Hurt Christians?

Just back from the Prayer Meeting at Ballymacashon. We’ve been studying Malachi, and it’s a real challenge to the modern church. Tonight was ch2 verses 1-16. Verse 13 is fill of pathos, for we see that in Israel men were deserting their wives to go whoring after foreign women, and the tears and the cries of those so deserted were flooding the altar. God warned that he would not regard the sacrifices of Israel, because of the misery and suffering of those so wronged by the men who should know better.

Yet when confronted with this wrongdoing they tried to feign surprise, ‘But you say, “Why does he not”‘. God reminds them that he witnesses their marriage vows and holds them to account.

What of the modern church? How many people have been hurt and wounded by other believers, who love the world rather than the things of God, (his Word, his house, his day) and when God looks on the worship in our churches, does he disregard our sacrifice of praise, because it is tainted with the tears of those who have been hurt by our faithless words and actions?

Woe betide us if when he reveals these things to us in his word, we try to plead innocence, instead of wholeheartedly repenting, confessing our sins and returning to the Lord our God.