(Disclaimer: This transcript is auto-generated and may contain mistakes.)

Alright, we're here in Malachi chapter 3, and tonight's sermon will be a little bit different. I'm actually going to try to preach a bit of a shorter sermon. I'm going to do my best, which I always say that, and I'm not successful, but, you know, I do want to spend some time tonight after the service to pray for the people of Batangas and near the Tahoe Volcano. I think it's a very important thing. It's a big event, and obviously we don't know what's going to happen. So I'm planning to have the sermon be a little bit shorter so we can spend some time. We'll break up into groups of men and then women just to pray for the people there, and the words will be done ultimately, but it's going to kind of tie into the sermon, too, which is kind of interesting. But notice starting at verse number 1, Malachi 3 verse 1, where it says, Behold, I will send my messenger, and he shall prepare the way before me. I will send my messenger, and he shall prepare the way before me. You say, who is that referring to? Well, turn to Mark chapter 1, and we'll be back in Malachi, so you can keep your finger in Malachi. We'll be back there in a few minutes. And I originally wrote this sermon before last Sunday when the volcano erupted, so some of this I might actually take out if my sermon just kind of skips some stuff just for sake of time. But I want you to see here in Mark chapter 1, remember it said, I will send my messenger, and he shall prepare the way before me. And what it says in Mark 1 verse 2 is, As it is written in the prophets, behold, I send my messenger before thy face, which shall prepare thy way before thee. And so we're comparing spiritual things with spiritual to find out who is the messenger that's being referred to. Verse number 3, The voice of one crying in the wilderness, prepare ye the way of the Lord, make his paths straight. John did baptize in the wilderness, and preached the baptism of repentance for the remission of sins. And so we see here that we're referring to John the Baptist, it says in verse number 4. And the Bible says John the Baptist is that messenger, he prepared the way before the Lord. And what it says here in verse 4 is he preached the baptism of repentance for the remission of sins. He preached the baptism of repentance for the remission of sins. Now at this church, we do not believe you have to repent of your sins to be saved. Now most Baptist churches believe that, and they would point to Mark chapter 1 verse 4 as one of their proofs, and say, well see, he preached the baptism of repentance for the remission of sins. Now we compare spiritual things with spiritual when we try to understand the Bible, okay? So it said he preached the baptism of repentance for the remission of sins. What does that mean? Because it does not say he preached the baptism of repentance of sins for the remission of sins. It says the baptism of repentance for the remission of sins. Turn to Acts chapter 19, Acts chapter 19. And let me say this, I don't have any problem with somebody making the phrase, man, repent of your sins. But the question is, where are you putting that statement? If you tell somebody who's unsaved that they need to repent of their sins, you're a heretic. That's false. It's not what the Bible says. But when I preach sermons, I preach about getting your sin out of your life all the time. And I'm essentially telling you repent from your sins, okay? But I'm saying that to people that are already saved. What did it mean by John the Baptist preached the baptism of repentance for the remission of sins? Well notice what it says in Acts 19 verse 4. And this is a very important verse in the Word of God, especially in this topic of repentance. Acts 19 verse 4, you want to know where this is. Then said Paul, John verily baptized with the baptism of repentance, okay? So he says the baptism of repentance. John the Baptist, what does that mean? Saying unto the people that they should believe on him which should come after him. That is on Christ Jesus. So what was John the Baptist saying? He's basically saying repent ye and believe the gospel. Change your mind about what you believe and believe the gospel. The baptism of repentance that John the Baptist preached for or in order to get the remission or forgiveness of sins was that they should believe. Baptism of repentance equals belief. Why? Because repent means to change or to turn. Now you can turn from a lot of different things. You could tell someone who's a drunk, you know, you need to repent of that sin. But that has nothing to do with salvation. When it came to what John the Baptist was preaching for the remission or forgiveness of sins in order to be saved, it was you should believe. And so when we tell people whosoever believeth in him, we're preaching them a message of repentance. We're telling them to change what they believe and believe on Jesus because you cannot believe in Roman Catholicism or the Islamic religion or Hinduism and believe on Jesus. They must change their mind about what they believe. When I was 18 years old, I had to change my mind about what I believe in order to believe on Jesus. I was not raised Roman Catholic, but it was United Methodist, so it might as well be Catholic. There's really not much of a difference between the Protestants and the Catholics. And for me to get saved, I had to repent, not of my sin, but of what I was trusting to get me to heaven. I had to change my mind about what I believe. So in Acts 19 verse 4, we have a very good definition of repentance, especially in regards to salvation, because what John the Baptist preached was they should believe. What do we preach when we go soul winning? That you should believe. You do not see repentance of sins in any of these verses. So when somebody stands up here and says, well, John the Baptist preached repentance, amen, what does that mean? That they should believe. That's what the Bible says. He did not preach, you must turn from your sins to be saved. Now every great man of God, though, after someone is saved, if they're preaching sermons, they're telling people to turn from their sins. That has nothing to do with salvation, though. The baptism of repentance for the remission of sins was that you should believe. That's what we tell people when we go soul winning. The gift of God is eternal life, and whosoever believeth will be saved. So that's what John the Baptist was actually preaching. Now turn back to Malachi. Turn back to Malachi, and look, the Bible's consistent. John 3.16, and you don't have to turn there, but in John 3.16, it says whosoever believeth in him. Whosoever means anybody. So my question is, does that include the person that does not repent of their sins but believes? Whosoever's anybody. It includes everybody. So that includes the person who's a drunk and does not want to quit drinking. If they believe, yes, they'll be saved. Someone who's a drug addict, someone who's cheating on their husband, cheating on their wife, yeah, if they believe, they will receive everlasting life, because the Bible says whosoever believeth. Look, nobody's repented of all their sins. So this idea that you have to turn from your sins to be saved, what's not scriptural? When John the Baptist preached repentance, what he's saying is you should believe. That's what the Bible teaches, okay? Now I want you to notice here in verse number two, because there's a transition from John the Baptist to Jesus Christ in the book of Malachi, and we're going to skip a little bit of the notes here. But verse two, but who may abide the day of his coming, and who shall stand when he appeareth? For he is like a refiner's fire and like fuller's soap. And so this is referring to when Jesus comes, and it says who shall be able to stand? None of us can stand in his presence, and it says he's like a refiner's fire. What is a refiner's fire? Well, a refiner's fire would be basically where you're purging out all the useless stuff that has no value whatsoever. Or fuller's soap, it's in the process of making it fully clean, okay? And what the Bible's telling us is that Jesus Christ, one mission he had was not just to die for us, but to completely make us clean, to get the sin out of our lives, okay? Verse number three, and he shall sit as a refiner and purifier of silver. There's a process when silver is made, when it's purified, of getting out all the junk that is not of any value. There's a process that goes on, and it says he shall sit as a refiner and purifier of silver, and he shall purify the sons of Levi, and purge them as gold and silver, that they may offer unto the Lord an offering in righteousness. How in the world does Jesus purify? So we'll turn to John 15, John 15, and we'll look at some verses here. John chapter 15, John chapter 15 in your Bible, and in John chapter 15 we have one of the most famous parables, and it's one of the most misunderstood parables in the Bible. The parable of the vine and the branches. I actually preached a whole sermon on this before at Verity Baptist Church, but a lot of people try to turn to John 15 to say you can lose your salvation. They say, well, see, you know, branches get burned, but that's obviously not what the Bible teaches, because we have eternal life. What it says in John 15, and you have to understand in John 15 at the beginning in verse one, this is not a salvation parable. This is a soul winning parable, okay? He's explaining the process and the importance of going soul winning, and it has nothing to do with salvation, it has to do with soul winning. What does it say in verse one? I am the true vine, and my father is the husband man, in the words of Jesus Christ. Every branch in me that beareth not fruit, he taketh away, and every branch that beareth fruit, he purgeth it that it may bring forth more fruit. Now when it talks about bearing fruit, what does that mean to us as believers? It means when we get people saved. The fruit of the righteous is a tree of life, and he that winneth souls is wise. It's referring to soul winning, winning souls, bearing fruit, and he's saying every branch in me that beareth not fruit, he taketh away. What it's talking about is a saved person that doesn't bear fruit. Look, most saved people don't bear fruit. Very few saved people bear fruit. Very few saved people actually win souls to the Lord, and what it says is every branch in me that beareth not fruit, he taketh away. Now this parable has never been confusing to me because when I was a kid, we used to visit my grandparents in Pennsylvania, and they had a large field, and they had a lot of trees and things such as that, and over time, the leaves would fall on the ground, and you had to clean it up. What you would do is gather all the branches together, and at the very end, you'd throw them into the fire. That's exactly what's happening here as they're burning the branches, but basically those branches were in the way. They were a distraction. They weren't helpful. They were useless, and he's using that analogy to talk about Christians of no value, branches that don't bear fruit. The ultimate goal of our lives is to be soul winners. I say, Brother Stuckey, why does this church exist? This church exists to win souls. Look, if I didn't believe that soul winning was effective, I wouldn't move out here to the Philippines to start a church, but when you believe in soul winning and you become a soul winner, that is the whole purpose and reason for your life. I remember when I got saved, before that, I was kind of floating through life. I was going to college, getting a degree and everything like that, but I didn't know what is my purpose in my life, and when I got saved, I realized there's a purpose, and when I really understood soul winning and that was taught to me, I was like, man, this is my whole purpose for my life. That's the reason why we stay up late at night to read the Bible. It's not to get more knowledge from the Bible. That's important to preach sermons, but that is what will help people change their lives so they can be better at soul winning. It all comes down to soul winning, and John 15, there's a whole parable referring to this. Every branch that doesn't bear fruit, he takes away. It's like being at a tree where half the branches are bearing apples and the other half aren't. You want to get rid of the branches that are doing nothing. That's what the Bible's saying here, but the second half of this says, every branch that beareth fruit, this is a soul winner, he purgeth it that it may bring forth more fruit. What the Bible says is every branch, every saved person that bears fruit, that wins souls, God has a process in your life where he's purging you. He's cutting out the garbage from your life to make you more effective. Say, what are you talking about? I'm saying someone who's a soul winner that maybe has a lot of worldliness. Maybe they listen to rock music. You know what? God wants to purge that out of your life. You say, how does he do that? Well, you have free will, so he's going to do that by you reading the Bible and you feeling very guilty. Maybe it could be chastisement in your life, and maybe it could be a sermon where I get really specific about get that sin out of your life. In a couple months, we will start a series in less than two months on worldliness. It's going to be very specific, and it's going to step on everyone's toes, including myself. It's going to be very specific of the garbage in our lives we need to cut out in order to be better soul winners, because God wants to purge the areas of your life that are holding you back from being a more dedicated Christian. If we're honest with ourselves, all of us, including myself, we have areas of our life that we are not right with God. We need to make changes, and in the end, what it's going to do is it's going to help you bear more fruit. Say, well, how does this work, Brother Stuckey? Because I come to all the soul winning times. Well, I'll tell you what. I've had times in my life where I've been more motivated than others, and I know that times when I've really been on fire for God and didn't really have worldliness, and I was just reading the Bible, memorizing the Bible, listening to sermons, I was so motivated to preach the gospel. You get a free hour, and you're like, man, I just want to go out and talk to someone about the gospel. But see, when your life is filled half with God and half with worldliness, you're not going to be that motivated to preach the gospel. God wants to purge these areas out of your life. Now, turn back to Malachi 3. And so John 15, that's a soul winning parable. It has nothing to do with salvation. Both of these branches are saved. Just because you're saved does not mean you're going to bear fruit. Now in Malachi 3, verse 4, the Bible reads, then shall the offering of Judah and Jerusalem be pleasant unto the Lord, as in the days of old and as in former years. If you remember in the earlier chapters, we talked about that God was very mad at Judah, Jerusalem, the Jews, Israel. He's very mad at them because they're not doing things the way they're supposed to. And he's saying, I want to make this purging process so they'll go back to the days of old, how they used to be. Verse number 5, verse number 5, and I will come near to you to judgment and I will be a swift witness against the sorcerers and against the adulterers and against false wearers and against those that oppress the hireling in his wages, the widow and the fatherless and that turn aside the stranger from his right and fear not me, sayeth the Lord of hosts. Verse 5, we're talking about and we're seeing how the Lord wants you to be righteous in your life. He wants you to be holy. Now turn to Hebrews 1. Hebrews 1, we'll look at a few instances of this. Hebrews 1, Hebrews chapter 1. And the reality is that when it came down to the Jews though, they never did get right with God. They were very angry in Malachi 1 and 2 and they never turned from their wickedness and they rejected the Lord Jesus Christ. And so basically God kind of moved on from them. They can still be saved. But you know, when it came down to it, the gospel went to the Jews and the Gentiles. Now the Gentiles could always be saved, but obviously we know that the oracles of God, according to the Bible, were given to the Jews. They were the ones who had the word of God. They're the ones most likely to get saved. But the reality was they didn't do what they were supposed to do. They were like that fig tree that was bearing nothing. And so Jesus curses the fig tree and he moves on after that. That is what took place with the Jews. Now in Hebrews 1, notice what it says in verse 9, Hebrews 1, verse 9. Hebrews chapter 1, verse 9, thou hast loved righteousness and hated iniquity. Therefore God, even thy God, hath anointed thee with the oil of gladness above thy fellows. And I want you to understand the Bible says he's loved righteousness and hated iniquity. These things go hand in hand. See, a lot of people have this idea like, I really love God, but they don't really hate sin and they're not really, you know, they don't really care about worldliness. No, what the Bible says is he's loved righteousness and hated iniquity. See, if you really love righteousness, you're going to hate iniquity. You can't say, well, you know, I really love God, but then you love all the sin of the world. You don't really love God. You don't really love righteousness. If you love righteousness, then you hate the opposite of righteousness. You hate iniquity. These things go together. Now turn to 1 John 2, 1 John chapter 2, 1 John chapter 2, and see, this is the problem with people that get saved. A lot of people, of course, everybody says they love God and everybody wants to love God, but here's the thing. You can't just say you love God. You have to actually make changes in your life. When I first got saved, I was saved and on my way to heaven. It doesn't mean that I love God. It doesn't mean that I was living a really godly life. When I first got saved, do you think I immediately said I'm never listening to another rock song ever again? Never again. I'm never listening to or watching a bad movie ever again. Of course not. When I got saved, I was indwelt with a new man and I still had the same sinful old flesh that does not change when you get saved. In order to live for God, you have to actually purge these areas out of your life. God's going to do the best to help you with that, as we saw in John 15, but ultimately you have free will. It's your choice if you're going to get those things out of your life because all of us, we feel guilty about things from time to time. It doesn't mean we get those things out of our lives. We still kind of make a decision in our mind. I know this is wrong, but is it really that bad? Does God care that much or can I just keep this in my life? It's like, yeah, he cares about everything. Love righteousness, hated it, iniquity. First John 2, verse 15, he says, love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man loved the world, the love of the father is not in him. Now, see, the Bible says that if you love the world, the love of the father is not in you. Okay? Now what does it mean to love the world? Well, notice what it says in verse 16, for all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the pride of life is not of the father but is of the world. And ultimately these things of the world you can boil down to the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the pride of life. Now usually when you look at verses like these, you think of TV and movies and music and that's very appropriate. Okay? The lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes and the pride of life. But you know, worldliness comes in a lot of different forms. We're going to talk about that here in a few months, but I want you to realize that you know what? These areas in our lives where we basically are attached to the world, you can't say you love God if you still are a worldly person that disobeys God's commandments. If he loved me, keep my commandments. Not to be saved. It doesn't say to be saved, keep my commandments. If he loved me, keep my commandments. And so for us, if we're honest with ourselves and we apply what the Bible says, we say we love God if we're actually obeying what God says. And you know, as I mentioned several months ago in the sermon on the fruits of the spirit on love, I said that you know, love implies action. That's what the Bible teaches. If you love God, there's going to be action to prove it. Okay? And so if we love God, we've got to get the sin out of our lives. And I hope all of you here today would say, I want to love God. I want to do what God says. If you want to love God, the reality is you got to make changes in your life. You can't just live the exact same life you've always lived and then read what the Bible says about what it means to love God and then say, I love God. No, you got to make changes in your life. Now don't misunderstand me. I am by no means perfect. I have many areas in my life that I need to purge and get out of my life. And the more we purge those things, the more we are showing we love God. Okay? Now I believe that if you're in this room to some level, you come on a Wednesday night here for church, you have a love for God. But the reality is the more you devote to God, the more you love God. Okay? The more you love something, the more action there's going to be to prove that. Now turn back to Malachi 3. Turn back to Malachi 3. And so I want to spend some time here on verse number 6, and I wasn't really planning to, but for sake of just recent events, and I'll explain here in a second. But it says in Malachi 3 verse 6, For I am the Lord, I change not. Therefore ye sons of Jacob are not consumed. Even from the days of your fathers ye are gone away from mine ordinances and have not kept them. Return unto me and I will return unto you, saith the Lord of hosts. But ye said, Wherein shall we return? Now I want to spend some time here about the subject of the Lord not changing. I am the Lord. I change not. Okay? God does not change. Now us as people, we change all the time. You know, we get older, we change, it's just part of life. God does not change at all. I am the Lord. I change not. Now most of you were here on Sunday, the sermons I preached, and I want you to remember what I preached about because it's really kind of interesting. I went back and I skimmed through the sermons as I went through the book of Jonah, and what's interesting is I spent some time talking about Mount Pinatubo on Sunday, if you remember that. I mentioned Mount Pinatubo in Pampanga, and my wife grew up pretty close to Mount Pinatubo, and I talked about the wrath of God and things such as that. Now several months ago, I was preaching on God's judgment for natural disasters and having an understanding of this, and I was talking about the fires in California that I don't really think is a natural disaster. It was kind of man-made for various reasons, due to the love of money, but man doesn't create a volcano. We can't create a volcano that basically just destroys part of our country. That is something that's God-made. I do believe that is the judgment of God. Now my personal opinion, going back to Mount Pinatubo, was that Mount Pinatubo, that volcano first started waking up right after Magdarame, where people were crucifying themselves and beating themselves. It was like right after that. Now the big explosion happened a month later, but if you read, it's like right then, right at Magdarame, right then is when it woke up and it just ... Now I'm not saying that's going to happen in Batangas, but what I'm saying is that was a bigger initial explosion than in Pampanga. It woke up, but it's pretty small. But when you link this back, it's very possible, and I don't know this for sure, that you can trace this back to the idolatry from the Feast of the Black Nazarene. Now I'm not saying that like two plus two equals four, because I can't prove that. I can just give my opinion, and I don't know that for sure. But I do believe when you look at a volcano, you're looking at the judgment of God. But what I do think you see sometimes in society and in the Bible, there's kind of a warning signal sent. Then the question is, how do the people respond to the warning signal? Now we talked about the Assyrian Empire on Sunday, and Jonah went into town and preached, you're going to be destroyed in 40 days. The king feels bad about it, and he forces and causes everybody to put on sackcloth and ashes, and everybody in Nineveh hears the message, we're about to be destroyed. You have 40 days. What is God's reaction? The people turn back to me, I'm going to withhold my judgment. It is very possible, and I'm not saying this is what's taking place, because I don't know this. It is possible, though, a warning signal was sent, and how do we respond to this? My personal opinion, that basically because of the idolatry from the Catholic Church primarily, I believe that's why the volcano kind of woke up. But what do we do? We pray and beseech God that he won't pour out that judgment upon us. You say, why? I don't want the volcano to blow anymore. I don't want a volcanic tsunami. I didn't even know what a volcanic tsunami was a week ago. I'd never heard of that before. It's like, I don't want that to take place. Why? Because first off, I don't want anything to happen to save people that live in Patongas, but I don't want unsaved people to die. Think about Moses in the Bible. Moses oftentimes withholds God's judgment upon the people. Isn't that true? He beseeches God. He prays. Basically, give them another chance, and because he does that, God does give them another chance. That is why today, we're going to end the sermon a little bit early. We're going to spend a little bit of time in prayer. The men are going to go with the men, the women with the women. Why? I don't want to see this volcano explode. I don't want to see that. There are many reasons why. For one, the people in Patongas, there's no telling what would happen. They could evacuate Manila. That is a possibility I read about, that Manila could be evacuated, obviously not just affecting our church, but people that live there. I mean, in the missions trip, we could have a couple thousand people saved. I don't want that to be affected and flights to be redirected, but ultimately, it's God's will, but prayer does make a difference because we're not Calvinists. Prayer does make a difference, and God might be sending this out. Why? Because I am the Lord. I change not. Isn't this what happened with Assyria and Nineveh? Basically, the people turned back to God. That's why all of us, we need to be in prayer every single day. Now, look, I do believe that this is God's judgment, and I believe it comes back to the idolatry, but you know what? I want to beseech God that he won't pour out his judgment. I hope that not just our church, but I hope even the unsaved people are doing the same thing. You say, does that make a difference? It made a difference in Nineveh that the unsaved people were turning from their sins. You can't sit here and say every single person in Nineveh was saved, but the people turned to God. They put on sackcloth and ashes. You know what? Even if all the Catholics and everybody out there would just say, God, be merciful to us, I do believe that God could answer that prayer, because you do see God answering prayers from unsaved people in the Bible, but we as a church, we need to be doing this. Even if nobody else is, we need to beseech God, because it will affect our church. It will affect the missions trip, and it will affect people that are unsaved that live there. Now, if God determines to basically let that mountain blow and have a volcanic tsunami, that's his choice. You look throughout the world, and ultimately things are in God's hands. If he decides to allow something to take place, you look throughout history of just tsunamis that take place and 100,000 people die, it's like God allowed that to take place. But I do believe that if people will beseech God, he can be merciful, and that is why we should be praying that God's going to be merciful. We're going to do that as a church today, and we don't know what's going to take place. This only happened three days ago. It actually happened while I was preaching in Pampanga. We didn't know at the time I saw Brother Timothy's text or a message on Facebook Messenger. I didn't even know about it, but right now nobody knows what's going to happen. My opinion, especially with a volcano, because this is the one that's the closest, I mean God's judgment, I mean lake of fire. A volcano is literally a lake of fire. It's literally hell that exploded on earth. That is what a volcano is. It's literally hell that explodes on earth. When they're looking at the volcano right now, they say, well, it looks like we're still seeing it. I kind of look at that as, and this is just in my mind God's wrath that's kind of there, and it's kind of like, okay, what is your reaction, people? How are you going to react to this? Praise the Lord that at this time, as far as I know, nobody's died, as far as I know. But if it explodes, it's going to be chaos. Even for us here, like I read, they might evacuate Manila. I was asked before the service, where do we go? I said, I don't know about you. I'm going to Pampanga. You're going to have to figure that out. Most people here, they have a province they go to, I don't know, for everyone. I don't think this is going to be, and I don't think it would explode on the level that Mount Panatubo did, because that was the second biggest volcano of the 20th century. But I'll tell you what. I was planning to hike there next month on the volcano, because my friends got to do that the last couple years, and I was kind of just figuring things out here, trying to run the mission trip. I was planning to go. I was planning to hike it. It's like, I guess I've got to wait a couple years. I don't know. But anyways, go to Malachi 3. And so God doesn't change. So it's the same thing here, thousands of years later, but God does not change. So I want you to understand that if we beseech God, then God could hold back His wrath from being poured out. Even if I'm wrong why this volcano erupted, we don't know that. But whatever the reason, I still believe that we can turn back God's wrath and His judgment. Verse 7, even from the days of your fathers, ye are gone away from mine ordinances. So what he's saying here is, even from the beginning, the Jews were going away from God's ordinances. And when you read throughout the Bible, you read the book of Judges, 1 Samuel, 2 Samuel, 1 Kings, 2 Kings, you're seeing that even from the beginning, they're just going away from what God's rules are. You know, the whole world lies in wickedness. There is not a righteous country in the world. There's not a single righteous country in the world. You know, it's filled full of sin. And even back then, the majority of people weren't saved. The majority of people didn't want to live for God. They rejected what God said. He said even from the beginning, but notice this, and have not kept them, return unto me and I will return unto you. God says if you return back to me, Israel, the Jews, if they return back to me, I will return unto you. But what if they crucified the Lord Jesus Christ, and they run all these prostitution and gambling things in the world, and they started Hollywood and all that stuff, and they basically own the money system in the world for the most part, and they're part of all these wicked things. What if they don't return to God at all? Is God going to return to them? No. God will return if they had come back. But tell me at what point after the book of Malachi, they return back to God. I don't see it. And I like to study history. I know a decent bit, and I don't remember any time where there's just mass survival amongst the Jews feeling guilty about their sin and everything like that. It's funny, you see it with Assyria. You don't really see it with them. And he says, you know, you return unto me, I will return unto you. But they never did. Sayeth the Lord of hosts, but he said, wherein shall we return? They're basically saying, what are you talking about? We haven't gotten away from you, God. And see, this is exactly like King Saul. You get rebuked, and you say, I didn't do anything wrong. See Samuel, when he got rebuked, said, I have sinned. King Saul, what did I do wrong? This is exactly how they are. Then it says in verse eight, will a man rob God? Yet ye have robbed me. But you say, wherein have we robbed thee? In tithes and offerings, in tithes and offerings. So two things are mentioned here, in tithes and offerings. Now your tithe is 10%. The offerings is something different. It's not the same thing. Tithes and offerings. When you think about offerings, I do think this applies to burn offerings, meat offerings, bread offerings, and those things such as that. You could apply it to maybe other sorts of offerings as well, monetary as well. But what he says to them is, you've robbed me in tithes and offerings. Now we know for sure, God expects you to give 10% of your money. That's what the tithe is. It's 10%. But he says, you've robbed me in tithes and offerings. Ye are cursed with a curse, for ye have robbed me. Even this whole nation. And he says, the whole nation, they're robbing me, they're not doing things right. The earlier chapters of Malachi, they weren't doing the right offerings. They were basically giving animals that weren't their best and things such as that, that had problems. They weren't obeying what God says. Verse number 10, bring ye all the tithes, which is 10%, bring ye all the tithes into the storehouse that there may be meat in mine house, and prove me now, herewith, saith 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. And so it talks about bringing the tithes into the storehouse. And so the tithe is something that's in the Old Testament. It starts there, and something in the New Testament as well. Today, the tithe is used for the work of the local church. But back then, the tithe had a purpose as well, and there was priests who did offerings and things such as that. But he says, bring ye all the tithes into the storehouse. And what he says is, that there may be meat in mine house. And he says, if you bring the tithe, there will be meat. Okay? Now look, we are not a health and wealth prosperity gospel church, but I don't think we should go so far to one extreme that we go past the point of what's correct. Because if you give God your 10%, God will provide your needs. Okay? It doesn't mean he's going to make, I mean, give $1,000 and you'll get $5,000 back. Well, not that. Okay? But if you bring your tithes, there will be meat in your storehouse. That's what the Bible says. He will provide your needs. Okay? Now, if we look at this logically, you know, it doesn't seem to make sense. You say, I can't afford to give 10%. But the reality is that, you know, everyone who gives their tithe, God does provide for them. Okay? Now, we're not a church. And look, I don't preach on tithing. I've never preached a whole sermon on tithing, but I preach the whole Bible. And that is in Malachi 3. We're going chapter by chapter. This is the most famous verse on tithing in the Bible, probably. Malachi 3.10 is like, I can't avoid it. Okay? It does say if you bring your tithe, he will provide meat for you. Okay? Now, we're not going to ask for your first-roots offering. Okay? Because that's not biblical. We're not going to ask for like 20% or anything like that. And you know, it's your choice at the end of the day. It's free will. Okay? We don't force you. We don't have you sign in and tell us your salary on the side of the wall. It's up to you what you do. But what God would like from you is 10% because he says bring ye all the tithes into the storehouse. So if you make a lot of money, 100,000 pesos, that's 10,000 pesos. If you make 50 pesos, that's 5 pesos. It's a percentage. Okay? It's not that God requires, I want 20,000 pesos from everybody. It's a percentage. Okay? And so quite honestly, 10%, it's not really that much. It will feel like a lot, but what the Bible says in these next verses is that if you don't do this, then he can get that 10% another way. Okay? I'll show that to you. And he says prove me now herewith. So basically, test me to see if I'm telling the truth. That if you give 10%, that you'll have meat in your house, sayeth 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. Now the picture of the windows of heaven is basically up in heaven a window opening and money coming down from the sky. Now he's being symbolic, okay? But he's basically saying there's money up there and I can open up the window and there's your money. Now look, you're not going to have money fall from the sky, okay? But that's essentially what he's saying. And what he's saying is, you know what, I can provide that money in some way or another. There's many ways you could do that. There's ways such as you could receive a gift from someone. You could get a promotion at your job. We don't know how he's going to provide that, but he does say he'll open up the windows of heaven and pour you out a blessing. But I want you to notice here verse 11, verse 11, and I will rebuke the devourer for your sakes and he shall not destroy the fruits of your ground. What is that saying here about destroying the fruit of the ground? What he's saying is basically the enemy's trying to destroy your fruit and I can prevent him from destroying your fruit. Think about being a farmer, okay? If you're a farmer and you produce fruits and vegetables, not all of them end up being perfect. Some of them just don't work out and they're not very edible. And what God's saying is, I can make it where all of them end up bad or I can make it where all of them end up good. And you could apply this to your personal job. Obviously, you know, most people here, I don't think anybody here is a farmer, okay, that's creating fruits and vegetables. But to your personal job, it can be the same way where basically God can make sure the fruits of the ground are not destroyed or, you know what, he can allow them to be destroyed. Look, it's not that hard to basically have a wallet stolen and lose a lot of money. God could allow that to happen very easily. Many people in this room, at least me, I've had a wallet stolen before since I've been in the Philippines, okay? So something like that is very possible to happen, but, you know, God can allow that to happen or it can prevent it from happening as well. Now, I'm not telling you to expect a package on your door of like 500,000 pesos tomorrow that you, because you give your tithe, but I am saying God can provide your needs. But, you know, the reality is God usually allows us to basically have a little bit less money than we feel comfortable with. Everybody wants just a little bit of money and I'll be happy, a little bit more money, a little bit more money, but the reality is if we have too much money, we stop trusting in God. So God doesn't want most of us to have tons of money because most of us wouldn't really pray out to God and beseech God. He allows us to have less money than maybe we're comfortable with sometimes, okay? Now, I'm not preaching that God wants you to be poor because I don't really believe that, okay? I think God wants your needs to be provided and in the Bible, there's godly people that are rich. So you can be a godly person and rich, okay? But I want you to realize that, you know, sometimes God won't let you have as much money as you want, okay? Then it says, neither shall your vine cast her fruit before the time in the field, saith the Lord of hosts. This is also an analogy of basically think of grapes being produced and basically the vine casting the fruit before the time, before it's ripe and basically ends up being, you know, nothing. It doesn't end up being good, okay? And so he's using analogies of being basically a farmer, having fruits and veggies. And all nations shall call you blessed, for you shall be a delightsome land, saith the Lord of hosts. Now, notice verse 13, and we'll be quick here with the last several verses. Verse 13, your words have been stout against me, saith the Lord, yet you say, what have we spoken so much against thee? And so God says, you know, your words have been against me, been stout against me, and then the people's response is like, well, we haven't spoken that much against you. Now, it's like, well, wait a minute. It doesn't matter whether you've spoken against God a little bit or whether you've spoken against him a lot. Because it says, you know, what have we spoken so much against thee? Well, if you've spoken against him at all, there's a problem with that. I haven't been complaining that much, God. Well, have you been complaining at all? Because if you're complaining at all, there's a problem. And so this is a terrible response from them because they're admitting, we've spoken against you. We just don't think we've spoken that much against you, so much against you. Malachi chapter 3, verse 14, Malachi 3, verse 14, Malachi 3, verse 14, you have said it is vain to serve God. And what profit is it that we have kept his ordinance and that we have walked mournfully before the Lord of hosts? And what it says in verse 14, their attitude was, it's vain to serve God. There's no purpose in serving God. What's the benefit for me if I serve God? Now, this is a foolish attitude, but this is an attitude that all of us from time to time will kind of feel like. No matter how much you love soul winning, there's times you kind of have this feeling inside, you know, what does it really matter if I do this? I mean, does it even really work? What's the purpose of reading the Bible? Does it really even make a difference if I read the Bible? What's the purpose of going to church? Now, this is a foolish attitude, but all of us feel like that from time to time, where we feel like, you know, does it even really make a difference whether or not we're obeying what God says or whether or not we're obeying what God says? And look, I've felt this way, you know, even since I've been here, I remember just feeling, and I knew this was wrong, where I just felt like I had preached sermons and people weren't really applying it. And I started to feel like, I mean, is there really a purpose in me spending hours preparing these sermons? Does it really even make a difference? And that's a foolish attitude to have, but it kind of came across in my head, I was thinking that. But then I just saw a lot of people following the advice they said in sermons and changing their lives, and I thought, okay, there's definitely a purpose of serving God. It's not vain to serve God. But all of us, from time to time, will feel that way. Verse 15, and now we call the proud happy. Yea, they that work wickedness are set up, yea, they that tempt God are even being delivered. Now this is quite an interesting verse, okay? You know, you're welcome to interpret it any way you want, but it talks about people that are wicked, they that work wickedness are set up, and it says now we call the proud happy. Now, isn't it interesting that you think of today gay pride? We call the proud happy. And what does gay mean? It means happy. That's what the word means. When I was a kid, I remember I was in elementary school, and I remember our teacher had us go to the board to write a sentence, and I wrote a sentence with the word gay in it. Okay, because this was like 25 years ago, okay? When I was a kid, it was very uncommon for people to be homosexual or gay. And I remember the teacher being horrified, like, how could you write that in a sentence? And I was like, what? I was like, it means happy. And then all the students were like, yeah, that means happy. They didn't understand why the teacher was so upset, but that was when I was a kid. A lot's changed in 25 years. But we call the proud happy. You think of gay pride, and gay means happy. They that work wickedness are set up, they that tempt God are even delivered. And the people that are wicked in this world, you know, whether it's the homosexuals or the politicians, the politicians are wicked, they're set up in really comfortable places. They've got the money. They've got the power. Like, we don't have the power. They have the power. The liberal agenda that's out there, all the news, the people that have the power, they're bad people by and large. The politicians of this world that are set up, by and large, they're bad people. They're not good people. Are there exceptions? I'm sure there are some, okay? But the majority of politicians, whether it's here, whether it's in the US, whether it's in Europe, they're set up in today's world. The majority of them are bad people. Now, notice what it says in verse 16. Then they that feared the Lord spake often one to another. They that feared the Lord spake often one to another. You say, Brother Stocky, is it a sin if I skip church from time to time? Well, the Bible says if you fear God, you speak often one to another. Go to church as much as you can so you can speak often with other people that love the Lord. Look, this world is kicking us around. This world mocks what we believe. They're against what we believe. And see, the more often you're in church, the better. You say, why? Look, coming to church, if you're in a bad mood, it's going to put you in a good mood. Just being around God's people. Look, even if you came to church, and let's say you were asleep during the sermon, just being around God's people, and look, don't do that during the sermon. I'm just saying, even if you were asleep during the sermon, still being around God's people motivates you because it shows you it's not vain to serve God. There's 45, 50 other people at this church every Sunday that are doing the same thing as me. They're reading their nine chapters a day in the month of January. They're serving God. They're going soul winning. And look, all of us have our ups and we have our downs, we have our ups, we have our downs. You stay in church whether you're in an up, whether you're underneath the gourd or the gourd's been smoked, okay? You stay in church. You say, why? Because you're going to have ups and downs in life, but when you have a down, even more than ever, you need to be around God's people. They that fear the Lord spake often one to another. Now, this is true when it comes to church, but in terms of your personal life, who do you think you should be friends with? Who should you speak with during the week? People that love the Lord. They that fear the Lord spake often one to another. It's like, yeah, you know what, your friends at this church, your friends ought to be the people that are at this church, other people that love the Lord, okay? And so notice what it says here in verse 16, and the Lord hearkened and heard it and a book of remembrance was written before him for them that feared the Lord and that thought upon his name. Verse 17, and they shall be mine, saith the Lord of hosts, in that day when I shall make up my jewels and I will spare them as a man spareth his own son that serveth him. Then shall you return and discern between the righteous and the wicked, between him that serveth God and him that serveth him not. Now, I spent a little bit less time on this chapter because I want to take time. We're going to break off into groups here in a minute after we sing a song with men and women to just pray for the people of Batangas and the volcano and everything like that because as I mentioned in the sermon, as I talked about on Sunday, I do believe that when we beseech and pray to God, it can hold back his judgment and his wrath, and we don't want anybody to die in Batangas. I don't want any Catholics to die. Even though I believe this was as a result of idolatry, this is God's judgment, I don't want to see any Catholics die. I mean, Catholics don't believe the gospel. They're not saved. We want to get them the gospel. I don't want to see anybody die. I want to basically just be a warning that we've seen and other people see and people beseech after God, and who more to beseech after God than God's people? That is why we're going to be praying for the people of Batangas and the volcano. Ultimately, God's will be done, but I hope that if God is planning to pour out his wrath, we can hold back that judgment. Let's close in a word of prayer. Dear Heavenly Father, thank you for allowing us to be here today and just getting to read your word, God, and we just pray for the people of Batangas, God, and the situation going on. That the volcano will basically quiet down and nothing will happen, God. We think about the people, we care about them, and we just ask you to help us apply the sermon to our lives. In Jesus' name, amen.