A Corrupt Sacrifice

scpChristian Living

“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” (Malachi 1:14).

If I were to give a summary statement of the Bible and what it is, I would say the Scripture is a book about sin and what to do about it. The Scriptures start off with sin and throughout the Bible it tells us what to do with it and at the end of the Bible it tells us where man is going to go for eternity by what he or she does about the sins! For the wages of sin is “death.”

Throughout the Scriptures they tell us if we will have Heaven on earth or Hell on earth in accordance to what we do with sin as a redeemed child of God. There are two Heavens and two Hells. One is for eternity and never ends while one is for a lifetime and ends. Some people, the saved, are living in Hell on their way to Heaven while some people, unsaved, are living in Heaven on their way to Hell. Some of the unsaved are living in Hell on their way to Hell, while a remnant of the redeemed are living in Heaven on their way to Heaven and all of this is in line with what man does with the sin question.

God’s argument with Israel was concerning sin and the sacrifice. The only thing you have to settle to go to Heaven is the sin question! One can settle every other question in life, but if one does not settle the sin question then man will miss Heaven and go to Hell for an eternity.

Man can settle the church question and still go to Hell at death
Man can settle the baptism question and still go to Hell at death
Man can settle the communion question and still go to Hell at death
Man can settle the worldliness question and still go to Hell at death

However, man cannot go to Heaven without settling the sin question. The Scriptures are given to man so man will know what to do about sin and its cure! God’s big argument with Israel was concerning that cure! When Israel sinned and when God initiated the great type of Calvary and of Jesus, called the Passover, God gave specific instructions concerning the sacrifice that would be acceptable to God!

This whole concept of the Bible is this, “Sin must be paid for!” Man must pay for it or man must find an acceptable suitable sacrifice to pay for his or her sins. God told Moses to tell the people on the tenth day of the first month to choose a sacrifice.

First God wanted that sacrifice to be a lamb
Second God wanted that sacrifice to be a male lamb
Third God wanted that sacrifice to a male lamb without blemish
Fourth God wanted that sacrifice to be a male lamb without blemish and observed for four days
Fifth God wanted man to put his hands on that lamb to picture the transfer of sins to that lamb
Sixth God wanted the lamb slain and the blood captured
Seventh God wanted the blood of the slain lamb to be applied to the doorposts and lintels of the house

All of this was pointing to Jesus Who would someday be God’s only acceptable sacrifice for man’s sin. Not only would they have to choose a lamb, a male lamb, a male lamb without blemish, and a male lamb without blemish that was observed for four days but also they had to literally lay their hands on its head to symbolically picture Jesus Christ as man’s only individual acceptable sacrifice for sin by God.

One may turn over a new leaf but it will do no good without settling the sin question. One may join every church in town and it will not suffice without settling the sin question. One may confess sins in a telephone booth to one who needs his own confessional booth, but until the sin question is addressed it will do no good. One may take the Lord’s Supper every week and it will not accomplish any good without settling the sin question.

In Exodus chapter 12, the great Passover chapter, the death angel passed over and the death angel took the first born of every family that refused to apply the shed blood to their doorposts and lintels of their house. The result was good people died and bad people lived because the issue was not goodness or badness for the issue was the applied shed blood of the acceptable sacrifice to God. Church members died and church members lived because the issue was not church membership, but was the shed blood applied? People who took communion died while people who did not take communion lived because the issue was not communion but the issue was the shed blood applied?

God’s plan has been centered on the sin question that there must be an innocent acceptable substitute for man’s sins.

Here is what was happening in the book of Malachi! There was a group of people who did not obey God’s law and God’s instructions concerning the sacrifice for sin. Maybe someone choose a female lamb, or a different kind of animal, or maybe a male lamb with an illness, or they chose a lamb that was a male that had some kind of a wound, or maybe they did not observe the lamb for four days.

Please understand when God said, “Without blemish” He meant “Without blemish”! However, the people were bringing the lambs that were not good to eat. They were sickly lambs that were not going to live anyway. Maybe it was a lamb with an awful disease to soon cause death. They would bypass the male lamb without blemish and bring a diseased dying lamb to offer on the altar to God.

Thus God writes the book of Malachi to His people telling them that the lambs they were bringing were not acceptable to Him. Likewise, they were bringing the wrong kind of bread and putting polluted bread on the Table of Shewbread. God said, “I cannot and will not accept that kind of polluted bread or corrupt offering.”

God dedicated an entire book of the Bible to His people about a lamb that was sick being offered, a blind lamb, or a crippled lamb and God said, “That lamb is not acceptable because it is corrupt!” Why must it be a lamb, because it pictures Jesus Christ God’s only begotten Son. Why must it be a male lamb, a male lamb without blemish, and a male lamb without blemish observed for four days because it pictured the coming Messiah! Why must it be a male lamb without blemish observed for four days whose shed blood is applied on the doorposts and lintels because it represents Jesus Christ!

Jesus is our perfect sinless male Lamb who was killed, whose blood was sprinkled on the Mercy Seat in Heaven, and is the substitute for all of the sins of the redeemed. It is not just the shed blood of the Lamb of God but also the applied blood of the Lamb of God that saves a man’s soul from Hell! A dead male lamb will not do the job! The blood of that lamb must be applied in order to satisfy the sin question!

On that Day of Atonement when the innocent sacrifice was made the High Priest would take the blood of the innocent lamb and go inside of the Holy of Holies to sprinkle that particular blood on the Mercy Seat. If that blood had stayed out on the Brazen Altar the High Priest could not have hollered, “It is finished!” The result would be no atonement because God would not accept it without the shed blood being applied.

What can wash away my sin?
Nothing but the blood of Jesus

Mankind’s hope for Heaven and the answer to the sin question is an acceptable sacrifice in the presence and the sight of Almighty God. May I remind you the sacrifice pictured Jesus, which means Jesus must be virgin born in order to acceptable to God.

John the Baptist on the banks of the Jordan pointed to Jesus. He did not say, “Behold the example to the world,” or “Behold the King of kings,” or “Behold the Lord of lords,” but he did say, “Behold the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world”.

No need for any more offering of lambs, turtle doves, Passover, Day of Atonement, of goats, rams, or bullocks but that sacrifice must be Virgin born.

God comes to His people in the days of Malachi and says, “You have corrupted my altar by bringing blind animals, sick animals, and dying animals.” God also comes to the liberals of our day and says, “You have polluted and corrupted my altar because you are preaching a Saviour who is not virgin born. Literally “Another Jesus!”

If Jesus is not virgin born then he is not a lamb without blemish and if he is not a lamb without blemish he cannot save the soul of a single person. God says to the liberals of our day, “You have polluted and corrupted my altar.” If the seed of a Roman soldier conceived Jesus then he is not an acceptable sacrifice. If Jesus was born to an adulteress he is not an acceptable sacrifice. If Jesus committed one sin he is not an acceptable sacrifice.

Many will not like what I am about to write but that has never stopped me before. The writers and publishers who are responsible for other versions of the Scriptures that lead the reader to the conclusion that Jesus Christ was merely born of a “young woman” are polluting the altar. Those who attack the “preserved inspiration” of the English King James bible are polluting the altar. They are also liberals in the clearest sense for when you attack the “Written Word” you are attacking the “Living Word.”

Jesus the “Living Word” is still alive and Jesus the “Written Word” is still alive. To infer any other thought is an attack on the Lord Jesus Christ being without blemish. If the “Living Word” is without blemish then it only makes sense that the “Written Word” must also be without blemish. Liberals do not like that thought! Unfortunately we have so-called fundamentalist who are offended at being called “liberal” while doing the same thing as the “liberals” do attacking Jesus Christ the “Living Word” via attacking the “Written Word.” No difference!

Think about this for a minute? If we are saved by His life as Romans 5:10 says then there has to be a “Written Word” that is also alive, breathing, and inspired in order to keep the redeemed saved. What a fascinating thought! Any one who says differently is a LIBERAL!

Jesus’ hands never took any thing they should not have taken. His tongue did not speak any thing it should not have spoken. His feet never walked a path they should not have walked. His mind never thought a thought it should not have. His heart never had a motive it should not have had. His ears never heard any thing they should not have heard.

He lived for thirty-three years a perfect life on planet earth. His enemies said, “Surely this was the Son of God”. His own enemies said, “I find not fault in this man.” Away with those imposters with their clerical monotone who stand behind a pulpit and say Jesus was not perfect. I object!

Jesus was a male
Jesus was a male lamb
Jesus was male lamb without blemish
Jesus was God’s acceptable sacrifice

They who say Jesus was imperfect are offering a corrupt sacrifice, which God will not accept. Your hope and my hope is that the sin question be cared for. The sin question must be addressed and answered.

If you have never trusted the perfect, virgin born, resurrected, sinless, without sin, without spot Son of God: whose blood is in Heaven this very day and appears there in the presence of Jesus Christ Himself as He intercedes for you, then you are not saved!

You can live a good life and still die and go to Hell. You can do all the right religious rituals and still die and end up in Hell unless you settle the sin question. The only way to settle the sin question is with the Lamb question!

THERE IS ANOTHER SACRIFICE

The Apostle Paul says something about another sacrifice when he said in Romans 12:1-2 there is a “…living sacrifice, holy, acceptable, unto God which is your reasonable service”.

The lame, the blind, and the sick ought to be brought to Jesus for salvation but the lame, the blind, and the sick ought not to be brought to Jesus as a sacrifice. The sacrifice the redeemed are to offer to God is the sacrifice of our physical bodies. This is to be a “living” sacrifice not a “dead” sacrifice.

Once man has settled the sin question by the sacrifice of God’s Son Jesus Christ. God turns to us and says, “I want a sacrifice from you and I want it to be a living sacrifice.” Someone says, “Why I would die for Jesus!” God’s not concerned about you dying for Him for a dead carcass cannot go soul winning, cannot feed a hungry person, cannot go to the mission field, cannot lift a fallen person, and cannot give the message of redeeming grace to someone. God is not concerned about you dying for Him. God is concerned about you living for Him.

In our day and time we have become just like the Jews in the days of Malachi. They took some peddling blind lamb out of the flock and offered that because they wanted to keep the best for themselves.

There are people reading this who have brought a little peddling sacrifice of your bodies to Jesus. You have left the best of yourself for yourself and God responds by saying, “That will not do!” Once we have settled the sin question by accepting the Son of God as the only perfect sacrifice then God says, “I want your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God.”

God is saying, “I do not want a bruised, sick, blind, lame, crippled, maimed, and wounded sacrifice.” God wants your all. Yet, we bring a sacrifice loose with the opposite sex, a sacrifice of minds filled with dirty sitcoms, and a mental library filled with corruption. We bring a sacrifice with cigarettes in our pockets while God pleads for us to bring a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God.

We bring a sacrifice of soap operas, religious rock, rock music, mini-skirt wearing, yoga pant wearing, short wearing, shaggy hair on the males, bobbed hair on the females, earring wearing males, motorcycle riding pastor’s wives, and beach going corrupted physical sacrifices: while God says, “Love not the world neither the things that are in the world”.

Some reading this have brought polluted and corrupted sacrifices to God for the sin question when you brought your church membership, baptism, holy communion, confessional, and the turning over of a new leaf. However, only a Lamb that is acceptable to Jehovah God will take away sin! That Lamb is the only Begotten Son of God Jesus Christ of whom John the Baptist said, “Behold the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world.”

Then that same God comes and says now that you are redeemed and settled the sin question by the accepting of my Son as a sacrifice for your sin I want you to offer your physical body as a living sacrifice so others will be able to answer the sin question!

God wants the money in my wallet
God wants the wallet that holds the money
God wants the pants the wallet is in
God wants the man that wears the pants
God wants the heart of the man in the pants
God wants our all