How to Give Clean Offerings

There are somethings that just have to be clean and pure. We want to trust that when we buy premade food that the kitchen that the food is being cooked in is clean, or the place where the food is packaged is clean. We also tryst that there are kitchens where the food is pure when it is prepared, like the packages that say they are gluten free. Dirty surfaces and improper handling of food can make one sick, and gluten (or other allergen) can have deadly consequences.

I’ve seen pictures of the places where they make computer chips, and they are not just immaculately clean, but the people working in them don’t just wear regular clothes into the manufacturing space, they wear dustless suits. The purpose is that a small piece of dust can render a chip inoperable. When we buy computers, cell phones and all sorts of other things with computer chips we want them to work.

The Bible speaks of the idea of clean and unclean, though not quite in the way as a sterile and uncontaminated location. Rather it is unclean or clean in relationship to standing with or before God. The prophet Haggai delivers a message to the people of Judah that their offerings are unclean before God, and tells them what they must do to offer clean offerings. We too can offer clean and unclean offerings to God, and so we need to learn from what Haggai says to the people of Judah.

Haggai 2:10 - 19

Haggai 2:10–19 NASB95

On the twenty-fourth of the ninth month, in the second year of Darius, the word of the Lord came to Haggai the prophet, saying, “Thus says the Lord of hosts, ‘Ask now the priests for a ruling: ‘If a man carries holy meat in the fold of his garment, and touches bread with this fold, or cooked food, wine, oil, or any other food, will it become holy?’ ” And the priests answered, “No.” Then Haggai said, “If one who is unclean from a corpse touches any of these, will the latter become unclean?” And the priests answered, “It will become unclean.” Then Haggai said, “ ‘So is this people. And so is this nation before Me,’ declares the Lord, ‘and so is every work of their hands; and what they offer there is unclean. ‘But now, do consider from this day onward: before one stone was placed on another in the temple of the Lord, from that time when one came to a grain heap of twenty measures, there would be only ten; and when one came to the wine vat to draw fifty measures, there would be only twenty. ‘I smote you and every work of your hands with blasting wind, mildew and hail; yet you did not come back to Me,’ declares the Lord. ‘Do consider from this day onward, from the twenty-fourth day of the ninth month; from the day when the temple of the Lord was founded, consider: ‘Is the seed still in the barn? Even including the vine, the fig tree, the pomegranate and the olive tree, it has not borne fruit. Yet from this day on I will bless you.’ ”

I. Can the Clean Make the Unclean Clean?

A. What makes something clean

1. Not just lack of dirty

2. Set apart for holy purpose

3. A member of a clean class

B. The answer to the question

1. No!

2. Clean cannot pass on its state

3. Cannot change the class

Nothing clean can touch the unclean and make it clean!

II. Can the Unclean Make the Clean Unclean?

A. Number of unclean things

1. Things used for ordinary purposes

2. Things of an unclean class

B. The answer to the question

1. Yes!

2. It cannot change the class

3. It can defile

a. Touching something dead

b. Sitting on a couch that a woman on her period sat on.

c. Mouse droppings on seed

d. the list could go on and on.

We don’t live by the same sense of ritual purity and impurity, be there can still be uncleanness, and one of those it in motive. And the area we see this in is the same area of which Haggai is speaking, offerings!

III. Offerings

A. Unclean

1. If we are unclean then our offerings are by nature unclean

2. One of the ways that we are impure is sinfulness

3. Damaged relationships with others –

Matthew 5:21 - 25

Matthew 5:21–25 NASB95

“You have heard that the ancients were told, ‘You shall not commit murder’ and ‘Whoever commits murder shall be liable to the court.’ “But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother shall be guilty before the court; and whoever says to his brother, ‘You good-for-nothing,’ shall be guilty before the supreme court; and whoever says, ‘You fool,’ shall be guilty enough to go into the fiery hell. “Therefore if you are presenting your offering at the altar, and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your offering there before the altar and go; first be reconciled to your brother, and then come and present your offering. “Make friends quickly with your opponent at law while you are with him on the way, so that your opponent may not hand you over to the judge, and the judge to the officer, and you be thrown into prison.

4. This affects all areas of our approaching of God

a. Worship

b. Communion

c. Tithes and offerings

B. Clean

1. To offer clean offerings, one must do the work of becoming clean.

2. To the Jews this might include

a. washing

b. washing and waiting

c. Special sacrificial offerings

d. a combination of the latter 2 or the first and last.

3. For the Christian this means:

a. Repentance

b. Asking for forgiveness

i. from God

ii. From others whom we have harmed

c. Acts in line with repentance

i. Zacchaeus gave half of his possessions