SERIES: Major Profit from Minor Prophets
Indicted for Phony Worship
SPEAKER: Michael P. Andrus
Note: This series, done in the summer of 1999, involved one sermon each on the Twelve Minor Prophets. Obviously, since these books are of varying lengths, from one chapter to fourteen chapters, these sermons are focused on the key message of each prophet, rather than a detailed examination of their words.
Introduction: It’s good to be back with you today. I so appreciate the opportunity to get away for a time of concentrated study, but there is a price to be paid. Dick was telling me about an attendance card he saw at the Billy Graham Christian Life and Witness Class a couple of Wednesdays ago. One person had written down as her home church, “First Free,” but where it asked for the pastor’s name, she put, “I don’t know. He hasn’t been here since I started attending.” Well, I’m here today and my name is Mike Andrus. In fact, I’ll be here, Lord willing, for the remainder of this year except for one Sunday in October when I’ll be preaching at Desert Edge Christian Chapel in Huntington, Utah.
I want to express my thanks to Dr. Magary from Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, Pastor Jeff Schultz and Pastor Gene Moniz for filling the pulpit so capably in my absence. I have read or listened to each of their messages, so I know you have been well-fed. It’s my privilege this morning to conclude our summer series on the Minor Prophets with Malachi, the last book of the Old Testament. As you surely realize, we have only been able to whet your appetite by giving overviews of these prophets, but I have been encouraged by comments from many of you that these books have been opened up to you as never before. Please continue your personal study of the prophets–it will be eternally rewarding.
I want to do something today that I have not done yet in this series, and that is to read the entire text. I have chosen to read from the New Living Translation, and you may either try to follow with me in your Bible or just close your eyes and listen. Look for the indictments God makes of his people, for their rebuttals, and for the evidence God offers to convict them. Ask yourself if these arguments with God sound at all familiar. Malachi 1:1-3:15:
This is the message that the Lord gave to Israel through the prophet Malachi.
2 “I have always loved you,” says the Lord.
But you retort, “Really? How have you loved us?”
And the Lord replies, “This is how I showed my love for you: I loved your ancestor Jacob, 3 but I rejected his brother, Esau, and devastated his hill country. I turned Esau’s inheritance into a desert for jackals.”
4 Esau’s descendants in Edom may say, “We have been shattered, but we will rebuild the ruins.”
But the Lord of Heaven’s Armies replies, “They may try to rebuild, but I will demolish them again. Their country will be known as ‘The Land of Wickedness,’ and their people will be called ‘The People with Whom the Lord Is Forever Angry.’ 5 When you see the destruction for yourselves, you will say, ‘Truly, the Lord’s greatness reaches far beyond Israel’s borders!’”
6 The Lord of Heaven’s Armies says to the priests: “A son honors his father, and a servant respects his master. If I am your father and master, where are the honor and respect I deserve? You have shown contempt for my name!
“But you ask, ‘How have we ever shown contempt for your name?’
7 “You have shown contempt by offering defiled sacrifices on my altar.
“Then you ask, ‘How have we defiled the sacrifices?’
“You defile them by saying the altar of the Lord deserves no respect. 8 When you give blind animals as sacrifices, isn’t that wrong? And isn’t it wrong to offer animals that are crippled and diseased? Try giving gifts like that to your governor, and see how pleased he is!” says the Lord of Heaven’s Armies.
9 “Go ahead, beg God to be merciful to you! But when you bring that kind of offering, why should he show you any favor at all?” asks the Lord of Heaven’s Armies.10 “How I wish one of you would shut the Temple doors so that these worthless sacrifices could not be offered! I am not pleased with you,” says the Lord of Heaven’s Armies, “and I will not accept your offerings. 11 But my name is honored by people of other nations from morning till night. All around the world they offer sweet incense and pure offerings in honor of my name. For my name is great among the nations,” says the Lord of Heaven’s Armies.
12 “But you dishonor my name with your actions. By bringing contemptible food, you are saying it’s all right to defile the Lord’s table. 13 You say, ‘It’s too hard to serve the Lord,’ and you turn up your noses at my commands,” says the Lord of Heaven’s Armies. “Think of it! Animals that are stolen and crippled and sick are being presented as offerings! Should I accept from you such offerings as these?” asks the Lord.
14 “Cursed is the cheat who promises to give a fine ram from his flock but then sacrifices a defective one to the Lord. For I am a great king,” says the Lord of Heaven’s Armies, “and my name is feared among the nations!
2 “Listen, you priests—this command is for you! 2 Listen to me and make up your minds to honor my name,” says the Lord of Heaven’s Armies, “or I will bring a terrible curse against you. I will curse even the blessings you receive. Indeed, I have already cursed them, because you have not taken my warning to heart. 3 I will punish your descendants and splatter your faces with the manure from your festival sacrifices, and I will throw you on the manure pile. 4 Then at last you will know it was I who sent you this warning so that my covenant with the Levites can continue,” says the Lord of Heaven’s Armies.
5 “The purpose of my covenant with the Levites was to bring life and peace, and that is what I gave them. This required reverence from them, and they greatly revered me and stood in awe of my name. 6 They passed on to the people the truth of the instructions they received from me. They did not lie or cheat; they walked with me, living good and righteous lives, and they turned many from lives of sin.
7 “The words of a priest’s lips should preserve knowledge of God, and people should go to him for instruction, for the priest is the messenger of the Lord of Heaven’s Armies. 8 But you priests have left God’s paths. Your instructions have caused many to stumble into sin. You have corrupted the covenant I made with the Levites,” says the Lord of Heaven’s Armies. 9 “So I have made you despised and humiliated in the eyes of all the people. For you have not obeyed me but have shown favoritism in the way you carry out my instructions.”
10 Are we not all children of the same Father? Are we not all created by the same God? Then why do we betray each other, violating the covenant of our ancestors?
11 Judah has been unfaithful, and a detestable thing has been done in Israel and in Jerusalem. The men of Judah have defiled the Lord’s beloved sanctuary by marrying women who worship idols. 12 May the Lord cut off from the nation of Israel every last man who has done this and yet brings an offering to the Lord of Heaven’s Armies.
13 Here is another thing you do. You cover the Lord’s altar with tears, weeping and groaning because he pays no attention to your offerings and doesn’t accept them with pleasure. 14 You cry out, “Why doesn’t the Lord Lord accept my worship?” I’ll tell you why! Because the Lord witnessed the vows you and your wife made when you were young. But you have been unfaithful to her, though she remained your faithful partner, the wife of your marriage vows.
15 Didn’t the Lord make you one with your wife? In body and spirit you are his. And what does he want? Godly children from your union. So guard your heart; remain loyal to the wife of your youth. 16 “For I hate divorce!” says the Lord, the God of Israel. “To divorce your wife is to overwhelm her with cruelty,[d]” says the Lord of Heaven’s Armies. “So guard your heart; do not be unfaithful to your wife.”
17 You have wearied the Lord with your words.
“How have we wearied him?” you ask.
You have wearied him by saying that all who do evil are good in the Lord’s sight, and he is pleased with them. You have wearied him by asking, “Where is the God of justice?”
3 “Look! I am sending my messenger, and he will prepare the way before me. Then the Lord you are seeking will suddenly come to his Temple. The messenger of the covenant, whom you look for so eagerly, is surely coming,” says the Lord of Heaven’s Armies.
2 “But who will be able to endure it when he comes? Who will be able to stand and face him when he appears? For he will be like a blazing fire that refines metal, or like a strong soap that bleaches clothes. 3 He will sit like a refiner of silver, burning away the dross. He will purify the Levites, refining them like gold and silver, so that they may once again offer acceptable sacrifices to the Lord. 4 Then once more the Lord will accept the offerings brought to him by the people of Judah and Jerusalem, as he did in the past.
5 “At that time I will put you on trial. I am eager to witness against all sorcerers and adulterers and liars. I will speak against those who cheat employees of their wages, who oppress widows and orphans, or who deprive the foreigners living among you of justice, for these people do not fear me,” says the Lord of Heaven’s Armies.
6 “I am the Lord, and I do not change. That is why you descendants of Jacob are not already destroyed. 7 Ever since the days of your ancestors, you have scorned my decrees and failed to obey them. Now return to me, and I will return to you,” says the Lord of Heaven’s Armies.
“But you ask, ‘How can we return when we have never gone away?’
8 “Should people cheat God? Yet you have cheated me!
“But you ask, ‘What do you mean? When did we ever cheat you?’
“You have cheated me of the tithes and offerings due to me. 9 You are under a curse, for your whole nation has been cheating me. 10 Bring all the tithes into the storehouse so there will be enough food in my Temple. If you do,” says the Lord of Heaven’s Armies, “I will open the windows of heaven for you. I will pour out a blessing so great you won’t have enough room to take it in! Try it! Put me to the test! 11 Your crops will be abundant, for I will guard them from insects and disease.[a] Your grapes will not fall from the vine before they are ripe,” says the Lord of Heaven’s Armies. 12 “Then all nations will call you blessed, for your land will be such a delight,” says the Lord of Heaven’s Armies.
13 “You have said terrible things about me,” says the Lord.
“But you say, ‘What do you mean? What have we said against you?’
14 “You have said, ‘What’s the use of serving God? What have we gained by obeying his commands or by trying to show the Lord of Heaven’s Armies that we are sorry for our sins? 15 From now on we will call the arrogant blessed. For those who do evil get rich, and those who dare God to punish them suffer no harm.’”
I’m going to stop there and will read the conclusion of the book a little later. Isn’t this a powerful and convicting dialogue! I could almost just say a benediction and let us go home with more than enough to think about, but allow me to briefly highlight some of the themes the prophet touches upon.
Malachi is writing about a century after Haggai and Zechariah, about 400 B.C., at a time when the spiritual life of the nation has taken another major dip. He paints for us a picture of a courtroom scene. God, the righteous Judge, is handing down indictments, one after another, against His people. To every one of those accusations they respond, “Who, me? When did we ever do such a thing? How can you say that?” And to every one of their retorts God lays out the evidence–clear and convincing evidence of their guilt.
Indicted for doubting God’s love (1:1-7)
I understand that in a park in Heidelberg, Germany there is a beautiful flower bed with a sign written in three languages. In English it says, “Please do not pick the flowers.” The German sign, I am told, is best translated as, “Picking of flowers is prohibited.” But the French sign says, “Those who love flowers will not pick them.” Which sign do you think is the most effective? Love clearly is the most powerful of motivations for action. And I wonder if that is not why the first words out of God’s mouth are these, “I have loved you.” His goal through this prophet is to wake His people up and bring them back to Himself, so he clearly and unashamedly says to them, “I have loved you.”
But immediately they express their doubts: “How have you loved us?” One person probably mentions the drought that has devastated his crops; another brings up the tragic death of his child; another has been laid up with an incurable disease; and still another hasn’t been able to find work for months. How can you say, God, that you love us when all these bad things happen to us?
God’s answer, in effect, is that they can’t see the forest because of the trees. He says, and I paraphrase, “Think bigger than your own individual circumstances. Consider the fact that I have chosen you, the Israelites, the descendants of Jacob, as my people, which means I have rejected the descendants of Esau, Jacob’s twin brother. It wasn’t because Jacob was better than Esau; it’s just because I decided to pour my love out on you.” Can they really doubt God’s love when they stop to consider the incredible advantages they have experienced just by being born an Israelite?
I wonder if there isn’t an application that most of us here today should make to this. We sometimes complain about God’s treatment of us–about the things we don’t have or the trials we go through–but is there a single person here who would like to change places with a person in Kosovo or Turkey or North Korea, or even Canada or Mexico? I’m not suggesting that America has taken Israel’s place as God’s chosen people, but God has shown His love to us to such an extent that we should think twice before we doubt His love.
Indicted for showing contempt for His name (1:8-14)
God asks, “If sons honor their fathers and servants their masters, why don’t I, a Father par excellence and master of the universe, receive respect and honor from my people, but instead receive contempt?” They are incredulous. “How have we shown you contempt?” God says they have shown Him contempt by failing to give Him their best.
The sacrificial system God gave to Israel was designed for several purposes. First, it was to demonstrate the seriousness of sin. “Without the shedding of blood, there is no remission of sins,” God said. When the throat of an animal had to be cut to provide atonement, it impressed upon the worshiper that his sin was serious and costly. A second purpose was to acknowledge God as the sovereign owner of all things. The worshiper was merely a steward. As the owner, God deserved the first portion and the best.
But the Israelites were always cutting corners. They would find an animal that was on its last legs and bring that to the altar. They reasoned, “Why kill a perfectly good animal if I can get by with less?” And God challenges them, “Try offering that to your governor!” The question is very legitimate. Why do we try to get by with less respect and honor to God in our worship than we give to sports stars, politicians, or celebrities? If we had an appointment with the President, would we show up late? Yet, some people are chronically late in coming to worship. I heard that Ricky Martin, whoever that is, is selling out The Kiel at $95 a ticket, yet some of those same people will pass the offering plate at church on Sunday without putting a thing in it because they can’t afford it. We will walk blocks from the parking area to the County Fair but complain if we can’t get within 100 feet of the church doors.
Such actions and attitudes show contempt for God. And His response is that He wishes someone should just shut the temple doors, just lock up the churches, so such phony worship doesn’t make Him sick any longer.
Then God makes an ironic and convicting observation in verse 11: “My name will be great among the nations, from the rising to the setting of the sun.” You know what God is saying? He is saying to the Jews that true worshipers are not limited to God’s chosen people. There are Gentiles–people considered as second-rate by the spiritually sophisticated–who have heard the truth and responded in humility and gratitude to God’s grace. They may not have all the knowledge. They may not have beautiful temples and stained-glass windows. They may lack exquisite music and finely crafted sermons. But if they worship God in sincerity and truth, they are acceptable in His sight, whereas the spiritually proud will be rejected.
A third harsh indictment is offered in chapter 2:
Indicted for breaking faith with Him and with one another (2:1-16)
In the first part of the chapter the focus is on the clergy, as God rips the priests for their failure to maintain the covenant He had made with the Levites, who were the clergy of the OT. The essence of that covenant was that the clergy were to honor God, teach the people accurately, and turn people from their sin. Instead, the priests of Malachi’s day were casual and flippant about their duties, they were failing to teach God’s truth, and they were causing people to stumble. What a sad indictment that every pastor, priest, and teacher must take seriously!
But then in verse 10 Malachi moves from the fact that the clergy have broken faith with God to the fact that their parishioners were breaking faith with one another, particularly regarding marriage. There is a connection, you know, a strong connection, between the failure of ministers of the Gospel to uphold biblical standards and the frequency with which professing Christians are choosing divorce as an escape hatch from marriage.
But divorce is not the first “breaking of faith” mentioned. The first is intermarriage. Pastor, do you mean marriage between blacks and whites? No, as far as I can tell the Bible doesn’t even address that issue–it’s not a moral issue. He’s talking about marriage between believers and unbelievers. That is clearly forbidden by God–both in the OT and in the NT. Young people, let me talk to you very bluntly about this. God forbids you to marry an unbeliever, and He does so for your own benefit. I could appeal to several dozen people in this very room to testify about the pain they have suffered and the joys they have missed by being unequally yoked in marriage to an unbeliever. The time to determine that you will be obedient to God in this matter is when you first consider dating someone–not after you’ve fallen in love with them.
The second kind of “breaking faith” is adultery. Speaking primarily to the men, God stresses the heinousness of this sin against their wives. She is the wife of your youth (verse 15), the one who helped you through school and put up with a tiny apartment, and stayed up all night with sick kids, and spent her best years helping you be a success. Further, she is your partner. She’s not an employee, not a slave, but a partner. Still further, she is the wife of your marriage covenant. No one held a gun to your head and forced you to get married. You freely entered into an agreement to be faithful “till death us do part.”
But there is still a third kind of “breaking faith,” and that is divorce. Some people may not be guilty of adultery, but they have so destroyed the fabric of their marriage that they have driven their partner in desperation to seek relief through the courts. Others choose divorce as an easy way out of a difficult, unhappy marriage. What does God say? He says, “I hate divorce.” There are very few things the Scripture says God hates–I believe just about a dozen, but divorce is one of them.
I preached a sermon on February 25, 1996 entitled, “Why God Hates Divorce.” In that message I gave four reasons why God hates divorce:
- God hates divorce because it violates His perfect plan for His highest creation.
- God hates divorce because it involves the breaking of a covenant, and He is a covenant-keeping God.
- God hates divorce because he loves people and doesn’t want them to suffer the pain it inevitably produces.
- God hates divorce because He loves children, and children are devastated by divorce.
We also stressed in that message that God hates divorce, not divorced people, and that not every divorce is forbidden, for Jesus Himself allowed for divorce in certain very limited cases. But clearly most divorces today are not biblical divorces. Malachi concludes well with these words, “So guard yourself in your spirit, and do not break faith.”
A fourth indictment is offered beginning in 2:17:
Indicted for questioning His justice (2:17-3:5)
Some of the people had concluded that evildoers must be pleasing to God because He seems to tolerate them, and they ask, “Where is the God of justice?” Why do the wicked prosper, anyway? Well, God’s answer is that in His time, the wicked will get theirs. The key is “in His time.” Malachi predicts, four centuries before it happened, that a messenger would come to prepare the way before the Lord. That messenger, of course, turned out to be John the Baptist. And then, shortly afterward, the Lord Himself would come to His temple. That, of course, refers to the coming of Messiah Jesus. He would be like a refiner’s fire and a launderer’s soap. In other words, He would discipline and chastise His people. Not only that, He would also come in judgment against sorcerers, adulterers, perjurers, those who defraud laborers of their wages, those who oppress the widows and the fatherless, and deprive aliens of justice.
In other words, those asking, “Where is the God of justice?,” better think twice about what they are asking for. Justice is coming, and it may be more than they bargained for.
Indicted for robbing God (3:6-12)
I want you to notice that this section opens with a categorical statement about the immutability of God: “I the Lord do not change.” If you and God are not as close as you once were, guess who moved? It wasn’t God. He calls upon His people to return. “Return to me, and I will return to you.” But once again they ask, “Who, us? We haven’t ever left you. We’re still religious. We still attend services nearly every Sunday. We still carry our Bibles to church. How can you ask us to return?”
And God says, “The evidence of your departure is that you are robbing me.” “Robbing you? What do you mean? How have we robbed you?” And God says, “In tithes and offerings.” In fact, God tells them they are under a curse because of their theft. No matter how hard they work their fields, drought comes, insects infect, and crops fail. God Himself is undermining their efforts.
Ever wonder how you can make more money than ever before in your life and still not have enough to make ends meet? One possible cause is failure in this very area. Haggai, you will recall, said the same thing. God had put holes in their pockets because their financial priorities were all screwed up.
I have a friend who is a member of the church I pastored in Wichita, KS. George Fooshee owned the largest credit company in Kansas until he sold it so he could give full time to helping Christians get out of debt. He has helped thousands of people, and he always starts the same way. He takes someone who is up to his eyeballs in consumer debt and asks him to write down all their assets, liabilities, income, and fixed expenses. And he asks them to set a budget, figuring out the maximum amount they can give to debt repayment.
When they come back with a certain amount he tells them, “Now I want you to double it.” “Double it?”, they ask, “Where am I going to get more money for debt repayment?” And George says, “Well, you can start tithing.”
They usually get this strange look on their face and then say, “You can’t be serious! That won’t give me more money for debt repayment, it will give me less.” And George will say, “No, that’s human accounting. Divine accounting works a little differently.” You see, God says you can’t give yourself poor. You can spend yourself poor. You can invest yourself poor. But you can’t give yourself poor.
In fact, God offers his people a test through the prophet Malachi. He says, “Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse.” In other words, don’t cheat, don’t hold back, don’t look at your checkbook balance. Bring the whole tithe. “Test me in this,” God goes on, “and see if I will not throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing that you will not have room enough for it.”
Friends, I don’t know of any reason to think that this principle is limited to Malachi’s day in the OT, for the same principle is repeated in many other passages, including in the NT. Now I personally believe the percentage required has been replaced by what the NT calls “proportionate giving.” The more we receive, the more we should give, not just in amount but even in percentage.
But the principle of God’s blessing on the sacrificial giver has never been replaced. I started tithing 10% with my first job at age 16. Later, as my income increased, I was able to increase that. A few times I have really pushed God to the wall (I say that with a little tongue in cheek), and I have seen God to be utterly faithful to the test he offers here. There are many in this body of believers who testify to the same fact.
If you tell me you cannot afford to give, I will tell you that you’re operating on the wrong accounting system. You are short-changing yourself and limiting the blessing of God in your life by your lack of faith. It’s time to put God to the test.
A good friend of mine, Dave Michelson, the pastor of our St. Peters church, was so convinced of God’s offer here that he offered his congregation a money-back guarantee. If they would tithe, and if at the end of the year God hadn’t kept His side of the bargain, he would see to it that they got their money back. The last time I checked, no one had asked for a refund.
Now I don’t have time to cover the final indictment, namely,…
Indicted for talking back to God (3:13-15)
I must get to Malachi’s conclusion because we are all desperate for some encouragement after this series of harsh indictments.
Let’s return to the text and read beginning in verse 16:
16 Then those who feared the Lord spoke with each other, and the Lord listened to what they said. In his presence, a scroll of remembrance was written to record the names of those who feared him and always thought about the honor of his name.
17 “They will be my people,” says the Lord of Heaven’s Armies. “On the day when I act in judgment, they will be my own special treasure. I will spare them as a father spares an obedient child. 18 Then you will again see the difference between the righteous and the wicked, between those who serve God and those who do not.”
4The Lord of Heaven’s Armies says, “The day of judgment is coming, burning like a furnace. On that day the arrogant and the wicked will be burned up like straw. They will be consumed—roots, branches, and all.
2 “But for you who fear my name, the Sun of Righteousness will rise with healing in his wings. And you will go free, leaping with joy like calves let out to pasture. 3 On the day when I act, you will tread upon the wicked as if they were dust under your feet,” says the Lord of Heaven’s Armies.
4 “Remember to obey the Law of Moses, my servant—all the decrees and regulations that I gave him on Mount Sinai for all Israel.
5 “Look, I am sending you the prophet Elijah before the great and dreadful day of the Lord arrives. 6 His preaching will turn the hearts of fathers to their children, and the hearts of children to their fathers. Otherwise I will come and strike the land with a curse.”
Wow! There is so much here, it’s almost a crime to pass over it so quickly. Malachi recognizes that not all religious people are guilty of worthless worship. Not all stand under the preceding indictments. There are some who are …
Acquitted for fearing the Lord and honoring His name. (3:16-4:6)
When they talk with each other, the Lord listens and hears. What does that mean? I think he’s referring to the fellowship that true believers enjoy in the things of the Lord. When they talk together, they express their awe of God, their thankfulness for His many blessings, their joy at being part of His family. And God records their words in a “scroll of remembrance.”
You know, God is a record-keeper. He keeps a “Book of Life,” in which the names of all those who have received salvation by faith in Jesus Christ are listed. He keeps a record of deeds, both good and bad. But here we learn that God keeps a record even of the conversations and fellowship of those who fear Him.
These people have a special relationship with God. They are called His “jewels” or His“treasured possession.” He promises them protection from the coming judgment. And He promises that eventually they will see “the distinction between the righteous and the wicked, between those who serve God and those who do not.” Granted, in this life it sometimes appears that good people get the shaft and evil people prosper. But that is only because we see through a glass darkly.
The day is coming, says Malachi, when all the arrogant and every evildoer will burn like stubble. “But for you who revere my name, the sun of righteousness (I think that could be spelled SON) will rise with healing in his wings. And you will go out and leap like calves released from the stall,” says the Lord Almighty.
The OT ends with the threat of a curse, but the very next words, Matthew 1:1 introduce Jesus Christ, the Son of Righteousness. Friend, are you a God-fearer? Are you one who honors His name? Have you accepted His Son as your personal Savior? If so, you are not under indictment; you have been acquitted through faith in Jesus Christ. If not, there’s no day like today to abandon phony worship and begin a genuine relationship with God.
DATE: September 12, 1999
Tags:
Divine love
Divorce
Justice
Stewardship
Acquittal