The Importance of Malachi’s Message to the Church Today

In the 530s B.C., many Jews had returned from captivity into the Promised Land. Under the leadership of Hagia and Zechariah, they began to rebuild the temple. But they never got it done. They didn't get it finished. Decades later, Ezra came along and then the Amiah, and they finished the temple. Nearly a century after the first exiles returned to Jerusalem, the Jews were in relative peace.

It's about a hundred years since the whole process started, and they had to rebuild the temple, and they had to build the walls. About a hundred years ago, they were at peace, they had the temple. The economy was pretty good. It seems like trade was beginning to happen, and people were living pretty good lives. There wasn't a shortage of food. The land was being productive. What we know from the time period, it was a pretty good time to live. It was a pretty good time to be in.

They knew now that God was with them. They had been back into land for generations. They did the sacrifices. They kept the Sabbath. They were happy. They were back in where they should be, and they had been blessed by God. Already, by about 430, you have something that was happening underneath their society. A hundred years after the temples had been rebuilt, the Ramabelles Temple, after all that they had gone through, God had delivered them, and God had brought them out of captivity, about a hundred years later, something began to happen.

That is the setting of the book of Malachi. We've been doing a series of Bible studies now on the twelve minor prophets, and it's been a little over a year. What I want to do is, Malachi, of course, is the last one, is do that Bible study as a sermon, because there's something very interesting about the book of Malachi that I want to go through here. And so, it's a little bit of a sermon format, a little bit of Bible study format, but as we go through the last of these minor prophets. This book is the bridge between Judah being reestablished and being there, and then 400 years later, Jesus comes.

A little over 400 years later, he comes, and they're still there. Now, between this time, when Malachi wrote, they would come under Greek domination. They would be freed by the Maccabees, the Maccabean family, and they would be a free nation again, and then the Romans would come along and conquer them. And of course, 400 years later, they're under Roman rule. But at this point, things are pretty good. I mean, they're still under the Persian Empire, but the Persians gave them a lot of autonomy. They weren't forcing any religion on them like the Greeks would. They were letting them have their own religion, and so things were pretty good.

But God sends Malachi to them. And Malachi is an interesting word because it comes from the Hebrew word Malach, which means messenger. Malach is the word that you'll see used. It's translated angel. When it went to the supernatural, messenger comes from God, and English, they translated angel. When it's a human being, they translated messenger so that in the context, we could tell the difference between the two. But in Hebrew, it's the same word.

He is the Malachi. He is the messenger, sent by God. Now Malachi here was not an angel. He's a human being. In fact, we'll see a number of different messengers talked about in this letter, in the book that he wrote. It is unique in the Scriptures because of its organization. And how I want you to see this today, maybe help understand Malachi a little bit, because obviously we can't go through the whole book, but we're going to skip through parts of it.

And I'm going to emphasize some parts more than others. But Malachi is written like a play. Very interesting. It's written like a play, but seven parts. And most of the parts, there's a couple that don't fit exactly, but most of the parts is God makes a statement, and then there's a response by either the Jewish people or the priests, depending who He's talking to. And He says, well, this is your response. And then He says, but here's why I'm saying what I'm saying. So if you will, you can almost see this as a courtroom drama, where you have the judge, he makes a, you know, here's the charges, and then the defense gets up and defends themselves.

And then the judge says, no, here's the crime. Here's the proof. Okay, let me give you the proof of the crime. So you have charges, you have defense, and then you have the proof of the crime. And you'll see this repeated basically seven times throughout the book, as he brings up the seven basic problems that were issued at the time. So let's start with the message of Malachi, because one reason I want to do this as a sermon is the message given to Malachi is just as important for the church today as it was to the Jews in 430 B.C.

Not in the specifics, but in the principles that are involved. And we'll find that all seven of these accusations could easily be made against the church today, if we're not careful. So let's go to Malachi. Malachi 1. The burden of the word of the Lord to Israel by Malachi. Verse 2, he says, I have loved you, says the Lord. Now this is interesting, is the very first of these is not an accusation, but a declaration of God. This is the very opening scene of this drama, if you will.

God is there before all of them, and He's there, you know, in His Judge robes. And yet His first statement isn't, you guilty, rotten, terrible people. His first statement is, I love you, and I have loved you, and I've been here for you, and here I am. So that's the opening statement of the Judge in this drama. And there we go to their response. Yet you say, so this is your response, in what have you loved us?

Was not Esau, Jacob's brother? Well, wait a minute, that's God's response. In what way have you loved us? The response of the people was, you know, God says He loves us, but I got sick this year, and you know, I was going to buy that new wagon, and I couldn't afford it. The wheels fall, I fell off the old one, and my neighbor over here cheated me with something. And God says He loves me, but my life isn't working out the way I want it to. I mean, old Uncle Bob died.

You know, it's just there's all these bad things happening, yet God says He loves me? And what way have you loved us? Now remember, this is about four generations away from the people who came back to build the temple. About four generations. They had a temple. They didn't have to build the walls of Jerusalem. They didn't have to build their houses. The farms were already set up. You see, it had taken four generations, or three generations of building. They had it. They had it now. And the response to God is, we don't understand. You keep saying you love us, but you know, I don't see where you love us. God's response is very interesting, starting here in the second part of verse two.

Was not Esau Jacob's brother, says the Lord, yet Jacob I have loved? He's making a very important point here. He said, you know, let's go back to Jacob and Esau. He said, I chose Jacob.

Now we know the story. God has a plan for Esau and the descendants of Esau. There's lots of prophecies that talk about the descendants of Esau and what God's plan is for them. But he's making a point. The point is, did I not choose you, and I have chosen you generations ago?

I chose you thousands of years ago. And I worked all this time. He could have talked about David and Solomon. He could have talked about Isaiah. Because remember, this was at the end of what we called the Old Testament. He could have talked about Abraham. He could have said, I worked out this plan for all these years for you. What do you mean I don't love you? So this is the starting point. Let's just go back to Esau and Jacob. And you're the descendants of Jacob, he tells these people. I've been working with you all this time. But Esau I have hated. Now we know he didn't hate him, but he did not give him the same privileges he gave Jacob. But Esau I have hated and laid waste his mountains and his heritage for the wilderness of the jackals. He goes on and he talks about how he gave them special privileges. He gave them special privileges. And yet, they saw no real need to honor God for their life. They saw no need to thank God for what he had given to them. What do you mean you loved us? Look at what it says in verse 6.

A son honors his father and a servant his master, yet then I am the father, where is my honor? And if I am a master, where is my reverence?

His first accusation is not really an accusation, it's just I love you. And there's an accusation from the people that says, what do you mean you loved us? Life's hard.

And he says, if I am your father, where is my honor? Where is my reverence?

This is an important point for us today.

Do we become so complacent in what we have, what God has given to us, the blessings we have, that we sort of feel like it? As we go through this, you'll see that there's an attitude that permeated these people. And that was, yeah, they did what God wanted them to do. But man, they were missing out on so much by doing it. There was a belief that they were, yeah, we got to do this. We have to do what God says, but I'm missing out on so much. If I could just be like the Amalekites, if I could just be like the other people around us, the Midianites, their lives are so much better. But I have to do it, because if I don't, God will punish me. Do we reverence God?

Do we see God as our master? Do we give God honor? Do we have humility before God? Or what we do is what we do is we play. It's an act. We play like we're Christians, but we resent doing it. You know, it actually takes more energy to be a hypocrite than it does to be honest. It takes a whole lot more energy to be a hypocrite than it does to be honest. But these people were so hypocritical because, yes, He did it. But it was like, we're not doing this because God loves us. We're doing it because God will punish us. We're doing this because if we don't do it, God's going to get us. You know, I wish God wouldn't have called me. I've had people say, I wish God would have called me later. I wish God would have called me later so I don't have to give up things. How many of you are at the feast to do brothels? Okay. You saw the man that blowed the shofar with me on the first day. We blowed the shofar before services.

He played the trombone in the background and played the drums. But this man came into the church.

He was a professional musician. When I say professional, the groups he played for were like the temptations. I mean, we're talking about 50,000 people at concerts. We're talking about studio musicians for the Ohio Players. I mean, the list of bands he played for is amazing. And he had to walk away from all that. And a fairly young man. I mean, it was many, many decades ago.

And he said he thought he gave up music entirely. So now what he does is go from feast site to feast site. I mean, there was a girl there playing the French horn. But at the beginning, the feast was too scared to play. And by the end of the feast, he was up there playing during services. Why? Because he helped her work through the French horn. He was trying to teach me certain sounds on the shofar. I couldn't do, but, you know, he could even play the shofar. Okay, he could do anything.

But the thing about John that I find so amazing is, he never once thought, why didn't you wait to call me until after my career? He said, oh well, I guess that's what I have to do. Now he says I've had this rewarding career just helping people. And I think it was the University of Chicago recently gave him an honorary doctorate in music. So he's had, quote, unquote, success. Not a lot of monetary success, but he's seen as a great musician, but his service has been to God. It'd be so easy for people that have gone, and I've seen people have to make those kinds of decisions to come to another conclusion. Why didn't God call me later? I missed out on so much. So he doesn't feel like he missed out on a thing. He would rather help a girl play the French horn so she could honor God on the last couple days of the feast than play his trombone with one of the greatest, you know, with any great group there is.

With 10,000 people watching, he would rather do one than the other.

It's easier to be honest, but we don't believe that, so we try to be hypocrites. I'll give you an example. This is a silly story, but it makes the point. A man was a hypocrite. He didn't do his job, but he played politics. He knew how to play the game, and eventually he gets promoted into this big job that he can't do, and he knows it.

So he goes into the office the first day, brand-new office furniture, and he's in there, and he shuts the door, and he's thinking, I don't know how to do this. I've pretended all these years, and everybody thinks I can do it. And there's a knock at the door, and he runs over and he picks up the phone, and he knows, you know, the guy to come in, and the guy comes in and he holds like this. He says, yes, sir. Yes, sir. I understand. I understand this is the biggest account in the history of this company. Yes, sir. I know why you want me to do it. I'm the only man qualified. I appreciate that, and I will take care of it. He puts down the phone. He says, well, young man, how can I help you? He says, well, you really can't. I just can't even hook up the telephone.

There's a whole lot more energy expended in being a hypocrite than there is a big honest, okay?

Because you have to try to keep up this facade all the time.

And so we have to realize this has to come from the heart. You know the hardest thing about being a Christian? It's not what you and I usually think it is. It's when we're trying to be a Christian and really don't want to be a Christian. That's the hardest part of being a Christian. It's when you have to do something deep inside you really don't want to do.

And so what we have here are these people who don't recognize God's love.

God has called you to be His people. He called those people, the Israelites and the Jews, to be His people. He's called you actually for greater purpose.

They were to bring about the coming of the first Messiah. We're supposed to bring about the herald, the coming of the second Messiah. And our resurrection is a better resurrection because we will be resurrected spiritual children in the family of God.

Christ said, do not fear, little flock. It is your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom. God did not call you to fail. God loves you. He wants you. He will do whatever it takes.

But we do live in Satan's world, and we do have to be prepared for the kingdom.

And both of those are uncomfortable. It is uncomfortable to live in Satan's world, and it is uncomfortable to be prepared for the kingdom as human beings.

But that's not a lack of God's love.

You know, we worry, why is this happening to me? Well, bad things happen to all of us. The question is, does God love us? Does God love us? And we have to have confidence in His love.

We have to have a confidence in it. Or it will be like the Jews at the time of Malachi.

That when God proclaims His love, we'll say, you don't love me. You don't love me.

Now, this foundation, this first comment by God and their response, you're going to find is the basis for all the other issues. They don't believe in God's love.

They didn't believe in God's grace. They didn't believe in God's mercy.

Grace isn't a new concept. It's not a new Testament concept. Grace is an Old Testament concept.

It is the favor of God. In fact, His first argument is, I gave you favor. I gave you grace. I didn't give that to Esau. I gave it to Jacob.

When we say, God, you don't love us, His first response is, but I picked you. I've given you a grace. I've given you a favor. I've given you a mercy that I haven't given others yet.

But it's hard to remember that when you're in the midst of a trial or something bad has happened, exactly what God has given to us. The next accusation is in Malachi 1, verse 6.

At the end, we stop to the middle of this verse, says the Lord of hosts. So now He's now moving from, I have loved you to, okay, I've got your response and I'm telling you, you do not reverence me. You don't honor me. And because you don't honor me and don't believe in my love, I'm going to bring some accusations against you. So says the Lord of hosts, to you, priest who despised my name. Now that's quite an accusation. These were the Levitical priests.

In fact, later He says, you've actually denied the covenant I made with Levi. Remember, God made a covenant with the descendants of Levi because at the time of Moses, at the time of the golden calf incident, it was the Levites who stood by Moses. And God said, okay, you're a special people. You're going to be my priest among priests because they were a nation of priests. You're the priests among priests. And so He made a special covenant with the descendants of Levi. Now He's talking to them and He says, you despise my name. Now that's the accusation from the judge. They give their defense.

In the end part of verse 6, yet you say, in what way have we despised your name?

I mean, they just say, they don't even say, it's, you know, let me explain. They just say, this is not true. But we haven't done that. We're here every single day. We do the morning sacrifice. We do the afternoon sacrifice. We do the washings. We have the special Sabbath services that they would do. There were some Levites who would sing. Okay. We got the stickers. We got the people who slay the goats or the lambs of the goats and all the animals. We have the people who do the gold, the incense. We keep the place clean. We have the Holy Fire. What are you talking about? We blow the shofar. We blow, when we're supposed to blow the shofar, we blow the trumpets, the silver trumpets. When we're supposed to blow the silver trumpets, we declare the fast. We declare the new moods. We do everything. What are you talking about? Verse 7. You offer defiled food on my altar.

But you say, in what way have we defiled you?

Wait a minute. No, we don't. We do everything just right. But notice it's their attitude. It isn't just what we do. It's the attitude in which we do it that God is concerned about.

By saying, He says, this is why all that you're doing is despising to me.

The table of the Lord is contemptible.

He said, because you're always in your mind, and when you sit around and no one else is around, and you're talking about yourselves, all you talk about is how crappy it is to be a Levite.

How? If I could just have been someone else, I could make a whole lot more money if I wasn't a Levite.

I could live a whole lot better life if I wasn't a Levite.

I look at all, I go downtown, and we walk through the streets of Jerusalem, and I notice that all the women have these nice gold earrings and gold bracelets, and my wife doesn't get that because I'm a Levite. See, the problem was their attitude. They were doing the things, and so they had begun to compromise. Let me show you. When you offer the blindness of sacrifice, is it not evil? When you offer the layman sick, is it not evil? See, you look at the commands, and they were to big the very best, the very best of the animals that sacrificed to God. What the Levites must be doing is saying, ooh, that's a nice fat one. That'll make some nice steaks. They keep that one, and they bring in the little skinny ones that are half blind, and they offer those to God. You can see why. God doesn't care. God doesn't eat this stuff. We're the ones that have to eat it. So what does it matter if we keep the good food and sacrifice these for Him? He says, offer it then to your governor. Go ahead.

Back the next time the prince or the king of Persia sent in a group of dignitaries to come see how Jerusalem is doing, bring out some all tough, gritty goat meat from this old goat that you kept the good one and sacrificed. Go ahead, give them the old goat. Let's see what they say.

Would He be pleased with you? Would He accept you favorably, says the Lord of Hosts? He says, you wouldn't even do this to a human being. It's their attitude. It's the way they approached it. They took their worship of God and they've made it... they've just compromised with it.

It's interesting, the Life Application Bible makes these three points going through the rest of chapter one. It summarizes chapter one, so I'm just going to go through this paragraph and what this commentary says. The people sacrificed to God, wrongly through expedience, being as chief as possible. Whatever we have to do to get it done, but there's no honoring of God in what they do. To neglect. They didn't care about what they offered anymore. They neglected it.

To thrive through outright disobedience. They were doing it their way instead of doing it God's way.

Their methods of giving show their real attitudes towards God.

Our methods of how we do things shows our real attitude towards God. And once again, we see a people who are on the surface, obey God, that internally, they're feeling oppressed by it. Internally, the Levites, even, the priests, felt like, well, this isn't the God's service. We do it because God commands us to do it, but we're not getting our good... our due from it. We're not getting what we deserve from it.

Look at verse 13.

He basically tells them, you just keep this honoring me in the way you do things. This is why, you know, when I gave the sermon on the series of Sermons on Holiness, I still have one more to do, but when I went through those sermons, I talked about Sabbath services. How do we sing the songs? How do we come? Do we come here happy and joyful to be here?

In our fellowship, in our worship, in our learning together?

Do we come in a... or do we come, you know, basically just at the last minute, just because we had more important things to do, but I feel like I have to go to church.

You sort of show up and you rush in, not prepared for what this is really all about, because, you know, the Sabbath is a holy convocation, but it's more than just the holy convocation. Coming to church isn't everything that the Sabbath is about, but it is a very important part of it. Where can we be like the priests? We just... everything we do in our worship towards God, our prayer, our Bible study, our meditation, our Sabbath observance, is just sort of haphazard. We do it, sort of. So that's what these people are doing.

Notice chapter 2, though. And now, O priests, this commandment is for you, if you will not hear, and if you will not take it to heart to give glory to my name, says the Lord of Hosts, I will send a curse upon you, and I will curse your blessings, and I have cursed them already, because you do not take it to heart. You do the actions, but it's not in your heart. It's not what motivates you. There's no joy. Is there a joy in your Christianity?

The joy of salvation. Is there a joy in our Christianity? It gets hard in the world that we live in. But we can't become like these people who are very negative in their approach to God.

Because of this, if you read through chapter 2, the priests began to show partiality. I mean, if you're going to be partial in misusing what you offer to God, remember, they had to make the judgments. You know, they were to look at the law and make the judgments on the people. They were very impartial. You know, if you were rich people, you could get away with things. If you're a poor person, maybe not so much. And so they were very partial in their judgment and how they judge God's law. Well, of course, if you're going to compromise with a lame animal, you're going to compromise with the other laws. And so you can imagine what's happening now in a society where the Levites, you know, the law has been watered down to where the Levites sometimes are breaking the law the way they use the law, the way they make their decisions. You're called as a chosen people, a holy priesthood, right? We're called as a chosen people, a holy priesthood. How is our daily sacrifices to God? What is your daily sacrifice to God like? Because you come before God as a priest who uses Christ. The third point he brings out is in Malachi 2.10.

Have we got one Father? Has not one God created us? Now, this is their statement, because all through the rest of chapter 2, he makes these just blast away at the priests.

So, what we have here in verse 10 is the next stage of accusations. But it doesn't start with an accusation. It starts with them defending themselves. I mean, there's not even an accusation made. They just start defending themselves here. So the judge now, he's accused of people because he said, I love you. And they said, ah, you don't really show love to us. He said, yeah, but you don't honor me. I've loved you and you don't even recognize it. Then he turns to the priest and says, you've really messed this up. It's going to come from the heart-turned-term means of priests. Now we have this general statement from the people that's going to lead to the third accusation. Have we not all one Father? Has not God created us? Why do we deal treacherously with one another by profaning the covenant of the fathers? And, okay, you're our Father. We all worship the one true God. So why is this? You're saying that we're treacherous. Why is it? What is it? What is it we're doing here? What's so bad about what we do?

Come on. We're doing the best we can. Because you're our Father.

He responded to verse 11. Judah has dealt treacherously and abomination has been committed in Israel and in Jerusalem. For Judah has profaned the Lord's holy institution, which he loves. He has married the daughter of a foreign God.

What had happened was, because of intermarries with pagans, they were bringing more and more into their culture pagan ideas, pagan worshiping. And, you know, okay, I go and marry this woman who's a pagan and she brings her idol, so I, well, that's just the way it goes.

But then the children are being taught idol worship. And so what's happening is that slowly, there's only four generations now from when they went in and built the temple, or rebuilt the temple, the rebel bells temple, that you have four generations later, idolatry coming back in. Slowly, if you walked around Judah at the time, you wouldn't find idols all over the place. They would be worshiping Dagon. They would, you know, they would be worshiping Bolak. Yet, yet, that it was starting among the children because of marrying pagans.

So we do have an issue here that began to happen with the marriage of the daughters of the four gods. But he doesn't stop here. If you go to verse 13, and when we went through the holiness sermon on marriage, we went through this passage of Malachi. And this is the second thing you do. You cover the altar of the Lord with tears, with weeping and crying. So he does not regard the offering anymore, nor receive it with good will from your hands. And you say, why? You notice every question here is, what's wrong with you, God? I'm doing the right thing.

You're the one who doesn't love me. You're the one who's not doing... I'm doing the right thing here.

I've chalked up all the good deeds. Why is it that you're so upset with me? Because the Lord, as a witness between you and the wife of your youth, which you have dealt treacherously. Yet she is your companion and your wife by covenant.

But did He not make them one, having a remnant of the Spirit? And why one? He seeks godly offspring. Therefore take heed to your Spirit, and let none deal treacherously with the wife of his youth.

For the Lord God of Israel says that he hates divorce, for covers one's garment with violence, says the Lord of Hosts. Therefore take heed to your Spirit that you do not deal treacherously.

I have to honestly say, in the last 20 years, in my experience in the Church, well, it started before that. Probably 30 years in the Church. Divorce has been all too common in the Church. And that divorce is not so easily accepted by God.

You know, and part of the reason why is we live in a society in which young people have been taught to say young people, and divorce is among people of all ages, but it's just part of the whole society, that there's one person out there for you to marry. And when you find that one person, you will have true happiness forever. Well, there is a lot of happiness in marriage. Happiness is wonderful. And the truth is that you can't marry everybody.

I mean, there's some people you don't want to marry. But there isn't just one either.

There isn't just one person for one person. You know, if you had 50 women and 50 men, you know, one man might... five of those women might be good mates for him. One woman, she can look over here, there's maybe five men that would be a good... there's not just one person in this world for you. Now, once you marry that person, that's the one person in the world for you. I mean, once you make the choice, that becomes the one person in the world. But before that, you know, once again, it's not like you can marry everybody. So it's not like, oh, I'll just pick somebody and marry them. That doesn't work. You have to be compatible on a lot of different levels.

But there's not just one person. So if you have the belief that there's just one person, I found that one person. And then you have the problems of life and the problems that come in marriage. Well, the one person is supposed to make me happy. Therefore, I must get rid of this person and go find the one person. The problem is you must not be the one person. So discarding the person becomes easy. Instead of saying, we must grow together as the one person.

You know, I mean, after a while, that is the one person. Because you grow together. When you first get married, it's not the one person. It's just the person you chose. And then what happens is, wow, this other person over here could be the one person I need to dump the person I'm with, because I think that's the one person. Pretty soon you've been married three or four times.

Happens all the time. But you dump the one person because, oh no, that's really not the one person. And so your personal... it's just a way of destruction of marriage.

So here we have two issues. Two accusations are made against those people. One, you're marrying pagans. And now they're bringing into the church these pagan ideas, or I mean into the people of Judah. Secondly, do you divorce them? Now, there are going to be divorces. There are grounds for divorce in the Bible under certain circumstances. So I'm not going to say there's never going to be a divorce in the church that isn't accepted by God. There are certain cases, but they are very specific. Very specific. And there's been too much divorce over the years of the church.

So this message to them applies to us today. It's like I've said before, remember, well, like I said in the announcements, remember the two great moral imperatives given to me to begin with was, okay, keep the Sabbath. No, well, first one was, don't eat of that tree. The second one was, keep the Sabbath so you have a relationship with me and marriage.

That's the first two things he gave us.

So marriage is very important. Now, that doesn't mean God can't forgive divorce.

I'm not saying that. What I'm saying is that we should be fighting against this something he hates.

It says he hates it. I'm not taking it so lightly. Malachi 2.17, we get to number four in the list.

You have wearied the Lord with your words. Boy, that's a strange statement. You know what God actually says, you know what? I'm tired of hearing people talk. I'm tired of hearing you pray.

I'm tired of hearing your services. Now, remember, they weren't sacrificing to Zeus.

They were sacrificing to God. He says, it's the sacrifices you're giving to me that I have trouble with. It is not a pagan society. We went through Hosea and Amos. When we went through the other minor prophets, they were really battling with paganism, infiltrating into Israel and eventually Judah. That hasn't happened here yet. They've come back from captivity, from the Babylonian captivity, and they haven't deteriorated into a pagan society. In fact, they wouldn't deteriorate into a pagan society. When Jesus came along, the problems with the Pharisees weren't that they were pagans. They had just messed up the religion He had given to them. So they didn't degenerate into a pagan society. And Malachi's message must have had some impact. So that's not the problem. These people are worshipping God, and on the service would be keeping the Ten Commandments.

But their relationship with God was of such that God says, you have wearied the Lord with your words. Yet you say, okay, now the accusation, they come back with their response, in what way have we wearied Him? That you say everyone who does evil is good in the sight of the Lord, and He delights in them. Or where is the God of justice? In other words, they looked around and said, well, look at old Josiah over here. Josiah, he's doing really good, and yet he cheats. And you know, his scales aren't right. So he steals from people all the time, and God blessed him. You know, this idea that God blesses us for doing good is really ridiculous. Where is the God of justice? God blessed evil. Now, if you really believe that, there's two things you will do. You either do evil, or you'll resent God. You'll do what's right, but you'll resent it.

So they began to really be envious of people who seem to be doing better than them, but disobeyed God. And so envy now is part of... As you see, these are all attitudes.

You think, wow! Malachi comes along at a peak in Judah's history when they come back out of captivity, and they're doing really well. On the other surface, they are.

But underneath something bad was happening.

So one of them was, they envied. And he says, I'm tired of hearing about it. I'm tired of... You know, there's 300 people in this little area of Jerusalem that always complained to me about Josiah. I know the guy's crooked. I know that. What's that have to do with you? Well, how come he got a new chariot and I didn't? Right? How come he got a new chariot and I didn't? See, you bless those who do evil. This idea that you bless those who do good. Now, remember, the first problem is, I love you, no you don't. You see how that permeates everything here? I love you, no you don't.

And that permeates their whole thought process. I love you, I gave you a wife in your youth to be good to you. That old hag. See, you don't love me. I'm going to give you somebody else.

They were thankful. They just, they were cheap. They were expedient in what they did in the proper, you know, they did whatever seemed to get by, whatever helped them get by.

Chapter 3, we come to number 5. They hold, I said my messenger. It's a little different here, because he starts out with, I'm going to fix this through the Messiah. Okay? Now, so here we have prophecies about Christ's first coming, and then we're going to see prophecies about His second coming. As we said, almost all the later prophets, there's prophecies about His first and second coming. And He will prepare the way before me, and the Lord, whom you seek, will suddenly come to His temple. Even the messenger of the covenant, and whom you delight, behold, He is coming, says the Lord of hosts. He said, I'm going to send Him, anticipate that. Let's get back to, yes, today's world doesn't always work right, but I'm blessing you, I'm taking care of you, and I'm going to send the Messiah back. Well, we say back, and they didn't know what was going to come back, okay? I'm going to send the Messiah. He's going to come, the messenger of the covenant. Who's going to bring the new covenant? And that's going to happen. So start looking towards that. But who can adore the day of His coming? Who can stand when He appears? For He is like a refiner aspired, like a launderer's soap. And He will sit as a refiner and a purifier of silver. And He will purify the sons of Levi. He goes right after the priest. He says, you guys are going to learn to do it right. And purge them as gold and silver, that they may offer to the Lord an offering of righteousness. That the offering of Judah and Jerusalem will be pleasant to the Lord, as in the days of old, as in the former years. He says, I will come near you for judgment, and I will be a swift witness against sorcerers and adulterers and perjurers, and against those who exploit wage earners and widows and orphans, and against those who turn away an alien, because they do not fear Me, says the Lord of hosts. Now we get some of the social problems that we're beginning to form here. Sounds more like Amos here. We see the... and it sounds a little bit like Joel, too. This is the problem starting to form now four generations after the temple. The paganism hadn't come yet, but we see sorcery. Okay, we see this sort of superstition that's coming in. People are becoming superstition. We see adultery, sexual sins are rampant, perjurers, people who just don't tell the truth. Those who exploit wage earners and widows.

So what we see is a business system in which the people who own the business were exploiting their workers. And then the society was exploiting widows and orphans.

He says it's because they do not fear Me.

Verse 6, for I am the Lord, I do not change. Therefore you are not consumed, O sons of Jacob. He says that I haven't destroyed you because I am who I am.

I do love you. We go back to the first verse. I do love you.

Therefore I do not consume you, even though this is the type of people that you are becoming.

But they continue to refuse to return to God. They continue to refuse to return to God. Verse 7, Yet for the days of your fathers, you have gone away from my ordinances, and you have not kept them. Return to Me, and I will return to you, says the Lord of Hosts. But notice, here's what their response is. But you said, in what way shall we return? Well, we're already doing it right. What do you want us to do? We don't understand. So in response to that, he now brings them another accusation, which is accusation number 6. Verse 8, Will a man rob God? Well, the answer to that, I mean, you know, there's a pause after this. You know, will a man rob God? Well, of course not. Who's going to rob God? That would be stupid. Right? You have robbed me. In what way have we robbed you? Okay, now there's a defense because that one. And remember, it's always a question. We don't get this. You're making an accusation that's just not true. Now, remember, they're not actually saying this. This is a drama that's being played out. You can make this into a play very easily. In what way have we robbed you?

In tithes and offerings. You are cursed with a curse for you have robbed me, even this whole nation.

Bring all the tithes into the storehouse. Today may be food for my house, and try me now with this, says the Lord of Hosts. If I will not open for you the windows of heaven and pour out for you such blessings that there will not be room enough to receive it. I've always found it fascinating in my life that many times the poorest people are the ones who tithe the most, or the most desirous of tithing. I wish I had a dollar for every time I've sat down with someone in tears, maybe a widow or someone who said, I was out of work this almost this whole year, and I didn't have any tithes to give. I want to give something. I'm on social security, and I have no tithes to give. Here, when you take this five dollars and make sure that somebody has helped, or good news gets into somebody's hands. I'm always amazed at the poorest people who feel this great need and desire to tithe and give to God.

And yet, the more money we have sometimes, the harder it is to tithe.

It's like, wow, that's a lot of money. That's a lot of money I'm given.

God says, well, we don't pay our tithes, and tithing is still applicable today.

When we do not pay our tithes, we are stealing from God.

Eventually, God will treat us as a thief. That's what he says here. That's what he told those of me.

So tithing is commanded.

If I don't pay my tithes, God's going to eventually treat me like a thief.

That bothers me a little bit. I don't know. That bothers me to think that God's going to treat me like a thief. I'm just thankful he lets me keep most of it, which is good.

So I give him my tithes and our offerings.

People will get so caught up. A while back, I had someone from another church area, another part of the country, very upset. Did you know the Bible says that we're to come before God three times in the year with an offering, and yet in our church we collect an offering on every holy day, and that's seven times a year, and I'm just not going to do that anymore. I said, okay.

He was a little perplexed by it. I said, now you will have to show up three times, right?

He said, well, yeah. I said, so during the days of another bread, and during Pentecost, and during the fall holy days, you're going to show up at least once. Yeah. Okay. I'll make a suggestion. Just divide that by seven and give it on each holy day.

Oh. This is a free will offering, and if you feel that feeling about it, and I ended up the guy giving a holy day offering every time, when he started to throw it, you know, so what is your attitude here? You don't have to give anything if you don't want to. It's a free will offering. Now, your command is to show up and give something, but I mean, give a dollar. Can you give a dollar three times a year? Three dollars. Well, I wouldn't give more than that.

Okay. So, give at the first day of another bread and not on the second day. How about you do that?

Okay. I could do that if you want to.

It's a free will offering. Or you can take the $50 and divide it into two $25 checks. You can do that too. Oh, and then you'll be given like everybody else. Well, pretty soon he went back to his old ways of giving an offering. It's the attitude that God's looking at here. It's the attitude.

That's the thing about free will offering. It's free will?

We always have an offeratory message that talks about why we take offerings, but you notice we never beg for money on a holy day. We never beg for money. We never tell you, please give more. Reach deep into your heart and pull up. Open your wallets and throw everything in. You know, it's a free will offering. You bring it to God out of what you feel you should give.

The seventh and the last point is in verse 13.

Verse 13.

Your words have been harsh against me, says the Lord.

He says, you've spoken some real hard stuff against me.

You've been hard on me. You know, I hope I never stand before God in heaven and say, you know what, Gary? You were really hard on me. That's a scary thing. Oh, man.

You're a little overmatched with God, right? You've been too hard on me.

Yet you say, what have we spoken against you? You have said, it is useless to serve God. What profit is it in it that we keep His ordinance? That we have walked His borders. It's just grief. We're sad all the time. It's so hard. If I didn't have to do this, think of all the fun I could be having.

If I didn't have to do this, think of it, if I didn't have to pay 10% of my money to God in a tithe, because that's what it means. If I didn't have to give 10% of my money to God in a tithe, think of what I could buy. If God hadn't called me, you know, it's funny what people think.

I could be going out on Friday nights and getting drunk and picking up girls.

Oh, that'd be so much fun. He says, verse 15, you have set His uses to serve God, that we have walked His borders, before the Lord of hosts. So now we call the proud blessed that those who do wickedness are raised up, but even they tempt God and go free. He said, the result of this is that you live in an arrogant society where everybody is proud, and everybody feels like God is somehow cheating them of something. And I have to admit, I've met a lot of people in life who believe that God's cheating them of something. God cheated them of whatever, you know, something that seems important to them.

The last of these accusations is that proclaiming is God is harsh.

You know, it's interesting when I think of this, first thing I think of every time I read this passage is the parable of the talents. Remember the man who had the talent that buried his talent?

And when Christ shows up, He says, I knew you were going to be hard on me. I knew you were tough. I knew you were mean. So here, I took everything you gave me of life that was to be developed and produced for your glory and the glory of God. Here, I give it back to you. There.

Because I knew you were going to be hard on me.

And it's interesting, the other two are like, look, you gave us this, and we submitted to you, and it produced so much. This is good. You get a reward. But the last one, the last one, all we could think about was how God was so hard on him. We're back to the first point. You don't love me. You've made my life hard.

You took for me all the good things in life. You know, if it wasn't for you, I could have been a cheerleader in high school. I don't need me. I'm talking about someone else.

I've got to be careful what I say.

I used to think, when I was a kid, boy, if it wasn't for this, I could be a good football player. Yeah, 5'8", 180 pounds.

Get slow.

We have to be careful not to do God's way, and yet inside have a bitterness, have a disappointment in God, have a feeling like I'm doing this because I'm being compelled to do it, not because I want to do it, and not because I believe God loves me.

At the end of this, there's a great message of hope in this. So he gives me seven indictments, these seven arguments then that come from the people defending themselves or from the priests, and he says, verse 16, then, okay, he sort of changes direction now. He's, okay, we're going to now talk about the ones who are doing it right.

That those who fear the Lord spoke to one another, and the Lord listened and heard them.

He didn't say, I'm weary with your words, I'm tired of listening to you. Those who heart so right, God listens to them, not just in our prayers. He listens to you and I when we talk to each other.

He enjoys our conversations with each other as his children. I am just, the older I get, I'm like this even with my grandchildren. I love to sit and listen to my kids talk to each other.

I love to listen to my great kids talk to each other.

God listens to us talk. As a father, you know, there are times he probably laughs, and there's probably times that we think we got something figured out, and he says, man, are they going to be surprised? Just like kids. You think, listen to little kids, they think they got something figured out, you know. It doesn't work that way, but okay, you know. No, the car doesn't have little bikes in there running around in it to keep their car going.

So, a book of remembrance was written before him for those who fear the Lord and who meditate on his name, who meditate on who he is and his ways and his thoughts and what he wants us to be. We think about this. We just don't pick up a Bible, you know, once a week and read a few passages. We don't pray when it's, you know, it's just comfortable. It's, oh yeah, I guess I should pray. I have prayed for a couple days, and I'm about to go to sleep. I think I'll pray for two minutes.

A book of remembrance. Your name is in a book of remembrance.

It's already in there. Remember, David said, don't take my name out of that book.

Your name is already written in it. It has written you down, it's something down there. It's the person I'll remember.

They shall be mine, says the Lord of Hosts, on the days that I make them my jewels, and I will spare them, and as the man spares his own son who serves him, that you again shall discern between the righteous and the wicked, between the one who serves God and the one who does not serve God.

And it goes on, then, in the rest of this chapter, or the rest of this book in chapter 4, it talks about when Christ returns and looks way ahead to the great white throne judgment, and when the earth is destroyed by fire, and the wicked are ashes under your feet, because you're the jewels of God. This great message of hope, then, that's in this last part of chapter 3 and chapter 4, is that God is going to solve things. He's got to fix things. Life isn't fair all the time now. Life doesn't always work out, but He loves us. Stay the course.

Stay where the course that God has set for us. That's what He was telling these people.

That's what He was telling these people. Like I said, Malachi's message must have had some impact because they never became paganized. Jesus comes along, even though they get it all messed up, at least it's sort of in the same direction. They're still trying to do certain things, and there are still righteous people there. He talked about John the Baptist. He talked about John's parents and others as righteous people. They were following God.

But they had many of the same problems in the first century, 400 years later, that Malachi is telling them about here. But this message is important to us.

This message is important to us because those same issues still apply to us today as the people of God. Remember, stay the course. And you will be, as the message of Malachi tells us, you will be because you already are His special treasure.