Malachi 3:18 Then shall you return, and discern between the righteous and the wicked, between him that serves God and him that serves him not. It is a sad state of society when the faculty of moral discrimination is blunted. The minor prophets were appointed to rebuke just such religious degeneracy. 1. One sign of the practical obliteration of these vital distinctions may be seen in the prevailing depreciation of sound doctrine. Men try to mix truth with error, as though they were not inherently different. To depreciate the importance of discovering and embracing the truth undermines, also, the true basis of morals. Sincere convictions may thus be urged to justify crime, as the Spartans upheld secret theft, and David Hume secret adultery. 2. Another sign is found in the practical association of those that serve God and those that serve Him not. God decrees separation as the means of expressing and impressing these vital distinctions. (1) Many believers are only secret disciples. Their very success in practising Christian virtues is disastrous, fostering self-righteous hopes in worldly hearts, and leading men to confuse worldly morality with genuine piety. (2) Another thing which contributes to the confusion of godly and ungodly, is the fact, that many worldly men are professed disciples. Secret believers make the world seem more godly; unregenerate professors make the Church seem more worldly, and so there is double confusion. (3) Whatever relaxes the demand for godliness of character, lowers the standard of piety, and so lessens the contrast between righteous and wicked. Besides secular influences, there are many ecclesiastic tendencies hostile to holy living. Ritualism furnishes one example. But the lack of holiness of heart is the main cause of the slight contrast between the servants of God and of mammon. Most earnestly, therefore, do we plead in God's name, for practical separation between the godly and the ungodly. (Arthur T. Pierson, D. D.) Parallel Verses KJV: Then shall ye return, and discern between the righteous and the wicked, between him that serveth God and him that serveth him not. |
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