In Paul Carrington's sermon 'Malachi: The God of Love,' he explores the themes of God's enduring love and the spiritual shortcomings of Israel as presented in the book of Malachi. Malachi's message addresses Israel's questioning of God's love, their insincere worship practices, and the priests' failure to honor God. The sermon highlights the Israelites' mixed marriages with pagan wives, which symbolize their unfaithfulness, and discusses the prophecy of John the Baptist as a harbinger of the Messiah. Malachi's warnings about the neglect of tithes and offerings serve as a reminder of God's sovereignty and the consequences of insincere religion. Ultimately, the sermon underscores the persistent love of God and His call for repentance and renewal among His people.

Good morning. I'm going to be reading from Malachi chapter 1. As you said, other brothers will come up after and read 2 through 4 to get us through the sermon text for today. Please follow along in your copy of the scripture. Malachi chapter 1.

The burden of the word of the Lord to Israel by Malachi. I have loved you, says the Lord, yet you say, in what way have you loved us? Was not Esau Jacob's brother, says the Lord, yet Jacob I have loved, but Esau I have hated, and laid waste his mountains and his heritage from the jackals of the wilderness. Even though Edom has said we have been impoverished, but we will return and build the desolate places. Thus says the Lord of hosts, they may build, but I will throw down.

They shall be called the territory of wickedness and the people against whom the Lord will have indignation forever. Your eyes shall see and you shall say the Lord is magnified beyond the border of Israel. A son honors his father and a servant his master. If then I am the father, where is my honor? And if I am a master, where is my reverence?

Says the Lord of hosts to the priests who despise my name. Yet you say, in what way have we despised to your name? You offer defiled food on my altar, but say, in what way have we defiled you? By saying the table of the Lord is contemptible. And when you offer the blind as a sacrifice, is it not evil?

And when you offer the lame and sick, is it not evil? Offer it then to your governor. Would he be pleased with you? Would he accept you favorably? Says the Lord of hosts.

But now entreat God's favor that he may be gracious to us. While this is being done by your hands will he accept you favorably? Says the Lord of hosts. Who is there even among you who would shut the doors so that you would not kindle fire on my altar in vain? I have no pleasure in you, says the Lord of Hosts, nor will I accept an offering from your hands.

For from the rising of the sun, even to its going down, my name shall be great among the Gentiles. In every place incense shall be offered to my name, and a pure offering for my name shall be great among the nations, says the Lord of hosts. But you profane it and that you say the table of the Lord is defiled and its fruit, its food is contemptible. You also say oh what awareness and you sneer at it says the Lord of hosts and you bring the stolen the lame and the sick Thus you bring an offering. Should I accept this from your hand, says the Lord, but cursed be the deceiver who has in his flock a male and takes a vow, but sacrifices to the Lord what is blemished.

For I am a great king, says the Lord of hosts, and my name is to be feared among the nations." Chapter 2. And now, O priests, this commandment is for you. If you will not hear, and if you will not take it to heart, to give glory to my name says the Lord of hosts. I will send a curse upon you and I will curse your blessings. Yes, I have cursed them already because you do not take it to heart.

Behold, I will rebuke your descendants and spread refuse on your faces, the refuse of your solemn feasts. And one will take you away with it, then you shall know that I have sent this commandment to you, that my covenant with Levi may continue, says the Lord of hosts. My covenant was with him, one of life and peace, and I gave to him that he might fear me. So he feared me, and was reverent before my name. The law of truth was in his mouth, and injustice was not found on his lips.

He walked with me in peace and equity, and turned many away from iniquity. For the lips of a priest should keep knowledge, and People should seek the law from his mouth, for he is the messenger of the Lord of hosts. But you have departed from the way. You have caused many to stumble at the law. You have corrupted the covenant of Levi, says the Lord of hosts.

Therefore I also have made you contemptible and base before all the people because you have not kept my ways but have shown partiality in the law. Have we not all one Father? Has not one God created us? Why do we deal treacherously with one another by profaning the covenant of the fathers? Judah has dealt treacherously and an abomination has been committed in Israel and in Jerusalem, for Judah has profaned the Lord's holy institution, which he loves.

He has married the daughter of a foreign god. May the Lord cut off from the tents of Jacob, the man who does this, being awake and aware, yet who brings an offering to the Lord of hosts? And this is the second thing you do. You cover the altar of the Lord with tears, with weeping and crying. So He does not regard the offering anymore, nor receive it with goodwill from your hands.

Yet you say, For what reason? Because the Lord has been witness between you and the wife of your youth, with whom you have dealt treacherously. Yet she is your companion and your wife by covenant. But did he not make them one, having a remnant of the Spirit? And why one?

He seeks godly offspring. Therefore take heed to your spirit and let none deal treacherously with a wife of his youth. For the Lord God of Israel says that he hates divorce for it covers one's garment with violence says the Lord of hosts. Therefore take heed to your spirit that you do not deal treacherously. You have wearied the Lord with your words, yet you say, In what way have we wearied him?

In that you say, Everyone who does evil is good in the sight of the Lord, and he delights in them all. Where is the God of justice? Chapter 3. 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, even 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 a launderer's soap. He will sit as a refiner and as a purifier of silver. He will purify the sons of Levi and purge them as gold and silver, that they may offer to the Lord an offering in righteousness.

Then the offering of Judah and Jerusalem will be pleasant to the Lord, as in the days of old, as in former years. And I will come near you for judgment. I will be a swift witness against sorcerers, against adulterers, against perjurers, against those who exploit wage-earners and widows and orphans, and against those who turn away an alien, because they do not fear me, says the Lord of hosts. For I am the Lord. I do not change.

Therefore you are not consumed, O sons of Jacob. Yet from the days of your fathers you have gone away from my ordinances and have not kept them. Return to me and I will return to you, says the Lord of Hosts. But you said, In what way shall we return? Will a man rob God?

Yet you have robbed me. But you say, In what way have we robbed you? In tithes and offerings. You are cursed with a curse, for you have robbed me, even this whole nation. Bring all the tithes into this storehouse, that there may be food in my house.

And try me now in this, says the Lord of hosts, if I will not open for you the windows of heaven and pour out for you such blessings that there will not be room enough to receive it. And I will rebuke the devourer for your sakes so that he will not destroy the fruit of your ground, Nor shall the vine fail to bear fruit for you in the field, says the Lord of hosts. And all nations will call you blessed, for you will be a delightful land, says the Lord of hosts. Your words have been harsh against me, says the Lord. Yet you say, What have we spoken against you?

You have said it is useless to serve God. What profit is it that we have kept His ordinances and that we have walked as mourners before the Lord of hosts? So now we call the proud blessed, for those who do wickedness are raised up. They even tempt God and go free. Then those who fear the Lord spoke to one another, and the Lord listened and heard them.

So a book of remembrance was written before him for those who fear the Lord and who meditate on his name. They shall be mine, says the Lord of hosts, on the day that I make them my jewels, and I will spare them as a man spares his own son who serves him. Then you shall again discern between the righteous and the wicked, between one who serves God and one who does not serve him. Chapter 4. For behold, the day is coming, burning like an oven.

And all the proud, yes, all who do wickedly will be stubble. And the day which is coming shall burn them up, says the Lord of hosts. That will leave them neither root nor branch. But to you who fear my name, the Son of Righteousness shall arise with healing in His wings, and you shall go out and grow fat like stall-fed calves. You shall trample the wicked, for they shall be ashes under the soles of your feet on the day that I do this, ' says the Lord of hosts.

Remember the law of Moses, my servant, which I commanded him in Horeb for all Israel, with the statutes and judgments. Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord and he will turn the hearts of the fathers to the children and the hearts of the children to their fathers lest I come and strike the earth with a curse. Let's pray. Father, we thank you for your word. We know it is good.

It's good for our instruction in righteousness. We know that it is the truth. Lord, there are many words here of both blessing and cursing. Help us to understand what they mean, Lord. Help us to understand how to apply it in the New Testament church.

Lord, help our brother Paul as he comes and he preaches this word to us. We had some technical difficulties earlier and so Samuel and Mr. Burke are passing out new handouts or outlines for for this morning's sermon. If you could, please just keep your Bibles open to the book of Malachi, where we're gonna be spending our time here this morning. It's really been a blessing for me to be able to prepare this.

And as our brother just prayed, There's so much in this book, both blessings and cursings. And so we come to a point here in the last book of the Old Testament, 80 years after the prophets Haggai and Zechariah, There were three post-exilic prophets that came after the exile and the return back to Jerusalem. And Malachi really is that last prophetic voice in the entire Old Testament. He's the last of the twelve minor prophets. And We're going to be seeing today how God has ordained it that the sun would set on the Old Testament.

There's so much here that we can glean for ourselves, even though it was a book written primarily to the Jews of that day. It's a book of 55 verses. So we're saying we're going through a whole book, but at the end of the day. It's it's 55 verses So it's somewhat manageable. I hope But really what we're going to be looking at is a man That more than anything else was a reformer.

He was a man who who came with a particular purpose We've seen other men like that in Haggai, in Zechariah, in Ezra. We'll see it as we get into the book of Nehemiah. And it's a book that instills both fear of affliction to those who are comfortable and indifferent, while at the same time, he offers comfort for the afflicted remnant. And there's not a lot of background on this man Malachi. There's no genealogy.

It doesn't say Malachi the son of or anything like that. All we really know about Malachi is what we're going to be going through here this morning. But his name is very telling. His name actually means my messenger. That's what the name of Malachi means, my messenger.

God has sent him. And in terms of timing, on the handout or on the outline, there's an attempt at a timeline to put together just a picture as to the timeframe he might have been prophesying in. We don't have a lot of markers, but we do know that the temple has been built and that two generations has passed, roughly, since the time of Ezra. He's still around, Ezra is, but it's a later period, like I said, probably about 80 years after Haggai and Zechariah did their work. And of course, the Jews are back in their land, so it's very, very likely that he was prophesying in the time of Nehemiah, in the time of Ezra.

Because a lot of the same sins that we're going to be looking at today, things like marriage to heathen wives, and neglect of paying the tithes, corruption of the priesthood, these are all things that we'll be taking a look at as we go through. But really what one of the core themes of this book, a real important thing that we all want to make sure we come away with is this understanding of what God I think is communicating. The perils of insincere and heartless religion. Religion that has a form but it has absolutely no heart within it formalism has taken over You know delight has given way to weariness people are just simply just going through the motions But there's absolutely no spark of life in it And when you think of worship what is worship supposed to be worship is is a wonderful celebration of being in covenant and fellowship with God. But they had reduced it to just this empty formal ritual that they would do in a very transactional way.

You see, it was a people who had reduced the worship of God to what they could get out of it. And they thought, well, if I do these things my external performance will put a demand on God. And they were demanding that God bless them. And when those so-called deserved blessings, quote-unquote, were withheld, they charged God with a lack of fidelity. When he didn't do it on their schedule, they got upset and spoke against him.

But over and against that theme, What we're going to be seeing here is the love of God for sinful men. Overriding the hardness, the heart of the heart of these people. We see this amazing picture of the love of God. And I found just going through this, there's a real temptation to focus a lot and just put all of our energy into speaking about the love of God without really being warned about the things that God is warning his people about. It's very easy to just get to the good stuff, quote unquote, but to miss the things that God is also instructing.

Because, you know, Paul says that. He says that whatsoever things were written a for time were written for our learning That we through patience and comfort of the scriptures Might have hope and one of the things that we can gain hope from is also being warned About not following a particular path And if you look all the way through history, you'll see this time and again where religion becomes dull and people become just hardened in their faith. And if you go back just 130 years ago to the nation of Great Britain, it's still a nation. 130 years ago, something terrible happened called the Great Downgrade. Some of you might have heard about that.

And they have yet, now in 2017, to even begin to climb out of this great downgrade that they entered in over 130 years ago. At one time in the late 1800s, some have said that giants roamed the earth in the United Kingdom. You had men like J.C. Ryle, men like George Mueller. You had this amazing heritage of missionaries, people that went out like Hudson Taylor.

You had men like C.T. Studd and thousands of others that left all to follow Christ. And this period, there was such a great, great deposit. But somewhere toward the end of the 1800s, we face this thing called the Great Downgrade. And the man involved in this was a man by the name of Charles Spurgeon.

It was probably the most dramatic and most disastrous account of his entire career, if you will, as a pastor. He had created a firestorm that sent shockwaves through all of the evangelical church and part of what he was called, part of the Baptist Union. And a lot of new things were being introduced through this new doctrine called higher criticism that was introduced in Germany. And so he had been used to being attacked for decades. He had been attacked by the media.

He was mocked. They would do all sorts of drawings and caricatures of him for decades and he was fine with that. He was able to weather those storms but now the guns had been pointed at him from within, from within his own Baptist Union. And so in 1887, five years before his death, he had this magazine that he would put out that would capture a lot of the ideas, a lot of the things he was trying to portray. It was called The Sword and the Trowel, and he put out an article that got a lot of attention, that was addressing the slippery slope away from biblical doctrine, godly behavior which are often tied together.

People were moving away from established Christian doctrines. They were now being openly attacked. You know, the historical positions of biblical Christianity like eternal punishment, the deity of Christ, the inspiration of the scripture, Is the Holy Spirit really part of the Godhead? All of these things were being Revisited and Spurgeon was a lone voice in the midst of this great downgrade and what he was doing He was just calling the people back to doctrinal fidelity. He felt it was his duty to resist this terrible downward decline that was happening, this spiral downward.

And this is what he wrote, he says this, and think about this in the context of Malachi, he says this, a new religion has been initiated which is no more Christianity than chalk is cheese. And this religion, being destitute of moral honesty, palms itself off as the old faith with slight improvements. And on this plea usurps pulpits which were erected for gospel preaching. The atonement is scorned. The inspiration of Scripture is derided.

The Holy Spirit is degraded into an influence. The punishment of sin is turned into fiction and the resurrection into a myth. And yet these enemies of our faith expect us to call them brethren and maintain a confederacy with them. The case is mournful. Certain ministers are making infidels.

Avowed atheists are not a tenth as dangerous as those preachers who scatter doubt and stab at faith. Germany was made unbelieving by her preachers, and England is following in her tracks. And as I said, when you go now over to the UK, you go to Germany or any of these places, it's an absolute wasteland when it comes to spiritual things. Do you know that in the UK the most common name for a baby is now Mohammed, followed a distant second by Oliver and then Jack. I mean, not even comparable.

It's now the most common name for a child. The apostasy in these regions is just amazing. And you know, as a church we've been talking a lot about evangelism. And we are absolutely called to share our faith. But the other thing that we're also charged to do is to keep our faith as well.

And so on Charles Spurgeon's epitaph, when you go and look at his gravestone, you know what's written? I have fought the good fight. I have finished the course. I have kept the faith and I pray that that would be what happens here because Here's the situation in our day in 2017 that we need to reckon with that a downgrade is never far away Wherever the church loses a sense of God, it's right around the corner. Wherever godly men suddenly begin to get tired.

And where the love of God and His power becomes a little old and passe. And Historic doctrines of the faith are not really held held on to anymore where there's really no more contending for the faith We just live in a in an age of tolerance and there's no one standing for the truth be warned that a downgrade isn't far away, and we'll be exploring that today. You know, just two weeks ago, or last week I think it was, our pastor, Mike Davenport, he sent in an article written by Climbrad and Beywe, a man in Zambia that we know. And here was a man, I read this article, and I saw a man who was who was pleading so we say well That's 130 years ago. That's the days of Malachi and now in Zambia in East Africa Here is a man pleading to the youth of the church Not just the youth but to the leaders And he wrote this in this article entitled, We Have Lost the Sense of God, and examine yourself, see where you stand in this regard.

He says, Oh for a generation of young people who will once again have the atmosphere of eternity upon their souls. Oh for a band of young adults who will have a profound sense of God that will make them cry as Isaiah cried, woe is me for I am lost for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips. For my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts. Oh, for authentic biblical Christianity to once again permeate our churches. When God raises up such generation, we will rest assured that the future of the church militant is in good hands, for the people who know their God will do great exploits for him.

Until then, we should Weep in prayer and refuse to be comforted. We have lost our sense of God. And so here's this man, Malachi, 2, 400 years ago in much a similar climate where if you were to look at the Barnapoles of his day in Israel, it would show that 90% of all the people in that land were professed believers. Born again, they would say. But what God saw was not what they saw.

See, these people, as we just read through this whole book, what you begin to see is they were totally unconscious of their departure from God they didn't know it when God challenges them they say what do you mean all is well as far as we can tell and so you have to ask the question How did we get here from a people that we saw in Ezra just the last chapter where we hear the words yes Lord to prove your love God Prove it to us. How did we get from that to this? Well, I think a lot of it has to do with perhaps a lot of what Zechariah the prophet might have preached about. He spoke of this coming golden age and now approximately a hundred years have passed since these prophecies and they still find themselves underneath the thumb of foreign domination. Things just weren't all that glorious.

You know, the things that Zechariah said that Jerusalem would be the center of the earth and all the nations would be flocking to her and that there would be this beautiful picture of old people just sitting in the streets and all the children running up and down the street and playing. You know, the land wasn't yielding the abundance they were expecting. And as a result of all these disappointments, religion had just lost its heart. It became an outward shell. And no longer were they enslaved in Egypt, no longer were they slaves in Babylon, but something much, much worse had come upon them.

A much greater enslavement and that was the enslavement of an icy heart where There was indifference toward God that was now assailing the church and so into this into this climate this cold climate God sends this man Malachi a bold reformer to preach repentance to the wayward Heartless professors and The main theme of this message is I have loved you. You see that. In another part, you see after even a whole recounting of their sins, and yet entreat God's favor. And then further on in the scriptures, after you say they've gone too far, You see these words return to me. God is constantly extending his hand down to these people.

And exposing their dead religion, he pleads with them on the basis of love, This persistent love that is spurned and sinned against, God's love towards them. And they've been corrupted and yet God still extends his forgiveness. He's warning the proud but at the same time we see him embracing a faithful remnant. And at the end of this all, what we see toward the end of the book is this amazing new day that's been prophesied, this work of redemption, a new day, a better day with better promises is coming, arising with John the Baptist, Heralding the coming of the Messiah. It's the only hope that we have for man It talks about this idea that even as the Sun goes down on this prophet in the Old Testament It ends with this beautiful picture of the Sun of righteousness rising with healing in his wings It's amazing amazing picture.

So there's there's great hope and so if you have a an outline in front of you What you'll notice is that? Woven through this entire book are six disputations where God makes an assertion. The people object to what God is saying. And then God proves or refutes their objection. He proves why they're false.

And the outline is broken down in six sections. We talk about God's love in section one which again sets the foundation. A lot of the time will be spent in the second part, the sinful priests. Then we also have the mixed marriages in section three. Section four is Christ coming and the forerunner spoken of.

And then section five, neglecting of tithes and offerings. And then finally we end with this encouragement to the remnant but also warnings to the proud and and after this just think of how important this book is that after this book the prophetic voice of God sleeps for 400 years 420 450 years we don't know exactly and then revived in the spirit of John the Baptist. So let's get into section one. And it starts off with this burden, first of all, the burden, you know, this weight, this pronouncement, this sentence or oracle that Malachi is carrying and he unloads it here with these people and he starts off by saying I have loved you. This is the voice of God and as we're going through these different Disputations what I want you to do is just think of God as a father, and then the children of Israel as a child.

It's really helpful because if you think about this, here's this father saying to his wayward son, or to his wayward daughter, I have loved you. And with arms crossed, you see this young person there, saying, what have you really done for me dad what have you ever done for me it's almost this hand over the mouth like you're afraid that God is about to just let a lightning bolt loose because of this other disrespect and dishonor towards God. It's like they're saying we've seen no evidence of your love God. Prove it. Show us where you've loved us.

But rather than the lightning bolt, even though they're contradicting the living God, God actually answers them. I think even in his answer, it's a declaration of his love. Would you actually answer somebody like this? Well God, the God of the universe, actually does. And so he starts off by declaring his love when they say, well how have you loved us?

By pointing to this comparison between these two children of Isaac, Jacob and Esau, and he makes the point he says, yet Jacob I have loved, in verse 3 it says, but Esau I have hated. And I think this is really an amazing picture that he's pointing to right here because what he's really saying is, do you remember the sin of Esau? Do you remember what Esau did when he sinned? It was that he didn't value or discern his birthright. He traded it in for a bowl of soup because he was hungry.

But God set his love on Jacob before he was even born. Before either of them were born, he made this declaration. It's a sign of election and he's drawing now to these people a very vivid, vivid picture. If you want to see what it's like to be hated by me or not loved by me, Just go over and look at the people of Edom and see how they fare. You see right now you're back in your homeland.

I've done so many things for you, But if you want to see what it's like to not be loved by me, go and see. Because the only difference between Jacob and Esau, what is the difference? God. That's it. God's election.

And yet, How have these children of Israel responded to God's election? They have done worse than Esau even did. Because how many times throughout the course of their history, when we went through the book of Isaiah, or when we saw in Ezra, or as we'll see in Nehemiah, how many times did they trade in their birthright, so to speak, to go and play the harlot with foreign nations go through the book of Kings and Chronicles and you'll see that go through the book of Judges and you'll see that time and again and yet God's long-suffering here is staggering the only reason Why you're still even in existence Jacob is Because of me because of my love that I've set upon you And if you just look back in the last 100 years right what we've been covering in the book of of Ezra Look what God has done. He's and here are the people complaining. How have you loved us?

Well, look what he's done. He plucked them out of Babylon. Not only from the house of bondage in Egypt way before, but now he's taken them out of the house of Babylon. And look at the lengths, the mountains that he moved when he he stirred the hearts of pagan kings like Cyrus and Artaxerxes. I mean he did this for his people.

Remember the protection of Ezra when when he journeyed back four months 900 miles from Babylon all the way to Jerusalem and God protected him when he carted a hundred and sixty million dollars worth of precious metals with no armed guard You think about all these things the temple has been restored by now and the walls of Jerusalem have now been fully built and God has extended forgiveness in a million ways. These people all the way through, you remember how Zechariah referred to them? He called them the apple of his eye. And when you look all the way through the Bible, what do you see? References to Israel as the vine, the tended vine or the cultivated olive tree God is so intimately interested in their welfare and how do they respond?

Prove it That is the heart of these people at this time and his love has been so just so amazing So One man has said that God's love is like an ocean without a shore or a sun without a sphere. There's just no beginning, no end. It's all just so amazing and poured out towards his people. And so the temptation for us, oftentimes I think as a people, is to ask yourself, are there times when if you look at the human heart, not just as Christians, but even generally, what is the tendency of our hearts? The tendency of the human heart is to not look at what we have and be blessed with, but it's to look at the things we don't have.

You know, I have a house, but it's not that house. I have a car, but it's not that car. I have a job, but it's not that job. And we have all these different things going through our minds and rather than counting our blessings as we sing Naming them one by one and and being taken up with the goodness of God towards me. Remember how undeserving we are and yet God has extended his great love to us.

Don't be like these people in Israel. A lot of times you know there's that proverb that says hope deferred makes the heart sick right? You're putting your heart on something. I just want this Lord please and it doesn't come right away and so what happens there's a temptation a lot of times to betray the smile of God upon you. And to complain or to just say, you know what, God loves other people, but I don't really feel or see his love upon me.

Things haven't gone the way that you've envisioned, but that's not a sign that God is not there. And I think even sitting here today, there might be some who cannot see the love of God because of the smoke of affliction. Perhaps you're going through something and you're just doubting and not really counting up the love that God has towards you. Well, think about what God has done for us in the cross. You know, while we were still sinners, Christ, God commends his love to us in the sending of his Son.

And there's so much there. Don't be that disenchanted young person that crosses their arms and says, we've been sold a bill of goods. What's with all this talk of salvation? Look at all we've done. And God still hasn't come through on his end of the bargain.

Don't be like that but be a thankful person who who reciprocates the love of God because that is where our safety is and I think we can learn a lot from these people here But But going into the second section here, the next two sections, in fact, are really important for especially applicable to leaders, especially applicable to husbands who are also leaders. And if you're a young man here in the church that desire one day to be married, these next two sections are very applicable to you as well. It really deals this next one here in verses 6 down to 2 verse 9, is really God coming against the priests, the leaders of his day. And on this backdrop of this foundational dispute of God's love What we're going to see is how he deals with these sinful priests these these men actually represent what I would call the anti-esra We see the the heart of Ezra to serve and honor and and fear God And now we see the exact opposite in these men. And so if Ezra was ultimately about worship, so is Malachi.

But it's from a different perspective in that it manifests their waning love towards God. And if you think about what God asked for when people came to worship, when they came to bring their sacrifices, it was really two things. He didn't require a great deal from the people. He wasn't saying, give me 50% of what you have. He made a very limited requirement for them when they came to bring their sacrifices, but the requirement was that it would be the first and That it would be the best When they came before him and so he begins now to to launch against these hypocritical priests who would not even present the kind of sacrifices they were presenting to the ruler of the universe, to simply a ruler of a little precinct on earth whose breath is in his nostrils.

They wouldn't do that because they had lost their view or their sense of God Entirely and you know this word honor is really I think a key word to focus on it's not just obedience right honor is not just Well fine dad. I'll do what you want me to do But honor is this inward disposition of the heart. How you actually look upon or gaze upon somebody. Do you have honor for them? Well, these men had zero honor for God.

And again, we're looking at men who were entirely hypocrites. They were obeying God grudgingly. It was almost as though it was against their will. And so there was no heart at it, in it whatsoever. And the question to ask ourselves is how much heart?

How much heart is in your religion? How much heart is in my religion? How much of it is just the grudging, I got to do it because I got to get it done versus this idea because remember this that the great downgrade the great downgrade that we read about earlier and that's happening in other parts of the world it always first begins in the heart it takes place in the heart and first Samuel 2 it says this For those who honor me I will honor, and those who despise me shall be lightly esteemed. And so he begins with the leadership. I thank God for the leaders that we have here in this church, But here we see an entirely different picture and I think something we can we can all learn from and that this is the case That sin has simply become normal or normative at this time There was a prevailing level of acceptability in the worship that people would be able to do whatever they wanted and hey, at least they're coming.

You know, there was this sin of toleration. That as long as people come, it validates me and so, hey, I'm just going to put up with whatever they want, but there's a great, great temptation in leadership to succumb to this kind of thing, right? The worst kind of leader you can ever want in a church or even as a husband, and you wives, it might be worth considering, is having this malleable husband, right? This man that you can just do whatever you want with him, or a pastor or a leader, that you can just kind of turn the dials, who's just constantly in fear of people. Remember this, at Spurgeon, he lost almost everything.

That great downgrade standing against the tide, it cost him almost everything. Even his own brother pretty much disowned him. And it was what many people say what drove him to his grave. He died, I think, at the age of 58. But what he saw was that to remain within the Union would be tantamount to theological treason.

He could not do it with a clear conscience. And here were men who had no problem. Their consciences were fine with what they were doing. You know, if we look at what these leaders should have done, they should have stopped the first sign of this downgrade. Perhaps if they had done that, We wouldn't even have all that we have written here in the book of Malachi.

But instead, again, they thought, well, activity, as long as we're having activities, and things are going on, that things are well. And so we see this, that the downgrade starts in the heart, but it's able to make great strides when you have leaders that simply tolerate what God says is intolerable. When husbands just let whatever happen on their watch, it's not a good thing. Now the dictator in us will run with that and say, hey, I'm going to put my foot down and claim. No, I'm talking about Christ-like leadership.

I'm not talking about license to step on people or license to abuse people. I'm not talking about that at all. But rather I'm talking about people fearing leaders. Leaders that are preoccupied with optics and how will this appear and so we need to be in prayer for our leaders that this would never happen because the temptation is always there and and wives also remembering this just like in the church your safety is not in passive husbands but in men who fear God men like Malachi Men that will stand for the truth. Because that's the most important thing.

And so we see these things that perhaps never had things reach such a low ebb. At least in the days of Isaiah, they were offering huge quantities of sacrifices. And there's no mention of them being lame and blind and maimed or anything like that but here things have reached this ebb where They were just offering whatever still had a heartbeat to God, but in Leviticus 22 God had spoken. He said whatever has a defect you shall not offer For it shall be it shall not be acceptable on your behalf It must be perfect to be accepted there shall be no defect in it those that are blind or broken or maimed or have an ulcer or eczema or scabs you shall not offer to the Lord nor make an offering by fire of Them on the altar of the Lord But but now the the altar of sacrifice had no sacrifice at it on it at all It goes on later on in the same chapter and it says you're offering stolen. Can you imagine that you're going to the temple to offer a sacrifice for your sin and the thing that you're bringing is something that you just stole from your neighbor.

It's breathtaking to think what these people were actually doing because they had entirely lost their sense of God. They didn't understand that the offerings of this spotless, unblemished lamb was actually foreshadowing the Lord Jesus Christ. They just had no regard for it at all. And so in all of this, it's a terrible situation. But in verse 9, again we see the love of God.

It says, but now entreat God's favor. And he's calling these priests to repent. You know, this is what Malachi does throughout this book. He's opening the wound, but then he applies the healing balm. He's telling them the situation, and then he says, repent.

But in verse 10, perhaps one of the most shocking verses, right after, on the heels of that, He says this, who is there even among you who would shut the doors so that you would not kindle a fire on my altar in vain? I have no pleasure in you says the Lord. And this is this is almost like a Hebrew idiom. What it means is, oh that someone among you would shut the door of the temple so that you would not light my altar in vain. He's saying, you know what, you've got the temple, but I wish someone put a bar over the door and lock it that no one would come in and mock me anymore.

I mean, it's a low place to be that these people were in. There was no one zealous for his name anymore. He's basically saying stop trampling my courts. This idea of Christianity light that even pervades our culture today. You know, this consumer entertainment based religion.

God has no pleasure in that at all. People come, but God has no pleasure in it at all. Like Eli, the priests, instead of stopping them, they said, you do not well, my son. But it was this weak, this weak refutation of what they were doing. And they were encouraging this evil, coddling people in their sins.

And when you coddle sin in the next generation, it won't be long before you get a great downgrade that looks like it's unrecoverable that goes in two or three generations and of course in regards to the whole operation we know in AD 70 God shuts it all down anyways he's no longer pleased and he shuts the door totally and forever on the temple and so we've I think it's worth us examining ourselves and saying here, you know, as the church, have we so lowered the bar? You know, and I'm not just talking about our church, I'm saying just overall where just give God an hour on Sunday, and this entertainment kind of carnival religion that passes for religion in our day, the way of life being trivialized, just down to a prayer. You look around and Salvation is on sale at bargain basement prices. You can just go anywhere and get dunked, or you can just make a professional walk an aisle, get your get out of hell free card, and all is well. This is what we've done with Christianity.

And there's very little talk of demand. What's this talk of the cross and walking in obedience to God. It's something entirely different, but God says to these people, my name from the rising of the sun, even to its going down, shall be great among the nations. God, whether you want to or not, God says, I'm going to bring about all my will. I'm going to Accomplish the thing that I've set from the very beginning and its purpose is to gain that glory throughout the entire earth And so Jesus Christ comes 400 years later There's a lot of religion going on in the days of Christ, but how Isaiah describes them is like a root out of a dry ground.

See, what man sees and what God sees is entirely different. When God looked down, it's like a parched desert with just this little root of sustenance coming out of the ground. When man looked down it looked like there was a lot going on. Pharisees, Sadducees, Essenes, Herodians, scribes, you had a lot of things happening. But activity doesn't actually equal God being pleased with us.

And So this idea of God being a great king is what he says in the end of verse 14 I am a great king says the Lord of hosts and my name is to be feared among the nations and in chapter 2 As though you thought maybe this is not enough the rebuke continues and he goes after the the priest kind of doubles up on them and you know you think about this too in the days of Christ, right? When Christ was preaching, who did he reserve his harshest rebukes for? It was most often for the religious leaders of his day, those that were leading the blind, leading the blind, taking people astray, those who sat in Moses' seat. Well, this is what these men were doing, and they were causing people to err. And it's such a dangerous thing when you look at verse 3 of chapter 2, it says, Behold, I will rebuke your descendants, or I will curse your descendants.

And it's worth considering this, the long-tail effect of hypocritical religion. Right? How it has a long-tail effect. We were talking about it on Tuesday morning, how when we were preaching at the abortion mill and how so many people that were coming as atheists against us, you talked to them one-on-one, and almost all of them to a T grew up in quote-unquote Christian homes. And they had been made atheists.

Why? Because they saw their parents' religion had zero benefit for them. They didn't actually live it. They would go to church and then act a different way when they got home. Well, that wasn't the thing.

You know, it's like a father saying to his son, hey son, go get a lamb. We're going to go to the temple. Go get a lamb. Just get that one that can't walk and that's blind in the corner and the son brings that in. What would you think that son will now think of his father's religion?

It's really worth pondering and then when you're content with outward religion it leaves a legacy of sorrow And that's what he's saying to these people here. And you compare that with Ezra's faithfulness, where it says that Ezra had prepared his heart to seek the law of the Lord and to do it, and to teach statutes and ordinances in Israel. But two generations later, rather than doing this work, rather than converting Men from their sins. They were leading people into sin. It was this permissive leadership That was causing all sorts of problems and and and more one of the commentators On the book of Malachi says this, ministers of religion have a fearful responsibility for they cannot sin or suffer alone.

They drag others down with them if they fall and have part of their sins to bear. It's a really careful, considerate thing. And again, I'm thankful for the leaders that we have, but it's worth all of us pondering and taking this to heart. And in chapter two, verse 10, we get into the second section, right? So we see these people now have no honor for God.

We see the priests have absolutely no regard for God. And this is a quote from Matthew Henry. He says, he who is false to his God will not be true to his fellow mortals. If you have zero honor for God, Do you really think that you'll have any honor for anybody else? Well it just doesn't work that way.

And so in chapter 2 verse 10 in section 3 of this we meet a man, we meet these people who are now, this is now filtering down into their way that they actually have their marriages. And we see this idea of mixed marriages yet again coming up and this persistent problem of marrying pagan wives. We saw this in Ezra again, we'll see it in the book of Nehemiah as we get into it. But the section opens up, It says, have we not all one Father? Has not one God created us?

It's starting with this idea of oneness, which is really the basis of marriage. It talks about how this is God's holy institution that he loves. It was to reflect, Really, the marriage supper of the Lamb, it was to reflect what God is doing from the very beginning of creation all the way to the culmination when Christ returns, which is this pursuit of a wife, of the bride of the Lamb. But these people were totally defacing this altogether. And God is really interested in godly seed, you know, that parents would raise up children that would worship God and praise God.

That they would see in their parents that this God is worthy of all praise and honor and say I want to follow after that God because look at look at the way they first see It in their parents It's a wonderful wonderful picture and and the problem is is that they're the root of their sin here was their lack of Faithfulness to God they just didn't have any faithfulness to God anymore. They were choosing pagan wives and my question for us today is, is it too far to say that that choosing a pagan wife is a rejection of God? Would that be going too far? Well I don't think so. He says in verse 12, may the Lord cut off from the tents of Jacob the man who does this, being awake and aware.

And so to intermarry, as you've seen in the book of Ezra, was to really undermine the purposes of God. And as they were marrying these pagans in 10 to 12 He then goes to this other section here in verse 13 He says in this second thing you do you cover the altar of the Lord with tears with weeping and crying so he does not regard the offering anymore nor receive it with goodwill from your hands and yet you say for what reason Well here you've got this picture Well the men were marrying these pagan wives they had abandoned their Jewish wives Their Israel Israelite wives they traded the men perhaps for a newer model They had no regard for their wives. No regard for this whole covenant of marriage between a man and a woman. And so God is not pleased whatsoever and he says, I'm not gonna receive any of your offerings. And it's really worth laying this to heart also.

He says in verse 15, take heed to your spirit and let none deal treacherously with the wife of his youth. And this idea of treachery is a violation of allegiance or betrayal. That should not be something that's in our heart. But remember this, that treachery is a destination that you reach in stages. It doesn't just one day you commit treachery, but it's progressive.

And it's at core selfishness. If you think of something like pornography, it's something other than God that's being enthroned and that's usually self. It's a great great spiritual problem and a plague upon the church for all men, married men, for single men, and so on. And even for those not yet married, you know, you can be treacherous against the wife of your youth and that you can be doing things right now that later on will grow into plants and trees when you're married. It's well worth keeping yourself now pure, keeping yourself far from her gate and not going the way to her house because it says many strong men have been slain by her.

Don't play with these things. It's such a danger. And Proverbs says that whoever commits adultery lacks understanding. He that does it destroys his own soul because God makes you one and you're distorting that. Now if you've done some evil or have engaged in some of that and God has forgiven you Praise God for that, but don't take it lightly Don't play around with these things because there's more than one way for a man to put away his wife not just by divorce but by doing a number of different things all the way down the line that end up with a total separation in heart.

It's a very tricky verse that we meet in verse 16. It says for the Lord God of Israel says that he hates divorce And if you look at this in the ESV, it might be better rendered It says 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 like God is saying he hates such putting away in the way that he just described, this treachery, because marriage is God's holy institution. And leaving the Jewish wives, leaving your wife, the wife of your youth for Canaanites who would lead them into Idolatry who would raise up children who do not even know God is something that's that's terrible and God was having none of it At all and so you see so far. It's like you might be feeling like you're under this weight of man condemnation But it's because god is very careful And he loves them.

He wants them to see their sins It's it's one of those things that oftentimes we we construe love to be nice and And when people are saying harsh things against us, we think of it as being evil, but that's not the case with God. He's calling them back to repentance. And then in section four in verse 17, We see this begin in chapter 2 verse 17. Again the great downgrade doesn't just continue in the book of Malachi but it picks up steam. It takes up even more, you know, more speed now as it gets down the track and they're calling God's very character into question.

They're committing blasphemy right here. And yet what does God do? He speaks to them of the coming Messiah. It's good news for some in that it will refine them. But it's probably the worst news for many others in Israel those who he will exterminate and you see this in verse 17 It says you have wearied the Lord with your words yet You say in what way have we wearied him and that you say everyone who does evil is good in the sight of the Lord and he delights in them or Where is the God of justice?

I mean look what they're saying about God They're they're deducing that it's better to walk in evil and worldliness and it will result in blessing rather than following after God Because here's what they're thinking. They're thinking this, and by the way, all of these things that they're saying aren't things that they're actually saying. But God is looking at their hearts. It's not like they're actually saying this. But he's looking at their hearts and discerning the state of their hearts.

He can see everything, right? He sees the intents, the motives, and all of that within our hearts. But here we're a people who's thinking this. We've done everything that could be expected of a people and look at the fine mess that we're still in the problem must be with God because it surely isn't with us That's what these people are saying and they're saying things like this if God is a judge He certainly isn't doing a thing about the worst sinners and idolaters over there those fornicators or sodomites or some other I.T. Or some other sin.

If God is a just God, why isn't He dealing with them? They had somehow absolved themselves and thought that they were clean before God. It's a terrible state to be. That kind of Matthew 7, Lord, Lord, have we not? And you give your resume of all the things you're doing and he only says depart from me you workers of iniquity and They're getting to the point at peers where they're existing the long they're exhausting the long suffering of God they're no longer I mean if you think of how long-suffering God is it says right here that they're wearing him they're tiring him with their constant complaints and their wicked speech their insolence against God and it's it's either this they're saying that God favors the wicked or perhaps it's more like a deist type religion where God sets things in motion but then takes his hands off, goes to sleep and has nothing to do with it.

That's basically what they're saying in this complaint that they're making right here. And they're saying bring justice God. Well if I do bring justice you will not find yourself standing on solid ground is what he's saying to them. It's a bad calculation that they're making that They don't understand that Messiah's coming will only hasten their demise because of the way that they're living, the way that they're acting. And so in chapter three, verse one, he answers their questions and it says this, "'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, "'even the messenger of the covenant "'in whom you delight, ' or at least you say you delight Behold he is coming says the Lord and so we get this picture here now for the first time of John the Baptist and we don't have time to go into all the scriptures that speak and validate that this is indeed John the Baptist but think of how merciful God is to send a forerunner before he actually brings justice so that the people have an opportunity to fully repent And you think about Christ in the next section deals with the fact that he's he it says in verse 2b It says for he is like a refiner's fire and like the launderers soap I mean he is going to Refine but to refine you need to burn You need to turn up the temperature and a lot of times people have this view even on Friday night when we were Preaching downtown in Raleigh, you know people say Jesus would never talk to people out in the streets like this You shouldn't judge people or say that they're living wrong or all of these different types of things Just let people be and if God wants to save them, he will save them.

That kind of attitude is what you often, often see. But they don't realize, you don't realize what John the Baptist said of Jesus. It says this, that his winnowing fan is in his hand. And he will thoroughly clean out the threshing floor and gather his wheat into the barn but he will burn up with chaff the chaff with unquenchable fire and when Simeon held that baby in his arms when Mary and Joseph brought Christ to the temple he said this that this child is Destined for the rising and falling of many in Israel and for a sign which will be spoken against And so this nature of Christ ministry is to refine to purify and all these different things but for those who love God who love Jesus Christ even though he's refining them and he's Purifying them he's still the theme of heaven's praises. He's still our heart song our great desire because he's purging us and making us ready for another day.

Like the song says, the flame shall not hurt thee. I only design thy dross to consume and thy gold to refine. That's what he's doing when he's dealing with his with his saints. And so where the old covenant couldn't couldn't actually refine all it could do was burn Christ will come and he'll be able to do something altogether different and the only reason why will be made acceptable is because of what Jesus Christ has done. It's not your hold on Christ that's going to save you.

Someone said, I think it was John MacArthur, he says, if we could lose our salvation, we would have lost it long ago. You're not strong enough, and neither am I, to keep ourselves, but it's kept for us in Jesus Christ And so section 5 as we hasten here and we're gonna get into this part where it deals with tithes and offerings You know, this is probably one of the most abused sections of Scripture Among the prosperity preachers and charlatans that take this and make it like their staple, right? It's like the John 3 16 of the Old Testament people just use this and manipulate it to get people to sow their seeds So I promise by the end of the sermon I won't ask you to sow a seed or do anything like that. But while God loves his people, he's preserving them, they're saying this, we're not getting anything out of our religion. So why should we put anything into it?

That's basically what they're saying. We've gotten nothing, So we're gonna put nothing into it whatsoever and God is is again making this offer of repentance He says to them return to me He says that I think it's in verse 7 return to me in the end of it And I will return to you says the Lord, but how is their response? Remember the father and the rebellious young person. They cross their arms and they say, what's this talk of return to me? What are you even talking about?

This is entirely new to us. We never departed. If there's any departing that's been done, God, I suggest you look to yourself. That's basically what they're saying in their response to God. And God never moved, and so he's there saying, return to me.

Come back to me. And I will turn my face to you again." And this whole area of 8 verse 8 to 12 is really this idea that tithes are really a declaration of our belief in the sovereignty and the lordship of Christ. It's not this strategy that the world has used, you know, if you do this, God will do this. This is not a transactional religion. God is not coin operated.

I had a talk with a man the other day and he told me, that's what he told me, he says in business, he says I'm coin operated, which means I'll do anything for money. But these people have got this kind of Babylonish false religion in their brains that if they can somehow do this, then they're obligating God to do that. And yet God is saying, to prove me now, prove me, I'm a faithful God, that I will do what I say I will do. And that's why the Proverbs say this, there is one who scatters, yet increases more, and there is one who withholds more than is right, but it leads to poverty. The generous soul will be made rich and he who waters will also himself be watered God is able to take something that's small and somehow multiply it when we become people that give from our hearts, because it says also in the New Covenant that God loves a cheerful giver, not a grudging giver.

And that's what these people were doing. They just did not want to give God anything because they did not perceive that they were getting anything back from God. And so what does God do? He says, you're cursed with a curse. It's like what we read in in Haggai that their pockets were full of holes God's not blessing them because they would not trust God they would not say God you are my provider instead they were their providers and so God punches these holes through their pockets.

But he calls them to reform.