Sermon Tone Analysis

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We’re beginning the book of Malachi today.

It’s a short book so we’ll only be here for about 7 weeks.

We’re beginning the book of Malachi today.

It’s a short book so we’ll only be here for about 7 weeks.

Malachi is a unique book—which I like.

Malachi is the last book in the Old Testament in your Bible, but more significantly, it is the last book written before Jesus came to earth.

There’s a gap of about 400 years between Malachi and John the Baptist, so it is often said that Malachi ushered in what has been called the ‘Silent Period,’ the longest period of time in the Old Testament where the Lord did not send any prophets to communicate with His people, Israel.

There are no prophets between Malachi and John the Baptist at the beginning of the New Testament.

Malachi is unique, because Malachi did’t paint a picture of Israel quite like the other prophets.

Most of the Old Testament prophets painted the picture of Israel as an adulterous bride who was always betraying the Lord God and running after other gods, whoring around with the gods of the nations—as Hosea, Ezekiel, and Nahum all accuse.

But, Malachi paints a different picture, because Israel is quite literally a different people in this time.

In the time of Malachi, Israel was a faithful bride who claimed to love the Lord.

But, Israel still had a major problem and it’s a problem that has persisted in many ways through the Jews of the New Testament and even, almost 2500 years later, into the church today.

PAUSE

When you get married, it seems obvious to me that there are certain things about a relationship that change when you get married, when you move from a dating relationship to a marriage.

It’s very natural when you are dating to want to work to win the affections of your partner.

You serve your partner.

You speak kind and affectionate words.

You sacrifice.

The dating relationship is about winning the love of your partner.

Yahweh, God, did that.

The Lord courted Israel and was patient with Israel, even when Israel was unfaithful.

And Israel ultimately became devoted to Yahweh, God like a faithful wife.

The problem is, that, when you look at dating or courtship as the journey to win the prize, you might look at your marriage ceremony as the awards ceremony, the receiving of the prize, or the end of the journey.

If you have recieved the prize then all those things you used to do to earn the prize—the courtship—you don’t have to do anymore.

All the things that made your dating relationship great—service, kind words, sacrifice—it all goes away, because you’re done running the race.

You already hold the prize.

So, then what?

Your husband or wife is nothing more than a memory, a dusty trophy on the top shelf.

Certainly most of you wouldn’t speak of your spouse who you no doubt love very much in that way, but you may prize the memory of who they were far more than you hold onto the person they’ve become.

The trophy was the young fit body, and the late night conversations, and the fancy dates.

So then, the spouse you have now, becomes nothing more than a reminder of the good times gone by.

You can probably imagine—maybe because this has happened in your own marriage or you have at least seen it in movies—you come into the room to find your wife distraught, laid out on the bed, crying her eyes out that her husband doesn’t her anymore.

You says, ‘But, I have loved you!’ ‘Look how I have loved you!’

And the wife cries back through tears, in frustration and anger, ‘How have you loved me?!’

It seems that, if the husband does in fact love his wife, then for some reason wife doesn’t understand the love of her husband.

For some reason the wife does not see the love of her husband any longer—not like when they were dating, not like before.

For some reason the wife does not see the love of her husband an longer.

PAUSE

And you might think, What a deadbeat!

What kind of man doesn’t try to please his wife?

And the frank answer is, most kinds.

But, there are actually two reasons this scenario happens in a marriage.

Maybe your assumption is right.

Maybe the husband is no longer loving the wife the way he ought to love her.

That’s definitely possible and very often the case.

The husband becomes complacent, he already has the prize so he doesn’t work to please his wife.

But, the other reason—maybe the wife has an unrealistic expectation for what love ought to look like.

Maybe she became very materialistic during the dating relationship and she misses the gifts and the vacations and the luxuries of the dating relationship now that they have been replaced by kids, and a mortgage, and car payments.

That’s a whole different problem.

And it happens to be the problem that Israel was having with God.

We’ll go to our text.

Malachi wrote,

The Accusation

2b (CSB) — A pronouncement: The word of the Lord to Israel through “I have loved you,” says the Lord.

Yet you ask, “How have you loved us?”

You see, it’s the same problem.

The book of Malachi contains a number of these cynical questions posed to God from Israel.

This is the first.

How have you loved us?

If we think back on the two reasons this sort of issue happens, it’s not that God was no longer was expressing His love for His people Israel.

They were in the promised land.

They were protected.

They were eating well.

They were being cared for spiritually by the priests.

Neglect is unlikely in a relationship with God.

If we’re talking about the Lord, it makes no sense to say that he is the one who caused this misunderstanding.

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It’s far more likely that Israel, the bride, had unrealistic expectations about God’s love or what God’s love ought to look like.

And we will see that play out through this series; Israel’s unrealistic expectations resulted in complacency and a halfhearted obedience towards God.

Because Israel was not being loved the way they wanted to be loved, they no longer loved God back with the zeal that God deserves and expects.

So, it’s not that Israel became adulterous as in earlier times; they had kind of grown out of that.

It’s that Israel was suffering from complacency, halfhearted devotion to God.

If we want to put this in perspective for us today so that we can understand the full love of God for us, we have to ask God, How have you loved us?

But, we don’t ask cynically like the Israelites.

Instead we ask with open hearts and open minds, ready to receive the full grace of God.

It is in that way that we might come to appreciate in a new way the love of God so that we can love God as He ought to be loved.

PAUSE

So, the Israelites asked, How have you loved us?

Here’s God’s response.

It’s not what you would expect.

The Explanation

(CSB) — “Wasn’t Esau Jacob’s brother?”

This is the Lord’s declaration.

“Even so, I loved Jacob, but I hated Esau.

I turned his mountains into a wasteland, and gave his inheritance to the desert jackals.”

Though Edom says: “We have been devastated, but we will rebuild the ruins,” the Lord of Armies says this: “They may build, but I will demolish.

They will be called a wicked country and the people the Lord has cursed forever.

Your own eyes will see this, and you yourselves will say, ‘The Lord is great, even beyond the borders of Israel.’

This is sort of a strange response to the question, but it’s a common way of communication, not just in ancient times, but today as well.

How have you loved us?

The Lord’s response: “Let me tell you a story.”

Let me illustrate the answer.

In this case, the Lord reminded them of a story that they knew very well.

It’s the story of Jacob and Esau.

Jacob and Esau were twin brothers.

They were born to parents Isaac and Rebekah nearly 3000 years ago.

Jacob and Esau were twins, but they were not in any way identical.

The had different personalities, different interests, and different talents.