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.
However they through God’s messenger Malachi were getting another reminder, it was being delivered and it was blunt, God was not sugar coating his delivery, that line from chapter two verses two and three, “I will send a curse upon you, and I will curse your blessings, because you have not set your heart to honour me. Because of you I will rebuke your descendants, I will spread offal from your festival sacrifices, and you will be carried off with it.” Some translations use the word dung instead of offal, that is so out there. God is angry with these people, these priests. It reminds me of what Jesus did, what he said in his time on earth to the Pharisees and Teachers of the law. Matthew 23 addresses seven woes, in which Jesus uses the sentence, “Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees” and then he addresses them as hypocrites. Is this not in our trinitarian understanding of God, The Lord, Jesus rebuking the descendants of the priests be they genetic or positional, if not, then what is? God is faithful and just and his word is reliable; his prophecies are always fulfilled. Can you remember the probability of the three-hundred that were fulfilled in Jesus earthly life being fulfilled, from last weeks message? 1/10 to the power of 17.
God is faithful and just: In chapter three he addresses this with these words:
“I the LORD do not change. So, you, the descendants of Jacob, are not destroyed. Ever since the time of your ancestors you have turned away from my decrees and have not kept them. Return to me, and I will return to you,” says the LORD Almighty.
“But you ask, ‘How are we to return?’” (Malachi 3:6-7).
What follows in chapter three is a message to the people of Judah about tithes and offerings. I don’t want to go there today this is not a message about giving to the church, it is about God being faithful and just. He is so just that in regards to that matter he tells the Judean people to test him it.
He is so just, that way back in Genesis chapter 12 when he put in place his rescue plan for humanity, he stuck to it through thick and thin with his people. Particularly at times when they were being thick (NZ vernacular for stupid). He abided by his covenants with Abraham and his descendants. They received land, offspring and blessing. With the promise that a great King would come from Abraham’s line. I want to look at a couple of New Testament references to this:
As it says in Hebrews 11:11-12 – And by faith even Sarah, who was past childbearing age, was enabled to bear children because she considered him faithful who had made the promise. And so, from this one man [Abraham], and he as good as dead, came descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and as countless as the sand on the seashore.
And this from Acts 3:25; “And you are heirs of the prophets and of the covenant God made with your fathers. He said to Abraham, ‘Through your offspring all peoples on earth will be blessed.’”
So those two passages from the New Testament are a taste of what God achieved through Abraham’s line, through Jesus. God is faithful and just, he delivers and delivered on his promise, we see this throughout the Old Testament, as I said particularly at times when the people of Israel and Juday were being thick. We know it in our lives because of the blessing Jesus brought to the world when he defeated sin and death, when he made a way for us through his broken body for all of us to enter into the holiness of God’s presence.
I will leave you to read through chapter four of Malachi yourselves, it’s about the Day of the Lord.. I want to finish this OT Deep Dive with the last four verses of chapter three of Malachi, I read these at the start of my message:
“You have said, ‘It is futile to serve God. What do we gain by carrying out his requirements and going about like mourners before the Lord Almighty? But now we call the arrogant blessed. Certainly evildoers prosper, and even when they put God to the test, they get away with it.’”
Then those who feared the Lord talked with each other, and the Lord listened and heard. A scroll of remembrance was written in his presence concerning those who feared the Lord and honoured his name.
“On the day when I act,” says the Lord Almighty, “they will be my treasured possession. I will spare them, just as a father has compassion and spares his son who serves him. And you will again see the distinction between the righteous and the wicked, between those who serve God and those who do not.” (Malachi 3:14-18).
Malachi makes it plain that God hears and knows and God acts, that God is just and faithful. God knows those who fear him, read that as ‘are in awe of him’ and who honour his name. Not only does he know them, but they will be his treasured possession, on the Day of the Lord. That on that day it will be clear who the righteous are and who the evil are, well that isn’t very PC is it. However, God is just, so just that we can enter into His Holy presence. God is faithful so faithful that he made a way.
We have but one life, as we live out our part in God’s divine drama, our role in responding to the time we live in, lets hold onto the truth that God is faithful and just and let us respond in a way that honours Him, for he has been faithful to his covenants, he is faithful and he will be always be faithful and just. Let us be God’s treasured possession.
Alter call, as the music team come t play let us respond prayerfully as we sing.
Great is thy Faithfulness. Interestingly I read the music lead after I finished my sermon. Great response song. I was also led to share Romans 10;9-10 as a reassurance to those listening, just in case.
