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Faithful Stewardship
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should be applied. Those who make this use of the tithe are departing
from the Lord’s arrangement. God will judge for these things.
One reasons that the tithe may be applied to school purposes.
Still others reason that canvassers and colporteurs should be sup-
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ported from the tithe. But a great mistake is made when the tithe
is drawn from the object for which it is to be used—the support of
the ministers. There should be today in the field one hundred well
qualified laborers where now there is but one.
A Solemn Obligation
The tithe is sacred, reserved by God for Himself. It is to be
brought into His treasury to be used to sustain the gospel laborers in
their work. For a long time the Lord has been robbed because there
are those who do not realize that the tithe is God’s reserved portion.
Some have been dissatisfied and have said: “I will not longer pay
my tithe; for I have no confidence in the way things are managed
at the heart of the work.” But will you rob God because you think
the management of the work is not right? Make your complaint,
plainly and openly, in the right spirit, to the proper ones. Send
in your petitions for things to be adjusted and set in order; but do
not withdraw from the work of God, and prove unfaithful, because
others are not doing right.
Read carefully the third chapter of Malachi and see what God
says about the tithe. If our churches will take their stand upon the
Lord’s word and be faithful in paying their tithe into His treasury,
more laborers will be encouraged to take up ministerial work. More
men would give themselves to the ministry were they not told of
the depleted treasury. There should be an abundant supply in the
Lord’s treasury, and there would be if selfish hearts and hands had
not withheld the tithes or made use of them to support other lines of
work.
God’s reserved resources are to be used in no such haphazard
way. The tithe is the Lord’s, and those who meddle with it will be
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punished with the loss of their heavenly treasure unless they repent.
Let the work no longer be hedged up because the tithe has been
diverted into various channels other than the one to which the Lord
has said it should go. Provision is to be made for these other lines of