FBC Morning Light – March 9, 2023

Well, a good Thursday morning to you, hope your week is going well. Today we're reading in Numbers 17 and 18,

Luke chapter 5 and Psalm 49. I want to zero in on a passage in Numbers chapter 18, because it has to do with providing for the priests and the

Levites in their responsibilities, carrying out their responsibilities with the tabernacle and eventually the temple service, temple work.

And in that passage, so we're talking about chapter 18 verses 8 to the end of the chapter, the

Lord specifies that there are certain sacrifices that are offered. People bring their sacrifices to the tabernacle, and some of those sacrifices, the

Lord stipulates, are to be exclusively for the priests. The people would bring them to the

Lord, sacrifice them to the Lord, but then the priests got to take those sacrifices, and they were food offerings, they were food sacrifices, so they would have that food.

And then also, people were to give tithes of all their stuff.

You're supposed to tithe a 10 percent giving of all of their possessions, of their income, if you will.

They were to bring that to the tabernacle, eventually the temple, and the

Lord says that the tithe belonged to the Levites. The Levites would take those funds and divide those things up among them, and that would be their provision.

There were tithes of, monetary tithes, but then also tithes of grain and the harvest and so on and so forth.

Those things became the property of the Levites. The Levites were supposed to tithe on that.

They were supposed to take 10 percent of what they received and turn around and give that to the priests, and that was their form of income.

This was God establishing some things in the Old Testament worship, establishing the principle that those who minister the things of the

Lord are to be provided for by the people who are blessed by and benefit from that ministry.

That does carry over into the New Testament, passages in the

New Testament where that same idea is reiterated. If you're thinking about, well, why do churches pay pastors and give them a certain percentage of the money?

Wouldn't it be better to take those funds and use them for missionaries? Well, wait a minute, stop and think about that for a minute.

What are the missionaries doing? They're basically planting churches and serving in pastoral ministry roles just in another place, in another country perhaps, or in a church planting situation.

No, that doesn't make a whole lot of sense. The reason I bring that up is there are some of God's people who have a resentful attitude toward the idea of paying a salary for their pastoral staff members.

I mention that, I say that, but I am absolutely grateful that I don't have a church like that.

People in our church are very generous, and they make sure that we are well taken care of in that regard, and I am very grateful for that.

However, that's not always been the case in my ministry experience. The first church where I served, the salary was like, how little can we give this guy to get him to come here?

It was that kind of a thing. Not long after I arrived there, there was an emergency situation in my family where I had a grandmother that had a heart attack, and the thought she was going to die from that heart attack.

My dad, it was his mother, stepmother actually, but anyway, he couldn't go to be with her because he had just had back surgery, and he himself was in the hospital, and she had no other children to go to be with her.

I was really the only one that could go. My mom called me up and said, your grandma has had a heart attack, she's in the hospital, she may not make it, can you go?

I had to drive from western Illinois to Somerset, Kentucky, took off late at night to go there to see her.

But on the way, before I left town, I had to go by the chairman of the Deacons and say, hey,

I've had this family emergency come up, I've already talked to another guy, he's going to fill the pulpit for me on Sunday, this is just a couple of days away,

I just want you to know. The Deacons' response was not,

I'm sorry to hear about your grandmother, I'm sorry to hear your dad's in the hospital, man, you've got a long drive ahead of you tonight, we'll be surely praying for you.

None of that. His first question was, who's going to pay for the speaker? What do you mean?

He said, well, are you going to pay for the speaker? I said, no. What kind of an attitude was that?

It was an attitude that really resented the idea that a pastor ought to be paid by those who are benefiting from that ministry.

That's quite contrary to the attitude that the Lord had. At the very beginning of establishing the worship of God's people, he set aside people to carry out the leading of that worship ministry, and he made sure that the people benefiting from that ministry supported those who were doing the work.

Be grateful. Whoever your pastor is, the church you serve, if it's a

Bible -believing church, your pastor's faithful in preaching and teaching the Word, be grateful for that ministry and be thankful that you have an opportunity to provide for your pastor so that he can give himself to that work and turn around and benefit you by feeding you and leading you and your family in worship.

Thank God for that privilege, and don't resent putting a check in the offering plate or whatever to help cover those needs and expenses and livelihood of the man of God who's serving you.

I hope that encourages you. Our Father and our God, we do thank you for your wisdom in providing for those who serve

God's people. That way, they can do it much more effectively and efficiently, and God's people benefit all the more.

May we all have the proper spirit about this whole matter of supporting those who do the work of the ministry, and this we pray in Jesus' name, amen.