Malachi 1
v.2-3
An oracle: The word of the LORD to Israel through Malachi. 2”I have loved you,” says the LORD. “But you ask, ‘How have you loved us?’ “Was not Esau Jacob’s brother?” the LORD says. “Yet I have loved Jacob,
v.6
“A son honors his father, and a servant 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, O priests, who show contempt for my name. “But you ask, ‘How have we shown contempt for your name?’
The servants at the temple, who were teh closest to sacred things, had defaulted in the most central obligation of all—honoring God. And if the leadership failed, what could the people be expected to do? But spiritual leaders have often run the risk of treating sacred things as ordinary.
v.7
“You place defiled food on my altar. “But you ask, ‘How have we defiled you?’ “By saying that the LORD’s table is contemptible.
“What good is it, if we offer the best? Be what we offer, what it may, it is all to be consumed by fire.” “The pretext at once of avarice and gluttony!” And so they kept the best for themselves. They were poor, on their return from the captivity. Anyhow, the sacrifices were offered. What could it matter to God? And so they dispensed with God’s law.
v.8
When you bring blind animals for sacrifice, is that not wrong? When you sacrifice crippled 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.
The law forbade bringing lame, blind, blemished, or sick animals to the altar (Dt 15:21).
v.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.
As long as [the temple] was not serving as a meeting place for God and his people, why should any perfunctory and self-deceiving rituals go on in it? Not only were the sacrifices ineffective, but the priests and the people were lulled into thinking that their deeds were winning God’s approval. So why not shut the temple doors and be done with what was for the priests merely a nuisance?
Is God pleased with campus ministries today? Does He not shut down those who produce useless fires? It all traces back to their leaders.
v.13
And you say, ‘What a burden!’ and you sniff at it contemptuously,” says the LORD Almighty. “When you bring injured, crippled or diseased animals and offer them as sacrifices, should I accept them from your hands?” says the LORD.
v.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.
If the people he chose reject him, as Lord, he will choose others—i.e., Gentiles, foreigners—who will revere his holy name.
Ananias and Sapphira were cheats and their fall evoked the fear of the Lord in the early church. Do not withold yourself from God for it is a dreadful thing to fall in the hands of the living God.