Wild Kingdom

The Las Vegas Faith Center
Message from Sunday, November 29, 1998
“Wild Kingdom”

by Tiger Todd - Sr. Pastor - Church Sermons

Jesus Freaks! I guess that’s what I am. Now wait, don’t get them confused with those that people think are Jesus Freaks. Because some people are just plain freaks! The Apostle Paul said that. He said , “Now wait a second. If you were being persecuted for righteousness sake, great. But you guys were being persecuted because you were just plain stupid! ” So there is a difference between freaks, and Jesus Freaks. Now freaks are what we need to bring into the Kingdom of God, and teach them a little about it. I mean Paul, when he was Saul, was a freak. He was running around telling people that God wasn’t God. But then God slaps him off his donkey, he sees things a little differently, and he says, “Lord!” The first thing that happened after that experience had him going to the house of Priscilla and Aquilla, who taught him about the Kingdom of God. Then he was ready to go out and do some good. So we just need to take the freaks and teach them, so we can turn them loose.

What about Simon-Peter? We could look up “freak” in the Bible Dictionary and they’d have a picture of him under that listing! Jesus goes up to Simon and says, “What do you think?” And Simon says, “Thou art the Christ”. Jesus then says, “Oh, then you are Peter” A little while later, Simon says, “Not so, Lord”. Jesus then calls him Satan….I mean he was constantly vacillating between opinions…I mean, we’ve got some freaks… we just need to teach ‘em, and then they won’t be freaks any more!

We’re getting a lot of freaks out of the prison system; people who are not afraid to preach, and who are not afraid to go, and not afraid to just tell it like it is! They are just plain not afraid, and those are the kind of people we need! So, we really do need the freaks. l don’t know why that was on my mind.

Turn to Psalm 50. Yes, we’ll use the Bible today. The 50th Psalm. This hit me on Thanksgiving. I normally read some things, and as I was going through my daily Psalms, my daily Proverbs, the daily scriptures that are real to me, I just happened to start backing up and getting over to Psalms, Chapter 50. There are some key words here, so if I stop and tell you to underline, do that if you can.

Psalm Chapter 50. I’ll read:
“The mighty God, even the Lord, has spoken and called the earth from the rising of the sun until the going down thereof. Out of Zion, the perfection of beauty, God has shined. Our God shall come and shall not keep silence. A fire shall devour before Him, and it shall be very tempestuous round about Him. He shall call to the heavens from above and to the earth that he may judge His people. Gather my saints together unto me. Those that have made a covenant with me by sacrifice”.

Circle that verse! Because it doesn’t get defined until later, but it’s going to be your rhema!!! Verse 6-7
“And the heavens shall declare His righteousness for God is judge himself. Selah. Hear, oh my people, and I will speak, O Israel, and I will testify against thee. I am God, even thy God.

I just love taking the italicized words out of the King James version, where the translators added them to help us understand better what they thought we should understand! But if you take it out as it was originally written, it just says, “I God, Thy God”. And I think it is really just like, “I Am”! He doesn’t need any colorful metaphors, He doesn’t need any adverbs or adjectives to describe Himself, He just needs, “I Am”.

“I will not reprove thee for thy sacrifices or thy burnt offerings continually before me. I will take no bullock out of thy house, nor he goats out of thy folds, for every beast of the forest is mine. The cattle upon a thousand hills. I know all the fowls of the mountains and the wild beasts in the field are mine”.

This is just like God! “If I were hungry, I wouldn’t tell you.” You wouldn’t find God coming up and saying, “That’s a nice sandwich you got from Carl’s Jr., buddy”, grinning, like someone trying to get the better end of a bargain. You know, if Jesus were hungry, He wouldn’t tell you. He wouldn’t even bring it up. I mean, that is just God! Sometimes we have this idea that Jesus and the disciples were a bunch of poor guys running around sniffing under kitchen windows. “Smells pretty nice, Ma’am”. You get the idea that, wait a second, He wouldn’t tell you! Plus He’d get fed a different way, anyway. Remember when Jesus went to the woman at the well? He goes to the well, and he’s hungry and thirsty. Then He starts talking to her, God starts spewing out of Jesus, the Word of God, and he says, “I’m not hungry any more”. He just takes off after that. He says, “I have food you know not of”. If He were hungry, he wouldn’t tell you.

“The world is mine and the fullness thereof”. The word “world” needs to be defined kind of early in this message. This is also explained in the book I have written on predestination. A lot of the trouble we have had in understanding things, is in determining the difference between the word “earth” and the word “world”. We have covered this before, but I just want to separate them. If you look in Strong’s Concordance, or a Greek/Hebrew Lexicon, you’ll find that the words “earth” and “world” are two different things. “Earth” really is defined by terra-firma…by the dirt, by the ground. But “world” is defined as inhabitants, or at least it is separated from the earth by inhabitants. The Greek calls it “decoration”. Like you got the Christmas tree, but it’s not officially a Christmas tree until it’s decorated.

We find that God made man, but did you know that man made the world? See, man made man. Genesis 4:1 says that Adam knew his wife Eve, and she conceived, and they bare. So when we have things like “before the foundation of the world”, that’s not when God made man. That’s when man made the world. It wasn’t in the beginning. It was in the beginning of when man did this, so we have established a different beginning point of the world vs. the earth. We need to get that straight. But in this case, this word “world” really means decoration, inhabitants, and it means the stuff on the planet. I think II Timothy says that if you take any one single piece of scripture, it won’t be complete on it’s own. About four or five times, Jesus quoted it this way, saying that “Out of the mouth of two or three witnesses, let every word be established”, which means that it would be possible to take only one scripture, and take it out of context.

So here, look at the word “world” and then look at some other key words. Let’s define which inhabitants God is talking about. Verse 12, “If I were hungry, I would not tell thee, for the world is mine, and the fullness thereof. Will I eat the flesh of bulls and drink the blood of goats? Offer unto God thanksgiving and pay thy vows under the most high, and call upon me on the day of trouble and I will deliver thee, and thou shalt glorify me”. Now we’re going to back up and look at Verse 8. “I will not reprove thee for thy sacrifices or thy burnt offerings”. I’m going to read it this way. “I will not reprove thee for thy sacrifices and thy burnt offerings. I will take no bullock out of thy house, nor he goats out of thy folds for every beast of the forest is mine. The cattle upon a thousand hills….fowls of the mountains, not Petco. The fowls of the mountains. The wild beasts of the field.

We’re seeing a distinction here. I’ve heard so many messages on “it’s all God’s”. A lot of people say that when they are robbing God in their business. They say, “Well, it’s all God’s anyway”. Well, you’d be dead today if that was true, the way you’ve treated Him. So what is it really. That’s not the way it is. Because God is making a distinction here. He’s drawing a distinction between your cattle and my cattle…between what you use as a sacrifice and what I think is a valuable sacrifice, saith the Lord.

We’re finding that wild, forest, mountain, hills ...and we’re finding out that there are some differences here. That’s what I want to dive into today. I think it will bring us somewhere, and I am just going to take the scriptures.

Why does it seem different to take a wild animal out of his environment, vs. taking an animal out of the pet store? You know that you can go down to the pet store and buy a little puppy, but if you go into the mountains and take one home, PETA is on your tail. What’s the difference? I want you contemplate these things, because you might only have part of the answer. When we get together, and contemplate these things, I think you are going to find out God’s answer.

Why do we say that someone “lost their dog” if we see one trotting along the road? I was driving along the road down by the Dead Sea, and here were these ibexes. No one ever said, “Someone lost their ibex”. (That’s a big horned kind of antelope-looking creature with the twisty horns).

What is the difference between the Meat Department at Albertsons and the San Diego Zoo? Do you see that there is a difference on how we judge that? Well, Genesis is the book of beginnings, so if we are going to find it as a truth, we will find it, not in Psalms, or I Timothy, or II Corinthians, we’ll find it in Genesis. Genesis establishes beginning principles. Genesis 1:26 “God said, let us make man in our image, after our likeness, and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. So God created man in His image, and in the image God created He him, male and female, created he them, and God blessed them and said….” Now I believe this “God blessed them and said” thing was what He said was the blessing. How did God bless them? He said, “Be fruitful and multiply and replenish the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea, the fowl of the air, over every living thing that moveth upon the earth, and God said, Behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed which is upon the face of the earth and every tree in which is the fruit of the tree yielding seed to you which will be for meat. And to every beast of the earth, and every fowl of the air, and everything that creeps upon the earth, wherein is life, every green herb for meat, and it was so”. In Verse 29, in the King James Bible, you will see that there is a little number if you have one of these study bibles, it says in Verse 29, “God said, Behold I have given you every herb bearing seed”. Now in my Hebrew dictionary, what it meant there, is seeding seed. It’s like in the New Testament. We see the words “gifts of the spirit”, and then we said “by grace” and we say it is the same word. “By gifts are you saved”. So it is the same word, just translated, because some verses in the Book of Romans, use the same word “charis”, short for “charisma” in the Greek, and used it five times in the same verse. In this case, the Hebrew says he is giving you “seeding seed”.

Mark Chapter 4 is the parable of the sower sowing and reaping, the sower soweth the word. The sower soweth seed. Everything in the Kingdom of God is compared to the planting of a seed. That is the example of how God does everything. In this case, God is saying, “I’m giving you cattle”. Because we didn’t understand this, we thought it only applied to herbs. The thing meant “seeding seed”. It didn’t mean herbs. Wait a minute. This is important, because every THING is this way. This thing works for all trees, it works for grass, it works for palm trees, it works for dates, it works for whatever, but every thing works this way. In other words, God gave man beasts, of which there was seeding seed amongst those beasts. He gave him fowls of the air. In those fowls, there was seeding seed. You don’t eat this seeding seed. You don’t just let them roam free. This is used to produce, or fulfill the blessing….bear fruit and multiply.

We know that harvest proportions, seed time and harvest, is not a natural occurrence. It never happened once, naturally, on the planet. In order to get harvest proportions, meaning 30, 60, l00 fold, in order to get enough orange juice to handle all the brunches being held today in Las Vegas, we’d be completely out of oranges if all the oranges that happened naturally by the first trees and their descendants were just eaten, not sowed back into the earth. God has given man dominion over this principle in the Kingdom of God, If this man takes my beasts, saith God, and he separates those that are for seed, those that are for food (good for meat), and those that are good to do whatever he wanted them to do. And he takes those, and he hooks them up, and they make more, and they make more, and they make more. That’s the Kingdom of God principle. Galatians 6:9. “Be not deceived, God is not mocked for whatsoever a MAN sows, that shall he also reap”.

Paul explained that. God doesn’t do any sowing. He said that God gave you the seed, man sowed and watered, but God gives the increase. It took man to do the sowing. He provides seed for the sower. So is the Kingdom of God as if a MAN should cast seed into the ground, should sleep and rise night and day, and the seed should spring up and become.
So we have a principle here that makes something different. There are animals that are God’s, and he has kept authority over them. He didn’t give man authority over the beasts in order to eat them all. He gave him authority over the seeding seed of them.

Now that would be…I’m a huge corporation, and I give you a public stock offering. And I say, if you want to invest some of your money in my deal, it will produce this much more money for you. You don’t own General Motors. You can’t go into the Board Room clutching your $50 worth of stock, and say “This is the kind of car we’re going to make today”. Notice the word “stock”. Isn’t it interesting that that’s what we call cattle. We call them livestock. It’s the same principle. We have been walking around in 2000 year old parables, and we ought to have some 20th century parables.

But the Kingdom of God operates in seed. It operates as an investment and a return. The idea is to multiply back to you for your return.

Do you get the idea of the seed? Well, let’s look at the wild beasts then. Wild animals are worth more. The reward for a lost “Fluffy” is a $10.00 reward, but the fine for poaching is more like your life, your next of kin, and a 7 year prison sentence. Are you starting to see why we have a difference there? It’s because they are God’s! Even the heathen at the corporation, or the government that is trying to protect the wild animals know that they don’t belong to man. Wild animals are different! Why is it OK to eat the cow and not eat the ibex? Because MAN made the cattle for eating. God made the cattle for seeding. Now you can see why it’s a big deal to eat your seed?

What right do you have to take an animal’s life? You don’t. But you have every right, it seems, to go buy a dog. And that little amount of money is OK for that dog. The life of an animal is more valuable than the authority over it. God gave man the authority over it, but He didn’t give him the life of it. The ones man were allowed to eat were the ones man made, not the ones God made. When you catch hold of this, and you start seeing that everything in the Kingdom of God is this way….....

Go to Deuteronomy 26. Verse 1 says, “It shall be when thou art come in unto the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee, and inherits it and possesses it and dwells therein, that thou shalt take of the first of all the fruit of the earth which thou shalt bring of thy land which the Lord thy God giveth thee, and shall put it in a basket, and shalt go unto the place which the Lord thy God shall choose to place His name”. Now we understand that there is the thing called the tithe…the first ten percent. We’re not going to talk about tithing today. We’re talking about understanding how He thinks, because it doesn’t just apply to your money, or to Albertsons. I want you to see this, because I want you to be able to wake up every day and KNOW God. We don’t want to have a doubt about God, because when you hesitate because of doubt, you miss it. When you hesitate about anything, and people can’t follow you when you hesitate, you get into indecision, and worst of all, you get into that thing called “reason”. Once you start to “reason”, you cease operating in the spirit God gave you, and you start operating in the brain that was developed based on your circumstances in your past experience…your education, or your lack thereof….or your poor education. We can’t hesitate. We’ve got to know that God is God. We’ve got to know about Him. If you find out about God, you just know how he is every day.

The Bible says, God is the same every day. Now He does things differently every day, but He is the same way. So if you find out about Him, you’ll easily know His voice, even if He tells you to do something different than what He did last week. Last week he wanted a Sunday Service. This week he might want a Monday Service. It doesn’t mean God has changed, it just means He knows why He needs a Monday Service. I asked the Lord why I was supposed to talk about animals. He said, “I know who is supposed to come to church on Sunday”. OK.

First truth. Belong to God. You can see now what He wants to do to perpetuate the system, the perpetual motion machine, which is seed time and harvest. He said, you are to take of the first of all the fruit. If you have flocks, you bring the first ten percent of your flocks to Him. And you don’t just kill them. God will tell you when a sacrifice is to be a sacrifice of killing. But isn’t the first ten percent of your flock, that’s your flock, see your goodies are all God’s. No…we’ve got to remember that these are yours now. What are you going to do with YOURS…are you going to obey the person that gave you the opportunity to invest, whose cattle you used to produce your own? That’s only fair, isn’t it? That words in Psalm 50 talked about the covenant with the saints….. God’s covenant with the saints. And the covenant was built upon sacrifice. God sacrifices something. You sacrifice something back. If a sacrifice is not valuable to you, now this is important….I want to show you this one example in Genesis Chapter 4. A lot of stuff has been preached about this, but it might not always have been the truth. lt could have been just what the person understood to be true at that time.

So, Genesis Chapter 4:1 The first murder happened…..“Adam knew Eve his wife and she conceived and she bare Cain, and said I have gotten a man from the Lord. She again bare his brother Abel. ” Abel was a keeper of the sheep, but came with the tiller of the ground. You know the story. God rejected Cain’s sacrifice, his offering, but He liked Abel’s. Why? Because he doesn’t like meat. Or he likes veggies. Now wait, we’ve got more of a story here. “And in the process of time, it came to pass that Cain brought of the fruit of the ground an offering unto the Lord. Abel also brought of the firstlings of his flock and the fat thereof, and the Lord had respect unto Abel and his offering, i.e. He did not have respect unto Cain and his offering. Can anyone understand why from what we just studied? Firstlings! Cain was just out there gathering up some stuff on offering day thinking to just bring some stuff to God. That’s nice. But Abel made sure he brought the firstlings. Notice how the process of time means that at first, he didn’t have any, then God gave him some, he fed them, and stuff like that….he just used God to breed them and then took the firstlings bred from them. And God had respect for that.

Now a lot of people misunderstand tithes and offerings in the church, because they really think that people give, you know, we pass the plate around. Our church doesn’t do that. We expect God to tell you what to do, you listen to Him, and then you do it. Some people must think they pass the plate around and then the church runs it out back to the rocket ship and shoots it up to heaven. Just to let you know, that’s not the way it works. There probably aren’t many, but there are offerings that are unacceptable to God. God does not accept every offering. There are, of course, churches that accept every offering. And not over silly things like, “that’s blood money, or I can’t take drug money”. What God is looking for is, have you tithed the FIRST of your money?

So it says here that Abel brought of the firstlings of his flock, and the fat thereof and the Lord had respect unto Abel and to his offering. Wouldn’t that be great to have God respect your offering? I want to half teach a principle here, and half let you find one, but I have a couple of other examples I want you to look at.

Look at Chronicles Chapter 21:22. There was a big problem in Israel, and the problem was actually David’s disobedience. Someone gave him a good idea to count everybody, so he says, “OK, we’ll count everybody”, so he did exactly that, he counted everybody, and God says “It’s not my will”, and God said “wipe ‘em out….for a reason, there had to be a reason… 70,000 Israelites had already died because of this disobedience, and when David finds out, he takes responsibility and says, “It had to be me”. He immediately repents for the sin, and says “What kind of offering”?” Now we have already determined that wild animals are more valuable than domesticated animals, because God made wild animals. Man made the domesticated animals. So, we’ve got this relationship. Let me make a statement ...“The value of your sacrifice is directly proportional to the value of your need”. David had a big need. Israel had a big need. So what kind of sacrifice is David going to give? Did David know God? Yes. Chances are he probably wrote the Psalm 50!

Let’s look at what happens. From Verse 22, “David said to Ornan, grant me the place of this threshing floor that I may build an altar therein unto the Lord. Thou shalt grant it me for the full price, that the plague may be stayed from the people. And Ornan said, “David, take it, and let my Lord the King do good that is in his eyes. Lo I give the oxen for burnt offerings, and the threshing instruments for the wood, and the wheat for the meat offering. I give it all. ” And King David had been to church, and he said to Ornan, “Nay, but I will verily buy it for the full price, for I will not take that which is thine for the Lord , nor offer burnt offerings without cost”. It says here that the Lord received the offering, the plague was stayed, everything was fine. David saw something, this is interesting about David, because David is like the only man in the Bible that the Bible says he was a man after God’s own heart. You mean, peeping Tom David? A man after God’s own heart? What was it that made him a man after God’s own heart? He was the only declared steward in the Bible. He was the only one that knew what was God’s, and knew what was his. He was the only one that professed that in the Bible.

This is crazy, because people say we don’t want to talk about money. We don’t want to talk about goods. We don’t want to talk about treasure. We want to talk about Jesus! Jesus! All the while, Jesus is the fulfillment of this thing. If you want to talk about Jesus, you’ll find that every three out of five things that Jesus ever talked about was money. Three out of five. One out of every five verses in the Bible is talking about treasure. And remember what God says, “Where your treasure is, that where your heart be also”? If he wants your heart, he’s going to find out where your treasure is. How much of your heart is toward me? Well, how much of your treasure is toward me? How much of your heart is toward your family? Well, how much of your treasure is in your family? Isn’t that how we judge these things?

David is the man after God’s own heart, and look what he says. He says “full price”. I think, because we are in the United States, where everything is “get the best deal”... I think, as Christians, there’s nothing wrong with getting more for your money, but we certainly ought to practice as saints that want this covenant, that want to please God, that want to know the mind of the Lord, that want for Him to stand up on the day and say, “Well done, good and faithful steward, enter thou into the joy of thy Lord”. We ought to make it a habit to go somewhere every week and just buy the item for full price..just practice not going to where it is the cheapest. What happens when we buy “cheap”, is that we lose the value of what it is. What we don’t want to lose here in our sacrifices, in our offerings, in our pleasing God, is what is the value is of what we are really bringing God. If we are going to really “jew anybody down”, then don’t jew down the Father of the Jews. He’s God. He authored us!
He’s the wonder of wonders, and we should learn to pay the full price, the full deal, give Him the whole thing, the full us. Again, if we don’t practice it, we’re not going to do it. We’ll just “accidentally” get away with the least offering, the least sacrifice we can. In the Book of Acts, isn’t that what happened with Ananias and Sapphira? They kept back a portion of their offering, and three hours after Ananias dropped dead, while still having church, the wife runs in….“Where’s my husband?” “Oh! (thud)”. Now again, we’re not talking about money. We are talking about what is valuable to you, because here we don’t sacrifice animals that way any more. Now we have other sacrifices. Are we making our bodies a living sacrifice to God? Thank God, so many of us are. We have to keep these things alive.

Let’s cut to the chase here. I want to read this out of Matthew 21 because it is a very interesting thing that Jesus says, and I think that if it means anything, it certainly pertains to what we are talking about today. From Verse 10….“and when He (Jesus) was come into Jerusalem, all the city was moved saying Who is this? The multitude said, “this is Jesus, the prophet of Nazareth. And Jesus went into the temple of God and cast out all them that sold and bought in the temple, and overthrew the tables of the money changers and the seats of them that sold doves.”

How many of you have heard about why Jesus did that? He didn’t like the gift shop at the temple? No. They were under the law to make sacrifices, but they weren’t making sacrifices that meant anything to them. They were sacrificing man stuff that some of the men sold. It didn’t mean anything to them. It had become, as Jesus said, a den of thieves. You didn’t pray to find out what God wanted you to sacrifice. It may not be money. It may not be your time. It may not be food. It might just be smiles. It might be whatever God wants you to do, but He said, “This is no longer a house of prayer” where you are finding out from God what is the correct sacrifice. Jesus stood over there at the basket, the “treasury” they called it, and he watched not what they gave, but how they gave it. He said the rich folks threw in lots of money, but as one widow came in with two mites (which is a farthing) , it says “out of all her living, but He saw how she gave…..and Jesus said, “this woman has given more than anybody”.

If I’m hearing God correctly, I don’t think this message is about us as people. I think this is about understanding God as father. ....really understanding how He works so that we better know how to go to Him… that we better know how to receive from from Him ...whatever we are all dealing with, because we are all dealing with something different. We may be hooked up together dealing with the saint things.

Flip back to Malachi, Chapter 1, and see how I prove that this was true. Chapter 1, verse 6 “A son honoreth his father and a servant his master. If then I be a father, where is my honor? And if I be a master, where is my fear saith the Lord of hosts unto you, O priests, that despise my name. And you say wherein have we despised your name? That would be our question. You offer polluted bread upon mine altar, and you say wherein have we polluted thee? In that you say the table of the Lord is contemptible, and you offer the blind for sacrifice. Is that not evil? And if you offer the lame and sick, is it not evil? Offer it now unto thy governor. Will he be pleased with thee?” (Go to the United States come tax time, and say, Well we’ve got this bread that we got from Smiths. This is what we’ve decided to pay our taxes with. See the sticker price here? Let me pay my taxes with this). “Nor will he be pleased with thee or accept thy person” (Remember that Abel was acceptable) Your offering just makes that acceptable for your harvest, but then you are acceptable for his ear. His eyes are over the righteous. His ears are open to their cries (not everyone’s). The righteous. The ones He has respect to. And now I pray that you beseech God that He will be gracious unto you that this has been by your means, will he regard your persons, say the lord of hosts.

Verse 12: “But you have profaned it.” (This group of priests didn’t do it right ) “in that you say the table loadest polluted in the fruit thereof, his meat is contemptible” . They blamed God.

Verse 13: “You said also, Behold what a weariness it is, and you have snuffed at it saith the Lord of Hosts and you brought that which was torn and the lame and the sick. Thus you brought an offering. Should I accept this of your hand saith the Lord?”
He goes on to say, no you are cursed. You are cursed….because you brought that old “three legged thing” for sacrifice. You brought the old one-eyed one. You brought old gimpy to the altar. You brought whatever you brought. You brought the half loaf of bread. You brought the Ripple instead of the fine wine. Am I getting across to this group yet? You brought Sam’s Club Cola instead of the “real thing”.

We, as the people of God today, need to give by the same measure we love. If, indeed, that verse is true, that the value of your sacrifice is directly proportional to the value of your need, do you think God judges your sacrifice based on your sacrifices and offering? You want the nation delivered, but you just brought me your one legged pony? ...the one you can’t ride…the one that is a burden to you anyway with food and lodging? It doesn’t look like your need is very great, saith the Lord. If you had been like David…

Turn to Matthew Chapter 2. Verse 8. Remember the Wise Men came, they were looking for Jesus. “And He sent them to Bethlehem, and said go and search diligently for the young child, and when you have found him, bring me word of him so that I may come and worship him also, said Herod. Then they, the wise men, when they heard the King, they departed, and lo the star which they saw in the east went before them till it came and stood over where the young child was. When they saw the star they rejoiced with exceeding great joy, and when they were come into the house, they saw the young child with Mary, his mother, and fell down and worshipped him. And when they had opened their pinch purses unto him, treasures .......” They opened their treasures to him. We never deal with those wise men’s needs. But no one made an offering or a sacrifice…is it a sacrifice, or is it a tip? Are you giving God a tip, or are you giving him a sacrifice? If it doesn’t move you, it certainly won’t move God.

Look at the Wise Men. Look at what they brought. When a King (isn’t Jesus the King of Kings/) gives a gift, two things are established. ...what he thinks of you, and what he thinks of his kingdom. What kind of signals are we giving God? Everyone here may be giving perfect signals to God. I’m just saying that we need to understand this. We are giving God our very best. I’m saying that by faith in case I’m missing the mark somewhere. With the three wise men, kings giving gifts, two things are established: what he thinks of you, (what is God going to think of you), and what do you think about your own Kingdom.

David was trying to save the lives of all Israel when he bought, at full price, to give. Abraham considered his relationship with God to be more valuable than his son Isaac. Remember that? He was completely ready to sacrifice his son, and when he got up to the mountain with the knife, behold, God put a ram in the thicket…one of His cattle….one of His beasts from the forest. That’s more valuable. Abraham didn’t just haul up some of his stuff, because that wouldn’t have been enough of a sacrifice. God didn’t say, “Abraham, go ahead and bring one of your own animals up ....bring a ram….bring a big-horn sheep”. Abraham considered his relationship with God his most valuable possession when he offered up the life of his only son. God then knew that the faithfulness of Abraham was greater than anything else.

The world should know how valuable God thinks they are by the sacrifice of His son, Jesus, to die for them and their sins…their sicknesses, their poverty, their lack, their families. To God, the world was going to die eternally, and that’s how he measured the value of his sacrifice. You may be trying to save your business, your marriage, your children, your parents, but your sacrifice to God may not have measured up to the level of your need. I think that needs to be our prayer today….that we do seek God, that we don’t carelessly sacrifice, that we don’t carelessly give offerings. I can’t ask you for money. I can’t ask you for anything….You can’t ask someone for something for your benefit, because now you are putting them under compulsion to give. The offerings to me would not be acceptable if I put pressure on someone to give to me. God wants us to have a house of prayer, not a den of thieves. God wants us to seek Him. “What should I give to that church? Should I give to that church. What should I give to the homeless?

Should I give to the homeless? No. Maybe God wants you to direct it over here to this family. Maybe God wants you to do a number of other things with it. What about my time? What should I do with my time? And He wants us to get there and develop this relationship where He doesn’t just have David as his steward on the earth, but he has many sons and daughters who seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness so that all things can be added unto them.