I think it was dependence. And then, at the beginning of the dispensation of grace, of the new dispensation, you will find the message—the first message—was also repentance. Repentance was preached by Malachi, and repentance was preached by John the Baptist.
We often think that a message of repentance is for those who do not know the Lord. Now, certainly, they need to repent. Certainly, the world needs to repent—repent of their sins, repent of their rebellion, repent of everything—and then believe in the Lord Jesus, that people may be saved. That is true.
Without repentance, no one can really come to the Lord. That is the reason why John the Baptist had to go ahead to prepare the way of the Lord. If a person desires to believe in the Lord Jesus, the first thing is that he must repent of himself, and then turn and receive the Lord Jesus as his Savior. That is necessary.
But oftentimes we think that repentance is just for unbelievers. We do not know that the message of repentance has a very large place among believers.
Believers need to repent just as unbelievers need to repent. Even though the things we need to repent of may be different, yet if we are not in our normal condition, if we have become subnormal, if we are not quite what we should be, if we are not where we should be, then there is the necessity of repentance for us.
The book of Job is the oldest book in the Bible, and yet you will find in the book of Job there is repentance. Job was a perfect man. He was upright, and God could even challenge Satan with Job. God said to Satan, “Have you seen Job? Have you observed Job? Do you not know that Job was upright and perfect and feared God?” He was such a man.
And then, when you come to the end of the book of Job, chapter 42, you find Job himself says:
I abhor myself,
And repent in dust and ashes.
Such a perfect man as Job needed to repent. He was so perfect that he became self-righteous. He loved his integrity. He was so perfect that he dared to challenge God with his own righteousness. He needed to repent of his own self, in dust and ashes. He needed to abhor himself. Himself was terrible to him, so that God might be everything to him. Job needed repentance.
You read the collection of the 150 Psalms, and everybody knows Psalm 51, that psalm written by David, the man after God’s heart. Yet when you read Psalm 51, what do you find there? You find the man after God’s heart needed to repent, and how he repented before God—how he asked God to cleanse him, to give him a clean heart and a proper spirit. David needed to repent because he failed.
All the prophets that God sent to the children of Israel—the children of Israel were God’s people—and yet when God sent prophet after prophet to them, rising early to prophesy to them, you know, in their prophecies the message was, many times, the message of repentance:
Return unto Me, and I will return unto you.
John the Baptist was sent to prepare the way of the Lord, and his message was directed not to the Gentile nations. His message was directed to the Jews at that time. And who were the Jews? They were supposed to be God’s people, God’s covenanted people. They had a temple in Jerusalem. They had a priesthood in the family of Aaron. They had the sacrifices going on. They were supposed to be God’s people, and yet when John the Baptist came into their midst, he said:
Repent ye; for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.
God’s people needed to repent.
And when you come to the book of Revelation, you will find the Lord Himself walking among the seven golden lampstands, which represented the seven churches in Asia. What do you find there? You find the message of the Lord to the seven churches was the message of repentance. The word repent was used eight times in these seven letters.
For five of the seven churches, they needed to repent because they were not where they should be. They were not what they ought to be. They needed to repent.
So, dear brothers and sisters, the message of repentance is as needed among believers as among unbelievers. Are we aware? We should be. Are we what we ought to be? If we are not, then there is a need for repentance.
We cannot go on as if there is nothing. We cannot go on as if everything is all right. If we go on like that, one day, when the Lord shall return and we shall stand before the judgment seat of Christ, we will suffer loss, even though we may be barely saved.
So, dear brothers and sisters, when you read the book of Malachi, you will find that the message is the message of repentance. God’s people need to repent. And I do believe that this is the message for us today. How we need to repent before God.
Last night we mentioned the first issue that God had with the Jewish remnant, and it was an issue over this matter of love. God said, “I have loved you. I have loved you.”
And yet the Jewish remnant turned and said:
Wherein hast Thou loved us?
“We do not know that Thou hast loved us. We do not know Thy love.” In other words, there was a spiritual insensitivity. That love was so great toward them, and yet they were blind and insensitive to God’s love.
And if a person does not appreciate God’s love, he cannot love God anymore. In other words, he has lost his first love. Where does our first love come from? It is when we first realize how much He loves us. When you are constrained by the love of Christ, you cannot help but love Him, and that is first love.
But one day, when you begin to wonder if He has loved you, or you forget that He has loved you, that means you have lost your first love.
And God said:
I loved Jacob; but Esau I hated.
By divine election, it shows how much God has loved us. Now, brothers and sisters, just think of that. Who are we? Why is it that God should choose us? Even before the foundation of the world, He has chosen us in Christ Jesus. We were not born yet. We had not done anything good or anything worthless yet. It shows that it does not depend upon our works. It is pure grace. God has chosen us in Christ Jesus, and being chosen shows how much He loves us.
And not only that: when God disciplines the children of Jacob, God disciplines them for the purpose of perfecting them, that they may be partakers of the divine nature of God. But look at Esau. When Esau was punished, that was different. That was there.
So, dear brothers and sisters, when we think of the chastening of the Lord, when we think of the discipline of the Lord—that the Lord will not let us go our own way—remember, this is love. This is love. This is evidence of how much He loves us.
So in Hebrews 12, you find that the Father will chasten His son. If you are His son, He will have to chasten you. But if you are bastards, then He will leave you alone.
So here you find the issue was over this matter of love. Now let us continue on this morning. Here in Malachi, you find the second issue was raised.
God had a controversy with the Jewish remnant at that time. The issue was:
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? saith the Lord of hosts unto you, O priests, that despise My name. And ye say, Wherein have we despised Thy name?
The first issue was the issue of love, and we know love is always the basis of all relationships. Then here you find God came to the second issue with them, and the second issue was a matter of honor, a matter of respect, a matter of His name.
Where there is love, you do not need to fight over the matter of honor or respect. Why? Because where there is love, you will give respect to those who should be respected. You will give honor to those who should be honored. There will be no problem.
But where love is lacking, then you have to talk about this matter of honor and respect—in other words, a matter of duty.
There is a lower level, which is the level of duty. We have our duty. As children, we have our duty to honor our parents. So in the Ten Commandments, you find there is a commandment saying:
Honor thy father and thy mother.
You have to pay respect to those who should be respected. It is defined by the law as our duty, as our responsibility.
And, brothers and sisters, when people cannot rise above to the level of love, then you have to deal with them on the level of the law, on the level of duty. Now, what is the duty? These people did not love God. They said, “Wherein hast Thou loved us?” So God said, “All right, I will come down to a lower level with you and see if you have performed your duty.”
A son honoreth his father. That is defined by the law. A son ought to honor his father, and a servant ought to fear his master.
You know, of course, here the servant in the old days was a slave—a slave. And a slave shall fear his master. That is to say, he should do everything that his master has told him, and he should be fearful lest he fail and be punished. His duty is to fear his master.
So God says, “If I be a Father to you, where is My honor? Where is My honor?”
Now, of course, if you read the Old Testament, God is a Father to the children of Israel. You know, in one sense, God as our Father is a special revelation to us through our Lord Jesus Christ.
It is through the Son, through our Lord Jesus Christ, that we know God as our Father. You remember the Lord Jesus said:
I ascend unto My Father and your Father, and My God and your God.
God as our Father is the special revelation of the Son. In Old Testament times, people had a vague idea of God as Father, but certainly not in the personal way. It was more in a national way.
For instance, in Isaiah 63, you find the thought there. In Isaiah 63:16, this is not spoken in a personal way, but in a corporate way as a nation:
Doubtless Thou art our Father, though Abraham be ignorant of us, and Israel acknowledge us not: Thou, O Lord, art our Father, our Redeemer; Thy name is from everlasting.
And Isaiah 64:8 says:
But now, O Lord, Thou art our Father; we are the clay, and Thou our potter; and we all are the work of Thy hand.
So in Old Testament times, you find that God was a Father to the nation of Israel. And God says, “If I be a Father to you, where is My honor? You do not honor Me as you should. If I be a master, where is My fear?”
Now, further, He is the Lord. He is the Lord to the children of Israel. But where is His fear?
And then the Lord turned especially to the priests, because the priests represented the spiritual condition of the people. He directed His word to the priests and said, “Why do you despise My name?”
What do you mean by honoring the Lord, or despising His name? When you honor a person, you respect a person. You listen to him. And when you honor his name, you will do the things that he wants you to do. In other words, you will do his will. That is honoring his name.
But if you do not do his will, you despise him. You do not give him the honor that is due him. So the Lord said, “Why do you despise My name? You do not do My will.”
And yet you find the children of Israel said:
Wherein have we despised Thy name?
They said, “We have not despised Your name.” They were so blind. Were they really so blind?
God said, “You despise My name. You do not honor Me. You do not fear Me. You have not done your duty to Me.” Yet they could answer back and say, “Where have we despised Your name?”
Oh, brothers and sisters, you know, here probably is the beginning of the Pharisees that you find at the time of Christ.
The Jewish people professed to honor the name of the Lord so much. You know, they developed among them a kind of concept that they should not mention the name of the Lord in vain. And because they wanted to show that they did not mention the name of the Lord in vain, they did not even dare to mention His name at all.
And by not mentioning His name, they gave an appearance that they really honored the name of the Lord. That is fanaticism, you know.
And yet they did not do the will of the Father. They did not know the will of the Master. They did not do the will of God. Outwardly, they professed to have great honor for His name, not even mentioning His name, and yet actually they did everything contradictory to His name.
That is hypocrisy. That is fanaticism. That is worshiping the Lord with their lips, but their heart was far away from God. As you remember, our Lord Jesus quoted Isaiah:
This people honoreth Me with their lips;
But their heart is far from Me.
But in vain do they worship Me.
That is the beginning of fanaticism. And you know what happened? They said, “Wherein have we despised Your name? We honor Your name so much, we even dare not mention Your name.”
And the Lord said:
Ye offer polluted bread upon Mine altar. And ye say, Wherein have we polluted Thee?
Polluted bread. Now, what is polluted bread? Of course, here it does not refer to the showbread on the table of showbread, even though the altar here is sometimes called the table of the Lord. But it does not refer to the showbread on the altar. Why? Because the showbread is not a sacrifice.
Here you find the polluted bread is a sacrifice. So evidently this refers to the sacrifices the priests offered on the brazen altar. Because these sacrifices were all offered on the altar, they were as food to God, as bread to God.
You know, all the different offerings—there were sin offerings and trespass offerings. These were not sweet-savor offerings. But there were offerings such as the burnt offering, the oblation, and the peace offerings. When they offered these unto God, they were a sweet-smelling savor to God, and they were food to God—bread to God.
In other words, God was satisfied. God’s hunger, as it were, was being satisfied when you offered these sweet-smelling offerings to God. God was satisfied, and God was gratified.
But when they offered these sacrifices, it was clearly defined in the law that they should never offer any sacrifice that was imperfect.
When they offered a sacrifice, they had to offer a perfect sacrifice. There should be no blemish, no spots, no blindness, no lameness, no corruption of any kind. The priests had to examine those sacrifices, and only the perfect could be offered.
Why? Because all these sacrifices were types of Christ. Only a perfect Christ could be offered to God and satisfy God’s heart. Nothing else. Nothing else.
And yet these priests—what did they do? They offered the blind, the lame, the crippled, and the imperfect sacrifices.
And then they said, “Where have we polluted Your table? We have not.” They knew the law. Certainly they did, because they were Levites. They studied the law.
They knew that it was definitely stated there that no imperfect sacrifice should be offered, and if they should do that, they would be completely rejected. They knew all about it.
And yet their spiritual condition had sunk to such a low state. Knowing the law mentally, yet they could so rationalize that they could offer imperfect sacrifices. And yet they said, “Where have we polluted Thee? We have not done anything.” Think of it.
How did they rationalize the whole thing? They may not say it in words, for the prophet put the words in their mouth. He said:
The table of the Lord is contemptible.
“So long as the Lord gets something, that is enough. That is enough for You.”
Oh, how they despised the Lord. They were priests. They were to serve, and yet they became so professional. All professionalism had entered into here. They were just going through the motions, and they said, “Well, who is God? As long as He gets something, He should be satisfied.”
That is professionalism. There is no respect there. There is no honor there. There is no fear there.
And the Lord said, “Can you offer the lame, the blind, to your governor? Will he accept it?” Any governor will not accept it. How much more will it be rejected by God?
In other words, they did not honor God even as they honored a human governor.
And you know what was the reaction of God? The reaction of God was strong. And God said, “Oh, if any man would come and just close the doors. I do not want all these offerings. These offerings are abominations to Me. If someone would just come and shut the doors, that is much better than having the whole thing go on as a profession.”
God does not want it anymore. “I do not want it. I will not accept it.”
Brothers and sisters, do you think this was such an extreme? It is almost unbelievable. Even the Gentiles, when they offered to their gods, who were not gods, knew how to offer the best.
How much more God’s children, who were to serve the living God, should offer the perfect sacrifice. How much more they should know that. They should do that. It was almost unbelievable.
And more than that, this was the Jewish remnant. They came back for the testimony of God. They were supposed to be a committed people to God, and yet they could be so degenerated as to become hypocritical and professional to such a degree. They had come back, but there was no fear. There was no respect.
But, brothers and sisters, are we better than these people? Do you think that God has such an issue with us too?
Of course, God’s issue with us in the first place is the issue of love. Do we love Him with all our hearts? Is there first love there?
Last night my brother talked to me, and he said, “First love is loving first.” I think that is a good explanation. Do you love Him first of all? That should be the first issue.
But if our spiritual condition can drop so low that God cannot deal with us on the level of love, then God has to come down to try to deal with us on the level of duty.
Brothers and sisters, if God should deal with you on the level of duty, that is tragic, is it not? God says, “Do you honor Me? Do you fear Me? Do you respect My name? Do you do My will?”
You know, in Matthew 7, at the close of the so-called Sermon on the Mount, the Lord said one day many will come and say, “Lord, Lord, have we not done this and done that in Your name? In Your name cast out demons? In Your name heal the sick? In Your name do this and do that?”
And the Lord said, “I do not know you.” And the word know means, “I do not approve of you.” You use My name, but you are not doing My will.
What God wants is that we do His will. “Whosoever shall do the will of My Father,” the Lord said, “the same is My brother, and sister, and mother.” Are you doing the will of the Father?
Where two or three are gathered together unto My name, there am I in the midst of them. What do you mean by gathering together unto His name? That is to say, you honor His name. You put yourself under His name, under His authority, and let Him have rule over us. This is what the church is.
And we pray and say, “In Your name, amen.” What have we prayed for? What is our prayer? Is it according to His will, or is there something that we want Him to do in our name? How do we honor His name?
And you find in the case of the church in Philadelphia, Christ commended the church in Philadelphia in Revelation 3. There are three things He commended.
Number one, brotherly love. They loved each other as brothers ought to love.
Number two, they honored His name. They kept His name. His name was enough for them. They did not want any other name but the name of the Lord Jesus. They put themselves under His name. They did His will. And they did not depart from His word.
Brothers and sisters, how about us? Do we give Him honor, respect? Do we respect His name? Are we doing His will?
Oh, have we come to a place as if God must receive anything that we give Him, if only we give Him something?
How we offer up sacrifices that are not Christ. How we offer polluted bread—all of our own works, offer up our own flesh, offer up our own cleverness, offer up our own energies, offer up things that we want, and how we offer the offerings of Cain.
It is not Christ. It is not Christ. God will not understand. This is not honoring Him. Many activities, and yet how much is the will of God?
Brothers and sisters, how easy we get to be professional in serving God. We carry on a service, and yet there is no respect in our heart toward God, no respect for His name, as if, “Lord, as long as You are served, You should be happy about it.”
Now, the Lord says, “I would that somebody would close the door. I will not accept these things.”
And then the Lord turned around and said, “You, My people, are offering polluted bread, as if I am a beggar. You can drop a penny, and I shall be happy with it.” The Lord says, “No.”
The day is coming when, from the rising of the sun to the setting of the sun, all the nations will offer to Me pure offerings, and My name shall be great among them.
This is a prophecy. Because the Jewish people became so professional, became so Pharisaical in their relationship with God, then you remember how the gospel of Jesus Christ had come to the nations.
And now, from the rising of the sun to the setting of the sun, out of every nation, every tribe, every tongue, and every people, God has made for Himself a people. Then they shall offer pure offerings. That is to say, they are being built up as a spiritual house, a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ our Lord.
If we do not respect Him, God will find some other people that will respect Him.
And yet they were still contemptuous of the table of the Lord. And you know what happened? They said, “What a weariness.” Oh, serving God was a weariness.
These priests would rather go home and tend their own fields, but because they were priests, they had to come to Jerusalem and offer sacrifices. But when they were doing all these things, their hearts were somewhere else. They were just doing these things, and when they were doing them, they said, “What a weariness.”
Brothers and sisters, does it come sometimes to you that you are weary? “What a weariness.”
If you are loving, you will never be weary. But if there is no love and you are just doing it as a duty, as a routine, then someday you will get that weary feeling.
You know, there is not a freshness anymore. There is not that living reality anymore. It becomes just routine, and if it goes on as a routine, one day you will get weary of it.
Is it true? Are you weary in serving the Lord because it has become so routine? The Spirit is not there.
And yet the Lord spoke to the children of Israel, especially the Levites. The Lord reminded them by saying, “Have I not had a covenant with you?”
God set apart the tribe of Levi to Himself. God had a covenant with them. It was a covenant of life and peace.
It was a covenant that they would fear Him, and because they feared Him, the law of truth was in them. They were not only to bring sacrifices to God for the people; they were to teach the people, being instructed in righteousness. That was God’s covenant with the children of Levi.
And yet, how they had departed. How they had judged unrighteously. So the Lord says, “Return. Repent. If you do not repent, then I will drive you away. The covenant will be cancelled.”
And, brothers and sisters, is it not true that we are all priests unto God?
His blood has washed us clean. He has made us kings and priests unto God. He has made a new covenant with us, and this new covenant is the covenant of life and peace.
And we are to serve Him as ministers of the new covenant. You find in 2 Corinthians, we are to serve the Lord as ministers of the new covenant. We are to serve Him in the Spirit, because the mind of the Spirit is life and peace.
My dear brothers and sisters, when we are not walking in the Spirit, when we are serving Him in the flesh, then the truth will depart from us. Soon, we will lose our function as priests unto God.
You know, this is an honor, a privilege, that we may serve. It is a privilege. If we should despise His name, we will be despised one day. We will get it.
So, dear brothers and sisters, here you find it is the second issue between God and the Levites, and it is the issue of the honor of His name. So may the Lord have mercy upon us, that we may truly honor His name. That is to say, we will do His will in the power of His Spirit.
And this is what God is looking for among His people: some priests.
O Lord, we do pray that we may honor Thy name as we should.
We pray that we may not be a people who honor Thee with our lips, and yet our hearts are far away from Thee.
We pray that our worship may be in spirit and in truth. Deliver us from Phariseeism. Deliver us from professionalism. Deliver us from weariness.
O Lord, quicken us, that we may rise up in our spirit to honor Thee, to respect Thee. And more, furthermore, we want to rise higher into that level of love.
Oh, that our whole life and our whole service may be of love. How we do desire that Thy heart may be satisfied—more than satisfied—because Thou hast satisfied us overabundantly.
We praise and worship Thee in the name of our Lord Jesus. Amen.