Malachi 1:1-3

The book of Malachi, chapter 1, I’m going to read the first three verses. Our text is really going to be on the first verse and the portion of the second verse, but I’ll read the first three verses to start. Malachi, chapter 1, I’m going to read the first three verses. The Burden of the Word of the Lord to Israel by Malachi. loved you said the Lord yet ye say wherein hast thou loved us was not Esau Jacob’s brother said the Lord yet I loved Jacob and I hated Esau and laid his mountains and his heritage waste for the dragons of the wilderness. God blessed to us his sacred and holy word this evening the person who loves desires to express that love in some tangible form or shape. It may be inscribed on the sidewalk in the wet cement. Bob loves Mary. It may be carved into the bark of a tree. It may indeed take the form of a vow between God, before God and man, between a man and a woman at a wedding ceremony. It may take the form of a love poem or letter like Elizabeth Brownings. How do I love thee? Let me count the ways. The book of Malachi opens with this expression of Jehovah’s love for his people. I have loved you, said the Lord. God has recorded this truth in His Holy Word. So that it remains a lasting monument of his love, an eternal memorial of his love. It is written the concrete. It is engraved on the tree. In other words, it’s expressed openly before others. We could even say it takes the form of a love letter here in this text of a story. scripture. There are two real pivotal statements in the book of Malachi. And the first is I have loved you. Chapter 1, verse 2. The second is found in chapter 3, verse 6. I am the Lord. I change not. And therefore the theme of the book of Malachi is this. God’s unchanging love for his people. The Jews, the true Israel, among God’s nation is the Old Testament Church. In the New Testament Church, we are certainly God’s holy nation being grafted in to the olive tree, as Scripture indicates in Romans 11. God has chosen us to be his special people. He has promised to bless us. He is promised to bless us. us. And we find in the Old Testament that Israel promised to obey the Lord. But as you read through the Old Testament, we find that while God kept his promise, Israel did not keep theirs. And we find them running hot and cold with regard to their faithfulness of Jehovah. often they were unfaithful to the Lord and turned away to false gods, to materialism and so forth. And because of their continual and flagrant disobedience toward the Lord and unfaithfulness, he sent them away into captivity. Jeremiah and Daniel record for 70 years they were in Babylonian captivity. Jerusalem and its magnificent temple were utterly destroyed. And so here they had been invaded. They had been conquered by the Babylonians, and for a long period of time, they’ve suffered the humiliation of being captives, to humble them, to cause them to return to the Lord. Melachi was written about 450 BC, or about 80 years after the Jews had returned from this captivity. Far away Babylon. This would be like the second generation of those that had returned. You recall that both Nehemiah and Ezra were involved in leading the remnant of the Jews back to their homeland. We find that we’re concerned with that remnant right now that has returned to the land. However, the high hopes of the preceding generation have been dashed. Yes, they returned. Yes, they were able to construct a temple of some sort in which they could renew the sacrifices and the worship of the Lord God. But this second generation of people grew despondent. It had been difficult for them to resettle in the land. It had been difficult for them to be under the Persian government. The new temple was quite drab compared to the magnificent temple that Solomon had built. That was discouraging. It couldn’t compare in outward beauty. The people drifted into what I would call practical atheism. They went through the motions of worship. They, however, didn’t have the spiritual enthusiasm. They once showed a generation before. The bare ritual took place, but there was really little spiritual life. It was a melancholy period of time, and spiritually people were drifting further and further away from the Lord. Now, this book, I think, is ancient history, but actually it’s quite relevant to our own day. For we see the same kind of spirit among those in our own day. And this is a good reason, therefore, to study the book. Because I think it has a very direct application to our own day and age. And so we will take a look at this book and see what God has to say. Let me begin by saying this. You must realize that ministers are required to look at life from God’s viewpoint, from his perspective. We read here about the prophet Malachi. No one knows for certain who Malachi is. The time frame indicates that he’s one of the last of the minor prophets. We have the prophets of the Restoration, Hegiai, Zechariah, and Malachi. His name can be translated my messenger, my messenger as an abbreviated form of the messenger of Jehovah. Appropriate name for Malachi, for what he’s doing. But all that we know about him is found in this little book. He’s not even mentioned, as far as I can tell, from a Jewish historical perspective. So we don’t have any other information about him. However, this difficulty we have, and we have this with other men in Scripture as well, other prophets and so forth, this difficulty in identifying Melachi might you of one of the rules of Christian service, and that is this, that preachers Christian commentators and so forth are not meant to attract attention to themselves. They are meant to focus the attention on the Savior and the gospel that they are preaching. And they need to have the spirit of John the Baptist, he must increase, I must decrease. It doesn’t really matter who Malachi is. He speaks the word of the Lord, and the word of the Lord is what matters. That is what’s important. here. So Malachi here remains anonymous. But what happens is the God’s message is what stands out. Now you need to learn here not to put so much stress on the popularity or the fame of the speaker, but rather on the word of God that he speaks. If the message is indeed a biblical one, it shouldn’t matter whether it’s John Owen or Manton or Goodwin or Calvin or Luther or Spurgeon or some unknown man named John Smith who is bringing the message. If it comes from God’s word, what’s important is it’s God’s message. If God speaks through the lowest man on the spiritual totem pole, it is still God’s message. So here we have the prophet Malachi. We know nothing about it. Not important. It must not have been important or he would have told us about it. We don’t even know who his father is. Notice also, Malachi’s heart is distressed. He talks about the burden of the word of the Lord. The burden. Many modern translations of the Bible translate this word burden that the King James has as oracle, an oracle of the Lord. To me, this is a mistake, and I think it misses the emphasis that is brought out with the word burden in this passage of Scripture. I think the King James is to be preferred. The Hebrew word Massa means to bear a burden. There’s some type of urgency and dread to the message here. This word appears 27 times, all in prophetic context, where God’s judgment, is threatened. The only places the exception to this are Proverbs 30 and 31, the very first verses in both of those chapters. So it’s not just an oracle. But it’s a heavy, burdensome message that Malachi brings. It’s a difficult message to proclaim. It’s a difficult message to receive. In the apparent calm of Jewish life, there walks among the remnant here. A prophet who has a heavy heart. There’s something that weighs heavily upon him. Malachi has this weight pressing down upon him. him. He’s troubled. Someone had stopped him on the street and said Malachi, what ails you? What’s the matter? Why are you so gloomy? Are you having trouble at home? Is your work depressing you? Is there a war on the horizon? He would say no. But the message that God has given me weighs heavy upon me. I think one of the most difficult things for a loving parent to do is to discipline their children, not only with words, but also with the rod of correction and so forth. You don’t want to inflict pain. You don’t want to be harsh or strong with your children. But to be a good parent, you know what sometimes is necessary. Myalachi feels, I think. You don’t want to be the bearer of bad tidings, but he must. He’s the ambassador for the Lord. As Jova says, my messenger. A faithful minister is not someone who’s constantly jovial. Always, it’s a great day with no sorrow in it, is true that you and I being children of God, having our sins forgiven, possessing an internal inheritance in heaven, have great reason for joy. There’s glorious things. that are promised to us. But what should disturb any true minister of God and any faithful Christian is looking at this world through God’s eyes. Putting God’s glasses on, so to speak, seeing everything from his perspective, as he does. Because once you do that, it can break your heart. It can distress you. you remember how Paul when he visited the city of Athens and he saw all the idols there and one went to even an unknown God as if if we missed one we’re going to hear be the catch-all, we’ll get the one to the unknown God, that it grieved him that they were given over to this idol worship. What a burden it was on him. It just bothered him. My friends as we as either a minister or an ordinary Christian, as we draw close to God, as we learn his ways, it can make us sad because what we see going on around us, his law being broken, we’ve talked this morning about the issue of abortion. We’re killing babies now outside the wound and thinking it’s okay and we should celebrate that. If that doesn’t grieve your heart, that doesn’t weigh heavy upon you, you, when you see the nation turning away from the Lord, from His word. We’ve got to tear it down. We’ve got to ban the Bible. Get rid of all the ten commandments of every courthouse in the land. It should bother you. So it’s not a matter of a holy and thou attitude. It’s when we look at life and we see the horrible sin. It should make us trouble. It’s a corrupt society in which we live. And we know sin is going to be punished not only in this life, but there’s an eternal punishment in hell that awaits. Even as you look at the church in general today, you can be greatly disturbed when you find God not being glorified as you should. When you see compromise, when you see worship tainted with all sorts of humanistic inventions that have been added to the worship of the church. When you see that God is not being glorified as the glorious God of Scripture as he is revealed to us, it should bother you. When you see Christ shoved into the background and God’s people indifferent, it should bother you. This is what’s bothered in Malachi. And God is giving him a message that is heavy to bear and heavy to give out. So you must realize that ministers are required to look at life from God’s viewpoint. Notice secondly here you will often find the Bible addressing problems among God’s people. It is the word of the Lord, we’re told here to Israel. Kai here is not so concerned about the other nations. You read Isaiah, you read Jeremiah, you read Ezekiel, and there are messages in there to the various nations. Something about Egypt, something about Tyran Sid, something about. Something about. Babylon, something about this nation, that nation, all around the Israelites. But here we have a singular focus. In particular, this message is for those who profess to be the people of God. It deals with spiritual problems in the lives of those who claim to be worshipping the true and living God. What Malachi has to say here is something which I think long-established churches and long-time Christians are quite susceptible to. Like the returning Jews, you start out with a gusto, a spiritual diligence about the things of the Lord, a fervency. When they got to the land, their idea was to get established once again to temple worship, and that That was the utmost in their minds and God came first and they were dedicated to his cause and they proceeded to establish themselves in Israel with that in mind. But somewhere along the line, that commitment got dulled. Somewhere along the line, this commitment to God got eroded away and the hustle and the bustle of life and it happens today. The steady round of daily living with all its strapped. all its temptations and so forth has a tendency to draw us away from the Lord. Our focus then becomes mainly on the things of this world. The church life becomes humdrum. We run through the motions. We settle into the groove like a conographed needle on a record. and go through life. But your spiritual flame is flickering. It can get quite low. You begin to lose touch with God. There’s no spiritual enthusiasm. Worship worship becomes just a formality. Sure, you sing the songs. Sure you hear the preaching. Yes, prayers are prayed. Your offering is given. Then your obligation seem to God is over and you get off, you go. There’s nothing too pressing in your life. Perhaps you can go for time and you’re not drawing near to God, as you should. Family worship, maybe personal devotions begin to slide. Sundays become more of a social gathering than are a true worship of God. The whole book of Malachi addresses the problem of spiritual degeneration. Decline. The fossilizing of your faith. The loss of your first love, the lukewarmness that comes at times to spiritual things. Now in this book, God has several dialogues with his people through the prophet. Have you ever gone to a court law? Maybe you’ve seen it a courtroom scene or something of this nature where there’s a witness on the stand. It’s being a question by the attorney. Let’s say the prosecuting attorney. He has someone on the stand, and he has someone on the stand, and he’s going after him. He’s trying to prove the charges against this person, that they’re guilty of a crime. You stole that money from the Johnson home, didn’t you? And the witness denies it. I didn’t do it. It wasn’t me. You got the wrong man. I’m innocent. I was never at their house. I don’t even know where they live. And then the attorney responds, I know you stole the money. Because I I have irrefutable proof of that. Your blue Chevy was observed at the scene of the crime in the street camera and got to your license plate. Your fingerprints were found in the house and on the doorknob. You left behind one of your gloves. We found it’s the match at your own home. And the one we found at the crime scene has your DNA on it. You were spotted and identified by two neighbors who are eyewitnesses. And eventually the man breaks down on the weight of the evidence and says, okay, I did it. That’s sort of like what we have here in the book of Malachi. God’s people are put on the witness stand and God asks them some questions. God is accusing them a spiritual apathy and decline. And he’s got all the evidence to bring out when they say, no, not us. Oh yes. And here’s what you did. So throughout this book, we have this repeated dialogue. God says you’ve done this. And the people say, what have we done? We’re innocent. You couldn’t be referring to me. God says, here’s what you’ve done. Here’s the evidence. You know it’s wrong and it’s got to stop. For example of this. Look at verses 6 to 8 here in the first chapter here. A son on earth is father and a servant and his master, if then I be a father, where is mine honor? And if I be a master, where is my fear? Set the Lord of host unto you, O priest, that despise my name. And ye say, wherein have we despise thy name? Here’s God’s proof. You offer polluted bread upon my altar. And you say, wherein have we polluted thee? And that ye say, the table of the Lord is contemptible. 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 thy governor. Will he be pleased with thee? Or accept thy person, said the Lord of us? You’re not honoring me. You’re not respecting me. And your sacrifices prove it. Look at chapter 2 in verse 17. If weiried the Lord with your words, yet ye say, wherein have weiried it. When you say, everyone that doeth evil is good in the sight of the Lord, and he delighteth in them. Or where is the God of judgment? Look at chapter 3, verses 8 and 9. Will a man rob God? Yet ye have robbed me. But ye say, where in have we robbed thee? Ties and offerings. You are cursed with a curse for you have robbed me. Even this whole nation. Look at verses 13 and 14 of chapter 3. your words have been stowed against me said the Lord yet you say what have we spoken so much against thee he have said it’s vain to serve the Lord what prophet is it that we have kept his ordinance and that we have walked mournfully before the Lord of hosts you see again and again he keeps putting them on the witness stands they’re saying oh we didn’t do that yes you did and here’s how you did today we can have the same wrong attitudes as the Jews in Malachi’s day Malachi’s book is a call to repentance it’s an antidote for spiritual lethargy it’s a call for renewal so you find the Bible addressing problems among God’s people my third thought tonight is this you will discover God openly declaring his love for his people. The very first part of verse 2, I have loved thee or loved you, Seth, the Lord. Someone said there’s a there are four degrees of love. There is the love of the artist for what he has created. There is the love of a master for his pet for his animal. There is the love of parents for their children and then the greatest love. Of course, is the love between a husband and a wife. Now, it’s this fourth kind of love that defines God’s love toward his people. Look at Isaiah 54 verses 5 and 6 with me a moment. Isaiah 54 verses 5 and 6. We read here for thy maker is thine husband. The Lord of Holest is His name. Thy Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel, the God of the whole earth. shall he be called. For the Lord hath called thee as a woman forsaken and grieved in spirit, and a wife of youth. When thou was refused, saith thy God. For a moment have I forsaken thee, but with great mercies, I will gather you. Gather thee. You’re a wife. I’ve taken you as my wife. Look at Jeremiah, chapter 3. if you would. Also, I’m not going to dwell on this, but it’s obvious that this is the emphasis that the scripture speaks about. Versus verse 12, beginning with verse 12. Go and proclaim these words towards the north, and say, return thou backsliding Israel, saith the Lord, and I will not cause mine anger to fall upon you, for I am merciful, saith the Lord, and I will not keep anger forever. Only acknowledge thine an iniquity. that thou hast transgressed against the Lord thy God, and have scattered thy ways to the strangers under every green tree, and have not obeyed my voice. Turn, O backsliding, children, saithe the Lord, for I am married unto you. Then look at verse 20. Surely as a wife treacherously departed from her husband, so have ye dealt treacherously with me, O House of Israel, said the Lord. So God is telling us that his love, that exists between him and his people. Is that like to a husband and wife? He is willing to forgive, but he’s going to condone the least of the going astray. He forgives because love is willing to look beyond and even pay the price for the worst of the faults. But he condones the least because that love, continuing to forgive never seeks to coax to urge and hope for the best with regard to that relationship. God is most generous in offering us his pardon and his forgiveness while still maintaining his high standards. God doesn’t give up on you. Nor will he accept you remaining the way you are. He faithfully loves you, but he is determined to bring you in a closer fellowship with him. We have found this repeatedly. You can’t go through the Book of Song of Solomon without seeing the constant theme is there how she strays away and how he has to call her back. Why are you like a dove up in the distance of far away crags of the rocks? Let me hear your voice. Let me see your countenance. Why are you away from me? That’s what God is saying here. So this tension between forgiving the most, condoning the least is something that relates to us the uniqueness of the love of God for his people. This explains how he can send chastismid and at the same time say, I love you. God says, I do love you. I love you as a husband. Loves his wife. And I am bringing up your unfaithfulness, because I want to restore the broken relationship. You’re my wife. You ought to respond to my love. You have to reciprocate my love. Now, obviously, there’s a direct application to you and I today for the church is the bride of Christ. The New Testament carries the same theme. So you will discover God openly declaring his love for his people. Let me conclude with two brief thoughts. In the first of this, God’s message is not always good news. Sometimes it’s a burden. You know, the The content of God’s word is not always good news for modern man. Sometimes it’s a burden. It’s a judgment against sin. It’s a call to repentance. The heading of the book of Malachi should remind you that the messenger here is not the originator of the message. God is the originator of the message. He just brings it. Don’t come to church and think that the minister should only speak nice, comforting words of message. Yes, there are many things in Scripture. There are comforting to the people of God. And he would not be a faithful minister if he didn’t speak about those comforting words. But there are also words in Scripture. There are God’s message that cut to the heart. Some things are difficult to receive. Sometimes it is a burden the minister must preach. He must condemn wrongdoing. He must prick. He must prick. the conscience. There are many churches today that would like to only provide a comforting message. They don’t want to talk about sin. They don’t want to rebuke any evil that they see. Something pleasing to the ear. But that’s not God’s true message, is it? Read any book of the Bible and you know that’s not true. The Bible warns about seeking out a minister just to have your ear scratched. speak. To give you something, it’d be nice to listen to. There’s a reform church in this area. They got rid of its pastor. And if I mentioned his name, you probably all know, or most of you would know who he was. Why did they get rid of their pastor? Was he guilty of adultery? No. Did he shirk his duties as a minister? No. was he covetous? No. Was he guilty of doctrinal error? No. Why did he get rid of him? He preached too much on sin. I tell you this as someone who heard it firsthand from the minister himself, who was dismissed by the church. You preach too much on sin. My friends, open any book of the Bible. What are you going to find? There’s a message about sin. How can you not preach on the subject? And in a day when there’s a lot of lethargy, when we’re not in a, you know, spiritually tip-top shape as churches today, there’s a great need to preach about sin. But they couldn’t have it. That’s not what they wanted to hear. And they dismissed the minister over that. I had attended his church for a period of time. knew him well. They happened to run into him at a store. It told me that the church had fired him. The elders called him before, and they got rid of him over this. Can you imagine this? Now, I could understand that maybe in some other churches. But a reform church? How sad. How sad that this would be the case. We can’t have. We can’t have this. I tell you this, so that you realize how serious this matter is in our own society. So you don’t want to have that kind of attitude. The message of God hurts at times, but it’s for your spiritual good. It’s because God loves you and gives you the message. It’s not always good news. Sometimes it’s a burden. The second thing is it’s a terrible thing that grow indifferent to the love of God. What made the insincerity and indifference of Melachi’s contemporaries here. Such a horrible thing. God says, I loved you. I love you. Why don’t you love me? You were privileged people. You’re married to Jehovah. You have a covenant love between you. And God says, plainly, I’ve loved you. Why are you treating me with indifference? Why aren’t you reciprocating my love? There was a poem by Alan Alberg which sort of captures this. concept. It’s about a naughty little boy reflecting on his bad deed and this is how it goes. I did a bad thing once. I took this money from my mother’s purse for bubble gum. What made it worse, she bought me some for being good. Well, I had been vice versa, so to speak. That made it worse. You can imagine the little fellow in a moment of solitude, plushing with shame because His mother bought him the bubblegum that he wanted because he was good. And when he wasn’t good, he was bad. God says to his people today, I have loved you. I read in the book of 1st John 4, verse 9 and 10, and this was manifest the love of God toward us because that God said his only begotten son into the world that we might live through him. Herein is love. Not that we love God, but that he loved us and sent his son to be a propitiation for our sins. What greater love? could God show. And therefore, you see how horrible and terrible it is, then we would be indifferent to that love, or grow cold to that love. We’re robbing God of the love he deserves. Can we grow cold to our wedding vows to Christ? The Lord says about the nations, you know, whether it’s USA or whether it’s Russia or China or whatever, there are dust on the scales to me. They’re nothing. Me are dust on the scales. but to his people, I love you. I’m concerned about you. You’re my bride. If you know the Lord Jesus Christ, you are one in whom God takes delight. He delights in you. The Father himself loveth you because you have loved me. John 1627. It would be understandable if a person became in luf, aloof, a luf, cold and indifferent, to a God that was at a distance, an Allah, a Buddha, something of this nature. But here is the living and true God who loves you so much, and he came in the person of his son, the Lord Jesus Christ, laid down his life for your sake. How can you have cold and indifferent feelings toward him? God inscribed his love in the cement. He engraved it in the bark of the tree, so to speak. He’s written. the love letter to you. He’s made it public. He’s made it known. How will you respond to that love? This is how Malachi opens the message. This is the message we need to hear as well. Let’s close with a word of prayer.