Setting the Stage
This blog is not an exposition of Malachi chapter one. Instead, I suggest you read and look for principles that speak to the church and, if you please, to America, which owes its original framework to the Scriptures of the living God.
6 “A son honors his father, and a slave his master. If I am a father, where is the honor due me? If I am a master, where is the respect due me?” says the Lord Almighty.
“It is you priests who show contempt for my name.
“But you ask, ‘How have we shown contempt for your name?’
7 “By offering defiled food on my altar.
“But you ask, ‘How have we defiled you?’
“By saying that the Lord’s table is contemptible. 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.
9 “Now plead with God to be gracious to us. With such offerings from your hands, will he accept you?”—says the Lord Almighty.
10 “Oh, that one of you would shut the temple doors, so that you would not light useless fires on my altar! I am not pleased with you,” says the Lord Almighty, “and I will accept no offering from your hands. 11 My name will be great among the nations, from where the sun rises to where it sets. In every place incense and pure offerings will be brought to me, because my name will be great among the nations,” says the Lord Almighty.
12 “But you profane it by saying, ‘The Lord’s table is defiled,’ and, ‘Its food is contemptible.’ 13 And you say, ‘What a burden!’ and you sniff at it contemptuously,” says the Lord Almighty.
“When you bring injured, lame or diseased animals and offer them as sacrifices, should I accept them from your hands?” says the Lord. 14 “Cursed is the cheat who has an acceptable male in his flock and vows to give it, but then sacrifices a blemished animal to the Lord. For I am a great king,” says the Lord Almighty, “and my name is to be feared among the nations. (NASB)
Summarizing the Social Disarray
This chapter proceeds the four hundred silent years when God ceased to speak to Israel before the coming of John the Baptist.
- Principle one: Consider if your governor would be pleased with you if you treated him as you do God (8).
- Principle two: Repentance is the wise course of action (9)
- Principle three: Warning for the lack of repentance (10)
- Principle four: Charge–you have failed to live as I intended—but that will happen (11)
Charge—you have grown weary with my instructions (13)
- Principle five: Recognize that my name is feared even among the nations (14)
Throughout chapter two, the Lord, through His prophet, enumerates their failures to live righteously from the community to the family (2:1-3)
Appeal to America
On August 27, there was, once again, a horrific crime event—this time in Jacksonville, Florida. A few months ago, it was Nashville at Covenant Day School. I need not list others, but many have involved some form of prejudice.
The Jacksonville incident involved a white shooter. Unfortunately, two men contributed to promoting racism in this case. One was the 21-year-old shooter; the other was President Biden, who, it would appear, quickly jumped to a microphone to promote his racial agenda in response to the horrific crime of an obviously insane young white man against three innocent black citizens minding their own business. The President offered this inflammatory comment, “There is no room for white supremacy in America.” The only rationale for such a comment is a desire to feed rational animosity. All this does create more impetus for such crimes by both races.
Please. People, whites, blacks, Asians, or Latinos. Let’s stop manufacturing racism. Oh, how we need the message of Christ, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind, soul, and love your neighbor as yourself.”
My Experience
When I had open heart surgery eighteen years ago, three black pastor friends sat with, prayed, and encouraged my wife. President Biden, this is America at its best. This is what we should be promoting. Yes, we should publicly condemn horrific crimes and administer the severest penalties. Yes, we should empathize with the victims’ relatives, but we should not use other’s tragedies to promote personal and political agendas to further political or religious power.
Our Strategy
Let’s view these horrific crime perpetrators as what they are. They are evil regardless of their color, gender, or ethnic origin, and regardless of whom, color, gender, or ethnic origin they attack. Yes, our Founding Fathers made a reprehensible error when they participated in developing the custom of slavery. An honest appraisal of history will show that black people were co-conspirators in this injustice. Slavery is as old as humanity. Unfortunately, the attitude of leftist-leaning politics is promoting this ugly virus. Yes, I am writing as a white person, and without apologies. I am writing because I am sick and tired of the nasty politics of power violating everything that Jesus taught, everything that God hates. I am writing hoping to challenge both whites and blacks to come to repentance.
I am writing to sound a warning. Three things are happening in society that need to change, or else God will turn us over to our sin—promoting racism to promote political power and murdering our children by abortion, and thirdly, running a double-standard justice system, thereby perverting social justice. Desecrating marriage by willy-nilly divorce in the name of personal needs.
Our strategy is but one: repent! As a young person, I’d see billboards in Lancaster County, PA, that screamed, Repent. or Prepare to my thy God. I did understand what they meant, and neither will America if we shout repent. We need to deliver the message one-on-one—New Testament evangelism and discipleship.
A part of me wants to shout, “You stupid fools, REPENT.” But that will not cut it in this post-Christian culture. Our culture is worse off than in the first century. However, Jesus’ great commission is still effective one-on-one.
Join the army! Join the battle! Don’t be captured by the culture.