THE OLD TESTAMENT SUMMARIZED

The book of Malachi is a 15-minute summary of the entire Old Testament. I’m not saying you should read it and not the rest of the OT, but you’ll find almost all of the primary OT themes in it.

Malachi 3:7 ESV

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, says the Lord of hosts. But you say, ‘How shall we return?’

This passage sums up the message whole book, if not the whole OT itself.

Furthermore, Malachi’s book is the last thing God says to Israel for 400 years. The next time God speaks is when Jesus comes, so what Malachi says in this book is going to reverberate in Israel’s hearts for 400 years. This is what they are still thinking about it when Jesus shows up.

In this book, we’re going to see the charge against Israel, the problem of Israel’s persistent unfaithfulness, and then lastly, God’s solution.

First, let’s look at…

The Indictment Against Israel

There are 4 components to it.

Let me give you the context: It’s been about 170 years since the Israelites had been exiled into captivity in Babylon because of their sin. God had promised that this captivity would not be permanent, and so after 70 years he returned them home again to the Promised Land. Well, when they came back, they underwent a national revival and made all these reforms under the leadership of Ezra and Nehemiah. Within a generation, however, those promises of reform had worn off. What didn’t wear off, however, was their external commitment to religiosity.

Historians say that Israel would never again lose that—not even to today—they were so scarred by the exile, and so scared it would happen again, they became permanently and hyper religious.

This was the time period when groups like the Pharisees and Sadducees formed, with all their emphasis on external behaviors. These were the groups who caused Jesus so many problems, whom he called whitewashed tombs—pretty on the outside and full of dead men’s bones.

Malachi lived during the time these groups were forming. These are 4 charges against religiously active people, who look great on the outside but whose hearts are actually pretty cold toward God on the inside.

They were religious but . . .

Self-seeking

In chapter 1, Malachi talks about their offerings and he says, secretly in your heart you say, “You say, ‘What a burden!’ …And you bring stolen, lame, or sick animals. You bring this as an offering! Am I to accept that from your hands? I am a great King,” says the Lord of Armies, (and I deserve great offerings) “and my name will be feared among the nations.” (1:13, NIV)

Malachi 1:13 ESV

But you say, ‘What a weariness this is,’ and you snort at it, says the Lord of hosts. You bring what has been taken by violence or is lame or sick, and this you bring as your offering! Shall I accept that from your hand? says the Lord.

Their worship was half-hearted. They gave the lame and sick from their flocks. They gave what cost them nothing. Let me ask you: What does God get from you—your first and your best—or your leftovers? Does it cost you?

Does your giving to God inconvenience your lifestyle?

C.S. Lewis said that one of the only ways to know your giving was where it should be is that it changes your lifestyle.

Until it gets to that point, you are not giving in faith and certainly no in worship. If you come into some unexpected money, what is the first thing it goes go? Upgrading your lifestyle, stocking your savings? Or does God get the first and best of it? Don’t just think money:

What about your time and your talent? Are they being used in gospel advancement?

Our offerings toward God ought to make a statement to other people about God’s worth to us. People should ask, Who is this God and why do you feel this way about him?

2 Samuel 24:24 ESV

But the king said to Araunah, “No, but I will buy it from you for a price. I will not offer burnt offerings to the Lord my God that cost me nothing.” So David bought the threshing floor and the oxen for fifty shekels of silver.

They were religious but . . .

Self-centered

Malachi 2:13–16 ESV

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.”

Earlier in chapter 2 Jewish men are divorcing their Hebrew wives to marry foreign women.

Listen to God’s confrontation.

Malachi 2:15 ESV

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.

First of all, he says: Your marriage was a covenant you made before me, and it was supposed to reflect my love. (See the repetition of one/one—your covenant should reflect my nature.

He confronts them for making marriage all about them, their wants and desires. Divorce is often the result of a life that has completely turned in the wrong direction. Divorce is not usually the problem, but of the fruit of the problem. The problem is that people go into marriage looking for someone to complete them or make them happy, and when that person quits doing that, or gets difficult to live with, or they meet someone they think might do it better for them, they get divorced.

Marriage is not about us; it’s about God. When it is about you, divorce becomes a lot more common. When it is about God, you’ll stick it out in hard times, because you know God’s name, not my needs, is the ultimate thing of importance here. God can bring himself glory in my marriage by giving me a peaceful, harmonious relationship, but he can also bring glory to himself by enabling me to love someone with grace even when she’s difficult, because that’s how he loves.

Couples get divorced because they “no longer love each other,” or “we realized we never loved each other.” Love is a choice. Let me decipher this coded language. I no longer love you because there are parts of you that are difficult to love. Do you think you are always easy for God to love?

God says he hates divorce because it tells the world a lie about his love. When we divorce because we are no longer getting along or you are no longer making me happy, we tell the world that God’s love is like that—that he loves us based on how sufficiently we meet his needs.

Marriage is to be an earthly picture of God’s love—we become one like he is. I hear of couples who get divorced because of “irreconcilable differences.” Brandy and I have all kinds of irreconcilable differences and so did Jesus with me, but Jesus loved me anyway, and through his persistent grace he changed my heart. Marriage is an institution intended by God of illustrate His love for us.

Couples don’t fall out of love; they fall out of repentance. They don’t falter in their passion for each other; they falter in their worship of God. Their divorce is not usually caused by difficulties in the marriage as much as a self-centered, rather than God-centered, view of life.

Thirdly, they were religious but…

Unbelieving

Malachi 2:17 ESV

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?”

“You have wearied the Lord with your words. Yet you ask, “How have we wearied him?” When you say, ‘Where is the God of justice?’” (2:17)

Malachi 3:13–15 ESV

“Your words have been hard against me, says the Lord. But you say, ‘How have we spoken against you?’ You have said, ‘It is vain to serve God. What is the profit of our keeping his charge or of walking as in mourning before the Lord of hosts? And now we call the arrogant blessed. Evildoers not only prosper but they put God to the test and they escape.’ ”

“...You have spoken arrogantly against me,” says the Lord… You have said, ‘It is futile to serve God. The arrogant are blessed, and evildoers prosper.” (3:13–15)

After all God had done for them, they were still looking around at the world and saying, “God, it’s not fair! God, how do we know that you really love us? Are you even up there?”

Keep in mind God had delivered them from a self-inflicted captivity now not once, but twice. God says, “Still you doubt my commitment to you? What more would I have to do? I delivered you from Pharaoh’s entire army without a single casualty on your side. I led you through the wilderness by a cloud and gave you miraculous provisions of food and clothing. I defeated enemies 3x your size right in front of you…. And then I explained to you that that my ways were not your ways but you could always trust I was working, even when you couldn’t see what I was doing.” But still you say, “Maybe you’re not good, maybe you are not even there.”

I often tell you that it’s OK to ask questions, and it is… but a persistent failure to trust God wearies him.

J.C. Ryle: In the light of the cross, the greatest insult you can give to God is to doubt his love for you!

Maybe your doubt never drives you all the way to unbelief, but your second-guessing of God dulls your joy and mutes your worship. This has been my personal experience. I have never gone all the way into unbelief, but I have often lacked the warmth of knowing and trusting him as a “Good, Good Father.” I experience moments where I find it hard to release myself to him fully in worship, or to witness to him with passion— because I can’t understand why he would do or not do something a certain way. I’ll have these moments where I hear God say, ‘What more would I have to do to prove myself to you? I rescued you from sin. I brought someone into your life to share the gospel with you. Do you remember that dark valley so many months/years ago? Remember how I brought you through it? Or how I answered this prayer and that prayer? How could you possibly doubt me?”

Why do you routinely put my character in question just because you can’t understand something? Questions are OK, but there comes a point at which the doubting has to stop, and not trusting God becomes an insult.

Lastly, they were religious but…

Untrusting (specifically with money)

Here’s God’s fourth charge against them:

Malachi 3:8–10 ESV

Will man rob God? Yet you are robbing me. But you say, ‘How have we robbed you?’ In your tithes and contributions. You are cursed with a curse, for you are robbing me, the whole nation of you. Bring the full tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house. And thereby put me to the test, says the Lord of hosts, if I will not open the windows of heaven for you and pour down for you a blessing until there is no more need.

This is one of the clearest explanations in Scripture of how God feels about what Christians call the tithe—the first 10% of all that God gives you, you give back to him.

Clearly, God doesn’t ask for it because he needs it—he has the storehouses of heaven and wants to use those to meet your needs, but he commands us to give it as a way of declaring our trust in him. I often say this:

Tithing is one of the single best indicators of whether we really trust God and whether we really are surrendered to him. Giving enables us to declare our independence from the love of money and our dependence on God.

You can see here that God takes it very seriously—he says when you don’t do it is like breaking into his house robbing him. I’m not bringing to increase our giving. I’m bringing this up because it’s in the Bible, and it would be unfaithful for me not to bring it up! God brings it up because it is a barometer of our hearts.

Couple of bold statements:

If you haven’t begun to tithe, you haven’t yet to really begin the walk of faith.

You might talk a big game of faith, but in this area, where the rubber meets the road, you don’t trust God enough to do what he says.

Second statement:

Everybody tithes to something.

Something gets your first and their best, and it’s whatever gives you the most meaning or provides the greatest security in your life. Ask yourself the question: What do I do first do with your money? For some, the first thing they do is provide themselves with creature comforts and that’s because you think what most brings happiness in life is an improved material station. For others, you save because you are not sure of what might happen in the future, and extra money provides the greatest security. Hear me: There is nothing wrong with upgrading your lifestyle or saving for the future. The problem is when you do these things first.

The first action God’s people must take with their money is tithe to God, who is their joy and security. So, what do you tithe to? What gets the first and best of your paycheck? Or when you have big financial windfall—what do you do first with the money? God says when you take what belongs to me—your first and your best—you are robbing me, and I will not be robbed. Failing to give me your 1st and best puts you under the curse.

Some of you may wonder why things never work out for you financially—is it possible you are under a financial curse for failing to trust and prioritize God? By contrast, when you put me first, I’ll multiply you beyond your wildest imaginations! And thereby put me to the test says the LORD of hosts, if I will not open the windows of heaven for you and pour down for you a blessing until there is no more need. Test him!

Can you be charged with any or all of these this morning? Those who are hyper-religious are marked by their self-seeking, self-centeredness, disbelieving, and their untrusting. This brings us to . . .

The issue of persistent unfaithfulness

So, what is the answer? Do they simply need more repentance? Someone else to yell them? Another reform? How many times do they need to go through this cycle? I mentioned at the beginning that when Israel had first come back from captivity, about 100 years before Malachi, Ezra and Nehemiah led the nation in a national revival. The nation made a covenant with God as recorded in Nehemiah 9.

Nehemiah 9:38 ESV

“Because of all this we make a firm covenant in writing; on the sealed document are the names of our princes, our Levites, and our priests.

This is as strong a covenant as they can make! “In writing, with their priests and leaders and Levites…”

Here’s what they promised:

We will give God our first and our best.

Nehemiah 10:35–36 ESV

We obligate ourselves to bring the firstfruits of our ground and the firstfruits of all fruit of every tree, year by year, to the house of the Lord; also to bring to the house of our God, to the priests who minister in the house of our God, the firstborn of our sons and of our cattle, as it is written in the Law, and the firstborn of our herds and of our flocks;

We will put God’s temple first by giving the tithe .

Nehemiah 10:37–39 ESV

and to bring the first of our dough, and our contributions, the fruit of every tree, the wine and the oil, to the priests, to the chambers of the house of our God; and to bring to the Levites the tithes from our ground, for it is the Levites who collect the tithes in all our towns where we labor. And the priest, the son of Aaron, shall be with the Levites when the Levites receive the tithes. And the Levites shall bring up the tithe of the tithes to the house of our God, to the chambers of the storehouse. For the people of Israel and the sons of Levi shall bring the contribution of grain, wine, and oil to the chambers, where the vessels of the sanctuary are, as well as the priests who minister, and the gatekeepers and the singers. We will not neglect the house of our God.”

We will honor God with our marriages; we’re not going to intermarry with unbelievers.

Nehemiah 10:30 ESV

We will not give our daughters to the peoples of the land or take their daughters for our sons.

Sound familiar?However, within a few short years, they had renigged on all these promises. In fact, it happened during Nehemiah’s lifetime. Nehemiah talks about it in the last chapter of his book.

Nehemiah 13:25 ESV

And I confronted them and cursed them and beat some of them and pulled out their hair. And I made them take an oath in the name of God, saying, “You shall not give your daughters to their sons, or take their daughters for your sons or for yourselves.

How would that form of pastoral accountability go over in today’s culture.

The actions of the Israelites are in our Bible to instruct us today because we act the same way. How many of us at some point have said, “I need to do better here. I need to be a better husband. Or, ‘I need to be a better student.” More courageous. Or ‘better mom or dad.’ ‘I need to pray more.’ So, here’s what I’m going to do…” And you come up with a plan—sign a covenant and get an accountability partner. How long does that last? What’s the problem? Is it that you were just not sincere? Or that you should try harder? Need a better accountability partner, who will pull out your hair? No, it’s latent sin in us that no promise or resolution on your part can eradicate.

Malachi says this is the problem Israel has had from the beginning:

Malachi 3:7 ESV

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, says the Lord of hosts. But you say, ‘How shall we return?’

You made big promises. But you never followed through.

Exodus—Israel has just received the 10 Commandments and they promised to obey it with their whole lives. Then Moses was gone a few days longer than they had expected and they said, “God has abandoned us” and they made a Golden Calf and worshipped it.

2 Sam 7: David gets the most stunning promise of the covenant ever given—and just a few days later he sins with Bathsheba. You and I are the same way.

We don’t need someone who will come and give us new laws. We need someone who will come and give us new life.

We don’t need someone to come onto the scene in history with calls to reform. We need a Savior who can come into our hearts with the power of rebirth.

Malachi ends the OT with the word “curse,” which can also be translated as “destruction.” It’s sad, because the OT began with God and his perfect creation—life and beauty and brightness and now it’s all “curse.” God could have written “the end” right there but he doesn’t and so, we come to…

God’s Intervention: The Sun of Righteousness

The book may end with the word “curse,” but tucked in the last chapter is one of the most beautiful and clear promises of the Messiah that is to come:

Malachi 4:1–2 ESV

“For behold, the day is coming, burning like an oven, when all the arrogant and all evildoers will be stubble. The day that is coming shall set them ablaze, says the Lord of hosts, so that it will leave them neither root nor branch. But for you who fear my name, the sun of righteousness shall rise with healing in its wings. You shall go out leaping like calves from the stall.

For behold, the day is coming, burning like an oven, when all the arrogant and all evildoers will be stubble. {that’s what we expect. This is what we don’t} “But for you who fear my name, the sun of righteousness shall rise with healing in its wings. You shall go out leaping like calves from the stall.” (not sure what that means, but it sounds happy)

The human race has a dilemma: We want God to deliver us from evil, but the evil we want him to deliver us from is also inside us.

If God remove all evil from the world at 12:00 tonight, who would be here at 12:01?

Second part of the dilemma: we believe that God should be a God of justice.

We don’t want an unjust God, and we know it: Think about how much we object when we see some guilty person get off free. Somebody shoots someone and the judge says, “no penalty” and we say “no, the victim’s life matters!” The Bible says, “God’s glory matters! Justice matters!” The dilemma, we want a just God, but if God applies his justice to us, we’ll be destroyed.

Third part of the dilemma: No matter how much we resolve to do better, it never lasts.

The Messiah Malachi speaks of is the answer to all these dilemmas. He came like a furnace, but the fire of God’s wrath burned into him. (Which means he has satisfied God’s justice)

So now, he’s like the Sun (S-U-N) of Righteousness rising with healing in his wings. Isn’t the sun also a furnace? Yet it gives you life. That’s what Jesus did. 400 years after Malachi closed his book, Jesus stepped onto the scene of history and picked up right where Malachi left off. His first message was,

Mark 1:15 ESV

and saying, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel.”

and then he went around reversing the curse that Malachi ended the OT with: He healed diseases, calmed storms, cast out demons, and raised the dead. The reason he could do that was because he absorbed the curse. He took the furnace of God’s wrath so he could be the healing Sun of Righteousness to us.

So now, you must CHOOSE what the Messiah will be to you— furnace or sun:

Malachi 3:1–4 ESV

“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. 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.

Behold, I send my messenger, and he will prepare the way before me (a prophecy about John the Baptist). 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. But who can endure the day of his coming, and who can stand when he appears? 3 (again, the change in tone…)…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,(not destroy, but purify) 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.

The Messiah will either destroy, or purify… furnace or sun. You choose. Repentance is when you separate yourself from your sin and say, God, I hate this… will you help me destroy it? Rebellion is when you say, “No, I’ll hold onto this” and then God destroys you along with it. Either way, God will destroy sin. The question is whether you will be destroyed along with it, or saved.

Follower of Christ, this text shows you what Jesus is doing in your life after you repent: Refining.

Refining is where they bring the metal to a boil so the refiner can skim off impurities. Impurities are lighter, so that all that is left is pure silver or gold that’s what the Messiah does. He lets life boil you until your false confidences and false gods have evaporated, so that his Spirit can rise in you with healing in his wings.

One good example: Peter. Peter promised Jesus he’d never deny him, then did so 3x in the space of a night. Same old problem! Big promises, no execution. but this same Peter would stand before the defiant crowd in Acts 2 and boldly proclaim, “The Jesus you crucified God has raised from the dead!” He would never again deny Jesus, and be faithful unto death! In order to put that kind of strength in him, he had to assure Peter of his steadfast love, and put his Spirit into him. Before he could do that, he had to boil out the impurity of self-confidence and that’s what he’s doing with you and it hurts. This is how God puts power into your life.

The choice is before you today. How will you choose to receive Christ? Will you receive Him as the Sun of Righteousness or as the furnace of judgment.

Malachi has showed us that in every area of our lives we desperately need something beyond ourselves and our strength. Many of you are stuck in the OT of powerless rituals and empty promises and it’s time for you get into the healing power of the NT. Jesus stands ready to release you from the powerless shackles of empty religion and put in you the power of new life and joy. Religion puts you in chains. The Sun of Righteousness makes you free!

Malachi has showed us how willing God is to pour out his blessing and power if we will just return to him with all our heart, and cry out to him for his help.

And SO that’s how I want to end today—in a posture of repentance and desperation. Will you join me as I lead you?