'Offer it now unto thy governor; will he be pleased with thee, or
accept thy person? saith the Lord of Hosts.'--MALACHI i. 8.
A word of explanation may indicate my purpose in selecting this, I am
afraid, unfamiliar text. The Prophet has been vehemently rebuking a
characteristic mean practice of the priests, who were offering maimed
and diseased animals in sacrifice. They were probably dishonest as well
as mean, because the worshippers would bring sound beasts, and the
priests, for their own profit, slipped in a worthless animal, and kept
the valuable one for themselves. They had become so habituated to this
piece of economical religion, that they saw no harm in it, and when they
offered the lame and the sick and the blind for sacrifice they said to
themselves, 'It is not evil.' And so Malachi, with the sudden sharp
thrust of my text, tries to rouse their torpid consciences. He says to
them: 'Take that diseased creature that you are not ashamed to lay on
God's altar, and try what the governor'--the official appointed by the
Persian Kings to rule over the returned exiles--'will think about it.
Will an offering of that sort be considered a compliment or an insult?
Do you think it will smooth your way or help your suit with him? Surely
God deserves as much reverence as the deputy of Artaxerxes. Surely what
is not good enough for a Persian satrap is not good enough for the Lord
of Hosts. Offer it to the governor, will he be pleased with it? Will he
accept thy person?'
Now, it seems to me that this cheap religion of the priests, and this
scathing irony of the Prophet's counsel need little modification to fit
us very closely. You will bear me witness, I think, that I do not often
speak to you about money. But I am going to try to bring out something
about the great subject of Christian administration of earthly
possessions from this text, because I believe that the Christian
consciousness of this generation does need a great deal of rousing and
instructing about this matter.