Malachi 3:8-12

Malachi chapter 3 verses 8 to 12 will a man rob God ye have robbed me but ye say where in have we robbed thee in ties and offerings you are cursed with a curse for ye have robbed me even this whole nation bring ye all the ties into the storehouse that there may be meat in mine house and prove me now herewith said the Lord of host. If I will not open you the windows of heaven and pour you out a blessing, there shall not be room enough to receive it. And I will rebuke the devirer for your sakes, and he shall not destroy the fruits of your ground, neither shall your vine cast her fruit before the time in the fields, said the Lord of host. And all nations shall call you blessed, for ye shall be a delightsome land. sat the Lord of hosts. May God bless to us, his sacred and holy word this evening. The pastor was once asked how many members he had in the church. He said, 150. And then he was asked, well, how many of them are tithers? He said, 150. And the man said, you mean all 150 people tithed to the church? He said, yes. He says, about 50. of actually tithe. But God takes the rest. God gets his tithe from the rest on. God has been telling the people of God through Melachi that they need to get right with him, they return to him, that they have strayed from him. And one of the areas in which he addresses this need to return is in the area of giving, the giving of their offerings to the Lord. Now last week we saw you as a believer, oh God, a portion of your income. We talked about you can be guilty of robbing God. We talked about the fact that you were expected to give a tithe and offering to the Lord. You are to bring your tithe and offering to the church. We talked about all those things last week. And we pointed out that even as a New Testament believer, you should pay the tithe. We talked about what Christ had to say about the tithe. What Paul had to say about the tithe. We pointed out Abraham and Jacob, even before the law, gave ties. and how that Abraham giving ties to Melchizedek. It gives us an indication in a sense of our high priest is Jesus Christ. We ought to give ties to him. Now, it’s true. We come and we offer the offering of praise and thanksgiving to the Lord when we come to the Lord’s house. But one of the things, tangible ways we can give praise in this regard is the giving of our income. a portion of it to the Lord. Now he says here that God’s curse can rest on your possessions when you steal his portion. In verses 9 through 11 here, he talks about the 9 and 11, you’ve robbed me, and then he says, you know, about the devirerer and about the destroyer and the vine casting her fruit before it’s time and so forth. It would seem that the people of God Malchai’s day, found other uses for their money. It was an epidemic problem because he says the whole nation has robbed me. Perhaps they thought they couldn’t afford to tithe. Perhaps they thought the tithe didn’t really matter that much. But Malachi says, look around you, haven’t you noticed? Look what’s happening to your crops and so forth. It kind of reminds me of what you read in Hegei if you read the first chapter. They stopped building the Lord’s Temple and they were building their houses and so forth. And they weren’t doing so well. The crops were failing. You know, he said, you put your money in the bag and there’s a hole in it. You know, you make your crops and the blight gets it and so forth. Why? Because you didn’t put the Lord first. And a similar, I think the similar idea is here in this text. And the people of God did not obey God. You know, God’s law had us. specific teaching in it about giving and they didn’t give God his portion so he extracted it from them sometimes when God extracts it from you he takes interest and so they weren’t doing so good here and God says you’re robbing me so he he takes his time now does God also do the same is he chasing his people today in a similar way. We know in Alicay’s Day farming was a main source of income, and so everything was sort of geared to the agricultural circumstances. But Jeremiah 525 says your sins have withholding good things from you. And so when we don’t do what God tells us to do, God can send the devirer today. It could be a job loss. It could be inflation eats up your earnings, unexpected expenses with regard to the car or the house or business declines or poor investments. And maybe your savings shrivel, maybe there’s excess taxes you have to pay. Maybe there are doctor bills or whatever. How can anyone profit from stealing from the Lord? You’re not going to get ahead doing that. So God sends the worm to eat away at possessions. Again, I remind you that God takes this matter. of giving seriously we’ve mentioned in the past an Ananias and Safira now mentioned again in this case it wasn’t strictly a matter of tithing unless we think about the poor tithe and this was a voluntary offering that they actually had made but the principles the same they kept back what belonged to God did they profit by by doing this well you know the story and you know what happened and how seriously God took the matter here and how their lives were lost over this. Since the money had been promised to God through the church and they didn’t give it, lied about it, God struck them down. Now, I’m not saying if you don’t tie, God’s going to strike your life. I’m not saying that tonight. Don’t misunderstand me. I just want you to see that this is serious. that we give to the Lord. In the book, The History and Fate of Sacrilege, 1846, there’s a preface by the Reverend Webb and Dale. Reverend’s Webb and Dale. And here’s what it says. Property consecrated to God in the service of his church has generally, when alienated to secular purposes, brought misfortune on its possessors. Whether by strange acts, by violent deaths, by the loss of wealth, or, and that chiefly, by failure of heirs, male. In other words, to carry on the family name. And such property hardly ever continues long in one family. When they confiscated church property and they gave it out to their favorite people, it didn’t work out so well for the people that got the lands. During Henry VIII, reign, he once broke up and redistributed church properties and lands in England. He snatched it from the church. He stole it from God. 630 families received the church lands from the time that King Henry began his campaign against the church in 1536. Now, out of those 630 families, only 14 families remained after 100,000,000. years. And 100 years later, only 14 out of 630 survived. Those families who took what belonged to God found their gain was temporary, but their loss was permanent. So we see here that God’s judgment can rest upon those who do not give him his portion. But God’s blessing, we’re told, rest upon you when you give him his portion. In verses 10 to 12. you’re challenged here to prove God. Now, normally, we’re not to test God. That’s not one of the things you should be doing. Scripture warns us about the Israelites how they tested God and so forth. And that wasn’t a good thing. But here God actually says, put me into the trial. Go ahead, test me on this. So we have a right to test him on this because he tells us we can do it. prove me now. You don’t have to wait and think it over. Just go ahead and tithe and see if I don’t bless you. The wholehearted begin tithing, and you may look at it and say, well, that seems like a very risky business. Seems maybe you’re chancing your life’s goods on a very long shot. You know, the Jews at this time were not well off. They’d come back to the land. They were, a lot of them were very, very, very good. poor. They didn’t have a lot going for them at this time. If they gave their ties, they might look at and say, well, I might not have enough food to eat, or I might not have enough to provide for my family. This is where they had to step out on faith. God says, you have to prove me. And that required them to trust that God would take care of them. It all comes down to faith, doesn’t it? Ultimately, everything comes down to that. God said that he would miraculously provide for them. And this is what God is telling you. Tithing involves faith. It’s believing God will take care of me. I’m going to give him his portion. I’m going to honor him. He’ll take care of me. He’ll somehow make it happen. Tithing is a means whereby you can demonstrate in the material realm, the existence of God. You give to him and he gives to you. So regularly, faithfully, systematic tithing of your income throughout the year is going to be blessed by God. You’ll never end up the loser, he says. So he challenges you here. Boldly. Put me to test. Prove me on this. And then we have examples of proving God that we could consider tonight. Do you remember the story about Elijah and the widow of Zerfad? recall there was this tremendous drought and famine in the land. King Ahab was wicked and God brought judgment on the land for his wickedness and the bail worship and all this in the days of Elijah the prophet and the prophet was sent to the city of Xeraphap way over by by a tire inside where he met a widow over there and Elijah found the widow and she was gathering sticks evidently to cook a little bit of meal, the last handful of meal that she had in her tin or whatever she carried it in, whatever she had it contained in. And so this was it. This was for her and her son, this was all they had left, and they were just going to eat it, and basically that’s it, we’re going to die. There was no hope left. So here comes Elijah. He comes along, and what does he say? Make me a little bit of him. little cake first. Make me a little cake out of what you got. Make me the proffer of the Lord a little cake first and then prove God whether or not he will provide for you afterwards and your son. And she does make the cake first for him. And thus saith the God of Israel, the barrel of meal shall not waste, neither shall the cruise of oil fail until the Lord sendeth rain upon. on the earth. First King 1724, or 14, 1714. So, test me. Okay, if you give to the prophet of the Lord here, the last, you don’t have much. But if you do this, God blessed. And he did. He took care of her. And for the rest of the time of famine, they had something to eat. Was she willing to put God and God’s servant first? She believed. She did as Elijah requested and God honored it. I read a testimony by a Reverend R.T. Kendall. He says, I speak from personal experience. I know what it is to be in a temporary state of indifference to the matter of tithing. I know what it is to be a non-tiving Christian. I know what it is to be so deep in debt that tithing seemed an utter impossibility. shortly after my wife and I married, we found ourselves plunged into deep debt. The reader would find it hard to believe how much money we owe during the first year of our marriage. I blushed when I think about it. Some of the bills could not be helped. Others were the consequence of imprudence on my part. At any rate, tithing was not on the agenda. I was engaged in a secular work for I was in no financial position to all. allow a church to call me as a pastor. I came in one day from work, very, very discouraged. I fell on my knees in a sense of desperation, hoping that God would give me a ray of light that he would help me through. I walked into our dining room and there lay on the table a large white Bible my grandmother had given me. I picked it up and opened it. I didn’t like what I found not a bit. Will a man rob. God. Melachi 3.8. I closed the Bible and sat down, he said, I knew that eventually I’d have to go back to tithing. But I postponed this for a while longer. In the meantime, things went from bad to worse. Although my wife and I were both working, it seemed that paying our bills was like a, like dipping a cup into an ocean of debt. One day I made the turn. I started tithing. despite my debts. Here is how we did it. We took 10% of our gross income right off the top, making the tide the number one priority. I paid the bills with the remaining 90%. Now, we were not out of debt in weeks, but we were completely out of debt in less than two years, and those days became among the happiest we have known. He said, God did prove himself to me when I did what he said. So these are a couple of examples I mentioned to you. Yogi Berra, the sage of baseball, had a saying he said, it ain’t over till it’s over. Basically, that meant the ball game isn’t over, even though things may look bad. Till the last out, it’s not over. Even if it’s 8-0 and you’re losing in the third inning, it’s not over till it’s over. I remember seeing game one time, the Pirates were down 8-0-0 and won the game. God doesn’t make idle promises. They’re absolutely true. They’ve been proven over and over by millions of Christians. Is this a guarantee, an absolute guarantee, that the cheerful giver will never have any financial problems? No. There are times when God hides his face from us that our motives may be revealed. Maybe he’s developing the grace of patience in us. Maybe he’s developing the grace of patience in us. Maybe he’s developing the grace of patience from us. of faith in us. We read it Hasach God left him to try him that he might know all that was in his heart. In 2 Chronicles 32.31. So God reserves the right at any stage in your Christian pilgrimage to answer the question is does Job fear God for not? Or does Jack fear God for not? Or Keith or Russell or Mark? I read where one pastor once taught at a conference on tithing and you received letters from individuals afterwards. One person said, the first week I started tithing, my car broke down and it cost me five times my tithe. Another letter. I was tithing regularly for three months, and then I got laid off at work. Here’s another one. I started tithing and ended up in the hospital. I’m a dentist, and the very week I started tithing over $1,800 overpaid fees, came in for my. patients. Now, if we look at these, these are the extreme end of things. In some cases, you know, things happen. Other cases, maybe they were negative in a sense. And in other cases, maybe something positive happened. But he said, I got more letters like this. I’ve been tithing for years. We’ve had our ups and downs. God has supplied every need. God has always made the 90% go further than when we used to keep the 100% to ourselves. I think that’s more in line with what you would find with regard to the Christian’s life. As we tithe, God takes care of us. He provides worse. He doesn’t say you’re going to be rich and become a wealthy person or something of this nature, but he’s always taken care of us. He’s always making sure that we have enough. And frankly, if we’re honest, often he gives us more than enough. So those who faithfully tithe and have difficulty difficulties that come along. They need to heed Yogi Berra’s admonition. It ain’t over till it’s over. Wait and see what the Lord does. Here. It’s interesting in the case of Job, and look at the test he went through. He loses everything. But in the end, when you read about what God blessed him, he had twice as much as he had at the beginning, you’re saying, well, you know, but he lost all of it. You know, he, yeah, he did. But God was just working with him. He was revealing himself to Job. Job, I think, is in a sense, a type of Christ who suffers not because he was a wicked man, but in order for the glory of God. And there’s just a lot of things we could talk about with regard to that. CJ has touched on that when he’s been here. But you notice, how God took care of it. So you’re a challenge here to prove God. Now notice, you will be blessed by God if you are obedient. Versus 10 to 12th. Verse 10 talks about abundance. Bring you all the ties into the storehouse that may me meet in mine house. And prove me now here with, say, say, the Lord of the host, if I will not open you the windows of heaven and pour you out a blessing, and there shall not be enough room enough to receive it. What does he mean by this? He’ll open the windows of heaven. Of course, this is a visualization of something that’s, we, you can’t see, actually. It’s interesting. The identical expression is found in Genesis chapter 7. It has to do with the flood. Here’s what we read. In the 600th year of Noah’s life, in the second month, on the 17th day of the month, the same day were all the fountains of the deep broken up, so water’s, you know, coming up from the oceans. And the windows of heaven were opened. Rain’s pouring down. So water’s coming up, rain’s coming down, and the earth gets flooded. So the opening up the windows of heaven seems to be some type of an abundance, right? Some type of provision for us that is full, if you would. Now notice this doesn’t merely mean spiritual blessings. There are many blessings God gives us that are even more important than the material, temporal things of this life. And we recognize that. And sometimes those are the heightened. They are the real blessings as we go through this life. But I think he is indicating here that he will also take care of us with regard to temporal things. God says, if you tithe, I will bond. I will bond. return it back to you. I will increase your income, your possessions, or whatever. Now, there are some people who say that God doesn’t give temporal blessings to the New Testament Christian, but I believe they’re wrong in saying such things. Have you ever read Ephesians chapter 1, or chapter 6, verses 1 and 2? Did he not promise to give length of days to those who honor their parents when their children. Honor your father and mother that you might have length of life, right? Isn’t that a temporal blessing? God hasn’t it changed. John Bunyan once wrote, there was a man, some called him mad. The more he gave, the more he had. God says, there shall not be room enough to receive it. We have the idea of back in the day when they used to have crops. They wouldn’t be able to, they wouldn’t be emptying out all the silos before they next crop came in. It was like too much. Where are we going to put all this? God blesses us today. Sales to the salesman. Business to the businessman. Good breaks or opportunities to the investor. A good harvest of the farmer. Maybe a pay increase for you as you work at your job as a clerk or secretary or nurse or policeman or whatever the case may be. Factory. God blesses. Look at Proverbs 3, verses 9 and 10, if you would. It says here, honor the Lord with thy substance and with the first fruits of all thine increased. So shall thy barns be filled with plenty, and thy presses shall burst out with new one. It says, honor me, I’ll take care of you. Right? Look with me at Luke chapter 6 in verse 38. Luke 638. Christ says, give, and it shall be given. unto you. Good measure. Press down. Shaken together. Running over shall men give in to your bosom. For with the same measure that ye meet, with all it shall be measured to you again. So we have these passages in scripture that seem to indicate to us that you can’t out give God. He’s always going to provide for you as his people. And he promises an abundance in many cases. of things. He also provides protection. You notice back in our text in verse 11, he says, I will rebuke the devour for your sakes, and he shall not destroy the fruits of your ground. Neither shall your vine cast or fruit before the time in the field, said the Lord of host. You know, sometimes it’s possible to look out on the fields and you look and you see this great blessing of a harvest and you think, man, we got all kinds of crops out here. and all of a sudden it gets lost to some pests that come along. You know, the locusts eat it up, or some blight strikes it down, or something of this name. Or an enemy comes in, you know, and steals the harvest. You would see those fields ripe with grain, and you think, boy, we’re going to have a great year, and all of a sudden it gets lost. Maybe there’s a hail storm. Maybe there’s a fire. Something happens and everything can get lost. but God’s saying here that I will rebuke the devire. I will protect you and your possessions so that these things don’t come along like the locusts or the caterpillar or the worm or the plant disease or wherever the enemy. I will protect it. I will make sure that you’re provided for and it’s sustained. You know, he’s able to make your car run longer, your house. to remain in good repair, your job to be steady, your savings to grow. He’s able to do all those things. The invisible hand of God works behind the scenes to reward your faithfulness to him. In verse 12, we have the idea of reputation. In all nations shall call you blessed, for ye shall be a delightsome lands at the Lord of Host. As the people God repent, as the return to the Lord, God promised to honor them in the eyes of others around them. Now, the reputation of the Jews was a low ebb, and you could imagine trying to reestablish themselves in the land and so forth. But God tells them, if they concentrate on serving him, he says, I will actually build your reputation in the land. The result would be that everyone would call you blessed. Hmm. Does that sound familiar? Isn’t this the promise that he gave Abraham way back in Genesis 12? God promises that if you honor him, in this case with the tithe, he will honor you and the eyes of those around you. Your testimony will not be lost, but it will be increased by your giving. They will recognize that God is with you, that God is blessing you. That God is blessing you. We read about Jacob. He said he would give his tithe, his tent for the Lord. And remember what Laban confessed to him, that he said, I know I’m blessed by God because you work for me. God’s blessing rested upon you, and because of that, I got blessed. Whatsoever the godly man does according to Scripture shall prosper. And we should see here that others around us are going to notice that. So I can close tonight with a couple of things. thoughts. One, give your tithe and light of the chastening of the Lord. We ought to fear. We don’t want to be one who robs God. Do it willingly, and God’s blessing rests upon you when you tithe. Way the matter in your own mind. Because God does sometimes send a devirer to collect his tithe. Seek forgiveness if you’ve failed and try to restart. Give your tithe in light of God’s challenge. Prove me. You know, so I suppose your Christian walk could be reduced to nothing more than, you know, respectable living and church attendance. But the floodgates of heaven wouldn’t be open to you then. God calls upon you to exercise practical faith in him. Take the step four. Take a step out there and show faith in me and see if I won’t take care of you. C.H. Spurgeon said this. it is proven by all observation that success in the Lord’s service is generally, very generally, in proportion to faith. It is certainly not in proportion to ability, nor does it always run parallel to a display of zeal, but it is inevitably according to the measure of faith. For this is a law of the kingdom without exception, according to your faith, be it unto you. You can put God to the nature of faith. test, see if he will not answer you with a blessing. And that’s what he tells us here. So in dealing with the subject of tithing, basically God says, prove me. See if it won’t work. See if it doesn’t work. And the Lord has always been good to his people. Even in the worst times, and there have been times when this church, it looked like things are really bad. and the Lord miraculously provided money for the church. In my own personal life, there have been times when you’re looking at it and say, man, I don’t know, I’m going to pay this or do that or something comes up and something seriously breaking down on the car or something. And sometimes God has provided thousands of dollars out of the blow. Sometimes anonymously money has come to me. Sometimes people have just given to me as if, you know, the Lord laid it on their heart that maybe Jack needs some money. That’s all God’s doing. It really is. It’s the hand of God working and taking care of his people. So let’s remember that when we think about this passage of Scripture and our giving. And again, I don’t wish to pound this home. I know that people were giving people. But here’s what the text says. And sometimes it’s good to just be reminded of these basic, True. So let’s…