6. God Summons His People to Return to Him

[0:00] Well, friends, let's turn to the prophet Malachi on page 802 in our Pew Bibles and to this passage which you'll see.

[0:16] The English Standard Version gives the title, Robbing God, which is a rather unsettling title. I think perhaps I'd prefer the title, God Summons His People to Return to Him.

[0:28] Now, it's over three months since we were in the prophet Malachi. If your memory stretches back, you may remember we had five Sunday evening sermons in the Sundays of March on this book.

[0:40] Foolishly at the time, I thought that I'd be able to cover the whole book in five sermons, but actually we only got as far as chapter 3, verse 5. So I'm very glad to be allowed to have three more bites at this particular cherry.

[0:51] So we have today, then God willing in a fortnight's time, and finally on the 2nd of August. And if I can't get to the end of the book by the 2nd of August, you have full permission to call me a prize Charlie.

[1:05] So let me start with a brief reminder of what this book of Malachi is all about. Historically and chronologically, Malachi is the last of the Old Testament prophets.

[1:16] He was preaching in about the middle of the 5th century BC, round about the year 450 BC in Jerusalem. But the people of Israel at that time were in a sorry state.

[1:29] Their exile in Babylon had come to an end nearly a century previously, and they had returned in very reduced numbers. Only a few tens of thousands had been able to return from Babylon to Jerusalem.

[1:43] But they had come back, and they'd been able to rebuild the temple, and to reinstitute the temple functions, the priesthood and the sacrifices and so on. But things were not at all happy.

[1:55] Jerusalem was a shadow of its former self. The glory days of King David and Solomon were 500 years in the past. Economically, times were very tough as well.

[2:09] In fact, verse 10 in our chapter 3 suggests a general sense of poverty. Why was it hard to bring the tithes in? Because folk were poor. So economically, things were difficult.

[2:20] Politically, the land of Judah was no longer an independent sovereign state. It was just a little province in a far-flung corner of the great sprawling Persian Empire, a little bit like Lithuania or Estonia used to be in the great sprawling Soviet Empire a few years ago.

[2:37] So here was Malachi the prophet finding himself living amongst a depressed rump end of God's people. They were few in number, they were listless in spirit, and they were compromised in their loyalty to the Lord.

[2:52] And throughout this book of Malachi, the Lord is challenging his people to leave their compromise and to start serving him and loving him wholeheartedly again. So if you just run your eye back over the earlier chapters, in chapter 1, verses 1 to 5, the Lord charges his people with forgetting how he loved them, how he had covenanted his love to them.

[3:15] In the remainder of chapter 1, Malachi takes them to task for bringing diseased and sickly, worthless animals to the temple to be sacrificed. In chapter 2, the prophet rebukes the priests of Israel for colluding with the people in accepting these poor sacrifices and for failing to instruct them properly in the law of Moses.

[3:35] They weren't doing their job as teachers. And then in the latter part of chapter 2, the prophet exposes their practice of marrying foreign women, that is to say women who worshipped pagan idols, people who were idolaters, and also their frequent practice of divorcing their wives.

[3:54] So morally and spiritually, the people were in a big mess. And the heart of Malachi's message was, repent, turn back to the Lord. Replace your disobedience with obedience.

[4:06] And if you will do that, he will bless you. Of course, that is so often the message of the Old Testament prophets. Repent, turn back to the Lord. A message addressed to the people of God. Now you'll see as we come into chapter 3, look at the first five verses there.

[4:21] Malachi there sharpens his focus by telling the people that the Lord's messenger, the Messiah, will soon be coming. And when he comes, he will bring both salvation and judgment.

[4:33] He will refine the priests, and thus the people as well, but he will also bring swift judgment against all who refuse to fear him and obey him. All right, well let's turn now to this new paragraph, chapter 3, verses 6 to 12.

[4:48] God summons his people to return to him. His people, the people of Israel, he summons them to return to him. Now you'll see that summons expressed in verse 7.

[5:00] Return to me, and I will return to you, says the Lord of hosts. Now if the Lord is commanding his people to return to him, the assumption is that they are far from him.

[5:14] Their backs at present are turned to him. It's a bit like a situation where a man might ask his wife to return to him, because she has turned away from him.

[5:25] There's been a separation there. Now that's the situation here. The people have turned away from the Lord. They've been despising him. They've been treating him as if he were very insignificant.

[5:36] They've felt that it was all right to bring these weak and sickly animals to be sacrificed. They haven't been upset by the fact that their spiritual leaders have not been instructing them in the word of the Lord.

[5:48] It doesn't seem to have been weighing on their consciences that they've been marrying pagan idolaters and divorcing their wives left, right and centre. Their backs, morally speaking and spiritually, have been turned to the Lord.

[6:01] So the prophet calls to them, turn back. The Lord calls to them, return to me. And he immediately there in verse 7 gives them a great incentive. Return to me and I will return to you.

[6:15] In other words, if you will put this sin and moral compromise behind you and turn back to me, then you can be sure that I will turn back to you and I will bless you. Now you'll see from the end of verse 7 that this lovely invitation from the Lord is met with a kind of refusal.

[6:34] Look at the end of verse 7. The Lord promises, I will return to you if you return to me. But the people respond by saying, how shall we return? It's not easy to understand exactly what is meant by that question.

[6:49] Do they mean, well yes, yes, we can see that we need to return, of course, but how exactly are we to do it? In other words, are they keen to return to the Lord but simply don't know how to go about it? I fear not.

[7:01] I think really this is a sluggish and hard-hearted question, like all the questions they raise in this book. Return to him? Did we ever leave him? Do we need to return to him?

[7:12] What do you mean, Malachi, when you say return? Isn't that more the feeling of it? It seems to be a sad instance of the word of God, the promise of God, coming graciously to his people but being met with indifference and hardness of heart.

[7:29] Now that's the setting of this invitation and command to return to the Lord. God is graciously inviting his people to restart their relationship with him by repenting.

[7:40] But he is met, it seems, with incomprehension and blindness. The people are rather like Homer Simpson in his worst moments, apparently uncomprehending and yet also perverse.

[7:54] Now I wonder, friends, if this attitude of asking this kind of question of the Lord, does it ring any bells in your own heart and mind?

[8:06] It certainly does in mine. I know a man who's very often like this. He's a Christian, there's no doubt about that, but he often half pretends that he doesn't understand the plain teaching of the Bible because really he would prefer to live a self-indulgent and lazy life.

[8:22] He needs to hear the words of the prophet Malachi. And his name is Edward Lobb. Now if I'm like that, I'm probably safe to assume that at least some of you are like that as well.

[8:35] We can hear the gracious summons of the Lord to turn back to him and yet we sometimes want to do it sluggishly and selfishly and half-heartedly. So I'm going to plow on with this sermon in the hope that the prophet will change my life.

[8:49] And if you're at all like me, friends, do stick with me and I trust the prophet will change your life and thinking as well. All right, well I've got three headings today. Each of them is in the form of a question with the answer attached to it.

[9:04] Here's the first. Question. Why return to the Lord? Answer. Because he does not change. Now that of course is not my answer.

[9:15] It's there in the text. It's the Lord's answer. Look with me at verse 6. For I, the Lord, do not change. Therefore you, O children of Jacob, are not consumed. From the days of your fathers you have turned aside from my statutes and have not kept them.

[9:31] Return to me and I will return to you, says the Lord of hosts. Now that's not an easy pair of verses to understand. So let me try and open out what is going on here.

[9:41] Throughout the book, the Lord has been charging his people with spiritual disobedience and moral compromise. We've noticed that already this morning. And remember, almost all of the text of Malachi is written in the first person singular.

[9:58] So God himself is speaking to the people through the prophet. And in those opening verses of chapter 3, the opening five verses of chapter 3, the Lord sharpens up his message by telling his people that his messenger, the Messiah, is going to come.

[10:14] And when he comes, he will come suddenly. Verse 1. And when he comes suddenly, it will be to bring refining and blessing to some. But, verse 5, he will be a swift witness in judgment against those of the Israelites who have stopped fearing him and conforming their lives to the standards of the law of Moses.

[10:35] So those first five verses of chapter 3 are a sharp call to the people to repent because the Messiah judge is coming. But if those first five verses of the chapter make the people fearful and anxious, the next two verses are designed to be a great encouragement.

[10:54] Because in those verses 6 and 7, the Lord is saying to them, I am the same Lord as I always have been. I do not change. And that's why I have not rubbed the children of Israel off the face of the earth.

[11:08] Think back, verse 7, to your history, you people of Israel. Your ancestors again and again were faithless to me. You've only got to read the books of Exodus and Numbers, the books of Samuel and Kings.

[11:22] Read the Psalms. And you will see how often your fathers were disobedient to me. And yes, I punished them. And not least by sending them finally into exile. But you are still here in existence as the people of God.

[11:36] I have been faithful to the covenant. I have loved the sons of Jacob with an everlasting love. Yes, I've been angry with them. But I have not annihilated them. I'm not that kind of God.

[11:47] I never have been. And I'm still the same kind of God today. So you Jews of 450 BC, learn from your history what kind of a God I am.

[11:58] Yes, I will rebuke the sinner. I will judge the unrepentant. But you can count on me to be gracious to those who repent. Return to me therefore. And you can be quite certain that I will return to you and bless you.

[12:14] Now friends, if the Lord did not change from the days of Abraham right through to the days of Malachi, that's a period of some 1500 years, aren't we safe to assume that he hasn't changed since the days of Malachi?

[12:31] It's because he does not change that we can have such confidence in him. Confidence that when our sluggish hearts finally return to him, his loving heart will quickly return to us.

[12:43] Has he renounced the covenant? Certainly not. In fact, quite the contrary. He has renewed and extended the covenant in the coming of Jesus and has sealed it by the blood of his own son.

[12:58] So the God whom we trust and worship is the God who does not change. He has always been willing to return to those who return to him.

[13:10] Now let's not forget, I don't know whether you noticed this in verse 6, but let's not forget that these words are lovingly addressed to the children of Jacob. That's how they're described there. It's a slightly surprising term for the Lord to use because usually they're called the people of Israel or the children of Israel in the Old Testament.

[13:27] So it just may be that the Lord is speaking to them as the children of Jacob because he wants to remind them of the way that he dealt with that individual, with their ancestor Jacob.

[13:39] Jacob, you remember, was a schemer and a deceiver. Although he knew very well that he was the heir of God's great promise to Abraham, he spent half his life, the first half of his life roughly, trying to manipulate people and situations to his own advantage.

[13:56] In the earlier part of his life, there was nothing nice or trustworthy about Jacob. And yet the Lord God persisted with him and eventually mastered him.

[14:07] And finally, the old schemer gave in and submitted to him. Eventually, Jacob returned to the Lord and found that the Lord had graciously returned to him.

[14:18] And the Lord who does not change will be like that with us as well. Even if you and I have been like Jacob, weaving and ducking for decades, perhaps living a life of moral compromise or practicing a certain degree of spiritual hypocrisy, if we will return to him because he does not change, we can count on him to return to us.

[14:43] And if this is true of the individual, it is certainly true of the Lord's Church. These words, after all, were not really addressed to individuals but to the body of the people of Israel corporately. I think we can properly apply them, therefore, to the Church of Scotland.

[14:57] Now, as you know, as you well know, our National Church's General Assembly, just a few weeks ago, has turned its back on the Lord's teaching on sexual morality.

[15:08] Now, it has been doing so for some decades, as has the Church of England, by the way. But at the recent General Assembly, it has done so in an explicit and brazen way.

[15:19] It has gone the way of Romans chapter 1, exchanging the truth of God for a lie and also exchanging God's good teaching on sexual morality and marriage for the world's destructive teaching which favours homosexual practice and approves of it.

[15:35] And we have to ask, is our national church beyond hope? Well, let's ask, were the people of God in Malachi's Jerusalem beyond hope? If they had been, the Lord would not have sent his prophet to them with this summons to return.

[15:53] Now, isn't it the same today? If the Church of Scotland and other churches that are taking the same kind of route will return to the Lord and renounce the standards of the world, they will find that the Lord has not changed and that he will return to them.

[16:07] But if they refuse to repent, they can only expect to be consumed. That's the powerful verb used there. The Lord will only return to his people if his people are prepared to return to him.

[16:21] So there's our first question. Why return to him? The answer is because he does not change. He will always return to those who return to him. Well, now a second question.

[16:33] How are God's people to return to him? Answer? By taking a big risk. In a sense, the Christian life can be spelt in that four-letter word, R-I-S-K.

[16:49] How to return by taking a risk? Look with me at verses 7 and 8. The people say, how shall we return? And God then replies in verse 8 by telling them that they're robbing him.

[17:03] That's a rather strange idea, isn't it? But the Lord chooses this shocking verb so as to make the point. He asks the question, will man rob God? Well, normally, there'd only be one possible answer to that question and that would be the answer no.

[17:18] How could a puny man possibly rob the Almighty? It's rather like asking if a mouse could hurt an elephant. Of course not. But the Lord says that this is just what they are doing.

[17:31] They're robbing him as they withhold from him their tithes and their contributions. Now, to understand what's going on here, we have to turn back to the law of Moses, which gives the Israelites some pretty comprehensive instruction about how to live their lives.

[17:48] That word tithe means a tenth part of your income or your possessions and goods. And if you think about it, that's a pretty significant proportion, a tenth part of your income.

[17:59] And the law of Moses instructed the Israelites to bring a tenth part of their crops to Jerusalem every year. So I wonder if you'd turn back with me to the book of Deuteronomy so you can just see this in its original setting.

[18:13] Deuteronomy chapter 14, you'll find this on page 158 in our big Bibles. 1, 5, 8. It's good to dip into the dark corners of the Old Testament from time to time.

[18:26] We discover they're not dark at all, but actually they shed a great deal of light on what goes on in other parts of the Bible. So Deuteronomy chapter 14, and I'll read verses 22 to 27.

[18:37] You'll see it has the title, Tithes. So here is the Lord speaking to the people through Moses. Chapter 14, verse 22. You shall tithe all the yield of your seed that comes from the field year by year.

[18:53] And before the Lord your God, in the place that he will choose to make his name dwell there, that's a code or periphrastic way of speaking about Jerusalem and the temple.

[19:04] You'll bring it to the temple. You shall eat the tithe of your grain, of your wine, and of your oil, and the firstborn of your herd and flock. Why? That you may learn to fear the Lord your God always.

[19:16] That's the reason given for it. It's not just some rule that has to be obeyed without any obvious reason. That's the reason. It cements the relationship. Verse 24. And if the way is too long for you, in other words, if you live out in the sticks, so to speak, if you live in Thurso, you haven't got to come to Glasgow, it's that sort of idea.

[19:35] If the way is too long for you so that you're not able to carry the tithe when the Lord your God blesses you, because the place is too far from you, which the Lord your God chooses to set his name there because Jerusalem is too far, then you shall turn your tithe, your goods, into money and bind up the money in your hand and go to Jerusalem, to the place that the Lord your God chooses.

[19:56] And, verse 26, spend the money for whatever you desire, oxen or sheep or wine or strong drink, whatever your appetite craves, and you shall eat there before the Lord your God and rejoice, you and your household.

[20:12] And you shall not neglect the Levite. These were the priestly folk, the instructors in the law, the Levite who is within your towns, for he has no portion or inheritance with you.

[20:24] Now, that isn't the only passage in the law of Moses about tithes. And we would need to read one or two others to get a slightly fuller picture of the tithe. But it's very instructive.

[20:36] And it makes the point that the tithe that you bring into Jerusalem actually ends up in your own stomach. Did you know that? It was a bit of a surprise to me. But that's the case, isn't it?

[20:47] Or, says Moses, if you live far from Jerusalem and you bring money instead of produce, you're to spend the money on buying food and drink, including wine, so that you and your family can have a celebration banquet.

[21:00] It's hardly a deprivation, is it? And the reason given there in Deuteronomy 14 is so that you should learn to fear the Lord and learn to rejoice before him.

[21:11] In other words, the tithe and the fact that you had to bring it to the temple at Jerusalem was God's way of developing and deepening a thankful, joyful, dependent spirit in the hearts of his people.

[21:25] It was designed, if you like, to cement the relationship between God and his people in a joyous and thoughtful and thankful way. And it was also given to support the priests and the Levites whose job was to teach the law and to offer the sacrifices.

[21:41] And you may remember that the Levites, the whole tribe of Levi, had no land allocation in the way that the other tribes had. I think they were given a small piece of land around each of the walled cities but not the great swathes of land for agriculture which the other tribes had.

[21:55] So they depended upon the other tribes for their living. So it was a lovely arrangement provided by the Lord to sustain the relationship of love and joy between God and his people and to support the ministers who instructed the people and offered their sacrifices.

[22:13] Now the principle continues today in a sense because the ministers and teachers of the Bible are personally supported by the congregations they teach so that they don't have to earn their living in some other way.

[22:26] It means they can give themselves to the ministry rather than having to spend five days a week earning their crust by some trade. Now back to Malachi chapter 3 and verses 8 and 9.

[22:40] The problem in Jerusalem was that many of the people were not bringing their tithes to Jerusalem year by year and that is why the Lord accuses them of robbing him and because they're not bringing their tithes because they're not doing this thing which was designed to deepen their relationship with him and to support the priests they're under a curse as verse 9 puts it.

[23:06] Very strong language and of course they are painfully aware of this curse being put into practice because verse 11 tells us that it shows up in the failure of their crops. Devouring pests are eating up their produce in the fields.

[23:20] Locusts, grasshoppers, some other creature with a big appetite which the Lord God calls the devourer there and their vines as well are failing to produce their fruit. Now are you thinking chicken and egg at this point?

[23:38] Because I am. You see, which came first? Did they have no tithes to bring in to the temple because the crops were failing or were the crops failing because the people were failing to bring in their tithes?

[23:53] Which way round was it? Surely it's the second of those two. God's curse is upon them because they are failing to bring in the tithes. It's their moral failure which produces the crop failure not vice versa.

[24:08] So what is the remedy? they need to take a risk. They need to start trusting the Lord as they obey him. Look at the way the Lord puts it in verse 10.

[24:19] Bring the full tithes into the storehouse that there may be food in my house and thereby put me to the test says the Lord of hosts if I will not open the windows of heaven for you and pour down for you a blessing until there is no more need.

[24:36] Isn't that a glorious verse? Lavish. That's what the Lord is like. Lavish. Now you can imagine a couple of small farmers up in the hill country of Judah in 450 BC having a bit of a discussion about this.

[24:53] Benjamin says one Have you taken your tithe in yet this year to Jerusalem? Tithe, Joseph? Tithe? You cannot be serious.

[25:04] I've only Look at my farm. I've only produced two heifer calves this year and three bull calves and nine lambs and half of them have got the scab and look at my vines in this terrible drought barely half their usual crop you talk to me about tithes I'm only just about able to feed my family as it is.

[25:22] That's the kind of pressure they were obviously under. Economically times were tough very tough but the Lord says here bring the full tithes into the storehouse take a risk put me to the test try me and see if I'm not able to give you all that you need and a great deal more besides.

[25:45] Now isn't that a word for us today as well? Economically times are tough I'm not going to ask you to put your hand up but if I were to say put your hand up if you're really feeling the pinch economically I guess quite a few hands here would go up we know that don't we?

[26:00] Our personal outgoings are just as big as ever aren't they? The inland revenue are not toning down their demands because we've got an economic crisis our domestic bills are just as big as ever our food bills all the rest of it but if you have a deposit account at a bank at the moment you know that you're not getting enough interest at present to buy yourself a Mars bar isn't that right?

[26:22] Nothing hopeless don't talk to me about tithing Joseph that's what Benjamin says Now of course we Christians if we're Christians we're not required to tithe our income in the way that the Old Testament Israelites were some Christians may choose to do so and that is fine but we're not under the strict law of Deuteronomy in that sense but the principle of generous Christian giving is certainly taught by the Bible giving so as to support the work of the gospel to bring relief to the needy and poor to sustain the work of Bible preaching and evangelism and surely this verse 10 is going to touch on wider areas of life than just our money as we know the Bible again and again in the Bible the Lord asks us to give ourselves to him and to his people and to his work it's a lot more than money isn't it?

[27:15] Our time our love our skills our hard work our energy but it can all seem rather risky and rather demanding and messy our instinct generally speaking is to withdraw like a snail into its shell and to keep ourselves to ourselves to live a quiet protected safe kind of life it's risky isn't it to dig rather deep into your pocket to support gospel work it's risky to be an evangelist to ask a person are you a Christian?

[27:51] you could end up getting a fourpenny one in your chops couldn't you to ask a question like that? it's risky to sign up as a student on a preacher's training course where might that sort of thing end you up?

[28:05] these Israelites were not wanting to take the risk of bringing their full tithes to the temple they feared it might be too demanding for them but the Lord said do it take the risk don't fear that you can't cope you test me out bring in the full tithe and see if I don't have the power to bless you I'll give you all that you need and much more besides I'll stop these locusts and this drought I'll open the very windows of heaven and pour down the life-giving rain and fill your lives again with good harvests and joy and fruitfulness lavish the Lord is lavish and generous and kind haven't we discovered that?

[28:45] look at this very building that we're sitting in today it's a real asset to the work of the gospel we've seen that already in the first three or four months that it's been open but friends it isn't fully paid for yet is it?

[28:58] this lovely building no let's bring the full balance into the storehouse ASAP as soon as we can let's put the Lord to the test and see if he won't bless the work of the gospel which happens in and from this building I know it's risky risky for one family it might mean putting off the purchase of a better car for another year or two for somebody else it might mean not going on holiday to the Seychelles making do with a camping trip to the Isle of Arran with the Midges but it's okay it's okay if we're willing to be generous our generosity will cement and deepen and beautify and fill with joy our relationship with the Lord and with each other but if we're niggardly it puts a shadow between ourselves and the Lord's people the devourer begins to nibble at our hearts we become a bit like a dried out vineyard whose vines have no fruit on them so there's our second question how are the

[30:03] Lord's people to return to him answer by taking a big risk giving ourselves and all that we are to the Lord's service alright thirdly and quite briefly a final question what will the result be when God's people turn to him like this the answer is and look at verse 12 for this the answer is that those who are outside the faith will recognize God's blessing on his people let me read verse 12 then when you bring your full tithes in and so on then all nations will call you blessed for you will be a land not of drought and devourers but a land of delight says the Lord of hosts that is to say when the Lord's people return to him and express their repentance by giving themselves to him and he then pours out his blessing upon them other people will see in terms of the 5th century BC the Syrians the people of Tyre and Sidon the Persians the Egyptians all these non-Jewish nations round about will look at the people of Israel and will see how happy they are how blessed they are by the Lord notice in verse 12 all nations all nations will call you blessed it was always the Lord's intention since the book of Genesis to extend his salvation blessings through the Jews to the Gentiles this was one of the big things that the early

[31:32] Jewish Christians like Peter and Paul had to grasp in the 1st century AD that the gospel was for the Gentiles as well as for the Jews and it's a pretty good thing they did grasp it otherwise a Gentile city like Glasgow would never have heard the good news I don't know whether you heard this about a week ago I was very intrigued to listen to a little clip of radio I think on radio 4 from the chief rabbi Sir Jonathan Sachs who I think has recently written a book and he was talking about this book on the radio and he made the point he said what I'm saying in my book is this that Judaism has always existed for the sake of the Gentiles did any of you hear that yes I nearly fell off my chair with surprise and joy I must say when I heard him say that he said something like this we Jews have got to stop thinking of ourselves as victims as persecuted people and start realising our mission to the whole world now clearly the chief rabbi has been reading his

[32:33] Old Testament rather carefully of course we know that he's got to take the next step the essential step which is to come to Jesus as the Messiah he's not going to understand the full implications of the Old Testament until he does that but at least he's realised unlike many Jews today that Judaism was never intended to be turned in upon itself God raised up Abraham to father a nation who would in turn provide salvation for the world through the world saviour Jesus and our verse 12 here gives us an Old Testament foretaste of that worldwide blessing it pictures all the world's nations looking at the joy and delight of the people of God and calling them blessed now if you're a Christian just think of the way in which you became a Christian maybe many years ago but isn't this the kind of thing that happened to many of us how did you become a Christian didn't you look at

[33:33] God's people at Christ's people and listen to their gospel and realise how blessed they were didn't you say to yourself as you looked at the first Christians you met these Christian people have an integrity and a joy about their lives they're not morally at sea like the rest of society they understand honesty and truthfulness they understand marriage and family their lives are anchored in the love of God they're trustworthy and purposeful people in short they're learning to live life as it was always intended to be lived these are authentic human beings their lives are being stamped with the very blessing of God that's certainly how I became a Christian 40 odd years ago I was a typical wayward teenager with all sorts of nonsense in my head and I looked at the lives of other Christians scripture union camp and that sort of thing and I realised that the other Christians had discovered the only basis for a genuine authentic happy human life the only thing I could do when I saw that was to repent and come to Christ and begin to serve him well friends I'm almost done relief is in sight here is the message of Malachi to us I think the Lord who never changes will return in blessing to those who return to him we may have wandered from him we might have become at least to some degree bitter or at least to some degree bitter or crabby or hard hearted but if we will turn back to him if we will bring to him the full tithes not just of our money but our lives our energy everything we have he will fill our lives and our church with blessings so great that we will not be able to contain them and other people will look at us and will want to join us because they will realise that the blessing of God fills the lives of the people of Christ.

[35:30] let us pray together then all nations will call you blessed for you will be a land of delight says the Lord of hosts so our cry comes to you again for Scotland dear father this land where the gospel over centuries has been much honoured and faithfully preached and yet there has been much turning away from the gospel in Scotland and we pray therefore particularly that this great promise of yours to return to those who return to you will be seen even in these coming years in Scotland that you will give us the joy of seeing people in great numbers coming to Christ looking in at the church realising that the blessing of God rests upon those who serve you so please hear our prayer dear father and please help us in part to be the answer to it that you provide and we ask it in Jesus name

[36:49] Amen Amen Amen Amen Amen Amen Amen Amen Amen Amen