"You are presenting defiled food upon My altar.
But you say, 'How have we defiled You?' In that you say, 'The table of the LORD
is to be despised.' "But when you present the blind for sacrifice, is it
not evil? And when you present the lame and sick, is it not evil? Why not offer
it to your governor? Would he be pleased with you? Or would he receive you
kindly?" says the LORD of hosts.
Insights: In verse seven God accuses Israel of
bringing defiled food to His altar. This
word defiled is a play on words. There
is another word which is more often used to describe food that is bad or
defiled. But God wanted to compare their
offerings to their attitude of despising Him found in verse six. Look at these two transliterations of each of
these words. In verse seven “defiled” in
Hebrew is ga’al. In verse six “despise” in Hebrew is gaʽal.
Notice the only difference is the apostrophe’s direction. So, God is doing a play on words. He is really telling Israel the offerings
they bring are really abhorrent and loathsome and it is because they despise
God that they are bringing such worthless offerings to worship. Some reading this thought might be saying to
themselves, “This portion of the letter is really being writing to the priests
or ministers. It does not apply to me.” Let me quote Ron Brown for a moment. He wrote, “While the priests bore
responsibility for the deficient way worship was conducted, the people weren’t
exempt from the accusation. Yes, the
priests were guilty of offering defective offerings, but the offerings came
from the people. They too were guilty of
dishonoring God by their misplaced priorities.”
Brown goes on to ask a potent question.
He asked, “How do we ‘blame’ our pastors and others when we’ve failed to
worship?” God created us to be a
worshipful people. We worship sports,
materialism, jobs, family, hunting, power, etc.
What we have to be asking ourselves is this: Are we giving the majority
of our worship to these substitute gods and bring the leftovers to the One True
Lord or are we honestly giving God our very best worship? My thoughts, as I evaluate the church, are many,
if not most, are giving God the leftovers of their worship. Part of the reason I believe this is because
of comments I hear so many people make. “Worshippers”
complain about long services. “Worshippers”
complain about songs sung. “Worshippers”
complain about temperature. “Worshippers”
don’t exalt the Lord!
Questions:
- What kind of offering are you bringing to God during
worship?
- Are you giving your best to this world or to the Father
of our salvation?
Prayer: Father, forgive
me when I do not bring You true and sincere worship. I desire to bring You the very best I
have. Give me the courage to focus on
You and You alone and may You receive my offering. Amen.
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