Malachi, Messenger Of God. "god Is Faithful And Just." Series

Malachi: The messenger of The Lord, Read Malachi 3:14-18.

Last week I concluded my message on Zechariah with a take home question, that the book had prompted me to ask on behalf of God from Zechariah’s book. That question was, “You know I have a plan for you; will you continue your ways or walk in mine? Place me first and everything else will find its place.” This was a question to the people of Judah, the Jewish people back in 520BC as much as it is a question for us today in 2026AD. Not a lot has changed with the state of the human condition in two and a half thousand years. We know what God would have us do…I think I’ll park that comment just there.

To help with today’s message from our very lengthy series “A Deep Dive into Scripture” I’ve put up this timeline. I know some of you appreciate a good timeline. [Short Timeline slide, Babylonian captivity to Malachi/John the Baptist]

As you can see from the timeline the return from exile in Babylon was over a period of three waves and roughly one hundred years, The prophets involved were Haggi, Zechariah and about one-hundred years later Malachi, whose name incidentally means “God’s Messenger.” Malachi was prophet to the nation of Judah at the same time-ish that Nehemiah was rebuilding the walls of Jerusalem.

The first wave of those returning from Babylon occurred in 536 B.C led by Zerubbabel, the reconstruction of the Temple started a year later and was completed and dedicated in 516 BC, yes, Zerubbabel would be a great boys name. The second wave of returnees was led by Ezra in 458 BC and the third wave led by Nehemiah in 455 BC and by September that year after just 56 days the wall around the city of Jerusalem had been rebuilt. Refer: (https://www.foundationsforfreedom.net/References/OT/Historical/Nehemiah/Nehemiah00HistorIntro.html)

Malachi addresses the behaviour of the people of Judah and lets them know that God is not happy about the following. The way the people refuse to see the love that God has for them and the way they bring blemished, injured and diseased sacrifices to the temple. The Lord says to them, “’Try offering them to your governor! Would he be pleased with you? Would he accept you?’ Says the Lord Almighty.” (Chapter 1:8b). Interestingly the Song that we sung refiners fire is from Malachi, or at least based on Malachi, however I’m not going to be talking about the refining fire I’m going to speak about offal. The priests are given a churn-up and this isn’t a minor telling off, these are the words of the Lord; Chapter 2 verse 3 reads “Because of you I will rebuke your descendants; I will spread on your faces the offal from your festival sacrifices, and you will be carried off with it.” God is basically getting to the guts of the matter, excuse the pun. The Lord tells them the reason for this occurring will be so that his covenant with Levi, the ancestor of all the Levites the priests may continue. He reminds them of Levi’s honesty, reverence for God, reverence for the name of God and that Levi walked with God in peace and up-righteousness and that Levi had turned away from sin. He lets them know that they have not been men like Levi, that they had caused many to stumble and violated the covenant established by God with Levi in back in Genesis and brought humiliation upon themselves and as a result the people despised them. Not a good list of things to have in your CV. These priests were not like their ancestor and as a result the people despised them.

God then calls out the rest of the nation of Judah, in particular the men for marrying foreign women, and divorcing their wives. That part of this little book of the book ends with the words, “So guard yourself in your spirit, and don’t break faith.” A good point for us to think on guarding ourselves in our spirit.

There is a reminder that “THE DAY,” the day of the Lord forecast through other earlier prophets and now forecast by Malachi is coming, it will happen. There’s even a heads up at the start of Chapter three about an individual who sounds a lot like John the Baptist preparing the way for the Lord’s arrival. Then there’s these few verses in which God says he will testify against those who are adulterers, sorcerers, perjurers, those who defraud people of their wages, those who oppress widows and orphans and deprive aliens of justice and do not fear him. Key to this book and key to this message and life as a Christian as it was at the time for those Jewish people reading this was this; “God is faithful and God is just,” we are told in the New Testament that we are to “love our neighbour as ourselves, we are told to love the Lord our God with all our heart and all our soul and with all our mind (Ref: Matthew 22:37-40). Did you see what I did there, and there is a lesson here. I put the first great command second. I did this for a reason and I’ve been a bit naughty on purpose, because if we give the reverence and honour to God that we should there should be no need for us to be reminded that God is faithful and just, and as such has given us a direction, a way to live and that he illuminates that way, and there should have been no need for the Jewish people; people whose ancestors returned to Judah around one hundred years earlier as a faithful remanent to be reminded about how God wanted them to live. They should not need reminding of how to behave; to be reminded not to be adulterers, sorcerers, perjurers, those who defraud people of their wages, those who oppress widows and orphans and deprive aliens of justice, for they would know God is faithful and just and as his people they should be faithful and just.