When Frugality Is Not a Virtue
SPEAKER: Michael P. Andrus
Introduction: Many senior adults who grew up during the Great Depression often have an uneasy relationship with money. While many of them eventually became successful in their careers and achieved relative financial security, the experience of being totally destitute in the 1930’s (to the point, in some cases, of not knowing where their next meal was coming from) shaped their psyches and gave them a respect for frugality they have never been able to shake.
My parents are a case in point. Not only did they both grow up in poor families during the Depression, but my dad later became a pastor at a time when pastors were poor. He loved to tell the story about the Deacon who got up in prayer meeting and prayed for the pastor: “O Lord, you keep him humble and we’ll keep him poor.” (I think it was an apocryphal story. I think, but I’m not sure).
Frugality was a necessity in our home; it was also considered a virtue. As I was growing up there were few luxuries: no TV, no allowance, minimal Christmas presents, no eating out. Believe it or not, I was already a teenager when I first ate in a restaurant. Please understand I’m not complaining. In fact, I am extremely grateful for the home I grew up in. Four of the five children followed Dad into the ministry, so that should say something about the attitude my parents demonstrated despite our lack of resources.
My folks always lived in parsonages, so when they eventually retired, we children pooled our resources to pay the mortgage on their retirement home. It was during my first pastorate here. Don Hill set up the partnership. Then about five years later something totally unexpected happened. My dad inherited a significant bequest from a great-aunt. It enabled them to pay off the house, repay each of the children, and invest the rest for the future. But strangely their frugal lifestyle didn’t change. They still rarely went out to eat. Mom continued to cook nearly everything from scratch. And letters from them were more common than phone calls because they were cheaper (this was back when there were long-distance charges on phone calls).
I inherited some of my parents’ frugality (and I get a fair amount of grief for it from certain family members). I am one who will scrape mold off food instead of throwing it away. I pay no attention to expiration dates on canned goods or anything else; my philosophy is, if it doesn’t stink, it’s edible. I go to a movie only about once a year and never buy popcorn. I always order water with lemon in a restaurant because I can buy three liters at WalMart for what a Coke costs at the restaurant. When a hailstorm did an $8000 remodeling job on my car three years ago, I pocketed the insurance proceeds instead of fixing the car.
I have two sons. One inherited his dad’s frugality; the other didn’t. The best way to demonstrate the difference is that both boys bought brand new F-150 trucks two years ago. Andy paid $17,000 for his. It has crank windows (I didn’t know they still made those; I think he had to special order it!). But Eddie’s truck has every bell and whistle known to man, and then some. He paid 3 times what Andy paid–for the same truck!
Now I know you didn’t come here today to hear about my family pathology. (Just pray for Jan, OK?!) But there’s a point to all this. Even if you are 100% Scotch it is important to realize there is a time when frugality is not a virtue. My parents taught me that, too. I will return to them a little later.
Our text today is from the third chapter of the last book of the OT, the prophet Malachi. As Josh has been making clear over the past three weeks, the structure of Malachi is a series of dialogues between Israel and God. God makes a charge against His people; they respond that they don’t know what He’s talking about; so, He explains it to them, usually to their embarrassment and shame.
As we turn our attention to the fifth of these dialogues in Malachi 3:6-12, I invite you to please stand, if you are able, for the reading of God’s Word (NIV):
6 “I the Lord do not change. So you, the descendants of Jacob, are not destroyed. 7 Ever since the time of your ancestors you have turned away from my decrees and have not kept them. Return to me, and I will return to you,” says the Lord Almighty.
“But you ask, ‘How are we to return?’
8 “Will a mere mortal rob God? Yet you rob me.
“But you ask, ‘How are we robbing you?’
“In tithes and offerings. 9 You are under a curse—your whole nation—because you are robbing me. 10 Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house. Test me in this,” says the Lord Almighty, “and see if I will not throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing that there will not be room enough to store it. 11 I will prevent pests from devouring your crops, and the vines in your fields will not drop their fruit before it is ripe,” says the Lord Almighty. 12 “Then all the nations will call you blessed, for yours will be a delightful land,” says the Lord Almighty.
In case you hadn’t picked up on it yet, the time when frugality is not a virtue is when it comes to our giving, our generosity. Perhaps it is providential that this passage comes up less than two weeks before Christmas, the season of giving (and, I might add, just three weeks before our church’s fiscal year ends). But I encourage you not to put up your defenses, as we often do when Scripture speaks to giving, but rather open your heart to some quite provocative truths addressed here. I assure you this won’t be your run-of-the-mill stewardship sermon.
Our text opens with God speaking.
God confronts His people with the fact that their very survival depends upon His unchanging character. (6-7a)
“I the Lord do not change. So you, the descendants of Jacob, are not destroyed.” The unchangeableness or immutability of God is one of the great truths about His nature and character. In what is surely one of the best books ever written by any theologian of any age, J.I. Packer in Knowing God suggests that immutability means …
God’s life does not change.
His character does not change
His truth does not change,
His ways do not change,
His purposes do not change, and
His Son does not change.[i]
Let’s consider each of these briefly.
His life does not change. The Psalmist expresses it this way: “From everlasting to everlasting I am God.” He has no beginning and no end. He just is.
His character does not change. Many things can change the character of a person—stress, exhaustion, trauma. These things can make a good person bad or a bad person worse. We have all seen kind people become bitter and crotchety in their old age. We have seen positive people become negative and cynical. But nothing like that can happen to our Creator because His character does not change. He never becomes less faithful or merciful or just or good than He ever was.
His truth does not change. All of us have to take back our words from time to time, either because we lied or were mistaken or have simply grown in our understanding. But God never has to eat crow. Isaiah put it this way: “The grass withers; the flowers fall, but the Word of our God stands forever.” (Isaiah 40:6-8).
His ways do not change. Our ways are pathetically inconsistent. We respond one way to one person and the opposite way to someone else (and sometimes to the same person a day later). But God’s ways do not change. He always hates sin, always loves the sinner, always responds to heartfelt confession with forgiveness, always seeks our best good.
His purposes do not change. Someone has said that one of two things causes a person to change his mind and reverse his plans: lack of foresight or inability to execute. But since God is both omniscient and omnipotent, He never has to go to Plan B. In Numbers 23:19 we read these words from the mouth of the prophet Balaam: “God is not a man that he should lie, nor a son of man that he should change his mind. Does He speak and then not act? Does He promise and not fulfill?” It’s a rhetorical question, clearly expecting a resounding “no” for an answer.
Finally, God’s Son does not change. In Hebrews 13:8 we are told that Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today and forever. This is the ultimate basis of our security. We never have to wonder whether Jesus will fail us or turn His back on us or cease to be gracious and forgiving to us. “He is able to save to the uttermost those who draw near to God through him, since he always lives to make intercession for them.” He never changes.
The immutability of God is clearly a foundational aspect of His character, with profound implications for our relationship with Him. God Himself draws that out for us: “I the Lord do not change. So you, the descendants of Jacob, are not destroyed.” His unchangeableness is tied directly to the survival of His people. The clear implication is that if God were not immutable, they would all be toast.
And the next verse goes on to give the reason for this inference: “Ever since the time of your ancestors you have turned away from my decrees and have not kept them.” That is the whole history of Israel right there in one sentence. And frankly, it’s the history of the Church as well. We are a sinful, rebellious, and disobedient people. We all deserve judgment, and we would all receive the national equivalent of the death penalty were it not for the fact that our God’s unchanging nature allows him to forgive what deserves to be punished.[ii]
But having indicted His people for their rebellion and disobedience, God does not abandon them. Instead, He appeals to them: “‘Return to me, and I will return to you,’ says the Lord Almighty.”
God challenges His people to return to Him so He can return to them. (7b)
The clear implication is that there is a direct connection between their behavior and God’s blessing, or lack of same. Sometimes in our emphasis on the sovereignty of God, His election, His predestination, and His grace, we lose sight of this connection. Yes, salvation is of the Lord, and it is by grace alone, but we are not pawns in some kind of cosmic chess game. What we do clearly impacts the nature of our relationship or fellowship with God. God requires something of His people, and He promises something in return. Despite their past behavior, if they will turn around and go the other direction, God promises to respond to them by opening His arms.
Well, how do they take this challenge? In verse 7 we discover that they are offended at the notion they need to return. They answer with their typical response of surprise. “Who? Us? How are we to return when we never left? We still go to temple when we can. We still show up on feast days. We still say the shema (“The Lord our God is One Lord”) before our meals and at bedtime!” I frankly don’t know if this is genuine shock or feigned innocence. I’m inclined to think the latter, but it’s possible they have become so jaded in their religious routines that they really don’t have a clue how far they are from God!
How about us? Obviously, we’re all in church this morning when we could be somewhere else. We have our Bibles open and are listening to a sermon, or pretending to. We’re planning to celebrate the birth of the Savior in less than two weeks. But where are our hearts really? If God were to say to any of us, “Return to me!”, would we object as the Jews did, “Who? Us?”
Well, God answers their objection in a rather startling manner.
God accuses His people of being God-robbers. (8a)
“Will a mere mortal rob God? Yet you rob me!” Now that is a pretty serious charge! The term “rob” used here indicates violent seizing of that which belongs to someone else. And that is the underlying issue: It all belongs to God. God had given His people the land and its produce as their inheritance, but He made it clear that it was really a stewardship. He never signed over the title to them. So, when they withhold that portion which the rightful owner commanded them to give, it is not a simple matter of neglect on their part. It isn’t some minor mistake. It is plunder, it is highway robbery. But again they again feign indignation. “You can’t be serious! When did we hold You up?” So,…
God explains that a failure to give as He commanded constitutes nothing less than robbery.
And with that we are introduced to one of the most pointed and convicting passages on stewardship in the entire Bible. It is a passage that is cherished by the health/wealth preachers, misapplied by many others, and just ignored by most. I want to approach it by examining what it meant to those to whom Malachi originally delivered it, and then we will ask what it means for us here in the 21st century. There are four parts to God’s explanation:
- The sin
- The curse
- The challenge
- The promise
Their sin is that they were withholding their tithes and offerings. Tithing was a requirement on Old Testament believers. It was practiced at least from the time of Abraham, perhaps even back to the Garden of Eden. With the giving of the Law through Moses it was codified: a tenth of all income was to be given to the Lord for the support of the Levites. The Levites, in turn, paid a tenth of their tenth to the ministering priests. In addition, freewill offerings were expected from time to time.
There was a very important purpose to the tithe. You see, the twelve tribes of Israel were each assigned a portion of the land, except for the Levites, who were assigned the duty of overseeing the spiritual life of the nation. They served the central sanctuary, the temple, provided the priests, and supervised the care for widows, orphans and the poor. The tithe was designed so that the Levites could live at the same level as the other tribes. As 1/12 of the nation, they constituted roughly 8.3% of the population. But when the cost of operating the temple and caring for the poor is added in, it required approximately 10 percent of the nation’s wealth to meet these needs.
The Israelites of Malachi’s day were clearly failing in this responsibility, but no doubt they weren’t stiffing God altogether. They gave small contributions now and then, perhaps even stepping up to the plate whenever a crisis tugged at their heartstrings. But they certainly were not giving the “whole tithe,” nor were they giving with a willing and thankful heart. That is their sin. And, as a result of their sin, God says they are under a curse.
The curse, interestingly, doesn’t impact just the guilty; the whole nation is suffering because of it. That’s usually the case with sin, you know. We think our sins are private, but they almost never are. Oh, we may hide them from fellow worshipers, even from family, but those around us are nevertheless affected. You might refer to that as collateral damage.
I don’t know whether confidentiality in giving was practiced in Israel, as we practice it here at First Free. Let’s suppose it was. Those who were failing to give the tithe may have thought they were getting by with something. Maybe they even thought they were doing their families a favor; after all, more money was left for their own kids or their retirement. How short-sighted!
The curse apparently involved the weather and the productivity of the land—key factors in an agrarian society. That is hinted at in verses 10 & 11, but it is much clearer in a very similar passage in the prophet Haggai, where a generation or two earlier God’s people had failed to be obedient in rebuilding the Lord’s temple after the Babylonian Captivity ended. Listen to Haggai 1:7-11:
7 “Thus says the Lord of hosts: Consider your ways. 8 Go up to the hills and bring wood and build the house, that I may take pleasure in it and that I may be glorified, says the Lord.9 You looked for much, and behold, it came to little. And when you brought it home, I blew it away. Why? declares the Lord of hosts. Because of my house that lies in ruins, while each of you busies himself with his own house. 10 Therefore the heavens above you have withheld the dew, and the earth has withheld its produce. 11 And I have called for a drought on the land and the hills, on the grain, the new wine, the oil, on what the ground brings forth, on man and beast, and on all their labors.”
The curse is obviously on their productivity and prosperity, as God has called for a drought and has prevented the land from being productive. Friends, there is a profound biblical principle at work here, namely that God has many ways to discipline His people. Sometimes He does it swiftly and supernaturally. When Korah rebelled in Moses’ day God opened the earth, which swallowed Korah and his family to their deaths. When Ananias and Saphira lied to the Holy Spirit in the book of Acts, God took their lives immediately. In both cases the people of God took note and shaped up right away.
But sometimes God chooses to discipline in less dramatic ways, as by using natural calamity, or political chaos, or foreign enemies. The problem is that His people often attribute such problems to bad luck or global warming or radical jihadists and they fail to even consider that divine discipline might be at work. Perhaps we should be more inclined to at least ask, when calamity befalls us or our nation, “Is God trying to tell us something? Is the Church, in its apathy and disobedience, inviting some of this upon our nation?”
Amazingly God does not leave His people without a remedy. In verse 10 He gives them a challenge, a test.
The challenge: “’Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house. Test me in this,’ says the Lord Almighty.” Although it is wrong to test God with complaining, rebellion, and unbelief, as taught in many Scripture passages, it is not wrong to test Him with obedience, especially when He commands it. They are to bring the “whole tithe.” They are not to just improve their giving; they are not just to increase it. They must bring all that God has required.
And they are to bring it into “the storehouse,” evidently referring to the temple treasury. The mention of “food in my house” is a reference to the provisions for the priests and Levites, as well as food that was stockpiled for the poor. God is concerned about these things because neglect of the priesthood, the temple, and the poor were clear signs that His people were covenant-breakers, breaking faith with God.
Well, if they meet this challenge, what can they expect from God? We see His promises in verse 10:
The promises: See if I will not throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing that there will not be room enough to store it. 11 I will prevent pests from devouring your crops, and the vines in your fields will not drop their fruit before it is ripe,” says the Lord Almighty. 12 “Then all the nations will call you blessed, for yours will be a delightful land,” says the LordAlmighty.
I see three different promises here:
- Unprecedented blessing from heaven
- Removal of the curse from the earth
- Universal acclaim from the nations
Promise 1: Unprecedented blessing from heaven. The opening of the floodgates of heaven is undoubtedly a metaphor for rain, the key to agricultural prosperity. Drought was their most persistent problem, but God is willing to pour out rain to the point that it produces so much blessing they won’t even be able to deal with it. This is truly an amazing promise! Is it for real? Did God ever do anything like this for His people?
One can look back at Joseph’s day and see a famished family of 70 foreigners develop into a nation of perhaps 2 million, who became so prosperous that the Egyptian pharaoh feared they would overwhelm His nation. Or one can think of King David’s time when the kingdom of Israel expanded tremendously as God gave him success in war. Or one can look at Solomon’s amazing wealth—so great that the Queen of Sheba traveled a great distance to see if the rumors of it were true.
Yes, God poured out His blessing at times in a remarkable way. And if the people didn’t see more examples of it, perhaps they could only blame themselves—they were so seldom obedient and faithful!
Promise 2: Removal of the curse from the earth. Not only would God produce abundant rain from heaven; He would also remove the curse on the land that we saw in verse 9. The grasshoppers and other pests which regularly devoured their crops would be no more. The diseases that caused the fruit to fall off the vine, still not ripe, would cease. God promises to remove these hindrances to their prosperity.
Promise 3: Universal acclaim from the nations. The third part of the promise has to do with their reputation. I am not certain what God means by this. At the very least He seems to be promising that the land of Israel, which had been under the harsh thumb of the Assyrian, Babylonian and Persian empires, would once again become a delightful, enviable land. Israel would be seen as favored and the nations around her would wish they were like her. I believe that was partially realized in the time of Herod the Great.
There may also be a sense in which it is partially being fulfilled in our day, for why would a nation as tiny as Israel with no known oil reserves, be the focus of international politics? The nations seem to be recognizing God’s blessing on Israel. Of course, while they recognize it, they also rage against it and try to destroy her. How much greater could that blessing and favor be if Israel were to turn to God and acknowledge her Messiah! Probably the ultimate fulfillment of all three of these promises awaits the Second Coming of Christ.
Now in our remaining minutes I wish to address 3 questions that came to my mind as I studied this passage. Perhaps they have come to yours as well.
Question 1: Does this passage require tithing as the biblical standard for giving today? My simple answer is “no.” The NT writers had ample opportunity to affirm the requirement of tithing, but they never do. Rather they teach a higher standard, which is proportional giving. That is, the more you make the more you should give, not only in amount but also in proportion. There are, of course, a multitude of other stewardship principles taught in the NT. While we don’t have time to elaborate on these this morning, at the bottom of your outline I have provided a link to several sermons on our website that will enable you to study those principles.
I will say that I believe God is every bit as concerned about our obedience to NT standards of giving as He was to the Israelites’ obedience to OT standards of giving. The promises He offers us may be different, and the sanctions we experience for disobedience may be different, but we must not assume we are free to just do as we please in the matter of generous giving. We can end up cheating ourselves every bit as much as the Israelites of Malachi’s day cheated themselves.
Question 2. Does this passage teach that “storehouse giving” should be practiced today? There has been a tendency in some circles to teach that the “storehouse” today is the local church, or the denomination’s Cooperative Program. The rationale for bringing all gifts to the storehouse, then, is that church leaders know best where your giving should go. My simple answer is again, “no.” If anything, the NT teaches against storehouse giving. The believers in Corinth were encouraged by Paul to set aside a sum of money in keeping with their income on the first day of every week, saving it up, so that when he arrived, no last-minute collections would have to be made (1 Cor. 16:1-2). So at least regarding fund-raising for the persecuted Christians in Jerusalem, the believers were to store it up themselves, not bring it to any storehouse.
Now don’t misunderstand me. I believe in generous giving to the local church. For most Christians I suspect the bulk of their giving should go to their local church, because that’s where they and their families receive the bulk of their teaching, fellowship, and spiritual support. I don’t think there is any excuse for a local church not to have sufficient funds to meet its budget, especially in a congregational form of government where the congregation itself approved the budget! Further, I have long believed that churches never have financial problems; they only have spiritual problems that manifest themselves financially. If God’s work is being done in God’s way, it will not lack God’s support.
However, in addition to supporting the work of our local church, I think there is also value in doing some of our giving directly to ministries God lays on our hearts, or to missionaries we are personally vested in, or to needy people who may not even be part of our church.
Question 3. Does this passage support the “prosperity gospel”? The simple answer is once again, “no.” Unfortunately, many preachers use it that way. They interpret Malachi as offering an absolute guarantee of prosperity to anyone who will live a life of obedience, which is usually defined as sending generous gifts to their ministry. But in Scripture there are general promises and there are absolute promises. If God is offering an absolute promise to every individual here in Malachi, how do you explain Joseph, one of the godliest men in all of Scripture, who was sold into slavery and imprisoned on trumped up charges? How do you explain Job who went through unprecedented trauma for no fault of his own? Sometimes God uses suffering and sickness in a person’s life for reasons other than discipline.
And when you turn to the NT, the connection between prosperity and obedience is even more tenuous. Listen to 2 Cor. 9:6-11:
6 The point is this: whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and whoever sows bountifully will also reap bountifully. 7 Each one must give as he has decided in his heart, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver. 8 And God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that having all sufficiency in all things at all times, you may abound in every good work. 9 As it is written,
“He has distributed freely, he has given to the poor;
his righteousness endures forever.”
10 He who supplies seed to the sower and bread for food will supply and multiply your seed for sowing and increase the harvest of your righteousness. 11 You will be enriched in every way to be generous in every way, which through us will produce thanksgiving to God.”
A casual reading of this passage produces some obvious parallels to Malachi 3. But a cautious reading also reveals some important differences. The promise of abundance in verse 8, for example, is for an abundance of good works. The increase in the harvest in verse 10 has to do with a harvest of righteousness. The purpose of the enrichment in verse 11 is not so we can live like king’s kids, but so that we can be more generous!
I am not denying in the least that God may, and often does, prosper His children financially and health-wise when they are faithful and obedient; I just think His concern is more for our spiritual and eternal prosperity than our physical and material prosperity. If the prosperity gospel were true, the Apostles wouldn’t have been poor and persecuted, Paul wouldn’t have had a thorn in the flesh he couldn’t get rid of, and Jesus wouldn’t have gone to the Cross.
Conclusion: I said earlier that I would return to my parents. My parents were frugal about virtually everything except their giving. As poor as we were when I was young, they always gave at least 15% of their income to the Lord. Furthermore, they practiced hospitality constantly. Nearly every Sunday a family joined us for dinner, even though at times we barely had enough to feed ourselves. As income increased, their giving increased, even though they had no idea how they would make ends meet when Dad could no longer work. I do not believe it was just good luck or a serendipitous coincidence that my dad’s aunt, though an unbeliever, left her estate to them when they were in their 70’s. It was God showing His faithfulness to those who had been faithful to Him.
That gift took care of my parents for the last 20 years of my dad’s life, and Mom, who is now 97 is still living on it. If she makes it to 99, as her mother did, the bequest and she should expire about the same time. Of course, she’s praying the Lord comes sooner. Interestingly, Mom’s biggest complaint is that my brother, who keeps her checkbook, won’t let her give more.
Friends, Malachi 3 is principally about the character of our God. It opened with His immutability, His unchangeableness, upon which our very survival depends. It concludes with His gracious promises, upon which our eternal prosperity depends. His greatest promise of all, of course, is the free gift of salvation to all who put their faith and trust in His Son, Jesus Christ, the gift for which there are no words.
DATE: December 13, 2015
Tags:
Frugality
Immutability of God
Repentance
Stewardship
Tithing
Storehouse giving
Prosperity gospel
[i] J. I. Packer, Knowing God, 77-80.
[ii] Douglas Stuart, Malachi, in The Minor Prophets, Thomas Edward McComiskey, 1363.