their great and godlike office to personal advancement and dynastic ambition are forgotten; and when every shrine reared for obscene and bloody rites, or for superficial and formal worship, has been cast to the ground, then from out of the confusion and desolation shall gleam the temple of God, which is the refuge of men, and on the one throne of the universe shall sit the Eternal Priest—­our Brother, Jesus the Christ.

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MALACHI

A DIALOGUE WITH GOD

’A son honoureth his father, and a servant his master:  if then I be a Father, where is Mine honour? and if I be a master, where is My fear? saith the Lord of Hosts unto you, O priests, that despise My Name.  And ye say, Wherein have we despised Thy Name? 7.  Ye offer polluted bread upon Mine altar.  And ye say, Wherein have we polluted Thee?’—­MALACHI i. 6, 7.

A charactistic of this latest of the prophets is the vivacious dialogue of which our text affords one example.  God speaks and the people question His word, which in reply He reiterates still more strongly.  The other instances of its occurrence may here be briefly noted, and we shall find that they cover all the aspects of the divine speech to men, whether He charges sin home upon them or pronounces threatenings of judgment, or invites by gracious promises the penitent to return.  His charges of sin are repelled in our text and in the following verse by the indignant question, ‘Wherein have we polluted Thee?’ And similarly in the next chapter the divine accusation, ’Ye have wearied the Lord with your words,’ is thrown back with the contemptuous retort, ’Wherein have we wearied Him?’ And in like manner in the third chapter, ’Ye have robbed Me,’ calls forth no confession but only the defiant answer,’ Wherein have we robbed Thee?’ And in a later verse, the accusation, ‘Your words have been stout against Me,’ is traversed by the question, ‘What have we spoken so much against Thee?’ Similarly the threatening of judgment that the Lord will ‘cut off’ the men that ’profane the holiness of the Lord’ calls forth only the rebutting question, ‘Wherefore?’ (ii. 14).  And even the gracious invitation, ’Return unto Me, and I will return unto you,’ evokes not penitence, but the stiff-necked reply, ‘Wherein shall we return?’ (iii. 7).  In this sermon we may deal with the first of these three cases, and consider, God’s Indictment, and man’s plea of ‘Not guilty.’

I. God’s Indictment.

The precise nature of the charge is to be carefully considered.  The Name is the sum of the revealed character, and that Name has been despised.  The charge is not that it has been blasphemed, but that it has been neglected, or under-estimated, or cared little about.  The pollution of the table of the Lord is the overt act by which the attitude of mind and heart expressed in despising His Name is manifested;