If you would, please turn to
the book of Malachi. We used a single statement out
of this book of Scripture last Sunday morning in the introduction
to those five questions. That statement came out of chapter
3 and verse 8, in which the Lord is putting into words for us
what we have thought and said about Him. And in this case,
in chapter 3 and verse 8, the statement was, Wherein have we
robbed God? Wherein have we robbed you? But
this morning, I ask you to turn to chapter 1 in Malachi. And I've struggled with this
a good bit, but I think this is where I'm supposed to be.
There are only 14 verses. I would actually like to cover
the first three chapters, but I can't, and there's no need
in promising myself or you that I can. In the course of three
chapters, chapter 1, 2, and 3, are found seven questions that
we are said to reply to God with, and they are vital Important,
infinitely important questions. These are not idle questions. These are not meaningless questions. Here's my whole point this morning.
The book of Malachi, and chapter 1 most especially, is about the
Lord Jesus Christ from beginning to end. My title this morning
is Malachi and the Gospel of Christ. The word Malachi, the
name means messenger of Jehovah. This is the last book in the
Old Testament. When Malachi's prophecy is finished
at the end of chapter 4, there's no word from God, no word from
God anywhere on this earth until the time or the birth of our
blessed Lord Jesus Christ. That's a long time. God, in effect,
said nothing for 350 years. But in this book, God is indeed
and He is exposing our natural rebellion to divine things and
our complete misunderstanding and mistrust of the God who made
us. I'm going to use my time here
to begin with I think I can do this more briefly than normal.
Fourteen verses. I just want you to simply follow
with me carefully, listen to these statements. I will do this. I'll point out those questions
as we come to them. There are some three of them
in this first chapter. And that's probably all we'll
get to this morning. of the word of the Lord to Israel by Malachi. The first subject, God's love. I have loved you, says the Lord. Yet you say, your words being
put in our mouths by God Himself. We say, wherein have you loved
us? And God replies, through his
prophet, was not Esau Jacob's brother? Indeed he was, and his
older brother at that, to whom customarily belonged the birthright.
Was not Esau Jacob's brother, says the Lord? Yet I love Jacob,
and I hated Esau. Spiritually speaking, God declares,
He laid His mountains and His heritage waste for the dragons
of the wilderness. Whereas Edom, Esau's descendants,
said, We are impoverished, but we will return and build the
desolate places. Thus says the Lord of hosts,
They shall build, but I will throw down. And they shall call
them the border of wickedness, and the people against whom the
Lord has indignation forever. And your eyes shall see, and
you shall say, The Lord will be magnified from the border
of Israel. Verse 6, A son honors his father,
and a servant his master. God is saying these words about
Himself. You talk about condescension.
If then I be a father, where is my honor? And if I be a master,
where is my fear? There is a right fear of God.
The beginning of wisdom is said to be the fear of God. Where
is my fear, says the Lord of hosts unto you, O priest? that despise my name. And you say, wherein, how, when
did we despise your name? God answers, verse 7, you offer
polluted bread upon my altar. And you say, third question,
how have we polluted you? Wherein have we polluted God's
reply, in that you say, the table of the Lord is contemptible. We have contempt for the table
of the Lord. We don't like what's on it. And
the Lord continues, and if you offer the blind for sacrifice,
is it not evil? God continues to speak. And if
you offer the lame and sick Is it not evil? Now remember, don't
dare read this without running to Christ with every single item
that crops up in our reading. We can't talk about the Lord's
table unless we understand that Christ is that table. We cannot
talk about blind animals for sacrifice except understanding
plainly that to offer an animal that is disfigured in any way
is to spit in the face of God's Son. The reason those animals
were to have no visible defect is because they represented,
they typified, and they pictured God's dear Son, the Lord Jesus
Christ, and especially Christ in redemption. I've already done
what I said I wasn't going to do. All right, verse 8, I'm going
to start there again. If you offer the blind for sacrifice,
is it not evil? If you offer the lame and sick,
is it not evil? Offer it now unto your governor.
Will he be pleased with you or accept your person, says the
Lord of hosts? And now I pray you, beseech God,
beg God that He'll be gracious unto us. Now this is the prophet
interjecting this statement, saying to those priests, I pray
you, seek God that He'll be gracious unto us. This has been, this
debacle has been by your means. Will God regard your persons,
says the Lord of hosts? Don't forget this now. Our persons. must be first accepted before
any thought can be given to God accepting anything that I give
Him. Verse 10, Who is there even among
you that would shut the doors for nothing? Neither do you kindle
fire on My altar, that is, without somebody bribing you. I have
no pleasure in you, says the Lord of hosts, Neither will I
accept an offering, for from the rising of the sun, even unto
the going down of the same, my name shall be great among the
Gentiles, and in every place incense shall be offered unto
my name, and a pure offering, for my name shall be great among
the heathen, among the Gentiles, says the Lord of hosts. But you
have profaned it, in that you say, The table of the Lord is
polluted, and the fruit thereof, even his meat, is contemptible. You said also, Behold, what a
weariness is it, and you have snuffed at it, stuck up your
nose at it, says the Lord of hosts, and you brought that which
was torn, and the lame, and the sick, Thus you brought an offering. Should I accept this of your
hand, says the Lord? Most telling verse of the chapters
right here, verse 14. Cursed be the deceiver who has
in his flock a male and vows and sacrifices unto the Lord
a corrupt thing. For I am a great king, says the
Lord of hosts. My name is dreadful. I want to
make you a promise this morning. God helping me, I intend to keep
my plan and purpose to pull no punches. I will not attempt to
soften what these statements say. They're in this book. They
are here because God put them here. On my smartest day, I'm
still an idiot compared to God. infinitely, infinitely. These statements inform us that
God's priests in Malachi's day were lying to men in God. I tell
you in the plainest, that has not changed. It hasn't changed.
I should like to cover at least these first three questions in
the first chapter of Malachi. The second thing I promise you
is to be constantly looking for words, expressions, phrases,
and sentences that can be said of no one else except our Lord
Jesus. So our purpose is to do our dead-level
best to honor and glorify. If we cannot find Him in a given
place in our Bibles, we have missed something But that is
not a difficult matter in Malachi chapter 1. Now in these total
of seven questions, God is exposing to us the natural aversion that
we have for His truth. the truth of His grace, and that
truth is a person who is the way, the truth, and the life,
the Lord Jesus Christ. All right, question number one
is found in verse number two. The subject that is being spoken
of from God by Malachi has to do with God's love. God's love. And that's still pretty much
a topic of interest in religious circles, even on our own generation. Though I promise you, for the
most part, it is totally and absolutely opposite of what this
word has to say about God's. The slogan for popular Christianity
in our generation is that God loves everybody and has a wonderful
plan for their life. That sounds good and it sounds
like it enhances people's perception of God and helps us to think
more highly of Him. But the actual truth is it works
the exact opposite. Let me put it this way. If God
loves me and I ultimately perish in hell, what Does the love of
God have to do with sin? The answer, absolutely not. If
that's true, if God loves everybody, the only sense that I have that
He loves me is because He loves everybody. That don't get it. That's the source of the problem
at the very beginning of Malachi chapter 1. And God says to Israel
through the prophet, He said, I have loved you, saith the Lord. And we reply, words are put in
our mouth, the very first question in verse 2, wherein? How is it that you've loved us?
How is it that God loves us, you and me? You wouldn't believe
what comes next. I know we just read it, but it
just takes your breath away. God's reply to them and to us. concerning his love. Was not
Esau Jacob's brother?" Sorry, good for nothing Jacob. Who dued
Esau out of his birthright? Just between me and you, Esau
would rather have a bowl of porridge than to have the birthright.
He's still that way. Humankind is still divided. The
whole thing was that God purpose for Jacob to be his seed. What does he say? Jacob have
I loved, but Esau have I hated. We get up in arms. God can't
hate anybody. Well, I think if you're God,
you can do what you please. That's only half of it. The other
half is if God does it, it has to be right. We don't know squat
about right. God is right and whatever He
says and does is right, whether I like it or not. It doesn't
change it once. I'm telling you this, God's love
is entirely, completely, and wholly contained. There is no
such thing as God loving me outside of Jesus Christ. We must be in
Christ. God's love is in Christ. Is it
not? I could turn to three or four
texts right now to prove it. God's love is special. Here He says it's sovereign and
it's unchangeable and it's eternal and it's irresistible. God's
love is just like Himself. Whatever He does magnifies His
being, His attributes, His character, His person. It must. Whatever God does, must be becoming
of God and His love is becoming of Himself. So verses 3 and 4
declare that primarily now these verses maybe should be viewed
in a spiritual sense that God has laid the mountains and heritage
of Esau waste. I'm telling you this first question
Wherein has God loved us? Demands to be answered. Let me just put it this way.
Let's bring it down to ourselves individually. Does God love me? Does He love me? If He does,
that love is in Christ. But how do I account for the
fact that God loves me if indeed and in fact He does? Now just
because I say He does, Boy, that ain't right. Just because I say
He does, doesn't make it so. You follow me? I can't say God
loves me and it's automatically so. If God loves me, He's loved
me forever. In that eternal covenant of grace
in old eternity, He gave me to His Son in the election of grace.
God's love magnifies Himself. So how do I account for the fact
if I say that God loves me and perhaps I can say He really does,
how do I explain that? And I don't start looking in
here to explain it. You're in trouble the minute
you start looking in here. We are to look only to the Lord
Jesus Christ as the reason for God's loving us. Please understand,
the Lord Jesus did not die on the cross to enable God to love
us. He died on Calvary's tree because
God has a people and He has loved them forever and ever. And as
a result of that love, God gave His only begotten Son to die
on the tree. Here's my whole point now about
the love of God. You find the reason for God showing
you mercy in God's Son. Don't look for it in here. It
is not in here. All right? The second question.
Let's jump down to verse 6. The Lord uses this figure having
to do with a father and a master. A son honors his father and a
servant his master. If then I be a father, where
is my honor? Where's God's honor? You tell
me. I'll let you answer the question.
Is that not a viable, necessary question for our generation?
The average church service in America. is a virtual circus. And the honor of God, if it's
on the list, is down near the bottom. And it must, it must
be reversed. And if I be a master, where is
my fear? We live in a generation, ladies
and gentlemen, to ask the average religious person, do you fear
God? Oh no, we're not supposed to
fear Him. What book have you been reading? Of course we do. All God's children have a reverence
and fear of Himself. That's beyond measure. Where
is my fear, says the Lord of hosts unto you, O priest? This is the priesthood of Malachi's
day, of whom Malachi was not a member. He is simply a prophet. We know nothing about his family
history or anything else. except that he comes on the scene
and speaks for God, and then he's gone. He's quoted, oh, some
seven or eight times in the New Testament, in Matthew, Mark,
Luke, and the Book of Romans, and twice in two of those Gospels. So that's four or five, that's
six times at least, which, by the way, confirms, authenticates
for us This is without question God's messenger. What's His message? Christ in Him crucified. What's
the whole problem with the priesthood? Offering sick and lame and blind
animals. What's so wrong about that? They
depict God's Son, the Lord Jesus. And they tell you that God will
take less than the best. This is not so. O priest that
despise Why don't you get out? Why don't you quit being a priest?
Oh, that would look bad. This is a good living. I don't
believe I want to give it up." And with audacity we say, wherein
have we despised? Now I want your careful attention
please. Beginning at verse 7, you offer polluted bread upon
my altar. Now in my mind I cannot recollect
a sacrifice of bread. but that the sacrifice having
to do with the putting away of sin was a blood animal sacrifice
in order to properly picture the shed blood of the Lord Jesus
Christ. So when it's talking about polluted
bread, it's talking about the sacrifices that were on those
altars were not as God required to be without blemish and without
spot. a male of the first year and
so forth. So when we get to the end of the chapter and down at
verse 14, that's going to make that verse become all the more
important for us to understand. Because what it is telling us,
I'll give you this much at this point, what it's telling us is
this, that any man who tries to approach God on any ground,
any basis, other than Jesus Christ and Him crucified, is doing so
while in his mind, in this book, in the preached message, in the
teaching of the Word of God, there's the sacrifice, Christ
and Him crucified, that God requires. Oh, but I think I'll approach
Him on the basis of something that I've become a fool. That's
just insane. All right, so back to our statement,
polluted bread. It is bread. It is any sacrifice
that does not properly, honorably, and gloriously represent the
body and blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. See what I'm saying?
On those altars where those sacrifices were made, you had basically
the same thing that's on this table when the elements of the
Lord's table are here. It's His body. My friend, that
is the sole ground of the putting away of sin and our being accepted
in God's sight. Alright, the second thing in
verse 7 is that we actually have the third question phrased right
after that statement about polluted bread upon God's altar. And you
say, where in have we polluted you? In what way? How? We just,
you know, we're just so, we're such a con. We're so deceptive. The God of heaven and earth charges
me with this, and I say with impudence all over my face, I
don't remember doing any of this. Surely you must be wrong. No,
God is not wrong. Okay, how have we polluted the
God of heaven and earth? Verse 7, middle part, in that
you say, The table of the Lord is contemptible. And if you offer
the blind for sacrifice, is it not evil? And if you offer the
lame and the sick, is it not evil? Offer it now to your governor,
will he be pleased with you? Or accept your person, says the
Lord of hosts. Now I pray you, beseech God,
this is Malachi urging the priests to fall on their faces before
God, that God would be gracious unto us. This difficulty, this
judgment, the prophet says, is by the means of the priesthood. Will He regard your persons,
says the Lord of hosts? Will He regard your persons? Verse 10, Who is there even among
you? I want so much to go back to
verse 9, but I'll never make it to 14 if we don't continue.
Who is there even among you that would shut the doors for nothing? Where in today's religion is
a people to be found that do what they do purely and simply
to honor the God of their salvation? Who need no whips of the law,
no promises of reward, either down here or in heaven, simply
the love of Christ constrains. Where are those people? Who is
there even among you that would shut the doors for nothing? Neither
do you kindle fire on my altar." Why do they have to kindle the
fire? Because God's fire from heaven would not come down. And later on, I believe it's
in chapter 2, it says that when they did this, they did it with
a profusion of tears and laments and all this other stuff. And
God ridicules that in that second chapter. I have no pleasure in
you, says the Lord of hosts. Therefore, neither will I accept
an offering What that means, Aria, in order for our gift to
be accepted. Give me one quick minute and
I'll show you this in the book of Ecclesiastes. Just in one
statement. Chapter 9. Let's see. Ecclesiastes is right before
Song of Solomon. That's right. Just before that
catechles. Chapter 9. Ecclesiastes chapter
9, verse 7. We've applied this verse to untold
numbers of places in our Bibles, but it certainly belongs with
Malachi chapter 1. Ecclesiastes 9.7, Go your way,
eat your bread with joy, and drink your wine with a merry
heart. You wonder why? What's the celebration? For God now, now accepts your
works. Well, what was wrong with them
before? It was what was wrong with me. I must be in Christ. Christ must be my Redeemer, my
Kinsman Redeemer, in order for my works to be accepted before
God. And if this verse is properly
read, we'll read it like this. Go your way, if Christ is your
way. Eat your bread, if Christ is
the bread of life to me, with joy and drink our wine with a
merry heart. For God now accepts the believer's
works can be done. Now that he's in Christ, knows
and loves the Lord Jesus Christ, he can serve God without ulterior
motives, without trying to change Him, without trying to bribe
Him. We worship Him. We serve Him. We just can't do anything else.
It's what we must do because we love to do. We're not looking
for title, not looking for reward, none of that stuff. All right,
we've got to move on. Verse 11, for from the rising
of the sun even to the going down of the same, My name shall
be great among the Gentiles and in every place. Incense, the
perfume and aroma of the Lord Jesus Christ shall be offered
unto my name and a pure offering." Oh, bless your heart. That's
Christ's offering on the cross. A pure offering for my name shall
be great among the heathen, says the Lord of Hosts. But you have
profaned it in that you say, The table of the Lord is polluted,
and the fruit thereof, even his meat, is contemptible. You said
also, Behold, what a weariness is it! And you have snuffed at
it, says the Lord of hosts, and you brought that which was torn,
and the lame and the sick. Thus you brought an offering,
yes you did, but not accepted, should I accept this of your
hand, says the Lord. All right, verse 14. But cursed
be the deceiver, whether he's a priest in Malachi's day, or
a preacher in our day, or whether he's a worshiper in Malachi's
day, or a worshiper right now this morning. Cursed be the deceiver
which has in his flock a male, lamb, goat, whatever, a year
old, without blemish, without spot, and vows, sacrifices unto
the Lord, corrupt thing. Imagining in my heart that God
will accept me on the basis of a sacrifice lest the Son of God
Himself. It ain't going to happen. Sacrifice
unto the Lord a corrupt thing, for I'm a great king, says the
Lord of hosts, and my name is dreadful. I'm going to try, I
can't promise you, to put off the rest of this maybe to next
Sunday. I don't know if I can do that.
That's a long time. It's like a hen sitting on eggs. You can't
sit on them so long. All right. Closing hymn.