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If ye will not hear - What I have spoken, lay it to heart, and let it sink down into your souls.
Give glory unto my name - That honor that is due to me as a Father, and that fear that belongs to me as a Master, Malachi 1:6.
I will even send a curse upon you - I will dispense no more good.
I will curse your blessings - Even that which ye have already shall not profit you. When temporal blessings are not the means of leading us to God and heaven, they will infallibly lead us to hell. In speaking of the abuse of temporal blessings, one of our old poets, in his homely phrase, expresses himself thus: -
Thus God's best gifts, usurped by wicked ones,
To poison turn by their con-ta-gi-ons.
Yea, I have cursed them already - This may refer, generally, to unfruitful seasons; or, particularly, to a dearth that appears to have happened about this time. See Haggai 1:6-11.
If ye will not lay to heart - , namely, the rebukes addressed to them, “to give glory to God.” For the glory of God is the end and aim of the priesthood. This should be the principle and rule of their whole life, “to the greater glory of God.” “I will send the curse upon you,” namely, that which He had threatened in the law upon disobedience; and will “curse your blessings,” will turn your blessings into a curse. He does not say, I will send you curses instead of blessings, but, I will make the blessings themselves a curse. Psalm 69:23. “The things which should have been to their wealth became to them an occasion of falling;” to the proud, the things which lift them up; to the gluttonous, their abundance; to the avaricious, their wealth; which, if used to the glory of God, become blessings, do, when self not God is their end, by God‘s dispensation and Providence, become a curse to them. “The goods of nature, the goods of fortune, the goods of the Church allowed to you, I will turn to your greater damnation, permitting you to abuse them to pride; and your damnation shall be the more penal, the more good things ye have received from Me. Whence Christ declares in the Gospel Luke 12:48, ‹Unto whomever much is given, of him shall be much required. ‹“
Yea, I have cursed them - (literally, it), i. e., each one of the blessings, “already.” God‘s judgments as well as His mercies are individual with a minute care, showing that it is His doing. The curse had already gone forth, and had begun to seize upon them from the time that they began to despise His Name. His judgments do not break in at once, but little by little, with warnings of their approach, that so we may turn to Him, and “escape the wrath to come.”
Through disloyalty, God's chosen people developed a character exactly the opposite of the character He desired them to develop. They placed their own mold and superscription upon the truth. They forgot God, and lost sight of their high privilege as His representatives. The blessings they had received brought no blessing to the world. All their advantages were appropriated for their own glorification. They robbed God of the service He required of them, and they robbed their fellow men of religious guidance and a holy example. Like the inhabitants of the antediluvian world, they followed out every imagination of their evil hearts. Thus they made sacred things appear a farce, saying, “The temple of the Lord, The temple of the Lord, are these,” while at the same time they were misrepresenting God's character, dishonoring His name, and polluting His sanctuary (The Southern Watchman, January 10, 1905). 4BC 1181.1
13. See EGW on Leviticus 1:3, Vol. 1, p. 1110. 4BC 1181.2
Read in context »If we do not respond to the light given and render corresponding obedience, keeping our souls in the love of God, abiding in Christ, that which to us would become a blessing becomes a curse. It is the deceiver, not the Spirit of truth, that makes us believe that we cannot become pure and holy, a powerful people separate from the world, united in love and union with one another through Christ. We need not expect any other portion than that which was given to our Lord. According to the heart service given to God will be the enmity of Satan against the followers of Jesus; and the children of God are more wise and powerful when the wisdom and influence of the world are arrayed against us than when they are engaged in favor and fellowship with them.... UL 373.2
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