Title: Our Tithes And God's Storehouse
Bible Book: Malachi 3 : 10
Author: Jesse M. Hendley
Subject: Giving; Stewardship; Tithing; Money; Offerings
Objective:
Introduction
Malachi 3:10 (Revised Version) says, “Bring ye (God's commandment to His people) the whole tithe (nothing less, or we rob God) into the storehouse (literally, “the house of supply”) that there may be food (Spiritual food to feed hungry and lost souls) in My house (the supply house is HIS house, but we must keep it filled with provisions for needy souls who hunger and thirst for His salvation); and prove Me now herewith (He challenges us to put Him to the test and guarantees tremendous blessing to those who tithe) Saith Jehovah of hosts (He signs His Name to this guarantee and cannot fail; His Name indicates that He is able to fulfill His promise), If I will not open the windows of heaven (all the blessings of heaven shall be poured out on the tither) and pour you out a blessing (every time you pay your tithe, God pours out a blessing), that there shall not be room enough to receive it (not only answering our prayer and satisfying every need, but far beyond our needs, flooding us, and overwhelming us with His good things.) And all this in because we tithe.
I. The Indication of Our Love
You say "Why should I tithe and give offerings?" You should because the tithe is an indication of love to God. Touch a man's pocketbook and you touch his heart. A man's money is at the center of his being. When he gives of his money, he gives of his life. What a man spends his money for indicates what he thinks most of, especially what he gives his money to. A man doesn't give his money to something or to someone he doesn't believe in. Money is hard to get. Money costs life to obtain. It comes the hard way. So money is a man's life, for his time and sweat and life go into making it. So when he gives it, he is giving himself.
What a man gives, or does not give, shows his faith, or lack of faith. If a man gives not the tithe to God, he shows he has no faith in God. He does not love God! The man who gives the tithe to God shows by his act that he loves God.
Many a man goes to church on Sunday morning, sings, says a prayer, listens to the preacher, and puts a dollar in the offering plate and walks out satisfied that he is a good religious man. And yet, he has robbed God! God says so. Giving less than the tithe robs God. I go farther and declare unto you that anything less than tithes and offerings robs God.
A tithe is a tenth of your income. Ten per cent of all that we receive, our net receipts, our net income belongs to God. All of this, plus an offering, expresses our thanks above and beyond the tithe. So until we give the tenth and something above, we haven't given anything to God. To give the tenth is just discharging our duty. We have just paid our debt. God says that we owe Him that much. This is not a gift. If we really love God, we will have to come bringing Him something BEYOND our tithes and offerings (the tenth and beyond).
II. The Impulse above the Law
To those who say that this was spoken to the Jew, let me ask you a question. Can a Christian under Grace say he loves God and then give Him LESS than a Jew under the Law? Of course not he cannot! People who give just little dribbles of their income to God prove by this that they are trying to get by with as little obedience to God as possible; and this attitude proves that they do not love Him from the heart! “He that loveth not, knoweth not God, for God is love.” If a man does not give generously, he doesn't love God; he has no faith.
III. The Indictment from the Lord
Now if you think I am stretching matters a little, let us read God's own words: “Will a man rob God?” The answer is YES. Some men will not rob their fellowmen, but will rob God, showing they love man more than God. Yet, when we die, man cannot help us; only God can aid us in death! We'd better make a Friend of God!
God says, “Yet ye rob Me.” Friends, with all my heart I say, heed God's words. Is God speaking to you here? Are you one of the criminals who sticks his fingers in God's pocket and takes what belongs, not to you, but to God?
“But ye say, wherein have we robbed Thee?” God answers, “In tithes and offerings.” (Ten per cent of all income plus what we bring Him above that is what is spoken of here.)
“Ye are cursed with a curse,” says God. The man who robs God has a curse on his life, body, business, family, and especially his soul, for he has left God (Verse 17). He may not realize it now, but the day is coming when such a person will walk away from serving the Lord. And what an awful day it will be.
“For ye rob Me.” God repeats this horrible crime of stealing from Him! “Even this while nation.” The work of God drags on everywhere because so many people rob God. There are 200,000,000 Chinese with dying souls that have never heard about Jesus because we, who have heard, ROB GOD. Millions of lost souls are starving for the Gospel we love. They are going to Hell because professing Christians rob God; they do not bring the tithe into God's supply house so that preachers may be sent to tell them the Story and win them to Jesus Christ.
IV. The Instruction from His Lips
Someone asks: “Where are we to bring our tithe? What is the storehouse?”
Let us look again, carefully, at the Word of God and see what it says, then we cannot go wrong. God says, “Bring ye the whole tithe into the storehouse.” The word for storehouse in the Hebrew is literally, “house of supply, provisions, stock.” In the next sentence God calls it “My house,” and He says it is to be stocked with “food.” (“Food in My House”). Let's get the picture. We are living in a needy world. Its greatest need is not physical but spiritual. Men need God! Men are facing judgment. People are hungry for God! Millions all over the world needed to be saved. Two hundred million in India need the Gospel. Vast China is in need of the Gospel. Europe is crying for God. America is in awful sin and multitudes are going down to eternal ruin and death without God. Yet they are hungry for Salvation and the Gospel.
Now God wants to reach them. He has a house, a supply house, a house from which they can be fed from its supplies, and a house, which contains provisions for their needs. Now where is God's house on this earth? Where is the house, which has the provisions for the needs of the world? The “house” where He dwells and through which He manifests Himself to a lost world? The answer is His Church! The church is God's house through which He can reach this lost world.
But, what is the Church? Is it some local, physical building? No! A wooden or a stone building is not God's church. Nowhere in the Word is a physical building called God's church. The church is an assembly of two or more Christians. (Matthew 18:20) “Where two or three are gathered together in My Name, there am I in the midst of them.” Notice the word “where.” Wherever Christians are gathered together, there is God's House. Christ is there. That is His House! Wherever Christians gather in a house for prayer, worship, Bible study, soul winning, abd to carry on God's work, Christ is there! There is the house of God! There is God's supply house through which He meets the needs of this world.
We read of the Christians in the New Testament, the early Christians, meeting in houses. Paul speaks of “the church in thy house.” The house itself wasn't the church. The church met in the house. The house was simply the meeting place. Wherever Christians gather and unite their hearts to pray and worship and win souls and carry on God's work there is the supply house, the house of God with the provisions to feed hungry souls. Christ is there! He is in it! Who dares doubt it? My friends, when will we ever learn that wherever God’s people meet to carry on God’s work, we are to be investing in eternity by giving our tithes and offerings!
God is using many channels to carry on His work to reach the lost world. No one, single work can say, “This is the only work of God on earth.” We are to pray for all God's people, wherever they are doing their best to carry on His work. We are to give of our tithes and offerings to help, wherever God lays it upon our hearts to give. If a work is spiritual, giving out God's Word faithfully, is seeking the lost and winning souls, and our hearts are touched by the Holy Spirit to help carry it on, that is God's supply house. That is the work of God and to bring our tithes into it is to obey God and be blessed.
It certainly is not God's will for us to give to a work that is liberal and denies the Word of God! I do not believe it is God's will for me or for any other Christian to give to any work that is not preaching God's Word and seeking souls! In fact, I make bold to say that it is God's will for every Christian to pray and give to the work he feels is most faithfully carrying out the will of god, the work that is true to his word and to the souls of men!
So God's store house, God's house of supply, is wherever Christians gather together to carry on His work. Look at Ephesians 2:22, “In whom ye are builded together for an habitation of God through the Spirit." Hebrews 3:6, “Christ as a Son over His own house, whose house are we.”
The supply house is God's house, but it is our privilege and tremendous responsibility to keep it stocked with provisions, spiritual food, to be given to needy souls! The only way they can be reached is by preaching the Word. The only way preaching can be carried on is by the tithes and offerings and gifts of every one of God's people. If we do not bring in tithes and offerings, we rob God. We rob lost men of Eternal Salvation! No wonder God says the man who does not tithe is cursed. Thank God we can tithe and be blessed!
Conclusion
I want to close with a personal testimony about the joy of giving to the Lord. When I was saved, I learned the joy of giving unto the Lord. I began to tithe immediately and I remember especially the ecstasy when I gave something above the tithe unto the Lord. When I would give something to the poor, the widows, and the orphans who could not help themselves, how the blessed Presence of God flooded my soul. Again when I gave to missions, the love of God was so real to my soul. Talk about “Feelings!” True giving to God produces wonderful feelings! But above all, when I give to help win souls my soul is mightily blessed because
No, my friend, you can be sure that when your heart is moved of the Spirit to give to any gathering of Gods’ true people in order to feed the hungry, minister to the sick, clothe the naked, visit the imprisoned, preach the Gospel, and especially to win lost souls, you are bringing your tithes and offerings into God's storehouse and great is your blessing here And hereafter!
(Outline points and editorial changes in this sermon were added by the Editor of PastorLife, Dr. J. Mike Minnix.)
