Sermon Tone Analysis

*Malachi 9.*

Can you turn to Malachi chapter 3? We have been looking through this prophecy all year now, let’s step back a moment and have a look at where we have come so far.

*[P] *Malachi is the last word of יהוה to His people Israel before He was silent for over 400 years.

He had been speaking continually to them, but now He was giving up.

He was fed up with them!

So this is His last message in a desperate attempt to turn them back to Himself.

So it is a heavy message, a burden, an oracle.

In fact it is a series of oracles.

But the first message wasn’t heavy, *[P]* it wasn’t a message against Edom but a message that He loved Israel *[P]*.

What made it heavy was that Israel questioned that love.

They were not close to יהוה.

In fact the second message is directed against those who should be close to Him, His priests *[P]*; they maintained religion but it was a wearisome ritual, their heart wasn’t in it; they had, in fact, abandoned יהוה, and the covenant with Him, for idols.

It was just religious ritual, going through the motions – they had lost the immediacy, the reality, the earnest devotion.

There is a message for us, many of whom have been on the road for some years – we need to careful to preserve that first love, guard against it becoming just habit, of familiarity causing us to lose our appreciation and wonder.

The people had gone the same way as their spiritual leaders.

So יהוה had a message for them *[P]* – they also dealt treacherously, there was no faithfulness – they dealt treacherously with their brothers, they were unfaithful to their wives, divorcing them and breaking the covenant they had made with them.

They also had broken their covenant with יהוה, been unfaithful to Him, turning to other gods.

So things were in a terrible state concerning Israel’s relationship with יהוה.

But יהוה had a plan to bring them back to Himself *[P]* – He promised to send His messenger and refine the people and the priesthood.

Now He addresses the matter of them withholding tithes *[P]*.

It is a funny thing, but you don’t often hear preaching from Malachi.

It is a short book, some may consider it obscure; but if there is one passage I have heard preached over and over again, it is this present one.

The church income is down a bit; perhaps the pastor is concerned that his salary won’t be met, so he dusts off his sermon about bring the full tithe into the storehouse; encourage the flock to give a bit more.

They have a vested interest in preaching the message.

So to be completely open before you; I thought I should make it clear that if the offering doubles next week in response to this message, the elders are going to pay me double for preaching.

But it is one of the benefits of doing consecutive expository preaching, that you deal with a topic because it occurs in context, not because you have a vested interest.

May I reassure you, before we start, that there is no need to exhort this congregation to give.

We are a small congregation, but after the meeting Beth and I count the offering and frequently we are blown away by the amount!

We are a small flock, the majority are collecting the pension; how could there be that much with few there?!

But this section on tithing is not a new oracle, a fifth oracle, it continues straight on from where we were at last time: (you may recall) *[P] [Malachi 3:6-12*/ //“For I, יהוה, do not change; therefore you, O sons of Jacob, are not consumed./

(*[P]* There they were dealing treacherously, answering God back, setting up their own definition of what was right and wrong, and denying that God would judge them for what they did.

They were in a terrible spiritual state – they deserved to be wiped out! *[P]* But for the fact that יהוה does not change, they would be consumed.)/

/*[P]* /“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 יהוה of armies.

/(the solution to their apostate state was to repent, *[P]* to turn back to God)/“But you say, ‘How shall we return?’/

(but they did not see any need to repent, they had no concept that they were doing anything wrong, had no idea what they had to do to turn back to God.

They were completely unaware that they were doing wrong that needed to be turned from.

So with infinite patience God answers their answering back with detailed specifics.

He gives a specific example:) /“Will a man rob God?

Yet you are robbing Me!

But you say, ‘How have we robbed You?’

In tithes and offerings.

/(so this exhortation on tithing is just one specific practical example of how they could turn back to God.

They thought that they didn’t need to repent, but they were in fact robbing God!

A stinging accusation!) /“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 יהוה of armies, “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 יהוה of armies.

“All the nations will call you blessed, for you shall be a delightful land,” says יהוה of armies/.]

In my personal quiet time I have been reading in Luke 18 the parable that Jesus told of the Pharisee and the tax-collector who went to the temple to pray.

The Pharisee boasted about his tithing – but we are told the reason that Jesus told the parable in [*Luke 18:9*/ //And He also told this parable to some people who trusted in themselves that they were righteous, and viewed others with contempt./]

Like the people in Malachi’s day the Pharisee was convinced that he was righteous, he saw no need to repent, to turn to God *[P]*.

And we can get caught up on the specific of tithing but the issue was that they could not conceive how they needed to turn back to God.

And we can be like that; think that we are OK, trust in our own attainment of Christian living, and look down on those who are not like us.

It is religious pride!

God resists the proud but gives grace to the humble, like the repentant tax-collector.

The only righteousness there is, is Jesus’ righteousness – we can only boast of what He has done.

So these people in Malachi’s day saw nothing wrong that they needed to turn from.

Again they answered back to יהוה; “/How shall we return/?”

So יהוה gives them a specific example *[P]* – no doubt He could have cited other matters.

But here they thought that they were fine religious people and יהוה accused them of robbing God! *[P]* It is a sin to rob our fellow man, but to rob God!

What a terrible crime!

Here they thought that they were OK but in fact they were guilty of a gross sin!

And it was the whole nation that was doing it!

They were robbing God because they were not paying the tithe.

This was a legal requirement as citizens of Israel.

Of course tithing dates back before the Law given to Moses at Sinai.

Abraham gave Melchizedek a tenth of what he took as spoils when he defeated Chedorlaomar who carried off his nephew Lot; and Jacob promised to give יהוה a tenth when He appeared to Him at Bethel in a dream of a ladder going up to heaven.

This was not commanded, it is something that they gave voluntarily – it was just something that they spontaneously gave to God.

But later, when the Law was given, the tithe was commanded.

It was then something that God stipulated, a legal requirement.

If you didn’t pay it you were disobeying God! Corn, wine, oil, and flocks were tithed.

The tithe was taken annually at the sanctuary and shared by priests and Levites.

They had no possession in the land, as did the other 12 tribes (yes, there are a total of 13), יהוה was their portion.

So the tithe, that was given to יהוה; was given to the Levites, so that they could do the work of service in the tabernacle~/temple.

According to (Numbers 18:21-32), every tithe in Israel was given to the Levites in return for their priestly service; so the tithe was used to support the Levites.

(Deuteronomy 26:12) says that every third year, the Levites, foreigners, orphans, and widows were to be given the whole tithe in charity.

So the tithe was a tax imposed on the nation of Israel, a tax used to fund the tabernacle~/temple worship system.

Now USA imposes a tax that is used to fund education and welfare and foreign aid – all good and noble things of which I may approve.

But I do not pay that tax!

It is not exacted from me as a legal requirement because I am not American.

However, I do have a legal obligation to pay taxes to the NZ government.

Now, I am not a Jew or an Israelite; furthermore there is no temple worship system in place with Levites – I do not pay that tax.

We do not financially support the Levites, unless we buy their jeans.

Some people say that tithing was and OT thing not in the NT.

It was in the NT – Paul would have tithed, because he was a Jew; but Titus would not, because he was a Gentile.

So are you under a legal requirement to pay the tithe?

Let me give a clear and unequivocal answer: “No!”

But can we rob God?

Most assuredly – and not just money: our time, our devotion, the worship that is due to Him – and above all the glory that is due to Him. [*Romans 3:23*/ //for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,/] – that is the essence of sin – we fail to give יהוה the glory that is His due.

We rob Him of His glory!

I am doing it all the time!

You see that there is a consequence for robbing God: *[P]* “/You are cursed with a curse, for you are robbing Me, the whole nation of you!/” [v.9].

We are the losers if we fail to give to God because the result is a curse.

The curse means that we will have less than if we gave.

*[P]* Instead of prosperity there was leanness – they would work their fields but encounter frustration – there was a destroyer at work: the fruit of the ground was destroyed and the vines cast their grapes.

But if they repented, brought in the tithe that they were withholding then the blessing would flow again.

*[P]* יהוה encourages them to do some elementary science, to run a controlled experiment.

Try it and see – bring in the tithes and see whether what they have increases or decreases.

It sounds back-to-front to human reasoning: if you give away you are bound to have less.

But יהוה says try it and see whether it works.

His principle is the more you keep for yourself the less you have and the more you give away the more you have.