- Chapter 6 -
Obedience Is the Greatest Sacrifice
Yahshua says, “You confess me with your lips,” you talk about me all day long, “but your hearts are far from Me.” It is not wholehearted devotion; it is not a heart that is giving Him all that is His due. Beware of hypocrisy; beware of the yeast of religious self-righteousness. We live as the world, but we profess Him with our lips and the world looks at it and says, “Yuk, I don’t want that, they are nothing but a bunch of hypocrites.”
Yahveh said, “Do not be deceived He will not be mocked.” (Galatians 6:7) We have to sow according to His spirit and His spirit is saying, “Give Him all the praise, all the honor, all the glory. Fear only Him and not man. This is His due.” Are you going to rob Him of His due? Because He has sworn by His word and sovereignty, as we read in Zechariah, that His scroll, like a plumb line is going to go over the earth to measure the hearts of people in righteousness
Malachi, (meaning messenger of Yah) was sent to Yahveh’s people who were called to be holy priests; priests had no inheritance in this world because Yahveh alone was to be their exceedingly great reward. The blood of Yahshua has redeemed us to be a holy priesthood and so the following admonition is for us as well. “A son honors his father, and a servant his master. Then if I am a father, where is My honor?” (Malachi 1:6) If you profess I am your heavenly Father where is the honor due Me? The honor He specifies is not some cheap lip service. “And if I am a master, where is My respect? Says Yahveh of hosts to you, O priests who despise My name.” (His name Yahveh, the embodiment of all His being) “But you say (the priesthood), ‘How have we despised Your name?’ You are presenting defiled food upon My altar. But You say, ‘How have we defiled You?’ In that you say, ‘The table of Yahveh is to be despised.’ “But when you present the blind for sacrifice, is it not evil? (You bring me something that doesn’t even appeal to you.) Why not offer it to your governor? Would he be pleased with you? Or would he receive you kindly? Says Yahveh of hosts. (Malachi 1:6-8)
Try bringing such a maimed, crippled, yucky sacrifice to someone you really want to impress. You wouldn’t do it, but you do it to Him. He said, “Sacrifice and offerings He does not desire,” it is obedience that He wants. Obedience is the greatest sacrifice, but we don’t bring that to Him, we bring Him our lives that go about with selfish ambition and vain conceit, pleasing men, doing what pleases us, with the lust of the flesh, the pride of life, we give Him lip service and that is suppose to be our sacrifice? He wants obedience.
Yahshua said, “If you love me you are going to obey me.” Love is the bottom line, the love of Yahveh, with the fear of Yahveh, will brings wisdom to know how to serve and honor Him. In verse 10 of Malachi 1 Yahveh goes on to say, “Oh that there were one among you who would shut the gates (temple doors), that you might not uselessly kindle fire on My altar!”
If you are going through rituals and motions, sitting on pews, having no intention of obeying Him fully, it is a useless fire. You are going to give Him some half-hearted maimed sacrifice. “I am not pleased with you says Yahveh of hosts, “nor will I accept an offering from you.” He is not going to accept your lips service even if you cry out to Him day and night. The only heart He will listen to is a humble and a contrite heart, (Isaiah 66:2) who trembles at His word and obeys it.
If you do not have any intention to love Him with all of your heart and because of that love to obey Him, have a good time, go and be cold. Go join the world and do what they do because this is going to be the end of all your joy and fun. “Let your yes be yes and your no be no,” either you want to serve Him wholeheartedly in complete obedience and find out what pleases Him and do it or you are just a hypocrite and He says to beware of that yeast. It puffs you up with religious pride and you think you are fine before Him and He says, “A useless fire you have lit, you have brought me an unacceptable sacrifice, close the door I do not even want to see or hear from you.”
“From the rising of the sun, even to its setting My name will be great among the nations, and in every place incense (which is prayer) is going to be offered to My name, and an offering that is pure;” (Malachi 1:11)
Yahveh will have a remnant, because He says, “My name will be great among the nations.” He is going to have a remnant that will glorify and honor His name because they fear Him, and they love Him, and they do His will at any cost. And they will be rejected and despised because of it because the world hated Him first and it is going to hate them but He will protect and give them all the eternal promises that are for the righteous remnant.
“But you are profaning it, (He is talking about His name) in that you say, ‘The table of Yahveh is defiled, and as for its fruit, its food is to be despised.’ “You also say, ‘My how tiresome it is! And you disdainfully sniff at it,” says Yahveh. (Malachi 1:12)
Yahveh sees what is going on in our hearts. There are people who say and have said, “I am going to a traditional church, I don’t want to hear this, just like Israel said, “Tell us pleasant things, prophesy illusions. Leave the way, get off this path, and stop confronting us with the Holy One of Israel!”Therefore this is what Yahveh says: “Because you have rejected this message (His word), …and depended on deceit, this sin will become for you like a high wall, cracked and bulging, that collapses suddenly in an instant (and you will be caught under the rubble)”. (Isaiah 30:10-13) It is because you did not want to hear from Him, much less obey Him. You preferred deceit, it is more comfortable and eww what a burden, I don’t like Yahveh’s table. I don’t like His requirements.
Yahshua said, “My food is doing the will of My Father.” (John 4:34) That is to be our food and if you don’t like that particular banqueting table and all its ingredients DINE OUT, because He does not want to see you anyway until you repent and call His banquet pure, and holy, and satisfying beyond all else.
Back to Malachi, “And you bring was is taken by robbery, and what is lame or sick; so you bring the offering! Should I receive that from your hand?” says Yahveh. “But cursed be the swindler, (cursed be the thief, cursed be the robber), who has a male in his flock, and vows it, but sacrifices a blemished animal to Yahveh, for I am a great King,” says Yahveh and My name is to be feared among the nations.” (Malachi 1:13-14)
We all have a life to give Him and He says we are cursed if we only bring Him some cheap sacrifice of lip service, a little token of religiosity. Paul says in Romans 12:1-2, “I beseech you brethren by the mercies of Yahveh, (that has shown mercy to you by pouring out His son’s blood to redeem you to Himself). I beseech YOU to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to Yahveh, which is your spiritual service of worship.” Offer everything, body, soul, spirit, and mind upon His holy altar an acceptable sacrifice made holy through repentant hearts that are covered in the blood of Yahshua. This holy sacrifice of your life is His due.
There is no in between do you understand that? Yahveh is going to judge the world in righteousness and the enemy has come to deceive the whole world. There is a broad path that the multitudes in religion go down, and they think they are going to be just fine and “many will say to Him on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in Your name, and in Your name cast out demons, and in Your name perform many miracles? And then Yahshua will declare to them, I never knew you; Depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness.’ (Matthew 7:22-23) “You are a hypocrite, you confess Me with your lips but your hearts are far from Me. I don’t know you, you don’t do the will of My Father, and you are going to be cast out with those who never professed to know Me.” These are His words.
What a salvation, what a high price beyond compare has been poured out on our behalf. Should we give Him anything less that our whole lives, our talents, gifts, strength and might, to serve, honor and glorify Him? May we fear His name and want to do this out of love and with a whole heart.
We started in Zechariah with the scroll of Yahveh’s words being opened to 15 by 30 feet so that no one could say they could not see it. He said, “In a day of darkness and gloom the scroll would be opened” and people would begin to understand and they wouldn’t complain anymore because the darkness in the earth was going to become so dreadful that all of a sudden they are going to realize I’ve got to give Him everything. But why wait that long, open your eyes, judgment is at the door, it is in the door! “Now is the day of salvation.”
People want peace, peace, sweet, soft, cuddly, love, grace messages. The grace is; the blood is on the altar and when you repent for your transgressions of His righteousness your sins will be forgiven. It is not to keep on sinning and in the process trample the blood of the Lamb under your feet and treat it as an unholy thing. Over and over again in Paul’s epistles he tells us to exhort and admonish one another. People don’t like that, they say, ”Give me peace, stop confronting me with all this holiness. I don’t like this table, I don’t like the food on it, I am going somewhere else where I can just get pie and desserts and what is sweet and nice and appeals to me.”
Yahshua will spew you out of His mouth because you are lukewarm and very unappealing to Him. He will spew you out of His mouth just as you spew out of your mouth, turn up your nose, and say, “I don’t like this holy banqueting table. I don’t like going around being separate and peculiar while the rest of the people that I hang around with live a life of fun. Going to religious church services and some Bible studies is enough for me.”
“Come out from their midst and be separate, says Yahveh, and do not touch what is unclean; and I will welcome you. And I will be a father to you, and you shall be sons and daughters to Me. Says Yahveh Almighty.” (2 Corinthians 6:17)
Could it be clearer? Anyone who cannot see the clarity of this is ridden with self-deception and may Yahveh deliver all of us from the malady that has come from Satan. He has come to deceive the whole world and he has done a wonderful job and it permeates all forms of religion.