Will a man rob God?
This is the question God’s messenger known as Malachi asked the remnant of Israel beginning around 425 B.C.
Malachi, whose name literally translates as “My Messenger” warned the Jewish priest and the people of Israel that God was not pleased with their halfhearted worship of Him. Malachi was the final writing prophet in the Old Testament and his message is appropriately placed last.
His book is short, only four chapters long, but his message is very strong and forecast key events which Jesus would begin fulfilling some 400 years later. After Malachi, Israel does not hear from another appointed messenger until John the Baptist, of whom Malachi foretold would come on the scene, paving the way for Jesus and announcing Jesus as the long awaited Jewish Messiah.
In Malachi’s time Israel’s worship ceremony was way off base from how God had ordained it should be in His Covenant. Both the priest and the people of Israel honored God with their lips, however their heart was far from Him.
The multiple transgressions from God’s laws and ordinances were exemplified by their worship practices. Many Israelites offered blind, lame and otherwise disqualified sacrifice animals. The people were encouraged to do so by the temple priest who sought bribes or other favors to look the other way at their lame offerings. Malachi reproved them for their fainted worship by asking if they would offer worthless presents to their governors.
As previously stated, after nearly 400 years of silence from God’s prophets, Jesus is born in a manger. Then 30 years later, John the Baptist, who is the foretold “messenger of the covenant,” preaches repentance unto the Jews in Israel.
He next proclaims Jesus as the Messiah, which paves the way for Jesus to begin fulfilling the hundreds of other things prophesied about Him. Now keep in mind John had about a six-month head start for his ministry over Jesus, so John was somewhat regionally famous. However, John’s fame was mostly among the common people and mainly in the rural or “wilderness” areas. John was noticed by the Pharisee religious leaders and they sent minions to question John as to who he was, but Jesus was relatively unknown at that point in time.
So imagine the religious leaders’ shock when this unknown Messiah suddenly shows up at the temple in big town of Jerusalem and begins to clean up the place by tearing down the market located inside of the temple grounds.
He makes a whip of cords, drives out the merchants selling sacrifice animals, overturns the money changers tables and throws everyone out! He next proclaims that the temple belongs to His Father and they have stolen it. Then Jesus makes an astounding statement that if they destroyed his temple, he will rebuild it in three days!
Why would he do all this to his Jewish brethren and their leaders? The first reason is to fulfill several OT prophecies. The overarching reason is because the religious leaders of Jesus’ time had not only duplicated what the religious leaders of Malachi’s time had done in violating God’s covenant, but they had taken it to an even higher extreme.
The religious leaders of Jesus’ time weren’t interested in a bribe to look the other way at an unfit sacrifice animal, like the priest of Malachi’s time. They had figured out that they could pocket much more money by opening a market selling priest-approved unfit animals right in the temple. The moneychangers are the key to just how corrupt their robbery had become. These first century bankers were there to facilitate the business of religion. The priests’ religion was not God worship, but rather gain by marketing all things ordained of God.
Not only did Jesus cleanse the temple at Jerusalem near the start of his ministry, but Matthew and Mark record how he cleansed it again shortly before his crucifixion.
The strange thing about the later cleansing of the temple at Jerusalem is that the people laid palm branches in Jesus’ path and praised him as the Messiah as he entered Jerusalem.
Upon seeing this, the religious leaders feared the people and conspired how they might destroy Jesus. It is ironic that at the end of this same week, Judas betrayed Jesus for money. Additionally, at the end of that very week, many of the same people which praised Jesus as Messiah had a change of heart and cried “Crucify Him!”
Malachi 3:8 - Will a man rob God? Yet ye have robbed me. But ye say, Wherein have we robbed thee? In tithes and offerings.
Friends, it’s not about the money, God doesn’t need money. He created the entire universe—he owns it all. It’s not about some sacrifice animal. Jesus is the lamb of God, who gave himself as the ultimate offering for sin.
Hebrews 13:15 - By him therefore let us offer the sacrifice of praise to God continually; that is, the fruit of our lips giving thanks to his name.
How can we, who profess to be Christians, continually offer God the sacrifice of praise, when the majority of us can’t even offer him the sacrifice of a little time on Sunday morning, Sunday night and Wednesday evening prayer meeting?
Friends, God wants our best sacrifice—anything less is robbing God.
God loves you and so do I.