Testing God's Generosity

This God of creation that we've just sung to and sung about is the owner of everything. That God is the owner of a cattle on a thousand hills, the earth is the Lord's and all it contains, the world, and those who dwell therein. And we want to talk about God's right to those things tonight as we talk about testing God's generosity. Would you take your Bibles, please, in turn, to Malachi, chapter 3, where we are going to talk in something of maybe unique terms, maybe something that we're hearing for the first time that God has certain rights and privileges that are often violated. Remember that is the theme of Malachi. God is telling us how to love him in a personal way. It is it's a kind of part and parcel to the evangelical way of life and thinking to talk about having a personal relationship with God. And so God, that being the truth, describes for us in Malachi what it is to have a personal relationship with him and how in a number of ways we violate that personal relationship. If you'll remember a couple months ago and we began this series, I mentioned that all of the ways in which we violate our relationships with other people, we do the same things to God, almost in the same fashion, the same manner. And one of the things that we always struggle with is this issue of rights and privileges. We live in a society, a nation, a culture consumed with our rights and kind of preoccupied with our privileges. In fact, the word of right and freedom and entitlement, those make up a great deal of our thinking and our vocabulary seldom do we hear the words about duty and obligation. Whenever we want to do something sinful, it seems we simply declare it a right and an eight privilege of mankind. When a woman, for example, doesn't want the baby in her womb, she simply invokes the right of personal choice. And her right to choose her happiness, her convenience, her career, trumps even the right to life of the baby in her womb. If someone wants to practice autonomy with another man or live in a lesbian relationship, then they claim the right to personal happiness and the privilege of pursuing alternative lifestyles or different orientations. If there are few people who don't want to worship God and they don't want anybody else to do so, then they invoke the right of the atheistic view to impose their will upon to theistic majority so that we're not able to pray in public schools or to recite the ten commandments in corporate meetings or to acknowledge God in an indie kind of cultural manner. And truth-loved ones, you know as well as I do, we never have the right to sin, only the option to do so. And it is never our privilege to defy God. That is simply something in his mysterious wisdom and sovereign grace that he permits us to do. When our own cynicism says that our chief end is to glorify God and to enjoy him forever, then the Bible makes it clear that our life is rightfully the duty to glorify God, to obey him and serve him and our duty is to recognize and respect the privileges of God. Now certainly we do have inalienable rights. In fact, our founding documents as a Christian people in this country acknowledge that all men are endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights and among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. I want you to notice that there's a little phrase that we often know that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. In other words, there's more to our inalienable rights than life and liberty and the pursuit of our happiness to the extent that our pursuit of happiness doesn't lead to the happiness or unhappiness of someone else. We have the right to be told the truth. We have the right to follow our conscience before God to assemble and worship God in a way that we feel is right. We have a right to protect and provide for our family, the right to securely own and use and lay title to our own property. We have a right to a fair day's pay for honest work, the right to be treated with dignity and so on and so forth. These are not rights that our founding fathers came up with. These are rights that are in the Bible and they are our rights because they are God's law. All of our inalienable rights are derivations of the 10 commandments, every single one of them. In fact, for example, all right to have a free press for the media to speak into the affairs of state and church and not be punny sport, flow out of the right that we have for someone not to bear false witness against a neighbor. There's not one right that we could look at that is not a commandment of God and there's not a commandment of God that is not a reflection of God's character and nature. So the theologians have long realized and have taught us seminarians and pastors that our inalienable rights are simply a reflection of God's immutable character or to put in another way the rights of man originate in the will of God and when God's will is violated our rights are damaged. In fact, to go against the will of God is certainly and inevitably to lead to the revoking or the revision or the twisting of your rights as God's creature. Let's go back to the example of the right to life. Where do we get the idea that we have the inalienable right to life? The first thing that our Declaration of Independence mentions will because we have as a commandment, you shall not kill. Where do we get that idea? God says that he's the giver of life, that he has the right to give life and he alone has the right to take it away. So it's in the character of God as creator and as redeemer to give birth and to cause people to be born again, to give life and then new life and eternal life, that our right to life is derived. And when we violate that right to life towards someone else, it's not long until our right to life is also in jeopardy. We may think that it's something that we just have to live with, that abortion is the law of our land, but I want to tell you that abortion inevitably and has led to infanticide. Not only do we take the life of children in the womb who are unwanted, but now we take the lives of children who are born with some physical or mental defect as we call it and we terminate their life. We murder them after they have sucked into their lungs the breath of God's life that is there in alienable right. And then it's just to step away from euthanasia. We're old people, people like Pastor Ross who can't be as productive as he used to. They're getting old until we kind of eliminate them because they're taking up too much space and breathing too much air and using too many resources and they're a bother to us. Maybe even more bother than a newborn baby. And then it's not very far to go from abortion to infanticide to euthanasia to where we're doing mercy killing. Sometimes not mercy at the person's request, but at our own leisure. Well, then oxymoron, mercy and killing in the same agitival phrase. And to that, we will be like red China or North Korea. Forcible population control where you can only have so many children and if you exceed that number of children they will be eliminated by the state. Isn't it interesting that we're always allowed to have more little boys than little girls. And beyond that, we are into Holocaust. The elimination of whole groups of people who were undesirable Jews, the mentally ill, the inferior races, those Christians. I'm not exaggerating when I say that they're very short spiritual distance between the abortion clinic in Charlotte, North Carolina and the gas chambers in Nazi Germany a very short distance. Just as much distance as it takes to ignore the an alienable right of God to the life of His creatures that we take from Him that robs us of our basic rights to life, to liberty, to the pursuit of happiness. This is the underlying theme of this passage tonight that sinful men treat a holy God the same way they treat other people. And since we often infringe upon the rights of other people, it should not surprise us to hear God is saying to his church, you have violated my inalienable rights. God informs Israel that they are violating His privileges, that they are taking away what is rightfully His. And He recognizes this and calls them to recognize the privileges of God and to test the generosity of God. In fact, God accuses Israel of robbing Him of that which is rightfully His, of stealing His property. Look in Malachi chapter 3, beginning in verse 6, for I the Lord do not change, therefore you, O children of Jacob, are not consumed. From the days of your fathers, you have turned aside from my statutes and have not kept them. Return to me, and I will return to you, says the Lord of hosts. But you say, how shall we return? Will a man rob God? Yet you are robbing me. But you say, how have we robbed you in your ties and contributions? You are cursed with the cursed, for you are robbing me the whole nation of you. Bring the full ties into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house, and thereby put me to the test, says the Lord of hosts. If I will not open the windows of heaven for you and pour down for you a blessing until there is no more need, I will rebuke the devour for you so that you will not destroy the fruits of your soil and the vine of the field shall not fail to bear, says the Lord of hosts. Then all nations will call you blessed, for you will be a land of delight, says the Lord of hosts. Now before you shut down and say, oh no, a sermon on tithing, I should have stayed home for the Super Bowl. Let me tell you that what God is really after is our blessing. God could have said in this passage, now look, the tide this mine, you're taking it away from me, you bring it here and give it to me, that's it or else, but that's not what he says, is it? He says, test me in this, and see if I will not, as you respond in your giving to God in his church, if I will not respond in a way that opens the windows of heaven and pours out a blessing upon the whole nation of you. Right in the thick of the depression, fact, right before Pearl Harbor, Franklin Delano Roosevelt gave perhaps his most famous speech, every president has one. And his was called, or later came to be called, it was a state of the Union address, the four freedoms. Those four freedoms have been immortalized in artistic drawings by the famous artist, I can't remember his name, but he used to draw pictures for the Saturday evening post. Thank you, Norman Rockwell, the Lord just thank you, Lord. I heard a voice that said Norman Rockwell, and that was it. I have received a word from above, okay? And Norman Rockwell drew these four paintings, and they were, first of all, the painting of a dad and a mom who were tucking their children in bed, and that was the freedom from fear, the right for little children to grow up in a place that was safe and sound. And then there was a picture of a working man standing up in a New England town meeting his hands on the bench in front of him. He was making a point. He was giving his opinion in this meeting of his corporation, his city in New England, and of course that was the right to speech, free speech. There was also a picture of a Christian, a Jew, a Muslim and a Hindu, all bowed in prayer, which was reflective of the right of religious freedom. But the one that we often overlook was perhaps the sweetest one of all, where there was a grandfather and a grandmother getting ready to carve a big Thanksgiving turkey, and around the table was his family, and it was the freedom from want. And Franklin Delano Roosevelt invoking some of the words of the prophets in his state of the Union address said that it was the right of people everywhere to be free from poverty and want. That God had given to mankind and to the nations of the world more than enough to satisfy the needs of every person if they would simply do what was right. And that is what God is telling us in this passage of scripture, that if we do what is right and honor his rights, he will bless us. As in all of these different, these complaints that God brings, this is number five, God issues a complaint that is answered by a question of denial, and then is explained in a discourse. So God's complaint, first of all, is that we steal from Him. From the days of your fathers, you have turned aside from my statutes and have not kept them. Return to me, and I will return to you, says the Lord of hosts, but you say, how shall we return? Will a man rob God? Yet you are robbing me, but you say how have we robbed you in your ties and contributions? Now, here's a double accusation, that these people for generations from the days of your fathers, they have turned aside from the law of God and violated his basic statutes. They've not kept this covenant that they made with God on Mount Sinai, covenant with Moses, a covenant of grace. And they say, well, how, why do we need to repent? Well, what do we need to return from? And he said, because you're robbing me, he uses the word comeah, that's only used twice in the Old Testament here and in Proverbs chapter 22, verse 23, do not rob the poor because he is poor. Acrust the afflicted at the gate for the Lord will take up their cause and rob the life of the one who robs them. So here's this idea of thievery, it's a basic word that means to defraud, to steal from, to be dishonest about, to be a thief. Different translations render this question of God, can a man cheat God? Can a man defraud God? Can a man be a thief against God? Walter Kaiser says, taking what belong to God was outright thievery and fraud and that is what God was saying they were doing to him. And the thing that is probably most discouraging is that God says, you know, you've been doing this for so long that you're defrauding me has become a way of life, a way of thinking. From the days of your fathers, you have turned aside from my statutes and have not kept them. These laws that God gave in Leviticus and Numbers and Deuteronomy to tie to the Lord quite candidly, if we read the history of Israel and especially if we read the prophets, Israel never kept these things. They were never faithful tithers. In fact, God had provided for them two wonderful things, two wonderful blessings intended for their benefit, not for his. I want to tell you that God never says in the Old Testament of the New that he needs the money. Because God, I'm not trying to be facetious, lives in a sphere of life where money is absolutely meaningless. If God would want something, he would simply will it into existence. But God doesn't need anything. Why God commanded the tithe was really will see in a few minutes for our benefit. And so much so that God said, look, here's what I want you to do. I want you to bring your tithe into the storehouse every year. We'll find out in a few minutes why. But then he said every third year, I want you to take that tithe that you've stored up in the storehouse for three years. And whatever's left over, I want you in the priest to have a huge party. I want you to spend it on whatever you want on wine and meat and fruits and dancing. And I want you to celebrate the goodness of God. And he built into their economy a cycle of sevens where every seven days they would rest and they would rest their land and they would rest their livestock and they would rest their servants and they would rest themselves. And every seven years they would rest. They would rest the land and they would rest from certain travel things and they would they would throttle back a little bit. And then every seven times seven, every 50th year, they would have a year of Jubilee. You know what? They never kept that Jubilee one time, not one time in their history. And as far as we know, they never kept the cycles of sevens. So when then God got ready to send them into captivity for 70 years, it was for 70 cycles where they had ignored God's blessing on their labors and he punished them symbolically one year for each cycle of sabbatical rest that they ignored. I can assure you that God didn't need a rest every seven days. He never gets tired. And he never runs out of money so that every 50 years all debts are canceled and he gets out of hawk. He never has every seven years where he he needs to rest because he's he's barren and he needs to go follow for a year kind of take a break for a year and have no God every seven years so he can refresh himself. No, it's we and our world, our lives and our stuff that needs this rest and the tide was part of that cycle of investing in God so that he could bless us. The church counters with the question, how shall we return? In other words, what have we to repent of? And now have we robbed you? God says, you have robbed me in your ties and offerings. And so now he gives a description of why this is so important to him and he describes or he lays out his case, his argument in verses 9 through 12. Read it once more with me. You are cursed with a curse for you are robbing me the whole nation of you bring the full tide into the storehouse that there may be food in my house and thereby put me to the test says the Lord of hosts. If I will not open the windows of heaven for you and pour down for you a blessing until there is no more need I will rebuke the devour for you so that it will not destroy the fruits of your soil and your vine in the field shall not fail to bear says the Lord of hosts. Then all nations will call you blessed for you will be a land of delight says the Lord of hosts. First he tells them the source of their problem and it is his curse. This is the third time in the book of Malachi that God uses the word curse. He used it if you look back in chapter 1 verse 14 concerning those who were bringing defective offerings to the to the altar. Curse be the cheat who has a male in his flock and vows it and yet sacrifices to the Lord what is blemished. And then in chapter 2 verse 2 he uses this word concerning the priest. If you will not listen if you will not take it too hard to give honor to my name says the Lord of hosts then I will send the curse upon you and I will curse your blessings. And now the third time in verse 9 of chapter 3 he says you are cursed with the curse you who are robbing me the whole nation of you. And what you know that in the Hebrew language when something is a word is doubled up back to back it's like saying something in the English in the superlative to be cursed with a curse means to be cursed in an unimaginable way. And the thing that makes it so devastatingly terrible is the extent of this curse it's the whole nation of you. God says your complaint about the relative state of affairs about the poor economy about your miserable crops and the political and economic oppression of these Gentile nations these things did not happen in a vacuum. You remember back in chapter 2 and verse 17 that's what their complaint was. They felt that God was blessing the pagans and not his own people. Look at chapter 2 verse 17 you have worried the Lord with your words but you say how have we worried you by saying this everyone who does evil is good in the side of the Lord and he delights in them or by asking where is this God of justice. God says you are not prospering in your financial and material ways because you're robbing God you're cheating him out of his right to your ties and offerings and therefore you're experiencing not a blessing but a curse. Cursed with a curse the whole nation of you everyone felt the brunt of this economic chaos there's no way to escape this truth when the economy is bad it affects everybody the rich in the poor obviously the poor feel it more but every person feels this sort of thing when we're unfaithful in our tithing we suffer the consequences but blessings follow obedience in every arena of life including with our money. I think one of the problems we have folks is that somewhere along the line we have felt that money is a filthy thing well there's a place in the Bible where it's called filthy lucre anybody know what that context is it's called filthy lucre when people preach the gospel and their motive is just to make money off of it that's when money becomes filthy but money is no more filthy than land is or then machines are or then then medical science or sports that entertain us money is just a part of this world actually quite frankly a blessing a medium of exchange from God so that we can transfer wealth and exchange goods and bless each other in an easy manner nothing bad about money but it's a love of money over God that's bad but I think there's something in the christian mind that thinks you know money's kind of in the secular realm and it doesn't belong in the spiritual life that's not how the god of the old testimony his son Jesus Christ thinks of money money is part of our life and it's to be managed part of our stewardship and it affects not only us but other people and there are numbers of places in the Bible where there are promises that if we are faithful to God on the money we will be financially, temporally blessed in this life onto the Lord from your wealth and from the first of all your produce then your barns will be filled with plenty and your vats will overflow with new wine give and it will be given to you good measure press down shaken together running over it will be poured into your lap for with your standard of measure it will be measured to you pay attention to what you hear for with the measure you use it will be measured to you and still more will be added to you whoever so sparingly will also reap sparingly but whoever soes bountifully will also reap bountifully each one must give as he has decided in his heart not reluctantly or under compulsion for God loves the cheerful giver and we could go on and on and on about how God chooses to bless us if we bless him with our finances now inevitably let me just stop the emails before they start someone will say isn't this health and wealth theology aren't you really preaching health and wealth you know what I am I'm preaching health and I'm preaching wealth as two gifts from God two things to be managed but I'm not saying as health and wealth preachers that we can manipulate God with the use of our money that we give to him so that he's bound to give to us that we can extort things from him by the word of faith laying claim to a promise and twisting it for our own benefits and I find a lot of times the people who in evangelical churches object to health and wealth are really people who have a problem with their finances here's what I'm saying more often than not not always but more often than not families congregations and nations with chronic or continual financial difficulties are guilty of violating God's principles a biblical stewardship and they are not being blessed they're being cursed God has a way of spanking his children financially when they sin financially in fact you would agree with me I hope that most of the discipline that we receive from God for our sins are already built into the way life is if we violate sexual morality our discipline comes in the form of sexually transmitted diseases unwanted pregnancies broken relationships great shame and disgust if we are violent people our lives are filled with pain with brokenness and beating and death and if we are people who don't act with integrity with money then our finances are cursed with the curse we after all we do reap what we sow and that without partiality now you would think that God would stop there and say look that's the point you're being cursed in your finances you fork it over any up and pay or else it'll get worse but he doesn't being a God not only of justice but of grace he gives them this wonderful promise bring the full tie than the storehouse and I will open the windows of heaven and bless you beyond imagination so God's solution to the problem is his graciousness God says test me and see if I will not honor you for your honoring me with your money now he says look if you will in verse 10 bring the full ties into the storehouse that there may be food in my house I want you to notice that the ties in verse 10 is plural because there were not one but two ties in the old testament we sometimes argue with the the preacher that that that we don't have to give a tie like the old testament does and you're right their ties are somewhere between 25 and 30 percent they had two tents that they had to give we believe the God requires one of us they gave a tithe that Leviticus talks about every time the land whether the seed of the land or the fruit of the trees as the lords it is holy to the Lord if a man wishes to redeem some of his tithe he shall add a fifth to it and every tithe of the herds and the flocks and every tenth animal of all that pass under the herdsman staff shall be holy to the Lord one shall not differentiate between good or bad neither shall he make a substitute for it if he does substitute for it then both it and the substitute shall be holy it shall not be redeemed it belongs to God there was a tenth tenth of everything that was given to the temple why simply to support the priesthood and the ministry of the church it really wasn't for God's benefit it was to pay for the priests it was to pay for the sacrifices it was to go into buying things like the the oil for the lamps and the frankincense for the for the incense and all the lambs that that had to be offered when poor people came to the to the temple and they couldn't afford to bring a lamb for sacrifice it passed over the temple provided one where did those things come from from the money in the storehouse that the Levites managed for the benefit of the whole nation and then there was another tithe referred in verses eight as tithe and offerings and that was a tithe that was given in addition that tithe that I mentioned that went into the storehouse what was left over every three years was spent on benevolent purposes and a great celebration those were the tithes or what's referred to here as offerings or donations that the Levites kept for poor people for widows and orphans for strangers in the land for those who had been in some kind of economic stress and rather than lose their land that had been in their generations for years or be unable to provide for the children these afflicted people would go to the temple in the priesthood open up the treasury and provide for them here's what God is saying when you give your ties to me it's really for your benefit we're storing up this money in my priesthood to help you through the regular worship of your corporate life together as the people of God and to have money in times of emergency and every few years when we have more than we need will have a great celebration and everyone will be blessed not one penny was transferred to heaven not one dime went into the pocket of Jesus Christ he simply saved these things for us why because people had the right to be free from want to be free from fear they had the right to life to survive and to eat they had the right to live a life of dignity of which poverty always robs a man so God built into the system ways to protect our inalienable rights so that when we had good crops and good years with the flock and things were going well economically we would store things up and when they were not then God would open up the storehouse and help us so that life was level and dignified and predictable and safe and we were free free from financial bondage in financial worry in financial ruin God says that's why I'm doing these things I'm asking you to contribute to the greater good of your corporate spiritual community so that you will be blessed I don't need the money you do and a very real sense God was helping us be good stewards he knew that it's the human tendency to gorge when we have enough and to faint when we have too little so God built into the system of economics into the worship of the church in the Old Testament into the priesthood and their management of the temple and of the community this economic leveling factor that the tithes and offerings gave to the people of God to the church and God says you know these same principles of stewardship I will give to the New Testament I will someday speak to the apostle and he will write to the church in Corinth and say you know there is this principle of sowing and reaping accordingly 2 Corinthians 8 and 9 and he would tell the Corinthians now you out of your plenty have given to the Macedonians in their poverty so that someday out of their wealth they will contribute to you in your hour of need there's that same leveling process of caring for the people of God so that Paul would tell the church whenever you gather on the first day of the week let each one bring something and leave it at the church under the management we believe of the decons of the church and the general oversight of the elders of the church to be used for the people of God ties are general and regular support of the church offerings are special things above and beyond that offerings for missionaries offerings for people in Haiti like this morning offerings that we give to the decons in time of need and I need to commend you you are an extremely generous church and there has never been a time where I have written the letter to you sent an email out to you made an announcement from this pulpit spoke on behalf of the elders and decons say we had the need would you help us where we did not exceed the expectations of the officers in giving to that that is because you love one another and it shows in your giving you see that's what God is telling us about tithing we tithe I think for four reasons first of all God makes it clear in his instructions that tithing is an acknowledgement of God's ownership of everything we really don't own anything we're just helping God manage what's is and he's a gracious manager who lets us spend a lot of his money on our stuff so that we are happy in our management the earth is the lords and the fullness thereof the world and those who dwell in it he has founded upon the seas and established it upon the rivers motivation for tithing was never to play cake God but to help him manage his creation because in the garden he said you will be masters over the creation you will have dominion over it and you will help me take the resources of the earth and refine them and produce them in such that they bless other people the second reason we tithe is I think proof of our genuine love and our faith in God Jesus seems to draw this line in the sand in the New Testament even more than God does in the old that our tithing indicates that we love God and not man and not ourselves and not this world one writer said tithe if you love Jesus anybody can honk tithing is God's catechism it's true it's a lot cheaper to honk folks let me do tithing is God's catechism for sacrificial giving and it is therefore helpful for every Christian to understand this principle tithing helps us love yourselves a little bit less not to the point of hurting ourselves and to love God and other people a little bit more thirdly tithing is God's way of channeling his love and mercy and his benevolent equality through us into the world the fact of the matter is not because maybe we're always evil although we are but sometimes just out of ignorance and a lack of understanding of things we don't see the people who really need stuff but God does so God says I'm giving you this money to help people who are often out of your sight and out of your mind God has a way of caring for people that no one else would care for and I think primarily he does it through two instruments he does it through the ties that we give to the church and as much as we don't like to hear this the taxes we give to the state these according to the Bible and Romans 13 are both ministers of God for good instruments in the hand of God Luther called the church the right hand of God and the state the left hand of God and we are to render the seas of things that belong to Caesar taxes and the things that belong to God ties because these two instruments of God under the superintendents of the Holy Spirit are eyes and ears and hands and feet of God in the world sing the broader picture than we do and helping people out that we would often lose sight of and therefore not care for and finally I think there was a great promise in tithing a powerful incentive for tithing in that God will bless us bring the full ties into the storehouse that there may be food in my house and thereby listen to this put me to the test says the Lord of hosts if I will not open the windows of heaven for you and pour down for you a blessing until there is no more need I will rebuke the devour for you so that it will not destroy the fruits of your soil and your vine in the field shall not fail to bear says the Lord of hosts then all nations will call you blessed for you will be a land of delight says the Lord of hosts old Thomas Moore an old Puritan writer commenting upon this promise says if we would have God open his treasury we must first open ours if we would have God give to us an abundance we must give to him but the little the little he calls the tie then the offerings there on to look what he promises that he will give an abundance he says until it overflows number two he will reduce our losses he will rebuke the devour and number three he will make us the very envy of the nations of the earth then all nations will call you blessed for you will be a land of the light says the Lord of hosts and then God does something here that as far as I know he does nowhere else in all of the old and New Testament in all of the Bible he says try me in fact the New Testament tells us as including the Old Testament that we should not test the Lord our God but this is one time where God makes exception and he says test me if I will not open for you the windows of heaven and pour out for you a blessing until it overflows Walter Kaiser says God is willing to let his people learn for themselves on a firsthand experiential basis this level of truth and his oft repeated promises to be benevolent to those who are benevolent to others through him test me he says put me to the test and try me that's really all I'm asking tonight I'm asking you are you willing to test God in this I'll tell you a true story it's not it's not my as with as Winston Churchill said this would not have been my finest hour I probably told you this but one time when we were I was the young minister and I was fairly poorly paid we can't do it with you and one night I was driving back from a meeting and I said it's Friday night I'm going to get the kids of pizza we used to have family nights where we'd get these Walt Disney videos and I'd get a pizza and we'd and little kids loved it and we'd have pizza in the video and I pulled up to the pizza place and Papa John's pizza pulled out my wallet and folks I had one dollar in it

and so I went to the the ATM machine and I looked at my balance and I didn't have enough money in there to get a pizza as I began to drive home boy the anger and the winners welled up in my soul and I said Lord enough is enough I didn't go into this ministry so that everybody else in the world could go out to movies they'd go on vacation they could eat out at restaurants and the preacher's kids can't have a pizza so as far as I figured out we've made our tie this year this is about August I said we're cutting back because my kids are having a pizza oh what a mistake that was the Lord said oh really that's what you're going to do well the first thing that happened was within a week both cars broke down to the tune of six hundred dollars a piece well I went through that and and then the air conditioning unit went kaput that was several hundred dollars and then one day I was making popcorn and I caught the kitchen on fire the insurance covered it but there was a five hundred dollar deductible and the grand finale came on Thanksgiving day when we'd had the sumptuous meal and I loaded with Jane all the all the leftovers into the refrigerator and the refrigerator died and I went into the bedroom literally in tears and I said Lord your spank and the fire out of me and Lord said yeah I am and it's miserable isn't it so I did a little calculating and I still had enough time for the rest of the year to make a tie if we really tightened our belts I had to go out and say to Jane the kids a sweetheart kids daddy has done a terrible thing but here's what we're going to do we're going to bring our tie in the storehouse God's going to fix things you know what happened within an hour a guy called me and said a pastor I got a refrigerator I'm going to throw out would you like it I think we had that refrigerator for ten years I bought it from him for twenty five dollars and then a lady came along and she said you know pastor I'm not selling real estate anymore I'm in house refinancing and I'd like to refinance your house and I said oh I can't afford to refinance she said oh no I asked the manager of my place and he's going to wave the point enough to pay anything up front and she said can I have your information came back to a couple days later and said I can save you two hundred and forty dollars a month on your mortgage and these things began to happen and the Lord began to reduce my losses and increase my gains and I'm here to tell you not out of any deep spirituality about out of sheer fear I have never quit on the time since then I can't afford another spanking like that okay so here's one I want to ask you are you willing to test the law I did in the wrong way and let me tell you something he came through with the promise the promise of spanking for lack of faith selfishness and disobedience and he's proven himself to be timed again on the other side to cut my losses to increase my gains and provide for me in ways that are amazing I'm asking you are you willing today to test the Lord perhaps maybe go to this Steve or this Dave Ramsey a school of financial freedom that's starting just to begin to study the principles of stewardship and learn what's that going to cost you just some time or to go and to take a crown ministries course on Sunday morning and to learn about how to make a budget and how to set spiritual goals that'll benefit you in the kingdom are you willing to say Lord I'm going to take and apply Pastor Ross's 1% principle I'm going to figure out how close I am to a tie and if it's not 10% I'm going to add 1% per month or per quarter or per year whatever it is however long it takes 1% until I get to the tide or until you tell me that we're going to be in financial ruin if we continue to give I want to ask you if you'll consider making a faith promise above your 10% tithe whether you'll consider helping interns gain an internship and young men and women go to seminary maybe you'll give to covenant day school to scholarship children I'm asking you if you will begin simply to test the Lord and say Lord you show me ways that I will be enabled by you to give more and more and I'm expecting you to bless me more and more I don't think that's manipulative and I don't think that's health and wealth I think that's just simply this that without faith it is impossible to please him for whoever would draw near to God must believe that he is and that he is the rewarder of those who seek him you see what Malachi is asking us what God is saying to us here is not so much obedience as it is faith will you trust me will you test me will you lock hand in hand with me and let me walk through life with you and help you overcome your fear of want and live in the freedom of my benevolence because you're faithful to others through me don't rob God it hurts be generous to God and God will bless us and ways probably I can't explain and maybe not always financially but God will bless you he will open up the windows of heaven and you'll be amazed what God will do for you because you said Lord I'm going to test out your promise and see just how good you are amen father we want to thank you for the fact that you are quite patient with us and more than reasonable with us when it comes to repeated lessons of things we struggle with and there's not a person on the face of the earth who doesn't struggle over the worry of finances concern for the future of of their retirement worry about tuition and medical payments and insurance and all these things are the bane of life and yet are basic to our constitution is men in this world yet in these these things that many people feel are below your dignity you're very interested and very much invested in you want us to be blessed you want us to have these innately rights and to respect your rights and privileges knowing that as we honor you and all we do you will honor us and as we bless you will bless us and others through us because we are faithful to walk in faith and obedience and to try you and see if you will not glorify yourself and these promises you've given to us we know you will we ask you now how work a grace in our life grace that overcomes fear and lack of faith and self-centeredness materialism do great things in us make us giving people in a giving church and a most generous community of faith and then we know that as we funnel these riches of Christ through our church and the lives of other people you'll just continue to bless us until we ask you to bless us no more but we have had more than enough we know you'll do this we ask you to keep us faithful in the midst of this challenge especially in these difficult days of our economy continue to give us this grace and faith to live before you without fear in the realm of our finances as you open the windows of heaven to favor us and we pray and ask this now with great confidence in Jesus' name and for His sake amen