Malachi chapter one, verse one. The burden of the word of the Lord to Israel by Malachi. I have loved you, saith the Lord, yet ye say wherein hast thou loved us? Was not Esau Jacob's brother, saith the Lord? Yet I love Jacob, and I hated Esau, and laid his mountains and his heritage waste. for the dragons of the wilderness. For as Edom said, We are impoverished, but we will return and build the desolate places. Thus saith the Lord of hosts, They shall build, but I will throw down, and they shall call them the border of wickedness. and the people against whom the Lord hath indignation for ever. And your eyes shall see, and ye shall say, The Lord will be magnified from the border of Israel. A son honoureth his father, and a servant his master. If then I be a father, where is my honour? And if I be a master, where is my fear? saith the Lord of hosts unto you. O priests that despise my name, and ye say wherein have we despised thy name? Ye have polluted bread upon mine altar, and ye say wherein have we polluted thee? In that, ye say, the table of the Lord is contemptible. And if ye offer the blind for sacrifice, Is it not evil? And if ye offer the lame and the sick, is it not evil? Offer it now unto thy governor. Will he be pleased with thee, or accept thy person, saith the Lord of hosts? And I pray thee, beseech God, that he will be gracious unto us. This hath been by your means. "'Will ye regard your person?' said the Lord of Hosts. "'Who is there even among you that would shut the doors for naught? "'Neither do ye kindle fire on mine altar for naught. "'I have no pleasure in you,' said the Lord of Hosts. "'Neither will I accept any offering at your hand. "'For from the rising of the sun, "'even unto the going down of the sea, My name shall be great among the Gentiles, and in every place incense shall be offered unto my name, and a pure offering for my name shall be great among the heathen, saith the Lord of hosts. But ye have profaned it, in that ye say, The table of the Lord is polluted, and the fruit thereof, even his meat, is contemptible. Ye said also, Behold, what our wearisomeness is it? And ye have snuffed it, saith the Lord of hosts. And ye brought that which was torn, and the lame, and the sick. Thus she brought an offering. Should I accept this at your hand, saith the Lord? But cursed be the deceiver which hath in his flock a male, and voweth and sacrificeth unto the Lord a corruptible thing. For I am a great king, saith the Lord of hosts, and my name is dreadful among the heathen." Amen, and we owe the Lord his blessing to the reading of his own inspired word this morning. The book of Malachi comes in right here at the end of the Old Testament and it brings to us a link between that and the New Testament of over some 400 years of a gap historically between the book of Malachi and the book of Matthew. But the book of Malachi is a book whenever the children of Israel had returned to the land after their 70 years captivity in Babylon. And after they had returned, and after they had come back to the land, under the Ezra, you remember, the temple had been rebuilt. And the walls of Jerusalem were still in devastation. The walls of Jerusalem needed to be rebuilt. And at that time, God stood up a man by the name of Nehemiah. And Nehemiah was the man who came back and got the people motivated to rebuild the walls of the city of Jerusalem. But Malachi is the prophet that comes in to, as it were, help in the stimulation of the people to get the worship of God and to get the people in a spiritual state where they could be of help and blessing to the nation at that time. And so Malachi really is the prophet who runs alongside the book of Nehemiah. And I want you to notice with me that the people at this time, even though they had gone back, and even though they were back now in their own country, we noticed that the people, spiritually speaking, had got out of touch with particularly the leadership, particularly the priests. at that time had forsaken the Lord. And God said to them in Malachi chapter 1 verse 2, He says, I have loved you, saith the Lord, yet ye say, wherein hast thou loved them? God was telling them that He had loved them, and they said, show us the evidence. They were questioning the goodness of God toward them. They were not accepting that God had been good to them. They were not accepting that God had blessed them, and they were failing to recognize the blessing of God upon their lives. and God's love for them as a people. And if you trace the history of the children of Israel, you will notice that God helped them and God blessed them time without number, right from the time of the Exodus right through the Old Testament. Now there were times of chastisement, there were times when God dealt with them because they were not following Him. But nevertheless, God loved them, God sought to bring them to follow Him, and God sought to lead them and to direct them in the paths of righteousness and in the paths of truth. So it being with these people, they had forsaken God, they were not following God, they were offering polluted offerings upon the altar, and God was not pleased. God was not pleased with the way these people were responding. They were not responding to God as they ought to be. In fact, in many senses, these people were going through the ritual of religion, but their hearts were far from God. They were, as we would say, singing the hymns. They were participating in the worship, but really in their hearts. Their hearts were out of touch. Their hearts were not listening to the God of heaven. They were feeling to follow faithfully the ways of the Lord. And that's why God was challenging these people to get them back into line. To get them focused upon the things of God and the things of eternity. My friends, this morning, God is not interested in an outward demonstration of worship. But I tell you one thing, God is interested in the heart part. He's interested in the heart part. He's interested in what's inside. That's what God is interested in this morning. More than anything else, God is interested in my heart and its responsiveness to my God. God is not interested in me going through the motions of religion, but God is interested in me being what I ought to be before the living God, the God of all glory. You see, friend, what has happened today in many people's lives, they have forgotten the almightiness of Almighty God. They have forgotten how great and how powerful God really is. And man has reduced God down to a little, tiny, insignificant puppet that he can control as he will. And he can come to God when he feels the need of it. When circumstances arise and when problems arise in his life, he can come to God and get God to help him in those kind of extreme type of situations. God is not like that. I feel, friends, we need to get a glimpse of the greatness and the majesty and the power of Almighty God, the God in whose hand Our breath is this morning. The God who gives us the health and the strength that we have this morning, that we take so often for granted. Therein, friends, we need to get a hold of the greatness of our God. Some time back we did a study on the book of Isaiah, picking out from chapter 40 onward some of those passages that speaks of the greatness of God, of the majesty of God, of the glory of God, of the power of God. What an interesting thought it is, as Isaiah the prophet seeks to unfold to us something of the greatness of God. My dear friends, this morning, I want you to be gripped by the greatness of God. I want you to see, friends, that God is great, and God deserves and God demands a sense of responsiveness to Him from our hearts. Not from our lips, but from our hearts. We need to be responsive. to almighty God. We cannot go through the motions of religion. We cannot just think that somehow everything is all right. God looks upon our hearts, and as God looks upon our hearts, He's expecting a responsiveness from our hearts. We're to serve God, Hebrews says in 12, 28, we're to serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear, for our God is a consuming fire. The prophet Malachi here charges the people that they had given the Lord less than their best. And Malachi speaks of the kind of offerings they were giving to God. That's what I want to think about this morning. Just the kind of offerings, the kind of relationship these people had with God. There are three things I want to speak to you about this morning. The first one is some offerings are repulsive to God. Some offerings are repulsive to God. Now, what I'm saying is this. Sometimes when we worship God, it is repulsive to God, rather than being acceptable to God. Verse 7 tells us the first one. He offered polluted bread upon mine altar, and ye say, wherein have we polluted thee? In that he say the table of the Lord is contemptible. What does Malachi mean when he speaks of bread and he speaks of a table? Well, Malachi is speaking of the temple. The temple had been rebuilt, and that's what he's speaking about. He's speaking about the temple there in the city of Jerusalem. And he's speaking about them offering their offerings. Now, when he uses the word bread, he's speaking about the sacrifice of the animals. So what he's saying is, your offering polluted sacrifices on my altar." You are offering polluted sacrifices on my altar, and that is where the table was the altar. So the bread speaks of the flesh of the animals, and the table speaks of the brazen altar, the place where the sacrifice was offered to Almighty God. And twice Malachi uses the word polluted. This word polluted means to soil, to desecrate, to defile. What Malachi is saying is, you are offering defiled animals on my altar. Malachi is saying, your offerings, the sacrifices that you are offering are repulsive to me. God says, I just cannot have it, I cannot stomach the type of offerings you are giving to me. There was an outward desecration because, he says, you're offering polluted bread upon my altar. They were offering sacrifices without the requirements. You see, the priests, whenever they were to come in to offer the sacrifice, they were supposed to wash themselves, wash their hands, wash their bodies. cleanse themselves before they would offer their sacrifices to the Lord. But these priests were just setting aside what God had told them to do. And they were just ignoring what God had told them to do. And they were just coming in any old haphazard way. And they were offering polluted offerings to the Lord. They were not obeying the Old Testament Scriptures that God had told them how they were to do it. You see, to offer the sacrifice when they were personally defiled was defiling themselves. When they were not right, their hearts were not right. The heart part wasn't right. And because the heart part wasn't right, God said, you are even polluting yourselves. Verse 8 says, and God said, ye offer the blind for sacrifice. You see, what these fellows were doing was, they were taking the animals, and they were taking old sick ones, old lame ones, old torn ones, and they were taking those old sick animals in. They were no good anyway. They couldn't sell them in the marketplace. So they were practically useless. They were practically valueless. So what they were taking and offering to God was old animals that were done anyway. They were lame and so on. They weren't thriving well. They weren't good. They weren't going to make the grains. They were pretty useless. And they were taking this old, could you say second-hand stuff. This old stuff that was no good to anybody else. They were taking that and they would say, God, we're offering this as a sacrifice to you. We're giving you the sacrifice God. God wasn't pleased with that. Because the Book of Deuteronomy tells us the kind of animals that were to be taken, verse 15, 21, and if there be any blemish therein, as if it be lame or blind, or of any ill blemish, thou shalt not sacrifice it unto the Lord thy God. He says if there's anything wrong with an animal, he says you can't sacrifice it to me. That's what he told, that was the law in the Old Testament in the Book of Deuteronomy. And here they were taking these old lame, animals, and they were offering them up as a sacrifice to God. God said, look, he says, I just can't have that. You are not doing me any favors. In fact, I am totally against this. You see, what was happening was their heart wasn't in their duties toward God. And friends, it's possible for us to go through the motions of religion and our hearts not to be in it. Our hearts not to be in it. You know something? God is not pleased with that. God is not pleased with that. God doesn't accept that. The consequences were twofold. They were offering polluted sacrifice, and they were in a polluted state. They were offering the wrong thing, they weren't offering good animals, and it was polluting them, it was doing them harm as well themselves. They were offering what God had condemned in a way that God had forbidden it. They were offering what God had condemned in a way that God had forbidden it. There was an inward defilement. Their polluted actions were the result of polluted attitudes. Their attitude wasn't right. That's why the question is asked in the hymn writer, asked the question, Is thy heart right with God? Is thy heart right with God? That's the big question. Is our heart right with God? Is my heart right with God? Is your heart right with God? Solomon said in Proverbs 23, 7, For he that thinketh in his heart, so is he. For as he thinketh in his heart, so is he. Matthew 15, 18 says, What those things which proceed out of the mouth come from the heart, and they defile the mind. In other words, what comes out the mouth comes from deeper inside. That's the heart. And the outward is only a mirror of the inward. If someone does something wrong, it's because it came from deep within. It comes from the heart. And friends, this morning, our attitude is so important. The actions of the hands only reveal the attitudes of the heart. What a man does reveals what he is. How a man reacts reveals what he is on the inside. That's why the psalmist David said in Psalm 24, he says, Who shall ascend into the heaven of the Lord, or who shall stand in that holy place? He that hath clean hands and a pure heart, who hath not lifted up a soul into vanity, nor sworn deceitfully, he shall receive. He shall receive the blessing from the Lord of Hosts. The man whose heart is right is the man who is going to receive the blessing of Almighty God. He cannot receive God's blessing if his heart is not right. Our actions spring from our attitudes. You see, some people attend to the things of God in a kind of, if it suits me, way. If it suits me, I'll do it. If it doesn't suit me, I'll not do it. God says that's not the way. That's not the way it should be. Campbell Morgan said, no polluted man can offer pure bread on God's altar. The condition of the heart is revealed in our attitude even to God's house and to things of God. You know in the Old Testament Sabbath, what they actually did? The Sabbath actually began at sundown. When the sun was going down, that's when the Sabbath started, on the Friday evening before the Jewish Saturday Sabbath. And what they were doing was they were preparing themselves for the next day's worship, for the Sabbath worship. Sometimes, friends, we can just drift in and never give any thought to the fact that we are coming into the presence of the living God when we come here on a Sunday morning. or a Sunday night, or a Thursday night, or whatever it is. We can just drift in. Oh friends, we've got to remember, we're coming into the house of Almighty God. Not so much the building, but the presence of Almighty God. That's the point. We're coming into the presence of an Almighty God. If you were invited to Buckingham Palace, I'll guarantee you, you would spend a lot of time getting yourself trigged out, and getting yourself prepared, and looking the part, so that you could be there and that you would feel right in the presence of the Queen. My friends, when we come here to worship, we're coming into the presence of Almighty God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. The great Creator God, the great Savior of the world, that's whose presence we're coming into. And that's why we don't come in casually, but we come in with utter respect, because we're coming before the Living God. And that's what was wrong here with these people. They were not respecting the things of God. They were just going through the motion. just going through the outward. The condition of our hearts is also seen in the attitude in which we serve God. As I said, we say, we will get involved, we will do if it suits, kind of idea. God doesn't treat the symptoms of our problem, but He deals with the cause. God is concerned about what we do, but more concerned about why we do it. If it comes down to serving God, he's more concerned about why I serve him than even the way I serve him. What's my motivation? What's your motivation in serving this great God? What's your motivation? Is it to be seen of man? Or is it to be serving Almighty God? That's the crux. That's the crux. Some offerings are rejected by the Lord. Some offerings are rejected by the Lord. That's the second thing. Some offerings are rejected by the Lord. God said, neither will I accept an offering at Thine hand. Verse 10. Neither will I accept an offering at thine hand." God said, I'm not going to accept an offering at your hand. Remember Cain? Cain and Abel. Remember Cain brought his offering to God, and God didn't accept it. Abel brought his offering, God accepted it. Cain brought his, God didn't accept it. What is the difference? Why did he accept Abel's offering? Why did he not accept Cain's offering? He accepted Abel's offering because Abel brought a blood sacrifice. He brought a lamb. That's what he was to bring, as an atonement for his sin. But Cain brought the fruit of the ground, the vegetables. He brought the produce of his own hands. And God wouldn't accept that. Because what Cain was doing, Cain was like a man bringing his good works to God. Bringing the good deeds that he had done to God. And God's not into that kind of thing. God's not into accepting something that we do of ourselves. God is not into people making something of themselves and presenting their own selves to God. God is into us accepting the sinner's place, the place of the condemned man, and accepting the sinner's sacrifice, the Lord Jesus, who died on our behalf at the place called Calvary. If you are not saved this morning, He deserves that you give Him your heart and life, and ask Him for salvation, that you are born again of the Spirit of God. That's what God deserves. That's what God demands from the sinner, that he repents and believes the gospel and trust the Lord. If you're a backslider this morning, God is expecting you to return to him and to not to offer him something that's not real. Or if you're a Christian this morning and you're offering something that's half-hearted, he's saying, look, he says, it's high time, he says, you got serious with me. It's high time you got right with me. It's high time you started to offer to me that, that cost you. That that's real. That that demands a price. To give to God what we should be ashamed to present to a man. is a grievous insult to his majesty. You see, if you offer to your employer what you offer to God, you could lose your job. True or false? You see, that's the point. God is getting to the heart of the problem here with these people. They were offering things to God they wouldn't offer to other people. And God says that's not all. Even in our inner prayer, the prayer that would be denied by God in verse 9. And now I pray you, beseech God that he will be gracious unto us. This hath been by your means. Will he regard your person, saith the Lord of hosts? Who is there even among you that would shut the doors for naught? Neither do you kindle fire on mine altar for naught. I have no pleasure in you, saith the Lord of hosts, neither will I accept an offering at your hand." God wasn't even going to be prepared to accept their prayers, to answer their prayers. God wasn't interested. Because they weren't getting down to grips. with God. They weren't doing right by God, and God wasn't going to do right by them. Because they weren't playing their part. God wasn't going just to fit in any old way with their ways which was not right in the sight of God. You see, friends, I think the one thing that we have got to get And I believe this more than ever, and I've been preaching this more than ever, we need to get a sense of who God is. A sense of the fact that God is the Almighty God. And we just cannot treat Him anything less than that. You see, there are a lot of people who are playing at religion, and are playing at church. But they're failing to realize who they're serving. In other words, what they're doing is they're serving themselves and their own pride and their own ideas, and they're not serving the living God. You see, friend, when you and I are serving the living God, there's a sense of humility. There's a sense of acknowledgement of who we are serving, that He is the God Almighty. Grasp a picture of the greatness of God. God is not impressed. with us, just playing around with sacred things. The one last thought I want to leave with you is offerings required for the Lord. What does God require? Verse 11, For from the rising of the sun, even unto the going down of the sea, my name shall be great among the Gentiles, and in every place incense shall be offered unto my name. and a pure offering, for my name shall be great among the heathen, saith the Lord of hosts." What was the prophet Malachi looking at here? He was looking at a future day. In verse 11 Malachi reaches into the future when God's name and God's person will be exalted and worshipped throughout the whole earth. He only once Pure worship. And the point that Malachi makes is that God deserves our best. God deserves my best. God deserves the very best that I can give Him this morning. Because He's God. He's not man. He's God Almighty. And He deserves that I give Him my heart and my life because at any moment If it weren't for the mercy of God, I could be cut down, just like that. And I need to live in the light of that fact, that God is great, that I am only a mere mortal person, and that I am responsible to God, and I need to be responsive to God. I need to be responsive to God. what he deserves, what he properly deserves, his nearest great, and he deserves our best. Can you offer less? Can you expect God to accept less than your best? God said, neither will I accept an offering at your hand. God is saying, I will reject that which is not your best. I reject that, which is not your best. He deserves the best and accepts nothing but the best. Ed Spencer attended Northwest University in America and he was known in his day as one of the best athletes of that time. He was one of the first ones to win a gold medal in the United States Olympics. He was studying on the campus of the university beside the Great Lake and there as he was doing his studies in the library a couple of young men came rushing in to say that a terrible storm was raging outside and that the Lady Elephant, the boat on the lake had just been, had just capsized and that she was going down fast. He ran out and without any conscious deliberation, he just stripped off and he just jumped in. And he rescued people from the lake, people who were in great danger. And he had rescued quite a number and by this time he was growing exhausted. And some of those around him said, Ed, you have done all you can. You'll kill yourself if you try to do any more. Ed's reply was, I've got to do my best. He dived in again until he had rescued 17 people. And then he lay unconscious on the shore. All through that night in the hospital, he repeated these words, Have I done my best, fellows? Have I done my best? He had done his best, but it had damaged his health in the process. Years later, Edwin Young, wrote these words of a song. Have I done my best for Jesus? He was inspired by this incident. He says, Have I done my best for Jesus? I wonder, have I done my best for Jesus, who died upon the cruel tree, to think of his great sacrifice at Calvary? I know my Lord expects the best from me. I wonder, friends, have you done your best? Everything you do, is it your best? Is it your best? Everything you do for the Lord Jesus. Is it the best that you can give? Are you giving him your soul, your mind, your strength? Remember, in 2 Samuel 24, 24, the King David came to the threshing floor of Arona. Remember, he was threshing there. And he wanted to buy the threshing floor as a place for the altar and, of course, eventually a place for the temple to be built. And these are the words that Romer wanted to give him the threshing floor because he was the king. And this is what King David said, Nay, but I will surely buy it of thee at a price, neither will I offer burned offerings unto the Lord my God of that which cost me nothing. He says, I can't give to God something that hasn't cost me. I can't give to God something that hasn't cost me. You see, that's what's wrong when they took up Malachi, they were giving to God something that didn't cost them anything. Also in verses 12 through 13, but ye have profaned it, in that ye say the table of the Lord is polluted, and the fruit thereof, even the bread, is contemptible. In verse 13, it talks about wearisome. being weary. You're kind of doing it out of drudgery. You're doing it out of drudgery. Malachi said that this wearisomeness, this burdensome, drudgery type of idea, that's how they were serving God, out of a sense of Judah, but not out of a sense of love and desire to serve God. Oh, friends, the hymn writer said, I will serve thee because I love thee. You have given life to me. I was nothing. Before you find me, you have given life to me. Heartaches, broken pieces, ruined lives are why you died on Calvary. Is your worship to God weird or something? Just another sense of drudgery? Inadequate preparation? I haven't really prepared my heart to worship God. I just drift in and drift out. half-hearted participation, not really recognizing that I have an audience with the King. Did you come here this morning just because it's Sunday morning? Did you come here this morning just because, well, people would expect you to be here? Or did you come here this morning to say, right, I have an audience with the King of Heaven. I want to meet with God. I want to meet with my God, and that's why I'm here. Friends, if that's your desire, then God will meet with you. God will bless you. But if you just come out of a half-hearted participation, there's something wrong with your worship. Improper motivation. Improper motivation. If you come with the right motivation, gripped by the greatness and the majesty of God, God will bless you. Pay God what you owe. Give God what you personally declare. In verse 14 it says, but cursed be the deceiver which hath in his flock a meal, that's an animal fit for sacrifice, and voweth that he would give that animal fit for sacrifice, and sacrifices unto the Lord are corruptible things. Sacrifices are an old dead one, an old lame one. For I am a great king, saith the Lord of hosts, and my name is dreadful among the heathen." I wonder, is that true, friend? Maybe you have sacrificed to the Lord that that cost you nothing, and yet you have vowed to the Lord in days gone by, you have vowed to God that you would be His, that you would follow Him, that you would live for Him, that you would go right for Him. Maybe at a meeting, Maybe in your own private home, you vowed to God that you would live for Him and that you would serve Him. And God challenged you at some time, and you said, I will respond to that challenge. I will do what God is saying to me. And yet you never did it. You never did it. You went back on your vow. Back on your vow. That's what these people had done. They had made a vow to God, and they were breaking those vows. It is not known exactly what the vow was, but as I said, it's most likely it was in the area of sacrifice. They were offering to God something that was a dove. There have been times in our lives when God has spoken to us. God says, it's time for you to pay your vow. What kind of offering are you giving to God this morning? Are you offering the best, or are you just going through the motions? Are you not saved this morning, not right with God? You know, friends, this morning you need to get right. Eternity is coming on. Believe that Jesus is coming soon. The signs are there. You need to be ready. Is thy heart right with God? Are you right this morning? God knows your heart. God knows how you stand. Is your heart right with God? I don't know your heart, but you know it. But supremely, God knows it. And in the light of the fact that God knows your heart, How is it? How is it? You see, there's no bluff with God, friend. You don't pull the wool over God's eyes. I say that reverently. God knows exactly how it is. How is it, friend? How is it? No point in playing around with these things. These are far too serious. These are not play toys, the things of God. It's a serious business. A business, friend, that one day I'm going to soon stand in the presence of my God. And it doesn't matter that what anybody thinks about me. But it certainly does matter what he thinks. That's the important bit. How is it in the light of that great day? That's about there. Our Father, this morning as we bow at the close of this service, we think of these men, Lord, in Malachi's day, men who went through the motions of religion, but men whose hearts were not right. And, O God, this morning as you look down into this congregation, you see us all as we are. Not what we're thought to be, but exactly as we are. And Father, as you see through the outward veneer, and as you see the heart, our Father, I pray this morning that there will be those who will be responsive, those who made a vow years back and have never paid it, never followed on to do what they said they would do. Some said, I'll follow Jesus, but they have never followed. O God our Father, I pray this morning that they'll be willing to be dead and earnest about these things and to get it all sorted out in the light of the great eternity and on that great day to enter into their eternal reward. Father, grant the grace and the courage just now to be responsive to your voice for Jesus' sake. As we're just bowed in prayer this morning, I'm not going to make any public appeal. But I'm just going to say this, that if your heart has been touched this morning and God has spoken, what about just shirting it out privately with the Lord just now? If there's a need, whatever the need is, you just bring it to the Lord in the quietness of this church as we bring this service to a close. Let's just quietly wait for a moment just to give you the opportunity of privately praying. I'm not going to ask you to do anything about it. I'm just going to tell you to get right whatever God has said to you. You sort it out between you and Him just now.