Malachi- Changing the Superficial to the Supernatural

Malachi preached at the close of the Old Testament, at the close of an age. We believe that we’re living at the close of the New Testament times, at the close of an age, and there is a remarkable similarity to what was happening in Malachi’s day and what is happening in our day. Now in Malachi’s day, the people had a form of religion, but they denied the power thereof. In Malachi’s day, they were very superficial. And as you read the entire book of Malachi, you can find that out by the very silly questions that they asked, sometimes sarcastic questions of God. They were completely unaware of their needs. And like New Testament Christians today, their greatest need is to see their need. They were making gifts, but God was not receiving their gifts. It was all just superficial. They were playing at religion.

Begin reading Malachi chapter 3:1-4

Malachi 3:1–2 (ESV)

“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. 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.

Malachi 3:3–4 (ESV)

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. Then the offering of Judah and Jerusalem will be pleasing to the Lord as in the days of old and as in former years.

God says in verse 4, “Then I will accept your gift. Then I will accept your offering.” I don’t care how big your offering is today or how even sacrificial you may think it is: it is not the offering that makes the worshipper acceptable; it is the worshipper that makes the offering acceptable. Okay? You can’t buy God. You can’t bribe God. And so, God has here a qualification. God says, “When you meet this, then your offering will be pleasant and your offering will be pleasing to me.” Would you like to be a supernatural Christian? Would you like to have revival power in your life?

Then I want to give you four things that are necessary from this passage of Scripture.

I. Receive the Grace of God

If you would be a supernatural Christian, number one, you must receive the grace of God.

Look at verse 1 again:

Malachi 3:1 ESV

“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.

“Behold, I will send my messenger,”—Who was he talking about? John the Baptist—“and he shall prepare the way before me,—who is the me that he’s talking about? The Lord Jesus—“and the Lord, whom you seek, shall suddenly come to his temple.”

Now in the Old Testament God had a temple for His people; in the New Testament He has a people for His temple. Paul said, “You are the temple of God.” And in 1 Corinthians 6:19 he says, “What? Know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit, which you have of God, and you’re not your own; for you are bought with a price.” Here our Lord is speaking. God is speaking about Jesus coming to His people. He’s coming to His temple. And notice: “Even the messenger of the covenant, in whom ye delight…” Now who is the messenger of the covenant? Jesus Christ. What is the covenant? You were here last week when I talked to you about the blood covenant, but let me just share a reminder of what the covenant is.

Jeremiah 31:31–32 ESV

“Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah, not like the covenant that I made with their fathers on the day when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, my covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, declares the Lord.

Jeremiah 31:33–34 ESV

For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the Lord: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they shall be my people. And no longer shall each one teach his neighbor and each his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, declares the Lord. For I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.”

Now remember that Jesus is the messenger of that covenant. He’s the one who brought that covenant. “Not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt;”—that’s the Old Testament— What is the New Testament? What is the new covenant? Look in the last part of verse 34. God says, “I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.” Hallelujah. Praise God for that. First of all, it means that all of our sins are forgiven. Every stain, every blot, every blur, every blemish that ever came across a human soul is forgiven, and we need no longer be haunted by the ghost of guilt because those sins are gone, buried in the grave of God’s forgetfulness. Praise God! If you ask some people, “What is guilt?” they would tell you, “Oh, guilt is the feeling you get when you’ve done wrong.” No, that’s not guilt. That’s a guilt feeling. You see, psychiatry and psychology is trying the deal with the guilt feelings. They deal with the feelings not the actual guilt! Only the blood of Jesus can deal with the guilt. The guilt is the transgression against Almighty God. But that is forgiven, never brought up against us anymore.

He goes on to say in verse 33, “And I will be their God and they shall be my people.” What God is saying is, “When you enter into this covenant, all that belongs to me now belongs to you. I am your God. My provision, my protection is all yours. When they jump on you, they jump on me. I am your God to protect you, to love you, to provide for you.” All I have needed my grace has supplied.

And then, last of all, He says, He says, “And they will know me. They will know me.” And He’s talking here not about knowing about God, but knowing God intimately. We’re not just praying at God, talking about God. “He walks with me and He talks with me, and He tells me I am His own.” There is that intimate knowledge of God that only the redeemed know.

Now, that’s the very first step, and that is to receive the grace of God. Go back with me now to Malachi chapter 3 and look at it. The Lord Jesus Christ is the messenger of a blood covenant. If you want to be a supernatural person, you must receive the grace of God. You must say, “Thank you, Lord Jesus. You have come into this temple of mine. The Lord, the messenger of the covenant, has appeared in my heart.”

II. Recognize the Goal of God

not only must you receive the grace of God— secondly, you must recognize the goal of God. God has a purpose in your life. God is aiming at something in your life. And when you receive His grace, He’s not finished with you.

Malachi 3:2 ESV

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.

Look now in verse 2: “But who can endure the day of his coming?” You see, when the Lord comes, what’s going to happen to that old man you used to be? What is going to happen to that old nature? Do you think God’s going to let that just stand? And who can stand when he appears?” Obviously, this is talking about the Second Coming of the Lord in its main reference, but it has a reference to the time when our Lord comes at any time. Who is going to be able to stand in His presence? He’s a refiner.

Now what our Lord is saying is this: that when Jesus Christ comes to save you, He also comes to purify you. Now our Lord has been called many things in the Bible. He is the refiner. He is the one who wants to refine your life; that is, to take your life, like you would take gold ore, or silver ore, and burn out, take out, the dross and the impurities.

Now that’s His goal. Do you know what God’s goal for you is? To purify you. Do you know what God is interested in? Not primarily in making you happy. God’s goal for you is to make you holy, to make you pure, to purge you, and to purify you. That’s what God is doing in your life if you’re saved. The moment you got saved, God began to work in you to purify you and to make you pure, to make you holy.

III. Rest in the Goodness of God

Now the third thing, and this is very important. You must rest in the goodness of God, because when God begins to purify you, when God turns up the heat of His smelting furnace, when God puts you in His refining pot and God begins to let that ore begin to bubble and the scum rises to the top, you’re going to wonder if He loves you at all. I mean, you’re going to say, “God, where are you?”

Look, if you will, in verse 3:

Malachi 3:3 ESV

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.

And there are going to be times in your life when you’re going to say, “God, take this away. God, make this stop happening,” and He just sits there. He just sits there just watching the whole affair, and you’re going to wonder, Does He really love me? Does He really care for me? I’ll tell you it’s not fun to be refined. Do you know what happens?

There are four steps to being refined and none of them are fun.

A. God Extracts Us

Just like the ore is extracted from the mine from the mountainside. He just takes the ore out. You see, that’s the very first thing God did when He saved us. What did He do? He took us out of this world, didn’t He? He took us out of this world. Wonderful! But He’s not finished yet. Now He’s got to take the world out of us. You see, that gold is there. That silver is there. And He will take it out. But what comes out with it? All of the rot, the dross, the filth, that all comes out with it, and that’s got to be separated. Just because you’re saved, just because you come out of the world, that doesn’t mean the world has come out of you. So He’s taken you out of the mine. He’s taken you out of the mountainside. He has mined you. Now He has to refine you. He has brought you out.

B. God Tests Us

Second thing that happens: After He brings you out, what’s the next thing you do to purify silver or gold? You begin to crush it. You begin to break it. Do you like that? Do you like being crushed? Do you like being broken? It’s necessary if you’re going to be refined. We throw broken things away, but God never uses anything really till He breaks it. If you study the history, you’re going to find out that when Gideon’s pitcher was broken that’s when the light shone and God gave the victory. You find out when the Lord took a little boy’s lunch, what does the Bible say? The Bible says He blessed it and broke it and fed the multitudes. Mary had an alabaster box of ointment filled with perfume, but nobody smelled the perfume until, first of all, that alabaster box was what? Broken. Jesus took those elements in His hand at what we call the Last Supper, and the Bible says He took the bread and broke it, and said, “This is my body which is broken for you.”

You want a crop? The Bible says break up your fallow ground. Every farmer who knows that if he’s going to have a crop must, first of all, put the plow in and break up the hard clods. King David said, “A broken and a contrite spirit God will not despise.” And the hammer of God’s word and circumstances bring us into brokenness. There is no blessedness without brokenness. There is no purging without pounding. God is going to bring that brokenness into your heart and into your life. He’s brought it into mine, but He’s not finished with me yet.

C. God Breaks Us

I still have to be broken, and you still have to be broken. That ore is extracted from the mine. Now it is broken. Third thing that’s happened: It is melted. You’re put in a furnace or in a what they call a fining pot, and the heat comes, and there’s persecution and trials and affliction. There’s no way that you can be refined without it. It doesn’t mean that God doesn’t love you. It doesn’t mean that God has forsaken you.

Now why do we have these trials? A faith that can’t be tested is a faith that can’t be trusted. How do you know what you have is real if you haven’t been tested? How do you know it is real? How do you know your marriage or your friendship is strong? It’s been tested.

Well, you say, “I don’t want that. I don’t think I want to be a Christian.” All right then, don’t be a Christian. You’re going to have trials, too. Man that is born of woman is full of trouble. And I’ll tell you what. Yours won’t make any sense. Yours are not for a purpose. Ours are for a purpose. And our Lord knows exactly, precisely what He is doing. So the ore is taken out of the mountainside. Then it is crushed and broken.

D. God Purifies Us

And then it is purified. It is purified. Notice it says, “He will sit as a refiner.” Look again in verse 3: “And he shall sit as a refiner and purifier of silver; and he will purify the sons of Levi, and purge them as gold and silver.” And I said before we’ll say, “Lord, why don’t you do something? Why do you just sit there?”

Why does he sit there?

*He’s sovereign

Do you know what the word sit means? It doesn’t mean sit like JR is sitting in that chair right now. It’s a technical word that means to sit on a throne. You see, the refiner is the ruler, the Redeemer. He’s the sovereign God. He knows exactly what He’s doing, okay?

*He’s sympathetic

He has His eye on you. He is watching. He’s not walking around somewhere else. The refiner sits right there because the gold, the silver is so precious to him. He’s sitting there. He’s watching you. Charles Haddon Spurgeon said, “God is never far from the mouth of the furnace when His gold is there being refined.” He knows. He’s watching. He’s caring. He’s sympathetic.

*He’s steadfast

This word sit—it’s a Hebrew participle, which means continual action. I mean, He is continually doing this. He’s going to continue to do it until He is finished with us. When is He finished? You see, as the heat is there, and He controls the heat, the impurities begin to bubble to the top, and the scum comes to the top, and He has His ladle, and He just keeps skimming off the scum and skimming off the scum. And then there comes an electrifying moment when suddenly it’s pure. Do you know how He knows when it is pure? When He’s refining silver, He can see His reflection. He sees His image in the silver and He knows it’s pure.

That’s what He’s doing. He is reproducing in you the likeness, the image of Jesus Christ. There are things in your heart and in my heart at this moment that I am probably not aware of.

I remember a while back, and many other times, when I’ve said things in anger or frustration, to my kids or my wife, and it was a bad moment. I turned in my dad of the year trophy. And when I said it, I was surprised at what I said. In fact, it was down in the murky recesses of my heart and just came up. It was there. They didn’t put it there. They only brought it out. It was already there. And I was surprised and ashamed. And I had a bad day that day, but it was a bad good day because I had to face some things and get alone with God and let God say, “Hey, you’re not quite refined are you?!” There are some things down in that old filthy heart of yours that need to be burned out.”

We don’t know that, friend, until the fire touches us. And then we see what’s down in the bottom of that refining pot. You see, our Lord knows how to keep us in the fire, and He knows what to do to bring us to that point. You see, my dear friend, we need to trust the goodness of God, rest in the goodness of God, because when it starts sometimes we’re going to think that God might be a thousand light years away, but He’s just sitting there. He’s just working on me and He’s working on you till He can see His face. That’s it.

So we are going from superficial to supernatural. Receive the grace of God. Recognize the goal of God. Rest in the goodness of God when you’re in the fire. And then you’ll reflect the glory of God.

IV. Reflect the Glory of God

Do you know what the word purify literally means? It literally means to make bright, to make bright. You see, you may be silver, but you’re tarnished. You may be gold, but you’re impure. And what our Lord is doing is He wants to make you bright so you will reflect the glory of God. That’s what I’m here for. God is here to give glory to Himself. And then he says that “then the offering of Judah and Jersualem will be pleasing to the Lord as in the days of old and as in former years.”

Don’t you want to please God? I want Him to be pleased.” If we please God, it doesn’t matter who we displease. If we displease God, it doesn’t matter whom we please.

We’re so superficial. We’re like they were in Malachi’s day. We need reality. What’s going to happen to all this silver and this gold that He refines? You ready for a blessing? Fast-forward to verse 17—

Malachi 3:17 ESV

“They shall be mine, says the Lord of hosts, in the day when I make up my treasured possession, and I will spare them as a man spares his son who serves him.

Friend, you’re going to be a part of His trophy. You’re going to be a part of His diadem. You’re going to be a part of His praise when He comes again because you’re that gold, that silver, that He’s refined. And one of these days soon He’s coming to make up His jewels. And when He shall come with trumpet sound, oh, may I then in Him be found; dressed in His righteousness alone, faultless to stand before His throne.

Folks, listen to me. We’re only so many more days that we have here on this earth, even if Jesus doesn’t come again in our lifetime. But He may come today. Let’s turn the superficial to the supernatural and let the Lord refine us and make us what He wants us to be.