Where Is God's Honour?

This morning I awakened to the verse running through my mind:  "Where is my honour?"  This prompted me to look up the passage in the Bible, which I found in Malachi 1:6:  "A son honors his father, and a servant his master. If then I am the Father, where is My honour? And if I am a Master, where is My reverence? says the LORD of hosts to you priests who despise My name. Yet you say, 'In what way have we despised Your name?'  Through the prophet Malachi, God confronted priests and His people who claimed they honoured God when their actions showed they despised Him--very strong words indeed.  A son honours his father by calling him "sir" and obeying him, but God's people had neglected to give Him basic respect.  A master was reverenced by his servants who knew they would answer to him, yet the priests did not behave as those who would answer to anyone--much less the living God.

Posing rhetorical questions is a repeated technique throughout the book of Malachi, especially in response to God's statements against His people.  When God called out the priests for withholding honour and reverence from Him because they hated Him, they protested.  "In what way have we despised your name?"  I suspect many of the people who brought sacrifices to the priests would have wondered the same thing.  The priests had faithfully served for many years and were upstanding pillars of society.  Priests despising God?  How could this thing be seeing their continual sacrifices to God?  God answered plainly in Malachi 1:7-8:  "You offer defiled food on My altar. But say, 'In what way have we defiled You?' By saying, 'The table of the LORD is contemptible.' ⁸ And when you offer the blind as a sacrifice, is it not evil? And when you offer the lame and sick, is it not evil? Offer it then to your governor! Would he be pleased with you? Would he accept you favorably?" says the LORD of hosts."

The priests offered sacrifices morning and evening unto the LORD, and they were to give a burnt offering of a male lamb in the first year without blemish (Numbers 28:3).  God said they had not been faithful to offer sacrifices according to the requirements of the Law of Moses.  They would not say, "God's table is contemptible!" but their actions showed a complete lack of respect for God and reverence for His word by offering the blind, lame and sick on the LORD's altar.  God continued in Malachi 1:13-14:  "You also say, 'Oh, what a weariness!' and you sneer at it," says the LORD of hosts. "And you bring the stolen, the lame, and the sick; thus you bring an offering! Should I accept this from your hand?" says the LORD. ¹⁴ "But cursed be the deceiver who has in his flock a male, and takes a vow, but sacrifices to the Lord what is blemished--for I am a great King," says the LORD of hosts, "and My name is to be feared among the nations."  It would be disastrous for a subject to bring a gift to their king they knew was corrupt and blemished.  What was dishonourable to the king would result in greater dishonour to them.  Their very lives might be at risk for such a foolish stunt.  God is more gracious and compassionate than kings of the earth, but let not God's people suppose He is less aware than man!

Seeing Christians are called to offer ourselves as living sacrifices unto God because it is our reasonable service toward the LORD who redeemed us from the corruption of sin and death, the verses in Malachi hit hard.  If priests could offer blemished animals as burnt offerings, we can also offer God scraps of our lives and resources that could not be considered of our firstfruits or our best.  Like the sons of Eli, we may hoard the choicest bits for ourselves and give God the leftovers of our lives, stuff that was heading to the tip anyway.  The sacrifices of God are broken and contrite hearts (Psalm 51:17), yet our hearts can be lifted up with pride and self-righteousness.  Forgive me, LORD God, when I have done as those priests, deceiving myself to think I was honouring you when I was despising you and viewing your service as a weariness.  Create in me a clean heart that gives you my first and best without thoughts of myself, knowing you indeed are the KING OF KINGS who is worthy of all honour, glory and praise.  As it is written in Psalm 19:14, "Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in Your sight, O LORD, my strength and my Redeemer."