Sermon Overview
Scripture Passage: Malachi 3:7-11

By definition, stewardship is our relationship with money: how we obtain, save, invest, spend, and give our wealth.

God is interested in this relationship—in how we care for the things He places in our hands. Satan, who is also very interested, would love to keep us in financial bondage.

Malachi 3 shows us how to open the windows of Heaven and receive the blessing of financial freedom.

“Yet from the days of your fathers you have gone away from My ordinances and have not kept them. Return to Me, and I will return to you,” says the LORD of hosts. “But you said, ‘In what way shall we return?’” (Malachi 3:7).

If we want freedom, we must first recognize our failure; financial bondage is not just debt. If money increases our worries, or if we have plenty in the bank, but no treasure in Heaven, we are in financial bondage.

Second, we need to renew our fellowship; God isn’t interested in our money, just our hearts.

When we remember tithing is God’s way of revealing our priorities to ourselves, we will see tithing as a great blessing. It is our privilege to show God that He is first in our lives and everything else is second.

After we return to our fellowship with God, we need to release our finances to Him.

Adrian Rogers says, “If you can’t trust God with your finances, how is God going to trust you with true spiritual riches?”

“Bring all the tithes into the storehouse, that there may be food in My house, and try Me now in this,” says the LORD of hosts, “If I will not open for you the windows of heaven and pour out for you such blessing that there will not be room enough to receive it” (Malachi 3:10).

According to Scripture, tithing is ten percent given to the temple of God (church), for the work of the temple. Giving to charities or ministries is good, but it is not a replacement for our tithes.

When we learn to give back to God freely, we’ll see a spiritual renewal. God will renew our faith, rebuke our foes, and restore our fruitfulness.



Apply it to your life
Are you seeking freedom from an indebted spirit? Recognize your failure and renew your fellowship with God. Understand that He wants you, first and foremost. Then, show your faithfulness through tithing.

Sermon Overview

Scripture Passage: Daniel 9:20-27

Before Jesus stepped into our world the first time, Daniel 9 predicted His Second Coming. This Old Testament passage can be seen as an outline of the things to come in the Last Days, when time runs out.

“Seventy weeks are determined for your people and for your holy city…” (Daniel 9:24).

This passage first designates the period of time (490 years), the people (God’s chosen people, Israel), and the place (the Holy City of Jerusalem) to take center stage in the End Times.

This passage also determines the prophecy’s purpose: “...to finish the transgression, to make an end of sins, to make reconciliation for iniquity, to bring in everlasting righteousness, to seal up vision and prophecy, and to anoint the Most Holy” (Daniel 9:24).

Adrian Rogers says, “God has a plan and in 490 years, He’s going to finish that plan; nothing has gotten out of hand, not a jot or a tittle will fail from the law, till all has been fulfilled.”

This passage also reveals how it will come about. “Know therefore and understand, that from the going forth of the command to restore and build Jerusalem until Messiah the Prince…” (Daniel 9:25).

This command to rebuild Jerusalem was given in the Book of Nehemiah; this is when God’s clock started ticking. Adding up the years recorded in the Bible concerning Israel’s commencement and construction, we calculate 483 of the 490 years prophesied.

When Jesus came, the clock stopped and it has yet to resume; there are seven more years of biblical prophecy yet to be fulfilled.

Daniel also saw Jerusalem being destroyed, symbolizing how God’s chosen people (Israel) rejected Him. We are living in an undetermined period of time marked by wars and desolations as God deals with Israel.

But once the Bride is complete, and the last soul is finally redeemed (Romans 11:25), Jesus will return to rapture the Church, and the clock will begin ticking again.

After the seven years of Tribulation, when the 490 years are complete, Jesus will step in once again.

As Adrian Rogers says, “This time, Jesus is not coming for His church, rather with His church in power and great glory; 777 will take care of 666.”

Apply it to your life

Study the prophecies in Daniel 9 with humility and reverence; ask the Lord to help you understand it and affirm it in your heart today.

Sermon Overview
Scripture Passage: 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18

“Rapture” means to be caught up or snatched away speedily; 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18 explores the sacred mystery of the Rapture, which is prophesied in the Book of Revelation.

“Then we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And thus we shall always be with the Lord” (1 Thessalonians 4:17).

The central figure of this event is Jesus Christ, who is returning to rapture His church: “For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of an archangel, and with the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first” (1 Thessalonians 4:16).

When Jesus descends with a shout, the dead in Christ rise first, then the living saints will be caught up to meet them in the air.

Adrian Rogers says, “If you have the same nature as Jesus Christ when He comes again, you’re the one going up, whether you’re beneath the ground or on top of the ground. If you’ve been Heaven-born, you will be Heaven-bound.”

This passage should be of comfort to us, knowing that we will meet Him in the air. We are assured of the rapture by the saving work of the Lord, which is the Gospel. We are also assured by the Word of the Lord, which is Scripture.

Though we don’t know the exact date when the rapture will occur, we know it is close and certain; it will happen “in the twinkling of an eye, at the sound of the last trump” (1 Corinthians 15:51-52).

There will be signs of the times; these don’t predict the Second Coming but simply affirm it will take place.

Though the “when” of the Rapture is a mystery, the “why” is clear; it is God’s divine strategy to rescue His Bride from the Great Tribulation to come. It is when we will reunite with our fellow Christians who have died, as we are all received by the Bridegroom, Jesus Christ.

After we are caught up in the air, the Bridegroom will take us, His Bride, to the place He has prepared for us.

Apply it to your life
You can have peace in these treacherous Last Days if you keep your eyes on Jesus’ Second Coming; learn of it, live for it, long for it, and share it with others.