I'd like to direct your attention
this morning to the Old Testament book of Malachi. It's the last
book in the Old Testament, chapter 1. Malachi chapter 1. The book of Malachi, in four
short chapters, declares the love that God had for His people
Israel. Yet, in this book, God takes
great issue with Israel, His people, for they neglected to
honor the Lord in all that was due Him. To neglect the giving
of honor and the glory of God. To neglect it. To not give credit
where credit is due in the matter of redemption is to rob God. And we see the importance of
God's warnings. God's communion, communications,
and fellowship to his people since it was almost 400 years
before the Lord ever spoke to his people again. After Malachi
the prophet said his last word, it was 400 years before God ever
spoke to his people again. 400 years of silence. 400 years without a word from
God. Had God forsaken his people? God forbid. God will never forsake
those whom he gave to Christ before time ever was, never. He said, I will never leave you
nor forsake you. Now, never with me doesn't mean
much, but never with God means everything. I will never, ever
never leave you nor forsake you. Those whom God loved, called
and redeemed can be certain that he'll never, ever forsake them. Now God's love and mercy and
grace to his people is only in Christ. We say that all the time.
There's no love for any sinner apart from the Lord Jesus Christ. Don't ever, ever forget that.
That's the message of God in both the New and the Old Testament
Scriptures. And there's only one way that
God will accept a sinner. I hear sinners talking a lot
about accepting God. The Scriptures doesn't use that
kind of language. It talks about His acceptance of us. There's
only one way that God will create life in a dead sinner in Christ. It's the only way. There's only
one way that God will put away the sin of a sinner. And that
one way is in Christ. Tommy and I were talking about
this last Sunday. God doesn't forgive sin. God punishes sin. You see, if
you're saved, if you're redeemed, it's only because God punished
your sin in and on the Lord Jesus Christ. If God punished your
sin in and on Christ, then your sin has been put away and God
remembers it no more. I used to say that being justified
was just as if I'd never sinned. I liked that. And to some degree,
I know what folks mean when they say that. And I know what I meant
when I used to say it. But really, that's not correct.
Being justified is not just as if I'd never sinned. Being justified is I've never
sinned. Not just as if I hadn't. I've
never sinned. Why? Because Christ took my sin
upon Himself. And He died the just for the
unjust. And He put away my sin forever.
And God remembers it no more. Oh, can you rejoice with me on
that? God doesn't remember your sin
anymore, child of God. You don't have any. Not in God's
eyes. God didn't put our sin on a shelf in storage somewhere. We can't hardly get in our garage
because we've got shelves full of stuff. God don't just put
something up on a shelf to maybe run across it again some other
time. No, He puts our sin away by the sacrifice of Himself.
In Christ, our sins and our iniquities, God doesn't remember. And this
book of God has to do with Christ, the Just One, as I said, dying
for the unjust so that He might bring His people to God. And He's going to bring them
justified. Justified. If He brings me to
God, He's going to bring me to God perfect, without spot, without
blemish, without any such thing. Why? Because I must be perfect
to be accepted. God accepts nothing less. Any attempt to approach God in
any other way than in and by and through the Lord Jesus Christ,
the perfect one, is an attempt to rob God of His glory. So let me ask you, are you robbing
God of His glory? Are you robbing God? That's what
the book of Malachi is all about. That's what the entire Word of
God is all about. It's about the glory of God in
all things. The glory of God. God created
this world for His own glory. God put man upon this earth to
worship Him, to glorify Him in all things. God created all things
for His own namesake. He didn't create this for you,
He created it for Himself. You're just the recipient of
His grace and His love and His mercy. It's all about how God
loves His chosen only in Christ. It's all about how God saves
His people. It's only in Christ. And God
gets all the glory. All of it. All the glory, all
the praise and the thanksgiving and the redemption of those that
He gave to Christ before the foundation of the world to redeem.
This book is about the sacrifice and substitution of the Lamb
of God who voluntarily sacrificed and substituted Himself. And
He gets all the glory. And shouldn't He? Shouldn't He? I've never had a worldly debt
that I haven't been able to pay. I've had some debt that I paid
off quickly, and I've had some other debt that just lingered
for a while. I had some bills that I struggled
to pay. I have a few bills that I still
pay. But so far, I've been able to pay them all. But friends,
there's a debt that I owe God that I cannot pay. It's a great
debt. A great debt. I don't have the
ability to pay it. Until God intervened and shined
his light of grace upon me, I had no willingness to pay it. I had
no ability nor willingness to pay it. There was a time that
I didn't think that I owed God a debt. And I was endeavoring
to rob God. But now I see how much I owe. And it's an insurmountable amount. It's a great debt that I can
never pay. I can't pay it. Yet God the Son paid that debt
for me. Should I get any credit or glory
in it? Should anybody pat me on the back and say, job well
done? What did I do but enjoy the freedom that came from Him
paying my debt? And I'm telling you, the true
child of God doesn't desire any glory. They just don't. Now I
know by nature we all do to some degree. But the child of God
desires Christ, no glory. The saved sinner is happy for
Christ to receive all the glory. For the sinner to seek any glory
for self is pure apostasy. And several times in the book
of Malachi, God warns His people, but it seems as they don't listen.
Do we ever listen? We're so hard headed, aren't
we? And God will tell us something in these verses and then God
says, yet you say. We're too busy talking to listen.
And that's where we get in trouble. It doesn't matter what we say.
It doesn't matter what we think. All that matters is what God
says and what God thinks. What we say only reveals our
sin and our ignorance. Now look at Malachi chapter 1. Look at verse 2. We'll just start
there. Verse 2, my first point is by nature we despise God's
love in Christ. We want to merit God's love,
don't we? That's just instilled in every
one of us. We want to do something that we might be saved. We want
to do something to deserve His love and affection for us. We
despise the fact that God loves Christ and sinners only in Him.
And this is the attitude that we inherited by our fall into
sin until God came and changed us and made us a new creature.
Our minds, the scripture says, are enmity against God. Hostile
towards God. Our hearts are deceitful and
desperately wicked. And only God can know them. We
can't even know our own heart. Now look at this closely. Verse
1 tells us that this is a burden. And that word burden here means
a prophecy, a tribute. This is a prophecy of the word
of the Lord. And notice that it's spoken to
Israel. God's chosen nation. It was spoken by Malachi, God's
chosen servant. And it was the Word of God Himself. And then in verse 2, God through
His prophet says, I have loved you. My, shouldn't we just shut
up and bask in that? God says I've loved you. Me? You love me, God? I have loved
you, saith the Lord. And then there's those three
words. Yet ye say, wherein hast thou loved us? God says, I've
loved you. I've shown you favor. I've done well by you. Yet we
say, what's so special about your love? Wherein hast thou
loved us? What ingratitude is displayed
by questioning God's love? In verse two, God asks this. He said, was not Esau Jacob's
brother, saith the Lord, yet I loved Jacob. Now this is the
point that God is making in this verse. There's nothing, what
God is saying is there's nothing in either Jacob or Esau to love. You ask wherein hast thou loved
us? Here's God's answer, and He answers
with a question. God says, do you remember Esau?
Was not Esau Jacob's brother? Were they not twin brothers? Did they not have the same mother
and father? Neither of them having done any
good or evil that the purpose of God, according to election,
the election of God's grace might stand, not of works, but of him
that calleth? You see, God did the choosing.
God did the calling. God does the drawing. God does
the saving. And God does the keeping. Who
gets all the glory? God does. Do you dare rob God? Yet you say, wherein hast thou
loved us? God says, yet I love Jacob. God
loved Jacob when there was nothing in Jacob to love. I'm telling
you, there was everything in him to hate, but nothing in him
to love. And that describes me pretty
well. Now those of you that have been
able to be with us on Wednesdays in our studies of Genesis, I
think those studies have proven very convincingly that Jacob
was a no good scoundrel. We've been looking at Jacob for
some time now. And you and I, by nature, are
all Jacobs. We're all deceivers. By nature,
we're all faithless wretches. Yet God says He loves us. And then we have the nerve to
ask, wherein hast thou loved us? God tells us how He loves
us here by telling us why He shouldn't. Do you see that? Notice
verse 3, God says, and I hated Esau. You and I deserve the same
or worse than Esau got. God loves us when there was nothing
in us to love. God says, I hated Esau, and you're
no different than him. And I love Jacob, and you're
no different than him. You see, salvation, the love
of God is His discretion. You've not chosen me, but I've
chosen you. Paul wrote, Jacob have I loved,
but Esau have I hated, quoting Old Testament scripture. And
folks say, well, how could God hate Esau? And you and I say,
how could God love Jacob? You tell people that God sovereignly
distinguishes between one sinner and another? And I'm telling
you, unless God has done a work of grace in their hearts, folks
get upset. You tell folks that God loves
one and not another and they'll cry, well, that's not right.
That's not fair. Please hear me when I say this.
Mercy and grace, the mercy and grace of God have nothing to
do with being fair. Mercy and grace are unconditional. Mercy and grace are distinguishing. They're at God's discretion.
God gives mercy and grace to whom He wills. It doesn't have
anything to do with being fair. has everything to do with His
choice. Now by nature we despise, secondly,
God's name. The name of God, which is Father. Look down at verse 6. It says,
A son honoreth his father, and a servant his master. If then
I be a father, this is God speaking, where is my honor? Where's mine
honor? And if I be a master, where is
my fear? Now God says that a loving son
honors his father, and a loving son does. Many call God their
father, but they don't honor him as their father. Many worship
God with their lips, the Lord Jesus said, but their hearts
are far from me. God says a servant honors his
master. And many call Jesus Lord, but
they don't bow to him as Lord. Many say unto Him, Lord, Lord,
but then they add, haven't we? Haven't we? They're robbing God
of His glory. Are you robbing God of His glory?
The Scripture calls Him God the Father. The Bible refers to Him
as Master of all. Yet God says here in verse 6,
if then I be a Father, where's my honor? And if I be a Master,
where's my fear? To not acknowledge God as Father,
to not acknowledge Christ as Master, to not give honor to
the Father and the Son is an atrocious act of robbing God. Are you robbing God? If you don't
fear and honor Him as the Eternal Father and Master of all, you
are. Thirdly, we despise Christ the
living bread. The bread we offer is polluted. Look at verse seven. God says,
ye offer polluted bread upon mine altar. Our works of righteousness,
and let me rephrase that, our work of self-righteousness is
nothing less than polluted bread. It's like leavened bread. It's
no different than Cain's offering of the work of his hands. God
will only accept the blood sacrifice that Abel brought. Why? Without
the shedding of blood, there's no remission of sin. And where
remission is found, there's no more offering for sin. God says,
you've offered me a polluted sacrifice. Anything and everything
about you and I is polluted. Do we dare offer a work of righteousness
that we do? Look again at verse 7, and ye
say, and there are those words again, wherein have we polluted
thee? Aren't we so ignorant? When have
we polluted anything? How did we offer polluted bread
upon your altar? When we didn't offer Christ,
who is the bread of life. That's when. He's the only acceptable
sacrifice. Now do we dare offer a work of
self-righteousness that we've done? I'm telling you to do so
is an attempt to rob God of His glory. Are you robbing God? Look down at verse 13. Yet said
also, behold, what a weariness is it And you have snuffed at
it, saith the Lord of hosts. And you have brought that which
was torn, and the lame, and the sick. Thus you brought an offering. Should I accept this of your
hand, saith the Lord?" He said, you've wearied me with these
things. Fourth thing, we've wearied God
with our words. Look at chapter 2 here. Verse
17. The Lord says, you've wearied
the Lord with your words. Isn't it our words that reveal
our heart? Out of the abundance of the heart,
the mouth speaketh. Here in chapter 2, God's talking
to the priests who were neglecting their responsibilities. And I'm
telling you, there are many so-called preachers today who are neglecting
their responsibility to tell the truth about God. Speaking
to the priest, God tells him straight up. He said, you've
wearied me. You've caused me to labor with
your words. Yet ye say, there it is again. Yet ye say, well, wherein have
we wearied him? How have we wearied him? How
have we wearied Him? God, how have we wearied you?
And God answers in this verse, and He says, When ye say, Every
one that doeth evil is good in the sight of the Lord, and that
the Lord delighteth in them, or where is the God of judgment? Every one that doeth evil is
good in the sight of the Lord, is what ye say. God says, you
weary me when you call these evil ones good. You weary me
when you say that I delight in them. You weary me when you think
that any man or woman can be good when there is none good
but God. Isn't that what Christ told that
rich young ruler? Why callest thou me good? There
is none good but one. That's God. And in verse 17,
folks say, well, where is the God of judgment? Answer, he hides
himself from the religion of this world, the religious of
this world. A God who loves everybody. Now listen, a God who loves everybody,
a God that men claims to love everybody. Let me say it that
way, is prevalent in this world today. The God of judgment is
non-existent to them because everyone thinks that He loves
them. You don't hear anything from most pulpits about the wrath,
the judgment, and the holiness of God. You'll hear a lot about
the love of God, the grace of God, the mercy of God, but you
won't hear a lot about the judgment, the wrath, the holy justice of
God that He pours out upon sin. You just don't. Where is the
God of judgment? Well, men asked David, where's
your God? And David said, my God's in the
heavens. And He's done whatsoever He's
pleased. My God is God. He's on the throne. He's working all things after
the counsel of His own will. Is heaven where your God is?
Is your God doing whatsoever He's pleased? Or are you going
to try to rob God of His glory? This book of Malachi is about
apostasy. It's about the abandonment of
God. It's about the renunciation of
faith. Look at chapter three. Look at
verse seven. Even from the days of your fathers,
ye are gone away from mine ordinances and have not kept them. This
is about the abandonment of God. This is about renouncing faith
in the Word of God. This is about apostasy. It's
about leaving the God that folks claim to know and love. Did you
notice what the Lord of Hosts says? His words are ones of mercy
and forgiveness in spite of this apostasy. He says, return unto
Me, and I'll return unto you, saith the Lord of hosts. What
words of mercy and grace and longsuffering. God doesn't return
to us because we return to Him. This has to be read and understood
backwards. When God returns to us, then
we return unto Him. And you know how I know that?
Because of what John said about God's love. John said we love
Him, we love God, because He first loved us. That sets the
precedent in all that God does. God is the first cause of all
things. Everything else is secondary.
God says, yea, I have loved thee with an everlasting love, therefore,
because of that, with loving kindness have I drawn you. He's
the first cause of our love to Him. But we've wearied God with
our words. And God says something to us
in the way of rebuke, and immediately God quickly says, yet you say. Yet you say. Yet you say. Chapter 3, verse 7 again. Return unto Me, and I'll return
unto you, saith the Lord of hosts. But ye said, wherein shall we
return? We say, well, we never left God.
We can't return if we never left. Where in shall we return? God
says, I'll return to you, forgive you, have mercy on you, and then
you open your big mouth and reason and excuse it away. Oh, that
every mouth may be stopped and become guilty before God. A mouth
that is talking is not a guilty before God mouth. When are we
going to just take sides with God against ourselves? A guilty
mouth is stopped and shut by God. One who gives excuses for
their sin has yet to be saved. I'm telling you that's so. You
won't have much to say when you stand guilty before God. What
are you going to say? The question of the hour is,
will a man rob God? Verse 8. Look at it with me.
Chapter 3. Will a man rob God? Now isn't
it improbable that a man would rob God? Isn't it impossible
to rob God? Well, must not be, men do. And
don't we read here, will a man rob God? God says, yet ye have
robbed me. But ye say, wherein have we robbed
thee? Now that's the question I want
to deal with just for a few minutes. Wherein have we robbed thee?
Well, God immediately says, in tithes and in offerings. But
I want you to listen to me closely on this. This is a passage of
scripture that this religious world uses to shame men and women
and to give them money, more money. Why, you dare rob God? How do you rob God? In tithes
and in offerings. But believe me when I tell you
that this is referring to much, much, much more than just that. This refusal to give to the work
of the ministry reveals a much bigger problem and issue that's
found in the heart. You see, all that we have is
a gift from God, is it not? Man says, well, I get up every
day and work. I work hard. Who gave you the
health? Who gave you the job? Who gave
you the ability? God did. It's His gift to you.
All grace, all faith is God's gift to His people. You're saved
by grace through faith. That's not of yourselves. It's
a gift of God. It's not by works, lest any man
should boast. Every talent we have. God has
given. Every single one. Every possession
we have belongs to Him. All that I possess, He has entrusted
unto me for His work, unto His glory. And any refusal to give
all that we have to God, not just 10%, not just 10%, reveals a deeper, more wretched
issue found in these hearts of ours. Have you figured out yet
that God doesn't need your money? But we need to give. I don't
know if any of you remember, but I forget how long ago it
was now, but I remember very vividly. Oral Roberts announced
one day, you remember Oral Roberts. Oral Roberts announced one day
that if he didn't raise $8 million, I think was the total, that God
was going to kill him. God's going to kill him. God
don't hold men and women hostage. God doesn't need Oral Roberts'
money. God says if I was hungry, I wouldn't
tell you. God owns the cattle on a thousand
hills. He don't need my milk money.
The giving of our money doesn't benefit God, friends. Our giving
benefits us. How so? Because God loves a cheerful
giver. I guess it was about three years
ago now, we stopped taking up an offering and we put a box
in the back of the church so folks could quietly give. And
when we put that box up and stopped taking up an offering each Sunday,
there was a concern with some that maybe that wasn't a good
idea, thinking that maybe offerings would decrease. And you know
what? I don't believe that anyone who attends here regularly stopped
giving at all. You see, God's people will give.
They just will. You don't have to force them.
You won't have to shame them. You won't have to entice them.
You won't have to bring a message each week on tithing and offerings
and how a man robs God when they don't give. They'll give. Recently someone who started
attending here asked me how I could give since we didn't take up
an offering. Obviously, giving to the cause of Christ was important
to that man. You see, God's people give. That's
the point I'm trying to make. And failure to give is more of
a love issue. Failure to give is a trust issue. We say that we trust God with
our immortal souls, but we don't trust Him with our bank accounts.
And I have to say oh me on this one instead of amen. Oh, I'm
telling you. to Christ and trust Him. Because
lack of love and lack of trust in God is to rob Him of His sovereignty. Are you robbing God? Do you believe
that He's able to do exceeding, abundantly above all that you
can think or ask? I can think some pretty big things. He can do exceeding, abundantly
above all that you and I can think or ask. And as I said earlier,
to rob someone is a strong accusation. You know, to steal is a bad thing.
But to rob? Oh, that's worse, isn't it? It's
to take something by force or threat. Robbed at gunpoint. Oh my, it's one thing for someone
just to steal something of yours, but to rob you? What a violation! How do we rob God? Well, I want
to give you just a few quick ways in closing. We rob God of
worship. Do we dare rob God of what He
deserves? He deserves our worship. He deserves
our praise. He deserves our thanksgiving.
He put away our sin by the sacrifice of Himself. Oh my, shouldn't
we worship Him? Shouldn't we? While we were yet
sinners, Christ died for the ungodly. Is He not worthy of
our worship, praise, and thanksgiving? Will you rob Him of that? Are
you attributing your spiritual prosperity to being a lucky person? Are you thanking your lucky stars
that God saved you? Oh, you're robbing God. You're
robbing God. Or are you worshiping God? Are
you thanking Him and praising Him for His mercy? If you're
not, then you're robbing Him. We rob him of his thanksgiving
and praise. My, when men and women prosper
in the world, most of them pay homage to themselves. You've
heard the phrase, and so have I. They call themselves self-made
men and women. Self-made men and women. Mr.
Spurgeon said that self-made men and women are, as a rule,
very badly made. That's true. When a sinner begins
to brag and boast about what he's done, he robs God of the
honor due to Christ alone. Are you robbing God? Your sin
will find you out. We rob God of His doctrine, of
His teaching. We make ourselves way too big,
and we make God way too small. John the Baptist said, I must
decrease, he must increase. Boy, that's good advice. Let's
do that. If you believe that Christ died
for everyone, and yet sinners wind up in hell, then you're
robbing God of the faithful and true teaching of His Word. We're
declaring Christ to be a failure. We're calling God a liar. And the Scripture says, let God
be true, and every man a liar. In other words, we're robbing
God when we do. And we rob God of His time. You
know, by nature, we don't have much time for God, do we? We
really don't. We have two services here a week.
Well, three if you count both hours on Sunday. At the most,
that's three hours that we give of our time. Three hours a week
to come and worship. Now we should worship God all
the time. You don't have to be at church
to worship God, you know that? We ought to worship Him all the
time. But by nature we just don't have time for God. God's people
don't work God around their lives. God's people work their lives
around the worship of God. God's people have If you don't
have any interest in worshiping God, if you have no desire to
come and praise and thank Him, if you have no interest in hearing
His Word, if you have no interest in growing in grace and in the
knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ, then I'm telling you, you're
robbing God of the time that He deserves. There are just so
many ways that we can rob God of what is due Him. But let me
give you the gospel news, and it's in this. Look at verse 15. This is what's done for the proud
sinner that's found in Christ alone. Verse 15 of chapter 3. And now, God says, and now we
call the proud happy. Happy is the same word as we
saw in our study of the Beatitudes. It's the same word as blessed.
It means the same Hebrew and Greek word for happy is blessed. And now God calls the proud blessed. God once called us proud. Pride
is the first thing mentioned on that list of the things that
God hates. But now He calls this proud man
blessed. Look what else he says. Yea,
they that work wickedness are set up. What does that mean?
Well, I once laid upon the dunghill of sin and despair, but God has
lifted up. He set up the wicked beggar from
the dunghill and set him among princes. I suppose the greatest
grace of all is this. Yea, they that tempt God are
even delivered." Do you see that? Isn't that the gospel? You know,
I tempted and robbed God when I would not worship Him and all
that He had done for me. I tempted and robbed God when
I failed to praise and thank Him for His love and His mercy
and His grace and the salvation of my soul. I tempted and robbed
God when I would not give Him my all. But now, this robber
who tempted God has been delivered by the power, the mercy, and
the grace of God who gave Himself for me. And you know what? I
couldn't be happier. I couldn't be happier about it. Will you rob God?