The Bible Story Vol 2_w.pdf - Herbert W. Armstrong

forced to promote the principle of tithing? They use all sorts of arguments
and ideas as to why people should tithe, but why they don't have
to keep the Ten Commandments. In most cases these arguments carefully
avoid any mention of tithe as referred to in the Old Testament. There is
seldom any reference to the reason why God established the tithe and
when. That is because there is an increasing disbelief in the Old Testament.
Yet they need money-and that is why they claim to teach tithing.
God is the Author of tithing. It began long before the time of Moses .
Abraham and Jacob paid tithes long before Moses' time. (Genesis 14:18­
20; Hebrews 7:4-10; Genesis 28:20-22.)
Many people who believe in giving a tenth of their increase make a
practice of giving it to their favorite charities or needy families. Giving to
those in need is good, but that first tenth is to go to no one except God.
(Malachi 3:10.) The only way that is possible is to give it to the true
representatives of God-those who are in God's service in His work.
On to Canaan
The next thirty-eight years after the Exodus were spent by the
Israelites in wandering aimlessly and often miserably from place to place
in the desert regions of the Sinai peninsula west of the Gulf of Aqaba.
The Gulf of Aqaba is a finger of the Red Sea bordering the east side of
the peninsula.
There is little record in the Bible pertaining to where they camped
and what they did throughout most of this time until more than a
generation later-when they started back to the northeast on the same
route they had taken right after they left Egypt.
During those thirty-eight years people died by thousands and thousands.
A whole new nation had grown up . During these thirty-eight years
God was causing the deaths of all those men who complained when the
scouts returned from searching Canaan. Only their children would be
permitted to cross over Jordan into the Promised Land. (Deuteronomy
1:35-39.) Several generations of livestock had long since died. Not all the
older people had died since the Israelites had set out in their aimless
wanderings, however. Some still living were Moses , Aaron, Miriam, Caleb
and Joshua.
Once more , after a lapse of nearly four decades, the tremendous
caravan of millions moved up to the city of Kadesh from which the twelve
scouts had been sent north to get a good look at Canaan. It must have
been a sobering thought to the people that they were still no nearer
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