Giving to God His Own
333
With these words of light and truth before them, how dare men
neglect so plain a duty? How dare they disobey God when obedience
to His requirements means His blessing in both temporal and spiri-
tual things, and disobedience means the curse of God? Satan is the
[389]
destroyer. God cannot bless those who refuse to be faithful stewards.
All He can do is to permit Satan to accomplish his destroying work.
We see calamities of every kind and in every degree coming upon the
earth, and why? The Lord’s restraining power is not exercised. The
world has disregarded the word of God. They live as though there
were no God. Like the inhabitants of the Noachic world, they refuse to
have any thought of God. Wickedness prevails to an alarming extent,
and the earth is ripe for the harvest.
The Complainers
“Your words have been stout against Me, saith the Lord. Yet ye say,
What have we spoken so much against Thee? Ye 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
now we call the proud happy; yea, they that work wickedness are set
up; yea, they that tempt God are even delivered.”
Verses 13-15
. Those
who withhold from God His own make these complaints. The Lord
asks them to prove Him by bringing their tithe into His storehouse to
see whether He will not pour them out a blessing. But they cherish
rebellion in their hearts and complain of God; at the same time they
rob Him and embezzle His goods. When their sin is presented before
them, they say: I have had adversity; my crops have been poor; but
the wicked are prospered; it does not pay to keep the ordinance of the
Lord.
But God does not want any to walk mournfully before Him. Those
who thus complain of God have brought their adversity on themselves.
They have robbed God, and His cause has been hindered because the
money that should have flowed into His treasury was used for selfish
purposes. They showed their disloyalty to God by failing to carry out
His prescribed plan. When God prospered them, and they were asked
[390]
to give Him His portion, they shook their heads and could not see that
it was their duty. They closed the eyes of their understanding, that
they might not see. They withheld the Lord’s money and hindered