Malachi 1:1-14

“What follows is divine revelation. The word of the Lord came to Israel through Malachi: “I have shown love to you,” says the Lord, but you say, “How have you shown love to us?” “Esau was Jacob’s brother,” the Lord explains, “yet I chose Jacob and rejected Esau. I turned Esau’s mountains into a deserted wasteland and gave his territory to the wild jackals.” Edom says, “Though we are devastated, we will once again build the ruined places.” So the Lord who rules over all responds, “They indeed may build, but I will overthrow. They will be known as the land of evil, the people with whom the Lord is permanently displeased. Your eyes will see it, and then you will say, ‘May the Lord be magnified even beyond the border of Israel!’” “A son naturally honors his father and a slave respects his master. If I am your father, where is my honor? If I am your master, where is my respect? The Lord who rules over all asks you this, you priests who make light of my name! But you reply, ‘How have we made light of your name?’ You are offering improper sacrifices on my altar, yet you ask, ‘How have we offended you?’ By treating the table of the Lord as if it is of no importance! For when you offer blind animals as a sacrifice, is that not wrong? And when you offer the lame and sick, is that not wrong as well? Indeed, try offering them to your governor! Will he be pleased with you or show you favor?” asks the Lord who rules over all. But now plead for God’s favor that he might be gracious to us. “With this kind of offering in your hands, how can he be pleased with you?” asks the Lord who rules over all. “I wish that one of you would close the temple doors, so that you no longer would light useless fires on my altar. I am not pleased with you,” says the Lord who rules over all, “and I will no longer accept an offering from you. For from the east to the west my name will be great among the nations. Incense and pure offerings will be offered in my name everywhere, for my name will be great among the nations,” says the Lord who rules over all. “But you are profaning it by saying that the table of the Lord is common and its offerings despicable. You also say, ‘How tiresome it is.’ You turn up your nose at it,” says the Lord who rules over all, “and instead bring what is stolen, lame, or sick. You bring these things for an offering! Should I accept this from you?” asks the Lord. “There will be harsh condemnation for the hypocrite who has a valuable male animal in his flock but vows and sacrifices something inferior to the Lord. For I am a great king,” says the Lord who rules over all, “and my name is awesome among the nations.””

‭‭Malachi‬ ‭1‬:‭1‬-‭14‬ ‭ 

Have you ever experienced a situation that just made the room stop in silence and made everyone ask, What just happened? Maybe there’s a room full of people (classroom, auditorium, restaurant), and you may or may not notice someone is abnormally quiet. Their mood may change throughout the course of the event.

Someone happens to say just the wrong thing. And the person explodes. That happened to be the worst day ever for whatever reason, and they go off about who knows what. (And they could have very valid reasons). But now everybody’s a jerk, can’t do anything right, and should just leave them alone. 

Then there’s an awkward silence after the individual storms out and glances back and forth that say, “What just happened?”

This also happens on a city or national level. Every city that has a massive shooting is forced to take a step back and sacrifice their differences with each other for a while and just stand in shock for a second. 

9/11 was the shock of my generation to many Americans. And though the military was forced to react quickly, the reaction of the populace was “Woah. What was that? And why did it happen? Because that can’t happen again. What just happened? We need to do whatever we can to make sure that doesn’t happen again.”

And we know that real tragedies can lead people either toward a dependency on God or harden them to accepting God, because after all how could a loving God allow something so catastrophic? We see that back then, and we see it now every day. The problem of evil and suffering is always going to be a hang up for a lot of people, and I don’t blame them. 

But what about those who belong to God? What about those called by His name and are in a relationship with Him? That relationship clearly does not mean we escape hardship. We are still going to have “What just happened?” events that don’t make sense. 

Yet, in between those times I wonder, how is our worship to our God? When you right now think of the majesty and glory of God, and the quality of worship He receives from you, do the two correlate very well? Or does your worship of God, through your singing, through your service, through your fellowship, through your prayer reflect a skewed view of God, a higher view of yourself than deserved, and are you offering God second or third best?

Israel had the same problem, and we see this in the book of Malachi. He teaches two main truths about God that will free us from this mindset that God is only worth halfhearted worship.

First, Israel had a huge, “What just happened?” moment. We call it the exile. Sure, they disobeyed the law for years and worshiped false gods, but they were in a covenant relationship with the one true God. What was there to fear? Well, the covenant for one thing, which said if you disobey, I’ll send you into exile. So after hundred of years of mercy, God was faithful to His Word, and He allowed them to be captured, and cities destroyed, and the temple leveled. Horrible circumstances for God’s people. But how could this happen? Wouldn’t God’s name be blasphemed? Doesn’t matter. Israel needed to be disciplined. So 70ish years later and in three stages, they were able to return. The temple was rebuilt, but it wasn’t nearly as beautiful. The walls around Jerusalem were rebuilt. So they were back and functioning, but things were nearly as good as before. And the collective mindset is sideways glances back and forth, “What was that? Let’s make sure that doesn’t happen again.”

And so Israel was certain to try to follow the rules this time, but their confidence in God’s love was not as strong. And when you focus on doing the right things without loving God and knowing that He loves you, you’re going to start messing up. 

Let’s gain some encouragement from Malachi 1.

Read vv. 1-5. 

See, the first thing God reminds them of is His love for them, but they don’t believe Him. 

Did you see that in v. 2? “How have you loved us?” And God answers with a history lesson way back in Genesis with the two sons of Isaac: Jacob and Esau. One son turned into the nation of Israel. The other son became the nation of Edom. And God says, I chose you, Israel, to love, and make a covenant with and give my law and protect. Edom, I have destroyed. They were wicked, and I punished them, and even though they tried to rebuild, they will never be prosperous. And even though they came from the same father, I chose to love you. You didn’t do anything to earn my blessing. And here you are, after these hundreds of years of my faithfulness to you as a people, and asking, “How do we know that you love us?”

And because they don’t believe Him, their service to Him is affected. Then why are they even serving Him? Obligation? Fear? Tradition? All of which are not bad in their own right, but if there is no proper foundation of love in a relationship, it is no relationship. 

A healthy fear of who He is as the Almighty able to squash me at any moment— so I better straighten up— mindset is good, but I better be comfortable in resting in the fact that He loves me, and I love Him. OR what? My service to Him is going to be second rate at best. My worship, my prayers, my evangelism, my study of His word is going to be flippant if I do it, and it’s going to be half-hearted. And that’s how Israel struggled, too.

Themes in vv. 6-14:

Despising God’s name (v. 6, 12)-How? Offering polluted food upon the altar. 

So because they glad to be back home and have a temple, they are living the normal life of a Jew again. But they’re still recovering from the exile. They don’t fully believe that God is on their side or that He is worthy of the highest praise. And so their worship is sort of blah. God says you are despising my name. What are they doing?

Offering polluted offerings (blind, sick animals; v. 8, 13, 14)

I have this nice fat, healthy lamb, but you know, is God really worth that anymore? I have to sacrifice because it’s required or else He might punish me, so I’ll give Him something, but I can’t give the mean ol’ boss my favorite, or the best, or the fattest. 

God says two things in response: I’m going to go backwards. Second, He says,

God’s name great/ feared among the nations (v. 11, 14): This is speaking of something future from Malachi’s perspective. Since Israel was still not treating God with the obedience and respect and love that He deserved, they would be set aside, and the gospel would be sent out to the Gentiles. Now, that was always the plan, even back in Genesis 12. God told Abraham that He would be a blessing to all the nations. Israel’s rebellion would not thwart that plan, and God’s point here is that His majesty and His kingship is so great, that the nations will worship Him, and they will fear Him despite Israel’s failures. 

But, first, His number one advice is until then …

Just shut the doors of the temple (v. 10). Stop fooling around. I don’t want your sacrifices, if this is what I get. If you seriously can’t see all that I’ve done for you, and you doubt my love; if you seriously don’t see my as the majestic King that I am; and if the best you can offer is a sick lamb, then just shut the whole thing down. I’ll wait until my name is feared and praised among the Gentiles.

Flip on over to 2 Chronicles 28. We actually hear of the temple activities being shut down before Israel went into exile. But it wasn’t anything like this. This is a king of Israel who made a terrible decision. READ vv. 1-4. Jump down to vv. 22-25. So we have Ahaz here at one of Israel’s lowest points before Hezekiah comes on the scene, one of Israel’s high points, actually shutting down the temple in order to elevate the idol worship and set up altars to the foreign gods. We saw him already completely paganized with offering his own children. This is a wicked dude, and now in Malachi, God says, Israel, your half-hearted, lame lambs your trying to sacrifice to me, just keep it. Shut the doors, because it’s meaningless to me. It’s about as valuable as Ahaz setting up idols. 

I don’t want you serving and praising me simply out of tradition or obligation. I want you to know that I love you. And I want you to love me. And I want you to know that I am your King, and that I have been faithful to you for hundreds—at this point, almost a thousand— years. I’m committed to you as a people because I love you, and until you recognize that, and until you love me and are going to enter into a healthy, respectful, honoring, committed, yet heart-filled relationship with Me, then forget it. 

And the parallel with modern Christianity isn’t too hard to see here. Why do you pray or not pray? Why do you read your Bible or not? Why do you serve others? I’ve asked this before, but when you come to church, what is your attitude; what is your focus? Where is your heart? When you approach Jesus and this Christianity mindset, and when you think of God, what are you offering to Him, your best or second or third rate service? Because He doesn’t want that. He doesn’t deserve that. He’d rather you don’t give Him anything than give Him a lame or sick lamb. Just don’t sing if you’re going to be thinking about lunch or going back to sleep or other things you have to get done the whole time. 

Just don’t serve if you’re going to be looking to get paid or use it as blackmail or use it to look better than someone else who didn’t do anything. You know these are just a couple ways that demonstrate that we are going through motions because we know it’s right, but our relationship with God is off kilter. 

But when we recognize how committed, faithful, and loving He is (1) and how majestic, Sovereign, and worthy He is as our King (2), we will recognize a heart change within ourselves and a willingness to offer Him our best. Then we can be part of that Gentile number who praises and fears and glorifies His name, as the God who loves His children, provides for them, cares for them, and is so worthy of our true and free worship.