“They shall be mine, says the LORD of hosts, my special possession on the day when I act, …” (Mal 3:17 NRS)
The prophet Malachi, stands at the end of the Hebrew Bible (at least the Christian version of it), and he also stands on the threshold of a whole new world---the future that is still to come. “See, the day is coming….” (4.1). That’s how the prophecy concludes its final chapter. It is a prophecy full of expectancy, anticipation, and possibility about what is going to come next. No wonder early Christians made Malachi the final book of the Old Testament. It is a book that believes in the future and that the future belongs to God.
Today, it’s getting much harder to find Jews or Christians who believe in the future. It’s much easier to find people who tell us, like Chicken Little did in the children’s story that ‘the sky is falling’. TV preachers loved to get us all excited by telling us, showing us, and proving to us, that end is near and the signs of it are everywhere. Perhaps you’ve heard the story about what happen in Texas. A knock comes at the door. The man of the house answers. “Brother,” the visitor asks, “Are you ready for the judgment day? “ The uniformed man retorts with a question, “When is it?” The visitor responds, “It could be today, or it could be tomorrow!” Well, the uniformed man replies, “When you find out when it is going to be, just let me know, because I know my wife will want to be there for on either day!”
We laugh, because predictions about what is going to happen next needs to be laughable. If you want to make God laugh, the old adage says, “Tell him your plans”. Human wisdom, human predictions, human understanding of the future is bound to be unreliable. As the eternally skeptical preacher of Ecclesiastes writes, “fools talk on and on. No one knows what is to happen, and who can tell anyone what the future holds? (Ecc 10:14 NRS). No one knows the future, except for God, and neither prophet, nor Jesus knows the exact hour when the future will come. It could be that even God hasn’t set the date for it yet. “I have plans for you, says the LORD, plans for your welfare and not for harm, to give you a future with hope.” The future is “coming”, and there are a lot of conjectures, speculations, and predictions about it. The calendar certainly keeps moving forward and you can’t go back, but exactly what the future holds, belongs to God.
So which is it? Does the world have a future? Do we? Are we only destined a final day of judgment that is coming sooner than we think? What does God have in store for this world? Whatever it is, it’s been a long time coming, hasn’t it? Or maybe it hasn’t. Maybe the world is moving along right on schedule. I say that because of how the book of Malachi begins. Malachi speaks of the unfolding of history, how Israel survives, but Edom is a wasteland (1: 2-4). We know that story from Genesis, don’t we? Esau traded his birthright for a cup of soup. Therefore, Jacob received the blessing and he became Israel. Malachi reminds, God does not stand still when he is rejected, and that is why “God loved Jacob”, but ‘hated Esau’ (Mal. 1.2). But now, Malachi tells us, God on the move again. He says: “Great is the LORD beyond the borders of Israel.” Do you grasp what he’s saying? God is on the move toward the future. He’s already moved beyond Esau and the land of Edom; and now, God’s about to go global, moving beyond the “borders of Israel”. That’s a very interesting way to end the Old Testament, isn’t it? God is still moving toward the future. Time doesn’t stand still, and neither its maker. As the song says, “He has loosed his fateful lightning of his terrible swift sword, HIS TRUTH IS MARCHING ON….”
But where is God’s truth marching? One of the most interesting images in the book of Malachi comes at the end, in his concluding promise that ‘before the great and terrible day of the LORD comes,” God says, through the prophet, “Lo, I will send you the prophet Elijah….” (4:5). When Elijah comes, God adds, “He will turn the heart of the parents to their children and the hearts of children to their parents, so that I will not come and strike the land with a curse” (4.6). It is no accident that these are the final words of the Old Testament. They point us to where God is going next. But where exactly is that? Elijah is the first of the prophets and God says he will also be the last. Biblical stories suggest Elijah never died, but was taken to heaven in a whirlwind on a fiery chariot (2 Kings 2.11). In New Testament times people identified John the Baptist or even Jesus, as the coming of Elijah. On the mount of Transfiguration, both Moses and Elijah appear alongside Jesus, and then God speaks from heaven, singling out Jesus and saying, “This is my beloved Son, listen to him.” (Mark 9.7). “Elijah has come…” Jesus says, but they still didn’t understand. Still today, when faithful Jews observe the Passover Meal, they leave a chair open for Elijah. The Passover meal remembers the blessing of the past, but it also looks toward the future; a future that belong to God.
HOPE FOR THE FUTURE REQUIRES OBEDIENCE
When we consider the thrust of Malachi’s words in our text, from chapter 3, we find a text that is quoted in the gospel’s concerning the message of John the Baptist, who was God’s messenger who ‘prepared the way’ for where God was moving. God was moving forward toward the future in the coming of Jesus Christ, but can we go with him? “Who can endure the day of his coming?” Malachi rightly asks (3:2). The future is coming, but it is in no way automatic and it does not mean that you will be there. Can you endure?
Malachi’s words strong words about what the coming of God’s future means. When the future comes, God’s messenger and God’s message is like a ‘refiner’s fire and like fuller’s soap.’ (3:2). In other words, only those who are ‘purified’ by God’s message can move forward with God and they can only seize that future with righteous living and righteous lives as “offerings to the LORD in righteousness” (3.3)….. Only those who ‘return to me’ will God turn to them and give them a future (3.7). Those who persist in turning away from God’s moral laws and live immorally, will be judged to have no future. The future is coming, Malachi says, but you have to choose to be a part of that future. You have to choose take part in God’s future, because the future belongs only to a holy and righteous God. God is expanding his borders, but he still controls them. God kept his covenant with Jacob because Jacob “walked with (God) in integrity and uprightness and turned many from (sin)…” (2.7). God’s people have a future with God, when they live obediently in him.
This is what the ‘refiner’s fire’ and ‘fullers soap’ are about. They are symbols of people preparing the way and turning to live in obedience to God’s truth, so they can march on toward the future with God. Without obedience there is no future. Malachi calls the people to obedience in how they give their best to God, not their least (1.8). He calls people to obedience to God is how they give reverence and respect to God’s name (2.4). He calls the people to obedience in how they keep their own marriage vows and hate divorce, as much as God does. “Do not be faithless!” (2.13-16), God says. Finally, God calls the people to obey him so that their religion does not ‘weary him with words’, but ‘delights’ in goodness and in deeds of justice. (2.17). The point is, clean up your life, obey God now, get your priorities straight, and bring glory to God by being who you were created and called to be. If you obey him, you will have part in God’s future. .
OBEDIENCE BRINGS HOPE FOR THE FUTURE
Not only does hope in the future require obedience, but hope for the future springs up out of lives that are obedient to God’s timeless truth. When we obey God, we release hope in the world and we create hope for ourselves. The future belongs to God, but we are challenged to seize it, lay hold of it, an appropriate it into our lives. We also need to leave Elijah’s chair empty at our own table and make room in our hearts for what God can do through us. Recall that powerful word from Christmas in Luke which says, “She (Mary) laid in a manager, because There was no place (room) in the Inn” (Lk. 2.7), or that text in John which says, “He came unto his own, but his now did not accept him, but to all who did receive him, he gave them power to become children of God”(Jn. 1.11-12). Now, that’s hope, but notice again, that God does not make them his children automatically, but ‘he gave them power to become God’s children’. God holds the power and he holds the future, but we must appropriate that power and that future through obedient, responsive, and responsible hearts. Hope requires obedience and obedience brings us hope.
What kind of ‘obedience’ brings us hope? Malachi does not leave us guessing. He spells it out beginning with a question: “Will a person rob God? …. Bring the full tithe into the storehouse…put be to the test, says the LORD of hosts; see if I will not open the windows of heaven for your and pour down for you an overflowing blessing….” Hear we see it spelled out once and for all, not just in spiritual terms, but in the most materialistic terms we can imagine. If you obey God by bringing him what he requires as a tithe of all you have, then you can expect heaven to be opened, and hope to pour down.
Here we can add that Jesus too, spoke about money more than he did about Heaven or Hell combined. Why does the Bible talk so much about money? Why does Malachi make the ‘full tithe’ the test of true obedience and the key to unlocking a future of hope? Interestingly, Malachi talks about the tithe, and the Bible talks about money because God wants to get right to the heart of everything. For you see, where your ‘treasure is’, is also where your heart is (Matt. 6.21). If you are holding back your money from God, you are holding back your heart also. When you refuse to give God your heart, you short-change your future too. There is a Scottish story about a fellow who thought he was putting in a penny into the offering plate, but realized that he had put in a Crown (like our dollar). When he remarked to the usher that he meant it to be a penny, he then asked for his money back, but the usher refused. The man looked at the usher and responded, “No matter, I’ll get credit in heaven for the Crown!” The usher quipped, “No, you’ll only get credit for a penny!”
Obedient living is connected to obedient giving, not because God needs the money, but because you need to give. You need to give because when you give your heart to God you gain hope from God. You gain hope because obedience brings hope. When you obey God, beginning with your whole heart which is made obvious by your tithe, you will bring hope to yourself and to will give hope to others because they ‘count you’ already living in the ‘land of delight’ (3: 12). Giving can bring you a big heart just like that.
HOPE WILL TAKE US TO GOD’S FUTURE
Does it really pay to serve and give to God what he is due? According to Malachi, the people still had room to make a complaint. This is how chapter 3 of Malachi ends, with their question, which might just also be our question, “Is it vain to serve God?”
Before they are willing to “bring the full tithe into the storehouse”, these folks wonder and ask, “What do we profit by keeping his command or by going about as mourners before the LORD” (3.14)? I guess you could say that they fear that “tithing” or being “obedient” to God might not bring them hope, or it might not make them happy, so before they turn loose of God’s tithe, they want to know just what good it will do them, here and now, not just hereafter. They want to know, what difference it makes to give their tithe, to give their talents, to give their treasures and to give their time to the LORD. When they look at the way the world is and how ‘the arrogant’ seem “happy”, and how ‘evildoers prosper’, and they ‘escape’ God’s judgment, why should they give their hearts to a God who doesn’t prove himself any clearer than this? Do you get their point? Before they will serve, believe, and hope in God’s future, they want God to put his mouth where their money is. I guess you could say, these are respectable, smart, calculating people, good business types, practical and pragmatic people, who, before they give, want an advance, or a down payment on their hope?
It just makes good business sense, doesn’t it? They want to ‘put (God) to the test’ (3. 10) before they give him the money.
That’s just good business, but it’s not good faith. And hope is based upon faith, not cold, calculating, business. Malachi says the people who respected and ‘revered’ the LORD got together, and did not agree with this ‘test’. Do you know why? In their hearts, they saw how “the LORD took note and listened” and that “a book of remembrance was written before him of those who revered the LORD and thought on his name.” The point is, it’s one thing when you are taking notes on God, checking up to figure whether he’s keeping up his end of the bargain, but you’d better beware that God might be the one who’s taking ‘notes’ about you. You might forget what you wrote down, but God never forgets. God remembers.
And the ‘memory’ of God is not just what judgment is about, but this is also what hope is about. Those who are evildoers or are arrogant, they might be happy now, but God remembers. Those who are upright, obedient, and righteous, might suffer loss now, but God remembers. God takes note. God is not stuck with only what is happening right now, God keeps a ‘book of remembrance’ because he knows that we are all moving toward the future. This future is where God is going. It’s where those who are obedient to God are going to. But guess who’s not going? It is only those who are written in the ‘book of remembrance’, who ‘thought on his name’ who will move toward the future of what will happen next.
What will happen next on God’s calendar, according to Malachi? “They shall be mine, say the LORD of hosts, my special possession on the day when I act, and I will spare them…..” Malachi concludes, that when that ‘day’ comes: “Then you will see the difference between the righteous and the wicked, between the one who serves God and one who does not serve him.” (3.17-18). You may not always see that difference now, God says. You may not away see the difference between the obedient and the disobedient; you may not always see the difference between the person who is giving, and the one who does not, and you may not always see the difference between the people who serve God, and those who don’t. You will not always see the difference now, but you will then.
When Bernie Madoff, made off with all the hard-earned investments of thousands of innocent people, you did not see what was going to happen immediately. Bernie Madoff lived high. Bernie Madoff avoided the law. Bernie Madoff and his family lived better than most people in the United States. That was how Madoff lived for a while, but then came ‘the day’. Now, Bernie Madoff is living in a cell in a North Carolina prison. Now, Bernie Madoff has a family who are ashamed of him. Now, Bernie Madoff has only one son, because the other committed suicide, rather than live with what his father did. Now, Bernie Madoff doesn’t have a present existence as a real person, nor will he ever have a future, unless he find forgiveness from this God who remembers.
Unless Madoff, and we, have faith and invite God’s forgiveness into our lives, not just with words, but by living an obedient life, none of us have any kind of real future. I’ve been to the Graveyard, I’ve looked in the tomb. I used to work at a cemetery, in Greensboro. I used to sell plots and mausoleums, and I would sell caskets, vaults, and funeral services. I used to try to sell the cheapest plans to people, and I would advise them to spend as little money on all that stuff as they could. I would try to get them to buy the rubber vault, not the concrete one; and the cheaper casket, and not the mausoleums. But people just wouldn’t do it. They would think that when you spend all that money on a fancy casket and a large vault that their body would not rot as fast. The big concrete ones costs over a thousand dollars, and I could sell them a rubber one for $400 dollars. Did you know the cheap ones worked better? I would also try to keep them in the cemetery, but some wanted to have their body above ground, in mausoleums, for they thought the body would keep better. I would walk into that mausoleum and smell the bodies melting, liquefying, almost as soon as they were placed inside. Their big money didn’t buy them anything, but it made matters worse.
I know what I’m talking about, and Science knows it too. You’ve heard it said, “When you’re dead, you’re dead!” They are right! For without God there is no future, no matter what you now have. Will a man Rob God? How can any person rob God? It is God who ‘remembers’ and holds the key to the future. Without God no one has a future. Without God there is nothing to have and nothing to hold on to. But with God, there is a future that is coming. With God there will be a big difference between what we know now, and what we will come to know. “See, the day is coming….” Malachi concludes. “For you who revere my name the sun of righteousness shall rise, with healing in his wings” (4.2). When that day comes, “you will go like calves leaping from the stall” in the barn (4.2b). “They” on the other hand, those who are arrogant, evil and disobey God, Malachi says, “will be like ashes under the soles of your feet, on the day when (God) act(s), says the LORD of hosts” (4:3)
Will a person rob God! You can’t really rob God, because God is the future. When you try to rob God, you are only robbing yourself. Amen.
