"8 Then the Lord spoke to Aaron, “Behold, I have given you charge of the contributions made to me, all the consecrated things of the people of Israel. I have given them to you as a portion and to your sons as a perpetual due. 9 This shall be yours of the most holy things, reserved from the fire: every offering of theirs, every grain offering of theirs and every sin offering of theirs and every guilt offering of theirs, which they render to me, shall be most holy to you and to your sons. 10 In a most holy place shall you eat it. Every male may eat it; it is holy to you. 11 This also is yours: the contribution of their gift, all the wave offerings of the people of Israel. I have given them to you, and to your sons and daughters with you, as a perpetual due. Everyone who is clean in your house may eat it. 12 All the best of the oil and all the best of the wine and of the grain, the firstfruits of what they give to the Lord, I give to you. 13 The first ripe fruits of all that is in their land, which they bring to the Lord, shall be yours. Everyone who is clean in your house may eat it. 14 Every devoted thing in Israel shall be yours. 15 Everything that opens the womb of all flesh, whether man or beast, which they offer to the Lord, shall be yours. Nevertheless, the firstborn of man you shall redeem, and the firstborn of unclean animals you shall redeem. 16 And their redemption price (at a month old you shall redeem them) you shall fix at five shekels in silver, according to the shekel of the sanctuary, which is twenty gerahs. 17 But the firstborn of a cow, or the firstborn of a sheep, or the firstborn of a goat, you shall not redeem; they are holy. You shall sprinkle their blood on the altar and shall burn their fat as a food offering, with a pleasing aroma to the Lord. 18 But their flesh shall be yours, as the breast that is waved and as the right thigh are yours. 19 All the holy contributions that the people of Israel present to the Lord I give to you, and to your sons and daughters with you, as a perpetual due. It is a covenant of salt forever before the Lord for you and for your offspring with you.” 20 And the Lord said to Aaron, “You shall have no inheritance in their land, neither shall you have any portion among them. I am your portion and your inheritance among the people of Israel.
21 “To the Levites I have given every tithe in Israel for an inheritance, in return for their service that they do, their service in the tent of meeting, 22 so that the people of Israel do not come near the tent of meeting, lest they bear sin and die. 23 But the Levites shall do the service of the tent of meeting, and they shall bear their iniquity. It shall be a perpetual statute throughout your generations, and among the people of Israel they shall have no inheritance. 24 For the tithe of the people of Israel, which they present as a contribution to the Lord, I have given to the Levites for an inheritance. Therefore I have said of them that they shall have no inheritance among the people of Israel.”
Numbers 18:8-24
The third lesson of the chapter must necessarily be the word it speaks about the basic presupposition underlying this whole arrangement of divine provision tithing. It is plain to see that everything here really depends upon the principle being adopted. It would never work, but for this. What was the force of the tithe? It was similar in principle to the institution of the Sabbath day of rest, which was a symbol that all days belonged to God. And the tithe is the symbol that all we have is the Lord's. To practise tithing is therefore a standing witness that we recognise this to be so in our lives. This, as we believe, is one reason for the spiritual impoverishment of the Church in our time it is because it does not as a matter of fact practise this kind of discipline and stewardship.
Tithing is something that should begin when Christians are young. Here is a challenge to lads and lassies and an invitation to adopt God's appointed way right from the beginning, as soon as they are earning money at all. When they do, they will soon get into the way of it, and it will become to them ('second nature', indeed). Soon they will not even regard it as their own, but God's, as of right, and will even feel it is like stealing if they withhold it. When one thinks of the vast sums of money that would become immediately available for the Lord's work in the world if even 10% of His people in the land were to tithe their incomes when one thinks that more money was spent in one year in Britain on bird seed than was contributed to all missionary work operating from the UK then one begins to see the measure of the real spiritual impoverishment we suffer from today in the 'Christian' West! 'Will a man rob God?' cried Malachi long ago. The question still stands today.