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“Polluted Offerings”

Allen Dvorak
08/04/24 - Sun AM

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Scripture reading this morning is Malachi chapter one verses 6 through 14.

It's always amazed me how many titles and names there are for God in the Old Testament.

Oh, should I God Almighty?

Hashem?

The name Jehovah Shalom, God of peace.

But there's one that always sticks out to me.

Yahweh Sabaoth translated as God of ho a God of armies or Lord of hosts.

And whenever you hear that name, it usually means that someone has messed up and you need to listen to what's uh what punishments are due to them while we listen to God's word.

Why don't we stand and hear God's word and follow along in the ESV on the board.

And I'll be reading from the legacy Standard Bible beginning in verse six of Malachi chapter one, a son honors his father and a slave, his master.

Then if I am a father, where is my honor?

And if I'm a master, where's the fear of me says, Yahweh of hosts to you o priests who despise my name.

But you say, how have we despised your name?

You are presenting defiled food upon my altar.

But you say, how have we defiled you in that you say the table of Yahweh 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?

Please bring it near your governor.

Would he accept you or would lift he?

Lift up your face says Yahweh of hosts.

But now entreat God's favor that he may be gracious to us with this thing which is from your hand.

Will he lift up any of your faces?

Says Yahweh of hosts.

Oh, that there were one among you who had shut the gates that you might not light a fire on my altar in vain.

I have no delight in you says Yahweh of hosts.

Nor will I accept an offering from your hand 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 presented to my name as well as a grain offering that is clean for my name will be great among the nations says Yahweh 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 behold how tiresome it is and you disdainfully sniff at it says Yahweh of hosts and you bring what was taken by robbery and what is lame or sick.

So that you bring the offering.

Should I accept that from your hand?

Says Yahweh, 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 Yahweh of hosts.

And my name is feared among the nations.

Please be seated in the spirit of what happened to Eric this morning where our song just got lost.

If I ever open up this computer and the outline is gone.

We just sing the invitation song.

Ok. But fortunately it's an apple so it never dies.

Yeah, good morning.

It's good to be with you this morning.

It's good to have some visiting with us.

I would like to mention a particular individual.

He's stayed with us now for a couple three days, his name is Timothy Masawi and Timothy has traveled all the way from Tanzania to hear me preach.

Actually, he has business in the United States and uh he has chosen to stay with us.

I've been acquainted a little bit with Timothy via uh via uh email.

And so we're glad to have him with us this morning and all who are visiting with us this morning as a young preacher, I held a meeting in Texas where uh Jim Ward preached at the time, I believe it was in San Antonio and Jim was a motorcycle rider.

And when he found out that I rode a motorcycle, he said to me, if you ever find yourself your mind wandering when you're driving, you don't need to ride a motorcycle.

Apparently he had had that experience himself and he sold his cycle and I've never forgotten the, uh, advice that he gave his point was simple because of the additional risk that's involved in riding a motorcycle.

You really need total concentration.

You can't let your mind wander.

And I know sometimes that particularly if I'm driving a car, sometimes my mind will wander.

I'll be thinking about other things and that can be dangerous.

There are a lot of things that we do in life that we really don't focus on.

We don't concentrate on because we've done them so many times.

Or the tasks are so simple that we can do them without actually focusing our attention on that task.

We're thinking about other things.

Do you think about all of the mechanics of tying your shoelaces when you do so well, you've done it thousands, hundreds of thousands perhaps in your times in your life.

And so it's automatic.

You don't even have to think about it.

But there are other things that we do need to focus on sometimes.

Have you ever found yourself, uh, wondering if you had actually done something just a moment ago.

Have you ever been in a parking lot?

This happens to Debbie and me a number of times we get out of the car and we're walking away and Deb says, did you lock the car?

And I don't know if I did or not.

So I'll turn around and lock it and nine times out of 133, it's already been locked.

I just locked.

It automatically, never thought about it.

And when she asks me, I can't even tell her what I did whether I did or didn't do it.

We don't focus on a lot of things because we're thinking about other things.

We're concentrating on other matters.

The problem of not concentrating on our actions though has some rather sobering consequences with regard to our worship.

And the prophet Malachi warns us about that danger.

In his short book of The Old Testament.

I want to talk to you a little bit this morning about polluted offerings.

That's the way that Malachi described the sacrifices that Israel was offering in his day and time.

As we go back through the Old Testament, we realize that the Kingdom of Israel split into two kingdoms.

Actually, at the death of Solomon, the northern kingdom sometimes referred to as Israel or Ephraim.

And the Southern kingdom referred to as Judah.

The northern kingdom had no righteous kings.

Every one of their kings was evil.

Beginning with Jeroboam who introduced idol worship, the worship of calves into the Northern Kingdom and due to their wickedness, the people of Israel were taken into captivity by the Assyrians.

In 213.

There are a number of sins that were rebuked.

In the by the prophets who were sent to the Northern Kingdom.

But the predominant sin for which the people were charged or found guilty was that of idolatry.

In Second Kings chapter 214, the writer summarizes the reason that the kingdom goes into captivity.

He says, and this occurred because the people of Israel had sinned against the Lord, their God who had brought them up out of the land of Egypt from under the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt and had feared other gods and walked in the customs of the nations whom the Lord drove out before the people of Israel.

And in the customs that the kings of Israel had practiced and the people of Israel did secretly against the Lord, their God things that were not right.

They built for themselves high places and all their towns from watchtower to fortified city, they set up for themselves, pillars and Ara on every high hill and under every green tree.

And there they made offerings on all the high places as the nations did, whom the Lord carried away before them.

And they did wicked things provoking the Lord to anger and they served idols of which the Lord had said to them.

You shall not do this.

Unfortunately, even after the Northern kingdom had suffered exile for their idolatry, the southern kingdom did know better.

Although there were a few righteous kings among the 21123 kings of the Southern kingdom, the people were also guilty predom predominantly of idolatry.

And Jeremiah, a prophet who saw the end of the Southern Kingdom notes the cause of their exile.

And it's very similar to that of the Northern Kingdom.

Jeremiah 16 verses 10 to 13, the prophet writes.

And when you tell these people all these words and they say to you, why has the Lord pronounced all this great evil against us?

Jeremiah was commissioned to tell the people that they were going into exile if they didn't repent.

And eventually just to say that the end was inevitable.

What is our iniquity that people ask, what is the sin that we have committed against the Lord, our God?

Then you shall say to them because your fathers have forsaken me, declares the Lord and have gone after other gods and have served and worshiped them and have forsaken me and have not kept my law.

And because you have done worse than your fathers for behold, every one of you follows his stubborn evil will refusing to listen to me.

Therefore, I will hurl you out of this land into a land that neither you nor your fathers have known and there you shall serve other gods day and night for I will show you no favor.

And so both kingdoms go into exile, the Southern kingdom taken into exile by the Babylonians in 586.

After a captivity of 70 years, we learned from the books of Ezra and Nehemiah that people began to return a remnant of the people.

The first group came back in 536 BC and Ezra was the leader of a second group that came back in 143.

BC. Nehemiah was an early governor of Judah in the time of Ezra and he comes back in about 444.

But this morning, I want you to think about Malachi who is a contemporary time, speaking wise of Ezra and Nehemiah about 100 and 10 years after the first group comes back, Malachi is preaching to the exiles only now.

The problem is not predominantly idolatry.

The people have a different problem now.

And it is that problem that I wish to speak to you about this morning.

They were worshiping Jehovah God, but their worship had become empty and ritualistic only devoid of reverence.

They were just going through the motions.

And that's the main error that Malachi addresses in his short book.

Malachi is an interesting prophet in view of the way that he teaches a lot of the prophets we read from Jeremiah just a few moments ago.

They proclaim the Lord's message straight out Ezekiel.

Of course, the prophet of visual aids did a lot of things uh that were symbolic actions designed to teach or to convey messages from God.

But Malachi is a little bit different and his style of teaching has been called didactic dialectic.

That's something you can talk about over lunch today, especially with people who didn't hear the sermon.

Did you know that Malachi would teach in a didactic dialectic method?

And people will say, pass me the potatoes because nobody really cares about what it's called.

But I do want to illustrate it because he does it about seven different times.

He goes through this same style or method of teaching in a book that only has four chapters.

The style begins by the prophet making an affirmation or a charge, usually some sort of charge of guilt against the people.

But then the prophet will speak on behalf of the people to raise an objection or perhaps a question about the charge that has been made.

So Malachi is basically carrying both sides of the conversation.

And once the objection has been voiced by the prophet himself for the people, then the prophet provides the answer.

God provides the answer through Malachi.

And that's the method that he uses several times in the book.

Uh depending on how you count them, maybe as many as seven times.

But I want to illustrate this method by one of the earliest in verses six and seven.

Here's the passage just straight up, Malachi writes a son honors his father and a serving his master.

If then I am a father, where's my honor?

And if I am a master, where's my fear?

Says the Lord of hosts to you o priest who despise my name.

But you say, how have we despised your name by offering polluted food upon my altar.

But you say, how have we polluted you by saying that the Lord's table may be despised.

Now, what I want to do is look at that same passage, but break it down according to the style of teaching that Malachi is using.

And so now the charge is against the priest that they are despising the name of the Lord.

But then the people raise an objection.

Malachi does it for them?

How have we despised your name?

They ask, here's the answer by offering polluted food upon my altar.

This particular example actually is extended because the people ask another question, how have we polluted you?

And the answer by saying that the Lord's table may be despised.

We don't care.

It's not important to us.

I'm going to use another passage in Malachi in chapter three verses seven and eight to illustrate the same style of teaching.

Then we'll say some things about the problem of ritualistic worship.

In verse seven of chapter three, the prophet writes from the days of your fathers.

You have turned aside from my statutes and have not kept them return to me and I will return to you.

But you say, how shall we return?

Will man rob God yet you are robbing me.

But you say, how have we robbed you in your tithes and contributions is the answer.

And so now let's look at the passage again, breaking it down in this uh didactic dialectic method.

The charge is, you've turned aside from my statutes, you need to return to me.

But here's the question from the people.

How shall we return?

I think in Clyde, and that question is, what is the need for us to return?

How shall we return?

You know, if you haven't left, you don't have to return.

Will God answers that question through the prophet will man rob God.

You are robbing me.

That's what needs to change.

But then another question, how have we robbed you?

You robbed me in not giving your ties and contributions as the law prescribed.

And so those are two examples of this style of teaching.

One of the things that I want to point out that I think is important here is that the people were still offering sacrifices.

It wasn't as though the the temple of the Lord never had a fire on it uh in it that, that they were worshiping other gods and they just forgotten about God worship in the form of sacrifices was still being offered by the priests, but the hearts of the priests and the people were not in it.

Their worship was empty.

How have we despised your name?

The people ask by offering polluted food upon my altar.

Now, that's an expression that probably doesn't speak to us when we think of polluted.

We think of something that's been mixed with chemicals or oil or some sort of toxic substance, that's pollution.

That's something that is bad for us.

That Malachi explains how it is that they're offering polluted food on the altar.

In verse eight.

He says, when you offer blind animals in sacrifice, is that not evil?

And when you offer those that are lame or sick, is that not evil present that to your governor?

Will he accept you or show you favor?

Says the Lord of hosts.

So what the people were doing is they were offering polluted offerings in that they were not offering what the Lord had demanded in the law as far as what was an acceptable offering?

If you were to go back to the book of Leviticus, the first four chapters or so, you'll find again and again, the stipulation that an animal that was brought for the purpose of sacrifice was to be without blemish.

Perhaps you noticed on the first slide, the title slide, there's a lamb that was born with only three legs, but God wouldn't accept the three legged lamb or the lamb that was blind as Malachi says in verse one and eight or that was lame or sick.

Those were unacceptable sacrifices.

You didn't offer the worst of your flock, you offered the best of your flock, you offered that which was without blemish, but the people weren't doing that.

They were offering sacrifices that were polluted in the sense that they were not acceptable, not according to the law, they were blemished.

Offer that to your governor.

The Lord says, and see if he'll be satisfied with that kind of an offering in so doing, offering these polluted offerings, they were despising the Lord's table, they were offering to him, what they wouldn't even dare to offer to their secular governor.

Well, maybe somebody would argue.

Well, at least I'm wor I'm worshiping, you know, maybe it's not the best of the flock, but I'm still offering something to God.

At least I'm worshiping such worship.

God says was worse than no worship at all.

Despises the name of the Lord.

Look, if you will at verses nine and 10, we're just working our way through chapter one here and now entreat the favor of God that he may be gracious to us with such a gift from your hand.

Will he show favor to you?

Any of you?

Says the Lord of hosts?

Now listen to verse 10.

0, that there were one among you who would shut the doors that you might not kindle fire on my altar in vain.

I have no pleasure in you says the Lord of hosts and I will not accept an offering from your hand.

My intention is probably following the trip to Zimbabwe.

We're gonna talk a little bit more about Malachi.

There were other problems there in their daily life that reflected on their worship.

But part of the problem here are these polluted offerings.

And God says, is there not someone who will close the doors of the temple so that people are not going in and offering these polluted offerings, despising my name to put it in our age.

You'd be like the Lord saying all these people that come to KSR and worship and offer unacceptable sacrifices.

Is there no one who will go out and lock the door so they can't get in and offer vain worship, not suggesting our worship is vain, but that would be the parallel.

If in fact, we are also committing the same error that these people were committing in Malachi's Day.

And that's possible, God's people still face the danger of just going through the motions.

I wonder if we would worship the same.

If there is some celebrity in the audience, would we pay more attention to the way that we worship would be, be more enthusiastic.

If in fact, some famous person came and was worshiping with us was in the assembly.

Would we dress differently?

Will we try to show more reverence for the activities that we engage in when we come together in assemblies like this?

If there was a celebrity amongst us, would we be more conscious of our participation?

People would sing out, be sure to make everybody know that they were involved.

If there was a celebrity in our midst, just like tying our shoelaces, don't think about it.

It's possible for us to sing and to listen to prayers and to make our way through the Lord's supper without really ever focusing on what we're doing.

I have in the past on a number of occasions, praised the men who prepare us as we partake the Lord's supper.

I think they do an excellent job and I believe Ralph did this morning and I think that's important so that we don't just run through the Lord's supper.

You know, you, you got the template and we just kind of check off all the boxes, you got to do the elements in the right order and you gotta make sure you do the prayers and, but we really are not focused on that.

Our tension is only half on what we're doing and maybe also distracted by other things that we're concerned about.

Well, what's the solution to this problem?

This danger of empty worship?

Well, I'll tell you what.

It's not.

The solution is not changing the ritual.

That's the suggestion of some folks.

What we need to do is spice up our worship.

We need to have spontaneous worship or unstructured worshiped assemblies.

Keep you guessing that way.

You don't go to sleep.

That's not the answer because the ritual wasn't the problem.

Not the real problem that might keep some on their toes.

If we change things, we kind of dim the lights on and off.

Keep you wondering what's gonna happen next or maybe if we announced songs and then didn't do the song.

We just got the preacher up there I'm sorry.

That was mean.

But we could do things like that perhaps and it might affect some people.

It might kind of cause this, I wonder what's gonna happen next, but that's not really going to answer the problem or solve the problem.

Malachi did not rebuke the priest for offering sacrifices.

He rebuked them for the kinds of sacrifices they were offering polluted offerings.

God had commanded offerings and had given rather specific instructions about the nature of those offerings.

But the priests weren't following the ritual, the pattern that had been given to them.

The problem instead was caused by an improper attitude on the part of the people toward God, including the priests for that matter, emotionally.

It appears that they had grown distant from God believing perhaps that he was not showing love toward them, that he was indifferent to their conduct.

Let me suggest some passages maybe to sustain that point in the very beginning of the book in verses two and three of chapter one, the Lord says, I've loved you, but you say, how have you loved us?

Is not Esau?

Jacob's brother declares the Lord yet I have loved Jacob.

But Esau I have hated, I have laid waste his hill country and left his heritage to Jackals of the desert.

What do you mean?

Have I loved you?

Compare your situation with that of your fellow or brother nation, Edom, the descendants of Esau.

I've blessed you in chapter two, in verse 17, the Lord says, you've wearied the Lord with your words.

But you say, how have we wearied him by saying everyone who does evil is good in the sight of the Lord and he delights in them or by asking where is the God of justice.

God doesn't really care about whether people do right or wrong.

So why should we worry about worshiping him or being involved in this worship?

Everybody who does evil does well in life.

Look at the last passage here, chapter three verses 13 and 14, your words have been hard against me, says the Lord.

But you say, how have we spoken against you?

You have said it is vain to serve God.

What is the prophet of keeping his charge or of walking as in mourning before the Lord of hosts?

Why should we show reverence to God?

What's the value in that?

Where's the prophet in it?

The people had a heart problem.

It was not a ritual problem.

Their worship had become merely an obligation, a form to be observed rather than an opportunity to glorify the God who had blessed them so richly in their history brought them back from exile, speaking specifically of the exiles, the return returnees in the second chapter in verses one and two, the prophet writes and now o priests, this command is for you.

If you will not listen, if you will not take it to heart, to give honor to my name says the Lord of hosts.

Then I will send the curse upon you and I will curse your blessings. Indeed.

I have already cursed them because you do not lay it to heart.

It wasn't a ritual problem.

It was a heart problem when the heart is divorced from our service or worship soon we are cutting corners in our obedience and that's what the people were doing or we're still offering sacrifices.

Well, yeah, you're offering the lane, you're offering the blind, you're offering the sick.

Malachi will even note that they were offering things that they had stolen from others.

You steal from your neighbor and then go to the temple with his sacrifice to offer it to God.

When people are not heart involved in their worship, they will begin to cut corners.

Why not?

Why is it important to worry about the ritual for I the Lord do not change.

Therefore, you o Children of Jacob are not consumed from the days of your fathers.

You have turned aside from my statutes and have not kept them return to me and I will return to you says the Lord of hosts.

But you say, how shall we return?

Will a man rob God that you are robbing me?

But you say, how have we robbed you in your tithes and contributions?

You are cursed with a curse for you are robbing me.

The whole nation of you.

Bring the full tithe into the storehouse you know what that suggests to me that they were still tithing some, but they weren't tithing according to the Lord's instructions, they were cutting corners, which is what people do when their heart isn't really involved.

When they despise the worship.

When it's a weariness to them, they may continue for a time, but they're going to keep doing less and less.

They cut the corners in their worship.

The pattern for worship.

The ritual is important.

The Lord instructs us.

But so is our attitude.

We can come here and we can do everything according to the Lord's plan.

We pray, we ask for the right kinds of things.

We sing the right kind of songs.

We do.

The Lord suffer according to the pattern that Paul gave to the Corinthians and verse Corinthians 11 as per the instructions given to him from the Lord, we can do all of those things.

And yet God says, I wish someone would just close the doors because perhaps our hearts are not engaged.

These people in Malachi's Day needed to re engage their hearts to recognize the blessings that God had given them.

Well, the application for us I think is pretty clear.

Has our worship become mere empty ritual.

What's your motivation for being here this morning?

Is it because you feel like you have to be here.

You're required to be here.

I believe we need to come together on the first day of the week, I believe we are required, but we need to be here because we want to be here because we want to show reverence for the father full of grace and love.

If we're just going through the motions, I think what Malachi is saying is it would be better if we just didn't bother because we despise the name of the Lord.

When we engage and worship just as empty ritual.

God doesn't want empty ritual, what he wants his heartfelt devotion.

And each of us needs to examine our own attitude toward worship, our motivation for being here today.

And for the way that we worship, if we come to services, simply out of obligation, sooner or later, we'll find all kinds of excuses for not coming.

You know, it's interesting to me, you can take two people, one in relatively good health and one in very poor health.

And the one that's in very poor health wants to be in worship so badly that they will come when they really are uncomfortable, miserable perhaps, but they want to be here.

And then you'll find people who can't be bothered to climb into a car in the comfort of that car, be conveyed to a building that's convenient and air conditioned and seats that are comfortable padded for a period of worship.

If we want to be here, if it's not just an obligation that we go through and we'll be here if at all possible.

Ok. Some like the uh people of Malachi's Day.

Some don't want to serve God unless there's some financial profit in it for them.

Remember, in chapter three verses 13 and 14, the people had said, uh how have we spoken against you?

And God says, it's vain, you, you've said it's vain to serve God.

What's the prophet of our keeping His charge of walking as in mourning before the Lord of hosts?

Is there any profit in serving the God of heaven?

And the answer is there certainly is.

Now, you may not recognize that profit here because we're not really talking about financial profit.

We're not talking about material wealth.

You might actually lose your wealth as a result of your faith.

The prophet expressed by the Apostle Paul in Titus 1123 is that we live in hope of eternal life.

There's a treasure that is reserved for us, Paul, a servant of God and an apostle of Jesus Christ.

He writes in the salutation of his letter to Titus for the sake of the faith of God's elect and their knowledge of the truth which accords with Godliness in hope of eternal life.

If I recall correctly in the Greek, there's really not a complete sentence here.

It's just Paul in hope of eternal life.

And God has promised that to those who will serve him from the heart, who will manifest their reverence and worship and good works toward others.

And I want to challenge you to be that kind of person.

If you're not a Christian, that's, that's the goal.

That's what we're here for is to prepare ourselves for divine fellowship.

If we can assist you in doing that this morning and obeying the gospel, becoming one of God's people so that you can serve him out of gratitude for all that has been done for you and for all of us as Ralph so eloquently pointed out this morning, then we want to assist you in becoming a Christian, being baptized into Christ for the remission of your sins.

If that's your need this morning, or if you just need to rededicate yourself and you would like to have the prayers of the saints. Here.

We invite you as we stand and sing, come to the front.