I. God has ever connected the enjoyment and use of certain blessings with the observance of His ordinances, and with obedience to His requirements.
II. Although God has thus connected blessedness with obedience, and with the observance of His ordinances, the people of God have often neglected them, neglected institutions founded for their benefit and neglected Divine precepts and prohibitions.
III. Such neglect often brings spiritual adversity and sometimes exposes to sore affliction.
IV. Our awaking to the knowledge that we have not all that God has promised, and to the consciousness of spiritual adversity, should be immediately followed by searchings of heart.
V. The discovery of the neglect and the disobedience as the cause of our particular adversity should be instantly followed by supplying the omission. To this God speaks by the text, "Prove Me." Prove Me, not by asking Me for some new commandment but by obeying the old neglected commandment not by seeking new paths, but by returning to the old paths.
S. Martin, Westminster Chapel Pulpit,4th series, No. 2.
References: Malachi 3:10. Preacher's Monthly,vol. iii., p. 362; J. N. Norton, Every Sunday,p. 329. Malachi 3:14. Fountain,Aug. 5th, 1880.