Joshua and Judges: For God's sake, Jos 7:9; Mal 1:6-14.

Title: Joshua and Judges: For God's sake, JOS 7:9; MAL 1:6-14.

 

Announcementsopening prayer:

 

 

JOS 7:8 "O Lord, what can I say since Israel has turned their back before their enemies?

 

JOS 7:9 "For the Canaanites and all the inhabitants of the land will hear of it, and they will surround us and cut off our name from the earth. And what wilt Thou do for Thy great name?"

 

God refers to His name many times in the Bible and great importance is placed upon it.

 

God’s name refers to His person, character, and nature. What He does (and doesn’t do) and what He sanctifies is a direct result of His immutable nature.

 

ISA 48:8 "You have not heard, you have not known.

Even from long ago your ear has not been open,

Because I knew that you would deal very treacherously;

And you have been called a rebel from birth.

 

ISA 48:9 "For the sake of My name I delay My wrath,

And for My praise I restrain it for you,

In order not to cut you off.

 

ISA 48:10 "Behold, I have refined you, but not as silver;

I have tested you in the furnace of affliction.

 

ISA 48:11 "For My own sake, for My own sake, I will act;

For how can My name be profaned?

And My glory I will not give to another.

 

Moses was tested in order to see if he understood the value of God’s name. We are all entrusted with representing His great name.

 

NUM 14:11 And the Lord said to Moses, "How long will this people spurn Me? And how long will they not believe in Me, despite all the signs which I have performed in their midst?

 

NUM 14:12 "I will smite them with pestilence and dispossess them, and I will make you into a nation greater and mightier than they."

 

NUM 14:13 But Moses said to the Lord, "Then the Egyptians will hear of it, for by Thy strength Thou didst bring up this people from their midst,

 

NUM 14:14 and they will tell it to the inhabitants of this land. They have heard that Thou, O Lord , art in the midst of this people, for Thou, O Lord , art seen eye to eye, while Thy cloud stands over them; and Thou dost go before them in a pillar of cloud by day and in a pillar of fire by night.

 

NUM 14:15 Now if Thou dost slay this people as one man, then the nations who have heard of Thy fame will say,

 

NUM 14:16 'Because the Lord could not bring this people into the land which He promised them by oath, therefore He slaughtered them in the wilderness.'

 

NUM 14:17 "But now, I pray, let the power of the Lord be great, just as Thou hast declared,

 

NUM 14:18 'The Lord  is slow to anger and abundant in lovingkindness, forgiving iniquity and transgression; but He will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and the fourth generations.'

 

NUM 14:19 "Pardon, I pray, the iniquity of this people according to the greatness of Thy lovingkindness, just as Thou also hast forgiven this people, from Egypt even until now."

 

NUM 14:20 So the Lord said, "I have pardoned them according to your word;

 

NUM 14:21 but indeed, as I live, all the earth will be filled with the glory of the Lord.

 

When Israel was in Egypt and wouldn’t cease from worshipping Egyptian idols the Lord would not destroy them.

 

EZE 20:8 Then I resolved to pour out My wrath on them, to accomplish My anger against them in the midst of the land of Egypt.

 

EZE 20:9 "But I acted for the sake of My name, that it should not be profaned in the sight of the nations among whom they lived, in whose sight I made Myself known to them by bringing them out of the land of Egypt.

 

The same occurred in the wilderness of Sinai and yet the Lord would still not fully destroy them.

 

EZE 20:13 Then I resolved to pour out My wrath on them in the wilderness, to annihilate them.

 

EZE 20:14 "But I acted for the sake of My name, that it should not be profaned in the sight of the nations, before whose sight I had brought them out.

 

The same occurred with their children and grandchildren in the Promised Land as they turned towards the idols of their fathers, but still the Lord would not destroy them - all on account of His name.

 

EZE 20:21 "But the children rebelled against Me; they did not walk in My statutes, nor were they careful to observe My ordinances, by which, if a man observes them, he will live; they profaned My sabbaths. So I resolved to pour out My wrath on them, to accomplish My anger against them in the wilderness.

 

EZE 20:22 "But I withdrew My hand and acted for the sake of My name, that it should not be profaned in the sight of the nations in whose sight I had brought them out.

 

Despite the fact that God’s people profane His name that will not stop it from being great throughout the world.

 

MAL 1:6 "'A son honors his father, and a servant his master. Then if I am a father, where is My honor? And if I am a master, where is My respect?' says the Lord of hosts to you, O priests who despise My name. But you say, 'How have we despised Thy name?'

 

MAL 1:7 "You are presenting defiled food upon My altar. But you say, 'How have we defiled Thee?' In that you say, 'The table of the Lord is to be despised.'

 

MAL 1:8 "But when you present the blind for sacrifice, is it not evil? And when you present the lame and sick, is it not evil? Why not offer it to your governor? Would he be pleased with you? Or would he receive you kindly?" says the Lord of hosts.

 

MAL 1:9 "But now will you not entreat God's favor, that He may be gracious to us? With such an offering on your part, will He receive any of you kindly?" says the Lord of hosts.

 

MAL 1:10 "Oh that there were one among you who would shut the gates, that you might not uselessly kindle fire on My altar! I am not pleased with you," says the Lord of hosts, "nor will I accept an offering from you.

 

The desire is for someone, in love of and devotion to God’s great name, to shut the door of the inner court where the brazen altar stood in order to stop the profane sacrifices that Israel was offering.

 

God does not need sacrifices for His sustenance. The sacrifices are for man’s understanding that he is dependent on God for salvation, life, and every other blessing and for which he should honor God.

 

These priests came to believe that God depended on these sacrifices and they had lost the reality of what they meant. God does not need sacrifices for the maintenance of His existence, and He does not demand them for this purpose, but He demands them as signs of the dependence of men upon Him, or of the recognition on the part of men that they are indebted to God for salvation, life and every other blessing, and owe Him honor, praise, and thanksgiving in return.

 

By this time, some years after the return of Israel to Jerusalem and after the rebuilding of the walls, the city, and the temple, the priests had come to believe that any sacrificial animal was good enough for God, while they kept the best animals for their own profits.

 

MAL 1:11 "For from the rising of the sun, even to its setting, My name will be great among the nations, and in every place incense is going to be offered to My name, and a grain offering that is pure; for My name will be great among the nations," says the Lord  of hosts.

 

God's name had spread throughout the world and would continue to do so until the Millennial reign of Christ in which the literal resurrected Christ physically rules the globe.

 

The participle can be used as a present or a future, so then it may be that God is saying that His name “is” great or that it “will be” great among the nations. Both work, since the name of the Lord is known to the nations and it is great whether they recognize it or not. The future Millennium establishes His name as great all over the world in a visible resurrected Christ on the throne of Israel.

 

One example is found in Act 17:

 

ACT 17:23-24

"For while I was passing through and examining the objects of your worship, I also found an altar with this inscription, 'TO AN UNKNOWN GOD.' What therefore you worship in ignorance, this I proclaim to you. "The God who made the world and all things in it,

 

In all pagan mythologies there were some truths though they were not completely true. The only source of truth is God and so the truths that they did contain, as small as they may have been, were borrowed from God.

 

Where else could they have found such fragments of truth that they surround with untruths if not from the great name of God proclaimed throughout the world?

 

I borrow some of the wording from CS Lewis' book Abolition of Man and use it to describe how bits of truth from God are used in false systems.

 

The fragments of truths that are in false systems have all been arbitrarily wrenched from their context in the whole of God's truth and then swollen to madness in their isolation yet still owing to God and to Him alone such validity as they possess. The rebellion of religions both ancient and modern against God and the whole body of His truth is a rebellion of the branches against the vine.

 

We have also seen that all of Canaan feared Jehovah and also that Balaam knew of Him and therefore so did all the Midianites. His name is great in the world even though some in the world do not believe in Him.

 

ZEP 2:11

The Lord will be terrifying to them, for He will starve all the gods of the earth; and all the coastlands of the nations will bow down to Him, everyone from his own place.

 

God doesn’t need us to glorify Him. He has given us the privilege to do so.

  

PSA 46:8 Come, behold the works of the Lord,

Who has wrought desolations in the earth.

 

PSA 46:9 He makes wars to cease to the end of the earth;

He breaks the bow and cuts the spear in two;

He burns the chariots with fire.

 

PSA 46:10 "Cease striving and know that I am God;

I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth."

 

PSA 46:11 The Lord of hosts is with us;

The God of Jacob is our stronghold.

 

EXO 15:14-15

"The peoples have heard, they tremble;

Anguish has gripped the inhabitants of Philistia.

"Then the chiefs of Edom were dismayed;

The leaders of Moab, trembling grips them;

All the inhabitants of Canaan have melted away.

 

MAL 1:12 "But you are profaning it, in that you say, 'The table of the Lord is defiled, and as for its fruit, its food is to be despised.'

 

MAL 1:13 "You also say, 'My, how tiresome it is!' And you disdainfully sniff at it," says the Lord of hosts, "and you bring what was taken by robbery, and what is lame or sick; so you bring the offering! Should I receive that from your hand?" says the Lord.

 

MAL 1:14 "But cursed be the swindler who has a male in his flock, and vows it, but sacrifices a blemished animal to the Lord, for I am a great King," says the Lord  of hosts, "and My name is feared among the nations."

 

They offer blind, lame, and diseased animals to the Lord. They even offer stolen animals to the Lord. This intricate part of the Mosaic Law, they despise. Therefore they distain His name, but it is of no consequence in regards to the greatness of God’s name, for it will be great in all the earth.

 

And in Israel, there is always a remnant which will continue to exist until the first Advent of Christ some 450 years in the future. Until then, the OT is closed.

 

MAL 4:2

"But for you who fear My name the sun of righteousness will rise with healing in its wings; and you will go forth and skip about like calves from the stall.

 

A life lived for His name, for His sake, continues into the church age, but not under the Law, but under the unique plan for the church.