A Closer Look at Malachi
We are now going to look at the validity of bringing this out of the
Abrahamic ordinance that Abraham practiced of giving the tithe to Melchisedec.
We want to see whether or not that is going to hold water or not. We need
to look at Malachi 3:8. This is the verse that we always grab hold of to
scare the daylights out of you to make you give, or to make you tithe.
We start here in verse eight, where every one starts at. I want to show
you something that just doesn't fit in with what I have already told you.
It says Malachi
3:8-12 "Will a man rob God? Yet you have robbed me. But you say, Wherein
have we robbed you? In tithes and offerings. You are cursed with a curse;
for you have robbed me even this whole nation. Bring you all the tithes
into the storehouse, that there may be meat in mine house and prove
me now, herewith says the Lord of hosts, if I will not open the windows
of heaven and pour you out a blessing that there shall not be room enough
to receive it. And I will rebuke the devourer for your sakes and he shall
not destroy the fruits of your ground neither shall your vine cast her
fruit before the time in the field says the Lord of hosts. And all nations
shall call you blessed: for you shall be a delightsome land, says the Lord
of hosts."
This is it in its entirety. The scriptures that are brought out of Malachi
to reinforce tithing. However, this tithe is definitely not the Abrahamic
tithe. This is the tithe that was under the law. How do we know it was
under the law? Anything that says if you don't do it, you are under a curse
and if you do it, it carries a blessing, it was a law.
Remember, the tithe that Abraham gave did not produce
a blessing. The tithe came out of blessing or out of an increase that he
already had. Here in Malachi it says if you do this that He will pour you
out a blessing (and we've been told that's money, right) and that there
shall not be room enough to receive it. Now how many of you have been tithers
in you life? How many of you ever got to a point to where God poured out
so much money into you that you didn't have room enough to receive it?
You were making so many bank deposits your bank called you up and said,
"You must stop these deposits. We have no more room for them."
Let's deal with the storehouse. What is the storehouse?
We in the religious community love to tell you 'it's the church'. That
is stretching things a mite far. There is no correlation
in this being the church. We are told where these tithes went, into the
storehouse. I want you to turn with me now to Deuteronomy 26:12. We are
turning back to see where this store house is: Deuteronomy
26:12 "When you have made an end of tithing all the tithes of your
increase the third year which is the year of tithing, and has given it
unto the Levite..." Why did he say of all the tithes? Because there
was more than one ten percent tithe. There were at least three ten percent
tithes. If we are going to preach tithes it is at least 30%, from any study
I have done. You are not going to stay out from under the curse unless
you give at least up to 30% of your income. You say, 'Now I know what it
is, I've only been giving 10%. I've got to get up to 30 % to get blessed'
and out from under the curse. You will just wind up broker than you are
now! Folks, I believe there is something in all of this that is very grieving
to the Spirit of Grace. It is that we are trying to receive promises and
blessings from God outside of Emmanuel
the Christ! And there is something fundamentally wrong with that line of
thinking for a born again believer in Emmanuel the Christ. It's trying
to obtain something from God through doing something outside of Emmanuel.
Now where did this tithe go? Unto the Levite, the stranger,
the fatherless and the widow that they may eat within your gates and be
filled.
What About the "Storehouse"?
Now you may spiritualize this all you want. This tithe was given to
support who? The levites, the stranger that comes our way, the fatherless
and the widow, that they may eat. Now to adhere to this, that this storehouse
is the church, we have to go outside any scriptural guidelines to conclude
that the storehouse is the church. There is nothing to indicate it. I don't
know what the storehouse is. I am just telling you what it says that they
did with this stuff, the tithes. But there is no place that says that the
church is the storehouse of the book of Malachi. It is a complete presumption
that we receive because somebody in the pulpit told us that is what it
is.
Back to Malachi. Note this robbing of tithes carries a curse. This is
a law.
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