Sermon Tone Analysis

Announcements

This evening at 6:30pm, we do have baptisms scheduled at Neil and Alice’s house—Now there’s a possibility that the baptism scheduled might not actually happen, however, we’re hoping and praying that it still does.

In the case that it doesn’t, we’ll still have a bonfire and snacks to enjoy—it’ll be a great time of fellowship regardless.

Directions are on the insert in the worship guide, we’d love to have you join us.

Next week, on July 24th after AM Worship, we do have a special business meeting planned—it’ll be quick, just a few minutes right at the end of the service.

We could use some help this Saturday during the Houtzdale Days Parade, I believe we’ll be meeting at the grocery store in Houtzdale at 5:30pm, but check with Natalie to be sure.

Let me remind you to continue worshiping the Lord through your giving.

To help you give, we have three ways to do so, (1) cash and checks can be given at the offering box.

Checks should be written to Grace & Peace; debit, credit, and ACH transfers can be done either by (2) texting 84321 with your $[amount] and following the text prompts or (3) by visiting us online at www.giving.gapb.church.

Of course, everything you give goes to the building up of our local church and the spread of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

Prayer of Repentance and Adoration

Call to Worship (Ps 55:16-23)

Our Call to Worship is Psalm 55:16-23, which is the last part of Psalm 55.

In it, we see David cast all His burden onto the LORD.

Despite being betrayed by a friend, despite experiencing great hardship, he decides to trust in the Lord.

Please stand and read with me Psalm 55:16-23—I’ll read the even-numbered verses, please join me in reading the odd-numbered verses:

Congregational Singing

Great is Thy Faithfulness (86)

How Deep the Father’s Love for Us (80)

Before the Throne of God Above (187)

Scripture Reading (Deut 4:32-40)

Our Scripture Reading this morning is Deuteronomy 4:32-40.

I’m not going to give much information for you beyond simply explaining that this is a passage in which Moses asked the people whether any other nation (beside Israel) had received any clear and direct evidence of God’s existence and survived.

He reminds them of some of the great things that God has done for them.

Natalie, can you read Deuteronomy 4:32-40 for us?

Sermon

Introduction

If you have your Bible with you, please turn it to Malachi 1:1-5.

If you’re a little unfamiliar with the minor prophets, I might be able to help you with locating the book—if you open to roughly the halfway mark of your Bible, you’ll find yourself in the book of Psalms; you’ll want to keep turning towards the end of the Bible until you reach the New Testament.

Once you reach the New Testament, preferable the Gospel according to Matthew, turn back a few pages and you’ll be in the book of Malachi.

We’ll be in Malachi for probably a month and a half and for many of you, it may be the first time you’ve ever taken the time to study through Malachi in-depth.

It is a shorter book—that’s why Malachi is called a minor prophet (not because he’s less important than the major prophets, it’s only because his book is shorter).

It is a book that is sharp and poignant and it is a book that is highly applicable to our modern-day world.

I’m excited for it and hopefully, you are too, let’s read Malachi 1:1-5 together.

As we study this passage, we’re going to break the text into two parts, which I know sounds ambitious, but I think it’ll make sense when you hear the divisions: (1) The Introduction (1) and (2) God’s Love for His People (2-5).

In the first section, we’re really just looking at v. 1, but we’re going to tie that with an introduction to the whole book of Malachi—it’ll provide us a general idea of what all we’ll cover in the next month and a half; and in the second section, we’re going to look specifically at God’s statement concerning His love for His people and how He acts and responds in His love for His people.

This morning’s sermon will help us to reflect on God’s love for us, what it means, and how it affects us today.

Prayer for Illumination

The Introduction (1)

The first verse of Malachi starts by giving us some historical data—it informs us of who the author is and who the first intended audience was, Malachi starts with “The oracle of the word of the LORD to Israel by Malachi.”

We learn three key details from this one sentence:

First, we learn that this is word of the Lord, meaning Malachi didn’t make it up—he didn’t stumble upon it one day, it didn’t come to him while he was taking a bath or anything like that, God gave Him these words to be spoken.

Second, we learn that these words were spoken through Malachi to Israel.

The original intended audience of Malachi is the nation of Israel itself and let me be abundantly clear, the bulk of God’s message to Israel through Malachi is a condemnation of Israel by God—God is calling them out for their sins.

Third, we learn that this word of the LORD is an oracle, which is a bit unfamiliar of a term for us today.

If you’re familiar with Greek mythology, the term oracle reminds you of the people who proclaimed the future and people would travel from all over the world to see these oracles.

The biblical use of the word oracle doesn’t necessarily require the telling of the future, but it does require a proclamation—because that’s literally what it is.

It is a proclamation given from God through Malachi to the nation of Israel and in it, God confronts very specific sins that are occuring in the nation of Israel.

And He doesn’t beat around the bush, He doesn’t hold any punches, He confronts their sin openly and quickly starting even within the first chapter.

Let me give you an idea of what’s coming in the next month and a half:

In Malachi 1:6-14—God confronts the Israelites’ improper worship—He accuses them of not worshiping Him properly because they worship out of duty or ritualistically but not out of love for Him.

In doing so, he calls out both the priests for leading the people into improper worship and the people for following the priests into improper worship.

In Malachi 2:10-17—God accuses the Israelites of profaning the Covenant that they were supposed to keep with Him.

Or in other words, he accuses them of breaking their promises to Him.

In Malachi 3:1-6, he briefly interjects a statement about a coming messenger who will prepare the way for the Lord, who will judge them.

I think it’s fairly clear that God is referring to both John the Baptist and Jesus who will come and judge them, but we’ll speak more about that in a few weeks when we get there.

God accuses them of robbing Him by neglecting their tithes and offerings in Malachi 3:7-12, He again, confronts their lackadaisical attitude towards worshiping Him, before ending the book by speaking of the coming Great Day of Yahweh.

I think you can plainly see how we’re going to be able to apply the book to our own lives just with a cursory look over the book—are we guilty of improper worship?

Are we guilty of breaking our covenant to the Lord?

Are we guilty of robbing God?

It ought to be a very convicting book for most of us.

Now, because this book is written specifically to the Israelites, we really have to ask ourselves, what is happening in the history of Israel at this very moment?

What’s going on in Old Testament history at this very moment?

Malachi is the very end of the Old Testament and it is chronologically the last book of the Old Testament.

This means that the book of Malachi comes just before the four-hundred year intertestimental period between the Old and New Testament.

And in these four-hundred years between the Old and New Testaments, we know that the people of Israel didn’t really hear from God in a revelatory sense, there was new added special revelation to the Scriptures during that time.

Knowing that Malachi occured just before the intertestimental period puts the dating of Malachi to about 400-450BC, which means that we’re at the end of the divided kingdom of Israel, this is after the Babylonian exile and the people have finally returned to their homeland; and despite the Israelite’s warm response to Zechariah’s call to them to repent and follow God, it’s apparent by this time, the Israelite’s had fallen back into their sin.

Malachi was written right about the same time that Ezra, Joel, and Obadiah were written.

This simply informs us that at this time in Israelite history, the people were so far gone, that there were multiple prophets sent by God to make proclamations against them in a hope that the people would repent and follow God again.

As for Malachi himself, we don’t really know too much about him.

In fact, everything we know about Malachi is found in the book of Malachi and as we study through the text of Malachi, you’ll notice that the only time that we see anything about Malachi himself is found in the following verse:

Malachi 1:1, “1 The oracle of the word of the Lord to Israel through Malachi.”

— This is the only verse that mentions Malachi by name and it is the only verse that tells us anything about Malachi whatsoever.

So, all we know about Malachi is (1) that his name is Malachi, (2) he is a prophet that was used by God to proclaim a message, and (3) his name means my messenger.

You might be surprised that we don’t have much information about Malachi, but I believe that it’s intentional.

The message isn’t about Malachi—the prophecies in here have nothing to do with him, the indictment is not his indictment against Israel, it’s God’s indictment against Israel.

While Malachi clearly agrees with God, the point isn’t that Malachi agrees, the point is that Malachi is proclaiming a message on behalf of God—and only God and God’s message matters.

Why don’t we know much about Malachi himself?

Because the message at hand doesn’t require us to know much about the person.

This brings us to Malachi’s first proclamation against the people of Israel.

You’ll notice that Malachi utilizes a sort-of rhetorical Q&A format throughout the book.

As he relates God’s message to Israel, he states that Yahweh has asked a question, but the people contradict the question.

And then he tells us God’s response to their contradiction.

Keep this in mind as we start our study through the book of Malachi.

Let’s re-read vv.

2-5.

God’s Love for His People (2-5)

Malachi starts this passage of Scripture by recounting a statement by God and a question from the Israelites—and remember, that Malachi is just the messenger throughout the whole text, so this is really God speaking through Malachi.

God says, “I have loved you, . .

.But [the Israelites] say, ‘How have you loved us?’”

The premise of this passage and the next few verses is God’s love for His people.

We can really make an argument that God’s love for His people is really an overarching theme of the whole book—it is God’s love that has called Israel as His people, it is God’s love for His people in which He confronts them for their sin.

It’s God’s love for His people that the prophecy concerning Jesus’ coming to earth is all about.

And really, we could argue that love in general is a key concept for the book.

God is doing all these things because He loves His people; and really, the fact that the Israelites are in sin—they’re offering polluted offerings, they’re neglecting to give, and they live lives of unrepentant sin shows us that they don’t love God though they still claim to.

Which, as a side-note, it really should open our eyes a bit because we tend to claim to love God and then neglect giving, live lives of unrepentant sin, and offer improper worship as well.

God states that He loves His people, but the Israelites respond with “How have you loved us?”

This question from the Israelites might seem a little unusual to you, but let me remind you of the historical context.

This is roughly 450BC, which places us in a time of history in which the nation of Israel had fallen apart and was taken into exile in Babylon.

They returned to the Promised Land in approximately 530BC, which remember that when you’re in the BCs, the years get larger the longer ago it was.

And they set to the task of rebuilding, particularly in Jerusalem and particularly because Nehemiah got on them for only caring for themselves and not caring for God and God’s temple.