have really understood the principle of tithing and acknowledgement of our stewardship, and I’m persuaded that we haven’t seen the first thing about it. This passage has been used, so that the churches can see the people blessed and bringing in their ten percent faithfully to the Lord. That’s all well and good, but there must be something more, involved—even the bugs on the tomato vines will be rebuked. He will rebuke the devourer for your sake—all nations will call you a delight—you’ll be a delightsome land—all nations will call you blessed. Why? What did He mean when He said, “You’re cursed with the curse.” Some preachers say, “Well, if you don’t tithe, God will put a curse on you.” No, the curse is already on the earth. The ground has been cursed since the days of Adam. You’ll be cursed with the curse: the thorns, the devourers, the fruit of the vine cast before its time. Do you understand, what it means when it says, “Acknowledge God in your life; acknowledge your relationship to Him?” It goes a little bit deeper than paying ten percent. You’re not hiring a publicity agent at ten percent so that you will finally wind up with everyone calling you a delightsome land, and being blessed. It’s more than that. This is not a publicity stunt. This is a conforming to the principles of God, of His laws, and coming under submission to Him.
Why haven’t you been consumed? Only because the Lord doesn’t change in His mercy, for He said, “From the days of your fathers you’ve turned aside from my ordinances.” You haven’t caused yourself to fit into what God is doing.
There’s a conformity to the world and its thinking; and there’s a conformity also to God and what He is thinking. There are tithers who have the world’s viewpoint and they miss the blessing. There are others who tithe and worship and they take God’s viewpoint. They say, “Lord, how do You think? Let me think Your thoughts; let me be what You are, think what You think, feel what You feel. If the Lord has an opinion about a thing, that’s going to be my opinion,” and this is the key of the blessing. This is the way the tither was to be blessed.
“Ye are cursed with the curse, even this whole nation.” You rob God. How did you rob Him? In tithes and in offerings, but that was just a symbolic act. I used to feel that a person who was faithful and whole-hearted in paying their tithes would “stand without hitching,” as we used to say on the farm. Do you know what we’d mean by that? A well trained horse you could leave, without tying the reins, and the horse wouldn’t move until you gave the word. That’s the kind of Christian you like to see in the church. You don’t have to tie them down, because they might drift off or do something rebellious. “They stand without hitching.” Why? Because they are acknowledging God in everything that they are and in everything that they have; and it is easier to acknowledge God in everything that you are, if you start with everything that you have. For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also. Luke 12:34. If you get the thing regulated there—everything that you are, possessions and everything—that self-seeking thing in man, and surrender it to the Lord, it isn’t long before everything else within is yielded too, and you find yourself moving into the things of the Lord.
This text is speaking about God’s viewpoint and you can soon see if you’re the kind of person that God will bless and smile upon, if a sermon on tithing or a message about this sort of thing begins to rankle you, and you begin to have a suspicion, “Well, this is a gimmick for church finances. This is, well, brother! I’ll give, but…” That’s the way the world thinks. What is your viewpoint? the worlds viewpoint or God’s viewpoint?
What did the early church have? They had God’s viewpoint. They came and laid everything at the apostles’ feet, and sold their possessions so that the poor of the church wouldn’t lack anything—they loved one another so dearly. They took God’s viewpoint. It was God’s world and the fulness thereof. They were God’s, and they were called to be the expression—the fulness of him that filleth all in all.
God’s fullness was to be manifested to us, and if I believe that I am to be a part of God’s fullness manifested in the earth, how can I think selfishly? I have everything; my viewpoint changes. In our house we are always giving things away; I sort of like the way it rushes through—like having the dam open—waters rushing in and rushing out—a lot of activity—I rather like that. I like the idea that we’re being blessed of the Lord and we are to express His fullness and let it be that way.
As long as we give, it’ll be given unto us, heaped up, shaken down and running over, but the minute that you begin to think selfishly—you’re looking at the wrong side of the embroidery. You don’t see what God is doing. You’re not seeing His viewpoint. He intended never intended for you to be poor, and He never intended for you to be miserable. He intended for you to have the great privilege of sacrifice and doing without for His sake, to show Him how much you love Him, but He intended to pour it unto you.
I think that Paul had that key, when he said in Philippians 4, that he knew how to have plenty and nothing, to be abased and to abound; in whatsoever state, to be content. Why? Because he knew that he was chosen by God to manifest the fullness of Him that filleth all in all. This should be our attitude toward finances, and toward our own personal lives. It should be our attitude every time we come into the presence of the Lord. When we come to a Communion altar, it’s the same principle. We are looking for His fullness, For of His fulness we all received, and grace for grace. John 1:16. We come into the place, where we open our heart and say, “Yes Lord, just pour it on.” Here we are, we are chosen to be the pipes through which the heavenly love flows. We’re chosen to be sources, channels through which the world can be blessed, freely ye received, freely give. Matthew 10:8b. But selfishness brings man’s viewpoint and constricts the channel and holds it back. I’ve never seen anyone starve because they began to trust God and gave their lives and everything they had to the Lord.
The people who are being blessed are the people whose hearts are very much open to the Lord and they are in the house of the Lord for one viewpoint—a true tither, a giver, a member, a laborer and worker in any department of the church, not to be yes-men. It is the human viewpoint that takes hold when people say, “Well, that pastor has a kingdom—too much influence; and no man should counsel with people and have them be that much influenced by him,” and on they go. You sometimes find that criticism on the fringe of the Body.
But the people who are being blessed say, “Oh, God has a man, a channel, and His wisdom is coming through it. When he prays, God gives him an answer.” What are they seeking? They are just asking for one thing, “Lord, what is your viewpoint? What do you think about it, Lord? What is the mind of the Spirit about this?” And when they get that they say, “Yes, that’s what I’m going to walk in. That’s the way I’ll think. That’s the way I’ll regulate my life from this time on. If that’s what God thinks about it, that’s what I’m going to think about it.”
Now, the real problems, and the things that hold back the blessing are when the carnal mind comes up with what it wants, and God says, “This is the way it is.” The carnal mind struggles to accept it—forget it—that’s what the Communion is all about: by His body and His blood; for the believing of His grace to flow into us to help us in everything to conform to Him; by His very wisdom we’ll understand; by His fullness we are enriched. We are blessed with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ Jesus. Ephesians 1:3. I wish you could view tithing, giving, worshiping, working and laboring in the viewpoint—that God is pouring it in and you are giving it unto the Lord; and what a delight it is to just be that channel through which God moves. Do you want that fullness in your own heart? It puts a different viewpoint on it and this is God’s way of thinking.
I don’t want God to look at me and say, “You’re a robber.” “Why I never took anything from you.” That isn’t what it’s talking about! Ye are cursed with the curse. “Just because I didn’t pay my ten percent, I’m going to lose my job, everything will go bad with me, I’ll get sick and have a big hospital bill?” That isn’t what it’s talking about! You’re already sick. You already have hospital bills you haven’t paid. “But I can’t afford to tithe.” You can’t afford to tithe because ye are cursed with the curse. You’re living under the old curse. Get out from under it, conform to the Lord, yield to the Lord, surrender to the Lord. It’s not a matter of discipline of finances. It’s not a matter of discipline of time to pray. It’s not a matter of discipline to work. The answer of fitting in is, “Yes, Lord, I’m going to be a part of your program, part of your plan. Think the way you think, do what you say. If that’s being a yes-man, Lord, I’m going to be your yes-man.” That’s coming to the place where criticism comes from people on the outside who look at what you’re doing and say, “Those people don’t think for themselves. Whatever their church tells them, that’s what they do.” They can’t understand it, because they have the world’s viewpoint.
What viewpoint do we have? Well, we’re studying it all the time and it changes a little from time to time, because it has to conform more and more to His viewpoint. “Lord, we’re right here. You keep watching us, and tell us what You think, tell us what You want.” It has to be God showing us His viewpoint because we go along and begin to think wrong. “Well, I have this interest, and that interest and this problem and that problem,” and we become absorbed with the human level. That isn’t the thing that is significant at all—it’s the spiritual level, our living in God, walking in God. Now, that must be the reason why the early Christians solved their problems so readily; there was a walk with God. The only thing that stopped them was if they were martyred. No personal problem, nothing on the human level made any difference. In hunger, beatings, persecution, they trusted God and went on, because they were living with God, and walking with God. Oh, that we could be transformed, that we could begin to have the mind of Christ, and think as He thinks.