Prepare the Way Before Me

Malachi 3:1 “Behold, I send my messenger, and he will prepare the way before me. And the Lord whom you seek will suddenly come to his temple; and the messenger of the covenant in whom you delight, behold, he is coming, says the Lord of hosts”.

Continuing in this short study of the book of Malachi, the lessons state that the problem with rampant divorce, intermarriage, and improper sacrifices indicates that even after the exile, things remained seriously wrong in Judah. True, there was no blatant idolatry as there was prior to the exile, so the Jews learned that lesson. But the covenant community as a whole did not recognize what matters to God more than anything else—true love for Him with one’s heart, soul, mind, and strength. Thus, hypocritical worship and maltreatment of neighbor characterized the post-exilic situation. Is it any wonder, then, that the Lord did not return to His temple and dwell in the Holy of Holies after the exile? Malachi 3:1 indicates that this was the case because the prophet predicts the return of the Lord to His temple, which would have only been necessary if He was not there. Moreover, the Bible does not mention the presence of God filling the second temple like He did the first one.

The Lord remained with His people after the exile, for a faithful remnant always remained in Judah, including faithful men such as Ezra, Nehemiah, Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi. But God did not meet with His people in the temple because the community as a whole had no interest in Him. This lack of commitment is also seen in the community’s failure to tithe (Malacahi 3:6–12). The tithe is defined by Webster’s dictionary as: the tenth part of any thing; but appropriately, the tenth part of the increase annually arising from the profits of land and stock, allotted to the clergy for their support. Tithes are personal, predial (issuing from land), or mixed; personal, when accruing from labor, art, trade and navigation; grown or raised, when issuing from the earth, as hay, wood and fruit; and mixed, when accruing from beasts, which are fed from the ground.  The people held back the full tithe required of them. Since the priests depended on the tithe for their living, this hurt them, and so they were willing to take whatever they could get, even impure animals. Yet though it was bad enough not to support the priesthood, even worse was that in holding back the tithe, the self-centered people were actually robbing God.

Malachi 3:10 is the only place in Scripture where God commands us to put Him to the test. It is otherwise sinful to test the Lord, but we may test Him with the tithe. When we give to the work of the Lord, He promises to bless us and meet our needs—not necessarily to make us rich materially but to satisfy us and make us content. Let us give to the Lord’s work that we might see Him keep His conditional promises.

Blessings in giving back to God, 1/10^th of what the Lord has first provided and given to us.