The Malachi Blessing - Operation: Restore the Tithe - The unpacking of Chapter 1

Lets continue with the unpacking of the Malachi blessing.

Let’s start with the name Malachi, it simply means messenger. 

God is sending a message to His people.

OK let’s begin our break down of Malachi.

Now, before we get to the famous verse of Malachi 3:10

It’s extremely important that we start at the beginning so we can see 

what leads up to this passage. While this is not going to be an exhaustive 

study of the whole book of Malachi, we are going to focus on, and take note of, 

those things that specifically lead up and pertain to Malachi 3:10.

Here we go -

Chapter 1:1 The word of the Lord to Israel through Malachi.

In verse 2 the Lord says “I have loved you.” And Israel’s response to that is 

“In what way have You loved us?”  “Is not Esau Jacob’s brother?” says the Lord. 

“Yet I have loved Jacob;” - So, God is expressing himself to His people and saying 

“I have loved you”, and Israel is questioning it. When Israel says “how have you
loved us? They are saying that they don’t see or feel God’s love in a response really
intended to convey blame. “You haven’t loved us!” or “You don’t love us!”
But by comparison God wants to show He does.

Verse 3, “but I have hated Esau, and I have made his mountains desolate 

and have left his inheritance for the jackals of the wilderness.” - So God goes on
to explain; look at Esau’s side of the family and what they have, then, look at
Jacob’s side of the family, your side, and see what you have. “See? I do love you!”

Verse 4 reads - Edom has said “we have been impoverished but we will return and rebuild” 

the Lord responds with “they may rebuild but I will tear down.” - Why does the Lord
say this? because they are relying on their own strength, and not the Lord. Edom has chosen
to rely on themselves and not the Lord. He goes on to say that “men will call the territory
wicked, and the people God is against forever.”

Verse 5, “You will see this and you will say, “The Lord be magnified in all the earth!” 

Translation - You will see these things come to pass and insert Galatians 6:7a  Do not
be deceived, God is not laughed at or mocked.

Now in verse 6 the Lord says “sons honor their fathers and servants honor their masters, 

if I am your father, where is My honor?  Or if I am your master, where is My reverence?” 

- In other words, God is saying “you don’t respect Me in any capacity. And to the priests 

He says “you have DESPISED My Name.”  Their response, “how have we despised 

Your Name?” He answers in verse 7.

Lets pay close attention to verse 7, the Lord says “you have offered DEFILED food 

on My altar.” the response is “how have we defiled You?” and the Lord answers 

“by saying the table of the Lord is contemptible.” -  Notice that by bringing a DEFILED
offering and DEFILING His alter is the same as DEFILING Him. Then, how is Israel
saying that the table of the Lord is contemptible? By bringing DEFILED offerings
and not honoring the laws concerning them. The word DEFILED is being used
in two ways here; 1) they offered DEFILED food which is to bring an imperfect
animal (Lev 1:3, 1:10, 3:1, 3:6), and 2) by doing so, DEFILING the whole ordinance
and God (Lev 22:2) . The definition of contemptible is - deserving contempt,
worthy of contempt, despicable, obsolete. It would seem that Israel believes they
are performing the offerings correctly and God is still not blessing them, so they have
rendered the Lord’s table deserving and worthy of contempt, despicable, and obsolete. 

There may have been some element of innocence and ignorance on their part regarding
the offerings that God is trying to correct, however they were still growing bitter at the fact
that no blessing was coming and passive aggressively taking  it out on God. The alternative,
they knew exactly what they were doing, in contempt, because God was not blessing,
intentionally “getting back at God”. Either way, it’s displeasing to God to say the least
and He wants, no needs, to correct it.

   

In verse 8, the Lord continues, and says “you offer blind sacrifices, is this not evil?  

You offer the sick and broken, is this not evil?  If you offered this to your governor 

would he be pleased and accept it?” - Again, continuing to make His point regarding
DEFILED offerings the Lord brings it down to earth and asks, basically, would you
accept this?

Verse 9, “but now will you not pursue God’s favor, that He may be gracious? 

With such an offering on your part will He receive any of you kindly?” says the lord. 

- In other words, “seeing how what you have brought is unacceptable, and considering 

that you have just been told how to correct it, will you now do what is right?”

   

Verse 10, “I wish that there were someone among you who would stop this, that you 

would not start a fire on My altar pointlessly! I’m not happy with you nor will I accept 

your offerings.” says the Lord. Translation – “I would rather you stop sacrificing, 

is there anyone that will step up and stop this? Since what you’re doing is worthless 

and hurting Me and you!” Sometimes we think we’re doing the right thing when in actuality, 

we’re not, and in truth would be better to stop. Ouch!

   

Verse 11, “ from the rising of the sun to its setting My Name will be great in all the earth, 

and in every place incense will be offered to My Name, and a grain offering that is pure; 

for my name will be great in all the earth.” says the Lord. - Basically, Galatians 6:7 "Do not 

be deceived, God is not laughed at or mocked; for whatever man sows, he will also reap." 

He will also purify the offering, making it right and acceptable; and He will find worship 

outside if Israel.  Gal 6:7 can also be applied to verse 10 in that bringing DEFILED offerings 

carries its own consequences.

Verse 12, this is a key verse, “but you are PROFANING your offering, in that you say 

‘the alter is DEFILED and as for its food, it is to be despised’. - Wow! This is a
heavy verse! Again, blaming God and His alter, they are saying by their actions, which
reveal their hearts and thoughts, that performing the offerings is useless, worthless,
and is to be hated because God is not blessing anyway! So why do it at all,
"we hate this"!

Verse 13, ‘you also say how burdensome it is!’ you disdainfully sniff at it and you bring 

what was stolen, broken, and sick as an offering!  Should I receive that?” says the Lord. 

- This speaks for itself continuing to drive home the point of their attitude toward God 

and His statutes.

Verse 14, “Cursed is the swindler who has an acceptable male in his flock and vows
to give it, but sacrifices a blemished animal to God instead, for I am a great King
and My Name is great in all the earth.” says the Lord. - Can you say hypocrites?
Saying one thing and doing another especially with a bad attitude. This passage
also demonstrates that the priests knew the right thing to do, ”who has an acceptable
male in his flock and vows to give it”, but does not. Again, insert Gal 6:7.

Conclusion to chapter 1 –

There are some key lessons to learn here.

1 – Let us be open to God’s rebuke, reproof, correction, and opinion. 

We’re pretty sure that no matter what He says, He’s right. Whether He’s trying 

to correct us as a group or individually, what do you say we learn to listen?

2 – Let us not be short or sarcastic with Him. Israel had an opportunity to ask sincerely 

“how have you loved us?” or “how have we despised You?” but did not. Lets learn 

from their mistakes!

3 – Lets trust Him. And if you/we can’t, let us be honest about it that we might be able 

to work on it with Him from an open and honest place.

4 – God basically spends the first 5 verses setting up the rest of the chapter
with background of where the Israelites were in their relationship with Him.
They were bitter, sarcastic, self-reliant, and distrusting.

5 – From verses 6-14 God uses to describe how and why Israel is not being blessed 

in great detail and reiteration, obviously wanting to drive home these points. 

And beginning in verse 6 starts these little references that unless you know what to look 

and listen for, you will miss them.

    Verse 6 – a reference to the priests

    Verse 7 – the words defiled and alter

    Verse 8 – sacrifices 

    Verse 9 – offering 

    Verse 10 – alter and offerings

    Verse 11 – offering

    Verse 12 – profaning, offering, alter, defiled, food

    Verse 13 – offering

    Verse 14 – sacrifices

All in all, there are at least 15 references in chapter 1. References to what you ask? 

an ordinance; the ordinance of the tithes and offerings. This ordinance explains what 

the tithes and offerings are and how they are to be used.

Q – What does it means to defile or profane the offering?

A – Defile means: to mar, spoil, degrade, debase, violate,

       to desecrate or profane (something sacred)

       Profane describes more the attitude or behavior of a person and means to be:

       irreverent, irreligious, ungodly, godless, unbelieving, impious, disrespectful, 

      and sacrilegious.

      

To defile or profane the offerings all that has to be done is to break one of the rules. 

Whether it’s bringing impure animals, not bringing enough, not cleaning them correctly, 

burning the wrong things on the alter, to having the wrong attitude and the wrong person 

partaking. All of which they did. Let us not.

And this is just chapter 1!

If you have a comment please state it either in a post
or at  -  TheMalachiBlessing@gmail.com

Thank you

The Malachi Blessing, Operation: Restore the Tithe, TheMalachiBlessing@gmail.com
TheMalachiBlessing.blogspot.com

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