You Reap What You Sow - Malachi 3:6-15
Scripture Reading: 2 Corinthians 9:6-15
INTRODUCTION:
Last Sunday we got into Malachi chapter three where the LORD of hosts, the covenant God of Israel was responding to the question of the Jews, “Where is the God of Justice?” The LORD told the people that He was going to send His messenger ahead of Him to prepare the way for Him, and we identified this messenger as John the Baptist. The LORD then said that He would come into His temple and He would administer justice first in refining and purifying the priesthood to serve Him in the millennial temple, then He would refine the peoples separating the truly repentant from the unrepentant as a smelter separates the dross from the pure molten metal. God responded to their question warning them of coming judgment.
This morning we will be in chapter three again and in it we have a bit of a parenthetical section in verses 6-12 between two messages of God’s justice and judgment which we looked at last Sunday and we will finish looking at next Sunday. What we have to look at this morning has a lot to do with our Scripture reading this morning from 2 Corinthians where Paul speaks of reaping what you sow. Let’s pray and then get into our passage of Scripture for this morning.
--PRAY--
SCRIPTURE:
Turn in your Bibles this morning to Malachi 3:6-15. First, we will see that God does not change, but the people need to change, then we will see what God promises for obedience and how the people respond. Please stand if you are able in honor of the reading of God’s Word and follow along as I read.
Malachi 3:6-15,
“’For I, the Lord, do not change; therefore you, O sons of Jacob, are not consumed. From the days of your fathers you have turned aside from My statutes 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 a man rob God? Yet you are robbing Me! But you say, “How have we robbed You?” In tithes and offerings. You are cursed with a curse, for you are robbing Me, the whole nation of you! Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse, so that there may be food in My house, and test 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 a blessing until it overflows. Then I will rebuke the devourer for you, so that it will not destroy the fruits of the ground; nor will your vine in the field cast its grapes,’ says the Lord of hosts. ‘All the nations will call you blessed, for you shall be a delightful land,’ says the Lord of hosts. ‘Your words have been arrogant against Me,’ says the Lord. ‘Yet you say, “What have we spoken against You?” ‘You have said, “It is vain to serve God; and what profit is it that we have kept His charge, and that we have walked in mourning before the Lord of hosts? So now we call the arrogant blessed; not only are the doers of wickedness built up but they also test God and escape.”’” (Malachi 3:6–15, NASB95)[1]
THE LORD DOES NOT CHANGE (Malachi 3:6-7a)
This passage opens with the LORD making a statement about Himself, He informs the people of Israel with whom He has been speaking that He does not change. The LORD declares that He is immutable, a word that simply means that He does not change, this is one of His attributes, He is always the same. What the Jews had labeled as God’s injustice in that the wicked nations around them were prospering and they were not, was not God being unrighteous or unfair, but was actually God being mercifully patient.
The LORD goes onto say that it is because He is immutable, because He does not change, Israel still exists, they have not been consumed, they have not been wiped off the earth like Sodom and Gomorrah. What the Jews were saying about God being unjust and not acting on behalf of Israel by making them prosper was untrue when you compare it to Israel’s history of rebellion against God. God tells them that from the days of their fathers they have turned aside from His statutes and have not kept them. Their very existence was due only to the LORD’S immutable character and His unwavering commitment to His covenant promises made to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. The Jewish people of Malachi’s day had broken the covenant and had disobeyed the law of the covenant given to the nation at Mount Sinai through Moses when the LORD had freed them from their bondage in Egypt.
Having just been told that the LORD of hosts was coming in judgment and that it is only because He does not change that they still exist, the Jewish people are presented with a powerful challenge to repent. The LORD of hosts says, “Return to me, repent from your evil ways and come back into relationship with Me, and I will return to you, by pouring out on you My covenant blessings.” They can again experience the LORD’S goodness and blessing, if they repent. The LORD of hosts is saying, I do not change, but you need to change and turn from your rebellious ways and return to Me, so that I can bless you.
THE PEOPLE NEED TO CHANGE (Malachi 3:7b-9)
The Jewish people need to change, but even with this powerful challenge to repent in view of God’s coming judgment and that He does not change, they are unwilling to admit the need for repentance, the invitation by the LORD of hosts, the covenant-keeping God, is met with another question declaring themselves innocent. Malachi writes, “But you say, ‘How shall we return?’” (Malachi 3:7b, NASB95)[2] From the perspective of these sinful, self-righteous Jews they hadn’t left, God has. The truth was God had not changed and never will, and neither had they changed, God was perfectly righteous as always and they as unrighteous and rebellious and unwilling to admit their sin as their ancestors.
The LORD answered their question about how they had turned from the LORD’S way and needed to return by using an illustration of their spiritual turning away that was very visible and undeniable. The LORD first asked a question, “Will a man rob God?” (Malachi 3:8a, NASB95)[3] At first glance this seems absurd, how could anyone rob God? He is the Almighty, the sovereign Creator, He is everywhere and knows everything and is all-powerful, how could a man rob God? The LORD goes on in this verse and tells the people of Israel that they are robbing Him. This can’t be and the Jews ask back, “How have we robbed you?” (Malachi 3:8b, NASB95)[4] The LORD of hosts answers their question to make His point, He replies, “In tithes and offerings. You are cursed with a curse, for you are robbing Me, the whole nation of you!” (Malachi 3:8c-9, NASB95)[5] The people of Israel under the law of the covenant were to bring a tithe (one-tenth) of their harvests and livestock to fund the temple by sustaining the Levites. The Levites were to take a tithe (one-tenth) of what the people brought to sustain the priests. This tithe was also to be used to fund the national religious feasts, and once every three years an additional tithe was taken to support the poor, and the widows and orphans. They were not paying these taxes that were a part of the covenant, and because they were not bringing them into the storehouse of the temple the Levites, who were singers and gatekeepers and fulfilled other roles in the temple were not being paid and if the Levites were not being paid then the priests were not being paid. The LORD said that the people were cursed with a curse for they were robbing God, the curse was that because they had withheld from God what was rightfully His by covenant law He withheld from them blessings of the covenant that they so desperately wanted and thought they deserved, but here was a glaring, widespread sin that the LORD said was a sin of the whole nation. That this was taking place is confirmed for us by Nehemiah. When he returned from Persia, he found that some of the Levites, the singers and gatekeepers had left Jerusalem and the work of the temple and returned to their own homes and fields to grow food so that they could live and provide for their families. You can read about this in Nehemiah 13. Here God showed them one area where they needed to return to Him.
THE LORD PROMISES BLESSINGS FOR OBEDIENCE (Malachi 3:10-12)
The LORD after exposing their thievery calls for the people to put Him to the test, He invites them to bring into the storehouse of the temple the full tithe, to reverse their robbery of Him and bring the full tithe in a show of true repentance, filling up the storehouse so that their will be food for the Levites and the priests. The LORD says if you will do this, I will lift the curse, I will open the windows of heaven and pour out on you so much blessing until it overflows, there will not be room to contain all that the LORD will provide. He goes on to say that He will rebuke the devourer for you, this is a reference to insects like locusts who were eating their crops so that they could not harvest very much, the LORD says He will rebuke them, they will not be allowed to devour the crops and the vineyards would not fail to bear fruit. So prosperous would they be that all the nations would call you blessed, and you would be as a nation a delightful land.
This is God’s promise if they would return to Him in obedience and bring the full tithe into the temple. The LORD loves the Israelites and desires to shower them with the blessings of the covenant if they will seek to follow the LORD and be obedient to His law. The blessing and prosperity were within their grasp if they would turn from their rebellious, sinful ways and repent and return to the LORD in true worship.
THE PEOPLE SAY THERE IS NO PROFIT IN OBEDIENCE (Malachi 3:13-15)
These sinful priests and people who had questioned God’s love for them, had violated God’s covenant with them, had disobeyed His laws, defiled His altar and had despised His name, now speak arrogantly or harshly against the LORD. Their harsh words question God’s righteousness and truthfulness. The LORD promised blessing in super abundance if they would return to Him and obey His law, but they question this with their harsh words. The people, again playing the innocent victim in this ask, “What have we spoken against You?” (Malachi 3:13b, NASB95)[6]
The LORD responds with the harsh words that they have spoken against Him that question His righteousness and truthfulness, He says, “You have said, ‘It is vain to serve God; and what profit is it that we have kept His charge, and that we have walked in mourning before the Lord of hosts? So now we call the arrogant blessed; not only are the doers of wickedness built up but they also test God and escape.’” (Malachi 3:14-15, NASB95)[7] The people complained that obedience to God’s law brought no rewards, that serving God was worthless, that there was no reward, no profit in keeping the law, they even pretended to grieve for their sins, walking around in sackcloth and even blackening their faces with ashes in a show of mourning, but it was all useless because it was all superficial. We already read how they flooded the altar with tears, but it was not because they were remorseful for their sins, but because God was not regarding their offering or accepting it with favor. It was all an act of religious ritual. Their tears and mourning were because they were not prospering, there was no repentance and a returning to the LORD in true worship. The LORD had just promised blessing, but they did not believe Him, they questioned His faithfulness and trustworthiness.
They saw only the wicked nations around them prospering and thought the arrogant, this word is used for a class of people that are proud, conceited, self-willed, and not at all humble before the LORD, those whom the Jews considered arrogant were the ones that were blessed, these evildoers not only prospered, but they were testing God by seeing how far they could go in doing evil and they were getting away with it. The Jews of Malachi’s day were only looking for physical prosperity, material gain and not the spiritual prosperity and blessing that comes with walking with the LORD and obeying Him. When they did what they thought was enough, the minimum, going through the motions of religious ritual and they did not get the blessing that they thought they deserved, they thought the LORD had left them, had forgotten the covenant that He had with them.
The truth was the LORD wasn’t interested in their religious ritual, what He truly wanted was their hearts, He wanted their hearts to long after Him which then overflow not in religious ritual, but in spiritual worship. We can do a lot of things for the Lord, but if they are not done to bring Him glory and they are not done as an act of worship, then they are just religious ritual. True spiritual worship is what the Lord wants and that comes from presenting Him with our bodies as a living sacrifice and by being obedient to His Word renewing our minds through His Word so that we know what the will of God is, that which is good, acceptable and perfect. It is not being busy doing everything that we think God wants, but doing His will, what He wants us to do.
CONCLUSION:
In this passage of Scripture this morning the LORD called the Jewish people to return to Him, to repent of their sin and return to Him in obedience to His covenant with them. The LORD said if they would return to Him, He would return to them by pouring out the blessings of the covenant on them. The LORD pointed out to them an area where they were sinning and it was in the area of tithes and offerings, they were robbing God by not bringing in the full tithe and the LORD said if they would truly repent and bring in the full tithe then He would bless them and they would have more than they could use, they would have super-abundance. What the LORD truly wanted was their whole lives, He wanted to be a part of their lives in every area so that they would know His love and their obedience to the law of the covenant would not be out of obligation, but out of love for the LORD because of what He had done for them.
No where in the New Testament are we told to tithe, to give a tenth of our income to the Lord, in Israel anything above that ten percent was considered an offering. The principle of the tithe was set forth in the Old Testament and many believers today use that principle in their giving to the church, they give a tithe or ten percent to the Lord. In our Scripture reading today Paul was speaking of our giving to the Lord’s work. He used an agricultural example to teach the principle of giving generously. He that those who sow sparingly will also reap sparingly, and those who sow generously or bountifully will also reap bountifully. But what is sparingly for some might be bountiful for others, but what you give must be a decision that is made between you and the Lord. Again, Paul says it must be a decision made in your heart and it must not be given reluctantly or under compulsion. God wants your giving to Him to be from a cheerful heart, out of love for Him, not obligation because then you are just going through the motions, instead your giving of tithes or offerings should be an act of worship. Paul makes this promise to the one who gives cheerfully in an act of worship: “And God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that having all sufficiency in all things at all times, you may abound in every good work.” (2 Corinthians 9:8, ESV)[8]
What the Lord really wants is your life surrendered to Him. He desires to be a part of your life in everything that you do. He wants to you trust Him with all of your life, with every area of your life. We begin this life of surrender by first agreeing with God that we are a sinner and that we need salvation, we believe that Jesus Christ died on the cross paying the penalty for our sin, that He was buried, and that He rose from the dead proving that sin was paid for and guaranteeing our resurrection. When we believe this our sins are forgiven, and we are justified before God. That is how we begin this life of surrender and trust with the Lord. The Lord wants us to trust Him with every area of our life, make Him the Lord of all our life. Have you done this, surrendering to the Lord your spouse, your family, your career, your finances, your social life, your entertainment and the list goes on? It is when you surrender it all to the Lord that you will see His grace abound to you. What are you holding onto that you are not willing to surrender to the Lord, what is holding you back? He is faithful.
[1]New American Standard Bible : 1995 Update. La Habra, CA : The Lockman Foundation, 1995
[2]New American Standard Bible : 1995 Update. La Habra, CA : The Lockman Foundation, 1995
[3]New American Standard Bible : 1995 Update. La Habra, CA : The Lockman Foundation, 1995
[4]New American Standard Bible : 1995 Update. La Habra, CA : The Lockman Foundation, 1995
[5]New American Standard Bible : 1995 Update. La Habra, CA : The Lockman Foundation, 1995
[6]New American Standard Bible : 1995 Update. La Habra, CA : The Lockman Foundation, 1995
[7]New American Standard Bible : 1995 Update. La Habra, CA : The Lockman Foundation, 1995
[8]The Holy Bible: English Standard Version. Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2016.