The Full Corn In The Ear Series

One of the great Jewish Patriarchs in the Book of Genesis named Isaac acted out his faith and God blessed him regardless of having done it when a famine was stalking the land in which he lived in “Isaac planted crops in that land and the same year reaped a hundredfold, because the Lord blessed him.” [Gen. 26:12 (NIV)

The Bible teaches us from Isaac’s life that we continually harvest—even during the toughest times. Check this following Scripture out and see how it lines up with what the Lord is revealing to you. “But blessed are those who trust in the Lord and have made the Lord their hope and confidence. They are like trees planted along a riverbank, with roots that reach deep into the water. Such trees are not bothered by the heat or worried by long months of drought. Their leaves stay green, and

they never stop producing fruit.” [Jeremiah 17:7-8 NLT]

As a pastor I teach on tithing. I firmly believe that tithing is a Scriptural demand on every believer, and must be done in love and obedience to God’s complete ownership [Sovereignty] of all that we have. Tithing is honoring God with His 10 percent from the gross income that we receive every month in a year. “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. It is holy to the Lord.” Leviticus 27:30 [NKJV] Often I have noticed that people don’t reap because they don’t tithe.

Mr. Perry Hayden was a Christian miller by profession who wanted to prove that the law of tithing was in fact the divine law of prosperity.

To prove his theory he set up an experiment where he planted one cubic inch of wheat seed in 1940. His intention was to tithe the tenth each year from the crop. Henry Ford became interested in this effort and lent his support by loaning Mr. Hayden farmland to plant on and equipment to harvest his crop with. Here is the rest of the story in Mr. Hayden’s words.

“On Sunday morning, September 22, 1940, I heard a message preached on John 12:24. 'Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone: but IF IT DIE, IT BRINGETH FORTH MUCH FRUIT.' Being a miller, and being interested in actually proving God in a rather unique way, I was led to do something the following Thursday that has since been heard of all the way around the world. I planted 360 kernels of wheat (one cubic inch). It takes 2,150 cubic inches to make a bushel, so you can see what a small beginning this project had.

“When we planted the wheat, September 26, 1940, on a plot 4 by 8 feet, I told those present that in 1941 we were going to ‘tithe’ the crop, and replant it. I was taking Malachi 3:10 seriously and I recommend right now that my reader study this verse as well as the eleventh verse. In Leviticus 25:3 and 4 we find to 'sow the field' for six years and let it rest the seventh; that is what we set out to do.

“In 1941 we cut the ‘world’s smallest wheat field.’ Immediately, we turned over a tenth of the yield to the local Quaker Church, and replanted the remaining 45 cubic inches in September, 1941.

“In the summer of 1942, we cut the second crop with old-fashioned cradles, and found the yield was 55 fold, or 70 pounds. Again we ‘tithed’ the wheat and replanted the remaining 63 pounds on land that, for the third year in succession, had been furnished by Henry Ford, who owned a large farm near Tecumseh.

In 1943, this acre of land yielded 16 bushels from the one bushel of seed. Henry Ford himself came out to see the wheat cut, and furnished a reaper to cut it and an old-fashioned thresher from his famous Edison Institute Museum at Greenfield Village, to thresh it. Not only that, but Henry again furnished land for the fourth crop.

In 1944, this crop of 14 acres yielded 380 bushels. Again the tenth of the crop was ‘tithed’ and the remaining cleaned and replanted. Henry Ford furnished the land for the fifth crop. It was 230 acres.

In the summer of 1945 a fleet of 40 combines was sent to the field by Ford. The yield from the Dynamic Kernels was 5,555 bushels. The value of this little crop at the market price of $1.55 per bushel, was $8,610.25. The tithe of $861.03 went to the Friends Church who, in turn, gave it to the Tecumseh Hospital.

“And now comes the interesting outcome after Henry Ford had turned over the fifth crop to me. The 5,000 bushels of wheat were sold to approximately 250 farmers in Michigan and nearby states. They had to agree to plant the wheat, and in 1946, to pay a tithe of their crop to their own church.