Studies in the book of Malachi #3

Transcription of the third episode in the series Studies in the Book of Malachi brought to you by Pastor Rusty Tardo.

You can listen to it here.

"The last book in the Old Testament.

Malachi chapter 1, beginning in verse...

Well, you know what we want to do?

We want to do all of chapter 1 tonight. So we're going to begin in verse 6, and let's read it.

It's only 14 verses.

We've already covered the first five, so praise God.

There's not a whole lot left, but let's look at it, because even though it doesn't occupy a whole lot of space, there's a lot of good things here in Malachi that he deals with. In verse 6, he says, As a son honoreth his father, and a servant his master, if then I be a father, where is mine honor?

And if I be a master, where is my fear?

Sayeth the Lord of hosts unto you, O priests, that despise my name. And you say, wherein have we despised thy name? You offer polluted bread upon mine altar.

And you say, wherein have we polluted thee? In that you say, the table of the Lord is contemptible.

And if you offer the blind for sacrifice, is it not evil? And if you offer the lame and sick, is it not evil? Offer it now unto thy governor.

Will he be pleased with thee, or accept thy person, sayeth the Lord of hosts?

And now I pray you, beseech God that he will be gracious unto us.

This hath been by your means.

Will he regard your persons, sayeth the Lord of hosts? Who is there even among you that would shut the doors for naught? Neither do you kindle fire on mine altar for naught.

I have no pleasure in you, sayeth the Lord of hosts. Neither will I accept an offering at your hand. Far from the rising of the sun, even unto the going down of the same, my name shall be great among the Gentiles.

And in every place, incense shall be offered into my name, and a pure offering.

For my name shall be great among the heathen, sayeth the Lord of hosts.

But you have profaned it, and that you say, the table of the Lord is polluted, and the fruit thereof, even his meat is contemptible. Ye said also, Behold, what a weariness is it? And you have snuffed at it, sayeth the Lord of hosts, and you brought that which was torn, and the lame and the sick, thus you brought an offering.

Should I accept this of your hands, sayeth the Lord? But cursed be the deceiver which hath in his flock a male, and voweth, and sacrifices unto the Lord a corrupt thing. For I am a great king, sayeth the Lord of hosts, and my name is dreadful among the heathen. Well, you know, interesting verses, but maybe we don't realize again how contemporary Malachi's message is.

In these verses, Malachi turns his attention to the priests, and he addresses this message to them.

Now, we don't know a whole lot about Malachi.

We've mentioned that before. Who he was, his heritage, who his father was, and where he came from, and so on and so forth. But the way he addresses the priests in this passage, and not only here, but also in chapter two, notice how he talks in chapter two in verse one.

And now, O ye priests, this commandment is for you. You see how he talks to them?

O ye priests.

In chapter one in verse six, he talks about that again.

O priests, you, O priests.

The idea appears to be that Malachi is not a priest. We don't know a whole lot about him, but obviously, he was not one of the priestly class, and he addresses them as though they were an office, you know, outside of what he held. And when you consider that fact, that he's addressing the priests and he rebukes them the way he does, you know, he's a pretty bold fellow, because the priests were the ministry.

I mean, they're the ones that the Bible calls, you know, the teachers, the messengers that were supposed to teach the people. In chapter 2 and verse 7, look at what the Lord's words are here. Chapter 2, 7, For the priest's lips should keep knowledge, and they should seek the law at his mouth, for he is the messenger of the Lord of hosts.

See, the priest was supposed to deliver the Lord's message, but these priests were falling down on the job.

They weren't delivering the message of the Lord.

They weren't fulfilling their priestly role. You know what they did? They just kind of went through the motions of performing rituals and ceremonies.

That's what the priests were doing in Malachi's day.

For him to address the priests in the bold fashion that he does, you'd have to have some pretty strong backbone to do that as Malachi.

Malachi was no wimp, that's for sure.

You'd have to have a lot of backbone to address the whole religious class and pretty much condemn them all the way Malachi did. You're standing alone against the whole religious world.

You've got to be a pretty bold fellow to do things like that.

So Malachi was no spineless fellow.

Prophets were made of some pretty strong stuff.

They were used to going against the Todd.

Well, Malachi, we read these first few verses last week. He's already addressed the nation as a whole. And declared and demonstrated by argument God's love for the people.

He says, you know, in verse 2, I've loved you.

That's what God says.

Now he addresses here the priesthood. These are the people who are supposed to be teaching and admonishing and expressing true spirituality and so forth. But these people were ungodly.

They were unspiritual. In fact, he calls them profane. In verse 12, you profane the things of the Lord.

Now, what I want to do this evening is just point out a number of things from this passage that I think will really ring home to us today.

The first thing I want to point out is this.

God has always been zealous for the purity of his house. God has always been zealous for the purity of his house.

You remember a couple of weeks ago, we taught a message on cleansing the temple.

The first public act of Jesus' ministry was to cleanse the temple.

God was concerned about the purity of his house.

Well, I want you to know that that's just not something that happens in the New Testament, because even in the Old Testament, here you have a priesthood that's becoming spiritually shallow, slipshod. They've fallen into the routine of religious works and acts, but they had no heart for it. And so Malachi, he charges at these folks like a bulldog and just starts rebuking them.

And in fact, what he's doing is he's just telling them to clean house. You know, you need to clean up your lives, your heart, your attitudes, your actions here, because God is not pleased with you.

He's not going to accept your sacrifice.

In fact, verse 10, when he says, I have no pleasure in you, says the Lord of Hosts. Neither will I accept an offering at your hand.

That's pretty bold preaching.

When God's telling His priesthood, I don't take any pleasure in you at all.

What you're doing, your service to me is unacceptable.

I'm not pleased with it.

I don't receive it.

Your offerings, your gifts, your prayers, your supplications, you know, the things you're doing in service to me, God says, I do not accept it. Now, you have to think about this, because what he's telling here, what he's showing here, is that people can go through religious motions.

They can say prayers.

You can do religious ceremonies, and God not accept it. You can go through religious motions, and it not be pleasing to God, and not be accepted by God. You can say prayers, offer offerings, and it not be accepted by God.

I want you to know, God is more concerned with a clean house than just the fact that you go through some religious ceremony. He's more concerned that your heart is right, your heart is pure, and that the church is pure, rather than that you just offer up some ceremony or sacrifice and think that it's going to be pleasing to the Lord.

You know what?

Let me point you to a passage. I want us to keep our finger right here, because I'm coming back here in just a minute, but I want you to turn with me to the book of Ezekiel, chapter 9.

I want to show you God's concern for the purity of His house.

We're saying that God has always been zealous for the purity of His house. I want you to look with me to Ezekiel 9, and let me just point out a couple of verses here. Remember the passage, 1 Peter 4, 17, the time is come that judgment must begin at the house of God.

God wants His house clean, judgment begins at the house of God. But in Ezekiel 9 and verse 6, listen to this verse.

God is speaking.

He's giving directions through Ezekiel.

He says, slay utterly old and young, maids and little children and women, but come not near any man upon whom is the mark. Now, there's a mark that God ordered to be put on His people. Just like in later days, when His Antichrist is going to have a mark on His people, God's going to put a mark on the people of God, those that weep and sigh over the abominations in the house of God.

But this is what He says.

I want you to go slay utterly these wicked, the people that are committing these abominations, and look at what He says to do, and begin at my sanctuary.

And they began at the ancient men which were before the house. What did God say?

I want a clean house.

Start at my sanctuary.

I want you to go in there and slay utterly, young and old, male and female, don't spare, don't have pity.

Go in there and slay those who are performing abominations. Now this is pretty strong. Let's read back in verse 4.

Look with me in verse 4.

The Lord said to him, go through the midst of the city, through the midst of Jerusalem.

Now He's talking about the holy city, the city of God, Jerusalem, the city of David.

Excuse me.

Go through the midst of Jerusalem and look, and set a mark upon the foreheads of the men that sigh and that cry for all the abominations that be done in the midst thereof.

Now look at this. He's telling Ezekiel.

Now Ezekiel is in the Spirit right now, and God has caught him away in a vision and in the Spirit.

Thank you, brother.

And he's saying, I want you to go through Jerusalem.

This is supposed to be the holy city. Go through Jerusalem.

And the ones that are crying and weeping and in mourning over the spiritual condition of the city, I want you to put a mark on them, because we're going to spare them.

They are weeping over the sins of the nation, the sins of Jerusalem. But everybody else, that's the ones he says, don't have pity on them.

Go in there with the sword, and I want you to begin at my sanctuary.

Now, what in the world were these people doing that would cause God to bring such harsh judgment upon them?

Wholesale slaughter upon the people of God.

What was their abomination?

What were they doing that was so wicked, so evil? What sin were they guilty of?

Well, the sin was idolatry.

You know, this is the sin that the prophets railed against from beginning to end, the sin of idolatry. God hates the abominable thing. He hates the idolatry.

And that's the sin these people were guilty of. In fact, these people were guilty of bringing pagan idols and pagan abominations, things associated with idolatry, right into the temple of God. They were bringing idolatrous things into the house of God.

I want you to look with me in chapter 8.

Since you're right here in Ezekiel, look with me to Ezekiel 8. And let me just read a couple of verses here, because this is a pretty sober chapter.

My point is God has always been zealous for the purity of His house.

In verse 1, it came to pass the sixth year, the sixth month, the fifth day of the month.

I sat in my house.

The elders of Judah sat before me, that the hand of the Lord God fell there upon me.

Ezekiel's in his house, and look, he has this tremendous vision.

Verse 2, I beheld and loa likeness as the appearance of fire, from the appearance of his loins even downward, fire, and from his loins upward as the appearance of brightness, as the color of amber.

He's seeing a vision of Christ.

You remember the picture of Jesus in Revelation? The picture of the Lord? He's seeing here, he's having a visitation, a divine visitation, the pre-incarnate Christ.

He says, verse 3, He put forth the form of a hand and took me by the lock of my head. The Spirit lifted me up between the earth and the heaven and brought me in the visions of God to Jerusalem, to the door of the inner gate that looks towards the north, where was the seat of the image of jealousy which provoketh to jealousy?

What is he talking about?

Some image that provoked God to anger and jealousy.

We don't know exactly what he's talking about.

We can only speculate. But obviously what it is, is that the Jews had brought some pagan, idolatrous element into the place of God.

They had brought it right in to the city, right in to the temple area.

And the Lord brought Ezekiel in a vision to this place and showed him that abomination. He showed him they had brought paganism into God's house.

And he goes on and says, verse 4, the glory of the God of Israel was there.

Verse 5, then he said unto me, Son of man, lift up your eyes now, the way towards the north. So I lifted up mine eyes, and behold, northward at the gate of the altar, this image of jealousy in the entry. I mean, right there.

This pagan thing.

Verse 6, he said furthermore, Son of man, see as thou what they do.

Do you see this heathenism right in my house?

Even the great abominations that the house of Israel committeth there, that I should go far off from my sanctuary, but turn ye yet again, you'll see even greater abominations than these.

He said, if you think this is bad, I'm going to show you some words. Verse 7, he brought me to the door of the court, and when I looked, behold, a hole in the wall.

He showed him, there's a little hole.

And he said unto me, Son of man, dig now in the wall.

And when I had digged in the wall, behold the door.

So he tells him, go dig out that hole a little bit so you can see through there. And he did, and he saw the door.

He said, now go in the door, and behold the wicked abominations that they do behind closed doors.

So I went in and saw, verse 10, and behold, every form of creeping thing, and abominable beasts, and all the idols of the house of Israel portrayed upon the wall round about.

What one version says is every kind of idolatrous form and image was there. They had every kind of thing in there that you can imagine. All kinds of idols, all kinds of animals, creeping things, unclean animals.

There they were, all these idols in the house of God.

And there stood before them several men of the ancients of the house of Israel.

What he's saying is that these people ought to know better, but they brought idols right into my house.

And there they are with their incense and all that in their hands.

And he says in verse 12, do you see what they do in the dark?

Do you see what they do in the dark?

You know, out in the daylight, they may be looking all pious and reverent and so forth, but in the dark, every man in the chambers of his imagery, here they are, surrounded by idols.

For they say, the Lord doesn't see us.

The Lord has forsaken us.

And so here they are petitioning these false gods. Verse 13, he said, Also unto me, turn thee yet again.

You'll see even greater abominations.

Verse 14, he brought me to the door of the gate of the Lord's house, which was towards the north, and behold, there sat women weeping for Tammuz.

Well, Tammuz was one of the Babylonian deities, the husband of Ishtar.

Tammuz, according to Babylonian religion, Tammuz was killed by the Boar, you know, the B-O-A-R, the Boar of winter. Tammuz dies about the time of the winter solstice, and they weep for Tammuz.

That's the annual thing that the Babylonians would do. They would have a weeping time.

And then in the spring, when Tammuz was resurrected, because he was resurrected each year, Ishtar rejoiced.

It's where we get our word Easter from, by the way.

It's a direct derivation from Ishtar.

Easter is the name of a pagan god.

Easter itself comes right out of paganism. That word, the name Easter, comes directly from paganism.

But it's the name of, it's Ishtar.

It's just the way we pronounce it here.

As any encyclopedia would tell you.

But anyway, he says, here's the abomination. There's these women. Now, these are supposed to be the mothers of Israel, the people of God, the women of God.

And what are they doing? They are practicing idolatrous customs.

They've got idolatry, idolatrous practices, right in the house of God. Then he says to me, have you seen this, oh man? He says, turn again.

I'm going to show you even greater abominations.

So he goes on and he shows them son worship in verse 16. Well, the idea is these are the abominations that the people of God had fallen into.

Idolatry of every form, every kind of imagery that you can imagine the people of Israel had fallen into these abominations.

And it's because of this that he says in chapter 9, he says, I want you to go in there and slay them all, because they know better.

You know what?

The point here that I'm pointing out again is that from the very beginning, God has been zealous for the purity of His house. He doesn't want idolatry mixed with true worship in any way, manner, shape, or form.

God wasn't pleased with it then.

He's not pleased with it today.

Hello.

God wasn't pleased with any form of idolatry in ancient times, and we certainly don't please Him today when we mix any form of idolatry with current worship. How do people think that they're going to improve upon the worship of God? How do we think that, well, we're going to do some things, and we're going to make worship better, and so on and so forth.

You can't do that. These people, maybe that's what they thought in Malachi's day.

Well, we'll just take a few things from paganism and bring it into the church, and it will just enhance our worship of God.

You know, we'll just bring in them. You know, these little Christmas trees, that won't hurt anything. A little holly and mistletoe.

We'll take in a, you know, he looks around, he sees all these images of every kind of creeping thing and animal and flying reindeer, perhaps, or whatever it may be. Who knows?

But the point is, any form of idolatry in the house of God is an abomination.

Any form of idolatry whatsoever.

He's always, always had great concern for the purity of his house and for the purity of worship. I believe that's the reason why Nadab and Abihu were smitten before God in Leviticus chapter 10, because they thought that they could offer up incense that God had not approved, some unauthorized form of worship. Jesus cleansed the temple because he was zealous for the purity of God's house.

Malachi comes at the priest here, and he says, you think God is going to accept these sacrifices that you're offering? Look, Malachi, the prophet with a message, a bold, bodacious prophet, he comes straight at him. He comes like a bulldog, and he tells the priest, it's time to straighten it up, to straighten up your worship, straighten up your lives.

It's time to get things right and cease all of this foolishness.

He mentions this argument also back in Malachi. I want you to look back with me here again. You see, the priests and the people committed another sin.

Not only had they allowed foolishness, but look, he says, you are honoring men more than me.

You're honoring men more than me.

Look at this argument that he uses in verse 6.

A son honoreth his father.

Isn't that true?

Well, sure, son, honor your mother, honor your father.

That's obviously true.

Malachi 1.6.

He said, a servant honors his master. I mean, he belongs to him, so he either respects him or else. A servant honors his master.

A son honors his father.

Couldn't you agree with that?

Well, sure, they all say, well, yeah. Well, obviously.

So then he says, well, if I be a father, if I'm your father, he says, where's my honor?

And if I'm your master, where is my reverence?

Could you see that was lacking?

If I'm your father, why don't you honor me?

They were confronted with the fact that, look, whether we consider God our father or whether we consider Him our Lord, you know, we're His servants, then either way, we have some unescapable obligations, unescapable duties.

We're to honor Him, worship Him, reverence Him, fear Him, in the right sense. He says, this is what's lacking over here in Malachi's day. And then he goes on and calls them priests that despise my name.

In verse 6, he says, says, the Lord of hosts to you, all priests that despise my name.

Whoa, despise the name of the Lord.

You know, the name in Hebrew thought, you equate the name with the Lord Himself, because that's the way they thought of it. You know, the name wasn't just a title or a designation.

You spoke of a person's name as the person himself, and the name meant a lot to the Jews.

His name was who he was. His name is, you know, he's God.

He's eternal.

He's self-existent.

You know, Jesus taught us to pray, Hollywood, be thy name.

But the point is, you despise my name.

They said, what?

We despise your name? How have we done that? They say in verse 6, how have we despised your name?

The idea is they deny the accusation. They deny the charge. Lord, we don't despise your name.

We wouldn't do that at all.

So then he tells them, here's how you do it.

Here's how you do it in verse 7.

How we despise your name? We're not guilty of that.

We're innocent of those charges.

Verse 7, here's why you're guilty, he says.

It's because you offer polluted food, polluted bread upon my altar. You offer polluted bread in that.

And you say, wherein have we polluted thee?

In that, you say the table of the Lord is contemptible. Their offerings, the offerings they brought, in other words, were unclean.

They were polluted.

They treated the table of the Lord with contempt.

The table, by the way, was where they sacrificed the offerings that they brought in.

And then he goes on and elaborates on the charges here in verse 8. He says, if you offer the blind for sacrifice, is it not evil? In other words, they were bringing cattle to be sacrificed that were blind and crippled.

They were bringing diseased cattle, diseased sheep.

They're bringing all.

He says, if you bring in the lame, the sick, isn't that evil?

That's what God's saying.

They were bringing in sacrifices that were worthless and that had no value.

That's what they were doing.

And in so doing, he says, you are offering polluted bread, polluted meat. You're polluting the altar of the Lord. You're bringing unworthy offerings.

You're treating the table of the Lord with contempt, with absolute contempt. You see, in the Old Testament, God forbids them to bring unworthy offerings. He forbids them to bring blemished offerings.

And let me just read a passage or two to you that illustrates that, I think, very clearly. I want you to turn with me to Leviticus, chapter 22.

And while you're turning there, I'm going to read another passage.

Leviticus 22.

I'm going to read a passage in Deuteronomy.

Deuteronomy 15 and verse 21.

Listen to this.

Deuteronomy 15, 21.

He's speaking about the offerings here. He says, And if there be any blemish therein, as if it be lame or blind, or have any ill blemish, thou shalt not sacrifice it unto the Lord thy God.

Don't bring crippled, blind, or blemished offering.

You're in chapter 22 of Leviticus.

Let's look at the law of the offerings. Here's something very interesting.

Beginning in verse 17.

The Lord spake unto Moses.

He's giving him the law.

Verse 18, speak unto Aaron and his sons and to all the children of Israel, and say unto them, whatsoever he be of the house of Israel or of the strangers of Israel, that will offer his oblation for all his vows and for all his free will offerings, which they will offer unto the Lord for a burnt offering, he says, you shall offer at your own will, a nail without blemish of the bees or the sheep or of the goats. But notice verse 20, but whatsoever has a blemish, that shall you not offer, for it shall not be acceptable for you.

And whosoever offers a sacrifice of peace offerings unto the Lord to accomplish his vow or a free will offering of bees or sheep, it shall be perfect to be accepted.

There shall be no blemish therein.

Blind or broken or maimed or having a wind or scurvy or scab, you shall not offer these unto the Lord, nor make an offering by fire of them upon the altar unto the Lord. Either a bullock or a lamb that hath anything superfluous. In other words, if it's got three eyes, or five legs, or it's got extra parts, don't you bring that.

He said, or if it lacks in any of his parts.

He's only got three legs.

Law, I got this three-legged cow here.

Lord, I'm going to bring this to you and offer.

He says, you don't bring that.

He says, but for a vow, it shall not be accepted.

Verse 24, you shall not offer unto the Lord that which is bruised or crushed or broken or cut. Neither shall you make any offering thereof in your land, neither from a stranger's hand, shall you offer the bread of your God of any of these, because their corruption is in them and blemishes be in them. They shall not be accepted for you.

Now, you know it just doesn't get a whole lot plainer than that. As far as what God wants when you bring offerings, when God was saying, when you bring offerings, here's the way you do it.

And here's what I'll accept.

Here's what I won't accept.

And God makes something very clear here.

He says, you never offer to God what is blemished, what is unclean, what is worthless, what is useless, or what costs you nothing.

You don't offer something to God that's worthless.

He says, excuse me, in fact, what it does is it demonstrates a total lack of respect, a total lack of love or regard for God.

You know, if you loved a woman, if you loved a woman, would you give her, if you really loved her, would you give her a ring that was bent and broken and didn't have any stone in it?

You said, look, I found this ring, and it's broken, it's bent, and the stone's missing, and it's not worth anything, but when I saw it, I thought of you, and I just want to give this to you.

You think she'd be delighted to get such a ring as that?

Well, that's the whole idea right here. You wouldn't do that to a person.

But these people were doing things like that to the Lord.

It's like saying, look, I don't have no use for this animal.

Here's a cow with three legs.

Here's a sheep that was mauled by a lion out in the field.

Or here's some roadkill over here. I'm just going to bring this to the altar and give it to God, because, you know, it's worthless, it's useless.

I ain't got no use for it, so I'm just going to bring it to God.

Would God be honored by such an offering? Of course not, and that's the whole point.

Oh, excuse me.

God is not offered by such a thing.

I'm ready for it this time, Vic.

Hallelujah.

Look with me again in verse 8.

He says, if you offer the blind for sacrifice, isn't that evil?

If you offer the lame and the sick, isn't that evil?

And then he tells them this, look, offer that to your governor, and see if you accept it.

See if he'll be pleased with you, or accept your person, says the Lord of Hosts.

You know what this point is?

Now, the governor, at the time, you know, they were living under foreign rule.

He says, if you took the heathen governor, if he was going to come to your house, would you put a plate of rotten food in front of him?

Would you do that?

No, you'd want to honor him.

You'd want to kill the best calf you've got.

And you'd feed him your best.

But to God, in other words, you're going to give God what's worthless, but you'd give some heathen governor the best that you've got.

Well, that's what the Lord is dealing with right here.

Would you invite someone important to your house?

Let's just say some dignity, some important person, somebody who is important to you. Would you invite them to your house, and after you got them there, bring them some food that had maggots crawling all over?

Would you do that?

No, you wouldn't.

Would they be pleased with that, or would they be highly offended and insulted if you fed them something like that?

They would be insulted right down to the depths of their core because they'd say, I have never been treated like that in my life.

You know, you feed me this kind of garbage, you're going to feed me garbage, offer me garbage.

Well, look at what he says.

Will he accept your person, says the Lord of Hosts?

No, of course not. You wouldn't do that.

The governor wouldn't accept it.

And you know what? God doesn't accept it.

You know what he's telling them?

That their worship was an insult.

Their offerings were a mockery, and that they revealed that these people held God in contempt, that they despised the author of the Lord. In fact, they were offering him unacceptable, despicable offerings.

You know what they were doing?

They were going out to their flocks and pulling out the sick ones, the crippled ones, the injured ones.

In other words, the ones that weren't worth anything.

And that's what they were bringing to offer to the Lord, the worthless animals.

And God, of course, didn't accept it.

Doesn't that say something about the condition of their hearts, you think, if you're going to offer God?

Especially when He says He won't take that.

He won't accept that.

You know, God always wants our best. He wants...

That was true in the Old Testament.

It's even true now.

But the point is, and I think it's a point that applies to us even today, God is not like goodwill.

He's not like goodwill. He's not happy with our discards.

He's not happy with our leftovers or with our junk.

He wants our best.

He wants our honor.

He wants the very best that we are, the best effort that we have, the best that we can give, the best that we can do.

God's not goodwill.

He wants the best.

Only the best proves that we really hold him in the love and regard that we have for him.

You know, I can't help but think of an occasion in the life of King David. I don't know if you remember it, but there was a rune of the Jebusite. David wanted his field, and he wanted to offer up a sacrifice unto the Lord there.

And a rune was so honored that King David wanted his threshing floor, is what he wanted, to use it to build an altar, and that a rune said, look, I'll give you the threshing floor, and I'll give you the cattle, because if you're going to offer them up to your God, I mean, I'm honored.

I'll give it to you.

And David, listen to what David said.

I will not offer to the Lord that which cost me nothing. That was his words.

In fact, I wrote the verse down, so you can look it up later.

2 Samuel 24 in verse 4.

2 Samuel 24, 4.

You know, I thought of this verse many times in my life, and it just replays over and over in my mind at times.

But here's David's conviction, and it shows you the difference between David's heart, who had a heart after God, and the heart of these people in Malachi's day.

David's words, I will not offer unto God that which cost me nothing.

In other words, don't give me these gifts.

You want to think that I'm going to then offer it up as a sacrifice to the Lord.

He says, here's what I'll do.

I'll pay you for them.

So that's what he did. David bought the threshing floor. He bought the oxen, and then he sacrificed them, because he refused to take his gift and then offer that to the Lord.

I won't offer to the Lord that which cost me nothing. And I think it reveals something of the nature of David's heart.

Also, here in Malachi, I want you to look with me to verse 9.

Here's what the Lord says here.

An unworthy gift deserves an unwelcome answer.

Verse 9, and now I pray you beseech God that He will be gracious unto us.

This has been by your means.

Will He regard your person, says the Lord of Hosts?

Now, this is actually a bit of irony, and I think it's kind of worded funny in the KJV.

I don't know how it's worded in another version.

I forgot to look it up.

But you know, the idea here is that in ancient times, a gift was offered, sometimes to acknowledge kindness.

You know, if you were kind to someone, they would give you a gift. But also, they would often offer gifts to secure some favor in the future.

Like, listen to this verse.

Proverbs 18.16.

A man's gift maketh room for him, and bringeth him before great men.

The idea is a gift could perhaps secure some favor in the future. Gifts were given. Favor was obtained.

Now, this wasn't a bribe, but it was an act of giving that just demonstrates love and honor and high regard and so forth. Let me give you, for example, remember when Jacob gave all those gifts to Esau?

Do you remember?

Jacob and Esau were estranged for all those years.

They didn't have any relationship with each other.

And when Jacob went home to see Esau again for the first time after all those years, remember all the gifts he gave to Esau? He sent herds of cattle, herds of sheep, donkey, all kinds of camels.

He sent all kinds of things as gifts to Esau.

A man's gift makes way for him, the Bible says. The idea was he wasn't trying to bribe Esau, but he was giving these things to his brother just to demonstrate how much I love you, I want to honor you, I want to be forgiven by you, I want to have a relationship with you.

You know, this, he wasn't paying a bribe.

These were gifts to obtain favor.

That's the idea.

It was a gift out of a heart of love.

I love my brother.

I want to be reconciled.

And I just want to bless him. I want to honor him.

I want to give you all these things, Esau.

Do you remember that occasion?

Genesis 32, I think it was.

Well, Esau accepted the gifts of his brother Jacob, and they were reconciled.

But now I want you to think about this.

Suppose old Jacob had sent his brother a couple of three-legged cows and some scab-eaten, diseased sheep.

Suppose he sent this to Esau, and he says, this is my gift to you, old brother.

Would Esau have responded the same way, with favor, with forgiveness, with love, with open arms? He would have been offended.

You're talking about add insult to injury.

Esau would have been outraged.

There would have been war on the spot.

Jacob probably would have been slain.

The idea is, you know, in the Old Testament economy, they gave gifts like this to obtain favor. They gave gifts out of love and out of regard and out of respect and so forth.

Now, here's what God's saying to them.

He said, look, you offer me diseased cattle, and then you want me to bless you for it.

Would Esau have blessed Jacob for offering, you know, for bringing him those kind of gifts?

That's the idea here in verse 9.

You know, you offer God, actually, roadkill.

You know, that's the idea. You bring in roadkill to God, and then you expect Him to look upon you with favor and bless you. And it's not going to happen.

That's the idea in verse 9. It's not going to happen.

God's not going to bless you for your contemptible, unacceptable gifts. And He tells them, you know, the evils that are on you, you're bringing them upon yourself because of the way you live, the way you act.

Then He tells them this in verse 10.

God prefers no worship at all over false worship, or we could say over heartless worship.

He'd rather have no worship than heartless worship.

Verse 10, who is there, even among you, that would shut the doors for nought?

Neither do you kindle fire on my altar for nought. I have no pleasure in you, says the Lord of hosts.

Neither will I accept an offering at your hand.

And the message here is that God is saying it would actually be better to shut the doors.

Just shut the doors rather than to keep perpetuating this worthless form of worship.

You know, you people, He's saying you people have the idea that I'm just happy because you're going through the routine of worship.

I'm happy just because you show up. You think I'm happy just because you come here and you bring these offerings. You think I'm going to accept it and I'm going to accept you just because you go through the routine.

But your heart's not in it.

You don't love me.

You don't serve me.

You don't offer me your best.

You just go through this routine.

You bring these contemptible offerings, and you think I'm going to bless you for it. Verse 10, his whole message here is, I'd rather you shut the door.

Shut my house down, in other words.

Just shut it down rather than bring these contemptible offerings and go through all of these religious motions. In other words, I don't have any pleasure in you.

This is not acceptable to me.

And I'm not going to accept it at your hands. There's no merit, beloved, in just going through religious motions. That's the idea.

That's true in that time, and it's true in our time.

If you don't serve the Lord with your heart, if our devotion, our love, our offerings, our duties, if it's not coming from our heart, if we're just going through religious motions, you know what God says? Just shut down the door and go home.

Close the door and go home. Shut it down and go home.

There's no merit in just religious activity or religious motion. I won't accept it, He says.

There's another real sober passage you could look at in Isaiah, where he deals with the same issue, Isaiah 1 verses 10 through 20. A very sober passage where God just says, I'm not going to accept your worship, your offerings, your prayer.

I'm not going to listen to your prayer.

We shouldn't get the idea that God is pleased or honored by half-hearted worship or insincere worship, or by boring rituals and just going through religious rites. God's not interested in that. He's interested that we worship Him from our hearts.

So anyway, verse 10, He's saying, just shut the door, forget your rituals. I'd rather no offering at all than this contemptible offering.

And I'd rather you close the door of my house than just go through, just perpetuate these false religious activities.

Verse 11, He apparently here is referring to the generation where people all over the world, not just Jews, but people all over the world would worship the Lord in spirit and truth when he says, From the rising of the sun even to the going down of the same, My name shall be great among the Gentiles.

Now this is prophetic.

This is a prophecy speaking of a time that will occur at some time in the future where the Gentiles will hold his name great. See, the Jews don't. They weren't respecting him during this period.

But he says, and in every place, incense will be offered unto my name and a pure offering for my name will be great among the heathen, says the Lord of Hosts.

Now you'd be amazed at what the liberals do with a verse like that.

The liberals take it, and they say, you see, this means that people who worship idols and so forth, when they do it with sincerity, God accepts it. When you worship Buddha, if you worship Vishnu or Shiva or any of the multitudes of gods.

That's what they say this verse means.

But it's a prophetic verse that speaks of a future time, and when people all over the world, the heathen lands, the heathen nations, which is what we are, the Gentile nations, when they start worshipping the Lord out of a pure heart, and they have a pure offering, the one final pure offering for all time, the Lord Jesus Christ.

So it speaks of a future time and a future generation when people would worship the Lord in spirit and truth.

In contrast to that, verse 12, here you are, he says, to the Jews, profaning God's worship, that you're saying the altar or the table of the Lord is polluted, the fruit of it's polluted, his meat is contemptible. So he's just again repeating the fact that they were despising God's table and by insolence and irreverence, making a mockery out of God's holy things. And look at what he accuses him of in verse 13, burnout.

See, we think burnout is a modern phenomena. But he talks about it all the way down here. You said also, behold, what a weariness is it?

What a weariness.

Man, we're just tired.

We're just worn out.

You know, the priest's duties had just become a chore.

It was no longer a delight to them.

They were no longer happy and blessed and pleased to be carrying out the thing, doing the duties of God and carrying out their religious activities and chores.

They were bored with the things of God.

Things of God had become tedious. It had become a drudgery.

You said, what a weariness is it?

Man, I'm just tired.

I'm weary. I'm worn out.

It's not a delight. I'm not happy serving the Lord or doing these things anymore.

I'd rather be doing something else.

He says, and you have snuffed at it.

The idea, you know, they've turned up their nose at the things of God.

You look at me with contempt, I think, is what one version says.

In other words, the point is, the things of God had become distasteful to the Jews.

They would rather be doing something else.

They were just weary of serving the Lord, going about their temple duties, their religious activities, and so forth.

And then he repeats again the things that they were guilty of.

You brought that which was torn.

Now, the idea of animals that were torn, that's animals that were mauled in the fields.

Maybe wolves attacked a sheep, beat it up, chewed off its ear or something like that.

Maybe they brought in a calf that, you know, one of its legs was chewed up by a pack of wolves, or a bear or something like that, you know.

So they're bringing in that which was torn. You bring in things that God won't accept. It's worthless.

It's dying. You bring in the lame, the sick. He says, Thus you brought an offering.

Should I accept this of your hands, saith the Lord. Offering these things to God was just an open insult.

And like I said before, that's what they would do.

And they were all guilty. The priests were guilty.

The people were guilty.

They were bringing these contemptible sacrifices. You know, it was the priest's duty, by the way, to refuse those sacrifices, because they were supposed to examine them. And if they weren't fit, the priest was supposed to say, This is not acceptable.

But the priests weren't doing that.

They were just they were just accepting whatever the people brought.

So priests were guilty. People were guilty.

It was something they all were doing.

Then he tells them in verse 14, But cursed be the deceiver, which has in his flock a male, and voweth and sacrifices unto the Lord a corrupt thing.

For I am a great king, says the Lord of Hosts, and my name is dreadful among the heathen. And this just kind of wraps it all up.

And then he speaks to them again about the way of the vow. And what you want to keep in mind is that the offerings these folks were bringing to the Lord, these were voluntary offerings. This wasn't something that God demanded that they bring.

And that's the saddest part of all.

Because they were bringing voluntary offerings, and they were choosing the shabbiest, shoddiest, most worthless and useless animals they had in their flock to bring.

They were making vows to God.

And you know, sometimes that's the way they would do it.

They would petition God.

They would make a request.

They would pray.

And they would vow some thanks offering.

They would bring, you know, for answer to prayer and so forth.

But here's what happened.

When the Lord answered their prayer, when God moved in their behalf, then the temptation was, instead of bringing what they promised, they'd just find some substitute that they could bring instead.

And they could, you know, instead of, look Lord, I'll bring a bullock.

I'll bring six calves.

I'll bring a sheep.

I'll bring this.

I'll bring that.

Well, you know, people make a lot of promises to God, especially in times of trouble and duress.

People make all kinds of vows and promises.

Here they were, vowing vows to God, and then they would bring their offerings.

God answered their prayer, intervened on their behalf. God would, you know, meet them where they were.

That's what He did. He met them where they were.

Ministered to them, blessed them, helped them, brought them through. And then their temptation was, well, you know, sit and bring in my choice bullock.

I've got that three-legged one back there that, you know, I could put him on a cart and get him over there, and I'll just bring that to the Lord because I don't have any use for it anyway. That's the way the people were thinking. And so they would bring some cheap substitute when it came time to pay up.

God said, curse it, curse it.

Be the deceiver that has in his flock a male. In other words, if you've got one that God would accept and you don't bring that one, you bring one that's contemptible, then he says you fall under the curse for doing that. What we want to remember in all of this, there's a lot of stories, a lot of points that we can glean from this whole section here.

But one of the things we want to keep ever in mind is that whatever we offer to the Lord, we're always to offer Him our best.

Because He's worthy of our best. He deserves all that we are, all that we have.

Our best effort, our best as far as our giving, our best as far as our industry, our best.

Whatever we can give unto the Lord, we're to offer Him our best. Something else I believe that we ought to glean from this passage is that if you do make a promise to God, and sometimes we do it, we all do it. If you make God a promise, do what you said.

In Psalm 76, he says, vow, verse 11, vow, and pay unto the Lord your God.

In other words, whatever you vow, if you make a vow to the Lord, if you tell him you're going to do something, then do it.

Do it.

Don't make a vow and then don't do it. Ecclesiastes 5 warns us against doing things like that. Better to keep your mouth shut and don't make a vow rather than to make a vow and then don't keep it.

If you're going to make God a promise, do it. And I want to tell you, you know, I've made God promises before, and I always try to be very, very scrupulous to do it. You know, the Jews used to teach that if you make God a vow, not only should you pay the vow, but you should actually do more than what you vowed.

That way, you don't in any way fall short of paying your vow.

Always do more. Always do better than what you vow.

But the danger is that you do less than what you vow, and then, you know, like Ecclesiastes 5 says, look, you better off don't make no promises to God, rather than to promise and don't do it.

But through the years, we have had some promises made.

Oh boy.

Made to the church, made to me.

And maybe when people do it, they have good intentions.

But I'll tell you what, if you're going to make a promise, or if you're going to make God a vow, then make sure you do what you promise.

We've had everything in the world promised to us.

We had one fella, multi-millionaire, promise he was going to build us a church. That was his promise. When I get through this financial situation, he said he was in a bit of a financial mess, and we were praying him through and counseling with him, and he said, look, when I get through this, I'm going to set aside $250,000, and I'm going to build you a church.

Well, never happened.

That's just one example.

When people make promises, small example, yeah.

I'll tell you what, though, now when people say things, you know what I'm going to do? 

I'm going to do this.

I'm going to do that. You know what I do?

I'm just saying, we'll see.

We'll see.

You sure don't put it in the bag.

But folks, one other lesson that we need to glean from this passage before we close tonight, and that is that God is not happy with mere religious ritual, which these people seem to think that at all costs, whatever we do, we've got to keep up the ritual.

We've got to maintain the ritual.

So they kept the offerings going.

They kept the incense burning.

By all means, let's do the ritual.

Let's keep the thing rolling.

But God's word in verse 10 is, I'd rather you shut the thing down than let my services become mere ritual, when it just becomes a meaningless, empty rite, just an empty ritual when there's no heart in it, no worship in it, no reverence in it, no fear of God in it.

I'd rather you shut it down, close the doors and go home, do something else.

I heard a preacher say one time, and I thought he was right when he said it.

He said, the day the church just becomes an empty ritual, where we just come together, sing a few songs that nobody sings from their heart, just preach a sermon from a can, and then everybody goes home.

Nobody gets changed.

Nobody's life is impacted.

The day our church becomes a mere ritual, he said, I'll shut the doors. I'll turn it into a grocery store.

We'll do something else.

But when that day comes, we'll just shut the doors and do something else.

I think he's right.

I think he's absolutely right.

Don't let things become just a dull routine. And far, far too often today, that's what church has become, just a ritual.

People go, they watch a ritual, and they go home.

Their life was not impacted.

They did not worship. They did not meet God. There was no intimacy with God, no communion, no fellowship, no confrontation, no challenge from the Word of God.

The Holy Ghost did not convict them.

Nobody got blessed, healed, touched, delivered, saved, convicted of sin. It's just a ritual.

When church becomes a ritual, remember Malachi 1.10, when it becomes a mere ritual, and here's God's Word, just shut it down, close the doors, go home, because God says in verse 10, I have no pleasure, no pleasure in that whatsoever, and I will not accept it.

So strong language, but important for us to remember.

Hallelujah.

We're going to stop there tonight, and we'll look at chapter two next time. Father, I pray that You would take the Word that we hear tonight, that Lord, You would make application of it to our own lives and situations and hearts. Father, I pray that You would keep us from falling into empty ritual, to meaningless routine.

Lord, I pray for each one that's here tonight, Father, that our worship, that it would never just become mere rote, that the words would never be meaningless, but that Lord, when we sing, when we worship, when we pray, when we praise, that these words would always come from the very depths of our soul. That Lord, when we express our worship to You, that it would come from a heart of love and reverence and adoration.

And that Father, when we offer our offerings unto You, whatever it is, as offerings of our gifts, money, time, talent, opportunity, whatever it is, that we always and at all times give You our best.

Father, we ask these things tonight in Jesus' name, Amen.

Amen. Hallelujah.”