These are the words of him who is holy and true, who holds the key of David. What he opens no one can shut, and what he shuts no one can open. ⁸ I know your deeds. See, I have placed before you an open door that no one can shut. I know that you have little strength, yet you have kept my word and have not denied my name.

We have so little strength. This word Strength here in this verse is

G1411   dunamis   doo’-nam-is

From G1410; force (literally or figuratively); specifically miraculous power (usually by implication a miracle itself): – ability, abundance, meaning, might (-ily, -y, -y deed), (worker of) miracle (-s), power, strength, violence, mighty (wonderful) work.

Many churches teach you about Jesus and the Bible. Many Messianic groups teach you about Yehshua and the Torah. Many of those groups teach you to keep Holy Days of Lev 23 according to the Hebrew Calendar. A few then teach you that you need the barley to begin the year for the Wave Sheaf offering and the crescent moon to begin the month. Of those few that teach you this, we are the only ones who have been teaching you to keep the Sabbatical years and we have been doing this since 2005.

We are the only ministry that Teaches you to keep these Holy Days of Lev 23 according to the Barley being Aviv and the crescent moon having been sighted and to keep the Sabbatical year from Aviv to Aviv. We have now kept two of them. How many of these other ministries can say that?

Many brethren at first, get excited and join us for a season or two. Then they move on to the next flavour as they seek to be entertained by the next new thing.

We (sightedmoon.com) have no bands, no choral, we have no buildings or property. Our teachings have been copied over and over and now bare the names of others, although they were first learned here because of the Sabbatical years at sightedmoon.com. We have now had close to 10 million hits to all of our teaching tools; News Letters, Podcasts, and Videos. This does not include the reach we had in radio when we were on it. We have also shown hundreds around the land of Israel and opened their minds to understand these truths. And for the most part, we did this for the cost and or for free.

And yet in spite of all of this, we have very little strength in doing this work. Although the things we have been able to do are nothing short of miracles themselves we are not very powerful. Money and numbers of coworkers are power and we just do not have that.

Our message is not one that is popular. No one wants to hear that the things they are doing are a sin. No one wants to hear that their nations which will not obey Yehovah are going to be destroyed because they are sinning. No one wants to hear about the cannibalism that is about to come. No one wants to hear about what the worship of Baal Peor is and how they are a part of it. No one wants to hear about Islamic Jihad taking over their homeland and their wives and daughters being raped and enslaved.

No, our message is not a popular one to teach. Yet we have not shied away from it nor been ashamed to state the facts publicly, even when it offended others.

And we have shown you when these things are to take place and they have been taking place according to the understandings revealed through the Sabbatical and Jubilee cycles.

Even so with all of this information given out freely, we still are not able to raise enough funds so that we can then assist those who are now in line for the next phase of the Sabbatical and Jubilee cycle curses and blessings. Judgment is now upon the nations of Israel and about to be executed. This then means that the Gentile nations have this Sabbatical cycle to repent and obey the Sabbath, the Holy Days and the next Sabbatical Year in 2023. After that then they will be judged and punished accordingly.

It is these very nations now, during this Sabbatical cycle, that we must reach. And those in the Philippines and those in Burundi, Tanzania, Rwanda, Kenya, Congo, Ivory Coast and Zambia are wanting to learn more and are reacting positively when they are taught the truths.

Acts 8:26-40 Now an angel of the Lord spoke to Philip, saying, “Arise and go toward the south along the road which goes down from Jerusalem to Gaza.” This is desert. So he arose and went. And behold, a man of Ethiopia, a eunuch of great authority under Candace the queen of the Ethiopians, who had charge of all her treasury, and had come to Jerusalem to worship, was returning. And sitting in his chariot, he was reading Isaiah the prophet. Then the Spirit said to Philip, “Go near and overtake this chariot.”
So Philip ran to him, and heard him reading the prophet Isaiah, and said, “Do you understand what you are reading?”
And he said, “How can I, unless someone guides me?” And he asked Philip to come up and sit with him. The place in the Scripture which he read was this:
“He was led as a sheep to the slaughter;
And as a lamb before its shearer is silent,
So He opened not His mouth.
In His humiliation His justice was taken away,
And who will declare His generation?
For His life is taken from the earth.”
So the eunuch answered Philip and said, “I ask you, of whom does the prophet say this, of himself or of some other man?” Then Philip opened his mouth, and beginning at this Scripture, preached Jesus to him. Now as they went down the road, they came to some water. And the eunuch said, “See, here is water. What hinders me from being baptized?”
Then Philip said, “If you believe with all your heart, you may.”
And he answered and said, “I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God.”
So he commanded the chariot to stand still. And both Philip and the eunuch went down into the water, and he baptized him. Now when they came up out of the water, the Spirit of the Lord caught Philip away, so that the eunuch saw him no more; and he went on his way rejoicing. But Philip was found at Azotus. And passing through, he preached in all the cities till he came to Caesarea.

How can these nations learn these truths unless someone guides them? How can someone guide them if we cannot send them people to do so. It costs money to fly to these place and to stay in hotels and to eat. It cost money to rent the places that are needed to host these events. This does not even count the cost of maintaining the bills at home and families while we are away doing this work and not able to do our regular job.

Matt 10:38-42 And he who does not take his cross and follow after Me is not worthy of Me. He who finds his life will lose it, and he who loses his life for My sake will find it.
A Cup of Cold Water
“He who receives you receives Me, and he who receives Me receives Him who sent Me. He who receives a prophet in the name of a prophet shall receive a prophet’s reward. And he who receives a righteous man in the name of a righteous man shall receive a righteous man’s reward. And whoever gives one of these little ones only a cup of cold water in the name of a disciple, assuredly, I say to you, he shall by no means lose his reward.”

Many assume others will donate so they do not have to. So I looked up the following report. It says that less than 10% of those who claim to be Christian tithe.

Hard Question for Collection Plate: Do Only Rich Folks Tithe?

RICH SMITH, AOL.COM
Apr 3rd 2015 6:00AM
OJO Images RF/Getty Images
“And all the tithe of the land, whether of the seed of the land, or of the fruit of the tree, is the Lord’s… And concerning the tithe of the herd, or of the flock, even of whatsoever passeth under the rod, the tenth shall be holy unto the Lord.”
–Leviticus 27: 30, 32

“To give 10 percent … [is] the gold standard of charitable donations… [but] less than 10 percent of Christian church-going Americans give 10 percent or more of their income. … Those who do tithe tend to be in better financial shape than those who don’t. Nearly one in three tithers are debt-free vs. 13 percent of non-tithers.”
— MarketWatch “Moneyologist” Quentin Fottrell

Which brings us to today’s big question: If almost no one at church tithes these days, and if among those few who do, many are in better-than-average financial shape, does this mean that “only rich folks tithe”?

That seems to be the gist of what MarketWatch resident financial expert Quentin Fottrell argues. According to Fottrell, people who tithe 10 percent or more of their income to church are a rare and well-off bunch. Simply put, they tithe because they can afford it — but most of us cannot.

Or as he summarizes his thinking: You should “give $1 or $1,000, or whatever feels comfortable.” Because no one else is tithing 10 percent, either.

What Is the State of the Plate?

MarketWatch bases this argument on research in a 2013 “State of the Plate” research report sponsored by such organizations as Christianity Today and the Evangelical Christian Credit Union.

This report, currently the most comprehensive research available on trends in tithing among churchgoers, tends to support MarketWatch’s take. For example, statistics cited in “State of the Plate” confirm that churchgoers who tithe do have their finances in better order than those who do not tithe. For example, they are:40 percent less likely (15 percent versus 25 percent) than the average churchgoer to owe significant debt (more than $50,000).
Only half as likely (20 percent vs. 40 percent) to be overdue on their credit cards.
Twice as likely to be entirely debt-free (28 percent versus 13 percent).
But as well off as they may be, there aren’t a lot of tithers. In fact, out of the U.S. population of 315 million (circa 2013), State of the Plate says only 10 million people tithed 10 percent or more of their income.

10 Million Sounds Like a Lot, but It Isn’t

That “10 million” is an interesting number. Gallup polling data show that 43 percent of Americans attended church weekly (or nearly so) in 2013. Out of a population of 315 million, that’s roughly 135 million souls.

State of the Plate estimates 10 million of these people tithed 10 percent of their income, implying only 7.4 percent of professed churchgoers are tithing 10 percent. What’s more, out of the whole U.S. population, this suggests that barely 3 percent of us tithe 10 percent or more.

And yet, State of the Plate reports that these 10 million tithers donate more than $50 billion annually to their churches. How is that possible?

There’s Generous — and Then There’s Crazy-Generous

After all, $50 billion divided by 10 million tithers works out to each tithing an average of $5,000. Yet according to the U.S. Census Bureau, the average per capita income in the U.S. in 2013 was just $28,155. Granted, “per capita” data includes data on children, who don’t earn much. But some children also tithe. In fact, State of the Plate says that “28 percent [of tithers] started giving 10 percent when they were in their childhood or teen years.”

So for 10 million tithers to tithe $50 billion, they must tithe an average of 17.8 percent of their income.

Which is pretty incredible. You won’t find that amount of generosity required even in the King James Version of the Bible.

And yet, State of the Plate reports that 77 percent of tithers polled do give more than 10 percent on Sunday. Specifically, 23 percent give 10 percent, but:54 percent give between 11 and 15 percent.
14 percent “tithe” 16 to 20 percent.
and 9 percent give 20 percent or more.
But that still seems unlikely to result in an average tithing rate of 17.8 percent. My back-of-the-envelope calculation works out to a bit more than 13.6 percent.

The Trouble With Tithers

And that’s not the end of the “math problems.” In a married household, usual tithing practice isn’t for husband and wife to tithe separately. Children may be encouraged to tithe individually, to encourage early adoption of the practice. But for parents, it’s more common for the head of the household to deposit “the family’s” tithes in the offering plate.

Now consider: If 10 million households tithed an average of $5,000 in 2013, that’s only 6.9 percent of the average household income that year ($72,641, per U.S. Census Bureau data).

Result: We’re now down to 7.4 percent of professed churchgoers “tithing” 10 percent, or 10 million actual tithers tithing an average of just 6.9 percent.

The Upshot for Tithers

Either way, State of the Plate’s best guess that “10-25 percent” of churchgoing families tithe 10 percent or more doesn’t seem very close to the mark. Either fewer churchgoers are tithing much more than 10 percent, or more churchgoers are tithing less than 10 percent.

Why not put Yehovah to the test that He challenges you to do? The word to try Him is to test Him or to investigate Him and see if He will follow through or not on His part of the bargain. But before you tithe to any one again, read all of this article.

Malachi 3:8-12  “Will a man rob God?
Yet you have robbed Me!
But you say,
‘In what way have we robbed You?’
In tithes and offerings.
You are cursed with a curse,
For you have robbed Me,
Even this whole nation.
Bring all the tithes into the storehouse,
That there may be food in My house,
And try Me now in this,”
Says the Lord of hosts,
“If I will not open for you the windows of heaven
And pour out for you such blessing
That there will not be room enough to receive it.
And I will rebuke the devourer for your sakes,
So that he will not destroy the fruit of your ground,
Nor shall the vine fail to bear fruit for you in the field,”
Says the Lord of hosts;
“And all nations will call you blessed,
For you will be a delightful land,”
Says the Lord of hosts.

Now I do presume you know that Christians tithe and use the Old Testament to justify them doing so. And I also presume you know that Jews do not tithe and they too use the old testament to justify not tithing. Oh you did not know. Keep reading then.

Reprinted from The Jewish Religion: A Companion, published by Oxford University Press.

The main biblical passages regarding the tithing of produce are: Numbers 18:21-32 and Deuteronomy 14:22-7 and 26:12.

Biblical scholars have seen the differences in these sources concerning the recipients of the tithe as due to the social background of two separate sources, each having its own applications. Throughout the Rabbinic literature, however, the sources are harmonized and the following system emerges.

Terumah

The tithes have to be given from corn, wine, and oil by biblical law and from fruit and vegetables by Rabbinic law. The farmer first separates from the yield a portion (a sixtieth, fiftieth, or fortieth at the farmer’s discretion), known as terumah (‘heave offering’ or ‘gift’). This is given to a Kohen (priest) and is treated as sacred food in that it must not be eaten when the priest is in a state of ritual contamination or when the terumah itself has suffered contamination. Nor may it be eaten by a non-Kohen.

Three Kinds of Maaser

A tenth of the remainder of the yield, known as maaser rishon,‘the first tithe,’ is then separated and given to a Levite. The Levite, in turn, separates a tenth of his tithe and this, known as terumat maaser, is given to a Kohen to be treated with the same degree of sanctity as the original terumah, The portion given to the Levite has no sanctity and may be eaten by an ordinary Israelite.

The farmer separates a tenth of the reminder of his yield, known as maser sheni, ‘the second tithe.’ This has to be taken to Jerusalem and consumed there in a spirit of sanctity. If it is too difficult to take the second tithe to Jerusalem, it can be redeemed by substituting for it a sum of money which is then taken to Jerusalem and food and drink purchased with it to be consumed there.

However, every third and sixth year of the cycle culminating in the Sabbatical year, the second tithe is given to the poor and is known as maaser ani, ‘poor man’s tithe.’

Additional Rules
After the destruction of the Temple, maaser sheni was redeemed for a small amount and this tithe could then be consumed by the farmer wherever he happened to live.

Produce from which the tithes had not been separated was strictly forbidden but once the tithes had been separated their actual distribution could be postponed. The farmer could please himself as to which Kohen or Levite he gave his tithes.

Not everyone was scrupulous in separating the tithes. A whole tractate of the Mishnah, tractate Demai (‘Doubtful Produce’) is devoted to the need for tithing produce bought from an am ha-aretz suspected of laxity in the matter.

According to the Rabbis, the laws of tithing only apply to the land of Israel, and farmers in the Diaspora have no obligation to give tithes, although there is some evidence of communities outside Israel, in Egypt for example, having a system of tithing.

Again according to the Rabbis, the full tithing laws apply only when the majority of Jews live in the land of Israel and since, in the absence of the purification rites of the red heifer, everyone today suffers from corpse contamination, the terumah is inoperative in any event. Moreover the purpose of tithing, for the upkeep of the priests and Levites, has no meaning nowadays. The present practice in the State of Israel is to have only a token separation of the tithes.

Some Rabbinic sources make reference to a tithe of money as well as of produce, although it is not too clear whether this was seen as a voluntary contribution rather than an obligation. Nevertheless, many observant Jews today do donate a tenth of their annual income to charity. This is known as maaser kesafim, ‘the money tithe’ or ‘wealth tax.’

So should you tithe 10% of your money and 10% of your crops?

You are to tithe to yourself. How many churches tell you to do this. Take 10% of your crops and if you want 10% of your income and give it to yourself so you can keep the Feast. Read it for yourself. Before you give any more to anyone else give 10% to yourself so you can keep the Feasts.

Deut 14:22-27 “You shall truly tithe all the increase of your grain that the field produces year by year. And you shall eat before the Lord your God, in the place where He chooses to make His name abide, the tithe of your grain and your new wine and your oil, of the firstborn of your herds and your flocks, that you may learn to fear the Lord your God always. But if the journey is too long for you, so that you are not able to carry the tithe, or if the place where the Lord your God chooses to put His name is too far from you, when the Lord your God has blessed you, then you shall exchange it for money, take the money in your hand, and go to the place which the Lord your God chooses. And you shall spend that money for whatever your heart desires: for oxen or sheep, for wine or similar drink, for whatever your heart desires; you shall eat there before the Lord your God, and you shall rejoice, you and your household. You shall not forsake the Levite who is within your gates, for he has no part nor inheritance with you.

And you are also to take of this tithe and every 3rd year in the 7 year Sabbatical cycle you are to take care of the Levite and the widow so they can enjoy the Feasts.

Deut 14:28-29 “At the end of every third year you shall bring out the tithe of your produce of that year and store it up within your gates. And the Levite, because he has no portion nor inheritance with you, and the stranger and the fatherless and the widow who are within your gates, may come and eat and be satisfied, that the Lord your God may bless you in all the work of your hand which you do.

So now let us get to the heart of the problem of tithing to the churches or other groups.

Numbers 18:21-32 “Behold, I have given the children of Levi all the tithes in Israel as an inheritance in return for the work which they perform, the work of the tabernacle of meeting. Hereafter the children of Israel shall not come near the tabernacle of meeting, lest they bear sin and die. But the Levites shall perform the work of the tabernacle of meeting, and they shall bear their iniquity; it shall be a statute forever, throughout your generations, that among the children of Israel they shall have no inheritance. For the tithes of the children of Israel, which they offer up as a heave offering to the Lord, I have given to the Levites as an inheritance; therefore I have said to them, ‘Among the children of Israel they shall have no inheritance.’ ”

Now read Malachi again. Yes now read it and know that the tithe was only for the Levites who took care of the Temple. It was not for those who teach the Temple and the Laws of the Torah are done away. Or for those who have replaced the Levite as they say and that you should send that money to the pastors and priests.

Malachi 3:8-12  “Will a man rob God?
Yet you have robbed Me!
But you say,
‘In what way have we robbed You?’
In tithes and offerings.
You are cursed with a curse,
For you have robbed Me,
Even this whole nation.
Bring all the tithes into the storehouse,
That there may be food in My house,
And try Me now in this,”
Says the Lord of hosts,
“If I will not open for you the windows of heaven
And pour out for you such blessing
That there will not be room enough to receive it.
And I will rebuke the devourer for your sakes,
So that he will not destroy the fruit of your ground,
Nor shall the vine fail to bear fruit for you in the field,”
Says the Lord of hosts;
“And all nations will call you blessed,
For you will be a delightful land,”
Says the Lord of hosts.

We are told how the Levites forsook the Temple and went back to work in the fields because they were not given the tithes of the land from the other tribes.

Nehmiah 13:9-13 I also realized that the portions for the Levites had not been given them; for each of the Levites and the singers who did the work had gone back to his field. So I contended with the rulers, and said, “Why is the house of God forsaken?” And I gathered them together and set them in their place. Then all Judah brought the tithe of the grain and the new wine and the oil to the storehouse. And I appointed as treasurers over the storehouse Shelemiah the priest and Zadok the scribe, and of the Levites, Pedaiah; and next to them was Hanan the son of Zaccur, the son of Mattaniah; for they were considered faithful, and their task was to distribute to their brethren.

So if you are tithing to a group that is not serving the Temple then you are sinning. If you are not tithing to yourself so you can keep the Feast then you are sinning. And if you are not taking care of the widows and orphans and the Levites during the 3rd and 6th years of the 7 Years Sabbatical cycle then you are sinning.

Stop sinning and start to obey Yehovah.

Now, at Sightedmoon.com, we have never asked for tithes of any sort. We have never told you to send your tithes to us. We continue to maintain that once the temple service begins you are going to be expected to tithe of your crops and send them to the Temple.

Having shared this with you, I do remind you that we are the only ones teaching the Sabbatical and Jubilee years and the prophecies they reveal about the end times. So we ask you to consider standing with us and make a monthly donation to support us, so we can book those airlines so that we can go to those African nations and teach the people and the leaders. We ask you to support our partners in this in Africa and in the Philippines as we reach out to as many as we can to teach them the Torah.

There is so much we could do if everyone was to just give a little. We ask you not to be like the Christians who talk the talk but have less than 10% contributing to the work they do. If you know of some who would like to be a corporate sponsor then please encourage them to look at what we are striving to do.

If we are the same as any of the Christian groups then stop reading our material. If we are no different than any of the other Messianic groups then stop reading our material. But if you can see that our perspective is much different and that it comes from understanding the Sabbatical and Jubilee cycles then we ask you to prayerfully consider supporting and standing with us in this work.

OK, let’s conclude this by relooking at Abraham and see if he tithed to Melchizedek or not and to Jacob. Because the Christian churches use these two to justify them receiving your tithes.

So read this and tell me who is the one being spoken of here. The subject is Melchizedek and what he is doing and what he is saying. Read it.

Genesis 14:18-20 Then Melchizedek king of Salem brought out bread and wine; he was the priest of God Most High. And he blessed him and said:
“Blessed be Abram of God Most High,
Possessor of heaven and earth;
And blessed be God Most High,
Who has delivered your enemies into your hand.” And he gave him a tithe of all.

These verses are speaking about Melchizedek and how he blessed Yehovah the most High. It is telling us that it was Melchizedek who gave Abraham a tithe of all that Abraham had recovered. What I am saying here makes, even more sense, when you read the next verses and see that the King of Sodom was trying to out do King Melchizedek by giving to Abraham all the recovered booty. But Abraham was not having anything of it. Abraham knew the corruptive ness of Sodom and would see it destroyed in a few short years time. So he would not take the reward from them

Deut 23:18 You shall not bring the wages of a harlot or the price of a dog to the house of the Lord your God for any vowed offering, for both of these are an abomination to the Lord your God.

The wages of a dog are those of a male prostitute.

But Abraham accepted the tithe of Melchizedek and refused the total amount of Sodom.

Gen 14:21-24 Now the king of Sodom said to Abram, “Give me the persons, and take the goods for yourself.”
But Abram said to the king of Sodom, “I have raised my hand to the Lord, God Most High, the Possessor of heaven and earth, that I will take nothing, from a thread to a sandal strap, and that I will not take anything that is yours, lest you should say, “I have made Abram rich’— except only what the young men have eaten, and the portion of the men who went with me: Aner, Eshcol, and Mamre; let them take their portion.”

A question must be asked at this time if you believe Abraham gave a tithe of all to Melchizedek. Did Abraham give a tithe of all the booty from Jerusalem that he had recovered because he did not take anything from Sodom? So those who use Hebrew 7 as their justification for tithing are saying Abraham only tithed to Melchizedek what was already Melchizedek’s a few days before it was stolen. In other words, the 4 Kings stole from Melchizedek $10,000 let’s say. Abraham recovers the $10,000 which belonged to Melchizedek and then give Melchizedek $1000 and everyone thinks Abraham has now started to tithe.

No, Abraham recovered the $10,000 and gave it all to Melchizedek and then Melchizedek gave Abraham a tithe of $1000 from our example.

Yes, I am fully aware of what you are told in Hebrews 7. All I am doing is reading Genesis and letting it tell me what it says.

The other example the churches use to cause you to tithe is the verse about Jacob.

Gen 28:20-22 Then Jacob made a vow, saying, “If God will be with me, and keep me in this way that I am going, and give me bread to eat and clothing to put on, so that I come back to my father’s house in peace, then the Lord shall be my God. And this stone which I have set as a pillar shall be God’s house, and of all that You give me I will surely give a tenth to You.”

You will notice Yehovah never commanded Jacob to tithe. Jacob, on the other hand, made his tenth conditional upon Yehovah taking care of Jacob first. If all the gold and all the silver are Yehovah’s then what was Jacob giving? It is my view that Jacob was giving ten percent of children. We read many times how Yehovah is going to save a remnant of Israel.

Yehovah is not going to save all of Israel in these last days but a remnant only. Is that the 10% Jacob promised?

In either case, there is no commandment to tithe. And if you scour the New Testament there again you will find there is no commandment to tithe. So although the Churches today all say the law is done away, the only law they promote and teach is the lie that you are to tithe to them.

Yehovah commanded Israel to tithe to the Levites in order for them to take care of the duties of the Temple. There is no temple today and the Levites have not been replaced by Priest and pastors or churches.

Now that I have shared this, I do ask that you might consider standing with us and help us to do this work that we have been doing, warning the nations of the coming sword that is about to come upon the world. Ezekiel warns us that if we see the sword coming, we must warn the people. If we do not then we are guilty of their deaths. So we are asking you to stand with us week in and week out to get this message out.

On our podcasts, we have been asking for people to give $5 a month every month. Others have given $10, $20, $30 $50 and more per month. What this does for us is to allow us to know how much we can budget for the Philippines or Africa or other nations or advertising and to just pay the bills. Please do consider standing with us and supporting this work. Thank you to all those who already are.