He is Greater: The Refiner's Fire

Sermon Introduction

I know that I have gone through the history of Israel several times already

But I thought it would be important to refresh our memories of this history, and also to fill in the rest of the history up to the end of the Old Testament, since that is where we are today, the book of Malachi is the last book in the Old Testament

This will also help us as we begin to go through the story of Christmas during the weeks I am preaching until the end of this year

Divided Kingdom

You will recall that after the reigns of Saul, David and Solomon, the kingdom of Israel split in two at around 930 BC

There was the northern kingdom, which retained the name Israel - was made up of 10 tribes, and the southern kingdom, which was called Judah because it was made up of the tribe of Judah along with the tribe of Benjamin

Unfortunately, the Israelites largerly turned away from The Lord during this period. The northern kingdom of Israel in particular had a series of bad kings...

For example, Jeroboam I introduced calf worship… which you will remember is the sin of the Israelites in the desert after God redeemed them from Egypt

Then, Ahab would introduce the worship of the Canaanite god, Baal, which is something that the Lord specicially warned Israel to be careful against…

The southern kingdom of Judah fared a little bit better, mainly because they at least had a few good kings in betwen their bad ones....

So for example, they had King Jehoram, who actually married into the family of Ahab from the northern Kingdom, and who followed into the worship of Baal

But then several generations later, King Joash will bring about a revival and return to worshipping the Lord

Blessings and Curses

The result of this of course is disasterous for Israel and eventually for Judah… Because of course, the Lord expected keep the covenant and worship him only...

For example, you’ll remember last week, Pastor Johnson told us about the Shema right?

Deuteronomy 6:4–5 “4 “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. 5 You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might.”

This is the expectation… And as long as Israel lived up to this expectation, then the Lord will continue to bless them.

Conversely of course, if Israel does not live up to this, then the Lord will not only stop blessing them, but will curse them...

The Lord explains these blessings and curses in the book of Deuteronomy… The final curse… the worst of these cureses is from

Deuteronomy 28:64–65 “64 “And the Lord will scatter you among all peoples, from one end of the earth to the other, and there you shall serve other gods of wood and stone, which neither you nor your fathers have known. 65 And among these nations you shall find no respite, and there shall be no resting place for the sole of your foot, but the Lord will give you there a trembling heart and failing eyes and a languishing soul.”

So, the ultimate punishment for Israels rebellion against God is to be removed from the Promised Land…

The Exiles

And sure enough, about 200 years after the kingdom divided, in 722 BC, the northern kingdom, Israel, was conqured by the Assyrian empire.

Now, this should have been a wake up call for the southern tribe, Judah...

And for a few years, it was… During this time, one of the good kings was ruling Judah, King Hezekiah...

Unfortunately, there would only be one more good king in Judah, that was King Josiah… before a series of bad kings until finally God allowed Judah to also be conqured in 586 BC…

Although not by the Assyrian Empire, but rather by the Babylonian Empire, which had conquered the Assyrians just a few years earlier

Now, the Assyrians had already started implementing The Lord’s curse from Deuteronomy 28, by taking some Israelites back to their capital in Ninevah

But the Babylonians really took it to another level...

First of all, they destroyed the Temple, which was the one build by Solomon

Then they transported a large number of Israelites, particularly their ruling elites, scholars and artisans, and took them back to Babylon

This period of Israel’s history of called the Babylonian Exile, and it lasted about 70 years

Return Under the Persians

During this time, the Babylonian Empire was itself conquered by the Persian Empire around 539 BC

And soon, the Israelies were not only allowed to return to Judah, but also to begin rebuilding the Temple

This second temple was completed in 516 BC

And, just as a little bit of extra information, since there’s so much news coming out of Israel recently due to their war against Hamas Terrorists...

The Western Wall, which other salso call the Wailing Wall, in Jerusalem is a remnant of this Temple that was rebuilt in the in 6th Century BC...

So if you’re ever wondering about what’s going on in the Middle East right now, and some of the claims that Israelites are colonizing Palestine, or some nonsense like that, just remember, that wall has been standing for more than 2,500 years… And that was Israel’s second temple

But anyway, 539 BC, Persia conquers Babylon and Israelites are allowed to begin returning to Judea

516 BC, the Second Temple is completed and worship resumes

And several decades after this… after rebuilding of the Temple, the Prophet Malachi begins his ministry

Scripture Introduction

Now, at the end of the Babylonian exile and especially after the Temple was rebuilt, I’m sure can imagine that the Israelites were very hopeful

Ezra 6:16 tells us that after the temple was completed, “...the people of Israel, the priests and the Levites, and the rest of the returned exiles, celebrated the dedication of this house of God with joy.”

The restoration like the ones prophesized by Ezekiel and Jeremiah were finally coming true

And of course, along with this restoriation, they were starting to remember the previous hopes of what Israel was supposed to be...

That Israel would be blessing to all nations… And of course that the Messiah would finally come.

Disappointment After The Return

Unfortunately, things were just not the same...

And in particular, there was this sense that the Glory of God was no longer present in the Temple as it had been previously...

Haggai, who was another prophet during the post-Babylonian exile period, voiced out the dissappointment that some of the Israelites were beginning to feel about the Second Temple after that initial period of hope and joy...

Haggai 2:3 “3 ‘Who is left among you who saw this house in its former glory? How do you see it now? Is it not as nothing in your eyes?”

And so this was the mood in Israel soon after the temple was rebuilt, and the result of this was that a sort of complacency had settled in among the people and in particular among their religious leaders and their priests

And by the time of Malachi’s ministry, things had gotten pretty bad again...

Not as bad as before the exile, where Israel was in open rebellion against God by worshipping idols...

The people of Israel were still worshipping God, but they were doing so half heartedly..

Which if you think about it, is still disobedience of God’s expectation… Remember what the Shema says...

Deuteronomy 6:4–5 “4 “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. 5 You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might.”

And so, the Book of Malachi is divided into 6 disputes that God has with the people of Israel

Disputes between...

I won’t explain every dispute, but to help us understand

In the first dispute, the Israelites basically complain that the Lord does not Love them...

Malachi 1:2 “2 “I have loved you,” says the Lord. But you say, “How have you loved us?” “Is not Esau Jacob’s brother?” declares the Lord. “Yet I have loved Jacob”

In the second dispute, The Lord accuses them of the half-hearted worship that I mentioned before...

Malachi 1:6–7 “6 “A son honors his father, and a servant his master. If then I am a father, where is my honor? And if I am a master, where is my fear? says the Lord of hosts to you, O priests, who despise my name. But you say, ‘How have we despised your name?’ 7 By offering polluted food upon my altar. But you say, ‘How have we polluted you?’ By saying that the Lord’s table may be despised.”

So basically, what hte Israelites were doing were offering substandard sacrifices… Like I said before, they were still worshipping God, but they were kind of just complacent in doing it...

In the Third Dispute, The Lord accuses the men of faithlessness in their Marriages… first by marrying foreign women, which I know may sound racist...

But remember, one of the problems of the Israelites is marrying foreign women, and worshipping their gods…

Malachi 2:11 “11 Judah has been faithless, and abomination has been committed in Israel and in Jerusalem. For Judah has profaned the sanctuary of the Lord, which he loves, and has married the daughter of a foreign god.”

Second, the men were not loving their wives, and in fact are divorcing them...

The fourth dispute is what we’re going through today so we’ll skip that for now...

The fifth dispute is similar to the second one… The Lord insists that the Israelites have not been properly keeping the commandments and statutes that he required...

Malachi 3:7 “7 From the days of your fathers you have turned aside from my statutes and have not kept them. Return to me, and I will return to you, says the Lord of hosts. But you say, ‘How shall we return?’”

We’re going to be covering this dispute in the new year because the example that God gives of how people can begin to keep God’s commandments is through Tithing...

Finally, the 6th dispute is similar to the 4th dispute, so we’re going to cover it in a little more detail… but basically, the Israelites tell The Lord that it’s useless to serve him when the eveil people seem to be doing well...

Malachi 3:14–15 “14 You have said, ‘It is vain to serve God. What is the profit of our keeping his charge or of walking as in mourning before the Lord of hosts? 15 And now we call the arrogant blessed. Evildoers not only prosper but they put God to the test and they escape.’ ””

Accusing God of Evil

And so with that, let’s turn to the 4th dispute, which actually starts before the passage that we read earlier...

Malachi 2:17 “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?””

Just think about this for a moment...

The Israelites were accusing God of considering evil people to be good...

That’s why this is similar to the 6th dispute, because in a sense the 6th dispute is the result of the 4th dispute...

The basic idea is because evil people in the world are prospering, there is no point in serving the Lord...

Then if you really think about it, this really ties in to the other disputes as well...

Their complaint that The Lord does not love them, their half hearted worship, marriage and divorce, their failure to obey The Lord’s commandments… these all stem from this belief that The Lord does not care about righteousness...

Now, we of course know how ridiculous this claim is...

The Lord certainly cares about righteousness… And in his response, God shows us exactly how much he cares...

He tells us that

He will send a messagenger

And that he himself will come!

Malachi 3:1 “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.”

Now, I have to explain this because it can get pretty confusing...

The problem we have with this text is that we have being referenced...

First, there’s My Messenger, which is pretty simple enough to understand… This messenger will prepare the way… And if that sounds familiar to you, I’ll go ahead and spoil it… This refers to John the Baptist

As Mark 1:2–4 “2 As it is written in Isaiah the prophet, “Behold, I send my messenger before your face, who will prepare your way, 3 the voice of one crying in the wilderness: ‘Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight,’ ” 4 John appeared, baptizing in the wilderness and proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.”

And I know that it says there that Isaiah is the one who said this, but it is actually a mixture of quotes from Malachi and Isaiah… but Major prophets like Isaiah are sometimes used as representative of all the prophets when quoted in the New Testament.

So, the Messenger is John the Baptist...

But then we have two other individuals: “The Lord whom you seek”, and “the Messenger of the Covenant”...

This part is a bit confusing… Because who could this refer to?

One thing is for sure, it’s not refering to The Lord… Because he’s the one talking...

And so to understand this we need to understand the concept of Parallelism in the Hebrew...

This is the idea that the same thing is said in multiple ways...

This is often found in Psalms… and one of my favourite places to see this is in Psalm 1:1 “1 Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of scoffers;”

These three things that describe the blessed man...

walks not in the counsel of the wicked

nor stands in the way of sinners

nor sits in the seat of scoffers

All basically say the same thing… this is a man who does not associate with the unrighteous...

And so with this parallelism, we can understand that the Lord whom you see, and the messenger of the covenant… are the same person

And spoiler alert… this is in reference to Jesus

And so, this is God’s answer to this charge that God does not care about righteousness...

In fact he cares so much that he is sending two people… The messenger who will prepare the way, and then the messenger of the covenant who will purify Israel...

The Refiner’s Fire

Malachi 3:2–3 “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.

Here, the Lord uses two ideas… the refiner’s fire and the fuller’s soap...

Both of these processes refer to removing impurities...

Of these two, the Refiner’s Fire is the one that gets more attention, because it is quite a vivid imagery...

SMELTING PROCESS

Ezekiel 36:26–27 “26 And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. 27 And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules.”

Titus 2:11–14 “11 For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people, 12 training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in the present age, 13 waiting for our blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ, 14 who gave himself for us to redeem us from all lawlessness and to purify for himself a people for his own possession who are zealous for good works.”

2 Corinthians 5:21 “21 For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.”