Priest Were To Blame, And Pastors Are To Blame Today.

And now, O ye priests, this commandment is for you. (2.) If ye will not hear, and if ye will not lay it to heart, to give glory unto my name, saith the LORD of hosts, I will even send a curse upon you, and I will curse your blessings: yea, I have cursed them already, because ye do not lay it to heart. Malachi 2:1 – 2

This next Friday thru Sunday I will be one of the many speakers at the Northside Baptist Church in Oakdale, La. I will be speaking twice once Saturday morning and again Sunday morning. The two sermons that I will focus on is the fall of the Israelites and the rise of the Gentiles as found in Romans chapter 11. Without giving away to many details about the sermons there is one single point I would like to share with you all before these sermons are preached and that is the fall of the Israelites. Paul wrote in Romans 11:8 “(According as it is written, God hath given them the spirit of slumber, eyes that they should not see, and ears that they should not hear;) unto this day.” Verse 8 is a deeper explanation of verse 7 which says “What then? Israel hath not obtained that which he seeketh for; but the election hath obtained it, and the rest were blinded” To explain this in simple terms and as short as I can, Paul actually said that God has put the Israelites into a “spirit of slumber” blinding their eyes and deafening their ears that they cannot see nor hear the word of God even “…unto this day”. Meaning God has chosen not to use “…unto this day”. With this being said what was it that caused God to choose to put His first love (humanely speaking) the Israelites on the back burner and use the Gentiles? Well the book of Malachi gives us seven reasons and all seven are their sins against God. We will cover all seven of these sins at the Bible Conference; however in this article we will only cover one. That is their crime of “cheating God”. How did the Israelites cheat God? It was in their sacrifices they were offering lame and blind animals when God commanded they offer only their best. However the Israelites themselves were not the only ones to blame here, the Priest were also to blame because they had turned their heads and allowed the bad animals to be brought to the alter. Verse 2 of our text says “If ye will not hear, and if ye will not lay it to heart, to give glory unto my name, saith the LORD of hosts…” By the Priest turning their heads and allowing these bad animals to be sacrificed they were not serving the Israelites nor God in being a watchman over the people therefore allowing without warning these Israelites to cheat God. There is an old saying “if the cat is away the mice will play” and while the cat was there they refused to see the mice playing. When there are no standards or laws then society is in disarray and nothing is done right and when nothing is done right then God is not happy. Therefore with this sin and many others, God chose the put the Israelites on the “back burner” and use the Gentiles and as history has proven it was a wise choice on Gods part, which it always is. Now lets equate this to today while we do not have Priest as they did we do have Pastors and the Pastors are the “overseers” of the Lords churches. Now if the Pastors act like the Priest of old then should we expect a different result? No, we should not. Pastors fail God when they turn their heads to sin and allow the mice to play. Pastors are to blame when they turn their heads to sin in order to build churches. We as Pastors are the overseers or the watchmen of the Lords churches and we will be held responsible when the church fails. “…saith the LORD of hosts, I will even send a curse upon you, and I will curse your blessings: yea, I have cursed them already, because ye do not lay it to heart.” verse 2. Pastors, do not think you are blessing God in turning your heads or closing your eyes to sin, the Israelites did not and neither will today’s churches and pastors if we do not follow Gods will. So when Pastors say ignorant things like “we are a non judgmental church” what they are saying is; sin as you please but please come to church, and beloved that is cheating God. 1 Corinthians 5:7 “Purge out therefore the old leaven, that ye may be a new lump, as ye are unleavened. For even Christ our passover is sacrificed for us:” Galatians 5:9 “A little leaven leaveneth the whole lump.”