Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 2156
“Will a man rob God? Yet you have robbed Me!” Malachi 3:8.
These Prophets would have made poor royal chaplains if those who dwell in kings’ houses have to use smooth speech. Malachi here charges the people with robbery and with the very worst form of it, namely, sacrilege. He speaks for the Lord and says, “Will a man rob God? Yet you have robbed Me.” It ill becomes the messengers of Heaven to be the flatterers of rebels. If they should descend to such baseness, they might well expect that their Maker would take them away. The Lord sends His servants to speak the Truth in all its plainness, to denounce sin with all fidelity and to publish God’s sentence of condemnation against those who continue in their iniquity. Men’s souls are to be dealt with honestly and, if need be, sternly. God’s Truth is to be handled with vigorous plainness, for the Lord has said, “He that has My Word, let him speak My Word faithfully.”
Yet notice that Malachi constantly mixes promises with threats and while he is like a sharp two-edged sword against the evil of the people, he is as the balm of Gilead to those who feel their disease of sin and desire to be healed of it. Between the peals of thundering warning there are silver showers of gracious encouragement! He has tempest for sin but peace for those who confess it. Almost the next verse after our text is, “Bring you all the tithes into the storehouse, that there may be meat in My house and prove Me now herewith, says the Lord of Hosts, if I will not open you the windows of Heaven, and pour you out a blessing that there shall not be room enough to receive it.”
Faithful ministries have in them a blending of the Law to drive with the Gospel to draw. Brothers, we must use the Law for its ordained purpose. If we omit the discovery and denunciation of evil, we have neglected a very essential part of our duty, for if men are not convinced of sin, how will they desire pardon? If conscience is not awakened, to what can we address ourselves? It is in vain to bring forth the promises, for the promises are no more sweet to the self-righteous than bread to a man filled with dainties. What cares a man for justification by faith who has the conceit that he is already justified by his own acts? Only those who feel their wounds will plead for heavenly surgery. I pray that I may so preach this morning that while I shall not be harsh in spirit, I may bear hard upon those spirits which are resting in their own innocence! I wish so to speak that we shall, all of us, see our own shortcomings so as to be startled into confession and prayer and led humbly to trust in the great Sacrifice!
It is a very serious charge which the Prophet brings in the text—he calls men thieves and robbers. He charges the whole nation with robbing God. We ought seriously to consider a charge so serious and, especially since at this day it may lie against ourselves. We shall come to this consideration, noticing in the text astonishment indicated: “Will a man rob God?” The Prophet asks in amazement, as if such a thing could not be. Secondly, we shall spend a little time in pressing home the solemn charge. This will come under the head of confession assisted. We shall mention, in detail, certain forms which this robbery may take in order that we may search our own conduct and see whether we are guilty of the crime. If guilty, may we be moved to repentance of the sin and faith in the glorious Sin-Bearer through whom we may be pardoned, even though guilty of treason against the King of kings!
Lastly, we shall help the penitent to the right way under the head of repentance directed. If we have robbed God, though the crime is, in itself, most terrible, it is not beyond the reach of mercy. There is forgiveness with God for this, also, for the blood of Jesus Christ, God’s dear Son, cleanses us from all sin. I shall speak about the way by which forgiveness may be obtained. Oh, for the Holy Spirit to guide mind and heart and tongue in this solemn matter!
I. First, then, in the text there is ASTONISHMENT INDICATED—“Will a man rob God?” The question is asked as if it were improbable, if not impossible. A man, an insignificant creature, dependent upon his God for the breath
whereby he lives—will he rob God—the good, the just, the great and terrible One who can crush him in a moment? “Will a man rob God?”
In the first place, the astonishment arises from the fact that the action is altogether unnatural. It is illogical and self-condemnatory. If we have a God, how dare we rob Him? Look at the heathen—they must have a God—and since they know no better god, the heathen make to themselves gods of wood, of stone or of clay. When they have made these false gods they pay them homage as if, indeed, they were gods! For them they build temples, altars and shrines. Nations in the olden times had no banks, but treasures deposited in temples were safe from robbery. It was not supposed that a thief would break into a temple—to do so was a flagrant crime. There was an awe upon the minds of men which rendered it an audacious felony to rob their deities, false though they were! Men who would have plundered palaces, kept back from the temple of Jupiter, or Minerva, or Diana! No man would rob even an image which he thought to be a god.