Prophecy To Our Age
God’s complaints against His people
Introduction: God, through the voice of his messenger Malachi, voices seven complaints against the people of Israel. Let’s summarize the complaints: Profanity, Sacrilege, Greed, Weariness of Service, Treason against Heaven, Theft and Blasphemy. However, the people are ignorant of their hopeless state or in denial of their sinfulness because they respond with the same answer to all seven of God’s complaints, “Wherein, have we done these things.” Now I’m here to tell you that there is a profanity worst then the spoken word; a sacrilege worst then desecrating holy vessels; a greed more atrocious then the greed of man; a weariness of service that exceeds that of slothful man; a higher treason then that of addictive behaviors; theft that is more terrible then dealings of monetary systems; and blasphemy that is more revolting then those that fall from the lips of man. God has sent His messenger Malachi into the midst of carnality and has levied these seven complaints against the people.
Let’s look at the first complaint, profanity (Chapter 1:6-7).
Here we find that the people are calling God, “Father”, and the people are not giving God any honor; they are calling Him “Master”, and do not have any fear of Him.
The people are perfectly satisfied with the fact that God is their Father and they are perfectly content that God is their master; yet God comes and says: “You call me Father, and you call me Master: where is My honor, and why don’t you fear me?”
The people respond, “Wherein”. They are perfectly happy with their outward appearance of following the letter of the law and providing bread as required from the Law of Moses.
God says, “You offer me polluted bread, and yet you say, the table of the Lord is supplied as required by the law.” The bread may have been perfectly fine but it became polluted by the very hands that made the bread. The root meaning of the word profanity is “away from the temple.” Profanity is used in reference to things that are not sacred, things that are commonplace.
There profanity is that they claimed to have a personal relationship with God the Father and they claimed to fear Him but they failed to honor Him except in word alone and they did not fear Him. In doing this they reduced God’s temple and service to a level of mediocrity.
No man who does not honor God can offer anything pure on God’s alter because God judges man’s gifts by the character of his heart, not by the following of rules and regulations.
Illustration: Why was Abel’s gift accepted and Cain’s gift refused? The true reason is that when God looked at the hearts of the two men; Abel’s heart was righteous and Cain’s was not. Both men gave of their first fruits but Abel’s gift was accepted because Abel was accepted; Cain’s gift was rejected because Cain was rejected. Likewise, these men laid their gifts upon the alter, saying “Father,” and “Master,” but before they came to the alter they had no honor for the “Father,” and no fear for their “Master.”
In our churches today, we find the same type of profanity, people with impure motives or unforgiven sin placing their gifts upon our altars and contaminates their gifts because their lives are contaminated by their own impurities. We need to be careful how we give to God. He receives or rejects our gifts by receiving or rejecting us by our hearts.
The second complaint is sacrilege (Chapter 1:8).
These men are merely offering their flocks for the form of sacrifice and for the appearance of fulfilling the law. How? They are offering to God the blind, the lame and the sick; keeping for themselves the best of the their flocks.
Why is this wrong? The offerings these men were putting on the altar were of little value to them and God always places great value on an offering by how much it cost the man the man that brought it, not a dollar figure but a love figure.
Illustration: As Jesus watched the men walking by and dropping their offerings into the temple treasury, there came a woman who dropped in only two mites. He saw that the men gave of their abundance but the poor woman gave of all she had. He measured the gift then, as he still does today, by how much it cost the giver.
Today, men are still bringing into the church the things they do not need. There are many who give sacrificially but there are many more who give sacrilegiously. If the giving of today’s churches were in line with the giving of the poor widow, the work of God wouldn’t be in such peril.
The third complaint is greed (Chapter 1:10).
The people were opening the doors of the temple and keeping the fires lit, not to glorify God, but to make a buck.
The service of God was reduced to slavery of money and the self-interests of those performing the rituals.
God wants people to serve him because they love him, not for the rewards of service. Remember Job’s words, “Though you slay me, yet will I trust in you.”
Is our service out of love or legalism? God is looking for people that will walk down paths where they can’t see the end, to step out in faith without knowing the outcome, to give of their selves without looking for a reward. When people can do these things then greed has been replaced by true service to God.
The fourth complaint is weariness of service (Chapter 1:13).
As we can truly see here, there is a progression of depravity in the lives of these people. Profanity, sacrilege, greed and now weariness; when people serve God only for what they can get out of it they soon become tired of the service to the self.
If they had put their effort and energy into the building of God’s kingdom they would have never complained of fatigue. In today’s churches there is a weariness that exists because of the ritualistic business of the church. Men are tired of worship because tradition has been placed ahead of evangelism and getting your inside tickled has been replaced by truth.
Where are the godly men of old that prayed and worshipped for hours on end for the moving of God’s hand on their churches. Today we have clock-watchers that become fidgety when the pastor exceeds the hour by a minute or two. What weariness worship becomes when we demand the church serve us instead of us the church.
What a perilous age it’s become when men and woman of God are tired of hearing and meditating on the things of God. The fault lies within the people where you will find greed, sacrilege and profanity in the background of their lives.
We need to search our hearts, and see if our service to God is merely duty, a weariness that creeps into our soul. Are we serving God just for the sake of appearance or for his sake?
The fifth complaint is treason against heaven (Chapter2:17).
Here we find that man is treating sin lightly and saying sin isn’t important to God. They are making excuses for sin and saying there is no judgment against those who do sin. This is treason against heaven in the highest order.
Again, this is prevalent in our society today, people who are wearied of service and demand only aesthetic worship, are people who cannot stomach the message of judgment. People that do this are lowering the standards of God and are flagrantly guilty of treason.
These people are misrepresenting God, if God were the God of love whom is the enemy of sin, the instance God excuses sin it would prove he does not love man. Because God loves man he made atonement through sacrifice to rid man of the sin that can destroy him. Our God is a consuming fire who contains no sin and who loves us; so when they say, “God doesn’t care about our sin,” it is high treason.
Man must have a clear picture of what sin is and it’s consequences to know how to live a pure and holy life pleasing to God. So to say “God will not judge sin” is to be completely contrary to God’s laws.
The sixth complaint is theft (Chapter 3:8).
They stand accused of robbing God by withholding all of their tithes and offerings. In appearance they gave to God, which was divinely claimed by God to be his but the spirit with which it was given was inadequate. It is possible to give God the minimum for which he demands but also to be guilty of a poor spirit.
God is not asking for tithe but for a spirit of giving out of love for him. Just to tithe a tenth out of your income to meet the minimum requirements of the law is not giving at all. God looks at the spirit of man and if a man feels the spirit moving his heart to give, then give what the spirit moves you to give.
If a tithe puts you in danger of being dishonest, it is wrong; if it is out of harmony with your stage in live, it is absolutely wrong; after all God lays claim of everything you own to be his to dispense with as he wills.
Every dollar that you have if used in selfishness is considered by God to be robbery of his treasury. We should never be moved to do deeds of sin and insist it for God’s work.
The seventh and last complaint is blasphemy (Chapter 3:13-14).
The charge is blasphemy; words spoken against someone to injure them, and men have come to use it to speak of divine things. To blaspheme is to say something that would injure God.
The very worst of blasphemy is to misrepresent God and speak of his laws lightly, especially by people who claim to love him. The man who hates God and blasphemes doesn’t influence others as much as the one who says they love God and disobeys his ordinances.
The blasphemy to be afraid of is, those who pronounce the kingdom of God and his supreme will for our lives but all the while confound his will and by subversive action and deny his lordship over our lives; that is the blasphemy to fear.
It is on account of blasphemy in today’s churches, of the men and women who pray without believing in God’s supremacy, that the kingdom has been hindered. The church today has made the word of God noneffective because of there unbelieve.
85 percent of churches in America are platued or declining, how can that be?
Profanity, Sacrilege, Greed, Weariness of Service, Treason against Heaven, Theft and Blasphemy; these are your culprits. The church today is not any different from the one that Malachi went to, to deliver his message from God. He is still speaking to the churches today.
There are a few men that God is using today to lay the foundation, to do his work, to build his kingdom prior to the coming of his Son. However, the church as a whole has not been effective because of their unbelieve and their inactivity in building God’s kingdom.
I hope you don’t think this entire series is going to be nothing but doom and gloom because there are bright spots that we do need to consider.
This portion of Malachi’s message points to some very disturbing trends in the church of yesteryear and the churches of today. We need to see the failures of the church in order to know what we need to work on and eventually fix.
Malachi is holding a mirror in front of us, helping us to assess our relationship with God the Father. Do we believe that he loves us? Does he have our wholehearted love and obedience? Or are we just going through the motions as the people mentioned in this book? God is questioning our motives and getting behind our defenses to shake us out of mere routine. He wants to ignite our affection for him by confronting our complacency and indifference that can hinder our work for him.
Malachi presents his message from God, followed by complaints by God to His people, and then answers from god to the people. His answers are still relevant today as they were then. God loves us with a passionate love and wants us to return that love by faithfully seeking relationships, integrity, purity and justice for a lost society.
