I come to church almost every morning. And one day this week, I came, something was just a little off. I realized too late, I walked into the middle of a robbery. Thankfully, when it all calmed down, I was okay. I was relieved that the church staff was okay and no one was hurt. It could have been a lot worse. One person did end up being accosted and assaulted. The robber escaped right out the door. There's a possibility they may be here today. Will a man rob God? Yet ye have robbed me. But ye say, wherein have we robbed thee? In tithes and offerings. Ye are cursed with a curse, for ye have robbed me, even this whole nation. We just completed our 32nd year together, and it's been a great year. People have been saved, saved people have been baptized, added to the church. Our missions have been fully supported. All the bills are paid, and Gospel Baptist Church is debt-free. Our budget is around $300,000 a year. We don't waste money. We voted on that budget. You voted on that budget. We finished 2024 under budget, and that's exciting. Now, if you're a church member, you covenanted to support your church financially with tithes and offerings. I'm talking to you if you're a church member today. Everybody else, you can go to sleep, okay? If you're a tither, you should be swinging from the chandeliers today, because the victim who is accosted and assaulted is the God who created you. is the God who sustains you and the God that you pray to, whose Bible you read, who is the head of this church. Can you imagine? Can you imagine robbing God and then asking Him to bless you? Now, when the Bible says here, will a man rob God? You know, people steal all the time. People steal things and people don't realize it's even gone. They steal from their employer, they steal from wherever they steal from, right? They just kind of take a little bit, take a little bit. Nobody really knows who took it or where it went. When you rob, that's the Bible word that's used, it means you assault by force. It means if I walked out here in the alley and some guy grabbed me in a headlock and stuck a gun to my head and said, give me all your money, that's robbery. Then if that same person turned around and said, hey, listen, I'm having a hard time. Could I get some gas money for my car? Could you help me pay my rent? And I'd be like, wait a minute, you just stuck a gun in my head and you threatened to kill me. And now you want me to pay your rent money? You want me to put gas in your car? Do you have a personality disorder or something wrong with you? Will a man rob God? Yet you robbed me, God said. And then you go ahead and you pray to me. Then you go ahead and read your Bible and ask me to fulfill the conditions and you have a gun to my head. You're cursed with a curse. Maybe the reason so many of God's people struggle, I don't know, is maybe they're cursed with a curse. That's what the Bible says. We believe the Bible's true, right? Okay, let's make this positive, all right? Matthew chapter six. Matthew chapter 6. Matthew chapter 6 and verse number 19. Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal. But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through nor steal. For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also." Think about this. You can bank on the bank of heaven. Amen? Banks fail all the time, right? We hear banks are going out of business and this bank failed and that bank failed. I remember the savings and loan crisis back in the 80s or 90s, wherever that was. And you know, banks fail. The bank of heaven is never gonna fail. Lay up treasure in heaven. Moth can't touch it. Rust can't corrupt it. There are riches that you can't lose. You know, I was touched probably like you were this week. You see those fires in California. Whole neighborhoods, towns, really just gone, decimated, just burned, nothing but ashes. And you look at it and you think, I mean, I heard one house cost $28 million. How do you even do that? What do you have to do to have a $28 million house? I don't even know. You have your own airplane that lands in your backyard. But gone. And people just leaving their cars in the middle of the highway and running. I mean, you're talking expensive cars. You're talking, you know, $100,000 cars probably, right? Just leaving them there. Why? Because their life was way more important than their car. You know, when When fire comes and you're gonna be destroyed by fire, you know, all those pain things, they really don't matter, your life matters. All that whatever you had in the safe, it was nice, but if I'm dead, it's not gonna do me any good, right? You know, one day we're gonna stand at the judgment seat of Christ and everything we've worked for in this world is gonna be gone. And the only thing that's gonna remain is what we've done for Christ. And there are gonna be a lot of people who have nothing because they've never laid up treasures in heaven and actually they've robbed God. I came here the other morning and I realized God has been robbed. Some people have been robbing God. What a shame. Don't let it be you. They didn't come today, but you're here. So let's talk about it. Look at our text in 1 Kings 12. In 1 Kings 12, David has been the king Saul was the first king of Israel David is the king Solomon was his son and now his son Rehoboam is king of Israel Rehoboam was the one that probably Solomon wrote by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit the book of Proverbs and he didn't listen to anything his dad said really and And in chapter 12, he gets counsel. His dad dies. He says, okay, I'm the new king. What should I do? And so he gathers the old wise men that had walked with his father and knew God. And he said, what should I do? You have experience. And they said, look, your father was busy. We built the temple. We had all these things. He built this elaborate house, right? He raised the taxes. You gotta lighten up on these people, okay? Just go easy on them. They've been kind of oppressed for years. If you'll cut, you know, all the oppression on them, they'll serve you for the rest of your life. He said, okay, let's see what my friends say. So he went to his peers, his cabinet, the kids he grew up with, right? That's what the Bible says. The young men that were growing up with him, they were inexperienced. And he said, what should I do? Of course, they're thinking, well, we could ride on this kid's coattails, right? We could all get a piece of the pie. Hey, stick it to them. Raise the taxes. Give them more work to do. Whip them with scorpions, right? Whip them. And just make it tough on them. And so he said, you know what? That sounds kind of good. I could get ahead. My bottom line could get fattened. I think I'll do that. So the Bible says in chapter 11 and chapter 12 that he rejects and forsakes the old man's counsel. And he receives the counsel of his peers. And he oppresses the people and he tells the people, my father was rough on you and I'm going to be really rough on you, right? He gave you a little bit, I'm going to make it up a whole nother level. It's going to be very oppressive. The people rebelled. 10 tribes. left and they became the northern kingdom of Israel. You read about it here in your Bible in chapter 12. One tribe, we read it, was the tribe of what? Judah that remained, okay? And it became the southern kingdom. And for the rest of the Bible, I mean, you're only four kings into the Bible, Saul, David, Solomon, Rehoboam. For the rest of the kings of the Bible, 1st and 2nd Kings, Chronicles, all that, you have a divided kingdom. And there will never be one king over Israel again until Jesus Christ comes and sits on the throne in Jerusalem. That was a really, really bad mistake that Rehoboam made. Now, Jeroboam enters the scene. Well, it's hard to mix up the Boam boys sometimes, right? Jeroboam, Rehoboam, who's who, right? So Rehoboam becomes the king over the southern tribe, one tribe of Judah. Jeroboam had been in Israel. He was a mighty man of valor, the Bible says, and Solomon saw Jeroboam as what he called an industrious man. He said, this man is a worker. He knows how to get things done. I like this guy. He's an industrious man. But then they had a falling out, and so Jeroboam had to flee. And so he went to another country. The prophet Ahijah had come to him years earlier. and prophesied that he would rule ten tribes. He's fled from Solomon. He's gone to Egypt. And finally, when Solomon comes back, he says, you know what? I can be the peacemaker. Jeroboam said, well, here's the young kid, Rehoboam, and he's got a lot of problems, and he's kind of wet behind the ears, and he doesn't really have the experience, and he's listening to these old men, he's listening to these young men. I can tell him some wise counsel. And so he gives him some wise counsel. Why don't you listen to these old men? Why don't you, you know, they'll love you, they'll be your servants forever. But instead, Rehoboam forsook Jeroboam's council, and forsook the council of the old men, and there's a rebellion. The ten tribes choose Jeroboam as king, and they start this new nation, Israel, and Jeroboam is left with one tribe, and that is Judah. Let's look at verse number 25 again. Then Jeroboam built Shechem in Mount Ephraim, and dwelt therein, and went out from thence, and built Panuel. And Jeroboam said in his heart, Now shall the kingdom return to the house of David. If this people go up to do sacrifice in the house of the Lord at Jerusalem, then shall the heart of this people turn again unto their Lord, even unto Rehoboam king of Judah, and they shall kill me and go again to Rehoboam king of Judah. So what he said was, Jerusalem is in the southern kingdom, and what was the name of that kingdom? One tribe, Judah, okay. Now 10 tribes are in the northern kingdom called Israel. Who's the king over Judah? Rehoboam. Who became the king over Israel? Jeroboam, okay? Now Jeroboam starts thinking and he says, you know what? The temple is in the southern kingdom. When my people want to go to church, right? When they want to go to the temple, they're going to go down to the southern kingdom where Rehoboam is the king. When they want to do sacrifices, they're going to go down to the southern kingdom and they're going to say, well, you know what? We need to be back here again and they're not going to make me the king anymore. They're going to leave or they're going to start a civil war and I'm going to lose my gig, right? So that's what he said. That's in the Hebrew. Verse 28, so he came up with an idea. Whereupon the king took counsel and made two calves of gold and sent it to them. It is too much for you to go up to Jerusalem. Now these are almost the same exact words that Aaron used. Remember the golden calf? Behold thy gods, O Israel, which brought thee up out of the land of Egypt. With the exception of one word that's the exact same thing that Aaron said when he made the golden calf. Big problem, right? And he set the one in Bethlehem, and the other put he in Dan. This thing became a sin. For the people went to worship before the one, even unto Dan." It is too much for you to go up to Jerusalem. So, number one, Jeroboam had a problem. There was a rebellion. The kingdom was divided. The northern kingdom became Israel, ten tribes. The southern kingdom became named what? Judah, one tribe. Jerusalem was in Judah. And so he said, you know, the temple there is in Judah in Jerusalem. The house of God is in Jerusalem, the southern kingdom. I'm the king over the northern kingdom. Rehoboam is the king over the southern kingdom. There are going to be special days. They're going to be Sabbaths, and they're going to want to go down to the temple. They're going to be holy days, and they're going to want to go down to the temple that the Lord commanded to be held throughout the years. The Bible says that there were holy days, appointed times, and holy convocations. Each one was not only to Israel as a national people, it was also central to the overall message of the Bible. Each holy day that the Jews celebrated, and still celebrate many of them today, are a symbol, a foreshadow, of the life and the death and the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ. I mean, these were very important days. And God established them in the Old Testament. And they had sacrifices, the picture of the Lamb of God, the sacrifice that would take away the sin of the world. And all these different holy days were a picture of the coming Messiah, Jesus Christ, who would live, who would give his life on the cross, and pay for our sins, and shed his blood, and be buried, and rise again after three days and three nights. All of these feasts, they often began with the Sabbath of rest. Another picture of Jesus Christ, our Sabbath. Think about these days. They had the Passover. Christ, our Passover. The blood of a lamb was shed and spread on the doorposts and smitten on the doorposts and the lintels of the house and struck there and the Lord passed over. The feast of unleavened bread. The Feast of Firstfruits, the Feast of Weeks, the Feast of Trumpets, the Day of Atonement, and the Feast of the Tabernacles. Seven different feasts and special days all in one. All to be held in Jerusalem in the southern kingdom of what? Judah and Jeroboam said, you know, if these people go down there, it's going to be a problem because they're going to want to go back to Jerusalem. They're going to want to go back to Rehoboam. They're going to want to go back to living there. And they're going to despise me. The people, God's people, were supposed to go to the temple. They were supposed to go to the house of God. They were supposed to bring their sacrifices, their tithes and their offerings. And now, The temple is in Jerusalem, the other kingdom. Not only that, the Levites from every city were supposed to return to Jerusalem for their responsibilities at the temple. So now he's going to have a religious you know, rebellion as well, because all the Levites said, well, we can't stay here in the northern kingdom of Israel, because Jerusalem's in the southern kingdom. That's where the temple is. We've got work to do. We've got sacrifices. We've got offerings to make. We've got, you know, atonements to provide. We've got all these things to do in the southern kingdom of Judah, and we can't do it here in Jerusalem. So Jeroboam came up with a solution. Jeroboam came up with a solution, but it wasn't God's solution. What did he do? He said, okay, we're gonna make two golden calves. Now, I don't know if he got the gold from the people, where he got the gold. He didn't do like Aaron did. He said, we just threw it in the fire in Puchica. It came out, right? A golden calf. That was a lie, wasn't it? We don't know where it came from, but he made them. So he put one in Bethel, where incidentally is called the house of God, and he put the other one in Dan. So it's kind of like situated where it was close to where everybody was, and then he said, look it, These be thy gods, O Israel. It is too much for you to go up to Jerusalem. He said, look, it's not convenient for you to go down to the temple and worship God. Here's your God. It's not convenient for you to go down to Jerusalem and worship the Lord and offer a sacrifice. Offer a sacrifice here in Bethel. Offer a sacrifice in Dan. Offer a sacrifice to these golden calves. Now for the rest of eternity, look at chapter 15. For the rest of eternity, in your Bible, and in history, and etched in heaven, is this in verse number 30. 1 Kings 15 verse 30. Because of the sins of Jeroboam which he sinned, and which he made Israel sin, by his provocations wherewith he provoked the Lord God of Israel to anger. 11 times in the Bible. His name is mentioned as this, Jeroboam, the son of Nebat, which made Israel to sin. That's his biography. Who is Jeroboam? He was the son of Nebat. What did he do? He made Israel to sin. I thought he was the king over the northern tribe. Well, he was too, but God remembers him 11 different times as Jeroboam, the son of Nebat, which made Israel to sin. What did he do? He made golden calves. What did he do? He commanded the people, hey, don't go down to Jerusalem. It's not convenient for you. It's not close by. It's in another kingdom. I don't want you to go down there. I don't want you to worship down there. And he said, it is too much for you to go to Jerusalem. Behold thy gods, O Israel, which brought thee out of the land of Egypt. He came up with a solution, but it wasn't God's solution. Now there are three things that he did that apply to us today. Number one, he made new gods. What were they? Golden calves, right? I guess they weren't really new, kind of copied something that had already been going on. Copied something from Egypt, copied something from Aaron and the rebellion right at Mount Sinai. He made new gods. Why did he make them? Out of convenience, right? Isn't that what you see in verse 28? It is too much for you to go up to Jerusalem. He wasn't saying, we're not going to worship God anymore. He just said that it's too far away. It's not convenient. So we need a new God. Okay. It's inconvenient. It's nothing on God. It's just that it's not convenient for you. So let's do something different. He made new gods. Number two, look at verse 31 of our text. 1 Kings 12 verse 31. And he made an house of high places, and made priests of the lowest of the people, which were not of the sons of Levi. Well, that was a problem, wasn't it? Their priests were supposed to be from the tribe of Levi. God told Moses, right? God chose Aaron. God chose his son, Marerai, and all the other sons, right? Koathites. All the other tribes, right? From the tribe of Levi. That was the family that was supposed to be the priests. Now, he changed the worship of God, and he said, we're gonna worship here because it's convenient. Now we're gonna have new priests. And then he said, we're gonna have new holy days. Look at verse 32. Verse number 32 and verse number 33, he made up a date and he said, this is the alternative to the Passover. This is the alternative to the Feast of Trumpets. This is the alternative to the Feast of Tabernacles. And Jeroboam ordained a feast in the eighth month, on the fifteenth day of the month, like unto the feast that is in Judah. And he offered upon the altar, so did he in Bethel, sacrificing unto the calves that he had made. And he placed in Bethel the priests of the high places which he had made. So he offered upon the altar which he had made in Bethel, the fifteenth day of the eighth month, even in the month which he had devised of his own heart." You see that? and ordained a feast unto the children of Israel, and he offered upon the altar and burnt incense." He made new holy days. Now, what Jeroboam did isn't all that different than what we do. We are guilty of convenience. There's been a robbery at Gospel Baptist Church. Man robbed God. We're in in tithes and offerings. A woman may have robbed God. We're in tithes and offerings. How does that happen? We don't give God what belongs to him. You know, when I was a little kid, I had a paper route. And I used to throw papers. I learned to run really fast because there are dogs on every paper route, right? And I had a paper route for years. And I came home my first week on my paper route, and I said to my mom, I said, Mom, look at this. I made $20. And she said, no, you didn't. You made $18. And I said, what do you mean? I said, it's all here on the table. She said, no, you forgot. $2, the tithe, the first, belongs to God. Tithe means a tenth. I said, oh, yeah. I forgot about that. And so I made $18. And then I had a little missions globe, and she taught me to give to missions when I was a little kid. And some of that went into the missionaries. We supported missionaries in Honduras. And so I began to support my church, I began to support missions, and I've been doing it ever since. Now the Bible says if we don't give God what's His, we're robbing Him. Can I give you a funny illustration, okay? So my wife and I went out to eat this week, and the bill came up to $50. Can you believe that? We took Ashley, too. It was very economical, right? It was good. I still have heartburn. The bill came up to $50. Now, the waiter did a good job. I always like to tip at least 20%, right? So what is 20% on $50? $10, right? Now can you imagine, the guy comes to the table, he gives me, why do they call it a check? Ever wonder that? It's not a check, it's a bill, right? Gets you a check, right? So I pull out my wallet. I put a $10 bill on the table, and then I walk out. Well, he's gonna have a problem, right? I don't speak Spanish, but I know when somebody's mad, right? I don't know how to say it in Spanish, but he'd come back, and he'd say, hey, thief, right? You ate the food and you didn't pay. I would say, what are you talking about? I left a 20% $10 tip on the table. You shouldn't be mad, you should be happy. He's not gonna be happy, right? Because I didn't pay my bill. You know what some people do? They tip God. They tip God. They're like, oh, an offering plate comes by. You know, I learned this when I was a kid. You used to have change, right? You could hit it on the bottom, jingle, and it sounded like you put something in it, right? Hold one hand over the top, hit it on the bottom, there's a jingle. Now we have silent offerings, right? COVID changed a lot of things, messed a lot of people up, okay? You hit it hard enough, the bills still fly up, okay? I'll teach you how to do that. Now, so we wouldn't think of tipping the waiter. Because we'd get arrested. But sometimes we tip God and we don't think it's a problem because God can't see us because we can't see him. You get the point? If I owe God his tithe, and I don't pay God his tithe, all I'm doing, if I give him anything, is I'm tipping God, and that's an insult. And that is robbing God. That's really practical. Now if you're tithing, just say amen. Amen. All right. Good. All right. It hurts. It hurts me to preach it, too. It hurts you to hear it. OK. So let's get through it, and we'll be done. OK. January. Welcome to January. I love January. I sign all the letters once a year. I find out, man, people have been robbing God all year, and I didn't get upset. Now I'm upset. OK. I love you. OK. At least I'm honest, right? OK. All right. Look, when you go to the doctor and he tells you, you ever go to the doctor and the doctor tells you, you're too fat? OK. Right? Tells you your cholesterol's high, right? Tells you, I don't know, you gotta stop eating cheese. I look at the doctor, I go, how dare you tell me what to do, right? You know, he's trying to make me live longer, because he makes more money off of me the more I keep coming back, right? You're ugly. Sorry, I can't do anything about that, doc. I could do something about the fat part. Gotta stop smoking. What are you trying to do, take all my fun away? The doctor's trying to help you, OK? I'm trying to help you this morning. I already told you, all the bills are paid, okay? No problem. I'm not gonna say it, but my wife's here. But I will. If you have a problem tithing here, go to another independent Baptist Bible preaching church and tithe there, okay? Go ahead. I'm not trying to get anything from you. I'm just trying to get the blessings of God on your life. Amen? Okay, I said it. Now, it's interesting. Jeroboam made new gods, he made new priests, and he made new holy days. Did you see it right there in the text? Okay? We will worship something. You know, a lot of people don't go to church, but they have their own priest. Taylor Swift. People spend a lot of time listening to that trash, right? And TV preachers, right? I'm one of them, right? And, you know, these charismatic TV preachers, right? People worship something. That's how we're wired. We're wired to worship something or someone. And we'll make our own priests, we'll make our own gods, and we'll ordain our own holy days. Where does that money go that was supposed to go to God? It goes somewhere. It goes to build a golden calf. And you worship it. Now, we'll get a little personal here, okay? You could say, Thank you, later. Where does that money go that was supposed to go for God's work today to get out the gospel here and around the world? It goes to our golden calf. You can do what you want. I would refuse to get into a car that I bought with God's tithes and offerings. I wouldn't do it. I'd be afraid there's an accident waiting for me down the road. I have two cars registered in my name today. They're both antiques. How's that happen? They just keep running. I mean, the parts fall off and people give them back to me. They just keep running. You know what the Bible says? God says he'll rebuke the devourer if you tithe. In the book of Haggai, I mean, the Bible says if you don't tithe, you'll put your money into a bag and it has holes in it. You read the book of Haggai when you get home. And it just runs out. Where did it go? How come I don't have anything left? God is gonna get his tithe. You might tithe to the dentist, you might tithe to the car mechanic, you might tithe to the Doctor, right? I don't know you might tie it to the whatever but you're gonna tithe God will get what's his I Would not live in a house where I paid rent or paid a mortgage with God's money That house would be cursed. I wouldn't drive a car that car would be cursed. You can do what you want I'm just telling you what I wouldn't do. I Would not put my family my wife and my children under the curse of God by robbing God. I Wouldn't do it. I would not do it You can make your priests, you can make your golden calves, they can be the sports God, the coach God, the talk show God, the movie star God, the singer God, the video game God, the cell phone job, or the God, job God. But whatever it is, that God is, if it's contrary to this book, you're gonna have a problem. The God of the Bible tells us who to worship, how to worship, when to worship, where to worship, and he's the one we should worship. But it's the sin of convenience that causes us to worship other things. You know, it's time we took God at His word. Look at Malachi chapter three. Malachi chapter three. Look, I know you're gonna think I'm a hypocrite, okay, but I love you, okay? The doctor's telling you you're too fat, okay? The doctor's telling you you gotta stop eating cheese, right? The doctor's telling you you gotta quit smoking, you gotta stop all these bad habits, you gotta exercise, okay? The doctor's telling you you need to tithe and give offerings, okay? Because you're hurting yourself if you don't, okay? Now, we'll talk about it again next January, okay? Maybe in between, but I'm off the horse, okay? Malachi chapter 3, verse number 10. You believe the Bible's true? Amen. Bring you all the tithes into the storehouse. There may be meat in mine house. And prove me now herewith, said the Lord of Hosts, if I will not open you the windows of heaven and pour you out a blessing, there shall not be room enough to receive it. I know, I know what somebody's gonna say. Well, that's Old Testament. Well, so is thou shalt not kill. Don't get him around me in a dark alley if you don't believe that one. How about thou shalt not commit adultery? Thou shalt not steal. Oh, that's Old Testament. Jesus said you tithe of mint and rue and amas and cumin, but you omit the weightier matters of the law, judgment, mercy, faith. These you ought to have done and not to have left the other undone, right? Hate to bring Jesus into conversation, but Jesus said you guys should be tithing, but you shouldn't miss the bigger, and that was to lost people. How about that? Good point. Thank you. You know, lost people still eat God's food. and still drink God's water? What is a tie that's rent for living on God's planet, right? We pay rent for living on God's planet. God keeps you healthy enough to go to work. Well, it's my, I threw those newspapers. Yeah, but God gave you the ability to throw those newspapers, right? God gave you the water to drink. God gave you the food to eat. God gave you the two brain cells to rub together that I have, right? Prove me now, herewith, if I will not open the windows of heaven and pour you out a blessing, that there shall not be room enough to receive it. You know, it's time somebody proves God. Says, you know what? I'm just gonna try that out. I'm just gonna trust God. Hey, if it works out, it works out. You might be so far behind, you might have to add the fifth to it. I mean, you're talking, we won't even go there, okay? We won't even go there. Prove God. Look, the God who saved you, you ever seen Him? Anybody ever been to heaven and came back and told you what happened? No, but we have a Bible, right? The same Bible that told you, I am the way, the truth, and the life. No man cometh unto the Father, but by me. Same Bible that that came from. John 3.16, For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life. Same Bible. Prove God. If you can prove God for salvation, if you can prove God for walking with God, you can prove God for tithing and offerings.