Welcome to Moore in the Word, a podcast of Moore Theological College in Sydney, Australia that seeks
to glorify God through biblically sound, thought-provoking and challenging talks and interviews.
In this episode from a chapel service held on Tuesday the 25th of March 2025, Paul Williamson, lecturer in Old Testament, Hebrew
and Aramic at Moore Theological College, speaks on the Book of Malachi 3:6-12, and the promise of God's blessing on his people.
He reminds us that we are no longer under the old covenant of Moses, but under the
new covenant of grace, and therefore we are free to excel in the grace of giving.
We hope you find the episode helpful.
Morning everyone.
If you don't know already, my name is Paul and I teach in the Old Testament Department.
And Andrew, my boss, has just reminded me of something that I can't do.
I can't flick my fingers.
At least they don't make any noise.
Never occurred.
Well, as some of you, at least the third and fourth years may know or hopefully remember.
Uh, I'm preaching through the book of Malachi and, uh, we'll bring this, uh, series to a conclusion next week.
Uh, but today we're looking at one of the better known passages in the book, Malachi chapter three, uh, verses six to 12.
But before we look at those verses, let's pray.
Heavenly Father, we pray that you might grant us receptive hearts and submissive
wills that through our lives and the lives of your people and all the earth.
Your name might be magnified and greatly praised, and Jesus, didn't we pray?
Amen.
Recently I came across a book with the following title, theology 12 Ideas to Rock Your Faith.
I'd never heard of theology and I didn't realize my faith needed to be rocked, but maybe that's a clear indication that it does.
No, we don't have a copy of that book in the library, so don't go rushing there to find it.
Uh, the underlying premise is that God desires to bless us, not just spiritually, but also materially.
And, uh, the key to such blessing for this particular author lies in replacing covetousness with gratitude.
That sounds okay.
We base covetousness with gratitude, but part of his faith rocking advice then is don't delay God's blessings.
It means physical blessings by covetousness or by having an ungrateful heart
francises to see why such teachers might point to Malachi three for support.
After all, the prophet's audience is undeniably here being tight-fisted, and their current behavior is hindering God's generous provision.
In some sense, these people were delaying God's blessing.
But what should we make of this passage?
How should we as Christians, apply this passage to our lives?
Can we really assume that if we give more generously, God will bless us abundantly?
Indeed.
Can we conclude that God is presently withholding his blessing because we're not giving him at least a 10th of our income?
A superficial reading of verses eight to 10 could lead some to think so.
So it's important that we consider these verses within their immediate and wider Old Testament context.
Accordingly, we must begin with the situation that's depicted in verses six and seven where we have a call to repent.
I, the Lord have not changed.
So you that a sentence of Jacob have not perished ever since the time of your ancestors, you have turned away
from my degrees and have not kept them return to me so that I will return to you, says the Lord Almighty.
Clearly this is a call to repentance, but it's crucial that we understand the covenantal setting here.
What we have here is not a universal call to repent.
It's a specific call address to a specific people Here.
The covenant Lord calls his people the descendants of Jacob to return, and he thus prefaces this call to repentance with some salient
facts that a. He has not changed, therefore be they have not perished despite C, their terrible track record of ignoring God's decrees.
Most English versions translate verse six, in the present tense.
I, the Lord, do not change.
Understood.
Thus, this text is expressing the doctrine of immutability.
The Lord doesn't change because he's immutable, un unchangeability as a divine attribute.
Somehow, however, consider a past tends to be grammatically and contextually more appropriate.
Here, I the Lord, have not changed in this case.
The point is simply that God hasn't changed his mind.
He has not reneged on his covenant promises because unlike his people, he is faithful.
He has committed to those promises.
He is steadfast in his love.
And this is partly obvious from the fact that Jacob's Des sentence, unlike Esau's, have not been wiped out.
Unlike Esau's des sentence, there's still hope for the des descendants of Jacob.
That's the point that Malachi made at the very start of this book back in chapter one.
Yet it's clear from the rest of the book that that was not because Jacob's de sentence were of Noer stock.
It's not because they were good people, but they were every bit as wicked.
Every bit is deserving of judgment.
As highlighted here in chapter three, they have a long, long history of rebellion.
Ever since the time of your ancestors, you have turned away from my decrees and not kept them.
These people were covenant breakers from the get go, from the very inception of the relationship
with God, God's decree is refers to the instructions that he gave Israel on Mount Sinai.
Instructions that they had broken even before Moses had brought down the tablets of stone.
These people had broken the continent before the ink had even dried on their
March certificate as one pert that committed adultery on their wedding night.
Outrageous.
Yet, this was simply the first episode in a long history of rebellion and yet.
Despite their track record of covenant breaking, God remains faithful.
He remains steadfast.
Unlike his fickle, unreliable, the descendants of Jacob, the Lord had not changed and thus there was still hope.
God's greatest nature had not changed.
Therefore, if they repent, if they turned to him, he will most certainly return to them
on changing.
God is willing to forgive the changeable people.
Have broken his covenant and brothers and sisters.
It's this same ing God who expresses his grace supremely in the Lord Jesus, the one who died for our sins.
The one who offers all, who trust in him eternal life, the one who is the same yesterday and today and forever.
Questions.
We take great comfort from this fact, and so we showed that our God remains merciful and
gracious not treating us as our sins deserve for repaying us according to our iniquities.
Like the father of the prodigal son, God is always ready to restore those who turn from their sinful ways.
As James assures, his readers come near to God and he will come near to you.
The problem for the people in Malachi's Day was not God's readiness to return.
No, it was their reluctance to repent.
That's clear from what followers they had difficulty even recognizing how or why they needed to do so.
Hence, God's command to reform in verses seven to 10, verse seven.
But you ask, how are we to return?
Should human beings rob God, yet you are robbing me.
You ask, how have we robbed you?
The tithe and the contribution.
You, your whole nation are under a curse because you are robbing me.
Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse that there may be food in my house
as they had done previously.
In this book, Malachi's audience demand some clarification.
They want evidence for the allegation being made against them.
How?
In what way are we to return?
Some think this simply reflects their ignorance, but it's more likely an implicit denial of guilt.
Hence the CAUS of rebuke and this specific allegation that immediately follows, should human beings rob God?
Yet you are robbing me.
The very idea is outlandish.
It's outrageous.
How could humans consider this defensible?
Nevermind.
Something they might get away with or rather might keep getting away with.
This was not an, an occasional oversight.
This was a continual practice rover.
It seems everyone was complicit rather than a few bad apples in the barrel.
It seems that the entire community was short-changing.
God, just as they had been doing with their flocks, going through the ritual, the
religious ritual, but holding back what was actually demanded the best of those flocks.
So too they were doing with their crops, they were holding back part of what God had demanded.
My friends, it's vital to understand that these ties and contribution were not voluntary onto the old covenant.
These were not voluntary offerings.
Now, this was something that God required.
It was much more like income tax than a charitable donation.
It's how the temple personnel, personnel, the priest and Levis were supported and how indeed they were to support one another.
See, this is what ensured the temple ritual.
God's old covenant worship could be carried out as he required, and thus, by holding back some of their ties, these
people were indeed robbing God and such transgression and brought about curse that had brought them under the curse.
The curse of the mosaic covenant classically expressed in Deuteronomy chapter 28,
that is to say these people were experiencing some of the sanctions of the covenant.
They were breaking
potential harvests were being decimated by drought.
Insects, most likely locusts were devouring their crops.
What we have here is covenant breakers experiencing covenant curse.
They're obviously guilty of other breaches besides tithing.
This provided a classic illustration of their guilt or of the rebellion against God.
In other words, it's one that they could clearly recognize and then acknowledge they had demanded proof of their need to repent.
Well look around you says Malik High drought Pest, devouring the crops, grapes dropping off the vines before their ripe.
This was God's megaphone.
Megaphone of covenant curse,
or say situation as Christians is quite different.
Drought or crop failure is no longer a clear indication of divine displeasure for us.
You see, we are not under the mosaic law.
We are under grace.
We are not obligated to keep the numerous commands and prohibitions of the old covenant and none of us here do so.
At least not all of them.
Indeed, there's no longer any obligation to tithe for the temple and the Levitical priest personnel no longer exists.
Most importantly, Christians are never commanded to tithe.
We're commanded to give as the Lord has prospered us and to do so cheerfully rather than reluctantly because the Lord loves a cheerful giver.
Of course, this doesn't mean that we should elect the support of those who labor full-time and Christian
ministry, nor does it mean that we should ci our responsibility to to share with others in need.
Rather, it means that among other things, we should as Christians excel in the grace of giving.
My Uncle Joe served as an elder on Bible class teacher in his local Presbyterian church.
He was a dev devote Christian who loved the Lord, but he found it really hard to sing.
Hover Girls's hymn, take My Life and Let It Be.
Why?
He stumbled over the first two lines of the fourth verse.
He struggled to sing.
In all honesty, take my silver and my gold.
Not a might.
Would I withhold?
Perhaps few of us may share his concern today, but I hope that's because we're excelling in the
grace of giving, not because our consciences, like those of Malachi's day are simply less sensitive.
Malachi's audience failure to support God's work as we should.
It really boils down to a matter of trust, which is surely what, why this is addressed in the final V verses here, verses 10 to 12.
See what we have in these verses is a challenge to trust, to rely on God's covenant promises.
Test we in this, says the Lord Almighty, and see if I will not throw out the floodgates of heaven and pour out such a blessing.
There will not be room enough to store it.
I'll prevent pests from devouring our crops and the ES in your fields will not drop their fruit before it is ripe, says the Lord Almighty.
Then all the nations will call you.
Blessed for years will be a delightful land, says the Lord Almighty.
Test me in this
testing.
God obviously is something that's prohibited elsewhere in the Bible.
Deuteronomy six verse 16.
Test the Lord your God, but they're testing.
God involves a posture of arrogance or cynical unbelief here in Malachite.
It concerns a posture of honest doubt, and the aim is to encourage trust, to encourage confidence in God and God's promises.
See here, God is effectively saying, try me.
Go on.
Just try me.
Give me the opportunity to show you.
If you start keeping your obligations, just watch and see.
I will keep mine.
See, previously God has been using the stick, the threat of covenant curse, which these people have experienced.
In part what is clear from Deuteronomy 28 and indeed from the next section, Malachi,
that worse was to come if they feel to repent, if they fail to reform their ways.
But here in verse 10 and following, God is no longer waving the stick.
He's, he's dangling the cards, the covenant blessings that they could expect, that they would experience if they repent reform and rely on God.
Here, God promises to throw open the flood gates of heaven and pour out so much blessing that there simply won't be room off the containers.
This is absolutely nothing to do with the misleading suggestions.
The scandalous promises of the prosperity gospel.
See, God is not offering his people here.
A sure way to get rich quickly scheme
a scheme that effectively turns generous, giving into shrewd investment like investing in Bitcoin before the recent US election,
or taking out shares in blue chip stocks.
Maybe we shouldn't do that today at all.
Things are going a bit per ship there.
The point is such self-focused giving, such self-centered, selfish giving, fueled by covetousness.
That's the very opposite of the Christian grace of giving Such a mindset is nothing like the generous giver that God delights in.
This was just as true in Malachi's day.
God's not promising these people bucket loads of cash or the opportunity to knock down their barns and build bigger.
The promise held out here is quite literally shores of blessing.
The success of agriculture in Kenan was especially dependent on rain, and that's exactly what God is promising here.
Rain, rain, that would turn their situation around rain, that would end the drought and the related pest control problems locus,
thrive and multiply in very dry conditions, but whether it was locusts or some other insects that were presently devouring the crops.
God would put an end to it.
These pesky insects would no longer rake havoc.
Unright grapes would no longer fall from their vines rather than facing further covenant
curse, those Malachi address could anticipate better crops on plentiful harvest.
If, if they repented, in other words, they would get to enjoy the fertile land, the land of milk and honey that God had promised them.
Experience, at least in part the Eden like blessing, Ezekiel and other Old Testament prophets had anticipated.
See, what we have here is not a promise of individual riches.
It's a promise of covenant blessing for the entire covenant community.
That's the The card, the card that God is holding out here to his rebellious people,
covenant blessing and the impact that that will have on the surrounding nations.
All the nations will call you blessed for you'll be a land of delight.
In other words, these descendants of Jacob would be a living witness.
That'd be a light to the nations.
This arguably ties in with Malachi's earlier statements about the Lord's name being or becoming great among the nations.
This is the biblical equivalent of Maga, only spelled with two Gs on one a.
Making God great again
at foreshadows the fulfillment of God's promise to Abraham that through his seed, all nations on earth would be blessed.
Brothers and sisters.
Can we, can we really delay God's blessings?
I'm suggesting that we can rather, like these people we're doing.
We can delay God's spiritual blessings for ourselves, his spiritual blessings
for ourselves, the Lord Jesus tells us it's more blessed to give than to receive.
We can delay God's material blessings for others.
Those whose lives or livelihoods are dependent on our generosity.
Most importantly, we can delay God's eternal blessing to the world around us.
Not just by our reluctance to extend the work of the gospel through prayerful or financial support, but by failing to let our light
shine before a watching world, by failing to help those around us sit up and take notice of the spiritual blessings that God has
lavished upon us in Christ, and how these are so much greater on, so much better than the things of this world that's passing away.
The promised blessings under the old covenant were primarily physical and temporal.
The promised blessings under the new Covenant are primarily spiritual and eternal Israel.
Look forward to our renewed land.
We look forward to a new heaven on a new earth.
Interestingly, in the context of sharing with those who instruct us in the word, the Apostle Paul writes as follows, God cannot be mocked.
A man reaps what he sows.
Whoever sows to the please their flesh from the flesh will reap destruction.
Whoever sows to please the spirit from the spirit will reap eternal life.
Let us not become weary and doing good for at the proper time.
We will reap a harvest if we do not give up.
Therefore, as we have opportunity, let us do good to all people, especially to those who belong to the family of believers, brothers and sisters by.
Excelling in the grace of giving.
Let's not delay God's blessings to ourselves or to others any longer.
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