The Robbers

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?

8 Will a man rob God? Yet ye have robbed me. But ye say, Wherein have we robbed thee? In tithes and offerings.

9 Ye are cursed with a curse: for ye have robbed me, even this whole nation.

Malachi 3:7-9

Herein the keeping of the marriage relationship between God and the people comes creeping back in. I don't know about you. Perhaps you have seen how people in love are supposed to do. Some people think it involves a whole lot of presents and love it's true. Sure, these things are awfully nice to have and also to keep. Then again though, some others don't know what it means to be loved. Like the Levites before, all they knew was service and grief. Perhaps some had even called their service to God a misuse. Now their families had suffered and felt so alone. In all this, I wonder what God would have to say to his people. You don't have to wonder too long though, our Lord has already spoken. Notice how he comes into this situation straight up. Without wavering, he says what he must. Basically, that's just a fancy way of saying he lays claim to the whole situation. It's all so plainly clear "from the days of" the Father's of old on down to them. Our God has known his people mighty far off it would seem. Whether as one person or bundled together, our God in his mercy would hardly let them alone. Remember the story of the ever watchful father who stood waiting in the road day after day for his son to return. One day though, he did back from the far country and the places he wandered no matter how far or how oft. Our Heavenly Father has also known us so it would seem. He's got the number, the address, the forefathers, and so keeps the house well. Still though, the people hardly knew ought of the Lord. To them that really should have been his own people it seems a little bit strange that they hardly knew him, much less walked in his ways. Lack of knowledge was hardly the issue. The forefathers had practically served him except when they like the children had strayed far away. Then again, the returning was more than a matter of course. It's almost like an old married couple coming back to the Lord. Only, instead of the husband being merely a mortal, he's rather the Lord. How often he said though that it was not himself who had grown short on the hearing. Nor was his hand out-stretched that it could not still save. Rather, the people's sins had separated them from the Lord. As we go on, we'll start to see that the Lord is far more than just another jealous lover of sorts. The people too had similar thoughts seen in their questions of why. It's either that they have wandered too far off from the fold or cannot see the profit in it. There is no place though that his mercy can't reach and nothing too far from out of his touch. It is to this quandary then that our Lord has come in. For so was the robbery taken. Sure, robbery has already come in quite a few forms. There's the people's having wandered off to be joined to their idols. There's having left off of their Lord to follow after those of another strange sort. There's too their having been carried off of death. Perhaps you might have heard how their relationship with the tithe and the Lord are knit so closely together. That's because the Lord oversees both and so keeps them all well. Melchizedek, then as priest of Salem once met Abraham when he returned the capture of Lot with a tithe. Receiving this to them made the difference between those who had nothing to gain. In Christ though, this high priest served as a picture of him who stands in the doorway between all life and death. No wonder our God has felt robbed by the people. They have scarcely came to him for the paying of tithe as they should. Now the issue has become most important in their time of loss and their need.It hardly needs to be said how our God delights to do good to his people . Still, as the good Father, first of the order, and greatest of these, he will hardly suffer any to be missing or gone from his house, not ever for long. Perhaps the people would have been better to start returning and still trust in the Lord. As the husband and Father of these he stands ever ready arms open wide on the people's return. Next time, we'll see what he'll do to care and provide for the least of all these. Then may these not have been seen as robbers of course, but rather those willing to walk with their Lord.