Return to me, and I will return to you, says the LORD of hosts.

"For I the LORD do not change; therefore you, O children of Jacob, are not consumed. 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?'

Will man rob God? Yet you are robbing me. But you say, 'How have we robbed you?' In your tithes and contributions. You are cursed with a curse, for you are robbing me, the whole nation of you. Bring the full tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house. And thereby put me to the test, says the LORD of hosts, if I will not open the windows of heaven for you and pour down for you a blessing until there is no more need. I will rebuke the devourer for you, so that it will not destroy the fruits of your soil, and your vine in the field shall not fail to bear, says the LORD of hosts. Then all nations will call you blessed, for you will be a land of delight, says the LORD of hosts.
Malachi 3:6-12

Malachi is an extraordinary prophetic book of the Bible. The dialogue between God and His people throughout the book is quite stunning and convicting. Although written over two thousand years ago, the prophecies still ring so very true for God's people today. Much of the dialogue between God and His children carries with it a sad, unfortunate burden of truth. Man has not changed much in over two thousand years. God's people have not changed much either. Malachi reminds Israel of the sins of their fathers thousands of years prior as well. In verse 7, Malachi reminds the people of Israel that they are making the same mistake their fathers made, and that being the alteration of the statutes and requirements of God's Law. We still find ourselves with the same problems and same sins that the people of Israel had then today. Over two thousand years later, this prophecy of Malachi is still applicable to God's church today. The times have changed, but sinful men have not.

The Lord reiterates to the people of Israel that He is the God that never changes. His attributes are perfect and perpetual. God is "I am" and not "I was" or "I will be again." There is a convicting irony in God's words here. Proclaiming Himself to be the God that never changes, He proves this point by demonstrating to the Israelites that they are still around and not yet condemned. Is it not ironic that God's immutable attributes preserve those that worship Him falsely as a mutable and changeable deity? As if to say, "You worship me as if I change, as if my Law changes, and as if my countenance upon sinful men changes, but because I do not change, you are preserved by my unchangeable will, promise, and life giving Spirit!"

Calvin translates verse 8 very differently from what the ESV reads. Calvin translates verse 8 to read: "Will a man rob the gods?" Although Calvin's exposition differs widely from almost every other commentator on this passage, he supports his exposition on the basis of the context of the two previous verses. According to Calvin, God here is comparing the nation of Israel to the gentile nations. He references Jer. 2:10, where Israel is told to survey the nations around them to see if the gentiles tend to change their gods as often as the Israelites desire to change the way they worship the true living God.

Calvin seeks to demonstrate how idol worshipers hardly ever change the way they worship their false gods. Although nearly every other commentator does not draw that out of this verse, I think the point is well deserved. Consider the many false religions throughout the world including Hinduism and Islam. Although Muslims worship Allah, a false god, their worship has remained practically unaltered over the centuries. Although their worship is false and blasphemous, they still conduct it with the utmost attention to detail, seriousness, and reverence. I have never entered a Mosque or witnessed an Islamic worship service before, but I find it hard to believe that they would ever allow a rock band to sing about how Allah is their best friend or teach how the key to a happy life is a healthy self-awareness and self-confidence.

God does not change. He so clearly says so Himself here in Malachi. However, the worship of the same true living God has changed from the strict, detailed Temple sacrifices articulated in Leviticus to today's "worship God the way that makes you feel best" mentality. Calvin articulates the irony that those who worship false gods worship with greater reverence and awe than we who worship the true God do. We should worship God with the least self-seeking and self-gratifying worship, but we fail so very miserably. It is no longer about worshiping and recognizing God for who He is or what He has accomplished on our behalf in the history of redemption, but it is now about what we can get out of it and what we find the most pleasing and most gratifying.

God commands the people of Israel to return to Him! The people respond, "How shall we return?" The people's response is twofold, that is to say, they do not recognize that they have strayed so far away and they, therefore, do not recognize how to venture back to a reverence of worship that they have abandoned. In other words, the people are not merely asking God how to get back to worshiping Him with all their heart and following His defined modes of worship, but they are asking, "How shall we return if we do not even know how far we have strayed from the ordinances of your worship?"

Some might find it strange that after God calls His people to return to Him and they inquire as to how to return to Him, He commands them to stop robbing him. The Israelites ask God how they are robbing Him (v. 8). The idea seems very peculiar to us. How in the world can we rob God? Surely there is nothing that we can take or steal from the Almighty Creator of heaven and earth. God further clarifies what He means when He speaks of the people of Israel robbing Him. He tells them that they rob Him in their tithes and offerings.

The tithe is a tenth of all that a person has that he sets apart as an offering to the Lord. Leviticus 27:30-33, Numbers 18:21-24, and Nehemiah 13:10-12 give some insight into how important the tithe was to the Lord.

"Every tithe of the land, whether of the seed of the land or of the fruit of the trees, is the LORD's; it is holy to the LORD. If a man wishes to redeem some of his tithe, he shall add a fifth to it. And every tithe of herds and flocks, every tenth animal of all that pass under the herdsman's staff, shall be holy to the LORD. One shall not differentiate between good or bad, neither shall he make a substitute for it; and if he does substitute for it, then both it and the substitute shall be holy; it shall not be redeemed."
Leviticus 27:30-33

"To the Levites I have given every tithe in Israel for an inheritance, in return for their service that they do, their service in the tent of meeting, so that the people of Israel do not come near the tent of meeting, lest they bear sin and die. But the Levites shall do the service of the tent of meeting, and they shall bear their iniquity. It shall be a perpetual statute throughout your generations, and among the people of Israel they shall have no inheritance. For the tithe of the people of Israel, which they present as a contribution to the LORD, I have given to the Levites for an inheritance. Therefore I have said of them that they shall have no inheritance among the people of Israel."
Numbers 18:21-24

 I also found out that the portions of the Levites had not been given to them, so that the Levites and the singers, who did the work, had fled each to his field. So I confronted the officials and said, "Why is the house of God forsaken?" And I gathered them together and set them in their stations. Then all Judah brought the tithe of the grain, wine, and oil into the storehouses.
Nehemiah 13:10-12

In Leviticus 27, the Lord claims the tithes for Himself. It is His and it is holy to Him. Therefore, to withhold the tithe of the Lord was to steal not only what was His but to steal and rob from Him what is holy to Him. Numbers 18 further demonstrates the importance of the tithe. The tribe of Levi had no inheritance in land, but their inheritance was the tithes of the Lord. The Lord gave the Levites the tithe of the people of Israel so that "the people of Israel [would] not come near the tent of meeting, lest they bear sin and die." The Levites, as a symbol of the Great High Priest, Christ Jesus, bore the people's iniquity and performed the service of the tent of meeting. It was crucial that the people tithed in order for the Levites to perform their priestly duties.

A terrible domino effect occurred when the Israelites kept their tithes for themselves. If tithes were withheld then the storehouses were empty. If the storehouses were empty then the Levites had no means of provision. If the Levites had no means of provision, then they had to provide for themselves. If they fled to their fields to provide for themselves, then they had to abandon the house of God. If they abandoned the Temple, then no sacrifices were being made. If no sacrifices were being made, God's wrath was kindled because His Law and rightful worship was grossly neglected!

Following this chain of events, it is not hard to understand why God tells His people to return to Him by giving their tithes and offerings. There is, however, a greater detail to be clarified. Perhaps you are thinking, "What importance are tithes and offerings today? Isn't Christ our Lord a perpetual sacrificial offering for our sins?" Yes, tithes and offerings play a different role in the church today, but we might miss the forest for the trees if we do not accept that there is something more important to God than just the tenth He required in order to provide for the Levitcal priests.

We must recognize a broader and more personal understanding of what it means to rob God. Lest you think that you are off the hook because you give tithes regularly, there is more to robbing God than abstaining from contributing in the offering plate every Lord's Day. The real crime of Israel was not just holding back the portion that the Lord claimed as His own, but the real sin of Israel was the faithlessness that pervaded them to believe that God would not provide for them and that they needed the money more than He did.

You see, the tithe of the Lord is very similar to the Lord's Day in respect to the fact that man was not made to tithe, but the tithe was made for man. God commanded that we observe the Sabbath Day as a Holy Day not so that it would lord over us and be a burden to us, but so that we would rest in Him, rely in Him, and know that we can stop working for one whole day in order to remember where our provision comes from. We provide not for ourselves, but the Lord gives us all that we have. We can work every hour of every day and have nothing to show for it, unless the Lord, in His great mercy and grace, provides for us. Similarly, the Lord's tithe was not commanded so that we gave something to the Lord that He needed. God does not need a portion of our wealth. God does not need our money. The tithe was commanded for our benefit, that every time that we willingly give it to the Lord, we might remember that He has given us all that we have. Surely, a wonderful and blessed posture of giving would be: I give you this tenth of what I have, but I would willingly give you all because all I have is yours, and you shall surely provide bountifully for me and my house! We should not see giving tithes as giving the Lord a tenth of what is rightfully ours, but we should see it as the Lord giving us ninety percent of what is rightfully His!

Furthermore, as the Lord's Day points us to the Lord, so should the Lord's tithe. Ultimately, the Lord's Day is a day to remember the rest that we have in Christ our Lord and Savior. The work is done and we no longer need to work. We can now rest in Christ and His completed work upon the cross on our behalf. Similarly, the Lord's tithe should ultimately point us to Christ as well. In this life we are commanded to set apart a tenth for the Lord. We give to the Lord a small fraction that He has blessed us with, recognizing that all belongs to Him, that our Lord's inheritance is much greater than the tenth we set aside for Him, and that all blessings and all provisions come from the Lord. In giving tithes, we should remember that Christ has become the propitiation for our sins. Our great debt has been paid by His blood on the cross. He demands tithes not only to provide for the workers in His Kingdom (priests and pastors), but also as a demonstration of faith in those who would claim to believe in Him. If you truly believe that you are a child of God, that Christ's death on the cross has paid the penalty for your sins, then you will have no problem giving to the Lord what He has commanded, knowing that all comes from the Lord and God provides for the ones He loves.

So, after all this is said and done, you might still be questioning, "Why does God tell the people of Israel to return to Him by giving their tithes and offerings?" What God is really commanding the people of Israel is to return to Him by giving themselves wholly and completely to His worship, His glory, and His honor. That is that God is calling them back to Himself by saying, "I would love to have even the tenth of you that I have commanded, but I have none of you! You have turned your backs on me completely, even forsaking what little I ask of you in tithes and offerings. You all attend to your own houses and your own kingdom while my house is left unattended and my kingdom is forsaken!"

God does not often tell us to put Him to the test, but in verse 10, God tells the people of Israel to put Him to the test. "Rely on me," He says, "and tell me if you do not flourish. Tell me if your storehouses are empty. Tell me if you do not have food enough, water enough, and provision enough. Tell me if your kingdom does not overcome all that attempts to destroy it. Tell me if other nations do not envy you, my people, over all other nations. Tell me if you do not delight in me and my will for you then!"

God doesn't want just our tithes and offerings, but He would be happy if He could get even that from His people. He wants all of us! He tells the people of Israel, "You can start to return to me by giving even a tenth of what I have asked of you, but I really want all of you!" He's telling us that too. We, the church, the body of Christ, are the new people of God, the new Israel. We should take seriously the Word of God set before us here in Malachi 3. Like the Jews of old, we should talk with one another. We should remember that we do not serve the Lord in vain! We do not worship the Lord in vain! We do not serve a God that changes with the ebb and flow of time. We do not worship a God that changes with technology and society. We worship I AM!

You might ask yourself, "How, Matthew, do you get that this passage refers to how we worship God?" I ask you, How can you not recognize that God is calling His people to return to Him in worship? If the Israelites did not provide the tithe and offering that they were required to give by the command of God, then the priests could not attend to the worship that God had prescribed in His Word. God tells them that He is not a God that changes. It displeased Him when Cain gave an offering that was unworthy of Him, it displeased Him when Nadab and Abihu offered what was unworthy of Him, it displeased Him when the whole nation of Israel offered what was unworthy of Him, and it displeases Him when we offer what is unworthy of His majesty and glory! The only worship that God accepts is that given with a contrite heart (Psalm 51:17). He does not accept the outward appearance of worship. We can go to church, we can raise our hands in praise, we can jump and shout, we can dance and clap, but that's not the worship that God has commanded of us. That's merely our preference to worship. That makes us feel good. That makes us feel like we are worshiping God. But God said, "If you love me, you will keep my commandments" (John 14:15).

The heart of worship is contrite. It is not self serving. It is not self seeking. It is not self pleasing. It is contrite. It is humble, recognizing that it is inferior to the command of God. God tells us that if we want to come to Him, then we are going to have to give up everything. In Malachi 3, God basically tells us, "You want to return to me? Then give me what I deserve! Give me what is mine!" What is the first commandment? "You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might" (Deuteronomy 6:5). God has set before us a very strict, a very detailed, and a very demanding means of worshiping Him. There is no room for our will in His worship. He rejected Cain's worship. He rejected Nadab and Abihu's worship. He rejected Israel's worship before He abandoned them to the hands of the Babylonians. If we are not seeing the abundance of God's grace and mercy in our congregations, then maybe we should consider God's words in Malachi 3. Perhaps He has handed us over to the devourer so that we might see our error and return once more to Him.

I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect. For by the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think with sober judgment, each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned.
Romans 12:1-3

God did not accept sacrifices with blemishes. It was an abomination to Him. He would not accept the least of Israel's wealth as an acceptable sacrifice. He would not take their blind, lame, and maimed livestock as an offering. This was not acceptable worship to Him before, so why should we error, and think that he will accept it now. He demands perfection in His worship! He wants what is unblemished. Listen to Paul's call to worship God by presenting ourselves as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God. Furthermore, we are not to be conformed to this world! Technology changes, but God's worship does not! Society changes, but God's worship does not! The invention of the rock guitar does not necessitate the use of it in the public worship of God. The invention of videos and strobe lights does  not necessitate the use of them during our worship of our creator!

Without blemish! Why does the RP Church sing the Psalms? Because God's Word is without blemish! Why does the RP Church sing the Psalms without musical accompaniment? Because that is how the Israelites sang the Psalms in worship to God, according to the Law. Why do we seek to add to worship what God has not asked us to? Do we really believe that since Jesus died on the cross, becoming the sacrificial lamb on our behalf, fulfilling the ceremonial laws, that we are no longer bound to worship God the way He ordained with such strict severity in the Old Testament? As if to say, Christ has risen so God does not really care how we worship Him anymore.

We should, however recognize two very important details. 1) Christ came not to abolish the ceremonial law and the Levitical priesthood, but came as a fulfillment of it. Read through Hebrews and how Christ now fulfills the position of the High Priest, and how His sacrifice on the cross is a perpetual atonement for our sins. That is to say, that there is still a priest today, there is still a sacrifice, and there is still a Temple of God. Christ is the high priest, He is the once and for all sacrifice for our sins, and we are now the Holy Temples of the Lord. Worship of the unchanging God has not changed! We are still bound to worship God as He has directed us in His Word. We are still to follow a strict, detailed posture of worship, and seek to worship God with reverence and fear according to His will, not ours.

2) We should also consider the example Christ set for us during His earthly ministry. Christ perfectly fulfilled the Law of God, both the ceremonial and moral laws. He recognized that there was no room for His human nature and will to overcome the will of His Father. That is to say, nowhere in the Gospel accounts do you see Jesus tell God the Father, "Don't worry. I'm going to die for these people, but I'm going to do it on my terms and the way I feel is most beneficial for you and me." No, Jesus is the perfect example of the broken and contrite heart before His Heavenly Father. He sacrificed His own will to the point of sweating blood in the Garden of Gethsemane before His betrayal. He would not have struggled as much if God allowed us to worship Him and follow His commandments on our own terms. No, Jesus prays, "Father, if you are willing, remove this cup from me. Nevertheless, not my will, but yours, be done" (Luke 22:42). We should follow Christ's posture to worshiping and seeking God's will. We should follow God's will, His commands, and His fashion of worship on His terms, as Christ did.

That's not the way we worship anymore, though. Today, it's a free for all! Do what makes you feel good. The "Burger King" worship mentality flourishes. Have it your way! God doesn't require a contrite heart anymore! Jesus did away with all that stuff in the Old Testament. Everything is "New" now. As if God has changed all of a sudden? But what about what Paul says in Romans 12 about sacrificing yourself in spiritual worship? God wants you! And He doesn't just want a tenth of you, but ALL of you! He doesn't want you to give Him ten percent of yourselves in worship, and leave the other ninety percent to do what you feel you really need in order to get closer to Him through worship. God tells us in Malachi 3, "I would prefer a tenth of what I have commanded, but you won't give me anything that I have commanded. I want all of you, but you won't even give me the small tenth I ask. Start by giving me what is mine, and I will restore everything to you!"

Brothers and sisters, Malachi 3 is a call to worship! A call to unblemished and God devoted worship! Set aside your desires for worship. Set aside your tithes and contributions. Give to the Lord what is His! No longer set aside the whole portion for yourself. No longer neglect the worship of God for your own gain, for it will be your curse! You can keep it all for yourselves. You can hoard the benevolence of God all to yourself and render only what you want to render, no matter how pathetic and selfish it is, for the sake of "worshiping" God. You can say that following the commands of God, following the manner in which He prescribed for worship, is all in vain. You can doubt God's provision for you. You can say, "What use is it to give God what He desires? They don't, and look at them! They're happy and they are flourishing! I'd rather be happy than give to God what He asks of me. He asks too much!" Lest you forget, you were bought with a price! You were a slave to sin. You owed a debt that you could never repay. But Christ, the Son of God, died upon the cross, bore your sins, nailed your curse upon the cross, and shed His unblemished blood on your behalf. Your debt has been paid, and you have been bought by a new master. You are the Lord's now! And if you love Him, if you truly love Him, then you will not find it difficult at all to set aside your desires and your wants in worship to seek Him as He has commanded!

Take to heart the last verses of Malachi 3:

Then those who feared the LORD spoke with one another. The LORD paid attention and heard them, and a book of remembrance was written before him of those who feared the LORD and esteemed his name. "They shall be mine, says the LORD of hosts, in the day when I make up my treasured possession, and I will spare them as a man spares his son who serves him. Then once more you shall see the distinction between the righteous and the wicked, between one who serves God and one who does not serve him.
Malachi 3:16-18

Those who feared the Lord esteemed His name! The Lord paid attention and heard them! A book of remembrance was written of those who fear the Lord and esteem His name! Do you fear the Lord? Then esteem His name above your own? Do you wish to be remembered as one who esteemed the name of Christ? Then give the Lord what He has commanded you! Give the Lord your tithe! Give the Lord what is truly His! Give yourself and all of yourself! Set yourself aside and desire to render worship that is pleasing to God rather than pleasing to your flesh.

"They shall be mine," says the Lord of hosts! Place your treasures in Heaven and you shall make up the Lord's treasured possession! You are the Lord's tithe! You are the Lord's inheritance! Serve your master well! Do not overlook the synonymous parallelism in the last verse to your doom. The righteous man serves God by following His commandments, but the wicked man serves another by turning his back to what God demands from us, and giving God the least that he can. You either serve the Lord or you do not! There is no in between. Is your worship acceptable in His sight? Have you set aside yourself and instead put all your trust, hope, faith, and might into serving God in the way He desires to be worshiped? Or are you seeking to worship God in a way that pleases you, warrants some carnal benefits to your flesh, and in a way that is pleasing in your own sight? You can either worship the unchangeable God according to His will, or you can worship yourself according to your own will. One will lead to life everlasting, the other will bear a curse everlasting.

Return to me, and I will return to you, says the LORD of hosts. Malachi 3:7