A REMARKABLE ROBBERY

"Will a man rob God? Yet ye have robbed me." Malachi 3:8.
INTRODUCTION. -- When the strange question of the text is first put to us, we
are disposed to answer at once, "No, certainly not, certainly no one will reach such
a pitch of blind and desperate wickedness as to rob God." But God gives a different
answer. He says, "Ye have robbed me."

I. How Can a Man Rob God?

A man can rob God by holding back from Him anything that is His due.
1. The gifts and offerings that are His due. All our money belongs to God.

2. The time that is His due.

3. The service that is due Him.

4. The surrender that is due Him.

5. The glory that is due Him.

No glory is due to ourselves for any of our achievements, physical, mental or
spiritual. No one of us has a right to boast of anything we accomplish. The
Glory all belongs to God, and to Him we should render it. If we take to
ourselves this glory that rightfully belongs to God we have robbed Him of
His due.

6. The confession that is due Him. We owe to God the Father and to His Son
Jesus Christ to confess them as our God and Savior before the world.

7. The thanksgiving that is His due.

8. The worship that is due. Worship is due to God from man. This is God's
first great claim upon man. This is His supreme right. If you do not give it
you rob Him.

II. The Monstrous Guilt of Robbing God.

"What of it?" "What of robbing God?" To rob God is infinitely more monstrous
than to rob man.

1. God's rights are the supreme rights. All our modern moral philosophy is
out of joint because it puts the rights of the finite above the rights of the
infinite -- the rights of the creature above the rights of the creator.
2. The monstrousness of robbing God is seen if we think of the way in which
God has dealt with us. God is love and all His ways with man are ways of
love.

III. The consequences of Robbing God.

Malachi 3:9. "Ye are cursed with a curse." The whole land of Israel was cursed
because they robbed God. The fundamental cause of the want and misery and ruin
that fill this land today is that the nation has robbed God. What is true of the nation
is true of the individual. Our robbery of God is withholding from us the fullness of
blessing God has for us.

CONCLUSION. -- We have seen some of the ways in which man robs God, we
have seen the enormity of this sin, we have seen the curse and blight that come into
our own lives from it. The practical conclusion of the whole matter is self-evident.
Let us repent of our sin today, let us confess it to God today, let us render to Him
today and from this time on the full measure of that which is due Him, and He will
open the windows of heaven and pour into our lives a blessing that there shall
not be room enough to contain it, an overflowing blessing.