From Babylon to Jerusalem - (Malachi) ch.1:11-2:16 — Zac Poonen

From Babylon to Jerusalem: Malachi’s Call to Put God First

In the book of Malakai, in chapter 1. We saw in our last study that this was a word that God gave through His servant Malakai, meaning My messenger, and it was soon after Nehemiah had built the wall. And we find that even though the external form of coming out of Babylon and into Jerusalem was there, yet the inner life was not there.

And this is why the book of Malakai has a particular message for those who have taken that step of coming out of Babylon as a system and coming into the truths of the new covenant and the body of Christ.

But the danger is that we can have the form and not the inner life that corresponds with the new covenant, whereas many of the other messages in the other books that we have studied so far have a message particularly for those who are in Babylon, exhorting them to come out.

Here we find a message particularly to those who have obeyed that call, who have responded externally, but in whom there is a need for cleansing in the spirit. So we saw in our last study, we ended up with verse 10 and 11, where we saw that these Israelites were bringing to God an offering that cost them nothing.

And essentially, in the book of Malakai, what God is saying to His people is that you are not putting Me first in your lives. You have given Me a place, yes, you have built the walls, you have built the temple, you are bringing the offerings, you have established the priesthood, and all that, but in spite of all this, you are not putting Me first in your life.

In other words, God is not foremost in your thinking, in the ordering of your daily life, in your family life, in your professional life, in your business. God is not uppermost and first. And that is the condition of a lot of Christians today, and it is possible for us to come out of Babylon as a system, to come into what we understand to be the body of Christ, and yet not to put God first in every area of our life.

That was their essential crime. When they brought an offering, they brought the blind and the lame and the sick. They brought an offering. They were not irreligious. But God was not supreme in their affections, and therefore their offering was not acceptable to God.

Way back in the beginning of the Old Testament, in the book of Genesis, we read about Cain. His offering was not acceptable to God. And he himself was not acceptable. God was not first in his life. And that's why his offering was not acceptable.

And we find at the end of the Old Testament the same story, that their offering is not acceptable, because God is not first in their life. And in Abel, there God found a man who put him first, and therefore his offering was acceptable.

And later on when you come to chapter 3, you read about a remnant who feared God's name, who gathered together in Malachi chapter 3, and they were those who followed in the footsteps of Abel. So we find in the book of Malachi, those who have followed in the footsteps of the religion of Cain, and those who have followed in the footsteps of the religion of Abel.

And that's right through the Old Testament, and that's right through the New Testament too. Those who are religious, but for whom God is not everything. The kingdom of God is not first in their life. And that's very, very easy for us to degenerate into that condition, brothers and sisters.

To understand the doctrine that God is not supreme and first in every area of our life. Now it's impossible to be a part of the bride of Christ, and to be a part of that body that becomes his bride, unless God is supreme in every area that we are conscious of.

That means in every area we say, what does God think about this? That's important. How I handle my money, how I spend my leave, how I spend my time, how I bring up my family, how I run my affairs in the office, in the factory, in every area that I bring God in and say, what does God think about this?

Have I consulted God about that? Have I sought the will of God in this area, in what I read, and how I spend my time? In every area. You know, that is to follow in the footsteps of that remnant spoken of later on in Malakai.

So that's good for us to bear in mind, that this was why their offering was worthless. Because basically in their heart, God was not first. And that becomes the religion of Cain. Where they bring an offering, but without putting God first in their lives.

That can happen today when we come for meetings, and break bread, and so many things, and we can fall into the same danger. And therefore he says, oh that there were one person among you, one man, who would shut the door to these type of offerings and tell the people plainly that all your offerings are not acceptable if I am not first in every area of your life.

And then he says, in the last part of verse ten, I will not accept an offering from you, but now I will tell you what I am going to do. I am going to reject the whole lot of you Jews as a people, and I am going to get a pure offering from another people who are not Jews.

The kingdom of God was going to be taken away from them and given to another who would bring forth the fruit. And as we mentioned in our last study, that's happened again and again in church history, that when a particular group that God raised up to restore a certain truth began to think that now God is accepting only us, and we are the people, and they became proud of themselves, God set them aside and raised up another group.

And that's happened again and again and again and again. And each group thought, but that will never happen to us. And we can sit today and say, but that will never happen to us. Then we are in danger.

God is no respecter of persons. And if we don't put God first in our life with all the truths that we understand, God can also set us aside and raise up someone else who follows the Lord and puts him first.

So that's the warning there. From the rising of the sun, even to its setting, my name will be great among the nations. Among all the nations of the world, God says, my name will be great. This is an emphasis in Malachi, the name of the Lord.

Three times in verse 11, my name will be great among the nations. In every place, incense is going to be offered to my name, and a great offering that is pure for my name will be great among the nations, says the Lord of hosts.

And so we see here three times an emphasis on my name. You remember when Jesus taught us to pray, the first request he taught us to pray was, hallowed be thy name. And so we see here the emphasis on my name throughout the book of Malachi.

A pure offering will be offered to my name. And what was it that made the offering impure of all the other people? What is it that makes an offering made to God impure? We say, if there is sin in the life, if a conscience is defiled, then the offering is impure.

That's true. But more than that, there may not be any sin on my conscience. And yet, the offering made to God can still be impure if God is not first in every area of my life. I can say I am not committing any conscious sin, but that's not enough.

The sin of these people was that God was not first in their life. And when God is not first and foremost in every area of my life, then whatever offering I bring to God is unacceptable. A pure heart is a pure heart in which God is supreme.

Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart. And if a person loves God with all his heart, it is not possible for him to love money. That is why Jesus said that if you love money, you cannot love God.

Because when you love money, in a little bit in your heart, God is not there. And then of course, we see that does not accept the offering made from such a heart. You cannot love God and money. And we find here that the great conflict in Malakai was between these two gods that are constantly seeking for the worship of man—God and mammon.

And it is because they worshipped mammon that they were unwilling to bring to God the best lamb, the best bullock. They thought, how can we give that? That will cost us something. And mammon got a grip on their hearts.

And we see this is the great conflict even today. God and mammon. Jesus said these are the two masters. And Malakai was speaking particularly on that. Right through the book you find that. God and mammon.

And when we do not love God with all our hearts, in other words, if God is not supreme, every offering we bring is impure. We turn now to verse 12. You are profaning my name in that you say the table of the Lord is defiled, and as for its fruit, its food is to be dispensed.

That means they were saying that God's work was a burden. Verse 13, you also say, my, how tiresome it is to keep on bringing these offerings to God. Every day we have to bring these offerings and we have to bring the best to God.

How tiresome it is. His commandments are a burden. And when that thought comes into our heart that God's commandments are a burden, then we know that we have fallen into the backsliding that characterized the Israelites in Malakai's day.

And you disdainfully sniff at it, says the Lord of hosts. Why did they say it was a burden? Because their love had gone. It says in the Old Testament that Jacob served seven years for Rachel, and they seemed unto him as a few days because of the love that he had for her.

He loved Rachel so much that he slogged for seven years in the sun and the rain, and it was just like a few days. And that's always true, that where there is love, fervent love, any labor will look light.

When labor for the Lord looks like a burden, when a sacrifice we make for the Lord looks like a burden, when I think that something I have done for the church, why doesn't somebody else also pitch in and help?

And I have such questions and complaints in my mind, why aren't brother so-and-so and brother so-and-so also doing their part? When I yield to such thoughts, I can say to myself, love is gone. When Jacob worked for Rachel, he wasn't bothered about whether anybody else was working or not.

And that's the way by which we know that we have left our first love. And the crime, the sin that the leader of the church in Ephesus fell into is also what happened here. They were doing God's work, but it was a burden.

They had complaints against others as to why aren't they doing their part. Beware of that, brothers and sisters. And you sniff at it, and you bring to God what was taken by robbery. That teaches us that we cannot give to God what belongs to Caesar.

Give to Caesar what belongs to Caesar, and give to God what belongs to God. In other words, if I have cheated the income tax, it's no use my giving money in the offering box, that money which I have saved by cheating the income tax or cheating some other tax, and I put it in the offering box, God says, what you are putting in the offering box is what you have stolen.

It is exactly the same as going to somebody's house, stealing his purse, taking that money, and putting it in the offering box. It's exactly the same when we don't give to Caesar what belongs to Caesar.

When we don't give, when we don't pay back our debts, and we put money in the offering box, God says, I don't want it. That doesn't belong to you. That belongs to so and so. You should have repaid that debt.

When we haven't made restitution of money that we have stolen from the office or the factory or whatever it is in the olden days or from the railways, and we haven't paid it back, and we put money in the offering box, God says, I don't want it.

You put what is taken by robbery. You have robbed somebody else, and you come and put it here. Malachi really let the people have it. And he says, you bring all this. And you bring what is lame or sick, so you bring the offering.

In the King James Version it says, you bring what is torn. Torn means torn by the animals. And I want you to turn to a verse in Exodus chapter 22, which tells us the law that God had laid down, that if you find an animal of yours torn to pieces in the field, a flesh that's torn to pieces in the field, what you must do with it.

Exodus 22, the last verse, verse 31, it said, You shall be holy men to me. Therefore you shall not eat any flesh torn to pieces in the field, you shall throw it to the dogs. Whom were they to throw that animal that was slain in the field to?

To the dogs. What were they doing in Malachi's day? They were taking that animal and bringing it as an offering to God. What were they treating God like? A dog. That's it. They were giving to God what God said should be given to the dogs.

Can you imagine religious people who got the form of godliness, the temple in the midst, the walls around Jerusalem, but so much in the grip of mammon that they were hesitant to give God the best. I want to tell you brothers and sisters, it is when it touches our money that we find out how spiritual we are.

That is clear. When Zacchaeus' attitude to money changed, Jesus said, Salvation has come here. Salvation from mammon. Zacchaeus has stopped worshipping mammon. Because his attitude to money changed, he decided to make restitution.

Jesus said about a man who was not rich towards God. And that's the danger. That's how it was with these people. They were not rich towards God. They gave to God, but they gave to God like people give to the beggar.

When the beggar comes to the door, you are not rich towards him. You feel a little bad, so you drop something into his hand. And it's possible for us, we may not treat God like a dog, but perhaps like a beggar.

In our giving to God, do we treat him like a beggar? That's a searching question. And that was the problem with these people. He said, So you bring the offering. Should I receive this from your hand? Verse 14.

But curse it. This is another word, curse. Seven times in the short book of Malachi comes the word curse, curse, curse. In fact, the book of Malachi ends with that word, curse. Seven times. There's no prophet among all the prophets who speaks so much about curse as Malachi.

Jeremiah was another one trying to save people from Babylon. Malachi was trying to save people again from another spiritual Babylon. And we find that despite Malachi's prophecy, the Jews ended up in a spiritual Babylon by the time Jesus came.

They were in a spiritual Babylon when Jesus came. But God sent his prophet Malachi to save them from that. But curse it, be the swindler. Imagine calling a child of God a swindler. These were God's people.

He was not talking to the heathen. He says a swindler. And who is this swindler? Who has a male in his flock and he vows it. But when the time comes to give to God, he sacrifices a blemished animal to the Lord.

For I am a great king, says the Lord of hosts, and my name is feared among the nations. Now notice there. Here is a man who says to God, Lord, I will give this. Maybe in a time of sickness, maybe in a time of need or difficulty, or when some problem came into his family, he said, Oh God, if you will heal me or heal my child or you'll do this, I will do this for you.

All right? The healing came, the answer to prayer came, but then he conveniently forgets about the vow he made to God. Now in the book of Ecclesiastes, it says in chapter 5, Ecclesiastes chapter 5, verse 2, Do not be hasty in word or impulsive in thought to bring up a matter in the presence of God.

For God is in heaven and you are on the earth, therefore let your words be few. For a dream comes through much effort and the voice of a fool through many words. What that means is that if you are preoccupied with many things in your mind during the day, that will come out in a dream at night.

If you are preoccupied with making money, you'll find that comes forth in your dreams at night. And in the same way, he says, like much activity brings forth dreams at night, many words are the identifying marks of a fool.

A fool is known by the fact that he keeps on talking to people and to God, saying a lot of things, gossip to people, and a lot of things to God which he doesn't mean. And he says, When you make a vow to God, don't be late in paying it, for he takes no delight in fools who say things which they don't mean.

Pay what you vow. It is better that you should not vow than that you should vow and not pay. That's a serious thing, to say something to God and not do it. If you say something, God says, do it. Otherwise, don't say it at all.

God is trying to teach his people to be careful with their speech. Don't say, I surrender all to Jesus, if everything is not surrendered. God says, if you sing that, then do it. All to Jesus I surrender, then do it.

It's a serious thing to sing something in our hymns which we don't mean. Jesus, I and my cross have taken all to leave and follow thee. God says, then do it. And this is one of the main reasons for the carnality and the spiritual poverty of so many believers, that they are not careful about what they sing in their hymns.

I really believe that. Because it is through hymns that we tell the maximum number of lies to God. It's far better when we come to a line of a hymn not to sing it. Let the rest of the congregation sing it, because I can't honestly say, I want to leave all.

God appreciates that person, because he's honest. He takes that word seriously. It's very important. And God calls the man a swindler, who makes a vow, maybe in a hymn, and then he doesn't do it in his daily life.

He says, I want to die, Lord. And he goes home and he's got no interest in dying to himself. I want to show you a contrast to this. In the book of Genesis, chapter 18, Abraham says, I want you to notice this, it's very interesting.

You know, Abraham was once standing by his tent and he saw three men coming towards him, verse 2, Genesis 18, 2. And when he saw them, he was so hospitable, and he said, my Lord, if I have found favor in your sight, don't pass your servant by.

He didn't know who they were. They were just strangers. And he said, please let a little water be brought and wash your feet and rest yourselves. And verse 5, this is what I want you to notice. I will bring, what did he promise to bring?

A piece of bread that you may refresh yourselves. He says, I'd just like to get you a little bit of bread to eat. And he made them sit down and he hurried into the tent and told Sarah, verse 6, quickly to make some bread cakes.

And he went, verse 7, and took a tender and choice calf and asked his servants to prepare that. And he took the curds and the milk and the calf and the bread and placed it before them. That's the difference.

He said, I will bring some bread, but he brought 10 times more than that. Now, it's the exact opposite with most people. They say, I'll bring calf, curds, milk, honey, bread, everything. And finally, when they come, they've only got a little bit of bread.

But Abraham wasn't like that. He didn't know how much he could bring. So he settled for something less and he said, I'll bring some bread. But then he found he could bring much more. And he brought it.

And that is the opposite of what we see God's people in Malachi and a lot of God's people today. They say so many things to God. But when they come with their offering, it's about 1 of what they promised God that they would bring to him.

We have to learn to be extremely careful with the words we speak to God in prayer, private, public, and hymns, lest we also are guilty of telling lies to God. And he has to call us a swindler who says one thing and means another.

We have to be very careful. And notice here, he says again about his name, Malachi 1 .14. My name is feared among the nations. In verse 11, we saw it is honored among the nations. And these were the two charges God brought against the priests in verse 6.

Notice, you don't honor me and you don't fear me. All right? If you don't honor me and you don't fear me, I will get that honor and that fear from the Gentiles. We'll always find somebody else to replace the one whom he originally called to serve him.

Jesus called Judas Iscariot. He failed. God chose somebody else, the Apostle Paul. In the same way, God can choose any one of us for a particular task and say, I have called you, I have chosen you for a particular ministry in my body.

And if he sees that we don't fear him and we don't honor him, we don't give him the first place in our life, he will take that ministry which was originally planned for you and give it to somebody else who will fear him and honor him.

And we'll discover, brothers and sisters, that the judgment seat of Christ, that there was a ministry God had for us, but he couldn't commit it to us because we told him such a lot of lies. We didn't fear him.

We didn't take seriously the vows we made in the meetings, in prayer, in our songs. We didn't live faithfully, and therefore God had to take it away from us and give it to someone else. That's a tragedy.

Terrific tragedy. It happened to the Jews. It doesn't happen with one failure. God spoke to the Jews again and again and again and again. Finally, he said, I give you all up. And so it is. He gave Judas Iscariot many chances, and he gives us many chances too.

But remember, a time came when God gave up the Jews, a time came when he gave up Judas Iscariot, and a time can come where people play the fool with God and they can lose either their ministry, and if it carries on further, even their salvation.

And that's why we need to fear. And then chapter 2, verse 1. And now this commandment is for you, O priests. And this was the characteristic of all the prophets, that they always spoke to the leaders first.

Always to the leaders. He rebuked the leaders first. Malachi. You remember Jesus' ministry was like that. His whole ministry was a rebuke and speaking against the leaders of the Jews. And so it was with Malachi.

O priests, this commandment is for you. If you do not listen, and if you do not take it hard to give glory and honor to my name. Notice again, my name. Glory and honor to my name. Says the Lord of hosts, then I will send the curse upon you.

Notice that word, curse again. And I will curse your blessings. Indeed, I've cursed them already, because you are not taking it to heart. If you remember Psalm 1, it says, blessed is the man who meditates in the law of the Lord.

And day and night, who does not walk in the counsel of the ungodly, or sit in the seat of the scornful, etc. And he meditates in the law of the Lord day and night. And it goes on to say in that first Psalm, everything he does will prosper.

Whatever he puts his hand to, there'll be a blessing in it. Like Joseph, wherever he went, there was a blessing. You could put him as a slave in a house, the house would be blessed. You put him in a jail, the jail will be blessed.

And that's how it is with a man who is blessed by the Lord. But here you see, the curse, when they don't put God first in their life, in all their affairs, there's failure. Wherever they put their hands, there's failure.

In matters of health, finances, spiritual progress, everywhere, failure, failure, failure. Because God is not supreme in their lives. And since these priests were being supported financially by the others and their types, he says, I've cursed your blessings, means I've put a curse on your financial support.

You get this financial support, you get your salary, but you never seem to be able to make ends meet with your salary. And you will never be able to make ends meet with your salary because God says, you haven't put me first in your life.

There's a curse on your salary. There's a curse on your blessings, your financial support, because you are not taking these things to heart. You're not taking seriously the things that are most important to me.

That's how the Living Bible paraphrases it. You're not taking it seriously. I just want to say one more indication of a curse, is that when God forsakes his people, he does not send a prophet to them.

Read that in Psalm 74. We saw it in an earlier study, it's perhaps good to look at it again. Psalm 74, verse 9. It says, We do not see our signs, and there is no longer any prophet. He says in the first verse, O God, why hast thou rejected us forever?

And one mark of God's rejection was, I will curse your blessings. And seven times, as I said, that verse, curse comes upon in this book of Malachi. And one manifestation of it was that Malachi was the last prophet.

There was no more prophet for the next 400 years, till John the Baptist came on the scene. When God takes away a prophetic voice from his people, it means he's withdrawn his blessing. And a church that does not have a prophetic voice in its midst, is a church we can say forsaken by God.

We can have Bible studies galore, and there are umpteen denominations having Bible studies galore, but the word of God says there is a famine of the word of the Lord. And that is why it's very important for us to take heed seriously to the prophetic word.

When we lose that prophetic word, that means God's given up. It's finished. And that we learn from this verse as well. And after Malachi finished his message, I just want to say, degeneration set in. They didn't take Malachi's word seriously, and they began to backslide.

Declension set in to the Jews, and finally it ended up 400 years later with the phariseeism that was present in Jesus' day. People who were ready to take the bottom level of hell, a generation of vipers.

In spite of the fact that God had sent a prophet to them 400 years earlier to warn them, but they despised him, they didn't care for his word, and they declined it. It's a serious thing to reject a prophetic word.

It's much more serious than rejecting anything else. And the Lord goes on to say, I'm going to rebuke your offspring. It's going to be suffering on your children, and I will spread refuse on your faces, the dung of your feasts, and you'll be taken away with it.

That is the priest. And then you will know that I have sent this commandment to you. When everything you touch fails, that my covenant may continue with Levi, says the Lord of hosts. God chose the tribe of Levi because they were wholehearted in the day when Moses said, who is on the Lord's side?

In Exodus 32, to stand against the idolatry and the compromise of God's people. When they were worshiping the golden calf, he said, who is on the Lord's side? Up till that time, the priestly tribe had not been chosen.

But then when the tribe of Levi said, yeah, we are on your side, Lord, Moses said, go in with your sword and slay these compromisers. That wasn't an easy ministry. That was a hard ministry. They were faithful and God said, all right, the tribe of Levi will be the priest.

But now they have become compromisers, the children of Levi. He says, my covenant with him, verse five, was one of life and peace. And I gave them, that is the commandments. I gave my commandments to him as an object of reverence.

So he revered me and stood in awe of my name. And the living Bible paraphrases that beautifully, that it is through obedience to God's commandments that we show our reverence for him. How do we show our reverence for God?

Many people have got so many crazy ideas. Some people think that when they come into what they call a church building, they must sit solemnly and that is how they show their reverence to God. That's a lot of garbage.

I believe the best thing you can do when you come to a meeting hall is to have fellowship with the person next to you till the meeting starts. It's not by that that we show our reverence. It's by obeying his commandments.

There is no other substitute for reverence to show our reverence for God. He says, thus he revered me and stood in awe of my name. It's the only proof of the fear of God, obedience to his commandments.

And true instruction was in his mouth, verse six, and unrighteousness was not found on his lips. He walked with me in peace and uprightness and he turned many back from iniquity. There are two outstanding examples of the tribe of Levi in the Old Testament.

One is Exodus 32, where they used the sword and slew even their own relatives, even their father, mother, etc. And they became priests. And the other example, I just want to show it to you in Numbers chapter 25, is another of the tribe of Levi, that is Phinehas.

It says here that some of the children of Israel began to commit adultery with the Midianite women, and that was a sin against God. When they brought these heathen women into their tents, and it says here in Numbers 25 that one of the sons of Israel brought a Midianite woman to his relatives in the sight of all the congregation they were so daring, and Phinehas, verse seven, the son of Eliezer, the son of Aaron, the priest, saw it.

You know what he did? He didn't go in there and say, brother, that's not a good thing. You remember later on there was a man called Eli, who when he saw his own sons committing adultery, he just told them, my sons, that's not a good thing.

That's not what Phinehas did. It says he took a spear and he went in after the man, and he put one spear straight through the man and the woman, and pinned them down to the ground, and then it says, thus the plague was checked.

And those who died by the plague were 24 ,000. If Phinehas had not stood there uncompromisingly, wholeheartedly, that plague would have destroyed the whole nation of Israel. And the Lord said, Phinehas, verse 11, has turned away my wrath.

Therefore, verse 12, I give him my covenant of peace. How did that peace come? With a spear. The way to get peace in the church is with a spear and with a sword. There's no other way to have peace in the church.

No, that's the way he got the covenant of peace. And it shall be for him and his descendants, a covenant of perpetual priesthood, because he was jealous for his God. The other people would have criticized him for being so ruthless.

You could have done it gently. There are always compromisers galore who will say you could have done it more gently. But God approved it. And that's what we read in Malachi chapter 2, verse 5. My covenant with him was one of life and peace.

How did that covenant of peace come? With the spear and the sword. But now, these compromising priests had given up the spear, had given up the sword. They didn't want to offend anybody. They didn't want to hurt the rich people.

They didn't want to speak the truth. And the result was no peace, confusion in God's congregation. He says it was different in Phinehas' day. It was different in Exodus 32, when I chose the tribe of Levi.