Malachi chapter 3 we begin reading from verse 6 and I read
from the ESV version. For I the Lord do not change.
Therefore all children of Jacob are not consumed from the days
of your father's. You have turned aside from a
statute and have not kept them. Return to me and I will return
to you, says the Lord of hosts. But you say, how shall we
return? Will man rob God?
Yet you are robbing me. But you say, how have we robbed
you in your tithe and contributions?
You are cursed with a curse, for you are robbing me the whole
nation of bring the full tithe into the storehouse, that they
may be food in my house, and thereby put me to the test.
That, says the Lord of Hosts, if I will not open the windows of
heaven for you and pour down for you a blessing until there's no
more need, I will rebuke the Devourer for you, so that it
will not destroy the fruits of your soil and your vine in the
field. They shall not fail to bear,
says the Lord of Hosts. Then all nations will come, will
call you blessed, for you will be a land of delight, says the
Lord of hosts. By the way, to Osama Zuin
nastics NNG city Malingualisuway igamala goba when I unvelle O
pagame final a good bongo, a final a good donis take away to
Siako Tama Pam gazulak XNNG city.
By way to Tetanati. There's been no change.
Amen. This morning I want to look at
the subject of the tide under the theme Robbing God.
I'm going to look at it under 3 headings this morning, Israel
lack of generosity, the reality of the curse, and Israel's
motivation for generosity in verse 10 to verse 12.
I do love the confession of one of the members in our community
group who said, you know, it's so wonderful to do the book of
Malachi because really the only part of Malachi most of us know
is this part because apparently it is the pastor's favorite part
of the text. When you have to talk to members
about money. When preachers handle the Bible,
they normally ask a number of questions before they preach or
communicate the biblical text. And the reason we do that, we
want to make sure that we are communicating the text and it's
right context. And often theologians will say
the Bible was not really written for us, but it was written.
It was written not written to us rather, but it was written for
us. And what they mean by that is
that the Bible is written to a particular audience at a
particular time addressing a specific issue.
And I highlighted this for this particular sermon because I want
you to understand there is an audience here.
There are people to which Malachi is addressing.
And so as you read this and you hear the first part of this
sermon, because the way in which I'm going to tackle the sermon
is how the Lord is speaking to that particular audience.
And then the last part of this message, I'll look at that.
What does this mean for us as people in the New Covenant?
And so please listen to me carefully.
There are few well known pastors and leaders who have said
certain things about the issue of the Tides.
I have few big quotes to hear from them.
From those who are well known pastors and many of them leading
mega churches. They say the following.
I didn't want to actually share their names.
I think I thought let's just protect the names.
Here they say the following. If you don't pay tithe, you will
permanently. You are.
You are permanently A beggar. If you don't pay tithe, God will
never be moved by your tears. The key that opens the door to
your main entrance will not open the door to your bedroom.
The foundational key to prosperity is the Kingdom is
tithe. God will never trust the poor
with money because they are not faithful with the tithe.
This one is a classic one. If you don't tithe, you are not
going to heaven. How many of you are not going to
heaven? So let us look at this text in
its immediate and broader context.
We saw in chapter 1, and Hillary had walked us through the love
of God in the manner in which God loved his people.
It is clear from chapter one that God loves Israel.
He not only loves Israel, but He leads with love.
He does not begin in chapter 1 with an imperative, but rather
with an indicative that my people to whom I love and we
would see them from chapter 1 onwards, in part chapter 2, that
the Lord is not pleased with the priest as I am bringing to the
Lord a wounded and deformed sacrifices and the kind of
worship to which the Lord does not want.
It is a hard hearted worship. It is a cheap kind of worship
where they're giving God leftovers and God is not
pleased. It says in fact you are
polluting my name and the accused God of being unjust.
What we see from chapter one part in chapter 2 is really that
the people of God do not care about worship.
They do not care about how God ought to be worshipped.
And we see that they are failing God.
They are rebelling against God and God charges them.
He charges the preacher that I do not like what you are doing
and in fact there is judgment for what you are doing.
And Tawanda pointed us last week that there is a glimmer of hope.
It is because there is a messenger that the Lord is going
to send. And we know that messenger, of
course, will be Jesus Christ. These are the people of God who
are breaking the law of God, and yet God loves them.
This is the story of unfaithfulness, but also a story
of a faithful God that regardless of your obedience, as
my people, God says I have chosen you, I have forgiven you,
but also I love you. And how does God show this?
God continues to provide land for them, He provides food, He
protects them. He showed his people that I
indeed I love you. And now we see another charge
from God. This charge is slightly
different because when you read part of chapter 1 and chapter 2,
the charge is against the priest.
But as we read on from chapter 3 is that now the charge is not
only primarily against the priest, but it is against the
people of God. Because the people of God have
also spoken against God, but also they are stealing and
robbing God. He is addressing them from
chapter 3 onwards that you are stealing for me.
And so the Lord here shows us the failure of Israel, God's
people in pain, the tithe. They are not giving the tithes,
nor are they giving the offerings that they ought to
give to God. And God rebukes his own people.
So let's look at the first point, Israel's lack of
generosity, these amazing language here from verse 8.
It's it's quite an amazing language that God use here,
really. He uses the rhetoric question.
The question is, will a man rob God?
That's quite interesting. When you look at the verb there,
the verb gives us a sense in which it is to take something to
mark or to forcibly take something from someone.
And so the question may sound a little bit ridiculous to us in
our daily, in our world, when will a man rob God?
The picture is one who is taking something from God.
And so we would expect the response to be negative because
clearly no man can rob God. But interesting when you look
through verse 8B, God in response through the prophet
says you are robbing me. So that's the answer.
But an interesting answer because it is an expected divine
answer to a Rotary question that indeed you are robbing me.
In fact, it's like God saying to them, you have figured out a way
to rob me and you've done it and say, and, and so they ask
themselves, how have you done that?
How have you robbed your God? Surely no one can rob the
sovereign and supreme God. But yes, you figured it out.
And they asked how, how have we done that?
And the charge is, yes, you have done it because you have kept
the tithe and you have kept your contributions.
Why? Because I have commanded you as
part of the Mosaic law that you give the tithe and you give the
offering and you withhold that and you did not give.
So you have learned how to rob me.
Now the language of God saying you have robbed me possibly to
to the people of Israel at the time sounded unfair to them.
We must remember as we read the book in context that as they
came from exile, we must know that these people came and they
were poor, they didn't have much.
And so for God to them to expect 10 tenth of what they have, it's
probably God that's ridiculous because you know, we don't have
much. We have no infrastructure, many
of us don't have land. The economy is depressed.
How can you want more from us? And yet we have less and God
says I want my tithe. You are robbing me would sound
as though God please give us a break.
You know we are poor. You know we don't have Why would
you expect us to give tithe and then the second question is
being asked. You have robbed me of my a
response from God. You have robbed me of my tithe
and offering. So then we must ask the
question, what is this tide? What is this offering that the
Lord refers to here? And I'm sure many of you would
know that the, the, the tide in the Old Testament was 1/10 of
person's income or, or production of what was given to
the Lord for in service to the Lord.
And often that would be wine, it will be livestock, it would be
oil, or it will be fruit, whatever that was the IT will be
given. And I'm going to tell you who it
was given to. And we see these pictures of
giving and tithe in the Old Testament from Abraham giving a
tithe to Melchizedek, but also Jacob in Genesis 28, verse 22,
vowing to the Lord that I am going to give the tithe.
So what was the purpose of the tithe in the Old Testament #1
The purpose of the tithe was to fulfill and to support the
ministry of the Levites. That was the first purpose of
the tide. So we read in Numbers 1821, I
give to the law. I give to the Levites all the
tides in Israel as their inheritance in return for the
work they do while serving at the 10th of the meeting.
So the tithe was given to the Levites, OK, For because the
Levites had no inheritance, they were those who had no
inheritance. They were not farming, and so
they were depending on the tide. So the tide was to provide for
the living of the Levites. Because we know that the Levites
had many responsibilities in the Temple, and so because they had
to look after the temple and many other responsibilities
within the temple, they did not have any inheritance.
Though the people of Israel and many other people from other
tribes had to actually support the Levites.
This is how the Levites survived.
Not only that, but the livers would take the tithe, and from
that tithe they would give part of it to the priest as well.
So it was the tithe of a tithe, receiving it to look after them,
but also to give part of that to the priest as well.
So in order for the livers to survive, they were given the
tithe to live off the tithe. So it was to support that kind
of ministry, for them to support their families and to look after
the ministry of the Lord #2 the tide was provided for those who
were economically vulnerable. In Deuteronomy 1428, verse 29,
at the end of every three years, you shall bring out of all the
tide of your produce in the same year and lay it up within your
towns. And the Levite, because he had
no portion or inheritance with you.
And the foreigner, the fatherless, and the widow who
are with your town shall come and eat and be filled, that the
Lord your God may bless you in all your work of your hands that
you do so. The second reason that the Lord
had one of the tide was that the tide would be given to support
those who were vulnerable. It was to support the widows.
It was to support the offense. It was to support the poor.
It was also to support the foreigner.
So those who did not have much in the community, the Lord says,
bring the tithe, support the device, but also support the
vulnerable, give to those who don't have much.
There's a third reason why the Lord instituted the tide #3 the
the tide was to facilitate the celebration of the people of
God. In Deuteronomy 1423, the
Israelites were meant to bring and eat together at the temple
as part of that annual feast celebrating their identity as
the people of God. And so the Israel of most of the
time they had to remember a God who had taken them away or
released them and delivered them from slavery.
And so giving a tide was to acknowledge the goodness and the
mercy of God will deliver them in Egypt and had given them a
land. So it was given as a motivation
of gratitude of what the Lord has done.
It was not an obligation in some sense, but also it was a sense
of gratitude, recognizing the graciousness of God.
So the way in which Israel would respond by faith would be to
give a tithe to the Lord. So the purpose of the tithe is
looking after the Levites, but also is to look after those who
are economically vulnerable. But also it was to celebrate the
goodness of the Lord among the community as well, to respond
with a gracious but also a generous heart and giving the
tithe. And so the people of God had had
to remember all the time what the Lord had done.
But here is what is important. It was also for them to remember
that everything they had belonged to the King of kings
and the Lord of Lords, that it was the Lord we actually gave
the fruit of the land. In other words, everything they
were able to produce in their farming in one sense did not
belong to them. The 100% belong to God.
And God says to them, allow you keep the 90, keep the 90.
I just want the 10, just want the 10.
And he says this in Deuteronomy chapter 8 verse 17 and 18.
Beware lest you say in your heart my power and my might of
my hand has gotten me wealth. You shall remember the Lord your
God, for it is he who gives you power to gain wealth, that he
may confirm the covenant that we saw to your Father's.
And it is this day. Psalm 24, verse one.
The earth is the Lord, and the fullness there of the world and
those who dwell therein. And so through the tithe, it is
for Israel to acknowledge that it is the Lord that has given
them the the wealth. It is the Lord that gives the
ability for one to acquire the wealth.
And the Lord reminds them that in fact, the whole world, the
whole land belongs to me. And so whatever you are able to
produce, listen, it's not because you are smart, it is
because I'm giving it to you. It is my doing as confirming my
covenant to you. So what you have, you have it
because of me and the people here of Israel are dodging the
tithe. Now there are implications in
dodging the tithe according to God.
One, they are defunding the religious system because it
means if the people of Israel are not paying the tithe, it
means the the Levites have got nothing to work with.
They can't support their families.
The Levites can't do their job at the temple or look after
their families as well. It also means the social
structures of of the celebrations are also affected.
But it also means if they are, they are they are they are
dodging the tide. It also means that you cannot
support the vulnerable as well. And so the Lord is against this
kind of worship, which is a wrong kind of worship, a kind of
worship that is not obedient to that which the Lord expects them
to do. And the Lord had warned them
before that the kind of worship you're giving to me is polluted.
In other words, your hearts are not in this.
The point here is this. It is not because the Lord
wanted their money, to use our language of our deck.
It is not because the Lord wanted their money.
The Lord does not need our money.
But more importantly, the Lord longed for their hearts.
And the reason for that is where your treasure is, that is where
your heart is also. And the question here is, who do
you love first? So Israel, who do you love
first? Who?
Who do you prioritize Israel in your budgeting?
Because the Lord knows, and we know too, that money has a
spiritual power. And hold on us if you don't
believe me, go and visit the casino.
If you don't believe me, look at believers who are playing Lotto
every day. Money generally has a hold on
one's heart. Yes, that is why we see many
warnings in the biblical text as it relates to money.
Because of possessions, because of having nice stuff, whether
it's nice clothes, it's a nice phone, it's a nice car.
Whether it is to impress people. Often money has that kind of
hold in US and it wants to enslave us and the times it may
even destroy us. Why?
Because when we love money that much, we can actually end up
worshipping money as well. And so there's a warning to the
Israelites. Give what we had promised to
give to me as per. My law, Billy Graham says the
following Tell me what you think about money and I will tell you
what you think about God. For these two are inseparable.
And the whole point here is show me your bank account and I will
show you what you worship. The Kingdom of God has rewards.
And when I say the Kingdom of God has rewards, it's not a
promise to say if you give money, you're going to be rich.
That's not the point of the text.
But also part of that giving is that it frees us from being a
slave by money. And so the question I think we
have to ask ourselves is can I trust God with every aspect of
my life? Because.
Because when that salary hits the bank account on the 20th,
the 20 fee through the 31st or whatever the date may be
already. As you think about your budget,
a number of questions run to your mind.
The first one is, will I survive with this?
Will I be able to pay all of my expenses and all the things that
I need to do? And already the money's hitting
the bank account and you're already paralysed by fear and
anxiety. Or will I make it?
And yet Jesus, quite interestingly in Matthew 6,
reminds his audience, being there with the disciples and the
samoon on the mount that listen to me guys, I feed the birds.
And guess what? If I feed the birds, are you not
much more worthy than the birds? Therefore, why are you worried?
You are made in my image and I care about you, therefore I will
take care of you. He does not promise to give us
our luxuries. He does not promise to give us
our Gucci's. He does not promise to give us
an expensive brand, but he promises to give us what to eat
and to wear. That is the promise of Scripture
and that often anxiety over money can lead to greed, but
also it can lead to wanting other people's stuff felt like
that like Psalm 73 kind of first Lord, I'm seeing the prosperity
of the wicked and can we can feel like that You see the
prosperity of others think, oh, I wish it was me and because
when money takes hold of us, that's what it it does.
And so here's the question ask the people of Israel.
It says to them, return to me. The question is how, how Lord
are we ought to return to you? The Lord said it's simple, give
to me, stop robbing me, stop stealing from me.
That's the way for you to return.
That's what it says. And the Lord also speaks here
about offerings that they were not only holding the tithe, they
were also holding the offerings of the contributions.
And normally these would be the the free will offerings that
would be given for the add many purposes.
One of the purposes it was for the temple as well.
So people would come and give free will offerings to the
temple and others would come and give gold.
And there were many other things that the people of Israel were
expected to give beyond just the tithe #2 the, the, the reality
of the curse. And so the Lord says, if you do
not do this, there is a reality of the curse.
If you don't stop robbing me, I'm going to curse you guys.
And it says to them, you are under a curse a whole nation
because you are robbing me. Look at that verse.
Look at that warning. Feel the weight of that warning
to the audience. This was written too.
It says if you don't obey, I'm going to curse you.
If you don't obey, you will be under my curse because to rob
God is to shoot yourself in the foot.
It says you can't rob me. If you do fail to obey this
command, I am going to curse you because you've gone away from
obeying My law, but also you've gone away from obeying My
ordinances that establish with you as my people.
You are cursed as a nation because you are robbing me of
the tithe, You're robbing me, and you are refusing to honor
Me. Proverbs 11/24 says there is one
who scatters yet increases all the more, and there is one who
withhold what is justly due, but the result only in want.
These are the outworkings of the curse because when we when they
disobey God, when they don't give the 10th to God, they are
robbing God of his glory. That's what disobedience does.
It robs God of his glory. And so the consequences of
keeping the tithe, eating the tithe, not giving the offerings,
it's simple. You'll be under a curse.
And now the Lord is so gracious, he, he, he wants to motivate
Israel to giving. It's wonderful.
I love when I read this text like this.
You can see the Lord's heart, the Lord's love, the Lord's
forgiveness, and how much he loves his chosen people.
And then it says, OK guys, I'm just going to motivate you.
Let me motivate you in giving. And we can see that from verse
11:50. This is the Lord's motivation.
And the Lord promises 3 things to them.
One, He promises them a blessing #2 and assurance of protection
#3 the promise of fruitfulness. I want you to notice for me from
verse 10, that promise of a blessing, that Israel, if you
are faithful to me, I in fact, the Lord, I am going to bless
you. And these Israel's already poor.
As I've said to you before, these were poor people.
And the Lord says, I'm going to bless you.
Trust me. If you give your 10th, if you
give the offerings, I am going to bless you.
I know that your fields are not yielding much crop.
I know that I'm the Lord. I know that I know that you
don't have much. I know that you have a lot to
complain about because you simply don't have everything you
need. But it says to them, I want you
to do something for me. Bring the whole tithe into the
storehouse so that there may be food in my house.
I love the next part. Test me in this and see if I
will not open the windows of heaven.
Pour out a blessing until it overflows.
And the wonderful thing here is whether I can I trust myself or
can I trust God. But it says I we don't have much
I could find but test me. Isn't that wonderful?
Those test me and see if I will not open the windows of heaven
and pour out a blessing because in difficult times and in times
of lack, often for the people of Israel as well, is that we want
to skip giving what we have to give to the Lord.
This is the temptation for the people of Israel because they
were of course struggling with this, and the Lord gives them a
wonderful promise. If you give, I'm going to pull
out a blessing and they'll be food in my house.
Here's the second promise. He promises them protection that
if you give, I will rebuke the devourer for you, that you will
not destroy the fruits of the ground.
And so he says to them, listen, if if you give to me, I promise
to spare, I promise to mitigate, I promise to alleviate the
curse. This is what I'm going to do,
people of Israel, if you do that and, and, and I promise you
what, what, what a wonderful motivation for generosity to say
to them what you don't have. If you do give, you will have
it. This is a, this is a, this is a
protection to Israel to say, I will cause your ground to give
much fruit. I will, I will cause for you not
to lose profit, rather to gain more income.
I will increase the fruitfulness of your labour and I will keep
the locust away. I will protect what destroys the
ground. I will protect you from the
devourer, the only thing I want from you if the tank, and this
is what I do. And so if you're not making
profit, test me, Maybe you'll make profit because I will
rebuke the devourer. The third motivation from the
Lord, he says, if you give. So the first one is I promise
you a blessing #2 I promise you protection, and #3 I promise you
fruitfulness. So the assurance of protection,
but also I promise you fruitfulness.
It says to them, I will bless you and all nations will call
you blesh, for you will be the land of delight, says the Lord
of Host. It is as though the Lord saying
all nations will recognize Israel because of what I have
done in not cursing Israel, but also in blessing my people.
The Lord does not leave them in their wonder.
It still motivates them to be generous and to give to him.
And I think that's the challenge that Malachi brings to us today.
And so I know probably the question that you have in your
mind now is, Eric, that's the old covenant.
Should Christian in the new covenant tie?
I think that's the big question in this room.
Let me be specific with you that the new the in the New Testament
there is no specific command for believers to tie.
The biblical text does not actually mention that in the New
Testament as they command in the new covenant for believers to
tie. There is no instruction in the
new covenant for believers to tie.
In fact, the apostle Paul, who was largely focusing on the
Gentile churches, Corinthians, Galatians, and and and and and
and and and Colossi, would have spoken about the tithe if you
wanted to, if you needed to, rather than want to do if you
needed to, because these were gentle believers.
They did not know much about the law of Moses.
And yet the apostle Paul in all of these churches does not speak
about the tithe, nor does Jesus himself encourage or command
these disciples to tie. So we don't see that sort of
language in the New Testament. However, there is something that
we see in the New Testament which I think is important for
us to note. There is some evidence in the
New Testament that not not not encouraging tithing, but they
encourage generosity. And the Africa Study Bible says
is the following. Giving is an act of worship,
holy and pleasing to God. And so in the New Testament we
don't see much of the language of the tithe, but we see a
language of generosity. In other words, it is a language
that does not limit us to a principle of tithe, but a
language that seems to speak to us about giving beyond the
tithe. And that often other pastors
will say we ought to see the tithe as the floor and we see
generosity as a ceiling because we are giving to God.
In 2nd Corinthians 9, verse 7, it says each of you should give
what you have decided in your heart, not reluctantly, not
under compulsion. For God loves a cheerful giver.
New Testament, the Lord loves a cheerful giver.
So we're not going to manipulate you to give.
We're going to force you to give that it would be against the
Bible, but we would encourage you to give 2nd Corinthians 8
verse 2 says in the midst of a various year via trial via
overflowing joy and the extreme poverty world up in rich
generosity. Here is a poor church, here a
poor, and yet what is being highlighted about this church is
their generosity as the poor as they were, they were so generous
in their given the the New Testament makes no prescription,
but the New Testament encourages generosity and giving.
But perhaps it may be a suggestion that perhaps the the
starting point for some of us may be a tie there as a starting
point, but also is part of our discipline, but not under
compulsion, giving generous, generous and cheerfully as well.
Now I want you to notice three things in the text that we've
read. I'm nearly done.
I want you to notice three things that the tide was used
for in the context of Malachi and think about the same things
in the context of the New covenant in the New Testament,
The Old Testament, the the the the tide was fulfilling specific
purposes in the Old Testament, but think about the same things
about fulfilling the Old Testament.
Think about them in the New Testament because verse 6 remind
us that the Lord does not change.
I I think this thing still remain with us that in some
sense, when we are generous, we are still supporting the work of
the ministry. When we are generous, we are
also we live in poverty because we're able to give to many
initiatives that our congregation has in relation to
live in poverty. But also as we are, when we're
generous, we are also sharing in hospitality to use that the Lord
has given us to steward it within this congregation and to
meet the needs of this congregation because the Lord
does not change the same three things in the Old Testament.
I think in fact, they still apply to us today.
So I want to suggest to you 6 things.
I'm just going to put them up there and we're going to explain
them. Number one, we give because of
the grace of God. We give in tough times.
We give joyfully and cheerfully. We give out of the love of the
Lord. We give sacrificially, meaning
we give beyond at times. The last one we give generously.
Weinberg should be gospel motivated in giving, not under
manipulation. Just like the Malachi addresses
this community, we are too commanded to be generous.
Generosity that is rooted in our heart, acknowledging the fact
that the Lord has been generous to us and using all things that
the Lord has given us to acknowledge that He is the one
who owns all things, but also the what we has given us the
ability to own or to earn whatever we have.
And so the issue here is not to tie the law around your neck,
but to encourage you to be generous in your gift.
I think that's the main principle that we learn from
this text. God bless you.