Tithing: Difference between revisions

  E-31    God will provide the works. If you'll just walk in grace, you'll be more at work than you are right now with the Ladies Aid Society and all this other nonsense that's been added into the church. Soup suppers to pay the preacher, where'd you ever get such a thing as that Scripture? Tithes pays the preacher. He's to live by the tithes of the people. But we had to get something else to do. We have to have our part into it. And then if the--they can't make it up, there's another society will do it, another society. God's way is right. Tithes and offerings goes to Levi, which was the minister. If everybody would pay their tithes you wouldn't have to have any soup suppers. See, you adopted something else and leave the tithings off. Say it's an Old Testament ar--argument. I'd like for you to prove it to me. That's right. You can't do it by God's Word; it's a New Testament order too. God makes one order, it can never be changed. It has to remain that way.

 

  680-Q-161    161. Would it be wrong to use tithes on church building funds?

Well now, here--here's a touchy little thing for the church now. No, correctly, tithes is to go to the minister. That's right. In the Bible they had a box they'd set at the door in the Old Testament when the--building. This box was a fund where the people put in there for the repairing... You've read it many times in the Old Testament. They kept up the buildings and things like that... All the repairs on the buildings was taken care out of that fund. But a tenth of that went--a tenth of the tithings--all the tithings went to their priests, their pastors. Yes, tithings are to go for nothing else.

I know people take their tithes and give them to a widow woman. That's wrong. If you've got anything to give the widow woman, give her, but don't give her God's money. That's not yours in the first place. That's God's.

If you sent me downtown to get a loaf of bread, and you give me twenty-five cents to get the loaf of bread, and I met somebody on the street wanted something else, and I'd give him the twenty-five cents (See?), I give them your money. If they asked me for something, let them get it over here in this pocket and give them my money; but this is your money. And a tenth of it is the Lord's. And Levi the priest could live by the tenth.

The tenth is to be a tithing that's to be brought into the storehouse with a promise of God to bless it and a proof. He said, "If you don't believe it, come and prove Me and see if I won't do it." See? That's right.

The tithings goes into the church for the pastor and so forth like that to live on. And then the--the--the building funds and things like that is a separate fund altogether. Now, that--that is Scriptural.

One time when we get started, I want to take a night... I've went here some time ago before I left the tabernacle and taken about two or three weeks and just on subjects like that and went plumb through it and showed what tithings was in the church.

  1034-Q-307    307. Should a person pay tithes to an individual, or should a Christian work?

Sure he should. He's the one man that will work, is a Christian.

"Pay tithes to an individual?" It depends on who the individual is. See? That's right. In Hebrews 7, the first time tithings was talked about in--in a stand that we... Wait a minute, I believe, number two question. No. Uh, uh. No. For Brother... Said, "Two questions for Brother Branham."

When... In Hebrews the 7th chapter, when Abraham, returning from the slaughter of the kings met Melchisedec, he paid Him a tithe. That was Melchisedec, the King of Salem, which is King of Peace, and King of Righteousness, which was nobody but God Himself. See?

But when you pay tithings... Really, where you owe tithings is where you get your food. "Bring ye all your tithings into My storehouse, saith the Lord. (That right?) And prove Me wherein saith God, that if I'll not open the windows of heaven and pour out a blessing that you would not have room enough to receive it." I challenge any man or woman that's not a tithe payer to accept that.

 

I could stand here till in the morning, telling you just what happened when I seen that, and what condition I was in. But just as loyal as I ever could, I paid tithes. And when I took my own money from the church here or from my campaigns, I'd take more... I'd give a tenth. Then I'd give it out to the ministers, and give the rest of it to ministers. Then when I couldn't do that, then the thing I did, I kept ten percent and give God ninety. And then, when the law told me I couldn't do that, I'd have to take... And if I did, it was going to be charged to it, then I had to take and bypass it into foreign missions and so forth, and then just take a wage out of that of a hundred dollars a week; and I pay my tithes from that.

Yes, sir. I believe in paying tithes. It's one of God's blessings that's proven to be a blessing. You say, "That's of the Old Testament." It is of the New Testament too. Yes, sir.