Malachi 1 - 10/16/16
Turn with me this morning to the book of Malachi, chapter 1. Before you start turning to the index to see where Malachi is, simply turn to Matthew and page to the left about three pages. Malachi is the last book in the OT. It’s in a group we call the prophets, minor prophets - because they are shorter than some of the longer prophetic books like Isaiah. Malachi’s name means “my messenger” and he was sent by God to warn the nation of Israel.
In the 1929 Rose Bowl, California’s center, Roy Riegels recovered a quarterback fumble and ran 65 yards before being tackled at the one yard line by his teammate Benny Lom. Benny was shouting as the two players ran towards the goal line “TURN AROUND! YOU’RE GOING THE WRONG WAY”. “Wrong way Roy”, as he came to be known, forced his team to have to punt from their end zone. Georgia Tech blocked the punt scoring a 2 point safety that won the game for them.
Malachi is preaching to the nation of Israel that they are going the “wrong way” spiritually, and unless they stop and turn around, they are headed for judgment. The last three books of the Old Testament – Haggai, Zechariah and Malachi – were all written after their return from Babylon.
There were at least three groups of people, leaving at different times, who returned to the city of Jerusalem. Zerubbabel led the first assembly back and under Haggai’s ministry, they laid the foundations of the Temple. The Temple was completed during Zechariah’s time and then Ezra the priest led another group back from Babylon to rebuild the altar. The last return came under the leadership of Nehemiah, who led the people to rebuild the walls around Jerusalem.
Malachi 1:1 starts out, An oracle: The word of the LORD to Israel through Malachi. An oracle is actually a “burden.” Webster defines it as something carried that is difficult to bear. It has the idea of something heavy, a load to be lifted up. The words to follow in Malachi are not light or trifling but weighty and substantial. The prophet recognizes that what he is about to communicate to people is not fluffy stuff that will just tickle the ears but will ultimately trouble their souls. While the Word of the Lord is heavy, notice that it is written not “against” Israel, but “to” them. God wasn’t out to blast them. He wanted to bring them back. So let’s read together this burden from the heart of God’s messenger.
Read Malachi 1 - Pray
As we look today at Malachi 1, we see a burden on Malachi’s heart. His people were going the wrong way, and he does his best to call them back to the right way. Notice how God starts this message: “I have loved you,” says the LORD. The emphasis is on God’s faithful love for His unfaithful people.
To help us understand our passage today, think of the beginning and the end of Malachi as two bookends. At one end is the beautiful statement found in verse 2: “I have loved you.” On the other end we find a promise in verse 2 of chapter 4: “But for you who revere my name, the sun of righteousness will rise with healing in its wings. And you will go out and leap like calves released from the stall.” The prophecy of Malachi begins with God’s love in the present and ends with God’s promise for the future. And everything in between is God’s program to get us from here to there. God wants to turn our lives around, and as part of His program for our spiritual progress, God longs for us to give Him our best. Because He has given us His best - He has loved us with a perfect love, and unfailing love, an everlasting love. And Malachi starts out reminding the people - not of coming judgment - but reminding them of the love of the Lord.
Today, if your life needs turned around, I would encourage you - not just to thing about coming judgment - but to think how very much God loves YOU! Just as you are - full of doubts and fears and failures and mistakes. God loves you!
Many times throughout the OT, God proclaims His love for His people.
Exodus 34:6 God declares His name and says, “The LORD, the LORD, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness, maintaining love to thousands, and forgiving wickedness, rebellion and sin.
Jeremiah 31:3 “I have loved you with an everlasting love; I have drawn you with loving-kindness.
Zephaniah 3:17 “The LORD your God is with you, he is mighty to save. He will take great delight in you, he will quiet you with his love, he will rejoice over you with singing.”
Instead of blasting His people with their sin, God starts out by declaring His love for them: “I have loved you,’ says the Lord.” He doesn’t say, “YOU are guilty of this or that.” Rather, He begins with relationship. The word “love” is in the perfect tense, indicating that God not only loved in the past but loves in the present as well. We could say it this way: “I have loved and do love you.”- “I have loved you in the past and today I love you still.” And the word He chooses for “love” is not the typical Old Testament term that describes “tough love” or “covenant love.” The word God uses here is more relational: “I have embraced you. I have expressed my affection for you,” says the Lord.
Did you ever have to bring up an issue with your spouse? Maybe it’s about the toilet seat being up or down - maybe over the toilet paper or the toothpaste - or maybe something intensely more difficult to discuss - and you begin by saying, “Honey, I love you, but . . .” Why do you start by saying I love you? It’s not to manipulate or control, but to affirm that no matter how difficult the issue may be to work through, you want them to know that you are committed to keep on loving them. Think about God’s love:
• God’s love is unconditional - God’s love for you never changes. His love is faithful, constant, never-ending. It is not based on your performance, but on His perfection. God cannot love you more than He does right now; and He will never love you less. There in nothing that you can do to make God love you any more than He already does; and there is nothing you can do - no matter how bad it is - that will make God love you any less than He does right now.
One day C. H. Spurgeon was walking through the English countryside with a friend. As they strolled along, the evangelist noticed a barn with a weather vane on its roof. At the top of the vane were these words: GOD IS LOVE. Spurgeon remarked to his companion that he thought this was a rather inappropriate place for such a message. “Weather vanes are changeable,” he said, “but God’s love is constant.” “I don’t agree with you about those words, Charles,” replied his friend. “You misunderstood the meaning. That sign is indicating a truth: Regardless of which way the wind blows, God is love.”
And in our lives - regardless of the circumstances you are facing - whether you are facing problems or victories - this truth remains: God loves you!
• God’s love is sovereign - He loves us, not because of anything we have done, but because He chooses to love us. Deuteronomy 7:7 - The Lord did not set his affection on you and choose you because you were more numerous than other peoples, for you were the fewest of all peoples. 8 But it was because the Lord loved you and kept the oath he swore to your forefathers that he brought you out with a mighty hand and redeemed you from the land of slavery, from the power of Pharaoh king of Egypt. 9 Know therefore that the Lord your God is God; he is the faithful God, keeping his covenant of love to a thousand generations of those who love him and keep his commands.
God’s love is not motivated by our actions, but by His sovereign choice.
• God’s love is personal - and while God loves “the world” - understand also that “God loves YOU.” You may not feel like anyone else loves you, but God has forever proven His love. Israel had become degenerate and cynical. But, though she had dishonored God by offering second-rate sacrifices, disobeyed God’s laws concerning divorce, and robbed God of tithes and offerings, still He loved her. Israel’s love for God had waned, but God’s love for Israel remained constant.
So God starts by reaffirming His love for a wayward people. Malachi’s mandate was to call the people back to a vibrant relationship with the living Lord. Their problem, like ours often is, was not ignorance, but indifference. It’s easy to become apathetic towards God and justify our own behavior. God’s people had stopped going to the Temple to worship and those who did gave God the leftovers of their lives and love. Their lips formed prayers, but their hearts were hard. They blamed God for everything and themselves for nothing.
We find Israel in Malachi’s day is a nation that is backsliding. Their worship had degenerated into rituals, no life to it … most of the people in the nation were religious but not really spiritual. There were the stories of the prophets of old, but nothing much seemed to happen anymore in the area of the miraculous. They had grown tired of all the prophets saying the Messiah would soon come, yet it never seemed to happen. They were bored with life, it was the 2nd or 3rd generation since the rebuilding of the temple and their restoration to the land under Nehemiah.
So Israel’s response is an accusation: in what way have You loved us? Why would they question God’s love for them? Because they were looking for God to “pour out a blessing on their lives” but it seemed that they had to struggle. We’re like that too, many times. We pray for a blessing, we listen to TV preachers telling us that God is just waiting to pour out His blessing, but we don’t see the blessing come. And so what do we do? Instead of looking at our lives to see if there might be a problem there, we end up blaming God and saying God, you really don’t love me! What they didn’t realize, and what the prophet Haggai pointed out, was that it was their disobedience that was keeping them from these blessings.
They looked for God to restore their nation to prominence; but even after they returned from captivity in Babylon, they still were under the control of Persia. They wanted God to make them great again.
And as a result of the circumstances they found themselves in, they questioned the love of God.
Let’s realize that as we read the OT stories, we are to see ourselves there. We are just like the people of Israel. 1 Corinthians 10:11 says, “these things happened to them as examples and were written down as warnings for us” You and I should learn from Israel’s example. When they questioned God’s love for them, He was ready to reassure them of His unfailing love. We’re no different than they are; when bad things happen we begin to question God’s love. “What have I done to deserve this? I thought you loved me!”
So in answer to their question, God gives them a history lesson to demonstrate His love.
God shows His love for us by His choices. Look at verse 2 - “Was not Esau Jacob’s brother?” the Lord says. “Yet I have loved Jacob, 3 but Esau I have hated. God is saying I have chosen Jacob as heir to My covenant, and not Esau. Jacob was the ancestor of the Jews. This was very unusual, because usually the older son inherited everything from his father. God chose Jacob to remind us that He is in charge of choosing the people He wishes to use for His glory. He choose to show His love to Jacob and His descendants in this way by His grace.
On the other hand, Esau rebelled against his parents and against God. His descendants became enemies of Israel, and so became enemies of God.
Now these verses have caused problems for a lot of people. How can God say, “I have loved Jacob, but I have hated Esau?” It’s not God loving Jacob that we have difficulty with; our problem lies with God saying He has hated Esau. But the truth is that if we have a problem with anything, it should be the question “How could God love Jacob?”
Another thing to note here: God is not saying, “I have loved Jacob and picked him to live in heaven, but I have hated Esau and assigned him to hell.” There are some theological systems that teach that: it’s called “unconditional election” and the idea is that God chooses to save some and damn others. Flip a coin; heads you go to heaven and tails you go to hell. But consider 1 Timothy 2:4 - God our Savior, who wants all men to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth. Or consider 2 Peter 3:9 - He is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.
The Bible does not portray God as loving some and hating others. The Bible shows God loving everyone. But sadly the choices of some bring about severe consequences. We look back to Genesis 25:23 to the birth of Jacob and Esau, and God says "Two nations are in your womb, and two peoples from within you will be separated; one people will be stronger than the other, and the older will serve the younger.” Now fast forward some 1500 years to the days of Malachi. No longer does Jacob and Esau refer to the individual boys born to Isaac and Rebekah but to the nations they represent: Jacob is the nation of Israel, Esau is the nation of Edom.
Through out those 1500 years God had dealt with both Jacob and Esau (both as individuals and then as nations) in the same way. God loved both Jacob and Esau and called them both to Himself. However, only Jacob answered God’s call; Esau rebelled against the Lord. And here we see God’s “hating” Esau refers to the justice of God being exercised to Esau and his descendants. Esau placed no value on spiritual matters. He despised his birthright and treated God with utter indifference.
Esau’s descendents were referred to as Edomites, from a land called Edom. In verse 3, God declares that He has “turned his mountains into a wasteland and left his inheritance to the desert jackals.” There are several reasons why God judged the Edomites:
• They refused to allow Moses passage after the Israelites left Egypt.
• Many of Israel’s kings fought against the Edomites over the years.
• Edom did not offer to help Judah when the Babylonians invaded them and they looted Jerusalem after her destruction. Psalm 137:7 sums up the feelings of the Israelites toward the Edomites: “Remember, O LORD, what the Edomites did on the day Jerusalem fell. Tear it down,’ they cried, ‘tear it down to its foundations!’”
The Edomites were an arrogant, immoral and godless people who continually oppressed Israel. Because of this, God judged them. In verse 4, they naively claim that they will rebuild. They just don’t get it. God says that the Edomites are “a people always under the wrath of the Lord.” Look at verse 4 - Edom may say, “Though we have been crushed, we will rebuild the ruins.” But this is what the Lord Almighty says: “They may build, but I will demolish. They will be called the Wicked Land, a people always under the wrath of the Lord.
The Lord is holding the descendants of Esau responsible for the decisions they made. Because the Edomites rejoiced over the destruction of Jerusalem and the temple by the Babylonians God said they would be an everlasting monument of His justice.
Both the cities of Jacob and Esau were destroyed by the Babylonians. Jacob’s cities and the temple are being rebuilt while Esau’s cities remain in ruins. They will never be rebuilt. There is coming a time when the sufferings of the righteous will end. Their grief turned into joy. But the suffering and grief of the wicked will never end.
Yes, God hated Esau. God dealt with Esau according to the sin and rebellion of Esau and the Edomites. The sovereign love of God established justice.
And God loved Jacob. Now if we stop and think about it for just a moment, that should amaze us. HOW COULD GOD LOVE JACOB? As an individual, Jacob was a schemer and manipulator. As a nation, Israel was at best fickle; the people would at times serve God only to later rebel and worship idols. Why would God want to love Jacob? Then stop for a moment and look in the mirror. Why should God want to love you or me? There is nothing about us that should cause God to love us: He loves us because He IS love.
The incredible love for the Jews should have caused them to be a witness to the nations. God says in verse 5 - You will see it with your own eyes and say, ‘Great is the Lord—even beyond the borders of Israel!’ But sadly they failed in that regard to. So, Malachi presents us with this truth:
God shows His love for us by His choices. On the other hand,
God’s people show their lack of love for Him by their choices. God uses the symbolism of a Father and Master in vs. 6. Both a father and master deserve respect and obedience from their child or their servants, so God also expects His children and servants to show Him respect and obedience. But they did not!
They again profess their innocence - we haven’t done anything wrong! But God points out that Israel treated God with contempt and disobedience in two ways: First,
You offer God what is worthless. The Law of Moses was very specific about the animals offered as sacrifices to God. They were to be the best—not sick animals, or the half-dead ones. The quality of the sacrifice reflected the reverence of the worshipper toward God. The principle was simple: You give God your best because He is worthy of our best. But they disobediently offered God what was worthless. The blind…the crippled and diseased -- animals they wouldn’t dare send as tribute to the Persian government. Giving this kind of offering to God was an insult to Him. What they were essentially saying is Lord, You are really not worth much to us.
They thought anything would serve for a sacrifice. They didn’t offer the best they had but the worst they had, which was not fit for the market nor for their own tables. By accepting these animals and offering them as a sacrifice the priests were telling the people what they were doing was not wrong.
Sadly, many times we do the same thing as the Jews. When we were in Pennsylvania, when the pastor we served under came to the church, some ladies went through the parsonage to see if anything needed upgrading. One lady noticed that the drapes were worn and tattered. She suggested getting some new ones and the answer came back, Why, it’s only the parsonage! And we often carry on that same mentality - that all of the things we were going to throw out can be sent to the missionaries or given to the youth group. Instead of buying the teens some new couches that you would love to have in your house, you give the teens your old orange and brown tween couch that has a big sinkhole in the middle of the cushions. When gifts are sent to the missionaries, instead of sending some Estee Lauder perfume that costs a small fortune - after all, that’s what you wear - instead we go to goodwill and buy a $2 bottle of cheap perfume that you wouldn’t spray on a skunk. But we expect to be thanked for our “generosity.”
It’s a wonder that God doesn’t strike more people down dead today!
Now we don’t offer sacrifice today, but we give a sacrifice in our offerings. God expects us to “honor” him with our gifts - to show what a great “weight” we feel for Him. But that isn’t done when we reach in our pocket as the plate is passed and pull out two bucks or a few loose coins.
In 1 Chronicles 21, King David wants to worship the Lord, and the local farmer wants to give him a n animal to use. David replies, “No, I insist on paying the full price. I will not take for the Lord what is yours, or sacrifice a burnt offering that costs me nothing.” When it comes to giving, we need to
Give the best. Israel had been taught to look through the flocks and find the one animal without defect or blemish to sacrifice. Remember the story in John 12. Mary comes to give a gift to Jesus, and she brings an expensive perfume that cost a years wages. Are you giving God the best that you have?
Give to God first. God is never to get the leftovers. He should receive what is right, not what is left. When the Israelites gave God 10% right away, it helped them to recognize that everything they had was a gift from Him. The more we realize that everything we have is God’s, the easier it is to honor Him by giving back the first portion.
Give to God cheerfully. 2 Corinthians 8 tells us God loves a cheerful giver - a hilarious giver - one who finds great joy in giving to God. The reason the Jews were giving these second-rate sacrifices is that they were giving out of a sense of obligation - we HAVE to give something. Instead, we should rejoice at the chance to give. When the offering is taken, we should say “let ME give something too!” So the Jews had worthless offerings. Second,
Your worship is heartless and hypocritical. And you say, ‘What a burden!’ and you sniff at it contemptuously,” says the Lord Almighty. These people are just going through the motions of worship. To them it’s all just one big boring ritual. They kill their animals, recite their prayers, sing their songs without any heart or love for the One they claim to worship. They even think they are pulling the wool over His eyes by pretending to offer Him their best, while in reality offering Him whatever they want to get rid of. Their attitude towards God is not love, but apathy.
Instead of looking forward to their time of worship, they looked forward to going home and getting on with their day. Going to church was just one more thing they thought they “had to do” and they lost all the joy and passion of worship.
Do we ever get like that? Where we view coming to church as a burden. Where reading the bible is only done when we feel guilty, and we do it with an attitude of “checking it off our list” of things to do. In verse 12 it says, “But you profane it by saying of the Lord’s table, ‘It is defiled,’ and of its food, ‘It is contemptible.’ The priests had the great privilege of eating the special “bread of the presence” at the temple. But it became commonplace for them. We think “how could that ever happen?” But think of the parallel of how we view communion. As we take the bread and cup we are to remember the body and blood of Jesus given for us. But sadly for many it is just one more ritual of their Sunday morning routine.
The people failed to honor God with their sacrifices or with their worship. Notice what God says in verse 14 - Cursed is the cheat who has an acceptable male in his flock and vows to give it, but then sacrifices a blemished animal to the Lord. Notice what God calls someone who CAN give but chooses not to give what they should: a CHEAT! Can a person cheat God? Yes, but you will never get away with it. God tells what will happen to someone who tries to cheat Him in Haggai - “Give careful thought to your ways. You have planted much, but have harvested little. You eat, but never have enough. You drink, but never have your fill. You put on clothes, but are not warm. You earn wages, only to put them in a purse with holes in it.”
You wonder why things aren’t going better in your life? Stop cheating God! When you honor God with the first portion in sincere worship, He will pour out great blessing. But we often face the consequence of our poor worship.
Look at verse 10 to see how God feels about “half-hearted” worship: “Oh, that one of you would shut the temple doors, so that you would not light useless fires on my altar! I am not pleased with you, says the LORD Almighty, and I will accept no offering from your hands.” God is saying “Don’t even bother coming to church if you aren’t coming with the right attitude!” Because God is NOT pleased with “half-hearted” worship. Keep your two bucks and sleep in next Sunday! God doesn’t need your leftovers!
Let’s never forget WHY we worship and WHY we give our offerings: Because God is great!
Verse 11: “My name will be great among the nations, from the rising to the setting of the sun. In every place incense and pure offerings will be brought to my name, because my name will be great among the nations, says the LORD Almighty.”
Verse 14: “Cursed is the cheat who has an acceptable male in his flock and vows to give it, but then sacrifices a blemished animal to the Lord. For I am a great king, says the LORD Almighty, and my name is to be feared among the nations.”
Did you catch it? Every time God mentions sacrifice, He follows it with the phrase, “I will be great” or “I will be feared.” Sacrifice is directly linked to the greatness of God. That’s why when we give Him our best we are grasping the greatness of God. Conversely, when we offer Him little or nothing, we are really saying that God doesn’t matter much to us. When we fail to celebrate God’s greatness by giving Him our best, our priorities go out of whack, and we become bored with God and excited about the world.
If you want to truly understand how much you love God, ask yourself 2 questions:
WHAT do you offer Him and HOW do you worship Him?
And the answer to both these questions is focused on the issue of how we view God. Do we fear Him? Do we see Him as the great King? Is He great? Or is He someone that we just give our leftover time to. Let’s pray.
— To end the service today, I want us to watch a short video clip that reminds us what passionate worship is all about. Because that’s really what Malachi was calling the people to. Not just to put in bigger offerings, but to have a bigger view of God. This is a third Sunday, and we will have a box at the back of the sanctuary for you to give towards the deacon’s fund, but allow your spirit to be renewed as we watch one man focusing our praise on our God.
Forever video by Kari Jobe (start 6:34 / end 11:38 before closing words)
