Theme of Malachi

Today we are going to take a look at the theme of the book of Malachi.

Malachi is the last book of the Old Testament.  This is the last thing God has to say to the nation of Israel before the 400 years of silence.  There will be no messages from God after this until Gabriel shows up to tell Zacharias that his prayers have been heard and that he and Elizabeth will have a child and will name him John.

If you remember from our study of the restoration and the great revival that started in Nehemiah chapter 8 things were going good.  People were tender to the word of God and when it was read and they learned they should do something they just did it and with joy.

When they learned that something was sin, they put it away.  They were serving their God from the heart.  It really was a beautiful thing.

Nehemiah had to go back for a while to report to the king.  While he was gone the religious leaders let the enemy of God set up shop and dwell inside the temple.  They let the enemy in.  They put sin and actual evil into the house of God.

That was the end of the revival.  When Nehemiah gets back he kicks the evil out, but things are different now.  Before the people were told what God’s word said and they were joyful and did it.  Now Nehemiah cannot get the people to do anything.  Their hearts have turned away and will no longer really listen to or obey God’s Word.

The book of Nehemiah ends on a very sad note in 434 B.C.

14 years later.  So around 420 B.C. Malachi is written.

At this point the people were neglecting the house of God and were degenerate.  They really did not care about God with any real depth of heart.  Their sacrifices were inferior, duties were neglected, divorce had become common, and they had reverted back to intermarrying idolatrous neighbors.

This is the state of things when God uses Malachi to give his last message before 400 years of silence and then the start of the New Testament.  It is a final word on the whole matter up to this point.  It is also a message that gives them some information about what is going to happen in the future.

The first thing that God has Malachi tell them is that God has loved them.

Mal 1:1  The burden of the word of the LORD to Israel by Malachi. 

Mal 1:2  I have loved you, saith the LORD. Yet ye say, Wherein hast thou loved us? Was not Esau Jacob’s brother? saith the LORD: yet I loved Jacob, 

Mal 1:3  And I hated Esau, and laid his mountains and his heritage waste for the dragons of the wilderness. 

Mal 1:4  Whereas Edom saith, We are impoverished, but we will return and build the desolate places; thus saith the LORD of hosts, They shall build, but I will throw down; and they shall call them, The border of wickedness, and, The people against whom the LORD hath indignation for ever. 

Mal 1:5  And your eyes shall see, and ye shall say, The LORD will be magnified from the border of Israel. 

Jacob gets renamed Israel by God.  They are the people that God chose to use to give His Word to the world and the people were supposed to be a light to the world.  And they were the people that God would use to bring the savior into the world.

And God chose to love them.  It was not anything special in them.  It was not that God saw them and said they are so great and wonderful that I want to have a relationship with them.  Not at all.  They were not lovable.  They were stiff-necked and rebellious.

And God chose to love them anyway.  The love of God is amazing.  It is above any other love.  God loved them with an unearned and unmerited love.

Jacob was a sinner.  He was a deceiver.  That is true.  God chose to love him anyway.  And God worked with Jacob and Jacob grew.  The Jacob that died of old age was not the same man that tricked his father.  The Jacob that died loved God and cared for the things of God.

Esau was also a sinner, but Esau did not care for the things of God.  He sold his birthright for a bowl of beans.  And Esau raised kids that were enemies of God’s people.

God starts this last message of the Old Testament with the fact that He loved them.  And then He follows that up with the fact that they did not love Him back.  And God will bring up how this is true in many areas.

The first is that they offered polluted offerings. 

Mal 1:6  A son honoureth his father, and a servant his master: if then I be a father, where is mine honour? and if I be a master, where is my fear? saith the LORD of hosts unto you, O priests, that despise my name. And ye say, Wherein have we despised thy name? 

Mal 1:7  Ye offer polluted bread upon mine altar; and ye say, Wherein have we polluted thee? In that ye say, The table of the LORD is contemptible. 

Mal 1:8  And if ye offer the blind for sacrifice, is it not evil? and if ye offer the lame and sick, is it not evil? offer it now unto thy governor; will he be pleased with thee, or accept thy person? saith the LORD of hosts. 

All of those offerings were in some way pointing to Jesus who would come and fulfill all that they pointed to.  Jesus is perfect and holy and sinless and Jesus’ work is perfect and without defect.   So for those sacrifices to point to that fact they had to be perfect and without defect.

And they were offering lame and sick and even blind sacrifices.  They were bring what showed forth the exact opposite of who Jesus is.  So God says that He will not accept their offerings.

Mal 1:10  Who is there even among you that would shut the doors for nought? neither do ye kindle fire on mine altar for nought. I have no pleasure in you, saith the LORD of hosts, neither will I accept an offering at your hand. 

They were going thru the motions.  They will attending services.  But with God it did not count.  All that there were doing was not accepted.  God is not after attendance, His goal is not for things to be done out of duty alone.

God was after then what He is still after today and that is the heart.  I have said it at least a thousand times.  God is after the heart.  God loves you and what He wants is for you to love Him back.

And since they refused to love God from the heart with a real genuine love that acts and does and thinks appropriately based on that love, then God tells them that He will turn to the Gentiles.

And that unlike them the Gentiles will offer a pure offering.

Mal 1:11  For from the rising of the sun even unto the going down of the same my name shall be great among the Gentiles; and in every place incense shall be offered unto my name, and a pure offering: for my name shall be great among the heathen, saith the LORD of hosts. 

Next the Lord Rebukes the Corrupt Priests

Mal 2:1  And now, O ye priests, this commandment is for you. 

Mal 2:2  If ye will not hear, and if ye will not lay it to heart, to give glory unto my name, saith the LORD of hosts, I will even send a curse upon you, and I will curse your blessings: yea, I have cursed them already, because ye do not lay it to heart. 

Mal 2:4  And ye shall know that I have sent this commandment unto you, that my covenant might be with Levi, saith the LORD of hosts. 

Mal 2:5  My covenant was with him of life and peace; and I gave them to him for the fear wherewith he feared me, and was afraid before my name. 

Mal 2:6  The law of truth was in his mouth, and iniquity was not found in his lips: he walked with me in peace and equity, and did turn many away from iniquity. 

Mal 2:7  For the priest’s lips should keep knowledge, and they should seek the law at his mouth: for he is the messenger of the LORD of hosts. 

Mal 2:8  But ye are departed out of the way; ye have caused many to stumble at the law; ye have corrupted the covenant of Levi, saith the LORD of hosts. 

Mal 2:9  Therefore have I also made you contemptible and base before all the people, according as ye have not kept my ways, but have been partial in the law. 

The tribe of Levi was to be faithful to teach God’s Word to the people.  They were supposed to lead by example and live for God.  They were to keep God’s ways and inspire other to do likewise.  But that is not what they did.  They actually did the opposite and caused many to stumble at God’s Word because they corrupted the deal that God had with the tribe of Levi.

The motivation for many of them was power and prestige and greed.  And God says that because of this He has made them contemptible and base before all the people.

The first is that they offered polluted offerings

Then the Priests are corrupt

Next Judah Profaned the Covenant

Mal 2:10  Have we not all one father? hath not one God created us? why do we deal treacherously every man against his brother, by profaning the covenant of our fathers? 

Mal 2:11  Judah hath dealt treacherously, and an abomination is committed in Israel and in Jerusalem; for Judah hath profaned the holiness of the LORD which he loved, and hath married the daughter of a strange god. 

Mal 2:12  The LORD will cut off the man that doeth this, the master and the scholar, out of the tabernacles of Jacob, and him that offereth an offering unto the LORD of hosts. 

They gave up marring women who worship idols and the false wicked gods when Ezra preached and during the revival of Nehemiah’s time.  And now they have went back to that.

There are several things wrong with marring a woman who is worshipping wicked false gods.  By doing that you are giving approval and credibility to the practice of wicked false god worship.  And you are bringing that into your home but also your society.  And she is going to teach and raise her children to worship her wicked false god instead of worshipping the true God that loves them.

They as a people had made a covenant with God.  That He would be their God and they would be His people.  They were to be a holy people set apart to God.  That was the deal.  And by marrying women who worshipped wicked false gods they had profaned that deal.

Next God brings up that they had made divorce common.

Mal 2:13  And this have ye done again, covering the altar of the LORD with tears, with weeping, and with crying out, insomuch that he regardeth not the offering any more, or receiveth it with good will at your hand. 

Mal 2:14  Yet ye say, Wherefore? Because the LORD hath been witness between thee and the wife of thy youth, against whom thou hast dealt treacherously: yet is she thy companion, and the wife of thy covenant. 

Mal 2:15  And did not he make one? Yet had he the residue of the spirit. And wherefore one? That he might seek a godly seed. Therefore take heed to your spirit, and let none deal treacherously against the wife of his youth. 

Mal 2:16  For the LORD, the God of Israel, saith that he hateth putting away: for one covereth violence with his garment, saith the LORD of hosts: therefore take heed to your spirit, that ye deal not treacherously. 

Putting away and dealing treacherously against the wife of his youth is talking about divorce.  A man is to keep his promise and not just put away his wife.  And because they had no valid reason God says he was not regarding their offering any more.

Next comes that God is weary of their words. 

Mal 2:17  Ye have wearied the LORD with your words. Yet ye say, Wherein have we wearied him? When ye say, Every one that doeth evil is good in the sight of the LORD, and he delighteth in them; or, Where is the God of judgment? 

God was wearied with their words.  They were calling evil good.  And they were saying where is the God of judgment.  And God was wearied with them saying such junk.

You would think that next will come.  That is it, it is now over for you forever.  But that is not what comes next.  Instead comes some promises.

God will send The Messenger of the Lord, and the Lord Himself will come.

Mal 3:1  Behold, I will send my messenger, and he shall prepare the way before me: and the Lord, whom ye seek, shall suddenly come to his temple, even the messenger of the covenant, whom ye delight in: behold, he shall come, saith the LORD of hosts. 

That is the prophecy of the coming of John the Baptist and Jesus.

Mal 3:2  But who may abide the day of his coming? and who shall stand when he appeareth? for he is like a refiner’s fire, and like fullers’ soap: 

Jesus came the first time to go to the cross and pay for our sins.  The wages of sin is death and so someone had to die to pay for those wages.  And the only payment that would be accepted is the just dying for the unjust.  Only the sinless holy Son of God would do.

Jesus came the first time as the lamb lead to the slaughter.  He came as the Lamb that taketh away the sins of the world.  But Jesus is coming back one day in power. And that is what is promised next.

Mal 3:3  And he shall sit as a refiner and purifier of silver: and he shall purify the sons of Levi, and purge them as gold and silver, that they may offer unto the LORD an offering in righteousness. 

Mal 3:4  Then shall the offering of Judah and Jerusalem be pleasant unto the LORD, as in the days of old, and as in former years. 

Mal 3:5  And I will come near to you to judgment; and I will be a swift witness against the sorcerers, and against the adulterers, and against false swearers, and against those that oppress the hireling in his wages, the widow, and the fatherless, and that turn aside the stranger from his right, and fear not me, saith the LORD of hosts. 

That will start to happen during the tribulation.  Israel will turn to Jesus.  They will get their hearts right.  At that time all Israel will be saved.

Even though they offered polluted offerings, and their Priests are corrupt and even though they profaned the Covenant.  And betrayed their wife’s and even though God was tired of their words.

He is still giving them promises.  He is still not done with them.  God’s love is amazing.  It is undeserved and unmerited.  And God is faithful.  Regardless of man’s failures God must do what He said.  God cannot lie.  God cannot be unfaithful.

And God did make unconditional promises to Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and with them as a nation at Mount Sinai.  And even though they have done God wrong and in the middle of this letter of rebuke God is confirming that He will still keep those promises.

Next comes a contrast between those who do not serve God and those that do.

First is those who rob God and who do not keep God’s ordinances and God’s mercy for them is that they are not consumed.

Mal 3:6  For I am the LORD, I change not; therefore ye sons of Jacob are not consumed. 

Mal 3:7  Even from the days of your fathers ye are gone away from mine ordinances, and have not kept them. Return unto me, and I will return unto you, saith the LORD of hosts. But ye said, Wherein shall we return? 

And even they get this promise.  Just return to me and I will return to you.  And if you do then you will be blessed.

Mal 3:12  And all nations shall call you blessed: for ye shall be a delightsome land, saith the LORD of hosts. 

And now contrasted are those who do fear the Lord and who thought upon his name.

Mal 3:16  Then they that feared the LORD spake often one to another: and the LORD hearkened, and heard it, and a book of remembrance was written before him for them that feared the LORD, and that thought upon his name. 

Mal 3:17  And they shall be mine, saith the LORD of hosts, in that day when I make up my jewels; and I will spare them, as a man spareth his own son that serveth him. 

God lets them know that He sees those who serve Him and that He is keeping track of it.

And the book finishes with the prophecy about the Great Day of the Lord

Mal 4:1  For, behold, the day cometh, that shall burn as an oven; and all the proud, yea, and all that do wickedly, shall be stubble: and the day that cometh shall burn them up, saith the LORD of hosts, that it shall leave them neither root nor branch. 

Mal 4:2  But unto you that fear my name shall the Sun of righteousness arise with healing in his wings; and ye shall go forth, and grow up as calves of the stall. 

Mal 4:3  And ye shall tread down the wicked; for they shall be ashes under the soles of your feet in the day that I shall do this, saith the LORD of hosts. 

Mal 4:4  Remember ye the law of Moses my servant, which I commanded unto him in Horeb for all Israel, with the statutes and judgments. 

Mal 4:5  Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the LORD: 

Mal 4:6  And he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to their fathers, lest I come and smite the earth with a curse. 

The great and dreadful day of the Lord is when Jesus comes back.  Elijah will be sent first in the tribulation.  He will be one of the two witnesses.  And in that day Jesus will set up his millennial kingdom and will reign and rule with a rod of iron.

He will come in judgment for the wicked but He will also come with healing in his wings for those that serve Him.

Even though they offered polluted offerings, and their Priests are corrupt and even though they profaned the Covenant.  And betrayed their wife’s and even though God was tired of their words and even though they were not keeping His ordnances.

God is still not done with them and gives them promises for the future.  Including the coming of John and Jesus and later Elijah and then Jesus coming a second time.  And the promise that God sees and keeps track of those that serve Him.  And ends with the promise that God will come and judge the wicked and have healing for His own.  That is the theme of Malachi.

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