Prophecy To Our Age
The Fathers Attitude
Introduction: (Chapter1:1-2) Malachi was sent to the people with God’s all consuming power; the love of God. This is God’s burden for his people of every age, he addresses the condition of the people’s hearts from the love he has for them. In chapter3:10-12, God challenges the people, appealing to them, calling to them out of his love. These two sections of scripture parallel each other, the first is the burden of God through Malachi and the second is God’s direct appeal to his people.
The whole reason behind this portion of scripture is the condition of the people’s hearts. The people were completely satisfied with their lives, and yet God lays on some heavy charges of infidelity. This is why God has plenty to say to these people. It reminds me of the hearings of President Bill Clinton before the Federal Court asking the court to define everything under the sun, pleading his innocence of wrong doing, even though caught red-handed in numerous situations. This is the state of these people; they are caught red-handed in many situations and are pleading innocent on all accounts.
A. God’s first reason for his appeal to the people (Chapter1:2).
1. God proclaims his love for the people. He is saying that his love is infinite and has infinitely been around for an eternity for this people.
2. God declares his love for the people, even though he finds them wanting, even though they have neglected their God and even though they have sin in their lives.
3. This is what burdens God and the reason that Malachi is sent with this message. God wishes them to know that because he loves them there will be a coming judgment. The true state of their heart has been found and the condition of their lives is revealed and it’s undesirable to Him.
4. God desires that his people honor him and have a fear for him, not because he has need of these but that he loves them with an everlasting love. We can never add significance to Him but He is glorified by us through our love for him. Not because our love has any significance but because he first loved us. God wants us to know his will and purpose and we do that through honoring him and having a fear of him. We have nothing outside of his will and purpose for him.
5. Does God willingly want to punish his creation? No! Because he loves us, he corrects and rebukes us out of his love for our own good. His correction of us is manifested out of his eternal everlasting love for us. We can never totally understand this godly love because we are finite and he is infinite.
6. Nevertheless, God loves this people. Throughout their history they have been in rebellion and he patiently has watched and cared for them and at times corrected them. Never forget God has been with this stubborn people and they have grieved his spirit and this has been a burden to his love.
7. This is why their attitude to God has changed God’s attitude to them. He still loves them and wants them to know his mind through the words given to Malachi.
God is giving them eternal truth by proclaiming his love toward them. People over the years haven’t clearly understood this message of love but the truth remains that every messenger, preacher and prophet is called of God.
B. God has made his complaint, he has heard their response and now he has appealed to them in this portion of scripture (chapter 3:10-12). Let’s note four things found in these verses:
1. First, there is the call: “bring all the tithes into the storehouse.”
a. When God made his covenant with these people, to receive his promises the people were given conditions concerning the covenant that they must fulfill. If they failed to fulfill the duties of the conditions, then the covenant was broken.
b. This is part of what we see in verse 10, God is asking that they bring in the “whole tithe.” God is not asking for a mathematical value but for their gift as recognition of their love for him. He is not just asking for ten percent of their first fruits as some sort of mechanical form of service. He is asking them to show their love for him with the gift they are offering.
c. He asks for ten percent as proof that they recognize his infinite love for them. The tithe is only as valuable as the recognition of their love. The tithe is the force that binds them to the Word of God, “I have loved you.” If the people forget that God loves them with an everlasting love, soon they will forget to bring in the tithe, and the only service that God requires is the service of love that responds to His love.
d. God doesn’t just want the ten percent that meets the value of the tithe as required by the law but he wants the perfect tithe that comes from a personal relationship with him dealt out in love. Their tithe was lacking the recognition of love that God requires with their gift. He doesn’t want “all the tithe, he wants the “whole tithe.”
e. Apparently, there is a legalistic systematic form of service, which God despises. It’s a mechanical traditional form, which God rejects when it’s given. When we give, we need to give in the right way, recognizing that God loves us with an infinite love. Our love is given out of his love for us and our tithe is given as recognition of all He has done for us.
f. So, no matter what we do, no matter what we say, we do it out of love for the God who created us. When this is done in the manner that God requires, then and only then are the tithes brought into the storehouse.
2. The second thing to note is the challenge, “test me in this” or “prove me now herein.”
a. This is God’s challenge to the people that they will listen and prove what he says is true through their actions.
b. He wants the people to get to know him by responding to his love for them, even in their sin and rebellion.
3. The third thing to note is God’s promise for their obedience, “see if I will not throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing that you will not have room enough for it.”
a. His promise is two-fold: the source of his blessing – heavens open window and the measure of the blessing – that you will not have room enough for it.
b. This is probably one of the most remarkable passages in the entire Word of God. Here God is telling the people that he will bless them with an eternal blessing, he will bless them until he runs out of blessings. Can God ever run out of blessings? No, never! There is no way to conceptually measure the quantity of God’s blessings and he will provide this, even in our sin, if we will just acknowledge His eternal love.
c. He further promises to rebuke the devourer or corrupt the devourer (vs. 11). The NIV translate that “I will prevent pests from devouring your crops” but a more accurate translation is God will corrupt the devourer.
d. Then God promises even more, “neither shall the vine bear its fruit before it’s time.” God will care for us and give to us more than we could ever give to him.
4. Fourth and last we find the result of God’s blessing, “all nations will call you blessed.”
a. God is saying that when his people fulfill the conditions of the covenant, bringing in the whole tithe, he will return to them his blessings and all the nations will observe their condition.
b. This fulfillment of the blessing could be a prophetic message to the ages to come. There has been no time in history in which the nation of Israel or the Christian Church been blessed abundantly more than could be measured and all the nations of the earth admit the blessedness of their nation. In all reality, this could be pointing to the end times when Christ returns and sets up his kingdom on earth, fulfilling the scripture of Jesus Sermon On The Mount, “happy is the people whose God is the Lord.”
C. What are the eternal truths that we learn in this portion of scripture concerning God’s divine attitude?
1. First, is that God contains a vast eternal love.
a. Love is the underlying trait of God that he uses in all of his dealings with us despite our failings, attitudes and rebellion.
b. God isn’t like us, when we look at others who are not living the life that God wants for them, we gain a superior attitude and find ourselves looking down on them with a lack of love only fellow humans could have for each other.
c. However, God is saying to us “I have loved you.” This is why when we have a particular habit or addiction God doesn’t let us rest. To us it is a minor offense that appears to be absolutely innocent but to God it is a division that separates us from the blessings he has for us. This gives us beyond a shadow of doubt the very reason we know God loves us, he won’t let us rest. Though our conscience falls to sleep or our attitude becomes apathetic, God’s spirit is ever present to prick our souls of wrong. It’s dangerous to ignore the promptings of God. Is there something you have been ignoring in your life or something God has been trying to speak to you about? If God did not love you, he would have left you alone long ago to wallow in your own devices. God will continue to bring you back to the point of division until you recognize his divine love for you and you respond appropriately.
2. Second, is the divine relationship between tithe and blessings.
a. It amazes me how many times in prayer meetings that people pray the promise of God, yet they forget the conditions of the promise.
b. We pray, “Open the windows of heaven and pour out your blessings upon us”; and God replies, “Bring in the tithe.”
c. It is not the material things that we have that God is requesting of us; he wants everything that we have not withholding one iota from him. He wants all of us, our very being, our interests, ourselves; then he will open the floodgates of heaven and they will never shut. When we place all upon the altar then God promises abundance.
“Bring the tithes,” and the moment we obey the window of heaven opens and showers of blessing pour over us. This compensation for absolute obedience applies to people as well as churches, nations and the world. The order is always the same in every circumstance, man’s tithe and God’s blessings.
3. Third, it’s not only the relation between tithe and blessing but the relation between love and tithe.
a. Our tithe will never reach the storehouse of God except in response to love. Pharisaic mechanics, legalism and tradition will never replace the inner conditions placed on our gifts, love from the heart.
b. When we have true vision, we give from the heart.
c. This is the secret of giving that opens the floodgates of heaven.
4. Fourth and lastly how is our love measured?
a. Through our obedience to God is how our love is measured. We show our love inproportion to our obedience to him. As we walk with God in a daily relationship with him, we begin to see his tenderness, compassion, his love for us. We love god when we obey and when we love, we obey. Obedience is our first step in the progression on our walk with God.
b. As the Sermon On The Mount states, “seek first the kingdom of God,” and in doing so we obey God in our seeking, therefore discovering the Father; and upon discovering the Father we more readily obey, finding that it becomes easier to obey as we journey along.
c. Then upon our death or his second coming, which ever comes first, we become glorified and finally obey perfectly.
Conclusion: Why is it that the world is so sick and tired of Christianity? How is it that the liberal world looks upon the church with utter disgust? Why do those outside the church look at us and pity us? Why is this? It’s the fault of the church, namely the fault of the people in the church. When the outside world looks at the church and can’t see one iota of difference in the lives of Christians and nonchristians why would they not treat us with disdain? When the world sees us as nothing different from them then the people of God have moved far away from the heart of God. If tomorrow all of God’s people would move to a personal and close relationship with him, obeying his decrees, then the world would take notice and say, “you are blessed.” In the past generations when people of God moved close to God there were great revivals that transformed whole nations.
1. When we return to love, “love that is patient, love that is kind. Love that does not envy, or boast and that is not proud. Love that is not rude, that is not self-seeking, that is not easily angered and keeps no record of wrong-doing. Love that does not delight in evil but rejoices in the truth. Love that protects, that trusts, that hopes and that perseveres. Love that never fails.”
2. Love like this will never want to hurt another with an unkind word. Love like this will never want to do an unkind thing to another. This is where it begins, the Church of Jesus Christ needs to conform to the characteristics of it’s Lord and Savior for the world to see a major difference between the people of God and those who are lost.
3. This is God’s call to a church that has lost its finesse, it’s first love. For the church to make an effective difference in the communities where they are found, the world has to see a difference, they have to see the love of God. For most people, the only Jesus they will ever see is the Jesus they see in you. If we do so, God promises that he will “corrupt the devourer” and the church will prevail against the gates of hell.
4. There is only one question, who will step up to the call of God and respond to his love?
