Book of Malachi - Ch. 1, Vs. 11-14 (02/12/2023)

All righty, I guess we'll go ahead and get started here. Looking forward to seeing Matt hobble in here in a second, assuming he's nice and sore from all of the festivities of the past few days. First he was going on and on about all the yard work he did, and then it was the getting ready for the party.

And of course, they did a ton for that, so props there. And then he decided to play some basketball. Blames all the yard work on his basketball performance, but here they come now. How sore are you, Noah?

Pretty sore. Everybody's sore. I didn't feel it until this morning. I didn't either, at least to, well, what I felt yesterday went away, but new soreness this morning. How are you feeling, Matt? Feeling good.

I'm very sore. He's like, I've taken 4-Advil, and back to my normal self. Wow. Noah's not sore at all, that's what I realized. Wow. Noah's fine. Got a special birthday boy in the house today. He's getting big.

Malachi 1:11 and the Prophecy of Gentile Worship

All righty, well, good morning, everybody. We will jump right in this morning. We've spent the last, today will be the third week we've been parked on verse 11 of Malachi chapter 1, and hopefully we'll get it done today.

I'd like to get chapter 1 done today. We'll see what happens, though. No promises. But we've been on verse 11, and we ended last week. I'll go ahead and I'll read verse 11 real quick, and then we'll just briefly review what we talked about last week so we can segue into where we're heading to start today off.

Verse 11 says, again, this is Malachi chapter 1, For from the rising of the sun, even into the going down of the same, my name shall be great among the Gentiles. And in every place incense shall be offered unto my name, and a pure offering.

For my name shall be great among the heathen, saith the Lord of hosts. And so we've talked about, of course, at this point, the fact that this is an interesting verse, given where we find it here, because it's right on either side of the Lord thoroughly rebuking the priests of this time who were going about their priestly duties in the worst way possible, the most profane way possible.

We've already read up to this point the defiled sacrifices they've been offering, their attitudes toward the Lord, their questioning of His love for them, all of these things. And then you get to verse 11, and the Lord sticks in this reality that the Gentiles are going to be worshipping Him.

My name will be great among them. And the first thing we covered when we got to this verse was whether He was talking about the Gentiles at that time in history, or if this was a prophecy of, you know, when Jesus came, His ministry began, He preached, of course, Pentecost takes place, and then Paul and the apostles start preaching to the Gentiles, as well as the Jews, and that extends all the way to the Millennial Kingdom.

And we concluded that it was, in fact, a prophecy. This was the Lord talking about a time that was to come. He wasn't talking about right at that moment, but a time when the Gentiles would be ushered in.

And then the next thing we started talking about was we asked the question, okay, if that's true, is this verse then, you know, just this great, victorious verse for us Gentiles, because, you know, it's a prophecy of us getting to be a part of the Lord's family, or could we perhaps, given the context we find this in, take it as a warning to ourselves as well?

In other words, the rebuke that the priests are currently experiencing themselves, does this imply that, you know, we replace the priests that have failed, and then, you know, life is just perfect from that point forward?

Well, we started with looking at a couple of passages that actually, no, we went to, you know, it was a couple passages. They were both in Romans, though. First, we looked at Romans 15, 16, where it talks about our offerings as Gentiles at this very moment.

Of course, at the time, Paul was preaching and talking about the fact that the offering up of the Gentiles might be acceptable, being sanctified by the Holy Ghost. Of course, that happens to be the verse that we've been studying for quite a bit of time in our main sermons, the main sermon series that we've been on.

But then we looked at Romans 11, and we read how Paul is talking about the reality that because of what the priests are doing in Malachi, and, of course, the people of Israel have done for centuries over a millennium leading up to this point, led to the fact that they were actually broken off as the branches from the main root, of course, the root being Jesus.

So he's using this analogy. Paul is using this analogy where he talks about the fact that the natural branches were broken off, and these wild olive branches were grafted in. And he's talking about the Gentiles.

And all that's great. All that's cool. Much like verse 11, the reality of this prophecy that the Gentiles will offer a pure offering in the name of the Lord. But as we were, again, this is a review of last week.

Paul then goes in to say, let's see, which verse was it here? Yeah. Okay. So in verse 18, he said, Boast not against the branches, but if thou boast, thou bearest not the root, but the root thee. That will say, then, the branches were broken off that I might be grafted in.

He's talking about from the Gentiles' perspective now. And then Paul says, well, because of unbelief, they were broken off. Talking about the Israelites, talking about the natural branches. And thou standest by faith.

Be not high-minded, but fear. And so Paul is essentially giving the Gentiles here a warning that what happened to the natural branches could happen to you as well. And from the human viewpoint, that's obviously true.

We talked about this last week. If you are going to take on, if you are going to profess the name of the Lord, the Lord knows the hearts of every human. He knows who his kids are and who aren't his kids.

But from our perspective, if you are professing the name of the Lord, you are held equally responsible as anybody else to keeping a testimony, a testimony that is appropriate for taking on his name. I mean, if you're going to, again, if you're going to call yourself a Christian, you need to live the way that he and the apostles command us to live throughout the New Testament.

All of the standards they give us, the imperatives they give us. Of course, if you are a part of a local church body, you need to represent that as well, because that local church body is representative of Christ's bride and, of course, his children.

And so this is a warning that if you are not going to live, if you're going to take on the name of the Lord, but not live right, look what happened to the natural branches. And so that's where we left off last week was in that passage.

Now, in terms of the branches being broke off. And again, you could read, go read all of Romans chapter 11, which is where that whole passage is found in. And it's really, really fascinating stuff. Of course, the warning that Paul was given, giving the Gentiles there, you can kind of consider that a broad warning against the.

The collective Gentiles that are in some form taking part in the worship of the Lord, again, professing Christians, right? We know there are a lot of people that will profess to to be a follower of Jesus, but they're not really bearing the fruit right now.

Again, we don't know hearts. Jesus does, though. But he does tell us that you will know them by their fruit. I don't think he would have told us that if we if some discernment, you know, wouldn't be appropriate.

And so what we can see all around us, there are professing Christians that are not living up to that. They are not providing a testimony, the testimony that they should. They're not living up to the standards that the apostles set before us.

They commanded us to live by, again, the imperatives that we were given that we just recently finished studying in Romans 15. And so, again, that passage in Romans 11 could kind of be a be looked at as a broad warning against any Gentile, any group of Gentiles that's taken on the name of the Lord, but not not doing so in the appropriate way.

Much like the priests were. They still had the title. They were still they had they still have the job description. These priests in Malachi, they were still in charge of proper temple worship, leading all of the people in the way of the law, which, of course, is the dispensation they were living under at this time and in charge of the sacrifices and all these things.

They weren't doing any of it in what they were doing. They were doing far from the right way. In fact, in some cases, the exact opposite of the way they should have been, as they were told in Leviticus, which is all stuff we looked at a couple of weeks ago.

Now, what about a more specific warning, though? So you could take chapter 11 of Romans, think of that more broadly. But what about specifically like to local churches? If you want to get even more micro with the fact that.

Just because we were graphed in, just because in Malachi 111, it says that the Gentiles will call upon the name of the Lord or I'm sorry, it says my name shall be great among the Gentiles just because that is reality.

It doesn't mean that we are within we are we are safe from this similar rebuke and trouble that the priests found themselves in from God. In other words, we know that God treats his people differently throughout time.

I mean, again, the priests here were under the Mosaic law. Totally. Whereas now we are under this age of grace. We're on this side of the cross, so he treats his people differently. He obviously treated his people differently post Garden of Eden than he did while they were in the Garden of Eden.

He treats his people differently throughout time, but he never changes. And so you got to ask yourself the question, if the things the priests were doing here, going against his word, deliberately disobeying him, if that made him really upset, then you got to know that our deliberate disobedience of him now will yield a very similar, if not the exact same result.

So go to Romans chapter I'm sorry, Revelation chapter three for a second. Let's look at a very specific example of a local church that was thoroughly rebuked and was in big trouble. For somewhat similar reasons that our priests in Malachi here are.

Again, they were priests, they had they had priestly duties. We are now in the New Testament, but the fundamentals of it is are the same. It's disobedience. It is not following what the Lord has put in place for us in the time we live in.

Revelation chapter three, starting verse 15. And to the angel of the church of the Laodiceans, right? These things saith the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the beginning of the creation of God. I know thy works.

So this is Jesus talking. He says, I know thy works that thou art neither cold nor hot. I would that thou weren't cold or hot. So then because thou art lukewarm and because neither cold nor hot, I will spew thee out of my mouth.

Now, let me explain to you guys really quick kind of what I think this is not what this passage means, but rather the type of people I believe this passage is describing. I mean, it's pretty clear what it means.

But what about the people here that's being described? And again, we're getting kind of this analogy of being lukewarm, neither hot nor cold. Well, in my mind, right off the bat, we're given a spectrum, right?

I know that I know thy works, that thou art neither cold nor hot. So we're given two opposite ends of a spectrum, right? The cold, and I'll explain why where I'm getting some of this stuff in a second.

The cold represents the side of the spectrum that I would say the atheist or the agnostic or just the unbeliever in general, someone who's not professing the name of the Lord, in fact, getting as far from the name of the Lord as possible.

The cold is the side of the spectrum that those people, in my opinion, occupy. We can talk about this in a second. The hot would represent the most passionate, devoted follower of Jesus. It is zealous in the best way possible a person could get in terms of being a follower of Jesus in all circumstances, in my opinion.

So the question is, are those opposite ends of the spectrum? Could we say that that would be true, at least at least those opposite ends? Well, the first part, let's look at the word cold for a second.

I don't know if I'll be able to pronounce these words at all. But the Greek word for cold in this chapter, I mean, in this verse is sucrose, I believe. And it's given two definitions. The first definition is the literal, which obviously it's exactly what it means in English.

But it comes with a metaphorical definition as well. This Greek word in metaphorically, it means in mind of one totally destitute of warm Christian faith in the desire for holiness. Someone that has absolutely no yearning for faith or holiness.

They're secular. They're totally secular. And again, this is why I believe that that end of the spectrum is where you could say maybe the atheists, the just unbelievers in general really occupy it. They don't even care.

Now, let me ask you this. Why on earth would God say, I would rather you be cold than lukewarm? Well, it makes perfect sense if you think about it in these terms, because, of course, he would rather a person be on that end of the spectrum.

Atheists never talk about him than to have a person that does profess his name but lives as badly as they do. Because at least those people are not harming the testimony of the churches around them or the church they may be a part of or his name in general.

OK, now, hot is the Greek word zestos, I believe, and metaphorically, that means a fervor of mind and zeal. But again, it's not zeal without knowledge. It's the good kind of it's it's the proper zeal.

Because, I mean, just last week, we're talking about Paul rebuking the Israelites at his time who were very zealous, but it was zealous without knowledge. This is talking about, I would I would say it implies zealous or zeal with knowledge.

So that's that's what hot means. But what about the center of that spectrum? OK, there's the Greek word for lukewarm, which is klearos, I believe, which metaphorically means of the condition of the soul wretchedly fluctuating between a torpor and a fervor of love.

In other words, a state of inactiveness in and let's say the worship of God in this context and in a state of having this fervor. OK, is one example that I believe we can draw from. We have these priests in Malachi that are reluctantly and flippantly, quote unquote, going through the motions of worship.

But even worse, they're doing so in a blatantly sinful way. In other words, or for example, they've been despising the Lord's name. They've been offering polluted bread, offering defiled sacrifices, but they're still doing it all the same.

They're still going through some motions, perhaps for a love or a fervor of societal status rather than for the Lord himself. I don't know the Greek word here. It says that being lukewarm is fluctuating between that wretched.

I'm sorry, wretchedly fluctuating between a torpor, which means that you're just in this state of inactive, let's say, worship in this context and a fervor of love. But what is that love toward? Is it toward God or is it toward the love of the activity of the worship itself?

Because, I mean, we know being in the Bible belt, there's plenty of societal gain for being a professed follower of the Lord, for being a churchgoer and all these things. I would assume that it was probably true here for the Israelites, for these priests.

I mean, they had a very important title, a very important status that they were operating within. So perhaps they were fluctuating between that state of inactive worship and just the motions they were going through, the parts of temple worship they were doing, even though it was, again, totally blasphemous.

Perhaps it was only for the love of that societal status. But another reason why I believe that you could apply this lukewarmness, this idea, this Greek concept of lukewarmness to the priests in the Malachi passage we're reading is because of the attention that God is giving them.

Remember, the cold side of the spectrum is where the people that God is not giving much, if any, attention to are living. The other side of the spectrum, of course, the hot, the most zealous, the most passionate people for God, that's like David.

That's like the prophet Malachi that's talking here. Those are the people that are constantly yearning for that relationship with the Lord. But he, of course, is going to be giving his attention to that center of the spectrum as well.

Why? Because they are taking on the responsibility, the title, the duties that come with, in this case, being priests. Or even if you want to look at it more broadly than that, because we're eventually going to get to just the Israelites in general, they are his people.

They would claim to be. He's giving them attention here. And it's because of the fact they are not hot. They're not living up to his standards. And so that's where the rebuke is coming from. He's giving them attention.

After all, they are still his people. If they were cold, perhaps they'd be like the rest of the heathen at this point in history and get very little attention from God, if any at all. The majority of the attention he was giving the heathen at this time is whether or not he's going to use them as a weapon to wipe out his kids when they were disobeying.

And then to use someone else to wipe them out for wiping his kids out. And so he wasn't going to be giving the heathen at this time much attention at all, or, if you want to put it in these terms, the cold end of the spectrum.

But he's given a lot of attention to his lukewarm people at this point in history. And on the contrary, in terms of the fact that he was not ignoring them at this time as he was the heathen, perhaps, on the contrary, he's given them a very similar message that he gave the Laodicean church.

Because like the Laodiceans, they weren't ignorant of his statutes. This is a legitimate church we're talking about here. They're very aware of the way they should have been living. And yet they weren't intentionally.

They were very, the priests were very aware. They were not ignorant of his statutes like the heathen were. Okay, so think about the cold end of the spectrum again for a second. The heathen were ignorant of his statutes and therefore they were destitute of faith and having a desire for holiness, which was the Greek word for cold.

That's the heathen. That was not the priest at this time. They were very aware of these statutes, these laws that they needed to be living up to. But neither were they zealous toward him as they should have been.

So the priests this time were not hot either. And what does that lead to? Well, it leads to them as we will read in just a minute. Actually, did we already read it? Yeah, in verse 16 of that revelation passage we were saying, So because thou art lukewarm and neither cold nor hot, I will spew thee out of my mouth.

That's what lukewarmness leads to. You literally make him sick. You make the Lord want to vomit because of the state of living that you are currently in. That's where the priests were heading here. And of course, the Lord is making that abundantly clear to them.

Now, of course, the message to Laodicea, that is directly applicable to us as Gentiles in this age because he was talking to a lukewarm Christian local church. The main reason we're here is because we're reading Malachi.

But the question is, could this be applied to us? And I believe it could, even as Gentiles, even though verse 11 of Malachi 1 is awesome. And it's because of that that we even get to be coming to church right now.

It doesn't mean that we get to live our lives with impunity. We could very easily get the same rebuke. And the Laodicean church is giving us example of what could happen to us from the human viewpoint if we start living our lives like this.

Let's continue in that revelation passage for a second. Pick it up in verse 17. Because thou sayest, I am rich and increased with goods and have need of nothing. And knowest not that thou art wretched and miserable and poor and blind and naked.

This was a legitimate Christian, sorry, church age Christian church. And this is how the Lord is describing him. I mean, this is Jesus talking here. I counsel thee to buy of me gold tried in the fire that thou mayest be rich and white raiment that thou mayest be clothed in that the shame of thy nakedness do not appear and anoint thine eyes with eye salve that thou mayest see.

As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten. And that's a very important thing there. It might make us not feel great, just like little kids getting in trouble with their parents. But what is the purpose of the discipline?

It's so they aren't on the path of destruction later in life. And so Jesus is saying, I do the same thing with as many as I love. I will rebuke and chasten if you start veering off of the path of righteousness.

He says, be zealous, therefore, and repent. And remember, the Greek word for hot metaphorically means to be as zealous in the right kind of way as possible. Behold, I stand at the door and knock. Go figure that this passage is found in this context.

If any man hear my voice and open the door, I will come in to him and will sup with him and he with me. Dad has been talking about this verse quite a bit lately as well. It's found smack dab in the middle of the context talking about Christian churches, churchgoers, those professing the name of the Lord.

If you do start veering off the path of righteousness as one of my own, I'm going to be sitting there knocking on the door constantly. We talked about this not that long ago in the topical relationship with our Lord.

The ball is constantly in our court in terms of our relationship with the Lord. He's right there. We were created to have a relationship with him. He's right there ready to have it at any given point.

But we're constantly getting distracted and filling our time and our minds with every other thing imaginable aside from him. And in those moments, we are not in relationship with him. We are not having a very good relationship with him.

However, that doesn't mean he's not there. He's right there waiting for us to turn back to him at any given second. And that's what he's talking about in verse 20. I'm literally at the door knocking. All you've got to do is open it, and our relationship is now restored, and you are back on the path of righteousness once again.

Verse 21 says, To him that overcometh will I grant to sit with me in my throne, even as I also overcame and am set down with my Father in his throne. So he's laying out the magnificent position we get to be in when we turn back to him.

He that hath an ear, let him hear, with the Spirit safe unto the churches. So while God gives the priests a prophecy of the Gentiles offering a pure offering unto him, that doesn't mean that we, as the Gentiles that he's speaking of, per Romans 15 -16 that we read earlier, are safe, so to speak, from the same fate as the priests from the human viewpoint.

So that's obviously an important thing to throw in at the end there, because, again, I believe that Paul was talking from the human viewpoint as well when he was talking about the branches being broke off and the Gentiles being grafted in, and then you better be careful or he'll break you off and graft the natural branches back in.

I believe he's talking about our responsibility as human beings. Of course, it is totally surrounded by the sovereignty of God on either side of that whole chapter, but our responsibility is still right there in parallel.

And he's saying if you're not living right and if you are not going to be living up to the testimony that you are saying you want to represent and the imperatives that have been laid before you, you'll be broken off just like the natural branches were broken off.

And I'll graft the natural branches right back in. It's not talking about losing our salvation. Again, this is from the human viewpoint. These are people that are saying that they are a follower of Jesus and then totally defiling the testimony along the way.

That is not a good place to be in. That's what the priests were doing. The Gentiles are not safe from the very similar rebuke themselves. Did you have a question, Matt? Yeah, if it's okay. Yeah, go ahead.

I find verse 17 really interesting because it's kind of further explaining why God spews them out. Because thou sayest, I am rich and increased with goods and have need of nothing, and knowest not that thou art wretched.

That reminds me of what David talks about in, I think, what is it? Is it John 1 .9? 1 John? Yeah, 1 John 1 .9, right? That's the one where if you agree, basically, if you agree that you have sin or that you need the Lord, he is just and right to forgive us.

It's like there's a key difference in a group of people who maybe do a bunch of religious stuff, but they think that they're, in a way, self-righteous. They don't need to constantly be working to be better.

That they're wretched and that they need to walk in the Spirit versus people who acknowledge that. I just thought that was cool how that verse right there is like, because they know it's not that they're wretched.

And it is weird, like, again, for me, and the reason why I think it's important to distinguish that this is talking about the responsibility of these people that profess to be believers, whether they are a true child of the Lord that are just, have let their flesh overcome them, and they are living as described in verse 17, wretched, or yeah, you are miserable, wretched, poor, blind.

This is how you're acting spiritually. You've got to get your act together. Or even if it's talking about, you know, as let's just say a goat, they're held equally responsible because they are under the authority of that local church, which of course is under the authority of the Lord, which is why the Lord is rebuking them so soundly at this time, because they were totally failing themselves as a church.

And I believe, I mean, it implies it was the whole church. So there are sheep in here and goats, but all of them are being rebuked. But to your point, yes, Matt, I mean, like Dad says, confess means to just simply agree that what you just did is wrong.

He's saying, you know, do that and we'll move on. You guys have any other thoughts regarding all of the stuff that we just covered? Well, let's go ahead and keep moving forward here. Let's go back to Malachi.

We'll just pick it up in the second half of verse 11 one more time and then move from there. My name shall be great among the Gentiles. It's true. It's an awesome reality. And in every place incense shall be offered into my name and a pure offering.

The first part of that verse, I believe, could be applied to the first Advent extended all the way through. When it says incense shall be offered in my name and a pure offering, we've literally been talking about how the incense is a picture of the spiritual offerings that we as believer priests can offer.

So, again, I believe this can apply to us at this very second, as well as extended out to the millennial kingdom and a pure offering for my name shall be great among the heathen, saith the Lord of hosts.

Pretty awesome. Verse 12. But ye have profaned it. Right back to the priests. But ye have profaned it in that ye say the table of the Lord is polluted. And the fruit thereof, even his meat is contemptible.

So he's kind of rehashing a little bit of what has already been talked about, I believe, in verses somewhere between verses six and eight, where the priests were saying that the table of the Lord and that's talking about the offering.

I'm sorry, the altar of sacrifices was contemptible to them. So after speaking of the pure offerings in the future by the Gentiles, Malachi refers once more to the immediate condition. Coming right back to the kind of in real time historical context of when Malachi was being written, he talks, he prophesies of the Gentiles, but now he's right back talking about the immediate condition of the priests at this time.

And he tells them again that they are profaning God's very name. Go figure that they're being rebuked so soundly at this time. Verse 13 says, ye said also, behold, what a weariness is it? And ye have snuffed at it, saith the Lord of hosts.

I mean, talk about an attitude problem. They're sitting here literally woe is me because of just how tough, you know, the job is here. His priest, his table is contemptible. These sacrifices, they snuff at it, saith the Lord of hosts.

And ye brought that which was torn in the lame and the sick. So again, if he talks about something once, you know, I mean, you know, it's important, but if he brings it up again, God brings back the reality that they were offering these defiled sacrifices.

This is something important that they were missing big time. And the results of doing this as laid out in Leviticus, we looked at like three or four weeks ago at this point was very severe, but they were totally ignoring it anyway.

So he brings it all up totally again. That which was torn, that which was lame and the sick. Thus, ye brought an offering. Should I accept of this? Should I accept this of your hand, saith the Lord. So he's rehashing quite a bit.

He's asking them a second time. This is what you've given me. Why on earth do you think I would accept this? And then, of course, if you backtrack a few verses, he in Malachi asked them, he says, would your governors accept this?

And of course, the answer is an easy no. So why would your heavenly father, why would your heavenly master accept this? And so the Lord is saying, should I accept this of your name? Again, in verses eight, I'm sorry, in verses seven and eight, the actions of the priests were condemned.

But here, the tone kind of shifts from what they were doing to their attitudes as well. Now their attitudes are being condemned, which really does take it a step further. Because now, let's say, hypothetically, which, of course, this wasn't true.

But let's say, hypothetically, they were offering appropriate sacrifices. And they were, you know, again, going through the motions, but at least by the, you know, framework laid out in the Mosaic Law.

Let's say at least they were doing that. Internally, though, in their hearts, it now shifts to their attitudes. And what were their attitudes? What a weariness is this? And you snuff at it, sayeth the Lord.

So they had an attitude problem as well, which, of course, makes sense. I mean, if you have the actions, you had the bad actions, you got to know the first domino to fall was their attitudes. If you guys remember in Obadiah, it was talking about the Edomites.

It actually started with their attitudes first and then started talking about their evil actions against the people of the Lord. So it was a very similar thing to kind of contrast it with that. The order was slightly different because God did hone in on their evil attitudes first, and that eventually led to the actions of the Edomites basically killing God's people, taking the captives, giving them to the foreign nations that were coming in and attacking them and all that kind of stuff.

But the attitudes are just as important as the actions. It's where it starts. And so now it's shifted to their attitudes. The priests' attitudes was one of contempt. They snuffed at the very practices that they should have upheld in its correct form in the first place.

Now, apparently, what's interesting is the priests apparently recognized that these practices were irregular, the way that they were conducting their practices, that is, because they themselves said that the Lord's table is defiled and that its food, which is what bread means, is contemptible.

In verse 12, they are now pointing these things out. Malachi pointed them out earlier in verses 7 and 8. Now the priests themselves are saying the table is contemptible and the food is defiled. But they didn't care that this was a reality.

They didn't care that they—so now we realize that they were aware of what they were doing not being correct. They were just as aware of the law as they should have been, but they still didn't care. And that's where this attitude problem comes into verse 13, why it's so potent, because they had such an attitude problem that despite the fact that they knew the results of these actions and even these attitudes, they were doing it anyway.

They didn't care to go to the trouble to put everything back in order the way—the order that it should have been. They—you know, being involved in the offering of the sacrifices at this point to them was just a burden.

And that's why they say, what a weariness is this? It was just—all of it was just a burden to them, and they just didn't care anymore. Now if you guys remember in our introduction to this book—of course you don't remember because it's like nine weeks ago at this point— but one of the things we talked about in the intro was the fact that the people collectively at this time, the Israelites, but certainly the priests, they kind of had lost faith in all of it.

Everything that all of the prophets had said before leading up to this point in history, it's like they were just losing faith because it hadn't happened yet. And so perhaps they just didn't care anymore because they literally thought none of it matters.

Like, we were promised all these things. We were promised a kingdom. We were promised a Messiah. Sure, we are now out of the hands of the Babylonians, but now we're just under the hand of the Persians, and nothing is as it should have been.

From the human viewpoint, maybe they were rationalizing a little bit and using all of that as justification for not caring. Of course, the question there is, does it matter? Like, is that justification?