PT-1 "They Were Robbing God" (Mal. 3:7-8)

SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 11/29/2016 11:23 PM

My Worship Time                                                                     Focus:  Robbing God’s Storehouse

Bible Reading & Meditation                                                 Reference:  Malachi 3:7-8

            Message of the verses:  I mentioned in our last SD that we would be moving onto the second main point from Dr. Warren Wiersbe’s outline which he entitles robbing God’s storehouse and the first sub-point which is what we will be looking at this evening after a quick introduction to this main point is entitled “The were robbing God.”

            Now we have mentioned in earlier Spiritual Diaries that what a leader does, in most cases either good or bad, will filter down to the people which is the case of the people in Malachi’s day with the priests as they were not good for the country and so there were people who were following them.  One of the functions of the prophets was that they were sent by God to get the people back on track with what God wanted them to follow because they were not following what He desired of them to do.  This was true of Israel since it began.  These prophets were calling for them to repent and return to God as Malachi was doing.

            Malachi was tell them to repent and return but instead of doing this they began to argue with God and we can see this in different places in his book.  There problem was that they were in denial and God, through Malachi would tell them where they were wrong.

            “7 "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 the LORD of hosts. "But you say, ’How shall we return?’ 8 “Will a man rob God? Yet you are robbing Me! But you say, ’How have we robbed You?’ In tithes and offerings (Malachi 3:7-8).”

            Just to let you know this is going to be a rather long commentary on these verses and this will mean that we will do it in a couple of Spiritual Diaries.

            We have already learned when we studied the books of the Law a very long time ago that the meaning of the word tithe is “ten” and this meant ten percent.  There were different tithes that were to be given in the nation of Israel and one of them was used to support the priests and the Levites so that they could do their work in the temple and not have to go outside and work.  They would receive parts of the offerings so that they had food to eat.  There were other tithes that were to be given for they did not have a political government like we have in the United States so that money would be used to help govern the people.

            Dr. Wiersbe writes “The annual tithe was given to the Levites (Num. 18:21-24), who in turn gave a tithe of that income to the priests (vv. 25-32).  When a worshiper brought his tithe to the temple, he could us part of it to enjoy a special meal with his family and the Levites (Deut. 12:6-7, 17-19).  Every third year a tithe was to be brought to the leaders locally to be used for the poor (14:28-29).”  With that said we will continue this in our next SD.  11/29/2016 11:42 PM