Malachi 1:1-5
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So today, I’m really excited.
It is the first Sunday of the year.
But not only that, we are beginning a new journey through a new book of the Bible.
Most recently we finished Matthew.
And this morning, we begin the book of Malachi.
Malachi is an important book.
It is the last book in the Old Testament.
Malachi was the last prophet to prophecy in Israel before everything fell silent for 400 years prior to the coming of Jesus Christ into the world.
And so this book forms somewhat of a bridge between the OT and the NT.
Its sets the historical stage for the spiritual state of Israel for when Jesus comes, because the reality is, though a lot changes in the 400 years of silence, some things have not changed.
Many of the same problems Malachi deals with are present when Jesus comes.
You should know— More than anything, Malachi a book of exposure.
I don’t know about you, but I love watching investigations and real crime stories on TV.
I enjoy documentaries.
Getting behind the scenes of things to learn what they are really about.
I’ve always been fascinated with the court system and how things work, and so I love court case documentaries and things like that.
If you are in any way familiar with how court cases work, you will be familiar with the term “Discovery.”
Now, if you are not familiar, let me explain.
“Discovery” that is the time, before the trial, where both sides, the defense and the prosecution, have to hand over everything they intend to use in the trial with regard to evidence and witnesses and things like that.
They are required to show their cards.
Now, If you ever been watching one of those shows, you will see that one thing that upsets the attorneys on either side is if the other side should try to introduce something that was not given previously in discovery.
They will object at that point, because that’s not how it is supposed to work. There isn’t supposed to be any surprises.
The goal is so that both sides have equal opportunity to defend their point of view.
That’s why it’s called discovery.
The book Malachi reads like a discovery.
The people of Israel are on trial.
And God through the prophet Malachi, is laying out all the facts.
God exposes it all.
He exposes their sins. He exposes their excuses and their defense, and then he states what is true.
And the goal here is that the people will see the error of their ways and repent.
Look with me beginning in verse 1.
The oracle of the word of the Lord to Israel by Malachi.
This is the opening matter. The introduction to the book.
And there are three things I want you to see very quickly here from verse 1.
First, you have the divine source.
This is the oracle of the word of the Lord.
Those words right there, they established for us why it’s important for us to study this book.
This is God’s word.
The Bible did not originate in the imagination of ancient men.
It originated in God revealing Himself.
God spoke. God revealed. God addressed His people.
And the people, His people that He is addressing here is Israel.
God is speaking to the nation of Israel.
Israel, we know is the nation that God chose in the Old Testament.
He gave them many promises.
He blessed them many times.
He chose to set up His presence among them through the temple and the sacrifices.
It was Israel that he gave the kings and the prophets and all the words of the Lord.
So it’s from God to Israel.
Now here’s where we need to slow down for a moment.
Look at the rest of the verse.
The oracle of the word of the Lord to Israel by Malachi.
Now, remember—Who is this message from?
The word is from the Lord. The source is the Lord.
When it says by Malachi— it is saying he chosen instrument to deliver God’s message to Israel is Malachi the prophet.
In other words, God speaks his word through his messenger Malachi.
In fact the name Malachi means “my messenger.”
And so Malachi is like a mail man.. He carries the word; he does not create it.
I had to two older brothers growing up, and they tried to tell me what to do, and of course every little brother loves that. And I didn’t listen to them. And every now and then, I would put them in their place by telling them, “You ain’t my daddy.”
But every now and them my dad would call my older brother and tell him to tell me to do something.
And so then, when my older brother spoke he would say— “Daddy said, you need to do this..” At that point, those words carry with them a different kind of weight. Don’t they?
Now, if my older brother would have not told me to do what my dad told me to do, who would have been in trouble? My older brother would have. It was His job to deliver the message.
And If I didn’t do what my daddy told me to do, even if my brother was the one to deliver the message, I was going to be in trouble not with my brother, but with Daddy who sent the message.
Now, I bring this up—Because this verse helps us understand how the Scripture that we have comes to us.
This verse actually greatly helps us understand the doctrine of inspiration and why we believe that what we hold in our hands is the Word of God.
God spoke to His people, but He did so through chosen human instruments who faithfully delivered what He gave them.
These men were called prophets. And faithful prophets received the word from the Lord and then faithfully delivered those words to the people.
Malachi is among these prophets who had the task of delivering God’s word to God’s people.
As such—
Malachi is not coming up with his own insight.
The prophets do not say, “Here is what I think.”
They say, “Thus says the LORD.”
Peter later explains it this way…
For no prophecy was ever produced by the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.
And so in light of that. Yes—They speak with authority. Their job is to speak accurately, to not add anything or take anything away.
Now, let me apply this really quickly to myself and others who proclaim God’s word.
In my understanding, the job of the pastor/preacher today is much the same.
Now it is different in that Malachi and the prophets and the apostles were delivering God’s Word for the first time.
We have the fullness of Scripture of what God intends to reveal, and so I won’t be telling you anything new.
My job this morning and every time is to declare what God has spoken in his Word.
When we look at scripture, we understand it is written by the hands of men.
And yet is written fully inspired by the spirit of God, sovereignly superintended so that what we have is exactly what God intended for us to have.
And that is why Scripture carries weight.
The words in the Bible are not just another opinion.
The words of this book come carrying with them the very authority of God himself.
Which means we do not sit over it as judges; we sit under it as hearers.
As a preacher, I don’t get to tell you what I feel something should say.
I have to tell you what it does say.
So too, if you and I are going to receive God’s Word faithfully, we don’t get to receive God's Word selectively.
We don’t get to say, Oh I don’t know if I like that part.
No. We submit to all of it.
And so in the opening verse, Essentially it’s Malachi saying, This is God’s Word. These are God’s charges against Israel.
SDFS
And the rest of the sermon today is about the first charge and the first charge is this—
The people of Israel are questioning God’s covenant love and faithfulness to them.
Look at the first part of verse 2.
“I have loved you,” says the Lord. But you say, “How have you loved us?”
Think about this for a moment.
Here is the charge. God lays down the facts.
“I have loved you,” says the LORD.
God, speaking through the prophet Malachi, begins by saying “God says He loves you.”
That seems obvious to us doesn’t it?
Just think of what God had done for Israel throughout their history.
He called them to be His people.
He protected them in Egypt through Joseph.
He then delivered them from Egypt through the plagues.
He sustained them with manna and water in the wilderness for forty years.
Finally, He brought them into the land of Canaan.
He secured victories over their enemies.
He gave them judges, kings, and prophets. He did many mighty works in their midst.
And then you think about the recent grace and providence during Malachi’s time.
Now, pay close attention here—
Malachi ministered as a postexilic prophet.
You see in the word “exilic” the word exile.
Which refers to Israel being kicked out of the promised Land.
Malachi was a postexilic prophet meaning he ministered during a time when Israel had been restored back into their land.
In Israel’s history there were prophets before the exile, during the exile, and after the exile.
In other words, God was faithfully speaking to the nation the whole time, another expression of His love.
The prophets who came before they were exiled warned the people to repent or face judgment.
The prophets during exile spoke to people under God’s discipline, calling them to repentance and hope.
Malachi comes prophesying after God, in gracious providence, had already brought the people back into the land.
Let me give you some historical context here…
The Babylonians had overthrown Israel around 600 BC and then in 586 BC, Nebuchadnezzar and Babylon had destroyed the temple and Jerusalem. They wiped it out. Burned it to the ground.
For about 70 years, Israel was scattered. They were displaced.
Exiled.
But then the Babylonian Empire fell to the Persian Empire around 539, and Cyrus the king of Persia allowed Israel to return back to their land.
They were still under the Persian Empire, but..
So long as they paid their taxes, he was good with them being in their land.
And so they went back to their land…. they rebuilt the temple, Nehemiah led them to rebuild the walls that Babylon had destroyed.
But still, for the people of Israel, it was still a difficult time.
Jerusalem and the temple was a far cry from where it was prior to the Babylonian destruction.
And so the people of Israel, even though they are back in their land, it’s hard.
They aren’t satisfied. They are a poor nation. Under the Persian Empire.
Their circumstances are pretty rough, and so they question whether or not God even loves them.
Verse 2, God says he loves us, but as the people of Israel look at their current circumstances and their recent history, they question.
And so I want you to see what God does.
God takes them back to a specific expression and demonstration of His love for them.
God proves to them His love.
Essentially, what God is going to say is this— Of course, I love you. I chose you.
Listen to the rest of verse 2.
“I have loved you,” says the Lord. But you say, “How have you loved us?”
This is God’s response….
“Is not Esau Jacob’s brother?” declares the Lord. “Yet I have loved Jacob but Esau I have hated.
God in proving his love for the people of Israel takes them back around 1500 years to the womb of Rebekah.
He takes them back to Isaac and Rebekah’s twin boys.
Jacob and Esau.
And how God made a choice between the two.
Remember what God said to Rebekah… Genesis 25:23
And the Lord said to her, “Two nations are in your womb, and two peoples from within you shall be divided; the one shall be stronger than the other, the older shall serve the younger.”
The meaning this—Jacob I loved, yet Esau I have hated is that—God chose Jacob and rejected Esau.
And so in response to their questioning of His love, God takes them back the beginning of his covenant love and faithfulness to them.
He says is not Esau Jacob’s brother?
Yeah, I have loved Jacob. But Esau, I have hated.
In other words, God us telling the nation of Israel, what do you mean—How do I love you? , you have been mine since Rebekah’s womb, and his love for them extended even beyond that to before the foundation of the world.
He is telling them—I chose you to be my people.
Remember Esau was the older brother.
By all accounts, Esau should’ve been chosen not Jacob.
Esau should’ve been the one to receive the blessing from Isaac.
But God made a choice. And His choice was Jacob.
This isn’t the only place we see this—
Paul in Romans 9, reflecting upon this very thing says that this choice was based upon God’s decision and His sovereign will.
And not only so, but also when Rebekah had conceived children by one man, our forefather Isaac, though they were not yet born and had done nothing either good or bad—in order that God’s purpose of election might continue, not because of works but because of him who calls— she was told, “The older will serve the younger.” As it is written, “Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated.”
And so, I hope you hear the love and the grace here in Malachi.
The people are questioning God’s love for them because of their current circumstances which by the way was brought on by their own unfaithfulness— and God is saying to them—
What do you mean “How have I loved you?”
God is saying to Israel— I have loved you far before you were even born.
It really is the height of ignorance and unbelief that Israel would question God’s love here.
Imagine this for a moment—
Imagine attending a wedding.
Imagine you get there presumably because your wife made you go.
But you get there and the crowd is there to see the couple get married.
And the ceremony is about to take place.
The groom has given his bride to be an engagement ring. A big one. Amen Ladies?
He has asked her to be his bride.
He has said to her— Out of all the women in the world. He says you are the one I wish to marry.
I don’t want any other woman. I choose you.I want you to be my bride. I want you to be my wife.
And I intend for the rest of my life that all I am and have or ever hoped to be is yours.
Imagine the bride walking down the aisle at the wedding.
Imagine the pastor walks them through the wedding vows and the exchange of the wedding rings.
She gets two rings. We get one. That tells us all we need to know. Right fellas?
But imagine they have the happiest of wedding ceremonies.
The husband writes his own vows, and he declares his love to his bride.
He vows to protect her. To defend her, to provide for her.
He has prepared a wonderful honeymoon for them to enjoy after the wedding is over.
He showers her with gifts.
And then not only that, but after that initial wedding ceremony, then that husband lives, faithful to his bride for years and years and years on end.
Faithfully giving her good things. Faithfully fulfilling every vow and promise he made the day he chose her.
He is the perfect husband.
And then, imagine after years of the husband’s clear faithfulness to her, that bride would decide to be unfaithful to her husband.
She would step out on him to go and lie in the bed of many other.
But even still, he remained faithful to her.
Faithfully providing for her.
Faithfully declaring his unending love and calling her back home.
Now…..
Can you imagine that bride after all of that, in a cold stare looking at her husband and saying, “How do I know you love me?”
Can you imagine that?
How do you know I love you?
Are you serious?
Church— in a bigger way—
That’s what’s going on here.
God is that perfect husband to Israel.
God has declared his love for Jacob and his descendants the nation Israel.
He has chosen them as his people.
Of all the nations in the world, I chose you.
He literally says this is Deuteronomy 7:6
Deuteronomy 7:6 (ESV)
“For you are a people holy to the Lord your God. The Lord your God has chosen you to be a people for his treasured possession, out of all the peoples who are on the face of the earth.
He has showered them with gifts.
They then chose to go and be unfaithful.
Go and read the prophet Hosea.
Hosea describes the people of Israel as an adulterous bride to say it mildly.
But still God was faithful
He not only vowed to protect them … he did.
He gave them gifts.
He revealed his love over and over and over again.
Why? Because they were faithful to him?
Not hardly. No, because He loved them.
And here, after all their unfaithfulness, and after God by his mercy and grace has allowed them to return to the Land, they are questioning that love.
That’s the picture we get here.
With a cold calloused heart, the people of Israel are not falling on their knees in repentance and gratitude for how God has preserved them.
No, with a cold calloused heart, they say “Psh..How have you loved us?”
God says— you want to know how I have loved you?
Go back to the womb of Rebekah and trace the history out of those two boys and their descendants and tell me I haven’t loved you.
That’s what he says in verse 3-5. Look at it with me—
They know their own history, so God gives them a history and the future of Esau and His descendants, the Edomites
In the middle of verse 3 and following he says this—
I have laid waste his hill country and left his heritage to jackals of the desert.” If Edom says, “We are shattered but we will rebuild the ruins,” the Lord of hosts says, “They may build, but I will tear down, and they will be called ‘the wicked country,’ and ‘the people with whom the Lord is angry forever.’ ” Your own eyes shall see this, and you shall say, “Great is the Lord beyond the border of Israel!”
Look at Esau’s descendants, the Edomites.
God says, I laid waste his hill country.
I gave his heritage to the dogs.
He says, if they even try to rebuild, I’ll destroy it.
Edom is wicked country and the edomites are people with whom the Lord is angry forever.
And verse 5,
Your own eyes shall see this, and you shall say, “Great is the Lord beyond the border of Israel!”
In other words, verse 5, is saying the people will see once again that God loves them and his plans are to extend that love beyond Israel.
This first charge is a big one.
They questioned God’s love. After all of His faithfulness, they questioned his love.
Application—
As we apply this, I think we may have the tendency to make the same mistake Israel does here.
They looked at their lives, and at their current circumstances and struggles.
And they conclude, “Maybe God doesn’t love us.”
They were measuring God’s love from the wrong perspective.
God’s love is not proven by how easy life is.
God’s love is proven by the fact that He chose us and bound Himself to us in covenant.
As the church, we are the chosen bride of Christ as well.
Paul told the church of Ephesus in Ephesians 1:4
He chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love
Peter in
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.
If you are his child, he loves you.
We don’t measure that love by how our week is going.
How we feel in a certain moment.
We take ourselves back to the truth of Scripture that God loves his people.
We are assured of His love, not by how smooth things go, but by the promises of God.
Secondly, let us be sensitive to the grace of God.
Joel Beeke said this-
If we are believers, the folly of Israel's insensitivity to grace should cause us to be thankfully sensitive to the grace we have received. Sensitivity to grace is always grateful and realizes that God's love is not measured by things but by the reality of a personal, intimate relationship with the Lord Himself…
God's love is unmerited, finding its cause in God the Lover and not in us the loved… He loved Jacob, the deceiver who was without virtue or merit to be a candidate for grace.
Don’t forget that God has been gracious to love us.
We aren’t lovable. We may think we are, but his grace was extended not because of us, but in spite of us.
I want us to end this morning by asking the same question Israel asked but I want to ask it in a different light.
Not to question but to understand.
Maybe we all need a reminder this morning as we begin this new year.
Maybe currently you look around and things are hard.
How has God loved us?
Malachi tells Israel to look back some 1500 years to Jacob to remind them of his faithful covenant love to them through the years.
But I would argue, we, as the New Testament church, get to look to something even greater.
How has God loved us?
He tells us—
but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
Jesus and what happened at Calvary 2000 something years ago was God showing His people how much he loved us.
He did all that for His bride.
Because He loved us.
Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish.
Maybe you’ve recently questioned God’s love for you.
If you are his child, look at the cross.
I think God exposes the people of Israel in Malachi not to just put them on blast, but to call them to remembering His love.
If you look further in Malachi he tells them something reassuring—
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…
I would call to the same today. Remember the cross and God’s love for you.
Repent. Remember God’s love is not measured by your current state.
Rather, His love is declared to us in His promise that whatever state we are in now, if we are His people, he has a plan to bring us home. We will see that theme throughout the book of Malachi.
Lastly, let me speak to the unbelievers here in the room.
If you are not in Christ, the love you are looking for is offered to you today through repentance and faith in Him.
Jesus Christ is the only way you can be reconciled to God.
As you sit now, you are His enemy.
But he is the business making enemies into friends and showing you a love you can’t know apart from Jesus.
