The book of Malachi is a Word from God on the phenomenon of
spiritual backsliding. This happens when the people of God grow weary – when
they lose touch with the living God. This book is a wake-up call, and in some
ways similar to the message of 2 Peter
3:3ff.
We saw that Malachi’s burden for this situation began with an
affirmation of the love of God (1:1-5)
for His people. Let’s be clear on this.
When God’s people backslide they are facing a loving heavenly Father
whose primary response is love. That means that He chastises us (Prov. 3:11,12 cf. Hebr.12:5-11). We also saw that in 1:6-2:9
that Malachi, God’s messenger has a rebuke
for the spiritual leaders who bore the primary responsibility for Israel’s
backsliding. Last time we considered the nature of a true and a false ministry,
followed by an analysis of how this affects the spiritual condition of the
nation. The manifestation was seen in
the alienation of God’s people from
their God, followed by an alienation between one another, followed by
alienation in that most important
of all
human relationships – the marriage covenant (2:10-16). Losing touch with the
living God means that we find ourselves on a slippery slope. When God becomes
marginalised in our thoughts, our lives follow. Our hearts begin to seek other
loves and other gods, because our hearts do not like a vacuum. Our hearts
become idol factories. When we lose touch with the Living God our understanding
of God becomes distorted. Resultantly our theology becomes distorted - we will
see this in our passage. When our
thinking becomes warped and distorted, the effects of this will be felt. That’s
what it means to live under God’s curse (2:2).
And if God loves His people He will not leave them as they are. They will go
through the refiner’s fire. You will see this in our passage as we
now consider 2:17 - 3:13-15.
2:17; 13-15 Israel (Judah)
at a crossroads
This portion of Scripture begins and ends with a familiar
formula. At least nine times[1]
we find God making a statement by which He indicts His people, and they reply by challenging the statement.
Here God challenges them: “You
have wearied the LORD with your words”.
But they say, “How have we wearied
him?” God's people have the audacity to
blame God for this spiritual /economic/political "low" in their
lives. They say, "All who do evil
are good in the eyes of the Lord, and He is pleased with them." By
implication they are saying, "we who do good - (please note, they considered themselves to be good) are evil in God's eyes; we are not going ahead; we are not prospering; we are
still oppressed by the Persians. Where is the God of justice?" And then consider also 3:13-15, where this complaint
continues. God says to them, “Your words
have been hard against me”. And they say, “How have we spoken against you?’” Here is what they have said, “It is vain to serve God. What is the
profit of keeping His charge or walking as in mourning before the LORD of
hosts? And now we call the arrogant blessed. Evildoers not only prosper but
they put God to the test and they escape.’” This is what people were saying
about God. What’s the use of serving this God?
Two things about this accusation
Arrogance: they
demand accountability from the only wise, holy, all seeing, sovereign God of
the Universe. He must now defend Himself before them. This is what backsliding
does. It turns good theology on its back.
How can man who is created by God accuse God, who in His very essence
and being is just - how can they accuse Him of injustice? This is actual
blasphemy, and it shows you how backslidden in their understanding of God they
are. Truly there is no knowledge of God, and therefore there is no fear of God.
Blame-shifting: They
blame God for their plight. But, if God seems far away, guess who has moved?
Blame-shifting is the common default of our fallen humanity. At the fall Adam
blamed God for what the woman did ("the
woman YOU gave me... Gen. 3:11,12);
Eve blames the devil (Gen. 3:13). Israel blames God. Israel wearies God with
words, and they have now come to a point of saturation. Enough is enough! The
time has now come for God to act. Do you get the point? God is on trial. The people are
grumbling- a persistent theme in the book of Exodus. A grumbling heart always distorts
the character and the nature of God!
This is very similar to the dilemma which the prophet
Habakkuk faced in His own day, when
things were very similar. Habakkuk
accused God of doing nothing
while the nation was backsliding,
and when God did say that He was going
to send the Babylonians to chastise his people, Habakkuk was perplexed. But the
end of the story is not that God had to change , but that Habakkuk had to
change.
So too here in the book of Malachi whilst Judah was examining
her own position and saw that she was suffering at the hand of evil and
injustice, she was failing to examine herself. She saw the evil that others did
to her, but she did not see the evil that she herself was guilty of. When we
backslide we do not see the world from God’s perspective. When we backslide we
become weary, but we must also remember that God is wearied by or thoughts,
words and attitudes. So, where is the
God of justice you ask?
3:1-12 God’s Messenger of the Covenant will
appear suddenly!
Between those two verses which we have just
considered is the answer found in 3:1-12.
Where is God? Where is the God of justice? God's
reply comes in 3:1
1. He will send a messenger in due time,
preparing the personal coming of the
Lord (3:1a). Who does this refer to?
This refers to John the Baptist who will prepare the way of the Lord. From a
future perspective this will happen in 400 years to come (see Isaiah 40:3 – 5 – He is the Elijah of
Malachi 4:5).
2. This will be followed by a sudden and personal appearance to the temple
by the Lord. He is described as 'the
messenger of the covenant' (3:1b).
It is one thing for God to send a
messenger. That He has done for many years. He had sent many messengers:
Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel and Daniel and all the minor prophets of the OT and
many more. But now the Lord Himself will come to His temple. That has never
happened before! This is a messianic prophecy and in relation to John the
Baptist here, it is of course a reference to the first coming of the Lord Jesus Christ.
3. His appearance will be challenging - like a
refiner’s fire – like fuller’s[2] soap (3:1c
- 2a). He comes to refine and cleanse. Malachi tells us, that one of the primary
purposes of the LORD's coming would be to purify the worship of God. "And
the Lord whom you seek will suddenly come to His temple...". When Jesus came, what did He do? He challenged
the shallow prevailing view of worship that was propagated in the temple (see
again 1:6 - 2:9). Therefore, the people
became what their priests were. When Jesus came He not only overturned the
tables of those that had turned the Father’s house into a den of robbers. He
overturned the whole system of Pharisaic teaching. Consider the Sermon on the
Mount. With its repeated refrain, "You
have heard it said... but I say...!", He exposed the hypocritical
giving to the needy by the Pharisees, who give to be seen. He exposed their
praying on the street corners only to be seen by people. He exposed the
Pharisees by calling them hypocrites, blind guides and whitewashed tombs. He overturned the useless traditions of the
elders and He showed the fulfilment of the O.T. law in Himself. What a
refining... what a fire! And slowly, out of the hypocritical rubbish dump, a
new body of people emerged, whose hearts were regenerated and renewed by the
work of the Holy Spirit. At Pentecost
the church was baptized by the Holy Spirit, and the whole worship of God was
transformed and renewed. In the meantime the temple in which the Jews took such
pride was destroyed in A.D 70. The
messenger of the new covenant came to show us, that He alone is the true, pure
and great High Priest, who offers the righteous sacrifice to God. He showed us
that our self- righteousness has no merits before God. Jesus came to refine,
purify and renew the worship of God. He came to get rid of our dirt and dross.
Realize then, that this prophecy is fulfilled in Jesus’ first coming.
Thank God for the
refiner’s fire! The metal is brought to a high temperature, so that it melts.
The impurities in the metal, which have a lower density than the metal itself,
then will float to the top of the molten liquid, and then it is scraped off. This process can be repeated until there is
purity. In the same way God applies the
heat of suffering and discipline to the lives of His children until they are
refined. The goal of biblical testing/refining is never destruction, but purification and cleansing. When God's people
have been tested and tried by Him, they come forth as pure gold (Job 23:10). That is precisely what
Jesus, the messenger of the new covenant came to do. He did not come with a
soft message. It was a good message, but not a soft message. He came to do
good. But He cannot ignore sin. He calls us to abandon sin- see 3:5. Sin is why Jesus died. God is
merciful.
Despite the fact
that we and our fathers have sinned and turned aside from God’s statutes
(3:7a), He bears with us and calls
us to return (3:7b)
Returning is the key. And again the people Malachi is speaking to are running into the same wall as before: “But you say how shall we return? And the answer is this: “Will a man rob God?” Here is a particular problem with which God’s people were struggling. They found an excuse for not giving to the Lord what was rightfully His. Note, that the emphasis on the robbing is with reference to God: "You rob me!" (3:8,9) – the whole nation (Hebr. goy - usually a reference to pagans; but in this case it has the overtone of 'unfaithful people') is doing this. God challenges them to show their concrete turning/ repentance by bringing in the whole tithe and offerings into the storehouse (lit. the house of supplies). Then God charges the people to test Him in this matter (3:10b - 12), and He attaches 3 marvellous blessings to this test:
(i) Abundance (3:10) "I will open the windows of heaven for you and pour down for you a blessing… ". We see here the incredible generosity of God.
(ii) Protection (3:11): "I will rebuke the devourer for you, so that it will not destroy the fruits of your soil, and your vine in the field shall not fail to bear …”
(iii) Reputation
(3:12): "Then all the nations will call you blessed, for you will be a
land of delight… ".
This
is a call to perseverance in your faith in the midst of challenging days. We are currently considering the book
of Malachi against the background of our own church society – the people of God.
There can be no doubt that we, the people of God – the church as a whole, are
currently not in a good place – and much can be blamed on the corrupt nature of
church leaderships. As a result of the lack of blessing our people are
constantly questioning God, and accusing Him of many things. Like the people of
Malachi’s day we have many objections - many ‘but’s’. We live in a church society with much sin (3:5). We often blame God for our lack
of blessing. And we are stingy in our giving. Our churches are struggling to
survive.
God is calling His people to look to Jesus, the messenger of the new covenant. And from His
Word we must learn to be content with His refining and cleansing work. It will
involve suffering. Letting go of sin and
all our idols is difficult. But it is not vain to serve God. Soon the messenger
of the covenant who has come once will come again. And all our endurance, and
patience in suffering would have been worth it. Amen
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