The Messengers of Malachi

Do you have a handout how to analyze a book of the Bible? If not, in my chair, there are several more handouts. If I'll raise your hand if you don't have this handout. We're going to use that as a guide. Let's look at this handout first of all. Read the entire book at one sitting, of course, with the Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel. That's a little bit more difficult to do, or the Pentateuch. But especially the shorter books and the minor prophets, and also all of the New Testament, you can basically read it in one sitting. Identify recurring words and themes. See, identify rhetorical questions. Identify words that may be symbolic or metaphorical, like sun, stars, mountains, so on.

Identify images and visions. Identify characters or events that might serve as types. Identify and list the principal topics. Ask the question, when, where, what, why, and how. Identify the chronological period and cultural setting. Identify the principal topics and the context of each topic. Then it goes into how to put this together into a presentation like a sermon or a Bible study. Today, we're going to look at the book of Malachi.

Malachi lends itself especially to this kind of analysis. So if you would turn to the book of Malachi. The word Malachi is derived from the Hebrew word malach, M-A-L-A-K. I think we need a heavier marker here. And I really don't know if you can see this or not, so I may be wasting my time by doing this. Or wasting your time, whichever way. Well, malach, M-A-L-A-K. Malach is translated messenger or angel. It can refer to a human being or it can refer to a divine being.

The equivalent in the New Testament is Angelos, which you get Los Angeles, the city of angels. Then Greek, this Angelos has a... I think that's the same thing. Angelos, the G-G has an een sound, so Angelos. Same thing, Angelos can refer to a human messenger or a divine messenger. In the book of Malachi, there are five messengers that are identified. So we might title the sermon, The Messengers of Malachi, but we hope to do much more than just that. Let's notice the messengers that are identified in Malachi. First of all, Malachi himself, Malachi 1 and verse 1.

The Burden of the Word of the Eternal to Israel by Malachi. Malachi comes from Malak, so the first messenger here is Malachi. God basically spoke to the Old Testament people through prophets and priests. So the first messenger identified is Malachi. In chapter 2, verse 7, the second messenger that is identified are the priests. Let's read Malachi 2, verse 7. For the priests live should keep knowledge, for they should seek the law at the mouth. For he is the Malak, the messenger of the Lord of Hosts. So we have identified two messengers. Malachi, a prophet, the priest, a messenger.

You see, both of these are human. Now in Malachi 3.1, two more messengers are identified. Malachi 3.1, Behold, I will send my Malak, my messenger, and he shall prepare the way before me. That messenger is John the Baptist, also a human. And the Lord, the Adonai, whom you shall seek, shall suddenly come to his temple. See, that is Jesus Christ. And here we see the one who became Jesus identified in the Old Testament. I will send my messenger, the Lord. Goes on to say, even the messenger of the covenant. And Jesus Christ is the mediator of the new covenant.

So the fourth messenger is Jesus Christ, whom you delight in. And behold, he shall come, says the Lord of Hosts. In chapter 5, the fifth messenger is identified. I'm sorry, chapter 4. In chapter 4 and verse 5, the fifth messenger, Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord. So five messengers are identified. The book of Malachi paves the way for the transition from the Old Covenant to the New Covenant.

I believe you'll see that more clearly as we discuss this prophecy today. The prophecy is a monologue. By that, a monologue is where only one person is doing the speaking. And that one person that is doing the speaking is God himself.

Of course, Malachi is the human instrument through whom he speaks who writes it down, the one who is inspired to write it down.

But it is written in the form of a dialogue. That is, two people that are two parties that are speaking. Now we'll give examples of that. We want to go back to Malachi 1 and 2.

So here is the dialogue part. One person doing the speaking, but he's giving the part of the first and second party.

He says, He saw Jacob's brother, says the Lord, yet I loved Jacob, and I hated he saw, and laid his mountains and his heritage waste for the dragons of the wilderness. In verse 5, And your eyes shall see, and you shall see the Lord, and he will be magnified from the border of Israel.

My son honors his father, and a servant his master, and then I be a father. Where is mine honor? And if I be a master, where is my fear? Says the Lord of hosts unto you, O priests, that despise my name. And you say, where in have we despised your name? Then, in verse 12, But you have profaned it in that you say, The table of the Lord is polluted, and the fruit thereof, even the meat, is contemptible.

Verse 13, You said also, Behold, what a weariness it is! And you have snuffed at it, says the eternal of hosts, And you brought that which was torn, and the lame, and the sick. Thus you brought an offering. Should I accept this at your hand? says the eternal. So they were bringing not the best of the flock, but they were bringing the worst of the flock, and the priests were falling in line and going along with it. Now in chapter 2, verse 17, You have weared the Lord with your words, yet you say, Where in have we weared him?

when you say, Everyone that does evil is good in the sight of the Lord, and delights in them, or where is the God of judgment? So the great rhetorical question in this book is, Where is the God of judgment? Now continuing in verse 8, chapter 3, Will a man rob God? yet you have robbed me, But you say, Oh, where in have we robbed you? God says, In tithes and offerings, Your curse with a curse, for you have robbed me, even this whole nation. So everybody is in the act, as it were. Continuing in verse 13, Your words have been stout against me, says the Eternal, yet you say, What have we spoken so much against you?

You have said, It is vain to serve God, and what profit is it that we have kept His ordinance, and that we have walked mournfully before the Lord of hosts? So we see clearly it's a monologue. God is doing the talking. He is saying His part, and He's saying the part of the people. You don't have to say anything to God in the oral sense. We talk to God every day without talking to God. And the old adage that actions speak louder than words, our behavior is our response.

God judges our heart and our actions. To not pray to God on a regular basis is the same as saying, God will not hear my prayer, so there's no need praying. There's no profit to doing good. The wicked profit, the good suffer. And these kind of attitudes are, in effect, accusing God. So you don't have to say anything for God to know what your response is. Your response is loud and clear.

He reads it every day, whether you say anything to Him or not. You are, in effect, talking to Him. Now, Israel wasn't saying all of these things necessarily, or Judah, because technically Malachi was speaking to Judah after they returned from captivity. Next, we'll see that the audience, we'll identify the audience. We go to Chapter 1. The audience in Chapter 1 is basically the people, the nation. I've loved you, hated Esau, loved Jacob. Jacob represents, can be used generically for all ten tribes. Notice verse 8, Malachi 1.8. And if you offer the blind for sacrifice, is it not evil? And if you offer the lame and sick, is it not evil? Offer it now unto the governor.

Will he be pleased with you or accept your person, says the Lord of Hosts? I mean, you wouldn't give that kind of stuff even to a civil ruler, much less unto the king of the universe, the Creator. And now I pray you, beseech God that He will be gracious unto you. This has been by your means. Will He regard your person, says the Lord of Hosts? Who is there even among you that would shut the doors for nothing? So everybody wants something for what they're doing.

Neither do you kindle fire on mine altar for nothing. I have no pleasure in you, says the eternal host. Neither will I accept your offering at your hand. For from the rising of the sun, even in the going down of the same, my name shall be great among the nations. And in every place, incense shall be offered unto my name, and a pure offering for my name shall be great among the nations, says the eternal host. So the priest getting on it, some in chapter 1, but specifically in chapter 2, he addresses the priest. Verse 1, And now, O you priests, this commandment is for you.

If you will not hear, if you will not lay it to heart, and give glory unto my name, says the Lord of hosts, I will even send a curse upon you. I will curse your blessings. Yes, I have cursed them already, because you do not lay it to heart.

So he takes the priest to task in chapter 2. In chapter 3, the spiritual temple is addressed, and the goings-on at the temple, which to some degree are also addressed in chapter 1, as we have noted. And then in chapter 4, the focus is on the end of the age, and to send Elijah before the great and dreadful day of the Lord. So in the book of Malachi, the people to whom he's addressing the prophecy are identified at that time, but this prophecy to a large degree is for us today.

We see especially an end-time setting. Notice verses 5 and 6 in the last chapter. Malachi 4, 5, and 6. Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord. He shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to their fathers, lest I come and smite the earth with a curse.

Malachi was the last of the Old Testament prophets. Judah went over 400 years without a prophet on the scene. Now, I'm briefly going to give the background of the time setting, and I won't be able, because of time, to... but you basically should know this. As you recall, the armies of Nebuchadnezzar, the Babylonians, came against Judah beginning in 604 BC. The Babylonians took Judah into captivity at various stages over a period of about 20 years. Maybe not quite 20 years, but close to it. And the last thing that happened was that they burned the temple to the ground, destroyed it. Before they burned it to the ground, they took some of the sacred vessels out and took them to Babylon.

Then, in 538 BC, Cyrus, a Persian king, made a decree that a certain number of the Jews could return to Judah, to Jerusalem, and rebuild the temple. It's called the Second Temple, or the Restoration Temple. That contingent of people were led by Zerubbabel, the civil governor, and Joshua, the high priest. They fiddled around, as it were, for about 18 years before God raised up two prophets, Haggai and Zechariah, to stir them up and get on with building of the temple. They had met all kinds of opposition. Even some of the Jews said it's not time to build the temple. The Samaritans, who had been left in the land, they were trying to prevent the Jews from building a temple. Various rulers in the Medo-Persian Empire were trying to prevent them from building the temple.

So there were setbacks along the way, and finally in 520 BC, they started building the temple in earnest. And then they finished the temple in 515 BC, and they dedicated the temple. If you'll hold your place there in Malachi, you go back to Ezra 6, verse 14, and you will note the dedication of this temple. The Restoration Temple in Ezra 6, verse 15. And this house was finished, the Restoration Temple, the Second Temple, on the third day of the month, Adar, which was in the sixth year of the reign of Darius the king. The children of Israel, the priests, the Levites, the rest of the children of the captivity, kept the dedication of this house of God with joy. It talks about the offerings they made. Now, unlike when Solomon's temple was dedicated, you don't see a record here of the glory of God filling this house, because the Shekinah glory, as the Jews call it, did not fill this house. But Haggai prophesied that the glory of this latter house shall exceed that of the former, and of course, it has to do with the church that is to come, which is now the temple of God. In chapter 7, we see Ezra coming to Jerusalem. Some 50 years have passed since that temple was dedicated. And Ezra leads a contingent of Jews back to really try to get, and Ezra was a priest, to really try to get them back on track in worshiping the true God. So he was given permission to go back. Notice verse 9. This is Ezra 7-9. For on the first day of the first month began he to go up from Babylon, and on the first day of the fifth month came he to Jerusalem, according to the good hand of his God upon him. For Ezra had prepared his heart to seek the law of God, and to do it, and to teach in Israel statues and judgments. And Ezra did that. Some people believe, and I tend to believe it too, that Ezra was to a large degree responsible for canonizing the Old Testament books. And Ezra was one of the last writers of the Old Testament. Then after the death of Ezra, things fell into a state of decay and disrepair once again, and Nehemiah talks about that in his attempts to really restore true worship. And then coming on the heels of that is about this time that Malachi comes on the scene. He addresses all these problems that were extant at that time. And once again, this great rhetorical question of where is the God of Judgment, he answers that question. So God waited for over 400 years before he began to correct the situation. There was a brief restoration during the time of the Maccabees, but for the most part, they had to wait about 400 years. The condition of the temple when Christ came on the scene, you'll notice now Matthew 23 and verse 1. So what was it like 400 years after Malachi's prophecy? Because Malachi prophesied that two prophets would come on the scene, John the Baptist and Jesus Christ. In Matthew 23 and verse 1 will give us great insight. Then spoke Jesus to the multitude and to his disciples, saying, The scribes and the Pharisees sit in Moses' seat. All therefore, whatsoever they bid you to observe, that observe and do, but do not after their works, for they say, and they do not. Then he takes them to task. And in Matthew 23, 23, he talks about how they had neglected the weightier matters of the law.

We get more insight if we go to John 2 now as to the condition of the temple and God's people at that time when Christ came on the scene. In John 2, in the first part of John 2, Jesus Christ had performed his first public miracle of changing the water into wine at the marriage celebration that was being held upon the urging of his mother. He came and rescued them, as it were, and changed the water into wine. We pick it up again in John 2, 12. After this, he went down to Capernaum, he and his mother and his brethren and disciples. They continued there not many days, and the Jews' Passover was at hand, and the Jews went up to Jerusalem.

I'm sorry, Jesus went up to Jerusalem and found in the temple those that sold oxen and sheep and doves and the changers of money sitting. And when he had made his scourge of small cords, he drove all of them out of the temple and the sheep in the auction and poured out the changers' money over through the tables. And he said unto them that sold doves, Take these things from here, make not my father's house a house of merchandise.

And his disciples remembered that it was written, The zeal of your house has eaten me up.

So that's the condition of the temple and religious worship when Christ came on the scene. Now we go back to Malachi once again in this great rhetorical question that the people of that day were asking.

It is a question that the people of God have basically asked through the ages, Where is the God of Judgment? Now look at the way things are. Look at the way the things are in the nation. Look at the way the things are. Some say, well, in the church. Look at the things I'm having to go through. Is there really any justice in the land? And when is God going to step in and correct this?

So you remember that basically they went 400 years from the time of Malachi's prophecy to the time that John the Baptist and Jesus Christ came on the scene.

So we read once again this rhetorical question in Malachi 2.17.

So Chapter 3 answers that question, Where is the God of Judgment?

But we lead up to the verse that answers that. You want to know about the God of Judgment.

That's John the Baptist.

But who shall abide in the day of his coming, and who shall stand when he appears?

Hold your place there for just a moment. Go to Mark Chapter 1.

We will clearly identify the first messenger here as John the Baptist.

In Mark 1, verse 1, The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, as it is written in the prophets, Malachi specifically, Behold, I send my messenger before your face, whom shall prepare the way before you, the voice of one crying in the wilderness, prepare you the way, prepare you the way of the Lord, and make his path straight.

Then it talks about the works of John the Baptist.

Now in verse 14, the messenger of the covenant.

Now after that John was put in prison, Jesus came into Galilee preaching the gospel of the kingdom of God, and saying, The time is fulfilled, the kingdom of God is at hand, repent you, and believe the gospel.

So Jesus Christ, the fourth messenger, is identified.

Now we go back to Malachi 3, verse 2.

Now what is Jesus Christ going to do?

And here we enter into some types.

We're called in 1 Peter chapter 2, a royal priesthood.

That doesn't mean that God does not have an ordained ministry, as some have tried to lead us to believe.

But we know that, as it says in 1 Corinthians 12, he has set some in the church with various responsibilities.

And also you read that in Ephesians chapter 4.

So what is he going to do? Notice this.

Let's read that verse 2. But who may abide the day of his coming, and who shall stand when he appears?

For he is like a refiner's fire, and like fuller soap.

Of course, you can look at this in a dual sense.

That is, his first coming, and also his second coming.

At the present time, judgment is on the house of God.

And if the righteous scarcely be saved, where shall the sinner and the unrighteous appear?

Of course, as you heard in the first sermon today, that there is a time coming when all men, when the blinders shall be taken off their eyes, and all men and women shall have an opportunity. There are no second chances. Don't get us wrong with that. There is only one opportunity. And that's when God opens your mind and heart.

Right now, we are typical sons of Levi. We're the ones that are being purged.

Then in verse 4, I want to read verse 3. I didn't read it.

He shall sit as a refiner and purify of silver. He shall purify the sons of Levi, purge them as gold and silver, that they may offer unto the eternal an offering in righteousness.

Then, when, then, after they are purified, shall the offering of Judah and Jerusalem be pleasant unto the Lord, as in the days of old and in the former years. So then it seems to come to a millennial kind of setting.

And I will come near to you to judgment. You want to know where the God of Judgment is?

I will come near to you to judgment, and I will be a swift witness against the sorcerers, against the adulterers, against false swarers, against those that oppress the hireling, as in his wages, the widow and the fatherless, and that turn aside the stranger from his right, and fear not me, says the Lord of Hosts, for I am the eternal.

You don't want to know where I am? I'm the eternal. I haven't changed. I haven't gone away. I'm where I've always been.

I'm on my throne in the third heavens. I change not.

Now, the way that God has dealt with human beings through the ages, he hasn't dealt with all of them in the same way.

From the Garden of Eden to the time of Jesus Christ, there were various periods and administrations you had, the time of the patriarchs, the time of the judges, the time of the kings, and coming up to the time of the dispensation of grace, or what we call the church age, as Paul talks about in Ephesians 3, verses 1 and 2.

For I am the eternal. I change not. Therefore, you sons of Jacob are not consumed.

If you really got judgment, then none of us could stand.

Because we have all sinned and come short of the glory of God, therefore the death penalty is on our heads.

The only way it can be removed is through the sacrifice of Christ.

Even from the days of your fathers, you have gone away from mine ordinances and have not kept them.

Return unto me, and I will return unto you, says the Lord of hosts.

But you said, what shall we return? What have we done?

Well, then he begins to enumerate the tithes and offerings. You haven't paid those.

Then he talks about verse 11, I will rebuke the devourer for your sakes, and he shall not destroy the fruits of the ground, neither shall your vine cast her fruit before the time in the field, says the Lord of hosts.

In other words, if you begin to worship God, you won't be in dire financial straits as this nation is today.

I mean, it is unbelievable. With the greatest blessings and the greatest natural resources, the greatest technology, and you could go on with the greatest.

Yet, here we are. Why? Well, a lot of the answers are contained in this prophecy.

But if you will return, he says, I'll destroy the enemy. Verse 12, and the nation shall call you blessed.

And you shall be a delight some land, says the Lord of hosts. Your words have been stout against me.

Yet you say, what have we spoken so much against you? You have said it is vain to serve God, and what profit is it that we have kept His ordinance and that we have walked mournfully before the Lord of hosts?

And now you call the proud happy. Yes, they that work wickedness are set up. Yes, they that tempt God are even delivered.

Then there's like a dramatic shift as that is going on.

See, there has been in the last several years in the Church of God a great deal of smiting of fellow servants.

As it talks about in Matthew 24, it says that when they are smiting their fellow servants, that's the time that you really need to watch out for.

Maybe we should turn there and read that and come back to this in Matthew 24.

In Matthew 24, verse 46, Blessed is that servant whom his Lord, when he comes, shall find so doing.

Verily I say unto you that he shall make him ruler over his goods.

And if that evil servant shall say in his heart, My Lord delays his coming, and shall begin to smite his fellow servants, and to eat and drink with the drunken, the Lord of that servant shall come in a day when he looks not for him, and in an hour that he is not aware of.

And shall cut him asunder, and appoint him as portion with the hypocrites, there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.

Now, there's probably no one just outright saying, well, I know that my Lord's delaying his coming.

See, you communicate to God, as did the people in Malachi's day, whether or not you believe the Lord delays his coming by the way we live our lives.

Have we just settled into churchianity, and comfortably doing our thing each Sabbath?

Or do we have that great mission and commission?

You see, we too are messengers of the covenant, if we have entered into that new covenant.

Because the commission to the church is to take this gospel to the world.

Disciples all nations.

And lo, I am with you until the end of the age.

Then you notice, see, the Olivet prophecy covers Matthew 24, 25, and the first verse of 2 of 26.

Then, when is this parable of the ten virgins?

It's when those things are going on, then shall the kingdom of heaven be like an unto ten virgins.

Now we go back to Malachi.

Now, what is the proper response during this time?

In Malachi 3.

Then, when these things are going on, Malachi 3.16. Then they that feared the Eternal spoke often to one another, and the Eternal hearkened and heard it.

And a book of remembrance was written before him for them that feared the Lord and that thought upon His name.

Thinking upon His name has to do with every facet of His character and His being, His power, His authority, the promises, all the things that He can do.

Then they that feared the Lord thought upon His name.

Verse 17, then they shall be mine, says the Eternal of hosts, and that day when I make up my jewels.

And I will spare them.

To me, this seems to indicate perhaps sparing during the time of the Tribulation, because they make up my jewels, I will spare them.

As a man spares his own Son that serves him, then shall you return and discern between the righteous and the wicked, between him that serves God and him that serves him not.

For behold, the day comes that shall burn as an oven, and all the proud, yes, and all that do wickedly, shall be stubble.

They will be burned up.

And the day that comes shall burn them up, says the Lord of hosts, that it shall leave them neither root nor branch.

But unto you that fear my name shall the Son of righteousness arise with healings in His wings, and you shall go forth and grow up as calves in the stall.

And you shall tread down the wicked, for they shall be ashes under the soles of your feet, in that day that I do this as the eternal host.

Then it comes back to this end time of remembering the law of Moses.

You see, to me, of all the things that Herbert Armstrong restored in the Church of God, and he should have restored in all of the churches, but they rebelled, accusing us of teaching salvation by works.

How do you even come to know that you're a sinner?

If the law of God had been done away with, Paul says in 1 Corinthians 7, I should not have known sin, unless the commandment says, don't commit adultery.

So if you don't have the law, you don't even have that which, along with the Holy Spirit, convicts you of sin.

And if you don't know it and admit that you're a sinner, how can you repent?

And for those people who believe that they have an immortal soul, and that man is dual, that is, there is just a body in this good, pure, immortal soul that needs to be saved, it doesn't make sense that God would create a good, pure, immortal soul, place it in a mortal body, and then challenge you to save your soul, and then go so far as to give his own son to do it.

It doesn't make sense.

But we know that man is mortal, subject to sin and death, and the only way the Gulf can be bridged between mortality and immortality is to receive the Spirit of God.

To receive the Spirit of God, you have to repent.

You have to repent of breaking God's immutable spiritual law.

So, remember the law of Moses, my servant, which I commanded unto him in Horeb for all Israel with his statues and judgments.

Behold, I will send you, Elijah the prophet, before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord.

You see, John the Baptist did this, and you see the results of not doing this, unless it is done, I will curse the earth with a curse, utter destruction.

Now go quickly to Luke, chapter 1.

John the Baptist came on the scene, and Christ said that if you will receive John, he is the one who came in the Spirit and power, Elijah.

But see, the process of preparing a people for the Second Coming is still going on.

Hence, the United Church of God has as its motto, preparing a people and preaching the Gospel. In Luke, chapter 1, speaking of John the Baptist, but the angel said unto him, Fear not, Zachariah, for your prayers heard, and your wife Elizabeth shall bear you a son you shall call his name John.

And you shall have a joy and gladness, and many shall rejoice at his birth, for he shall be great in the sight of the Lord.

Jesus said there is none greater that has risen among men than John the Baptist, and John did no miracle.

He shall be great in the sight of the Lord, shall drink neither a strong drink nor wine, and he shall be filled with the Holy Spirit even from his mother's womb, and many of the children shall turn to the Lord their God.

He shall go before them in the spirit and power of Elijah to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the disobedient to the wisdom of the just, to make ready a people prepared for the Lord.

So, brethren, you and I sit here today as a result of this messenger going before us, as a result of Jesus Christ going before us, as a result of the apostles, and those along the way who have given their time, their lives, and sacrifices, that we too can enter into this new covenant and have the law of God written on our inward parts.

So, we are to be a light to the world, a light that is set on a hill that cannot be hidden, an epistle that can be read of all men based on the way we conduct ourselves as messengers of this covenant.

So, brethren, we too are following in the footsteps of the messengers who have gone before.

Let us blaze a trail of light and lead many to that light.