But cursed be the deceiver, which hath in his flock a male, and voweth, and sacrificeth unto the LORD a corrupt thing: for I am a great King, saith the LORD of hosts, and my name is dreadful among the heathen.
But cursed be the deceiver - the hypocrite. Not poverty, but avarice, was the cause of their mean offerings.
Which hath in his flock a male, and voweth, and sacrificeth unto the Lord a corrupt thing - "a male," required by law (Leviticus 1:3; Leviticus 1:10).
For I am a great King - (Psalms 48:2); Matthew 5:35).
And my name is dreadful among the heathen. Even the pagan dread me because of my judgments: what a reproach this is to you, my people, who "fear" me not (Malachi 1:6)! Also it may be translated, 'shall be feared among,' etc.; agreeing with the prophecy of the call of the Gentiles (Malachi 1:11).
Remarks:
(1) The Lord's word is a heavy "burden" upon those who, though called His children, walk unworthily of their high calling (Malachi 1:1). If professors of religion dishonour their profession, instead of having before them an "exceeding and eternal weight of glory" (2 Corinthians 4:17), which is the portion of the saints, they entail on themselves an exceeding and eternal weight of shame and condemnation.
(2) Whatever spiritual privileges any possess are due wholly to the prevenient grace of God, who maketh one to differ from another. God's gratuitous love calls for His people's warmest gratitude and affection. Yet how apt are our naturally ungrateful and unbelieving hearts to repine when the least trial befalls us, and to say, "Wherein hast thou loved us?" (Malachi 1:2). A sadly prolific root of sin is self-love, blinding us to our own sin, which incurs God's chastisements, and to the love of God, which deals with us so infinitely more graciously than we deserve. Hence, it is that those most highly favoured in religious and temporal advantages are often the very persons who show the smallest sense of their obligations to the gracious Giver.
(3) Great as are the difficulties in accepting the doctrine of election, there are still greater to be encountered if we reject it (Malachi 1:2). Yet nothing is arbitrary in God's dealings. If Edom's heritage was laid waste (Malachi 1:3), Edom had himself, not God, to blame for it, inasmuch as it was Edom's own hatred of his brother Israel which brought upon himself what, in accommodation to human conceptions, is called here the "hatred" of God, but which is in truth His judicial displeasure against sin.
(4) It is in vain that the sinner thinks to reverse the unalterable sentence of God, when once it has gone forth. Though Edom, after his disaster, rebuilt his cities, God has long since thrown them down (Malachi 1:4); and Idumea is now, in fact, what the prophet of old foretold it would be, the "border of wickedness," the haunt of the Bedouin robber. On the other hand, the Jews still exist as a distinct people, though scattered among the nations; and as the first part of the prophecy has been fulfilled in Edom's extinction, so shall the rest of it also come to pass in Israel's restoration: and then, in respect to both fulfillments alike, the people of God's covenant of grace, when they shall see the event with their eyes, shall say, "The Lord will be magnified from the border of Israel" (Malachi 1:5). Let sinners remember that if they will not glorify God in their gratuitous salvation, they must glorify Him in their deserved condemnation.
(5) The infinite greatness of God's love to us calls for a return of love on our part. We call Him rightly Father and Lord. (Malachi 1:6): do we, then, give Him the "honour" which is due to a father, and the reverent "fear" which is due to a master? Acts of loving obedience, not empty professions, are the test. Let us, in our self-examination on this point, beware of the blinding influences of self-love. When the Word of God condemns us, let us not parry its stroke by asking, in self-satisfied complacency, "Wherein have we despised Thy name?"
(6) Those who offer to God the dregs of their time, their strength, and their means, are virtually offering "polluted bread upon the altar of God," and treat "the table of the Lord" as "contemptible" (Malachi 1:7). God, who is the Best, claims what is best of His creatures' hands. God is not to be put off with niggardly leavings and gleanings: He demands the "first-fruits" of our all, or else He will accept neither us nor our offerings. God prizes highly the widow's mite, but abhors utterly the miser's mite.
(7) Men often offer to the King of kings what they dare not offer to an earthly king (Malachi 1:8). The scanty and grudged gift is a sacrifice of "the blind;" for it is wanting in that faith which is the soul's eyesight, where-with believers see Him who is "invisible." The service offered to God by one not walking uprightly is a "lame" offering. That offered by one not sound at heart is the offering of the "sick." And that service wherein the offerer suffers distracting thoughts to draw away his mind is a "torn" offering (Malachi 1:13).
(8) It is vain to pray and expect "God will be gracious unto us," when we are habitually and willfully acting ungraciously toward Him (Malachi 1:9). God has "no pleasure in fools" (Malachi 1:10; Ecclesiastes 5:4). Better no offerings than hypocritical ones, which God will not accept. The church "doors" were better altogether "shut" than opened to subserve self-deceit and hypocrisy.
(9) If those now highly favoured as to spiritual privileges will not glorify the name of God as they ought, God will, notwithstanding, never want a people to serve Him (Malachi 1:11). When the Jewish Church failed to magnify the Lord, the kingdom of God was taken from them and passed to the Gentiles. Again, when the present Gentile Church shall cease duly to glorify God, her candlestick shall be removed. And then shall a new and brighter order of things begin, when from Jerusalem the Gospel word shall go forth, and the name of the Lord shall be great among all nations, "from the rising of the sun even unto the going down of the same" (Malachi 1:11).
(10) How many act as if they regarded the table of the Lord as contemptible! They feel as to holy services, sacraments, prayers, and sermons, "Behold, what a weariness is it!" (Malachi 1:13.) "When will the Sabbath be gone, that we may sell grain and set forth wheat?" (Amos 8:5.) Ministers have much to answer for if they do not impress on the people a sense of the high privilege and blessedness of the Lord's services.
(11) The "deceiver" (Malachi 1:14), who devotes his best to his lusts, and puts off God with the worst and the smallest that is consistent with keeping up decent appearances, deceives not God, but himself, and that to his eternal ruin. But, nevertheless, the incense of prayer and praise, and the pure offering of hearts consecrated to God through Christ, shall in due time be offered in every place (Malachi 1:11; Malachi 1:14), and the name of the Saviour shall be universally revered and loved. Let us see that we now duly magnify the name of the great King, the Lord of hosts, with all that we have and all that we are!