God well knows your and my heart. He knows our attitude, our indifference, our reverence, our hardheartedness, our coldness, our warmth, our zeal, our apathy, our sacrifice, our miserly approach, etc. That is what He exposes against Israel's worship and in particular, against the priests.
Before I unpack the passage and apply to all of us, I want to quickly address two points.
1. This is about OT sacrifices, therefore it doesn't apply to me.
2. This is about church leaders, preachers, elders, deacons, etc. It doesn't apply to me.
I. They did not honor or fear God (v. 6).
Without holy fear, without seeing that God in his majesty, you will neglect him and be indifferent to him. What was the cause of this irreverence, this lack of holy fear? They did not see God to be great (vv. 5, 11, 14)!
II. They showed their irreverence by their worthless sacrifices (vv. 7-9, 13b).
Painless, worthless, blemished sacrifices — Priests accepted them and the people offered them. It cost them very little to nothing. They thought, "Hey, it's better than nothing" (v. 10 says otherwise). They might have left some of these to die but ah, "We can give it to the Lord!"
III. They showed their irreverence by their thoughtless/mindless worship (vv. 9, 10).
LET ME TELL YOU WHERE THIS MINDLESS WORSHIP will lead to — they may have gone to church all their life but they never grow, they never conquer any sin, they never seem to go beyond the basic, they are spiritually clueless, they are always learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth. Please don't be like that. |
