By Malcolm B Heap, Midnight Ministries

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An evil is being committed in ‘the Church’ and God is greatly displeased!

People are giving their tithe to help the devil,

defrauding God’s servant who should receive it!

Does that shock you? If it does, good! It should. God hates evil!

I recently heard from a faithful, hard-working man of God. He told me of some of the wonderful things God has been doing as he preaches the truths of God. He has been healing the sick, casting out demons, and raising the dead.

But, would you believe it? Once the people whom he helped got what they wanted, they went off and left him without. If they thanked him with their mouth, they did not show it with their hands! They left him to starve!

That is not Christianity! Such faith is null and void!

Faith without deeds is useless! (James 2:20, NIV.)

If you are truly thankful, you must PROVE IT by your actions.

Don’t Just Say It, Pay It!

When a person was blessed under the Old Covenant, they had a duty to bring an offering of thanksgiving to God via the priest (Lev 7:11 ff.; Lev 22:29). That cost them! They sacrificed an animal and gave ‘cakes’! It wasn’t mere verbal thanks. God did not accept that without tangible evidence that they meant it. It’s no different today. He requires you to demonstrate your thanks with money or equal physical evidence.

Words are cheap. Actions speak louder than words.

You are meant to give to God’s servant, in thankfulness for his service to you. Giving is the basis of Christian living! (Read Luke 6:38; Acts 20:35.)

I am horrified at how thoughtless, selfish and ignorant some people are! God’s people, I mean – those who are supposed to have the mind of God!

So many fail to consider their duty to the one whom God used to help them. They are spiritually sloppy. Those who carelessly forget about the needs of the man of God are not thinking straight. How do they think he is going to live? On air? In the desert? They expect to get paid for their work. When they sow seeds in the ground they expect to reap a harvest as a reward for their work. What’s the man of God supposed to do? Work for these people and get nothing?!! I ask you?!! Where are these people’s minds? I’ll tell you where they are: they’re on themselves! They think about themselves, not about others.

Perhaps they suffer from ‘cult syndrome’. By that, I mean that they are brainwashed by their church to think that they must give their tithe only to their church. But the man of God does not belong to a church, because a church is formed by men, and he works for God, not for men or a church Board.

It’s significant that their church could not help them. Their church leaders couldn’t cast the demons out of them, or help them receive God’s healing, or raise their dead. Why not? Because they are serving a human structure – their church – not God! That may shock some people, and so it should! Churches are not formed by God; they are formed by men. And in far too many cases, they do the devil’s work, holding back the work of God, done by independent men of God!

The Problem With 99% Of Churches

Most churches are cults. They do not give complete worship to God, pure and undefiled. Their worship is compromised by men. This takes various forms, but in most instances the people look up to and heed what their church leaders say. They hear from their church leaders but not from God. They obey their church leaders, and by that, they worship them. (Yes, the one whom you obey, you effectively worship. Obedience is an aspect of worship.) In cults, the worship of God has been transferred or changed to worship of men. It is idolatry!

This is one reason why men of God, independent of church structures, don’t get the support they deserve. People’s attention is not properly towards God, so they don’t recognise the man of God (who is outside of their church structure) as deserving of receiving their tithe. They give it to their church.

But their church is compromising God’s Word. It is elevating their church leaders, placing them on a pedestal, and stealing away some of the glory of Christ. Through hierarchic blasphemy, they supplant Jesus’ place as Head of His Body, the spiritual body of His Church (not to be confused with a physical structure or organisation calling itself a ‘church’)[1]

.

While their church is doing this, it is doing the devil’s work!

Do you think those people who were healed, who were delivered from demons, who had their dead raised back to life, were blessed after they failed to give to the man of God who had helped them?

If you employ an electrician to do some wiring for you, and after he has done a good job for you, you pay someone else who has not done the job, would he not think you insane and cruel? You bet! And that’s how insane and cruel some ‘believers’ are being to men of God who have done some heavenly ‘electrical work’ for them. You should reward the man who does the job!

If you are a loyal member of a church, consider also: can you be blessed while you compromise true worship and give your loyalties to men who usurp Jesus’ position? Of course not! You are committing idolatry. You are bowing down to the invisible idol of ‘church authority’ – the illicit authority of men who (spiritually) rule over you. Subtly, they are controlling your mind! You are meant to worship God with all your mind (Matt 22:37), but while you give loyalty to your church and its leaders, you are giving place to the devil and worshipping the men who have set themselves up over you.

That’s why you should NOT give them your tithe, and you should seek out the man of God, to give him what you owe God!

If you have made the mistake of neglecting the true servant of God, who is outside the organised church structure (but who may come to minister on occasion when he is invited by church leaders), you should change immediately. Don’t give your tithe to an organised church. Give it to the man who is doing God’s Work OUTSIDE the sphere where men dominate you spiritually. While you let them dominate you spiritually – rule over you by their own authority (Jer 5:31), not God’s – you are committing a blasphemy.

All these churches, where men take charge of the proceedings, and the congregations have to comply with their instructions, are part of religious Babylon (Rev 17:5).

She has become a home for demons and a haunt for every evil spirit (Rev 18:2, NIV). Come out of her, My people, so that you will not share in her sins, so that you will not receive any of her plagues (Rev 18:4, NIV).

If your omission has been in ignorance, God will mercifully overlook it. But God is not pleased! And carelessness exacts a penalty. God is not mocked (Gal 6:7). So don’t delay, or you will come under a curse from now on.

It is time to change. It is time for believers to rise up and come out of religious Babylon, to support the true man of God, and to learn to worship God in spirit and in truth. [2]

The problem in nearly all churches is that the people are following men in the name of Christ, instead of following Christ. If they were following Christ fully, they would all be OUTSIDE church structures, listening to God[3], hearing Him individually, and doing the works of Jesus like the man of God is doing.

The True Servants Of God Are Poor And Neglected

The true servants of God are like this:

There was once a small city with only a few people in it. And a powerful king came against it, surrounded it and built huge siegeworks against it. Now there lived in that city a man poor but wise, and he saved the city by his wisdom. But nobody remembered that poor man...

...the poor man’s wisdom is despised (Eccl 9:14-16, NIV).

That’s the way it is with God’s servants. They are not appreciated. They lose out. Although they deliver those who have great spiritual needs – healing the sick, raising the dead, delivering from demons, and teaching the truth – they are financially neglected. And that neglect takes place while false ministers and the salaried ministers in churches get more than they really deserve.

Why? Because most believers are spiritually dull! Their eyes are closed spiritually-speaking, and their ears are deaf. They are spiritually stupid!

If that offends, I’m not sorry, because it’s the tragic truth. Most believers are more selfish than they are converted! And that selfishness leaves them open to one of the most clever ploys of the devil – thoughtlessness or neglect! Satan causes them to neglect God’s servants, and cheat them of their wages. By default, they are giving more honour to the devil!

Apostasy Follows Spiritual Blindness

I once knew a group of Christians who loyally followed their church leaders. They trusted them implicitly. They looked up to them, even revered them. The structure (like in most church organisations) was satanic; it was hierarchic. So, the devil had a foothold from the outset!

One day the man in the top position began to believe lies. He was duped by the devil into accepting heresy. It was gross heresy! He began to teach it to the church. But most of the people, like stupid sheep, followed him because they trusted him. They had been taught to act that way. It was ‘righteous’ to do so, and never to disagree with the man behind the pulpit. So, when the false minister emerged, he was able to do the devil’s work right inside their church!

That’s what the majority of Christians are doing right now! They are giving loyalty to church leaders in their error, thinking they are doing God a service. And the prophets outside, warning against apostasy and sham, are being ignored.

You would think that church folks would be more discerning! After all, when a man raises the dead, God is backing him up with an indisputable miraculous sign to demonstrate that he is worthy of receiving ‘your’ tithe.

If you give it to your church, and not to the man of God, you are not only defrauding and insulting him, you are stealing from God. The tithe is holy. It belongs to God, and if you give it to the devil’s henchmen – who invariably look so good and ‘holy’ (2 Cor 11:13,14) – you are spitting in God’s face!

Like defrauding the electrician of his wages, you will be taking what belongs to the man of God, and hurling one of the biggest insults at his Heavenly Employer! If you think you are serving God like that, you had better think again! You are sorely deceived!

So, delay no more, render what is due to the God who owns all and holds your life in His hands. Give what you owe Him to the man who properly represents Him. If you do, God will reward you (Mal 3:8-12). It’s a promise!

[But] if you have not been trustworthy in handling worldly wealth, who will trust you with true riches? (Luke 16:11, NIV.)

People Defraud Us, Too

This problem of being defrauded by selfish, thoughtless Christians, is not something which men ‘in the field’ – evangelists – have been subjected to. It’s something we have had to suffer for years! I write meaningful Christian literature. It’s not something I chose to do. It’s a commission God placed upon me and gave me various miraculous signs along the way to demonstrate His backing.

But just because God performs signs and wonders does not mean that He automatically showers money upon us from the sky. Sometimes the servant has to suffer neglect before the neglectful get the message that they are responsible for causing him grief. If God didn’t work like this, through allowing cause and effect to occur, nobody would ever learn any lessons.

He wants you to learn to pay your vows (Ps 76:11; Eccl 5:4).

One of those is to give God a tenth of your income, or increase.[4] If you hoard your wealth, that very greed will destroy you (Eccl 5:13; Luke 12:15-21).

The tithe can be used in various ways. God gives you the latitude to decide, so long as you use it to: 1) support God’s true servants, 2) celebrate His festivals, and 3) care for poor believers. Under the first category, support for God’s servants includes giving contributions for spiritually meaningful written materials or tapes.

If you go into a bookshop to buy a Bible, you would not expect to get it for nothing. You would expect to pay for it. That’s reasonable, because expense has gone into producing that tome, and it’s right that you are willing to pay the workers for their effort. It’s no different with any other Christian literature or tapes. However, what you give should be up to you, according to what you can afford or how you value what you receive.

In accord with this principle, we request that those who receive publications make a contribution, as they are able, in order to help offset our costs in their behalf. But we are continually drained financially by having to provide materials to people who do not properly reciprocate. Jesus’ command is to give (Luke 6:38) and to reward the worker who has provided for them spiritually (Matt 10:10).

Yet, time and time again, this command is ignored. Most people – I mean Christians, followers of Jesus – fail to obey His plain words! More are eager to GET than to GIVE.

Then, to add insult to injury, some rear up against the giver, and claim that I am profiteering or being unscriptural in reminding the recipient of his obligations! In their stupidity, they quote Jesus’ words in Matthew 10 out of context, and with a wrong interpretation, claiming that the gospel must go free. So, they claim, we are wrong to be asking others to ‘pay’ for their literature. But Jesus did not mean that it is wrong to expect recipients to contribute for what they have received. Otherwise, how could verses 9 and 10 make any sense?

It is noticeable that, while we are willing to give, so they can benefit from the Word of God, they are not!

The result of this selfishness, narrow-mindedness and hostility, is that we are left very short, and have to go into debt in order to fund this operation.

We do not have church backing. We are prophets whom God has raised up, not a church. Nor do we have the financial backing of a church organisation. There are some scattered individuals who tithe to us, but very few, and their generous donations don’t cover the outflow. That is why we ask others who receive spiritual gems from us to reciprocate with whatever they can spare from their earthly treasure.

That is scriptural – for those who are uninformed – you will find it in 1 Corinthians 9. Paul wrote: "those who preach the gospel should receive their living from the gospel" (1 Cor 9:14, NIV). At the moment, I don’t get my living from writing spiritually meaningful materials. I am not even able to pay publishing costs, let alone have anything for myself to live on. So, at present, the shortfall is made up by one of our daughter’s wages from her paid job, and borrowed money.

Don’t Be Thoughtless And Selfish!

Paul also said:

If we have sown spiritual seed among you, is it too much if we reap a material harvest from you? (1 Cor 9:11, NIV.)

Apparently, it IS too much for many people! They want the spiritual blessings. They want to receive them for their own benefit. But they don’t want to share the hard-earned ‘fruits’ of their own labours with the one who has laboured equally hard to provide for their spiritual welfare.

At best, this is thoughtless. At worst, it is selfish in the extreme. Whatever label you want to put on it, it is diabolical. It is what Satan wants. He wants God’s Work to suffer. And all he has to do is play on people’s selfishness and pride.

Many years ago, we sent a couple of our journals to a well-known large ministry here in the UK. (That journal has now ceased, and the articles which it contained comprise five volumes under the title Articles of Faith.) Two office staff saw them on the office manager’s desk, and responded. They told us they would love to have their own copies and promised to send us a donation to cover our costs. So, we took them at their word. After all, Jesus said our ‘yes’ is to mean ‘yes’ and our ‘no’ is to mean ‘no’ (Matt 5:37). We are to be completely trustworthy.

Believing these two ladies truly practiced what Jesus preached, (they were working for a Christian ministry, so they espoused those ideals – on their lips, at any rate), we sent them the literature they had asked for and awaited their small contribution. (We were only asking £2 for each magazine, which merely covered basic costs. That sort of money doesn’t pay me any wages. I have yet to receive any wages for my work over the past 12 years. All that we have received, and more, has been ploughed back into giving the truths of God to others.) But nothing came from these two ardent ladies.

They failed to keep their word. And they are not alone. Hundreds of people have been in touch with us and received publications. Perhaps thousands. We have lost count. Some of them have written back to tell us of how much they benefited or learned things that helped them in their spiritual lives. But, of all that number, only a few have ever considered what it cost us. They didn’t care.

Oh, they cared about themselves alright. They would even put out the effort to write, requesting further publications. But, once they had got what they wanted, that’s the last we heard from them. They didn’t care about us. And worse, they didn’t care about God, what He is doing, and the value of this literature to others. If they had cared about the latter, they would have considered that their taking jeopardised others receiving like they did. Because they stole (they took without giving what is due), they depleted our resources, so we could not carry on and give these truths to others. If God had not stepped in with a miracle (and we have had several like it!), we would have been finished! Long ago!!

Imagine doing that to Jesus! Picture the situation if Jesus had not ministered the way He did, but had come in our day, and had been told by the Father to publish all His truth before He left, rather than leave that to His disciples after Him? Just think what would have occurred if He had done it that way. Instead of walking through Samaria and Galilee, He receives letters from ten lepers asking for healing. He sends each of them a copy of Faith and Healing. They read it avidly, and the Spirit of God works on them as they read. Faith wells up within them. They believe, and they each receive. They are completely healed! (This happens when people respond in such fashion as they read our book Faith and Healing.) They are overjoyed! However, only one takes the effort to write back and thank Jesus and send Him £3 to cover His costs in providing the book. (Compare with Luke 17:11-18).

What would happen if this were to continue indefinitely? Human nature doesn’t change. That’s the way the majority behave. So, if 100,000 had requested help and received it, only one out of ten (or possibly less) would have responded, and Jesus would have been financially sunk! That’s why we suffer lack.

The caustic critic (who only wants to find fault), would say: "Well, then, that shows what you are doing is not of God, because if it were of God He would not fail you."

Does it show that? Why does God bale us out then, when things get so bad that we would not be able to continue if He didn’t? No, it doesn’t show that God is not behind us. He proves He is, and the proof is in the very writings, to those with spiritual perception to see! And in the miracles which He performs, healing people, delivering them through the biblical truths expounded in our publications! If He had not been with us we should have sunk ten years ago!

No, we limp along and continue to suffer financially, because of the insults of selfish, thoughtless people, who take without giving, and hurt us by their failure to do as Jesus says. Disobedience always exacts a price. But, in this instance, the price is paid by the giver, not the receiver. Jesus holds out a hand of love and clemency, as He patiently waits for them to change! If, when sufficient time has elapsed, they fail to live His give way (Luke 6:38, Acts 20:35), judgement falls. You can read about what happened to some who were equally thoughtless or selfish in the Church at Corinth in 1 Corinthians 11:27-32.

Some fell sick. Some died. All who failed to honour the body of Christ, as they should, came under the hammer of God’s judgement. The Corinthians had cheated Paul of his wages (1 Cor 9:1-12). He was put through the same thing that we are having to endure. He chided the Corinthians on much that was wrong in their carnal approach – because he cared for them.

God cares for you immeasurably more and He wants you to learn to care the same way. Giving is part of loving. Are you? Malcolm B Heap, Midnight Ministries, UK

Footnotes

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