Sermon Tone Analysis

Overall tone of the sermon

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* *
*Question People Ask*
*Where is the Justice of God?*
*Malachi 2:17-3:6*
You have wearied the LORD with your words.
"How have we wearied him?"
you ask.
By saying, "All who do evil are good in the eyes of the LORD, and he is pleased with them" or "Where is the God of justice?" "See, I will send my messenger, who will prepare the way before me.
Then suddenly the Lord you are seeking will come to his temple; the messenger of the covenant, whom you desire, will come," says the LORD Almighty.
But who can endure the day of his coming?
Who can stand when he appears?
For he will be like a refiner's fire or a launderer's soap.
He will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver; he will purify the Levites and refine them like gold and silver.
Then the LORD will have men who will bring offerings in righteousness, and the offerings of Judah and Jerusalem will be acceptable to the LORD, as in days gone by, as in former years.
"So I will come near to you for judgment.
I will be quick to testify against sorcerers, adulterers and perjurers, against those who defraud laborers of their wages, who oppress the widows and the fatherless, and deprive aliens of justice, but do not fear me," says the LORD Almighty.
"I the LORD do not change.
So you, O descendants of Jacob, are not destroyed."
(NIV)
Did you catch the first part of verse 17 “You have wearied the Lord with your words…”  Israel has already questioned God’s love, majesty and fidelity.
Now they raise another issue His justice.
Yet, the argument is wearing down because they have wearied the Lord (*2:17*).
They have argued that they are all right and that the fault lies with God, but now they charge God with being unfair in all his dealings with man.
They think that God does not discriminate between evil and good, and that he even delights in those who do evil.
Therefore, they ask, “Where is the God of justice?”
Poignantly these two sentences describe a shocking cynicism and mocking disbelief that defiantly resists prophetic critique and efforts to stir up feelings of remorse.
Just because we don’t witness God’s justice upon our world doesn’t mean God has gone soft on sin or is no longer concerned with sin.
No God is still concerned, terrible so with the condition of men’s souls.
And as we study this passage we will discover God is wanting desperately for us to return to Him and embrace Him.
Prayer
God’s Character - Refiner
It does not say in verse 2 that he is like a forest fire, or like an incinerator's fire.
It says that he is like a refiner's fire.
A forest fire destroys indiscriminately.
An incinerator consumes completely.
But verse 6 says, "I the LORD do not change; therefore you, O sons of Jacob, are not consumed—you are not destroyed."
He is a refiner's fire, and that makes all the difference.
A refiner's fire does not destroy indiscriminately like a forest fire.
A refiner's fire does not consume completely like the fire of an incinerator.
A refiner's fire refines.
It purifies.
It melts down the bar of silver or gold, separates out the impurities that ruin its value, burns them up, and leaves the silver and gold intact.
He is like a refiner's fire.
It does say FIRE.
And therefore purity and holiness will always be a dreadful thing.
There will always be a proper "fear and trembling" in the process of becoming pure.
We learn if from the time we are little children: never play with fire!
And it's a good lesson!
Therefore, Christianity is never a play thing.
And the passion for purity is never flippant.
He is like fire and fire is serious.
You don't fool around with it.
But it does say, he is like a REFINER'S fire.
And therefore this is not merely a word of warning, but a tremendous word of hope.
The furnace of affliction in the family of God is always for refinement, never for destruction.
!!!! Now, to unfold this text, let me ask four questions, and point you to their answers in the Scripture in the time we have.
1.    Who is like a refiner's fire?
2.    Why must he be like a refiner's fire?
3.    How can we experience his fire as refining and not consuming?
4.    What is life like in the refiner's fire?
!!!!! 1.
Who is like a refiner's fire?
Verse 1 gives the answer.
As I read it look for three individuals.
Behold, I send my messenger to prepare the way before me, and the Lord whom you seek will suddenly come to his temple; the messenger of the covenant in whom you delight, behold, he is coming, says the Lord of hosts.
The first individual mentioned is "I"—"Behold, I send . .
."
This I is identified at the end of the verse: "Says the Lord of hosts."
The speaker is Jehovah, God the Father.
The second individual mentioned is Jehovah's messenger who prepares the way.
"Behold, I send my messenger to prepare the way before me."
Who is this?
Well the New Testament quotes this very verse to identify John the Baptist, the one who came to prepare the way for Christ (Matt.
11:10; Mark 1:2; Luke 7:27).
But you don't have to read in from the New Testament that this is a kind of prophet whom God would raise up in the last day.
It says in Malachi 4:5, "Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the great and terrible day of the Lord comes.
So the first messenger mentioned in 3:1 that God will send to prepare his way is a kind of Elijah or one like Elijah.
That is why Luke 1:17 says that John the Baptist went before Jesus in the Spirit and the power of Elijah.
The third individual mentioned in verse 1 "The Lord who comes to his temple."
"And the Lord whom you seek will suddenly come to his temple; the messenger of the covenant in whom you delight."
This is another messenger, different from the first.
Who is this person?
Three things point to the divine Son of God and Messiah.
1.
He is called "Lord"—a term that Malachi would not apply to Elijah or John the Baptist.
This person is someone greater.
2.    The temple is said to belong to him: He will suddenly come to "HIS temple."
Of whom could you say that he is the owner of the temple of God?
3.    This person seems to be almost identical with Jehovah, not only because Jehovah's temple is his temple, but also because he seems to take the place of the word "me" in the first half of the verse.
It says, "Behold, I send my messenger (Elijah = John the Baptist) to prepare the way before ME . .
."
But then he switches without any difficulty and instead of saying, "And I will suddenly come to my temple . .
." he says, "And the Lord whom you seek will suddenly come to his temple."
It looks as though "me"—Jehovah—is virtually interchangeable with this other person called the Lord, who owns the temple of God.
So I conclude that the messenger of the covenant, the Lord, the owner of the temple of God is none other than the Son of God, who is with God and is God, and who came into the world and made himself known to us personally in Jesus Christ.
So when verse two goes on to say, "But who can endure the day of his coming, and who can stand when he appears, for he is like a refiner's fire," I conclude that it is talking about the Son of God who came to us in Jesus Christ.
!!!!! 2. Why must he be like a refiner's fire?
The answer is implied in the word itself.
He must be a like a refiner's because *we need to be refined*.
We were created in the image of God with the potential to reverence God and trust him and obey him and glorify him, but we were born in iniquity and in sin did our mothers conceive us.
We are shot through with the impurity of rebellion and unbelief, and we fall short of God's glory again and again.
You can prove this to yourself in many ways.
For example you can notice how readily your heart inclines to those things that will show your strengths to other people, and how resistant your heart is to communion with God in solitude.
When we meet people we want to show ourselves in the best of light possible- our strengths are highlighted.
Look at me!
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