Money can be a very frustrating thing, because you just never seem to have enough of it. Right? Comedian Bob Phillips says, “Money used to talk – then it whispered. Now it just sneaks off . . . [and] today a dollar saved is a quarter earned . . . [and] the economy is [just] terrible [right now]. At the beginning of the year, the politicians promised things would improve by the last quarter. Well, I’m down to my last quarter and they haven’t improved.”(1) How many of you can identify with what he’s saying? Keep in mind that I’m just trying to lighten the mood with a bit of humor.
Many of us feel like we are just scraping by and then the church – it seems – comes along asking us for money. We feel like we can’t make it if we spare a penny more, and so we don’t give to the church. Did you know that “only about four-percent of professing Christians tithe?”(2) And among this four-percent, “Mormons lead all of the other denominations in per capita giving. They average slightly more than seven-percent of their annual income given to the church. Southern Baptists, however, are giving just over three-percent of their incomes.”(3)
Many of us are afraid to give because we feel that our income is just too far spent and that we have way too many financial obligations to spare anything. For those who are self-employed, such as farmers, the government can take up to thirty-percent of their annual income, if there are no tax deductions. Giving an extra ten-percent after losing nearly thirty-percent can feel like you’re being drained alive. I must admit that it takes a whole lot of faith for a person to tithe in a situation like this.
More than likely, each of us has some money to spare, but we’re afraid that once we’ve given it, then some emergency will arise and we’ll wish we had it back. From what we see each and every day of our life, it’s no wonder we hold on to what little we have. It seems hard to make it. With both financial obligations and the daily trials, it appears to be true that when it rains it pours!
However, did you know that the Bible tells us that both our financial troubles and our daily trials will lessen or even cease if we go ahead and give to the Lord as He asks us? That’s what God says in our passage of Scripture that we’re going to look at this morning. If you’re really curious about how this is possible, then let’s dig into God’s Word!
Robbing God of Tithes and Offerings (vv. 7-9)
7 “Yet from the days of your fathers you have gone away from My ordinances and have not kept them. Return to Me, and I will return to you,” says the Lord of hosts. “But you said, ‘In what way shall we return?’ 8 Will a man rob God? Yet you have robbed Me! But you say, ‘In what way have we robbed You?’ In tithes and offerings. 9 You are cursed with a curse, for you have robbed Me, even this whole nation.
Malachi was written sometime after the Israelites were returning from the Babylonian exile of 587 B.C. This book describes “a time when the hopes of the returned exiles had turned bitter. The people had become cynical and careless in their acts of worship.”(4) They were cynical because of the continued delay in the glorious future that God had promised them.(5) So, what was the heart of the problem? The Lord said in verse 7, that the people had not truly returned to Him. He said, “Return to Me, and I will return to you.”
So, what was the main purpose of the Babylonian exile from which the people had just returned, and did the people learn their lesson that God tried to teach them? What evidence did God use in order to show the Israelites that they had gone astray from Him, and what did the people need to do in order to prove that they were truly ready to return to God?
To answer the first question, the Lord allowed the Israelites to be taken into captivity because they had been worshipping and serving their own passions and desires, and they were bowing down to false gods and idols. The Lord utilized the captivity as a means of purifying Israel. Many of the “rotten apples” – so to speak – died off; and others, in their time of trial, learned that they really needed to lean on God and become totally dependent on Him.
We see, however, that many people had not learned their lesson. Instead of looking to see what God was trying to teach them and moving ahead in faith, they were bitter because they had to endure such hardship. Many people were holding a grudge against God, or they had failed to notice His provision and deliverance; therefore, they didn’t see any real value in worshipping the Lord. They likely reasoned that it’s pointless to worship a non-existent God. So, instead of serving and worshipping the Lord, they continued to serve and worship the god of self. They looked out only for “number one.”
How many of us feel and act like this? Life can be really difficult at times. It seems as though we’re faced with trials on every hand. Some of the trials are the result of the “refiner’s fire” of God, and some of the trials are from the opposition of the enemy, the devil. No matter the source, many of us get so fed up that we become angry with God and we blame it all on Him. If we’re facing trials, then the spiritual thing to do would be to either ask God to protect us from the enemy, or to ask the Lord to help us submit to Him and allow our circumstances to mold us and shape us into the image of Christ. If we would address our trials spiritually instead of carnally then God would make a way out much sooner.
For some strange reason though, instead of turning to the One who’s able to help us, we turn away from Him, and then we wonder why things aren’t improving. Then we become even angrier with God, and we enter a viscous and never ending cycle of bitterness towards Him. Life continues to be difficult and all we do is continue to reject the One who’s able to change all that. We then try to make it through life apart from the Lord. We trust in our own provision instead of trusting God. It’s senseless, but that’s how it goes.
For the returning exiles, this rejection of God manifested in a refusal to give their tithes and offerings, and this is the evidence the Lord used against the people. Their heart was revealed by the way they handled their money. It’s been said that you can usually tell whether or not a person has a spiritual problem by how they handle their finances. Spiritual problems show up in our finances, because money is so connected to our daily life.
1 Timothy 6:10 says, “The love of money is a root of all kinds of evil.” We tend to feel that money makes the world go around, and that money puts a roof over our head and food on our plate. When we stop trusting in the Lord, then money can become our god. Remember, though, that it was because the exiles served other gods that the Lord allowed trials to come into their life. 1 Timothy 6:10 continues to say of those serving the god of money that, “some have strayed from the faith in their greediness, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows.” If we serve another god, such as money, then this will result in a continuation of “many sorrows,” or more trials, until we learn our lesson.
The Lord told the Israelites that they were distant from Him and that they needed God to return and once again be the Lord of their life if they ever wished to see good days. We read, however, that the Lord could not be their God until they first returned unto Him. In verse 7, the people asked God, “In what way shall we return?” And the Lord basically told them that they needed to return to Him by presenting unto Him their tithes and offerings. So, why did God say that giving their tithes and offerings was the way to return to Him?
Money is something that we pour our very life into obtaining, and in a sense we idolize money. However, if we surrender it over to the Lord – the One who is our true God – then we are thus surrendering our “very life” to the Lord; and all of the effort we put into obtaining that money becomes as though we worked and did it all unto the Lord. When we’re able to surrender our money to God then we’re showing that we’re worshipping Him alone instead of worshipping ourselves. We are showing that He is our sole provider, instead of trying to rely on our own efforts and money to meet our needs.
Letting go of our finances is placing our trust in God alone; and placing our trust in God is the lesson that we all need to learn before we can ever be useful to the Lord in His kingdom service. When we learn to trust in God then our character will be exactly where it needs to be. We will have learned many of the lessons that God intended for us to learn when we’ve given Him top priority over our finances. Therefore, those character-shaping trials that we’ve been enduring for so long will either decrease or cease altogether.
We read here that we must prove our trust in God alone by surrendering unto Him our tithes and offerings. Since we need to be obedient in giving these things unto the Lord, then we need to understand what “tithes” and “offerings” are, right? Well, did you know that “tithes” and “offerings” are actually two separate and different things? They really are, so let’s briefly define them in order to know what God expects of us in our monetary stewardship.
We see the “tithe” mentioned in Leviticus 27:30, which says, “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.” In Genesis 28:22, Jacob promised the Lord, “All that You give me I will surely give a tenth to You.” So, “the meaning of the word tithe is ‘a tenth part.’ Ten percent was to be given back to God [and it] was mandatory.”(6)
Randy Alcorn, in his book The Treasure Principle, says, “The tithe is God’s historical method to get us on the path to giving . . . It’s unhealthy to view tithing as a place to stop.” He says, “Tithing isn’t the ceiling of giving; it’s the floor. It’s not the finish line of giving; it’s just the starting blocks. Tithes can be the training wheels to launch us into the mindset, skills, and habits of grace giving.”(7)
Alcorn’s mention of “grace giving” brings us to our next word, which is “offerings.” Commenting on Malachi 3:8, Alcorn tells us that “offerings” are above and beyond the mandatory tithe. In 2 Corinthians 8:3, Paul said of the churches in Macedonia, “I bear witness that according to their ability, yes, and beyond their ability, they were freely willing [to give],” and in 2 Corinthians 8:7, Paul admonished and encouraged, “See that you abound in this grace also.” Giving beyond the tithe is called “grace giving” because the word “grace” means “gift.” It’s a gift that we’re offering unto God. So the tithe, or the tenth part, is expected of us and it’s mandatory, and offerings are to go above and beyond the tithe.
The Twofold Blessing of Tithing (vv. 10-12)
10 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. 11 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; 12 And all nations will call you blessed, for you will be a delightful land,” says the Lord of hosts.
The Lord tells us here to test Him and see whether or not He will provide when we give Him our tithes and offerings. When we learn to worship the Lord instead of money, and when we learn to trust in His provision instead of trusting in ourselves, then we’ll receive a twofold blessing. The two parts of the blessing are: 1.) Heaven will be opened, and 2.) our enemies will be defeated. In other words, our daily trials will lessen or even cease. God will first shower down abundance from heaven by meeting our financial needs. Then, the Lord will fight off the attacks waged against us by our enemy, the devil; and He will also fight off the attacks that come from other people. If we give unto the Lord, then He will meet all of our needs.
Perry Haydon and Henry Ford found out through a little experiment that God would “open up the floodgates of heaven” when we tithe and give unto Him. They tested God as He tells us to in this passage. The experiment was actually Haydon’s idea, but Ford found out about it and thought it was fascinating, and so he jumped in on it. Allow me to share the experiment:
These two men wanted to prove the principle of the tithe, and so they took 1 cubic inch of wheat kernels and planted it on a 4 x 8-foot plot of ground. After one year this yielded 50 cubic inches of kernels. They then tithed 5 inches, or ten percent. What they tithed was the actual money made from selling the wheat. They then took the remaining 45 inches and planted it again.
The next year they had a 55-fold increase and brought up 70 lbs. of wheat seed, tithed on 7 lbs. and then planted 63. The next year they harvested 16 bushels and had to get a reaper and a thresher. They tithed on the 16 bushels and planted the rest, and then the next year they had 380 bushels. 1 cubic inch of wheat had grown to 817,000 cubic inches. Henry Ford then went and got a combine.
They then planted those bushels, and the next year it took 238 acres to plant it all and it took 40 combines to bring in 5555 bushels of wheat, worth well over 1 million dollars today. They then sold it to 250 farmers who agreed to tithe to their local church. And all of those farmers took it and made millions of dollars to further the Lord’s kingdom.(8)
Alexander Kerr found out that God would “defeat our enemies” when we tithe. Kerr began to tithe as a teenager and he later started a glass factory in San Francisco. The San Francisco earthquake hit during the time that he owned his factory. Kerr was overseas when it hit and he called home to see how his factory was doing, and he found out that it was in the epicenter of the earthquake. He was told that no one could go in and see what condition his factory was in, and it was feared to be lost. When he arrived on the scene he found one building standing in that part of town and it was the Kerr Glass Manufacturing Company.(9)
He thought his building would have been burned to the ground because he had tons of fuel stored there that he used in heating the glass. It was said to be the most flammable building in San Francisco. The wood fence around his factory was scorched; however, none of his property inside was touched. He was then inspired to write a pamphlet about what a blessing it is to tithe; and he put these pamphlets in every single jar that he sold during his lifetime, and before he died more than 5,000,000 had been distributed around the world.(10)
Randy Alcorn brings our attention to a passage in Haggai, which elaborates on why God was led to chastise His people concerning their lack of giving. The Lord declared in Haggai 1:9-11, “You looked for much, but indeed it came to little; and when you brought it home, I blew it away. Why? says the LORD of hosts. Because of My house that is in ruins, while every one of you runs to his own house. Therefore the heavens above you withhold the dew, and the earth withholds its fruit. For I called for a drought on the land and the mountains, on the grain and the new wine and the oil, on whatever the ground brings forth, on men and livestock, and on all the labor of your hands.”
Money was needed to rebuild the temple, but the Lord said that the people spent all their money on themselves while the temple lay in ruins. Based on this passage from Haggai, Randy Alcorn tells us that “many people can’t afford to give precisely because they are not giving.”(11) Many of us reason that we can’t afford to give to God, but we can’t afford not to give.
Whenever we tithe and present our offerings, God actually gives back in abundance. He doesn’t do it as a reward, but He does it so that we will have a greater amount on which to give. Jesus said in Matthew 25:29, “For to everyone who has, more will be given, and he will have abundance.” Those who give in large amounts might actually see an increase in their income. Let me give you a couple of examples.
A fellow named Robert Laidlaw gave away fifty percent of all he had and became a multimillionaire.(12) “R. G. LeTourneau invented earthmoving machines. He gave away ninety percent of his income. But the money came in faster than he could give it away. LeTourneau said, ‘I shovel it out and God shovels it back – but God has a bigger shovel’.”(13)
Jesus said in Luke 6:38: “Give, and it will be given to you: a good measure, pressed down, shaken together, and running over will be put into your bosom. For with the same measure that you use, it will be measured back to you.”
Time of Reflection
What we’ve seen this morning is that many of us are having difficulties in our life, possibly in a financial sense; and for this reason, we hold out on God. We panic because of our struggles and we try to solve our problems on our own, instead of trusting God to do so. We depend on money to help us instead of God; and without really knowing it, we come to worship money. Whenever we fail to trust the Lord then the trials just keep on coming.
The way out of our difficulties is to prove our dependence on God by surrendering every thing we own unto Him, especially our finances. It’s a great mystery in how giving what little we have can result in gaining more, but this is what God says will occur and we must trust Him that it will happen. The Lord says, “Try Me now in this . . . [and see] 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” (v. 10).
As I’ve already said, when we give our finances to God, we’re showing the Lord that we are giving Him our very life. If you do not know Jesus as Savior and Lord this morning, then I want to encourage you to give your all to the Lord right now. Give your very heart to God and believe in His Son, Jesus Christ. Try Him in this, and see if He will not open the heavens and shower down the blessing of eternal life on you. Try Him and see if He will not bless every area of your life. I want to encourage you to give your life over to Jesus Christ this morning.
NOTES
(1) Bob Phillips, Encyclopedia of Good Clean Jokes (Eugene, OR: Harvest House Publishers, 1992), pp. 138-141.
(2) “Table Talk,” March 1991, p. 27.
(3) “Baptist Standard,” March 18, 1998, p. 8.
(4) John H. Tullock, The Old Testament Story, 5th edition (Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 2000), p. 351.
(5) Ibid., p. 351.
(6) Randy Alcorn, The Treasure Principle (Sisters: OR, Multnomah, 2001), pp. 59-60.
(7) Ibid., p. 62.
(8) Steve Sawyer, “God’s Way Works,” a sermon preached at Harvest Cathedral in Macon, Georgia October 13, 2002.
(9) “Circumstances Cannot Break God’s Promises,” http://www.heraldofhiscoming.com/Past%20Issues/2008/November/circumstances_cannot_brake_god_s_promises.htm. The pamphlet was called “God’s Cure for Poverty.”
(10) Ibid.
(11) Alcorn, p. 64.
(12) Sawyer.
(13) Alcorn, pp. 71-72.
