Stewardship - Giving Freely to Jesus

Let's open to the book of Ecclesiastes, we are going to be in the 5th chapter in just a moment. Before we get there, I would like to take you back in history to the time that the Bible was written and have you just think about one thought-- a question for each of us to ponder. As we honestly look at God's Word and how the Lord has revealed His desires about our stewardship of our money – what should be our response to Him? Specifically, as we look at the Old Testament record, "God do You really expect less of me – who has Your Holy Spirit within and lives in the wealthiest society in human history – than You demanded of the poorest Israelite?" In the Old Testament, under the Law, God demanded, He told them you must do this, if you don't you face my wrath, punishment, chastisement, you face a whole host of negatives. He demanded from them. He specified, spelled out in the 613 commands of the Old Testament what they had to give. With all that, do you think God expects less from us in whom His Holy Spirit dwells, living in the wealthiest and prosperous era the planet has ever known?
LIFE WAS HARD BACK THEN

Let's think about what it was like in Israel. Life was hard in Bible times. Like much of the non-industrialized world today, most men awoke at dawn, trudged to the fields where they had to scrape out--- if you have ever been to Israel-- it is one big rock pile- it looks like a quarry--- and they would scrape out the soil between the rocks, move the rocks and try and scratch out an existence farming that land. They would work from dawn to dusk and trudge home totally tired from hand laboring. They plowed with wooden yokes and plows tied on with rope and leather to oxen. Pl