Malachi 2:2 If you will not hear, and if you will not lay it to heart, to give glory to my name, said the LORD of hosts… "I will curse your blessings" — what a weird and mysterious threat that is! What does it mean? Well, I think we may get at the truth suggested by it by recalling three miracles performed on water at three widely separate dates in sacred history. The first of the three was that gruesome miracle wrought in Egypt by Moses, one of the plagues, when he turned the waters of Egypt into blood. It was a ghastly transformation- one of the best blessings of life turned into a curse. The next miracle to which I will refer, performed on the same element of water, was the first miracle of our Lord's ministry, the miracle at Cana of Galilee, when He turned the water into wine. I say it was changing that which is in itself a blessing into a still higher blessing. Then the third instance to which I refer is an incident in the life of Elisha "The situation of this city is pleasant, as my lord seeth, but the water is nought," they said to him. Well, the young prophet accepted the challenge, and cast a handful of salt into the wells of Jericho, with the result that the water, which was salt before, became sweet and pleasant. That was an instance of a curse being turned into a blessing. Now, you see, these were three transformations, and they were all symbolical. Similar transformations are taking place still in human experience. Now I think you begin to see what is the drift of the teaching of this text. 1. The blessings and the curse of life. 2. Blessings cursed. 3. Blessings blessed; and 4. The curse changed into a blessing. I. THE BLESSINGS AND THIS CURSE OF LIFE. Life has its blessings and it has its curse. Now, what are the blessings of human life? Well, the blessings of human life are simply the things that tend to make it blessed or happy. When God created man at the beginning, we read that He blessed him, and said, Be fruitful, and multiply," etc. In these words the Creator indicated that man had been made for happiness, and He mentioned several of the principal sources of that happiness, such as the food with which he was to be regaled; his dominion over the inferior creatures; and above all, his social instincts, which were to cause to rise about him the charities of home. Of course, there has been a great change since that sketch was made by the Creator of man's happy lot, and yet the world is still full of things that are intended and fitted to make life blessed or happy. Then higher than the pleasure of the senses is the pleasure of the affections, and of the intellect, and those are ministered to by all the objects of love — parents, children, husband and wife, and so on, the Lord's day, the Lord's Word, the privilege of prayer, the Great Salvation, such are some of what you might call the blessings of life. Then what is the curse of life? You remember when man had fallen, how God pronounced upon him the curse; and what was it? To the woman He said, "I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children; and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee." There is the curse; it is pain and sorrow and subjection and ill-usage. II. BLESSINGS CURSED. Let us look at this as the first transformation, because it is the one mentioned in the text. The blessings of life may be cursed. When does that happen? Well, I should say that the blessings of life are cursed when they fail to yield the happiness which they are naturally fitted to yield. Sometimes I am sure you have all noticed it. There may be food in the house; there may be money; there may be all that money can buy, and yet somehow happiness is not there. I think it might almost be said that those ages in which the means of happiness nave been most numerous have been the least happy epochs. Now, take, for instance, the period of Rome's decay. That was a period when wealth was flowing into Rome on every hand, and when in the Romans there was the keenest appetite for pleasure, and yet pleasure fled from the Romans. Do you remember how one of our poets describes it in ever memorable words "On that hard pagan world disgust and secret loathing fell, Deep weariness and sated lust made human life a hell. In his cool hall, with haggard eyes the Roman noble lay; He drove abroad, in various guise, along the Appian way; He made a boast, drank fierce and fast, and crowned his hair with flowers; No easier, nor no quicker passed the impracticable hours."That is a description of how the blessings of the world may be turned into a curse. But perhaps the Commonest way in which the blessings of life are transformed into a curse is when the satisfaction of the inferior happiness prevents the soul from desiring to enjoy the superior kinds of happiness. That often happens. The glut of the soul with the happiness of the senses may prevent it from appreciating the happiness of the heart or the intellect or the spirit. Now, have you never seen this? A man who has been enjoying life in a humble way becomes suddenly and immensely rich. Well, he and his wife and daughters begin to dream of society, and with great efforts they get their feet into society, which despises them. The daughters come to no good; the sons become thriftless and dissipated. That is an instance of the blessings of life being turned into a curse. Yes, and even so sweet a thing as human affection may become a curse in this way. It may become so satisfying that we have no desire left for anything higher. Oh, unhappy transformation, when the very thing that our Creator has given us for our enjoyment through human perverseness is changed into a disadvantage and a loss. III. BLESSINGS BLESSED. We have just seen that what we call the blessings of life are not in themselves able to make us happy, unless with the blessing there be given a second blessing. Those things which naturally tend to be blessings only really are so when there is a certain correspondence between them and the constitution of those who receive them. Now, for instance, food is one of the blessings of life. It has a natural tendency to make us happy, but in certain states of the body it does not do so. It may even poison the whole frame. But when food is received into a healthy body, then it is a blessing. Or, in the same way, we may say that knowledge is a blessing; but it is not a blessing to everybody. What is the most golden page of great eloquence or wisdom to an ignorant man? Even the highest blessings require a certain correspondence in us before they issue in what the Creator intended them for. O my people, it is a sad fact that even the Gospel may be a savour of death unto death. And let us bring this down to our own experience. The Word itself is a blessing, but it is only blessed to those who are in the right state of mind to receive it. Wealth ministers only to an inferior kind of happiness, and, as I have just shown, it is many a man's ruin, and the ruin of many a family; and yet wealth may be used in such a way as to produce in the home an order and elegance in the midst of which love easily and naturally flourishes, and intelligence and culture are drawn in almost with the breath. Do you not think that in this way the life of a true Christian is a wonderful thing? The commonest mercies when received from the hand of the Heavenly Father as His gifts, become at the same time spiritual mercies. A true Christian enjoys from the blessings of life all the happiness which others receive, but at the same time he derives a happiness which is peculiar to himself alone, because to Him the blessings of life are doubly and trebly blessed. IV. THE CURSE CHANGED INTO A BLESSING. What is the curse of life? What was the primary curse? It was toil, and that has been a terrible curse in this world. Millennium after millennium the slave has shed tears of blood under the rod of the oppressive master. And yet how many cases might be adduced in which this primary curse has been changed into a blessing! I am sure I am speaking to many who, if they were asked to say what is their greatest blessing, would feel inclined to answer, "My work." Your work has kept off your soul those birds of evil which fall on the souls of the indolent and slay them. It has developed your faculties; it has filled your home with comforts. I do not know any happiness that rivals the happiness of work well and honestly done. That is the primary curse changed into a blessing. And if you look over the face of the world you will find the same thing on a large scale. The happiest nations are not those living in places where everything is done for them, where they can spend their time in sloth, and yet get plenty to eat and drink. Those are the happiest nations who have had to wring their substance out of a grudging soil, and assert the dignity of man in the face of adverse nature. But I think the curse turned into a blessing is most easily seen in those cases where the loss of the inferior happiness has caused the soul to seek the superior happiness, Ill-health has sometimes made men famous who would have been nothing of the kind had not the arrow drinking their life-blood caused them to retire from the general herd of men. It is a very significant fact that two of the five greatest poets of the world have been blind, and there is no reason to doubt that both Homer and Milton had the inner vision sharpened by the withdrawal of the outer vision. It is chiefly in the region of religion that we see this principle at work. I know there are many here wile love God and follow Christ, and if I asked them to say how this has come into their lives I am sure a very large proportion would say that it was through loss, sorrow, bereavement, affliction. And so the curse of life has turned out to be its greatest blessing. Do you not think that when on the evening of the first day of his existence the first man saw the sun setting, and the darkness coming over the earth, the fear invaded his mind that the whole frame of things was about to be dissolved, and that he was about to be struck back into the nothingness out of which he had just emerged? But, lo! as the night enveloped the sky, the hosts of God came forth, the evening star leading the way, and with it suns and systems rolling into light. That spectacle would never have been seen had not the darkness supervened. And in the same way, some of you may remember that when the darkness of your first great disappointment or sorrow came, it seemed to you as if the universe were dissolving, and you yourself were being struck back into a nonentity. But you found day by day that there had risen to you a glory and a hope as much greater than the happiness you had previously experienced as the united light of all the suns that burn in the midnight heaven is greater than the single light of the lamp that lights the system to which we belong. The lesson is this: that nothing in this world is either in itself absolutely a blessing or a curse. There are those things which we call the blessings of life because they have the tendency to happiness; and there are those things which we call the curses of life because they have a tendency to unhappiness. But I say nothing in itself is absolutely either a blessing or a curse. Therefore, if the bleatings of life are multiplied in your lot, if you are at present experiencing prosperity, do not be too much uplifted; and, on the other hand, if what is called the curse of life has been sent upon you, if things are going against you, and misfortune is dogging your steps, do not be too much downcast. The blessings of life may be cursed, and the curse of life may be made a blessing, the blessing of the Lord that maketh rich, and He addeth no sorrow with it. (J. Stalker, D. D.) Parallel Verses KJV: If ye will not hear, and if ye will not lay it to heart, to give glory unto my name, saith the LORD of hosts, I will even send a curse upon you, and I will curse your blessings: yea, I have cursed them already, because ye do not lay it to heart. |
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