The Law of Tithing and the Law of the Fast

The Law of Tithing and the Law of the Fast

Historical Background
§ As discussed in Lesson 14, the law of consecration had been given to the Saints during the early Kirtland period. Many Saints broke this law and brought upon their heads, and the heads of their brethren and sisters, dire punishment and persecution. This celestial law was withdrawn for the time, or until the time of the redemption of Zion.
§ After the failure of the Kirtland Safety Society, many members became embittered towards the Prophet. In early 1838 Joseph Smith and Sidney Rigdon left for Far West, Missouri. The Kirtland era of the Church was closing and the Saints were now gathering to northern Missouri.
§ On May 15, 1838, the Prophet in company with several of the brethren left Far West to explore the area northward with the intention of preparing boundaries for stakes of Zion.
§ During this trip they came to a place called Spring Hill which the Lord revealed to the Prophet as Adam-ondi-Ahman, the place where Adam shall come to visit his people in the latter days.
§ On June 16, 1838, back in Far West, steps were taken to organize a stake in Daviess County to be known as the Adam-ondi-Ahman Stake.
§ July 8, 1838, the Prophet prayed to the Lord saying: "O Lord! Show unto thy servant how much thou requirest of the properties of thy people for a tithing." In answer to this prayer he received the revelation known as Section 119.
As with all other principles of the gospel, the law of tithing is not new or exclusive to this dispensation. It was the restoration of an ancient law lived by the Lord’s chosen in other dispensations. We have specific instances of Abraham, Moses and Malachi recorded in our scriptures of having this law.

1. The Lord has commanded us to pay tithing. He has promised great blessings to those who obey this commandment.

D&C 119:1-7
1 Verily, thus saith the Lord, I require all their asurplus property to be put into the hands of the bishop of my church in Zion,
2 For the building of mine ahouse, and for the laying of the foundation of Zion and for the priesthood, and for the debts of the Presidency of my Church.
3 And this shall be the beginning of the atithing of my people.
4 And after that, those who have thus been atithed shall pay one-tenth of all their interest annually; and this shall be a standing law unto them forever, for my holy priesthood, saith the Lord.
5 Verily I say unto you, it shall come to pass that all those who gather unto the land of aZion shall be tithed of their surplus properties, and shall observe this law, or they shall not be found worthy to abide among you.
6 And I say unto you, if my people observe not this law, to keep it holy, and by this law sanctify the land of Zion unto me, that my statutes and my judgments may be kept thereon, that it may be most holy, behold, verily I say unto you, it shall not be a land of aZion unto you.
7 And this shall be an ensample unto all the astakes of Zion. Even so. Amen.

What is the Lord’s definition of tithing?

o The First Presidency gave the following definition of tithing: “The simplest statement we know of is the statement of the Lord himself, namely, that the members of the Church should pay ‘one-tenth of all their interest annually,’ which is understood to mean income. No one is justified in making any other statement than this” (First Presidency letter, 19 Mar. 1970).

§ According to President Joseph Fielding Smith, this revelation called for the following (see Church History & Modern Revelation, 3:120):

§ All surplus property of the members to be placed in the hands of the bishop.
§ For the building of the Lord's house, and for laying the foundation of Zion, and for the Priesthood, and the debts of the Presidency of the Church.
§ This was to be the beginning of tithing.
§ After this all members should pay one-tenth of their interest, annually. This was to be a standing law unto them forever.
§ All who gather to the land of Zion were required to be tithed of their surplus properties, and should observe the law, or they would be unworthy to abide among the Saints.
§ If the people failed to observe this law, and thus sanctify the land of Zion to the Lord, that his statutes and judgments may be kept, it would not be a land of Zion unto them.
§ This example was to be followed by all the people in all the stakes of Zion
The payment of tithes is a very personal matter-one that needs to be resolved between the Lord and the tithe payer.

President Joseph Fielding Smith
: “It is remarkable how many excuses can be made and interpretations given as to what constitutes the tenth. It is written, however, that as we measure it shall be measured to us again. If we are stingy with the Lord, he may be stingy with us, or in other words, withhold his blessings” (Church History and Modern Revelation, 2 vols. [1953], 2:92).

Reasons for paying tithing

What reasons do we have, then, to pay tithing?

(Jeffrey R. Holland, “‘Like a Watered Garden’,” Liahona, Jan 2002, 37–39)
1. Pay your tithing for the sake of your children and grandchildren. Without the payment of tithes, the church cannot function financially. We could not build temples, chapels, or seminaries. Many of the programs of the church would simply cease to exist. It is just as important to teach your children about the temporal workings of the church as it is the temporal workings of your household.
“Then take your children to tithing settlement with you, just as President Howard W. Hunter’s grandson was taken with his father several years ago. In that experience the bishop indicated his pleasure in young Brother Hunter’s wanting to pay a full tithing. In the process of receiving the coins, he asked the lad if he thought the gospel were true. As the boy handed over his full tithing of 14 cents, this seven-year-old said he guessed the gospel was true but “it sure costs a lot of money.”

2. We pay our tithing to rightfully claim the blessings promised those who do so.
Malachi 3:10
10 Bring ye all the atithes into the storehouse, that there may be bmeat in mine house, and cprove me now herewith, saith the Lord of hosts, if I will not dopen you the ewindows of heaven, and pour you out a fblessing, that there shall not be room enough to receive it.
“After she lost her husband in the martyrdom at Nauvoo and made her way west with five fatherless children, Mary Fielding Smith continued in her poverty to pay tithing. When someone at the tithing office inappropriately suggested one day that she should not contribute a tenth of the only potatoes she had been able to raise that year, she cried out to the man, “William, you ought to be ashamed of yourself. Would you deny me a blessing? If I did not pay my tithing, I should expect the Lord to withhold His blessings from me. I pay my tithing, not only because it is a law of God, but because I expect a blessing by doing it. [I need a blessing.] By keeping this and other laws, I expect to … be able to provide for my family.” 5

Elder Robert D. Hales
I know of two missionaries who visited a very poor family. The family’s home was made of pressboard and sticks, with a dirt floor and no electricity or beds. Each evening the father, a farm laborer, spent his entire day’s wages on groceries for dinner. Departing from their humble home, the senior companion thought to himself, “The law of tithing will surely be a stumbling block to this family. Perhaps we shouldn’t bring it up for a while.” A few moments later, the junior companion, who had grown up in similar circumstances in his own country, voiced his own thoughts aloud: “I know the principle of tithing isn’t taught for four more discussions, but can we please teach it the next time we visit? They need to know about tithing now because they need the help and the blessing of the Lord so much.”
This missionary understood that “there is a law, irrevocably decreed in heaven before the foundations of this world, upon which all blessings are predicated—And when we obtain any blessing from God, it is by obedience to that law upon which it is predicated.” 19 The Lord wants to bless this family and anxiously awaits their obedience so He can. (Robert D. Hales, “Tithing: A Test of Faith with Eternal Blessings,” Liahona, Nov 2002, 26–29)


3. We, pay your tithing as a declaration that possession of material goods and the accumulation of worldly wealth are not the uppermost goals of our existence.

“As one young husband and father, living on a student budget, recently told me, “Perhaps our most pivotal moments as Latter-day Saints come when we have to swim directly against the current of the culture in which we live. Tithing provides just such a moment. Living in a world that emphasizes material acquisition and cultivates distrust for anyone or anything that has designs on our money, we shed that self-absorption to give freely, trustingly, and generously. By this act, we say—indeed—we are different, that we are God’s peculiar people. In a society that tells us money is our most important asset, we declare emphatically it is not.”
7 “
President Spencer W. Kimball once spoke of a man who prided himself on his vast acreage and remarkable holdings—groves and vineyards, herds and fields, ponds and homes and possessions of every kind. He prided himself on these, but to the end of his life was unwilling to tithe on them or even acknowledge that they were gifts from God. President Kimball then spoke at the man’s funeral, noting that this land baron was laid to rest in an oblong piece of soil measuring “the length of a tall man, the width of a heavy one.” 8 In answer to the age-old question, “How much did he leave?” be reassured the answer will always be, “All of it.” So we would do well to lay up treasures in heaven, where not taxes but doctrines give meaning to words like estate, inheritance, testament, and will. 9

4. Fourth, pay your tithes and offerings out of honesty and integrity because they are God’s rightful due. Surely one of the most piercing lines in all of scripture is Jehovah’s thundering inquiry, “Will a man rob God?” And we ask, “Wherein have we robbed thee?” He answers, “In tithes and offerings.” 10

“Paying tithing is not a token gift we are somehow charitably bestowing upon God. Paying tithing is discharging a debt. Elder James E. Talmage once described this as a contract between us and the Lord. He imagined the Lord saying: “ ‘You have need of many things in this world—food, clothing, and shelter for your family .. , the common comforts of life. .. You shall have the means of acquiring these things; but remember they are mine, and I require of you the payment of a rental upon that which I give into your hands. However, your life will not be one of uniform increase .. [so] instead of doing as mortal landlords do—requir[ing] you to .. pay in advance, whatever your fortunes or .. prospects may be—you shall pay me .. [only] when you have received; and you shall pay me in accordance with what you receive. If it so be that in one year your income is abundant, then .. [your 10 percent will be a] little more; and if it be so that the next year is one of distress and your income is not what it was, then .. [your 10 percent will be] less. .. [Whatever your circumstance, the tithe will be fair.]’
“Have you ever found a landlord on earth who was willing to make that kind of [equitable] contract with you?” Elder Talmage asks. “When I consider the liberality of it all,” he says, “.. I feel in my heart that I could scarcely raise my countenance to .. Heaven .. if I tried to defraud [God] out of that [which is rightfully His].” 11 (Jeffrey R. Holland, “‘Like a Watered Garden’,” Liahona, Jan 2002, 37–39)”

5. We pay our tithes as a personal expression of love to a generous and merciful Father in Heaven.

Elder Joseph B. Wirthlin
“the payment of tithing has less to do with money, but more to do with faith” (in Conference Report, Apr. 1990, 41; or Ensign, May 1990, 32). How is tithing more about faith than money
Through His grace God has dealt bread to the hungry and clothing to the poor. At various times in our lives that will include all of us, either temporally or spiritually speaking. For every one of us the gospel has broken forth as the light of the morning, driving back the darkness of ignorance and sorrow, fear and despair. In nation after nation His children have called and the Lord has answered. Through the movement of His gospel across the world, God is relieving the burdens of the weary and setting free those that are oppressed. His loving goodness has made our lives, rich or poor, near or far, “like a watered garden, … [from] a spring of water … [that faileth] not.” 12

The Lord’s promises to tithe prayers

3 Nephi 24: 10-12
10 Bring ye all the atithes into the storehouse, that there may be bmeat in my house; and prove me now herewith, saith the Lord of Hosts, if I will not open you the cwindows of heaven, and pour you out a dblessing that there shall not be room enough to receive it.
11 And I will rebuke the adevourer for your sakes, and he shall not destroy the fruits of your ground; neither shall your vine cast her fruit before the time in the fields, saith the Lord of Hosts.
12 And all nations shall call you blessed, for ye shall be a delightsome land, saith the Lord of Hosts.

What does the Lord promise those who pay their tithing?

· Temporal Blessings
Our money will go further in paying our obligations
“One of the best ways that I know of to pay my obligations to my brother, my neighbor, or business associate, is for me first to pay my obligations to the Lord. I can pay more of my debts to my neighbors, if I have contracted them, after I have met my honest obligations with the Lord, than I can by neglecting the latter.” ( Joseph F. Smith, CR April 1903,2.)

I find it interesting that the Lord uses the phrase ”I will open you the windows of heaven, and pour you out a blessing”- that same phrase “windows of heaven” was used in reference to the great flood.

Gen. 7: 11.
11 ¶ In the six hundredth year of Noah’s life, in the second month, the seventeenth day of the month, the same day were all the afountains of the great deep bbroken up, and the cwindows of heaven were opened

When the windows of heaven opened for Noah, the earth could not absorb the amount of rain that fell and the earth flooded. This is the promise made to us if we pay our tithing. The Lord will open the windows of heaven and pour out blessings, not rain, but blessings in that same abundance!

· Spiritual Blessings
John A. Widtsoe
“The tithe-payer establishes communion with the Lord. This is the happiest reward. Obedience to the law of tithing, as to any other law, brings a deep, inward joy, a satisfaction and understanding that can be won in no other way. Man becomes in a real sense a partner, albeit a humble one, with the Lord in the tremendous, eternal program laid out for human salvation. The principles of truth become clearer of comprehension; the living of them easier of accomplishment. A new nearness is established between man and his Maker. Prayer becomes easier. Doubt retreats; faith advances; certainty and courage buoy up the soul. The spiritual sense is sharpened; the eternal voice is heard more clearly. Man becomes more like his Father in Heaven” (in Deseret News, 16 May 1936, Church Section, 5).

· We lay up for ourselves an inheritance in the celestial kingdom
Melvin J. Ballard
“Do we not hope and expect to have an inheritance in the celestial kingdom, even upon this earth in its redeemed and sanctified state? What are the terms under which we may obtain that inheritance? The law of tithing is the law of inheritance. It leads to it. No man may hope or expect to have an inheritance on this celestial globe who has failed to pay his tithing. By the payment of his honest tithing he is establishing a right and a title to this inheritance, and he cannot secure it upon any other terms but by complying with this and other just requirements. ( CR October, 1929, 50-51).

· We Will Abide the Day
What does it mean that the Lord will rebuke the devourer for our sakes?
(McConkie, Bruce. The Millenial Messiah, p. 544-45)
“ Malachi sets forth the words of the Lord Jehovah, who is the Lord Jesus, as he speaks in the first person. “ And I will come near to you to judgment.” he says, The Second Coming is the day of judgment. “ And I will be a swift witness against the sorcerers, and against those that oppress the hireling in his wages, the widow, and the fatherless, and that turn aside the stranger from his right, and fear not me, saith the Lord of hosts.” The works here named, together with those who do them, shall be burned at his coming. None who live in this worldly way shall abide the day. Then comes the promise that the faithful in Israel shall be saved. “ Ye sons of Jacob are not consumed.” saith the Lord. Those who are not consumed abide the day.
“ But the unfaithful in gathered Israel have no such promise. They are told: “een from the days of your fathers ye are gone away from mine ordinances, and have not kept them.” The Lord’s ordinances are his laws and commandments. There are those in the Church who have not walked in the light and kept the covenant made in the waters of baptism. “Return unto me, and I will return unto you, saith the Lord of hosts.” There is yet time; the day is not at hand, and the hour has not arrived. There is yet a little season in which men may repent. But the lukewarm members of the Church, assuming in their minds that they have done no great evil, ask: “Wherein shall we return?” What have we done that is so grossly amiss? Have we not shown some measure of devotion? Surely we do not walk in a wicked way; what is our offense?”
“Then, as though the answer came from the fires and thunders of Sinai, the Lord of Hosts asked: “Will a man rob God?” Some might sink to such a depth as to rob their fellowmen. But who would be so vile, so devoid of all decency and right, so defiantly rebellious as to rob the Great God who created all things and who has poured out his bounties without measure upon men in all nations? Who would rob God? “Yet ye have robbed me, “ saith the Lord. In seeming unbelief that they could be accused of so gross a crime, even the most rebellious in Israel ask, “ Wherein have we robbed thee?” The answer is forthcoming, He whose judgments are just and who does all things well replies: “ In tithes and offerings.” All Israel has covenanted in the waters of baptism to pay one-tenth of their increase annually into the tithing funds of the Church. That tenth is the Lord’s tenth. It no longer belongs to the steward in whose hands it rests for the moment. It is the Lord’s. To misappropriate the Lord’s property is dishonest. In his sight it is robbery. Hence he says: “Ye are cursed with a curse: for ye have robbed me, even this whole nation.” (Mal 3:1-9)”
“What is it that we thus learn from the Lord with reference to those who shall abide the day of his coming? We learn that those in Israel who are refined and purified shall walk unharmed in the furnace of Nebuchadnezzar, as it were, and upon their bodies the millennial fires have no power. Not a hair of their heads shall be singed, and the smell of fire shall not cling to their garments. But as for the sorcerers, the adulterers, the false swearers, those who oppress the poor, and those who rob God- none of these shall abide the day. And as to his own covenant people who choose to rob him of that which is his, the Lord in our day has issued this warning:

D&C64:23
23 Behold, now it is called atoday until the bcoming of the Son of Man, and verily it is a day of csacrifice, and a day for the tithing of my people; for he that is dtithed shall not be eburned at his coming.
D&C85:3
3 It is contrary to the will and commandment of God that those who receive not their ainheritance by bconsecration, agreeable to his claw, which he has given, that he may dtithe his people, to prepare them against the day of evengeance and burning, should have their fnames enrolled with the people of God.


Conclusion
I bear testimony that it is the will of the Lord that all his people gain a testimony of the law of tithing. How do we do that? By living the law.
cprove me now herewith, saith the Lord of hosts, if I will not dopen you the ewindows of heaven, and pour you out a fblessing, that there shall not be room enough to receive it.
I testify that if the Lord says he will pour out a blessing upon you, He certainly will.
He loves us to the extent that He gave His life for us. We are His work and His glory. He gives us all the laws to bring to pass our immortality and eternal life, of tithing is a part, I testify in the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.
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