Transcript

Well, grab your Bibles and let’s go to the old part of the book. You go to Malachi, go back one book and you get to, or rather Matthew, go back one book and you get to Malachi. This is our second installment. And we’re looking at Malachi 1:6-14.

There’s a lot of redundancy and intertwining and overlapping, but that’s purposeful as the prophet under the direction of God is weighing heavy or bringing heavy emphasis to the point he wants to make to this backslidden and sinful people. Now, Malachi is one of only two prophets that prophesied to Israel after they returned from captivity. They’ve been enslaved by the Babylonians, and then the Persians, and under Cyrus the Persian, they’ve been released, they’ve gone back to the promised land, the wall’s been rebuilt, the temple’s been rebuilt, the city is functioning, and they find themselves in a cold, empty spiritual condition and even a condition of outward premeditated wickedness.

Verse six, the prophet writes on behalf of God, “‘A son honors his father, and a servant his master. Then if I am a father, where is My honor? And if I am a master, where is My respect?’ says the Lord of hosts to you, O priests who despise My name. But you say, ‘How have we despised Your name?’”

So here we have the disputation element again. This is the second dispute between God and the people in the book of Malachi. Verse seven, “You are presenting defiled food upon My altar. But you say, ‘How have we defiled You?’ In that you say, ‘The table of the Lord is to be despised.’ But when you present the blind for sacrifice, is it not evil? And when you present the lame and sick, is it not evil? Why not offer it to your governor? Would he be pleased with you? Or would he receive you kindly?” says the Lord of hosts.”

Verse nine, “But now will you not entreat God’s favor, that He may be gracious to us? With such an offering on your part, will He receive any of you kindly?” says the Lord of hosts. “Oh that there were one among you who would shut the gates, that you might not uselessly kindle fire on My altar! I am not pleased with you,” says the Lord of hosts, “nor will I accept an offering from you. For from the rising of the sun even to its setting, My name will be great among the nations, and in every place incense is going to be offered to My name, and a grain offering that is pure; for My name will be great among the nations,” says the Lord of hosts. “But you are profaning it, in that you say, ‘The table of the Lord is defiled, and as for its fruit, its food is to be despised.’ You also say, ‘Oh, how tiresome it is!’ And you disdainfully sniff at it,” says the Lord of hosts, “and you bring what was taken by robbery and what is lame or sick; so you bring the offering! Should I receive that from your hand?” says the Lord. “But cursed be the swindler who has a male in his flock and vows it, but sacrifices a blemished animal to the Lord, for I am a great King,” says the Lord of hosts, “and My name is feared among the nations.”

I don’t have a title yet. I’ll try to have one maybe by the time we get through. First of all, let’s notice in the text, God’s charge against them. That’s obvious and quite overwhelming. I wanna break this up in two parts and pull it out of the text, and that is, first of all, the atrocious attitudes he charges them with having. The word atrocious means shockingly wicked, and that’s exactly what God says here. Your attitude in coming before me and serving me and being my people who are to worship me and honor me, but your attitude in what you’re doing is atrocious. It’s shockingly wicked.

Notice what he says in verse six. First of all, he says, “you dishonor me”. In verse six, he simply says, well, “where is my honor?” A father gets honor from his son, but where’s my honor? I’m your heavenly father, but you dishonor me. Then secondly, in verse six, he says, and “you disrespect me”. He says in verse six, a master, the implication is, gets respect from his servant, but you don’t respect me. The disrespect is there. The disrespect idea there is treating God without proper regard. What a conviction that should be for us this morning. Do you treat God with the proper regard? Is there a hallowedness, a sacredness to God’s person that dwells in our hearts?

Well, he says, you publicly shame me, and you publicly disgrace me, and it begins with your heart. You put these two together, the dishonor they show God, and then the disrespect they show God, and you have a private disrespect, but a public disgracing of God. You know, a child can disrespect a parent privately when they just speak rudely to their parent, but then they go out in public and live as a rebel, and they disgrace their parent. Israel was doing both. From the heart, privately, they dishonored God, they disrespected him, and in their open conduct, they disgraced him and his name before the nations.

Now, not only do you dishonor me and disrespect me, but you brazenly deny these facts. Once again, the disputation element here, as God says one thing, and then they dispute God, they challenge God. but you say, last phrase of verse six, but you say, “how have we despised your name?” Yeah, at this point, I feel like the prophet wants to say, oh, come on. Are you kidding me? You’re gonna challenge this with what you’ve been doing?

It’s atrocious attitudes you have in your heart. We get to the behavior issues in a moment. So they were just stubborn and reviling back toward God. A reviler is one who doesn’t have a point, but they just passionately and selfishly wanna get their view across and by being loud and obnoxious. Pretty much the picture here.

In Exodus 32, these kind of people are called stiff-necked people. In Romans chapter 2, these kind of people are called those with a hardened heart. In 1 Timothy 4, they’re called those who have a seared conscience. In Ezekiel chapter 2, they’re called those who are shameless. There’s a hardened and wicked arrogance among these people.

But not only those things, fourthly, he says, you despise my name in verse 6. He says very clearly, O priest who despise my name. Now the priest and the people are in this together, by the way, but the priests bear a heavier responsibility as they are to maintain the spirituality of the country. And they failed, they’ve actually participated in bringing down the spiritual climate, or temperature, if you will, of the country.

You despise my name. Despise means to tarnish. You tarnish my reputation. You despise me in your heart. You hate me. You don’t wanna honor me. You don’t wanna please me. I’m not your joy. And then you publicly put my reputation in a classification of shame.

This reminds me of the writing that Paul did in 1 Corinthians to the boy who was in open and scandalous sexual immorality. And Paul responds to them in 1 Corinthians 5 and in essence says, what’s being done by this young man is not even acceptable among the Gentiles. It’s so wantonly evil. Even the pagans think this is wrong. Although I think that’s what God is saying here, you are doing things openly that even the wicked nations of the world would look at that and say, that can’t be right.

You profane my name, he says down in verse 12. Again, these things are sprinkled throughout the text. And then lastly, you shamefully put on a charade of indignation. If you will, look at verses 12 and 13. Now, I take Smith’s interpretation of this that what the priest are actually saying in verses 12 and 13 is, oh, we’re burdened about what’s going on.

Oh, our souls are grieved about the wickedness. and these atrocious attitudes that exist in the nation toward you are one and only holy God. And so they put on this charade as if their righteous soul has a righteous indignation about what’s going on.

But the fact of the matter is they’re actively leading and participating in the wickedness. Do we not have that in our country today? You see some guy, some lady, some woman who claims to be a preacher and they get up to preach and they start saying the most ungodly and wicked things as if this is God’s truth and God’s doctrine. They’re actually leading in the wickedness. Sure we see it today and it was very common obviously in Israel in Malachi’s day.

These guys say, look at verse 12. but you are profaning it in that you say the table of the Lord is defiled and as for its fruit, its food is to be despised. Now, I don’t think they would actually say that, but I think the prophet is saying what you’re doing in essence is you’re saying the Lord’s table, the service of the Lord is something that ought to be defiled. You’re so blatantly open about it. You also say, verse 13, or you also say, my, how tiresome or irksome this priestly service is, and you disdainfully sniff at it, says the Lord of Hosts. So he’s bringing out again that they’re parading themselves as being troubled by what’s going on when actually it’s a false, hypocritical charade that they’re portraying before the prophet at this time.

Well, their atrocious, Attitudes. Can we find ourselves there sometimes? Do you have an attitude of dishonoring the Lord or do you have an attitude of disrespecting the Lord, taking for granted, not having him as the honored in first place in your heart and in your life? Well, notice the second thing here. Not only does God’s charge cover their atrocious attitudes, but God’s charge covers their despicable, sinful behavior.

So, here God comes and they’ve challenged God, they’ve dared to take God on and say, no, just how are we.., what do you mean we’re like this? Just how is this happening? God says, okay, you got a minute, let me tell you what you’re doing. I’ll state it plain and open before your face.

But before we get there, since he’s talking about their misdeeds and their bad behavior, their sinful behavior, their wicked behavior, in the context of bringing their sacrifices, let’s remind ourselves what God required when they brought the sacrifice.

When they brought the sacrifice, God had extreme precision in mind. And by the way, that extreme precision had two elements to it because God is extremely holy and pure and good and righteous. Sacrifice ought to be a reflection of him. And secondly, of course, all the sacrifices pointed to Jesus. And he is the pure and righteous and spotless one.

So the point is, God says, I have specifications for how I want my ministry done. You don’t get to build the church your way. I have specifications. Leviticus 22:21. “When a man offers a sacrifice of peace offerings to the Lord to fulfill a special vow or a freewill offering of the herd, it must be perfect to be accepted. There shall be no defect in it”. That was really important to God. It shall not have a blemish or defect whatsoever.

And then Numbers 18:12, he says, now when you bring in your grain offerings, I want the first and in essence the best of the first to be brought to me. You have 100 acres come in, I don’t want just the lower 10 acres down there where it gets swampy and it’s about half good crop. No, you bring me the best 10 acres and the first 10 acres. I’m precise about what I want you to do.

And of course, brothers and sisters, this was done because God said this must be a reflection of your heart. Then Proverbs 3:9-10, “honor the Lord from your wealth and from the first”, not the leftovers, but the “first of all you produce”, the first of your income. And then God’s promised to bless that if you do that. Verse 10 of Proverbs 3, so your parts will be filled with plenty and your vats will overflow with new wine. So these offerings were to be brought displaying the character of God, that’s why they had to be perfect. And they were an expression of the consecration of their hearts, that my heart is fully devoted, yielded, honoring of you my holy God.

So the offering reflects or was meant to reflect the attitude of the condition of the heart. Our heart should love God first, and our heart should love God most, and our heart should hold Him as holy, radically superior, and radically unlike us. They had forgotten Deuteronomy 6:5-6 “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all of your mind. These words I’m commanding you today shall be on your heart”. Well, they were not doing this.

Keil and Delitzsch, in their commentary, said that “to offer corrupted animals in sacrifice is an offense against God’s majesty”. So, what were they doing? What’s this despicable, sinful behavior? Well, first, they were denying that they’d done anything wrong. How have we done this? They say in verse six. Disputing with God, daring God. Well, God just pointed out a brazenness, a cowardness, a bald-faced denial. So God spells it out. Verse seven, he said, you’re bringing defiled food. It’s a figure of speech. The altar was stated as the food of God. It was what we present to God. It’s kind of the figure that if someone of royalty, of upper distinction asked you to serve them food, you would bring them something worthy. It’s the food you’re presenting to them. And God said, you’re bringing defiled food. Rather than honoring me, you’re showing dishonor to me. You’re despising me.

Then he says in verse eight, let’s look at it there together. We won’t just look at all of it, because I’m covering a lot of territory, obviously. When you present the blind for sacrifice, is it not evil? When you present the lame and the sick, is it not evil? So here they would come in to the priest and they would say, here’s what I’m bringing from my heart to honor and glorify the one true God of the universe, the God of Israel. So here’s a blind lamb. Here’s a crippled goat. Here’s a sickly turtle dove or pigeon. You know what they’re doing? God, we thank so much of you, we’re bringing our leftovers. That’s what they were doing.

Then in verse 13, look down in verse 13, he said, they were even bringing stolen animals. And you bring what is taken by robbery and what is lame or sick when you bring the offering. I’m not sure how that worked, but it was obvious that the priest knew this was going on and a person could literally sin by stealing an animal and then bringing it saying, oh, I’m sacrificing it to the Lord.

Is it not amazing, brothers and sisters, is it not shocking how fallen we are that untold millions of people all over the world will go through the heartless, motions of ritual in some sort of religious context, thinking that somehow is going to appease and please God. And there’s a million different forms of it, but it’s the same way all over the globe. Much of it into the heading of Christendom, if you will, and much of it into the heading of other false and pagan religions. Our heart doesn’t have to be in it. It doesn’t have to be genuine. I don’t have to joy in Him. I don’t have to love Him. If I just jump through the hoops, I’ll get to heaven. Our flesh would love that, wouldn’t it? Just give me the four things and I’ll do that. I’ll check those boxes off. God don’t want your boxes checked off. God doesn’t want your heartless ritual. He wants you to love the Lord your God, all your heart, all your soul, all your mind, and all your strength. You say, well, pastor, I’m not there. Yes, but if you’re saved, you want to be there. If you’re saved, you want to repent and strive to be there, and you know you’re never happier than when you are there.

Defiled food, blind, lame, are crippled in sickly sacrifices. That’s what they thought of God. It’s almost like, God, here’s what we think of you. Take this sacrifice. Stolen animals, and then verse 14 says, some were trying to do a bait and switch on God. Look at there in verse 14 of our text. They vow, he says in verse 14, to bring a male, a perfect male from its flock, but then they come and bring a blemished animal. in the place of it. That means a female blemished animal was of lesser quality as far as the herd went. So you brought the lesser when you vowed the greater. You vowed that your heart was fully in this and then when you actually functioned, it wasn’t true that your heart was fully in it. You’re not genuine. What daring behavior. The heart’s just not in it and they take the liberty to defile the practice of the ordinance itself in bringing these kinds of sacrifices.

Verse seven of our text, in the last part, he says, “in that you say the table of the Lord is to be despised”, and the point is, they may not verbalize it that way, but he’s saying that’s exactly what in essence you’re saying. The table of the Lord is to be despised. This is in effect what you are saying.

Brothers and sisters, this was a serious and important parallel for us in the church today. that we know what goes on in the congregation and so many pastors are very unwilling to ever deal with it. These priests go along with it, actually help lead it instead of calling it out and correcting it and guiding the people to righteousness. My goodness, how many churches today are doing that very thing?

Well, then there’s a rebuke here, a correction here from the common ordinances of God. He points out in another way how wrong and how obviously wrong they are and sinful they are. First of all, these are things, when I say the common ordinances of God, these are things that God reveals through scripture and they had the scripture, but these are things that God also reveals through the conscience. God’s put a conscience in every man, whether he’s saved or not, Christian or not, whatever he is, there’s a conscience in there that tells him these basic ordinances are right and are true. And not only the scripture in the conscious, but nature itself reveals that these things are right. And he gives three of these in the text.

First of all, up in verse six, he says, “if I’m a father, where’s my honor?” His point is, even the unbelievers know and agree a son should honor his father. Now we know there’s an exception here and there, but generally speaking, go across the globe and you’ll find that people understand children should honor their parents and a son should respect and honor his father.

He said, but “where’s my honor?” So you’re rebuked by even the common revelation of God concerning common ordinances for all of mankind. Then he says, and even it’s commonly known and even believed by the pagans that a servant should honor and respect his master. He said, but where’s my respect?

And then you go down in the text a little bit, down to verse eight, and he talks about the governor, and I think that’s reflecting back on their time in Persian captivity. His point was, if one of your governors over there in Persia said, give me 10 lambs this next Thursday, I’m having a big feast, and I want you to honor me and take care of me in this, and then you bring the 10 lambs to the governor there in Persian, some of them are blind, and some of them are crippled, and some of them are sickly, he said, that’s not gonna work. Even the pagans know you honor those who are in authority over you in government. You give them your best.

Here’s the point. The prophet says, why aren’t you doing God that way? Why does God get the leftovers of your heart and your time and your energy and your devotion? And he says, just quite frankly, it’s evil what you’re doing. In verse eight, talking back about the governor here, he said, let’s just read it there, the last part. “Why not offer it to your governor?” Why not offer a blind brother and a lame and a sickly offering to your governor? In other words, you’re not gonna do that. “Would he be pleased with you?” You know that’s not gonna work. Would he receive you kindly, says the Lord? The point is, the implication is, so how do you think the Lord’s gonna receive you? How do you think the Lord’s gonna accept you doing these things, living this way before him? Verse 11 in our text is interesting. It’s just sort of stuck in here, but nothing in the Bible is just stuck in here for nothing.

Look at verse 11. He says, “for from the rising of the sun in the evening to its setting, my name will be great among the nations, and in every place incense is going to be offered to my name, and a grain offering that is pure. For my name will be great among the nations, says the Lord of hosts”. In other words, he said, you’re doing all this to me and I’m greater than any father could ever be. I’m greater than any master could ever be. I’m greater than any governor could ever be. I’m the one and only being that must be praised in all places and at all times. And you’re dealing with me with such profane disrespect and dishonor. I created you, Israel. I discipled you Israel, I’ve protected you Israel, and you’re gonna treat me with such contempt? That’s not gonna work. Do you think I’m gonna deal kindly with you? Your governor wouldn’t, and I’m not either.

Now just a moment of application for us today. What did they simply do here? They just heartlessly brought God their leftovers. They just heartlessly brought God their leftovers. They had this they were interested in, and this they were interested in, and this activity they wanted to do, and this event they wanted to be a part of, and not all that’s wrong, and then God got tacked on to what was left over. Sometimes I think you could almost call that the Baptist way. Just give me a church, that lets me be me, lets me have fun, lets me do what I want to do, lets me be the kind of guy, and I’ll tag on to the end of my life a few things you require and tell me I’m going to heaven. They gave God the leftovers. Does God get our leftovers? Does God get an offering that says, well here God, I’ve been busy with a lot of things, this is good enough for you. Does God get your leftover gifts? It’s wrong for you to decide after you pay your bills to honor God. It’s wrong for you to decide after you spend your money on events and entertainments and whatever, and those may not be bad in themselves, but it’s the heart attitude and it’s the priority of it. It’s wrong to put God at the end.

He said, I want the first and the best of the first. I don’t want all of it. Give me the first. Know what you’re gonna find out if you’ll be faithful here? Some of you need to learn to tithe. You’ll find out if I’ll put God first and give him the best of the first, I’ll have more left over at the end of the month. Well, Malachi’s gonna talk about that in depth in a few chapters over.

I remember, and boy, I gotta be careful here because I’ll get on a tangent and I may not get off. It doesn’t, and this is not always wrong, so understand what I’m saying. I wanna be balanced here, but the pattern used to be that the church was viewed as a charitable organization. Who told you that? A football team may do a charitable thing, The band boosters may do a charitable event for the band kids, and churches do some charitable things, but our purpose is not to be a charitable organization. I’m sorry, that’s not what the scriptures teach.

And usually with the charity, people bring their leftovers to help them, and that’s good, and that’s okay, because they ask for leftovers. 1-800 CARS4KIDS, K-A-R-S, CARS4KIDS, have you heard that? You listen to Fox News? It’s about charity. You got an old car you need to get rid of? Let us have it and we can help some kids with that. That’s perfectly good and fine. God is not pleased with that mentality. God brought us a piano 30-something years ago and the thing ought to have been thrown in the Tennessee River. He got him a new one. He thought, well, God can have this old one. Give God the new one, you keep the old one.

A man brought us a computer 30-something years ago. Do you know what computers were 30-something years ago? They were boat anchors. He had this giant thing he brought in, and we had these paper cards that went with it. Do y’all remember that? Anybody old enough to remember that stuff? He got him a new good one, and he said, I thought the church could use this one.

Look, that may be fine, but I wonder at his heart, is he really saying, I want God to have the first and the best? It’s the heart attitude, brothers and sisters, more than the specific thing. Does God get your leftover gifts? Does he get your leftover time? You joined a church. You walk before God in a congregation and said, God’s placed me here and God is my priority and the service of this church is my priority.

Does that mean you can’t do other things? Does that mean you can’t miss a Sunday along if something happens? But here’s what I want to know. Is it easy for you to say, I’ll miss church because I’m doing this or that and whatever? Is it easy? Or do you say, no, I need to look at that. I need to pray about that. Do you examine that. Do we give God our leftover gifts, our leftover time, our leftover energies? Do we give our hearts a thousand things and then give God the leftovers of our heart?

I don’t know about you, but I don’t trust Jeff Noblit. I’m glad nobody shouted out, we don’t trust you either. That’s not what I meant when I say, well, anyway. I meant, do you trust yourself? I have to discipline myself to say, Lord, I thank you for your cars you’ve given me to drive, for your clothes you’ve given me to wear, for your house you’ve given me to live in, for your farm you’ve given me as an investment. And Lord, if it’s gone tomorrow, I still have you. Doesn’t mean I don’t enjoy it, amen? But it’s not the first to me and it’s not the best to me. I’m telling you, God is my witness. Standing in a thousand Bibles, you can give me the world but take Jesus away and I’m gonna be miserable.

So let’s don’t lean toward what these ancient Israelites were doing and say, God, we’re gonna be faithful to you. You’re gonna faithfully get our leftovers. God said, would you do that for your governor? And would he treat you kindly if you did? Well, I won’t either. They so easily said no to God, but they would so easily say yes to a worldly governor. They missed Deuteronomy 6:5-6 again, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your might. These words I’ve commanded you today shall be in your heart”.

Now, the priest and the people were in this together. Jeremiah 531 is a verse that I think just encapsulates what was going on in ancient Israel and what in principle goes on in today’s church. Jeremiah 5:31, the prophets prophesy faulty. They’re not preaching the word faithfully as they ought to, but that’s only part of it. Be careful when you say, well, I’m gonna go to that church because they preach the word. Okay. You can turn on the internet and find a lot of preaching of the word, but you can’t be a part of the body of Christ by listening to the internet.

The prophets prophesy falsely. Here’s the important part that’s being left out so often. The priests rule on their own authority. In other words, the priests don’t have authority to do what they want in the church. The priests are to do what God wants in the church. That’s the hard part. It’s easy to get up here and scream about it. and yell about it, but are we purposing and striving, always imperfectly, I know, but are we purposing and striving to function in the church according to God’s word? The priest could not rule in their priesthood on their own accord. They were under the authority of the scripture. And when they got out from under that, like these priests were doing, God said, that’s wickedness.

Well, Roman number two, and it’s not as long, but how does all this end then? What’s all the completion of this? Well, first of all, A, as we’ve been saying very clearly, it doesn’t end well for these brazen sinners. God will not bless them, and that’s what’s strongly implied in verse nine when he says, but now will you not entreat God’s favor that he may be gracious to us? He said, you’re gonna want the blessing of God. Matter of fact, brothers and sisters, you have to have the blessing of God to survive. And he said, you’re gonna ask God to bless you. Bless your food, bless your flocks, bless your crops, bless your marriage, bless your home, bless your children.

That’s not necessarily wrong, but in this context, what he’s saying is, look at the next line. You’re gonna ask God to be gracious to you with such an offering on your part? Church member, are you gonna give God your leftovers and then come and say, oh, God bless me, keep my children right, keep them healthy, Boy, I know I’m getting close to the danger zone this morning. But be careful, mom and dad, when you say, you know, we’re gonna start missing a lot of church, a lot of service and ministry because our kids have all these activities.

It’s as if you’re saying, God, if you had not given us kids, we’d be faithful to you. It’s dangerous to tell God my kids are what’s keeping me from loyalty to you, Lord. That’s dangerous. God might say, okay, should I remove your children? I’m not saying God does that. Be careful when you say, I wouldn’t give God the leftovers if I didn’t have these things to do for my children. Be careful, don’t make idols out of your children.

Your children need to see that sometimes we say no to good things because we’ve been doing a whole lot of good things and we made a commitment to our Lord and we’re gonna have to put him a little more first going forward.

Well, it’s not gonna turn out good for this bunch, doing what they’re doing, living like they’re living, putting God last place, giving God the leftovers, their hearts are not with him, and then asking God for a blessing. You know, here’s the reason God blesses us. Are you ready? We’ve been looking at this verse forever. Psalm 67, is that on the screen, guys? There it is. Psalm 67, “God be gracious to us and bless us”.

Why do we want God to bless our families? Why do we want God to bless our children and our homes and our church? Verse 2, “that your way might be known on earth and your salvation among all nations”. If that’s your purpose, then you can expect God’s blessing. That means you’re putting God first. God blesses us, verse 7, “that all the ends of the earth may fear him”. We want God you to bless us so that we might be tools in your hand to bring you more glory.

Now, if God had blessed Israel in this condition, God would be actually blessing wickedness. And if we’re only about exalting ourselves, how can we expect God to bless us? That would be God blessing or exalting wickedness. Israel was supposed to reflect God’s holy and righteous character and shine his light and his truth to the nations that they would see God’s glory. But if God blesses and exalts Israel in the condition they were in, as we see in our text, Israel would not be reflecting God’s holy character, but projecting their own wickedness and sin and putting a bad name, a bad reputation on God himself.

So God’s just not going to do that. God’s not going to bless these brazen, unrepentant people who are hypocrites, who are going through the rituals and emotions, but their heart is not with God. They dishonor God from their hearts and in the actual way they bring the offering and in what they actually bring. Sir, you may be a man that gives large gifts to the church, but is God kind of last place in your heart? I think God would not say, keep it and be at my first place first.

Well, secondly, it all ends with, first of all, not well for those who are these brazen, unrepentant sinners, but secondly, it ends exceedingly well for those who repent and trust in a promised Savior. You see, all through the Old Testament, the hope was there’s a promised Savior coming. There’s a promised Savior coming. And I didn’t find this in any commentary, but as I meditated on the text, this jumped out at me, that there is a clear and strong picture of Jesus here, a prophetic word, if you will, about Jesus, Verse 10 is so powerful, it’s so pointed. The prophet writes, it’s kind of an interlude.

He’s writing all these things and he’s overlapping his thoughts and he’s redundant to bring the force and the penetrating element of the text to bear. And then all of a sudden, verse 10, “Oh, that there were one among you”, one among the Jews “who would shut the gates that you might not uselessly kindle fire on my altar. I am not pleased with you,” says the Lord of hosts, “nor will I accept an offering from you”. God said if there was just someone that would shut the temple doors, let the altar fires burn out, and stop this whole charade of hypocrisy. Just shut the whole thing down. Because brothers and sisters, God’s not mostly concerned with some ritual hoop jump in a religious context. God wants your heart. And in that context, the prophet writes, if there was just someone bold enough to slam the door on this whole thing and shut it down for a while, there is someone who did just that temporarily. And ultimately, he would do it permanently. You know why? Because all that they did, and all the sacrifices, and all the ceremony, and all the ordinances of the ceremonial law, all of it pointed to Jesus. And is it that what he did? Jesus physically shut down the hypocritical temple service, at least for a little while, while he was here on earth. Matter of fact, the event of Jesus cleansing the temple is told in four gospels, all four gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, so it must be important.

The prophet says, oh, that one would come and shut this stuff down. And Jesus said, how about me? Can I do it? Matthew 21:12-13, “And Jesus entered the temple and drove out all those who are buying and selling in the temple and overturning the tables of the money changers and the seats of those who were selling doves. And he said to them, ‘it’s written my house to be called a house of prayer, but you’re making it a robber’s den'”. Isaiah 56:7 says it’s to be “a house of prayer”. Jeremiah 7:11 said they turned it into “a robber’s den”. He’s quoting Old Testament scripture.

And so he goes in there as a man’s man and physically, with a cat of nine tails, turns over the tables and whips those guys and shut the whole thing down. Malachi’s prophecy is being fulfilled. I wish someone would come and slam these doors and shut the place down.

Now the temple service in Malachi’s day and 400 years later when Jesus arrives, the temple service in Jesus’ day were corrupt in much the same way. For example, the Roman money that most people used was not acceptable for a temple tax that they were required to bring because it had Caesar’s picture on it. So they had to have a money changer to change it into the shekel. And those money changers had them, man, they’re entrapped. It was like, you’re here and you gotta give the temple tax and you don’t have any shekels, so we’ll exchange your money, but they charge exorbitant fees and commissions.

It was robbery. It’s what Jesus said, you’ve turned it into robbery. And then the temple authorities likely were fully in on this. They brought in all those crates of all the turtle jobs and pigeons and lambs and goats, whatever kind of offering the people were bringing at that time. And they would require that you had to buy the animals in our venue.

I just went to a ball game the other day and got a bottle of water and used my credit card and went and sat down and my credit card was $10. I was entrapped and I was robbed. You cannot bring your food in there, and once you’re in there, if you’re gonna survive and need something to drink, you gotta visit their venue. That’s what they were doing.

You can’t bring any animal unless you buy it from our temple salesman. and they charged two and three times the price of a regular lamb or turtle dove or pigeon or whatever the sacrifice was. It was extortion, it was entrapment, it was robbery. Plus they would charge a large commission after the price was so elevated.

And they did all of this in the court of the Gentiles, the place set aside in the temple so that unbelievers could come learn about Yahweh. They corrupted The church where people would come to seek the Lord. They turned the court of the Gentiles, the place where people would come seek to learn of God, into a livestock market. Once again, I saw a vivid parallel with so many of today’s churches. You go to a church to find God and you find cuteness and cleverness. You find a zoo and a circus and a carnival, instead of the faithful ministries God’s ordained for the church.

No wonder when Jesus was looking at the temple and the people around him were in awe at the temple, that’s grandeur and its glory. And by the way, the Old Testament temple that was existent through the first part of Jesus’ ministry, well, through his ministry, but then Titus of Rome, 70 AD, crushed it all. But anyway, that temple was glorious. It was awe-inspiring. It had a grandeur and a glory to it like no other temple or no other building in the whole city, of course.

But Jesus looked at that, He’s already cleansed it, at least temporarily. And he says in Matthew 24:2, do you see all these things? “I say to you, not one stone here will be left upon another”, which will not be torn down. I’m shutting the whole thing down. The prophets and all that one would come among us, among who? Of the Jews, among us, the Jews. It would shut it all down. And Jesus said, I’m the guy for that. I’ll get it all shut down.

You see, the temple service had degraded into meaningless, heartless ritual when all of those ceremonies and all of those laws were to point to the holy and pure and wonderful Jesus. And he was to be embraced with sincere hearts. It had been corrupted. It’s not that they went to church and then went out and did wickedness. Are you hearing me? They went to church and at church did wickedness. So they corrupted and promoted wickedness and dishonor in the ordinances themselves.

But Jesus came as the true fulfillment of all moral and ceremonial law. The purpose of the temple service was to project Jesus. It was a symbol of him. It was a prophecy of him. And when he arrived, the temple service and the ceremonial law all becomes completed, fulfilled in him, and therefore it becomes obsolete. He shut the door on all of it.

2 Corinthians 3:9-11. “For if the ministry of condemnation has glory”, that’s the old dispensation, that’s the old law, “much more does the ministry of righteousness abound in glory”. That’s the new covenant in Jesus. That’s the ministry of righteousness. Only he could righteously perform the works to make you, unrighteous ones, righteous before God. He has the ministry of righteousness.

“For indeed, what had glory in this case has no glory because of the glory that surpasses it”. He said you put a lot of attention and focus and celebration on the old sacrificial system and the old ceremonial law and it can’t even, it’s like a light bulb compared to the sun. Now that Jesus has come, he’s the sun. And your old system is just an old dim light bulb. Not even LED.

And then Hebrews chapter 9 says, referring to the temple or the tabernacle service, it was a symbol, it says, for the present time. The word symbol, there’s actually a word that can be translated a parable. It’s a parable. The old system was to be laid down so you could look at it and see someone in something better, Jesus. Then it continues in Hebrews 9, the last part, verse 9. “Gifts and sacrifices are offered which cannot make the worshiper perfect in conscience”. In other words, you can bring your sacrifice and bring your sacrifice and bring your sacrifice, and in their case, they even made out that wicked and corrupted it and defiled it, but all of that, even if it was perfect, could not make a sinner’s conscience clear. Only Jesus, because Jesus perfectly can remove the guilt so that we can feel in our conscience that we have through him a right standing before God.

Only Jesus can do this. And that comes to the third thing as we close, and that is it’s all coming to a genuine and universal praise of God. Everywhere you go, you see it’s all about God’s glory. Again in verse 11, “from the rising of the sun, even to its setting, my name will be great among the nations”. He didn’t say it should be great, he said it’s gonna be great. You know what, are you listening to me? Jesus is going to see to it that God’s name is great among all the nations. and in a figure of speech, I think, “and in every place, incense going to be offered to my name, and a grain offering that is pure”.

Finally, there’ll be pure worshipers. Finally, there’ll be pure worshipers. How’s that gonna happen? Jesus is gonna make them pure. “For my name will be great among the nations, says the Lord of hosts”. So the purpose to glorify God will be accomplished, and one day, every people, every tongue, every tribe, every nation will honor and glorify him.

Israel failed. They were to be God’s light and truth, to splash the truth in the light of God and the truth of God to the other nations, that the other nations might see the true God and glorify Him, and they failed, but Jesus, God’s Son, did not fail. He accomplished the task. He fulfilled the law, and he replaces the law.

Matter of fact, Hebrews 8:13, I should have covered this earlier, but when he says a new covenant, he has made the first obsolete. Obsolete means old, worn out, and needs replacing. Take that whole entire system. They were corrupting. It’s old, it’s worn out, and it’s now replaced by Jesus. So when you come in here, I don’t ask for you to bring a turtle dove or a pigeon or a goat or a lamb. I don’t even ask for you to bring a perfect one. Here’s what I ask you to do. Look to Jesus. That’s my whole message. Look to Jesus.

I was thinking before I preached this sermon, I thought, I hope, I hope that my people, either positively or negatively, will say about my ministry, I can tell you one thing about Jeff Noblit, he left us only with Jesus. Only Jesus. Because everything else is obsolete, the text says. It’s not my word, it’s the scripture word.

Why did he do this? Ephesians 5:27, “that he might present to himself the church and all her glory.” Notice the phrase from the old sacrificial system, “having no spot or wrinkle or any such thing that she would be holy and blameless”. In effect, Jesus was the sacrifice that causes him to being able to take us spotted, blemished, lame, sickly, and he makes us spotless and without wrinkle so that we can be presented to God.

Father, here’s our children. What do you need the law for? What do you need the ceremony for? What do you need animal sacrifices for when you got Jesus? Jesus, the spotless lamb, through his sacrifice, makes us to be spotless and to become an acceptable people. for His pleasure, and for His glory, and forever.