Malachi 3:8 - Tithes?

INTRODUCTION

Let’s open our Bibles together this morning to the third chapter of the book of Malachi - the last book in the Old Testament.

We will be looking at a single verse from this chapter - verse 8.

[READ MALACHI 3:8]

I have attended church nearly all my life, and in the 50 years or so when I have been paying some attention, I have noticed preachers apologizing for preaching on giving, tithing, or offerings in general.

Nearly every sermon began with the statement of the necessity of the subject,

Or the great need of the church.

But it was almost that the preacher felt ashamed of the subject, like something that just had to be discussed from time to time.

Like when your dad or mom sat down and gave you “THAT” talk - if they did.

It’s like the preacher has been saying, “I wish we didn’t have to talk about it, but here we are. It will be over soon.”

This morning, however, because I know you all, I am going to give you more credit than that.

We are going to proceed on the assumption that you all have come here today to hear a word from God that will help you to live more devotedly to Him;

To live in greater obedience to Him.

Not because you feel compelled or browbeaten to it, but because you love the Lord who gave His life to save you.

I literally have no idea who gives what in their offerings, and I will rebuke any who try to tell me.

We do have officers who track it for tax and legal purposes, but I have no need to have that information.

So proceeding, I will assume you are here this morning because you love the God who rescued you, his ruined creature, warped by sin, and not only didn’t cast you away -

He made you useful to Him.

He made you pleasing to Him.

He adopted you to Himself.

And He has loved you with an everlasting love.

And for His own sake, and the sake of the gospel, He has given you things -

Resources, talents, energy, wisdom - gifts.

And He has, through His Holy Spirit, given good things to each member of His church.

For His own sake and for the sake of His gospel.

So I would like to look specifically at the subject of tithes and offerings as we see them in Scripture.

I have limited the scope of the passage in Malachi to a single verse on purpose.

And that is because without the foundation of God’s Word on the subject of tithes and offerings, we cannot hope to rightly understand the promises that follow in the paragraph.

The failure of the contributions of God’s people in the book of Malachi is not the ROOT of the problem He had with them - it was a symptom.

It was an example.

The warning of God’s judgment is in verse 5, along with a long list of indictments:

Malachi 3:5 ““Then I will draw near to you for judgment. I will be a swift witness against the sorcerers, against the adulterers, against those who swear falsely, against those who oppress the hired worker in his wages, the widow and the fatherless, against those who thrust aside the sojourner, and do not fear me, says the Lord of hosts.”

And verse 7 shows us:

Malachi 3:7 “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.’”

So verse 8 is an answer to the people’s self-defensive answer to God in verse 7:

“How shall we return?”

I don’t think they are asking this because they legitimately want to return;

They are asking this to prove that THEY haven’t moved, that they are right where they should be.

They have the temple.

They observe the festivals.

They sacrifice (some).

And God has done good things for them.

They have returned from captivity - this is the last book of the Old Testament that was written - probably around 400 years before Jesus was born.

They have rebuilt the temple.

Israel is not in a golden age, but they are looking forward to the Messiah who will come and take care of that for them.

“How shall we return?” - meaning, “We are here. What MORE do You demand of us God? We are faithful; we are better than our neighbors. We are YOUR people!”

And God’s answer to them in v. 8 - “Will a man ROB God?”

Not “Will a man STEAL FROM God?” - as if this is some secretive act, breaking in and committing some petty larceny.

No - this is ROBBERY - bandits on the highway, violently taking from God.

This isn’t “cheating on your taxes” theft, as bad as that is;

It is “break into your neighbor’s house to rob him at gunpoint” violent.

And the point of it is that they have been more than happy to TAKE the blessings of God,

But not to use them for His purposes.

They RECEIVED those good things,

but they TOOK those things as if they were theirs.

And not as they really were - God’s provision for ALL His people.

So with the time left to us this morning, I would like to look at three aspects of offerings according to the Scriptures.

I use the word “offering” as that portion of God’s blessing we are to set apart for His holy purposes.

This would include the Biblical idea of the “tithe”, as well as things like “contributions” and “alms”.

I plan to look at “Offerings as Worship”,

Then “Offerings as Devotion”,

And then “Offerings as provision”.

OFFERINGS AS WORSHIP

This morning we read Deuteronomy 12 for our Old Testament reading.

God began in that chapter by telling the people of Israel to tear down every idol they find in the land after they conquer it.

Remember, this is the summation of God’s Law that Moses gave Israel right before they crossed the Jordan River under Joshua to conquer the Promised Land after the 40-year Exodus.

That occurred about a thousand years before Malachi wrote.

He tells the people in verse 4:

Deuteronomy 12:4 “You shall not worship the Lord your God in that way.”

That is - you shall not bow down to idols, or set up altars throughout the land to make offerings any way you want to.

But then we see in the next verses:

Deuteronomy 12:5–6 “But you shall seek the place that the Lord your God will choose out of all your tribes to put his name and make his habitation there. There you shall go, and there you shall bring your burnt offerings and your sacrifices, your tithes and the contribution that you present, your vow offerings, your freewill offerings, and the firstborn of your herd and of your flock.”

Now, this seems strange, even foreign, to us.

When we think of “worship”, we think of praying and preaching and singing - those kinds of things.

But in His holy Law, God doesn’t list any of those things here as part of worship.

We do know they did these things - we have plenty of examples and commands about all these elements of our worship today in the rest of Scripture.

But here, in the middle of Deuteronomy, the element of worship God is most concerned with is the offering of tithes and sacrifices.

Is an offering part of YOUR worship practice?

Is it a part of worship you dare not “sit out”?

There are many who consider it an optional part of worship, or something that is added into the worship service as a matter of convenience for the church to collect those offerings.

Is it an important thing we teach our children - that bringing an offering is a real part of worship?

Do we train our children who begin to receive gifts and wages that part of the use of those things belongs to God?

There might be some who object, pointing out that this is part of the Mosaic Law, and all that is pointed toward Jesus Christ.

He fulfilled the Law in its entirety.

And all those sacrifices, or most of them, were directly fulfilled by His sacrifice on the cross.

But we see worship through offerings before Moses:

Abel offered an acceptable sacrifice.

Abram, in every place he camped, built an altar to worship God through sacrifice.

And it is in Abraham that we find the first mention of the tithe, the tenth, given freely to the Priest of the Most High, Melchizedek.

We also see offerings in worship in the New Testament:

In Mark 12 and Luke 21, we see Jesus commending the widow for making her tiny offering in worship because it represented her love for God.

In each gospel, we find the sinful woman anointing Jesus’s feet in worship of Him (Matthew 26:6–13; Mark 14:3–9; Luke 7:36–50; John 12:1–8)

In Acts 4:32ff, we are told this about the church:

Acts 4:32–37 “Now the full number of those who believed were of one heart and soul, and no one said that any of the things that belonged to him was his own, but they had everything in common. And with great power the apostles were giving their testimony to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and great grace was upon them all. There was not a needy person among them, for as many as were owners of lands or houses sold them and brought the proceeds of what was sold and laid it at the apostles’ feet, and it was distributed to each as any had need. Thus Joseph, who was also called by the apostles Barnabas (which means son of encouragement), a Levite, a native of Cyprus, sold a field that belonged to him and brought the money and laid it at the apostles’ feet.”

And in the next verses, we learn of the severity of the Holy Spirit when Ananias and Sapphira tried to lie about the amount of their offering.

Even in the heavenly picture of the Revelation, we see worship in heaven:

Revelation 4:9–11 “And whenever the living creatures give glory and honor and thanks to him who is seated on the throne, who lives forever and ever, the twenty-four elders fall down before him who is seated on the throne and worship him who lives forever and ever. They cast their crowns before the throne, saying, “Worthy are you, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honor and power, for you created all things, and by your will they existed and were created.””

Is an offering to God part of your regular worship?

We should all know that some have greater means than others, so the amount is between you and God.

But I would submit to you that the promises that follow our verse in Malachi this morning are the result of a more thorough and devoted worship before God.

Not a promise of material blessing that the TV charlatans would tell you.

You may have noticed we don’t “pass the offering plate” here.

But you may worship through giving by putting money in the offering box in the back when you come in or as you leave.

You can worship through giving by online giving.

I’m not yet convinced that the plate was passed in Corinth or Jerusalem;

I see the worshipping believers giving relentlessly, letting nothing stop them in their worship.

I feel quite certain the apostles didn’t command them to sell their idle land and lay the proceeds at their feet;

All that tells me is they didn’t have a system set up for what the Holy Spirit was leading God’s people to do in worship.

But these faithful followers of Jesus Christ didn’t let that stop their worship.

So the first lesson we get out of Malachi is not that your OFFERING is lacking, but that the WORSHIP of God’s people is lacking.

The missing tithes and offerings are only a part, a tangible part, of their weak worship.

A symptom of a much larger problem.

OFFERINGS AS DEVOTION

Because the offerings you make to God are a good measure of your devotion to Him and your faith in Him.

Offerings are devotional.

In Leviticus 27:30 we are told ““Every tithe of the land, whether of the seed of the land or of the fruit of the trees, is the Lord’s; it is holy to the Lord.”

And then in verse 32: Leviticus 27:32 “And every tithe of herds and flocks, every tenth animal of all that pass under the herdsman’s staff, shall be holy to the Lord.”

Holy to the Lord - means set apart for the Lord.

Set apart for His use.

It doesn’t necessarily mean that you are free to use all the rest of the things that God gives you on anything you want,

Certainly nothing He gives you should be used for sinful or idle purposes.

But it does mean that the tithe is special - a fraction, a ratio, that is set apart as holy to God.

It mimics another Scriptural ratio - one day in seven that is holy to God as well.

That’s a subject for another day.

But these two ratios are deeply devotional:

A tenth part of what you receive and a seventh part of the time you are given:

Those are precious gifts indeed.

What you do with these two most precious gifts, time and resources, can tell us a lot about where our heart is.

Because setting the Lord’s portion apart from what we consider “ours” is a necessary first step in holding those two great gifts properly.

Holding them as someone entrusted with the things of God rather than someone entitled to them.

That’s the root of ROBBING God - to consider we are ENTITLED to His benefits and blessings.

I am grateful for the constant reminders from the Scriptures and from godly men and women that I am not ENTITLED to any gift God gives.

I receive those good gifts because of the abiding grace of God.

I receive those things as a believer in Jesus Christ because HE is entitled to all glory and benefits, and He has graciously shared them with me.

Is there anything harder for a parent than an ungrateful child?

One who makes claims for their birthright, who demands what they feel they are due - even when they didn’t earn it?

A parent can lavish great gifts, but I know the parents in here also work relentlessly to ensure your children express gratitude for what they receive.

Tithing, offerings in worship, generosity - these are all God’s Law.

And there are some who, wrongly, might remark that we are not under the Law, but under grace now.

Great bumper sticker - bad theology.

We are not CONDEMNED by the Law any more.

But the Law of God still shows us what PLEASES Him.

That is what we call the “Third Use” of the Law - to help the believer understand what attitudes and works please and glorify God.

And the setting apart of God’s portion first from what we receive is the outworking of TWO of the Ten Commandments:

The First and the Tenth.

The First - “You shall have no other gods before Me.”

Jesus put it this way: Matthew 6:24 ““No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money.”

One of the temptations we have in this regard is to put back the Lord’s portion into our savings.

After all, we might think, if I need it in the future, it will be there.

Admittedly, we are much more apt to spend that portion on ourselves and our own lusts, but let’s go with the more noble “savings”.

Putting the Lord’s portion into OUR savings is faithless.

Do we think He won’t BE there in the future when we have a need?

Aren’t we just, in that case, placing our trust, our faith, in the accumulation of our savings?

Savings are a good thing - don’t get me wrong.

But setting apart God’s portion to Him is a faithful, wise, and obedient thing that is better than savings.

The Tenth Commandment - “You shall not covet”.

Coveting is desiring something that isn’t yours.

It is desiring something God has not given you for YOUR blessing.

All robbery begins with covetousness - and we need to be on guard against that because covetousness is idolatry.

That’s the example we saw in the early church in Acts 4:

They properly saw everything God had given them as something to use for His purposes, not their accumulation.

Because the opposite of covetousness is generous brotherly love.

For the people hearing Malachi, it wasn’t the AMOUNT of their offerings that was their greatest problem;

It was their love and devotion to God who had delivered them from captivity into His promise.

OFFERINGS AS PROVISION

Because God cares for His people, and He does it THROUGH His people.

The offerings of God’s people are the ordinary way God cares for His people.

Recall the main use of the tithe in the Law:

It was for the worship of God, and for the care of those who ministered at the altar.

When sacrifices were brought, they were often eaten by the worshippers,

But a portion of them, the tithe, was set apart for those who labored in the tabernacle - the Levites and priests.

Paul reminds the Corinthians of this fact:

1 Corinthians 9:13–14 “Do you not know that those who are employed in the temple service get their food from the temple, and those who serve at the altar share in the sacrificial offerings? In the same way, the Lord commanded that those who proclaim the gospel should get their living by the gospel.”

I don’t point this out to be self-serving, but to be thorough and Biblical.

And even if I never make use of this right among you, there will come a day in God’s good providence when I will not be able to continue to serve in the way I have.

And in that day, we, as a church, should have learned to be sufficiently disciplined and generous to support God’s next servant in a manner we aren’t ashamed of.

To care for those who minister to us on behalf of our Lord is a good and worthy thing.

The second use of the tithe was to care for the needy.

Remember Acts 4:34 “There was not a needy person among them, for as many as were owners of lands or houses sold them and brought the proceeds of what was sold”

In further instruction on the tithes in Deuteronomy 14:29 - “And the Levite [the minister], because he has no portion or inheritance with you, and the sojourner, the fatherless, and the widow, who are within your towns, shall come and eat and be filled, that the Lord your God may bless you in all the work of your hands that you do.”

What does a church look like that is so abounding with generosity that they weekly set back godly offerings to care for the needs of the church family first, as we see in Acts, but also the needs of those God brings to us who have need?

Or a church that has been so generous we are seeking young men to train, at the church’s expense, to pastor this or other congregations?

Or a church that is able to set apart and support those God is calling to mission evangelism?

These things won’t come about because we have a vision or a goal for prosperity;

They will come about when we rightly divide the things God has given us,

Worshipping as cheerful, grateful givers;

Allowing our love and devotion to our Lord to overflow in generosity.

We don’t do those things so God will personally bless us;

We do these things so God will be glorified through His people, the church.

Our worship and devotion to our risen Lord are the work of the church in the world.

And God has given us great gifts that draw forth our gratitude to Him.