We see in verse 11 that the prince during the millennial kingdom, was to give on solemn occasions like the Sabbath or the first day of the month. The prince was supposed to show up with a sacrifice or with some type of offering in his hands during the times that the worship service was scheduled. Showing in times of scheduled worship service with a sacrificial offering was something that the prince morally obligated to do. Likewise, we ourselves should think that giving as a solemn thing, we should think of giving as a very solemn part of our true worship to God. The word “in the solemnities” means “appointed feasts” NASB, ESV or in “sacred season.” The prince was supposed to show up with a sacrifice or some type of offering in his hands which was a solemn thing during the scheduled solemn worship which is appointed sacred season.

We get our standards of worship not from any whatever public opinions, but from the Word of God, the Bible. Often times, lot of people have stopped coming to church because they say the church is always talking about giving. Some people in order to defend their selfish interest say “I can give and willing to give only if I want to give”. But many people entering the place of worship does not know the truth of giving. Giving is an act of worship, so giving ought to take place during the worship service. That is why we are pointing out that giving is a solemn thing that is central to the scheduled sacred worship. As a matter of fact, any person cannot worship God without bringing something to God whom he worships. Hence, we are going to continue to take offerings whenever we have our “the solemnities” or translated “appointed” NASB, ESV, scheduled sacred worship. That is why, it is unreasonable to stop giving from our act of worship.

Not only giving is an act of worship but a very sacred act of worship that was set in a very sacred time. In our contextual passage, the priest was to give a meat offering or grain offering on these solemn occasions. Whenever we think of meat, we think of muscle. Whenever we consulted the medical doctor and the doctor advised us that we had to give up meat. However, during the translation of King James Bible in 1611, meat did not mean muscle or beef or poultry. Meat was just another word for food. The meat offering mentioned in the Bible is a food offering. It is a grain offering. So, in our passage here, it would be better to use “grain offering” translated in NASB, ESV. It is a flour and thins of that nature that is used an offering. We notice that in verse 11, an animal sacrifice was accompanied these meal offerings or the grain offerings. But the question is that why are animals being connected with meal offerings? The reason we asked that because we think animal sacrifice were not part of the meal offering or grain offerings. As we expected that meal offering was just included flour and grain and cereals and things of that nature but not animal sacrifice.

Let us take a look what the Bible say in Numbers 29:6 “Beside the burnt offering of the month, and his meat offering, and the daily burnt offering, and his meat offering, and their drink offerings, according unto their manner, for a sweet savour, a sacrifice made by fire unto the Lord.” Notice on the first phrase of the verse that the meat offering or a meal offering accompanied the burnt offering. So, you had a burnt offering of flesh that was place upon the altar. It means that when the meal offering or grain offering came, it was offered as an accompaniment to a burnt offering that was placed upon the altar. So, you have the scene that in the altar we had a burnt offering of flesh that was placed on it. Then the burnt offering was totally consumed by fire. There was a cereal offering or grain offering that accompanied the burnt offering of flesh and the two offerings were offered as components of one solemn act of worship. Why mentioned this? That is important that is why we talk about it.

The burnt offering was a life that was place upon the altar. When the worship pertained to God, it was a symbol of the fact that the person’s life was placed on the altar. The person who offered unto God did not reserve any of his life, he gave himself totally and completely to the Lord, and a burnt offering was totally consumed which mean a burn offering is complete ash. If there was any occasion that there was found any bit of meat left on that plate, it was not considered a burnt offering because it was not totally consumed and not complete ash. This was a real picture that when I give my life to God, I do not keep back any part of it for myself. It was a total devotion of myself to the service of the Lord. It was a picture of giving my life totally and completely without any reservation to God.

As we have learned that the burnt offering was a life that was place upon the altar, in contrast, grain was not a picture of life. Grain was a picture of the work of a person’s hands. It refers to what a person had labored to produce. The grain accompanies life. It is so clear that I give my life to God (burnt offering) and my works (grain) accompany the life (burnt offering) which I have given to God. God is not against when you you are offering the work of your hands to God, but God is against you are offering God the work of your hands while you do not offer God your life first. So, the essence is that when I offered the burnt offering upon the altar it was a picture of giving my life totally and completely without any reservation, and since the grain accompanies life, so my total devotion of life must be accompanied by my works for God’s service. If there was any reservation in your life, that is not total offering of life to God. That is not genuine worship. A complete and total surrendered life led to labor for God.

Now listen carefully, God is not pleased and does not want the works of your hands if there is no shed blood. Unless there must first of all an application of blood, that is the only way the work of your hands become good, right, appropriate and acceptable before God. Therefore, you can only have access and come to God through the blood sacrifice offered to God. Can we use Cain here to illustrate our point? When Cain gave God the fruit of his hands that was not the problem with Cain. When Cain gave the fruit of his hands independent of a blood sacrifice that was the problem. Later on, God would ask people to bring grains and vegetables that they had raised to God. It does mean that God is not against to getting your good works and God is against to getting your good works independently of a blood sacrifice that has been applied as a substitute for you. What we want to drive out here is, not that the grain is being offered, but the grain has to accompany the blood. If there is no blood shed and no life give on behalf of yours as a substitute, then the grain is of no value or good result. It is very much important to note that God will not accept your good works of service until first of all God has your life.

Read Ephesians 2:8–9, “For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: Not of works, lest any man should boast.” It is clear in this familiar passage that salvation is not at all by works, salvation is not according to what you have done. It teaches that anyone will be saved by faith on the finished redemptive work of Christ that was totally and completely independent of any human effort or meritorious work that man have done. But it does not stop there. Look at Ephesians 2:10 “For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them.” This verse indicates that you are not saved by works but you are saved to work. Did you see that? That is the balance in the Christian life. Now, if salvation is not by works, the question is God interested in works? Yes, of course God is interested in works being performed after salvation, but not doing good works prior to salvation. We are doing good works not to be saved but being saved. The past finished work of Christ is the way to heaven while the present daily work of man is a way of living. Now, there is something about good works that earns or merits or helps us deserve heaven. What is that? That is once we get heaven, become eternal assured of being saved only by repentance of your sins and faith on what Christ hath done to save you, we ought now to work to show God how grateful we are for what Jesus Crist did for us independent of our works. Jesus Christ died, buried and risen from the dead is sufficient redemptive work to save us. I work because work does not have anything to do with Jesus payment of our sins. There is just something in human nature that appreciates this, I do not like to work when I have to. That is why works does not save (Ephesians 2:8-9). But we need to work after we got saved (Ephesians 2:10).

Let us have an illustration here: Half of the good you live is like half of the good you do in your job. Did you have a job that you hated? It is part of your daily system of life to get up early in the morning and go to place of your job that you personally hate to go every day. Then half of the job is enjoying what you do. What do we mean? When we get saved, God changes our wants and desires. We now constrained to work or serve God because of what Christ has done to save us and given us gift of eternal life. We are not saved by works but we are saved to work. Saved to serve. We appropriately applied this to our giving as a Christian. Christian giving was raised to a whole new level. The point we want to drive out here is that God is not interested in getting your offering or giving until first of all God has your soul, until you get saved and you are owned by God because He bought you with a price of the precious blood of Christ. Note, you are not saved by giving anything to God, you are saved by receiving something from God. You received the free gift of eternal life though Jesus Christ.

The Apostle John writes in John 1:12 “But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name.” No person goes to Heaven by what they give. People go to Heaven for what they receive. Now, a person can afford to give something because that person received something. Since God got and owned my soul, so I am prepared to give God my offering or giving as a measure of thankfulness for what God has done for saving my soul. Listen to what the Apostle Paul said in II Corinthians 8:5 “And this they did, not as we hoped, but first gave their own selves to the Lord, and unto us by the will of God.” Paul explaining that before the Macedonian Brethren who are in great poverty ever gave any money to the Apostle Paul, the Bible says they first gave themselves. This is an important principle every Christian needs to learn. You can put your money every worship service in the offering plate today and God may never get your soul (Giving an offering but not saved). And if God really gets your soul, then the money will naturally follow (saved soul motivated to give). Salvation first before good works. I can’t give money as a substitute for self because that is not what God is interest in. God is interested in me giving my life, my heart and my soul. When I give my life, my wallet goes along with it. That’s part of the package. The first thing we are interested in is giving our life, our heart to God, hence our giving is worth.

Philippians 4 considered by some as the greatest missionary giving in the Bible. Paul begins Philippians by talking about love, he writes in verse 2 “I beseech Euodias, and beseech Syntyche, that they be of the same mind in the Lord.” Paul is instructing these co-labourers that they ought to love one another and get along with one another. After telling them about love, Paul moves to joy when says in verse 4, “Rejoice in the Lord always: and again I say, Rejoice.” After love and joy, Paul talks about peace in verse 7“Be careful for nothing, but in every thing by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God. And the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.” Yes, that is right, whenever giving is mentioned, it always have love, have joy, have peace. Listen, if I am a loving person, I will give money, I give more than I am joyful because God loves a joyful giver (II Corinthians 9:7 “God loveth a cheerful giver”).

Many people do not give when they worship because they do not have any peace. Some says, “If I give to missionary giving, or building project what will happen tomorrow?” God says get love, joy, and peace and it guarantees you will be a good giver. Now some asked, how do I get love, joy, and peace? Remember the Bible says in Galatians 5:22 “the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy and peace.” Another question is “how do I get that fruit of the Spirit?” The answer is “I have to be yielded to the Spirit.” (Romans 6:13, 19). “I have to give myself to God.” When I yield or give myself to the Holy Spirit of God, God will produce in me the attributes that God wants to be present in my life so that I will give to His ministries, to His church, to His missions. I am more interested in raising character by yielding to the Spirit than I am interested in raising money. If I raise character by giving myself to God, the money will take care of itself, and it is not hard to give because giving is giving with love, giving with joy and giving with peace. You and I have to give God our souls, and our offerings and giving will naturally follow. That’s the solemnity of Christian giving mentioned in verse 11 of our passage.

The heart is at stake when we talk about the solemnity of giving. The Bible says in Matthew 6:21 “For where you treasure is, there will your heart be also.” Therefore, if I give my whole heart, soul, mind, and strength to God, the giving of money will easily follow. God takes hold of your tomorrow. That is the solemnity of giving, give your whole life to God and labor for God for what He has done in your soul. Give what you receive. Bless the Lord as the Lord blesses you. Amen!

II - THE SPONTANEOUS GIVING - v.12

Ezekiel 46:12 "Now when the prince shall prepare a voluntary burnt offering or peace offerings voluntarily unto the Lord, one shall then open him the gate that looketh toward the east, and he shall prepare his burnt offering and his peace offerings, as he did on the sabbath day: then he shall go forth; and after his going forth one shall shut the gate.”

Ezekiel 46:12 “Kapag ang pinuno ay maghahanda ng kusang handog na sinusunog o ng mga handog pangkapayapaan bilang kusang handog sa Panginoon, bubuksan para sa kanya ang pintuang nakaharap sa silangan. Kanyang iaalay ang kanyang handog na sinusunog at mga handog pangkapayapaan gaya ng kanyang ginagawa sa araw ng Sabbath. Pagkatapos ay lalabas siya, at pagkalabas niya ay sasarhan ang pintuan.”

In the context of our passage, this prince is motivated to give and he enters on a day when the temple doors are closed. Likewise, we should not simply give because it is time to give or offering is part of church worship program because there may be occasions when God motivates us to give and the church doors are locked. You should not say, “Well, I would love to give today, but the church doors are closed so I cannot give.” We must give not because the church doors are opened and we have an opened giving program for all worshippers but we certainly give because our heart is opened and we are willing and spontaneously wants to give for His cause. God says you can voluntarily give your offerings. God wants you to give your offerings with your free will of your heart. So, give “voluntary”, spontaneous of your freewill offerings.

Did you ever experience that you have been somewhere and God spoke to your heart telling you “son, you need to give this”, If you have not encountered the voice of God in that situation, it mean you are not walking with God. Many times, when someone is walking with God, expect that there is the voice of God speaking to that person that he need to do something. God is expecting us to live in close communion with Him that is why we ought to be motivated to give over and beyond that which is stipulated. When God speaks to your heart and tells you to “give” then you responded to give because you are motivated by the prompting of the Holy Spirit to give. If God speaking to your heart by the voice of the Holy Spirit, hence every one of us should not consider tithing as a monthly bill.

There is a good sense when we think that we ought to settle or separate first your tithe be ready for your giving. You do not pay all your bills until you faithfully give first what belongs to the Lord, then see if you have enough to give to the Lord. There is the blessing to give to the Lord and the Lord assuredly will take care of the rest. Holding to that principle, you do not need to say that the Holy Spirit strongly lead you to put extra money to pay your electric monthly bill, of course you don’t say, “I just feel led by the Spirit to give more to Meralco electricity.” The same case of paying your housing loan or car loan, you don’t say “I just feel led by the Spirit to give more money to pay for my car loan and housing loan.” Give when the Spirit leads you to give to God’ work and expectedly God will take the rest.

ILLUSTRATION: You pay taxes not because your government is awesome and nice. Taxes are bills. Another instance, you ought to give to somebody even it is not his/her birthday, valentine or anniversary because it is part of the relationship.

So why give? Because you want to give voluntarily or freewill offering, and that is the way you like it. There are instances where God speaks to your heart and God says, “I have been good to you for this week, this month.” Then you answered, “Yes Lord, you have been good to me always, and I am going to give more.” See the point, when the Holy Spirit is prompting you to give, then you act voluntarily by faith that is spontaneous giving, and of course you will be surprised at what you can do. Just give when God says give.

Spontaneous giving is important that you need to be sensitive to the Holy Spirit. Sometimes when God speaks to you to give something, our wrong reaction is “What? You are joking brother, I cannot afford to give that, and I know God was not speaking to me, because God would not ask me to give that.” Listen, you do not know what move God will surprise you because God is waiting after you give what God is asking you to give. You do not know what blessing is going on in your life.

Notice the text in Ephesians 4:28 “Let him that stole steal no more: but rather let him labour, working with his hands the thing, which is good, that he may have to give to him that needeth."

1. Stop stealing – “Let him that stole steal no more.” – The Bible says, you ought to stop if you are a thief, you are getting or spending what belongs to God.

2. Start working – “but rather let him labour, working with his hands the thing which is good,” – you say, “if I don’t steal how do I get money?” God is giving you an idea to get a job.

3. Share the blessing – “that he may have to give to him that needeth.” The Bible not only say you ought not steal and ought to get a job and get money from that employment because God has a purpose why you are getting money for work. Part of the reason why God wanted you to work so that you can have money to give to people when needs arise.

You cannot spend everything that you’ve got. You have got to budget in your budget the ability to help people when need it. If you do not plan to have enough money to spontaneously give, you are not going to give spontaneously. When God speaks to your heart, then you do not have any money left over to give because you have already spent it all for nonsense. Not only God says don’t steal and ought to work and get money from your work, but you need your money to be able to be a blessing to other people when God speak to your heart to give when needs arise. It means you cannot just spend everything that you have, it means I cannot just go to the mall during my payday spend everything I want because when God speak to my heart spontaneously to give to somebody, I have money to give to the needy. You will feel ashamed when God wanted you to use your money to help somebody or give to His ministries because you have already spent those money that God wanted you to use for His purpose.

III – THE SYSTEMATIC GIVING – v.13-15

Ezekiel 46:13-15 “Thou shalt daily prepare a burnt offering unto the Lord of a lamb of the first year without blemish: thou shalt prepare it every morning. ¹⁴And thou shalt prepare a meat offering for it every morning, the sixth part of an ephah, and the third part of an hin of oil, to temper with the fine flour; a meat offering continually by a perpetual ordinance unto the Lord. ¹⁵Thus shall they prepare the lamb, and the meat offering, and the oil, every morning for a continual burnt offering.”

Ezekiel 46:13-15 “Siya ay maglalaan ng isang batang tupa na isang taong gulang na walang kapintasan bilang handog na sinusunog sa Panginoon araw-araw; tuwing umaga ay maghahanda siya. ¹⁴At siya'y maglalaan ng handog na butil na kasama niyon tuwing umaga, ikaanim na bahagi ng isang efa, at ikatlong bahagi ng isang hin ng langis, upang basain ang harina, bilang handog na butil sa Panginoon. Ito ang batas para sa patuloy na handog na sinusunog. ¹⁵Gayon nila ilalaan ang batang tupa, ang handog na butil, at ang langis, tuwing umaga, bilang patuloy na handog na sinusunog.”

Giving is never something that anyone can get out of the habit of doing. According to our contextual passage this prince is to prepare offerings every morning. The Bible says that this prince giving was to be done by a perpetual ordinance. In other words, there is never a time when we are released from the obligation of giving. God says that our offerings ought to be continual, systematic, perpetual and ongoing of what you do. Therefore, once you release yourself from the obligation of giving, you have now become a robber.

We believe in Grace giving in the New Testament, so we do not practice the Old Testament 30% tithing of the Jewish law. But we do not disregard in 10% giving as a minimal giving in New Testament grace giving, because the Bible is silent and did not condemned giving the 10% of your giving. If the Old Testament have agricultural income, we have in our time industrial income. But, grace giving exceeds the 10% minimum giving because we give by God's grace not by God's law, we give because we love God not because we are under the law. Now open to the Old Testament Jewish tithing Malachi 3:8, 10 "Will a man rob? Yet ye have robbed me. But ye say, Wherein have we robbed thee? In Tithes and offerings. ¹⁰Bring ye all the tithes into the storehouse, that there may be meat in mine house, and prove me now herewith, saith the Lord of hosts, if I will not open you the windows of heaven, and pour you out a blessing, that there shall not be room enough to receive it.” We just want to see the principle of giving in the Old Testament tithing.

1. Notice the command of God: “Bring ye all the tithes into the storehouse” – v.10 We are to bring tithes.

2. Notice the condemnation to the Giver: “Will a man rob God? Yet ye have robbed me. But ye say, Wherein have we robbed thee?” - v.8

3. Notice the clarity of guideline: “In tithes and offerings” - v.8 – A failure to give is robbing God.

Maybe you asked, “who robbed God?” Christians did. They robbed God. A lot of people rob God every Sunday. I am amazed at the number of people who are thieves. If I’m supposed to pay something systematically and I don’t pay it, I’m a thief.

You cannot rob God but when you do not give your tithes (10% of income, not the Jewish OT law of tithing but a minimum amount of NT grace giving) and your offerings to God, you rob God. Well, some think that I am preaching this because I want missionary support and I want to maintain the lights and paid the monthly bills of this church. Yes, that is true, but the needs and condition of this church is not the reason, it is the character of the people we worried about. Therefore, this is not a financial issue, this is a moral issue. You become a thief when you don’t give to God’s ministries that which God has morally obligated you to give your tithes and offerings. You are a robber for many times.

I couldn’t expect the blessings of God on my life if I was robbing Him. I couldn’t kneel anytime and ask God to bless the church and give me souls during visitation when I was a thief. I couldn’t stand up in the pulpit and preach about giving when I had taken what was belong to God.

When you put that money in the offering plate during worship services, you are not giving to a Pastor. You are giving to God. That’s an act of worship. You are not hurting this church institution or this Pastor. You are hurting your own personal relationship with God when you fail to give what you ought to give. That’s very serious. It says something about your heart. When you and I give to God, we are saying something about our character.