Where Is My Honor?

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Transcript:

Turn with me to Malachi chapter 1, if you have not already. Malachi chapter 1. During my college days, I worked as a substitute teacher for a little extra money, and something to do, honestly, was the bigger part of it.

I used to tell my parents I did the job for the stories, because I could come home every day at the end of the day and tell stories around the dinner table that would just make them laugh. and I love being able to do that. And I worked at several schools, public and private, and one of the stories, it wasn’t so much a funny story, but one of the stories that has always stuck out in my mind was I always worked high school, except for just one or two occasions.

I like kids that don’t need help going to the bathroom. And I speak sarcasm as a second language, so high school, good fit for me. I’d come in to teach a class at the high school, and at the beginning of each day, I don’t know how they do things here, but in Oklahoma they have Pledge of Allegiance and they have a moment of silence where they go through this little spiel about how it’s for quiet reflection or prayer.

We all know the state legislature passed a bill for school prayer, but they can’t actually say that’s what it is. Anyway, they’ve got this moment of silence. And I had come in, and it was one of the situations where the teacher was there for the very beginning of the day to get things ready and hadn’t left yet.

And so I came in, the teacher was still there, and she was getting ready to leave. And they came on with this, the beginning of the morning announcements with the Pledge of Allegiance. And, you know, they tell everybody to stand up, and everybody stands up.

And this particular day, there was a kid toward the back of the class who didn’t stand up. And this was occasionally the case, and they never let them get by with it at the private schools. The kids didn’t even think it was an option.

But sometimes at the public schools, you know, you’d have one or two kids that wouldn’t want to stand up. And one of these days, the kid was just being absolutely belligerent about it. And I don’t know what his problem was.

He said several things. He didn’t like Bush. He didn’t like the war.

He didn’t like, I don’t know, he didn’t like the color of the flag, whatever. He had several reasons why he didn’t want to stand up. And the teacher went over there and got in his face and made him stand up.

And you’re going to stand, you don’t have to say the words, I can’t make you say the words, but you’re going to stand up and you’re going to put your hand over your heart. And I thought, well, you know, I like this, you know, on one level. Let me finish.

On one level, I like this because kids need to be taught to respect things. Kids need to be taught respect. And that’s something I hadn’t always seen in the public schools where, you know, And a lot of times the teacher’s hands are tied as far as what they can do, what they can teach, what they can instill.

And so I thought, I like the idea of where we’re going, teaching the kid here to respect the flag, respect the country, all that. But I also thought, as I watched the kid, because it didn’t take real long, I guess they’d had this argument before, it didn’t take real long for her to get the kid to stand up, and he just kind of stands there, hand in pocket, hand over heart, slouching and chewing his gum. And I thought, you know, he’s going through the motions.

Outwardly, he’s doing the right thing. He’s standing up and he’s got his hand over his heart. But it really doesn’t mean anything.

Really, there’s no honor or respect being paid to the country or anything like that. It’s just an empty ritual that he’s going through. You know, he’s technically doing the right thing on the outside, but what’s the point here?

And, you know, there’s only so much you can do to teach him respect in a few hours a day, depending on what goes on at home. but I thought, I could be wrong in this, but I thought at the time I might have just let him sit there. Might have talked to him afterwards and said, you know, it’s really disrespectful.

But, you know, as far as making him stand up and put his hand over his heart, if there’s nothing behind it here, it really didn’t mean anything. And here she was wanting him to outwardly show honor to our country. And honestly, it bothered me that he felt that way, because there are plenty of things about our country that bother me, and yet I still love our country.

I’m still thankful that God allowed me to be born here and so on and so forth. But to see him just go through the ritual and there was no honor, there was no heart behind it bothered me. And I thought of that story again as I was reading through Malachi this week.

When God asks a question of the Israelite people, He says, where is my honor? Where is my honor? See, they were doing the exact same thing that this kid was doing.

When he stood up and he stood at attention because he had to, He outwardly had to do the signs of it, but there was no sense of honor. There was no sense of respect in his heart for the thing he was supposed to be paying honor to. The Israelites were doing the exact same thing.

And so that story came to me when I read this story where God asks, where is my honor? Where is the honor that’s due me? And you know, this took place about, the passage we’re going to look at this morning took place about 400 or 500 years before the time of Christ, closer to 400 years.

So about 2,400 years ago, God was asking His people, where is my honor? And I think the question is still relevant to us today. You see, 2,400 years ago, what was going on in Malachi’s day?

And if you already know this, that’s fine, but Malachi is one of those books we don’t get into a lot unless we’re talking about tithing. We talked about it a few months ago when I explained to you what I understand that passage to mean from chapter 3. What was going on 2,400 years ago in Malachi’s day?

They had been through the Babylonian captivity. where they had ignored God for so many years. They went through this cycle all throughout the Old Testament where they would ignore God, they’d turn their backs on Him, they’d worship other gods, they’d worship other things.

Anything and everything their hearts desired, they would worship except for God. And so God, in order to get their attention, to make the nation of Israel realize that they were completely dependent on Him, that they needed Him, He would send in another country to kind of kick them around a little bit. And it’s not that God put the idea in their heads and said, hey Assyrians, hey Egyptians, go whoop up on them a little bit.

that idea was already in their heads. They hated the Israelites. All God had to do was, I think, move His hand of protection off of His people, and the floods came crashing in.

And so God would say, okay, you want to be without me? Here, I’ll take my hand off of you, and we’ll see what happens. And it would remind the people, hey, we need God’s protection.

We need God’s guidance. And the people would realize their sin. They would cry out to God, and God would graciously send a deliverer.

Now, if I had been God, I would have destroyed them the first or second time. But luckily, God is a lot more merciful than I am. And God would mercifully send them a deliverer who would set them free.

And the people would worship God for a little while, for a generation or so, and then they would forget again. And this went on for about 4,000 years. And finally, God had had enough of it.

And God said, once and for all, I’m going to get your attention if it’s the last thing I ever do. Not that God has an ending, just an expression. God came to the point of one last-ditch effort that, I’m going to get your attention.

Maybe I better say, I’m going to get your attention if it’s the last thing you ever do. Because He sent the Babylonians in to absolutely just oppress them as hard as they ever had been. They laid waste to the city of Jerusalem.

We’ve been talking on Wednesday nights about the book of Nehemiah, rebuilding the walls, and Ezra restoring the temple and all of that. They laid waste to the city of Jerusalem. They left the temple in ruins.

They tore down big parts of the wall, killed whoever they could, took the best and brightest and dragged them back off to Babylon to serve in the royal court. They just left Israel in a mess, left Judah in a mess. And for 70 years, the Jewish people were told, you’re going to remain under the boot of these oppressors.

They were told, you’re going to remain in captivity for 70 years. And in that 70 years, you’ll cry out to God. Well, it worked.

During that 70 years, the people suddenly woke up and realized, hey, we need God’s protection. We need God’s guidance. We really should have been walking with God all this time.

And they cried out to God. And God restored them. God put it in the heart of the king to send them back to their land, to let them rebuild.

And they did well for a while. And I’ve read that as far as idolatry, they never entered into idolatry again in the way they had. Now that’s not to say they walked with God.

They just made themselves idols. But as far as worshiping the gods of the Canaanites and the Ammonites and the Moabites, They never went back to that. So mission accomplished.

But just within a short amount of time, keep in mind that that captivity happened about 500 years before Christ. And we’re talking about a time of about 400 years from the time of Christ. Simple math tells me we’re looking at about a 100-year period. In about a 100-year period, they had gone from the point, less than that, they had gone from the point of crying out to God and realizing their need for Him, their absolute total dependence on Him for even the next breath that they drew, to the point where they said, okay, outwardly, God, we’re going to honor you because that’s what we’re supposed to do. It’s in our covenant.

It’s in our laws. It’s in all of that. We’re going to honor you outwardly, but yet our hearts are, you know, we really don’t care about this anymore.

And in Malachi’s day, they had gone from a point of recognizing their total dependence on God to treating God as an afterthought, treating God as way down on the list of priorities in their hearts. And so Malachi is a book that’s written to the people of Israel. after they’d come out of captivity to try to rebuke them, try to talk some sense into them about the direction they were going as a nation.

And it’s the last prophetic book that was written before the time that Christ was born. It was written, there’s a lot in here about the religious leaders and how they were going astray, rebuking them. There’s a lot about the people and how their hearts were far from God.

It says at the end that in chapter 4 that even their hearts had turned from one another and God would have to turn the hearts of the fathers toward the children. I mean, they were to the point they just didn’t care about anything but themselves, it seems like. So the book of Malachi was written to remind them, hey, there is something more important than you.

Saw a picture posted on the Internet this week that said something to the effect of when they use all these high-powered telescopes and things, and when they finally discover the actual center of the universe, a lot of people are going to be disappointed because they’re not it. That’s true. They were acting like they were the center of their own universe.

And it’s like God was sending them a wake-up call. Hey, you are not the center of the universe. The honor that you should have been given to me, you’ve been given to yourself.

You’ve been following yourself and doing what you wanted to do. And He asks the question, where is my honor? And that brings us to verse 6, Malachi chapter 1, verse 6.

God, speaking through Malachi to the Israelite people, says, A son honoreth his father, and a servant his master. If then I be a father, where is mine honor? And if I be a master, where is my fear?

Sayeth the Lord of hosts unto you, O priests that despise my name. And ye say, wherein have we despised thy name? Ye offer polluted bread upon mine altar, and ye say, wherein have we polluted thee?

In that ye say, the table of the Lord is contemptible. We’re going to look at a few more verses, but I want to stop there for right now. He starts out by telling them, you know, children are supposed to honor their parents.

He says a son honors their father. Children are supposed to honor their parents. We know that, even if we don’t always do it in our society, we know that that’s the way it’s supposed to be, or at least most of us do, or at least most of us did.

There’s some understanding that children are supposed to honor and obey their parents. They certainly knew that, because it’s one of the Ten Commandments. God thought it was important enough to put it on His top ten list. There were other passages in the Old Testament that talk about the death penalty for people who disobey their parents.

I’m not suggesting we go back to that. That was something specific that God put in there for a specific time. Although it should make us realize, hey, God puts high value on us honoring our parents.

He said, a son honoreth his father, a servant honors his master. If I be a father, where’s my honor? Tells the people of Israel.

You’re taught to obey your earthly fathers. If I’m your father, nation of Israel, if I’m your father, where’s my honor? Where’s the respect that I’m due?

Servant honors his master. If I’m a master, where is my fear? See, they were doing things outwardly that looked like they were pleasing to God.

They were going through the rituals. They were going through the sacrifices and the offerings. But inwardly, there was no fear of God.

How do we know that? We know that because of what He says about how they were doing these things. So they’re going through the motions, but there was no honor of God.

There was no fear of God in their hearts. God, who was the creator of Israel, who was the father of Israel, the master of Israel, and they were treating Him like He was none of the above, like He was just an option or an afterthought. And this was written not just to the people of Israel, he singles out the priests here.

Folks, sometimes it’s the religious leaders that lead people astray. That’s why I always encourage you to look at what I’m telling you in the Bible. Not that I intend to lead you astray, but you need to know that what I’m telling you comes from the Word of God.

Because there are a lot of people who stand in the pulpit and say, here it is, and it’s completely opinion. Go home and turn on TV today, and nine-tenths of what you’ll find as far as preaching is going to be people preaching opinion and leading you astray. He singles out the religious leaders here and says, you’ve despised my name.

And I told you before when we talked about chapter 3 and talked about what God said about them giving their whole hearts to Him when we talked about tithing. Much of Malachi takes place as a rhetorical conversation between God and Israel. God asks these questions of Israel and then He answers them for them.

And we have conversations like that sometimes at home and I’ll ask Christian, am I even needed for this conversation? She’ll ask a question and then she’ll answer it. Well, God was doing that.

Folks, Israel was not needed for this conversation. God was asking the questions and God knew the answers, but they needed to know what God had to say. They needed to know that the questions were out there and they needed to be brought to and made to realize what was going on in their own hearts.

See, they had deceived themselves into thinking, hey, we’re serving God, we’re honoring Him just fine. And God needed to point out to them that, hey, you’re not in as good a standing with me as you think you are. O priests that despise my name, and ye say, Wherein have we despised your name?

God calls out the religious leaders who had despised his name. He calls them that. It says they would have asked, How have we despised your name?

God, how have we brought dishonor to your name? And he says in verse 7, Ye offer polluted bread upon mine altar, and ye say, Wherein have we polluted thee? So God answers the question, How have we despised your name?

God says, You offer polluted bread on my altar. Folks, the sacrifices that they were offering God were not the best that they had. The sacrifices that they were offering God were not acceptable to God.

God had made it clear throughout the Old Testament that because He is absolutely holy and absolutely perfect, when it came to the sacrifices, He demanded nothing short of absolute perfection. When they went to make a sacrifice on the altar, when they went to bring an animal, it couldn’t be the animal with three legs. It couldn’t be the blind animal. We couldn’t go sacrifice our dog, our blind dog, unfortunately.

Several people wanted to this week as she chewed people’s quilts and things at Christmas. We couldn’t offer the blind dog. If we were going to give God a dog, and incidentally they didn’t sacrifice dogs, we’d have to give Him the good one.

You couldn’t give Him the three-legged animal. You couldn’t give Him the cow that was diseased. You couldn’t give Him the cow with open sores. You couldn’t do the pigeon that couldn’t fly.

You couldn’t offer these things. You had to offer God something without blemish. God was very specific about what He would and would not accept.

And so this polluted bread, that word bread there can mean food. or it can mean bread specifically, it can mean food in general. Whatever offering that they were bringing was polluted. They might have been bringing him bread that was not up to par when they laid out the show bread in the temple.

They might have been bringing him animals that were diseased, that were sick. We’ll see later on that they were offering these things. And so God says, you’ve despised my name because you bring me polluted things.

You bring me corrupted things to my altar. So they ask, wherein have we polluted thee? And understand, they’re not actually asking these things, but God in all His omniscience knows the questions that they would ask in their own hearts.

And so they’re wondering, how have we polluted your altar? In that you say the table of the Lord is contemptible. Now I don’t think they use the actual words, hey, the table of the Lord is contemptible.

We hate God’s table. We hate the altar. We hate the sacrifices.

If you’ll see, they were going through the motions outwardly of making sacrifices, bringing offerings, going to the temple, doing prayers, all these things. They weren’t saying that the, outwardly that the Lord’s table, the Lord’s altar was contemptible. What they were doing was through their actions, through the lack of respect in their hearts, they were betraying the fact that they found the Lord’s table to be contemptible, not worthy of the respect that it was due.

It doesn’t mean that they actively hated God and His table, but to not love God enough might as well be hate. To not love God’s sacrifices and all these things enough might as well be hate. There are many times when the contrast is made in the Bible.

For example, when Jesus says, if you don’t hate your father and mother, you don’t love me. He’s not telling us we need to go kill our parents. That would go against everything in the Bible.

What He’s saying is if you don’t love me with an amount of love that makes everything else look like hate in comparison, you can’t really claim to love me. So when He says they found His table contemptible, what He’s saying is they show less than the utmost respect that it was due to Him and His table and His sacrifices. Verse 8, And if ye offer the blind for sacrifice, is it not evil?

They were offering blind animals on the altar. 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? God says, you’re bringing me these animals that are less than satisfactory. And I don’t believe it was so much that God needed perfect animals and God cared so much about the animals and the actual physical animals.

It was a matter of the fact that they didn’t care enough about God to bring him something as perfect as what he deserved. It’s a matter of the heart, not just the outward. Folks, if our hearts are right, the outward will take care of itself.

If our hearts are not right, it doesn’t matter how good we do, how well we do on the outside. So they were bringing him blind animals and lame and sick and all of these things, and God says, you know what, go pull that nonsense with the governor and see what he does about it. The human being that’s in charge of your city, in charge of your territory, go take him a lame sheep or a blind cow and see if he thanks you or see if it’s an insult.

It wasn’t just that they were bringing a gift that wasn’t quite good enough. It would have been seen as an insult to the governor, to the leaders. It would be like going to a restaurant and leaving a 10 cent tip.

Now I know at one point that was a good tip. Today it would be considered an insult. It would be less insulting to leave nothing than to leave a 10 cent tip.

That’s essentially what they were doing. They were bringing something to God that was an insult. Bringing something that if they took it to the political rulers, he would have said, what is this?

Get out of my sight. You think you’re going to earn any favor with me bringing those things in here? And yet they thought it was good enough for God.

They would never have dreamed to bring the governor something so pitiful. And yet they thought, well, it’s good enough for God. Can you begin to see here where there was a heart problem with the Israelites?

And now I pray the beseech God, this is Malachi speaking, and now I pray the beseech God that he will be gracious unto us. This hath been by your means. Will he regard your persons, saith the Lord of hosts.

And God, speaking through Malachi, tells them, hey, go beg God to be gracious. Beg God to forgive you for the way you’ve been acting and the way you’ve been treating Him. He says, you’ve done this by your own hands.

The place you’ve brought yourself to has been done by your own hands, and now you need to go and beg God to forgive you for the way that you’ve treated Him. Who is there even among you that would shut the doors for naught? Neither do ye kindle fire on mine altar for not.

What he’s saying there, talking about shutting the doors, was to go into the temple. He’s talking to the priests again. To go into the temple and shut the doors to offer sacrifices and to kindle a fire on the altar for when they would do the burnt offerings.

And when he says, how many of you would do this for nothing? He’s pointing out that for the priest, all of their religious works, all of their service was for material gain. And folks, if our service to God is based on solely what we can get out of it, again, there’s a heart problem.

And I’ve told you before, told you before, the work that God’s given me here to do and that you’ve given me here to do, I would do for free if I had to, if I could, because I love the work and I love the people and I love what God’s put me here to do. But I thank you that you don’t ask me to do it for free. That’s nice, being able to do the work and not having to work a 40-hour job and do that.

But I believe I’m being completely honest when I say I would do it for free, at least to the best of my ability. But these people, they would not offer sacrifice. They would not light a fire.

They would not go in and offer prayer if there wasn’t something in it for them. And we’ve got to be very careful about our motives as God’s people when we do good works, when we do things that bring God honor. Are we doing it because there’s something in it for us?

Because He clearly, He makes it plain that that’s not a good place for our hearts to be. I have no pleasure in you, saith the Lord of hosts. neither will I accept an offering at your hand.

Everything that they were doing looked good outwardly. But folks, their hearts were so far from God. He said, I take no pleasure from you.

And even if you brought me something nice, I wouldn’t accept the offering at your hand. For from the rising of the sun, even unto the going down of the same, my name shall be great among the Gentiles. And in every place, incense shall be offered unto my name in a pure offering.

For my name shall be great among the heathen, saith the Lord of hosts. He goes on to talk some more about how they’ve profaned the temple and all these things. But I think it’s interesting that He tells them that I won’t accept your offerings.

I won’t accept things as they are. But that even if they wouldn’t give Him honor, He points to the Gentiles. And I think this is one more statement about the coming of Christ because in Isaiah it talks about Him coming to be a light to the Gentiles.

That if they wouldn’t praise Him, if they wouldn’t honor Him, that God had found people who would. And one day the Gentiles would honor Him. And Christ came to be the Savior of the Jews and the Gentiles.

And Jesus even told the religious leaders in His day when they complained that the disciples were too enthusiastic in their praise of God and said, keep them quiet. Jesus told them, I’m telling you, if these guys keep quiet, the rocks will cry out in praise. That God will be praised.

God will be honored and glorified one way or another. And if His people weren’t willing to do it and weren’t willing to do it from a pure heart, He’d found others who would. But God asks the very important question of them, starting out in verse 6, where is my honor?

And as I said earlier, I think even 2,400 years later, it’s still a relevant question for us today. Now, I believe unless we’re here just for purely selfish motives, unless you’re here and your only reason is to impress somebody, or your only reason is to get your spouse or your parents or somebody off your back by being here, or something like that, or you’re here because you’re going to lunch afterwards, or something like that. Unless we’re here out of purely selfish motives.

I have to assume everybody in this place has something in them that wants to honor God. Otherwise you wouldn’t be here. It’s far too many other things to do on a Sunday morning.

I had car trouble this morning, had to stop by O’Reilly and use their little computer and there were people in there buying parts so that they could work on their cars today. Plenty of other things to do on a Sunday morning if you weren’t here to honor God. But we have to be careful and check our motives and see if we really are honoring God out of a desire to honor God or just going through the motions, if we’re just going through the motions for some other reason.

Because out of a sense of religious obligation, well, I need to read my Bible today because it’s what’s expected of me. I need to pray today. It’s what’s expected of me.

I need to go to church. That’s what I’m supposed to do. Well, God wants me to talk to somebody about Jesus, so I guess I better.

That’s a real good way to show somebody the love of Christ. Well, I’m going to tell you about Jesus because He says I have to. Folks, whenever we do something to honor God, we need to check our motives and find out if it really is out of a sense in our heart that we want to honor God. What is our purpose for being here this morning?

And you don’t have to answer me that. I’m asking you the question so that each of us can think about it as we leave here. What’s our purpose in being here?

Is it to honor God? I believe it is, at least in part, but in part is not enough. Is it for some other reason?

The reason why we do all the things we do is it to honor God. I submit to you that everything we do ought to be done out of a desire to honor God. Ought to be done out of a heart that loves God and wants to see Him have the honor He’s due.

Out of a heart that fears God. And I know we’ve said for years and years in churches that that word to fear God, when the Bible talks about fearing God, it just means a sense of reverence. It just means a sense of respect.

There’s no actual fear. Folks, fearing God, part of that is reverence. But I think when we realize who God is and who we are, we ought to tremble a little bit.

There’s a sense of awe and a sense of wonder and a love for God and a little bit of fear of God and a desire to see Him honored. to see Him have the respect that He’s due. And there are some ways in this passage, just very briefly, some things we can learn from this passage about honoring God and dishonoring God.

And first of all, God is dishonored when we ignore His authority. See, He has the authority over us as a Father and as a Master. And when what we do, we don’t do out of a desire to obey Him, out of a desire to honor Him.

We just do, well, we do it to impress other people. Or we’re not willing to do what He asks unless there’s something in it for us. Ladies and gentlemen, if we’re not driven out of a sense that God is the one in authority over our lives and the decisions that we make, we make to honor Him and to obey Him because we love Him and because we submit to that authority.

Folks, we dishonor God when we ignore that authority in our lives. He said, if I’m a father, where’s my honor? Where’s the honor I deserve?

We could ask the same question of ourselves. If God really is our father, where in our lives is the honor that He deserves? If He’s our master, where’s the fear that He deserves?

And so, you know, they asked the question, how is it that you say we despise you? How is it that you say we dishonor you? Folks, they ignored the authority he had as a father and as a master.

The quickest way for us to dishonor God is to ignore that authority. To say, God, I’m going to put myself right at the center of that universe and do exactly what I want to do. Folks, it didn’t work that way.

We honor him by realizing his authority. Second, God is dishonored when we withhold our best from him. See, they had said, okay, he’s a father, he’s a master, we have to do what he says.

But we can kind of work around it. We can kind of get around it. And we didn’t bring our best. We don’t have to bring our best. God will accept that.

Folks, it was an insult to God. Those animals they were bringing, it wasn’t about the animals, that th