Minor Prophets 12: Malachi
You Can Read and Understand...the Minor Prophets • Sermon • Submitted • Presented • 11:46
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Sermon Outline
Malachi Gives the Priests and People—Including Us—a Pep Talk and Reaffirms God’s Promise of Messiah.
I. Through dramatic dialogues by Yahweh, Malachi challenges Judah’s half-hearted commitment to the Lord.
II. Fortunately, God is gracious, for he still promises them “the sun of righteousness . . . with healing in its wings” (4:2).
III. Since the same promises apply to us, we ask ourselves whether we are fully committed to our forgiving God.
Sermon
A son honors his father, and a servant his master. If then I am a father, where is my honor? And if I am a master, where is my fear?” says the Lord of hosts. (Mal 1:6a)
Here’s one of my all-time favorite bumper stickers. It says, “Jesus is coming. Look busy.” That pretty much sums up the attitude among the descendants of exiled Jews who returned to Judah. They looked busy, like they were serving God, but their hearts just weren’t in it.
When Zerubbabel was governor, Haggai and Zechariah had convinced the people to get busy and finish rebuilding the temple. They did; they got it done. Now it’s ninety years later. The temple is rebuilt. The walls of Jerusalem are back up. The city, villages, and farms are restored and repopulated.
The coming Day of the Lord was supposed to be near, the time when a son of David would sit on the throne, defeat all the enemies of God’s people, and bring peace and prosperity forever. But nearly a century later, nothing special has happened. Jerusalem isn’t the world’s greatest city; it’s still insignificant. The enemies of God’s people still outnumber them. Their cousins next door, the Edomites, still threaten them. And David’s son is nowhere in sight.
God seems to have forgotten his promises. True worship of the Lord and love for neighbor has waned. Nobody cares. That’s when Malachi steps in.
Malachi Gives the Priests and People—Including Us—a Pep Talk and Reaffirms God’s Promise of Messiah.
I.
Malachi, whose name means “Messenger,” does this, first through dramatic dialogues. And here’s the first one: “ ‘I have loved you,’ says the Lord” (Mal1:2). But you say, “How have you loved us?” Then God explains that though Jacob and Esau were twins, he chose Jacob to be his people, not Esau. Jacob became Israel; Esau became Edom, whom God plans to destroy (Mal 1:1–5). So whether you believe it or not, Jacob’s family, Israel, is special.
Next, the Lord protests that though he is Father and Master, he is neither honored nor feared. In fact, his priests despise his name. “How have we despised your name?” they ask. He answers that they offer blind, lame, and sick animals as sacrifices on his altar. “Is that not evil? Present that to your governor; will he accept you or show you favor?” (Mal 1:6, 8).
What are these priests thinking, offering culled animals to God? That God is pleased with such sacrifices? The Lord’s priests, says Malachi, are to offer him their best. They’re to listen to God; honor his name; provide true instruction, not falsehood; and walk in peace and uprightness (Mal 2:1–9). Except that’s not what they’re doing.
And it’s not just the priests who offend the Lord; his covenant people do also. “Why then are [you] faithless to one another, profaning the covenant of our fathers?” Malachi asks (Mal 2:10). How are we faithless and profaning the covenant, they wonder? Then Malachi accuses Judah’s men of marrying women who serve foreign gods (Mal 2:11).
Others have divorced the faithful wives God blessed them with, perhaps so they could marry these pagan women. It seems everyone has forgotten that a primary purpose of marriage is to produce godly offspring (Mal 2:10–16). And they still expect God to hear their prayers or accept their offerings? Forget it! says Malachi.
And that’s not all. Sins earlier prophets preached against are back: sorcery, adultery, and swearing falsely; oppressing hired hands, widows and orphans, and travelers passing through (Mal 3:5).
Then there’s this final rebuke that demonstrates the contempt God’s people have for him. I’ll read the whole passage:
Will man rob God? Yet you are robbing me. But you say, ‘How have we robbed you?’ In your tithes and contributions. You are cursed with a curse, for you are robbing me, the whole nation of you. Bring the full tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house. And thereby put me to the test, says the Lord of hosts, if I will not open the windows of heaven for you and pour down for you a blessing until there is no more need. (Mal 3:8–10)
It’s not enough that priests offer blind and sick animals as sacrifices. It’s not enough that they teach lies and aren’t peacemakers. And it’s not enough that the men marry pagan women and divorce the wives God gave them. It’s not enough that they oppress the most vulnerable among them. They also nickel-and-dime God, not bringing him the whole tithe of what they produce on the farms he gave them.
One would think that after God let their country be destroyed for reasons like these, after he caused them to spend seventy years in exile in Babylon, and then after God mercifully let them go home and rebuild their land, they would be a grateful, godly people. But if there’s such a thing as being dumb as a rock and learning nothing, it was these people.
II.
Fortunately, God is gracious. The only reason he hasn’t wiped them off the map forever by this time is because of his unchanging faithfulness: “For I the Lord do not change; therefore you, O children of Jacob, are not consumed,” he says through Malachi (Mal 3:6). God simply will not be unfaithful to himself. He will keep his promises even if his people do not.
Apparently, God’s Word spoken through Malachi gets through to some of the people. We’re told that those who fear the Lord write a “book of remembrance,” a covenant with God. In it, they promise to fear the Lord and esteem his name (Mal 3:16). We’re not told, but they probably sign their names to it. Of these, the Lord says,
In the day when I make up my treasured possession, and I will spare them as a man spares his son who serves him. Then once more you shall see the distinction between the righteous and the wicked. (Mal 3:17–18)
Malachi is full of Law. But there’s Gospel here too. In between Malachi’s condemnations of unfaithful people, he reaffirms the coming of Messiah and even speaks of his forerunner.
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. 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. (Mal 3:1–2)
Four centuries later, Jesus reveals the “messenger” to be John the Baptist, who prepares the way for Christ himself. Jesus is “the Lord whom you seek” who suddenly comes to his temple. And what does he do when he comes? He cleans up sinners; he refines them as in a fire or with laundry soap. We believe Jesus does this through his suffering and death for our sins on the cross as we trust in him and are joined to him in our Baptism.
The coming of Jesus—and he comes in more than one way—is not frightening for those who fear God. For those who welcome him by faith, he comes as “the sun of righteousness . . . with healing in its wings” (Mal 4:2).
III.
Malachi was written about 2,400 years ago, but it’s still relevant to God’s people. Most Christians aren’t in the biological line of Israel, but as children of Abraham by faith, all the promises of God to Israel apply to members of Christ’s Church. We’re grafted in; we’re adopted into God’s family. So all of Malachi’s concerns and promises apply to us now just as they did to Israel. Thus, as we read this little book, we can’t help but ask ourselves:
Are we pastors offering God and his people our very best? Is our instruction faithful to the Bible? Are we walking uprightly? Are we instruments of peace?
When we Christians marry, do we seek a godly spouse? Once married, do we remain faithful to our marriage vows?
Do we keep our promises? Are we fair and kind to workers, widows, orphans, and immigrants?
Is our stewardship, our giving to support the Lord’s work, a high priority? Is it generous and proportional?
Would we, like the faithful people in Malachi’s day, be willing to commit ourselves publicly to God and his values and determine with his help to practice them?
Guess what? If we are baptized and confirmed members of Christ’s Church, that’s exactly what we do already. We make promises just like this to one another. We do it publicly when we’re confirmed or when we become church members or when we sign the constitution and by-laws of our congregation. We may not always live out these values perfectly, but we intend to. When we slip up, as we so often do, we admit our failures, God forgives us for the sake of Jesus’ suffering and death, and he gives us his Holy Spirit to help us do better. Then, as we forgive and encourage one another, we become more like the people God wants us to be.
That’s major!—as all the minor prophets are!
We pray: God, help me give you my very best and live according to all that your Word tells me is good and true. When I fail, forgive me by your grace in Jesus. Refine and wash me so that when he comes, I will be ready to see him face-to-face. Amen.