Faithfulness, Tithes, and God’s Steadfast Love | Malachi 3:6-18

You're listening to The Bible Guys, a podcast where a

couple of friends talk about the Bible in fun in

practical ways.

Hey, everybody, welcome back to the Bible Guys. We are

Chris and Wesley.

Yeah, yeah, good to be back.

Are you excited? Wesley?

Yeah, I am excited.

It's a good day.

It's Thursday because we found out that what we are Now,

where's a platinum edition?

Oh yes, I forgot to say that. Welcome to the

Bible Guys, Platinum edition and uh yeah, Jeff's out of pocket,

and so today we are going to be the Bible Guys. So, hey,

we are about to jump into Matthew or excuse me,

Malachi chapter four.

But before we do three, oh it's still the oh

yeah three.

Oh my bad, continuing three. But before we do, we

have a segment put together by Desiree. And this is

an unusual segment. It's actually relatively new and uh it

says that it's called the Bible Guys Jingle, and it's

as we're working our way through old TV show theme

songs and rebranding them to work to the Bibble Guys.

Let's do the Jetsons for today's episode. Now, First of all,

I'm fifty four. How are you?

Yeah? I am forty eight. I had to think about it.

Yeah, forty eight. Now do you remember the Jetsons?

I do remember, like when I was a kid, it

came on.

Yeah. So I mean, like, if you're younger than you,

nobody knows the Jetsons, right, they may know the reference,

but they certainly don't know the tune. And so Desiree

is younger than you and.

Is like eighteen.

Yeah, She's like, yeah, how do you, Desiree? She's thirty two.

So Desiree is thirty two. And so I said, I said, hey,

do you realize that the Jetsons only have four lines

in the whole opening credit? She said no, I have

no idea. So I asked chat Gpt to do it.

But just in case you don't know, it starts off

with this all this big or straban and it zooms

in on the earth and it's like and he goes

meet George Jetson his boy el Roy. That's it, and

he goes he flies in no daughter, g and the he

goes and he goes Jane, his wife, do do do

do do?

Do? Do?

Do do do? And he goes bye, ba and that's it.

So there's literally like four lives. And so I'm like, okay,

so let's ask chat GPT. So what I The question

I asked was, I said, would you please write a

theme song about the Bible guys a podcast where two

guys talk about the Bible and fun and practical ways,

uh to the theme of the Jetsons. And then I

actually had to ask it to make sure that it

was only four lines, because originally it just gave me

something different. I said, no, no, I said, the theme song

only has four lines, and it's four syllables per line,

even though it's Jane his wife has three. But that's okay.

I just I just left it at four syllables. And

so this is what we have. Are you ready? Okay? Ready?

Do do do do do do do do do do

do do. Meet Bible guys thinking they're wise, taking the

word do do do do do do do do do

do do do do what you heard? That's it.

I think we need like a real drummer out here

with that.

I can't even take the music, but most of it's

the music. So meet Bible guys thinking they're wise, taking

the word do what you.

Heard, that's it.

That's it.

Well, we don't even need to do today's lesson. Do that.

That's right, Just do what you heard. That's what you

have to do. So what a riveting segment that we

get done super quick, you know. And speaking of riveting, yeah,

you know it's riveting. Is when God starts to predict

the future. That is riveting. That's pretty good, you know,

because hey, listen, whenever the future is predicted back then,

especially uh, you know, the note that Life Application Study

Bible says one of the reasons why the people were

so discouraged is because the future hadn't come to fruition yet. Right,

all the prophets of the exciting prophecies of Jonah and

the prophecies of Isaiah and Jeremiah and all these different

prophecies that are laid out in the Bible, they hadn't

come true yet. So the people were getting discouraging, you know,

discouraged about their faith and about you know, their obedience. Uh.

And actually even down to the priests and the and

the religious leaders, none of them we're keeping the commandments,

even close to the commandments. They were living as hypocrites

and as pagans because the fulfillment of the future is

riveting Wesley. Yes, it is.

That you win the Transition award.

Thank you, thank you very much.

So we're going to Malachi third chapter, and this is

Versus six through eighteen. And it says, I am the Lord.

I do not change. This is why you descendants of Jacob,

are not already destroyed. Ever since the days of your ancestors,

you have scorned my decrees and failed to obey them.

Now return to me, and I will return to you,

says the Lord of Heaven's Armies. But you ask, how

can we re return when we have never gone away?

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. You are under a curse, for

your whole nation has been cheating me. Bring all the

tides into the storehouse so there will be enough food

in my temple. If you do, says the Lord of

Heaven's Armies, I will open up the windows of heaven

for you. I will pour out a blessing so great

you won't have enough room to take it in. Try it.

Put me to the test. Your crops will be abundant,

for I will guard them from insects and disease. Your

grapes will not fall from the vine before they are right,

says the Lord of Heaven's Armies. Then all nations will

call you blessed, for your land will be such a delight,

says the Lord of Heaven's Armies. You have said terrible

things about me, says the Lord. But you say, what

do you mean? What have we said against you? Verse fourteen.

You have said, what's the use of serving God? What

have we gained by obeying his commands? Or by trying

to show the Lord of Heaven's Armies that we are

sorry for our sins. From now on we will call

the arrogant blest, for those who do evil get rich,

and those who dare God to punish them suffer no harm.

Then those who feared the Lord spoke with each other,

and the Lord listened to what they said. In his presence.

A scroll of remembrance was written to record the names

of those who feared him and always thought about the

honor of his name Verse seventeen. They will be my people,

says the Lord of Heaven's Armies. On the day when

I act in judgment. They will be my own special treasure.

I will spare them as a father spares an obedient child.

Then you will again see the difference between the righteous

and the wicked, between those who serve God and those

who do not. That's good there, it is in verse six.

I like how it starts off where it says, I

am the Lord. I do not change. Earlier o the week,

we talked about that, the fact that God is the

same yesterday, today and forever, and how he is unchanging

and fine comfort in that, the fact that God is steadfast. Right,

if he said it, he will do it. He's a

God that is faithful and just. I love that about

our God. Not I love the fact that we don't

have to wake up in the morning. What kind of

mood is God in today? He's the same yesterday, today

and forever. So I love that.

Yeah, And that's the reason why like a covenant. So,

for instance, yesterday we talked about the word covenant. You

know what the word covenant means. It means a promise

until death.

Yes, what that means?

Uh, And so that's why it's so significant. So like,

for instance, like you know, you had a wedding. How

many how many years you've been married?

Twenty It will be twenty four years in June. See,

I know that I was testing you.

You got it right, good answer. And so my wife

and I were thirty three years and so and so

when we stood up there and we made a promise

to each other. It is actually we're entering into it.

They call it a marriage covenant.

Yeah.

The reason why they call it a cove it is

because you say, until death do us part, right, And

that's the reason why it's able to be called a

marriage covenant. Well, that's the reason why it's so significant

that God should make a covenant to us because guess what.

God never dies. So when God enters the covenants with us,

he never dies. Which is which is? Which is? You know?

I am the Lord. I do not change Verse six SSS.

You know. So you know remember in Genesis chapter nine,

what did God do? God says, I'm gonna make a

covenant with you. I'm gonna put a rainbow in the

sky because I'm going to remind you that every time

it rains, I'm going to remind you that I will

never again destroy the earth with water. Because this is

right after the flood right in Genesis nine. And so

from that day until this day, when it rains, what

do we see in the sky rainbows? So many people

don't understand, like that's not just pretty. A scientist may

be able to say, oh, that's a there's there's a

scientific reason of the reason why light off a water

particles something with the curvature of the earth and it

makes a bow. For these reasons, It's like, no, no, no, no, no no,

that's just how God chose to show his covenant, right.

Science proves that God has a reasonable explanation for the rainbow.

But the purpose of the rainbow is God put that

in motion to remind us every single time, Hey, don't worry,

don't get scared when it rains. I'm not going to

destroy humankind with water. It may seem like it's going

to rain a long time, guess what, it's going to

stop because I'm gonna put my rainbow there every single time.

God never changes from the time of the Old Testament

until now. From Genesis until now, God still keeps his

promise right, and so all the promises that God kept

in the Old Testament, you better believe that he's going

to keep his promises that he gives us in the

New Testament to the Church believer.

And that's refreshing to know when you're going through a

tough time, to know that God keeps his promise, says,

even when it doesn't look good, even when your situation

looks bad, you can't figure out how am I going

to get out of this one? God still keeps his promises. Now,

the situation may not unfold the way you desire, right,

you know, God never said he had to follow your

script or what you want it. But God does keep

his promises.

Yeah, well it it reminds me of Psalm seventy seven.

We got to go on and talk about this, but

but Psalm seventy seven is that it's patterned that way.

The first ten verses say God, have you have you

forgotten me? And then and then in verse number eleven

it turns and says, but then I remember your faithfulness. Yeah,

from long ago, I remember how you did X, Y

and Z, and how you know what God is as

great as our God? Right that that you know? To

whom else shall we run? You know? You know, because

because you're the one that we should run to, which

is right?

No, that's good.

So anyway that that's that's all found in verse number six.

But then we move on. And then he goes on

and says, you know, should people cheat God? Yet you

have cheated me. But you ask, what do you mean

when do we cheat you? And he lays out and

tithes and offerings. Now, what's so interesting about the word

tithe is again the life application study. Bible has a

lot of really cool things, and it says many ancient

peoples observe the practice of tithing, that is, giving a

tenth of their earnings of produce, of harvest, etc. Back

to a leader or to a god. Malachi's reminded of

the people of God's command to tithe. The first instance

is Abraham's tithe to Melchzedek. And then in the book

of Leviticus, and it gives all the chapters and all

the verses. These are the different references to tithes. The

Israelites were required to tithe of their crops, their fruit,

and their hurts. The Levites were given the tithe as

their support. The Levites in turn gave a tithe of

the tithe to support the priests, and the Israelites were

to bring their tithes to Jerusalem and offerings. When it

comes to the form of ritual meals which Levites were

invited to share, and of Jerusalem was too far of

a person to transport the tithe. He could take the

tithe there in the form of money, which is where

we find the temple, right, Yeah, the temple in Jerusalem

in Jesus' time when they would buy lambs and goats

and things, right yeah. And then there's two more references.

God promises blessings for those who faithfully tithe and says

that refusing to tithe is like robbing him that we

just read. And then tithing without love or obedience to

God amounts to nothing more than a meaningless ritual in Luke,

which is to your point a couple days ago, How's

it's the heart.

Behind the heart issue. Yeah, it's not about the money.

Yeah, that's right.

Yeah. God doesn't need your money.

Those are the references to tithe in Leviticus and in

Numbers and in Deuteronomy. Countless things in Deuteronomy, and then

in Malachi, and then in Matthew, and then also in Luke.

Now I want to throw a curve ball at you

because a lady asked this question to me, this is

like three four years ago, and she said, I do tithe,

so a ten percent of her income she would actually

set aside. But this is what she would do. She

would like take five percent, give that to the church.

Another the other five percent, maybe she would give to

like a homeless shelter or something like that. Can you

break apart your tithe you like divvy it up?

Yeah, that's a great question. So there's a lot of

debate about this. But keep in mind that they were

supposed to bring their tithes to the local storehouse, which

is the local church, right. It represents the local church.

And when you give a tithe to the church, you

have to understand that like today, we're supposed to tie

to you know, give our tithes to the church, our

offerings to the church. Well, Jesus didn't die for parachurch organizations.

Jesus didn't die for nonprofits, right, And by the way,

I'm on the board of a nonprofit, yeah, right, of

a parachurch organization, so I definitely believe in them. It's

a it's a sex trafficking uh, you know, anti sex

trafficking cause, so so certainly, you know that's a worthy donation, right,

But we have to understand that Jesus died for the church,

and so you know, the church is the bride and

and you know all the other ministries that are that

are connected to Jesus's mission are the bride's maids. Yeah, right,

and so and so yes, I believe that that your

your tithes and offerings should go to the church. And

then and then over and above, which I guess would

be offerings right, ties to the church offerings if you

want to, uh, which would be over and above your tithes,

you can give to other ministries. So so yeah, that's

a great question.

And it actually supports that. In the scripture in verse ten,

it says bring all the tithes into the storehouse. I

think another Bible translation says bring the whole tithe right

into the storehouse.

That's right.

So yeah, so we can't break it apart. Even though

what she was trying to do wasn't She didn't have

evil intent. She was trying to be a blessing to

other people. But in her mind, yeah, I can take

two percent, give it here, you know, give four percent

of the church, give three percent there, you know.

Yeah, yeah, and there's a lot of different and there's

a lot of different interpretations about heart issues. Like people

would say like, oh, is it tithing off the gross

or is it is it tithing off the net? And

then and then people would say, well, it's about the heart,

and they use the heart to you know, say, you know,

where's your heart? What kind of blessing do you want?

And and but but yet there's no direct specific, you know,

specification on tithe or Engrosser nets. And I mean these

are these are these are debates that have gone on

for centuries centuries, right, Yeah, and people go back and

forth on it, and they'd say, well, you know, is

tithe New Testament or is it Old Testament? And so

just just so everybody knows. At Heritage Church, we we

we say tithe is the model of the Old Testament.

The commandment that Jesus supports. He references tithe, He supports

it when he talks about you know, hey, you know

you tithe of your your cumen and your and your spices,

right and and and you should do so right. So

Jesus supports these things.

Yeah, it's referenced in the New.

So it's referenced in Matthew. It's referenced in Luke. So

we would say at Heritage Church, we would say the

Biblical model is, uh, you know, tithe a ten percent

off the top of your income. And then and then

offerings are over and above a tithe. And then there's

a third kind of offering alms, alms right.

That you can give out to the Salvation army bucket

if you wanted to.

Sure, yeah, because alms in the Old test the in

the Old Testament and New Testament are for the moment

kind of givings. Yeah right, it's the spare change in

your pocket kind of thing, right when they would collect alms.

So there's so there's tithes, there's offerings, and then there's alms.

Yeah yeah. So yeah, so when it comes down to tithing,

how how have you experienced uh, you know, honoring God

and your finances? Has that? Have you seen God work

in that?

Yeah? So when we and I mentioned this in a

previous episode, when I was laid off from my job,

we made a decision we would continue to tithe no

matter what. That was just a decision when we're not

going to backtrack on God or anything. And God, there

was not one bill that we had in that timeframe

that went unpaid. Don't ask me how we got money from,

you know, like we sent off for there was someone

who owed us money and we sent a letter and

they sent the money. Like every single month, God provided

in some kind of way to make sure that every

bill that we have was paid for.

Yeah, yeah, that's right. And it doesn't always work out

that way. Yeah, true, but God definitely always works right.

Like for instance, between my jobs, I was almost kicked

out of my house and they almost did a foreclosure

and yet we tithed, right, So it doesn't always it

doesn't always mean that God's gonna, you know, just magically

produce money, because after all, that's sort of a prosperity gospel, right,

the prosperity gospel. As we give in order to get,

we're going to give in order to be richer. And

some people teach that, don't they, you know, And we

don't necessarily believe that that the blessings that come have

to be monetary. The blessings that God promises when tithing

is that God would take care of us, and sometimes

it is money, sometimes it is God will show up miraculously.

Make sure that your credit score is never going to

go down right, and then sometimes it just does. But

God always takes care of you in other ways. But

I'll tell you, financially, I have seen God show up

in the ways that you're talking about. I have seen

money come in the mail that doesn't make any sense.

I've seen things down to the very dollar, down to

the dollar where it's just like we need to exactly

like one and ten dollars and a check came for

one ten dollars. I'm not even kidding, you know, as

a refund for something that we didn't expect. I mean,

I have seen God show up miraculously providing financially in

ways that are just beyond coincidence.

And I love when that happens because we can't take

credit for it. That's what we can't say. So we

can't take credit for it, and we can't say it

was coincidence. When it's something like that and it's like

to the specific dollar, it's like, Okay, God, this was you,

and we give him the credit.

Yeah and me. And let me be clear as well

to say that the time that I referred to just

now is almost being foreclosed upon. Eventually, God showed up

in that situation as well. And of course I did

not lose my house, and and God took care of

me in a great way. And I would I would

venturely say in that situation he showed up just in

the nicked time, you know. So it happens that way

as well, so you know. But the bottom line is

is God asks us to walk in faith in all

areas of our life, and tithing is no different right.

And people are funny about money, aren't.

Oh, this is one of the This is my hypothesis.

My theory here is that God could have chosen anything

on earth as a tithe It didn't have to be money.

He could have, in his infinite wisdom, could have chosen

anything you can. Yeah, he could have. But I believe

that God chose the thing that humanity loves the most,

the thing that you'll kill for, the thing that you'll

steal for, the thing that you'll go to jail for.

I want that not because I have a useful I

don't need your money, but the thing that your heart

is so attached to. I want you to give me that. Well.

I love the phrase that says God gave us, you know,

to over two thousand verses talking about finances in the

Bible more than ten times than any other topic in

the Bible, because he knew that money is the chief

competitor for our affection. Yeah, it is, That's what it is.

It's the chief Money is the chief competitor for our

affection and loyalty. And so God asks us to have

faith when it comes to you know, our choices and business,

when it comes to our parenting, when it comes to

our life decisions, when it comes to dating, when it

comes to marriage, when it comes to all things, and

then also when it comes to our finance, and and

and so it's no different. And so make no mistake

of it. You know, when when when God designed the church,

I love the way that God designed the church because

he designed giving as an individual practice right. So when

I give my tithe, that is a Chris czar Ba

and and and Chris Arba's family thing. It has to

do with our faith as a family. It has to

do with my faith individually, that's it. So it's an

individual practice right of giving. But then God involves the

corporate tithe too, you know, for all the church to

give to the storehouse, so that God calls the church

to be on mission to reach the world. So God's

God put all the eggs in the baskets of the church.

The church is God's Plan A and Plan B. The

church is God's hope for the world. So God calls

us corporately to this mission, which God uses the tithe for.

So I love the way that God designed the church

and the way that God asks us to do this.

So anyway back to my original thought, which was, as

church leaders, if we don't preach on marriage, then we

are disobeying God. If we don't teach on obedience and

being faithful with anger or forgiveness in relationships, we're being

disobedient to God. And as pastors, if we don't teach

on obedience and finance, we're being disobedient to God.

We can't preach half the word.

That's right, we can't. We can't discriminate. So a lot

of times as leaders we shy away. There are so

many pastors that shy away from preaching about money because

they're like, oh, people get offended. Yeah, but people also

get offended when you say God says that sex is

reserved for marriage, right, People get offended by that. They say,

stay out of my business. Right, And so it's like,

don't tell me what to do, don't tell me what

to do with you know, I can get angry if

I want to get angry, right, don't tell me how

to respond, don't tell me not to cuss, don't tell

me all these different things. But pastors they say, oh,

people are gonna get mad if we get in their business,

and they shy away from God's word. But guess what. Listen,

here's my big statement. My big statement is if you

have a problem with giving that is a spiritual problem,

make no mistake of it. That is not a financial problem,

that is not a business problem, that is not a

practical problem. That is just as much as a spiritual

problem as any other spiritual problem. It's just as important

in an exact same category as your marriage or your relationships.

And if you have a giving problem, then we need

to put it into the category of God teach me

in this area, which, by the way, consequently that means

that if people start to tie the more and as

the church offerings go up and we're able to do more,

that by church leadership should be just as celebrated as

much as God saving a marriage. Right, Yeah, God saved

a marriage. Man that's awesome. Let's celebrate God broke the

power of greed in somebody's life. Hey man, let's celebrate, right,

it's the same thing. And so yeah, so that's the

reason why you know, God is going through and saying,

here's all of my commands, here's all my decrees, and

let me talk about how you need to also honor

me with your resources as well.

Yeah, and there's a lot more that we can get

into here, but we are out.

Of time, we certainly are. So anyway, that is all

our time. So we will wrap up Malachi tomorrow and

so hopefully we'll see you then on the babble. Guys,