MALACHI Part 4 - What Were The Priests Doing That Upset Malachi So Much?

 Over the past twenty-nine years of pastoring Legana, I have generally preached through biblical books verse-by-verse. These biblical books series have been interspersed with various shorter topical series (which is why it took me eight years to preach all the way through the Book of Jeremiah). As I now commence my last biblical book teaching series, through Malachi, I hope to leave a deposit in your souls about the value and authority of God’s Word and how we need to worshipfully approach it. While we all want to “cut to the chase” and “get to the point” when we approach God’s Word we must do so carefully. This takes time. “Time” is what most people complain they do not have. This is why I am doing so much background work on this often-neglected book so that you can take advantage of my time investment on your behalf. In this series so far, I have introduced the context of this book, discussed who Malachi was, explored where Malachi was, and examined who was Malachi’s immediate audience. I am now considering why Malachi was so profoundly upset and what we can learn from his passionate love for God and His Table.

¶ “And now, O priests, this command is for you. If you will not listen, if you will not take it to heart to give honour to My Name, says the LORD of hosts, then I will send the curse upon you and I will curse your blessings. Indeed, I have already cursed them, because you do not lay it to heart. Behold, I will rebuke your offspring, and spread dung on your faces, the dung of your offerings, and you shall be taken away with it.
Malachi 2:1-3

Malachi was the last of the Old Covenant era prophets. Although we can read the first three verses Malachi chapter two and see that Malachi was really upset – after all, how descriptive is the expression: if you will not listen I will spread dung all over your faces! To answer the question, why was Malachi so upset? we have to realise that he was upset because God was upset.

Consider this. Malachi was the last of the Old Testament prophets. His message would be the last message that God would deliver to His people Israel through a prophet before He began to initiate the New Covenant four-hundred or so years later! God had something important, urgent, and profound to say to His people. The people, and especially the priests, did not realise this. What they were doing, and were neglecting to do, was putting in jeopardy the entire plan of redemption – not just for Israel, but for the entire human race!  

The Lord intended for Israel to be the people who would make His Name known and revered among the nations. But Israel had not only neglected this, they had actively undermined this divine mission! The prophet Jeremiah had warned them repeatedly that the curses within the conditions of the covenant they had agreed to with God would be enforced unless they humbly repented and were reconciled with God (Jer. 26:13). But Israel did not repent. The warnings of covenant violation were enacted and God came to judge the covenant-breakers by sending the Babylonians to invade, conquer, exile the inhabitants of Judah, then destroy its capital city Jerusalem along with its sacred yet defiled Temple (Jer. 25:9). But Jeremiah also prophesied hope for these exiles that their captivity in Babylon would only last seventy-years, then the Lord would restore the survivors back into His land (Jer. 24:6-7). After the seventy years of exile was completed, the prophet Daniel read the prophecies of Jeremiah and prayed accordingly:

¶ In the first year of Darius the son of Ahasuerus, by descent a Mede, who was made king over the realm of the Chaldeans—in the first year of his reign, I, Daniel, perceived in the books the number of years that, according to the word of the LORD to Jeremiah the prophet, must pass before the end of the desolations of Jerusalem, namely, seventy years. ¶ Then I turned my face to the Lord God, seeking Him by prayer and pleas for mercy with fasting and sackcloth and ashes. I prayed to the LORD my God and made confession
Daniel 9:1-4

Malachi arrived on the scene close to a century after the first few returning exiles and their descendants had entered the ruined city of Jerusalem. The lessons that should have been learned about why they had been exiled and lost their homeland in the first place were soon forgotten. The priests who had been expected to live as role-models for the Jewish settlers were living as hypocrites. They mocked the Temple, they mocked the required sacrifices, they mocked the observances, they mocked the ceremonies, and worst of all – they mocked God!

But you profane it when you say that the Lord’s table [the sacrificial altar] is polluted, and its fruit, that is, its food may be despised.
Malachi 1:12

No wonder Malachi speaks of God smearing the faces of the priests with faeces – because this was essentially how they were treating God! But these priests responded to Malachi with, and I paraphrase, “Oh Malachi! Stop being such a bore! Take a chill-pill. You’re wearing us out!” The way the English Standard Version translators render it is:

But you say, ‘What a weariness this is,’ and you snort at it, says the LORD of hosts.
Malachi 1:13a

Malachi does not respond to these apostate priests (‘apostate’ means ‘a person who was dedicated to God but has now turned his or her back on God). But God does through Malachi:

You bring what has been taken by violence or is lame or sick, and this you bring as your offering! Shall I accept that from your hand? says the LORD.
Malachi 1:13b

When the nation of Israel was being formed, God had used Moses to rescue them from slavery in Egypt. After fleeing through the Red Sea they were led into the Sinai wilderness where Moses was asked by God to come up the mountain to receive the Ten Commandments. It was while he was away for nearly six weeks that his older brother Aaron was coerced by the people to offer them a different god to the One Moses claimed he was hearing from. The result was that Aaron built a golden calf as an idol for them to have as their god. When Moses returned down the mountain with the Ten Commandments, he was devastated to find this apostasy led by his own brother! Of all of the twelve tribes, it was the Tribe of Levi which had not joined in with this apostasy. This resulted in God declaring that the tribe of the Levites would be the tribe from which God’s priests would come. After another incident sometime later, the clan of the Aaronites were selected in particular to be the priests with the rest of the Levites appointed to assist them in serving in the tabernacle, then later, in the temple.

God expected the Levitical priests to model obedience, adoration, and respect for God by listening to God’s Word and teaching it.

¶ “And now, O priests, this command is for you. If you will not listen, if you will not take it to heart to give honour to my name, says the LORD of hosts, then I will send the curse upon you and I will curse your blessings. Indeed, I have already cursed them, because you do not lay it to heart.
Malachi 2:1-2

Instead of the priests of Malachi’s day fulfilling their covenanted responsibilities, they had become corrupt – extorting financially from worshipers, and telling people what they wanted hear rather than the truth that they needed to hear! As it turned out, around the time of Malachi, the Persian Empire had ceased to financially support the Temple and its priests in Jerusalem. Rather than trusting and obeying God, the priests neglected their faithful serving of God and became more concerned about their own survival. This led to them distorting God’s Word, defiling God’s altar, and denouncing God’s Name (His character and authority). We can read what the heartbroken Malachi declared to these corrupt and careless priests. I suspect I know what the apostle Paul would have said to these priests as well if he had been alive at the same time as Malachi:

If anyone teaches a different doctrine and does not agree with the sound words of our Lord Jesus Christ and the teaching that accords with godliness, he is puffed up with conceit and understands nothing. He has an unhealthy craving for controversy and for quarrels about words, which produce envy, dissension, slander, evil suspicions, and constant friction among people who are depraved in mind and deprived of the truth, imagining that godliness is a means of gain. But godliness with contentment is great gain, for we brought nothing into the world, and we cannot take anything out of the world. But if we have food and clothing, with these we will be content.
First Timothy 6:3-8

One of the things that Pastor Phil Hills said to Kim and I as young pastors echoed what Malachi was rebuking these priests for, and what the apostle Paul was warning ministers of the gospel against: “If you keep money out of your heart, God will keep money in your pocket!” Kim and I took these words from Pastor Phil very seriously and have tried our best to live by them.

What do we learn from this section of the Book of Malachi? Firstly, God still calls His servants to gladly, delightfully, make Him known to the world. Secondly, God still calls His servants to model heartfelt love of God to the world. Thirdly, God still calls His servants to be shepherds of His people who love with God’s love. And, fourthly, God still calls His servants to sacrificially and cheerfully serve Him as their act of worship. This is worshiping with God’s people in and as the church should never be a wearisome drudge for the servant of God. Church should never be neglected by the servants of the Most High Lord of Hosts!

May you never grow weary of loving God’s people or neglecting to fellowship in worship with them each Sunday. And may we each do this together as a witness to the world that God’s Name is indeed very great!

Your Pastor,

Andrew

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THE REST OF THE CROSS

Many people are attempting to create their own calm. Self-made calm is very difficult to create. The reasons for this are not only obvious but are also easily verified by everyone who has tried it. The peace and quiet sought from such a calm is too easily disrupted by the ordinary, everyday, pressures of life. Even those who seek the solace of calm by taking a vacation readily find that even there (on a beach, down a ski field, up a mountain, cruising around south Pacific islands) and then (summer, winter, autumn, spring) life’s uninvited surprises can be very disruptive. While mankind is generally unable to conjure the kind of calm that we each relish, there is a calm that comes from the knowledge that whatever may come our way there is One who knows us best and knows what’s best for each one despite our seemingly gravitational pull toward doubting it. Thus, while we long for a soul-enriching calm that dispels all of our anxieties, fears, uncertainties, and cravings for acceptance, there awaits each one of us a God-made calm that is offered freely because of the Eternal One who gave up His pleasure, comfort, riches, and divine acceptance, to make it possible when He was brutally spiked to a splintered Roman crucifix. What to many may just be a recollection of a moment which has inspired much religious art was actually a Moment that defined a turning point in time itself. Yet, sadly, today there are some who are “deconstructing” their faith in Christ based on a false idea that this Moment was when God the Father became “a divine child-abuser”! Yet, contrary to this distorted view of what God did, the actual delicious significance of this Moment is still etched into time itself time since before this Moment it is known as “BC” and the time after this Moment (when eternity intersected time itself) has become known as “AD”. Thus the result of this Moment was more profound than any one person has ever realised – especially those who claim to be deconstructionists – as evidenced by the tomes that have been written about it and are still being laboriously written by elderly and learned theologians who are filled to overflowing with awful wonderment. Here below is a glimpse of what they have come to realise happened as a result of this Moment and the infinite calm it now affords each of us who join in their wonderment. 

¶ Since therefore the children share in flesh and blood,
He himself likewise partook of the same things,
that through death He might destroy the one who has the power of death,
that is, the devil, and deliver all those who through fear of death were subject to lifelong slavery.
For surely it is not angels that He helps, but He helps the offspring of Abraham.
Therefore He had to be made like His brothers in every respect,
so that He might become a merciful and faithful high priest in the service of God,
to make propitiation for the sins of the people.
Hebrews 2:14-17

WHY JESUS CHRIST HAD TO DIE BY CRUCIFIXION

Why do Christians insist that Jesus had to die? In fact, this insistence is part of the central claim of Christianity! Athanasius wrote that the death of Christ had to be a public spectacle so that it would be an undeniable and a humiliating death. He gave the reason why it was necessary therefore for Christ to die by crucifixion as it had to be a death whereby He was suspended in the air since His death would conquer the powers of the air (Eph. 2:2). The death of Jesus Christ is referred to in the Bible as: a sacrifice (Heb. 9:26), an atonement – something which covers and removes sin (Heb. 2:17; 1Jn. 2:2, NET), an offering (Eph. 5:2), a propitiation (1Jn. 4:10), a ransom [payment] (Matt. 20:28; Rev. 5:9), and as the fulfilment of the prophets (Rom. 1:2-4). These Scriptures have led theologians over the past two millennia to think through what Christ achieved when He was crucified. These theological considerations are categorised as Theories of the Atonement. Among the most prominent theories are: (i) The Ransom Theory; (ii) The Satisfaction Theory; (iii) The Christus Victor Theory; and, (iv) The Penal Substitution Theory. Since the atonement is central to all Christian beliefs it is important for us to understand what Christ has done for us.

(i) The Ransom Theory

For there is one God, and there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus,
who gave Himself as a ransom for all, which is the testimony given at the proper time.
First Timothy 2:5-6

Christ’s death was seen by many of the Church’s earliest theologians as a ransom. Initially, much the discussion about this theory considered that the ransom for the release of all those who were held captive in sin. Thus, it was believed that God the Father paid the ransom to the devil. This narrow understanding of Christ’s atonement led other later theologians of the fourth century (such as Gregory of Nyssa and Cyril of Jerusalem) to assume this theory and imaginatively add that the devil was tricked “since the devil is himself a deceiver, he is justly repaid in his own coin” because he didn’t realise that Jesus was God incarnate (Bromiley, ISBE, p. 356). 

‘When the enemy saw the power, he recognized in Christ a bargain which offered him more than he held.
For this reason he chose him as the ransom for those whom he had shut up in death’s prison.’
Gregory of Nyssa

The problem with understanding that the death of Christ was a ransom paid to the devil means that God was in the debt of the devil, which Adamantius of the fourth century described as an “immense and blasphemous folly” (Bromiley, 356). The notion that God ‘deceived’ the devil by sending His eternally begotten Son to be incarnated as a human is to accuse God of something that He is not capable of.

But we impart a secret and hidden wisdom of God,
which God decreed before the ages for our glory.
None of the rulers of this age understood this,
for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory.
First Corinthians 2:7-8

(ii) The Satisfaction Theory

Anselm of Canterbury, line engraving, late 16th century

 After theologians realised that the Ransom Theory, as it was taught by previous theologians, was inconsistent with what was known about God and His Word, they looked for a more adequate understanding of Christ’s atonement. By the eleventh century though, the Roman Catholic Church had already developed the concept of sacraments which ministered God’s grace to the faithful – particularly baptism and the eucharist (Holy Communion). In 1098, Anselm of Canterbury (England) wrote Cur Deus Homo (“Why was God a man?“) in which he argued that Christ’s death on the cross was the capstone of Jesus’ moral merit that satisfied God’s demand for righteousness. This merit earned by Christ’s life and death could be shared with someone through being baptised into the Church and being permitted to partake in Holy Communion which could only be administered by an ordained priest of the Church.

The problem with this theory, as it was expounded by Anselm, was that it was not grounded in what the Scriptures said about the value of Christ’s atonement:

The righteousness of God [comes] through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe.
For there is no distinction: for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,
and are justified by His grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus,
whom God put forward as a propitiation by His blood, to be received by faith.
This was to show God’s righteousness, because in His divine forbearance He had passed over former sins.
Romans 3:22-25

The Scriptures describes Christ’s blood (death) as a ‘propitiation’ for all human sins — not the merit of Christ’s goodness — and that every believer had obtained their resultant forgiveness by putting their faith in Christ’s sacrifice for them – not by the works of baptism or Holy Communion.

 

(iii) The Christus Victor Theory

 The developer of Christus Victor (Christ is the Victor) theory of Christ’s atonement was Gustav Aulén(1879–1997) was a Swedish Lutheran Bishop and theologian. Aulén asserted that Christ’s death on the cross, and subsequent resurrection, brought about His victory over sin, death, and the devil. Aulén’s book was published in English in 1931. His view of Christ’s atonement was largely in response to Anselm’s Satisfaction Theory (which was furthered developed by a succession of Catholic theologians to include not just the merit of Christ’s righteousness, but also the additional merits of past saints whose righteousness was also added to the pool of merit needed to atone for all humanity). Aulén argued that what Christ achieved on the Cross was the defeat of the forces of evil and the reconciling of God with the world. Rather than Anselm’s idea that the atonement merely brought about a change in each believer, Aulén’s proposal was that Christ’s atonement resulted in Christ imputing righteousness to each believer because He had conquered sin, death, and the devil. 

Now all things are of God,
who has reconciled us to Himself through Jesus Christ,
and has given us the ministry of reconciliation, that is,
that God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself,
not imputing their trespasses to them,
and has committed to us the word of reconciliation.
Second Corinthians 5:18-19 NKJV

Aulén also demonstrated that there were many early theologians, most notably Athanasius, who also taught this concept of the atonement which led him to assert that this was actually the classic view of the Church before the Catholic views of Ransom or Satisfaction.

And you, who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh,
God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses,
by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands.
This He set aside, nailing it to the cross. He disarmed the rulers and authorities
and put them to open shame, by triumphing over them in Him.
Colossians 2:13-15

 

(iv) The Penal Substitution Theory

The most widely held view today by Evangelical Christians about the death of Christ is that Jesus was the ultimate one-and-for-all sacrifice for the sins of world, who was punished, as the Creed says, “for our sake”. 

He has no need, like those high priests, to offer sacrifices daily,
first for His own sins and then for those of the people,
since He did this once for all when He offered up Himself.
Hebrews 7:27

In so doing, the wrath of God was poured out on Him as our substitute. This is what the Greek word hilasterion (Rom. 3:25) translated into English as propitiation entails – placating divine wrath. Perhaps the reason why some people struggle to imagine how God could be so angry with sin that He would respond in wrath is perhaps because they have yet to realise how deeply offensive and criminal the rebellion of His image-bearers actually is each time we disobey Him.

He is the propitiation for our sins,
and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world.
First John 2:2 

The New Testament teaches us that Christ’s death on the Cross was a demonstration of the extent to which God loves us (Rom. 5:8). Rather than seeing God the Father as a “cosmic child abuser” the Cross of Christ reveals that God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit each participated in the redemption of you and me. It was the Father’s intention to redeem those who had been ensnared by the devil. It was the Son of God’s intention to willingly go and enter into our world as the Incarnate Man who would live among us and die vicariously (as our Substitute). It was the Holy Spirit’s role to deliver the Son of God into the womb of the Virgin Mary and then come upon Him at His baptism by John. It was the Holy Spirit who raised the crucified lifeless body of Christ back to life. Thus, as Athanasius wrote in his AD 280 book, On The Incarnation of the Word, the atoning work of Christ began not at the Cross, but at the incarnation – and it didn’t end in the tomb of Joseph of Arimathea, but when Jesus was translated back into His Father’s presence after His ascension.

In CS Lewis’s book, Mere Christianity, he refers to the Ransom, Satisfaction, Christus Victor, and Penal Substitutionary theories of the atonement and states that in each theory there is an aspect of what Christ achieved for those He redeemed. Therefore, the atonement wrought by Christ is not meant to merely be a theological theory needing yet another Church Council to announce the winner, but as a wonderment that should cause the believer to drop to their knees in worship and: thank God they have been delivered from the one who held captive in sin and disgrace; to adore God all the more for their new legal standing in the courtroom of divine justice as we are each declared to have the righteousness of Christ;  to glory in God for His almighty power over sin, death an devil; and, to sing praises to the Lamb who was slain as our Substitute who endured the wrath of God that justice might be served while God Himself could display His unsurpassed mercy and grace and unlimited love for us! Hallelujah! 

And they sang a new song, saying,“Worthy are you to take the scroll
and to open its seals, for you were slain, and by your blood you ransomed people for God
from every tribe and language and people and nation,
and you have made them a kingdom and priests to our God,
and they shall reign on the earth.”
Revelation 5:9-10

When we begin to grasp what Christ actually achieved by atoning for sins on the Cross then conquering sin, death and the devil, we will soon see that there is a calm, a quiet, a peace, that can soothe our soul and enable us to endure life’s uncertainties. And in a world that is experiencing the worst mental health crisis in human history, this might be just what each need a little more of right now. So, stop trying to manufacture your own man-calm and receive the calm that your loving Heavenly Father already has for you. This is the rest of the Cross.

Your Pastor,

Andrew

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HOW TO OPEN LIFE'S LOCKED DOORS (EASILY)

When I turned 50, I decided to do something really difficult. I enrolled in a university course to learn Biblical Greek. And, trust me when I say, this in no way is a brag – because I struggled through it and took far far longer than the average Biblical Greek student ordinarily takes to complete this course. I had to do twenty translation tests and then two major translations exams of the New Testament’s Greek text into English. I scraped through the course and somehow managed to pass it. I can testify that learning another language later in life is really hard! This is why I have the utmost respect for non-English-speaking migrants who come to our country and manage to learn English. Learning languages is not the only thing I find difficult. I envy those people who do the things easily that I find difficult to do or understand (like quadratic mathematic equations for example). Over the years I have pondered why it is that different people doing the same task can result in a person finding it incredibly easy who then gets it done quickly, and why another other person finds it next-to-impossible and as a result gives up trying to do it. I have discovered the answer to this conundrum lies in the “mat” principle.

I was pushed hard, so that I was falling,
but the LORD helped me.
Psalm 118:13

THE MAT PRINCIPLE

Imagine coming to an impressive holiday home that someone has lent you for your holiday. It has a large imposing door with a very sophisticated locking system. The owner of the holiday house has told you that when you arrive, you can just unlock the door and go on in and make yourself at home. Somehow in this conversation you forgot to ask for a key and the owner never mentioned it. You arrive. You turn the handle on the front door but it is clearly locked. You remember what the owner said and try all sorts of ways to open the locked door. You punch in a set of random numbers into the keypad, your press your hand on the finger-print sensor, you look into the retinal scanner – but the locked door remains unlocked even after hours of trying everything conceivable to open it. Eventually the owner turns up to see how you have settled in to his holiday home. Before you can retell him about all your vain efforts to unlock the door (and he is assuming that you have only just arrived), he walks up the door, lifts the door mat, picks up the key, hands it to you, you put it in the lock and without even turning it your hear each of the locking mechanisms of door undo their bolts and the door opens!

The ‘mat principle’ of accomplishing difficult things is simply this: it’s easy when you know how. Without knowing how to do something, doing that something is very difficult! A few months ago Kim and I had to go to Victoria. I had booked a car with my usual rent-a-car business. When I walked into their office the lady asked me, “Would you like an up-grade?” I excitedly allowed them to upgrade us into a brand new X5 Hybrid BMW SUV. I was given a thingy and told where I would find the car. As long as I had the thingy, the car would start and would be able to drive it they assured me. I got the car, wiped the drool from the corners of my mouth and sat in the car. It had 27kms on the odometer! I pushed what I thought was the start button, dash lights turned on but the car didn’t start! Maybe you have to push it twice I thought. So I pushed the start button again and dash lights turned off. Oh, maybe this is just the dash lights start button? But where’s the engine start button. Unable to see any other start button, I pushed the one and only start button again. This procedure went on for some time as Kim and I sat in the undercover airport rental car park. Then a thought occurred to me: Hybrid. What if the car had actually started each time I have pressed the start button. This time, after pressing the start button I eased my foot of the brake pedal to see what would happen. The car moved! But it moved absolutely silently. It was a hybrid car and it was running on its electric motors rather than its petrol motor! I wish I had known this before I got in this new car. It’s amazing how easy things are when you have been shown how to do it or to understand it. 

¶ “For this commandment that I command you today is not too hard for you, neither is it far off.
Deuteronomy 30:11

THE MOST DIFFICULT THING NOW MADE EASY

The most impossibly difficult thing that any person could do is to make themselves sinless and therefore righteous in the eyes of God. In ancient times men like Job pondered this question (Job 9:2). These ancients were aware of how holy, just, good, and righteous God was. They also knew that compared with God they were unclean, sinful, selfish, sinners. Even though God instigated the temporary practice of animal sacrifices to remind these ancients of their true spiritual condition before Him, these bloody sacrifices never cleansed anyone’s consciences of the guilt and shame brought about by their sins (Heb. 9:9). This problem remained unsolved until God Himself took on human flesh and became one of us. He lived a sinless life and then laid down His life as the perfect sacrifice for sins of all mankind who turn to Him and receive His pardon. His sacrifice of His life now cleanses the repentant human heart from the guilt and shame of our sins (Heb. 9:14). The key to unlock this previously unlockable door — that so many people have tried to open with religion, good works, church attendance, better education, or Eastern mysticism, but have failed — is found “under the mat” and is called faith. It is our faith (our trust) in what Christ has done for us that opens the most important of Life’s Doors: the door that leads to eternal life in God’s presence. This is why Christ said that He was the Door.

¶ So Jesus again said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, I am the door of the sheep.
I am the door. If anyone enters by Me, he will be saved and will go in and out and find pasture.
John 10:7, 9

Under the mat God has put “the key” to unlock the previously unlockable door: even this is a gift from God: faith.

For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing;
it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast.
Ephesians 2:8-9

Even finding the key under the mat is the result of us crying out to God for mercy and forgiveness. These kinds of prayers often sound like, “God help me!” “God, please forgive me.” “God, I need You.”

“God, I acknowledge that I am a sinner. I thank You that You have sent Your Son to be my sacrifice for my sins. Please cleanse me from my sin. I receive Your offer of forgiveness and I want to live a new life with Your help. Amen.”

Amen indeed. I hope that each of us can help someone ‘find the key under the mat’ that can open the door to peace with God which results in them finding the purpose for their life and the meaning behind every setback in life. The principle of God enabling us to do previously difficult things also carries over into many of things that He will enable us to do once we have opened the Door of Salvation. This is the testimony of every person who came to faith in Christ and then helped to change the world in some amazing way. As you walk with Christ and He leads you to a locked door, you might want to start your quest to unlock it by checking to see if there’s a mat at the foot of the door and whether God has placed the next key of faith there for you.

Your pastor,

Andrew

Let me know what you think below in the comment section and feel free to share this someone who might benefit from this Pastor’s Desk.