Bored to Tears

(My internet service was gone again yesterday but back again today. Job 1:21b . . .The LORD gave, and the LORD has taken away; blessed be the name of the LORD.)

I am using a sermon by Ravi Zacharias called “Worship: A Clue to Meaning in Life” as a guide for the next few entries on worship. I would really like to simply chop up a transcript of the sermon since it is all so meaningful but the need for brevity and continuity will not allow it.

The following text opens the book of Malachi, the last book of the Old Testament and the beginning of the inter-testamental period leading to the coming of Christ. The book is a prophetic message for the people of Israel after about 1000 year period during which nothing notably good or bad happened. The people were unchallenged and apathetic. In Hosea, the people were compared to the prostitute Hosea was ordered to marry. In Ezekiel, being called a prostitute “. . . would have been flattering,” told they were paying their lovers to lie with them. (Ezekiel 16:33-34). During the book of Malachi, they forgot all God had done for them and had become bored:

Malachi 1:2 2 "I have loved you," says the LORD. "But you ask, 'How have you loved us?' "Was not Esau Jacob's brother?" the LORD says. . .
6 ". . .A son honors his father, and a servant his master. If I am a father, where is the honor due me? If I am a master, where is the respect due me?" says the LORD Almighty. "It is you, O priests, who show contempt for my name. "But you ask, 'How have we shown contempt for your name?' 7 "You place defiled food on my altar. "But you ask, 'How have we defiled you?' "By saying that the LORD's table is contemptible. 8 When you bring blind animals for sacrifice, is that not wrong? When you sacrifice crippled or diseased animals, is that not wrong? Try offering them to your governor! Would he be pleased with you? Would he accept you?" says the LORD Almighty.
10 ". . . Oh, that one of you would shut the temple doors, so that you would not light useless fires on my altar! I am not pleased with you," says the LORD Almighty, "and I will accept no offering from your hands. 11 My name will be great among the nations, from the rising to the setting of the sun. In every place incense and pure offerings will be brought to my name, because my name will be great among the nations," says the LORD Almighty. 12 "But you profane it by saying of the Lord's table, 'It is defiled,' and of its food, 'It is contemptible.' 13 And you say, 'What a burden!' and you sniff at it contemptuously," says the LORD Almighty. "When you bring injured, crippled or diseased animals and offer them as sacrifices, should I accept them from your hands?" says the LORD.

“What an opening message for a closing book. . . . God had actually become a boring entity. . . . that is the end result when worship loses its worth.”

"If you do not know how to worship him in spirit and in truth even God will disappoint you, because you will end up using Him. You will end up not really coming on his terms."