In this sermon, the preacher emphasizes the importance of giving and sharing. He tells a story about a man who initially hesitates to give his gold to God, but eventually realizes the value of generosity. The preacher highlights the idea that givers are livers, meaning that those who give freely experience a more fulfilling life. He also references the biblical story of the widow who gave all she had, emphasizing that God values giving from a place of poverty. The sermon encourages listeners to be a part of the fellowship by giving, regardless of the amount.

We are going to switch gears in our Desert Survival Series now. We're still going to stay in it until we finish up and get them to the promised land. But there's so much that can be covered that we could just spend the rest of our lives here going through here. We've come up now to the law, the beginning of the law. We're getting to a lot of the details about Christ and what's happening at home. So what we're going to do is we're going to pick out some main things and cover these. And I really thought that today we might cover the law, you know. The Lord just put me in a peace net and gave me something that he wanted me to share on it. I just went before him, Lord, there's so much stuff here. You show me what you want. We'll go that way. The title of today's message is The Law of the Desert Dweller. Now we're not going to be in the Ten Commandments and that law. There's some really interesting things there. But we're going to get into the law of the desert dweller. This is the law of survival of a Christian. I learned this law piece by piece. And I'm still learning it because as long as I get this little flesh inside of me, this little heart that tends to be selfish and self-willed, this law will be nullified and it won't be evident in my life. I'm not going to share the law with you right away here. I want to pray with you first. Lord, I thank you for giving us Christ. I love you. And again, your Spirit is just impressing upon me to the point where it's almost a burden. But there's so many people around that think they are Christians. But yet they're not. They don't love Jesus. They don't know Jesus in a personal way like we know a person. You're a person. You have feelings. And I have just such a burden. I know this is your burden. But they would know you. This is what you cried out. Eternal life is to know you. And even the Pharisees, great Pharisees, they came and they said they know you. And you said to them that they didn't. But they knew the Father and they would know you. Lord, you just open up your heart. Show us this law of the desert dweller. As we go through this survival series. Father, this is such a special thing to me. I don't want to just do it quietly, but I want your Spirit to be the one to do it and empower us. Holy Spirit, speak to our hearts. I will ask again, Lord. According to your Word, you said that you're not willing that any should perish but that all should have repentance. But there's one here that has never repented of their sin. Of their selfish, sinful, self-loathing life. If you'd show them that they must be willing to turn to themselves, turn to Jesus. If they ever hope to get into heaven. Lord, you do what you need to do now. Thank you, Jesus name. Amen. I first began to learn this law from a roommate. A buddy, an Air Force buddy of mine. I moved in with him. We began to live together. And he would just give everything away. He'd give his money away. He'd give our food away. Or he'd eat it all himself. But he just had a heart of love. He was raised in a family of 13 children. And I guess that was just the way they were. Everything they had belonged to each other. But he was a very loving person. A very loving person. And I began to learn to share through him. And then he's the one that introduced him. Probably was instrumental in getting Vicki Knight to get it. And she was a very loving and giving person. She would go do her... She did house cleaning jobs for these Jewish people. And I would take her money away from her so she wouldn't give it away. And I would keep it and spend it. And I was keeping record of it. I was her savings account. But she'd just give stuff away and buy stuff. And I thought, this is my old selfish nature. Boy, I better help you out. We were just dating at the time. And so I would do that. And then she'd act later on. I paid her all back. But I was using her money for spending money. And then I'd take my money and pay bills. Paid off the farm and stuff. But she was very loving. Still is. Very giving. Now the law of the desert dweller is this. If you never learn to give, you never learn to live. The law of survival in this whole world, the key is giving. Giving. And not just money. But yourself. Your time. Your possessions, if that's what it takes. But really, the law, the basis of it is living by faith. The reason many cannot give is because they don't believe that God can take care of them. So they've got to hoard and keep. And if you have a desire in your heart to give your money to God, you don't know God. You don't know Jesus. I don't care what you say to Him. You don't know Him. And for us to love Jesus, we love to give. Our problem is we can't give enough. That's my problem. Many times, probably every year, I say, Lord, I could just have $5,000 a month to give away. That'd be fine. That's where the heart of the believer is. You want to give. So, if you never learn to give, you never learn to live. You don't know what life is. You don't have eternal life anymore. That's the law of survival. I'm going to go through and just show you some things that the Lord showed me in this section today. Now, I want to just read you some verses. As a matter of fact, let me go on a little bit. I'll give you a little background first. But if we can't give, if we can't share, then we don't care. That's what life is about. It's giving and sharing. We give to one another. Somebody gives to us. We give to somebody else. The condensed version of this little thing, if you want it, is this. The long version is if you never learn to give, you never learn to live. But the condensed version is givers are livers. They're the ones that really have life. And as I began to learn this from my buddy, and as I began to learn it from Vicki and from others, I found out it was more true. It was true what Jesus said. It was more blessings to give than to receive. And we've grown in our marriage in this area. Many have given to us. We've turned and given back. And you just can't ask, give God. That's where it's at. Now, who are the givers? I'm going to ask that little question. Who is a giver? I don't want you to get your livers and your givers and all that mixed up. But who really is a giver? I want to go through this and then when we close up, we'll find out who the giver is. I want to give you a little background. We came up to chapter 18. In chapter 18 of Exodus, Moses met his father-in-law, Jethro. Jethro came out there, saw what he was doing. Moses would go out in the morning and sit from morning to night judging the people. And Jethro said, the thing that you're doing isn't good. You're going to wear yourself out and you're going to wear all these people out. He gave him some advice. Get some people. Delegate your responsibilities so you'll just be the supreme judge and you'll have all these other little judges all the way down. And Moses did that. And actually what Jethro was saying is if you spread yourself too thin, you'll have no depth to your ministry. And there's a lot of truth into that for us. If we spread ourselves too thin, there won't be any depth to our ministry. Actually, he was not using his time wisely. He was not using the people's time wisely. I've learned and am learning that I can do twice as much as I'm doing. And I've been trying to do that. But I am limited. You're limited. And Satan will fill your life with things to do. We have to learn our priorities and learn to say no. But Moses thought he could handle it all, but he couldn't. So Jethro said, learn to delegate or you're going to wear away. Probably not too far away either. Then we come to Exodus 19 and we have five days of cleansing. Five days to prepare to meet a holy God. In Exodus 19. They're going to meet God on the mountain. God's going to come down. He's going to give Moses the Ten Commandments. We're going to go through some things that we're not going to cover. We're just going to bypass them. But they went through the thing of building the golden calf and other things. But Exodus chapter 19 is the cleansing to meet a holy God. Exodus 20 is the law. In Exodus 21 all the way up to 35, where we're going to start out today, is just various ordinances. Things that God gave them on the sanctuary and the law. A lot of interesting things in that. But we can't do that in this type of service. Now in Exodus 35, we begin to pick up on a note. And this note has been around. In Exodus 25, in verse 2, there's this little note. Listen to it. It's a musical note. Speaking to the children of Israel that they bring me an offering of every man that giveth it willingly with his heart, ye shall take my offering. The law of the desert dweller is to give. And so he says, with a willing heart. In Exodus 35, in verse 5, he's talking about taking up an offering. God says to Moses, take ye from among you an offering unto the Lord whosoever is of a willing heart. A willing heart. And this goes all the way through chapter 35, verse 21, let me give you another verse. And they came, everyone whose heart stirred him up, and everyone whom his spirit made willing, and they brought the Lord's offering to the work of the tabernacle of the congregation and for all the service and for all the holy order. There's that musical note. It's the willing heart. The willing heart. And verse 22, it says, and they came, both men and women, as many as were willing-hearted and brought bracelets and earrings and rings and tablets and all kinds of different things for the tabernacle, for the sanctuary. And verse 29, the children of Israel brought a willing offering unto the Lord. Every man and woman and whose heart made them willing. Chapter 36. Read the verse. Starting in verse 3, and this will be our main passage that we will get our springboard from. And they received of Moses all the offerings which the children of Israel had brought for the work and the service of the sanctuary to make it withal. And they brought yet unto him free offerings every morning. Every morning they come and pile their offerings up. And they're taking these offerings, all this gold and everything, and they're making the sanctuary out of it. They're making the place where they're going to worship God out of it. They're making the altars and the different instruments of service. So they brought it every morning. In verse 4, all the wise men that brought all the work of the sanctuary came every man from his work which they made. And they spake unto Moses, saying, we've got a problem. Now today the problem will be there's not enough to build. There's not enough to pay the bill. There's not enough to get the building paid. There's not enough to pay our utilities. Not enough. Not enough. The people are bringing too much, they said to Moses. The people bring much more than enough for the service of the work which the Lord commanded to make. And Moses gave commandment and they caused it to be proclaimed throughout the camp, saying that neither man nor woman make any more work for the offering of the sanctuary. So the people were restrained from bringing. For the stuff they had was sufficient for all the work to make it and too much. So the priests are saying, listen, hold it, we've got too much. Completely irrelevant to our day. We hardly ever hear of a situation where there's too much. As a matter of fact, I haven't heard of it. And you, where there's too much. Now, this is parallel with a passage in the New Testament that is similar to it, but not the same. The passage is in 2 Corinthians 8. Let me read you this passage and then draw out some testimony for you here. And 2 Corinthians 8, Moreover, brethren, we do you to wit of the grace of God. We want you to know about the grace of God that was bestowed on the churches of Macedonia, having a great trial of affliction and of the abundance of their joy and their deep poverty abounded into the riches of their liberality. For to their power I bear record, yea, and beyond their power they were willing of themselves, praying us with much intrigue that we would receive the gift and take upon us the fellowship of the ministry to the saints. This they did, not as we hoped, but first gave their own selves to the Lord and unto us by the will of God, insomuch that we desired Titus, and he goes into some things there. The Macedonians were forcing Paul to take their love offerings. They were saying, take it. We want to give. We want to give. And they would minister to one another by giving. I want to give you some things that are from this passage. Now, these characteristics are characteristics of the Exodus people, the Hebrews, as they come out. First of all, giving is characteristic of the brethren. In verse 1, it says giving was by the brethren, former brethren. It's a grace. Did you know that giving is a grace of God? The reason that some people do not want to give their money to God is because they have not experienced the grace of God in their heart. If you're sitting here and you don't like to give and you don't give, you don't go to church, you don't read the Bible, you don't pray, you don't do these things, it's because you're not saved. Giving is a grace of God. I never did give out of a heart of love, really, until Jesus came into my heart. And verse 9, he says, For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though He was rich, yet for your sakes He became poor, that you through His poverty might be rich. He said it was God's grace when He gave to us Jesus. It was God's grace. Here's something else. They gave out of their poverty. Did you know that most of the giving in the church and this world is by those that are poor, not by the rich? Very little giving is done by rich people. Most of it is just the little bit that we can give. I guess maybe this is why Jesus said it's harder for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of heaven than it is for a camel to go through the eye of a needle. The rich have a hard time with letting go. And you think, well that shouldn't be, they've got so much. But it just doesn't work that way. And if it's hard for those that are rich to get saved, it's hard for those that have money to give to God. Now think about it. Israel had just come out of what? Poverty. They had been slaves. They didn't have anything. And they come out, and they come out what? With wealth. They went to the Egyptians and the Egyptians just piled on to them gold and silver and jewels and said, here take it. Get out of here. And we started on this series. We saw how they were delivered from bodies. And so they went out wealthy. They were millionaires. Those two to three million people that went out, I wouldn't be surprised to know what they had, fifty, sixty, to a hundred million dollars worth of jewelry and gold. They were wealthy. They went out wealthy. And then all of a sudden they got their wealth and God says, now I want you to bring your wealth to me. And so, what do they do? Well, they come flocking out of their tents and they come heading for the sanctuary and they're bringing their gold and their silver to God. Why? Well, they were free. They were free. They were out of the bondage. They were free. Whatever God wants now that I'm free, He can have. And so they were giving to Jesus. Giving shows gratefulness. Giving shows you're free. If you can't give, you're not free. If you don't give, you're not saved. It's weightless. And it's not what you have, it's your heart. I'm going to go through that in a minute. And, you know, this story, this is an interesting one. I heard of one preacher, he said, I held this against Elijah for a while until I really figured out what was going on. But can you imagine Elijah, he comes, he comes marching up and he sees this little widow woman and he says, I want you to give me something to eat. And she says, why mister, we don't have much left. All I got is a little meal, a little oil, and I'm going to go take two sticks, go to the fire, and make a little cake for me and my son and we're going to eat it and die. And he says, that's great. Go ahead and do that. But first, make me a little cake. And she, she says, well, he says, just go ahead, do it. He says, if you give, you'll live. That's the proposition. And so she did. She did it. And what happened? She made the little cake for Elijah and she went back to get the little bit that was left probably and she looked in there and there was a whole lot more. And she got that out and made some and she went back again and there was more. And it says, until the famine was over, the food never ran out and the oil didn't run out. Give and you'll live. And what would have happened if she hadn't of gave it? She would have died. That's the whole point. Is if we give, we live. And that's the product of life. We give and we live. That's the law of the world. This is one thing that helps us survive in those efforts. To give. Now, giving not only is of the brethren and giving out of poverty mostly, but it's also a fellowship because in verse 3, what was that? Verse 4, he says, freeing us with much integrity that we would receive the gift and take upon us the fellowship of the ministering of the saints. We fellowship together by giving. If you don't give, you're not really a part of the fellowship of the church of God. And those that gave were part of the ministry. Just this week, now we don't do this hardly ever. Vicki will tell you. The last time I took her out to eat, I think, was May 1985. It was just her and I went out to eat. This week, God just prompted me Thursday to take her out to eat. So I said, I'm going to take you out to eat. And she didn't argue, huh? Yeah. I said, where do you want to go? Well, yeah, I'll take you out for a hamburger. It'll be a big spreader this time. I won't even buy you a hot dog this time. Get your hamburger. So we went out to the truck stop. We're going out there and we're eating. We hadn't even ate yet. We just ordered our food and somebody came up and started talking with us. And our purpose with going out there was just to have some time alone, her and I. And somebody walked up and started talking with us and God just said, won't you invite him to eat with you? I said, okay. I said, why don't you come and join us? And he said, well, we wasn't going to do that but we were going to go home. I go out and talk to my wife. My wife was in the pickup. He went out and talked to his wife and they came back in. And in the meantime, I said, okay, well, I'm going to leave this up to you. You know, Vic and I were just going to eat ourselves. We were going to have this banquet, eat our hamburger. But they came back and they joined us. We had a great time. First thing this guy did when he sat down, you know what he did? He reached over and he took my tape and he said, Pete, wow, wow, that guy stole my bill. I'm not going to take it back. He said, if someone takes it from you, let them have it. So, okay. And then, you know what the next thing the guy did? He said this, in his own words, we want to be a part of your ministry here and he had us to check. We want to be a part of your ministry and it's exactly ten times what I had gave away to an Indian last Monday night when he wanted my money. I said, Lord, he said, if they ask, give, it's all I got. So I gave it to him. It's exactly ten times what it was. And God just showed me that I'll take care of it. But the thing I liked, he said, if you want to be a part of your ministry, that's what giving is. It's being a part of the fellowship. And then there's something else. Paul said, they gave themselves first to God. They gave themselves first to God. In verse five, he gave himself first to God. That's what he cited. Remember the lady that came to Jesus with the alabaster box worth 300 pence, whatever that's worth, but it was worth a lot because all the disciples, they got excited when she broke the box. It was a very valuable box and the person was very valuable. But there, Jesus was with the disciples and she came in and she broke the box and poured the oil on the tip and the aroma filled the place and the disciples, some of them, really Judas, got very excited about it. He said, why wasn't this taken and sold and the money given to the poor? Because he had the money back and he didn't hang on to the money. You know, he was a thief. But she gave all she had to Jesus because she gave her heart first. They first gave themselves to Jesus. And something else Paul said here in this passage is actually in chapter 9 about giving. And there is something that many do not understand. The offering plate comes by and I know what you're going to think of the offering plate. It didn't matter to me what you think about it. But you know what, many times when the offering plate comes by, we grab our billfold, we'll get the first thing we can find or the smallest thing we can find and we plop it in the offering plate. That's not giving. That's not giving. Do you know that? That's just trying to not look too bad when the offering plate comes by. And I've done that too. Like, well, here I am pretty sure they're taking up an offering so I'll reach in and get a dollar. But that's not giving. That's not. That's just jumping something else. But you know what giving is? Listen to this. In 2 Corinthians 9 and verses 6 and 7 people are giving in. But this I say, he which soweth sparingly shall reap also sparingly and he which soweth bountifully shall reap also bountifully. Every man according as he purposes in his heart so let him give. Not dreadingly or necessity for God let the cheerful giver. A lot of the giving in the offering plate is out of necessity. You do it because it's necessary so you won't look like you're a pipeline or something. But here's what giving is. He says, I want you, every man according as he purposes in his heart. You know what that is? Giving is predetermined. True giving is predetermined. The spirit of God prompts you and you say I'm going to give this much. This is what I'm going to give. Giving is predetermined. This is what Paul says. Every man that according as he purposes in his heart is predetermined. That's what that passage is talking about. So let him give. Give as you determine ahead of time what you're going to give. You know our quiet time when we spend time with God you love Jesus you want to spend time with him. Quiet time is planned living. We have planned giving and planned living. Our quiet time is planned living. We plan to let God direct our day. If we don't have that time then we'll run off and somebody else will run our day. But our quiet time is really planned living. Right now Lord you take this day right here. You direct me this day. Let the interruptions come if you want. Let the people come if you want. Let the needs come if you want. Let it come. But you have my day. We do that with our living. Planned living. We plan to let God direct our day. Planned giving is living by faith. Most of our living and most of our giving are haphazard giving and haphazard living. That's not the way God intended it to be. Haphazard giving is living by flesh. This is haphazard living. Giving is an attitude because he says not grudgingly. If the offering plate came by this morning and when it came by he said oh goodbye. Then you might as well kept it and you can come back up and get it. He says not grudgingly. Verse 7 let every man give not grudgingly or in necessity. This is why I like to see a little box up back there. If you don't have a good attitude about it then don't give it. Giving is an attitude not grudgingly. So when God says I want 10% and by the way who owns the 10%? God. Thank you girls. That 10% of what I give is not mine. It's God. He says I want it back so I'm going to carry on my work. If I do not give God the 10% I'm a thief. If I'm a believer and I do not give God the 10% then I'm a thief. It's not even mine. And the Bible says that the tithe is the Lord's. Leviticus he started off 2730. Malachi 310 he goes through the tithe is the Lord's. And whatever I give above the 10% is an offering. I don't even give to God until I get above that. Now this is what the Bible teaches. This isn't even my idea. Every now and then I come up with an idea. This isn't mine. This is God. They said tithe is an offering. The tithe is God. The offering is what you really give to God out of your heart. Any blessings. Now if I don't give it then I'm a thief. Who does God love? A cheerful giver. Listen. It says every man let him give as he perches in his heart so let him give not gradually but Now Exodus 36 and 2 Corinthians 8 are very similar. Did you know that the church today is mostly in Acts 5? Do you know what Acts 5 is? Ananias and Sapphira they sold some land and they went and gave it. Hey we're giving to God. And they pretended like they gave God all of it but they only gave God half of it but they dropped dead. It's probably a good thing God doesn't still judge them for their sin the way he did them. A lot of them dropped dead because he judged them. There was one little five fellow little Jewish fellow that came out of bondage. He was one of those mud stompers. We talked about that last week. He'd been plunking mud and making bricks. He was a mud stomper. He was building, helping this Egyptian build his jewelry store. He's making these bricks and hauling these bricks over to these guys and building this nice jewelry store. About that time all the plagues were coming on and the Egyptians decided we want you guys to go and get out of here. They gave them their silver and the guy came up and said I'm leaving. I didn't want to say goodbye. He said this with you. He threw over this 25 pound gold wheel to this old Jew. He caught that thing and said get out of here. He grabbed this 25 pound gold wheel and he took off. They marched out of Egypt and went through the Red Sea and they marched through Egypt marched through Egypt and they and they marched through Egypt and they marched through Egypt and they marched Egypt and they marched and they marched through Egypt and they and they marched through Egypt and they marched through Egypt and they marched through Egypt and they marched through Egypt and they marched through Egypt and they marched through Egypt and they marched through Egypt and they through Egypt and they marched through Egypt and they marched through Egypt and they marched through Egypt and they marched Egypt and they marched through Egypt through Egypt and they through through Egypt through Egypt and they and they marched marched through Egypt and they Egypt and they marched and they marched through Egypt and they and they marched through Egypt and they and they marched through Egypt and they marched through Egypt and they marched through Egypt and they receive, you're humbled to receive. It's good to be humbled too, but it's better to give, because that gives God glory. Giving is on the faith level. God says the just shall live by faith. When I can't give, then I'm not going to live by faith. Anything that I'm not willing for God to have is an idol. That little Jewish guy had a 25-pound idol. Whatever it is, and I went over this last night with the Lord, whether it's my family, my possessions, I'm not willing to give it or surrender it or lose it. It's an idol in my heart. If I never learn to give, then I never learn to live. Do you love Jesus? Then he can have whatever you have. Do you really love him? Let's talk to Christ. Lord, this is the law that you've given us, the law of the deadly flower. And just as that old song was many years ago, the old song, come along. I don't know why you prompted my memory on this, but you come along and you found that pump. Beside that pump was that jug of water, and you let him go. He said, you better have faith in this little jug of water. You better dump it down and find the pump if you want to get more water. You don't, but the baller is. So many of us are trying to live out of the jug, and we could live out of the wells of your abundance. We've tried to hold on to what you have given to us. We want to give back with a joyful heart. What a privilege it is to know you, Jesus. What a joy it is to serve you. What a privilege it is to be able to give back to you whatever you want. Just to be free to let you give us what we need, and if you want to transfer some funds to us, we won't get sticky fingers. Lord, help us not to be a greedy old goat and have to tote through our whole life a 25 pound weight or a burden of some kind, and when we die, we're going to leave it behind anyway. You said that we would lay up treasures in heaven if we left them. Lord, our treasure is there for our hearts. In the spirit of God, you accomplish what you want to accomplish, what you need to accomplish.