Text: Malachi 3:8-11

Title: Stick Up in the Church

Introduction: When you think of the subject the first thing a person would probably think of would be the robbing of a bank.  If it were in the church, most definitely it would be some stranger off the street!  However, the purpose of this sermon is not to point out the enemy from without, but the enemy from within.  There is an “Enemy in the Pew.”  The final book in the Old Testament is about the error of forgetting the love of God.  When people forget God’s love, it affects their attitudes, home, and worship.  When people forget God’s love, sacred commitments no longer remain sacred.  God sent Malachi to exhort his people to return to the living God.  At the point of the text the people of God had become apathetic about their offerings to God.  When Malachi started prophesying to the God’s people, he discovered that the people of God had frigid and ice cold hearts.  They were indifferent and apathetic.  They acted as if they did not care. 

I.                  The Crime (8)

·        Not as a thief behind God’s back, but right in front of His face the robber has taken from God.

·        The verse actually says in another translation: "Should people cheat God? Yet you have cheated me! "But you ask, 'What do you mean? When did we ever cheat you?' "You have cheated me of the tithes and offerings due to me.

·        The people of God have gotten so bogged down in their wrongs that it seems hard for them to even see it.  Illustr. – use the one about when I was kid feeding the cows while it was raining, had been for a while.

II.               The Punishment (9)

·        A curse is a punishment…

·        With disobedience comes punishment.

·        “God punished them with famine and scarcity, through unseasonable weather, or insects that ate up the fruits of the earth.”

·        The whole nation suffered.

III.           The Reversals (10-11)

·        Reversals begin with obedience to God’s commands.

·        (10b) “prove” means to test, try God, watch God

·        (10c) the blessings

a.      open the windows of heaven;

b.     pour/empty out;

c.     not enough room to receive it/more than enough

d.     Luke 6.38: If you give, you will receive. Your gift will return to you in full measure, pressed down, shaken together to make room for more, and running over. Whatever measure you use in giving–large or small–it will be used to measure what is given back to you.

e.      (11) “rebuke” (keep back) the “devour” (insect or that that has caused you grief)

Conclusion:

·        Reversal means to turn things around.  God can turn things around. 

·        2 Chronicles 7:14, “If my people who are called by my name, shall humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven…

·        Moses at the Red Sea; Hezekiah turned his face to the wall; Jesus on Calvary

: