The Messenger of the Covenant
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Malachi 2:17-3:5
Malachi 2:17-3:5
Good morning, church!
Good morning, kiddos! I love having you in here this morning!
We are on the second half of our study through the book of Malachi.
All of the previous sermons are on our YouTube page. I would recommend you checking them out to see the overall view of this final book of the OT.
I pray this is has been beneficial to you. I hope that you have been challenged and see an affect in your life and worship.
I’ll tell you what? Those who attended our 3P night Sunday night gave some whole hearted worship! We had over 50 people here to worship the Lord and pray!
I can’t thank the Lord enough for such an amazing turn out, response and engagement of this church! God is so good!
Thank you, Maggie and the worship team for your sacrifice and obedience to the Lord’s leading.
And thank you for the treat of leading us in the bluegrass version of I’ll fly Away!
Let’s pray and get into the passage this morning.
Pray about the soils
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?”
So, here again, we have the Lord revealing the thoughts and words of the heart of the Jewish people.
God says, You have wearied me…
Look, God does not get mentally, physically or emotionally tired or exhausted. Make sure you see this properly.
Isaiah 40:28 “Have you not known? Have you not heard? The Lord is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He does not faint or grow weary; his understanding is unsearchable.”
He is using the word weary as a metaphor to describe His patience growing thin and His “exhaustion” from dealing with their complaining heartened hearts.
We are trying to use human terms to describe a divine God and its going to fall short.
Basically, God is saying, you guys are wearing me out!
And we know that the Lord is about to shut down communication with them through prophets for about 400 years. He is not leaving them, He is just going to stop speaking to them through the prophets.
He is revealing that in their hearts, they are comparing the prosperity of those now following the Lord and and their lack of thriving. Remember us saying that they weren’t really rich but they weren’t really poor either. Their position was “eh”.
But they are seeing the workers of evil and saying, “Well, God must love them more. God must approve of them! Even though they are doing evil, God is blessing them!”
“God, where is your justice on those evil doers?!”
So, let’s review what the Lord has revealed that they were saying in their hearts.
They doubted that God even loved them.
They were unappreciative of God rescuing them from captivity, restoring the temple and all of their prayers being answered.
They were offering God the left overs of their lives. Giving Him lame and blind animals. Not giving God their best.
And they were being bad, Godless spiritual leaders in the temple and in their families.
And now, they have the audacity to point at others in the world and cry out for God’s justice against them!
They were jealous of the success of the wicked and questioning what is right and wrong based off of the prosperity of the evil.
They were asking where the justice of the Lord was for all of those sinners surrounding them.
But they were missing the point that the Lord wanted to do a work within them before He was going to do a work in those outside of the Kingdom of the Lord.
They couldn’t see how flawed they were because they were too busy looking at the flaws and prosperity of the wicked.
Remember the old saying, Point a finger at someone else and you have 4 pointing back at you.
It wearies God to see His people judging other in the world without seeing their own flaws and mistakes.
It wearies the Lord when they look at the wicked in the world and suggest that maybe God loves them more. Maybe the Lord is okay with the way that they live because they seem to be doing better than us who are over here trying to serve the Lord!
It wearies the Lord calling out for His justice against the wicked when their hearts were hardened against the law of the Lord.
It wearies God to see those who are basking in His grace and mercy demand justice and punishment for those who they used to be like.
Ephesians 2:1–9 “And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience— among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved— and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast.”
Let us not weary God by condemning those who we used to be like.
Let us not weary the Lord by pointing out the speck in another’s eye while we have a whole plank in our’s.
Let us be quicker to love and lavish other with mercy and grace like Jesus does for us daily.
“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.
So, here it is!
The promise! We have said that this book contains some amazing promises of the Savior! Well, here is one!
The Lord has shown over and over again that the heart of man is wicked, and hard apart. The law was not meant to save but to point to the need of a Savior and the Lord is saying, get ready! I’m about to send Him!
But you need some more preparation. You need to have you hearts ready to receive the Savior. There needs to be a humbling, a tilling of the hardened heart to receive the promised Messiah!
So, God promises to send His messenger to prepare the way for Jesus!
We know that this messenger is John the Baptist because Jesus Himself says so in Matthew 11:10 “This is he of whom it is written, “ ‘Behold, I send my messenger before your face, who will prepare your way before you.’”
Jesus quotes this very passage to say that John the Baptist was sent to prepare the way for Jesus.
John’s ministry was to baptize the people with repentance to humble and till their hardened hearts to receive the Word that was to follow.
Verse 1 continues, Malachi 3:1 ““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.”
The Lord speaks about the coming of the Lord, this is Jesus the Messiah that they are seeking and looking for!
The Lord, God is coming to Earth!
God will come into His Temple. In fact, He is going to create a new temple! His people and He will dwell within His people!
and with Him He will bring a message of a new covenant.
This is such a center piece to the book of Malachi and the transition from the NT to the OT.
We said from the beginning that this book is here to expose the hearts of stone that the people had and how they were incapable of changing that themselves.
Turn with me to Jeremiah 31:31-34, Read this with me, it’s so important to see these two passages!
Jeremiah is the passing of the old covenant and the coming a new covenant.
I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean from all your uncleannesses, and from all your idols I will cleanse you. 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. And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules.
Jesus is the messenger of the New Covenant.
He is the provider of the New Covenant.
But as it is, Christ has obtained a ministry that is as much more excellent than the old as the covenant he mediates is better, since it is enacted on better promises. For if that first covenant had been faultless, there would have been no occasion to look for a second.
Then he goes on to quote the Jeremiah passage that we just read.
In speaking of a new covenant, he makes the first one obsolete. And what is becoming obsolete and growing old is ready to vanish away.
Jesus, the messenger, provider, fulfiller of the New Covenant came 2000 years ago and provided the sacrifice necessary to open the door for us!
He is the one who makes us the new temple of the Living God.
He is the One who removes the dead heart of stone and gives us a heart of flesh.
He is the one that puts His Spirit within us causes us to walk in His statutes and commands.
Thank God for Jesus and all that He came to do in providing the New Covenant to us today!
The promise of Jesus continues in the rest of the passage.
Now, this is something interesting about verses 2-4 and verse 5.
There is not consensus on how these two sections should be interrupted.
Some commentators view 2-4 and 5 to all prophecy about Jesus’ first coming. His ministry on Earth between His birth and ascension to the Father.
Some view 2-4 and 5 to all prophecy about His 2nd coming. When we He returns in our future to purify and judge the world. One we are still waiting for today.
But still some see verses 2-4 to prophecy about His first coming and verse 5 to be about His 2nd coming.
I’m going to teach it like the last interruption. Its how I originally read and understood the text to mean. But I’m saying that it is a little open to interruption.
Verse 2-4 about why Jesus was to come the first time.
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. 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.
Vs 2, When Jesus came into the temple and into the synagogues into the world, who could endure the all seeing eyes of Jesus? Who could stand before Him without the Lord seeing directly into his heart and mind?
The priest, the religious leaders, the sons of Levi, could they stand before Him?
We saw Jesus in His ministry continue what the Lord has done throughout Malachi, look into the heart of the people and expose what they are really thinking, or what they are holding back from the Lord.
Before Jesus and the Holy Spirit, there is not hiding. Everything will be exposed before Him. Hypocrisy, hidden sin, pride, lying, abuse of others, all will be exposed in the refiner’s fire.
The gospel of Jesus Christ exposes everything like a refiner’s fire or a fuller’s soap.
The famous example of the silver smith and his refining fire is that he brings the silver up to a boil, melts it all down in an intense fire. As the silver melts, all of the impurities or dross rises to the surface of the liquid silver.
The smith would scrap off the impurities, the dross off the surface of the liquid silver.
The silver smith knows the silver is pure enough when he can see his own reflection in the surface of the silver.
The fuller’s soap is like a bleach or lye soap used to remove all of the stains from white linens to make them pure white again.
Jesus’ teaching, His ministry, but more than that, His death on the cross brought you and I into a place that we had the softened heart and the Holy Spirit so that we COULD be refined to reflect the image of our refiner.
Jesus’ first coming was to open the door to humanity the availability of sanctification through His death and resurrection.
Jesus’ life and ministry showed us what our reflection should look like but it would be pointless without His sacrifice on the cross. Without His blood poured out to make the sacrifice for my sins, without Him removing my heart of stone and giving me His Holy Spirit, you and I wouldn’t even have access to the refiner’s fire.
Now, you may hear the refiner’s fire and flinch. You may not like the way that sounds. That sounds awful!
James tells us though to count it all joy when we experience trials of various kinds. Because the testing of our faith produces steadfastness and when they has full effect in our lives, we will be perfect and complete, lacking nothing.
Listen, nobody likes trials. Nobody enjoys being tested and the refiner’s fire exposing the dross of our lives that need to be removed.
But we should at least be thankful that it is possible for us! Because for these that Malachi was written to and all of those apart from Jesus today, they CAN’T be refined! They can’t be purified to look more like Jesus! The law that they were following was incapable of doing the work within their hearts that we have access to now!
Look, we really need to change our mindsets towards trial. Are we really living such a life that we are afraid of what bad thing the Lord might ask us to let go of so that He can give us more of His goodness?
Are we really afraid of giving God too much of ourselves? Do we love the sin or brokenness in our lives so much that we are afraid to have the Lord expose them and give us the strength to remove them?
Are we honesty at the place that we love sin, hate conviction, and fear refinement into His image?
(pause)
Our first response in trials, to refinement, to conviction should be thank you! “Thank you that I am your child and you remade my heart and gave me your Spirit so that I can experience your testing, your conviction!”
“Now, give me to humility to see what needs to be removed, so that I can better reflect to imagine of my Creator. Help me not to be afraid to give you everything in my life!”
Vs 3 says that He will refine and purify the sons of Levi, the tribe of priest like gold and silver and they will bring offerings in righteousness to the Lord.
Through Jesus, our Great High Priest,
1 Peter 2:4–5 “As you come to him, a living stone rejected by men but in the sight of God chosen and precious, you yourselves like living stones are being built up as a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.” , 1 Peter 2:9 “But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.”
And as we have been saying, our lives are our offering to the Lord.
Romans 12:1 “I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.”
That is only available to us through Jesus Christ and His first coming.
Vs 4
Think about that. Your life can be pleasing to the Lord.
You can offer the Lord yourself, just as you are and He can be pleased with your life.
Not sitting there constantly judging, condemning or looking down on you, but pleased with you and how you live your life!
That is not found in perfection, it is found in surrender!
When we lay ourselves down before the Lord just as we are, righteous in His eyes, imperfect and humble through sanctification, when we surrender it all to Him, He is pleased with us.
And then, just like the priests of old, even greater than the priests of old, we can approach the throne of grace confidently. We can enter into His presence and sit at His feet because Jesus Christ and His salvation.
Salvation through Jesus is available today!
Now, vs 5 is where we see a shift. Jesus coming for a different reason.
“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.
“Then I will draw near to you,” I interrupt that to mean, after the first. After that, I will again draw near to you. I will come again.
But this time Jesus will not be coming to deal with sin but to sit on the throne and judge the world.
Jesus, Himself, prophesied about His return in Matthew 25:1–2 ““Then the kingdom of heaven will be like ten virgins who took their lamps and went to meet the bridegroom. Five of them were foolish, and five were wise.”
Paul preaching in Athens, closes his sermon with,
Acts 17:30–31 “The times of ignorance God overlooked, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent, because he has fixed a day on which he will judge the world in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed; and of this he has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead.””
Judgement is coming when Christ returns to the earth.
Listen, if you are over 30 years old and raised in church, you probably have seen this massive swing in the church and the preaching of the gospel.
When I was a kid, it used to be called, Hellfire and Brimstone. The pastor would shout and scream about the judgement of God and awfulness of hell and why you shouldn’t want to go there.
Candace remembers a Halloween party that was a recreation of what hell was going to be like and you invite your friends and hopefully, scare the hell out of them. Literally!
The church would scream about God’s judgment and say, all you have to do is say this prayer and you miss all of that!
There was a great emphasis on judgment and the wrath of God. But talking about repentance, grace, God’s love was barely mentioned.
Then rose a new generation of leaders that swung the pendulum too far in the other direction. The church today has grown to over emphasize God’s salvation, love, grace and mercy without ever mentioning that God is a wrathful God who will judge the earth and all of the wicked people that reject Him.
You know that the pendulum has swung because that last sentence made you cringe didn’t it?
But it’s Biblical truth! Its apart of the character of God!
You don’t have to understand it but you better make sure that in your heart you are not judging GOD, thinking you know a better way to be!!
Now, we have belittled the gospel to just repeating a prayer and life will get so much better and everything will be great!
While never even teaching the fact that salvation is be saved from the wrath and judgment of God!
Its literally what we are being saved from! The wrath and judgment of God against our sins!
Salvation and judgement are two sides of the same saving work of Christ!
There needs to be a restoration of the balance of seeing God for who He is fully, without emphasizing one attribute over the other because WE THINK we will gather more fly with honey that with vinegar!
Let’s just let God be God and teach other about who He has revealed Himself to be.
And who He revealed Himself to be is
Exodus 34:6–7 “The Lord passed before him and proclaimed, “The Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children and the children’s children, to the third and the fourth generation.””
If we find ourselves cringing at the revealed character of God from His own mouth, we should humble ourselves to the Word of God and ask Him to remove any fault images of God that we may have.
We have to ask ourselves, am I only worshipping the attributes of God that I like, or am I worshiping God as fully as He has revealed Himself to be?
Perhaps that is why He ends this passage by saying that the judgment of God is coming to those who do not fear Him.
Jesus, Himself, said, Matthew 10:28 “And do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell.”
May we find a balance between sharing the great love, mercy and grace of our God without denying the truth that those who are apart from Christ are condemned to death and judgment already.
Jesus did not coming in to the world the first time to condemn the world but to offer salvation from condemnation. And if you believe in Him you will receive eternal life and escape the coming judgment.
In fact, He died so that you don’t have to live eternally separated from God. Jesus is our scape goat. He took the judgment and the wrath of God that we deserve on the cross. He took our sins that condemned us and remembers them no more.
Salvation is amazing! But we will appreciate our salvation even more when we acknowledge what we are being saved from. The judgment and wrath of God is absolutely one of the most terrifying things in this world.
I praise GOD that His Son took that from me! That He took my place under the wrath of God. And I can stand here redeemed and made new. In right standing before the throne of God, because of Christ’s righteousness placed on me!
Let’s pray.
Invite someone to receive the gospel.
