Oh, Really?
Malachi 1:1-14
Malachi is the final book in the Old Testament. Malachi has the last say in the Old Testament times. Malachi is kind of a transitional book. Between Malachi and the Old Testament we move into the New Testament. It is Malachi, the prophet of the Lord, who is used by the Lord to make a transition from the Old Testament time to the New Testament time. Malachi’s name means “my messenger.” He seems to hide himself behind the message as he delivers the word that God has to the people in this particular day. After the voice of Malachi goes silent, there are about 400 silent years between the Old Testament and the New Testament. The voice of prophecy is not heard again until a man named John the Baptist, standing on the banks of the River Jordan says, “Prepare ye the way of the Lord.” When the Lord Jesus comes he says, “Behold the lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.”
Malachi was a prophet of God who prophesied in the last days before the first coming of the Lord Jesus Christ. You and I are living in the last days before the second coming of the Lord Jesus Christ.
There are striking parallels between Malachi’s day and our day. In a day when people were to be ready and prepared for the first coming of the Lord, instead of expectancy there was great complacency and indifference.
We are living in the days before the coming of the Lord Jesus. We don’t know how long it is going to be. But we do know that we should be ready for the coming of the Lord and should prepare our hearts for His coming. Yet, around us we see conditions very similar to the day of Malachi.
Socially, it was a time when adultery was rampant. Divorce was very common. Children were being treated with a great deal of abuse. It was a time of ridiculous materialism.
Morally, it was a time when people had seemingly lost their understanding of right and wrong. We are living in a day that is very serious morally.
Also it is a time of great spiritual concern as well. In the days of Malachi we have the beginnings of formalism and skepticism which resulted in the phariseeism and sadduceeism in the days of the Lord Jesus Christ. Instead of being open and responsive to the coming of the Lord, there was a sense of indifference and unconcern. In fact, there was almost a sarcastic attitude.
As you read the book of Malachi you will discover that there is a word that occurs 7 times in the book of Malachi. It occurs in verse 2. The word is, wherein. “Wherein hast thou loved us?” Down in verse 6 he says, “Wherein have we despised thy name?” In verse 7 it occurs again, “Wherein have we polluted thee?”
It is a sarcastic word. It is kind of an “oh yeah” word. God makes His appeals to the hearts of the people and they respond with contempt. They respond with indifference and unconcern. They are almost insulting of the Lord. “Oh, yeah! Oh, really!”
So what we have in Malachi’s day is the “Oh yeah, the oh really” generation. We have a great deal of that today. There’s a great deal of spiritual unconcern in our day.
Notice what God says through Malachi to their day and I think it applies to our day also. The first thing we notice in these opening verses is that the people-
I.DOUBTED God’s love.
God declares His love in verse 2. “I have loved you, saith the Lord.” This is the last word in the Old Testament from God. From Genesis to the book of Malachi God has sent this message. The message He gives is the message of love. The great message of the Bible is the message of the love of God.
Malachi says in verse 1, “The burden of the word of the Lord.” The word, burden, there means to lift a heavy load. It’s like a heavy load was on Malachi. He had to deliver the message of the Lord. Sometimes the message of the Lord is a heavy burden. He declares the love of God, but he also declares the wrath of God. The preacher of the Word of God today, at times, has to do unpleasant things. If you are going to be faithful to the whole counsel of God you have to preach it all. You have to preach the love of God, but you also have to preach the wrath of God. You have to tell the truth about God. Too many people want a half-baked God. They want a half-Bible. They just want to hear half of the message. But the Bible gives us the entire counsel of God. God is a God of wrath, but now He says in verse 2, “I have loved you.” He is declaring His love. The people say, “Wherein have you loved us?”
Notice the tense of the verb here. God says, “I HAVE loved you.” The tense of the verb means -I loved you in the past, I love you in the present, and I will always love you.
In the book of Jeremiah, God says through the prophet, “I have loved you with an everlasting love.” It is a word that means from vanishing point to vanishing point. That means as far as you can look back in the past, God loved you. It means look at your present life and God says I love you. As far as the ages can go in the future, God says, I love you. God is a God of love. God declares His love for us. We read it all through the Bible. The Bible is a book of love. The Bible is God’s love letter to us to let us know that though we do not deserve it He loves us. Though we doubted God loves us.
The most profound thought ever to entertain the mind of a man is to think that the great God of this universe is a God who chooses to love you and me.
If you will just get hold of the truth that God loves you, it will break your heart and you can never be indifferent to the things of God.
God has declared His love. Now, notice the doubt of the people. They respond and say, “Oh, really? Oh, yeah? Wherein have you loved us?’ Isn’t it an amazing thing that people will be indifferent to the love of God? One of the saddest things in the entire world is unreturned love. God is saying, “I have loved you.” The people are unresponsive to the love of God. They say, “Prove your love to us.” Now, God declares His love. The people doubt His love now He demonstrates his love.
He says in verse 2 that He loved Jacob and in verse 3 he says He hated Esau. This has caused some people some trouble. Down in verse 4 he mentions Edom. Esau is the nation of Edom. Someone said to a Bible teacher one time, “I have real trouble with that statement in the Bible where it says I have hated Esau.” The preacher said, “What gives me a great problem in that passage is where it says I have loved Jacob.” I can understand why we would be unworthy of the love of God and the thing that really grips our heart and amazes our heart is that God loves us.
What is He doing here? You have to keep in mind the Oriental world spoke with great emotion. They are trying to say that God’s love is so great for Jacob that in comparison it would seem that it was hate for Esau.
You read down in verses 3, 4, and 5 and God points out that anything Esau tried didn’t materialize. It seemed to fall flat.
Verse 4 says, “We are impoverished, but we will return and build the desolate places: thus saith the Lord of hosts. They shall build, but I will throw down.” The Lord is saying I made up my mind I was not going to bless Esau because of their sin. Yet, on the other hand, in spite of their sin, God blessed Jacob. God demonstrated His love.
God has demonstrated His love to us. Beyond question, we could never, ever doubt His love. But they did. They doubted God’s love.
Notice the second “wherein.” In verse 6 God says, “A son honoreth his father, and a servant his master.” He is saying in this passage they have -
II. DESPISED God’s Name.
Look at the figures of speech. It is a normal thing for a son to honor his father. That would be what we would expect a son to do. The Bible teaches that God is our heavenly father. When Jesus came and walked on the earth the title that he used more often than any other was to call God Father. When you come to know Jesus Christ as your personal Savior the Bible says that you are born into the family of God. John 1:12 says, “As many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God.” I John 3:1 says, “Beloved, now are we the sons of God.”
So by means of regeneration, God becomes our heavenly father. God is saying here that a son honors his father; where is my honor? He is calling out to His people and saying, “Why do you not honor me as your father?” The point is, are we living in such a way that we bring honor to our heavenly Father.
People look at us today and I wonder if they see our heavenly Father. He says, “A servant honors his master.” Not only is God our father by means of regeneration, but by means of redemption, God is our master. When you receive Jesus Christ as your Savior, you also receive Him as your Lord and Master. Your life is not your own anymore. The Bible says you are not your own, for you are bought with a price.
So a servant honors his master, but God’s people so many times do not honor their heavenly Father. So, he says, “Where is my honor? You despise my name.” In spite of that relationship they had distaste toward the name of God. The word, despise, means to consider someone worthless. Can it be that God’s people would consider Him worthless? Can it be that people would get to a point in their spiritual lives that they would despise the holy name of God? “Wherein have we despised thy name?”
Number one, they doubt God’s love. Number two, they despise God’s name. Number three, they-
III. DEFILE God’s Altar.
Look at verse 7. “You offer polluted bread upon mine altar, and you say, “Wherein?” Oh, yeah? Oh, Really? How have we polluted thee? “In that ye say, the table of the Lord is contemptible.”
I think it will be helpful for me at this time if I give you just a little background and a little understanding of what’s going on. This is not the way we normally worship the Lord, but in those days they would worship the Lord in the temple. They would come bringing their sacrifices and their offerings to the temple. In those days, they didn’t have offering envelopes like we have today. They would just bring whatever they had to the worship of the Lord. They would bring their animals. They would bring their produce. They would bring the crops that they had grown. They would bring it to the house of the Lord. The Bible was very specific about how they were to bring it and what kind of sacrifices they were to be.
In Deuteronomy 15 we have some specific instructions about how these offerings are to be brought. In the 21st verse God said about the offerings, “If there be any blemish thereon.” As if it be lame or blind or have any ill blemish. “Thou shalt not sacrifice it unto the Lord thy God.” He was saying that there shouldn’t be any blemish on the sacrifice. He is saying you ought to bring to my altar that which is the very best that you have to offer.
He is talking about giving God our best. Here is a message from the Lord that says, “Do not defile my altar. Bring to me your very best.”
Here’s what the people were doing. They would get ready to go to the house of the Lord and they would look among their animals and their flock. They would see a poor old blind goat and they would say, “Well, we don’t need that blind goat; let’s take that down to the house of the Lord.” Then they would find a lame lamb. They would say, “We don’t need that lame lamb; let’s take that down to the house of the Lord.” They would find a sick cow. They would say, “This cow is sick and looks like it’s going to die, let’s take that sick cow down to the house of the Lord.”
I bet it did not start out that way. They started with their best and then just as people do today, they allow the things of the world take priority over what they vowed at one time.
Here they came on the Lord’s Day, bringing their sacrifices to the Lord. Here they come. They have a blind goat and a lame lamb and a sick cow. You say, that’s awful for people to do that to the Lord. What it means is - they were just giving the Lord the leftovers of their life. People still do that today.
I think about how people use their time. A lot of people say, “Well, if I don’t have anything else I want to do and if it’s convenient for me, I think I’ll go to God’s house. I’ll give God a little bit of my time this week.” People do that with their talent. “If there’s nothing going on in the city that I can use my talent for, then I might use my talent over at God’s house.” They do that with their treasure. “If I have all the food I want, if I’ve bought all the clothes I want, if I have all the cars I want, if I’ve bought all the conveniences and the gadgets I want, if there’s anything left over, I’ll give it to God.” Polluted bread on God’s altars. Here come God’s people on Sunday. They bring in a lame lamb and a sick cow and a blind goat. God says, “You have defiled my altar.”
Look at verse 10. “Who is there among you that would shut the doors for naught. Neither do you kindle fire on my altar for naught. I have no pleasure in you, saith the Lord of hosts, neither will I accept an offering at your hand.” He is saying you ought to bring your offering sincerely. Malachi is really saying - I wish somebody would just close the doors of the church and turn the fire off the altar. He is saying that God is tired of insincerity in worship. God wants us to be sincere.
When you sing your songs, choir, you ought to sing it from the sincerity of your heart. I believe you do. When you teach Sunday school, Sunday school teachers, you ought to teach from the sincerity of your heart and I believe you do. When you bring your offerings unto the Lord, you ought to bring it with the sincerity of your heart. I believe you do.
Drop down in verse 13. We also should give unto the Lord joyfully. “Behold, what a weariness it is!” the people had come to the point that their offering and their worship of the Lord was boring to them. It was weariness to them. It was a burden to them.
“Ye have snuffed at it.” Let me give you a better word there. “You have snorted at it.” “Well, it’s time to go to church.” They just kind of snort at it. I’ll tell you the picture. It’s the picture of sticking the nose up and snort. Isn’t that an awful thing to do! But they are doing it to the Lord. They are doing it because they are not worshipping the Lord. They are bringing in the torn and the lame and the sick. “Should I accept this of your hand, saith the Lord?”
It is a serious matter to serve the Lord. It is a serious matter to give unto the Lord and to sacrifice unto the Lord. It should never be a source of boredom. It should be a source of joy. Give joyfully unto the Lord.
In verse 14 he says, “But cursed be the deceiver, which hath in his flock a male, and voweth, and sacrificeth unto the Lord a corrupt thing.” He is saying “don’t give that which is blemished unto me, give that which is honorable unto me.
Verse 14 says, “I am great King, saith the Lord of hosts, and my name is dreadful among the heathen. Jesus Christ came into this world and the Bible says that He is the king of kings. He is the Lord of lords. We do not respond to the king of kings and Lord of lords in indifference and in ridicule and in skepticism. We do not doubt His love. We know He loves us. We do not despise His name. We bring honor to His name. We do not defile His altar. We bring our very best unto the Lord Jesus Christ. He is a great king and He deserves the very best that we have to offer.
Let’s bow our heads in prayer.
