Malachi Week 2
Malachi, last book. Goes on our timeline here.
Basic Outline is 6 disputations (or arguments) - the key phrase being “But you say!” Each section has God declaring something and the people arguing back. I like Paul’s illustration of a teenager. “I love you” but you say “How have you loved us?”
We have 3 more disputes and a conclusion to cover
2:17-3:5
Let’s circle the phrase “but you say” in 2:17. It comes up in every disputation and it helps us understand why God and his people are at odds with one another
God says, “You’re making me tired”. Now God doesn’t get tired or weary, so he’s using this an expression of feeling not as a description of physical weakness.
Of course the people who are laboring day in and day out and are disappointed with God’s lack of action respond by saying “WE are making YOU tired? How is that possible!? YOU are making US tired” Do you remember back in 1:13? God had been asking them to offer good sacrifices and their reply was “What a weariness this is” Underline “How have we wearied him?” and draw an arrow pointing backwards that says 1:13.
God tells them that they have wearied him by complaining of God’s inaction. They ask, “Why are evil people prospering? Why is God not just?” This is the age-old question, “Why does God allow bad things to happen to good people?” or as it’s often called “The problem of evil”. Why does God allow wickedness to occur? He should punish wickedness and rid us of it.
God has made all of these incredible promises. We just taught through Zechariah which was full of good news and all the great things God was going to do for his people. But here they have not received those things. They’re just being called to be faithful in offering sacrifices and faithful in remaining pure and faithful in giving to God, but they don’t seem to be rewarded for it. Instead the wicked are the ones prospering.
God responds that if they want his justice to arrive, then he will send it. First he’s going to send his messenger to prepare the way for him, and then the LORD himself will arrive. Do you all know who the messenger is that he’s going to send? This verse is quoted in Matthew, Mark, and Luke. Here’s what Matthew says:
“What then did you go out [to the wilderness] to see? A prophet? Yes, I tell you, and more than a prophet. This is he of whom it is written, “‘Behold, I send my messenger before your face, who will prepare your way before you.’ Truly, I say to you, among those born of women there has arisen no one greater than John the Baptist.” - Matthew 11:9-11
He’s predicting the coming of John the Baptist. Hang on to that one. We’ll come back to it later today. This messenger will be significant again later.
Verse 2 though highlights how they have made a critical mistake in calling for God’s justice. God says, The day is coming. Put a box around that. That’s our good friend the Day of the Lord. They think that when God arrives it will be all good news for them. They still don’t understand what God’s day will look like. We’ve seen this before in Amos -
“Woe to you who desire the day of the Lord!
Why would you have the day of the Lord?
It is darkness, and not light,” - Amos 5:18
If God shows up to deliver complete justice, it will not go well for you. This is part of the answer for that question - “Why does God allow bad things to happen? Why doesn’t God rid the world of evil?” Because if God showed up to rid the world of evil, it would not go well for you. “Who can endure the day of his coming?” or as we read in Psalm 130 a few weeks ago - “If you, O Lord, should mark iniquities, O Lord, who could stand?”
He goes on to describe how when the Lord arrives he’s going to purify everything. The refiner’s fire is an intense heat that’s going to separate the pure metal from the dross. We’re vaguely familiar with this process, how the impurities in heated metal rise to the top and are scraped away to make it pure. The fuller was someone who washed cloth. They had a process of bleaching that involved soaking the cloth in a stinky chemical solution and then stomping on it or beating it with sticks to get the soap deep into the cloth. Then they would let it roast out in the hot sun to dry. You don’t want to be refined in a fire or bleached by a fuller. It’s not pleasant. But on the other side of it, is purity. As verse 4 says, then their offerings will be pleasing to the Lord.
This makes you think hard about whether or not you actually want God to arrive and rid the world of evil. We pray for things like God to punish those who are wicked today and stop people from carrying out heinous acts of sin. But God replies with, “Be careful what you wish for because I hate all types of sin and there is some significant sin in your life that I would also like to purify.” Praise the Lord though, he does purify us of our sin. And honestly, it’s painful, but it’s worth all the refining process.
Let’s move to our next disputation
3:6-12
Let’s circle the phrase “but you say” again. God has given them a clear command and they respond by acting as if they have no idea how to keep it. It shows up twice in verse 7 and in verse 8.
But let’s first address Malachi’s not so subtle reference to the book of Zechariah. Look at Verse 7 and let me read to you Zechariah 1:2-4
“The Lord was very angry with your fathers. Therefore say to them, Thus declares the Lord of hosts: Return to me, says the Lord of hosts, and I will return to you, says the Lord of hosts. Do not be like your fathers, to whom the former prophets cried out, ‘Thus says the Lord of hosts, Return from your evil ways and from your evil deeds.’ But they did not hear or pay attention to me, declares the Lord.”
The reference to their fathers, to the Lord of hosts, and quoting “Return to me and I will return to you”. It’s pretty clear. So underline that quote and point another arrow backwards that says Zech. 1:2-4
That’s why he opens this section by saying, “I the Lord do not change”. This is the same thing I told you all a hundred years ago. My call to everyone in every age in every place is the same, Repent of your sins, come to me, and I will offer forgiveness and my presence to bless you. God taught this to Moses. God taught this to David. God taught this to Zechariah. He said this to Malachi. Jesus is going to say this same thing. God’s going to say it through Paul as well. God’s message will never change. And the only reason that we aren’t completely consumed by God’s burning wrath is because he always offers this opportunity for repentance.
So the people respond by saying, What should we do? Here’s a really interesting parallel where we bring back John the Baptist. Turn in your Bible to Luke 3. Here we see JTB delivering the same message as Malachi, receiving a similar response, and giving a similar answer.
READ Luke 3:7-8a, 9-10
So he tells them that ancient message from God, Repent! And the people ask him the same question they asked Malachi - “What should we do?”
READ Luke 3:11-14
John connects genuine repentance with a tangible visible change of action. Note that he doesn’t simply say, “Confess your sins in your heart and believe that God forgives and saves”. He says, if you are genuinely repentant of your sins then prove it with your actions. Because if you are unwilling to prove it with your actions, then your repentant words are just words. He doesn’t command them to do some ritual that looks like repentance - everyone go crawl on your knees to the temple or beat yourself on the back with a rod. Rather he calls out each person’s specific sins and tells them to turn from them.
Now look back at Malachi 3:7-10a. He says return to me - that’s the same word for repent - turn back to me. They ask “What are we supposed to do?” And he gives them a specific instance where they can demonstrate repentance. Stop robbing me and start bringing in the full amount of money that I have asked for. This is exactly like John the Baptist. Demonstrate your repentant heart through repentant actions.
When it comes to the tithe, I read something interesting where a commentator said that the tithe was a reminder to Israel that they were tenants on the Lord’s land. Everything belongs to him and their tithe was a reminder that they were enjoying the blessings and benefits of a place that they weren’t the owners of. That’s a challenge.
Then God says, he will respond to their repentance with great blessing. If you return to me, I will return to you and here’s what it will look like. He will pour out blessings on them.
Now typically putting the Lord to the test is a bad thing. You might remember how Jesus when tempted by Satan quoted that verse from Deuteronomy “You shall not put the Lord your God to the test”. So it might be helpful to point out that the word here for put to the test and the word in Deuteronomy for put to the test are different words. The one from Deuteronomy involves more putting someone to trial - we’re not sure if this is true and a trial will reveal it. But the word here in Malachi has more of a “evaluate” idea. God says, evaluate what kind of God I am and in my response everyone will see how glorious I am.
So when God calls you to repent, it means you will respond with specific actions. Additionally, when you repent, God responds with blessing. Everyone who sees it will give him glory. When you submit to the refiner’s fire or the fuller’s soap, it’s painful, but it purifies and everyone will see the generosity of God because of how he responds to your repentance.
Ok. On to the final disputation.
3:13-4:3
Circle “But you say”. The people are unsure of what they have done wrong here.
So God points it out. They have said among themselves, what is the point of keeping all these silly rituals? They say, we are not profiting. However the wicked are. Notice here that their concern isn’t over God being glorified or honored by their actions. Their only concern is what they get out of this deal. To bring up something Paul talked about last week and which I coincidentally also talked about Sunday morning, they are viewing their relationship with God as a contract. We gave you our services and now you’re supposed to give us your services. We’re not profiting from this relationship.
But then it mentions there’s a second group of people in verse 16. These are the ones who fear the Lord. And it says he wrote their names in a book of remembrance. This is pretty interesting. A few Sundays ago, I talked about how God records every wicked thing we do in a book. It tells us that in Revelation. Fortunately, for those who trust in Christ those wicked things are erased and done away with. But wicked things aren’t the only thing that God records in his books.
Listen to Psalm 56:8 -
You have kept count of my tossings;
put my tears in your bottle.
Are they not in your book?
And listen to Psalm 139:16 -
Your eyes saw my unformed substance;
in your book were written, every one of them,
the days that were formed for me,
when as yet there was none of them.
Do you remember the story of Esther? She and Malachi both live at around the same time. However, Esther is still in Persia. But in the story of Esther, her uncle Mordecai foils a plot to assassinate King Xerxes. When he does this his good deed was written in the kings book. It says in Esther 2:23 -
When the affair was investigated and found to be so, the men were both hanged on the gallows. And it was recorded in the book of the chronicles in the presence of the king.
Later in Esther, King Xerxes is having trouble sleeping so he asks someone to read to him from this book of good deeds. It says in Esther 6:1 -
On that night the king could not sleep. And he gave orders to bring the book of memorable deeds, the chronicles, and they were read before the king.
It goes on to say that Xerxes rewards Mordecai after reading in the book about what he did.
So it seems it was common practice for kings to record the good deeds that people did, not just the bad ones. That’s what this book of remembrance is. In fact the words book of remembrance here and the words book of memorable deeds in Esther are the exact same Hebrew words.
In addition to being a God who always sees every sin and no single act of wickedness will ever go unpunished, God is also a God who sees every single righteous deed and records it in his book. And he will reward them accordingly. God says the day is coming when he will make a strong distinction between the righteous and the wicked.
Look at 4:1, He starts talking about “the day is coming” - put a box around that because we know what day that is. He says it twice in verse 1 put a box around both of them. And then jump down to the end of 4:3 where it says “on that day”, put a box around that one too.
On that day there will be two things that happen - the evildoer will be burnt up like stubble in an oven and those who fear him will be rewarded. Those are the two parts of the Day of the Lord - judgment and salvation.
Interesting side story about verse 2. I had a friend in NC when I lived there who was an older gentleman named Nick. He loved Jesus a lot and he told me his testimony multiple times. Nick grew up in a Christian home and learned the Bible his whole life. He was very committed to being a good moral person. He knew that Christians were to do what was right and he strived for that. He also strived to see other people live like that. So much so that after he graduated high school, he went to Bible school to study to be a pastor and go into ministry. However, despite the fact that he was in church every Sunday and was training for the pastorate, Nick was a bitter and angry man. He was filled with pride at how he was better than other people and was frustrated that he had to deal with all of these wicked people. One day as he was studying for school, he came across this passage in Malachi 4. He read verse 2 -
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.
And I can still picture him saying to me, “Shane, never once in my life had I ever felt like a calf leaping out of his stall.” Calves leaping are so excited and filled with joy and they’re playful. They’ve been freed from the stall. But Nick told me he wasn’t a joyful Christian, he was just a bitter and prideful moralist. He repented of his pride. He repented of his thinking that being good was what made him right with God and he became a Christian after reading this verse.
It’s a joyful thing to serve our Lord. It’s not a bitter and painful thing. The people Malachi was speaking to had viewed serving God and giving to him as something that only brought them weariness and brought them no benefit. And Malachi challenges them that if they have never experienced the freedom of leaping like a calf from its stall, then perhaps you’re not part of the righteous, but you’re part of the other group.
4:4-6
First things first, we have to put a box around “Day of the Lord” because that’s just what we do. I hope that ten years from now, you’re reading the Bible and you just feel this unrestrainable impulse to put a box around the phrase “Day of the Lord” whenever it comes up in your Bible
This final section serves as the conclusion to the book of Malachi and tells them how they ought to live and what they ought to expect in the future. It’s just two simple things.
First, keep Moses’ law. They aren’t sure if it’s working. They aren’t sure if they’re benefitting from it. But Malachi says, don’t give up on obeying the things that you know you ought to do.
Second he says, I’m going to visit you soon and Elijah will come to prepare the way for me. That messenger that Malachi mentions in 3:1, the one who is going to “prepare the way before me”, here he is being referred to as Elijah. Why is he referred to as Elijah specifically? I’m not sure. But we know why he has to come first. Because the people need to have their hearts turned to God before God arrives. If God arrives and their hearts aren’t towards him, they will be destroyed. That’s how the Day of the Lord works.
So the Jews were waiting for many years for Elijah to arrive because of this verse and we see that reflected in the gospels. This Elijah is John the Baptist, the forerunner of Jesus.
When John the Baptist’s father is told he would have a son, this is what the angel says to him -
“And he will turn many of the children of Israel to the Lord their God, and he will go before him in the spirit and power of Elijah, to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the disobedient to the wisdom of the just, to make ready for the Lord a people prepared” - Luke 1:16-17, that’s very clear another reference to Malachi
Then Jesus in speaking about John the Baptist says this:
For all the Prophets and the Law prophesied until John, and if you are willing to accept it, he is Elijah who is to come. - Matthew 11:13-14
It’s very clear that Jesus saw John the Baptist as the messenger prophesied about by Malachi, which means it’s also very clear that Jesus saw himself as the LORD whom the messenger was preparing the way for.
Two final instructions - Keep my laws and wait for God to arrive. I think these are two good instructions for us as well.