Symptoms of an Unfaithful Community

Introduction

Please open in your Bibles to Malachi chapter 2:10-16 that is Malachi 2:10-16. That is on page 753 if you are using one of the bibles scattered throughout the chairs. Again that is page 753 Malachi 2:10-16. The school has begun and with it we are all starting to notice these little signs here and there that something inside of our children isn’t quite right. A sniffle here, a cough there, a complaint of their head hurting. They wake up in the morning with a sore throat. And worst of all, is the complaint that their belly hurts, they turn green or go pale… and you do all you can to run them to a toilet. These are all symptoms, they tell us that something isn’t right. There is a virus that we cannot see inflicting our bodies and the bodies of our children.

In today’s text, we see the symptoms of a community that has a deeper problem. The problem has been presented to us in the early passages of this book, they have a worship problem. They are not giving their best to the Lord, instead they defile his name through blemished sacrifices. This is a result of their lack of awe of God. They do not fear him or reverance him as they ought. And this worship problem will not stay contained to temple or the religious arena. Worship problems spread and the symptoms get worse. Today we will see how the worship problem of these people impacts their ability to be faithful. The break faith, that is they are faithless, to one another, their religious commitments, and to their marriages. Sin, is not merely a vertical problem. That is does not just impact our relationship with God, it is also a horizontal problem. This impacts our relationships with others as well. Disordered loves, disordered worship will spread and it will infect our homes and relationships. Let us heard this text and beware of the consequences of sin. Let’s read Malachi 2:10-16.

Faithless to One Another v. 10

Malachi 2:10 “Have we not all one Father? Has not one God created us? Why then are we faithless to one another, profaning the covenant of our fathers?”

This third oracle or prophecy comes against the people of Judah. The first oracle was to all of the people as God told them he loved them and proved it by pointing out their choseness over the people of Edom. He then spoke directly to the priest and confronted them for allowing the sacrifice of blemished animals at His altar. Now, he speaks to all of the people of Judah and confronts them for “breaking faith” the literal translation of the word faithless in this section. We see in this verse that the people have broken faith with one another.

Malachi asks the people three questions. The first two are meant to point to the people’s relationship with God and the third is an indictment asking why in light of their relationship with God have they broken faith with one another? God is a Father to the people of Israel and special relationship. God is no called the Father of everyone in the world, just those who are his. These people as Israelites, sons of Jacob, are His people. He is like a father to them. These people are a people who were once exiled in Babylon, but now God has graciously brought them back to their homeland according to his fatherly love for them. Listen to this prophecy in Jeremiah 31:1–9 this comes before the people’s return to Israel, when they are still in captivity. ““At that time, declares the Lord, I will be the God of all the clans of Israel, and they shall be my people.” Thus says the Lord: “The people who survived the sword found grace in the wilderness; when Israel sought for rest, the Lord appeared to him from far away. I have loved you with an everlasting love; therefore I have continued my faithfulness to you. Again I will build you, and you shall be built, O virgin Israel! Again you shall adorn yourself with tambourines and shall go forth in the dance of the merrymakers. Again you shall plant vineyards on the mountains of Samaria; the planters shall plant and shall enjoy the fruit. For there shall be a day when watchmen will call in the hill country of Ephraim: ‘Arise, and let us go up to Zion, to the Lord our God.’ ” For thus says the Lord: “Sing aloud with gladness for Jacob, and raise shouts for the chief of the nations; proclaim, give praise, and say, ‘O Lord, save your people, the remnant of Israel.’ Behold, I will bring them from the north country and gather them from the farthest parts of the earth, among them the blind and the lame, the pregnant woman and she who is in labor, together; a great company, they shall return here. With weeping they shall come, and with pleas for mercy I will lead them back, I will make them walk by brooks of water, in a straight path in which they shall not stumble, for I am a father to Israel, and Ephraim is my firstborn.” These people are living the fulfillment of this promise. God has proven his fatherly love in allowing them to return to their homeland and yet they are faithless to one another.

He is their creator. God has given them life and made them and this world. He has a right to do what he pleases with his creation and in their case he has been pleased to restore them to their homeland, enabled them to rebuild the temple, and provided wealth to rebuild the city of Jerusalem to keep them safe. And they return his favor with faithlessness. They profane the covenant of their fathers, this is referring to God’s covenant with Moses at Mt. Sinai. A covenant in which the people of God promised to obey God’s Word and to worship God according to his commandments in His temple. Now, in offering blemished animals they are profaning that covenant and the temple and altar which they use in worship. And this profaning is seen as being faithless to one another.

These words are similiar to what is found in Deuteronomy 32:6 “Do you thus repay the Lord, you foolish and senseless people? Is not he your father, who created you, who made you and established you?” In Deuteronomy 32 Moses composes a song and gives it to Israel and the song predicts a time in which Israel with be unfaithful to the Lord through idol worship and how the Lord will use a “foolish nation” to plague the people. Which is a way of saying a nation that does not serve the Lord will conquer Israel, which Babylon does, and then later God will restore Israel so that Babylon (the foolish nation) will know that they were not triumphant over the Lord. This happens as the exiles return. Yet, here they are engaged in idol worship as we will see in a moment. So God asks, how could be so faithless to one another.

Their sin of idolatry and blemished worship will impact the nation as a whole. To dishonor God is to cast off God’s blessing over the nation, therefore it is a betrayal to the nation. It is like the solider who fails to properly care for his weapon in battle. Yes, that is bad for him because the weapon won’t work when he needs it, but it also bad for his fellow soldiers because they depend one another to watch each other’s back. The individual sins of the people in their unfaithfulness will impact the people as a whole. Let us hear this warning this morning. Your sins will impact others. Sin does not exists in a vacuum. You don’t just hurt yourself, you hurt all of those you are in covenant with. Your spouse, your kids, and even your church. We as a people must see the Fatherly love of God our creator and not spurn it. But instead let us respond to his love through the faithfulness He desires. Moses tells the people in Deuteronomy 32:46–47 “he said to them, “Take to heart all the words by which I am warning you today, that you may command them to your children, that they may be careful to do all the words of this law. For it is no empty word for you, but your very life, and by this word you shall live long in the land that you are going over the Jordan to possess.”” Take heart to the word of God, it is not empty word for you, but your very life.

T/S- Worship matters, the right worship of God leads to right living. But the wrong worship of God, the disdain of the Lord and not seeing Him as God, losing our awe of God, will have grave consequences. It will lead us to greater Faithlessness to God through greater idolatry. The people were faithless to one another and they were faithless to God.

Faithless in Worship v. 11-12

Malachi 2:11–12 “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. May the Lord cut off from the tents of Jacob any descendant of the man who does this, who brings an offering to the Lord of hosts!”

The nation is referred to as Judah here. Judah has been faithless. How? He has committed an abomination in Israel and Jerusalem. The word abomination is used in the OT to describe idol worship, perverse sexual acts, and even occult behavior (demon worship) like human sacrifice. This is a serious charge. Their faithlessness is seen as an abomination and it has resulted in the profaning of the sanctuary of the the Lord. The sanctuary of the Lord is referring to the rebuilt temple, which was meant to be holy and used for the worship of God. Yet, it is profaned, treated as common. God loves this temple because it is the place in which He meets His people. God loves his place of worship, because God loves to be worshiped. And right worship leads to right living it leads to stronger families and a stronger nation.

Instead, the people have profaned his temple and treated it as common. How have they done this? Well one by offering blemished sacrifices that we learned about in chapter 1, but also it seems that they are worshipping other gods as well. The have married the daughter of a foreign god. This is a confusing phrase because we have to ask is he referring to the act of idolatry, the act of marrying a woman that worships and idol, or the act of marrying a goddess? The third option is highly unlikely, though it would be a really literal application there is no other evidence that there was any kind of marriage directly to a false deity. I believe that it is a combination of the first two. I believe this because of the context of verse 13-16 which make clear that the men of Israel were unfaithful to wives of their youth. And because the people of Israel had a history of marrying woman who worshiped false gods and then allowing those woman to lead them into their idolatry. This was contemporary problem which we read about in the book of Ezra 9:1–4 the events in Ezra are very close to the timing of the events in Malachi, we read, “After these things had been done, the officials approached me and said, “The people of Israel and the priests and the Levites have not separated themselves from the peoples of the lands with their abominations, from the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Jebusites, the Ammonites, the Moabites, the Egyptians, and the Amorites. For they have taken some of their daughters to be wives for themselves and for their sons, so that the holy race has mixed itself with the peoples of the lands. And in this faithlessness the hand of the officials and chief men has been foremost.” As soon as I heard this, I tore my garment and my cloak and pulled hair from my head and beard and sat appalled. Then all who trembled at the words of the God of Israel, because of the faithlessness of the returned exiles, gathered around me while I sat appalled until the evening sacrifice.” Now, the issue here is race mixing, but rather the understanding that to take an idol worship wife would lead the man to take on her idols as well. This is the very thing that led to Israel downfall the first time. 1 Kings 11:1–4 “Now King Solomon loved many foreign women, along with the daughter of Pharaoh: Moabite, Ammonite, Edomite, Sidonian, and Hittite women, from the nations concerning which the Lord had said to the people of Israel, “You shall not enter into marriage with them, neither shall they with you, for surely they will turn away your heart after their gods.” Solomon clung to these in love. He had 700 wives, who were princesses, and 300 concubines. And his wives turned away his heart. For when Solomon was old his wives turned away his heart after other gods, and his heart was not wholly true to the Lord his God, as was the heart of David his father.” This is why it is important for Christians to marry other Christians. Do not assume you can see your spouse converted post marriage or even in the dating process. Thank God for when that does happen, but it is not a guarantee. And in my personal experience it is rare. The person you marry will either point you to Jesus or away from Him. And the best indication of the future is a sober understanding of the past.

That is what we see here in Judah. It seems from the provided context of Ezra that Jewish men were taking foreign, idol worshipping, wives. And so Malachi use this particular wording to get this across, but in this section he is focused on the idolatry. The next section he will focus on the faithless marriages. Here he is decrying the hypocrisy of worshipping at God’s holy altar in his holy temple while also worshipping other false gods. It is profane to associate God, the one true God, will other false idols. If you worship idols, then the worship you offer God is no longer special. He is just another “god” in your life.

If the things of this world get the same gratitude, attention, financial commitment, time in your schedule, etc that the Lord does then is God really all that special? He is holy? Or is God a common place thing? I think about this with my kids. My sons already want to know when Buckeye day is, so they can wear their jerseys. I pray that they see that I love church day even more, that they see me and Brittany read our Bible’s more than our fiction, that they see we love our church family. I pray that I do not profane God in my life through the practice of functional idolatry. That is to allow other things to satisfy and please me, more that God. I want to love His sanctuary, the place of worship my own heart, like He does. I want to love worship, like God loves worship.

T/S- Because as I keep on saying right worship leads to right living. And I want to live in a way that pleases God which means I will remain faithful to the wife of my youth. Faithfulness to God will lead you to faithfulness in marriage.

Faithless in Marriage v. 13-16

Malachi 2:13–16 “And this second thing you do. You cover the Lord’s altar with tears, with weeping and groaning because he no longer regards the offering or accepts it with favor from your hand. But you say, “Why does he not?” Because the Lord was witness between you and the wife of your youth, to whom you have been faithless, though she is your companion and your wife by covenant. Did he not make them one, with a portion of the Spirit in their union? And what was the one God seeking? Godly offspring. So guard yourselves in your spirit, and let none of you be faithless to the wife of your youth. “For the man who does not love his wife but divorces her, says the Lord, the God of Israel, covers his garment with violence, says the Lord of hosts. So guard yourselves in your spirit, and do not be faithless.””

They are worship false idols, profaning the Lord’s sanctuary and they are doing a second thing. They are faithless to the wife of their youth. Yet they are still going to the altar expecting God to show favor to them. They are weeping and groaning because God does not regard their offering, but they still do not do what is right in regards to their marriages. They are hypocrites. True worship is not the outpouring of emotions before the altar of God. It is not pleading the Lord to show you favor. It is a life lived to the glory of God seeking the honor of God and doing what God commands. We cannot be a people you come in here and raise our hands in song, say amen to the prayers, and even weep in contrition before the Lord’s Supper if we are going to remain unchanged. God is telling us that we are to be a people who’s worship here matches our life lived out there. We must be a people who live like there is a God, a people who behave like the Son of God has died for us, a people zealous to do what is right for God’s glory because we believe He is glorious. Emotional appeal on Sunday, is not what God is primarily looking for… God wants every part of your life. And that includes your marriage.

Why does God not listen to them? Because they have faithless to the wife of their youth. God describes the wife as a companion or partner and she is a wife by covenant, and covenant that is witnessed by God. God witnessed their union and testifies to the covenant. He is a witness called by the defense as these men are being prosecuted. A witness that cannot lie and he testifies that they are faithless to their covenant. The wife in question was a companion, a faithful partner, the husbands were the ones being faithless. This is a grave sin. Why?

Because God made them one in their union. This is a hard phrase to translate, but I think it means that there is a spiritual bond between husband and wife. And the husbands unfaithfulness does not negate that bond. In Genesis 2:24 “Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.” There is a one flesh union created between a man and a woman when they become married and consummate that marriage. This is mysterious, but it is true and wonderful. God declared that man and woman would come together in a marriage and they would become one flesh. They are united legally, physically, and spiritually. This is why Paul writes this in 1 Corinthians 6:13–20 ““Food is meant for the stomach and the stomach for food”—and God will destroy both one and the other. The body is not meant for sexual immorality, but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body. And God raised the Lord and will also raise us up by his power. Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ? Shall I then take the members of Christ and make them members of a prostitute? Never! Or do you not know that he who is joined to a prostitute becomes one body with her? For, as it is written, “The two will become one flesh.” But he who is joined to the Lord becomes one spirit with him. Flee from sexual immorality. Every other sin a person commits is outside the body, but the sexually immoral person sins against his own body. Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body.” When you engage in sexual activity you unite yourself to that person. And as one who is united to Christ, you unite Christ to that person.

These Jewish men were abandoning the wives of their youth and therefore abandoning their one flesh union and the covenant they had made. They were covenant breakers and God was a witness against them. And as they broke covenant they were then unable to fulfill their covenant with God. God purposed for Israel to grow and prosper so that the world would know that there is a God in Israel. Children from godly marriages were the means to fulfilling the covenant. As the nation prospered and grew in population the world would see God’s glory. When these men left their faithful Jewish wives and possibly took pagan wives instead, they failed to produce godly offspring. In the New Covenant you and I are to continue in the goal of seeing God glorified in the all the world. That the world would not look at country or a government and say, truly there is a God in America. But rather that the world would look to the church and say, “There is a God in that place! Those Christians serve a real and living God.” We do this by making disciples through evangelism, having them join the church through baptism, and teaching them to obey all that God has commanded. This is the Great Commission from Matthew 28:18-20. Now, it is great news that we ultimately make disciples through the proclamation of the Gospel and the new birth in Christ. However, it is also a good thing for Christian couples to have children and raise them in the fear of the Lord. Procreation has been, is, and will be one of God’s most effective tools to growing the kingdom of God. The conversion of our children is not a blanketed promise for each individual child. But it is generally true that if Proverbs 22:6 “Train up a child in the way he should go; even when he is old he will not depart from it.” Christian parents often produce Christian children. Christian marriages are the tilled and rich soil in which seeds of faith grow in the life of a child.

There is so much to lose in failed marriages which is why we must guard against such failure. We must take seriously the charge to remain faithful to the spouse of our youth. Faithless in this area will wreak havoc on a family and on a church. You need to be proactive in guarding yourself against marital infidelity. Be on guard, when you are at work, the gym, and anywhere you go. Do not give the enemy any ground in this area. Why? Malachi 2:16 ““For the man who does not love his wife but divorces her, says the Lord, the God of Israel, covers his garment with violence, says the Lord of hosts. So guard yourselves in your spirit, and do not be faithless.”” The verb translated as does not love is actually the word for hate. If you divorce your wife you do an act of hatred toward her. To leave the wife of your youth for another woman is hatred, and God says you cover yourself with a garment of violence. To do such a thing is an act of arrogance and spite against a holy and righteous God. It displays the reality of your heart, that you have no fear of the God of Israel. You do not fear His righteous wrath against sin and you do not prize the scandalous reality that His Son bore that wrath for you. You will go to His altar in tears, but He will not show favor to the hypocrite.

So, the admonition the correction that God gives is to guard yourself and do not be faithless. There is just too much to lose from this kind of faithlessness.

Conclusion

The people of Israel were sick. Their souls had a virus. They did not fear the Lord and therefore they did not worship Him as He deserved. And the symptoms of this heart sickness came to the surface through faithlessness to each other, the worship of idols, and faithlessness to their wives. These symptoms are like vomit that repulse and disgust a Holy God. Their polluted worship was putrid and shameful. He could not, He would not leave His children to continue in this state. Just like you wouldn’t leave your kids in their vomit. And so like a loving Father He promises in the next passage to purify and clean His people. He will send the Messiah to be like a fuller’s soap to wash away their filth. The symptoms of this sickness would be cleaned up as the heavenly Father applied the antidote to their heart sickness, the pure and perfect sacrifice of His own son. He does not just take care of the symptoms, He delivers the cure in the Gospel. Today if you find yourself faithless listen to what God says in 2 Timothy 2:13 “if we are faithless, he remains faithful— for he cannot deny himself.”

There is always hope for change for those who are in Christ. God remains faithful to faithless people because he will not allow this world to believe they have triumphed over Him. God moved and the faithless people of Israel returned home to the promised land, these Israelites are faithless and God promises to send the Christ who will cleanse them and make their worship acceptable. God moves to restores us today, even when we are faithless. He restores us, not by sweeping our sins under the rug, but by showing us the reality of our sin. We see our sin in the light of His word and we are moved by God to repentance. We admit our sin and take action to make amends. We resolve to fight our sin in the power provided by the Spirit of God and by His grace we change. As you engage with this text remember you more like these people than unlike them. You too, fail to be a faithful worshiper of God. So let us see our sin in the light of His word and cry out for the cure. Run to Jesus, He will save you.