We started our BaptistWay Bible Series “Restoring the Future” back in March. It’s been a quick trip through the stories of the prophets in the time following the Jews’ Babylonian exile. Remember what landed them into exile after being conquered? They broke covenant with the Lord—repeatedly. He used their defeat and exile as punishment for their behavior.
It was a hard road back for the freed Jews as they sought to restore their future, a future that continued their place as God’s chosen people living under his authority. Now, in the final installment of the series, wouldn’t it be great to see the series end on a hopeful note, with their restored future with God looking bright?
Unfortunately, it is not to be. As we end our series with the final two chapters of Malachi, we find God delivering an indictment against his people that is so harsh it seems there is no hope for the nation of Israel.
Context
Our lessons from the Book of Malachi have focused on three of the six major indictments and their responses around which the book is organized. The Book of Malachi deals with the continuing reality of the people’s failure to respond to God and live as God’s covenant people. The book’s six indictments are a frank discussion that highlights the lack of responsibility of the people of God for their worship practices and behavior. The indictments take the form of 13 questions posed by God and, in the fashion of a people devoid of responsibility, God doesn’t receive answers, but 13 questions from the people that bear a sense of a big corporate, “Who, us?”
This week’s focal passage contains God’s fifth indictment on the people as he accuses them of “robbing” him through their refusal to bring in a tithe of their harvest as a temple offering. More than a warning to give God a tenth of the returns on their labor, it really is an accusation that the people are refusing to repent of their self-centered behavior and follow God’s rule in their lives.
By failing to act in a God-honoring way, the Jews are falling short of God’s teachings, and actions that fall short of God’s expectations indicate repentance is needed. It’s a good question for all of us, too: What do our actions indicate about our relationship to God?
More to the point for this lesson, when we reflect on our own lives and identify areas that indicate a need to repent, will we discover just how willing we are to give of our material resources to God’s mission?
A need to repent and follow
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Our focal passage starts in Malachi 3:6. As noted last week, verse 6 is a great window into the nature of God. It’s a beautiful declaration of God’s preserving nature in the lives of the Jews—and in our lives, too: "For I, the Lord, do not change, therefore you, O sons of Jacob, are not consumed." It’s a reminder that the God of justice is the only thing standing between Israel and destruction.
But the unwavering nature of God is a nature that calls for God-worshippers to unwaveringly follow his commands. In verses 8-12, God delivers his fifth indictment on the people. The charge doesn’t get much simpler than God states in verse 8: “Will a man rob God? Yet you are robbing Me! But you say, ‘How have we robbed thee?’ In tithes and offerings.”
Robbing God is an offense not a lot of us can comprehend. Isn’t everything God’s anyway? How can someone, or even a nation, as God further charges in verse 9, rob the King of the universe? While robbery is a simple charge, the meaning behind it is much more grand. By not bringing an offering that represents a tenth of their proceeds, their harvest, the people are not robbing God of what is his as much as they are unrepentantly disobeying his laws that are clear on the tithe.
The tithe was a part of deuteronomic law that did have practical side. The tithe was brought into the temple to feed the Levites and the needy—widows, orphans and the destitute. But more than practicality, it was God’s command.
The result of the unrepentant behavior, God tells them in verse 8, is that the nation is cursed. The context here and in the rest of our focal passage seems to indicate the curse has come in the form of a physical curse on the land, perhaps drought or some kind of pestilence like locusts that is affecting the people’s ability to produce food.
‘Put me to the test’
After God informs the Jews about why they are cursed, he delivers a surprising and unusual challenge: if the people bring their tithes into the temple storehouse, he will “open for you the windows of heaven and pour out for you a blessing until it overflows” (v. 10).
How do we interpret this test? Does this mean that if we tithe, God will abundantly bless us in the material realm? No, God was using this test to teach those living under the Old Covenant that they must honor the law for God’s blessings to flow. As New Covenant believers, we are given a different code of giving, one that requires us to give faithfully and cheerfully to meet the needs of others (Luke 6:38; 2 Corinthians 8:12, 9:6-7).
An image of wrath
While outside our focal passage, it is worthy to note that God delivers his sixth indictment against the people in the following verses, accusing them of arrogant words against him, a sign that the people are not fully cognizant of God’s authority and power.
It is an indictment that leads into the final chapter of Malachi, a vision of a day of judgment, full of images of vengeance on those who have not followed God’s ways as well as reward for those who have. God promises he will send the prophet Elijah before the judgment, to restore the hearts of fathers to their children, and children to fathers. This restoration of the family would prevent a curse being placed on the people.
Questions to explore
• Looking back over the entire series, “Restoring the Future,” it seems the children of Israel were repeating the same behaviors toward God that landed them in exile in the first place. What lessons do we learn from the series?
• What did we learn about the nature of God and how he used prophets to carry out his will? Are there modern-day prophets?
• Looking at this lesson, what did we learn about giving? Is the Old Testament tithe still a viable method of giving?
• Review your gifts to God. How could you improve or revise your giving?
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