MINOR PROPHETS MAJOR MESSAGE:
THE LORD WHOM WE SEEK
MALACHI 2:17-3:5
INTRODUCTION… Mr Incredible and Tricycle Kid
The man is hunched over in his powder blue aging car that is way too small for his incredibly large frame. He barely fits. He is dejected and unhappy and unfulfilled and all of the other ‘un’ words of which you can think. He pulls into his driveway at home and the car sputters and dies and the man hopes it will start again. He gets out.
He feels eyes on him and looks behind him. There on the sidewalk in front of his house is a little red-haired kid on a tricycle. The man looks at this neighborhood kid and asks in a tone far too harsh: “So what are you waiting for?!”
The kid responds from his tricycle: “I don’t know. Something amazing… I guess.”
The man sighs with all of his stress and unhappiness.
He resonates with this kid’s words and says: “Me too, kid”
The man sighs again and goes into his house.
This morning you are going to see something amazing!
SERIES INTRODUCTION
In the Bible, when God wanted to get His people’s attention He would often do something demonstrative like speak from a burning bush or lead by a pillar of cloud or shake the ground or do a miracle in nature. God did all of those things. God also spoke through people we call prophets. Prophets had many roles and many jobs:
Preaching what God shared with them to others
Rebuke those in power who were misusing political or religious power
Ordain those who would be kings
Predict the future and what God would do among His people revealing His plan
Heal diseases
Evangelize other nations and bring God’s Word to them
Teach about God and God’s Law
We know some of the names of these folks whom God called to be His prophets: Moses, Miriam, Deborah, Nathan, Elijah, Elisha, Isaiah, Huldah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Amos, Anna, John the Baptist, and many more. God calls the people through His prophets and gives them directions in their relationship with Him. God calls the people through His prophets and encourages their faithfulness and warns them that faithlessness would have dire consequences.
This morning we sort of finish our journey through these last 12 books of the Old Testament and finish our series called “Minor Prophets Major Message.” We have focused each week for the past eleven weeks on one of these specific prophets and the message that he had to bring to the people of God because those messages are important for us.
Today, we will be in the Book of Malachi. Malachi is the last of these prophets to write down their words around 432 BC and is the last book in the Old Testament. Not much is known about Malachi other than his name, he was an excellent teacher, and he was deeply devoted to the worship of God and wanted to lead his fellow believers in God well. Malachi’s mission was to correct the abuses and attitudes of the Jewish community of his day. Unlike some of the other books we have read, by Malachi’s day, Jerusalem and the temple in Jerusalem had just been rebuilt and so there was a ‘new normal’ that needed to be created for the People of God. Malachi was called to speak to this ‘new normal.’
TRANSITION
Let’s read from Malachi at the end of chapter 2 and a few verses in chapter 3.
READ MALACHI 2:17-3:5 (ESV)
17 You have wearied the Lord with your words. But you say, “How have we wearied Him?” By saying, “Everyone who does evil is good in the sight of the Lord, and He delights in them.” Or by asking, “Where is the God of justice?” 3:1“Behold, I send My messenger, and he will prepare the way before Me. And the Lord Whom you seek will suddenly come to His temple; and the Messenger of the Covenant in Whom you delight, behold, He is coming, says the Lord of hosts. 2 But who can endure the day of His coming, and who can stand when He appears? For He is like a refiner's fire and like fullers' soap. 3 He will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver, and He will purify the sons of Levi and refine them like gold and silver, and they will bring offerings in righteousness to the Lord. 4 Then the offering of Judah and Jerusalem will be pleasing to the Lord as in the days of old and as in former years. 5 “Then I will draw near to you for judgment. I will be a swift witness against the sorcerers, against the adulterers, against those who swear falsely, against those who oppress the hired worker in his wages, the widow and the fatherless, against those who thrust aside the sojourner, and do not fear Me, says the Lord of hosts.
SITUATION AND COMPLICATION (2:17)
Malachi describes a situation and a complication that is actually pretty serious and might be one that to which we can relate. It involves seeing God clearly and properly defining our world according to Him.
Malachi describes a situation where God is weary with the words of His people. They don’t know how they have done this and ask in verse 17 how they have made God weary of them. They have attitudes and words that are empty and backwards and I think it creates a frustrating relationship between God and His people. They are calling what is ‘evil’ ‘good’ and saying that God delights in evil things. This is mind-numbingly obnoxious and none of it true. This is a common problem with human beings and is described in several places in the Bible.
READ PROVERBS 17:15 (ESV)
He who justifies the wicked and he who condemns the righteous are both alike an abomination to the Lord.
READ ISAIAH 5:20 (ESV)
Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter!
READ 2 TIMOTHY 3:1-5 (ESV)
But understand this, that in the last days there will come times of difficulty. For people will be lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, heartless, unappeasable, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not loving good, treacherous, reckless, swollen with conceit, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, having the appearance of godliness, but denying its power. Avoid such people.
God has defined what is righteous and good. God has defined what is sinful and evil. His definitions are the actual definitions. He is the Uncreated Creator of All and defines everything based off of His being and His character and His will. There should not be confusion with us about what is good and what is bad, but there often is because we put our culture and our opinions and our own feelings in the mix and we make exceptions and think of circumstances and then we get confused.
Malachi describes a complication where the People of God are not seeing God clearly because of the situation they are in and their image of God is distorted. In 2:17, they are asking “Where is the God of justice?” They don’t see God. They don’t know what He is doing or what He is about. They don’t see His justice among them. They look around at their world and because of all their moral confusion and religious issues and philosophical influences they have attitudes and practices that draw them away from God and away from seeing Him clearly.
CONTENT… nacr.org/center-for-spirituality-and-recovery/recovery-from-distorted-images-of-god-seeing-god-in-new-ways-recovery-from-distorted-images-of-god [adapted]
This is quite a lot for the last verse in Malachi 2! I want you to know that our images of God ARE important. How we define God IS important. They are pictures that explain God to us and for us and they are often a powerful combination of thoughts and feelings and even experiences. Our personal thoughts and images of God and how we see Him may not be the same as what we say at church or what we say to others. We may affirm that we believe in a God of love and grace, but our images of God in our hearts may be something else.
For the people to whom Malachi is talking, they saw Him as absent and that His justice was no where to be found. They looked to God and all they saw was a question mark. They did not see God and they were confused on some basic definitions about life. God was distorted to them and Malachi wanted to help correct their vision of God.
There seem to be some general categories of distortions into which many of our unique images about God Almighty fall:
* Some people imagine God as a God with impossibly demanding expectations.
* Some see God as a figure on top of a tall ladder and we have to climb a ladder to reach Him.
* Others have an innate feeling that God is unsympathetic, emotionally distant, and cold.
* Some people know God is too busy with important things to care about them or to listen.
* Some believe in a God Who carries a big stick and enjoys using it to control, threaten and punish.
* Still other people see God as unreliable and for one reason or another, cannot be counted on.
* Finally, many see God as One Who abandons.
Each of these distorted images create spiritual distress and problems for us because they are not true pictures of the God of the Bible.
TRANSITION
God understands we sometimes have a distorted view of Him. It might weary Him, but He is consistent with Who He is and He gives us grace and mercy and direction. He understood what was going on with the People of God around Malachi and in the rest of the passage (the first part of chapter 3), God communicates proper images of Himself and then makes a great promise.
PROPER IMAGES
The first image that God gives His people is a goldsmith or a silversmith. God describes Himself as a “refiners fire” and He refines people like a smith would refine gold and silver. He says He will refine the people and the priests and their motivations for giving offerings. When a smith works with these materials, the word “refine” that is used here means “melt to make pure” or “to purge away.” It is the job of the smith to take the impurities and purge them away from the base material in order to create a workable material and to fashion it into something useful and beautiful. Impurities exist in gold and silver. The impurities of zinc, copper, and iron that appear in precious metals make the gold or silver unable to be used or crafted, give it hard spots, make it brittle in other places, and often discolor the precious metals.
God uses this picture of refinement to help us understand our relationship with Him. God wishes to remove the impurities and sin from our lives. Sin does nothing for us. Sin makes us hard to work with. Sin makes our lives brittle in some places and hardens our hearts in others. Sin clouds and discolors our view of life and important truth. God offers a better life than one full of sin.
* God as a refining smith using refining fire is a proper image of the Lord God.
The second image that God gives His people is… believe it or not… laundry soap. The verse says “fullers’ soap.” I looked a little deeper at this word “fuller” because to be honest, I didn’t know what it meant (and still don’t fully). It is an old-fashioned word to be sure. To be a fuller, or to full cloth, means you “gather up cloth and you press it and press it and wash it and press it until it is clean.” The phrase in this verse reads something like: “stomping with the feet to wash something.” The overall sense I get is a fuller adds pressure to cloth to clean it.
God uses this picture of fuller’s soap to help us understand our relationship with God. God will add or allow pressure and stress in our lives to wash away the impurities and sin from our lives. Sin does nothing for us. Sin makes us dirty. Sin smells up our soul. Sin discolors our view of life and important truth. God offers a better life than one full of sin.
* God as a fuller using fuller soap is a proper image of the Lord God.
Both of these images of God presented in Malachi 3 are proper images of God and are also used elsewhere, but with some different wording. The truth is the same in these verses:
This is the essence of James 1:2-4 (ESV):
READ JAMES 1:2-4 (ESV)
Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, 3 for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. 4 And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.
This is the essence of Revelation 3:17-19:
READ REVELATION 3:17-19 (ESV)
17 For you say, I am rich, I have prospered, and I need nothing, not realizing that you are wretched, pitiable, poor, blind, and naked. 18 I counsel you to buy from Me gold refined by fire, so that you may be rich, and white garments so that you may clothe yourself and the shame of your nakedness may not be seen, and salve to anoint your eyes, so that you may see. 19 Those whom I love, I reprove and discipline, so be zealous and repent.
TRANSITION
God understands we sometimes have a distorted view of Him. It might weary Him, but He is consistent with Who He is and He gives us grace and mercy and direction. He understood what was going on with the People of God around Malachi and in the rest of the passage (the first part of chapter 3), God communicates proper images of Himself as a refiner’s fire and fuller’s soap and then makes a great promise. Let’s look at this promise!
A GREAT PROMISE
In the midst of these two proper images of God in verses 1-5, He also makes a great promise! What is this promise?
Verse 1: “Behold, I send My messenger, and he will prepare the way before Me.”
Verse 1: “And the Lord Whom you seek will suddenly come to His temple; and the Messenger of the Covenant in Whom you delight, behold, He is coming, says the Lord of hosts.”
Verse 5: “I will draw near to you for judgment. I will be a swift witness…”
The promise that God makes is that He will arrive after a messenger and after the way is prepared for Him and that this God who is a refiner’s fire and a fuller’s soap will come suddenly into the temple and will draw near for judgment and be a swift witness. Got it? Keep it in mind.
ILLUSTRATION… Mr Incredible and Tricycle Kid
The man is hunched over in his powder blue aging car that is way too small for his large frame. He barely fits. He is dejected and unhappy and unfulfilled and all of the other ‘un’ words of which you can think. He pulls into his driveway at home and the car sputters and dies and the man hopes it will start again. He gets out.
He feels eyes on him and looks behind him. There on the sidewalk in front of his house is a little red-haired kid on a tricycle. The man looks at this neighborhood kid and asks in a tone far too harsh: “So what are you waiting for?!”
The kid responds from his tricycle: “I don’t know. Something amazing… I guess.”
The man sighs with all of his stress and unhappiness.
He resonates with this kid’s words and says: “Me too, kid”
The man sighs again and goes into his house.
Do you want to see something amazing?
READ MATTHEW 21:1-9 (ESV)
Now when they drew near to Jerusalem and came to Bethphage, to the Mount of Olives, then Jesus sent two disciples, 2 saying to them, “Go into the village in front of you, and immediately you will find a donkey tied, and a colt with her. Untie them and bring them to Me. 3 If anyone says anything to you, you shall say, ‘The Lord needs them,’ and he will send them at once.” 4 This took place to fulfill what was spoken by the prophet, saying, 5 “Say to the daughter of Zion, ‘Behold, your King is coming to you, humble, and mounted on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a beast of burden.’” 6 The disciples went and did as Jesus had directed them. 7 They brought the donkey and the colt and put on them their cloaks, and He sat on them. 8 Most of the crowd spread their cloaks on the road, and others cut branches from the trees and spread them on the road. 9 And the crowds that went before Him and that followed Him were shouting, “Hosanna to the Son of David! Blessed is He who comes in the Name of the Lord! Hosanna in the highest!”
Today is Palm Sunday which is the Sunday before Easter. We celebrate the entrance of Jesus into Jerusalem the week before His crucifixion, death, and resurrection. The passage I just read is the central passage for this Sunday. Jesus is arriving in Jerusalem and people are praising Him and praising God and it is quite a parade that Jesus is a part of as He enters into Jerusalem.
* Jesus fulfills prophecy about arriving in Jerusalem
* The word ‘hosanna’ is a word that means ‘please save us’
* Jesus is hailed by the crowd as a king of Israel Who can save them
* Jesus is praised as One Who comes from God Who can save them
Do you want to see something amazing?
Let’s read the very next part of the Palm Sunday passage. Usually we stop at verse 9, but verse 10 continues on in the same day and in the same event. Look what Matthew writes and keep in mind the promise from Malachi:
READ MATTHEW 21:10-17 (ESV)
10 And when He entered Jerusalem, the whole city was stirred up, saying, “Who is this?” 11 And the crowds said, “This is the prophet Jesus, from Nazareth of Galilee.” 12 And Jesus entered the temple and drove out all who sold and bought in the temple, and He overturned the tables of the money-changers and the seats of those who sold pigeons. 13 He said to them, “It is written, ‘My house shall be called a house of prayer,’ but you make it a den of robbers.” 14 And the blind and the lame came to Him in the temple, and He healed them. 15 But when the chief priests and the scribes saw the wonderful things that He did, and the children crying out in the temple, “Hosanna to the Son of David!” they were indignant, 16 and they said to Him, “Do you hear what these are saying?” And Jesus said to them, “Yes; have you never read, “‘Out of the mouth of infants and nursing babies You have prepared praise’?” 17 And leaving them, He went out of the city to Bethany and lodged there.
The promise that God makes is that He will arrive after a messenger and after the way is prepared for Him and that this God who is a refiner’s fire and a fuller’s soap will come suddenly into the temple and will draw near for judgement and be a swift witness.
* Jesus Christ’s ministry was prepared by John the Baptist.
* Jesus Christ arrives in Jerusalem and goes to the temple.
* Jesus Christ drives away those sinning in the temple like a refiner’s fire.
* Jesus Christ cleans out the House of God like fuller’s soap.
The great promise that the prophet Malachi makes is that the Messiah would come and He would make all things right. He would come among the people and refine them and clean things up and bring the People of God closer to God. Jesus did just that!
CONCLUSION
I do not know if in your mind and heart you have a clear view of God or if you have a distorted view of God. I do not know if you have massive questions about the God of the universe. I do not know where each and everyone one of you is at in your walk with God… maybe nowhere. I do know that Jesus is the answer and the refiner and the cleaner and Who you are looking for.
PRAYER
INVITATION
