I had a young man that wanted to
learn more about his Bible, so we started a Bible Institute course. When he handed in his homework, the essay
questions consisted of 2-10 words. When I asked him about it, he said, “I’m doing
what you want.” He always tried to do the very minimum of anything asked of him
and then was astonished when it wasn’t enough. He could also twist a request
into something totally opposite.
God is telling the Jews in this
passage that they were doing the very same thing and they reacted just like the
young man I mentioned. They had gotten
to the point that they didn’t see the importance of serving God. As a result,
they considered proud people happy. The held up wickedness and a good thing.
They even protected those that tempted God.
Doesn’t this sound like America
today? We have “Christians” that do their own thing and call it Christianity.
They think worship is pointless. We have gay pride, for example. It is promoted
and broadcast as happiness. Those that want to stifle Christianity are
considered right and Christians as evil. The wicked are treated with honor and
respect while Christians are insulted and even jailed.
The place to start to turn this
around is my heart. Like Malachi told the Jews, we Christians have failed, but
don’t realize it or are in denial. I need to apply this passage to me.
“Your words have been stout against me, saith the LORD. Yet ye say,
What have we spoken so much against thee? Ye have said, It is vain to serve
God: and what profit is it that we have kept his ordinance, and that we have
walked mournfully before the LORD of hosts? And now we call the proud happy;
yea, they that work wickedness are set up; yea, they that tempt God are even
delivered.” Malachi 3:13-15.
© copyright Kevin T Boekhoff
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