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, 1/10th of what the Lord has first provided and given to us.
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