(All references are from the book of Malachi unless otherwise noted)
The idea of the carnal, or consistently lukewarm, Christian is so repulsive to my mind for one very simple reason. It doesn’t fit. It defies the nature of God and thus blasphemes His name.
When the nature of God is understood there can only be one of two responses: Hatred or love. God is the personification of the word awesome. He is every human attribute stretched to infinity. His love is incomprehensible and His wrath is unstoppable. He is the ultimate superlative. He is a consuming fire (Ex 24:17, Deut 4:24, 2Sam 22:9, Psa 18:8, Isa 30:27, 30, 33:14, Joel 2:5, Heb 12:29)!
Now I don’t know about you but I have yet to see a person, with a fully functioning nervous system, be indifferent about the touch of a flame. Nobody just sits there unaffected if you throw them in a campfire. There is a necessary reaction to it. It demands response. My point is: fire has nothing on God!
He is everywhere all the time. He is in your life and he is in your mind! Everything about your life - He knows it all from beginning to end! And He is going to judge you for it. You really can’t be indifferent about that. You can pretend to not care but if it’s all true then it is offensive, and frustrating, even maddening. You cannot run or hide. You cannot plot or plan anything without His full knowledge.
Solomon testifies to this in exasperated tone, “who can straighten what He has bent!” Ecclesiastes is really Solomon divulging all his efforts to circumvent the designs of God. And at every turn he is met with utter and complete failure. Wisdom – vanity. Money – vanity. Accomplishments – vanity. Life – vanity! To find meaning outside of God is like trying to catch the wind in your hands. Fredric Nietzsche, of “God is dead” fame, went mad trying to accomplish this same thing (I cannot validate that in the lab but it is certainly my contention and people of his own time drew this conclusion as well).
Truly you cannot come near to this God, the God of the Bible, and not have a strong response. He chooses who He will (Mal 1:2-3). He judges (Mal 3:2, 5, 18; 4:1). He demands obedience (Mal 1:14). And He doesn’t change (Mal 3:6).
Human nature is such that we grow callous to all things if the spark of our affection is not fanned into a flame (Mal 1:13). And even when the flame comes to life it will die unless it is feed. I will allow that this may account for a season of disaffection for Christ but not a life of it. And the reason for our lack of devotion to Him in such times is then centered on our distance from Him, not on a waning of His glory. We have not feed the flame, we have neglected to add fuel to the fire. For the true Christian, a Saint by calling, this diminishing affection is due in large degree to a minimal exposure to the Spirit of God. Some think that the “Daily Bread” portion is aplenty to keep them devoted to God, but ask yourself, “how would that type of offering carry over into any other relationship?” If you had 15 minutes a day with your wife how’s that relationship going to be doing in three years? It is reminiscent of Malachi 1:8:
“When you offer blind animals in sacrifice, is that not evil? And when you offer those that are lame or sick, is that not evil? Present that to your governor; will he accept you or show you favor?”[emphasis added]
Give 10 minutes a day to your wife with a partial attention span and see how that works out. That’s not even good enough for a human how much less for the Lord God of heaven! And yet so often we offer this fraction to God thinking we are doing our part to build a deep relationship with the Lord. Nonsense.
God hates the partially obedient (Mal 2:1). He despises the lip service worshipers who sing great at the song service but whose feet are far from consistently walking the path of righteousness (Mal 2:10, 13-14, 17).
3:1"And now, O priests, this command is for you. 2 If you will not listen, if you will not take it to heart to give honor to my name, says the LORD of hosts, then I will send the curse upon you and I will curse your blessings. Indeed, I have already cursed them, because you do not lay it to heart. 3Behold, I will rebuke your offspring, and spread dung on your faces, the dung of your offerings, and you shall be taken away with it.
Try being indifferent to that! Malachi is a diatribe that goes straight to the heart of the quasi follower of God. God does not tolerate the flakes, the oscillating servants, or the cultural chameleons - those whose only real allegiance is to self. He will be honored and His name will be great (Mal 1:5, 11, 14b, 2:5) and it won’t be from the mouth of a partially committed person playing with worship like it’s a game (Mal 2:8; 3:8). Nope. Those people will be dealt with by the hand of God (Mal 2:9; 3:9). The honor He accepts is from the one who reveres God and stands in awe of Him (Mal 2:5-6, 3:16, 4:2). This inward reality then is manifested in the outward the offerings he makes to God (Mal 3:10), the words that he speaks to people (Mal 2:7) and in the treatment of his fellow man (Mal 2:10 & 15).
The problem I have with the whole idea of a carnal Christian is that it diminishes the consuming nature of God.Their attitude and actions are saying, “God isn’t that big a deal.” That degrades the (ascribed) glory of God in the world. I am thoroughly uncomfortable with the idea of the lukewarm Christian first and foremost because it dishonors God. And if that offends then I’m okay with that.
Is carnality legitimate for the true disciple? Malachi didn’t seem to think so. If you are His He isn’t going to tolerate it (Mal 3:1-4, 17 -18). While the righteous “skip about like calves” the partial, whom God calls “wicked,” will be consumed (Mal 4:1-2). The righteous will dance on their ashes (Mal 4:3).
And lest we miss it, Malachi specifically addresses the priests (Mal 1:6, 2:1, 2:7). This ought to drive the point home. Those given the closest role to God had decided there was more earthly value in fearing man. They had forsaken the Lord of Glory for what? And one must ask why? The priests left the Word of God back in the temple and they willingly accepted lame, blind, and sickly offerings without protest. They didn’t warn the people that they would be condemned and cursed for what they were doing (the book of Malachi!).^ The priests decided they would rather have happy people instead of a happy God and thus went the nation.
As I look at the landscape of Evangelical (which is supposed to mean “those to have recovered and stand on the gospel”) Christianity in America today I see the exact same thing happening. The pastors are so quick to have big, happy congregations that they shy aware from the truth. When I was in college they told me to stay away from “negative” words like “master” and “slave” and to be more accommodating. My friends that is a very slippery slope and I ain’t that guy. I am and always will be a slave to Jesus, my master. And I do and say what he tells me to. If you are bringing obligatory offerings to the Lord – in money, time, or service – you are only heaping condemnation on yourself.
“If the glory of God in the face of Christ is to be seen in the world then it is to shine through us.”* This I believe and hold to and I would add that the converse is also true. That is to say, if we don’t shine we are living in contrast to the purpose of our existence. “Draw near to God and He will draw near to you” (James 4:8) or as Malachi wrote it, “return to Me, and I will return to you (Mal 3:7).”
If you are in sin, return. If you are abiding in Christ, rejoice; skip about like a calf from the stall (Mal 4:2) for the God who outshines the sun smiles upon you.
* Pastor John MacArthur
^Memo to self: just because I am close to Jesus doesn’t mean I am abiding in Him as John warns us in 1John
