All right, in Malachi chapter
two, this is, if you read this chapter and listen to me as I
read through it, there's so much here. The basic message of this
passage is pretty simple and clear. And that's that the people
of God who are called the godly seed. In fact, I've entitled
this message, Seeking Godly Seed. I took that title from verse
15 here, where he speaks of that he, that's God, might seek a
godly seed, or you may have in your concordance a seed of God.
But the main issue and the simple, clear lesson here is that God's
purpose in salvation is that he would have a people, a people
of his choice, elected before the foundation of the world,
chosen of God, redeemed by the blood of Christ, regenerated
and called out by the Holy Spirit and by his power and preservation
and providence and sovereign working of grace that they would
be faithful to God they'll be faithful to Christ and they are
by his power and by his grace by his sovereign love and that's
the the basic message God I think about the Lord when he's speaking
to the woman at the well in John chapter four he said God seeketh
such to worship him those who worship him in spirit and in
truth But in this chapter, this whole chapter, the Lord God issues
reprimand after reprimand to his chosen covenant people, Israel,
as a nation under the old covenant. And we understand now that old
covenant is different than the covenant that we're under, the
covenant of grace, the everlasting covenant of grace, and in time,
the new covenant. We talked about in the last two
messages, in the first part of this chapter, the curse of the
broken covenant. Because these people broke the
covenant. And as well we would if we had
been under that covenant. For all have sinned and come
short of the glory of God. That's the story of mankind under
a conditional covenant. And what I mean by conditional
covenant, I mean a covenant that puts any of the stipulations
or conditions of salvation upon the sinner. That covenant is
doomed to fail. Reason being, again, we've all
sinned and come short of the glory of God. And the only way
you can rise above that is to think too highly of yourself.
You could look at these people And you can say, well, look at
what those sinners were doing. I wouldn't have done that. I
would have been better than that. No, you wouldn't. You might not
have done the same thing that they do. You might not do the
same thing that other sinners do today, but you're still a
sinner. I'm still a sinner. And if God
were to mark iniquities, none of us would stand. Our only hope
of salvation, of righteousness, of forgiveness, of glory is a
covenant that's unconditional towards us. A covenant conditioned
on one whom God appointed, one who is able, one who is willing
to meet those conditions. And that's why we look to and
rest in Christ. All conditions of my salvation,
of your salvation, you who know him. were laid upon him, and
he fulfilled the conditions. And that's stated in the Bible
in so many different ways. He's our surety, he's our high
priest, he's our sin-bearer. The government shall be upon
his shoulders, Isaiah chapter 9 and verses 6 and 7, conditioned
on him. But under this conditional covenant,
the people continually failed, again, as we all would. And so
God issues reprimand after reprimand, admonishment after admonishment,
because they profaned his covenant. It's what he says there, they
profaned the covenant. He said it back up here in verse
two, if you will not hear, if you will not lay it to hearted
to give glory unto his name, and they wouldn't. There were short times in their
history of national obedience, but they were very short They
didn't last long. They profaned His holiness. They
profaned His name, His glory, that which identifies and distinguishes
God from all the idols and idolatry that existed around in the world.
They profaned His altar. They profaned His worship. And
they profaned the Lord's heritage of His covenant people. You know
what the heritage was? Their children. And how did they
do that? Well, it says here God is seeking
a godly seed. And how is that going to take
place? Well, he meant to keep that people separate. He meant
to keep that line pure and separate from all other nations. to perpetuate
that nation. And I'll talk to you more about
that in just a moment. But here's the point. God has a chosen people,
electing Christ from eternity, redeemed by the blood of Christ,
regenerated and called by the Holy Spirit, born from above.
And God means to keep His people, His spiritual people, His church
separate and pure from the ungodly world. And in order to do this,
what has he done? He's placed all of our salvation
on Christ. And that's what identifies and
distinguishes us from the world. It's not how we look. It's not
even what we wear. Now certainly we ought to dress
decently and modestly and unashamedly. We should. But even when we do,
that's not what separates us and keeps us pure from the world.
No, sir. And in essence, what is it? It's
the grace of God in Christ. We're people of grace, all of
grace, salvation, all of grace. No matter what language we speak,
no matter what color our skin is, no matter where we're from,
what we wear, we're people of God's grace. Our salvation, our
justification before God is totally and completely and eternally
by the obedience unto death of the Lord Jesus Christ, who died,
was buried, and rose again from the dead. What can wash away
my sins? Nothing but the blood of Jesus. That's what separates us from
the world. Now we ought to strive not to
be conformed to the world in other ways, but what I'm saying
is what really distinguishes God's people in the matter of
salvation, the godly seed, That we're justified before God based
on a righteousness imputed. A righteousness that we didn't
work at. And we didn't contribute to it. The Lord Jesus Christ.
Now here in Malachi we see a picture of God's purpose as displayed
in the nation Israel under the old covenant. Because you see,
God chose them, didn't he? He said that. I think we read
it a few weeks back in Deuteronomy chapter 7. He said, I chose you.
I brought you out of all the nations, not because you were
greater and more in number, more powerful or better. You know,
that question comes up a lot of times when people want to
object to God's sovereign electing grace. They say, well, why did
God choose one and not another? And I can tell you that God's
choice of one and not another had nothing to do with anything
good in the one He chose. I can tell you it's sovereign
love, sovereign mercy. It's not of him that runneth
nor of him that willeth, but of God. And the only answer I
can give you to the question is what the Lord gave in Matthew
chapter 11 when He said, Even so, Father, for so it seemed
good in thy sight. But now he chose Israel in a
temporal ceremonial national covenant. He redeemed them by
power out of Egypt. What a great type of our redemption
by the blood of Christ, the Passover. What a great type that is. Beautiful,
isn't it? When I see the blood, I'll pass
over you. So that animal blood, you remember
in Hebrews chapter 9 it talks about animal blood, if the blood
of bulls and goats did sanctify to the purifying of the flesh.
Now here's what it means. There's animal blood over that
door in Egypt. Now that animal blood could not
wash away the sins of any sinner. The blood of bulls and goats
can never take away sin. But what did it do? It set that
physical nation apart and separated them from Egypt. And in that,
God delivered them by power out of that bondage. That's what
it did. It sanctified to the purifying of the flesh. It set
them apart ceremonially, and civilly, physically, and temporally. They came out, didn't they? The
whole nation. Somebody said not even a dog
barked when they came out. That's God's work. And so, God
kept them separate in that sense. And then he established them
as a nation to be separate and pure from all other nations.
He established them as a nation at Sinai under the covenant of
the law. The mosaic economy, the law of
Moses, the old covenant, that's what that's called. As the old
covenant, many aspects of it now, was conditioned on Israel. Well, they failed. And eventually,
1500 years later, they were totally destroyed. But God kept the tribe
of Judah all that time. You notice how he kept the tribe
of Judah intact in spite of their sin and disobedience. Now why
did he do that? Well, you know why he did it.
He said the scepter would not depart from Judah until Shiloh
come. The main reason for this is found
in the promise of the Messiah. The promise of Christ to come.
And that was their whole reason for existence. That's the whole
reason for all of it. Do you know that's the whole
reason for the creation of the world? That Christ might be exalted
and honored and glorified as the Savior of His people. That's
the reason God created you and gave you breath. For that reason. Do you know, for a believer,
every aspect of our lives in that sense should be a reflection
of the grace of God in Christ. One aspect of that, a big aspect,
is marriage. That's what he's going to be
talking about here. Marriage. The marriage between one man
and one woman, and I emphasize what he says here in Malachi
2, one man, one woman, not one man and one man, not one woman
and one woman, no, one man, one woman, the two made one, is to
typify and picture and honor Christ and his church, his bride. Now Christ was made of the seed
of David according to the flesh. That's the tribe of Judah. Now
under the new covenant, the covenant of grace, God will have his people. This old covenant's gone, it's
done. In fact, I told Aaron, he read Jeremiah chapter three.
I may not get to Jeremiah chapter three tonight, but I'll get to
that as I continue through this. But God actually divorced himself
from national Israel. You say, preacher, where you
get off saying something like that? I didn't say it, God did. Read Jeremiah chapter three.
Aaron read that back there and I asked him, I said, you been
looking at my text there? He said, no. So I guess great
minds just think alike. No, the great mind, the Lord,
is the one who works all that out. But under the new covenant,
God will have his people separated unto himself in and by Christ
and he'll never leave us and never forsake us, even though
we're sinful people. Now this reprimand here in Malachi
chapter 2 was given to the priest, as you know. We talked about
that last time. The priest were to be the spiritual leaders of
the people. Look down here at verse 7 of
Malachi 2. He says, the priest's lips should
keep knowledge. That's the knowledge of God as
he's revealed in his word. Harbor it. It's a heart matter.
It's something you guard with your life. To whom shall we go,
Lord? You have the words of life. I've
got no place else to go for salvation. I've got no place else to go
for forgiveness, for spiritual health. I have to be fed spiritually. And I'll tell you what, I am
so thankful that God has given us a hunger for His Word. Because
not many people have that hunger. I'm not talking about just going
to church. I'm talking about to be hungry for His Word. And
the priests were responsible to deliver that Word to the people,
just like the pastors and the teachers and the evangelists.
are today. And they should seek the law
at his mouth. They should speak the word of
God, not their own opinions. For the priest is the messenger
of the Lord of hosts. He's God's messenger. He's God's
mouthpiece in that sense. So he's an ambassador for Christ. But this was a reprimand given
to the priest. Why? Well, look at verse eight.
He says, you're departed out of the way, the way of God's
word, the way of God's holiness, the way of righteousness, the
way of Christ. Even in that covenant, that old
covenant, there's no salvation in that old covenant. No salvation
in the Ten Commandments. It exposes our sins and shows
us that we deserve death. We've said it before, the law
can show us our sin, but it cannot provide the remedy. The law came
by Moses. Grace and truth come by Jesus
Christ. There's no salvation in that
earthly priesthood in the blood of bulls and goats, you see.
But that old covenant, in exposing their sin, what was it meant
to do? To drive them out of themselves and to seek God's mercy and God's
grace in Christ. Righteousness in Him, not in
themselves. He says, you've caused many to
stumble at that law. Stumble. That's what the priest... In other words, instead of feeding
the people and inciting worship, and obedience, they stumbled,
they tripped over. And that reminds me of Romans
chapter 9 when it speaks of the religious majority in Israel
that day, how they stumbled at that stumbling stone, Christ.
When Christ came along and preached grace and they stumbled over
it because they were so caught up in their own self-righteousness
and self-love and religious pride and ethnic pride. They didn't
want the righteousness of another. They wanted to work it out themselves.
Remember what he said there in Romans 9? Why did Israel... Israel,
they sought after righteousness, but they didn't find it. Why?
Because they sought it not by faith, not in Christ, but by
works of the law. And they stumbled. He says, you've
corrupted the covenant of Levi. That's the priest. Now the priest,
remember what they were for. They were types of... The high
priest is a type of Christ. And the subservient priest, a
type of his church, saith the Lord of hosts. And then he says
in verse 9, therefore have I also made you contemptible and base
before all the people according as you have not kept my ways
but have been partial in the law. You've shown favoritism
to men. You've followed men, you get
men to follow you, it's all about men, it's man-centered. It appropriates
man, it's not about God and His holiness and His righteousness
and His way. You've made it a human thing
and it's corrupt. And so he says, I'm gonna expose
you for what you are. They did this, their corruption
of the covenant, you remember what they were doing? Remember
they were allowing the people and they themselves were bringing
blemished sacrifices. You can't bring a blemished sacrifice
to God. That's an abomination to God.
That's an affront to God. That's a denial of God. And let
me tell you, let me bring it down to our day. Let me tell
you the equivalent in our day of those men back then bringing
blemished sacrifices, the equivalent in our day is men standing up
before congregations and preaching a false gospel. of salvation
by the works and the will of man, conditioned on man. That's
the same thing as bringing a blemished sacrifice unto God. You see,
if you come before God without the perfect offering of Christ
and Him crucified, His perfect righteousness, His blood, His
incorruptible blood, you're bringing a blemished sacrifice if you
come before Him in any other way. If you bring your works,
your efforts, even if you say glory to God, and many, most
do. Most are like the Pharisee in
Luke chapter 18 who said, I thank God that I do all these things
or don't do those things. He's giving God the credit, you
see. but it's still a blemished sacrifice.
Like those false preachers in Matthew 7, Lord, Lord, have we
not prophesied in your name? You present your preaching, your
witnessing before God as making you righteous before him. That's
a blemished sacrifice. Anything but Christ, you say. And then look at verse 11. He says, Judah hath dealt treacherously
and an abomination is committed in Israel and in Jerusalem and
Judah hath profaned the holiness of the Lord which he loved and
hath married the daughter of a strange God. This is another
way that they perform treachery, that word treachery. Treacherous,
look over at verse 14. Yet you say wherefore, why? Or
how? Because the Lord hath been witness
between thee and the wife of thy youth, against whom thou
hast dealt treacherously. Yet is she thy companion and
the wife of thy covenant. What's he talking about? He's
talking about unfaithfulness, talking about adultery. That's
what he's talking about. What was going on here? Well,
we learn from the books of Ezra and Nehemiah, and we'll look
at them later on, either tonight or another message, And what
they were doing, we learn what they were doing is these priests
and the people who had come back out of captivity, now they've
been out of captivity now, they've been back in the land for 125
years, but they were still coming back, not all of them. And we
don't know the whys and the wherefores and the reasonings of man for
this, but what they were doing, they were divorcing their Hebrew
wives and marrying foreign idolatrous women. That's what they were
doing, intermarrying. Now here's how Malachi comes
at the problem as he's inspired by the Spirit of God to deal
with this. Look at verse 10. He starts off,
Have we not all one Father? Hath not one God created us? Why do we deal treacherously,
unfaithfully, Why do we deal treacherously every man against
his brother by profaning the covenant of our fathers? What's
the point here? The point here is this. The reason
that this nation was even in existence, the reason they were
delivered from Egypt, the reason they were brought over the Red
Sea and dwelt in the wilderness and brought into the promised
land and established as a nation was for the glory of God alone. God who created you, God who
has done so much for you. Remember back over there, he
says in verse 2, he said, I will curse your blessings. Think about
all the blessings that you have from God, Israel. Think about
it. And those blessings, instead
of becoming an eternal blessing and comfort and peace to you,
God's going to turn them into a curse. And you'll rue the day. The point here is that God is
the final authority in all these matters, not man. It doesn't matter what your opinion
is or what my opinion is. God's the one who established
the law of marriage, not man. You know, it's something, isn't
it? We read just about every other
month, we read about another state passing a law to okay homosexual
marriage. Well, let me tell you something.
God's already established the law of marriage. He did it in
Adam and Eve. Even before the world fell in
Adam. What man does is of no consequence
to us. There will be consequences to
what man does. Don't get me wrong. And what
he's saying here is that God who created you, God who put
you where you are, and God who has blessed you You exist here
for his glory, not for your convenience, not for your pleasure. Someone
said, one commentator said, well, there wasn't enough Jewish women
around, so they had to go and marry idolaters. Now let me tell
you something, that may have been so, I don't think it was,
but it doesn't matter. God's word is law, period. God created you, you didn't create
God. God put you here, you didn't
put him there. You see, God is the final authority
and they existed because of God's power and goodness towards them.
And therefore the nation was obligated to worship and serve
God as God commands, not as they imagine or rationalize. Now, isn't that a great lesson
for us, the church? Our whole life of salvation is
owing to the goodness and the mercy and the greatness and the
power of God in Christ. We're here for Him, not for ourselves. It's not my personal preferences
or my personal prejudices that should guide the way that we
go as a church. It's for the glory of God. And
if it doesn't honor God in Christ, if it doesn't exalt Christ, if
it doesn't bring unity and love and peace to the brethren, don't
do it. Is that right? Don't do it. It's been said, now you think
about this, you know that God created us, It's been said that
two things bind all men together, even religiously. Number one,
the universal fatherhood of God. Well, God is the father of all
men by creation. Paul acknowledged that in Acts
17. Remember when he was standing on Mars Hill and he said that
we all, by creation, are the children of God in that sense.
But man lost that relationship when we fell in Adam. And now, now man is lost in his
sins. He's of his father the devil.
He walks according to the prince of the power of the air. You see, the only way we're gonna
know God as father is through redemption. And as God reveals
himself to us in Christ, he told his disciples, if you've seen
me, you've seen the father. He said, no man cometh unto the
Father, but by me, he said, I'm the way, the truth, and the life.
Man lost his relationship in Adam. Adam was called the son
of God, but after the fall, he begat a son in his own likeness. Adam's sinful man, were born
in sin, dead in trespasses and sin, not in the likeness of God,
but after Adam's fallen sinful human nature. Christ told the
Pharisees, you're of your father the devil. John said, we're of
God and the whole world lies in the wicked one. That's a clear
distinction between God's children and the children of disobedience.
If you don't know Christ, now think about this. If you don't
know Christ, you don't have any right to call God Father. And then somebody said, well,
what about the universal brotherhood of man? Well, again, we're all
brothers in the human family by creation, but we're not in
the spiritual family. We're not all brothers. Some
of us are. Our Lord taught that. One day
he was preaching in a household. And as he was preaching, they
came in to him and said, your mother and your brothers are
outside and they want to talk to you. And he said, well, who is
my mother? Who is my brother? Who are my brothers? He said,
them that do the will of my father. That's my spiritual family. That's
what he was saying. Beloved, behold, what manner
of love that we should be called the sons of God, children of
God. Christ took on the likeness of
sinful flesh yet he was without sin for his brethren so that
he's not ashamed to call us brethren and by his obedience unto death
on the cross by his redemptive work he brings many brethren
unto the Lord I know we call people brother
and sister a lot of times without thinking, I know we do that.
But I'll tell you now, we ought to think a little bit more about
that. I don't want to offend people, I'm like you, I don't
want to make people mad, but fact is fact. And that's so. But here he's saying, he's talking
to Israel. Here he speaks to Israel as a
nation under the old covenant. Not individuals in that as sons,
but of the nation. And according to the terms of
the Old Covenant, Israel was chosen, adopted. God said, I
was even a husband to you, Jeremiah 31 and verse 31 and on. And then
he said, even though they break the covenant, they break even
though I was a husband to them. And as I said, that passage that
you read, God gave them a bill of divorcement. That was the
end of the Old Covenant right there. You see, that was not
an eternal spiritual relationship that God had with the nation.
Now there were many in that nation who were part of the everlasting
covenant of grace, thank God. But he joined himself to them
for a temporary period of time, but not spiritually, not redemptively
or eternally as he is to his church, his children, his bride,
his sheep for whom he lays down his life. And he says here, he
says, well now why do we deal treacherously every man against
his brother? Acting falsely toward one another,
unfaithfully toward one another. We ought to show respect and
consideration and kindness to one another. There's no excuse
not to. But notice the problem. What were they doing? Verse 10,
by profaning the covenant of our father. The covenant bound
them together, you see, and they were polluting and corrupting
that covenant by allowing them to bring blemished sacrifices.
That's corrupting the covenant. That does dishonor to God. That
does not picture salvation by the Lamb of God. the perfect Lamb of God, by allowing
them to bring those, by perverting justice, having respect of persons,
favoring one over another, and by forsaking their wives, putting
their wives away, and marrying idolaters. Just like in the New
Covenant, Paul wrote in 2 Corinthians chapter 6 and verse 14 and on,
he said, be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers.
That involves fellowship. That involves marriage. You see,
when we seek marriage or fellowship with those who don't know Christ,
we're asking for trouble. And that's just a fact. Many
do it. Sometimes God works in mysterious ways and brings it
to a good end. Sometimes he doesn't. But it's
just so, isn't it? Look at verse 11. He said, Judah
hath dealt treacherously, and an abomination is committed in
Israel. And in Jerusalem, for Judah hath
profaned the holiness of the Lord, which he loved, the Lord
loved, that is. God loves his holiness. God loves
his only begotten son, the Lord Jesus Christ, who is his holy,
his holy one. And hath married the daughter
of a strange God. Whenever men pervert the gospel
and go after other gods, it leads to more sin. Turn over to Nehemiah. Chapter 13. This is the last
chapter of Nehemiah. Listen to this in verse 23. Listen to what they were doing.
Now this is what Malachi is addressing here. And you can read about
it in Ezra chapter 9 and 10 also. You read that on your own. But
look at Nehemiah chapter 13 verse 23. Listen to what they were
doing. In those days also saw I Jews
that had married wives of Ashdod, of Ammon, and of Moab. You see that? This is Nehemiah
right before Esther. Job, Esther, Nehemiah. Go back. And it says here they were marrying
wives of Ashdod, and Ammon, and Moab. idolatrous nations, ungodly
nations. And it says in verse 24, and
their children spake half in the speech of Ashdod, and could
not speak in the Jews' language. Now remember, God's seeking a
godly seed. You see, they were to raise their
children under the covenant, under the truth. But because
they had intermarried, they compromised. And it said their children could
not speak in the Jews' language, but according to the language
of each people, the language of idolatry. And verse 25 says, and I contended
with them, and cursed them, and smote certain of them, and plucked
off their hair, and made them swear by God, saying, you shall
not give your daughters unto their sons, nor take their daughters
unto your sons for yourselves. And then he goes back to Solomon.
Look here in verse 26. Did not Solomon, king of Israel,
sin by these things? You remember what Solomon did?
He married idolatrous women and he gave in to their desires to
build their idols. Yet among many nations was there
no king like him who was beloved of his God and God made him king
over all Israel. Nevertheless, even him did outlandish
women cause to sin. And that's what was going on.
These priests back here in Malachi 2 had led the people astray in
the sin of marrying foreign women who did not follow the Lord.
They were even divorcing their Jewish wives to marry these foreign
women. And there's two notable things about this. The first
one is concerning their present state and condition. The second
one concerns the future. and applies in prophecy to how
they treated Christ, the Messiah. The first one here applying to
their present stating condition is this, God's command under
that covenant was against mixed marriages in Israel. They were
commanded not to marry the heathen, not to marry idolaters. Now listen
to me very carefully here, I want you to get this, don't miss this.
Now God's command against mixed marriages in Israel had absolutely
nothing to do with any ethnic or racial purity. God wasn't just trying to raise
up a nation, a race, of pure-blooded Jews. That wasn't the purpose
of it. That ethnic and racial purity
became a matter of pride for them. You remember Paul in Philippians
chapter three? Remember what he said when he
was lost and trying to establish a righteousness of his own? He
said, I was a Hebrew of Hebrews. I'm a pure blood. But God's command
against mixed marriage had nothing to do with anybody being a pure
blood and taking pride in that and self-righteousness and thinking
that that could recommend you unto God or make you righteous
or even give you a jump start or a head start. Had nothing
to do with that. In fact, I'll give you proof
of it. In the earthly human genealogy of Christ, as recorded in the
book of Matthew chapter one, do you know there are two Gentile
women recorded in the human genealogy of our Lord? Do you know who
they were? One was Rahab the harlot. She
was the wife of Salmon, who was the father of Jesse, who was
the father of David. In other words, Rahab the harlot
was David's grandmother. And the other one was a woman
named Ruth, a Moabitess. Remember over in Nehemiah 23
where it says, or Nehemiah 13, said they were marrying women
of Moab? Well, Boaz married a Moabitess
woman. Why wasn't that wrong? It wasn't? Well, again, The issue of this
purity of marriage had nothing to do with their nation or their
ethnicity or their bloodline. You know what it had to do with?
Strictly, strictly with the issue of idolatry and worship. They
were forbidden to marry idolaters. When she married Salmon was not
an idolater. You know what she was? She was
a sinner saved by the grace of God. James 2.25 spoke of Rahab. It says, Rahab the harlot was
justified by works, not before God now, but before men. And
that means her faith in the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob,
her faith in Christ, as prophesied, was proven by what she did when
she received the messengers, the messengers that were sent
into Jericho, and had sent them out another way. She kept them
safe. She aligned herself with God and his people. So it wasn't
wrong for Simon to marry Rahab. Had nothing to do with her being
from Jericho. You see, the purity was the purity
of faith. Faith in the God of Abraham,
Isaac, and Jacob. Faith in Christ, there's the
purity. Whoever I have fellowship with,
whoever I marry, do they love Christ? That's the issue. If
they don't, it's wrong. And then you remember Ruth, Ruth
before she married Boaz, you remember what it was said? In
Ruth one in verse 16, she spoke to her mother-in-law named Naomi
and Ruth said, entreat me not to leave thee or to return from
following after thee for whether thou goest, I will go and whether
thou lodgest, I will lodge. Thy people shall be my people
and thy God shall be my God. You see, God meant for them to
marry and have children and raise up those children under the gospel. Under the gospel of Christ. And then this is also prophetic
because it's indicative of, later on, of the Jews' treatment of
the Messiah by betraying and delivering him up into the hands
of the Gentiles to be mocked, to be scourged, to be crucified.
And they actually cried unto Pilate. They said, we have no
king but Caesar. They adulterated themselves out
to an idol, a man. And who was it that caused the
people to stumble when Christ walked this earth? It was the
priest. It was the Pharisees, the Sadducees. And that's what
he means here by an abomination is committed in Israel and in
Jerusalem. Took the true Messiah with wicked hands, condemning
him and putting him to death, even the shameful and accursed
death of the cross, which was done in the land of Israel and
in and near the city of Jerusalem. Think about it. For Judah hath
profaned the holiness of the Lord which he loved, Christ,
the Holy One of God, the Son of His love. And I'm not just picking on them.
That was fallen humanity right there. We're just as responsible,
my friend. They married the daughter of
a strange God as the Jews rejected the only true and living God,
as they rejected the Son of God. They rejected His righteousness
and went after their own. That's idolatry. They rejected
his word and obeyed their own. That's idolatry. His ordinances,
his worship, they divorced themselves from the God of their fathers.
They showed that the nation was not that true spiritual nation
or the children of God. And then let me read verse 12
and I'll close tonight. We'll pick up there Sunday. He
says, the Lord will cut off the man that doeth this, the master
and the scholar, out of the tabernacles of Jacob, the tents of Jacob. What are the tents of Jacob?
That's the place where the people of God dwell as sinners saved
by the grace of God. We're sons of Jacob. I'm gonna
talk about that when we get over into chapter three. Why is he
called sons of Jacob? Because Jacob was a prime example
of a sinner, saved by the grace of God, forgiven by the blood
of Christ, justified based on the righteousness of Christ imputed,
and received by faith. And him that offereth an offering
unto the Lord of hosts. In other words, we have no offering
if we don't have Christ. We don't. We don't have anything
to offer unto God if we don't have Christ. And I read this
last time, verse 13, and this have you done again, covering
the altar of the Lord with tears, with weeping, and crying out
insomuch that he regardeth not the offering any more, or receive
it with good will at your hand. You see, nothing can replace
or rival Christ and him crucified. Nothing, your tears, your efforts,
your zeal, sincerity will not, you see the Jews were sincere,
but they wouldn't submit to the righteousness of God. For Christ
is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone that believeth. Nothing
will replace Christ. Nothing will replace his blood
and righteousness. All right. Let's sing as our
closing hymn, hymn number 118.