now to be measured by our under-estimate and neglect of Him, and chiefly of His Cross.  That Cross prevents our consciousness of sin from becoming despair of pardon.  Judas went out, and with bitter weeping, himself ended his traitorous life.  If God’s last word to us were, ‘Ye have despised My Name,’ and it sank into our souls, there would be no hope for any of us.  But the message which begins with the universal indictment of sin passes into the message which holds forth forgiveness and freedom as universal as the sin, and ’God hath concluded all in unbelief that He may have mercy upon all.’

BLEMISHED OFFERINGS

     ’Offer it now unto thy governor; will he be pleased with thee, or
     accept thy person? saith the Lord of Hosts.’—­MALACHI i. 8.

A word of explanation may indicate my purpose in selecting this, I am afraid, unfamiliar text.  The Prophet has been vehemently rebuking a characteristic mean practice of the priests, who were offering maimed and diseased animals in sacrifice.  They were probably dishonest as well as mean, because the worshippers would bring sound beasts, and the priests, for their own profit, slipped in a worthless animal, and kept the valuable one for themselves.  They had become so habituated to this piece of economical religion, that they saw no harm in it, and when they offered the lame and the sick and the blind for sacrifice they said to themselves, ‘It is not evil.’  And so Malachi, with the sudden sharp thrust of my text, tries to rouse their torpid consciences.  He says to them:  ’Take that diseased creature that you are not ashamed to lay on God’s altar, and try what the governor’—­the official appointed by the Persian Kings to rule over the returned exiles—­’will think about it.  Will an offering of that sort be considered a compliment or an insult?  Do you think it will smooth your way or help your suit with him?  Surely God deserves as much reverence as the deputy of Artaxerxes.  Surely what is not good enough for a Persian satrap is not good enough for the Lord of Hosts.  Offer it to the governor, will he be pleased with it?  Will he accept thy person?’

Now, it seems to me that this cheap religion of the priests, and this scathing irony of the Prophet’s counsel need little modification to fit us very closely.  You will bear me witness, I think, that I do not often speak to you about money.  But I am going to try to bring out something about the great subject of Christian administration of earthly possessions from this text, because I believe that the Christian consciousness of this generation does need a great deal of rousing and instructing about this matter.

I. We note the startling and strange contrast which the text suggests.

The diseased lamb was laid without scruple or hesitation on God’s altar, and not one of these tricky priests durst have taken it to Court in order to secure favour there.  Generalise that, and it comes to this—­the gifts that we lavish on men are the condemnation of the gifts that we bring to God; and further, we should be ashamed to offer to men what we are not in the least ashamed to bring to God.  Let me illustrate in one or two points.