Book: Malachi

The Crisis of Undetected Hypocrisy

In this sermon, Pastor Joseph Babij overviews the whole book of Malachi to explain six warning signs that you are becoming a religious hypocrite just going through the motions.

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lives all right this morning let’s take our Bibles and turn to Malachi now if you don’t know where Malachi is turn to Matthew and go back one book and you’ll be in the last book of the Old Testament Malachi and we’ll be looking at the whole book this morning so let’s pray Lord this morning as we look at this Old Testament Prophet Lord let us glean the message that you had for the people that first heard it because Lord the message is as convicting today as it was then and Lord let us take what we learn and examine our own selves with it that Lord we would not be people who just go through the motions of worshiping you when our heart is not engaged in it and I pray that you would bless us to understand the difference in Christ’s name amen Malachi now most Christians go through their whole the whole of their Christian Life and seldom hear a message on the Minor Prophets there’s even a smaller number who actually study them and understand them and as a result many have never discover the wealth of knowledge found in the messages in the minor prophets because the Minor Prophets really wrestle with things like what people are are to understand about God’s love they wrestled with what are we to make of the evil God allows in the world they wrestle with how can a person identify hypocrisy within one’s own heart and many other things they wrestle with now if we go back to the history of the Bible we find that it starts the program of God starts with Abraham and then all the way to Christ we have Abraham Isaac Jacob and then after Jacob we have the 400 years of slavery in Egypt and then the Exodus from Egypt under Moses and the entrance into Canaan under J josua we have 300 years of chaos under the judges where the people rejected God his Rule and they wanted a king like all the other kings which led to Saul and David and Solomon and then right after that we see the rise of the Minor Prophets we have Obadiah and Joel and Jonah and then we see the 400 years of division between the northern kingdom and the southern Kingdom and then we hear the message from Amos and Hosea and Micah and nahem and Zephaniah and habach and then to the from the Assyrian exile to the Babylonian captivity in 605 and then of course what we read this morning in Ezra we have the degree of Cyrus to stop building the Temple and then we go all the way down to Malachi which is the last prophet to speak for God now it doesn’t mean that the word of God wasn’t still available to the people but God was not speaking through a prophet and he would not speak through a prophet for 400 years until John the Baptist and Malachi and Isaiah both mention the Forerunner of the Gospel is going to be John the Baptist he’s the one who’s going to speak in the spirit of Elijah and he’s going to come and he’s going to lay the groundwork for the Messiah to come so we have here after the temple started being built and then in Ezra where the Bible says and I’ll mention to you again then the people of the land discouraged the people of Judah and frightened them from building that’s building the Temple and hired counselors against them to frustrate their counsel all the days of Cyrus King of Persia even until the reign of Darius King of Persia and the work on the house of God in Jerusalem ceased and it was stopped until the second year of the reign of Darius King of Persia so that means then that in the second year of Darius Hagi and Zachariah come and are building the Temple and here in Malachi they are finished with the temple it has been 75 to 100 years since its completion the priests have been ministering the people have been worshiping in the temple for a long time there’s no pressure there is no invasion there’s no crisis there’s no war but there is a crisis the crisis is nothing’s happening at least spiritually see there’s no wall to be built there is no uh Temple to be built nothing’s really to be done it’s all been done all that there is to do is to carry out the work of God now that could be good it should be good but it could be deadly and especially if it is accompanied by no examination of the heart see the crisis we see in Malachi is the crisis of regularity without examination which often leads to a deadly thing and why is that because it leads to hypocrisy just going through the motions so the structure of Malachi is the Lord is never pleased with hypocrisy God is not pleased with his people when they just go through the motions see God’s call for his people is stop being faithless and look at Malachi 1 and verse number 10 it says says oh that there were among you one among you who would shut the gates that you might not uselessly Kindle Fire on my altar I am not pleased with you says the Lord of hosts nor will I accept an offering from you God is saying listen I wish somebody would just shut the gates so nobody can come and worship because it’s all wrong it doesn’t please me so their hearts got cold and numb and the worst thing about it is they were unaware of it and take notice that the passage that we’re going to read Revealed the numbness the people from the top all the way to the bottom are obviously oblivious of their spiritual condition they were unaware that God was not pleased with him no one was warning them no one came to stop them Malachi steps on the scene at that point with his message so the purpose of Malachi is to call on the people of Israel not to be faithless in the light of God’s coming Judgment of the wicked and the blessing of the righteous and there are six things that comes up in Malachi if you look at chapter 1 and verse number two it says I have loved you says the Lord but you say how have you loved us that’s the first question and then in Malachi CH 1 verse number six a son honors his father and a servant his master if then I am the father where is my honor and if I am a master where is my reverence says the Lord of hosts you priests who despise my name yet you say in what way have we despised your name see they’re not getting it they don’t see it in their own heart and then chapter 2 verse number 10 have we not all one father hath not one God created us why do we deal treacherously every man against his brother by profaning the Covenant of our fathers see and then chapter 2 verse number 17 you have wearied the Lord with your words and yet you say how have we wearied him chapter 3 verse number 8 will God Rob will man will a man rob God yet you are robbing me but you say say how have we robbed you and then in Malachi 3:3 your words have been arrogant against me says the Lord yet you say what have we spoken against you do you see that the questions that are coming from the people show we think we’re doing all right but the Lord is evaluating their heart and says no you’re not doing all right you’re doing very poorly and I don’t like it and I send my prophets to speak to you about it so so there’s really great danger when the Ministries are functioning that you have been a Christian for quite some time and you’re used to the things that are going on possibly you grew up in a Christian home and you’ve been hearing it all your life some of the things just roll off you doesn’t get down to your heart maybe you attended a Christian school or you’re presently being homeschooled or going to be homeschooled all right that you’re hearing it all the time or maybe you attend church regularly you’ve been going to church Faithfully your whole life now if you are not careful you too I too may fall into a numbness and a coldness to the things of God that’s a deadly thing you keep going to church you keep having devotions don’t get me wrong you should be doing those things but the deadly thing is when you get numb doing those things your heart’s no longer sensitive to the word of God you’re no longer recognizing sin like you ought to and taking care of it right away you play with it you it it lets you it drags you in and it drags you away from what you already know and it causes your heart to grow numb so outwardly things are in order but inwardly things are not right the Lord through his profit gets to the heart of the matter and exposes a hypocritical heart Malachi is a message that will help us identify hypocrisy and hopefully keep us from becoming Hypocrites outward form inward numbness was the spiritual diagnosis of the day the people have a deep heart problem yet their response to God when the prophet confronts them is we don’t know what you’re talking about things are going pretty good see they can’t even assess their own condition that’s why God Al always raises up another voice to get to us when we can’t see it ourselves the preacher a faithful Christian friend identifying to you something that’s wrong in your life this is not what a Christian ought to be doing they can’t assess their own spiritual condition and as I put in the title undetected hypocrisy you know hypocrisy is just being an actor you know an actor plays different parts but it doesn’t mean the part they play is who they are so they can fake it see God doesn’t want us to fake it we can fake it but he doesn’t want us to fake fake it because God doesn’t look on the outward he looks on the inward he wants to see if your heart is engaged so I want you to see this morning I want you to see the The Wonder of what God actually does here in scripture because it is as practical for us today as it was for them in their day so we can assess ourselves and God what he does he hits the the inner core of the heart he cracks it open like a shell and he exposes the problem but he does it in such a tender way he gives a bold bold statement provoking a reaction on the part of the people and then he hits the problem right in the heart so there are six things that God sees in their heart and possibly in your heart that has gone wrong maybe not all these six things will show up maybe just one will show up but the the the key is to identify them and take care of it yourself to be so in in tuned of your spiritual condition that you’re able to identify things without someone else bringing to your attention so there are six separate themes because God sees six separate messages and each one hits its own has its own theme and hits its o its own chord there are six things that God sees in the heart of of his people that has gone wrong and there are six issues that God wants to deal with so when you slip and just walk along and the Heart gets cold and you get used to things watch out when you are becoming hypocritical and Pharisee six things will appear and see there’s a large amount of danger just saying words even singing pray songs and praying prayers there’s or just doing Ministry or just going to worship and listening to a message and just going through the Motions the very thing that we ought to hate more than anything else is to slip into a spiritual numb condition to have a deep spiritual problem and not being aware of it that’s a deadly thing and it must be identified and once it’s identified repent it of and then once it’s repented of to be avoided at all cost that you’ll hate that condition so much you’ll not want to go near it so the six things to look for regularly in the Christian Life is uh when it’s good and normal but when things come up we have to accompany these six things with examination examining uh yourself to hedge against hypocrisy and let’s look at the first one and it’s the first question and the question is found in Malachi 1 ver2 two I have loved you says the Lord but you say how have you loved us was not Esau Jacob’s brother declares the Lord yet I have loved Jacob see God says in the last part of the verse I have loved you and I still love you so God is saying to them listen I loved Jacob because I put my covenantal love upon him and I said when I did that that I would bless him and I would watch him and I would be a father to him but I didn’t do that with Esau so you have the love hate were Co were covenantal terms the Lord made a covenant with one and yet not the other because the Lord can do whatever he wants and that’s what he decided to do but they are saying here that they are not sure that God loves them he doesn’t love us anymore they seem to have lost the activity and also the experimental experimental nature of the loving God so they’re questioning God’s love God if you love me then why this if God loves me then why did he make me like this why did he allow this to happen in my life why did he do that why did he put me here why don’t I feel blessed when I see others are blessed why do I pray and I do not seem to get answers that I desire see the list goes on you’re questioning God like he is not caring for you and he doesn’t love you anymore I that’s the first thing when see when your heart grows cold you’ll start questioning the love of God no matter what that question may be and you may not express it in spoken words but you begin to think it you begin to mumber it under your breath and my friends that is the first step towards hypocrisy I don’t know if God loves me second thing in Malachi CH 1 verse number six it says this a son honors his father and a servant his master then if I am a father where’s my honor and if I am a master where where is my respect says the Lord of hosts oh you priests who despise my name but you say how have we despised your name see this is they despise God’s name this is a is really directly focus on the priest who are supposed to be teaching the people or focused on someone who is in Christian service and Christian work who handles the word of God and the things of God more regularly in their life like every day but in a very real sense all Christians are priests we Minister for God in our homes we Minister for God in our schools on our jobs uh on our team in our church body even the Peter told us that we are a royal priesthood yet the Bible says they despise God his name they don’t honor him as a father they don’t honor him as a master as God’s name when it is honored it’s usually honored in the way the people live that they the people of the world can see the blessing of God upon these people by the way they live by how different they are but these people are not looking at it like that despising God’s name means they are ignoring God they are sloppy and numb when it comes to worship chapter one notice in verse number seven it says you are presented defile food upon my altar but you say how have we defiled you and that you say the table of the Lord is to be despised see in other words they were offering defiled animals when they know that the Mosaic law gave specific regulations on what kind of animals are to be offered to God animals without blemish animals that were perfect right a perfect the first fruits often of their flock are to be offered before the Lord and they weren’t doing that they were kind of tired of hearing the word of God they became numb to it see worship to them became wearisome Duty it became an obligation they were tired of serving God the work of God was boring see they despise God’s name they question the love of God so when your heart grows cold you’ll start ignoring the Lord and the things of the Lord and instead of leading people to the Lord you will have no spiritual direction or influence upon them because you have no understanding of your own condition so my friends this is the second thing to look for in order to hedge against hypocrisy here’s a third thing Malachi chapter 2 verse number 10 it says do we not all have one father has not one God created us why do we deal treacherously each against his brother so as to profane the Covenant of our fathers so they are saying why Lord is saying why do why do you stab each other in the back when the enemy is not even there and they say well what what do you mean Lord by that well chapter 2 verse number 14 it says yet you say for what reason because the Lord has been a witness between you and the wife of your youth against whom you have dealt treacherously though she is your companion and your wife by Covenant but not one has done so who has a remnant of the spirit and what did they did that one do while he was seeking a Godly Offspring take heed then to your spirit and let no one deal treacherously against the wife of your youth so he is saying here listen what’s happening is that you are divorcing your wives and going out and and intermarrying with foreign women who are worshiping other gods that’s not what I said in the word of God you are totally disregarding what I had said so the question is the question of divorce divorce was common it was a common occurrence among the people at that time men were divorcing Covenant wives for foreign wives remember marriage is supposed to be a lifelong commitment to your spouse and if you were in Israel that was to be the case if you were a Christian that is to be the case that is a lifelong commitment because you know the reality of things is in our life is that the wife will grow old and so will you men and marriage will become routine and you’ll go through the phases of life and when the heart gets cold you’ll start looking around you’ll go through the motions but you’ll start wanting to break Faith with what you know is right to do and instead of loving your spouse the way you ought to you’ll be wandering off in your mind thinking about and doing other things in other words you’ll be going through the motion the Motions of worshiping and showing that you love God and what you do and then you will break Faith with one another that’s why it says in Malachi 2:16 look what it says for I hate The Voice or Breaking Faith says the Lord God of Israel and him who covers his with wrong says the Lord of hosts so take heed to your spirit that you do not deal treacherously in other words the Lord equates divorce with practicing violence towards another person God says I hate when relationships become boring and sour and then up separating and that’s just not in the Covenant relationships with a husband and wife but with people people in the community with people in the church see so when your heart grows cold with God you’ll start looking for something else to fulfill your heart other than the Lord you will start acting unfaithfully toward the lord and toward others and my friend this is the third thing to look for in order to hedge against hypocrisy and then here’s the fourth one Malachi 2:1 17 217 it says you have wearied the Lord with your words but you say how have we weared him in that you say everyone who does evil is good in the sight of the Lord and He Delights in them or where is God the God of Justice see in other words they they have wearied god with their words or the Lord says you have wearied me with your words a lot of talking right a lot of talking but no heart tired of Lord is saying I’m tired of listening to you see they say this because they see an evil person who’s prospering ing he has all the money he has all the health he has all the benefits he seems to have all the circumstances that make his life go good so God in other words they conclude God blesses the wicked but not the godly man see the the question is a question of justice and that’s why it says at the end of the verse where’s the God of Justice do you see how skewed their view is of God when a person Slips Away From God in with a a numb heart they start thinking about God in the wrong way they twist the way they ought to look at God in a way that is all wrong it’s all convoluted it’s all confusing so I think when you you see a heart your heart grow cold you begin to see all this see God is Not Just I’m not being blessed like those around me complaining that you are less blessed than even the wicked person and my friends this is the fourth thing to look for in order to hedge against hypocrisy and this leads me to the fifth thing look at chapter 3 verse number 8 the first part of verse 8 it says will a man rob God yet you are robbing me but you say how have we robbed you see this is the question of tithing of course if your heart grows cold your pocket book is going to close why should I give to the Lord in his work what has he done for me he hasn’t blessed me he hasn’t loved me I can’t just do what I want I have to stay Within These regulations see when your heart gets cold the things and things are get tight you’ll hold back your giving it it’s it’s not just the word on on tithing and giving but it is the word on your heart attitude connected with God and your material possessions verse number eight it says this of chapter three will a man rob God yet you are robbing me but you say how have we robbed you in tithes and offerings you are cursed with a curse for you are robbing me the whole nation of you bring the whole tide into the storehouse the Lord says see you are being stingy with me you’re holding back your first and your best and you forgot that everything you own and everything you have Belongs to the Lord and you’re giving back to something that he’s already given you and we’re to do it with a heart that is thankful and a heart that is appreci initiative and a heart that is thinking about God the right way and a heart that shows that listen yes God is blessing me and I’m able to have work and I’m able to give and I’m able to help where there’s a need because God’s given me the wisdom to how to use it in the right way so I’m not always in debt or under you know sinking in financial with financial problems because I know God is blessing me when I honor him with what he’s given me so do you Faithfully practice giving as worship you may say I I I can’t I’m broke that you find ways to buy things that you want don’t say I can’t afford to give remember you can’t afford not to give because giving is practical worship I think we need to bring back our offering plates because it does show that we are giving from our heart and that we are showing and honoring God saying that you blessed me and I’m able to do this see it gives it gives his name the honor it gives his name the honor if you go back to chapter 1 look at verse number 11 it says for from the rising of the sun even to its setting my name will be great among the Nations and every in every place incense is going to be offered in to my name and a grain offering that is pure for my name will be great among the Nations says the Lord of host who makes the name of God great great it’s the people of God but if the people of God are in hypocrisy they cannot make his name great they cannot make his name great so you see when your heart grows cold you’ll stop being generous you’ll you will stop trusting God to supply your needs and my friend that’s the fifth thing that to look for to hedge against hypocrisy but I want you to notice the challenge that God gives his people look at verse number 10 it says bring the whole tithe into the storehouse so that there may be food in my house and test 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 a blessing until it overflows see God is saying to them listen if you trust me if you Mo move away from this hypocrisy everybody will know you’re blessed by me it doesn’t mean that you’re going to be overwhelmingly wealthy and you can have everything you want it means that you are honoring the name of God and because you’re honoring his name God’s honoring you and when you get honored you just know that listen everything God has given me as his and I’m going to give it back to him because I want to worship him I want to esteem his name it’s just like in the Psalms Psalm 73 when the people when the psalmist himself says for I was envious of the arogant as I saw the prosperity of the wicked behold these are the wicked and always at ease they have increased in wealth and how should the people respond well the end of Psalm 73 says God got my attention I went to the house of the Lord and everything got right again I began to see God the way he is I began to see the blessings he’s given me in my life I began to honor him and worship him and the coldness from my heart and the my eyes looking elsewhere stop I stopped doing it because now I see what God has done and I want to honor his name but this last one is possibly the most deadliest and I think if all these things are evident in someone’s heart this is where they’re going to end up and I want you to notice in Malachi chapter 3 verse 13 and 14 they will speak arrogantly against God look at verse 13 your words have been arrogant against me says the Lord yet you say what have we spoken against you now you may not speak it out out loud neither would they have possibly but you will speak it in your heart you may say it to someone else but you will not say it in church you’ll not say it in the temple and what is it look at verse 14 chapter 3 you have said it is vain to serve God and what profit is it that we have kept his charge that we have walked in mourning before the Lord of hosts they they they are saying in their conclusion it’s pointless to serve God it’s empty to serve God you get nothing for it you’re just wasting your time hypocritically accusing God is a deadly way to think and in verse number 15 of Chapter 3 of Malachi it says so now we call the arican Blessed not only are the doers of wickedness built up but they also test God and Escape they’re saying listen I’m looking all around me and you know what the sports figures man they look like they’re making millions of dollars uh in in the occupation they’re in they got everything they want the the celebrities have everything they want the politicians they go in the office broke and they come out millionaires man what am I missing here they’re saying all these are the Blessed ones you get no honor or recognition or status to serve God you may get your head cut off to serve God you may get put in jail to serve God you may be the least of the least to serve God people may never know your name so their conclusion is if you want recognition in life don’t serve God isn’t that a horrible conclusion but I tell you what that is the conclusion of every person who slips into a hypocritical heart they get so numb to the spiritual things of God to the word of God they just they just live any way they want and they start moving away from it and then of course if you’re moving away from that what happens the world takes over Satan takes over right he’ll give you anything you want if you don’t serve God if you don’t live that way he’ll do everything you want He he’ll orchestrate anything you want and he will make it happen and he will promise you things and you will be sold out to his destruction you’ll be sold out to so the question is is it worth it to serve God thank the Lord Malachi answers that question look what it says in chapter 3: 16 God has a book of remembrance look at it verse 16 then those who fear the lord spoke to one another and the lord gave attention and heard it and a book of remembrance was written before him for those who fear the lord and who esteem his name verse 17 they will be mine says the Lord of hosts on the day that I prepare my own possession I will spare them as a man spares his own son who serves him Verse 18 so you will again distinguish between the righteous and the wicked between one who serves God and one who does not serve him see God knows all your service it doesn’t matter if anybody else knows as long as God knows and you know God knows see that’s so that’s what a person does who’s not hypocritical I’m living before the eyes of God not people if I’m living that way I won’t have to worry about people I don’t have to worry about what I’m doing in public or in private because I’m thinking every day God knows everything that’s happening in my life God sees everything that’s going on in my life God even knows the thoughts and intents of my heart right now so I am very careful to want to worship him and to want to honor his name and not bring reproach to to his name not only that but there’s a question of rewards look at chapter 4 verse1 for behold the day is coming burning like a furnace and all the Arrogant in every evildoer will be chaff and the day that is coming will be set and the the day that is coming will set them Blaze says the Lord of hosts so that it will leave them neither root nor branch and then verse two that God will lift you up and reward you in other words someday God’s going to show us off look what it says in verse number two but for you who fear my name the son of righteousness will rise with healing in its wings and you will go forth and Skip about like Calves from the stall you will tread down the wicked for will be ashes under the soles of your feet all on that day which I am preparing says the Lord of hosts the Lord is saying listen you may have a hard time you may have a rough life but I am going to bless you and I have a book of remembrance and I remember everything and I know all the things you’ve done no matter how small it was if you did it for me you honored my name you lived the way not perfectly but you lived in the world in in with with a desire to want to uplift the gospel of Christ to want to bring people and win people and pray for people and meet needs of people you wanted to do that and I remember all those things and I know all those things so is it worth it to serve God the answer to that question is yes it is matter of fact it’s more worth it than anything else this world can offer us it is worth it to go go the next step to breathe the next breath to go the next mile it’s worth it to serve God because he is with us he’s with us in The Valleys right and he will take take us all the way to the end and that is that great doctrine of the perseverance of the Saints he saved you and he will bring you home so here’s the bottom line it is worth it to serve God and wait on him reward is not now but it will come because our God remembers our faithfulness so now after Malachi’s message what does the Lord actually tell the people back then you know what he tells them he says listen I am going to send you a messenger and he’s going to lay the groundwork for the great work work of Salvation which these things that I just said in chapter 4 are going to actually come true and that the when the end comes all the blessings of God will be known by those who fear the lord and esteem his name and who is that going to be look at Malachi 4:4 remember the law of Moses my servant even the statutes and ordinances which I commanded him in horb for all Israel behold I am going to send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and terrible day of the Lord and who’s that going to be John the Baptist he is going to be the one who lays it down but between this message and John the Baptist is going to be 400 years of Silence that means God’s not going to speak through a prophet now so so you say well hey when everything happened and John the Baptist came on the scene how are the people then well we know in the New Testament what did Jesus say you Hypocrites to the top leadership they hadn’t changed a bit they had not changed a bit see Malachi is really a book that does get to our heart and God is going to send John the Baptist because that’s going to be the Fulfillment of really of strategic importance it’s going to be the B beginning actually the beginning of the joyful Tidings of Salvation and the intrusion of God rule in the world in other words the apparance of John the baptizer is the end time event of the first magnitude because John comes on the scene as a result of the Divine appointment and fulfillment of Prophecy not only in Isaiah but also in Malachi where Isaiah says a voice is calling Clear the Way of the Lord in the wilderness make smooth in the desert the highway for our God that’s what he does and you see people coming to John the Baptist in the wilderness and they coming and what they’re they’re coming to repent of what of hypocrisy that’s where they’re coming to repent of hypocrisy we’ve been Hypocrites all these years of course the leadership didn’t repent but the people came in droves to John John and be baptized and repent of their sin so the timing of John’s appearance was precise John appears on the scene at a time where there was much religious and political confusion but Prof ically the time was of fulfillment was ripe it says in Mark 1:2 as it is written in Isaiah the prophet behold I send my messenger ahead of you who will prepare your way so John preached to a society spiritually deadened and shallow to a people who were indifferent and laxidasical about spiritual matters and the people affect Ed by all kinds of subtle forms of hypocrisy and a brief search of scripture and in its religious context exposes a current spiritual condition of the times when Jesus comes to minister and John the Baptist comes to preach and those two spiritual conditions were EV were evident all throughout the gospels religious formality and comfortable undetected hypocrisy that’s what was there so examine yourself today there could be one two hopefully not all six of these things are evident in your heart maybe there’s none evident at this point but examine yourself and if any of these six things surface in your heart and you start questioning the love of God you start ignoring God you stop being faithful to your spouse and to the people of God you begin to complain that you are less blessed you sto being generous and you think and say why serve God any of those things come in your heart you know what you do the same thing the people did you have to remember return and repent right that’s what you do you repent you you repent of false worship of social injustice of of Disobedience to the Mosaic law to the word of God to to the spiritual hypocrisy that has been identified in your heart that’s what you do you know I was reading uh Charles Spurgeon is always a interesting person to read if you ever read any things that he wrote but he said that one day he was um ministering to a person who was going to die very soon and the person at this uh time of his life wanted to lay out before Spurgeon his own hypocrisy and so Spurgeon writes it down and this is what the man says when a person is falls into hypocrisy and he calls it also backsliding number one and it he uses the word when when it happens he says when you grow bold Bolder with your sin or with temptation to sin than you were in your more watchful State than be sure something has gone wrong he says when you make a small matter of those sins and infirm infirmities which once seemed Grievious to you and almost intolerable something has gone wrong when you settle down to a course of religion that gives you but little labor and leaves out the hard and costly part of walking with Christ something has gone wrong when your God and savior grows a little strange to you something has gone wrong when you Delight more in hear hearing and talking than in prayer and the word of God something has gone wrong when use the means of Grace more as a matter of Duty than as food in which your soul Delights something has gone wrong when you grow harsh and bitter and use bitter word words towards those who form a different opinion instead of feeling tenderly towards all those who love Christ something has gone wrong when the hopes of Heaven and the love of God do not interest you but you are thirsting after some worldly enjoyment and grow eager for it something has gone wrong when the world grows sweeter to you and death and Eternity are distasteful subjects something has terribly gone wrong that’s hypocrisy and none of us none of us are exempt from that that’s why you have to be diligent in your Christian Life right diligence discipline in your Christian Life and have the word of God wash your mind so you’re thinking about God’s good and acceptable and perfect will and not anybody else’s will not even your own so I pray that this morning as I preach a message like this and study it I’m always examined in my own heart too because I surely don’t want to be that kind of person amen let’s pray let’s pray Lord this morning Lord you have been so incredibly kind to us Lord especially in giving us the word of God to have a message like this and being able to preach it and understand it and see how practical it is even in this day knowing Lord that your word is more up to date than tomorrow’s newspaper I thank you Lord for showing us what can go wrong in our life especially when things seem to be going pretty good we seem to not have so much trouble everything seems to Cal be be calm I pray Lord at that point Lord we wouldn’t start looking around but we would even be more diligent when those times come so Lord we can hedge against this particular sin in which you hate and I pray we’d hate it just as much and Lord if it creeps up in our life let us put it to death right away if we see it in another person one of our Brethren I pray that you would help us to lovingly identify it that we can pray for them so they don’t slip too far away and so I thank you Lord that we know this morning it is worth it to serve you because we want your name honored in the world we want your name honored in our church in our family in our community we want your name honored and I pray Lord that the honor of your name may be seen in the way we live our life and so I pray Lord that you would help us in this that we’d not grieve the holy spirit in this these things or quench him in any way but Lord we would be a vessel of Honor in your hand to be used at any time Lord forgive us of our sin and establish Us in righteousness and give us that hope in our heart that the things you promised that that have not come to pass yet will come to pass as everything else you said in the word of God beforehand came to pass after you said it would come to pass thank you Lord that your word is trustworthy and true and I pray Lord that every day all of us would desire deep in our heart to want to honor you the way we live the way we speak the way we think and I pray Lord in doing that your name would surely be up held up high and you would give us many opportunities for the gospel and I pray all this this morning in the precious and the Holy Name of Jesus Christ amen let’s Stand Together amen indeed it’s not

April 14, 2024
Declining Love: Exposed

In this sermon, Pastor Babij continues looking at the topic of declining love for Jesus, this time from the book of Malachi. After discussing the historical background of Malachi, Pastor Babij examines six evidences of declining love in Israel so that we also might examine ourselves.

Full Transcript:

This morning you should be turning to Malachi, and if you don’t know where that is, that’s the last book of the Old Testament, right before Matthew. That’s where I’m heading this morning. This is the second message of three messages springing from the passage in the epistle of Jude verse 21, keep yourselves in the love of God. And this passage emphasizes the Christian’s responsibility that if we indeed are called by God in verse one of Jude 1, and if indeed we are beloved by God, and if indeed we are being kept for Jesus Christ, then to us this word applies, keep yourselves in the love of God, which really puts us in the sphere of personal responsibility. Being in His love, you should not become careless, but remember that you are responsible. We must really rest upon the fact that God’s love is unsought, it is undeserved, it is unconditional. We cannot in this life put ourselves outside the love of God, and I’m speaking of course to real, genuine believers. However far someone may fall or drift away or wander or even wound Him or grieve His Spirit, you have not made Him cease to love you. It is we who have moved out of His love and it’s not Him who has moved at all. You may have forgotten Him, but God has never ceased to love you. So quite simply, to keep yourselves in the love of God means to keep yourself from all that is unlike Him, from all that which violates His love and grieves the heart of God.

So I fear, I really do fear that the church of God is full of people who have wandered out of God’s love. What do I mean by that? By their own conception or their transformed thinking is not there, their obedient doing or their conduct is not in line with adorning the gospel and their character, their sanctified being is not where it ought to be. They have fallen not out of His love, but from fellowship as it fulfills His will, as it manifests His purpose, as it accomplishes His work in the world. So instead of the manifestations of the graces and the glories of the Christian life shining through someone’s life, when they step away from keeping themselves in the love of God, they lose the freshness of being a Christian and that’s where the declining process begins, right there. And all will agree surely that our greatest lack as children of God and our deepest need as children of God is love.

First and foremost, we need love for God. We have to start there. And this is the greatest commandment which we read this morning. Jesus says, you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind. Who can claim that? But that’s where God’s bringing us. Everything in our Christian lives on our part depends on our personal love for Jesus Christ and our growth in that love. And of course, we love Him because He first loved us. It wasn’t the other way around. We did not love God. So this is an all-mastering passion of love for Jesus I’m talking about. So that you and I will be willing out of love for Him to trust Him utterly, to obey Him absolutely. This is our first need, a real love for Jesus.

I was reading about this stuff and I ran across a little story of a Chinese lady who went over to England many years ago in order to take back to China a band of British women who could teach the Chinese women about Jesus. She went up and down Britain, but the response was very disappointing. One day her servant came to her room and found her sobbing bitterly, and the Chinese lady said this to her servant, it’s no good. We shall have to go back without them. They do not love their Jesus enough. That’s it. That is the goal of the Christian life. We do not love our Lord Jesus enough to be willing for His sake to trust and obey Him for all He has in Himself for us. We miss out on it.

So the claim to love must also be tested as to its source. Someone can claim to love and have the wrong source. But if the source is wrong, then the love, it’s not love at all. It’s something else. It’s false love. It’s actually the love the world has. It’s not God’s love. This kind of love has the same source as false doctrine and false teachers, and God must reject that kind of love. It was old Warren Worsby who said, he’s with the Lord now, he said, much that is called love in our modern society bears no resemblance or relationship to the holy spiritual love of God.

So Christian love is a special kind of love. It is the kind of love that has its source in God Himself. It cannot be had unless one has come to know Jesus as their Lord and Savior and the Holy Spirit of God indwells them. Scripture tells us in Romans 5:5,

and hope does not disappoint because the love of God has been poured out within our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us.

That means love is a gift of the Holy Spirit, and as this passage of Scripture says in Romans, the love of God is in the heart of every true believer. It’s already there. It’s almost unbelievable, is it not? Knowing the love of God as we do from Scripture and knowing our hearts as we do. If it were not for the word of God, we could hardly believe this is true. The love of God, higher than the highest heaven, deeper than the deepest sea, the very love of God, eternal, infinite, the love of God that was manifested on Calvary’s cross in the darkest of those three hours, the very love of God is shed abroad in our little, mean, sin-stained, selfish hearts. That’s impossible unless God’s done something. When the Holy Spirit comes to take up residence in our born-again hearts, He brought the very love of God there with Him. The very love of God has been planted by the Holy Spirit in every Christian’s heart.

But every new plant, if it is to bear fruit, must be cultivated, and this is where we fail. The tragedy of every backslidden Christian and for every Christian declining in love for Jesus, we fail right here. The tragedy of the despair that may be in our hearts is not that you don’t love Jesus. You have the love of God in your heart already if you have the Spirit of God. The tragedy is uncultivated love. Somewhere down the line, we stop cultivating our love. for God. But that happens in relationships too, in marriages too. Matter of fact, there’s many similarities between a marriage of a husband and wife and our love for God in Scripture, because it’s the same. We can get married, we can be full of zeal for our marriage, and then one year goes by, 10 years go by, 20 years go by, and you end up getting cold. And then what happens? You’re in trouble if you don’t cultivate that love, right? That’s what happens.

So I’m speaking this morning about the sad state of declining love. Love turned cold. It is when there’s no passion or heart in your service, just cold orthodoxy, just going through the motions, which is hypocrisy. So declining in love toward God is the forerunner of hypocrisy, of spiritual apathy, which then leads down this path of caring more for the world, falling victim to the culture, turning to empty worldly pursuits that you deem good, which naturally leads to compromise with evil, corruption, and finally to a decline in your relationship with God.

Last week I ended with the three precautions for backsliding. And the first one was walking in integrity. That means you’re remaining obedient. Secondly, was trusting in the Lord. That means you’re growing in your faith. And then the third one was keeping in the love of God, continuing to cultivate love for Christ. So if we cannot always discern that we are sliding into a state of declining love, who can show us that we’re in that state? Who cares enough to bring it to our attention when we cannot see it ourselves? Who is the one who can expose declining love when we cannot detect it in ourselves? Yes, the answer is quite obvious. It is our great loving Lord that searches the heart and exposes the real conditions of our heart through the word of God, He does that.

So in order to get a good glimpse into the backslidden condition of God’s people, especially in their heart, and how the Lord exposes their spiritual condition, we must turn in our Bibles to the last book of the Old Testament, and that’s Malachi. But before I get there, while you’re turning, I do have to give you some background to this book, because when it comes to the Old Testament, many people don’t know what’s going on. Some historical background is needed in order to get a glimpse, a sense of what the prophet Malachi’s task was with the souls in which he had to deal with in his day, not much different than our day. Matter of fact, no difference at all. There were three post-exilic prophets, and that means that after the Babylonian captivity, that 70 years that they were in captivity, now they’re coming out of that, and there’s three prophets – Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi. Malachi, being the last word from the Lord’s prophets before God would no longer speak to a prophet for 400 years until John the Baptist.

So here’s some of the timing. In 539, a decree from Cyrus was issued to allow the Jews to return back to Jerusalem, and the dates get smaller as it gets closer to the time Christ comes. 516, the temple is built. The decree of Cyrus comes to rebuild that temple, but because of much opposition, it was stopped for 15 to 16 years, as recorded in Ezra. In fact, this is what Ezra said, then the work of the house in Jerusalem ceased, and it was stopped until the second year of the reign of Darius, king of Persia. So in the second year of Darius, Haggai and Zechariah come and are building the temple. They are moving the people to get the city of Jerusalem up and running and to get the holy house of God, the temple built and everything functioning so that the people of God could be revived from their spiritual lethargy after being in captivity, after the Babylonian exile. And of course, to get the worship once again before their God, that the zeal of the Lord would be ignited once more amongst God’s people. Well, it did get ignited, but it was only for a brief season that spiritual life and earnestness and joy was amongst the people. They built the sacred courts with zeal and enthusiasm. The priests offered sacrifices anew and made intercession for the citizens within God’s holy house, but this seeming spiritual revival and restoration was short-lived.

What happened then? They moved away from God. They didn’t manifest zeal and devotion and worship anymore. They left a good part of building in the city incomplete and in ruins. The people took no delight in the temple, which their fathers had raised. Temple services fell into dishonor and neglect. They withheld from God those tithes and offerings which pertain to Him. Their animal sacrifices were the very poorest of the flock. The priest did a careless job to meet the qualifications of the priest and then also the responsibilities of their office. And then the priest and the people intermarried freely with foreigners who were strangers to the commonwealth and the covenant and were of course idolatrous in worship and sinful in lifestyle, all recorded in Ezra, all of it. So by 458, 459, Ezra returns to Jerusalem and finds the condition and the affairs absolutely appalling. When he learned the full extent of their evil, he tore his clothes, pulled out his beard, sank to the ground a whole day, the word of God says, and he did that because he realized the people had broken faith with God.

And then in 445, 14, 15 years later, Nehemiah shows up. He returns to Jerusalem and again, the fortifications of the towns were raised from their ruins. The Levitical priest and the singers resumed their duties in the sacred courts. The gates were closed against any merchants who would come and try to make a profit on the Sabbath day. And it seemed again, under the leadership of Nehemiah, a genuine revival of a permanent kind would be brought about. But you know what happened? Nehemiah had a return for a short period of time back to Artaxerxes, the king. He wasn’t gone that long, just a brief interval, and the Jews reverted back to their old misdemeanors and sins and that was a sad relapse.

Well, who steps on the scene at that point? I don’t know if you want that job and to be that prophet – well, that’s Malachi. Malachi had a tough task. He had to carry the burden of the word of the Lord to this group of people. Almost an entire century had passed since Haggai and Zechariah began to preach in Jerusalem to the captives who returned from Babylon. In fact, between 430 and 425, the second temple has been finished long since. And here in Malachi, they are long finished with the temple and most of the work. It has been 75 to 100 years Since its completion, the priests have been ministering, the people have been worshiping in the temple for a long time.

But here’s the problem, and this is always the problem. There’s no pressure. There’s no invasion. There’s no crisis. This will sound strange, but there is a non-crisis crisis. In other words, the crisis is nothing’s happening. There’s no wall to be built. There’s no temple to be built. There’s nothing to be done. Everything’s working. All there is to do is to carry out the work of God that’s already been established. Now, that’s a good thing. However, it could be very deadly, too, especially if it is not accompanied by examination, by searching the heart. We have the Lord’s table. One of the things about the Lord’s table is you examine yourself, see how you’re doing spiritually, with God, with people, with your relationship. Have you drifted from the love of God? That’s why it’s there. So the crisis of regularity without examination is often a deadly thing. And why is that? Because it often leads to hypocrisy and declining love. Still going and doing everything I know to do, but nothing in my heart. My heart is cold. God hates that. We should hate that, too. The Lord is never pleased with hypocrisy.

And here in Malachi, God is not pleased with the people at all. They were declining in love to God, and it was time for the Lord to step in and expose their hearts through his prophet Malachi. And I want you to notice in chapter 1, in verse 10, what it says. God calls for his people to stop being faithless and backslidden. In verse number 10 of chapter 1, it says,

“Oh that there were one among you who would shut the gates, that you might not uselessly kindle fire on My altar! I am not pleased with you,” says the Lord of hosts, “nor will I accept an offering from you.

See, the Lord is saying to them, listen, your hearts are cold and numb. I wish somebody would just shut the gates of Jerusalem so nobody can come in because your worship is all wrong, and it’s not what I’m pleased with. See, this message is for us today. Same thing could happen. You’re a Christian for a long time. You’ve been going to church your whole life. You’ve been involved with theology and reading the word of God and all those things, and all those things are good, and we ought to be doing them. They are the disciplines of the Christian life, but at the same time, you can drift away. So if you notice in these passages of Scriptures that I’m going to look at, how it reveals their numbness. From the top down, they are oblivious to their spiritual condition, they’re unaware that God was not pleased with them. All the prophets warned them to stop their wicked ways and return and repent, but a long time has passed since a prophet spoke, and people took on the ways of the world while still practicing their religious rituals. It’s been a long time since a prophet warned them and admonished them to stop, to look at their hearts, to see how they’re doing spiritually, and to come and to return and remember and repent.

Look at verse number two of chapter one. I want you to notice the first thing the Lord brings up. Look what it says in verse number two,

“I have loved you,” says the Lord. But you say, “How have You loved us?”

And then in chapter one, verse six, God says to them, you despise my name. It says in verse six,

“‘A son honors his father, and a servant his master. Then if I am a father, where is My honor? And if I am a master, where is My respect?’ says the Lord of hosts to you, O priests who despise My name. But you say, ‘How have we despised Your name?’

Chapter two, verse number 10. God says to them, you have dealt treacherously with each other. Notice what it says. It says,

“Do we not all have one father? Has not one God created us? Why do we deal treacherously each against his brother so as to profane the covenant of our fathers?

And of course, they say, what do you mean? We think we’re doing all right. We’re doing everything we should be doing. Look at verse 17 of chapter two. God says to them, you weary me with your words. It says,

You have wearied the Lord with your words. Yet you say, “How have we wearied Him?”

A lot of words, no heart. Look at verse number eight of chapter three. God says to them, you robbed me. It says,

“Will a man rob God? Yet you are robbing Me! But you say, ‘How have we robbed You?’

And then in chapter three, verse 13, God says to them, you have spoken arrogantly and harshly against me. In verse 13, it says,

“Your words have been arrogant against Me,” says the Lord. “Yet you say, ‘What have we spoken against You?’

So you see, the people have no idea about their own condition. That is a deadly place to be. You keep going to church, you keep having devotions, and you should do those things, but the deadly thing is when you get numb doing those things. Outwardly, things are in order, but inwardly, you’re not right with God. And you’re not off doing some gross sin. Your heart’s not right. See, the Lord, through the prophet, gets to the heart of the matter and exposes their hypocrisy and declining love. Malachi is really a message that will help us to identify hypocrisy and declining love and hopefully keep us from drifting into cold formality and will motivate us, should motivate us, to continue to cultivate our love for our Lord Jesus Christ. Outward form, inward numbness was the spiritual diagnosis of the day. The people had a deep spiritual heart problem, yet their response to God when the prophet confronts them, we don’t know what you’re talking about. The priest and the people cannot assess their own spiritual condition.

Now I want you to look with me this morning at Malachi again and just look at the wonder, the wonder of how God gets at it. He doesn’t hit the outside of the heart. He hits the inside of the heart. He, in a sense, cracks the shell by an indirect address and gives a bold statement provoking a response on the part of the people and hits the problem right square where it ought to be hit. The hammer hits the nail right where it ought to be. So there are six things God sees in their heart that has gone wrong. Now these six things God sees in their heart are six issues that God wants to deal with. And when anyone will slip and just walk along in their Christian walk and not cultivate their love for Jesus Christ and the heart will get cool and you get used to things, at that point you really need to watch out. When you become hypocritical and cold-hearted, six things will appear and may not all appear at the same time. Not all of them may appear. One of them may appear. But that should be enough for us to examine ourselves. See, there’s a large amount of danger of just saying words. We can sing worship songs. We can pray. We can just do ministry or just going to worship, listening to preaching or just going through the motions. The very thing we ought to hate more than anything else is to slip into a spiritual numb, cold-hearted condition. To have a deep spiritual problem and not being aware of it is a very deadly thing. It must be identified. It must be repented of, and it must be avoided.

So the six things, I’m going to go back over them, six things I already mentioned, but I want to look at them briefly. Regularity in the Christian life is good and normal, but it must be accompanied always by examination. And examination will keep you hedging against hypocrisy and declining love. And so let’s look back at the first question in chapter 1, verse 2 to 5, where he says this,

“I have loved you,” says the Lord. But you say, “How have You loved us?” “Was not Esau Jacob’s brother?” declares the Lord. “Yet I have loved Jacob; but I have hated Esau, and I have made his mountains a desolation and appointed his inheritance for the jackals of the wilderness.”

And what basically He’s saying there is, I love you, Israel, and I still love you. Even in your condition right now, I still love you. He wanted to make sure they knew that right off the bat. But you know what? They’re not sure God loves them. Anymore, they seem to have lost their activity of God’s love and the experimental nature of God’s love in their own personal life.

So questioning the love of God is the first thing that we start to do when we start moving into hypocrisy and declining love. If God loves me, then why, Lord, is this happening in my life? Why did you make me like this? Why did I get this disease? Why do I have these family problems? Why haven’t You answered my prayer when I prayed? Why did You allow this and not allow that? Why did You put me here? Why was I born now? And the questions go on and on and on. So you see, when your heart begins to grow cold, you will start questioning the love of God. You may not express it in spoken words, but you begin to think it. My friends, this is the first step toward hypocrisy and declining love. You stop cultivating love toward God by not remembering what God has done for you. You forget the gospel.

A second thing is that they begin to despise the name of God. And I want you to notice specifically in verse number 6, it says,

“‘A son honors his father, and a servant his master. Then if I am a father, where is My honor? And if I am a master, where is My respect?’ says the Lord of hosts to you,

And he’s specifically identifying the leadership, the priest who despised my name. And they are saying, where have we despised your name? So this is an indirect question towards the priest and those going into full-time Christian work, if I can say it like that, or are handling the things of God professionally every day. But in a very real sense, all Christians are priests. We minister for God in our homes, in our schools, on our jobs, on our teams, in our church body. Peter even says that we are a royal priesthood. So the priests were ministering. People were ministering, but they were ministering in a way that despised God’s name. In other words, another word to say that is they were ignoring God. They weren’t giving God respect. They were despising His name. How were they doing that? Look at verse number 7 in Malachi chapter 1,

You are presenting defiled food upon My altar. But you say, ‘How have we defiled You?’ In that you say, ‘The table of the Lord is to be despised.’

And then in verse number 13 of chapter 1,

You also say, ‘My, how tiresome it is!’ And you disdainfully sniff at it,” says the Lord of hosts, “and you bring what was taken by robbery and what is lame or sick; so you bring the offering! Should I receive that from your hand?” says the Lord.

You wouldn’t even do that to the Persian king and you’re going to do it to me. In other words, they were presenting defiled food on the altar, animals upon the altar, saying, hey listen, two lambs keep one, burn one. If it’s just going to burn up, why waste that? They were very pragmatic in their worship. Instead, they were bringing despicable and worthless sacrifice to God. They seem to imagine any food offering, an animal, was good enough for God, whether it was blind or diseased or lame or whatever it may be. In that way, they were defiling God. In other words, they were giving sloppy things to God. They weren’t treating the Christian life with any kind of decorum and respect for God, for what He’s done for them. In other words, holiness and godliness was not there. Tired of hearing the word of God. Tired of serving. Tired to hear long preaching. See, those are most guilty who have the most access to the things of God. And who has more access to the things of God than the pastors and the missionaries and the people of God?

See, when your heart grows cold, you’ll start ignoring the Lord and the things of the Lord, and gradually you’ll become sloppy in your Christian walk. You’ll take for granted a lot of things. Your church attendance may go off because you do this. I listened to two sermons this week, I don’t have to go to church. Instead of leading people to the Lord, you will have no spiritual direction for yourself, let alone someone else. And my friends, this is the second thing to look for in order to hedge against hypocrisy and declining love.

A third thing found in Malachi chapter 2, verse number 10, it says, they have dealt treacherously with each other. Another way to say that is that you stab each other in the back. When there’s no enemy, you make each other enemies. But they say, what do you mean? In chapter 2, verse 10,

“Do we not all have one father? Has not one God created us? Why do we deal treacherously each against his brother so as to profane the covenant of our fathers?

Why do you break faith with one another, lie to one another, manipulate one another, not care for one another. And he goes on to talk about the marriage relationship, actually, in chapter 2 verses 14 and 15. It says this,

Yet you say, ‘For what reason?’ Because the Lord has been a witness between you and the wife of your youth, against whom you have dealt treacherously, though she is your companion and your wife by covenant. But not one has done so who has a remnant of the Spirit. And what did that one do while he was seeking a godly offspring? Take heed then to your spirit, and let no one deal treacherously against the wife of your youth.

Now, what’s going on here? The treachery being referred to specifically is the priest and the people are intermarrying freely with foreigners who were strangers to the commonwealth and the covenant and were bringing idolatrous worship and sinful lifestyles into the nation. See, finding wives among the Hebrew women was God’s will for Israel, but not considering that important by the men, the poor forsaken Jewish women were being set aside and deprived, really, of their place in the nation and their Hebrew homes in order that outsiders may step into their prerogative and to their privileges, that was how they dealt treacherously against the women. In other words, they were divorcing the Hebrew wives to take foreign women. And everything was all right with them. The priests were doing it. Now that’s where Ezra began to tear out his beer and his hair and put on sackcloth and sat all day mourning over that particular sin. So those men who were wedded to these heathen women endangered the whole nation with a polytheistic worship where Molech and Chemosh and Baal were reverenced instead of Yahweh. These practices were bringing everything down to a common earthly level to the holy people of God, whom God loved. That’s why He’s exposing their hearts. It also was destroying the barriers that the nation of Israel had against the ungodly world.

So what happens? When the heart gets cold, you’ll start looking around. The sin of intermarriage with unbelievers, contracting really wedlock with the daughters of a strange God. Now we can also have a whole message on why Christians should marry real Christians and how people that are married should stay married. That’s a whole other thing. So when the heart gets cold with God, you’ll start breaking faith with him and with your spouse. You go through the motions of worshiping and showing your love to God and then break faith with someone that is in a covenant relationship with you. And that’s what marriage is before God. That’s why it says in Malachi 2:16, look what it says,

For I hate divorce,” says the Lord, the God of Israel, “and him who covers his garment with wrong,” says the Lord of hosts. “So take heed to your spirit, that you do not deal treacherously.”

God really says I hate when relationships become sour and backbiting and you end up being unfaithful to each other. So see, when the heart grows cold with God, you will start looking for something else to fill your heart. You cannot leave a void. There is no such thing as a vacuum, a spiritual vacuum. You will look for something else. And we all have to really realize that Satan is right there to provide you everything you need. And the world’s there to accommodate him. And you still have sinful remaining corruption in your own flesh from your past that you’re dragging around and overcoming and putting to death as you’re being sanctified. But you’ll just start being unfaithful toward the Lord and you’ll be unfaithful to others. You’ll be unfaithful to the work of God. My friends, this is the third thing to look for in order to hedge against hypocrisy and declining love.

And then there is a fourth thing. Malachi 2:17, it says,

You have wearied the Lord with your words. Yet you say, “How have we wearied Him?” In that you say, “Everyone who does evil is good in the sight of the Lord, and He delights in them,” or, “Where is the God of justice?”

You see what the people are saying? The people are attributing evil to God and injustice to God. You see how now their view of God is completely misaligned with Scripture. And they say this because they see the evil people prosper. Isn’t it Psalm 73 that has a lot to say about this? I think it’s Psalm 73. The evil people prosper. It seems like they have all the money. Look at my grass. It’s all brown and my neighbor’s grass is all green. Oh, they got the latest car and I’m driving this old jalopy. You know, it’s funny, but it’s exactly what happens. So God blesses the wicked and not the godly man. That’s their conclusion. You drift away from God, you’ll begin to think just like that. So when your heart gets cold, you’ll begin to say all this. God’s not just. I’m not being blessed like those around me. Complaining that you are less blessed than the wicked person. And my friend, this is the fourth thing to look for in order to hedge against hypocrisy and declining love.

And then a fifth thing in Malachi 3:8,

Will a man rob God? Yet you are robbing Me! But you say, ‘How have we robbed You?’

In verse 9, it says,

You are cursed with a curse, for you are robbing Me, the whole nation of you! Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse,

Let me just stop there for a minute. What are they doing here? That when your heart gets cold and things get tight, you begin to hold back your giving. Giving is a spiritual matter. It’s a matter of worship. It’s not just a word on tithing and giving, but a word on your heart attitude in connection with your material possessions that God’s blessed you with. Everything you have is because God’s given it to you. And every day we should wake up and thank God for whatever you have that God’s given it to you. The Lord loves a cheerful giver, doesn’t He not? But what if you’re not cheerful? What if you begrudge God your best and instead your giving is a wearisome burden to God. They have to crank your fingers just to give a few cents to God. God doesn’t need your money, but he wants your heart and he wants all of it. And if your heart’s with God, you don’t have to worry about the giving because you’ll give to the Lord because you will be so filled with the abundance of God’s love and how you didn’t deserve anything He gave you. And so what happens is that your pockets get loosed up and you give because you know that God’s given you way more than you can give Him, right? That’s what happens.

So do you faithfully practice giving as worship? You may say, well, I can’t give, I’m broke. Yet you find ways to buy things you want. Don’t say I can’t afford to give. Remember, you can’t afford not to give. You heard that before, because giving is practical worship. It’s showing God your gratitude. But when your heart grows cold, you’ll stop becoming generous. And you will stop trusting God for the supply of your needs. You will say, you did it. I made this money. I have these things. No, you don’t. It’s not about you. It’s about what God gives. And He is a gracious giver. He gave His Son for us. So this is a fifth thing that you look for in order to hedge against hypocrisy.

But notice the challenge in verse number 10 of chapter three. Here’s the challenge,

Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse, so that there may be food in My house, and test 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 a blessing until it overflows.

He’s challenging them while He’s exposing their heart. And He says, listen, get back to this. And believe me, you pray to Me and I’ll answer you because you’re My people. And I’ll bless you because you’re My people.

But here’s the last one this morning. Number six, which is the deadliest of all. And what is that? When you speak arrogantly against the Lord. Look at chapter three, verse number 13. It says,

“Your words have been arrogant against Me,” says the Lord. “Yet you say, ‘What have we spoken against You?’ You have said, ‘It is vain to serve God; and what profit is it that we have kept His charge, and that we have walked in mourning before the Lord of hosts?

In other words, they conclude this, it’s pointless to serve God. That’s pretty deadly, isn’t it? When you see somebody who was supposed to be a Christian walk away from God after knowing a lot of the word of God, after being under messages of the word of God, and just walk away and says, ah, that’s a bunch of fooey. What they are saying is that it looks like it’s more profitable out there in the world than it is to serve God. And so they say it’s pointless. Look at verse 15,

So now we call the arrogant blessed; not only are the doers of wickedness built up but they also test God and escape.’”

They blaspheme God, and it doesn’t seem like anything’s happening to them. They live a good life, have a peaceful death, and go off into eternity. It looks pretty good. And we begin to think, you know, sports figures look pretty, it’s something I would like to be blessed like, or politicians, or celebrities, media personalities, people who are rich and privileged, they’re the ones that look like they’re being blessed. And then people conclude, I don’t really get any honor or recognition or status serving the Lord. If I want recognition, it looks like I shouldn’t serve the Lord and do this other thing. Now, when you think about this, this is the prophet speaking to the nation of Israel, exposing their heart. Hypocrisy and declining love is not pretty when it’s exposed. But it should drive you to remember, to repent, and to return to God with a heart that is cultivating and nourishing love for Christ.

And why is that? You know why that is? Because it’s worth it to serve God. It is worth it to live for Him with their whole heart, all your mind, all your soul, all your strength. It’s worth it to serve God. In fact, look at what it says, and here’s kind of the dessert in Malachi. In chapter 3, verse 16 through 18, this is what it says. You know what? God has a book of remembrance. He knows everything going on in your life as a believer. And look at what it says in verse number 16,

Then those who feared the Lord spoke to one another, and the Lord gave attention and heard it, and a book of remembrance was written before Him for those who fear the Lord and who esteem His name. “They will be Mine,” says the Lord of hosts, “on the day that I prepare My own possession, and I will spare them as a man spares his own son who serves him.” So you will again distinguish between the righteous and the wicked, between one who serves God and one who does not serve Him.

That is the admonition in Malachi. Listen, it’s worth it to serve God because God knows everything going on in your life, and so every little thing you do that is in His name, He knows all about it. It doesn’t have to be published. Nobody has to know about it. It doesn’t have to be in Time magazine or on the internet or on some YouTube channel. God knows. If you live your life like that, you don’t have to worry about anything. See, God knows all your service and the quality of your works. And then in chapter 4, verse number 1, He will reward you someday. It says in chapter 4, verse 1,

“For behold, the day is coming, burning like a furnace; and all the arrogant and every evildoer will be chaff; and the day that is coming will set them ablaze,” says the Lord of hosts, “so that it will leave them neither root nor branch.”

And what it’s saying there is that, listen, all the stuff that you look at and think that the evil person’s being blessed – wrong. They’re going to be judged someday, and God’s going to take care of them, and they’re going to come under the piercing judgment and examination of God, and if they don’t know Christ, they’ll be cast into the lake of fire forever. But My godly ones will not. They will be given mercy, not judgment. And then one other thing, in verses 2 and 3 of chapter 4, it says that God will show you off someday. It says,

“But for you who fear My name, the sun of righteousness will rise with healing in its wings; and you will go forth and skip about like calves from the stall. You will tread down the wicked, for they will be ashes under the soles of your feet on the day which I am preparing,” says the Lord of hosts.

So he has a book of remembrance. He will reward the godly and judge the wicked, and He will lift you up one day as a prized possession. So here’s the bottom line. The bottom line, it’s worth it to serve God and wait for Him. Reward may not be in its fullness now, but it will come because our Lord remembers our faithfulness. And how is He going to do that? Well, according to Malachi, what is He going to do? In Malachi chapter 4, he goes on to talk about someone’s coming who’s going to be a messenger, who’s going to lay the groundwork down for someone to come. And of course, we know he’s prophesied in Malachi, he’s prophesied in Isaiah, and that’s John the Baptist. So just get this, for 400 years after Malachi closes his prophecy, it doesn’t mean that the word of God wasn’t around. It just means God wasn’t speaking to a prophet. And then John the Baptist gets on the scene, and what’s his message? Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. In other words, all that time, the leadership of Israel didn’t get it. And John the Baptist comes and lays the groundwork, and he lays it for Jesus Christ. And his appearance is an end time event of the first magnitude because John comes on the scene as a result of divine appointment and the fulfillment of prophecy. The timing of John’s appearance was precise. John appears on the scene at a time where there was much religiosity, much political confusion, and politically and prophetically the time was ripe for the Messiah.

And what did he preach to? Who did he preach to? He preached to a society spiritually deadened and shallow. To a people who were indifferent and lackadaisical about spiritual matters, and a people affected by all kinds of subtle forms of hypocrisy. They had drifted far from love of God. And a brief search really of scripture and the religious context really exposes the current spiritual condition of the times in which he ministered. And generally, two spiritual conditions were evident during the time of John the Baptist and Jesus – religious formality. Who did Jesus have the harshest words for? Israel, the leadership of Israel. And then of course comfortable hypocrisy. It was a time of peace when Jesus came. People were comfortable. People were going through the motions. They were still going to the temple. They were still sacrificing, but they were doing it all in the spirit of the people under Malachi’s watch.

So in other words, it seems like every time there’s a revival in history, unless God is doing it, unless there is a revival of the regeneration of a human heart, where God plants His Spirit in you, there is no revival. Because revival comes from God. It comes down to us. We can’t conjure it up ourselves.

So examine yourself today. If any of these six things surface in your heart at any time in your Christian walk, start questioning the love of God. You start ignoring the things of God, being sloppy in your Christian life. You don’t serve, because you have better things you have to do. You stop being faithful, just to the simple disciplines of the Christian walk, the means of grace God’s given us to grow. You begin to complain that you are less blessed than other people. You stop being generous. As a matter of fact, you may stop giving altogether. You’ll spend that money somewhere else, thinking it’s going to fulfill that void in your heart. It will not. And then the last one is you think or say, why should I serve God? What’s in it for me? That’s deadly.

I’m going to pick it up next week in Revelation, because you say, well, that’s an Old Testament passage of Scripture, that hasn’t much to do with us today. Wrong. Because you know what it says in Revelation, right? That you left your first love, and I’m not pleased with you. And then what does he tell them? In Revelation 2:5,

Therefore remember from where you have fallen, and repent and do the deeds you did at first; or else I am coming to you and will remove your lampstand out of its place—unless you repent.

We’ll look at that next week. Let’s pray. Lord, thank You this morning. Lord, the word of God we know is a light, and it exposes the thoughts and intents of our heart. It shows us, Lord, who we really are and where we are at spiritually in our life. But Lord, at the same time, I thank You that the word of God does expose us in a way to bring us to the place that we do want to remember the great things You have done for us. We do want to have our heart warmed in our cultivation of love for You. And Lord, we do want to serve You, knowing that it is profitable to serve You, that in Your book of remembrance You know everything that’s going on. I pray, Lord, that each and every one of us would come to the place where we examine ourselves honestly and then remember, repent, and return to You. And once we do, Lord, I pray we would not want to go backward, but always go forward. And I pray this in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.

July 24, 2022
The Wrong Way to Worship
In today’s sermon, Greg Ho teaches believers from Malachi 1 to watch for the two signs of offering unworthy worship to God:
1. Bringing a worthless sacrifice
2. Bringing a weary attitude
Greg also teaches believers to remember that God is a great King; believers should therefore bring God their best as they offer their whole lives as sacrifices of worship to God.

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Note: This rough transcript was automatically generated by YouTube’s AI algorithm. We provide it here for your convenience, but know it will surely contain errors as it has not been proofread or edited by a human.

all right well it’s always a joy to be here to share the word of god with you and um wanna be about the word of god and just listening to the sunday school game that we just played you guys know your bible inside and out and i’m impressed by that i’m also impressed by the spirit that you have of service today though i want to talk about the wrong way to worship and so i want to preface that of course by saying that many of you worship the right way and so i’m not saying that you guys do it the wrong way but it is good for us to inspect what that wrong way might be okay so every once in a while you read a book that kind of sticks with you throughout your life right and as a boy i happened to pick up a book in the bookstore that was entitled the giving tree has anybody heard about that book before man um it’s a popular children’s book having sold more than 10 million copies over 50 years and i’ll be honest the time that i read it i found it to be extremely disturbing it’s a disturbing book and it haunts me even to this day let me just give you a short synopsis of what the book is about there are two characters in the book just two there’s a boy and a tree and the tree loves the boy and when the boy is young the boy joyfully swings from the tree’s branches and eats her apples but as the boy grows older he forgets about the tree until one day the boy now a young man is troubled and comes looking for money the tree doesn’t have any money but he says well i’ll give you my or she says i’ll give you my apple and the boy takes the apples and sells them the boy then forgets about the tree again until one day he comes back unsatisfied with his life and tells the tree what i really need is a house you need to build a house well the tree is glad to see the boy and he says why don’t you take my branches and you can use that to build the house so the boy cuts down the trees branches and builds the house and the young man well the boy now a young man goes off and lives his life and again forgets about the tree till one day he comes back as a depressed middle-aged man and he’s looking now for not a house but a boat that will take him far away because he’s sad so the tree again happy to see the boy gladly offers his trunk or her trunk to so that the boy can build the boat so the boy cuts down the tree and the trunk comes falling down and he builds his boat and he goes away forgets about the tree for many years finally many years later an old man comes back very tired no happier than before and the tree having nothing left to give the boy just says well i have a stump that you could sit on and the boy sits on the and that’s where the book ends now the title of the book is the giving tree and i suppose that’s supposed to refer to a tree that gives out of unconditional love right and probably that’s what many of you think about but that’s not what disturbed me about the book what disturbed me the most about the book even as a boy was the boy in the story the boy in the story never thanked or even showed any appreciation or love for the generosity of the tree the only thought that the boy ever had was what could i hack up next to get what i want right and even when i read the book as a young age i thought that was morally repugnant it’s a morally repugnant thing to to respond to love in that way and in a similar way we all know who’s been around this church is that god loves us with a great love doesn’t he he loves us so much that he gave his son for you so that you could live and my question is what has your response to that love been there are two possible responses to that love one is callous indifference like the boy in the giving tree there’s another response and really the right response to god’s love is worship worship worship is the right response to god’s love now my worship let me be clear i’m not talking about music right i’m talking about your whole life how do you live your life how is your obedience before god what does your adoration of god in your life look like what does your service to god look like and what is your proclamation to god or proclamation of god what do those things look like in your life that’s all wrapped up in worship so let me give you a simple definition of worship it’s simply listen understanding who god is and what he’s done for you and then responding to that understand what god has done for you and you respond to that so the question i want to ask you is what have you done with god’s love how have you responded to god’s love have you forgotten it are you indifferent to it or have you responded with a life of worship now i know what some of you are thinking you’re thinking greg i’m glad you’re preaching the sermon because all of these other people sitting on this side of the room have to hear it but thank you very much i got this because i come to church every week you see and and i sing the songs and i even put stuff in the offering plate so i think i’m covered all of that i think that’s enough to meet or even exceed the expectations of god well standing tall in the old testament is a cautionary tale of people who did those very same things and in some ways they paid the ties but to their surprise they woke up one morning and they discovered that god had judged it and had declared it all worthless it was all worthless all these years going to the temple making the sacrifices paying the tithe god had judged it and found it unworthy why well today we’re going to find out where their worship went wrong how does worship become worthless to god that will be a main point of our study this morning so turn to malachi chapter one if you’re not there already we read it for the uh scripture reading and of course even in sunday school in the last two weeks we’ve gone over it but it’s on page 950 again in your free bible if that’s what you’re using let me uh start with the word of prayer really fast father i pray that you would illumine your word in our hearts that you would have our church heed these warnings that we find here that we will respond to you with the worship that’s worthy of your great name in christ’s name amen okay so many of you who have been in sunday school know more about the book of malachi now than i do but just some background it’s written in about 450 bc at a ten at a time of intense disillusionment in the nation of israel see israel had just come back from exile and they were expecting that now that they were back there was going to be prosperity and peace and they were going to be maybe even expanding their territory maybe they would get out of this persian occupation that they were under they anticipated even becoming the rulers of the earth but 80 years later after that joyful return the reality facing them was a different reality because instead of prosperity and peace and plenty what they found was poverty and pestilence and famine and drought and even war now things were better for them don’t get me wrong than they were in exile they had their freedom they hide their livelihoods but they weren’t what they wanted to be so they were disillusioned and discouraged and they started to doubt the love of god and let’s be honest it’s not that hard to relate to that is it i mean today we often find ourselves in difficult situations in life and it’s easy to start to wonder whether god loves us through those situations where is god’s love in this and i want you to understand this morning that doubting god’s love is always the beginning of unworthy worship that’s where it begins when you start to doubt god’s love and you forget god’s love that’s where your worship will become unworthy god knows that this is the main problem in israel and that they were doubting his love and the reason they were doubting his love the same for us is that they were evaluating whether god loves them on the basis of their what their circumstances right so your circumstances are always the wrong criteria to evaluate god’s love it’s always the wrong criteria to evaluate god’s love your circumstances then in malachi 1 and verses 1 through 5 in the first five verses god’s purpose there is to remind israel of the right criteria to evaluate his love god first reminds israel of how his love what his love has accomplished for them in the past that before they were even born he chose them for love he chose jacob and not esau he chose to bless them and give them their own land give them an own inheritance and a nation and that was god’s promise and god had followed through indeed on that promise secondly in these first five verses god reminds them of his promised love in the future you see god promised them ultimate victory over all of these enemies they saw around them including edom and long after their enemy edom was gone god says there israel would still be around to witness the greatness of god so he’s directing them to his promise and and of course israel is around even today so by focusing on their present circumstance israel had forgotten god’s great faithfulness to them in the past and god’s great promises to them in the future and i want to say today we do exactly the same thing we we don’t when we look at our circumstances we’re lost but what we ought to do is we look behind us and what do we find behind us find the cross at the cross god sacrificed his son for us that is the clearest place we see god’s love and when we look ahead of us what do we see we see an eternal inheritance eternal life and an eternal crown of glory crown of glory that will never fade in first peter 5. so we have two signposts of god’s love for us there’s the cross that’s before us a cross that’s behind us and then there’s a crown that’s ahead of us right we’re looking to the cross that’s behind us and the crown that’s ahead of us and that’s how we know god loves us so don’t forget that that’s where we find god’s love most clearly displayed not in your temporary circumstances so i wanted to go through that because it’s important that you understand that otherwise the rest of the passage that we’re going to talk about today is not going to make any sense to you i see all true worship that’s pleasing to god it must come from a deep appreciation of god’s love on the other hand if you are to forget god’s love then your worship will become worthless see worship worthless worship comes from forgetting god’s love and that’s what the israelites did and it’s in response to israelite’s ingratitude and callous indifference to his love that in this text before us god lays out for us one of the harshest texts you’ll find in all of scripture and we must take heed in the warnings that well as well so now look with me in verse 6 of malachi 1 verse 6 god is speaking to the israelites about about the worship says this it says the son honors his father and the servant his master then if i am a father where is my honor and if i am a master where is my respect says the lord of hosts to you o priests who despise my name stop right there for a second what’s going on here you will agree to with me of course that it’s universal in all cultures that a son ought to ought to respect his father right why because the sacrificial love that his father has shown him in raising him and teaching him and providing for him and in protecting him to neglect to honor his father is to trample on that very love many verses in the bible uh called forth as truth my favorite one has become proverbs 30 verse 17. this is what proverbs 30 17 reads it says the i that mocks the father and scorns to obey a mother will be picked out by the ravens of the valley and eaten by the vultures and i think that’s one of the verses we should make our kids memorize right that’s that’s the one one verse you take you want to pick that likewise the god says a servant obeys his master because why it’s out of respect and fear of losing his job we understand that but to their god the israelites have given neither honor nor respect not even the basic human honor a son would honor his father with or a servant would respect his master with if a father deserves honor and a master deserves respect then how much more does the living god the creator of all things deserve honor and respect see to disrespect god to disrespect god is to act in a very foolish way but here’s what god’s saying god says you have despised my name now look back at the end of verse six uh we didn’t speak this first the israelites responds like this they’re blind to how they re they despise his name so they’re blind to it and they say but you say how have we despised your name god explains it to him in verse 7.

god says you are presenting defiled food upon my altar but you say how have we defiled you god says this and that you say the table of the lord is to be despised see the word despise here another another way to understand the word despise is really to show contempt show contempt for and the word defiled here could also be understand as polluted they’re really the sort of the same idea they’ll contempt for and to pollute and god is accusing israel of showing contempt for his name contempt how because they offered to him sacrifices that were polluted they engaged in unworthy worship and if you if you’re the kind who likes to take notes um today we’re going to see from this passage two signs of unworthy worship right just two not three points two today uh two signs of unworthy worship two things that if we see these things in our own worship we know that we’re in trouble so the first sign of unworthy worship is found here in verses 7 to 12 and it’s this sign of unworthy worship is to bring a worthless sacrifice to bring a worthless sacrifice the god here is accusing the israelites of showing contempt by daring to bring a worthless sacrifice now it’s important to understand in verse 7 that they don’t go around saying with their mouths right that the lord’s table is contemptible they don’t show up in church one morning or temple one morning and say boy that that table is contemptible right they don’t do that with their mouth and neither do we how do they say it they say it in there their actions they say that by bringing with them a polluted and a worthless sacrifice by doing that they’re saying this god is no big deal god and his name is worthless that’s what they’re saying when they bring those sacrifices see what you bring to god and how you serve god you are declaring with that how much god is worth to you you see that you are declaring that for all to see you’re declaring that for your family in front of your family you’re declaring that in front of your friends you’re also declaring that in front of your children wow do any of us dare say that god is contemptible do we betray what’s really in our hearts by our actions and here are the actions of the israelites look down with me at verse 8.

this is what verse 8 says god says to the israelites but when you present the blind for sacrifice is it not evil and when you present the lame and sick is it not evil why not offer it to your governor would he be pleased with you or would he receive you kindly as the lord of hosts see what they were doing is they were bringing from their flock the blind the lame the sick as your sacrifice back then if you had a blind and a lame and a sick animal it was worthless because first of all it’s against god’s law to even consume that meat and you couldn’t breed them and they’re you know to lead your flock they’re kind of falling behind they’re difficult to take care of so they’re actually a liability they’re worthless and usually you would just put an animal like that out of its misery but these were the very animals that they were bringing to god’s altar the worst of what they had that’s what they were giving to god don’t you see that to offer god the worst of your flock something unfit for human consumption that’s an open insult we understand that that’s a that’s common sense that’s an insulting gift so god says this why don’t you take those diseased animals those lame animals those worthless animals and why don’t you try offering those to your governor let’s see what they let’s see what he would say see their governor in this in this um in this case they’re under persian occupation so their governor is a persian is an extension of the persian king who likely would have just killed them outright for their disrespect they would not dare to do that and today if we you know you and i would go to meet perhaps the ceo of our company and we were to bring them like an old sneaker you know or you know under the seat of our car we would found like a half-eaten candy bar i found that um and you give that to your boss you might expect to lose your job right because that’s a disrespectful gift so god says if your earthly governor would be displeased with this gift and he would not receive you kindly why would you think to offer that gift to the what what does it say god is in that passage the lord of hosts why would you offer that gift to the lord of hosts wow god uses that term actually very purposely the lord of hosts returned the lord of hosts literally means the lord of armies the lord of army imagine in your life uh or imagine in your mind an innumerable army of angels right innumerable and in front of them is standing the shining king of glory and he’s leading the way that’s the picture do you think of god like that that reminds me of what jesus said in matthew 26 53 when he was being arrested he says this do you not think i can appeal to my father and he will at once put at my disposal more than what 12 legions of angels right what are the legion is about 6 000 so 12 legions of angels would be about 72 000 angels now just to put that in perspective in second kings 1935 one angel slayed 000 soldiers in one night that’s the kind of power one angel has and you multiply that by 72 000 you’re talking about unfathomable unthinkable power an army of angels stretching as far as your eye can see elsewhere in scripture this army is called the hosts of heaven and in front of them leading them is the lord of hosts and this king of glory is looking down from unh from on high upon these little israelites bringing him as gifts and tribute their worthless garbage and he says you have no honor or respect or fear of me how dare you would insult the lord of hosts like that that’s a downright suicidal thing to do isn’t it people have gotten completely insane what would god have required of them what would what god what would god want for them to offer that would please him well first of all let’s get this out of the way it’s not about the money it’s not about the value it’s not about the raw monetary value of the sacrifice god doesn’t need their money and he doesn’t need their livestock why because god already owns all of it he owns the cattle of a thousand hills it says on psalm 50 11.

psalm 50 10 and every beast in the forest is already his he doesn’t need an extra dead goat or two not what he needs but here’s the thing god has a deeper purpose behind the whole sacrificial system and god instituted this system to make a very specific point what’s the point when god instituted the sacrificial system he had very specific prescriptions for how he wanted the sacrifices to be brought his prescriptions were found in a few places but uh one is in leviticus 22 verse 20. and you know why don’t you keep your finger in malachi and try to turn back to leviticus 22 verse 20.

and i’ll read that to you leviticus 22 20.

i said this whatever has a defect you shall not offer for it will not be accepted for you when a man offers a sacrifice of peace offerings to the lord to fulfill a specific vow or for a free will offering of the hurdle of the flock it must be what perfect to be accepted there shall be no defect in it those that are what blind or fractured or maimed or having a running sore or eczema or scabs you shall not offer to the lord nor make any of them an offering by fire on the altar of the lord see these sacrifices were required to be perfect unblemished in fact without defect and specifically explicitly they couldn’t be blind or lame or disease so god commanded the israelites to bring not their worst but their best their most pure they’re most worthy of their flock why because understand this the whole sacrificial system in the old testament was just one big arrow it was just one signpost that pointed to who jesus right see when jesus christ would come in another 450 years he came as the blemished and imperfect son of god right no no he came as the perfect and spotless son of god jesus christ was worthy in every way in every way pure without sin without defect see you and i we’re blemished we have sin we have defects but jesus christ didn’t have any of those defects and the purposes of all of the animal sacrifices was merely to point the way to jesus christ see your sin and my sin demands a reckoning every person in history who was a sinner is a sinner has sinned against god and we are all blemished and a just and a holy god demands that your sin be paid for in blood whose blood your blood and the story should end there but god is so gracious and throughout the old testament he set up this pattern for people to see that when people sinned instead of god demanding their blood and their life as he righteously should god said i will overlook your sin if you provide a substitute death for that sin the blood of a pure and a perfect animal and why did it need to be pure and perfect because jesus was pure and he was perfect you see god was introducing in the old testament sacrificial system the big theological word idea of substitutionary atonement substitute substitutionary atonement and we know that these dead animals was never going to cover their sin hebrews 10 4 tells us that explicitly in the bible it says it is impossible for the blood of what of bulls and goats to take away sin why this makes perfect sense is an animal life worth more or less than a person’s life or less less much less so an animal’s death can’t possibly cover a person’s sin the whole point of the animal sacrifice was to foreshadow a sacrifice to come of infinite value infinite worth much more value than you or i so that it would be sufficient to cover our sins with interest and that sacrifice was of course jesus christ the father’s own begotten son infinitely precious and infinitely worthy god gave his son and he poured out his fearsome wrath onto the perfect lamb on cowboy and those who believe in jesus his death his death is accepted by god in place of your death that’s why we don’t have to bring animal sacrifices anymore today because there’s no need for the signposts now that the reality has come but the israelites fight coming and offering their blemish sacrifices their impure sacrifices they didn’t display the sign that god intended they in fact obscured the sign see blemish sacrifices don’t point to jesus jesus is not blemished and so instead of proclaiming the good news of substitutionary atonement israel concealed the message and he they invalidated the gospel that god had wanted them to communicate and that’s the reason that god is so serious about this okay so having said all that just back up take a timeout you might say you know greg this is all nice to be talking about animal sacrifices but what does it have to do with me i’m not killing animals at church right not but even today god called us to bring a sacrifice to him doesn’t he let me ask you what kind of sacrifice are we bringing are we to bring to god today as a believer i want you to turn to romans romans 12. i want you to look at verse one with me moments it’s so clear here the apostle paul speaking he says this therefore i urge you brethren by the mercies of god to present your what body as a living and holy what sacrifice acceptable to god which is your spiritual service of what guess what you are the sacrifice you are the sacrifice your whole life everything about you your life your breath all of that is to be poured out on the altar as a living sacrifice before god you are to come and offer yourselves body mind and soul to god and his purposes and what are god’s purposes in ephesians 5 2 calls us to this ephesians 5 2 says this god’s purpose is to walk in love just as christ also loved you and gave himself up for us a what offering and a sacrifice to god as a frequent goal see jesus demonstrated what it means to offer yourself as a living sacrifice in ephesians 5 2 it says that means you walk in love is no longer about you if you’re a living sacrifice you have died it is now about loving others just other people in the world but specifically he’s talking about god’s people god’s people the people that jesus loves where do we find god’s people the church right church see god calls us now to the church not the building but the people to walk in love in the church we you and i are called by our lord of hosts to sacrifice ourselves for the sake of the people that he loves you get that this is what jesus said in john 13 31 34. says this uh new commandments i give to you that you what love one another even as i have loved you that you also loved one another so let me ask you calvary how are you doing at that are you loving god’s people sacrificially you see today we’re not called to bring lambs and goats are we we’re called to bring ourselves our time our gifts our effort to deploy all of it not just the worst of it but the best of it in service of the lord of hosts so let’s just be really practical here are you always coming in late and in a hurry to leave are you not making an effort to talk or get to know anybody in the church because if you are doing that then you can’t be loving them can you does it make sense oh look i know people are limited i know your time is limited but the question is this are you giving the best of your time to god when was the last time you looked at your brother with love and you said you know what you can text me you can email me you can call me i want to do what i can to build you up so that you can be a hero for jesus christ what can i do to help you grow how can i serve you look some of you say i don’t feel connected i want to ask you instead of blaming the church ask yourself this what have you sacrifice to be connected to god’s people you sacrifice see as a living sacrifice god calls you not just me not just the pastor called you make sure that the living sacrifice of your life isn’t the blind and lame one it’s not the leftovers after spending the best of your energy and your time on yourselves what if you sacrifice for god’s people again i want to say what i said at the outset i don’t mean to sound negative or harsh many of you are commended or to be commended for your sacrifice i know there are people in this very church who i know are struggling with significant issues and you know what those people you can’t stop them from serving they’re my heroes they’re the first to volunteer for every ministry not because they necessarily love the ministry or feel feel called to it but they they love the church and they want to fill the need they’re willing to be living sacrifices for god on the other hand if you call yourself a christian and you’re not serving god in any way with your time and your effort in any way that is sacrificial to you then you have to consider is your sacrifice blind and lame before god some people in in uh in america who thinks that it’s enough to come to church one and a half hours a week you know sunday morning 11 to 12 30.

that’s god’s time that’s what i’m going to give to god and and the rest of the week i’m just kind of busy with my own stuff right i you know have to work and kids to raise you know tv shows things like that i know everybody’s different you know everybody has different situations but let’s just face it if general if you’re giving god one and a half hours a week out of your 168 hours a week and if that is the extent that which you give god you have to think about it is that a living sacrifice is that blind or is that lame my point is this we ought not to be trying to fit god in our schedule right instead being a living sacrifice means to make god and his people your schedule give god your schedule that’s the devotion that god demands and that’s the worthy sacrifice that you can bring to his altar see we should be stumbling all over ourselves shouldn’t we to to serve in every ministry in this curse the number of people i see in this room with a number of hands we should never struggle ever to fill any ministry we should never struggle to find people in nursery we should never struggle to find people to give rides or to make meals for people those are just the simple things and if you’re able to help in these ministries yet haven’t stepped up then don’t give excuses don’t wait for somebody to ask to come to ask you to serve it’s not fair to put all of that responsibility on other people instead go and present yourself for service to god our deacons should be flooded with volunteers begging to let them have the privilege to sacrifice for the lord of hosts so understand that if you’re a christian your sacrifice ought to cost you something it also has to be painful what happens if it doesn’t let’s read the next verse in malachi and find out in verse 9 of malachi 1 it says this but now will you intrigue god’s favor that he may be gracious to us with such an offering on your part will he receive any of you kindly says the lord of hosts this is what god saying to the israelites he’s saying you would bring offerings such as this and then expect me to answer your prayers you have some nerve god will give your prayers as much respect as you give his altar what are you saying god’s not done which is chewing out look in verse 10 oh that there was one among you who would shut the gates that you might not uselessly kindle fire on my altar i am not pleased with you said the lord of hosts nor will i accept an offering from you god would have you shut the gates shut the doors of the temple the church close the church see god saying this i’d rather have an empty church than to endure hypocritical worship and brother i don’t know about you but i never want to hear those words out of god’s mouth here at calvary ever amen god says this one of you please close the whole thing down because i don’t need you anyways he’s saying i don’t need you look at verse 11.

from the rising of the sun that is from the easternmost parts of the world even to its setting that is from the western most parts my name will be great among the nation and then every place incense is going to be offered through my name and a grain offering that is pure for my name will be great among the nations said the lord of hosts this is what god’s saying there will be a time where among the nations of the whole world pure offerings will be offered in my name this is a reference to the kingdom that christ will establish when he returns i believe this is an eschatological reference but you see this is what’s going on israel has always been god’s chosen nation right they prided themselves in that but god is saying you think i need your limb and blind offerings i don’t need your offerings at all my great my name will be great among all the nations of the world why should i put up with you maybe i should be looking at one of them instead of you you see god doesn’t need your worship or mine if we stop worshiping him what the very blocks would cry out see god doesn’t command us to worship him because he somehow needs it right he calls us to worship him because listen it’s for our own good to do so it’s a blessing and privilege to worship god and if you don’t give him the worship he’s do it is actually to your own detriment why because listen the blessing you will reap at the end is in some sense proportional to the sacrifice you give now it’s true it’s a biblical concept in luke 6 38 it says by your standard of measure it will be measured to you in return and in proverbs 3 9-10 it says honor the lord from your wealth and from the first of all your produce so your barns will be filled with plenty and your vasts will overflow with new wine see the sacrifice you’re giving to god now will one day be poured out into your lap in good measure press down shaken together runeth over right to pour out an unworthy sacrifice now that is to later miss out on god’s blessing that’s what god’s saying god’s saying you could be missing out on the blessing we wouldn’t want that but look at verse 12 the next two words are so sad in verse 12 god says but you but you but you are profaning it in that you say the table of the lord is defiled and as for its fruit its food is to be despised either gonna be the ones missing out in the end all right well back to our outline the first sign of unworthy worship is to bring a worthless sacrifice there’s a second way that we can we can bring an unworthy worship and that is to bring a weary attitude a weary attitude you find this in verses 13 to 14 and verse 13 it says this god saying to the israelites you also say my how tiresome it is and you disdainfully sniff at it says the lord of hosts now here god is bringing up a new charge it’s no longer merely about what they bring but it’s now about their attitude when they bring it and here’s their attitude you know this whole worship thing something that god’s calling us to do with the sacrifices serving god is so tedious every week is the same thing so much work and the israelites sniffed at it it means they turn up their nose without it come every week we do the same things we offer the same animals and sing the same songs this attitude his very attitude is what god is condemning we ought never to come to god’s house and to worship him with a ho-hum just kind of a bored with it attitude because coming with that attitude this is what it’s saying you’re saying god is boring you jesus sacrifice that might be have where we saw tired of thinking about it see we as christians we dare not come in any other way than with great deal and great fervor god is satisfied with nothing less than zeal for his name and in psalm 69 9 this is what the psalmist says it says zeal for your house consumed me zeal for your house consumed me romans 12 11 warns us not to lag behind in what intelligence or zeal but to say what right fervent in spirit serving the lord and brethren believe me god notices the fervency of your spirit and to the glory of his name and if your spirit isn’t fervent that’s what you do remember god’s remember god’s love you meditate again upon the cross before you behind you and the crown before you that’s what you think about that’s the key to the biblical deal and you see god doesn’t just want us to do the right actions he wants us to bring the right attitude when we worship him a right attitude a right attitude asks whenever you come in those doors you say god what can i do for you and your people this morning it’s a question that should be on your lips and on your hearts whenever you walk in what can i do for these people how can i talk to them how can i encourage them how can i find some time during the week to spend with them how can i use my gifts and my abilities to build up your church the body of christ is not your attitude every week is that what’s in your mind every week if not then we need to reflect on whether we’re bringing a weary attitude towards god god warns us if we bring a weary attitude we’ll slowly become more and more brazen in our disrespect for him go back to verse 13 picking up in the middle of the verse verse 13 says this and verse 13 of malachi 1.

says and you bring what is taken by robbery and what is lame or sick so you bring the offering should i receive that from your hand says the lord now in this passage we see lame or sick again but there’s one more thing in this one element in this passage that’s new and that is things that are taken by by robbery taken by force this probably refers to things that were stolen they were going and stealing their neighbor’s unblemished lamb and then sacrificing that on the altar see i don’t want to give up my own stuff right i’m gonna go steal something from my neighbor and bring that to god that’s outrageous let that sin against their neighbor to steal their animal to steal the best of their flock and then they’re gonna go and present that to god as if he doesn’t know as if he doesn’t care i mean is that evil is that foolish they’re unwilling to make any sacrifices for god themselves they’re fine with their neighbor doing it and they’re fine with stealing from their neighbor wronging their neighbor do it that’s the opposite of love that’s not loving your neighbor the opposite of that and that’s what having a weary attitude will do for you it doesn’t matter just bring anything go over there and take this stuff i forget that god is an avenger of wrongdoing they lost all their fear of god finally people with these weary and disdainful attitudes will not only become raisin their disrespect willing even to cheat their neighbors but eventually they’ll become willing to cheat god himself this is an interesting verse go look at it in verse 14. this is our last verse today says this but cursed be the swindler who has a male in his flock and vows it sacrifices a blemished animal to the lord stop right there see this is a picture of a man who you know he needs something right he maybe there’s something going on in his life and he prays to god that god would help him right so god fulfill his need and as the custom of the time he would sometimes make a vow and say you know if you do this for me god i will give you the sacrifice as a sign of my thankfulness as a as an offering of thanksgiving so god in his goodness accomplishes whatever it is that man wants whatever he prays for but then when it’s time to fulfill his vow to god the man now thinks oh well i don’t want to bring the best one over here um i got what i wanted now so why don’t i just bring the blemished animal and this is what he’s talking about he’s gonna bring the blemished animal as thanksgiving to what the lord has graciously blessed him not now is that not wrong is that not an evil thing to do the man did not have to make the vow but then after tasting the goodness of god he responds with ingratitude he’s only thinking about his own bank account right so this man acts in bad faith to god and just brings a whatever sacrifice breaking his vow to god and cheating god this is the heart of a deeply ungrateful and selfish man this man will listen you will gladly take from god’s hand blessing right and benefits you’ll gladly take that but when it comes time to give thanks and devotion and sacrifice nowhere to be found not willing to sacrifice anything of value he just wants god to give him what he wants that’s the evil heart that we’re looking at here and we’re no different when we come to our church and we look constantly only to receive from god as we rightly do but then it never crosses our mind to think about what we can give at thanksgiving it has devotion to god and if that’s us what have we forgotten look at the end of verse 14. what have we forgotten here god just makes it clear here in verse 14 for i am a great king says the lord of hosts and my name is what fear among the nations do you believe that god is a great king that he is the lord of hosts of heaven you fear the name of god then let us not dare to give him unworthy worship and let’s remember daily the great love that god has displayed for us in the cross in the past and in the crown in the future and let us have a joyful and zealous attitude to continually bring before god sacrifices that are costly and worthy of his great name the lord of hosts let’s pray god we are here for you in this church we’re not here for any other reason we’re here to worship you and give you the devotion that you deserve so awaken in our hearts a longing for you a zeal for you that we would never again bring blemish sacrifices to your altar but that we would strive to bring the the worthiest sacrifices that we can bring whatever we bring we know it’s not enough however we serve we can never serve enough we’re not trying to repay you but lord we want to show thanks we want to worship you in a worthy way help us to be a church full of your zealous servants who have given our lives for you as living sacrifices help us to be ready to do your will as you call on us to work in your church to build your kingdom in jesus name amen
April 2, 2017
Worshipping God

Answers Bible Curriculum Year 2 Quarter 4 Lesson 11

This week in Sunday school, we turn to the book of Malachi. What did the last Old Testament prophet have to say to Israel regarding the worship of Yahweh? How were the Jews of Malachi’s day demonstrating hypocrisy and apathy in their worship? What truths were those Jews failing to understand? And what must we learn lest we fall into the same pattern? We’ll consider these questions and more.

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so we’re actually going to examine the whole book all the verses over this week and next week I want to find out what was the last word that God sent to his prophet to give to Israel and how is that word relevant for us today here is our outline for today’s class we’re going to first examine the introduction to the book of Malachi well then look at Malachi’s rebuke to Israel’s priesthood well then consider out Malachi’s more general rebukes to the people of Israel and will finish by considering application of this first part of Malachi as a salute blessing on this time Yahweh God you are worthy of all glory and that’s something that’s easy to repeat God well at the same time loving idols in our hearts god I pray that the this great word that you gave to the Prophet Malachi would pierce her own hearts it would convict were necessary and it would encourage and that we would be giving pure worship before you that we’d be enjoying you today not with any sort of secret sin in our hearts but Lord trusting you and believing that your way is good and then waiting for your reward okay that you’d help me to be able to explain this word and I pray that you bless our time together amen okay so please open your Bibles to Malachi one first chapter Malachi so if you’re using hbu Bible that’s page 9 50 Alec I chapter one request we’re just going to read the first five verses as we look at the opening word of Malachi so Malachi 1 vs.

1 25 page 9 50 in the pew Bible all along as I read please the Oracle of the word of Yahweh to Israel through Malachi I loved you says Yahweh but you say how have you loved us what’s not Esau Jacob’s brother declares Yahweh yet I have loved Jacob but I have hated esau and I have made his mountains a desolation and appointed his inheritance for the Jackals of the wilderness though Edom says we’ve been beaten down but we will return and build up the ruins thus says Yahweh of hosts they may build but I will tear down and Men will call them the wicked territory and the people toward whom Yahweh is indignant forever your eyes will see this and you will say Yahweh be magnified beyond the border of Israel okay just a short little section let’s observe notice the very first words of the prophecy of Malachi to Israel Yahweh says I have loved you I have loved you but immediately there’s a questioning response from Israel how have you loved us God replies by pointing to the example of Jacob and Esau even though Esau was Jacob’s brother and the firstborn of Isaac God reminds Israel I did not choose Esau but I chose you and remember God’s declaration about these two men before their births the declaration that God made to Rebecca at Genesis 25-23 God said two nations are in your womb and two peoples will be separated from your body and one people shall be stronger than the other and the older shall serve the younger Esau was that older son Jacob was the younger yeah the prophecy was that esab would serve his brother now in Genesis 25 notice the terms love and hate were not used but they are used here in Malachi God says I have loved Jacob I loved him in the past i’m still loving him but i have hated esau and as you would have seen this historically the nation that came from Esau the nation of Edom experience the blessings that Israel did as God’s chosen nation the land of edom to the southeast of Judah that the map here is a little bit misleading because this is post exile Palestine I post return from exile so Edom would have actually been a little bit further down here you can see where my mouse is pointing but the land of Edom to the southeast of Judah was mostly rocky and barren it was not a fertile land like the Land of Israel was the people of it Edom did not know or follow yahweh nor did they have his temple moreover in the time of Israel’s Kings Edom was often defeated by Judah and put into subjection the kings of Judah forced Edom to give tribute and military support Edom was never a great Kingdom and seldom an independent Kingdom they were often in subjection to Judah and when Israel and Judah were judged severely for their sin with Babylonian conquest in exile Edom also experienced judgment edem to was conquered by Babylon and brought very low some surviving eventually moved from their original land to some of the territory vacated by the exiled Jews which is why in the map you see that the the territory of ado Mia is basically in the southern portion of Judah oh we’re Judah originally was and here’s the post exhale territory small territory around Jerusalem the they moved into the land that was formerly inhabited by the Jews and perhaps some of the Jews notice this and they say what’s going on with didn’t God promised that that um we would be a special people and that the the descendants of Esau the older would serve the younger and God tells the Jews I have loved you and not eat him look at what I’ve done to eat him and even now as they attempt to rebuild as he goes on in a latter part of this introduction to say even now as they attempt to rebuild I will make their efforts useless God also tells Israel you will see what I will further due to eat them and you will glorify me you will see it and you will glorify me and that’s a sure promise we should note that Eden’s behavior historically has deserved the hatred of God the descendants of Edom where idolatrous like their father when the people visual came up from Egypt to Canaan and the oppose them and would not let them pass through the land of Edom Edom attacked and rated Israel various times there are Israel’s history and when judah fell to the Babylonians Edom rejoiced over Judas fall and helped Babylon capture many fleeing Judeans throughout the Old Testament God has acknowledged Eden’s continual wickedness and foretold judgment on the nation of Edom so this is how God through Malachi starts this prophecy Israel I have loved you uniquely and even as you see edem remember I have loved you not eat them but that question from Israel how have you loved us is that a genuine desire for clarification or is it something more sinister we’ll come back to that question I think we’ll get a better sense as we read through more of Malachi let’s now go to the second section let’s look at what God has to say towards the priests of Israel in Malachi’s time now this is going to be a longer section we’re going to read from Malachi 1 verse 6 to Malachi 2 verse 9 right so Malachi 162 Alec I to verse 9 what does gon have to say to the priests starting in verse 6 he always says a son honors his father and a servant his master then if I’m a father where’s my honor and if i’m a master where is my respect says Yahweh of hosts to you Oh priests who despise my name but you say how have we despised your name you are presenting defiled food on my altar but you say how have we defiled you and that you say the table of Yahweh is to be despised but when you present the blind for sacrifice this is not evil and when he present the lame in the sick are lame and sick is it not evil why not offer it to your governor would he be pleased with you or what he receive you kindly says Yahweh of hosts but now will you not entreat God’s favor that he may be gracious to us was such an offering on your part will he receive any of you kindly says Yahweh of hosts hope that they were one among you who would shut the gates that you might not uselessly kindle fire on my altar I am not pleased video says Yahweh of hosts nor will I accept an offering from you from the rising of the Sun even to its setting my name will be great among the nations and in every place incense is going to be offered to my name and a grain offering that is pure for my name will be great among the nations says Yahweh posts but you are profaning it and that you say the table of the Lord is defiled and as for its fruit its food is to be despised you also say my how tired some it is and you disdainfully sniff at it says Yahweh of hosts and you bring what was taken by robbery and what is lame or sick so you bring me offering should I receive that from your hand says Yahweh but cursed be the swindler who has a maleness flock and vows it but sacrifices a blemished animal to the Lord for I am am a great King says Yahweh of hosts and my name is feared among the nation’s and now this commandment is for you o priests if you do not listen and if you do not take it to heart to give honor to my name says Yahweh of hosts and I will send the curse upon you and I will curse your blessings and indeed I have cursed them already because you are not taking it to heart behold i’m going to rebuke your offspring and i will spread refuse on your faces the refuse of your feasts and you will be taken away with it then you will know that i have sent this commandment to you and my covenant may continue with Levi says Yahweh of hosts my covenant with him was one of life in peace I gave them to him as an object of reverence so he revered me and stood in awe of my name true instruction was in his mouth and unrighteousness was not found on his lips he walked with me in peace and uprightness and he turned many back from iniquity for the lips of the priest should preserve knowledge and many should see construction from his mouth for he is the messenger of the of Yahweh of hosts but as for you you have turned aside from the way you’ve caused many to stumble by the instruction you’ve corrupted the Covenant of Levi says Yahweh of hosts so I also have made you despise and a base before all the people just as you are not keeping my ways but are showing partiality in the instruction oh wow let’s observe this section I noticed we have many questions here both from God to the priests and also from the priests to god but God asked the question first he says if a father deserves honor and a master respect where is my honor and my respect from you priests who despise my name now that’s quite a question than quite an indictment on the priests you mean the priests of Israel those who are responsible for mediating the relationship of Yahweh to the people and giving God the prescribed worship these priests actually despise Yahweh they hate and treat Yahweh is of little importance we hear a question from the priests and response how have we despised your name and God tells him you’ve you presented defiled food on my altar and precess further how have we defiled you how is the food been defiled and God sets them you say you priests say that the table of Yahweh’s to be despised you treat my table as contemptuous and of little account and we see number of details about the priests offerings following God’s eyes you present the blind the lame the sick even stolen animals even animals that were obtained by swindling as sacrifices to me I God asked twice is that not evil what is the general requirement for sacrifices according to law of Moses yeah Rob yeah I mean there were different regulations depending on the sacrifice but generally they were all to be unblemished usually an unblemished mail but unblemished there’s no imperfection in it there’s nothing physically that you can point to and say there’s an issue with this animal that was necessary for the sacrifices but the priests are not giving unblemished sacrifices here then God even asks if a human governor would be pleat where would a human governor be pleased to receive any of these blemished animals from you of course the expected answer is no governor’s not gonna be like oh thank you for sending me this blind animal or offering this animal on my honor and verse 9 God asks further will you do all this and then entreat my favor and expect to be received kindly what wish does God expressed in verse 10 God’s a he wish would happen yeah he says I swish the whole temple worship would be cancelled I wish you’d shut the doors were meant for anybody else from coming in or doing any sacrifices just cancel all this useless worship I wish that what happened God says and he says bluntly to them I am not pleased with you nor will I accept an offering from you that’s a big deal of God says I’m not going to accept an offering from you notice the word for at the beginning of verse 11 we always like to point out these transition words the word for indicate that what follows is a reason for what was just said and what is the supplied reason well God says for my name will be great among the nations in every place and pure offerings will be offered to me everywhere now this would have been a surprising word to the Jews why would this promise be surprising God says in the future my name will be great among the nations there will be offerings among the nations pure offerings before me why is it surprising is that a hand yeah part of it first of all the system of sacrifices as God ordained through Moses it was to be offered by the Levitical priests and by the people of the Jews but also the location God says you have to offer the sacrifices in a certain location that I choose location was Jerusalem and yet in this promise it says among the nations I’m going to be feared and among those nations I’m going to receive sacrifices there will be sacrifices from those nations all throughout the world there will be pure sacrifices to Yahweh so this is a surprising promise and it’s also a great contrast to what is currently going on in Israel and God returns in verses 12 to 13 to the priests profanation he reports another evil statement of the priests and verse 13 got to move my slide let me just do that in verse 13 e reports another evil statement the priests who they say when they say my how tired some it all is how tiring and burdensome is this sacrificing and worship for Yahweh God pronounces a curse on those who promised perfect animals but then give blemished animals instead and then God gives another reason for he says I am a great king or it could also be translated I will be a great king and my name is or my name will be feared among the nation’s the verb is not supplied in the Hebrew the word is or will be so it has to be inferred from the context it could be present times it could be future tense God says I am a great king or I will be a great king and my name is or will be feared among the nations that’s just the end of chapter 1 he has more to say about the priests God gives a warning to the priests in Malachi 21 22 he says you please better take to heart what I’m saying and give me my due honor all right will curse you and your blessings what’s this all about I will curse your blessings remember that the priests cannae often prayed prayers of blessing for the people and for themselves they would give benedictions they would give a prayer of blessing but God says I’m going to curse those prayers when you bless I’m make your blessing into a curse this by the way is the opposite of what famous old testament incident where did we see the opposite curses turned into blessings if you remember when israel’s going into the promised land we had Bay lack the pagan king who won in Israel to be cursed he hired bail him to do so but every time Balon spoke he gave a blessing instead but now we’re seeing the reversal of that God says you wicked priests I’m going to turn your blessings into curses and God says this actually this curse is already in effect because the priests are already not taking God’s words to heart further promises to rebuke the offspring of the priests the descendants of the priests I’m going to bring them in a shame and dishonor I’m going to spread the refuse from your feast on your faces you priest and I’m going to cause you priests to be taken away with the refuse now here is definitely a shocking image because the word refuse it’s translated in the NIV the King James Version ma esv as dung the hebrew word is the same one used in the Torah Moses law to describe the part of the sacrificial animal that contained the animals excrement and which had to be burned outside the camp that’s the same word for refuse here and God tells the priests of Israel I’m going to take the excrement of your sacrifices even the sacrifices that you give me in my feasts and I’m going to spread it on your faces I’m going to carry you away just like the excrement is carried away and burned that’s pretty shocking and what’s the expected result God says from all this verse 4 then you will know then you will know it i have sent this commandment to you that my covenant with levi may continue now Levi was one of the sons of Jacob from Levi’s line came Moses Aaron and all the priests Levi never served as a priest and the pastor talks about how how Levi was a faithful priest so understand this to be Levi himself this is referring to levis faithful priestly descendants and what behavior characterized these priests they reviewed Yahweh they acted righteously they gave God’s true instruction to turn the people back from iniquity and to Yahweh and as a result see with these priests experienced they experience life and peace from Yahweh they were blessed they were blessed by God for fulfilling their calling as priests faithfully but in contrast God says the priests and Malachi’s day you have turned aside from the righteous way you don’t keep it and you caused many to stumble by your twisted instruction you’ve corrupted the Covenant of Levi and then there’s a so in verse 9 it’s another transition word indicating a result for an effect of what was just said and what is the results of the priests behavior God says I have made you despise in the base before all the people you who do not keep my ways and show partiality in your teaching so not to observe here some serious indictments of Israel’s priests so let’s turn to the interpretation step down how should we characterize the attitude of Israel’s priests toward God yeah they don’t fear Him they don’t reverence him they treat God of little account they’re careless they are contemptuous they are apathetic toward God is not that important and why is this attitude monstrously inappropriate according to the passage with one reason and in the back right God emphasizes that he’s worthy of glory I’m a father I have a master but I’m not getting the honor in reverence that I deserve my name will be great among the nations but you’re not showing off my greatness you’re not treating me like I’m a great king even though I am a great king yeah that’s one reason what’s another reason remember had in Malachi begin he says I have loved you I have lucked you Israel but they’re not remembering God’s love they’re not appreciating they’re not giving thanks they’re not giving appropriate devotion based on God’s love to Israel even though he uniquely love them then it’s just God just Yahweh he’s not important presa attitude is inappropriate because of God’s love to israel because of the special covenant role that the priests have I mean that was a quite a privilege and a blessing to be called as God’s priests to be set apart as a Levitical priest and offer the sacrifice is them to draw near to God on behalf of the people but they treat it like it’s nothing they treat it like it’s not important in fact it’s burdensome to them and they pay no attention to God’s greatness His Majesty or his do glory and they act the way that they do and you noticed that God asks a lot of questions of the priests a lot of the things he says are presented in the form of questions what’s the point of these questions what’s God trying to show that a hand no okay we could premiere that a couple different ways but the one one reason that Nettie do so is to lead them to understand your behavior is not justified it’s unreasonable it doesn’t make sense you do all these things you treat my table as contemptuous and then you expect the sacrifices to be um accepted by me you expect that there am I asking that question them use trying to leave them understand that doesn’t make sense what are you gonna say Danny yeah yeah yeah I think that’s another reason for these questions and that’s another thing that we see that they don’t even realize their own sin I don’t even realize how guilty they are and God has to ask them have you thought about this do you realize what you’re doing do you think that this is going to be acceptable to me these questions these rhetorical questions they have easy answers but the answers are meant to convict they’re meant to point out sin meant to show the seriousness of what they’re doing before Yahweh as God’s priests now the priests respond to God’s questions sometimes what questions are their own but we should not think that priests were literally saying these things to God how are we to understand the words of the priests that are reported here it’s not like Malachi SAT between a discussion between God and the priest and he reported what the priest said so where are these workers of the priests coming from yeah Rob yeah this is in essence what they are saying we can these are the answers based on their actions and based on what’s going on in their hearts they may not literally say this to God but this is what they’re saying in their hearts and it’s proven by their actions so it’s not inappropriate for Malachi to report the answers of the priests in this way now considering what we learn about the priests actions and attitudes before God or maybe this is a different way to say what we said earlier the priests questions back to God like how we despise your name how do we defiled your altar how we defile you I showed the priests have a very low view of God and of his proper worship they don’t even realize how guilty they are it’s not like God says you’ve been despising my name and they say uh you know what you’re right then they don’t even acknowledge it even though they clearly have this attitude they ask questions as if they don’t even understand what’s going on what really we’ve we’ve done something you don’t like you don’t realize how guilty they are because they have such a low view of God got stresses to these priests that if they’re obedient like the earlier priests were they will experience God’s blessing but if they are not these priests will be cursed and shamed to the uttermost now what is this concept blessings and curses what does it sound like from earlier in the Old Testament yeah on the side right the general principle that sin brings consequences and repentance brings blessing where’s that principle most clearly illustrated in the Bible our most early Illustrated just go back to the law this is one of the basic aspects of visuals covenant God says I want to bless you you must be obedient but if you won’t be obedient I will curse you this is basic principle of the Covenant given by God to Israel and the principle also extends to the priests if you priests will follow me I will plus you but if you will not I will curse you God says the priests are already cursed because they’re not repentant now notice again the future promise given in Malachi 111 now what had the previous prophets some of the ones that we’ve looked at in the last month or two what are the previous prophets said regarding the gentile nations in the future what do the prophets declared about the gentile nations well one thing for sure is that some of them would be saved there’s a Reno go back to Isaiah and go back to some of the other prophets that talked about how there are nations called by God’s name and he’s going to bring them along with Israel to worship of him in Jerusalem and to true worship but there’s also prophecies of judgment prophecy of judgment on the Gentiles as enemies of Israel as those who would seek to harass shame or attack Israel and God says I’m going to judge them so we should already be aware that this there’s context this statement in Malachi about God being honored and given sacrifices among the nations we’ve already seen that the prophets they declare both that the nations of the world will be judged but also that a remnant of the nations will be saved and be brought in to worship of Yahweh with Israel now we might see this promise in Malachi 111 figuratively fulfilled by Gentile Christians in the present church age they say oh yeah isn’t that happening or other sure sacrifice is going to God throughout the world but i would agree I would agree with John MacArthur here an interpretation that this promise is actually part of the context the other Old Testament promises regarding the Gentiles role in the Messianic Kingdom in the Millennial Kingdom there will be worldwide worship but actually literal worship even offerings taking place among the gentile nations in the future so when Malachi is referring to here certainly there is something similar to that happening in the present church age but i believe malachite is actually talking about something special for the Millennial Kingdom but notice again is future pure worship of the Gentiles is set in contrast to the present defiled worship of the Jews that’s been a motif that we’ve seen throughout the prophets even the Old Testament you Jews are wicked and not giving me proper worship but the Gentiles certain Gentiles do or certain Gentiles will of course that’s that’s a great shame because of anyone the Jews ought to be offering the proper worship and it’s sooo surprising that the Gentiles would do so now one of the evils that God condemns the priests for here is the failure to faithfully teach God’s Word is this or minus many other section of scripture where the priests of the spiritual leaders of Israel do not faithfully teach God’s Word you may remember it’s one of the things that got indicted through his prophets of Israel and Judah before the Exile where he talks about reasons why a judgment is coming and one of the things he says often is your priests and your profits are corrupt they don’t declare my word or when they prophesied they declare their own word for gain so we’ve already seen this problem in the Old Testament but of course we can also go to the New Testament because consider what Jesus indictment of the Pharisees and the scribes in his own day he says they teach as doctrine the traditions of man they do not faithfully teach God’s word has been a continual problem in Israel it’s a problem here in Malachi and it’s going to continue to be a problem when Jesus comes when the Messiah actually arrives the spiritual leaders that priests included they don’t know or love Yahweh and they don’t faithfully teach his word so we’ve seen a number of things from this passage here when God’s Word of the priests but if the priests the spiritual leaders of Israel are so corrupt what would we expect would be the result for the common people yeah they’re going to be led astray or where they’re already going astray they’re not going to be brought back we expect to see the corruption of the priests reflected in the common people so let’s see if that’s the case let’s look at the third section of malachi now this actually going to be two different sections we’ll take them one at a time first let’s look at malachi to 10 to 17 and hear what God has to say to the people in general people who Israel in general so Malachi to 10 down to 17 starting in verse 10 do we not all have one father has not one God created us why do we deal treacherously each against his brother so as to profane the covenant of our fathers Judah has dealt treacherously and an abomination has been committed in Israel and in Jerusalem for Judah has profaned the sanctuary of Yahweh which he loves and has married the daughter of a foreign God as for the man who does this may Yahweh cut off from the tents of Jacob everyone who awakes and answers or who presents an offering to Yahweh of hosts this is another thing you do you cover the altar of Yahweh with tears with weeping and with groaning because you no longer regards the offering or accepts it with favor from your hand yet you say for what reason because Yahweh has been a witness between you and the wife of your youth against whom you have dealt treacherously though she is your companion and your wife by covenant but not one is done so who has a remnant of the Spirit and what did that one do while he was seeking a godly offspring take heed then to your spirit and let no one deal treacherously against the wife of your youth for I hate divorce says Yahweh the God of Israel and him who covers his garment with wrong says Yahweh of hosts so take heed to your spirit that you do not deal treacherously you read your way with your words yet you say however we we read him and that you say everyone who does evil is good in the side of your way and he delights in them or where is the god of justice alright let’s observe this section notice we have more questions to start speaker ass don’t we all have one father and one creator god and notice there’s a shift here from the oops I guess I put this on my previous slide so notice there’s a shift here from the you priest to the we all right think I mess up my slides here I’ll be a part in that but nurses are shipped here from the you priest to the we and who is the the we that God is speaking or that the speaker is speaking up here who’s the we had people visual and Malachi has one of the Jews he would include himself in that so that’s why he can say we do the dude I and the Jews don’t we all have this one common condition we will have one father and one Creator God expect an answer is of course yes we do and then there’s a follow-up question if so why do we deal treacherously with one another and profane the covenant of our fathers and what is this treachery and abomination that the people have committed against one another well he tells us they’ve intermarried with foreigners they’ve joined themselves the daughter of a foreign God rather than loving their brethren rather than loving their creator he says that people have joined themselves the daughter before God and profaned God’s sanctuary and then notice a curse another curse pronounced in verse 12 he says may Yahweh cut off from Israel everyone who does this even those who still present their offerings to God and remember that the phrase cut off as using the Old Testament it indicates death but the Lord put to death those who do this and God brings up another issue it says you also weep and mourn over your sacrifices because you no longer see the Lord’s favor or his answering is answering you and you ask for what reason in other words why aren’t you our sacrifices anymore oh god why don’t you answer our prayers why don’t you give us the things that we’re asking for God’s answer is because I have witnessed your treachery towards the wives of your youth your wives where your companion by covenant and you divorce them now verses 15 and 16 are a little bit tricky and if you were following a different translation as i read it may notice it was quite different verse 15 can be translated as it is in the new American Standard as a qualification no one who had a remnant of the Spirit sought a divorce since that one was seeking a godly offspring but the verse can also be translated in another way as a further explanation of the evil of divorce and this is the way the King James Version in E is vague ESV take the sense verse 15 would say did not God with a portion of the Spirit make them one that is make husband and wife one since God was seeking a godly offspring as you can see the different of the senses who’s the one who has the remnant of the Spirit and who is seeking the godly offspring the translation could be that it’s the righteous man or it could be that it’s God himself who’s the one bringing them together with the spirit and who’s seeking the godly offspring verse 16 also can be translated a couple different ways new American Standard and the King James Version have God saying I hate divorce and those who cover themselves with wrong but the ESV an NIV on the other hand they have the verse saying those who hate and divorce their wives cover themselves with violence they’re kind of the same issues in the previous verse who’s the one doing actions is it God saying this about the people or is it God sink or I’m sorry is God saying he hates divorce or is God saying the people who hate and divorce their wives they do this thing they cover themselves with violence either way whichever sense we take these these verses I’m not going to try and wade through and figure out which is our try and discuss which one is the proper interpretation here certainly we see emphasize how seriously gone takes divorce it’s not like we’re unsure what he’s talking about here God is emphasizing just how evil divorce is and it counsels Israel to take heed take heed you are acting treacherously when you do this don’t act righteously take heed and finally God tells the people that they have wearied him with their words and people ask again how have we we read him what did we say that offended you Oh Yahweh God tells him you say everyone who does evil is good in the sight of Yahweh and he still delights in him and you also say where is the god of justice let’s talk about interpretation again what is the author’s point in bringing up the Jews common ancestry and heritage why ask those questions it’s at a hand no well no okay thought it’s like an well and the thing that comes right after those questions is a word about betrayal about treachery the author is stressing that there’s something about your heritage that means that you shouldn’t be treacherous to one another you’re all one family you’re all one people your brethren you’ve all been given a special dignity and privileges not just because God created you as a special creation has man as men and women but also as this special possession as the people of Israel you want not to be doing harm to one another you want not to betray one another then surprisingly he says the way that they’re betraying them is by intermarriage you’re betraying your people by intermarriage with the daughters before God why would this be considered an act of treachery okay your words are a little bit quiet Jos I couldn’t quite hear the last part of what you said can you say that part again only partially hear what you’re saying but I think I heard part of it maybe if I rephrased it I’ve got along the line to what you’re saying certainly we know that the they are corrupting themselves and their own families these individuals who intermarry with idolaters intermarry with the women who served foreign gods but that’s not going to stay compartmentalize it’s not going to be all right there’s just one idolatrous family in Israel there’s just these different ideologies families and they’re just gonna curse themselves now it has an effect on the other people they bring their corruption into the rest of Israel they have an influence on the other people not just because of their actions not just because their sin is going to have consequences naturally for what they do but as different segments of Israel take part in this in this sin they bring God’s judgment on the whole people so by sinning by the individual sinning in these intermarriages they’re actually harming the whole people of God and they’re bringing judgment on the people of God and certainly you can see a parallel I think here between Israel and the church where God says don’t you know a little leaven leavens the whole up of dough that’s one of the reasons why the church has to take them seriously why the church practices church discipline as it does because there is a sense that unrepentant sin within God’s people is a betrayal of God’s people even if it’s just on an individual basis it has an effect on the whole group so it was indeed a treachery and act of treachery even though they should have done this to their brethren now another thing that he said that this intermarriage was that it was a profanation it was a profaning of God sanctuary how is it that pagan intermarriage would corrupt or profane God’s temple you yeah okay that could definitely be one of the ways with an evil worship the idolatrous worship gets mixed in with the worship of Yahweh and even that worship is brought into the temple as possible certainly it could also be that the people actually are bringing unholy family members into the temple complex they have children or if they have a spouse who doesn’t actually follow yahweh and yet they bring them into the temple space that’s defiling but even as you were saying Rob came to the people don’t bring unclean people into the temple space they do bring their sin and even if they do everything right within the temple space but they sin right outside the temple space that’s still corrupted God can’t have his holy temple in a land of unholiness if the people are sinful the temple is going to be corrupted and God’s oh holy God his dwelling place can’t be in a land of corruption in a land of sin so there intermarriage is actually defiling God’s dwelling place now God clearly taking a different question here god clearly condemns divorce in this passage but if you remember just recently we’re talking about how God ordained he called for divorce in Ezra and Nehemiah particularly when it came to her yeah I’ll just say that so why is it that God called for divorce there or seem to prescribe divorce there but condemns divorce here what’s the difference hidden you right yeah it certainly we know that the situation in ezra nehemiah specifically dealt with people who had married foreigners god says you were two separate from them and wasn’t just that one time in ezra but we see a nehemiah also it says what do they do when these different reforms are happening in Israel twice it says they separated themselves from foreigners I think that phrase is another indication there were more divorces taking place and I think you’re right Daniel is the lesser of two evils there was what um even though God loves marriage and he hates divorce he prescribed that issue would not join themselves to idolaters through marriage and if they had that they would divorce them but that’s not the situation here in Alec I there’s no indication that people are divorcing because they’re trying to follow yahweh they’re trying not to intermarry with foreigners as we saw even just earlier in this section no they are intermarrying with foreigners so what kind of divorces are they having while these are unjustified divorces these are divorces of Jew with Jim and God says did this is treacherous you are going against the Covenant that you made with the companion of your youth I hate that you were covering yourself with violence it’s like you are you’re a murderer and you’ve just got blood all over your clothes that’s what your divorce is like to me now there are on some variations in verses 15 and 16 but what is the connection between refusing divorce and seeking a godly offspring can you say that last phrase again yeah I think you’re right I think this is something that we all appreciate especially in our day with the prevalence of divorce but divorce counteracts or works against the teaching of God’s Word a parents both mother and father are to be teaching the children not only what they say but also in how they live and when you divorce not only do you remove one of those teachers and supply them with someone maybe who’s not going to be committed to teaching but you also you set a terrible example you on the one hand you say we’re supposed to be faithful to our covenants because God is a faithful God we were to be holy because he is holding and yet you’re not living in a holy way you’re doing a quick great act of treachery it’s possible also that and I think some commentators go along the set of lines that the people were divorcing their Jewish wives in order to marry foreign women obviously that’s going to have a terrible effect on I’m a godly seed that’s not going to result in the teaching and inculcation of godly principles but even if they didn’t go that far but that wasn’t the reason for the divorce clearly those who value marriage and that one to treat their spouse as well I want to have godly children they know the value of keeping their marriage healthy keeping it together honoring your spouse’s for the Lord’s sake and for the sake of their children being blessed it’s just a truism families that have god-honoring marriages tend to raise better children broken marriages they result in great spiritual harm to the children so whether it’s God intending the godless eat here or whether it’s the godly ones certainly those things I think go together if we want to be or if a person wants to be your spiritual blessing to his children and have those children be spiritual blessings to himself and to others then he must work hard for the health of his marriage he must take heed that he does not betray the wife of his youth not just through divorce but also in other actions not be treacherous towards her of course that’s true for wise to their husbands also now notice all this is taking place is intermarriage and this divorcing and yet the people are weeping and asking God why don’t you regard our sacrifices anymore and so we see the same thing with the people as we receive the priests they don’t they don’t understand or they don’t appreciate that their acts are so evil before God that God’s going to be affected by them and they think so lowly of God’s standards and of God’s holiness that they don’t take their sin seriously they don’t even notice it they don’t even appreciate it or if they know that they are sinning they think that they can offer these sacrifices in the temple and that’s just going to make everything good think they can cover their sins with proper external worship the people like the priests are shockingly ignorant of their own guilt and furthermore in state and verse 17 with these wearisome statements that people presents before God actually let me ask this what what aspect of God are the people blaspheming by their statements in verse 17 yes hmm yeah so it’s an assault on the goodness with a justice of god he must be a god who’s okay with this in because I think you’re right Steve as they’re pointing out oh we don’t see any justice so that must be a sign of God’s character rather than realizing that God is being patient and gracious with them over their sin they take his lack of judgment as a sign that he’s not he’s not that serious vasan he’s not just he’s not good those who cook those continued people can continue to sin without fear he’s just a God who winks at sin of course this is one of the reasons why we must never look to our circumstances to understand God’s will say well things are going well God must approve no that’s not necessarily the case must pay attention what God actually said in the Bible because by making the statements that they did they were actually blast naming the character of God God’s not a God of justice now what’s interesting is we don’t have time to look at this today but the statements are the verses that come right after this section where they question whether God’s a God of justice or not the same as they come right after this section are all about the future judgment of God Malachi 3126 it’s all about the coming judgment how God’s going to purify and he’s going to judge evil so much to the opposite of what they were actually saying about God God says you haven’t seen my justice but it’s coming I’ve been patient with you actually running a little bit low on time so I’m just going to summarize the last section that we were going to kind of look at we certainly see that the people’s behavior is evil when it comes to their marriages they intermarried with foreigners they also pursue divorces and betrayal of their marriage covenants it’s not just that and Malachi 3 7 215 you hear how the people are not bringing their tithes and offerings to God’s temple remember those are important because the ties it just means a tenth but there were a series of ties and Israel series of giving regulations so it was actually more like twenty five percent thirty percent of their goods they were to bring them give them to the Lord so that the temple servants and the alright so that the work of the temple could go on and the Levites and the priests they didn’t have to work their own fields and also the the government and Israel could minister to the poor but these people weren’t bringing in their tithes and offerings they weren’t bringing in the full thing God says you’re robbing me will a man Rob gone yet you’re robbing me and God challenges them if you would only trust me test me by bringing in the full tide and see how generous I can be to you see me see if I don’t open the windows of heaven to you and just give you abundant blessing but as it is you won’t trust me and therefore I must curse you I must curse you I must make you not receive the benefit that you could have your your land is not as productive as it could be you can’t be satisfied with what you have and you’re cursed and the people God reports the people in this lecture last section saying again oh it’s futile to serve God you can get away with sin you can just keep on doing what you want it’s actually in vain or seeking God is a vain thing to do but God emphasizes to them no actually if you would only turn you would see how profitable it is to serve God I’m trying to show you for your own benefit that you need to return to me but you won’t believe me and therefore you’re cursed God tells them to repent and it gives them an example of how to repent in returning to giving the tithes and offerings that they were required to do but they won’t do it and so God says your judgment and shame is coming you are cursed but not all not all the Israelites there were there were some faithful ones among them and then there’s another section of Malachi which we’ll look at next week as well we’re God makes it a differentiation he says this is what’s going to happen to those who are faithful they are going to be blessed they’re going to be vindicated even while the whole nation is not even while the people as a whole stubbornly refuse to follow God the nation I mean the individuals who are faithful they’ll be blessed so as a whole just looking at the spiritual State of Israel in these verses we see it’s very much like some of the situation’s we saw in ezra nehemiah people stubborn they don’t want to give up their sins they don’t want to trust the Lord as a whole they are not willing to follow yahweh it may be less obvious about their sim than they were before they may not be sacrificing their children to Molech they may not be bowing down to worship bail but the way they treat Yahweh and the way they treat Yahweh’s commander arts as a whole still have not been changed and not circumcised on the heart I don’t love God even though he has loved them and been good to them uniquely know there’s more to say about Malachi but we’re gonna leave that till next week there’s a word about what God thing to do in the future for the people of Israel and involves both restoration but also judgment the day of the Lord we’ll talk about that next time hopefully you can see that what we’re talking about today has obvious application for us because we are those who would call ourselves God’s people have been brought into God’s people and we live lives at worship not only in what we do in church but also in our obedience but do we present impure worship to God because that won’t be acceptable God hates hypocrisy God hates when people say oh god please hear us God we’re your people God please bless us on the one hand and on the other hand they have known sin in their lives they’re not they’re living materially they’re not they’re not willing to give their goods for the for the service of God they betray they they deal evilly with their spouses that says that’s not going to be acceptable to me so here are just some questions to leave us with today questions for you to think about some application of this this sobering word from alki do you present impure worship to God do you go through the motions even here in church today knowing that your life is not lined up with God’s will as he explains it in the Bible number to do you believe that your good deeds an external acts of worship can cover up your contempt for God your lack of love for him your idolatry to something in this world number three you also think that you will get away with your sin God doesn’t see doesn’t care he just wink sits in do you also malign the Justice of God have you forgotten number for God’s unique love to you the good that he’s done you have you concluded like the people of Israel did and they’re evil that it’s vain to serve God now number five if you have repented do you love Jesus Christ for taking away the curse of your sin this curse that your sin deserves and instead giving you every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places as the Apostle Paul explains in Ephesians so these are some words for you to think about I can say next week we’ll finish up with malachi will finish with the Old Testament you have any questions or comments please email it to me let me close in prayer gotta thank you for this word but we do not want to give we do not want to attempt to offer impure worship to you to say we are your people even while we don’t love you and don’t submit to your commands God we know that we are weak we know that we can do like Peter did betray you deny you even when we say that will go with you even to death but Lord where we’ve done that please restore us we know what you said to Peter you said do you love me and God we we want to love you so where our love has been lacking or pray that you would change us and Lord where we have failed restores but Lord we do love you forgive us for our sins I just walk in purity so that we can be your lights and so we can see your name glorified indeed among the nation’s create your bless the rest of the server state for Calvary and grow them in Jesus name Amen

March 12, 2017
The Prophet Malachi: The Crisis, or Regularity Without Examination

December 8, 2002