Sermon Tone Analysis

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.

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)

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?

They were religious but . . .

Self-centered

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

Listen to God’s confrontation.

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

“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)

“...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?