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MALACHI 3:10b-12
(Reading: Matt.5:1-12; Lev.26:3-13; Mal.3:6-12)
The Lord Re-Claims His Blessing!
The Christian can only find his true meaning in life when he is doing exactly what God lays down for him to do. Since it is God’s Spirit who has done that amazing work of regeneration upon our hearts we have been re-made to live in nothing else than the newness of life in Jesus Christ. For the believer to turn from God’s will for his life is to deny his very self!
When Adam did that in the Garden of Eden he brought upon mankind physical death. So imagine how cursed we are spiritually when we who’ve been re-created through Jesus Christ don’t do the very thing we have been re-made to do.
But to do the very thing we are meant to do is to know in the deepest possible way that this was what we were always meant to do. It all comes together then. It has to!
So when the Lord Almighty, through Malachi, says to his people that they are to test him by doing what they are meant to do, it’s a test you simply cannot fail! Just by sitting it you will pass it. Now that’s the kind of test our students would like to have!
And yet it is no easy test. It means that we’re to be dedicated to the Lord with all of our hearts and souls and minds and strength. Because it is actually our motivation to do what God challenges us to do which is the difference. We are not doing it for what we get out of it. Not at all! We are doing it because we already have everything we need from the Lord!
The Lord is adding something here, though. For, he says, when his people turn to him in this way it’s like the flood all over again, except now it’s not because God is angry with us but because he couldn’t be happier! THERE IS SO MUCH BLESSING!
These are the words of the first aspect to our text. And how true hasn’t it proved both in times of revival amongst God’s people, and in the individual lives of believers!
Take the example of William Colgate. He belonged to a large, but very poor family, which meant that at 15 he had to leave home to earn his own living.
On his way to New York he met a former neighbour, a canal-boat captain who was also a fine old Christian. The Captain, after having a word of prayer with him, gave him some sound advice: “Give your heart to Christ, be a good man, give to the Lord all that belongs to him of every dollar you earn.”
It wasn’t long before William gave his heart and life to the Lord Jesus, and his association with Christian people helped him to develop a true Christian character. He became apprenticed to a soap and candle maker at Baltimore, where he served his apprenticeship faithfully. Starting with the very first dollar he earned, he gave one-tenth of all he had to the Lord.
After two years he moved to New York, where he became head of one of the leading companies. At 23 he opened his own business. One of his first instructions was to tell the book-keeper to put one-tenth of every dollar that came into the factory into a fund for the Lord’s work. As God prospered him this was raised to two-tenths, then three, four, and, finally, five, so that, for many years, one half of his whole income was used for Christian work. Throughout his whole life he never ceased to believe that he was only a steward of those things which God had given him; and that as he was faithful in his trust, God would be faithful to his promise.
You see, congregation, it’s not the amount that Colgate made which should grip us, nor even how much he ended up giving. It’s the way he stood on God’s Word which matters – because that’s what testing the Lord is all about. That’s taking him at his Word.
When God’s people obey him they’re in the loop – the loop of faith. Because faith and obedience are always found together. If you obey God you are trusting him. And if you trust God you are obeying him.
In Malachi’s time the blessing was realised physically. Then the prophecy of Leviticus 26, the verses 3 till 5, were fulfilled, for their obedience meant rain on the earth, both autumn and spring rains, so their crops would grow and there would be a rich harvest. It would also mean the grass that feed the cattle was there, and so the people had their meat, too.
The blessing today, can, like with William Colgate, bring us physical riches. And with such a walk with the Lord business will usually be blessed. There is hard work, honesty, thriftiness - and there you see what happened in reformation Europe, and at places of genuine revival ever since!
But there is also, now, the far great blessing of what we have spiritually in Jesus Christ. And that makes the nature of the blessing quite different from Malachi’s time, for while they were blessed spiritually in their obedience to the Lord, it was especially physically that they saw that blessing. In the words of Francis Bacon, “Prosperity is the blessing of the Old Testament.” And then he went on to say, “adversity is the blessing of the New.”
This is what our Lord spoke of in his last Beatitude in Matthew 5, the verses 10 till 12. “Blessed are those,” he says, “who are persecuted because of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” And he goes on in the verses 11 and 12 to bring out what that adversity is and how we may realise our reward through it - because it’s the reward you have up above.
And this difference is brought out further in verse 11. From seeing in verse 10 that THERE IS SO MUCH BLESSING, there is the natural development which makes us realise, secondly, AND LOOK WHAT HAPPENS TO THE CURSING!
The Jews in Malachi’s day weren’t having good harvests. As we today need the rains to fall, and to fall at the right times, they needed it even more, because they were so closely tied to the land. This is what we see particularly in parts of Africa and Asia, but also how crucial isn’t it in Australia or America? For the Jews then their famine was because of their disobedience. That meant they were cursed.
Now, many today think of being cursed as some of spell cast upon you. Animist religions point the bone, for example, when they curse. But in Scripture God’s people are cursed because of what they do - or should I say, because of what they don’t do. It is when we don’t do what we have been made especially to do that the covenant becomes a curse upon us.
This is exactly why Jesus Christ had to come. Because the law is a curse to those who didn’t obey it, and the Old Testament proved that man couldn’t obey it. It could only be God himself who could. And so he bore the curse in his Son, Jesus Christ. In the words of Galatians 3, verse 13, Christ redeemed us by becoming a curse.
The way he died proves that he did this. For it was in that covenant that Moses had told the people, in Deuteronomy 21 verse 23, “anyone who is hung on a tree is under God’s curse.” And so by God’s covenant being fulfilled in Christ there’s nothing that can stop the Gospel’s spread. That world-wide harvest is being gathered in.
So, when Malachi describes pests being prevented and the vines holding on to their fruit, he’s telling us about God’s harvest. Because nothing is getting in the way of the blessing when his people look to him.
Oh, the devil will try his very hardest. His forces are all lined up against the Church. I mean, he’s already got the rest of this world! But when God breaks through all those demons are swept away! God’s people will be so blessed to overflowing that there’ll certainly no room for any devil to stay.
When Malachi says that the fruit won’t be cast from the vines he speaks of fruit that will be harvested. And the fruit of the vine are grapes – grapes which are made into wine. And wine makes the heart of man glad, to use the words of Psalm 104, verse 15.
While the nature of the blessing has changed for God’s people today, the symbolism of bread and wine are the same, because they come from the harvest. And when we acknowledge them as coming from the Lord we keep the cycle going for even more blessing.
That’s why anyone who truly participates in the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper will get more. As you do that out of obedience to the word of the Lord, you’ll be even more blessed. Well - have you ever gone short with him?
I mean, you will definitely miss out apart from him. That’s the cursing. But when you are tied to his doing his will on earth as it is in heaven, then you’ll experience those floodgates of heaven pouring out on you.
It’s like a woman who approached the well-known preacher, Dr Campbell Morgan. She was tired of her empty, worldly life, and so she said to him, “I am going to give myself to Christ and follow him. And she went on, “I have counted the cost. I may possibly have to do some things which are distasteful to me and which mean sacrifice and suffering. But I will do them, so help me, God.” “That’s right,” commented Dr Morgan. Then he commended her for her noble resolve.
Later the woman, with face beaming joy and contentment, said to Dr Morgan, “Do you recall what I said to you some time ago about following Christ, no matter what it cost?” “Yes,” said Dr Morgan. “Everything has been so different than what I thought,” she joyfully exclaimed. “I began to follow Christ with fear and trepidation, foolishly thinking that he would require me to do distasteful things against what I am like and what I wanted to do. But now I do what pleases me every day. The Lord has made me pleased with the things that please him.”
That’s exactly it - isn’t it? THERE IS SO MUCH BLESSING … AND LOOK WHAT HAPPENS TO THE CURSING … FOR GOD’S PEOPLE ARE WITNESSING. This is the third aspect to this text.
This is the crescendo of verse 12. “‘Then all the nations will call you blessed, for yours will be a delightful land,’ says the LORD Almighty.”
Now, I think it would be true to say that out there in the world today the Church doesn’t have a good name. There are those terrible abuses committed against children and women and men. There is the manipulation of the helpless so that the powerful can help themselves. Those who do that even dare to call themselves “blessed”, while they will proudly say that you are not!
But they are actually terribly cursed. And while they may have many following them, they are taking them down the wrong way. For which fruit does the Lord want to harvest today? Isn’t it the fruit of his Spirit?
To read through that passage in Galatians 5, the verses 13 till 26, about the fruit of the Spirit, is to condemn so much of what goes by the name of Christian today. But it will especially convict us. For are you living in revival? Do those around you see Christ alive in you - whether they like that or not?
There is a poem which pictures this well. It goes like this:
Past the believer as he prayed, came the sick and the poor and the beaten.
And seeing them, the Christian fell down in great prayer.
He cried, “Great God, how is it that a loving creator can see such things and yet do nothing about them?”
And out of the long silence, God said, “I did do something, I made you.”
Do this and GOD’S PEOPLE ARE WITNESSING. Then we are shining the Gospel light in this world. Then whether the world believes it or not the world will certainly have to acknowledge the difference the Lord makes. Then Malachi 3 verse 12 is true.
It’s this which Paul described in 2nd Corinthians 9 verse 13. He wrote, “Because of the service by which you have proved yourselves, men will praise God for the obedience that accompanies your profession of the gospel of Christ, and for your generosity in sharing with them and with everyone else.”
GOD’S PEOPLE ARE WITNESSING, because they are receiving. We just can’t help ourselves. To adapt those words of Francis Bacon, “While prosperity is the blessing of the Old Testament, and adversity is the blessing of the New, it is God’s generosity which is the blessing all the way through!”
Amen.
PRAYER:
Let’s pray…
LORD God, you have placed us on this earth for no less a reason than to be as you to this world. That’s an awesome responsibility. We are to be your ambassadors!
But you also give us everything we need to do exactly that. When it comes to getting your work done, as soon as we put ourselves into it, you make sure it will go through.
We thank you for your great gifts, especially the gift that gave it all, and still gives it all - the gift of your Son, our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ. Amen.
* As a matter of courtesy please advise Rev. Sjirk Bajema, if you plan to use this sermon in a worship service. Thank-you.
(c) Copyright 2022, Rev. Sjirk Bajema
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