Show TITHES AND OFFERINGS delivered by elder orson F whitney y and pres president ident geor george ge Q cannon at the tabernacle salt sall lake lahe city sunday afternoon november emberry 12 REPORTED BY ARTHUR WINTER ELDER ORSON F WHITNEY the speaker read the and 3rd ard ath ath ath ath and loth verses of thi the third chapter and the ast and ath esth and ath verses of the fourth chapter of malachi they they read as follows behold I 1 will send my messenger and he shall prepare the way before me an and the lord whom ye seek shall suddenly c come e to his ter temple even the messenger of the covenant thomye whom ye delight in behold he shall come aith oththo the lord of hosts I 1 but who may abide the day of his coming and who shau shall stand when he appear eth for he is like a re finers fire and like fuller s soap and he shall sit as a refiner and purifier of silver land and he shall purify the sons of levi and purge them as gold and silver that they may offer affer unto the lord an offering in in righteousness then shall the offering of judah and jerusalem be pleasant unto the lord as in in the days of old and as in former years will a man rob god yet ye have robbed agne but ye say wherein have we robbed abe in tithes and offerings ye are cursed with a curse for ye have tob rob ted me even this whole nation bring ye all the tithes into the storehouse that there may be meat in in mine house and prove me now herewith saith the lord of hosts if I 1 will not open you the windows of ti eaven and pour you out a blessing bleming that there shall not be room enough to receive it it for behold the day cometh that shall burn bum as an oven and all the proud yea and all that jp dp wickedly shall be stubble and the daythan day that cometh shall burn them up saith the lord 01 hosts that it shall leave them neither root nor branch but unto you that fear my name shall the sun of righteousness arise with healing in in his wings and ye shall go forth and grow up as calves the stall remember ye the law of moses my servant 4 which I 1 commanded unto him in horeb hareb for all israel with the statutes and judgments f behold I 1 will send you elijah the before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the lord and he shall turn the heart of the fathers the children and the heart of the children their fathers lest I 1 come and smite the with a curse these words were uttered by a pro phet of god about four hundred before the coming of the lord jesus christ in the flesh they were spoken to the jews by malachi the last of the old testament prophets after whose time the voice of prophecy was hushed bushe d and remained still until the advent ot of john the baptist heralding the ca coming ming of one mightier even the lord our savior I 1 presume that many christian scholars perhaps most of them would take the ground that these predictions have been fulfilled that they were fulfilled when christ came that that was the rising of the sun of righteousness of which the prophet speaks but the latter day saints have been taught to believe and we hold that these predictions are applicable to our own day and that they have not yet been fulfilled to the uttermost in some particulars doubtless they have been but the great fulfillment is yet to come it will perhaps be well for us to inquire a little into the circumstances under which these words were spoken six hundred years before the birth binh of our savior there came various prophets speaking to the inhabitants of jerusalem telling them that that great city was about to be destroyed jeremiah the prophet spoke thus he told his countrymen that because of their transgressions because of the profaning of the sabbath and the neglect by the people of the law of moses god would destroy the city of jerusalem and carry away captive its inhabitants that he had raised up a great man named chad nezzar the king of babylon into whose hands lie he had committed all the nations of the earth jeremiah counseled his people to bend their necks to the yoke of and promised them that if they did so it should be well with them he told them that if they trusted in the power of for there was an egyptian party in jerusalem who thought it more addan advantageous t la boup that the jews should form an a alliance mance I 1 with that nation they would lean upon a broken reed and that it would be better for them to submit to he predicted that they would serve him for seventy years until the land which they had desecrated by their transgressions by refusing to let it rest every seventh year should have enjoyed its sabbaths Sab baths and then they would be permitted to return another prophet who had preceded jeremiah the great isaiah also referred to this captivity and he named the man whom god would raise up to proclaim deliverance to his people keople that they might reoccupy occupy re their md land after the seventy years were ac complis hed the lord through isaiah called this man cyrus his shep shepherd erd his anointed whose right hand anai I 1 have holden to subdue nations before him and said that he had commanded him to rebuild the temple at we are told that there were divers prophets who predicted these or similar things to that disobedient and stiff necked people among them was a prophet named lehi who was a of jeremiah he was warned in a dream of the destruction of jerusalem and told to take his family and depart into the wilderness and god would lead him unto a chosen land he did so taking the records of his fathers for he was a descendant of joseph ahr through ugh manasseh with tents and provisions for his family and a few others and they sojourned sojourn ed for some years in in the wilderness of arabia on the shores of the persian gulf they constructed ships by commandment of of god crossed the indian and pacific oceans and landed on the coast of the country now called chili in south america the book of mormon is a history of the descendants of lehi this prophet lived at the time when jeremiah predicted the destruction of jerusalem A few years later this terrible prediction was fulfilled came against the city besieged and captured it he desolated the land for the jews had formed an alliance with the king of egypt and had not hearkened to jere maahs words and they were carried away into captivity and served serve d the king of babylon seventy years after that period was accomplished god inspired cyrus the conqueror of babylon who now bore sway over the world as the head bead of the medo persian empire to po proclaim clairn deliverance to the jews and give all who desired it the privilege of going up to the land pf af judea to rebuild the the waste places of Jeru jerusalem it is said t that ha forty two thousand under the leadership Jeader ship of two great ari men n named Zerub babel and joshua took advantage of this and returned to their country and began to rebuild and the places which had been desolate ce for so long but the work languished for they were surrounded by people who were foreign to them in in spirit in motive in laws and customs the men of edom were there the descendants of esau they had encroached cro ached during the years of the captivity upon lands formerly occupied by the jews and retired reluctantly even at the command of cyrus to give place to the returning captives other natio nations were also there to sow the seeds of dissension ot of jealousy and strife amon among the members of this colony which hag had gone up full of zeal and enthusiasm to their ancient land to rebuild the temple of god and renew the worship of jehovah even in the days of cyrus who was a friend to the jews the neighboring nations incited the persian governor to report to that monarch that it would be impolitic and dangerous to permit these people who had created so much trouble in former years for the kings of assyria and babylon to rebuild the city and temple of their god these conspirators succeeded so well that cyrus forbade the jews to continue and lor for the last seven years of his reign the work of rebuilds rebuild ing jerusalem ceased in the reign 0 of i his successor cambeses Camby ses they were not permitted to resume it but in the days of another king darius Hyst aspes who was a second cyrus to the jews the temple was finished and dedicated but it was not until two other great men ezra and nehemiah had come from babylon by permission of its king that the work upon the walls of the he city was entirely accomplished nehemiah was the cupbearer of Arta xerxes longi manus and it was under him and due mostly to his heroic efforts that the labor was finally completed having instituted the law of moses again and established that custom which prevailed in the days of our savior of reading the law in public he returned to babylon but the jews were a backsliding back sliding people they needed to be constantly reminded of the duties they owed to their god and notwithstanding the punishments they had received for their neglect and transgressions they fell away again the worship of jehovah languished the paying of tithing ceased and the priest hood not being supported any longer by the people could not continue to serve in the temple but were compelled to go out into the fields and earn their bread letting the work of the lord take care of itself it was this state of things with other evils that brought forth the last of the old testament P opheus the sins which he denounced so strenuously were prevalent when he came four hundred years before the birth of the savior you will observe that malachi laid great stress upon the principle of tithing and upon the principle of offerings for the support ot of the priesthood while they officiated in the temple and doubtless for the expenses of the temple and perhaps for the rebuilding of the city he is believed to have been with nehemiah who was directing that important labor so urgent was he in showing the people the necessity for observing these things in order that heaven might continue to smile upon them that their enemies might not again come upon them and carry them into captivity in order that jerusalem might stand upon her feet and remain free unto the coming of her king for whose earthly advent abraham and his posterity had been chosen as a peculiar people ja a select lineage and commanded to remain distinct and not allow themselves to be seduced from their allegiance to jehovah or to neglect in in any particular the laws which he had given them so 0 urgent was malachi so much in earnest that he pleaded with the people in these words will a man rob god probably there were some among them who said no not if he knows it not if he knew he was stealing from the almighty would any jew dare do such a thing yet ye have robbed me said the prophet speaking in the name of the lord but ye say wherein have we robbed thee doubtless they were thunderstruck when he told them that it was in withholding the tithes and offerings which should be paid aid into the storehouse of the lors lord that there might be meat in his house and means to carry on the work which he had instituted after seventy years of exile sorrow and suffering he had permitted them to return for this purpose and now to neglect it again and cause the worship of jehovah in his holy temple to cease because his servants not being supported according to the law which ch he had given were compelled to go into the fields and dig for themselves and slight the sacred duties of their calling the law of tithing was no new thing to the jewish people As early as the times of abraham he the head ot of the house of israel paid tit hesto Melchi sedek after whom the high priesthood was named abraham returning from the sa s1 slaughter aughter of the kings gave him tithes 0 of f all he possessed in in order that he might be sanctified by that law and receive in return a spiritual blessing from Melchi sedek who was his superior for as paul reasons it is the lesser who is blessed of the greater and consider says he how great this man was unto whom the patriarch abraham gave the tenth of the spoils we are shown in reading the scriptures how god instituted this law while his people were wandering in the wilderness in the days of moses atter after he had bad called him up into the mount and given him the deca logue the ten commandments he instructed ted him as to how he should organize the priesthood it seems that it had been the original design to take the first born ot of the house of israel who were spared on the night when the angel of death passed over the children of israel and slew the first born of the egyptians and make of them a priesthood to minister for the rest of the tribes but owing to a great sin which was committed while moses was in the mount when aaron made the golden calf and the people bowed down and worshiped it one of the false gods of egypt the almighty changed his purpose it we may say so and chose the tribe of levi to which moses himself belonged and set them apart as his priesthood with aaron and his sons as priests and moses as prophet and mouthpiece unto them it was at this time fifteen hundred years before the coming of the savior that the law of tithing was re instituted the levites were to have the special care of the tabernacle and its appurtenances the priests were to bear the sacred ark upon their shoulders and to officiate at the altar and no man was to have this right except he was a priest called of god as was aaron men were smitten with death because they presumed to act in the priests office without having baving been ordained thereto because these spiritual labors engrossed their time and because it would have rendered them unworthy to bear the sacred vessels and officiate as a Pries priesthood thod if they had bad engaged too much in secular pursuits the law of tithing was instituted all the other tribes of israel were tithed for the sus cenance of this one tribe in order that gods priesthood might be properly supported while they officiated before him this was the purpose of the law in that day the law prevailed all down the centuries and though it was often neglected and had to be re dished with ma many ay warnings and admonitions yet it continued to be a statute and when malachi came he spoke strongly upon this point telling the people that if they did not observe the law they would rob the almighty of what was his due in the lath and irth verses of the first chapter of the prophecy he denounces also the practices of those who vainly sought to deceive the lord by bringing that which was torn and lame and sick in other words those who paid their tithing with the worst lings instead of the firstlings first lings of their flocks one reason doubtless why the jews were neglectful in regard to this principle was because of the sneers and ridicule heaped upon them by those around them who were not of them who did not understand the purposes of jehovah and probably tried to make the jews believe they were being oppressed and imposed upon that these priests and levites were lazy dignities indolent tyrannical that they should shoud work like the rest of their fellows and ought not to be supported I 1 have no doubt that such arguments were used and because of these seducing spirits many fell away neglected the law and came under the condemnation which malachi pronounced them but malachi speaks of another principle that of offerings he says ye lye have robbed me but ye say wherein have we robbed thee in tithes and offerings what are we to understand by offerings something distinct it would seem from tithing now suppose we come down to our own day the principle of tithing has been revealed to this church we are latter day dav israel we are the descendants of that abraham who gave tithes to Melchi sedek we are a peculiar people chosen that we might introduce these laws anew in the latter days A few years after the church was organized the principle of tithing was revealed to the prophet joseph I |