Malachi Reveals the Secret of Prosperity

Through transgression, those who once had been spiritual leaders had become “contemptible and base before all the people.” Malachi 2:9. Yet God left none without hope. Malachi’s prophecies of judgment came with invitations to the unrepentant to make peace with God. “Return to Me,” the Lord urged, “and I will return to you.” Malachi 3:7. The God of heaven is pleading with His erring children to cooperate with Him in carrying forward His work on the earth. The Lord holds out His hand to Israel to help them to the path of self-sacrifice, to share with Him the heirship as children of God. Will they recognize their only hope and respond?RR 248.1

How sad that in Malachi’s day the Israelites hesitated to yield their proud hearts in hearty cooperation! Their self-justification shows plainly in their response, “In what way shall we return?”RR 248.2

The Lord reveals to His people one of their special sins. “Will a man rob God?” He asks. “Yet you have robbed Me!” Still unconvicted of sin, the disobedient inquire, “In what way have we robbed You?”RR 248.3

“‘In tithes and offerings... . Bring all the tithes into the storehouse, that there may be food in My house, and try Me now in this,’ says the Lord of hosts, ‘if I will not open for you the windows of heaven and pour out for you such a blessing... . And I will rebuke the devourer for your sakes, so that he will not destroy the fruit of your ground... . And all nations will call you blessed, for you will be a delightful land,’ says the Lord of hosts.” Verses 7-12.RR 248.4

God gives the sunshine and the rain; He causes vegetation to flourish; He gives health and ability to earn income; and He desires men and women to show their gratitude by returning tithes and offerings so that His vineyard may not remain a barren wasteland. They are to reveal an unselfish interest in building up His work in all the world.RR 248.5

Through messages such as those that Malachi bore, as well as through oppression from heathen foes, the Israelites finally learned that true prosperity depends on obedience to the law of God. But with many, obedience did not flow from faith. Their motives were selfish. They gave outward service as a way to achieve national greatness. The chosen people did not become the light of the world, but shut themselves away from the world as a safeguard against idol worship. They perverted the restrictions forbidding intermarriage with the heathen and joining in the pagan practices of surrounding nations so that they built up a wall of partition between themselves and all other peoples. This shut from others the blessings God had commissioned Israel to give to the world.RR 248.6