“Robbing God???" – FBC Morning Light (12/28/2023)

Well, a good Thursday morning to you. So here we are today in the last book of the Old Testament, and we're going to finish reading it today, chapters 3 and 4, and we're in Revelation chapter 21 in the New Testament.

Tomorrow we finish the reading through the Bible in a year plan, if you've been following along in that plan. What a great blessing that is, to be able to look back over a year and to say, you know, God in his grace has given me the privilege of reading through the entire Bible in the year.

Malachi’s Rebuke of Robbing God Through Tithes and Offerings

Well, today I want to focus on a section in Malachi chapter 3. Yesterday the Lord confronted us with our attitude toward worship, and we were challenged with the question, are we giving God second best?

Well, today, and in that devotional yesterday, I touched on the idea of even our financial giving. Well, today the Lord is even more direct in addressing our financial contributions to the work of the Lord.

He asked this question in verse 8, will a man rob God? Of course, that kind of question would elicit from the hearer, well, no, we would never want to rob God, and yet the Lord is very direct. He can't make it any more direct than this, and he says, but you have robbed me.

You have robbed me. But you say, well, how have we robbed you? The Lord replies, in tithes and offerings. Of course, the Lord is referring to this Old Testament system of law, really, ceremonial law, where God's people were required to give a tenth of all of their income.

In addition to that, they were also required to give various offerings. So there were tithes and there were offerings over and above those tithes, that 10 percent of their income. The people were sloughing off, and the problem with that is when God's people were not giving the tithes and the offerings, then the result was that God's worship suffered significantly.

Here's why. It was the tithes and the offerings that were used to support the work of the priesthood as well as that of the Levites. A portion of all that was given went to the Levites, and a portion of what the Levites received went to the priests.

It all starts with the giving of the people. If the people don't give like they should give, then the Levites and the priests don't receive the income that they need to receive, and so then what happens?

Israel knows from their history that the Levites and the priests, they had to leave the work of the temple and had to go out and farm and do whatever they could do to put food on their table. Consequently, the worship of God suffered.

Furthermore, the upkeep and so forth necessary for the temple, it also suffers. Even in that old covenant economy, it was critical that God's people give faithfully of their tithes and their offerings so that the work of the Lord could go on.

The ministry of the temple, the teaching of God's people, it was all dependent upon the faithful giving of God's people. When they didn't give, the Lord says, look, you have robbed me. You have robbed me.

New Covenant Giving as Cheerful and Generous Stewardship

This all challenges us in a different way. We aren't given the command in the New Covenant to tithe and to give over and above that, but the tithes and the offerings of the Old Testament and the Old Covenant law, I think they do serve as a good pattern for us to give.

The Lord tells us in the New Testament how he wants us to give. He wants us to give cheerfully. He wants us to give as he prospers us. We come to the end of a year, and it's a good time to stop and reflect upon how we've been doing in various disciplines of the Christian life in the past year, and how we can improve in the coming year.

One area for us to evaluate is this area of our financial giving. Is the Lord pleased with the manner of our giving? Is he pleased with our attitude of generosity? Does he see that we are giving as much as we can give, and we're giving it because we really want to?

Or does he see us being pretty selfish with what we're giving? Over the course of my years in the ministry, I've seen people who said, I can't afford to give a tithe. I can't afford to give anymore. Yet, they have a lot of the luxury items, and they're partaking in a lot of the luxury items that are just that.

They'll pay a $150 cable bill, and they don't think anything of it. They have the latest and greatest in the cell phones, and they're always updating their cell phones and things of that nature. They have all the toys of their hobbies, and so on and so forth.

Yet, they say they can't give. There are other people who are very faithful and very generous in their giving. I never know how much people give, but I know that they do. It's evident by, it used to be the offering plate or the offering box, whatever.

You could see it. They're just faithful. They don't have a lot. They don't care about having 550 channels in their DirecTV account or whatever, but they do care about God's work, and they care about the Lord's service being supported.

They give, and they give generously. Many times, people give over and above in missions giving and so forth. I say all that to get us to stop and think. Ask ourselves the question, how is my giving? If everybody in the church gave the same percentage of their income as I'm giving, could we even keep the doors open?

Could we have a pastor and ministry in the church? Could we support the missionaries if everybody gave as I do? If I increased my giving, how would the Lord bless me? In Malachi 3, verse 10, he goes on to say, look, he says, bring all the tithes into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house, that the ministry of the temple may continue.

Then he says this, 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.

If you're, admittedly, if your giving has been really meager, then I would encourage you to put the Lord to the test, sit down with your planner for 2024, and establish some goals in giving. If you look at your past year giving record and you say, I only gave about 2 percent of my income, then I would encourage you to establish the goal that by year's end, by the end of 2024, you will be giving 10 percent of your income.

You say, I don't know how in the world I could do that. Put the Lord to the test. Make it a priority, and see if the Lord doesn't make up the difference and provide for you. Again, I've been in pastoral ministry for 40 some years, and oftentimes the salary has been pretty meager.

I made a commitment at the beginning of our marriage that we would give 10 percent of our income, at least 10 percent of our income, to the Lord's work. Turn it back into the Lord's work. We have done that faithfully through the years.

We've never missed a meal. We've always had an automobile. We've always been able to put gas in it. We've had food on the table. We've had clothes on our back. We've had a roof over our heads, and more.

More than we've needed, the Lord has supplied. See if the Lord won't do that for you. I think he will. Our Father and our God, we thank you for this challenge today, and I pray that we would all re-evaluate our giving and ask ourselves, am I giving joyfully?

Am I giving regularly? Am I giving generously? Challenge us with this today, we pray, in Jesus' name and for his sake. Amen. Listen, you have a good rest of your Thursday, and may the Lord bless you in it.

Good day.