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The Book Of Malachi Lsn # 12, 'Rendering Unto Caesar Is Rendering Unto God'
God is unchangeable because He cannot change; it’s us who are the ones who change; God
cannot be better or worse than His essence dictates; in fact, He’s never had a day when He was
better or worse than at any other time in contrast to us for whom every day is a better
or worse proposition.
The Lord Jesus Christ as Chief Justice of the supreme court of Heaven is perfect in His
judgments with NO contradictions; He’s immutable yet He’s also able to evaluate different
situations in different ways and since He is unchangeably perfect, all of His verdicts are always
perfect.
Through the doctrines of the Trinity and the Essence of God, we have a fantastic insight into the
infinite being of our Creator and Redeemer making us increasingly aware that we have a God
Who although He transcends infinitely far above us, He dwells in us and imparts something of
Himself and His Holy character to us!
God protects us throughout our lives, so we are supported, sustained and secure in Him and for
that reason, the human race is perpetuated through His established laws.
The ultimate objective in keeping saved individuals here is that it’s for God’s own pleasure and
glory but the immediate objective for it, is our blessing.
When God pronounced us justified, He meant that we are now fully qualified for blessing and in
giving us His righteousness, He must have a way in which to bless us.
When God blesses us, He has to do all the work because He, not we, must be glorified in the
angelic dispute.
So, we have unbelievers and believers who’ve failed and both are guilty of violating God’s
decrees in the Mosaic law where we have the Christology and Soteriology of Judaism portrayed
through the Levitical offerings in the function of the priesthood.
Tithing hasn’t anything to do with the New Testament Church; it never has been a principle
connected with the Church Age and as a matter of fact, the word tithing should never be
mentioned inside of a church today except to explain it.
So, there were three systems of income tax in Malachi’s day and tithing is a system of taxation
ordained by God for the Jewish nation only.
But offerings were another matter; they were spiritual giving for believers only and the
percentage is NEVER stated, so churches, please stop trying to force a principle specific to Israel
on your congregations!
Here we have the fact that everything in the life of Israel depends upon its spiritual function and
at this time, the priests were just not functioning because they were out either working on the
side or begging for food.
So, God says to function under His laws for the nation and test Him in the process and they did
and by the way, they had nearly another hundred years of prosperity!
The real key to any nation, whether it is Judah in 430BC or the USA today, is the Word of God.
In this condition, there’s always an emphasis on this life as the main source of happiness and
these people are very miserable because they’ve made their own pity party as we used to call it
When believers who have capacity to respond to God’s love are in the presence of each other, a
spiritual rapport is established which has nothing to do with human rapport.
You who love the LORD are in His scrapbook now and you will be a precious jewel someday
when you are in a resurrection body!
The Tribulation is not only the worst time in history but it is the most concentrated period of
religion in all of history.
Our capacity to love God is based on our knowledge of biblical truth and when we have that, it
produces the capacity to love God which means we’ll have an inner happiness that passes all
understanding.
