Book of Malachi - Ch. 1, Vs. 6-8 (01/22/2023)

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Good morning. Happy birthday, Noah. I meant to text you, it was yesterday.

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I meant to shoot you a text, but apparently I'm a bad friend. Today's Tyler's birthday, so I need to shoot him a text or I'll be a bad uncle, too.

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That's okay. It's Tyler. He deserves it.

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All right, I think we got everything going here. All righty, well, we'll go ahead and get started then.

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So last week we finished up the first section of Malachi, which basically makes up just the first five verses of the first chapter.

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You might turn this mic down just a little bit, Dave. I think it's mic number four. So the first five verses make up the first section, which is basically just all about God's love for his people when we spent a few weeks there.

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Now just to kind of conclude, or maybe just a snapshot review of that particular section, because we are starting a new section today, the book starts with the burden of the word of the

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Lord. So while that is about to unfold, we talked about this in our introduction several weeks ago, just how when that introduction begins a book, we know something bad is coming.

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Now normally it's in the context of a foreign nation, Nineveh, Babylon, a number of foreign nations that the

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Lord is about to bring his wrath upon. But in this case, the burden is directed toward his people, directed toward Israel.

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And so while that's about to start unfolding before us, the first section is giving us basically a snapshot of God's infinite, infallible love toward his children, which we talked about him extending sovereignly through election, because he gives us that very clear passage on Jacob and Esau to explain to us when his people were questioning his love exactly how he extends that love to us.

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But before we're given one of God's greatest examples of his love for his people, which of course is the story of Jacob and Esau, we first get a glimpse of the state of the spirits of God's people at this time.

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We're given kind of a foreshadowing, if you will, of their irreverence toward God's statutes.

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And really they lost one of the most crucial parts of their identity at this time, despite the fact that they've returned to their land, that they restored their temple worship.

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And we find this out because in verse two, they question one of the most fundamental realities that they've ever been blessed with.

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And of course, that is God's love for them. And that love was given to them again through election.

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We read Deuteronomy a couple of weeks back as well. I have chosen your fathers. I have chosen

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Jacob over Esau. And so they get this blessing. It's like the most fundamental part of their identity as a people.

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And yet they've forgotten that as well. And then, of course, God gave us that stark contrast between Jacob and Esau.

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And he eventually, in verses three through five, gave us a contrast between Israel and Edom, the lineages of these two men, to shine a spotlight on this reality of his love for his people.

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And so now what we're about to see is how far exactly did that message go in the hearts of the people?

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Because he starts the book, the prophecy begins with that reality, with that message of his love to them.

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So we're going to find out just how far that went with these people who appear so far to be in a pretty rough state.

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So now we're going to begin section two, which goes from verse six of chapter one, all the way through verse nine of chapter two.

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And this section is all about the sins of the priests specifically. So again, section one ended with a statement about God's greatness.

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He ended by saying, and your eyes shall see and ye shall say the Lord will be magnified from the border of Israel.

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So it ends with a statement about God's greatness, both in regard to his specific people, but also well beyond that.

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And in sharp contrast, this next kind of, again, natural section of Malachi addresses

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Israel's total failure to honor and to glorify

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God the right way, the way they were commanded to. Now, since Israel was supposed to love

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God wholeheartedly and to fear him, we get right off the bat that we sensed the tone, the seriousness of their condition here was crystal clear.

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They had strayed not just a little bit from their father, but extremely far from him.

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So we are going to be in Malachi, starting verse six today. But first, why don't you guys turn over to Deuteronomy chapter six, we're actually going to read a good portion of this chapter to, again, just kind of set the tone for what, you know, what we're going to be getting into in this section.

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So Deuteronomy chapter six, starting in verse one, remember, they are supposed to love

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God wholeheartedly and to fear him. How do we know that? Let's start at verse one, chapter six,

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Deuteronomy. Now, these are the commandments, the statutes and the judgments with which the

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Lord, your God commanded to teach you that ye might do them in the land, whether ye go to possess it.

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Now, where are they right now physically at the time of Malachi? They're back in their land.

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They had been exiled for a while. And of course, we know a couple thousand years, maybe a little less than a couple thousand worth of history has taken place between what we're reading,

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Deuteronomy and Malachi. But regardless of everything that happened in between, they are back in their land at this point.

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Verse two continues that thou mightest fear the Lord thy God. So there's the fear. There's the first commandment that is listed in this in this specific chapter, that thou mightest fear the

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Lord thy God to keep all the statutes and his commandments, which I command thee, thou and thy son and thy son's son.

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This is to be a perpetual obedience all the days of thy life and that thy days may be prolonged.

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I mean, it's not like he's just sitting here laying down the law. He's he's saying, like, I'm going to bless you guys.

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I'm going to bring so much good as you do this. And that, of course, is yet another testament of his love for them, because he could have he had every right and certainly his prerogative to just lay down the law and say, you know, have at it.

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But no, he's he's attaching blessings as he goes through these. If you do this, I will literally prolong your life.

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Verse three here, therefore, oh, Israel, and observe to do it that it might be well with thee and that ye may increase mightily is the

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Lord God of thy fathers hath promised thee in the land that floweth with milk and honey here.

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Oh, Israel, the Lord, our God is one Lord and now shall love the

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Lord thy God with all thine heart and with all thy soul and with all that all thy might. So at this point, we have the commandment of fear and the commandment of love within the first five verses here.

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Verse six, in these words, which I command thee this day shall be in thine heart and thou shalt teach them diligently into thy children and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thine house and when thou walkest by the way and when thou liest down and when thou risest up and thou shalt bind them for a sign upon thine hand and they shall be as frontlets between thine eyes and thou shalt write them upon the posts of thy house and on thy gates.

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And it shall be when the Lord thy God shall brought thee into the land, which he swear unto thy fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac and to Jacob, to give thee great and goodly cities, which thou buildest not in houses full of all good things, which thou filledest not in wells digged, which thou biggest not vineyards and olive trees, which thou plant is not when thou shalt have eaten and be full.

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Then beware, lest thou forget the Lord, which brought the fourth out of the land of Egypt from the house of bondage is literally telling them it's going to be so good for you guys.

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Don't forget about me because. What's going to happen is you guys are going to move into a land which

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I promised your fathers many years ago, and there will be wells dug, there will be gardens already planted, there'll be houses you can move into.

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You literally get to just benefit and reap the benefits of the labor that went into this land for however long.

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Just because I'm going to give it to you, but beware when you get to that point, when you experience these wonderful things, when you move into these houses, when you have these vineyards, these wells, beware, lest thou forget the

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Lord. It's a really crazy warning there, which brought the fourth out of the land of Egypt from the house of bondage.

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And then verse 13 just reaffirms the commandment of fear. Thou shalt fear the

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Lord thy God and serve him and thou shalt swear by his name. Couldn't be more crystal clear.

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So how many of those things were the Israelites doing at the time of the prophecy of Malachi? Well, technically, we haven't even really scratched the surface yet.

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I mean, we're just now about to get to verse six. We haven't even really scratched the surface in terms of the detail of the state they were in spiritually at this time.

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But again, the writing was already on the wall for us just in the second verse of chapter one when they asked the question, wherein hast thou loved us?

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They questioned. Again, the most fundamental, basic aspect of their identity, the love and the fear of the

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Lord were the most fundamental, basic tenets of their position as the chosen ones of God and yet they were missing those things.

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Their condition was perfectly clear by verse two when they asked that question. But now we're about to see the full color of this condition on display before us as we move into verse six.

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So now you guys can go back to Malachi and we'll pick up where we left off last week. All righty, verse six.

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A son honoreth his father and a servant his master. If then

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I be a father, where is mine honor? And if I be a master, where is my fear, saith the

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Lord of hosts? And to you, O priests that despise my name. And ye say, wherein have we despised thy name?

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So there's the questioning again. This is the second time they've asked, how is what you just said the case?

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So Malachi begins this section here using a proper societal relationship as an example of Israel's shortcomings.

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In other words, something as simple and easy to understand as the honor and fear of an earthly father or earthly master as he then expresses

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God, that being if God as God then expresses, if that's true, if you're going to honor your father and your master, and if it's true that I am these things to you, where is mine honor?

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Where is my fear? These are the questions that God is proposing at this point. Now, again, they're given this super easy comparison like you in your society.

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It is of utmost importance to have respect, honor, love and fear of your father, of your master.

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And you guys have claimed that I am that to you in the past. So what's missing here?

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Where is my fear and my honor at this point? So they weren't doing the obvious thing, the

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Israelites, that is, they weren't doing the obvious thing in comparing on their own the relationship or I should say their relationship with God equally to their relationship between their earthly father or even their earthly masters.

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And instead, Malachi, being the prophet here, the one by whom the

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Lord is talking, is the one that has to make the obvious comparison for them.

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So it's kind of crazy because he's using in the most simplest terms. I mean, first he used one of the most obvious examples of his love for them in the comparison between Jacob and Esau.

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Now he's using the most obvious comparison between their failure to honor and fear him by, again, telling them this is exactly how it works with your earthly father.

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Why wouldn't it work with your heavenly father? So now another reason this comparison should have been so obvious to them is because, again, they had made it before.

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It's not like this is anything new to them. Again, remember, we are at the very end of the Old Testament. So there is a whole lot of material that they have access to at this point in history.

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They have all the prophets, to my understanding, up to this point. They certainly have all the books of Moses.

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They have all the historical books. They, as a people, have been the ones to give

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God, if you want to put it that way, kind of from the human viewpoint term, in human viewpoint terms, that title of their father.

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In Isaiah 63, 16, you don't have to go there. I'll just read it really quick. It says, doubtless, thou art our father.

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So they have made it clear themselves, doubtless, thou art our father. Even though Abraham be ignorant of us, our patriarch

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Abraham doesn't even know us as individuals. He died a long time ago. And even though Israel, talking about Jacob, acknowledges it's not, he died a long time ago as well.

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Thou, O Lord, art our father, our redeemer. Thy name is from everlasting. Let me read that in full, just in case you aren't reading along, because I was paraphrasing a few things.

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Doubtless, thou art our father, though Abraham be ignorant of us. And Israel acknowledges not.

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Thou, O Lord, art our father, our redeemer. Thy name is from everlasting. And if you skip over just one chapter in Isaiah 64, 8, they again say, but now,

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O Lord, thou art our father. We are the clay and thou art our potter.

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We are the clay, thou our potter, and we all are the work thine hand. There's other examples of it,

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Exodus chapter 4, Hosea chapter 11, they give God themselves this title of their father.

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So why did Israel forget about it by the time they get to Malachi? Why is it they weren't, you know, in keeping with these analogies, if you will, they understood societally, on a societal level, that they had to honor and fear their earthly father.

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So why weren't they doing that to their heavenly father? How did they forget that? Or maybe they didn't forget it, but rather they just put it out of their minds altogether because they had lost faith that he was even there for them at all.

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We kind of touched on that in our introduction to the book. You know, they had been they had returned from exile 70 years prior to this prophecy beginning, yet they were still under the rule of a of a foreign nation, the

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Persians. And temple worship had been restored, but they were also experiencing some economic hardships at this time.

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And we're going to get to some of that as we go throughout the book, because it's explained. And as we also know in a little bit is they were literally under a direct curse from God because of some of their because of their shortcomings.

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So in our introduction, we talk about the reality that perhaps at this point they had kind of given up hope. They had been told by the prophets for hundreds of years at this point that a

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Messiah was coming, that he was going to usher in a kingdom and it wasn't here yet. So maybe they had just totally lost faith.

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Either they forgot about the fact that God was their father or they just decided to ignore it. They put it out of their minds.

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And it's also the comparison between God as their heavenly father and then the earthly example of their fathers and masters.

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It's also a potent comparison when you consider the super serious nature of rebellious kids in Jewish culture.

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So again, Malachi or God through Malachi is using these societal examples to try to get their perspective straight again.

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Well, think about how serious it was when kids were rebellious in Jewish Jewish culture.

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And of course, as described from the perspective of Moses is he gave the Hebrews their commandments.

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If you guys want to turn here, you can or I can just read it. It's about four verses. But in Deuteronomy, chapter 21, starting at verse 18.

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Listen to this. This is crazy. So when you are hearing this, think about the reality of Israel's spiritual state as God's children at this time.

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Moses here is just talking about parent relationship between parents and kids. But put it into the context of this being an example of the spiritual realm.

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And it's really crazy. Deuteronomy 21, 18, if a man had a stubborn and rebellious son, which will not obey the voice of his father or the voice of his mother, and that when they have chastened him will not hearken unto them, then shall his father and his mother lay hold on him and bring him out into the elders of the city and into the gate of his place.

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And they shall say unto the elders of his city, this our son is stubborn and rebellious.

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He will not obey our voice. He is a glutton and a drunkard. And all the men of his city shall stone him with stones that he die.

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So shalt thou put evil away from among you and all Israel shall hear and fear.

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So how on earth did we get from maybe a little bit of rebelliousness to death? Well, first of all, it starts with stubborn and rebellion, but it kind of fleshes that out a little bit.

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He will not obey our voice. So this implies that there were it wasn't like, oh, you just disobeyed me.

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Go to the gates so we can stone you. It implies that there was a habitual, ongoing, continual negative relationship between God.

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I'm sorry, between the parents in this case and this child. They were constantly trying to bring him back to this is how you need to be living.

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This is how let's just say, you know, these are the rules you're going to live under our roof. And of course,

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I'm sure the laws of Moses up to this point also fell into all of this as well. This is how you're going to live.

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And yet continually, the son remained rebellious. He was not obeying the voice of his father or his mother, even though they chastened him.

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So it implies the parents were doing all that they could and gave numerous chances, if you will, for this kid to straighten up, get his act together and come back and start living the way that they knew they were supposed to be living.

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So there's implication there that this has been ongoing for a while. So that's the first key, disobedience, continual disobedience.

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And then it lays out in verse 20, he was stubborn, rebellious, will not obey our voice. He is a glutton and a drunkard.

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So that just kind of throws in a new, some new color to it in the sense that it sounds as if he was living a pretty, what's the word, just a just a rough lifestyle.

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I mean, he was putting his immediate, in the moment, earthly desires, pleasures before everything else.

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So it kind of tells us where his priorities were, you know, could be out partying or whatever, he's a drunkard, whatever it may be.

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So at that point, after this long list of stuff transpires, then this person has to be put to death, according to Mosaic law, according to Moses, what

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Moses was saying. So now we have to ask this question, what on earth, if that is the, because we're still in the

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Old Testament, we're still in Malachi, the words of Moses were still 100 percent applicable.

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We have to ask what on earth is keeping God from upholding these analogies?

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Because that, what we just read a second ago, I mean, is this not in some way meant to be like a physical picture of how important it is for God's people to be obeying him?

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And so the relationship between the parents and the son here, this is supposed to be an example. So it's an analogy, if you will.

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So what is to keep God from upholding this analogy and saying, fine, you're not going to honor me the way you honor your earthly father, then

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I'm going to kill you, my spiritual children, for being continually rebellious, continually stubborn, continually disobedient drunkards, just like Moses commanded you to do to your rebellious earthly kids.

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Why? Why couldn't God just pull that card? Because he gave them the standards.

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He gave them the earthly, like the physical pictures of how this should play out.

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And at Malachi, we have kind of reached a pinnacle of thousands of years worth of rebelliousness, stubbornness, being a stiff necked people, disobedient, continually disobedient.

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So what keeps God here from just wiping them out? Because obviously it was OK for the parent to do this, for the society to do this to a kid living in habitual sin that, of course, was, you know, that brought evil into all the tribes, as it's implied.

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What do you guys think? Why couldn't God just wipe them out? His mercy and his plan. Mimi says his plan.

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And of course, the mercy is certainly wrapped in there. Perhaps it's also by virtue of his long -suffering spirit.

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He's an incredibly patient God as well. He's merciful, to Mimi's point. But the more important thing is what she said a second ago, his plan.

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It's certain that the long -suffering spirit is certainly a part of it, but it's also a reminder of and this is like this is directly applicable to everyone in this room.

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This isn't just for the people or the priests at the time of Malachi, but this is a reminder of the existential importance of the

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Abrahamic covenant and the fact that that covenant was unconditional. It was unconditional for this very reason.

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So because God knew that if it wasn't unconditional, that he would have to do to us what

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Moses commanded the parents to do to their kids after continual disobedience, stubbornness and all this stuff.

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If it weren't for that, then God would God would have or could have and probably would have just, as dad says, wipe them all out and start over, start better.

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That's how that's how some of us might do it. Or as dad says, the other option is just save them all and, you know, whatever.

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But no, God does everything differently. His ways are not our ways. He had a plan. He brought in the

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Abrahamic covenant, knowing that we would absolutely 100 % fail on our end of the bargain, if you will.

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But we were going to be OK anyway, because he did it for us. I mean, we just read this in our

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Bible in a year. Katie left a comment on it. And a lot of you guys may remember this. I think it's even on our church website. But Brother Myron has taught several times about just the awesome reality of the

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Abrahamic covenant. The one verse that talks about the burning lamp and the smoking furnace, you know, making the basically taking part in the covenant while Abraham is asleep.

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The reality of that is that it's Jesus and the father that are making this covenant together.

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God is saying, if I keep my end of the bargain or I'm sorry, if I don't keep my end of the deal, may I be like these slaughtered animals that are laying here that Abraham had previously killed and divided into many pieces?

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Jesus, the burning lamp, says if he doesn't keep his end of the bargain, may I be like these animals?

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And of course, we know the end of that story. God ended up on the cross. Totally marred beyond recognition and beat beyond recognition because of these realities all throughout the history of the

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Israelites failing to meet their end of the bargain. And of course, by extension, it would have been us as well.

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So it's very important that we remember the Abrahamic covenant and the fact that it is unconditional or else

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God could have easily and I would I would say he would have done exactly what these parents were commanded to do with their rebellious, continually rebellious, disobedient kids.

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So. Back to verse six for a second. So God's question, it was sharply presented here.

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If I am a father, then where is my honor? Now, the Hebrew word for honor here is kavod,

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I believe, which can also mean glory. OK, so when he asks them in verse six, where is my honor?

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You could it could literally be translated as well. Where is my glory? Where is my glory? Now, this is important.

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I mean, either word works. I mean, the honor should be there. The glory should be there as well.

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But the reason it's important to bring in this Hebrew word, which can mean either of those things, honor and glory, is because in Psalm 24,

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God is referred to as the king of glory. And what that means, and it's a really awesome psalm, if you guys want to go read that later at the end of the psalm,

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David call refers to him as the king of glory like five or six times in the last few verses. But he's referred to as the king of glory.

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And what that means is that the honor that God is asking, where is it, that honor or that glory that he is due is 100 percent beyond dispute.

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It should be there, but it's not. Where is it is what he's asking of why wouldn't he ask this question?

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The Lord is also called the master of Israel. You guys can go look at Isaiah 44, just the beginning chapters.

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I'm sorry, the beginning verses there in the title, Master of Israel is given to him because remember, verse six, he says, if I'm your father, where's my honor?

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If I'm your master, where is my fear? And yet the servant of Israel is showing utmost disrespect toward their master.

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Which is God, of course, and as master, he he logically asks in verse six, where is my fear?

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And guys, remember, love and fear. They are the two most basic components of their side, the

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Israelite side of the relationship within this covenant. Now, Dave, you've talked about this a lot of times.

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What is it? What does it mean to fear God? Does it mean that we're terrified of him?

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Yeah. OK, so fearing the Lord is hating basically everything he says is evil, all of the sin and everything like that.

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There's another way you've described it before, too, where you go into detail on the on the fact that this is a fear, this is actually, this is a healthy, reverent respect, respectful fear.

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It's not like he's telling us we need to be terrified of him in the sense that we want to run and hide from him.

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On the contrary, he wants to draw us as near as humanly possible. So the fear doesn't mean being terrified of him.

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It means proper respect and reverence for him, which when you have that then leads to worship and obedience.

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So the charge from that is then moved to the priests, because remember, this whole section is about the priest.

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What time is it, by the way? I don't have my watch today. OK, the charge is then moved to the priests who despise his name, as they say, as he says in the second part of verse six.

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These were the men. OK, let's just try to put this in perspective the best we can here. We're talking about the priests.

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We're talking about the priests here. We haven't even gotten to just the broad people of Israel.

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This is a very specific group of guys that were meant and charged to teach the people

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God's covenant and to turn their hearts toward God. I mean, you can go read a number of passages,

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Nehemiah chapter 938, chapter 1039, Ezra chapter 6, 16 through 22, 7 through 10.

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And there's so many different passages where the priests are given this very specific and special charge.

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And of course, it goes all the way back to the time of Aaron, the Levites, their inheritance is

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God. I mean, this is like the this is the most special in from a spiritual sense, group or tribe of Israel that we're talking about here.

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And yet these guys are the ones despising his name. There's I'm going to read this just really quick.

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This this is a really good summation of the how important their duties are here as priests.

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Nehemiah 938 says, and because of all this and in the context leading up to this is talking about the

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Israelites making their hearts right and turning back to God because of all this, we make a sure covenant and write it in our princes,

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Levites and priests seal unto it. So the priests are the ones that seal this covenant, this sure covenant between them and God.

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If the priests of all people were failing to honor God and despising his name, what on earth could be expected of the rest of the people of Israel?

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Well, we're going to see that when we move into the third section, which will be a few weeks from now. But we can, again, kind of see the writing on the wall.

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It's probably not very good. If the priests, their spiritual leaders are the ones that are despising and failing to honor

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God, the very ones meant to keep the standard of true worship and to be messengers of God to the people were despising his literal name.

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It wasn't metaphorical. It wasn't. I mean, God is literally laying it out in the most crystal clear terms he possibly could.

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He did that in the first section. We looked at he's doing it again now. The statements made by God in verse six, of course, go figure, are then questioned by the people or by the priests in this case, just like they questioned

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God's statement of love for them in verse two. They are now questioning their despising of his name in verse six.

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Now, what's interesting to note here, because we're about to move to verse seven, is that and we'll see this verse seven, the priests are totally insensitive to their own sin and act as if they're unaware that they had despised

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God at all, which gives us yet another example of the state that they were in spiritually at this point.

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So let's take a look at verse seven in Malachi. Let's see here. OK. Yeah.

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Malachi 1 7. It says, Ye offer polluted bread upon mine altar.

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That's a key there. We're going to hone in on that in just a second. Ye offer polluted bread upon mine altar.

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And ye say, here's the third questioning, wherein have we polluted thee? And that ye say, and then the

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Lord answers their question as he has done every single time. They say, how have we polluted you?

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And God says, you have done so in that ye say, the table of the Lord is contemptible.

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So that is how they have been polluting. Uh, uh, God's, um, altar, among other ways.

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Let's take a look at this for a second. So first, the Lord's reference here to, quote, polluted bread, as he puts at the at the beginning of verse seven, that should right there have been enough to cause the priests to realize that their evil doings or that they were doing incredibly evil things.

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And from that point, turn back to God and return to true worship. They were warned against offering polluted sacrifices, um, polluted offerings and such sacrifices, or else if they did so, they would profane and defile

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God's name. This is all laid out clearly in the Levitical law in Leviticus chapter two.

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It talks about and gives warning to, uh, improper sacrifices.

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So now this is where it gets interesting. Now, the bread, the word bread, when it says ye offered polluted bread, it's the

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Hebrew word, uh, lachim, which just means food. It's just food in general.

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So now, why do you guys think, why did, why would Malachi or God through Malachi call these sacrifices food if they were sacrifices?

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Because the, again, the, it in verse, is it six?

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Um, yeah, no. Okay. So he's talking about the altar. So we gathered that he's talking about sacrifices here, but yet he's saying, why have you offered polluted food upon my altar?

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Why do you guys think that that's applicable? Why would Malachi use that phraseology there?

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Well, they were sure meant to offer their best. That's for sure. But why were they meant, why were they supposed to offer their best?

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Whose food was it? It was literally, it's literally God's food that we're talking about here.

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Um, the, uh, Malachi uses this

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Hebrew word talking about food in general. And so of course it begs the question, who is eating this food?

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Exactly. Malachi called it this because all of the offerings that were given on this altar were meant to be the food of God himself.

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In Leviticus 21, six, it says they shall be holy into their God and not profane the name of their

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God for the offerings of the Lord made by fire and the bread. That's the same

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Hebrew word. It just means food and the bread or food of their God.

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They do offer, therefore they shall be holy. So you can imagine this is a pretty big deal, a pretty important thing to get right.

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Considering figuratively, they are basically placing the Lord's meal in front of him on this altar.

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Um, you know, if you want to use it, uh, like a, uh, like a physical example, you know, you have the master, the king sitting there at his kingly table, wide array of, of feast or whatever, of, of things to eat.

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And the servants are placing it before him. You're going to, you're going to tell me that you'd put polluted food in front of the king in that context?

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Absolutely not. So how much more should that sacrifice with it being literally the food of God himself be as perfect in the

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Mimi's point, the best that it possibly can be utmost importance. So then

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God says you've polluted it. And then, of course, the priest asked once again, how now it's, it's interesting.

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They did not deny the defilement here. They didn't deny that they had offered defiled sacrifices.

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They just asked, how did we do it? They didn't deny it because they couldn't plead ignorance of the law.

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And they knew that, I mean, these are the Levites we're talking about here. So instead, what they did is they asked, where have we polluted it or how have we defiled?

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Now think about this for a second, God has just told them that they've sinned. He's got himself just said, you offered polluted bread upon my altar.

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And then they ask him, how can you imagine being so hardened in the heart that when you are accused of sin by God himself, that you then turn and ask or or rather dare

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God himself to spell it out for you in more detail. That's a pretty bad place to be in.

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They should be sitting there trembling like Job as God in the whirlwind was talking to him and laying out all of the magnificent realities of God that Job had totally missed during all of his moaning and groaning.

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That should be the same thing going on with the Israelites here. They should be trembling at all of these statements that God's making.

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Instead, they question every single one of them. God tells them they've sinned and they ask, how have we sinned? They literally are telling

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God, spell this out for us because we think you're wrong. But God being who he is, again, his ways are not our ways, because you can imagine putting yourself in the situation, the patience would probably be long gone by now.

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And this is just verse seven of a four chapter book. He goes on and he answers them anyway.

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So God answers their question by stating, and that ye say the table of the

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Lord is contemptible. What time is it now, Kates? OK, just a little bit, a little bit more here.

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OK, the table of the Lord is contemptible. That's what the priest had said. So now what is the table exactly?

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OK, you kind of cut to the punch line there, Pop Pop, but I believe you're right. I think it is the altar. The reason that there are two tables mentioned throughout the

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Old Testament in regard to like the temple worship, one is where the showbread is displayed.

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And in just a couple of other places, Malachi being the only book in the

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Old Testament where the phrase the Lord's table, I'm sorry, table of the

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Lord is used. And there's only one other place, at least to my knowledge, maybe there's a couple more where it seems to be using table in the context of the altar rather than the display of the showbread.

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Let me read you guys a quick passage, Ezekiel chapter 44, verse 15 through 16.

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It says, But the priests, the Levites, the sons of Zadok that kept the charge of my sanctuary when the children of Israel went astray from me, they shall come near to me to minister unto me and they shall stand before me to offer unto me the fat and the blood.

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Sayeth the Lord, they shall enter into my sanctuary and they shall come near my table to minister unto me and they shall keep my charge.

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It kind of gives the feeling of a relationship component of it. But it also makes it clear in verse 15, he's talking about sacrifices, not necessarily the showbread.

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So I believe in this context of that Ezekiel passage, as well as our verse in Malachi, that when he says you have called my table contemptible,

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I think that he's referring not necessarily to the part of the temple where the showbread was displayed, but rather the altar of sacrifices and burnt offerings, because the reference to the polluted bread upon mine altar in verse seven seems to make it pretty clear.

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You know, this is the king's table from which he, quote unquote, consumes his food, if you will.

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And yet the priests find that table contemptible. Now, I need to talk to dad about that just to make sure

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I, you know, because, again, most of the time the table is in reference to the display of showbread.

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And so I want to talk to him and make sure I have that right. So kind of put a pin in that. But I think to the best of my understanding that in this context, it's literally talking about them calling his altar by which they are supposed to be making these sacrifices, putting his food in front of him.

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They are calling that table contemptible. And can you imagine, again, just put yourself in the shoes of a servant serving an earthly king, sitting at his throne with a table before him, serving his food.

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Can you imagine giving him something that's polluted to consume? And what would his reaction be?

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It'd probably be off with your head right that second. So why? Where's the fear? Where's the reverence of the ultimate king?

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They didn't have it. They were treating the table with contempt by disregarding God's requirements concerning the kinds of sacrifices the priest should have placed on it.

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The food, if you will, quote unquote, that they should be serving God. This was literally deserving of death.

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And that is also in Leviticus chapter 22 as well. So the priests were doing really messed up stuff that was laid out clearly to be punishable all the way up through death.

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And yet they were doing it anyway. Let's see here. I've got just a little bit left.

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Let's cover verse eight and then we'll be done. It's about 1050. OK, I think we can finish this.

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So verse eight, Malachi, if ye offer the blind, and this is just a continuation of these sacrifices, and if ye offer the blind for sacrifice, is it not evil?

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Because remember, they asked the question, how? How have we polluted? How have we defiled? Well, for one, you called my table contemptible, but then look what you're serving me.

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The blind for sacrifices, is that not evil? And if ye offer the lame and sick, is that not evil?

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Offer it now unto thy governor. Will he be pleased with thee or accept thy person, saith the

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Lord of hosts? So now Malachi, well, this is God talking through Malachi, of course, but Malachi, he will go into some detail as far as just how defiled these sacrifices really were.

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He first asked them if they believe the sacrifices are evil and he gives them specifics. Would you consider a blind, lame, sick animal a polluted sacrifice?

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Would you not consider that evil? He asked them that. The answer should have been an easy yes, because again, they have

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Leviticus 22. They have Deuteronomy. They have all of this laid out. They've had it for over a thousand years.

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They had no excuses. Should have been an easy yes. All of this was laid out clearly again in the

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Levitical law. In fact, not only should it have been an easy yes, but it should have been utterly shameful to these priests, to these

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Levites, that these things even had to be asked of them or pointed out to them in the first place.

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This is like the most basic stuff. They should have been utterly put to shame in this questioning and yet or not.

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Yeah. In this questioning, in this case, and yet they just turn and question right back. Malachi points out the reality that this would be totally unacceptable to offer such a thing to their, quote, governor.

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And by the way, that word governor, that's how we know that they were under the rule of the Persians at this time, because the Hebrew word for governor there is a

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Persian title. So they had these Persian governors, these Persian leaders that they still had to serve.

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You know, they were allowed to be in their homeland. They were allowed to have their temple. It's kind of like the Romans about 400 years later, the

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Persians were basically the ones that were in charge of them and they had to serve the Persians to some degree. So Malachi puts it in there right now in real time circumstances.

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What would your governor say who expects a lavish banquet at every meal for you to turn and give him a defiled sacrifice or offering or meal of blind, sick, lame animals?

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Their Persian rulers wouldn't have been pleased at all with these things. So how much more absurd is it to expect the favor of the

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Lord Almighty with such offerings? I mean, he's laying it out again. This is the

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Lord talking through Malachi, but they are laying it out in such crystal clear terms that you would think by verse eight.

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OK, now surely these guys are going to start turning it around, right? Nope. And as we'll see, you know, next week and beyond.

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Well, maybe not next week. I'm not sure if I'll be doing Sunday school next week or not. But, you know, as we move through this study, it just keeps going and going and going.

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And again, as we talk about an introduction, this is literally going to be going on for the next 400 years in what ushers in the

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Pharisees, the Sadducees and the terrible groups of people that were there by the time

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Jesus comes on the scene. Let me finish with a quick quote. This is Charles Feinberg, who

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I've quoted a number of times, both in the Obadiah study. And then he was also one of the guys, unfortunately, that had some pretty off commentary on the whole

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Esau have I hated. But otherwise, I really enjoy his commentary, among others.

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But let me give you guys this quote for him from him on this passage. He says, and I just thought this spelled it out really clearly.

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And it also gave it also gave a very cool clue, in my opinion, to the fact that the

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Pharisees and Sadducees were coming. Listen to this and you'll see what I mean. He says, commenting on Malachi 1 .8,

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contempt for God's appointed service implies contempt of him. OK, so right off the bat,

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I mean, what perfectly logical sense if they contempt the service that was ordered by God himself, they obviously have no respect for God himself.

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They contempt him just as much as they contempt the services. The quote continues, they were always willing to modify

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God's requirements and laws by circumstances. They had the audacity to offer to God what they would not have offered to their governors,

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Malachi. And by the way, those governors, they're heathens. I mean, like they're going to show fear and reverence toward their heathen masters, but not their own

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God. This is crazy. The quote continues, Malachi is appealing to their sense of propriety, which is more sensitive on the human plane than it is toward God.

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This is the part that's really interesting to me, because, yes, I can even kind of empathize with this to some degree.

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I think any human can. What human at some point in their life doesn't become more concerned with the opinions of their contemporaries over what

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God thinks of them? And Feinberg is just making this point. He continues in the quote, there are always those who love the praise of men better than the praise of God.

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So think about that in the context of what's to come. The Pharisees, the Sadducees, it's all they cared about.

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A hundred percent. But this was laying the foundation, the priests in Malachi, the people spirit

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Malachi is what was laying the foundation for that to come into place later. But it's also it's also an important message for us to remember as well, that is just as applicable to us as it is or would be, you know, the

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Israelites at the time of Malachi. You know, our sense of propriety is typically geared more toward our contemporaries around us, our peers rather than God.

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We might not even think about it in the context of our relationship with the

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Lord. So what do we do? We go after the earthly praise of those around us, our friends, our associates, our colleagues, people we don't even know.

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And of course, the social media realm has just exacerbated that to a degree that no one could have predicted maybe even a decade ago.

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The sense of praise from men that you don't even know far exceeds any kind of praise that you'd want to pull from God himself.

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And that includes his own people. I mean, I'm certainly guilty of it. I'll speak for myself. At times in life,

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I would argue that most likely every human at some point in life will have them, even if it's just a moment, but most likely even more than that, just because it's our nature to seek the praise of men over God.

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These guys are going to do it to such a degree that, again, it ushers in the Pharisees, which is all they cared about.

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But it is a stark message to us as well. I mean, it's an important message for us to keep our priorities, our priorities straight and, you know, to not venture off in the path that they did because we're no better than they are.

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So we need to remember these things for sure. All righty, Pop Pop, would you mind dismissing us in prayer, please? Dear Heavenly Father, Lord, we thank you for this blessed, blessing worship here.

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Lord, we thank you for the fellowship. Most of all, we thank you for this benefit,

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Lord. Life to our hearts, life to our minds, life to our lives, we thank you in Jesus' name,