Sermon Tone Analysis

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People are funny sometimes.

They’ll do something.

And all things have natural consequences.

So, then the consequences of the thing happen.

And then they get mad about the consequences.

People are funny sometimes.

They’ll do something.

And all things have natural consequences.

So, then the consequences of the thing happen.

And then they get mad about the consequences.

Like, you’re flying down the highway because you’re late for work and you get a speeding ticket.

So, you shake your fist at the sky proclaiming, ‘Why me God!

Why me!!!’ The simple truth is, because you were the one speeding when the police officer came along.

But, let’s be honest, you probably speed through there every day and ought to be grateful you only got the one ticket.

But, you do the wrong thing, you get pulled over, you get the ticket, and then you blame God for the natural consequences.

Far more seriously, many parents wonder why their adult children never come around and the cold, hard reality is, you didn’t make the effort to get to know them as kids, so it’s not so much that they avoid you, they’re just hanging out with the people who they know.

And you say, ‘Why did this have to happen to me?,’ when the reality is you never made friends with your kids when you had the chance.

Our choices in life have natural consequences.

If you struggle with your weight, but you polish off a couple cartons of ice-cream every week while watching three hours of Netflix at night, you probably shouldn’t blame God or genetics.

There are decisions that you have made.

You

Our choices have natural consequences.

PAUSE

And sometimes God is just like us dads.

We see our kids about to do something dumb and Mom wants to go and rescue them, but I’m like, ‘No hold up, wait and see what happens.’

Cause kids learn from their mistakes.

The consequences of your mistakes are there for a reason, to teach us.

They’re there to teach us not punish us.

PAUSE

So, the Israelites in Malachi’s day were king of blaming God for the consequences of their own actions.

We’re going to see a pattern in our text.

They broke God’s law, blamed God for their suffering, and then rebelled against God entirely instead of learning from their mistakes.

They broke God’s law, blamed God, and then rebelled against Him.

We’ll start with…

10-12 Taking a Foreign WifeDeuteronomy 7:3 (IVPBBCOT): The prohibition against intermarriage therefore protects the privileges of the covenant as well as the purity of their religious ideals.Note: Malachi is concerned specifically that they bring their foreign wives into the temple.

13 Crying about the consequences of your own decisions.

14-16 Treachery of divorce

7:3 (IVPBBCOT): The prohibition against intermarriage therefore protects the privileges of the covenant as well as the purity of their religious ideals.Note: Malachi is concerned specifically that they bring their foreign wives into the temple.

13 Crying about the consequences of your own decisions.

14-16 Treachery of divorce

Biblical Rules on Marriage and Sexuality are too strict.

Marrying an unbeliever — or outside your tradition, or outside your calling Note, it is not an ethnicity issue (cf Ruth); the issue in the OT was covenant faithfulness to Yahweh just like in the New Testament.

This advice is no different than secular marriage counselors who would aim to pair people based on other issues of compatibility.

The harsh reality of Gods views on divorce.The caveatFor todaySexual fluidityGender neutralityPromiscuity Polygamy (No longer an issue of gay or strait) ExhortationYou made your bed now sleep in it.

Make your beds right.

Our complicated society leaves a lot of people single so it’s hard to take Paul’s advice in 1 Cor.

Breaking the Law

God had laws in the Old Testament about who the Israelites ought to marry.

I won’t rehash it all here, but they were only allowed to marry people who were fellow Israelites, who were Jewish.

Or they could also marry people who had truly converted to Judaism, who had become Jewish.

A good biblical example of that would be the story of Ruth the Moabite marrying Boaz.

In the story Ruth is a Moabite and Boaz a Jew.

Ruth clearly converts to Judaism before Boaz marries her.

What you have to realize is that this command was about maintaining devotion to the Lord God.

This was a 10-commandments, ‘Thou shalt have no other gods’ kind of thing.

The issue had nothing to do with ethnicity.

It wasn’t racism.

God’s plan wasn’t to reject the other nations.

In fact, God’s plan for Israel was to bring all the nations into the family of God.

Look what the Prophet Isaiah recorded.

(CSB) — He says, “It is not enough for you to be my servant raising up the tribes of Jacob and restoring the protected ones of Israel.

I will also make you a light for the nations, to be my salvation to the ends of the earth.”

We see this all over the Old Testament.

God wanted the nations to worship Him.

[BREAKING THE LAW]

The issue for marriage was, when you marry, do not divide the loyalty of your family.

If the husband follows the Lord God, but the wife follows Asherah, then the families interests are divided.

And worse, was the concern that the husband might also begin to worship the foreign god as well.

Paul makes this clear in the New Testament, that even as Christians we would be wise not to marry—or to partner contractually in any way with—people who are not Christians.

The Apostle Paul wrote,

(CSB) — Don’t become partners with those who do not believe.

For what partnership is there between righteousness and lawlessness?

Or what fellowship does light have with darkness?

What agreement does Christ have with Belial?

Or what does a believer have in common with an unbeliever?

And what agreement does the temple of God have with idols?

For we are the temple of the living God, as God said: I will dwell and walk among them, and I will be their God, and they will be my people.

Do you see where Paul went with it?

He pointed back to the Old Testament temple system.

To marry or partner with an unbeliever is to invite the spirit of Belial, which is a New Testament euphemism for the devil, into your relationship.

[BREAKING THE LAW]

And you can almost hear the exasperation in Paul’s words.

He’s so frustrated, because he knows something that honestly any marriage counselor today will tell you.

You have to have a certain amount of lifestyle compatibility with your partner or your marriage is going to fail.

Most psychologists recognize that personality differences are pretty meaningless in relationships.

They don’t matter that much.

If you fall in love with someone with a different personality, great, you can make it work.

But, lifestyle compatibility is so important.

I used to work with a Jewish lady who is married to a Catholic man.

They chose not to celebrate Hanukkah or Christmas, thinking that was the best way to raise their kids and were basically disowned by both families because they never came to holiday celebrations.

So then they started celebrating both, and you can just imagine how that must have confused their children.

Their lifestyles just weren’t compatible and there were consequences.

It’s bad news.

I used to work with a Jewish lady who is married to a Catholic man.

They chose not to celebrate Hanukkah or Christmas, thinking that was the best way to raise their kids and were basically disowned by both families because they never came to holiday celebrations.

So then they started celebrating both, and you can just imagine how that must have confused their children.

Their lifestyles just weren’t compatible and there were consequences.

It’s bad news.

Sociologists will tell you that Cinderella stories rarely have a happy ending.