Good morning. Let's open up this
morning service at the blue hymnal number 70, number 70, holy, holy,
holy. If you could please stand, number
70. Holy, holy, holy Lord God Almighty
Early in the morning our song shall rise to Thee Holy, holy,
holy, merciful and mighty, God in three persons, blessed Trinity. ? Holy, holy, holy ? ? All the
saints adore thee ? ? Casting down their golden crowns ? ?
Around the glassy sea ? ? Cherubim and seraphim ? falling down before
thee, which word and art and evermore shall be. Holy, holy, holy, though the
darkness hide thee, though the eye of sinful man thy glory may
not see. Only Thou art holy, there is
none beside Thee, perfect in power, in love and purity. holy holy holy lord god almighty
all thy works shall praise thy name in earth and sky and sea
Holy, holy, holy, merciful and mighty God in three persons,
blessed Trinity. May we sing. There's a line in that hymn we
just sang, though the eye of sinful man thy glory may not
see, yet thou art holy. How do we know if we've seen
his glory? Isaiah wrote in the year that
King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord. He was high and lifted up. His
train filled the temple. And the seraphim hovered over
his throne and they cried, holy, holy, holy. The Lord God Almighty,
heaven and earth is full of my glory. And then what's the first
word out of Isaiah's mouth? Woe is me. Woe is me, I'm undone. I'm a man of unclean lips. I
live among a people of unclean lips. My eyes have seen God. I'm a dead man. And then the
Lord sent that angel to get a coal off the altar and touch his lips
and. A picture of the accomplished work of the Lord Jesus Christ,
putting away our sin by the sacrifice of himself and quenching the
fire of God's holy wrath. Oh, what hope? What hope? I pray
the Lord to be pleased to make himself known to us today and.
And we will catch a glimpse of his holiness. We're going to be in Malachi
chapter 2, both hours this morning, if you'd like to open your Bibles
with me to that passage of scripture, Malachi chapter 2. 23 years ago today, the second Sunday
of November, the Lord called some of us out of false religion
and brought us together And we met for the very first service
of this congregation at a place called Petals. The Lord has been merciful and
faithful to keep us and grow us in his grace and cause us
to be able to continue to meet and continue to worship. And
for that, we're very, very thankful, very thankful. Let's. Ask the Lord's blessings
on our service this morning. Our merciful and holy Heavenly
Father. We dare not come into thy holy
presence. Without. The glorious person. An accomplished work of thy dear
son. the Lord Jesus Christ, who is
all our righteousness and all our acceptance before thee. Lord, outside of him, we have
nothing to offer you. We have no means by which to
enter into thy presence. We can say with the prophet Isaiah,
woe is me, I am undone, I'm a man of unclean lips. But oh, how
grateful we are that you have sent one whose lips were unfamed,
whose lips only spoke the truth, whose lips were pure and perfect.
And that he suffered the wrath of your judgment for the sins
of your people. We asked Lord that you would
send your spirit in power and enable us in these hours to set
our affections on things above where Christ is seated at that
right hand. The Lord Jesus, our advocate. Our righteous one, our sin bearer
and our substitute. Lord, cause him to be lifted
up. Calls us to be drawn to him. Calls us to find all our hope.
All our righteousness and all our satisfaction. In him. For we ask it in his name. Amen. We've been in the book of Malachi
now for a few weeks, and I've been reading over this little
prophet a good bit over the last month or so, and it's clear to
me that the message of the book of Malachi is all about corrupted
worship. It's all about men attempting
to come into the presence of the holy God with something in
their hands to offer God for their acceptance. And the Lord over and over and
over again tells us that he's not pleased with our offerings. He's pleased with one thing and
one thing only. He's pleased with the sacrifice
that the Lord Jesus Christ has made on behalf of his people.
And that the only worship that's done in truth and in spirit is
that worship which causes us to look to Christ for all our
acceptance before God. We have the word. worship in
the English language as a conjunction of two words, worth ship, worth
ship. And what we've come here to do
this morning is to acknowledge the worth ship of the Lord Jesus
Christ. In the scriptures in the Old
Testament Hebrew and in the New Testament Greek, the word has
the meaning of licking or kissing like a dog. Bowing in submission. And so there we are. There we
are, God's dogs, like that Syrophoenician woman who said, truth, Lord,
that's what I am. I'm a dog. Would you just scrape
some crumbs from the master's table? Satisfy my hunger. And we come as mercy beggars.
Acknowledging the worth. Of the Lord Jesus Christ. for
all our acceptance before God. Men in their imagination have
contrived means and methods by which they think they can enter
into the presence of God. And the Lord in the book of Malachi
makes it clear that he's only pleased with one. He's only pleased
with Christ, and the only hope that we have to find acceptance
before God is to be found in him. Not having our own righteousness
which is by the law, but that righteousness which is by the
faith and faithfulness of the Lord Jesus Christ. And now, O ye priests, You see
this in verse one? You say, well, who's the Lord
talking to? Well, the priest of the Old Testament
had turned the worship of God into the merchandising of men's
souls, even as they did when our Lord cleansed the temple. You remember he made those whips
and chased out the money changers, and he said, you've turned the
house of prayer into a den of thieves. You are seeking personal
gain and personal profit by something that you bring. And so these priests are receiving
a condemnation from God. But the Lord's speaking to his
people. He's speaking to me. He's speaking
to you. The scriptures make it clear
that the church is a nation of royal priests. And so when the
Lord says, and now, O ye priest, this commandment is for you.
How much clearer could that be? God speaking to me. Whatever
may have happened historically in Israel or whatever may have
been happening in Jerusalem 2000 years ago, I'm concerned with
what God has to say. Right now to me. And we know
that God's Word is sharper than any two edged sword and able
to divide us under the thoughts. From the intense of the heart
and that's what we need. We need for the Spirit of God
to take the Word of God and put our name. In that verse, this
commandment It's for you. It's for you, Bert. For me, Greg. It's for you, Robert. If you will not hear, and we know that the spirit of
God has to give us ears to hear. The hearing ear and the seeing
eye are both from the Lord. And the natural man will not
hear. And he will not see if the Lord
doesn't open the eyes of his understanding and unstop his
ears. But here's the glorious truth. God's commanding us in
this passage to hear as he does over and over and over again.
Listen here. So how do we reconcile the commands
of God with the inability of man? Simple. Simple what God
requires God provides. The Lord uses his commandments
to cause his people to realize that they have nothing in themselves
that's able to respond to this command. What God commands, God
must provide. And everything that God provides,
he provides in the person of his dear son. And he's only pleased
and only accepts that which he provides. And so when the Lord
tells us over and over again, hear, hear me, listen to me,
the child of God bows in worship and says, Lord, if you don't
give me ears to hear, I won't be able to hear. Lord, if this
commandment is for me, you're going to have to make it effectual.
You're going to have to speak to my heart. It's not the voice
of a man that I wrote a little article in your bulletin you
might want to look at this morning, but the miracle of preaching. The real miracle of preaching.
Is not in the speaking. It's in the hearing. That's the
real miracle. Now, no man who's been called
of God to stand up here and preach would say that it's easy or that
he's sufficient for it. He would say with the Apostle
Paul, who is sufficient for these things? And yet without a preacher,
how should they hear? And so the Lord calls men to
just simply declare what God has already said, to preach Christ. But the miracle of preaching
The most well-prepared and the most well-delivered sermon will
fall on deaf ears if the Lord doesn't give us ears to hear. And the message that is struggled
through and hard to get out, God can use that to to glorify
his son and to speak to the hearts of his people and to save his
people. So when the Lord says, hear, he's commanding us to hear,
the means by which we hear is the word of God. Faith comes
by hearing. We are people of faith. We walk
by faith, not by sight. We look to Christ through the
eye of faith. And faith comes by hearing. And
hearing comes by the word of God. So the means by which the
Lord speaks to our hearts through the ear of faith is his word. That's why we spend so much time
in the word of God, isn't it? We're not interested in hearing
anything else. Just tell me what God says. God's
people don't want to hear opinions. They don't want to hear theology. They want to hear,
thus saith the Lord. This is what God says. And that's all you have to tell
a person who has ears to hear. All you have to say is, thus
saith the Lord. And they will in unison respond with amen. Amen. That's all I want to know.
I don't know what I don't want to know what he believes or she
believes or you believe. I want to know what God says.
And now and now this is right now. We don't say to people,
you go home and think about it and maybe you'll come to the
right conclusion. No, now is the accepted time. Today is the day of salvation.
The Lord calls on his people right now to hear. Now, O ye priest, this commandment's
for you. This commandment's for you. What
is the commandment? It's to hear. Look at verse 2. If you will not hear, and if
you will not lay it to heart. Now, we opened this service by
quoting from Isaiah chapter 6. And there's a passage of scripture
in Isaiah chapter 6 that is the most often repeated Old Testament
verse in the New Testament. I think it's repeated six or
seven times in the New Testament. They will have ears. The Lord
told Isaiah, said, you go and you preach to these people. And
they're gonna hear you, but they're not gonna hear. They're gonna
see, but they're not gonna see. And you remember Isaiah said,
Lord, how long? How long do I preach to this
stiff neck people? And the Lord told Isaiah, he
said, until the cities be without inhabitants and the land be utterly
desolate, you just, as long as there's one living person standing,
you preach the gospel. My people are going to hear.
And the Lord in Matthew chapter 13 quotes that passage of scripture. when he gives the parable of
the sower and the four soils. You remember the roadside soil
and the stony soil and the thorny soil and then the good soil and
the seed being the gospel and the gospel is scattered. We broadcast
the gospel and the Lord said some of that seed is going to
fall on hard soil and the birds of the air are going to take
it away. They're not going to hear. They're not going to hear. Some of it
they're going to hear, and they're going to rejoice. But because
there's no depth of the root, they haven't taken it to heart, they haven't really heard. That
when the sun comes up, the plant's going to die, and it's going
to be fruitless, and they really haven't heard a thing. And then
the thorny soil, he said, some of the seed's going to fall over
there in the hedgerow where there's vines and thorns, and it'll grow,
but it's going to get choked out by the thorns, and it's not
going to produce fruit. And so it is with those who hear,
but they're so encumbered with the things of this world and
the things of this life, they're not going to hear. They'll hear,
but they're not here. And the disciples asked the Lord, said,
Lord, why do you speak to them in parables? Why do you speak
to them in parables? And the Lord said this, he said,
because it's not for them to know the mystery of the kingdom
of God, but for you, you have ears to hear. You have heard. You know, every time we have
mentioned this Wednesday night, every time we hear that passage of quoted,
we, we like the disciples at the last supper, when the Lord
told that all the disciples, one of you is going to, is going
to deny me, is going to, uh, uh, uh, forsake me. And, and,
and, um, and without exception, each one of them, we remember
what they said, Lord, is it I, or is it I, the believer knows
the deceitfulness of his own heart and And he understands
what Jeremiah meant when Jeremiah said, deceitful above all things
is the heart of man, desperately wicked. Who can know it? Who
can know it? Who can know their own hearts?
We have a hard time discerning our own hearts, don't we? We're
so double-minded and mixed in our thoughts and opinions and
But here's the truth, when God speaks by his word, God's people
hear and they believe. They believe. They believe whatever
God says. With all the mixed feelings and
emotions and problems and sin that they deal with in their
life, they do believe. What's the difference between
a believer and an unbeliever? What's the difference? Religion
wants you to look at your outward behavior in order for you to
answer that question or your knowledge or something
else. You start doing that and you're
going to deceive yourself. The difference, the only sure
and lasting answer to that question is found in the question. Believers believe and unbelievers
don't. You see you start, there's a
lot of unbelievers that show outwardly a very, a very straight,
upright, moral life. And there are times when believers
act like unbelievers. So you start looking at a person's
behavior and it gets confusing, doesn't it? But one thing that
never changes, believers always believe. They just believe. Why? Because God's given them
ears to hear. The Lord has opened their hearts,
and he's opened their ears, and they believe God. Now, believing
God isn't saying, well, you know, I'm just going to have faith,
and because I have faith, this is going to happen. That's not
faith. We don't have a clue what God's
going to do in the future, other than the fact that the Lord Jesus
Christ is coming again. In the meantime, there's going
to be no world peace and the world's going to be consumed
by fire. Other than that, we don't know anything for sure
about all God's people are going to be saved. We know that. Faith
is not exercising some sort of power over God to make him do
something because you believed it was going to happen. That's
not faith. That's presumption. That's pride. That's self-righteousness is
what that is. So what is faith? It's believing God. It's just
believing whatever God says. It's resting and you can't believe
God without loving what he says. If you will not hear, if you
will not lay it to heart, lay it to heart, You say, well, my
heart's deceitful and desperately wicked. How can I know it? Well,
there's another verse in scripture that says, wherever your treasure
is, there your heart will be also. Now, make sure you understand
the order. God didn't say wherever your
heart is, there your treasure will be. That'd be hard to figure
out. But every single one of us knows
where our treasure is. You know what you value most. For some, it may be their job.
For some, it may be their spouse. For some, it may be their children,
their grandchildren. We value all those things, and our hearts
are there with those things. But what is your pearl of great
price? What can you not do without?
What do you have to have more than anything else And the believer
says, I've got to have Christ. He's my treasure. He's my life. Apart from him, I have no life.
And so the Lord says, if you want here and lay it to heart,
where's your heart? It's where your treasure is. Look at, look at, uh, uh, Jeremiah
chapter six. The Lord says, to whom shall
I speak and give warning that they may hear? To whom shall
I speak and give warning that they may hear? Behold, their
ear is uncircumcised and they cannot hearken. Now that's where
we are by nature. We come to this world with a
total inability to hear God. Lord, you're going to have to
open my ears. Behold, the word of the Lord
is unto them a reproach, and they have no delight in it. Now
that's a description of the unhearing ear. I'm speaking, but they've
got no interest in the word of God. They've got no interest. And it doesn't matter. It doesn't
matter of your status in life. It really doesn't. Doesn't matter
anything about your outward life. Two Sundays ago, I had an opportunity
to preach the gospel up in North Georgia. I mentioned it last
week, I think, to about 150 people who were extremely wealthy. A man came up to me afterwards.
I had to look him up on the internet to find out who he was, but I
found out he's worth $4.7 billion. That was his personal net worth.
Everybody was very religious. Everybody was dressed very well. Nobody, including him, had any
interest in what I had to say when I preached the gospel. Nobody. This coming Friday, three o'clock
right here, My niece last Friday, my only niece, we took her in
a few years ago and tried to help her out. She lived with
us in our home for a while and she'd been off on her own for
quite a while. She overdosed and died last Friday. And this coming Friday, we're
gonna have a memorial service here. And there'll be people
here that will be just the opposite of the people I preach to Sunday
before last. There'll be drug addicts. There'll
be people who don't have a thing. You know what I'm going to preach?
Same message. Same message. Doesn't matter. You see, our needs are exactly
the same. Doesn't matter. We've got to
stand in the presence of a holy God and we've got a sin problem
and there's only one Savior that can solve that problem. And if you will not hear and
hearken unto me, and look at the next phrase in verse two.
To give glory to my name. That's what we're hearing. We're
hearing a message of salvation that gives all glory to the name
of the Lord Jesus Christ. All glory. How do I know if I've
heard? Because I've heard a message
that declares me to be a sinner. I've heard a word from God that
says of me, Christ came to save sinners among whom I am chief. I've heard God say, I, the Lord
speaking, look down from heaven and I saw that every imagination
of their heart was only evil and that continually. Genesis
chapter 6. I've heard that. Lord, when I
stand in your presence like Isaiah did, I can only come to one conclusion. I'm undone. My eyes have seen
the king. Lord, what am I going to do?
I've heard the apostle say, in me that is in my flesh dwelleth
no good thing. No good thing. I've heard that. God has put
me in a place where I've got to have a savior. You see, if you've got any righteousness
at all, if you've got anything, anything, a decision that you've
made, a prayer that you prayed, a religious act that you participated
in, a good deed that you've done for other people, anything whatsoever,
And everybody outside of Christ has some personal righteousness. One thing we know for sure is
that all the unrighteous believe themselves to be righteous. And
all the righteous believe themselves to be unrighteous. That's just
a given. That's a given. If you've got
any righteousness whatsoever, then you don't need Christ. You're
not a sinner. You don't need Christ. You can
present whatever you think you have before a holy God. And the
Lord says, this commandment is for you, O priest, if you will
not hear and lay it to heart to give glory unto my name. Not only have we heard that we're
sinners, We've heard that God is sovereign
in salvation. We've heard that salvation is
of the Lord and that God, our sovereign holy God, chose according
to his own will and purpose before time ever began, before the earth
was created, before Adam was created, before the fall ever
happened, God chose in the covenant of grace a particular people.
He chose them, he elected them. Had God not chosen anybody, no
one would be saved. The Lord Jesus said, you did
not choose me, I chose you. I chose you. He predestinated
us in Christ before the foundation of the world. We should be made
perfect in him. We've heard God say that and
we believe that. We believe that he's the Potter
and that he's the clay and that he has the sovereign right to
make out of the same lump of clay, the same lump of humanity,
some vessels of honor and some of dishonor, and no man can stay
his hand and no man can say unto him, what doest thou? No man
can call him into question. We've heard that. We've heard
that. Oh priest, this is for you. If
you will not hear, if you will not lay it to heart
and give glory to my name. We've heard that the Lord Jesus
Christ actually successfully accomplished the salvation of
God's elect 2000 years ago on Calvary's cross. We've heard
that he is our surety. A surety is one who provides
everything on behalf of another. We've heard that he is our substitute. He's our sin bearer. He's the
one that God's looking to for all of our acceptance before
God. And that he actually, he actually put away all the sins
of all of God's people by the sacrifice of himself once and
for all. We've heard that. We're not calling it into question. We're not making the death of
Christ an offer of salvation to be made effectual by us. We
understand that the death of Christ was effectual in and of
itself. It actually accomplished the
salvation of God's people. We've heard that. If you will
not hear and not lay it to heart, and give all the glory to my
name." You see, any other salvation, a salvation that excludes election,
a salvation that excludes absolute, complete, total depravity of
man, a salvation that excludes the effectual, accomplished,
atoning work of Christ is a salvation that robs God of his glory and
put some power and some glory in the hands of men. If you will
not hear and not lay it to heart and give glory unto my name. We've heard God say, In the day
of my power, I will make them willing. I'll make them willing. I'll open the eyes of their understanding.
We've heard the Lord speak to Nicodemus and say to Nicodemus,
Nicodemus, unless you're born from above, born anew, except
you are born again, you shall in no wise enter the kingdom
of heaven. And we've heard the Lord answer Nicodemus' questions
by saying, Nicodemus, that which is of the flesh is flesh. We're
not talking about turning over a new leaf. We're not talking
about you reforming your life. We're talking about a work of
the Spirit of God. It's the Spirit that giveth life. And that call is irresistible. It's irresistible. The Spirit
of God takes out your heart of stone and puts in a heart of
flesh. The Spirit of God opens the eyes of your understanding,
unstops your ears, enables you to hear the Word of God. There's
no, well, you know, I need to think about this. There's no,
well, you know, I'll, let's, let's debate that a little bit
more. No, no. You say yes, Lord. You're like,
you're like Saul of Tarsus on the road to Damascus, aren't
you? Knocking you down off your high horse when that voice of
God speaks. Who art thou Lord? I am Jesus
whom thou persecutes. What would you have me to do?
What would you have me to do? That's the only response of faith,
isn't it? And we've heard God say all that
Christ saved, all that Christ saved will be kept by the power
of God and will be brought successfully into glory into his presence. He's not going to lose one of
his sheep. We've heard God say, you see, the point is that salvation
is of the Lord. It's his work. If you will not
hear priest, this commandments for you. And you know, the Lord
has made his people to be priests and kings and that we have access
into the very presence of God. We've got a high priest, the
Lord Jesus Christ. But all men believe themselves
to be priests. All men believe themselves to
be able to enter into the presence of God on their own merit. They
all believe they have some priestly, that's what a priest does. A
priest enters into the presence of God. And so the Lord says, this commandment,
O priest is for you. It's for every one of you. If
you're not here, lay it to heart, give glory to my name, worth
ship, bow in submission and acknowledge the fact that salvation is a
work of free sovereign grace. You are completely dependent
upon God for every bit of it. Let's finish this verse. I will
even send a curse upon you, and I will curse your blessings.
Yea, I have cursed them already because you did not lay it to
heart. Now what's the Lord saying there? He's saying the same thing
he said in Isaiah chapter 1 when he said, Who told you to bring these offerings
to me? These things are an abomination
to me. He's saying the same thing. Turn
with me to Psalm 69. Psalm 69. Look at verse 22. Verse 22, let their table become
a snare before them and that which should have been for their
welfare, let it become a trap, let their eyes be darkened that
they see not and make their loins continually to shake. What is
the table he's speaking of there? It's the table of worship. What
the Lord is saying is, if you will not hear that Christ is
everything in salvation, and that you are completely dependent
upon Him and He gets all the glory, and you not lay Him to
heart, He's not the treasure of your
heart, then I'm going to curse your blessings. In other words,
your act of worship are going to become a curse to you. I've said this before, I'll say
it again. Our God is infinitely more offended
by what happens in brightly lit religious meeting houses on Sunday
morning with people like, like this, like us. than he is with
the most despicable behavior that takes place on dark, darkly,
dimly lit, smoke-filled rooms on Saturday night. You think about it. You see, religious people get
together on Sunday morning and they like to point out what happened
on Saturday night. And they don't realize that what
they're doing is more of a curse to them than whatever it was
that may have happened on Saturday night. That's what the Lord is
saying here. If you will not give to me all the glory, if
you not hear what I say, if you will not lay Christ to your heart,
then that which you think is a blessing is going to become
your curse. And then he adds to that, I will
corrupt your seed and spread dung among your faces. What a
picture. What a picture. Religious people,
self-righteous religious people are like dogs running, rolling
in poop out in the yard and then bragging their smell among each
other. That's exactly what he says here. I'm going to put dung,
that's what dung is. I'm going to put dung on your faces.
And what did Saul of Tarsus say after the Lord saved him? That
which I thought was gain, what did he think was gain? All of
his religious behavior. I now count as done that I may
win Christ and be found in him. Malachi is all about false worship.
False worship is an attempt To come into the presence of a holy
God with anything other than the Lord Jesus Christ. For all
your glory and all your salvation, all your hope. He's done it all. Alright, let's take a break.