Judah Profaned the Covenant
Notes
Transcript
Order of Service
Order of Service
Welcome
Welcome
Prayer
Prayer
Hymn - RECONCILED, I'M RECONCILED (787)
Hymn - RECONCILED, I'M RECONCILED (787)
Notices
Notices
Prayer Meeting - 7:30pm
Friday 7pm - Online
Sunday Morning 11am & 6pm
Tithes & Offerings - £
Main Prayer
Main Prayer
Hymn - AMAZING LOVE (434)
Hymn - AMAZING LOVE (434)
Reading
Reading
Have we not all one Father? Has not one God created us? Why then are we faithless to one another, profaning the covenant of our fathers? Judah has been faithless, and abomination has been committed in Israel and in Jerusalem. For Judah has profaned the sanctuary of the Lord, which he loves, and has married the daughter of a foreign god. May the Lord cut off from the tents of Jacob any descendant of the man who does this, who brings an offering to the Lord of hosts! And this second thing you do. You cover the Lord’s altar with tears, with weeping and groaning because he no longer regards the offering or accepts it with favor from your hand. But you say, “Why does he not?” Because the Lord was witness between you and the wife of your youth, to whom you have been faithless, though she is your companion and your wife by covenant. Did he not make them one, with a portion of the Spirit in their union? And what was the one God seeking? Godly offspring. So guard yourselves in your spirit, and let none of you be faithless to the wife of your youth. “For the man who does not love his wife but divorces her, says the Lord, the God of Israel, covers his garment with violence, says the Lord of hosts. So guard yourselves in your spirit, and do not be faithless.”
Sermon
Sermon
How do people lose contact with God?
How do people lose contact with God?
Have we not all one Father? Has not one God created us? Why then are we faithless to one another, profaning the covenant of our fathers?
In Malachi’s Time
Little heartfelt love for God
Not much care or fervour for spiritual things
Lazy, Apathetic Priests were largely to blame for this atmosphere and the spiritual barrenness of daily life of believers
Now Malachi turns to the symptoms of spirirtual deterioration of ordinary people
The People have Lost contact with God
And this second thing you do. You cover the Lord’s altar with tears, with weeping and groaning because he no longer regards the offering or accepts it with favor from your hand. But you say, “Why does he not?” Because the Lord was witness between you and the wife of your youth, to whom you have been faithless, though she is your companion and your wife by covenant.
The General Principal
Have we not all one Father? Has not one God created us? Why then are we faithless to one another, profaning the covenant of our fathers?
God does not withhold his blessing from people out of mere whim or change of mood
When God no longer appears to be listening to our prayers, he does this for a reason
Sometimes to teach patience, persistence and to give us an opportunity to show how much we desire him and his blessings-
And he told them a parable to the effect that they ought always to pray and not lose heart. He said, “In a certain city there was a judge who neither feared God nor respected man. And there was a widow in that city who kept coming to him and saying, ‘Give me justice against my adversary.’ For a while he refused, but afterward he said to himself, ‘Though I neither fear God nor respect man, yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will give her justice, so that she will not beat me down by her continual coming.’ ” And the Lord said, “Hear what the unrighteous judge says. And will not God give justice to his elect, who cry to him day and night? Will he delay long over them? I tell you, he will give justice to them speedily. Nevertheless, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?”
Often it is because there is sin in our lives which we are aware of but are unwilling to do anything about
Answers to prayer does not depend on us being sinless
However, God hearing out Prayers does depend on our being serious about the fight against sin in our lives
Not the presence of sin, but the toleration of sin which shuts down communication
If I had cherished iniquity in my heart, the Lord would not have listened.
What sin was so much affecting the communication with God in Malachi’s day?
God was clear “I have loved you” Mal 1:2
“I have loved you,” says the Lord. But you say, “How have you loved us?” “Is not Esau Jacob’s brother?” declares the Lord. “Yet I have loved Jacob
We often feel that God has rejected us
Yet he is clear his love is everlasting
Have we not all one Father? Has not one God created us? Why then are we faithless to one another, profaning the covenant of our fathers?
Have we not all one father?
Unclear if Malachi refers to Abraham or God as their father
The therological point is the same
The nation of Israel (God’s People) have one father
All people, great or small, are part of the same family
We are one in the sight of God
Did not one God create us?
Malachi most likely speaks of God establishing the covenant at Sinai, and the Jews as a Nation
Malachi is saying God’s People are bound to him by a special relatonship
Throuh that special relationship, we are all bound in a special relationship with each other
The same God, the same father and so they are a unity
Why do we profane the covenant of our fathers by breaking faith with on another?
Dealing falsely with one another, the were violating the unity of God’s people
They were in doing so violating the covenant which God had made with their forefathers
God’s people were being faithless towards on another
By sinning against each other within the circle of God’s people, they were sinning against God
They were tolerating this sin and so God was no longer answering their prayers
We have a duty to be faithful and honest in our dealings with all people, but there is a special duty toward’s God’s People
The most frequent phrase in scripture “you shall be my people, and |I will be your God”
You shall dwell in the land that I gave to your fathers, and you shall be my people, and I will be your God.
The most remarkable story unfolded in teh Bible is that of how God has persevered with that purpose in spite of Man’s rebellion and fall into sin
Even now he is seeking, finding and gathering a people for Himself
Against this background we probably best understand the seriousness of the sin of needless disunity among God’s people through sin against one another
Such sins oppose the very purposes of God
Wickedly violating the unity of the church will stifle God’s blessing
The New Testmanet picture of the church as a body helps us to understand this
when a man loses a finger, unless something is done very quickly, the finger dies
when a coal falls out of a coal fire, it very quickly grows cold
People drift away from God when they no longer have fellowship with Christians
Local churchs can go dead through needlessly cutting themselves off from fellowship with other Christians
Dangers for the Christian
Dangers for the Christian
For true Christians, Christ has died for us and all our sins are taken care of by his cross and we will never be lost
Nevertheless, failing to deal with sin properly in our lives, althoigh it does no affect our eternal security, does affect our day by day enjoyment of fellowship with God
Jesus taught us … “the one who endures to the end will be saved”
“Then they will deliver you up to tribulation and put you to death, and you will be hated by all nations for my name’s sake. And then many will fall away and betray one another and hate one another. And many false prophets will arise and lead many astray. And because lawlessness will be increased, the love of many will grow cold. But the one who endures to the end will be saved.
John write these helpful words in his first episte:
If we say we have fellowship with him while we walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth. But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin. If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
If people are totally unconcerned to fight agianst sin in their lives then prehaps they have to ask a fundamental question...
Am I a Christian at all?
Even a true Christian can fail to want to deal with sin properly in the way the apostle John outlines
They will lose the felt sense of fellowship with God and his or her Christian life will become barren and dry
If Chriostians tolerate and cover up their sins instead of coming out into the open with God, cutting the excuses, confessing and repenting, then the knowledge of the Spirit’s presence is withdrawn from us, we become powerless in prayer and fruitless in service.
That is the price-tag on sin for the Christian!
Malachi is making the point that sinful attitudes and actions against our brothers and sisters in Christ are a very common source of unconfessed, undealth with sin, which shits down God’s blessing
Jesus taught his disciples...
For if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you, but if you do not forgive others their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.
It is often easy to point out the sin of others, we must though be mindful that ...
God will not forgive us if we do not have a forgiving spirirt towards others
We will be out of fellowship with Him and our prayers will be next to useless
Peter taught what is a prerequisite for profiting spiritually from the Word of God
To get something from listening and reading the bible, the first thing that must be done is ...
So put away all malice and all deceit and hypocrisy and envy and all slander. Like newborn infants, long for the pure spiritual milk, that by it you may grow up into salvation— if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is good.
Paul provides another example of this principal...
Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for building up, as fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear. And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice.
The presence of biterness against other Christians grieves the Holy Spirit
Dangers for the churches
Dangers for the churches
One of the greatest dangers today is the way in which many church leaders and groups of churches judge one another
The bible does make it very clear that all Christians have a responsibility to seek to correct others within the church if we see wrong doing.
If there is gross sin which is being tolerated then we are duty bound to go graciously and try to win the folk in question to repentance
If they will not listen to us we are to try greater authority of the wider church circle behind us.
If we refuse to listen then sadly we must cut them off from our fellowship and warn others against them (Matt 18:15-20, 2 Thessalonians 3:6-14 & Titus 3:9-11)
The intention behind such actions as these is always that the person should be restored.
Sadly in the wider church, truth is out of fashion.
The Bible does call us to be careful about Truth
It is good for all churches to be truly founded upon the biblical gospel to have doctrinal dialogue
We are to recognise that other swho are true Christians may in good sconscience differ from us in certain areas and we are to have fellowship with them.
But when there is a deviaton from the Scripture teaching which affects the heart of the gospel and the Glory of God there is a necessity to try and do something about it.
Losing Touch with the Living God: The Message of Malachi Dangers for the Churches
In the words of T. C. Hammond, we must be careful lest there is ‘a surrender of vital principles of Christian belief and practice in a mistaken zeal for unity. We might become like Robinson Crusoe’s goats! His enclosure was so large that those inside were as wild as those outside.’
There are those who are in error simply through ignorance.
We need to deal gently and kindly with such folk.
But when there are people who should know better are teaching false things and refusing to be correctedm, then the Bible makes it plain that they should be cut off from fellowship (2 John 10, Jude 12 & Galatians 1:8-9)
It is essential to do all we can to keep the Gospel of Truth pure
We need to be concerned for the Gospel which CHrist shed His own blood to establish
When we engage ourselves in this difficult business of correcting another it is essential we go about it in the right spirit
If that spirit is missing, then it is very likely that soon we will find teh Holy Spirirt missing in large measure from our gatherings
We must be careful of three things
We can be too quick to judge others
Losing Touch with the Living God: The Message of Malachi 1. We Can Be Too Quick to Judge Others
There is a famous incident which happened during the Second World War at the prisoner-of-war top security prison at Colditz Castle. Towards the end of 1941 in Colditz the Nazis tried to persuade the French and Belgian officers to start working for Germany. There was no response on the first day, except much laughter and derisive cheers. On the second day a French aspirant, Paul Durand, stepped smartly forward and said, ‘I would like to work for the Germans.’ There was a gasp of surprise from the assembled parade and a beam from the German officer.
‘You really want to work for the Reich?’
‘Yes, I would prefer to work for twenty Germans than for one Frenchman.’
More gasps and looks of astonishment from the prisoners.
‘All right, what is your name?’
‘My name is Durand, and I wish to make it clearly understood that I would prefer to work for twenty Germans than for one Frenchman.’
‘Good! What is your profession?’
‘Undertaker!’
Imagine what the rest of the prisoners thought as they saw Durand doing the unexpected. How quickly they could have jumped to conclusions! But how wrong they would have been!
Let us be very sure of our facts and the spirirt of our hearts before we begin to criticize
We can judge others in an attempt to justify ourselves
Dismissing the rapid success of a new work, where we see little ourselves, and seek to dismiss the new work as shallow
Maybe they have faith and gifts we don’t
If the work is indeed shallow, and based on worldly advertising, this should bring a genuine sense of sadness in us.
We can enjoy judging others
Brothers, if anyone is caught in any transgression, you who are spiritual should restore him in a spirit of gentleness. Keep watch on yourself, lest you too be tempted.
For with the judgment you pronounce you will be judged, and with the measure you use it will be measured to you.
Conclusion
Have we not all one Father? Has not one God created us? Why then are we faithless to one another, profaning the covenant of our fathers?
Hymn -
Hymn -
Q&A
Q&A
Hymn -
Hymn -
Closing Prayer
Closing Prayer
Doxology
Doxology