Untitled Sermon

I remember when my parents would be gone over the summer, I would riffle through the pantry looking for things to eat. Sometimes it would be chips, sometimes a handful of oats and honey, sometimes an old can of dried sliced beef, you never know what you would find. One summer night we had made cookies and I remember smelling the vanilla as we added it to the bowl. So, my large yet underdeveloped brain thought “mmkay mmkay ya ya imma eat that tomorrow.” The family goes to sleep, my parents leave for work, my sisters are still snoozing and I’m on the floor of the pantry, spoon in one hand and a bottle of vanilla in the other. I filled the spoon with what looked like the magical tears of God himself, stuck it in my mouth and had an avalanche of flavor to wash my taste buds. Not a wonderful flavor but flavor nonetheless. Now if you’ve ever done this you can imagine my reaction, my mouth twisted up and I spit it out, everywhere. I wanted it, but I wasn’t aware of what was going to come in the process, what I THOUGHT would be a tasty blessing caused me taste bud torture and pain. This is the Israelites in Malachi. They are asking God “aye God, where are you? You must like the people that are doing evil, or where is the “God of Justice” that we’ve been told of?” Gods response is “look here he is, he’s coming and you are going to feel it. The Lord will come, its gonna be more than you expected and true judgement will come.”

says,

“17 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?”

3 “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. 2 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. 3 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.[a] 4 Then the offering of Judah and Jerusalem will be pleasing to the Lord as in the days of old and as in former years.

5 “Then I will draw near to you for judgment. I will be a swift witness against the sorcerers, against the adulterers, against those who swear falsely, against those who oppress the hired worker in his wages, the widow and the fatherless, against those who thrust aside the sojourner, and do not fear me, says the Lord of hosts.

6 “For I the Lord do not change; therefore you, O children of Jacob, are not consumed

Malachi, so far, has been prophesying on behalf of the Lord with a no-hold bars message against the priests of Israel. They wonder how God has loved them and they tell him in verses 2-5. God tells them how they have despised him and profaned not just his temple but his name. The lord would rather that the doors are shit to the temple and that none of them come in and kindle deceptive fires and make misleading sacrifices. He tells the priests that as leaders they should be mediating the word of God and leading in proper actions, yet they are the ones causing the rest of the nation to stumble and live wrongly by adhering to a partiality of the covenant and law. So here in the end of Chapter two we pick up, with Malachi driving home the faulty questions of the Israelites.

Chapter 2 verse 17 “17 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?””

Up until this point in Malachi (and throughout other chunks of the prophets) the Lord has been dealing with the insincere prayer and hypocritical worship of his people because of the work of the hands of the priests. The wrong acts of the priests don’t affect just them, but it extends to the whole body of believer. Now Gods not just tired of this but it weighs heavy on the Lord, it’s a saddening and angering thing to see his people continuously rebel Chapter 1 verse 6 even shows the irritated nature of the lord. “But if I am a father, where is my honor? And if I am a master where is your fear of me?” God has been wrongly praised by his followers, there is no sense of conviction, no devotion and no true loyalty to Him. So Malachi, prophesying on behalf of the Lord tells them, “you’re making God weary, he’s tired of dealing with you.” The priests naturally fall on the defensive and quip back, “ya really? Well how?” Malachi fires back. He tells them of how they accuse God of injustice and inaction. That there is sin and injustice in the world and that God is openly pleased with their evil. Right so their thought is that God is delighting in evil. and that apparently all of the evil that people were punished for in the past has now become something that God enjoys and he switches up (which is important to not for later verses). They want justice, and they want it now. So, they ask “ok so if God does hate evil then where is the God of justice?”. There is no patience on the timing of God. If we believe that God is truly perfect in all of his ways then his timing is perfect as well. All punishments, all blessings, all of it perfect and in control of God. The priests are zealous for destruction of those that they view evil. They have constructed their own scale of good and want destruction to come. There is no patience, no waiting, no trust in God. Believers let this be an example of how NOT to act. We shouldn’t be joyful for destruction and begging God to bring it now. We shouldn’t give God a recommendation list of who should be burned and who should be patted on the back. The timing and choices of God are perfect. God tells them something similar to what they want to hear though. He says “you know what, you want to see and hear about a God of justice, ok fine, here he is. You wanted it.”

Chapter 3 verses 1-4, “

“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. 2 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. 3 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]”

This is the bomb that God drops on the priests, he says “ok here I am, I’m gonna come to you, but because I care I’m going to send you a messenger first. Then the God that you want, your Lord will step down from heaven and deliver to you what youre asking for.” Malachi tells the people of a messenger coming before the true Christ and we truly learn of this messenger in the next chapter in verse 8 where it says, “Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the great and awesome day of the Lord comes,” which can be confusing because at this point Elijah had come and gone. But and 14 gives even more information when Jesus himself says, “For all the prophets and the law prophesies until John, and if you are willing to accept it, he is Elijah who is to come.” John the Baptist is to come before Jesus Christ and clear a path. HE is come to do ministry, to open the road for Jesus and his ministry and he is to make known of the true King that is coming. Then after the lord that the Israelites want will come and deliver what they are asking for. They want a God that will judge the wicked and that’s exactly what they are going to get. Not someone that condemns and rewards based on feeling but one that does so out of truth. They will get a truly holy, righteous and perfect judge who cannot be faulty on his verdict.

But Malachi warns them, “who can endure the day of his coming, who will be able to stand when he appears,”, nobody will be able to stand and refute the cleansing properties of Christ. This isn’t something that they can opt out of and sit on the bench for; it is something that all of mankind endures in due time. Malachi gives two very clear examples of what’s to come when Christ steps down from his temple. First, he wants that he is be like a refiner’s fire and then he warns that he is to come like a launderers soap (or often referred to launders bleach.) Both of these are things that often destroy the items that they touch. Im not sure if you’ve ever managed to light a multitude of things on fire like I have in my past but it doesn’t typically end with something being clean. More so it ends with things being melted, charred and dirty. And the same can go for bleach, ive had many things ruined by bleach. My shirts, my friends shirts, my coworkers shirt. Man I even watched a video where a lady dyed her hair at home and managed to “melt” her hair off. Both fire and bleach are typically harmful, but when used properly and with care they are extraordinary cleaning methods. This is when Malachi spends a little more time explaining these illustrations by mentioning that “He will be a refiner and purifier of the sons of Levi, refining them like gold and silver” The 1900 degree fire of a smith doesn’t just melt the gold and silver but it purifies, it pulls the filthy and false “precious metal” from the true gold, the actual worthwhile, sought after treasure. Our God, an almighty consuming fire will burn away what is useless and a hindrance to true faith, the priests and those in Israel that prohibit the children of God from true worship will be separated from the rest through a hard and painstaking process. , “I will burn away your dross”, , “I will put the third through the fire, I will refine them”, , “though a tenth remain in the land, it will be burned again”. Fire Is not a new illustration to the people of God. They have watched his fire rain down and cleans cities, they know the effect that it can have. Then Malachi says that they will be washed like launderers soap and fullers bleach. That they will be scrubbed, after the metal is purified by fire it is cooled and cleaned, because somehow, someway there is always some dirt that has crept its way onto the metal. More often then soap being used on metal it is more often used on cloth. Dirt, and blood and greedy wine have stained to clothes of the people “worshipping” God, and his desire is to remove all that causes lack of purity amongst his garments. tells the people that they can wash their own clothes with lye and great amount of bleach and that it will have no effect. The lord must consume his followers in fire to burn away the deceivers and pull the vile from the pure the same way launderers soap pulls dirt from pure white satin. It is so intense so that none can stand alone, if it was a passive and simple trial, one that anyone could endure then the faulty leaders would be able to make it through and continue in leading the Israelites into their grave. This is a hardcore process which would result in genuine worship and the true glorification of God, to create a holy community that has been spiritually renewed. This process isn’t done just for cleansing sake but it starts in the house of the Lord, ;17 and 18 tells us , “17 For it is time for judgment to begin at the household of God; and if it begins with us, what will be the outcome for those who do not obey the gospel of God? 18 And

“If the righteous is scarcely saved, what will become of the ungodly and the sinner?”

The house of God is judged first before all other people so that they serve as an example for the nations. And with unfaithful priests gone the refined children of God can offer true sacrifices to him. The Lord doesn’t care about big numbers, he cares about devotion, he will burn away the wonderers and leave a holy remnant, Isaiah says that the imputities will be removed, the judges returned to what they were and then they will be called a Righteous City, a faithful town. We shouldn’t seek for the church to be full of blind bodies that do not seek God. We need to press to have a church full of truly devoted followers, one that is not muddled with seat fillers.

Verses 5 through 7

“Then I will draw near to you for judgment. I will be a swift witness against the sorcerers, against the adulterers, against those who swear falsely, against those who oppress the hired worker in his wages, the widow and the fatherless, against those who thrust aside the sojourner, and do not fear me, says the Lord of hosts. 6 “For I the Lord do not change; therefore you, O children of Jacob, are not consumed.” 7 since the days of your ancestors, you have turned from my statutes; you have not kept them. Return to me, and I will return to you,” says the Lord of Armies. Yet you ask, ‘how can we return?”

Now that the lord has removed the unfaithful priests the righteous may put forth proper offerings. Any sin that causes a mosaic law to be broke is listed here. Sorcery, adulterers, prejudices, those that don’t pay, those who oppress widows and the fatherless, those that deny justice to the alien. They live without fear of the Lord, the have no respect for Him as Lord and host of armies. They have no fear for their father and protector because of unrepentant sin in their life that they refuse to address. That is the core of their sins. Yet the children of Jacob are lucky, because judgment comes, yet he has made a covenant promise to Israel and that will not change, because God will not and cannot change. There is no changing in God, no development, no growth, nothing. If God changes it must be for the better or for the worse. IF he changes for the better than that means we have been praising an imperfect God OR if the changes for the worse then we will start praising an inconsistent and imperfect God. If anyone else had made this promise of protection, then it would be in vain because the promise is only as trustworthy as the promise maker and God is perfect and so is His word. We are told all through scripture that God is perfect, his word is pure, he cannot lie and that because of this his promises to purify and not destroy will be true.

The children of Jacob, that’s a rather interesting choice of title. Often through the Old Testament those within this group are called Israel, those that contend with God. God has marked their disobedience with this calling, they are not the children of Israel, the ones who praised him with song of Zion on his mighty hill, but they are acting as rebellious children who act against their father. God has made it known through this phrase that they are children of the deceiver, the heel snatcher, the thief. They have robbed God according to the name of their forefather. This fits their actions, their lack of full sacrifices and poor offerings to God. Even if they were offering the bet they had but for wrong intentions and poor heart he wouldn’t bless the for it. God cannot reward goodness and will not, but he will punish sin according to His standard. Because of the promise made to their forefather they are protected and kept whole. If their breaking of the covenant meant destruction, then I would hate to think of what would happen to us as people who daily break our covenant with the father. Because of this, because God does not change Israel will not be consumed.

The nations have always wondered from God. Even since the beginning of creation man walked from the Lord and in the ways that they thought best. Adam and Eve sought their own knowledge, Aaron sought his own god, the kings sought their own reign, man has had self-interest. And here Malachi on behalf of the lord tells the nation to return to God and if done, God will return to them. This is impossible on our own. We cannot turn and run to God on our own behalf, because there is a chasm of sin that separates us from the father. There must be something to bridge this gap and that gap comes in the form of an infant born by a virgin. One who grew and lived a sinless life, who died on behalf of those who do not deserve it and who rose from the dead. Christ has come and edured the all consuming fire of the Lord on your behalf so that we can go to him. There has been a highway made for the remnant of the people, paved with by the holy son of God dragging his blood stained cross. This Believer let this be a time in which we return to God, where we stop and look at how far we have wandered, turn around and run to the father as the prodigal son did. And if you aren’t a believer this is a time where we plea that you turn to the father for the first time in your life.