“Behold, I will rebuke your seed, and spread dung upon your faces, the dung of your feasts; and they shall
take you away with it.”
(Mal 2:3 Darby)
We centered a previous teaching around Isa 5:13 – “Therefore my people have gone into captivity, because they have no knowledge; their honorable men are famished, and their multitude dried up with thirst.” In many aspects of our walk of faith we trust in the goodness of God, believing Him to be indifferent to many of the facets of this walk. We consider certain things as being of less importance to Him, being a God who does not make a big deal of small things. We are often willing to sweep things under the carpet of spiritual ignorance, justifying it by a false spiritual perception of grace. Alas it often seems as if our understanding of grace has been corrupted.
Isa 5:20 warned accordingly: “Woe to those who call evil good, and good evil; who put darkness for light, and light for darkness; who put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!” Jesus explains how a little bit of leaven spreads through an entire piece of dough: “The lamp of the body is the eye. Therefore, when your eye is good, your whole body also is full of light. But when your eye is bad, your body also is full of darkness. Therefore take heed that the light which is in you is not darkness.” Paul’s statement is even clearer – “You foolish Galatians! Whose sophistry has bewitched you — you to whom Jesus Christ has been vividly portrayed as on the Cross?” (Gal 3:1, WNT).
We know that in Deut 28:1-4, 28-32 God seriously warns his people that they, a group who have been set apart, should not worship any idols, something that points to the New Testament, establishing itself as an absolute condition for following Christ. During the first meeting of the church of Acts it is explicitly stated that believers should not engage with things that have been contaminated by idols (Acts 15:20). John ends his letter with “Little children, keep yourselves from idols. Amen.” (1 John 5:21).
In the light of the Scripture in Malachi (stated above), this becomes quite disconcerting – God clearly speaks against the celebrating of festivals dedicated to idols. Read it in conjunction with Isa 5:13, which makes clear that we are still living in “captivity” because of our lack of knowledge. Added to this – God will rebuke our seed. The Amplified Bible elaborates on this: “Behold, I will rebuke your seed [grain–which will prevent due harvest] …”
Could this possibly be the reason why certain believers live a life of fruitlessness, expectations never being fulfilled? “Now therefore, thus says the LORD of hosts: “Consider your ways! “You have sown much, and bring in little; you eat, but do not have enough; you drink, but you are not filled with drink; you clothe yourselves, but no one is warm; and he who earns wages, earns wages to put into a bag with holes.” (Haggai 1:5-6).
Could this perhaps be because of the “dung of our feasts”? Like Easter? Or Christmas?
- Sela: Ask God to speak to you about this teaching.
- Read: 2 Chr 26; Job 25; Isa 6
- Memorise: Isa 6:8
