Sermon Tone Analysis

*Malachi - intro*

Could we all turn to the book of angels, please?

What?

It is not in your Bible?! Am I teaching some heresy from some extra canonical book?

No, it is in your Bible – the Hebrew for angel is מַלְאָךְ - simply a “messenger”.

Malachi means: “/My messenger/” – although I am sure that it was the prophet’s actual name, because, without exception, every other book of prophecy is named by the messenger’s name.

So, take two, can we turn to the book of Malachi.

*[P]* Some time back, before doing a series on the sovereignty of God, one on the book of Philippians, and one on the tabernacle; I was working through the Minor Prophets.

A task incomplete – I did not do Hosea because it was a bit long, and Zechariah because was a bit difficult, the only other Minor Prophet I didn’t do was Malachi, the last book written in the Old Testament.

The funny thing is that the very first sermon I ever preached was from the book of Malachi.

The Book of Malachi comes from some time in the fifth century B.C. after the Temple in Jerusalem was rebuilt.

It is the last book in the Old Testament, and also the last in terms of books written.

Right from the time of Abraham, יהוה had continually been speaking to His people, sending messengers with His word.

His people were continually going astray and He kept calling them back to Himself.

They had seriously departed from their God, He had to take drastic action – culminating in exiling them from the very land that He had promised to Abraham.

But even there in 70 years of exile, still יהוה still kept speaking to His people.

There was Ezekiel and Daniel, prophets, His messengers in the exile.

But now יהוה stops speaking!

SILENCE! *[P]* For over 400 years, there was not a word!

SILENCE!

It is a terrible thing when you are no longer hearing from God! The prophet Amos had foretold it – there would be a famine for hearing the word of יהוה [*Amos 8:11*/ //Look, the days are coming,” declares my Lord יהוה, “when I will send a famine in the land, not a famine for bread and not a thirst for water, but of hearing the words of יהוה!/].So this prophecy is the last message that יהוה would give His people for centuries.

It is like His final words.

*[P]* You know when someone nears the end, particularly if they have been well known or important, people gather around them to hear their last words.

We often have recorded a famous person’s last words – their last word is regarded has having particular significance and importance.

I mean, you want your last words to pass on something of lasting worth, to leave behind something that will have lasting impact.

So the last prophetic voice of the OT rings out over the years intervening till the great drought was broken by the coming of the forerunner of the Messiah: John the Baptist.

The famine was over!

Hallelujah!

No wonder the people flocked out into the wilderness to hear him – the first prophet for 400 years!

I ought to add that although this is the last book in our Old Testament and was the last word from יהוה for over 400 years, it is not the last book in the Jewish Scriptures.

They divide their Scriptures up differently to us – they are called the Tanakh – which is taken from the first letters of the three divisions: “T” for the Torah, the five books of Moses that we call the Pentateuch; “N” for the Neviim, or prophets, in which they include the historical books of Samuel, and Kings, and of course this book, Malachi; and lastly “K” for Ketuvim, the writings, which includes what we would call the poetical books, plus a few others.

So they don’t end with the prophet Malachi but with the writing of 2 Chronicles.

Nonetheless, Malachi is יהוה’s final word, the last book written – some 400-450 years before Jesus came.

*[P]* So here we have יהוה’s final word before he lapses into silence.

A silence that lasts for over 400 years!

– a silence that was broken by the messenger of יהוה who was in fact promised in this final word *[P]* [*Malachi 3:1*/ //“Look!

I am going to send My messenger, and he will prepare the way before Me.

And the Lord whom you are seeking will come suddenly to His temple, and the Messenger of the covenant, in whom you are taking pleasure—look!—He is about to come,” says יהוה of armies./]

– so Malachi, /My messenger/, foretold the coming of “My messenger” and that /messenger/ was John the Baptist, who prepared the way for His Son, Jesus the Messiah!

Let us read: [*Malachi 1:1*/ //An oracle.

The word of יהוה to Israel through Malachi./]

That is probably far enough for one session!

It tells us that יהוה Himself is speaking to His people, Israel!

This is the word of the LORD, of יהוה Himself!

The message was communicated through His messenger, Malachi.

His name was “Malachi” and that is what he was – “My messenger” – he was just the messenger boy; the words, the message itself was from יהוה Himself.

That is the prophet’s task: to hear the words of יהוה and communicate them to the people - faithfully, accurately.

That is all a prophet is: a messenger-boy.

It is יהוה’s word; therefore it is essential that it be transmitted reliably.

All that is required of the prophet is that he faithfully passes on what he has heard from יהוה.

This is not Malachi’s words but יהוה’s!

So we should treat it with awe!

It says in [*Isaiah 66:2*/ //“For My hand made all these things, thus all these things came into being,” declares יהוה.

“But to this one I will look, to him who is humble and contrite of spirit, and who trembles at My word./]

יהוה has spoken His message!

– our response should be to tremble at it – because the message from יהוה was an “/oracle/”, a burden – a heavy message - something lifted up, heavy to carry, a burden weighing the prophet down – it is a message of a threatening or menacing character.

And it can be like that, delivering the message of the LORD, sometimes it weighs heavily upon you.

It takes it out of you, particularly if it is a message of judgement.

It is not just saying the words; it is a burden that you have to carry.

So why did Malachi have this weighty message?

What made it so heavy?

What was the situation and background to this prophecy?

That is essential to know in order to understand the heart behind this message – and feeling the heart of the message is what it is vital to appreciate – not just facts and doctrine but enter into the heart of יהוה that is being expressed here.

Let’s put it this way: Have any of you had a child that has gone off the rails?

Like, I mean, really bad.

My family is still too young for me to know what direction they will end up taking.

But there are those who are brought up in fine homes, loved and cared for, brought up in the ways of the LORD; and yet they go their own way.

Sometimes they end up in desperate straits as a consequence.

But the parents still love their child….

They try everything: tough love, firm discipline, punishment, mercy, forgiveness.

They promise to reform, they are taken back in; but yet again they go back to their old ways.

Inveterate rebellion!

*[P]* [*Isaiah 65:2*/ //“I have spread out My hands all day long to a rebellious people, who walk in the way which is not good, following their own thoughts./]

It tears parents’ hearts apart – that is the situation יהוה is in!

Israel is His first-born son: [*Exodus 4:22*/ //Thus says יהוה, “Israel is My son, My firstborn.”/].

He longs for them to come to Him, but they insist and persist on going their own way.

Repeatedly He disciplined His people for forsaking Him for lifeless idols; repeatedly He had mercy.

Here we are standing at the end of the Old Testament – look back over that record – again and again this had taken place.

There was a consistent record of rejecting יהוה, of persecuting His messengers.

Jesus Himself expressed it like this: [*Luke 13:34-35*/ //“Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the one who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her! How many times I wanted to gather your children together the way a hen gathers her own brood under her wings, and you were not willing!

Behold, your house has been left to you! /(abandoned to their own ends) /And I tell you, - until the time will come when you say, ‘Blessed is the One who comes in the name of the Lord!’ ”/] Jesus referred to this consistent rejection of His prophets, His messengers in a parable about a vineyard: [*Matthew 21:33-39*/ //“Listen to another parable: There was a man—a master of a house—who planted a vineyard, and put a fence around it, and dug a winepress in it, and built a watchtower, and leased it to tenant farmers, and went on a journey.

And when the season of fruit drew near, he sent his slaves to the tenant farmers to collect his fruit.

/(His messengers, the prophets)/ And the tenant farmers seized his slaves, one of whom they beat, and one of whom they killed, and one of whom they stoned.

Again, he sent other slaves, more than the first ones, and they did the same thing to them.

So finally he sent his son to them, saying, ‘They will respect my son.’

But when the tenant farmers saw the son, they said among themselves, ‘This is the heir.

Come, let us kill him and have his inheritance!’

And they seized him and threw him out of the vineyard and killed him./].

What more could יהוה have done?! *[P]* He’d done all He could and it made no difference; they refused to respond to Him when He poured out His heart to them!

Isaiah also likened the nation of Israel to a vineyard: [*Isaiah 5:1-7*/ //Let me sing for my beloved a song of my love concerning His vineyard: My beloved had a vineyard on a fertile hill.

And He dug it and cleared it of stones, and He planted it with choice vines, and He built a watchtower in the middle of it, and He even hewed out a wine vat in it, and He waited for it to yield grapes— /(He did everything possible for it) /but it yielded wild grapes.

/(there was not the fruit that יהוה was looking for) /And now, inhabitants of Jerusalem and men of Judah, judge between Me and My vineyard*.

What more was there to do* for My vineyard that I have not done in it?

Why did I hope for it to yield grapes, and it yielded wild grapes?

And now let Me tell you what I myself am about to do to My vineyard.

I will remove its hedge, and it shall become a devastation.

I will break down its wall, and it shall become a trampling.

And I will make it a wasteland; it shall not be pruned and hoed, and it shall be overgrown with briers and thorn-bushes.

/(abandoned!

Left to itself!