Ministry under the Microscope
On June 17, 2002 Federal authorities arrested a United States Forest Service employee for starting the largest fire in Colorado’s history.
Terry Barton was a 38-year-old woman and had worked every summer for the Forest Service for 18 or 19 years.
She had ventured into the forest to burn a letter form her estranged husband.
She had evidently become angry with him and burning the note was perhaps her emotional release.
Yet, because of dry conditions in the Pike National Forest, she was unable to extinguish the fire as quickly as she had desired and the fire burned out of control.
At the time the fire began, Barton was under orders to patrol for fires in the vicinity where she had started the fire.
This fire that was to be the largest in the state’s history burning over 130 homes with an estimated total cost of damage ranging anywhere from $27 million to almost $40 million dollars.
In this strange juxtaposition of events, Terry Barton who was to prevent fires in the Colorado forest had now begun a fire.
The irony of the one who protects instead causing destruction cannot be lost on ministers.
We live in a day of clergy scandal.
Some of this scandal hits the newspapers and other media outlets.
Yet much of the disastrous results of a ministry that has failed to protect people and in its place has unleashed its destruction upon the people in our pews and in our communities will go unnoticed by the media’s eye.
The secular media will concentrate on the Jim Baker’s and the Roman Catholic Clergy’s sexual abuse scandals.
While a multitude of ministers’ success and failure will go unnoticed without so much as a newspaper clipping.
Yet it does not escape the eye of God nor are the results of ministerial success or failure hard to locate in the contemporary scene.
Our aim this morning is to place our ministry under the MICROSCOPE OF GOD.
It is to place us under the intense scrutiny of the eyes of an all knowing God along the contours of His message given over two millennia ago through the hand of the prophet Malachi.
His words will give us some contemporary clues to both ministerial success and failure.
Would you stand with me in the reading of God’s Word as I’ll be reading from the English Standard Version?
"And now, O priests, this command is for you. 2 If you will not listen, if you will not take it to heart to give honor to my name, says the LORD of hosts, then I will send the curse upon you and I will curse your blessings. Indeed, I have already cursed them, because you do not lay it to heart. 3 Behold, I will rebuke your offspring, and spread dung on your faces, the dung of your offerings, and you shall be taken away with it. 4 So shall you know that I have sent this command to you, that my covenant with Levi may stand, says the LORD of hosts. 5 My covenant with him was one of life and peace, and I gave them to him. It was a covenant of fear, and he feared me. He stood in awe of my name. 6 True instruction was in his mouth, and no wrong was found on his lips. He walked with me in peace and uprightness, and he turned many from iniquity. 7 For the lips of a priest should guard knowledge, and people should seek instruction from his mouth, for he is the messenger of the LORD of hosts. 8 But you have turned aside from the way. You have caused many to stumble by your instruction. You have corrupted the covenant of Levi, says the LORD of hosts, 9 and so I make you despised and abased before all the people, inasmuch as you do not keep my ways but show partiality in your instruction."
Malachi 2:1-9 (ESV)
As you can see from verse one (1) this is a text for church leadership.
It was specifically written for the priest of the Old Testament.
The text before us serves as a warning of the consequences ahead if the religious leadership does not have a complete change of heart.
It compliments Malachi’s earlier message which served as a positive motivation for the nation of Judah to return to God (1:2-5).
Verses one (1) through four (4) are marked by a series of six (6) future tense verbs while the following verses (5-9) are marked by past tense verbs.
It’s these past tense verbs in verses eight (8) and nine (9) that mark the church leadership’s failure in contrast to the model priests’ behavior in verse five (5), six (6), and seven (7).
Verses one (1) through four (4) speak directly of what God will do if His people, and especially His priests, do not have a change of heart and change their practices
Howard Hendricks has said that the key to concentration is elimination.
In order to prevent the multiple details of church life from producing ministerial myopia, you’ll need to measure your ministry by recentering yourself on the priorities.
The lens of our ministry needs to magnify the priorities in order to crop out the distractions.
So I want to consider three (3) things that spring from the text in front of us this morning.
Three things that God speaks through the hand of is prophet Malachi in order to recenter the church leadership of his day and our day.
Here are three (3) ideals for you and me to strive for.
First (1st), Church Leadership has a choice of to Cherish or to Cheapen God’s Weightiness.
Now, this first point (seen especially in verse two [2] and five [5]) will carry greater freight that the other two remaining points.
For the subsequent two points provide a natural sequel.
THE intentional task of church leadership is to become WORSHIP CATALYSTS.
Authentic Church leaders should worship Jesus Christ with the view that our worship will attract others.
Our role is to CHERISH the weightiness of God by standing in awe of His name rather than CHEAPENING His name.
I get this from the prophet’s message in verse 2 and verse 5.
“If you will not listen, if you will not take it to heart to give honor to my name, says the LORD of hosts,” Malachi 2:2a
“My covenant with him was one of life and peace, and I gave them to him. It was a covenant of fear, and he feared me. He stood in awe of my name.”
Malachi 2:5
Malachi writes about one who was a model of catalytic worship while he also describes the rank and file contemporary priest of his day as a failure.
The Model Minister in verse five (5) is described as one “who stood in awe of my name.”
He Cherished the Weightiness of God’s Name.
Biblical church leadership knows God’s name is the sum and substance of all that God is.
And God is not something to be trifled with or taken lightly.
As I encourage you to CHERISH and not CHEAPEN the name of God I want to form our thoughts along the following three lines.
Our choice to CHERISH God’s name will…
1.1. Cause You to Hear Him (v 2).
“If you will not listen, if you will not take it to heart to give honor to my name, says the LORD of hosts, then I will send the curse upon you and I will curse your blessings. Indeed, I have already cursed them, because you do not lay it to heart.” Malachi 2:2
The Word says you are to hear Him.
As a church leader you’re number one job is fight idolatry.
You fight idolatry first in your ears and then in others’ ears.
You fight idolatry first in your heart and then in others’ heart.
You fight idolatry first in your mind and then in others’ mind.
The priority is the church leader hearing God first.
Do you ever pay attention to the airline attendants at the beginning of a flight?
It’s just before the plane is to take off the runway that they explain the safety procedures set in place by the FAA.
Curiously, they tell parents that in case the plane is depressurized, leaving no breathable air for the passengers, the mother and father are to reach up to the ceiling and place the oxygen mask over their faces before their children’s face.
Why in such a terrible moment of tragedy would a parent do such a selfish act of placing their own safety before their child’s?
Because the most selfless act the parent can do is to place their own oxygen mask on first in order to ensure they will have not blacked out.
Only when the parent is fully conscious can he or she care for their child.
It’s only when the parent has taken care of their own oxygen supply that they then turn to their child’s interests of safety.
We cannot lead people to worship when we are not safely cherishing God ourselves.
But the prophet’s emphasis on hearing says The Word says you are to hear Him.
Often we think of hearing only as the auditory action where we process information.
The words “set your heart” in verse two (2) and repeated at the end of verse two (2) speak of a decisive action.
The word “heart” in Hebrew thought may well be called the command center of a person’s life.
More than just a feeling, it means to determine a course of action in response to one’s knowledge or awareness of something.
A great biblical illustration of the kind of hearing the prophet is asking for is found in Daniel 1:8:
“But Daniel resolved that he would not defile himself with the king’s food, or with the wine that he drank. Therefore he asked the chief of the eunuchs to allow him not to defile himself.”
Listening to God is no mere option for us.
God will curse our blessings if we fail to listen to Him.
God opposes those who do not listen to Him not with a cool opposition but with His fierce white hot anger.
Listening surely entails reading His Word.
A.W. Tozer has written, “I think a new world will arise out of the religious mists when we approach our Bible with the idea that it is not only a book which was once spoken, but a book which is now speaking.”
I am reminded of James’ words that true hearing calls for action:
“For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks intently at his natural face in a mirror.”
James 1:23
But CHERISHING God’s name is more than Hearing Him ….
Our choice to CHERISH God’s name will…
1.2. Cause You to Fear Him (v 5).
The Hebrew word, translated awe in ESV, used in verse five (5) to describe the response of authentic church leaders previous to Malachi’s day can defined as “to be shattered or dismayed” (see also Deuteronomy 1:21).
It speaks of having a healthy and appropriate fear of God whose grace alone is all that protects us from being destroyed by His wrath.
This thread of awe and reverence appears throughout these verses of Malachi’s prophecy and it is woven together to form the fabric of His message:
“For I am a great King, says the LORD of hosts, and my name will be feared among the nations.” Malachi 1:14c
God says that one day the nations will have the opposite feeling that Judah had at the time of Malachi’s prophecy.
It is God’s own voice that is calling for worship for forty-seven (47) of the fifty-five (55) verses in Malachi are spoken directly from Yahweh Lord of Hosts, one can confidently say that God has spoken.
We are to keep our memories of the greatness of God and His great acts before our minds at all times.
For example….
The Weightiness of God is something that should be before our minds when we consider adultery as a minister.
For when Eli’s two sons were having sex with the girls serving on the outside of the tent (1 Samuel 2:22) God later took both of their lives on the same day that (1 Samuel 4:11).
The Weightiness of God should keep us from ministerial pride for it was David who numbered his army thinking his strength lie with his forces and not with God (2 Samuel 24).
The Weight of God’s penalty was that some 70,000 men died before God’s angel stopped a plague from killing more (2 Samuel 24:15).
Like a bunch of General Motor (GM) execs who have Toyotas at home in the garage.
Or like owners of Kentucky Fried Chicken eating their meals at Chick-fil-A.
The weightiness of God compels us to Cherish versus Cheapen God.
Malachi’s message is nothing new and the repetitive references throughout the Old Testament should awaken us as if smelling salts are under our noses to the reality of our roles as idol-fighters.
Listen to God’s word through the prophet Ezekiel:
“how I have been broken over their whoring heart that has departed from me and over their eyes that go whoring after their idols. And they will be loathsome in their own sight for the evils that they have committed, for all their abominations.” Ezekiel 6:9b
To CHERISH the weightiness of God is not something for the Old Testament only but is modeled also in the New Testament.
“And they devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers. 43 And awe came upon every soul, and many wonders and signs were being done through the apostles.”
Acts 2:42-43
We live in a no fear culture where our bumper stickers declare we are not afraid of anything (while the Rednecks say they “Ain’t Skeered.”)
Perhaps no better illustration of how church leaders should CHERISH God’s holy name can be found in Numbers 25:1-13.
While many consider Deuteronomy 33:8-11 to be the foundational verses for Malachi’s discussion in Malachi two (2), SURELY THE TASK OF A WORSHIP CATALYST, AN IDOL-FIGHTER, AND CHERISHING GOD’S WEIGHTINESS is nowhere better displayed than in Numbers 25.
[The people of Moab] invited the [Israelites] to the sacrifices of their gods, and the people ate and bowed down to their gods. 3 So Israel yoked himself to Baal of Peor. And the anger of the LORD was kindled against Israel. 4 And the LORD said to Moses, "Take all the chiefs of the people and hang them in the sun before the LORD, that the fierce anger of the LORD may turn away from Israel." 5 And Moses said to the judges of Israel, "Each of you kill those of his men who have yoked themselves to Baal of Peor." 6 And behold, one of the people of Israel came and brought a Midianite woman to his family, in the sight of Moses and in the sight of the whole congregation of the people of Israel, while they were weeping in the entrance of the tent of meeting. 7 When Phinehas the son of Eleazar, son of Aaron the priest, saw it, he rose and left the congregation and took a spear in his hand 8 and went after the man of Israel into the chamber and pierced both of them, the man of Israel and the woman through her belly. Thus the plague on the people of Israel was stopped. 9 Nevertheless, those who died by the plague were twenty-four thousand. Numbers 25:2-9
Phinehas had a choice as he could either CHERISH or CHEAPEN God’s weightiness.
Phinehas stood in awe of the name of God and could not bear to see His holy named profaned.
Phinehas’ zeal was something God asks the priests in Malachi’s day and church leadership in our day to emulate rather than careless neglect.
But how is the modern day Christ-follower supposed to fear the Lord?
We are told so much of the news that God loves us and that He is our daddy, but does this alone display the balance of the biblical witness?
How can we CHERISH God for His love while standing in awesome fear of Him as well?
“Suppose you were exploring an unknown glacier in the north of Greenland in the dead of winter. Just as you reach a sheer cliff with a spectacular view of miles and miles of jagged ice and snow mountains a terrible storm breaks in. The wind is so strong that the fear rises that it might blow you and your party right over the cliff. But in the midst of it you discover a cleft in the ice where you can hide. Here you feel secure but the awesome might of the storm rages on and you watch it with a kind of trembling pleasure as it surges out across the distant glaciers.
At first there was the fear that this terrible storm and awesome terrain might claim your life.
But then you found a refuge and gained the hope that you would be safe.
But not everything in the feeling called fear has vanished.
Only the life-threatening part.
There remained the trembling, the awe, the wonder, the feeling that you would never want to tangle with such a storm or be the adversary of such a power.” John Piper
Our choice to CHERISH and not CHEAPEN the weightiness of God will cause us to not only hear Him and fear Him but it will cause us to
1.3. Cause You to Prioritize Your Life For Him.
Few in our contemporary culture are awake to the reality of God’s worthiness.
For those movie buffs that’ve seen Keanu Reeves in The Matrix, you’ll recall Morpheus, played by Laurence Fishburne, tells Neo, played by Keanu Reeves, about an alternate reality.
The key from morphing from the world of plebeians, or the common folk, to the reality known only by a few was through a pill offered by Morpheus to Neo.
We minister to a culture that believes all that is worth pursuing is our own pleasure.
We live for our successful careers,
popularity,
growing old,
and the enjoyment of a comfortable retirement.
The weightiness of God stands as alternative reality that is real and true but is ignored.
We must offer them “the pill” of reality where the purpose most people pursue are but the side dishes to a great life of pursuing Christ.
This “pill” will awaken them to the reality that the side dishes of successful careers and enjoying a comfortable retirement does not alone satisfy.
We have not set up Babylonian idols inside our churches instead we have chosen to utilize God only as instrument rather than for His awesome worth.
For often we see the relevance of Christ only as the instrument in pursuing the fulfilled life of what I’ve called earlier the side dishes: successful career, popularity, etc.
“Bonhoeffer noted this tendency in many Western theologies. For many of us pragmatic Americans, we are concerned with the how rather than the who. In this respect, [much of evangelicalism] is simply bringing this tendency to its logical conclusion. We already know who is important: it’s me. We want to know now how this “me” can fulfill itself. In [much of evangelicalism’s] gospel, Jesus is entirely peripheral. Sure, [they] might have sound doctrinal statements buried deep within the digital recesses of [their church’s] website somewhere; but these things and the Person they point to are entirely peripheral. Anything that pushes Jesus to the margins is a heresy.” A. Arnold, blogger
We’ve displaced the centrality of Jesus Christ where He now serves us as ends to a mean: my fulfilled materialistic life.
Surely it’s prudent to identify the felt needs of our culture by addressing them as a window where God is seen as more than just an instrument to meet my needs.
God’s accusation of the priests adheres to question and answer, throughout the Book of Malachi.
Malachi’s modus operandi was to quote God only to see the people reply with a question.
Malachi 1:6 is a great example of this
“A son honors his father, and a servant his master. If then I am a father, where is my honor? And if I am a master, where is my fear? says the LORD of hosts to you, O priests, who despise my name. But you say, ’How have we despised your name?’” Malachi 1:6
This disputation reveals the dissonance between God’s standard and the people’s routine.
Recently retired pastor and Southern Baptist statesmen Adrian Rogers recently said of our own day:
“We have so many preachers today who are living lives of quiet desperation — drawing their breath, drawing their salary and waiting for retirement. They need to get a fresh vision of Almighty God. Never has there been a day, an age or an opportunity to preach the gospel of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ like there is today.” Adrian Rogers
Too many of us in church leadership have been with Martha in the kitchen doing the routine for far too long versus sitting with Mary in adoration at the feet of Christ.
Church leaders are to model Mary before building our resume.
I could allow the Apostle Paul to speak of our ministerial priority:
“Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ.” Philippians 3:8
Though Paul had received A’s in Aramaic and Hebrew while even rising to the zenith of Judaism’s ecclesiastical career, a Pharisee, where he memorized the first (1st) five (5) books of the Old Testament, Paul tells us that that he swept it all off the table and into the trash can.
All of his ministerial resume would be trashed for treasure of knowing Christ.
To summarize our callings as preachers: we are idolatry-fighters.
As a minister you’re number one job is fight idolatry.
You fight idolatry first in your heart and then in others.
Second (2nd), Church Leadership has a choice of to Communicate or Compromise God’s Word.
The Levitical Priesthood was charged with COMMUNICATING all of God’s Word.
Notice the contrast between verses six (6) and seven (7) where the God’s Word is COMMUNICATED:
“True instruction was in his mouth, and no wrong was found on his lips. He walked with me in peace and uprightness, and he turned many from iniquity. 7 For the lips of a priest should guard knowledge, and people should seek instruction from his mouth, for he is the messenger of the LORD of hosts.”
Malachi 2:6-7
And verses eight (8) and nine (9) where God’s Word was COMPROMISED as past obedience is not contrasted against present disobedience.
“But you have turned aside from the way. You have caused many to stumble by your instruction. You have corrupted the covenant of Levi, says the LORD of hosts, 9 and so I make you despised and abased before all the people, inasmuch as you do not keep my ways but show partiality in your instruction." Malachi 2:8-9
Your Choice to Communicate will …
Cause You to Confront with Courage
“Malachi tells us that God’s words and God’s truth is not helpful hints for happy living that you might find in Reader’s Digest.”
Instead we are to preach the entirety of Scripture.
True instruction is to be found in our mouths as seen verse six (6).
That is, we are to preach it and memorize it.
Verse seven (7) calls for us to “preserve” knowledge (NASB) where the Hebrew word suggests the idea to take special care over biblical knowledge.
The word is used elsewhere for the watch care over sheep.
One commentator links this idea to guarding a community’s water supply from loss or contamination.
The life of the people depend upon the church leadership’s preservation of “the whole counsel of God” in order to prevent its contamination by the intellectual currents of our day.
We are to be so wrapped up in Scripture that the people come to us for help understanding and applying Scripture.
Much of the Calvary Chapel Church’s leadership sets itself to preach from the beginning of Genesis to the maps in the back and then once this is complete they begin again.
Allowing our messages, our Sunday School lessons, and our small group Bible studies to be contoured to the template of the Word of God will keep us in the vein of B. H. Carroll’s charge to L. R. Scarborough:
“keep the Seminary lashed to the Cross. If heresy ever comes in the teaching, take it to the faculty. If they will not hear you and take prompt action, take it to the trustees of the Seminary. If they will not hear you, take it to the Convention that appoints the Board of Trustees, and if they will not hear you, take it to the great common people of our churches. You will not fail to get a hearing then.
--"Deathbed Commission to his Successor," L.R. Scarborough
Such a take will not be easy.
In Malachi 1:1 we are introduced to the prophecy of Malachi with the following words:
“The oracle of the word of the LORD to Israel by Malachi.”
Malachi 1:1
The word translated “oracle” in verse one (1) is translated “burden” in the King James Version.
It’s the Hebrew word maúúâ’ that has received special attention from Old Testament scholarship.
Contemporary Old Testament scholars currently distinguish the meanings of the word into two camps:
1) “the bear a burden” where the word means to “to lift up” such as in Exodus 23:5; Numbers 4:15-49; Psalm 38:5 ;
2) A word that denotes a prophecy or judgment from the idea lifting up of one’s voice.
Both meanings can be attributed to the word maúúâ’ where there is an ominous sense of the catastrophic nature where Malachi’s words were to follow.
Even a cursory glance of the prophets’ word demonstrates they were not all comfortable in being God’s wrecking ball.
With words and exotic demonstrations at times, they would serve as a moral conscience while also as a religious reminder of
1) how far the people had strayed from God’
2) how much God cared for them
3) and was faithful to His word.
In our generation we have propensity to identify only the points of contact between culture and Christianity in order to leverage as much credibility for Christianity as well as its speakers.
Surely it’s wise to run along culture’s tracks when they are available without compromising God’s message.
Yet often there is little “burden” or sense of ominous words of condemnation from many of our church leadership in our day.
We have absolutized relevance as the supreme virtue by identifying these points of contact between culture and Christianity we have failed to speak of the dissonance of Christ and culture (to use H. Richard Niebuhr’s title).
In short, we have failed at being prophetic.
What God is asking for is balance:
a balance in identifying the points of contact as well as dissonance between culture and biblical Christianity.
We sit in the theatre where Christianity and lost people clash and communicate only along one track:
how to make Christianity relevant.
We should instead communicate in Dolby Surround Sound (old days Simultrack)
where Christianity is both relevant to the needs of culture and we speak prophetically to a postChristian culture.
In his article “Been There, Preached That,” Duke University’s Will Willimon wrote:
“The psychology of the gospel – reducing salvation to self-esteem, sin to maladjustment, church to group therapy, and Jesus to Dear Abby – is our chief means of perverting the biblical text.”
What business do we have in leaving out and shaving the corners off the harder parts of Scripture?
Oftentimes, the contemporary church leader does not take the time to deny certain parts of Christianity but only as in a woodshop to place them in a planner.
Here the rougher and more courser parts of Scripture are taken away: such as hell and God’s wrath and judgment.
Perhaps there is no better commentary on the offense to the cross of Jesus mentioned in 1 Corinthians 1:18 than Martin Luther’s words:
“Always preach in such a way that if the people listening do not come to hate their sin, they will instead hate you.”
Yet the heritage of the Hebrew prophets remains with us even in a day when we are inebriated with “relevance.”
Author Os Guinness identifies several characteristics about the Prophets in his book Prophetic Untimeliness.
God’s Spokesman Does Not Fit In.
When society is increasingly godless and the church increasingly corrupt, faithfulness carries its price.
A French resistance leader was asked how he explained the fact that his men had been so heroic against the Nazis.
He thought for a moment and then replied: “We weren’t heroic. We were simply maladjusted enough to know that something was seriously wrong.”
When so much of the European landscape was inebriated by their own indifference toward Hitler and Nazism, these men stood in maladjustment.
God’s Spokesmen Also Lack Patience
Malachi possessed a sense of impatience with corrupt society.
20th century’s greatest political prophet was Winston Churchill.
In what is called his “wilderness years in the 1930’s he repeatedly warned against the menace of Hitler.
Left out of government and out of favor with public opinion, he alone warned against the “mush, slush, gush” of pacifist-dreaming Britain, a corrupt France and indifferent America.
He spoke about the rapidly approaching problem of the aggressive Nazism when the Britain government wished to review the situation.
Malachi hated the indifference of Judah as had Churchill lacked the patience to see his government falter.
There is a sizeable difference between the academic offerings of a scholarly community who offer their opinions for consideration
and a preacher of God’s entire truth which demands that people everywhere depart from their sin.
Southern Baptist Theological Seminary’s President, R. Albert Mohler, Jr., speaks of the contemporary church in terms of a lack of nerve.
And he links this failure to speak the whole counsel of God with our lack of evangelistic fervor.
“Just as doors of opportunity are opening around the world, the Church seems to be losing its voice. A virtual re-paganization of Western culture is occurring, indicating that the failure of the American Church is evident at home as well as abroad. What is the root issue?”
“At base, the issue is a failure of theological nerve--a devastating loss of biblical and doctrinal conviction. The result is retreat on the mission fields of the world and regression on the home front. Since the middle of the last century, the mainline Protestant denominations have been withdrawing from the missionary enterprise, some even declaring a "moratorium" on the sending of missionaries charged to preach the Gospel.
This loss of theological nerve is a fundamental failure of conviction. Put bluntly, many who claim to be Christians simply do not believe that anyone is actually lost.”
“A report released just a few years ago indicated that only a third of the participants at an Urbana missions conference (bringing together thousands of college-aged evangelicals) indicated a belief that "a person who does not hear the gospel is eternally lost.’ As one missionary veteran responded: ‘If two-thirds of the most missions-minded young people in America do not affirm the lostness of mankind, the Great Commission is in serious trouble!’”
--- R. Albert Mohler, Jr.
Third (3rd), Church Leadership has a choice of to Convert or Condemn God’s People.
“True instruction was in his mouth, and no wrong was found on his lips. He walked with me in peace and uprightness, and he turned many from iniquity.” Malachi 2:6
“But you have turned aside from the way. You have caused many to stumble by your instruction. You have corrupted the covenant of Levi, says the LORD of hosts,” Malachi 2:8
“and so I make you despised and abased before all the people, inasmuch as you do not keep my ways but show partiality in your instruction."
Malachi 2:9
Notice all the discussion of “the way” presented in these verses.
In place of CONVERTING people from sin the leadership instead CONDEMENED them in their sin.
The failure of church leadership to become worship catalysts,
the failure of church leadership because of their fear of offense,
caused the people to become CONDEMENED rather than CONVERTED.
Their failure in ministry began with a failure in their own lives.
The leadership’s hypocrisy would be one day rewarded with the dung of their sacrifices being rubbed into their face.
In place of standing in dignified places of honor, they instead sat in animal refuse.
Verses six (6) through nine (9) discuss a particular avenue or “the way” in which church leadership should both live while also being a travel guide for others.
The way in which they were to live and guide others to live encompasses all three (3) major points that I discussed this morning:
CHERISHING,
COMMUNICATING,
and CONVERTING.
Have you ever noticed there are those who love worship and those who love evangelism?
Yet there has existed a disconnect between the two.
There is no evangelism where there is no worship
and there is no worship where there is no evangelism.
Many of us will see the connection between COMMUNICATING God’s truth and the CONVERSION of God’s people.
Others will naturally see the interrelatedness of CHERISHING God for all His worth in worship and the public proclamation of God’s Word in COMMUNICATION.
Yet few of us put together evangelism & worship like Jesus did:
“But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father is seeking such people to worship him.”
John 4:23
The church leadership’s failure on the personal level caused them to feel no compulsion,
and no commission to share God’s message with the people of Judah.
Our COMMISSION is to COMMUNICATE the euvagge,lion or the good news, the word is where get our word for evangelism, in order to CONVERT people to CHERISH Jesus Christ.
You and I have the responsibility to fight against the idolatry in the hearts of lost people around Tarrant County, the state of Texas, the United States, and around the globe.
Jesus said that we are to pray for harvesters to step forward.
These harvesters are to seek potential worshippers.
God is so great that if all people (some 5 billion plus in today’s world population)
in all places (the US State Department list 192 countries currently in existence)
were to worship Him that would not exhaust the supreme and majestic worth of His name.
We are to join God in the worldwide search for people to worship Him.
We are catalysts for His worship.
For no man, no woman, no child is allowed into the ultimate theatre of His glory where all people stand in awe of Him day and night without ceasing.
For Paul’s ties these thoughts together in his conclusion to1 Corinthians like this:
“If anyone has no love for the Lord, let him be accursed. Our Lord, come!”
1 Corinthians 16:22
Paul places for us the stark contrast the choice of cherishing and condemnation.
If there is no cherish then there is no conversion leading only to one’s condemnation.
“If anyone has no love for the Lord, let him be accursed. Our Lord, come!”
1 Corinthians 16:22
Here Paul links the two most driving motives we have to evangelize lost people:
1) that their idolatry would be changed to true worship
2) and their worship keep them out of an eternal hell.
I have spoken at length about the worship of God I want to close with the need of people’s conversion so they will not see eternal hell.
Amy Carmichael was a missionary in India and many of you have read her tremendous books.
I am indebted to Dr. Roy Fish for calling my attention to this story.
While she was there in India, God gave to her a vision.
She said the vision He gave to he was this:
“I stood on a large grassy slope near which was a steep precipice. I peered over the precipice; it appeared to have no bottom. From this bottomless precipice, bellowed up huge, black clouds which shrouded the whole outer area in darkness. Back I drew, dizzy from at its heights or depths. Then I saw forms of people headed down the grassy slope for that deep chasm. I saw a mother holding the hand of her son walking slowly to the cliff. She was right on the verge of it when I saw that she was blind. She lifted her foot for the next step. Her foot trod air and suddenly they were gone and oh, what a cry when they went over. Then I saw large groups of people walking toward the edge. They too, were blind – every single one of them blind and over they went. Some shrieking, some going over silently. I saw an innumerable number headed for the cliff. They were uncounted masses headed for the bottom chasm. Families walked together. Young couples were there by the thousand. I wondered why doesn’t somebody warn them. My own feet seemed to be cemented to the ground. Then I noticed that [guards] were stationed along the edge but the intervals between the [guards] were so wide... wide gaps and unguarded. Over those unguarded gaps they continued to fall. So few people were being stopped by the [guards] and the green grass seemed blood red to me. And the gulf yawned like the mouth of hell. Then I saw a group of people underneath a shade-tree. It was a picture of peace and composure. Their backs were all toward the cliff. It appeared to me that they were making daisy-chains. They called what they were doing “church-work.” And now and then, when the scream of one going over the cliff was heard, some of them would seem to be uncomfortable. They regarded it as very vulgar noise. But some even arose to assist the [guards]. But others were of little encouragement to them. ‘You must not leave our church work,’ they would say. Then the others would usually continue their daisy chains. There was another group and they were trying to recruit [guards] but they found very few who wanted to go. The crowds continued to pass by into the darkness of the abyss. A teenager fell over. His hand desperately holding onto a tuft of grass. He clung convulsively but the grass gave way and with an awful shriek, he was gone. His hand still clutching the tuft of grass as he went down. And the group under the tree sang a hymn and listened to a sermon. And through a hymn came another sound like the pain of a million broken hearts, wrung out in one full drop, one sob. And the horror of great darkness for I knew what it was: it was the cry of blood on the hands of those who were busy doing their church-work.”
