Debunking The Blessed Life by Robert Morris - Part 2

Here's the deal. Like I've claimed in just recent episodes of Fighting for the Faith, Robert Morris is quickly becoming the number one go -to guy on the topic of tithing and American evangelicalism and in other places that are more geared towards evangelicalism around the world.

The problem is this. There isn't anything that he says that's actually biblical regarding the topic of tithing or money.

His so -called principle of multiplication, which we covered earlier in the week, when you go back and you actually examine his teaching in light of what

Scripture says, what you find is that his so -called principle of multiplication is not based on the

Bible. Instead, it's based upon his imagination.

Not the Bible, but his imagination. We demonstrated that earlier this week. Now, in Robert Morris' book, there's kind of some key foundational assumptions and certain principles that he teaches.

Key foundational assumptions have to do with blessing and cursing. The idea is this, is that God wants to bless you, but he can't bless you unless you apply particular principles.

If you don't apply those principles, then unfortunately, God must curse you. What that means is blessing is when

God is supernaturally in your corner and working in your favor, and cursing is when

God's supernatural powers are actually working against you. For Christians, apparently, there's no neutral ground.

You either apply the right principles, and that means obedience to those principles, and you will be blessed.

Otherwise, you're going to be cursed. This is what Robert Morris teaches in the book,

The Blessed Life. Now, past two Sundays, Robert Morris has been preaching at Elevation Church.

This is Stephen Furtick's church in Charlotte, North Carolina. This is not the first place that Robert Morris has preached at in the

Seeker -Driven Movement. In fact, he's preached at LifeChurch .tv, Saddleback Church. You're going to be hearing

Rick Warren giving him kudos and putting him forward as a money expert, but I'm going to hang on to that for just a little bit.

I said Perry Nobles Church. The list goes on and on and on.

He makes the rounds, and when he shows up, it takes him two weeks to do his stick. The reason why

Seeker -Driven pastors bring him in is because he's the money man. After his two weeks of preaching, the money starts flowing.

The thing is that none of this is actually what the Bible teaches. All you have to really have is an open

Bible and a little bit of an understanding of the concepts of law and gospel, and you'll be able to see his duplicity very easily.

What we're going to do is we're going dive into it. Like I said, this is going to run a little bit longer than normal here because I've got to do this justice.

With that, here's Robert Morris from this past Sunday at Elevation Church teaching what's called the power of the first.

Remember earlier we talked about the power of multiplication or the principle of multiplication. This is going to be the principle of the first.

Here's Robert Morris. Did you catch that?

There's a reason why I started there. I could start just a little bit later, but I wanted to hear this because there's a little bit of manipulation going on right here.

Robert Morris, by saying, oh, the Lord just spoke this to me, is now basically, without saying it, claiming for himself prophetic status.

To challenge him is to challenge God. He hears directly from God. This is a form of manipulation that you're hearing.

It's that every time you bless the food or thank the Lord for the food, would you pray for Pastor Stephen Hawley?

Would you just simply say, and Lord bless Pastor and his family. Lord bless them. Can you imagine if every member of Elevation Church just prayed three times a day a blessing?

The reason is because he's a great leader in the kingdom of God, but God's going to do more with him and he needs our prayers.

I just want you to pray for him. Just lift him up and his family. And I'm honored to be here,

Pastor Stephen. All right. I want you to turn to Exodus chapter 13. Okay. You need to do that.

Now, remember what William Tapley did, taking these disparate ideas out of context and weaving them together as if they were one solid teaching.

Okay. That's just, you saw it simple there. Watch what he does here.

Okay. You need to open your Bible. Go to Exodus chapter 13. Exodus chapter 13.

And last weekend, we talked about the principle of multiplication. This weekend, we're going to talk about the principle of first.

Thus far, the Lord has helped us. His banner over us is love.

We saw such an incredible demonstration of people's lives that have been changed. God changes the banner over our lives.

Well, there are some principles that when we live by these principles, then the

Lord helps us. He wants to help us, but he is bound by principles he's put in place in some ways.

Okay. Now, got to put down a little bit of a marker here. Okay. And what I mean by that is, is that in just a little bit,

I'm going to disprove this and just blow it out of the water using the part of the story of Jacob.

Okay. Remember Jacob and Esau. Okay. Now, listen to, let me back this up and listen to what he says. God wants to help you.

He wants to bless you, but you know, he can't.

Okay. That's kind of the gist of it. Let me back this up so you can kind of hear this. Our lives.

Well, there are some principles that when we live by these principles, then the

Lord helps us. He wants to help us. But he is bound by principles he's put in place in some ways.

So God wants to help us, but he's bound by principles. So if you don't apply these principles and you don't live by them, think of the word, let's do a little synonyms here.

Okay. He's picking his words very carefully. Okay. He's saying the word principle rather than saying the word law, but don't you think law would be the right synonym here?

Let me rephrase it. God wants to bless you, but he's got certain laws that well, if you don't, if you don't obey them, then he can't bless you.

Notice he's trying to avoid speaking it like that. Instead he's saying, God wants to bless you, but he's bound by certain principles and he can't bless you unless you live by these principles.

This is about obedience to the law. Okay. But he's carefully crafted his message in such a way as to find a way to cover that up.

So it's not quite as bold and in your face, but this is about obedience to what he thinks are commands and laws.

And truly these are commands found in God's word, but we're going to have to do a little bit of teasing out of what, you know, when we look at the

Mosaic covenant, what is as Christians, what are we bound to and what are we not bound to? And when we say we're bound to it, what do we mean by saying we're bound to it?

You'll get what I'm saying here in a minute. So hang on. So I want to talk about principle first.

So let me just make this statement before we read the scripture. If God's first in your life, everything comes in order.

Okay. Now, technically that's true, but here's the deal. Which of you can say today that you have not sinned?

None of you can. I can't say it. You can't say it. So every single time that you sin, you prove that God is not first in your life.

And if, well, things aren't going to pan out for you until you make God first in your life, then really that means that you've got to stop sinning.

In other words, God's going to be against you until you obey him perfectly because the law demands that you obey him perfectly.

Everything. But when God's not first, everything will be out of order.

Everything. So we're talking about our findings. So we're talking about blessing and cursing based upon your obedience to the law.

Isn't, is this not the first commandment? The first commandment basically you can summarize it as love the

Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your mind and all your strength. Right? Isn't this what he's just said?

Make God first. Well, that's the same thing. Right? Listen in.

But you have to remember that Jesus said where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

So let's look at this. All right. The principle of first Exodus chapter 13. I know this is probably not what you've been memorizing lately, the book of Exodus, but it has great principles in us for us to understand.

All right. Principles. He keeps saying that word. The book of Exodus has a lot of laws in it and commandments in it.

Principles. What's that? Exodus chapter 13. Look at verse one.

It says, then the Lord spoke to Moses saying, consecrate to me all the firstborn, whatever opens the womb among the children of Israel, both the man and beast.

It is mine. Now this phrase, it is mine in the Hebrew is repeated a few times in the old

Testament. And I'm going to talk to you about what it refers to, but the first, it refers to the firstborn, the firstborn. He says it belongs to me.

It's mine. All right. And then look down at verses 12 and 13. Then you shall set aside apart to the

Lord, all that opened the womb. That is every firstborn that comes from an animal, which you have the males shall be the

Lord's very similar. Same phrase. It is mine shall belong to the Lord. Verse 13.

And this gets a little old Testamenty, but just, just follow me. Okay. We'll explain it. But every firstborn of a donkey, you shall redeem with a lamb.

And if you will not redeem it, then you shall break its neck. In other words, you're going to lose it anyway. It's very important to understand this and all the firstborn of man among your sons, you shall redeem.

All right. Three points. Stop. Okay. Before we let him go on, we have to apply our three primary rules for sound biblical exegesis.

Okay. And those three rules are context, context, and context. Now, as he read through select portions of Exodus chapter 13, you should have noted if you were following along that he omitted whole sections of Exodus chapter 13.

Okay. So first of all, let's take a look at the context of what's going on here. What does he mean that this is a principle?

Notice he says there's an important principle being taught here. And yet he taught the principle by taking out an exacto knife and slicing out certain verses and using those and omitting the rest.

You should have had a red flag going off in your mind, basically saying, wait a second, something's going wrong here.

Okay. Let's take a look at the context of Exodus chapter 13. Here's what it says. Starting at verse one, by the way, you'll notice that where we are in the story is

Israel is just about ready to leave Egypt.

The nine of the 10 plagues have now occurred. Okay. Pharaoh has dug in his heels and he will not let

God's people go. And so now the final plague is about ready to be unleashed on Egypt and Pharaoh and the children of Israel are about to be released from slavery by the mighty hand of God.

Okay. And so what we find ourselves learning about here in Exodus chapter 13 are commandments that pertain to and have their context in the

Passover. Okay. The Passover, that would be God's destroyer, working through all of Egypt and killing the first born of everybody and whose house he does not find the blood of the lamb sprinkled on the lentils.

Okay. The blood of the lamb, this sounds messianic, right?

All of this is a type and shadow that points us to Jesus Christ, the lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.

By the way, the way the destroyer passes over you, and I'm not allegorizing here.

And what I mean by that is this, the way it is that you avoid death and destruction in hell and the lake of fire is if you are covered in the blood of our

Passover lamb, Jesus Christ. See the connection? Okay. Let me continue here though.

So Exodus 13 verse one, the Lord said to Moses, consecrate to me all the firstborn.

Whatever is the first to open the womb among the people of Israel, both of man and of beast is mine.

That's verse one. Then Moses said to the people, remember this day in which you came out from Egypt out of the house of slavery for by a strong hand,

Yahweh, the Lord brought you up from this place. No leavened bread shall be eaten today in the month of Abib.

You are going out. And when the Lord brings you into the lands of the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Amorites, the

Hivites, and the Jebusites, which he swore to your fathers to give to you, a land flowing with milk and honey, you shall keep this service in this month.

Seven days you shall eat unleavened bread. And on the seventh day, there shall be a feast to the Lord. Notice the context here.

Unleavened bread shall be eaten for seven days. No leavened bread shall be seen with you and no leavened bread shall be with you in all of your territory.

You shall tell your son on that day, it is because of what the Lord did for me when I came up out of the land of Egypt.

And it shall be to you as a sign on your hand and as a memorial between your eyes, that the law of the

Lord may be in your mouth. For with a strong hand, the Lord has brought you up out of Egypt.

You shall therefore keep this statute at its appointed time from year to year. When the

Lord brings you into the land of the Canaanites, as he swore to you and your fathers, and shall give it to you, you shall set apart to the

Lord all that first opens the womb. Got to pause here.

Notice Robert Morris quoted Exodus 13 .1, Exodus 13 .12,

and Exodus 13 .13. Notice that Exodus 13 .12

begins halfway through a sentence. He purposely omitted verse 11.

And if he had put that in, he would have not been able to teach this teaching that he's teaching. Here's why, because Exodus 13 .11

makes it clear that this doesn't apply to me and it doesn't apply to you. Okay.

Listen again. Verse 11, when Yahweh, the Lord brings you into the land of the

Canaanites, as he swore to you and your fathers, you shall, and shall give it to you.

The sentence continues, you shall set apart to the Lord, all that first opens the womb, all the firstborn of your animals that are males shall be the

Lord's. Every firstborn of a donkey, you shall redeem with a lamb, or if you will not redeem it, you shall break its neck.

Every firstborn of a man among your sons, you shall redeem. Stop. Who was this written to?

Who received these commands? The children of Israel received these commands, not me, not you.

And here's the Christians are not bound by any of these commands.

And here's the reason why. The reason is, is because in the

Mosaic law, okay, there are three different divisions within the

Mosaic law. There are three. Okay. And to help kind of flesh this out. Okay.

I'm going to call upon Philip Melanchthon. Okay. Philip Melanchthon, the contemporary of Martin Luther.

He's quoted in his loci communis in Martin Chemnitz's loci theologicae regarding the different divisions within the

Mosaic law. And listen carefully here. There's a reason why Christians are not required to keep kosher laws.

They're not required to keep the Passover. They're not required to appear before the

Lord three times a year in Jerusalem for the Passover, the Feast of Booths and the Feast of Tabernacles.

Okay. There's a reason because when we look at the Mosaic law, there are three divisions within it.

Okay. Here's what Philip Melanchthon says. He says, thus, there are three general divisions of the

Mosaic law, the moral laws, the ceremonial and the civil or judicial laws.

This distinction must be carefully studied because even though the political structure established by Moses has now been destroyed, yet the distinction of the laws must be taken into consideration.

The ceremonial laws of Moses and the civil laws are not commanded to other nations, nor are they binding upon us.

They were given to the people of Israel for that time in order that the political structure might continue for a definite period of time so that there might be a specific place in which the

Messiah, the Christ, should be born and reveal Himself, be proclaimed and become the sacrifice and openly complete the work of our eternal life.

But there is still another classification of the laws which are called moral laws, which are the eternal mind and rule of God and are not changed by the passing of time.

Always and from all eternity, God has willed that His creatures should love and fear

God and that the rational creature be pure. There are also moral laws which give commands concerning the acknowledgement of God in our hearts and our obedience toward God and concerning good works toward men, as well as concerning righteousness, chastity, truthfulness, and temperance.

The moral laws have been summarized by God in a remarkable way on one small table, which is called the

Decalogue or the Ten Commandments. It is common to call it the Decalogue when we are referring to the moral law, a term which can be easily understood without any war of words.

Since these laws are the eternal rule of the mind of God, they always sounded forth in the church even before the time of Moses, and they shall remain in force forever and apply also to the

Gentiles. So, to kind of summarize it, these divisions within the Mosaic Covenant between the civil ceremonial and moral laws explain why

Christians are not required to keep a kosher diet, like Leviticus 11 verses 1 -47 teaches, but we possess the freedom to eat bacon and shellfish, see for instance

Mark chapter 7 verses 14 -19. These divisions also explain why Christians are not required to circumcise their male children, despite the command in Leviticus 12 verses 1 -3 to do so.

You would cross -reference that then with Romans 3 verses 27 -30. Nor are

Christians required to sacrifice animals for their sins, see Leviticus 4 verses 1 -35, and then cross -reference that with Hebrews 7 verses 1 -9 verse 28.

Simply put, those particular Old Testament laws were part of the civil and ceremonial codes of the

Mosaic Law and are either not binding on other nations or have been fulfilled by Jesus' substitutionary sacrifice on the cross for our sins, which those sacrifices point to.

These divisions within the Mosaic Law also explain why Christians are not free to steal, lie, and engage in sexual immorality, because the moral laws, they continue on forever.

So, that's the idea. Now, what Robert Morris is doing here, and this is important to note, he is quoting from a portion of the commandments given in the

Old Testament that are not in the moral law but are in the civil and ceremonial laws that were binding only on the nation of Israel.

And here's the other thing that he's doing. I'll kind of explain this to you here and demonstrate it when he does it.

He's going to basically claim that this is a text about tithing. This is not a text about tithing.

Tithing texts are other texts, and there are particular reasons why the nation of Israel is supposed to tithe.

You have to think of it as like a tax that was exacted so that the

Israelites could support the Levites in their ministry in the temple.

Let me give you a passage to kind of help you out with this. Numbers chapter 18 verses 21 through 24 explains something regarding the tithe.

Here's what it says, "'To the Levites I have given every tithe in Israel for an inheritance in return for their service that they do, their service in the tent of meeting, so that the people of Israel do not come near the tent of meeting lest they bear their sin and die.

But the Levites shall do their service of the tent of meeting, and they shall bear their iniquity.

It shall be a perpetual statute throughout your generations, and among the people of Israel they shall have no inheritance.

For the tithe of the people of Israel, which they present as a contribution to the Lord, I have given to the

Levites for an inheritance. Therefore I have said of them that they shall have no inheritance among the people of Israel.'"

So here's the idea. The purpose of the tithe in ancient Israel was because the

Levites were not given a land inheritance like the other tribes of Israel.

Instead they were to serve the Lord perpetually generation to generation as Levites in the tabernacle and then later in the temple.

And the tithe was a tax to support them. That's what it was for. So the idea is this, is that what's going on in Exodus chapter 13, it's not a tithe.

Instead it is a redemptive sacrifice. It is a redemptive sacrifice.

They are two totally different things. In fact, when you look at the passage, the simple fact that a person could break the neck of an unclean animal like a donkey rather than redeem it and thus fulfill this command is proof positive that this is not a command about tithing.

Because you would ask the question, what good or use would a little

Levitical priest make of a donkey with a broken neck? None whatsoever, right?

So look at these commands again. Let's go back to Exodus 13. Okay, let me continue. Verse 11, when the

Lord brings you into the land of the Canaanites, as he swore to you and your fathers, you shall give it and he shall give it to you.

You shall set apart to the Lord all the first that opens the womb. All the firstborn of your animals that are males shall be the

Lord's. Every firstborn of a donkey you shall redeem with a lamb, or if you will not redeem it, you shall break its neck.

Every firstborn of a man among your sons you shall redeem. And when in time to come, your son asked you, what does this mean?

You shall say to him, by a strong hand the Lord brought us up out of Egypt from the house of slavery.

For when Pharaoh stubbornly refused to let us go, the Lord killed all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, both the firstborn of man and the firstborn of animals.

Therefore I sacrifice to the Lord all the males that first open the womb, but all the firstborn of my sons

I redeem. It shall be as a mark on your hand or a frontlets between your eyes, for by a strong hand the

Lord brought us up out of Egypt. Get it? This is not a command for Christians.

In fact, you will note, not anywhere in all of Christian history have Christians redeemed the firstborn by either breaking its neck or sacrificing a lamb.

Why? These laws and commandments, the specific law, is from a division of the

Mosaic covenant that does not apply to Christians. And furthermore, what you're going to hear again,

Robert Morris is going to claim that this is about the tithe. This is not about the tithe. This is a redemptive sacrifice that calls to mind the

Passover and their exodus by God's killing of the firstborn. They were redeemed from the killing of the firstborn by the sacrifice of the

Passover lamb. All of this is a type and shadow that points us to Christ and Christ is the fulfillment of this.

He fulfills this type and shadow and that's why this isn't binding. But what Robert Morris is trying to do very desperately is create the misimpression that this is about tithing and that because there's a principle here, a principle that no one else has seen but him, that now we're bound by this principle and we as Christians, we don't break the necks of donkeys or are redeemed through the sacrifice of lambs.

Instead, we can fulfill this principle by giving money to a church.

But I would tell you, there is this command given here, there are only two ways to fulfill it.

Only two. And it has nothing to do with money because nowhere in these commands does it say that you can redeem the firstborn with money.

Instead, you must either kill it or sacrifice another animal in its place to redeem it.

Money is not one of the options. So what he's going to try to do by making this a principle that allows him the leverage and leeway that he needs to create the false impression that this principle then is fulfilled in our time by us giving money.

But this isn't about anything that any of us need to worry about or even fret about or try to fulfill.

All of this has been fulfilled in Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.

We continue. Again, if you're taking notes, I want you to write these down. If you're not taking notes, write these down.

Okay, here's the first one. Number one, the firstborn must be sacrificed or redeemed.

That's what we just read. The firstborn. Right. And my money isn't born.

It doesn't open a womb. Only animals do this. And like I've pointed out from this text, the reason for this particular command given to the children of Israel was to recall to mind in the youngins of Israel, their release from slavery and captivity by the

Lord. Must be sacrificed or redeemed.

Now, how do you know which to do? Well, God uses two examples. He uses the lamb and the donkey.

What he's doing is he's using examples of a clean animal and an unclean animal. If you had a clean animal, if you're...

No, no, no. He's not using examples. See, that's got to stop there. Did you hear what he said?

He's using examples of a clean and unclean animal. No, he's giving specific commands regarding clean and unclean animals that are firstborn.

See, this one word makes the difference. He says, oh, God's using examples. And the reason he's saying that is so that he can smuggle this into a teaching regarding tithing.

This passage has nothing whatsoever to do with tithing, and Christians are not bound by this.

Clean animal has a firstborn. You have to sacrifice that firstborn to God.

But if it's an unclean animal, it must be redeemed with the sacrifice of a clean animal.

Now, I'm going to say that one more time, and then I'll tell you why this is so important. If it's a clean animal, it must be sacrificed, a clean firstborn.

If it's unclean, it must be redeemed with the sacrifice of a clean animal.

Now, why is this so important? Well, let me just ask you a couple of questions. Were you and I born clean or unclean?

Now, what he's doing here is picking up on the types and shadows that are in this

Old Testament command. And what he's doing, technically, there's nothing wrong with it.

In fact, it's very good to point us to some of how this directly ties to Christ's sacrifice for us on the cross.

So, I'm not going to take issue with this, but he's using this then to further allegorize and make this symbolic so that he can make it about money rather than about animals.

We were born unclean. We were all born with a sin nature. We were born in sin. Now, I can prove it by just simply asking the experts here, if you're a parent, did you have to teach your children to be bad, or did it come naturally for them?

We have to teach them to be good, right? Because we're born in sin. We're born with a sin nature. Okay, so we were all born unclean.

Was Jesus born unclean or clean? Clean. Okay, listen carefully.

Here's what we just read. Listen, the clean Jesus had to be sacrificed so the unclean could be redeemed.

That's what we just read. That's what we just read in the Bible. Legit. Okay, no problem with that.

That's kind of like a gospel -ish nugget there. Okay. You have to remember, you have to remember everything in this book points to Jesus.

That's correct. I agree with him. There's a reason God said what he did, and this represents giving the first to God.

No, it doesn't represent. See, he's smuggling this word in here.

He's trying to make this a representation that now we've got to do the same thing. Well, here's my question for you.

Are you ready? Which of your dollars are born clean, and which of them are born unclean?

Because you have to use the clean dollars to redeem the unclean dollars. Right? Doesn't make any sense when you start looking at it that way, does it?

It's about tithing. We're going to show you in just a moment. Now, this passage isn't about tithing. I'm going to back this up so you can hear what he's doing in context here.

This passage is not about tithing. This is not part of the tithing commands given to Israel.

Okay, this has nothing to do with that. But what he's trying to do is make this into a tithing text, and it doesn't, because remember, you can fulfill this command by breaking the neck of an unclean animal.

And the purpose of the tithe, according to the book of Leviticus, is to support the Levitical priesthood. Again, I ask the question, what good is a donkey with a broken neck to a

Levitical priest? None. This isn't about tithing. Let me back this up. You have to remember, you have to remember, everything in this book points to Jesus.

There's a reason God said what he did. And this represents giving the first to God, which is about tithing.

We're going to show you in just a moment. No, it's not. This isn't a tithing text. This is about tithing.

This is why I get so upset when people talk negatively about tithing, because I want to tell you something maybe you've never thought of before.

Jesus is God's tithe. No, he isn't. Who was

God tithing to? That doesn't make any sense. Jesus is not a tithe.

He is a redemptive sacrifice. The same as the Passover lamb was a redemptive sacrifice.

The same as the killing of the firstborn or redeeming it was a redemptive sacrifice.

That points to God's exodus and Passover. No, this is not a tithing text at all.

And what he's doing is criminal, claiming that Jesus is God's tithe. Who on earth did he get this from?

Answer, he didn't get it from the Bible. He got this from his imagination. There's no biblical text that says that Jesus was

God's tithe. He's the firstborn.

He was sacrificed so we could be redeemed. This is all through scripture. And by the way, it uses a lamb.

So we know Jesus is the lamb to represent a clean animal. It uses a donkey to represent unclean.

So we're okay. So, but this is why it bothers me because people understand.

See, you give the tithe in faith. You don't wait to see if you have enough. You give the first 10%.

You give the first portion of God so that God will redeem the rest. And this is what he's saying. If you'll give me the first one, the rest are redeemed.

He didn't say, wait until your sheep has 10 lambs and then give me one. And he also didn't say, give me the defective one or the ugly one or the one you don't like.

And by the way, this text doesn't say you give me the first and the rest are redeemed. It doesn't say that either.

You have to redeem the firstborn. It doesn't say anything about that redemption then applying to the remaining animals.

Not at all. This is not what this biblical text says. He's making these assertions, all of these, basically taking all of this stuff, ripping them out of context, putting them together as if there's some unified teaching and they're not.

And he's smuggling a whole bunch of stuff in, not from the biblical text, but once again, from his.

We continue. Said you give me, and that's what he was talking to him in Malachi about.

He said, you bring me defective animals and I won't accept them. We have to bring the first to God.

And this is why this represents Jesus because God didn't wait to see if we would straighten up to give Jesus.

God gave Jesus when we were mocking him and beating him and spitting on him and nailing him to a cross.

Who did he give him to? You see, he's trying to turn Jesus into a tithe and Jesus is not a tithe.

He's a redemptive sacrifice, a propitiatory sacrifice, an atoning sacrifice, but he's not a tithe.

While we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. So it's the same way we give the first to God.

And this is what God is saying. So the firstborn must be sacrificed already.

Okay. So when, when my money starts coming out of a womb and I can determine whether or not my dollars are clean and unclean,

I'll make sure to, well, I don't even need to, I don't even need to apply this because, well, this is part of the

Mosaic law. The part that doesn't apply to Christians. It's from the civil and ceremonial portions, not the moral.

It's not binding on Christians. If this were binding on Christians, well, then it would be binding on us to also circumcise our sons.

We would, all of the men that are Christians would be required to appear before the Lord three times a year in Jerusalem for the

Passover, the Feast of Weeks and the Feast of Booths. We'd be required to stone sexually immoral people and disobedient children and stuff like that too.

You see what I'm saying? All right, here's the second point. The firstfruits must be offered.

The firstfruits must be offered. Now again, you can just say in Exodus 13, but let me read you a couple of other scriptures.

All right. Exodus 23 verse 19, Exodus 23, 19 says, the first of the firstfruits.

That's for us hard -headed people that don't understand. Now the firstfruits offering is technically a different offering.

I don't mean to quibble here, but it's different. Although you could point to these sacrifices that are commanded in Exodus 13 as a type of firstfruits, it's technically a different thing that's going on here.

And there's a whole theological difference between those. He's trying desperately to make this text about tithing and it's not.

Now I'm running out of time. So what I'm going to do is I'm going to wrap this up here by pointing you to another story.

Because you remember at the beginning of his story, he made the claim, he made the claim that, well,

God wants to bless you, but he's bound by certain principles and he can't bless you until you make him first in your life.

So the idea is this, God wants to bless you, he can't. It's all depending upon you putting him first and applying these principles.

And yet I've demonstrated that the principle of multiplication is not actually what he teaches it is at all. When we look at the biblical text, that's not what this text said.

In fact, his points that he was making were from his imagination. Pointed out clearly from Exodus 13, this is not anything that we're bound by, and he's trying to make it symbolic now that has to do with dollars, but my dollars aren't born and neither are yours.

And not only that, this doesn't apply to us because this is part of the civil and ceremonial portion of the

Mosaic covenant that doesn't apply today. It's been fulfilled in Christ. But I wanted to point out the fact that he's got it all backwards.

God isn't waiting on you to put him first before he will bless you. That's a flat out lie, flat out lie.

A clear passage I would point to, for instance, in New Testament, Romans 5, verse 6, which says,

For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly.

For one will scarcely die for a righteous person, though perhaps for a good person, one would dare even to die.

But God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

Notice that God didn't wait for us to clean up our act. He died, Christ died for us while we were still sinners.

But there's another passage I want to take you to in the Old Testament. And this is from the story of Jacob and tithing is brought up in this passage.

Now I can take you to a passage regarding Abraham and tithing being brought up too, and I can make the same point. But I'm going to make the same point,

I'm going to make this point from the story of Jacob to show you something that what Robert Morris is teaching is patently false.

Okay, here it is. Genesis chapter 28, I'll start at verse 1. Pay attention to God's words, okay, the

Lord's words and his blessing. And ask yourself this question, did the

Lord bless Jacob before Jacob said he was going to tithe?

Or did the Lord bless Jacob after Jacob tithed?

Okay, important thing to ask, okay? So just kind of keep those categories in your mind as I read this.

Genesis chapter 28, verse 1. Then Isaac called Jacob and blessed him and directed him, you must not take a wife from the

Canaanite women, arise and go to Paddan Aram, to the house of Bethuel, your mother's father, and take as your wife from there one of the daughters of Laban, your mother's brother.

God Almighty bless you and make you fruitful and multiply you, that you may become a company of peoples.

May he give the blessings of Abraham to you and to your offspring with you, that you may take possession of the land of your sojournings that God gave to Abraham.

Thus Isaac sent Jacob away, and he went to Paddan Aram, to Laban, the son of Bethuel, the

Aramean, the brother of Rebekah, Jacob and Esau's mother. I'm going to skip ahead here, verse 10 now.

Jacob left Beersheba and went toward Haran, and he came to a certain place and stayed there that night, because the sun had set.

Taking one of the stones of the place, he put it under his head and lay down in that place to sleep.

And he dreamed, and behold, there was a ladder set up on the earth, and the top of it reached to heaven.

And behold, the angels of God were ascending and descending on it. And behold, the

Lord stood above it and said, I am Yahweh, the God of Abraham your father and the

God of Isaac, the land on which you lie, I will give to you and to your offspring.

Your offspring shall be like the dust of the earth, and you shall spread abroad to the west and to the east and to the north and to the south.

And in you, in you and your offspring, singular, shall all the families of the earth be blessed.

Behold, I am with you, and I will keep you wherever you go, and I will bring you back to this land, for I will not leave you until I have done what

I have promised. Then Jacob awoke from his sleep and said,

Surely Yahweh is in this place, and I did not know it. And he was afraid and said,

How awesome is this place! This is none other than the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven.

So early in the morning Jacob took the stone that he had put under his head and set it up for a pillar and poured oil on the top of it.

He called the name of the place Bethel, which by the way means house of God.

But the name of the city was Luz at first. Then Jacob made a vow, saying, If God will be with me and will keep me in this way that I go, and will give me bread to eat and clothing to wear, so that I come again to my father's house in peace, then the

Lord shall be my God. And this stone which I have set up for a pillar shall be God's house, and of all that you give me,

I will give a full tenth to you. This passage flows completely backwards from what

Robert Morris leads us to believe in his book and what he's led us to believe in this sermon. Robert Morris has led us to believe that while there's blessings and curses,

God's supernatural power is there to help you and bless you, but you need to apply and live by certain principles, because God can't bless you if you don't live by those principles.

What's worse than that, in fact, he's going to curse you and his supernatural power is going to work against you if you don't make him first and apply these principles.

But here the tithe is mentioned right here in the Old Testament, and you'll notice something.

God blessed Jacob, promised to be with him, promised to protect him, promised to bring him back, and Jacob had done nothing, absolutely nothing, except for here the promise given by God and the blessing given by none other than Jesus himself.

And the reason I say that is because the scriptures are clear. Jesus is the Yahweh of the Old Testament.

So there Jesus appears to him in this dream on the ladder and blesses

Jacob. Now, I don't know if you've noticed, but up to this point in the story about Jacob, he doesn't exactly seem like the most godly guy out there, but God is going to bless him, just purely unilaterally bless him.

And Jacob's response, now pay close attention, here's what he says, Jacob's made a vow, this is verse 20, if God will be with me and will keep me in this way that I go and will give me bread to eat and clothing to wear, notice he expects

God's blessings first, so that I come again to my father's house in peace.

And the reason why he's expecting this is because God has already promised to do this for him, completely unilaterally blessing him, right?

Then Yahweh shall be my God and this stone which I have set up for a pillar shall be God's house and of all that you give me,

I will give a tenth to you. Now, let me ask you a question. So, here we have an example of tithing from before the

Mosaic law. Could Jacob have decided to give 20 %?

Yeah. Could he have decided to give 5 %? Yup. Was he obligated to give anything to God?

Nope. There was no command telling him that he had to give a tenth or that he had to first fruits or anything of the sort.

He could have given as little or as much as he wanted. He could have given 1%. What was the reason why he was giving?

Not because he was commanded to, not because he expected God's blessings only if he tithed.

Nope. The reason why Jacob decided to or a tenth of what everything that God gave him was purely out of a response of gratitude in his heart.

God had already blessed him. God had already promised him that he would be with him.

In fact, God didn't demand anything from Jacob. Nothing.

There was no commands, no demands made upon him, just blessing.

And Jacob believed. And his response was in worship to give

God 10%. And he could have given him more or he could have given him less. And none of us would have been able to point a bony finger at him and said he was doing something wrong.

And you know what? Christian giving is the same way.

Here's the idea. We are not bound by the commands of the Mosaic Covenant, especially the ones pertaining to the civil and ceremonial laws.

We are not required to keep kosher laws. We are not required to appear before God in Jerusalem three times a year.

We are not required to stone false prophets, although it seems tempting at times.

We are not required to circumcise our male children. We are not required to keep the

Passover, the Feast of Weeks, the Feast of Booths, all that. We're not required to do any of that stuff, nor are we required to kill our firstborn animals, nor are we required to redeem our firstborn sons.

The reason why is because those commands were not given to us, they were given to Israel. And because we are not under the law, we are under grace, we are now set free from sin to do good works, and those good works are defined according to the

Ten Commandments, which are still binding for all of us. Not binding in the sense where we're required to keep them, otherwise we're not saved, but they're binding in the sense that because we've been set free from sin, we are now free, we are now slaves of righteousness and free to do good works, and those commandments tell us what good works are.

Does that make sense? But here, in this story regarding tithing from the Old Testament, and it's the same way with Abraham, by the way,

Abraham was blessed long before, he was blessed of God before he ever tithed to Melchizedek, and he didn't have to tithe to Melchizedek, he wasn't commanded to or forced to, he did that as an act of worship, freely.

So here's the idea, we as Christians, because God has acted unilaterally and blessed us in Christ, and died for us while we were still sinners, and has given us every blessing in Christ, salvation, freedom from our sins,

I mean, name all of the blessings that we receive from God, we receive them all as a gift. We now can give to God not under compulsion, we can give to Him as much or as little as we want.

Understanding this though, that the difference here with us is that we are slaves to God now, we are slaves to righteousness.

So everything we have, including our own lives, belong to God, because God purchased us with His own blood.

We are the ones who have been redeemed, purchased off the slave block.

So everything we have belongs to God, everything. And it is

God's will that those who preach the gospel should make their living from teaching and preaching the gospel.

That's what God's will is. So as Christians, it is a good work to support our ministers who bring us

God's word, administer the sacraments, it is God's will that they make their living from doing that.

So since everything you have, including your own life, belongs to God, set aside an idea in your own mind, in response, in thankfulness, in gratitude for what

God has done for you, how much you're going to give to support the people who are preaching and teaching the gospel, understanding that they're laborers in the harvest right now, and God is using them in the gospel that they're preaching to set other people like yourselves free from bondage to sin, death, and the devil.

It's God's will that they make a living by doing that. So you're free to give as much or as little as you can afford because everything you own belongs to God, including yourself.

Therefore, you have to steward what God has given you to make sure that you have food on the table, that you are saving for your retirement, that you're taking care of your kids' needs, like college and things like that.

So however much resources God has given into your life, you've got to budget that appropriately to basically get you through and save enough also to take care of those who have need, the poor.

Don't just think about your pastor, think about also those who cannot or are not able right now to financially make ends meet.

This is God's will. This is what He wills. He wills since everything you have belongs to Him, you now have freedom.

Freedom. You are free to give as much or as little as you want. You're not commanded to do so.

Understanding it's God's will that your resources are used to not only meet your needs, but to meet the needs of those who preach the gospel and meet the needs of those who do not have the ability right now to make ends meet.

So that's the idea. Give as much or as little as you want.

If you want to give 25%, then do it. But here's the deal. Don't tell anybody.

This is between you and God. You're not doing this under compulsion. You are free to give 30%, 40%, 100 % if you want.

It doesn't matter. The amount doesn't matter. You're free to do so.

So you know what God's will is. You're free in Christ now at this point to do this.

Go and do it. That's the idea. You're just as free as Jacob was. You're just as free as Abraham was.

Abraham could have given 5 % or 20%. It doesn't matter. He gave what he gave because that's what he wanted.

He set aside in his heart to give. Same with you. Same principle applies. And that's why there are no commands in the

New Testament for Christians to tithe. Get it?

We're not under the law. We're under grace. Now, let me leave you with one final thought as we leave

Robert Morris and then get into our good sermon for the day. Robert Morris is not teaching the truth regarding money at all.

He's flat out, and I hate to put it this way, but he is deceitfully lying and twisting

God's Word and binding people's consciences to those portions of the

Mosaic law that do not apply to us. And as a result of it, he's committing the same heresy that the

Judaizers committed, the same exact heresy. He is not a true teacher.

He is a false teacher and a manipulator of God's Word, and he doesn't understand the proper distinction of law and gospel.

That being the case, we need to ask ourselves a question. Why is Rick Warren a promoter of Robert Morris?

Why is he vouching for him? Listen again to what Rick Warren said earlier, about a year ago, regarding Robert Morris.

Listen in. Now, as we start dealing with financial health, I've brought in two of the top leaders in biblical financial planning, and you're going to hear them the next two weeks as we kick off this series.

I'm going to be teaching this series, but I want you to hear these two experts the next two weeks. Now, next week, you're going to hear

Dave Ramsey. Everybody knows who Dave Ramsey is. He has a television show. Okay, yeah, we all know who

Dave Ramsey is. I'm just playing portions of this. But listen to who the second person is. This week,

I'm very, very excited to tell you that we're going to have Robert Morris.

Robert Morris is one of the top authorities in this area in America. Mm -hmm, right.

Yeah, Robert Morris is one of the top authorities in the area of money and financial planning in America.

Right. No, he's not. He is literally a money -grubbing twister of God's Word.

Listen again. Robert Morris is one of the top authorities in this area in America.

He's the pastor at Gateway Church in Dallas, a huge mega church that started just 10 years ago and is an enormous, enormous church.

He's written four bestsellers. He wrote The God I Never Knew. He wrote

The Power of Your Words. He wrote From Dream to Destiny. But I've asked him to... Listen to that.

Listen to the titles of those books. Just the titles of those books reveal that Robert Morris is a

Word of Faith prosperity heretic. Yet, Robert Morris taught this exact same teaching, the principle of multiplication and the principle of the first.

He taught this at Saddleback Church. Why is it that Rick Warren has not...

He doesn't even have enough biblical discernment to know that what Robert Morris is doing is lying and twisting

God's Word? Come and kick off this series on the theme of the blessed life.

How do you be blessed when you don't have enough? How do you be blessed when you are lacking?

And I know, this is his life message. I know you are going to be blessed from this message because he wrote an entire book on it.

Yeah, and that entire book is filled with nothing but false doctrine and false teaching. How's the answer?

How do you become blessed? Well, you must abide by the principle of the first as supposedly laid out in Exodus chapter 13 and the principle of multiplication as told in the story of the feeding of the 5 ,000.

But I've demonstrated beyond a shadow of a doubt that what Robert Morris teaches is absolutely not in accord with Scripture but is nothing more than the ravings of his imagination.

Therefore, Robert Morris shouldn't be teaching in anybody's church, let alone the most premier or one of the most premier megachurches in the

United States. And he's not taught at just one of the most premier megachurches in the United States. He's taught at nearly all of them.

All right, we are running a little long. We're up on our second break. If you'd like to email me regarding anything you've heard on this edition or any previous editions of Fighting for the

Faith, you can do so. My email address is talkbackatfightingforthefaith .com or you can subscribe on Facebook, facebook .com

forward slash PirateChristian. You can follow me on Twitter, my name there, at PirateChristian. On the other side of the break, we're going to be listening to a good sermon by Pastor Gervase Nicholas Edward Charmley from the

Gospel of Mark's account of the feeding of the 5 ,000. Perfect foil for the false teaching we heard earlier from Robert Morris.

Stay tuned. Unless your righteousness surpasses that of Rick Warren, you cannot be saved.