• God loves his people with a fierce and jealous love that requires them to respond with fidelity and trust.
SLIDE #1
Introduction
• Today we begin a new four-week series in the book of Malachi.
• This four-week series teaches us to love the things that God loves.
• Through the words of the prophet Malachi, we learn God’s love for His people, His name, His covenant, and His messenger. These same passions are to be present in the lives of his people today.
• The Book of Malachi is a book that is extremely applicable for us today because Malachi spoke to the hearts of people who were troubled, whose circumstances of financial insecurity, religious skepticism, and personal disappointments were very similar to the lives people experience today; both saved and lost people.
• Tragedy and unmet expectations often cause us to question God’s intentions and promises toward us. Does he still care? Is he still capable of accomplishing what he promised?
• Why is he taking so long? These are normal human reactions to extreme circumstances.
• Have you ever experienced these feelings and emotions?
• These seasons, though unpleasant and trying, are times of God’s gracious refining of our faith.
• Far from reason to abandon faith, these unexpected seasons are actually evidence that God’s purpose for his people is still intact.
• Malachi writes this around 430 B.C.
• The people of God have returned from exile in the land of Babylon almost 100 years before, the Temple was rebuilt in 516 BC.
• However, the conditions are not favorable for them.
• Only a small portion of the nation has returned, and those now languish amidst poverty, famine, and continuing threats from neighboring nations.
• In the midst of their frustrations, they have begun to question God’s goodness, his love, and his ability to keep his promises toward them (v. 2).
• Let’s turn to Malachi 1:1-2 as we begin.
• SLIDE#2
• Malachi 1:1-2 (CSB) 1A pronouncement: The word of the Lord to Israel through Malachi. 2“I have loved you,” says the Lord . Yet you ask, “How have you loved us?” “Wasn’t Esau Jacob’s brother?” This is the Lord ’s declaration. “Even so, I loved Jacob,
• SLIDE #3
I. Fresh love, real love.
• Following a long period of captivity in Babylon, the Jewish nation finally returned to the Promised Land under the leadership of Zerubbabel and rebuilt the Temple (516 BC).
• Once they returned to Jerusalem and when the Temple was rebuilt, the people anxiously awaited the Lord to restore the nation to its former glory.
• However, by the time Malachi comes on the scene, more than a century passed, meanwhile, the people grew complacent.
• The prophet Malachi exhorted them, especially the priesthood, to repent and renew their commitment to God.
• Malachi warned them that even though God loved them, he was not indifferent to their complacency and would return like a raging furnace on the glorious Day of the Lord, sending his prophet Elijah before him.
• Malachi comes to the people with a broken heart because of their indifference toward God.
• Malachi shared the message from God that God loved the people, yet the people were not feeling the love.
• Life’s trials had blinded the people, they felt alone like there was no hope or no God.
• The people were spiritually depleted, and this depletion was the root cause of the nations insulting religious practices, along with their moral decay and their spiritual apathy.
• Malachi was seeking to offer the people a fresh faith, and that fresh faith included a fresh love.
• Because of the time that had passed since the return from exile, people lost hope.
• Have you ever been in a position where you lost hope? How did you react?
• Have you been in a relationship where you lost hope? How did that make you feel?
• When God proclaimed His love for the people, they did not believe Him because they had a view of how God should look to them!
• The nation believed that IF God loved, them, they would be back on top again, that the former glory and prosperity of the nation would be restored and possibly greater than ever!
• When we face difficult circumstances, it is so easy to think that God is not with us, that He is punishing us, or He simply does not care.
• We tend not to feel loved if we are not loved the way we THINK we should be loved.
• All along God loved the people, yet the people were not prosperous at this point, so they questioned God’s love for them.
• God responds to their doubts concerning His love for them by using the comparison of Jacob and Esau, who represented Israel and Edom.
• Jacob and Esau were sons of Isaac. Jacob was the younger of the two, and Jacob acquired Esau’s birthright with a bowl of stew. Esau was not the smartest person in the room!
• God says He loved Jacob but hated Esau. God’s ‘love for Jacob was so great that compared to Esau, it looked like hate.
• God reaches back into history to remind the people of the special relationship He has with them through the line of Jacob.
• Esau became wealthy and powerful in his own land of Edom (Gen. 32:3–8; 33).
• It appeared that God was blessing Edom, but not Israel.
• While Jacob’s descendants lived and were enslaved in Egypt, Esau’s descendants were chiefs in the land of Edom (Gen. 36:1–30; Deut. 2:4–5).
• Long before the Israelites put their first king on the throne, Edom was a monarchy (Gen. 36:31–39).
• Being God’s loved and chosen people did not guarantee Israel’s political independence or domestic security.
• Jacob and his descendants, however, did have the assurance of God’s presence with them in Haran (Gen. 28:15; 31:5–7, 42), in Egypt (Gen. 46:3–4), and on the way to the promised land (Exod. 33:14–17).
• God did make Jacob’s descendants a great nation and gave them the land of Canaan, as promised. Goldingay, J., & Scalise, P. J. (2012). Minor Prophets II. (W. W. Gasque, R. L. Hubbard Jr., & R. K. Johnston, Eds.) (p. 328). Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books.
• Sometimes difficult circumstances can actually be evidence of God’s love.
• Corrie ten Boom related a story of how one day she and her sister were praising God for the blessings they had while in the concentration camp in Ravensbrook.
• Corrie’s sister Bestie thanked God for the fleas that infested their barracks. At this Corrie drew the line, no way was she going to thank God for the fleas.
• One evening when Corrie arrived back at the barracks Betsie’s eyes were twinkling. “You’re looking extraordinarily pleased with yourself,” Corrie told her.
• “You know we’ve never understood why we had so much freedom in the big room,” Betsie said, referring to the part of the barracks where the sleeping platforms were.
• “Well—I’ve found out. This afternoon there was confusion in my knitting group about sock sizes, so we asked the supervisor to come and settle it.
• But she wouldn’t. She wouldn’t step through the door and neither would the guards. And you know why?”
• Betsie could not keep the triumph from her voice as she exclaimed, “Because of the fleas! That’s what she said: ‘That place is crawling with fleas!’ ” http://vancechristie.com/2016/11/22/giving-thanks-circumstances-corrie-ten-boom/
• Let’s turn to verses 3-4.
• SLIDE #4
• Malachi 1:3-4 (CSB) 3but I hated Esau. I turned his mountains into a wasteland, and gave his inheritance to the desert jackals.” 4Though Edom says: “We have been devastated, but we will rebuild the ruins,” the Lord of Armies says this: “They may build, but I will demolish. They will be called a wicked country and the people the Lord has cursed forever.
• SLIDE #5
II. Fresh love, renewed hope.
• The people needed hope. They needed to know that God was with them.
• God points out that it may appear that He is blessing Edom when in truth, He was not. Their time would come.
• In point of historical fact, the people of Edom were pushed out of their traditional homeland by invading Nabataean Arabs, probably between 500 b.c. and 450 b.c.
• It is striking that the prophet does not rely solely on events from the distant past to prove the reality of the Lord’s love for his people. Rather he chooses an event from his own days to show that the Lord’s love is still valid in his hearers’ lifetimes.
• God’s response to the Nation’s complaint directs their attention toward their neighbors, the nation of Edom.
• While the nation of Israel was ravaged by the Assyrian and Babylonian Empires, Edom remained fairly intact.
• While Israel now struggled to rebuild, Edom appeared prosperous.
• However, God declares that his hand of blessing and his promised presence are only with Israel, whereas his judgment and anger are continually against Edom.
• Wealth and prosperity are not always signs of God’s blessing and difficulty is not always a sign of his judgment. God is a loving Father who chastens the children he cares for.
• Here is the problem. When you place your focus on other people, what other people have, you miss how God has blessed you.
• What Edom was experiencing was temporary, and the nation was disturbed to the point that they thought they were being abandoned by God.
• When trying to determine how God is blessing me by me focusing on what I see other people have, I will lose hope.
• Yet in the midst of their doubt, God reassures the people.
• God tells them what the people thought Edom had, will be all gone.
• Material blessings are a blessing, but they are temporary in nature.
• Both the descendants of Jacob and of Esau experience judgment and defeat, but only the descendants of Jacob endure.
• The remnant community has been restored to the land that has been promised to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
• Some sixty to seventy years after the temple is rebuilt along with much of Jerusalem, Nabatean raiders ransack Edomite territory and force its inhabitants to seek refuge in the Negev region south of Judah.
• God wanted the people to know that He loves them, and that reassurance was designed to renew a fresh hope within the people.
• When you have hope. you can do almost anything.
• If you are in a rough spot, hope will get you through it. When you know you are loved, hope follows.
• SLIDE 6
• Though Edom says: “We have been devastated, but we will rebuild the ruins,” the Lord of Armies says this: “They may build, but I will demolish. They will be called a wicked country and the people the Lord has cursed forever. Malachi 1:4, CSB
• God points out that things will be so bad for Edom that they will think they will be able to rebuild after the fall, yet God will not allow it.
• They may build, but I will tear down: The pronouns They and I are emphatic in Hebrew to show the sharp contrast between what the people of Edom may intend and what the Lord will permit.
• The image of these mountains turning into a wasteland implies disaster and desolation that result from divine judgment.13 Instead, Esau’s inheritance is left to the desert jackals.
• The lesson here is for us to seek comfort in what others have. Looks can be deceiving.
• When God does not seem to be working on your schedule, giving you what you wanted, you have to resist giving up hope.
• LET’S LOOK AT VERSE 5
• SLIDE #7
• Malachi 1:5 (CSB) 5Your own eyes will see this, and you yourselves will say, ‘The Lord is great, even beyond the borders of Israel.’
• SLIDE #8
III. Fresh love, fresh pattern.
• God wanted to give the nation something they could see in their lifetime so they could be reassured concerning the fact that God loved them.
• Through this process, the eyes of Israel will be opened to see the greatness of their God.
• God’s power will continue to dismantle the wicked until they are purged from the land, while the righteous will persevere through difficulty to stability.
• In fact, His judgment on the wicked remains forever, while his compassion and commitment to his people endures forever.
• God’s people are called to trust in him even when everything around them seems bleak.
• The argument of the paragraph as a whole is that the Lord’s love for his people is shown by current events.
• Israel’s enemies, the people of Edom, had been driven out of their land and would never return, whereas after the Babylonian exile the people of Israel had been allowed to return to their ancestral land.
• As a matter of historical fact, the Edomites never did return to their old land.
• They remained in what had earlier been the southern part of Judah, and which became known as Idumaea. In the second century b.c., they were conquered by the Jewish leader John Hyrcanus and forcibly incorporated into the Jewish nation. (USB HANDBOOK- MALACHI)
• When you have hope, when you understand God loves and cares for you, it will enable you to start a fresh pattern for your life.
• As the nation would see the demise of Edom, they could begin to see their situation in a new light.
• When you have hope and know God loves you, you can then stop looking at situations in life from the worst-case scenario and look for the best.
• Love can change your outlook!
Conclusion
• When the people did not get what they expected, what should their response have been? Keep doing the right thing and trusting God.
• Instead, their response was spiritual apathy, idolatry, and moral decay.
• If we wait to do the right thing until we get what we want or until we feel a certain way, what does that say about our faith?
• The only fitting response to this depth of love is appropriate reciprocation.
• God’s people are called to love him by offering fidelity and trust.
• Indeed, the only reason God’s people are able to voice their complaint is because He has graciously preserved them. His love is not fickle, and his arm is still strong. His intentions of complete restoration and freedom toward his people remain unmoved.
• We must recognize the love, mercy, and goodness of God toward his people, and respond appropriately to his love.
