We are in Malachi chapter three,
and we have arrived here a lot quicker
than I thought we would. And we were just in Genesis just
a few weeks ago, right? I mean, it seems that's been
that fast to me anyways. We've had about 140, 150 messages
I've preached to you. And so it's mind boggling to
see how fast time flies, but yet the Lord has not left us
to ourselves. That's the encouragement, isn't
it? Now the burden of the word unto Malachi is 55 verses. I mentioned this on Wednesday
night, but of the 55 verses that are in this book, 47 of them
are God speaking. So the Lord does a lot of speaking
through Malachi. Malachi's name means God's messenger. That's the definition of his
name, God's messenger. And it should be so with every
gospel preacher. Every man that stands in the
pulpit that says they're called of the Lord should deliver the
Lord's message, period. Should be nothing added to it,
should be nothing taken away from it. And so I hope that's
what we do this morning. God continually tells the people
of Judah, He says, I say unto you, but you say unto me. And
so we see a continual rebuttal from the children of Israel.
The Lord said, I said this, but you're saying this. And we're
going to read this, but He says, I say return unto me, but you
say, wherewith shall we return? What are we doing wrong? And
everything that they were told they were doing wrong, they were
making excuses for, they were justifying themselves. Repentance was the last word
from God in Malachi. He says, turn unto me and I'll
turn unto you. Repentance. For 400 years, the Lord was silent
from Malachi to Matthew. The very last words that were
spoken in the Old Testament were that of the gospel, repent and
believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. That's repentance and faith,
isn't it? When the New Testament, the very first message that came
from the last prophet, John the Baptist, was the same, repent,
for the kingdom of God is at hand. The Lord's message doesn't
change, does it? 400 years is a long time. Cultures
can change in less time than that. We've saw that in our society,
haven't we, over the course of our life. And so the message
doesn't change though, does it? The message is the same because
Christ is the same. There's actually only two prophets
in the New Testament. It's John the Baptist, and we
know Christ was God's prophet. So Christ is the end of the prophets.
Malachi was the last in the Old Testament. John the Baptist was
the last in the New Testament, and they all had the same message.
From Genesis to Revelation, it is Christ Jesus and him crucified.
Now let's read Malachi chapter three, and we're gonna start
at verse seven and read through the remainder of the chapter. Even from the days of your fathers,
You are gone away from mine ordinances and have not kept them. Return
unto me, return unto me, and I will return unto you, saith
the Lord of hosts. But you say, wherein shall we
return? Will a man rob God? Yet you have
robbed me. But you say, wherewith have we
robbed thee? In tithes and offerings. You are cursed with a curse,
for you have robbed me, even this whole nation. Bring you
all the tithes into the storehouse, that there may be meat in my
house, and prove me now herewith, saith the Lord of hosts, if I
will not open you the windows of heaven and pour out a blessing,
that there shall not be room enough to receive it. And I will
rebuke the devourer for your sake, and he shall not destroy
the fruits of your ground, neither shall your vine cast her fruit
before thy time in the field, saith the Lord of hosts. And
all nations shall call you blessed, for you shall be a delightsome
land, saith the Lord. For your words have been stout
against me, saith the Lord, yet you say, what have we spoken
so much against thee? You have said it is vain to serve
God, and what profit is it that we keep his ordinances and that
we have walked mournfully before the Lord of hosts? And now we
call the proud happy. Yea, they that work wickedness
are set up. Yea, they that tempt God are even delivered. Then
they that feared the Lord spake often one to another, and the
Lord hearkened and heard it. and a book of remembrance was
written before him for them that feared the Lord and that thought
upon his name. And they shall be mine, saith
the Lord of hosts. In the day when I make up my
jewels, I will spare them as a man spareth his own son that
serveth him. Then shall ye return and discern
between righteous and the wicked, between him that serveth God
and him that serveth him not." The message is simple. The message
is clear, returning to me, returning to me. And then he tells them,
your words have been stout against me, yet they justify themselves
a second time. They were thinking they had everything
right. And you and I have that same problem by nature, don't
we? Men don't like to be wrong. We were talking in the men's
study about some of the men had some issues getting here in the
vehicle they were in because somebody was rude to them. And
it was, uh, it's that's, that's how we are. I mean, and Max spoke
up and said, well, it's my road. I said, if you get out of the
way, and that's how we are, isn't it? I, by nature, that's just,
we it's, it's me, it's mine. It's, it's us. And that's what
the Lord's correcting here with these children of Israel. The
Lord says, it ain't about you. return unto me. There's salvation in
that. Return unto me. Don't look at
yourself. Don't think too highly of yourself,
and we certainly do. And what mercy in the Lord not
leaving us to ourselves, thinking we have everything right. I've titled this message, True
Repentance. I had it titled, Returning to
Me, but the Lord gave me a different title, True Repentance. True
Repentance. When the Lord speaks the truth,
either we repent or we rebel. It's that simple. When we hear
the truth of the Lord, we either repent or we rebel. We either bow up against God
or we bow to God. And bow and bow are spelled the
exact same, aren't they? B-O-W. And it's all by grace.
If we bow, it's all by grace because we will bow against everything
that he says by our natural man. That's just how we are. The believer
only repents because it is bestowed. Repentance is a gift. Repentance
is a gift. And repentance is not a one-time
thing, is it? It's not something that we have
checked off and we say, okay, well, I repented that one time.
I took care of that. We're good. No, repentance is
daily, isn't it? Paul said, I die daily. Talking about crucifying the
flesh. What does he mean? We repented daily. Siding with
God against ourselves daily, seeing, oh, I am the man. I am
the woman that's wrong. Lord, have mercy on me, the sinner.
I thought too highly of myself again. What grace in the Lord
not leaving us to ourself. What mercy in him speaking to
us. What greater honor is there than
seeing Christ in salvation? What greater blessing is there
than seeing the Lord Jesus Christ high and lifted up, having successfully
redeemed his people and resting in that. That's what we want
to see. I get tired of seeing myself,
don't you? I get tired of going through
the motions of life and then being left to myself briefly
just enough where I fall flat on my face and just running back
to the Lord again. This whole flesh is just enmity
against God, isn't it? We need repentance. We need repentance
now, every second, every moment of every day. Now, among others, God deals
with a very specific issue of tithing and offerings. Tithing
and offerings. Look at verse eight again with
me. Will a man rob God yet ye have robbed me. But ye say, where
have we robbed thee? In tithes and offerings. Ye are
cursed with the cursed, for ye have robbed me. Even this whole
nation. Bring you all the tithes into
the storehouse, that there may be meat in mine house. And prove
me now herewith, saith the Lord of hosts. And I will not open
you, and I will open you the windows of heaven and pour you
out a blessing, that there shall not be room enough to receive
it. Now men use these verses in false
religion to declare unto men and women their obligation and
their responsibility in tithes and offerings, in giving physically.
And certainly this has a physical meaning, but it has a spiritual
meaning too. And I would not be of, I would not be, I'd be
a disservice. That's what it would be if I
didn't mention both because it's clear right here. Both of these
are clear. The question is, will God rob Or will man rob God? Can man rob God? God owns everything. How's a man going to rob God?
But he says, but you robbed me. How? In tithes and an offering. Well, let's look at the physical
first. First thing I want to tell us is God's people don't
tithe. They give. There's a big difference. Tithe is an obligation based
upon the Levitical law. Tithe is something that is required
that people do out of obligation. Lord's people give. They give
not just money. They give time. They give prayer. We serve one another, don't we?
This is the giving. This is what is honorable in
the Lord's eyes. We never give out of obligation.
We give out of love. We never give out of fear. Men
will use this verse right here, and they'll make men afraid.
They'll say, if you don't give unto the Lord your money, the
Lord will do this, or the Lord will do that. No, if you don't
want to give, don't give. That's my message this morning.
If the Lord hasn't given to your heart to give, your pastor is
not going to look at you and say, oh, you better be giving.
You better be doing. No, that's not what we're going
to do. No, the Lord's given us a heart to give. but not for
salvation. Men will use these verses and
say that you have to give as part of your salvation, as evidence
for yourself. It's not true. That's just not
true. No, we don't give because we
have to, not out of fear, but because we've been given peace
and because we get to. Only the Lord's people can give
with the heart of thanksgiving. You know, we don't give for a
blessing, do we? We're not trying to obligate God. Well, Lord,
I've given you this and I've given you that. And now this
has come upon me. That's not fair. No, we don't. Christ is
the blessing. Christ is the blessing, isn't
he? Paul said, I've showed you all these things. How that so
laboring you ought to support the weak and remember the words
of the Lord Jesus, how he said it is more blessed to give than
to receive. We give because we've received,
we've received of him and who do we give to? We give to the
Lord's people, don't we? We tend to the needs of one another.
This is, this is good. The Lord said, you know, you've
passed from death unto life because you love your brethren. This
is what the Lord's saying. We give our service to each other.
Not to obligate God. Some men give in pride, thinking
that it helps them in salvation, or they think that they're obligating
God to do something for them. That's not what we do. We give
because we love him and each other. Most religionists make giving
a work out of unbelief. But we cannot give anything unto
the Lord. We are on the receiving end only of Him. Everything we
get from the Lord, we receive. What can we give unto Him? That's
the, literally in giving unto Him, poor salvation is the disqualification
for salvation. It's called iniquity. Everything
when it comes to God, he gives to us. And we just receive, we're
just the benefactors of everything that he gives. So whenever the
Lord's saying here, you've robbed me, we're trying to do something
in order to obligate God, or we're trying to do something
in order to make it about ourself or to say, look at me, notice
me. This is what he's saying, that's robbing him. No, Christ
is all in salvation. Christ is all that we hope in
and look to. Christ is, he's all. The only
way that we can approach God is naked and empty. We can't
obligate him. We give nothing to him in salvation. We are only on the receiving
end of that. Isn't that glorious? We just receive. And we just
receive. What are we going to give God?
He owns everything. We just receive Christ. What
blessing is there in that? Salvation is of the Lord. We
constantly are receiving from him. Now, when the Lord talks
about being robbed, he's not talking about money. And I know
he's talking about monetary things here, but there's a two side,
you know, we've We've been over so many things throughout the
scripture, haven't we? Where we know that it's two-sided, it's
spiritual and physical. When the Lord says, you're robbing
me, he's not getting all the glory and salvation. What they're
bringing forth is part of their salvation. And he says, no, you're
robbing me. You're robbing me in tithes and offerings. We don't
offer anything to him for our salvation, do we? No, it's finished. It's finished. Cain thought that he would bring
the fruit of his hands unto the Lord as part of salvation, didn't
he? He brought the best he did, the very best, the very best.
The Lord's people will bring their very best unto him, but
not for salvation. Does that make sense? It's that
simple, really. We don't do it in order for the
Lord to save us. We do it because we've been saved. The Lord already
did it. No, we don't do it to get a crown. I remember a man
talking one time in false religion. He said, you can earn a crown
if you tithe enough. That's stupid. That's not true at all. No, it's false. That's a lie.
That's a lie. No, Christ is the crown to his
people. He's the prize. He's the reward.
He's everything. He's everything. If we hold on
to one thing, then we have self-righteousness and we're robbing God of his
glory. In the scripture in Acts chapter five, there's a man named
Ananias and he has a wife named Sapphira. And Ananias noticed
that a man named Justice has sold a piece of land. And so
the account goes that the disciples and the Lord's people were gathered
together and they that were poor and they that were rich, it basically
was like kind of a socialist. Everybody put all the money into
a pot and everybody took what they needed and nobody was without.
So they that had much didn't have too much and they that didn't
have any had plenty. And so the Lord's people did
that. And that's a picture of what glory is going to be. There'll
never be utopia on the earth where we all put our money in
together. Everybody, that's not going to happen. But in heaven,
that's exactly what it is, isn't it? Christ is all to his people.
We come with nothing and he gives us everything. See, that's the
beautiful picture there. Justice sells a piece of land,
and he gives everything, lays it at the disciples' feet, not
for glory. He was a believer. He did it unto the Lord. Well,
a man saw it, and notice he got attention. His name's Ananias,
so he goes and sells a piece of land, and he keeps back part
of the money. He doesn't give all the money unto the disciples,
but he acts like he does. Soon as he walks up to Peter
and lays it at his feet, the Lord told Peter what had happened,
and Peter said, Ananias, why did you lie to the Holy Spirit?
When the land was yours, it was your land, and when the money
was yours, it was your money, but you've lied unto the Holy Spirit by
holding back. You're trying to look good. You're, you're not
honest. You're not being honest. And
you know what happened to Ananias? He fell over dead on the spot
and they carried him out. Three hours later, his wife,
Sapphira, didn't know what had happened, but she comes in and,
uh, Peter asked him, how much did you sell that piece of land
for? And she tells him a lie. And he says, your husband had
already lied. And so, uh, you've lied to the
Holy spirit as well. Behold the feet of them that
just carried your husband out and buried him. Now they're going
to carry you out and bury you. And she falls over dead. What is
the message here? Is the message, oh, you better
tithe? No, no, we can't be holding on
to anything as our righteousness before the Lord. We can't lie
to him. He knows. He knows if we're robbing him.
Deep down, he knows if we're robbing him in our looking to
Christ. He knows whether we're truly
looking to Christ is all in salvation, or if we're like Ananias, just
pretending and holding on to something else, holding on to
an experience, holding on to what we've done or what we do.
No, don't do it. It's death. It's death, the Lord
says. No, cling to Christ alone. Flee
to him alone. Don't look to yourself. If we
do, it's death. We must, must flee to Christ. coming to Christ must be all
completely emptied. Not lying to ourself and not
lying to God. Can a man really lie to God?
I mean, he can obviously say words in his heart or with his
mouth that is lying, but God knows the truth, doesn't he?
God knows the truth before it's even spoken. So what good is
it going to do to lie? But our deceitful heart is so
good at deceiving us that Men believe that they can deceive
God, that they have a righteousness. It's not true. It's not true. True repentance looks to Christ
completely. True repentance is honest with
the Lord. Honest, that salvation's all
by his hand, all by his doing. And there is nothing I can bring
with my hands that the Lord would be pleased with, that the Lord
would say that he is satisfied with this. I had somebody this week tell
me something that it grieved me. They said, if I believe what
you believe, I'd be condemning my family to hell. If I believe
what you believe, I'd lose my friends and my family. We don't
condemn anybody. We don't condemn anybody. This
individual was holding on to family though. Wasn't wanting
to let go. What did the Lord say? I've come
to set at variance with father and son, daughter and and wife
or mother, and he didn't come to set at variance for any other
reason than he gets all the glory in it. Now he says, come unto
me, and you've got to come naked, and you've got to come alone,
not bearing anything. Come to Christ, flee to him.
Look to him to order and provide. He will rest in him alone. Hide nothing in your heart from
him. Expose, he already knows it. Expose it to him. We must come to Christ empty-handed,
lacking everything. Lacking everything. That's the
only way we're going to receive anything of the Lord is if we confess
that we lack everything. Nothing to offer himself. See,
Ananias was lying to the Spirit. And even though it looked good
unto the men around him, the Holy Spirit knew, no, you have a righteousness
that's not of the Lord. He was robbing God of his glory.
Looking to Christ never robs God. Looking to Christ never
robs from God. That's the message that goes
forth. Look unto Jesus. Looking unto Jesus, the author
and finisher of faith. Looking to Christ never robs
God. Best analogy I can give us is
salvation is this. We have an outstretched hand
towards the Lord because he's given us life and it is completely
empty and we need to be filled. Lord, I have nothing to offer.
Lord, all this that I used to count as good, I now count as
dung. I have no righteousness. Every possession that I have,
Lord, it's yours. It's yours. I've got to have Christ. Here's
my hand. It's empty. I have nothing to
offer unto you. Fill it with Christ. Give me
the bread of life. Give me the manna from heaven,
Lord. Give me the blood. Wash me in his blood. That's
the prayer. That's the hope. Must be empty, completely empty,
naked, having nothing to offer. relinquishing all possessions,
all titles. We become powerless, don't we?
Completely impotent. And that's the only way the Lord
receives us. So if you're ever grieved over your sin and you
see how worthless we are to ourself and how bad we are to ourself,
the good news of the gospel, Christ came to save sinners.
Being a sinner is the qualification. Being empty is the qualification.
Being naked is the qualification. And the Lord has to do it by
giving true repentance. true repentance. There's one
thing we are withholding. If we're clinging to anything
else, then the consequence is death. The consequence is death. But if you're empty, if you're
empty, when the Lord sees that outstretched hand, he sees the
faith of Christ, because that's the only way we'll reach for
Christ is if he's given us faith. He's given us life to be able
to do it and he gives us the faith. He gets all the glory
in this. He sees the faith of Christ and
he says, I'm satisfied with that. I'm satisfied with that faith.
I'm satisfied with that offering. That's what the Lord said, don't
rob me of anything. He gives him all the glory, all
the glory. It's true repentance, isn't it?
through repentance is bestowed upon all he loves. Everyone that
he loves will receive his true repentance. True repentance is
just coming to Christ empty, completely empty, confessing
that we're a dead dog sinner, a dead dog sinner. We often talk
about being a sinner, but I remember what someone said recently. Someone
calls you stupid. Call me stupid. We get angry
about that. But in God's God's standard, God's, and the way
God sees it is the way that it is. In God's eyes, being a sinner
is the most disgusting thing that ever existed. Got to understand
that. So if somebody calls, call me
stupid isn't near as bad as calling me a sinner. And yet that was
what we must confess when we come into him. I'm the sinner.
I'm the chief. I'm worse than they are. I'm
not as good as they are a little bit better than he or she. I'm
the worst of the worst. That's the quality. That's what
true repentance gives. That's what true repentance gives. Paul said, oh, wretched man that
I am, who shall deliver me from this body of death? Lord, have
mercy upon me, the sinner. Have mercy upon me, the sinner.
And the Lord says, what sin? What sin? I've put it away. There's
the gospel, isn't it? Coming to him with nothing, coming
to him knowing that we're nothing but sin, and saying, I have nothing
to offer you, Lord. And he says, you're perfectly
righteous. There is no sin. I've put them
all away. I put them all away by my death, by my blood. And he continually says, come
unto me and I'll give you rest. Return unto me and I'll return
unto you. Draw nigh to God and he will draw nigh to you. How? How do we draw? We come to Christ
through the eyes of faith when he gives true repentance. He will have mercy. He promised
that. He will have mercy. He will abundantly
pardon. Do you know why? Because there's
a place nigh unto him, the cleft of the rock that he put his people
in. When he looks at his son, when he looks at you and I, he
no longer sees the reflection of sinful nature that we are.
He sees the perfect nature of Jesus Christ. He sees Christ
and he's satisfied with Christ. He's pleased with him. I love this thought that God
so loved us, his elect people, that he sent his son to be the
propitiation for them. The father really, really loves
you, his people. Can you enter into that? He loved
you when you were dead in trespasses and in sin. He elected you before
the foundation of the world in love. That's what compelled him
to do it. He's God. He loves me. He loves you. How? How can that be? Christ Jesus
has made us perfectly righteous in his eyes. Every time he sees
us, he sees the blood and he declares perfect, perfect. And we don't want to rob God
of any of that glory, do we? He said, you've robbed me of
your tithes and offering. No, Lord, I'm not offering you
anything of myself for my salvation. Lord, I must have Christ. This
is the offering wherewith your people's pleased with because
the father's pleased with. Christ proved his love to his
father, honoring him unto death. God proved his love to his people
by offering up his son to be the propitiation for them and
dying in their stead. The Father really loves his people.
Now hear the gospel call. Hear the gospel call this morning.
Return to your God with true repentance. True repentance.
We no longer rob God, do we? We flee to Christ as all our
wisdom, all our righteousness, all our sanctification, all our
redemption. He's all. God's made unto us
everything. I mentioned this already, but
this coming to Him in repentance is not a one-time thing. We come
to Him weekly, daily, every minute, every second. We're crying out
for mercy, aren't we, unto Him? That's returning unto Him. This
is how He's designed it. Now look at verse 10. Bring ye all the tithes into
the storehouse, that there may be meat in mine house. And prove
me now herewith, saith the Lord of hosts, if I will not open
you the windows of heaven and pour you out a blessing that
there shall not be room enough to receive it. I heard that in
religion so many times where men would put pressure on people
and they would obligate people by that. What greater blessing
is it to be received of the Lord's hand than Christ himself? You
can't compare that to anything. And what do we give in order
to get that? Nothing. Nothing, we must come empty handed
unto Him and that, that is the qualification, to be empty, to
be naked. So why do we give? Because we
love Him. We love Him and He first loved
us. That's the only explanation. Scripture says, if the works
of Christ were all recorded, the world could not contain Him.
What a salvation, what redemption, what glory His precious blood
accomplished. true repentance cries out, returning
to him. Don't misunderstand when I say
come to Christ or returning to him. That's not really a, looking
to Christ is passive. It's not an action necessarily.
It's by faith alone. It's not something we do physically,
is it? It's coming to him through the eyes of faith that he's given
us. And it's something that we do all the time now with the
new man that he's given us. We don't move a muscle in this,
that would Messed it up, wouldn't it? As soon as I move a muscle,
I've messed up the whole thing. I've messed it all up. Now these eyes of faith, he gives
his people, say, have mercy on me, the sinner. What does he
promise his people that come to him like this? Look in verse
16 and closing. Then they that feared the Lord
spake often one to another and the Lord hearkened and heard
it. And a book of remembrance was written before him and for
them that feared the Lord and that thought upon His name. And
they shall be mine, saith the Lord of hosts. And in that day,
when I make up my jewels, that word jewel is a special treasure.
When I make up my special treasure, I will spare them. As a man spareth
his own son that serveth him, they shall return and discern
between the righteous and the wicked between him that serveth
God and him that serveth not. This is all God's doing. To begin
with, it says, they that feared the Lord. Where did that fear
come from? That's the repentance that he gave, isn't it? That's
the true repentance. They that feared the Lord remembered them.
The Lord noticed them, not because of what they had done, but because
of what he had done in them. He was pleased with that. He
was pleased with the faith of Christ in them. And he says,
I'm gonna spare them. I'm going to spare them, gather
them up as jewels, and I'm going to spare them. And because of
that, they shall return. So when the Lord says return
unto me, I say, Lord, you're going to have to make me return.
I want to. Cause me to return now and cause me to return now
unto you. And the Lord hearkened and the
Lord heard it. And now we can discern between
righteous and the wicked, can't we? We can discern between what's
the righteous. Well, it's not us. No, not by
our account, but his account it is. He looks at his people
and sees them as perfectly righteous. So who's the, we're the wicked
one. We, me, I can discern between the wicked and the righteous.
He's the righteous and I'm the wicked. That's what repentance
and faith does. It's that simple. We get no glory,
no glory in this whatsoever. He said, you robbed me of glory.
Lord, don't let me rob you of your glory and salvation. Lord,
you get all the glory in your salvation. You get all the glory. Christ. Christ is righteousness
and we are the wicked and he gets all the glory. You know,
the glorious part about the gospel is in Christ being the righteous
one and we being the wicked one, him being the light and we being
the darkness, him being glorious and we being hideous, we being
lepers and him being pure and perfect and spotless. He traded
places. with his people on the cross
of Calvary, traded places with them. So now he who knew no sin
became sin on the cross of Calvary, bearing our sin in his own body,
had put them away that we might be made, what? The righteousness
of God in him. There's our hope. Oh, his people
won't rob him of that. That's his gospel. It's our only
hope, isn't it? Our only hope in salvation. That's
why we continually return unto him. the gift of true repentance. Amen.