Friday, June 17, 2011

Malachi 2:10-12: Don’t Marry the Daughter of a Foreign God

Presented to Swift Current Corps, 19 June 2011
By Captain Michael Ramsay

This is one you may hear again sometime but I thought it was appropriate for Fathers’ Day: When we were in Winnipeg, on Friday nights I used to help out with the street outreach at the Weetamah Corps. We would walk around the streets at night to see who we could offer a warm meal, a hot chocolate or a place to stay down at the shelter (the Booth Centre) for the night. We then tell them about Jesus.

Now these nights usually go quite late -until 1 or 2 in the morning sometimes – and so at the end of a long week, I am just exhausted and really quite look forward to my one day of sleeping in – Saturday morning.

Well this one Saturday about 6am or so – four or less hours after I crawl into bed – Rebecca (who was then only 4) and Sarah-Grace (who was 3 at the time) come bounding into our bedroom.

“Daddy, what’s a trout?” Rebecca, as a four year-old, asks me as she and her sister climb on my bed. “What’s a trout?” (aside: You know what it is like when you try to respond to someone but you really don’t want to wake up – that is what it is like)
“What’s a trout?”
“A fish, why do you ask”
“A fish?”
“Yes a fish”
“Oh… Like Nemo…?”
“Short of, I think Nemo is a Clown fish”
“Oh”
“Daddy,” asks Sarah-Grace, who has been standing there the whole time, “what’s a trout?”
“A fish”
“Like Nemo”
“No”
“Daddy”
“Yes, Sarah-Grace”
“What’s a trout?”
“A chipmunk. A Chipmunk!” I snap back with all the composure of one who has not had enough sleep.

The girls run out of the room laughing, none the worse for wear. I put my pillow over my head and just try to get back to sleep wondering just what that was all about and why I was woken up for a question that no one seemed to want the answer to anyway.

At this point, in comes Susan. Slowly and today with the calm demeanour of the caring mother and wife. I know I have spoken a little harshly to my daughters, so I listen intently as she lifts the pillow from my head and gently asks me, “Michael, What’s a trout?”[1]

That story is dedicated to any parent of small children who ever suffered under the delusion that it was possible to sleep in sometime.

Here, in Swift Current, we are looking at the book of Malachi in Bible Study and in the services for the month of June so I had a challenge for today to try to find something at least loosely Father’s Day related. This is what I came up with, Malachi 2:10-12:

Have we not all one Father? Did not one God create us? Why do we profane the covenant of our fathers by breaking faith with one another?
Judah has broken faith. A detestable thing has been committed in Israel and in Jerusalem: Judah has desecrated the sanctuary the LORD loves by marrying the daughter of a foreign god. As for the man who does this, whoever he may be, may the LORD cut him off from the tents of Jacob—even though he brings offerings to the LORD Almighty.

This isn’t necessarily the most feel-good part of scripture and it is a part of the larger pericope that we read earlier about breaking faith with our brothers and sisters (Malachi 2:10-16). Verse 10 says that when God’s children break faith with each other that we are profaning the covenant of our fathers (cf. Malachi 1:2, 2:12, 3:6; cf. also Isaiah 51:2).[2]  How do we do this? Two ways:
  1. By marrying the daughter of a foreign God (Marrying someone of a different faith)
  2. By breaking faith with the wife of our youth because God hates divorce
What is the consequence of marrying daughter of a foreign God or getting divorced? Malachi says that as a result of these actions we are cut off from God even though we may bring offerings to the Lord (Malachi 2:12) and God no longer accepts or even acknowledges our offerings (Malachi 2:13). This is important.

Today we are not going to talk about the second listed action of breaking faith here, divorce, other than to draw our attention to Verse 16: which states, ‘I hate divorce’ says the LORD God of Israel” (cf. Isaiah 50:1; Cf. also 1 Corinthians 7). This is really quite self-explanatory and so I am going to leave that for today and move onto addressing the first listed way that we break faith with each other and in the process cut ourselves off from God so that He no longer accepts our offerings (Malachi 2:12-13). We break faith with each other and profane our fathers’ covenant by marrying the daughter of a foreign God.

What does this mean to marry the daughter of a foreign god since we know that there is only one God (TSA Doctrine 2)? There are not multiple Gods, so what does it mean to marry the daughter of a foreign god (cf. Numbers 25; Judges 3:6; 1 Kings 9:24, 11:1–13, 16:31; Ezra 9:12; Nehemiah 13:23–27)? Basically what this means – marrying the daughter of a foreign god – is just to marry someone who worships other gods and thus open the door to that temptation for yourself and for your children.[3]

Why was it such a temptation to worship false foreign gods? We know this temptation goes way back in Genesis. We know that the Chaldeans way back when Abram left Ur worshipped other gods.  We know that Israel/Jacob’s family worshipped other gods: his wife stole her father’s household idols. We know that Egyptian society when Moses left Egypt worshipped other gods. We know that the inhabitants of Canaan when Joshua entered Canaan worshipped other gods. We know that -as recorded in the books of Kings and Chronicles- throughout most of Israel’s short history as a nation, we know that there was a fierce rivalry between the people who worshipped the foreign gods of Baal and Ashterah and the people who worshipped YHWH (cf. 1 Kings 17-19). If Israel had been subjected to the tyranny of the majority that we call democracy back then I imagine that the Baal Party would have won the popularity contest that we call a general election more times than they lost it in the Old Testament (cf. Genesis 3:2, Judges, 1&2 Kings, 1&2 Chronicles). Even the second and the last king of the united kingdom of Israel, Solomon, in all his wisdom, was led astray by his wives who worshipped other gods (1 Kings 11). He, like his forefather Jacob, married the daughters of foreign gods. Even King Solomon, who apparently was unequalled in his wisdom, was led astray by marrying daughters of other gods. This happened quite a bit throughout Israel and Judah’s history and that frequency is one of the reasons why the Bible mentions over and over and over and over again that we should not marry daughters of other gods.

In ancient Palestine, even though there is only one real God and they know there is only one God, Israel could still be tempted to worship idols, false gods (Deuteronomy 6:4–9, 11:13-21; Numbers 15:37–41; cf. for ex. Deuteronomy 31:14-22, Judges 2:10-15). Even though they are commanded not to worship false gods many times in their history, they are still tempted to worship false gods. This is how much of a temptation it is for them to worship idols and false Gods: we remember the exodus story, right? We remember all the plagues that God visits on the Egyptians. We remember that God parts the Red Sea and drowns Israel’s pursuers. We remember that God feeds the Israelites manna, bread from heaven, on a daily basis. We remember that in all their travels as they are walking around the desert for 40 years, the Israelites shoes never wear out. We remember that God is right with them: they are led by God’s pillar of cloud by day and His pillar of fire by night. We know that the Israelites know the power of God and let me read you this story that takes place right after and right when all these miracles are happening: Moses is receiving the Ten Commandments, the first 4 of which tell us how we are supposed to worship God, worship God alone and not have any idols (Exodus 20; Deuteronomy 5). I am reading from Exodus 32:1-4 and 19-24 (NIV). This is while Moses is still on the mountain with the LORD, receiving the 10 Commandments:

When the people saw that Moses was so long in coming down from the mountain, they gathered around Aaron and said, “Come, make us gods who will go before us. As for this fellow Moses who brought us up out of Egypt, we don’t know what has happened to him.”
       Aaron answered them, “Take off the gold earrings that your wives, your sons and your daughters are wearing, and bring them to me.”  So all the people took off their earrings and brought them to Aaron.  He took what they handed him and made it into an idol cast in the shape of a calf, fashioning it with a tool. Then they said, “These are your gods, Israel, who brought you up out of Egypt.”
[Verse 19]…When Moses approached the camp and saw the calf and the dancing, his anger burned and he threw the tablets out of his hands, breaking them to pieces at the foot of the mountain. And he took the calf the people had made and burned it in the fire; then he ground it to powder, scattered it on the water and made the Israelites drink it.
      He said to Aaron, “What did these people do to you, that you led them into such great sin?”
      “Do not be angry, my lord,” Aaron answered. “You know how prone these people are to evil. They said to me, ‘Make us gods who will go before us. As for this fellow Moses who brought us up out of Egypt, we don’t know what has happened to him.’ So I told them, ‘Whoever has any gold jewellery, take it off.’ Then they gave me the gold, and I threw it into the fire, and out came this calf!”

This is what happened when Moses was on the mountain speaking with God and getting the Ten Commandments. The people chose to forsake God when Moses was up the mountain and worship these false gods that were no gods at all. This happens all through the Bible.

How does this apply in 21st Century Canada? In BC where I am from you can often see Buddhist idols in many restaurants and other businesses. Many Sikhs around the lower mainland proudly wear their turbans, bracelets, and ceremonial daggers as symbols of their faith. There is not a lot of this in Swift Current though.

What foreign gods can we be tempted to worship here? Across this country, one of the fastest growing religions is secular atheism. The ceremonies of that faith are quickly becoming the ceremonies of our country. Whereas at public events across this country people used to pray to the Christian God upon whose word our nation was founded (Psalm 72), at the national ceremonies following the Swissair crash in the Maritimes, all the clergy present were invited to invoke the name of their deity except the Christians, and a few years later at the Canadian 9/11 remembrance ceremonies only the secularist religion was represented.[4] In recent years the Lord’s Prayer and the Bible have been removed first from our schools and now even from the House of Commons. Did you know that very recently there used to be big prayer meetings on Parliament Hill? Canada now has its first Prime Minister who does not even bother to attend these – even when it would be politically beneficial for him.[5] Canada is worshipping the idols of secular atheism: we abstain from praying in our state functions; the Bible has been removed from classrooms and hospital rooms across this country. Many teachers and politicians alike who are teaching our children and making laws and are not so slowly turning this country into a secular-atheist state. How does this happen? How does a country that once belonged to God follow the secularist religion instead? We do this by Christians denying Christ. We do this by Christians not putting God first, and we do this by Christians marrying the daughters of foreign gods (Numbers 25; Judges 3:6; 1 Kings 9:24, 11:1–13, 16:31; Ezra 9:12; Nehemiah 13:23–27).[6]

People who worship these other gods, people who practice these other religions –Hinduism, Sikhism, Buddhism, Atheism- are daughters of foreign gods. When we are married we bring people from two different households with two different sets of traditions and rituals and make one new household. If a child of the one true God marries a daughter of a foreign god, what is going to happen to your children? If your husband or wife has bought into the secular fairytales, what are they going say when you tell your kids the truth? If dad worships God but mom worships herself; if mom submits to Christ but dad mocks her faith, what are the kids going to do? Mark 3 tells us that a divided house cannot stand and it can’t. If we marry the daughters of foreign Gods, our homes, our churches, and our country will fall (cf. Deuteronomy 31:14-29).  This is sad.

God loves our children and He doesn’t want them to go to hell so it is very important to Him that we do not marry daughters (or sons) of foreign gods. There is more to it too in our world today. I submit that there are other ways that we commit this same sin of marrying the children of foreign gods. If in our marriages, if in our families, if in our lives, we ourselves don’t read our Bibles with our kids; if we ourselves don’t pray with our kids; if we ourselves don’t worship the Lord with all our heart, mind and soul with our kids; then indeed for all practical purposes we have commit the same sin of Malachi 2:10-12 because we are failing to raise our children in the Lord and instead we are placing them in danger of the fires of hell.

Not too long ago, the Lord spoke to me loud and clear through one of the local radio stations. There is this old Irish folk song – generations old – called Whiskey in the Jar. I don’t know if anyone here knows that song or not. Susan knows all kinds of these old folk songs. She really likes some of those old fashioned numbers and so as a result I was familiar with it. Well, I got in the car one day, turned on one of the local radio stations and – I don’t know if anyone here is familiar with Metalica, they are a contemporary heavy metal band – I heard them doing a heavy metal rendition of this old Irish folk song. I was sort of in shock. I was struck by it as I began to think of all the remakes of songs that I have heard over the years. Many times the remakes were my first exposure to the song and it got me to thinking. When the words of an old song are put to a new tune they become accessible to a new generation. As we continue to sing these same songs in new ways, we remain faithful to their intent, passing it onto our children and to our children’s children.  This is like our personal testimonies and conversations about the Lord. When we put the gospel message of salvation into our own words, in our own tune and share it with our children then we are indeed passing that eternal truth of salvation down through the generations; so, today on this Fathers’ Day in the 21st Century, we parents have a choice. We can either serve the foreign gods of secularism (or other faiths) that have invaded our country and thus remove our children from the blessing that comes from being raised in a Christ-centred home or we can –through praying and reading the bible with our children - spread the gospel in a new way to the tune of our own personal testimony and the tune of own personal experiences and in the process point our children, our city, our province and indeed our whole country to the song of everlasting life that will be sung forever with Jesus Christ, our Lord and Saviour.

Let us pray.
 


[1] Trout story by Captain Michael Ramsay, 'Mark 4:35-41: We Stand in Awe of You' Presented to Tisdale Corps on March 30, 2008 and Nipawin Corps on April 6, 2008. Available on-line: http://sheepspeaks.blogspot.com/2008/03/mark-435-41-we-stand-in-awe-of-you.html  
[2] Baldwin, Joyce G.: Haggai, Zechariah and Malachi: An Introduction and Commentary. Downers Grove, IL : InterVarsity Press, 1972 (Tyndale Old Testament Commentaries 28), S. 258: These fathers probably refer to the patriarchs specifically and then ultimately God only by extension.
[3] Robert L. Alden, The Expositor's Bible Commentary, Pradis CD-ROM:Malachi/Exposition of Malachi/IV. The Unfaithfulness of the People (2:10-16), Book Version: 4.0.2
[4] Cf. Captain Michael Ramsay,  'The Ethics of Salvation: Should We Proclaim the Gospel?' Presented to William and Catherine Booth College 19 April 2007. Available on-line: http://www.sheepspeak.com/Michael_Ramsay_History_TSA.htm#Ethics
[5] Leslie MacKinnon, 'Inside Politics Blog: Religion on the Hill', May 18, 2011 8:23 AM. Available on-line: http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/inside-politics-blog/2011/05/prayer-on-the-hill.html  
[6] Baldwin, Joyce G.: Haggai, Zechariah and Malachi: An Introduction and Commentary. Downers Grove, IL : InterVarsity Press, 1972 (Tyndale Old Testament Commentaries 28), S. 258: ‘Daughter of’ implied ‘bearing the character of’ a deity whose whole ethos was diametrically opposed to the righteousness of Israel’s God, and since a married couple must come to a common understanding in order to live happily together, one or other partner had to compromise on the matter of religion. It had been proved in Israel’s experience that in practice the less demanding standards prevailed (1 Kgs 11:1–8; 16:31; Neh. 13:23–27), and apostasy quickly became the fashion. Since apostasy had been responsible for the exile it was unthinkable that the whole community should be put at risk again.

Friday, June 3, 2011

Malachi 1:8: Lame Offerings

Presented to the Swift Current Corps, 05 June 2011
By Captain Michael Ramsay


Harvey Lomax, our Justice Coordinator here who is in charge of the Alternative Measures programme and also has official responsibility for the oversight of the free legal clinic and other justice orientated ministries out of The Salvation Army, has a story that he shared with us at coffee the other day. Harvey is a former RCMP Officer. This story is from his days as a police officer not too long after he had given his life to the Lord.

He receives a call that someone has stolen something from the Catholic Church in the town where he is posted. They stole, of all things, the outhouse. The officers and others -of course- had a few laughs and told some of the obvious jokes here: ‘finding the culprits is a um…dirty job but someone has to do it….’

Harvey, aware of this case, is later driving down the road when he feels the Lord’s prompting to pull over a truck that he sees going in the opposite direction. At first he tries to disregard this nudging of the Lord to pull over this vehicle and continue going on his way but the leading of the Lord gets stronger and stronger so he turns his police car around catches up to vehicle that had passed him going in the other direction. He asks for the licences of the guys in the truck. They don’t have them on them so Harvey takes their information and just before he is about to let them go on their way with instructions to drop by the station with their licences he, at the Lord’s prompting, asks them if they happen to be doing some work at the community where the Catholic church’s outhouse had been taken from. They had been so he asks them if they know anything about it. Now, Harvey being a solid new Christian, would always pray upon getting in his police car for the Lord’s leading and direction.

Harvey sends they guys on their way and gets where he is going when the phone rings, the receptionist where he was going answers it and the person on the other end asks for Harvey. He just got there. This is strange so he takes the call. It is someone from the police station calling. The vehicle that Harvey had pulled over was actually driven by the guys who had taken the church’s outhouse. After their conversation with Harvey they went down to the police station, turned themselves in, and confessed to taking the holey outhouse. And at Harvey’s prompting as part of trying to make things right before they faced the courts, they replaced the outhouse with an outhouse that was twice as holey. They took a single hole outhouse but replaced it with one with two holes. These fellows paid back more than twice as much.

It doesn’t pay to try to steal from the Lord. That is what today’s story is about. Today’s periscope, Malachi 1:6-14, is about stealing from God.

Malachi 1:8: “When you offer blind animals for sacrifice, is that not wrong? When you sacrifice lame or diseased animals, is that not wrong? Try offering them to your governor! Would he be pleased with you? Would he accept you?” says the LORD Almighty.”

Some background information about Malachi: Eactly who Malachi was, we do not know. Malachi may be a proper name or it may just be a word that means ‘messenger’ or ‘angel’; Malachi was a near contemporary of Ezra and/or Nehemiah. Some theorists even think that Malachi might be the surname for Ezra himself.[1]

The world at the time of Malachi: We don’t have an exact date for the book of Malachi but it was probably written around 430 BCE.[2] Persia was the regional superpower at that time (cf. Ezra-Nehemiah). Artaxerxes was probably the king of Persia. And at the height of Persian power they occupied an empire that stretched from Egypt to India and all points in between. Persia militarily occupied Palestine and Judah had a somewhat privileged place among the occupied Palestinian nations (cf. Ezra 1:2-4, 6:1-12, 7:11-28; Nehemiah). Persia eventually did lose control of Palestine to the Greeks who after conquering it (or ‘liberating’ it in today’s vernacular) traded it among themselves for a century or two – with a brief period of self-governance before the Romans took over and ruled Judea for a few hundred more years. Before the Persians occupied Palestine, we remember from Scripture that the Babylonians ruled it for quite a while (cf. Daniel 1-5, Esther, 2 Chronicles 36). An independent Palestinian state, be it Judean, Israelite, Edomite, Moabite, Phoenician, is neither in the memory nor in the cards for the future of anyone alive at this time. Judah is firmly embedded in the Persian Empire and it appears that at this time they are for the most part relatively happy to be there (Cf. Daniel 6-11; Esther 8-10; Ezra 1).[3]

This information sets the stage for Malachi’s prophecy. The Temple in Jerusalem that was destroyed by the Babylonians had been rebuilt under the Levitical High Priest Zerubbabel (Ezra 2). Jewish religious traditions were tolerated and even accepted at the time of Malachi (cf. Ezra 1:2; cf. also Daniel 6-11; Esther 8-10). Dramatic, political things were for the most part nonexistent; national life was uneventful.[4] There were no great revolts. Conquering armies weren’t walking back and forth across the ancient land bridge that is Canaan. Their goal of semi-independence and their hope of religious liberty had been realized.[5] Things aren’t perfect but things aren’t that bad in Judah.

Have you ever noticed that in our own lives when things are going better than they have been that that is when we can tend to drift away from the Lord until He finally relents and lets us suffer the consequences of our actions and it is not until we suffer these natural and logical consequences from being separated from God that we do actually return to Him (cf. The book of Judges and TSA docs. 9&10). Malachi knows this and he is delivering the Lord’s warning to His people not to continue down this road of apathy and self-indulgence. The people, sadly, are starting to put themselves before God.[6]

Malachi 1:8: “When you offer blind animals for sacrifice, is that not wrong? When you sacrifice lame or diseased animals, is that not wrong? Try offering them to your governor! Would he be pleased with you? Would he accept you?” says the LORD Almighty.”

We know that, as recorded throughout the Old Testament, people brought sacrifices to the temple priests for them to sacrifice to God on their behalf (cf. Exodus 12:5; Leviticus 1:3, 10, 22:18–25, Deuteronomy 15:21). In Malachi’s time people were still giving God their tithes and offerings but they were starting to skimp a little bit and the priests were guilty of letting them get away with it and so they too were responsible for the people’s sin. This is serious (Leviticus 22:18–25, Deuteronomy 15:21).

What would happen is that because of ritual, legal, religious requirements, and/or social pressure the people would be obligated to continue to bring their sacrifices to the Lord but they would skimp a bit. Instead of bringing a healthy animal that they would miss, they would bring sick, crippled or blind animals that they couldn’t use anyway. They figured, I would guess, “well, I can’t really sell or use this animal so why not give it to God and the Temple priests; no point in wasting a perfectly good animal that we could sell or otherwise use for ourselves.”

It reminds me of the person who has to pay significant parking fines or income tax and then brings bags full of pennies and dumps them all over the office floor. Sure they pay their dues but it does not go over so well – and I believe that it is actually not technically legal to do that either. Or another example is the child who is forced to attend an event that they don’t want to attend and so make the whole experience miserable for everyone. Actually I seem to remember doing this myself even as an adult in college. I was required to take a particular course that I really didn’t want to take and I fear that I was so distracting that many people wished with me that I wasn’t forced to take the class. Yes I did what I was told but there was no blessing in my compromised pseudo-obedience (which is really disobedience) for anybody.

I remember at church group as a teenager, speaking about disregarding the spirit of the law. We would often have these big events where there would be dozens or even more than 100 kids and it would be night and we would be playing a game of flashlight tag. We would be given instructions to try to get from the university to the church first without being spotted by someone and ‘tagged’ with a flashlight. The people who won would be the ones who got from the university to the church first without having someone shine the flashlight on them. Well, one time myself and my friends who were on the non-flashlight team smuggled in our own flashlights and turned them on as soon as we were out of sight and then kept them on so they people trying to catch the non-flashlight people by tagging us with their lights assumed that since we had flashlights we were one of them and thus they neglected to tag us and we made it back to the church before anyone else. This brilliant ploy didn’t stop us from being disqualified.

Another time playing this game, we car pooled to the church and we left a friend of mine’s car at the church and then after they checked us to make sure that we did not have any flashlights on us they loaded us all up and brought us to the university and as soon as they said we could start, this time we walked not towards the church which was our destination but we walked two blocks in the opposite direction. Remember, we brought my friends car to the church. When we walked two blocks in the opposite direction from the church we walked to where we had left my car. We all hopped in a drove to the church. We thought we were pretty smart but this brilliance didn’t stop us from being disqualified either. It was the same with the Israelite, the Judean offerings here. Sure they made the sacrifice but the literally lame and blind sacrifices that they offered were not what God wanted and these lame sacrifices did get them disqualified from the LORD’s blessing and not only them but also the priests who accepted their sneaky and corrupted offerings as well (Malachi1: 6-14; cf. Malachi 3:8-12, Leviticus 1:3, 10, 22:18–25, Deuteronomy 15:21). God was not happy with them.

Malachi 3:8-10 asks:  8
   “Will a mere mortal rob God? Yet you rob me.
   “But you ask, ‘How are we robbing you?’
   “In tithes and offerings. 9 You are under a curse—your whole nation—because you are robbing me. 10 Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house. Test me in this,” says the LORD Almighty…

By not giving their full tithes to the LORD -Malachi 3:10- by giving lame offerings to the LORD -Malachi 1:8- they are robbing him. By not giving our full tithes to the Lord, by giving lame offerings to our Lord, we are robbing him.

Malachi 1:8: “When you offer blind animals for sacrifice, is that not wrong? When you sacrifice lame or diseased animals, is that not wrong? Try offering them to your governor! Would he be pleased with you? Would he accept you?” says the LORD Almighty.”

How about us? What are the ways that we here today commit the sin of Malachi 1:8 of offering blind animals for sacrifice and sacrificing lame or diseased animals? Is there anyway that we rob God? I think so. I think any time that we don’t offer God our tithes first before we spend money on ourselves we are doing just that (Malachi 3:8). Malachi 3:9 records that if we do this we are under a curse. I think that when we spend more money on cable television, Dairy Queen, McDonalds, or movies; I think if we spend more money on fast food, recreation, or other self indulgences than we do on God then we are in effect taking the good animal for ourselves and giving the lame animal to Christ.

For those of us that do not tithe at all but rather spend the money first on our own lives, Malachi has a question for us. He asks, ‘would we do this to the government (Malachi 1:8)?’ If Revenue Canada asked for us to pay XYZ dollars in income tax would we say, okay but only if I have enough money left after I make my mortgage payment, pay for my kid to play soccer, and have an ice-cream cone at the DQ, then and only if I have the left over money will I pay my taxes. It doesn’t work that way. Do you think that Revenue Canada would go for that…No! If the government asks for our money we pay them what we owe them so why do some of us sometimes cheat God by only giving him our leftovers, our lame animals. Is it because we don’t care about paying our dues to God as much as we care about paying our dues to the government? Is that why we pay our taxes more religiously than our tithes? Do we really love politicians that much more than we love God?  I hope not. If you are waiting for an elected official to save you from anything, I’m afraid you’ll have a long wait. They are not messiahs. They are not saviours.

But maybe there are other reasons we withhold God’s offerings from Him if loving or fearing the government more than God isn’t why some of us can be tempted not to first offer our time and money to God, do we spend it on other items before we spend it on God because we don’t trust God? Is that why we can be tempted not to offer Him our first fruits? Do we not trust God to take care of our needs? Malachi 3:10-11 records, “‘Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse...[don’t withhold any of it!] Test me in this,’ says the LORD Almighty, ‘and see if I will not throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing that there will not be room enough to store it. I will prevent pests from devouring your crops, and the vines in your fields will not drop their fruit before it is ripe,’ says the LORD Almighty.” God will provide. We just need to actually trust Him. We just need to actually put our faith in God. He will provide!

Offering God blind and lame sacrifices and not giving Him the tithes and offerings that are due Him is indicative of not putting our faith in Him. Really if we do spend money first on frivolity Рor even necessity for that matter Рif we do spend money on ourselves before we give our offerings to God then we are declaring that it is we who are our first priority and not God. We have all heard the clich̩ that if the Lord is not Lord of all than he is not Lord at all. Well, this is true.

The 20th Century poet Bob Dylan tells us that no matter who you are
You're gonna have to serve somebody, yes indeed
You're gonna have to serve somebody,
Well, it may be the devil or it may be the Lord
But you're gonna have to serve somebody.[7]
And what we do with our time and money, what kind of offering of our time and money that we give to the Lord really does tell who we serve. If we keep the best for ourselves and only give God our lame offerings (of what’s left over) then that shows what is the priority in our lives. We just had a budget presentation last Sunday, a couple of Tuesdays ago in Bible study we looked at this exact passage. I am going to leave us all today with this challenge or two, should we choose to accept it. Keep an envelope or a pencil case in your car and every time you go to buy something at McDonalds or, for you smokers, cigarettes; every time you go to spend money on a self indulgence; take that same amount of money and put it in the envelope and bring it to church next week over and above your weekly tithe. See if you can do that on top of your regular offerings. At the very least I would ask this of everyone in the next week or two: I challenge each of us to first set aside our money for God even if we think we can only afford a tithe. Let us first set aside at the least that 10% and leave the leftovers for ourselves, instead of the other way around.

Let us pray.


[1]Cf. Joyce G. Baldwin: Haggai, Zechariah and Malachi: An Introduction and Commentary. Downers Grove, IL : InterVarsity Press, 1972 (Tyndale Old Testament Commentaries 28), S. 226
[2] Cf. John Schultz, Commentary to Malachi © 2004 E-sst LLC All Rights Reserved. Published by Bible-Commentaries.com. Available on-line at http://bible-commentaries.com/?page_id=7
[3] It is not that they didn’t have problems. They did have problems but they did have some special privileges and they not blame their Persian rulers for the difficulties (Nehemiah 5:14-19). Cf. John H. Tullock and Mark McEntire, ‘The Old Testament Story’ (Pearson Prentice Hall: Upper Saddle River, NJ: 1992), 320.
[4] Joyce G. Baldwin: Haggai, Zechariah and Malachi: An Introduction and Commentary. Downers Grove, IL : InterVarsity Press, 1972 (Tyndale Old Testament Commentaries 28), S. 226
[5] Robert L. Alden, The Expositor's Bible Commentary, Pradis CD-ROM:Malachi/Introduction to Malachi/Occasion of Malachi, Book Version: 4.0.2
[6] cf. Paul L. Redditt, 'Themes in Haggai -- Zechariah -- Malachi' in Interpretation: A Journal of Bible and Theology 61 no 2 April 2007, p 184-197.
[7] Bob Dylan, ‘Gotta Serve Somebody’, copyright © 1979 by Special Rider Music.