Who Can Endure His Coming?

Today our Scripture portion will be in Malachi 3:1-6.  We left chapter 2 on the note that the people and leaders of Israel had developed an attitude that serving God didn’t help.  In fact that it seemed those who scorned His laws were “blessed” by Him.  “Where is the God of justice,” is a question that goes to the heart of the messiah because the whole purpose of sending the messiah was to restore justice.

They continued to give lip-service to the doctrine of a coming messiah, but had ceased living as if he was really coming.

Thus, the Spirit of the Lord stirs up Malachi to give them a reminder that the messiah is coming and they are not ready for him.

God Is Sending The Messiah

In verse one a clear reference to the messiah is made, “the Lord whom you seek.”  This messiah was promised to deliver Israel from all her enemies and would be the perfect leader both politically and spiritually.  The term messiah literally means Anointed One.  Though many kings and priests had been anointed by oil for their roles and duties, the messiah would be unique in that he would be directly anointed by God and not just with oil, but rather with the Spirit of God.  Now for centuries Israel had hoped in the coming messiah.  But by the time of Malachi it had become a shell.  What I mean by that is this.  The teaching still remained, but the heart and spirit of what it meant was no longer there.  We see this in John 4 when Jesus talks with the woman at the well in Samaria.  She is definitely not living according to God’s Word and yet she still gives lip service to the coming messiah.  In fact, she does not really demonstrate a desire for him to come, but rather a desire to drop the discussion.  “When the messiah comes he will explain it.”  Their lives actually scoffed at the idea that a messiah would actually come.  Thus God reminds them that he is going to send the messiah.

However, He will first send a messenger of preparation.  In Matthew 11:10, Jesus quotes this verse to declare that John the Baptist was the fulfillment of it.  He was the messenger of preparation.  He had prepared the way before the messiah by calling people to repentance (much like Malachi).  The messiah does not need an actual road prepared for him because the place he is trying to reach is our hearts.  Thus John the Baptist’s message was “repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” 

Isaiah does use this picture of road building in Isaiah 40:3-4.  “A voice of one calling in the wilderness, prepare the way for the Lord; make straight in the desert a highway for our God.  Every valley shall be raised up, every mountain and hill made low; the rough ground shall become level, the rugged places a plain.”  But the “way of the Lord” is a phrase that refers to God’s judgments and dictates in His Word.  Thus a straight path is when we completely follow God’s Word instead of branching off in our own desired directions.  Just as in building a road we lower the high places and raise the low places, so each individual needed to knock down those areas of pride in their life and build up those forsaken lowly places that God intended to be higher.  It is a picture of what we become without God’s word: barricaded against His entrance into our heart.  Yet, God would do some road building Himself.  He would knock down those great proud mountains within the nation of Israel and raise up forsaken believers who truly believed on him.  Now let me warn us today.  Jesus, the messiah, is coming again.  This time he is coming in judgment for the whole world and we need to prepare our hearts for his coming.  God is going to do some smashing of “proud mountains” in this world and some raising of lowly “valleys.”  Does your life today reflect a preparation for Christ or does it only give lip-service to that coming?  Has the belief in Jesus’ coming become only a shell or have you jettisoned it altogether?  Know this: Jesus is coming and we will either be prepared for that coming or be caught unprepared.

After the messenger of preparation then comes the messiah.  He is referred to as the messenger of the covenant.  He is the “Lord, whom you seek.”  Verse one says that he will come suddenly or surprisingly.  He is going to catch them by surprise and at a time that they aren’t expecting.  Does that sound familiar?  As his first coming was so shall his second coming be.

Next it says that he is coming to his temple.  Now the temple that existed when Jesus came the first time was not the temple that Solomon had built.  In fact when the second temple was being built the Bible tells us that some who remembered the glory of the first wept and cried.  However, the “lowly” temple was going to be the one that received the honor of having the promised Messiah walk into it.  Yet, in light of John the Baptist’s message we know that the true target is not the earthly temple that was going to be destroyed.  No, the true target was the hearts of those who fear Him and exalt Him as Lord in their hearts and lives.  These are the ones to whom He would ultimately come.

Now let’s move to verse 2.  Malachi asks the question, “who can endure the day of His coming, and who can stand when He appears?”  That is the question.  Preparation entails knowing what you are preparing for.  The question Who begs the answer that would inform our preparations.

Now the word endure is the picture of a vessel that is supposed to contain something.  When Christ comes will your vessel be able to contain it or will it burst at the seams?  This is what Jesus referred to when he said that many of the religious leaders were like old wineskins.  They could not receive Jesus or His teaching because it would break their hardened traditions and the hardened shell of a life they had built in the name of religion.  He also uses the picture of standing.  Who can stand without being cut down and swept away?  When God’s Anointed One who is the very Justice of God walks among our midst, which of us will survive?  This important question is answered elsewhere.  But here it is meant to stir a fear of the Lord in the hearts of those listening.  We ought to also recognize the powerful thought that the perfect Lord of Glory is going to come down and deal with unbelievers and the unfaithful.  Will you stand and not burst in that day?

The Messiah Comes To Purify

Malachi goes on to give two pictures of the messiah.  He is like a refiner’s fire and he is like soap.  Now there is a personal and corporate level on which this happens.  The personal level is for those who believe in the Lord.  He causes our hearts to be searched out and purified through a daily relationship with him; just like the fire or soap.

Yet, corporately, He will remove the unbelieving and unfaithful from among His people.  In the first century he did this by becoming an outcast and then calling all who believed to His side.  In order to obey the faithful had to turn their backs on the hardened traditions of their Fathers and the present religious leaders.  After those who made their choice had come to the side of Christ, outside the camp, then the judgment of God was poured out on the unbelieving of that nation.  Thus the Church began as a purified remnant of Israel.  They were able to stand because they were willing to let go of that which God was going to destroy and put their faith in Jesus whom He was going to bless.

The Messiah Comes To Restore

When we have been purified by Christ we are truly able to give an offering of righteousness.  Thus Malachi points to this time when the offering of Judah and Jerusalem will be pleasing to the Lord.  In John 4:23 Jesus said, “the hour is coming and now is, when the true worshippers will worship the Father in spirit and truth; for the Father is seeking such to worship Him.”  God wants true heart worship and not empty-shell lip-service.  Even today the outward forms of worship and offerings can become something less than a spirit that is bowed in honor and in awe of God.  However, a spirit that is bowed in honor and awe of the Lord will have visible actions.  Jesus restored true worship.  However we must avoid demolishing that true worship by hardening it into an empty shell again.

The Messiah Comes To Judge

In verse 5, he warns that the messiah will deal with sorcerers: those who call upon demonic entities and powers and so have turned from God and His ways.  Do you suppose any still do this today?  The occult and spiritism have exploded in the modern era.  He is coming to judge adulterers: those who are unfaithful and led by their pleasures.  He comes to judge perjurers: those who falsely swear oaths in the name of God.  Lastly he comes to judge those who abuse social power.  Are any doing these things today?  In fact in the “Christian” West we love to give lip-service to helping the poor.  But, in reality, we only use the issue of the poor to get more power and money under our control.  The poor end up hardly being helped.  If we fear God we will not turn to any power other than God.  We will refuse to be led by our pleasures and keep our commitments.  We will not use God to back up our lies.  And, we will not abuse workers, and the less fortunate around us for our own gain: this includes foreigners.

The Messiah Comes To Demonstrate Mercy

In verse 6 we are told that God does not change and thus Israel is not consumed.  Though God’s anger and wrath had been stirred up, He is still merciful.  He would purify and those who would allow Him to cleanse them would enjoy His goodness.  God is forever merciful.  But He will judge those who refuse His mercy.  He always makes a way for the humble to survive and spiritually flourish.  Israel did not deserve the New Covenant.  But God would give it to them anyway.  However, it would be given in a way that only those who believed God would enter into it.

Today we await the coming of the Lord.  And, it is easy for Christians to lean back on a nice tidy theology to feel secure.  However, it is not our theology per se that saves us.  It is Jesus Himself.  If our faith is not securely resting upon Him then you must question whether you are truly prepared for His coming.  To all I say along with Malachi and John the Baptist, “Repent, for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand.”

Who Can Endure Audio

A Treacherous Heart III

Today we will focus on Malachi 2:13-17.  The topic at hand is divorce.  Now in those days divorce was a “male” thing.  Women really didn’t have the right to divorce their husbands.  So I believe that even though this was written to chastise the men, it should be received by women today.  Specifically, those who are divorcing merely because they don’t love their spouse anymore, ought to pay close attention to the rebuke of the Lord.

This is a further clarification of what we talked about last week.  The men were not just marrying women who were worshippers of other gods, but they had divorced “the wife of their youth” in order to do so.  This is the classic move of drop the old nag and pick up a young play thing.  Whenever we treat marriage as something that is meant to please our flesh then we grieve the heart of God and set ourselves up for punishment.  Let’s look at the text.

Breaking The Marriage Covenant With Our Spouse

Marriage is a covenant between a man and a woman in which they enter into a relationship that God created and designed for His purposes.  Those who try to redefine marriage for their own purposes do so at their own peril because when those purposes clash with God’s He will defend it.

Marriage is mainly witnessed by God.  A man and a woman commit to each other, but at the same time they are making a commitment to God.  That commitment is to honor God in the relationship.  We also have friends and family who will also witness.  But don’t be deceived.  When we treat marriage lightly and dissolve it for reasons other than unfaithfulness and abuse then we are breaking a commitment to which God will hold us accountable.

In verse 13 God points out that their action of forcing a divorce for selfish reasons was filling his altar with tears.  This set up the situation in Jerusalem of God hearing the weeping of women because of their ill-treatment on one hand, and, on the other hand, hearing the prayer of those men who caused the pain asking for Him to answer their prayers.  Now today, a similar thing happens within churches.  However, generally, divorced couples go their separate ways and attend their separate churches.  Sadly, they go on praying for God’s blessing, all the while a grieving ex-spouse is telling God their pain.  I know that not every divorce is like this.  Sometimes both parties amicably agree to split.  However, just because we don’t take marriage seriously doesn’t mean that God doesn’t take it seriously.  Breaking our commitments (whether in marriage or in business) will bring the punishment of God.  And, if we don’t respond it may eventually bring His wrath upon us.

God wants our prayers for our spouse to be ones of thankfulness and joy.  When we bring grief to our spouse we are fighting one of the purposes of God in marriage.  If our prayers are to be filled with tears let it be because of suffering at the hands of sinners, not supposed believers.  God despises the prayer for blessing of those who are causing pain in the lives of others.  It behooves us to question whether we are a source of pain in others lives?  Am I sinning in a way that is causing pain to others?  O, God forgive me and help me to make it right, or rather vice versa.

Breaking The Marriage Covenant With God

In verse 14 God reminds them that He is a witness of their commitment.  We are not just hurting a spouse when we harden our heart and refuse to walk the path of God.  We are also hurting the heart of God.  We are breaking our covenant with Him.  It boggles my mind how people can reject God’s Word in this and yet think He is pleased with them and will “bless” them with a better spouse.  When we bail out of a marriage because we are just unhappy, we are bailing out on God.  Even if you do find someone else who “makes you happy,” something good in you that God was doing will have died.   Can there be forgiveness?  Yes, of course.  But let us not minimize the damage and sin that divorce is.  This is why most marriages are solemnized with the phrase, “till death do us part.”  Not the death of our love, but physical death.  Those who made up such vows did so because they recognized how serious marriage was to God.  God is not absent and aloof.  He witnesses all covenants whether relational or business.  When we go back on our word and break such contracts it brings a curse upon our life and our land, until we repent and make things right with Him.  Thus all such commitments ought to be made carefully, with much prayer and fear of the Lord, because ultimately we are asking Him to bless them.

In verses 15-16 He reminds them of two of His purposes in marriage.  The first is to make them one.  We may have our own personal reasons for marrying, but recognize that it is a “holy” thing.  It is a relationship that has been set apart by Him for His purposes.    God wants to take men and women and use marriage to make them a unit in body, spirit, and task.  Now the spirit part God does automatically when we covenant with each other before Him.  I can’t explain what He does.  But in His eyes we are spiritually one at the commitment altar.  However, we are the ones who must work together to become “one” in body (sexually), and task.  Learning to work together as a unit does not just come naturally.  Over their lifetime a couple is continually learning how to work together as a unit (or not learning). 

The second purpose is that God seeks godly offspring.  He wants to take that faith in you and have you reproduce yourself in a child.  This child will take your place in the next generation.  He doesn’t just want kids, but godly kids.  This is an issue of godliness in the next generation rather than population.  In fact, for those who have infertility issues, we can recognize that some are called to use their lack of biological reproduction to embrace spiritual reproduction.  The key is not biological reproduction, but rather spiritual.  We can do that through adoption, foster-kids, or complete focus on ministry and raising up a spiritual family of people you have brought to the Lord, discipled, and continue to love.

Next He talks about the treachery of divorce.  Everyone has selfish motivations that surface from time to time throughout marriage.  However, when we betray our commitment by forcing divorce, we are demonstrating that the selfish motivations have won out in our heart.  We have collapsed and surrendered to the onslaught of our flesh and its desires.  But divorce is no solution.  First it treats the other person as if they were just a meal.  You toss it aside because it doesn’t taste good anymore and move on to something better.  But humans are not food.  When we toss food aside God may shake His head at our finicky nature.  But when we toss humans aside, He is not pleased at all and regards it as treachery.  He also told them that it was a violent act.  In fact He gives them the picture of a garment that is splattered with dirt, or mud, or blood.  In His eyes they were parading into His temple praying for blessing, all the while their garments were covered with blood (the evidence of their violent nature).  Do not think God is pleased with such actions.  Divorce is a great spiritual, emotional, and psychological violence that is very difficult to heal and impossible to erase the scars.  The irony is that many who abhor violent movies or are pacifists will quickly embrace the violence of divorce, simply because it makes their life easier (or so they think).  Many in our society suffer from PTSD not just from the violence of war, but from the violence of wrecked relationships and broken covenants.  You cannot embrace divorce for such reasons without impacting your own spirit and the spirit of the spouse you toss aside.  It is spiritually devastating.  However, to the broken spouse, God can heal you.  And, to the spouse who did the breaking, God can forgive you, if you recognize the hideous nature of such sin and repent before God, begging forgiveness of the one you injured.  Why do we refuse to walk the path of life and instead stubbornly walk a path of death praying for God to give us life?

The Lack Of The Fear Of The Lord

In verse 17 God points to the ultimate problem:  they no longer had a fear of the Lord.  It is one thing to have the idea of sin surface in our heart and mind.  It is quite another to embrace it over the top of the Word  of the Lord and our covenants to Him.  This reveals a horrendous lack of the fear of the Lord.  Now such fear should not be the mainstay of our relationship with God.  But when temptation comes there must be the baseline of the fear that such a thing would devastate our relationship with God.  These people had ceased to believe that such actions impacted their relationship with God.  In fact, we would be safe to say that their relationship with God was fantasy.  They continued traditions and prayed for blessing and forgiveness.  But, in their heart they believed that those who did evil were blessed by God and that the God of justice was absent.  They had become practical atheists.  Their belief in God was a shell with no life inside.  O friend whether God is speaking to you now about marriage or another area of your life, don’t make the mistake of treating sin lightly.  It really is the path to death and you really will receive such death over the top of the Fatherly rebukes of God.  In fact that is what we have here.  God being faithful to point out their sin and call them back to Him.  How about you today?

A Treacherous Heart III Audio

Malachi: A Treacherous Heart II

Last week we saw that when the priests had shown favoritism within God’s things they had become despised by the people.  Today we will look at how this treachery against God and each other was not just among the priests.  It was riddled throughout society.

It is important for people in the United States of America to listen to this message because our society is riddled with the sin of treachery as well.  We live in times when most people do what is right in their own eyes and have no concern of being faithful to God and their fellow man.

Mixing God’s Things With Demonic Things

In Malachi 2:10-12 the problem of mixing God’s things with demonic things is highlighted in the area of marriage.  They were profaning the covenant that God had made with them.  Now to profane something is to pollute something that is intended to be pure.  God’s covenant and His holy things were supposed to be kept pure, but they were mixing pollutions into everything.

It is interesting to me that today we have a similar problem.  There is a certain irony and hypocrisy to the fact that we will bend over backwards to fight pollution in the natural all the while embracing pollution spiritually.  The very arguments that are raised against pollution and for greater restrictions and bondage will beg the question later.  Why did you not feel this way about spiritual matters?  Today we are using all our creativity to make even larger and larger “pumps” of spiritual pollution.

When you mix God’s things with demonic things you are committing treachery against God and against your fellow man.  Now the word treachery means to act covertly, i.e. have a hidden agenda.  When we live to only please ourselves or we use religious things to cover selfish desires, we are acting through covert means that will end in injury to our nation.  This is the ultimate treachery because it makes us enemies with God and it makes us fools who undermine the very foundation upon which they stand.

You may wonder why I use the phrase “demonic things.”  I do so because it is the heart of the matter.  God’s concern here is not that inter-racial marriage was happening.  This had never been the problem.  It had always been marrying those who worshipped false Gods.  Now we are told that the desire to make images and worship them as Gods, and the stories that surfaced about such gods, had their source in the demonic.  Fallen spiritual beings had a vested interest in getting humans to “worship” them under the guise of a religion.  To marry in to such things was to mix worship for the true God with worship for demons.  God warned the Israelites that their hearts would be turned away from him by these marriages.  Now marriage in concept is a good thing.  But when we mix it in such a way it becomes a bad thing.  In 2 Corinthians 6:14 Paul used the phrase “unequally yoked.” “Do not be unequally yoked together with unbelievers.  For what fellowship has righteousness with lawlessness? And what communion has light with darkness?”

Today we are a people who are embracing and “marrying” into all manner of ideas and teachings from around the world.  These teachings and philosophies have nothing to do with the way of the Lord and will in the end lead to destruction.  We need to recognize the treachery throughout the land and within our own heart that starts with first mixing, but ends up jettisoning the Truth of God.

How can we stop such treachery?  It starts by seeing it in my own heart and choosing to live God’s Way and His Way alone.  It then moves to pleading with the hearts of those around you to turn back to God’s way and be faithful to His Word.  God help us to turn back the tide of pollution that has made us an abomination to God and threatens our very existence.  Selah!

Treacherous Heart II Audio

Malachi: A Treacherous Heart

We pick up today in Malachi 2:8.  The Lord has been challenging the priests of Israel about their sins.  Now the message begins to transition into a problem that was riddled throughout all of Israel: Treachery.  Starting with the priests, verses 8-9 use the word treachery to speak of the favoritism that the priests were showing.

Showing Favoritism In God’s Things

In the 1990’s several articles were written speaking of polls that showed the fall of the reputation of ministers.  A high percentage of the population held a low esteem of pastors.  Part of the reason for this is that people kept running into leaders and churches that showed favoritism in God’s things.  Recently a similar article came out only this time the profession on the hot-seat was journalism.  Journalists have now found themselves at the bottom of professional esteem along with ministers and lawyers.  Why?  Mostly because they have showed favoritism in how they have reported the Truth.  Now whenever a person purports to speak on behalf of truth, they are dealing with God’s territory.  Even though journalists are not operating in an official religious capacity, their insistence that they are speaking the truth puts them in an area that God not only takes seriously, but He will also defend.  Many journalists today have departed from the righteous reason to report news and have corrupted the proper ways of reporting in order to shape the opinion of the public.  This is called a treachery in verse 10.  Treachery is when we work under the cover of something good in order to do something bad.  We use the good to get people to trust us but in the end we are only interested in how it can help us, which is not good.

The priests were using the good things of God for their own purposes and God will not suffer such wickedness.  They were not walking on the path that God’s Law had prescribed to them.  They had reasoned themselves away from God Way.  Now we need to remember that God’s Way is the The Good Way.  It is the way that leads to life.  But, there is a way that seems right in the eyes of a man but the end of it is death.  These priests had left the path to life and were now on a path that led to destruction.  It didn’t look like that to them.  In fact somehow they had convinced themselves that what they were doing was the thing that would bring them what they wanted.  Ultimately we are all responsible for our own path.  But God will deal with those who are an “accessory to the crime.”  It is not an excuse, but it is inexcusable.  Thus these priests and any who do such things need to confess it and repent of it.

When it says that they had shown partiality in the law, this is a reference to Leviticus 19:15.  “You shall do no injustice in judgment.  You shall not be partial to the poor, nor honor the person of the mighty.  In righteousness you shall judge your neighbor.”  Here God is warning Israel against perverting justice whether for the poor or for the mighty.  Notice how He points out the reasons why we might do either one.  Those who pervert justice for the sake of the poor might think they are doing a good thing.  The poor are in a pitiable situation and don’t have anything in life.  So to pervert justice for them might seem almost spiritual: “fighting for the little guy.”  However, God condemns this.  No society can prosper that rewards wickedness whether from a poor person or a rich one.  Now on the other side we can be tempted to pervert justice for the mighty.  Notice here the word “honor” is used.  These mighty people are heavy weights and can do a lot for us.  Thus we are tempted to esteem them as of greater weight than the poor.  God says not to do it.  Thus we have the cultural image of the “Lady Justice” being blindfolded.  Justice is based on the facts in evidence rather than on who is standing before it.

Now we today have been shown the way by the Gospel of Jesus Christ and the teachings of His Apostles.  How much more important is it for us to pay attention to God’s heart in these matters?  If we pervert justice within the Church of Christ then we not only bring shame on God’s reputation but we also cause ourselves to be contemptible in the sight of the world.

When we adopt a “pick-and-choose” mentality with the things of God we will find that God will not accept such activity.  It is an abomination to Him.  In respect to people, we cannot allow ourselves to pick and choose who we are going to be hard on and who we are going to be easy on.  God will not stand such wicked actions.  We should uphold justice with grace with all people.  In respect to duties or teachings of Christ, we cannot allow ourselves to be partial either.  When we choose which teachings we will follow and which we will disregard, we only bring discipline and judgment from God down on our own heads.  This is a problem that is riddled throughout our society, both in the Church and outside of it.  It is abhorrent to God and is destroying us as a people.  Unless we confess that it is sin and turn away from it back towards the Good Path, then we will continue to slide towards the destruction that awaits such stiff-necked people.  May God give us the grace to see our sin and repent.

Treacherous Heart Audio