Don’t
allow pastors who don’t understand the ways of God to continue to deceive you.
God is no respecter of “tithers.”
John
says: “There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear.” (1 John
4:18). Therefore, Christians should resist any attempt by anyone to scare them
into doing anything pertaining to the righteousness of God. That is precisely
what mercenary pastors do in order to arm-twist Christians to pay tithes; a
requirement now inapplicable under the New Testament.
Threat of curses
If
you are one of those with a money-minded pastor, he will call you a thief for
failing to pay tithes and insist you are cursed. The legal authority for this
predicament comes from Malachi: “Will a man rob God? Surely not! And yet you
have robbed me. ‘What do you mean? When did we ever rob you?’ ‘You have robbed
me of the tithes and offerings due to me. And so the awesome curse of God is
cursing you, for your whole nation has been robbing me.’” (Malachi 3:8-9).
The
truth, however, is that this scripture has no application whatsoever to
Christians. Malachi’s invective was addressed to Old Testament priests and not
even their congregation. Today’s pastors are experts at double-speak. They
quote Paul: “Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law.” (Galatians
3:13). Then they use Malachi to curse the redeemed in order to squeeze money
out of them.
Believers
are blessed: “with all spiritual blessings in the heavenly places in Christ.”
(Ephesians 1:3). These blessings are not conditional upon the payment of tithes
but attendant on our faith in Christ and adherence to his teachings. God would
never curse a Christian whom he has already blessed. When Balaam was offered
money to curse the children of Israel, he replied: “God has blessed them, and I
cannot reverse it! No curse can be placed on Jacob, and no magic shall be done
against him.” (Numbers 23:18/23).
God
said to Abraham: “I will bless those who bless you, and I will curse him who
curses you.” (Genesis 12:3). Christians are the seed and heirs of God’s promise
to Abraham. (Galatians 3:29). Therefore, any pastor who curses a Christian is
only cursing himself.
Scourge of the
devourer
Pastors
further seek to manipulate Christians by saying, if you do not pay your tithe,
God will unleash the devourer on you. (Malachi 3:11). This means you will be
confronted with all kinds of unnecessary expenditure that will continually
drain away your finances.
Accordingly,
Bishop David Oyedepo writes that rats ate all the cables in the car of a woman
in his church. When she had the car re-wired, the rats ate the cables again. On
investigation, it was discovered she had not been paying her tithes, which was
why the devouring rats had been unleashed on her. Once she started paying her
tithes dutifully again, the rat-attacks stopped.
Stories
like this are commonplace in the churches and they are pure balderdash. It is
amazing how far pastors will go in order to fleece their flock. Bishop Oyedepo
says the offending rats in question were not ordinary rats but “devourer rats.”
However, he fails to tell us how to differentiate between the one and the
other, in case we come across any rats.
Suffice
to say that such stories are manipulative. They are only designed to scare
people into paying tithes. I don’t pay tithes and I don’t have rats of any kind
in my car or in my house.
Answer
me this: do bad things only happen to those who don’t pay tithes? Indeed, do
bad things only happen to unbelievers? The answer is emphatically “No.” As a
matter of fact, the truth is that in this world, worse things actually happen
to believers than to unbelievers. The psalmist declares: “Many are the afflictions
of the righteous.” (Psalm 34:19).
According
to Jesus, in this world the believer is appointed to problems. He says to his
disciples: “These things I have spoken to you, that in me you may have peace.
In the world you will have tribulation; but be of good cheer, I have overcome
the world.” (John 16:33). Tribulation, it should be pointed out, does not
connote prosperity.
Bait of showers of
blessings
Having
used these scare-tactics to manipulate the gullible into paying tithes, many
pastors then employ the promise of blessings as additional inducement. They say
if you pay your tithes, God will open the windows of heaven for you and pour
out a blessing so great there would not be enough room to contain it. (Malachi
3:10).
But
let me ask a question here tongue-in-cheek. Have you actually discovered that
Christians are any richer than non-Christians, after all only Christians pay
tithes?
Pastor
Adeboye claims to be richer than Bill Gates because he allegedly has houses in
188 countries. However, even if each of Adeboye’s putative 188 houses were to
cost one million dollars, it would still not make him a billionaire. However,
Bill Gates is not worth 188 million dollars: he is worth 76 billion dollars;
making him truly the richest man in the world. Nevertheless, Bill Gates is an
agnostic, in spite of his Catholic background. He does not pay tithes to any
church or pastor.
Don’t believe the
lie.
People
don’t get rich from paying tithes. They don’t even get rich from being
righteous. Take another look at this kingdom dynamic:
“The
truth is that the wicked live on to a good old age and become great and
powerful. They live to see their children grow to maturity around them, and
their grandchildren too. Their homes are safe from every fear, and God does not
punish them. Their cattle are productive, they have many happy children, they
spend their time singing and dancing. They are wealthy and need deny themselves
nothing; they are prosperous to the end. All this despite the fact that they
ordered God away and wanted no part of him and his ways.” (Job 21:7-14).
Don’t
allow pastors who don’t understand the ways of God to continue to deceive you.
God is no respecter of “tithers.” Jesus says: “(God) makes his sun rise on the
evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust.” (Matthew
5:45). In all the time you have been going to church, have you ever seen any
“tither” who received so much money he had no room to put it? I doubt it.
The
windows of heaven were opened on believers when Jesus gave us the keys of the
kingdom of God. (Matthew 16:19). The blessing that there shall not be room
enough to contain is the blessing of salvation. In the kingdom of God, a man
who is financially rich is not deemed to be blessed. The man who is blessed is
he who has received forgiveness of sins.
Jesus
says: “Blessed are the merciful! For they shall obtain mercy.” (Matthew 5:7).
David concurs: “Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is
covered. Blessed is the man to whom the LORD does not impute iniquity, and in
whose spirit there is no deceit.” (Psalm 32:1-2).
So
if you have been deceived into believing some financial windfall is going to
fall down on you from heaven because you pay tithes, think again. You have been
conned.
Formatted By Ozor Ozoduru I.C
Every
Religion is a stupid idea taken too far. When i ask some Christians why
are they Christians they normally say because God and the Lord Jesus Christ is
helping and protecting them. If i ask Muslims they equally say that
Allah, is helping and protecting them. The
Hindus will say that Shiva, Vishnu, Radha and Shakti are protecting
them. All these bad ideas got to show that we all drive the same
pleasure and happiness worshiping any bad idea thrown at us. The
biggest dinosaur was 40m (130ft) long and 20m (65ft) tall. Weighing in
at 77 tonnes, it was as heavy as 14 African elephants (BBC). How can a
male and female
specie of this particular dinosaur be accommodated in a wooden ship
made with primitive scientific ideas? Unfortunately dinosaurs went
extinct 65 million years ago even before the Bible God said let there be
light 6,000 years ago. If all the animals in the Ark were just male and
female what food did animals like lion and lioness eat in the Ark for the 110 days
journey? In all the
religions i have seen, Christianity is the most confused and ridiculous
sham. The Catholics invented Purgatory in their dogma where dead souls
will first go and suffer themselves out of sin before going to Heaven.
Even though there is no Biblical basis for this, people still believe
it. The Jehovahs witness said that the Earth will be transformed like
Heaven for them to live forever. While the Pentecostals are going to
Heaven or hell direct. Etc, Meanwhile they are all reading and quoting
the same Bible. The most stupid thing about Noah's story is not even the
Ark but the idea that a loving God committed genocide by wiping away
the entire world, which He purportedly created, including the mentally
ill, innocent children etc. Yet He claim to be all knowing God. If He is
all knowing why cant he understand that those people will sin against
him in future and stop creating them in the first place? We were flogged
and beaten by the slave Masters into Christianity, and i dont expect us
to be flogged out of it again. The brain is already there but you
people choose to switch it off in favour of infantile tales. The only way
to be happy with genocide is to claim to be a Christian, it happened to
the people of Sodom and Gomorrah and we keep praising the Bible God for
mass murder, is that not crass stupidity? The same Bible clearly supported
slavery, and devoted many Bible verses to teach us how to handle slaves?
What sort of Book is that? Really! Really!! Awful! We have prayed a lot, yet we are still in a mess as a Country. Somebody told me Yesterday to get down on my knees and pray to God, and i
replied that we have prayed enough, the problem with Nigeria is not
getting down on our knees but standing up to think with our brains.
There are more Pastors, Priests and Prayer warriors in Nigeria than
all the Doctors, Lawyers and Engineers in the whole world put together, and it will
be in our own interest to stand up and change the trend. We can not keep
doing the same thing and expect a different result. I respect Christians a lot but anybody that literally believe all the conjectured fairy tales in the Bible to be true should try and see a psychiatrist.