Malachi

The book of Malachi.

1. God’s Love and Priests

The Book of Malachi is the last record of the prophets before the New Testament. Once again, while the prophets did foretell both future blessings and punishments, one of their primary tasks from God was to convict their society of current sin. We should take their example into account as we seek to rebuke sin in our own hearts as well as in society around us, especially sin within the Christian community.

Malachi didn’t go around criticizing just anybody. He had a message from God to the religious authorities, specifically — the priests were not doing their job. They were not maintaining the priestly rituals appropriately and this dishonoring God’s name. They were delivering blemished offerings.

Malachi 1:6 “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 to you, O priests, who despise my name. But you say, ‘How have we despised your name?’ 7 By offering polluted food upon my altar. But you say, ‘How have we polluted you?’ By saying that the Lord's table may be despised.

We don’t have a special priesthood in the style of the Levites today because Jesus Christ is our high priest and all Christians are priests of a kind. Christ is the ultimate unblemished offering, so we don’t need to give God any more animals. Nevertheless, we still naturally perform ceremonies in the course of life: weekly worship, special holiday events, weddings, funerals. We should be very careful that the ceremonies we perform to worship God are ones that lead to his name being honored, by performing them with unblemished hearts.

Unfortunately, it’s very easy to be distracted in the course of regular worship. Do you find yourself zoning out when scripture is being read in church? Do you stand patiently while songs are being sung without any directing of your thoughts towards God? Are you not repenting of your disobedience? Can you honestly say that during a worship service or throughout the week that you are offering up your whole heart to God? And so God’s rebuke to priests here thousands of years ago applies directly to us, because we are his priests today, and our offerings are blemished. We must be giving honor to God’s name with our whole heart.

The Lord Rebukes the Priests:

2 “And now, O priests, this command is for you. 2 If you will not listen, if you will not take it to heart to give honor to my name, says the Lord of hosts, then I will send the curse upon you and I will curse your blessings. Indeed, I have already cursed them, because you do not lay it to heart. 3 Behold, I will rebuke your offspring, and spread dung on your faces, the dung of your offerings, and you shall be taken away with it.

Can you believe this language? We rarely think of God as someone who uses potty language like this. He’s practically threatening to dunk priests into a toilet. But God moved prophets like Malachi to speak in shocking ways like this on his behalf. The hypocrisy of the priests was so offensive that God considered all of their religious rituals as dung.This is a wake up call.

"4 So shall you know that I have sent this command to you, that my covenant with Levi may stand, says the Lord of hosts. 5 My covenant with him was one of life and peace, and I gave them to him. It was a covenant of fear, and he feared me. He stood in awe of my name. 6 True instruction was in his mouth, and no wrong was found on his lips. He walked with me in peace and uprightness, and he turned many from iniquity. 7 For the lips of a priest should guard knowledge, and people should seek instruction from his mouth, for he is the messenger of the Lord of hosts. "

This is what a good priest does: he honors God; he teaches the truth; he turns people from their sins. Every Christian is called to this in some way. Some are better equipped for this than others, so not all become professional pastors and teachers. But every Christian is a priest and messenger of God, and should be prepared to use his mouth for God’s glory and to provide knowledge for God’s people whenever he can.

You might not feel very confident in this calling — how could I be someone that people seek instruction from? Wrong is found on my lips all the time! How am I suppose to turn others from iniquity when I’m the one sinning? But God has made a covenant of life and peace with us through Christ, and so we start with fearing and honoring him. If you start with fearing and honoring God, the other things will fall into place as needed.

8 But you have turned aside from the way. You have caused many to stumble by your instruction. You have corrupted the covenant of Levi, says the Lord of hosts, 9 and so I make you despised and abased before all the people, inasmuch as you do not keep my ways but show partiality in your instruction.”

If we don’t fear and honor God, what we instruct other people to do will only make them stumble.

10 Have we not all one Father? Has not one God created us? Why then are we faithless to one another, profaning the covenant of our fathers? 11 Judah has been faithless, and abomination has been committed in Israel and in Jerusalem. For Judah has profaned the sanctuary of the Lord, which he loves, and has married the daughter of a foreign god. 12 May the Lord cut off from the tents of Jacob any descendant of the man who does this, who brings an offering to the Lord of hosts!

The men of Judah were marrying outside of the faith to women who worshiped other gods. You must marry a woman who worships the true God or she will turn your heart after false ones.

13 And this second thing you do. You cover the Lord's altar with tears, with weeping and groaning because he no longer regards the offering or accepts it with favor from your hand. 14 But you say, “Why does he not?” Because the Lord was witness between you and the wife of your youth, to whom you have been faithless, though she is your companion and your wife by covenant. 15 Did he not make them one, with a portion of the Spirit in their union? And what was the one God seeking? Godly offspring. So guard yourselves in your spirit, and let none of you be faithless to the wife of your youth. 16 “For the man who does not love his wife but divorces her, says the Lord, the God of Israel, covers his garment with violence, says the Lord of hosts. So guard yourselves in your spirit, and do not be faithless.”

It’s bad enough that the men of Judah were marrying ungodly, pagan women. But they were also divorcing the women to whom they were married. The people of Judah were suppose to be marrying and raising children in the hope that the blessing of God would come through their line — after all, the patriarch Jacob had promised that the sceptre would not depart from Judah (Genesis 49:10) and that one of his descendants would reign over the earth.

Imagine raising families in the hope that the messiah and king of the world would be one of your descendants. If that shouldn’t make you want to preserve your marriage and raise godly children, I don’t know what would. Well, even knowing that Jesus has already been born, Christians should be doubly encouraged to preserve their marriages and raise godly offspring: because all Christians will be heirs of the world with Christ.

Christians who marry outside the faith or do not seek to raise their children in the faith may be admitting without realizing it that they don’t really believe that Christ has inherited the world, or at least that they don’t think their family plays any part in it.

17 You have wearied the Lord with your words. But you say, “How have we wearied him?” By saying, “Everyone who does evil is good in the sight of the Lord, and he delights in them.” Or by asking, “Where is the God of justice?”

This is a sharp rebuke that still has potency to this day. Many today clamor for social justice but then turn around and in the same breath praise those who do evil in the sight of God, reassuring them that God loves and delights in everyone. God does love, but he does not delight in sin.

3. The Lord’s Messenger

3:1 “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. 2 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. 3 He will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver, and he will purify the sons of Levi and refine them like gold and silver, and they will bring offerings in righteousness to the Lord. 4 Then the offering of Judah and Jerusalem will be pleasing to the Lord as in the days of old and as in former years.

God does not allow hypocrites to run the show forever. Just as the priests in Malachi’s day were not ready for God’s judgment, neither are the academics, teachers, and pastors who teach falsehood in our day. They should fear God and prepare themselves.

5 “Then I will draw near to you for judgment. I will be a swift witness against the sorcerers, against the adulterers, against those who swear falsely, against those who oppress the hired worker in his wages, the widow and the fatherless, against those who thrust aside the sojourner, and do not fear me, says the Lord of hosts.

No sin will escape God’s eye. Some are quick to champion the cause of the poor and the refugee, but still practice magic, adultery, and lies. For some it is the opposite: they hate immorality, but use that hatred as an excuse to avoid the poor — after all, the hired worker, the widow, the fatherless, and the sojourner are not always very moral people. We need to condemn all sin while still helping the needy.

The Book of Remembrance

16 Then those who feared the Lord spoke with one another. The Lord paid attention and heard them, and a book of remembrance was written before him of those who feared the Lord and esteemed his name. 17 “They shall be mine, says the Lord of hosts, in the day when I make up my treasured possession, and I will spare them as a man spares his son who serves him. 18 Then once more you shall see the distinction between the righteous and the wicked, between one who serves God and one who does not serve him.

In times such as Malachi’s or ours, when the clergy and academia throughout a nation are very corrupt, those who fear God must speak with one another and pray that he remembers them. We want to be distinct from the wicked. It’s very hard because we have much sin of our own, but we must at least acknowledge the sin, repent, and serve God. That’s something the wicked won’t do.

4. The Day of the Lord

The Great Day of the Lord

4  “For behold, the day is coming, burning like an oven, when all the arrogant and all evildoers will be stubble. The day that is coming shall set them ablaze, says the Lord of hosts, so that it will leave them neither root nor branch. 2 But for you who fear my name, the sun of righteousness shall rise with healing in its wings. You shall go out leaping like calves from the stall. 3 And you shall tread down the wicked, for they will be ashes under the soles of your feet, on the day when I act, says the Lord of hosts.

4 “Remember the law of my servant Moses, the statutes and rules that I commanded him at Horeb for all Israel.

5 “Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the great and awesome day of the Lord comes. 6 And he will turn the hearts of fathers to their children and the hearts of children to their fathers, lest I come and strike the land with a decree of utter destruction.”

This is the last prophetic scripture from the ancient world before the time of Christ. Speaking symbolically, Malachi foretold the return of an “Elijah” who was in actuality John the Baptist, who preached repentance to the people and prepared the way for Jesus. Jesus is the sun of righteousness foretold in this last passage.

In Malachi, we see the record of a corrupt priesthood that caused many to stumble by their instruction. Hundreds of years later, Jesus dealt with the same thing. And thousands of years later, we are still dealing with the same thing: authorities and teachers who speak lies, who do not honor God, who lead others astray. While it is very burdensome to have corrupt teachers, the way forward for those who honor God is clear.

Expanded Thoughts

Any mentor with a relevant story should share a personal experience when a teacher turned out to not be trustworthy — whether in school or in church.

Key Take Aways

The priests cannot always be trusted.

We should all seek to be good priests who others can trust to tell them the truth about God.

Discussion Questions

How do we know if someone is trustworthy to teach us about God? How can we identify people who aren’t trustworthy?

Who are specific teachers in the world or in the church who need to be called out for falsehood? This should be done carefully, of course, and there might be some room for debate.