Malachi shows how completely devoid of understanding the Jews of his time were. They did not have the answer to the most basic questions that God posed to them.
But before we think too harshly of them, we must first realize that the book was written for us as well today.
Malachi 1:1 The burden of the word of the LORD to Israel by Malachi.
Who Is Israel?
There are messages in this small yet prophetic book for the USA etc today as well as for those that are truly Christian. Who are the US and UK in Prophecy Today? Part 1 and Who are the US and UK in Prophecy Today? Part 2
When we point our finger at ancient Judah, there are three fingers pointing back this way.
We do ourselves a great disservice by limiting the message of Malachi to the Jews and Ancient Israel.
The real value is the application to us today
Malachi is a message to modern day physical and spiritual Israel
We will go over the answers to the seven questions of Malachi
1. Recognize and Realize
Malachi 1:2 “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 [all the tribes] I have loved;
In the example of Esau and Jacob He demonstrates how He was always there for them.
Physical Israel: God has followed through on his promises to Abraham
Genesis 35:10 And God said to him, “Your name is Jacob; your name shall not be called Jacob anymore, but Israel shall be your name.” So He called his name Israel.
Genesis 35:11 Also God said to him: “I am God Almighty. Be fruitful and multiply; a nation and a company of nations shall proceed from you, and kings shall come from your body.
We see this fulfilled in the US and UK
The US and UK have lost sight of this fact – God is not pleased
God is love and all His actions are based in love.
This nation is failing to recognize and realize how God has shown His love for them
We cannot fall into the same trap
Spiritual Israel:
John 3:16 For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.
The greatest show of love ever.
He continues to show that love in the physical and spiritual blessings He bestows on us.
God is working in your life – how
Do we recognize and acknowledge what God has done for us and is doing for us?
James 1:17 Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and comes down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow of turning.
Even in chastisement there is love
Hebrews 12:6 FOR WHOM THE LORD LOVES HE CHASTENS, AND SCOURGES EVERY SON WHOM HE RECEIVES.”
Do you see how God is working in your life even during the times of trials and tribulations?
Just as God gave evidence of His blessings to the Jews in Malachi’s time, He gives us evidence.
God loved them from the beginning as He does us. He has had a plan in place since the beginning and He continues to see it through!
We must recognize and realize all the ways that God blesses us
2. Respect and Reverence
Malachi 1:6 “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 [KJV:fear]? Says the LORD of hosts To you priests who despise My name. Yet you say, ‘In what way have we despised Your name?’
Malachi 1:7 “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.’
Faults of the Priest
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Bad Priest |
Good Priest |
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Did not fear, honor and respect God (1:6) |
Fear and Revere |
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Unacceptable sacrifices (worship) (1:7) |
Follows the Law of truth |
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Falsely accused God (1:12) |
Justice on his lips |
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Did not take correction (2:2) |
Walk with God in Peace |
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Did not fullfill the role of priest (2:4) |
Keep and Teach knowledge |
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Made people stumble (2:8) |
Turn people from sin |
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Were respecters of persons (2:9) |
Equitable |
Physical Israel:
The religious leaders are on a worse track today than I believe the Jews were in the time of Malachi
They have exchanged the original Christianity that Jesus taught for a false one that has been altered almost beyond recognition.
They do not worship God according to the Bible
John 4:24 God is Spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth.”
they put wrong words into the mouth of God
They are unwilling to learn the truth much less teach it
They do not expedite access to God
They cause people to stumble in the word
Hosea 4:6 My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge. Because you have rejected knowledge, I also will reject you from being priest for Me; Because you have forgotten the law of your God, I also will forget your children.
Church attendance in US
Today these words could not be more true for Israel.
In the US 247M of 315M (323M now) call themselves Christians
99M actually say that they go to church 40/31%
In the end they will bear a great responsibility for the coming trials and tribulations that come upon the US and UK and its associated peoples
Spiritual Israel:
New Testament priests are the ministry
Malachi 2:5 “My covenant was with him, one of life and peace, And I gave them to him that he might fear Me; So he feared Me And was reverent before My name.
Malachi 2:6 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.
Malachi 2:7 “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.
Royal Priesthood
1 Peter 2:5 you also, as living stones, are being built up a spiritual house, a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.
1 Peter 2:9 But you are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, His own special people, that you may proclaim the praises of Him who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light;
3. Remain and Retain
Malachi 2:14 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.
They were divorcing without cause and committing adultery
Unadulterated: pure, one,
Meaning is to mix, defile or pollute; to falsify or corrupt; to alter by moving towards another.
Genesis 2:24 This is the oneness that God wants to stay whole that adultery undoes
Physical Israel:
Marriage: Same problem (the more you read about Israel in the Bible, the more you see what’s going on here)
50% of marriages end in divorce in America
Of those that end in divorce 49% of male and 64% of female are 24 years old and under
Lack of knowledge
Physical adultery leads to spiritual adultery
Leaving and going after foreign women and their ways and their gods. It leads to a falling away from the true God and no longer being ONE with Him
They commit spiritual adultery as well as we noted before, physical Israel continues to go after other gods, forsaking the ONE true God that they were in covenant with.
John 17:20 “I do not pray for these alone, but also for those who will believe in Me through their word;
John 17:21 that they all may be one, as You, Father, are in Me, and I in You; that they also may be one in Us, that the world may believe that You sent Me.
John 17:22 And the glory which You gave Me I have given them, that they may be one just as We are one:
John 17:23 I in them, and You in Me; that they may be made perfect in one, and that the world may know that You have sent Me, and have loved them as You have loved Me.
This is what we are saying when:
Spiritual Israel:
We entered into a covenant with God at baptism, we are now betrothed to Him in a binding agreement or contract of marriage. We are to be acting like a chaste virgin that is to be married. We want to be one as the marriage relationship symbolizes.
Revelation 19:7 Let us be glad and rejoice and give Him glory, for the marriage of the Lamb has come, and His wife has made herself ready.”
Revelation 19:8 And to her it was granted to be arrayed in fine linen, clean and bright, for the fine linen is the righteous acts of the saints. [the terms of the agreement]
We are to remain within the bounds of the terms of the agreement – and retain the oneness of the relationship
Paul makes this relationship and analogy clear in:
1 Corinthians 6:15 Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ? Shall I then take the members of Christ and make them members of a harlot? Certainly not!
1 Corinthians 6:16 Or do you not know that he who is joined to a harlot is one body with her? For “THE TWO,” He says, “SHALL BECOME ONE FLESH.”
1 Corinthians 6:17 But he who is joined to the Lord is one spirit with Him.
1 Corinthians 6:18 Flee sexual immorality. Every sin that a man does is outside the body, but he who commits sexual immorality sins against his own body.
1 Corinthians 6:19 Or do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and you are not your own?
4. Reflective
Malachi 2:17 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,” Or, “Where is the God of justice?”
Physical Israel:
It in interesting that we as a nation are doing evil and we think that we are good – we are blessed and don’t see why. We haven’t stopped to evaluate the situation that we are in, in light of the way that God says things will happen.
Spiritual Israel:
As ones that God is working with we must continually self-evaluate and reflect on why we are blessed or why trials are in our lives.
Job 2:7 So Satan went out from the presence of the LORD, and struck Job with painful boils from the sole of his foot to the crown of his head.
Job 2:8 And he took for himself a potsherd with which to scrape himself while he sat in the midst of the ashes.
Job 2:9 Then his wife said to him, “Do you still hold fast to your integrity? Curse God and die!”
Job 2:10 But he said to her, “You speak as one of the foolish women speaks. Shall we indeed accept good from God, and shall we not accept adversity?” In all this Job did not sin with his lips.
Once God has begun a good work He will continue in it:
Romans 8:28 And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose.
Romans 8:29 For whom He foreknew, He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brethren.
Because of this we must be reflect on all aspects of our lives and when God shows us how we must change we must:
5. Repent
Malachi 3:6 “For I am the LORD, I do not change; Therefore you are not consumed, O sons of Jacob.
Malachi 3:7 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?‘
God did not change, they moved away from God and could not even see their need to change to the way He was and remain that way.
Physical Israel:
Where do we start…. we are a nation that has moved so far from what the Bible instructs that it will take God’s chastening on a grand scale.
The LORD: “Sing with gladness for Jacob, And shout among the chief of the nations; Proclaim, give praise, and say, ‘O LORD, save Your people, The remnant of Israel!’
Jeremiah 31:8 Behold, I will bring them from the north country, And gather them from the ends of the earth, Among them the blind and the lame, The woman with child And the one who labors with child, together; A great throng shall return there.
Jeremiah 31:9 They shall come with weeping, And with supplications I will lead them. I will cause them to walk by the rivers of waters, In a straight way in which they shall not stumble; For I am a Father to Israel, And Ephraim is My firstborn.
Jeremiah 31:10 “Hear the word of the LORD, O nations, And declare it in the isles afar off, and say, ‘He who scattered Israel will gather him, And keep him as a shepherd does his flock.’
Jeremiah 31:11 For the LORD has redeemed Jacob, And ransomed him from the hand of one stronger than he.
The Tribulation has had the desired effect and now they are ready and willing to listen and follow God
[continuing in vs 18] It has brought forth the fruit of RepentanceJeremiah 31:18 “I have surely heard Ephraim bemoaning himself: ‘You have chastised me, and I was chastised, Like an untrained bull; Restore me, and I will return, For You are the LORD my God.
Jeremiah 31:19 Surely, after my turning, I repented; And after I was instructed, I struck myself on the thigh; I was ashamed, yes, even humiliated, Because I bore the reproach of my youth.’
Jeremiah 31:20 Is Ephraim My dear son? [in effect do you remember who you are] Is he a pleasant child? For though I spoke against him, I earnestly remember him still [God has not forgotten]; Therefore My heart yearns for him; I will surely have mercy on him, says the LORD.
Jeremiah 31:21 “Set up signposts, Make landmarks; Set your heart toward the highway, The way in which you went. Turn back, O virgin of Israel, Turn back to these your cities.
Spiritual Israel:
I won’t spend too long on this here, because this is a way of life for the Christian and we mention it one way or another in almost every message! From before baptism when God began working with us up until now with God working in us we have been living a life of change – from what we were to becoming like God.
He has set the bar and it has not moved – because He does not change. So we are to continue in that journey day after day.
6. Recompense
Malachi 3:8 “Will a man rob God? Yet you have robbed Me! But you say, ‘In what way have we robbed You?’ In tithes and offerings.
Malachi 3:9 You are cursed with a curse, For you have robbed Me, Even this whole nation.
Malachi 3:10 Bring all the tithes into the 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 blessing That there will not be room enough to receive it. [you rob yourself of this]
Malachi 3:11 “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;
Malachi 3:12 And all nations will call you blessed, For you will be a delightful land,” Says the LORD of hosts.
Physical Israel:
Of the 247/315M people in the US (christian/total population) only 1.5 tithe.
Goes to the lack of education of the Bible
and why the country is on a downward spiral
because they are not tithing, they are being cursed
Deuteronomy 28 cursings for disobedience
Spiritual Israel:
We recently did a message on this – so I won’t belabor the point
But tithes and offerings are for the furthering of the Gospel and feeding the flock.
Any laws that we break, tithing or otherwise, will cause God to put us through all these points again
7. Render
Malachi 3:13 “Your words have been harsh against Me,” Says the LORD, Yet you say, ‘What have we spoken against You?’
Malachi 3:14 You have said, ‘It is useless to serve God; What profit is it that we have kept His ordinance [obey],
Physical Israel:
It does not either serve or obey God for much the same reasons
they do not see the benefit
they do not understand the mind of God
no reason to serve and obey
Spiritual Israel:
Matthew 22:21 They said to Him, “Caesar’s.” And He said to them, “Render therefore to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s.“
this is our religion – we serve and obey
Matthew 22:37 Jesus said to him, ‘YOU SHALL LOVE THE LORD YOUR GOD WITH ALL YOUR HEART, WITH ALL YOUR SOUL, AND WITH ALL YOUR MIND.’
Matthew 22:38 This is the first and great commandment.