The Messenger is Coming - Malachi 2:17-3:5
INTRODUCTION:
Complacency had overtaken the people of Israel, in just 100 years since coming out of exile the people of Israel had slumped to an all time low. This had begun with the rebuilding of the temple, it had been completed but the presence of God had not entered it like it had the tabernacle and the original temple built by Solomon. The people of Israel began to live in indifference to God. They did not see God working in their lives, but they watched the wicked nations around them prospering while they lived in poverty. Where was the blessing that the LORD had promised for His covenant people? Why do the wicked prosper while we do not? Had the LORD forgotten the covenant that He had made with Israel?
Beginning in the final verse of chapter two and moving into chapter three Malachi tries to shake Israel from their complacent state by reminding them that they have not kept the covenant with the LORD as seen first with the priests and their disregard for the law and the covenant that God had made with the tribe of Levi; then as seen by the people in divorcing their Jewish wives in order to marry foreign women not caring what the law said, doing the same thing that had brought about their ancestors destruction and their being carried off into exile. Malachi begins with a statement of truth that is questioned by the people to which Malachi responds by reminding them of who the LORD is and that they need to fear Him and stand in awe of His name. Let’s pray and then get into our Scripture for this morning.
--PRAY--
SCRIPTURE:
Turn in your Bibles to Malachi 2:17. Here we have another example of where the chapter break is in the wrong place. Remember when this was written there were no chapters or verses, they were added later so that passages could be found quickly, but they are not part of the inspired text and often do not fall where they would make the flow easier. Please stand if you are able in honor of the reading of God’s Word and follow along as I read 2:17-3:5.
Malachi 2:17-3:5,
“You have wearied the Lord with your words. Yet you say, ‘How 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?’ ‘Behold, I am going to send My messenger, and he will clear the way before Me. And the Lord, whom you seek, will suddenly come to His temple; and the messenger of the covenant, in whom you delight, behold, He is coming,’ says the Lord of hosts. ‘But who can endure the day of His coming? And who can stand when He appears? For He is like a refiner’s fire and like fullers’ soap. He will sit as a smelter and purifier of silver, and He will purify the sons of Levi and refine them like gold and silver, so that they may present to the Lord offerings in righteousness. Then the offering of Judah and Jerusalem will be pleasing to the Lord as in the days of old and as in former years. Then I will draw near to you for judgment; and I will be a swift witness against the sorcerers and against the adulterers and against those who swear falsely, and against those who oppress the wage earner in his wages, the widow and the orphan, and those who turn aside the alien and do not fear Me,’ says the Lord of hosts.” (Malachi 2:17–3:5, NASB95)[1]
a statement of truth (Malachi 2:17a)
Malachi returns to the form of writing that he had used in chapter one by making a statement of truth. This last verse of chapter two is an introduction to the rest of the book of Malachi. After exposing the sin of the people of Israel, Malachi now makes declaration of judgment on the unrepentant and a declaration of blessing on the faithful remnant. Malachi declares his statement of truth in the first part of verse 17. He writes, “You have wearied the Lord with your words” (Malachi 2:17a, NASB95)[2] Malachi is saying that the LORD is tired of the words of skepticism that are coming from these faithless, disobedient priests and people, God’s patience is worn out by their words which do not honor Him or give Him the glory that is due Him, their words even question His sovereignty, His holiness, and His justice and because of this judgment is coming.
THE TRUTH QUESTIONED (Malachi 2:17b)
The people respond to this statement by asking, “How have we wearied Him?” (Malachi 2:17b, NASB95)[3] They did not understand who the LORD was, their hearts had become calloused or hardened and they had lost all spiritual discernment. They thought that what they were doing was enough and they continued to declare their innocence. They had justified in their minds all that they knew to be wrong so that they rejected all intention of taking right and wrong seriously. So they innocently ask how they had wearied the LORD.
Malachi answers them, he writes that they have wearied the LORD, “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?’” (Malachi 2:17c, NASB95)[4] These people were so indifferent, so wrapped in their complacent self-righteousness that they had questioned the LORD’S holiness and righteousness by implying that the LORD seemed to favor the wicked by making them prosper, but that He was unconcerned with the righteous. They asked, “Where is this God of justice?” or in other words, “If God is just, why do the wicked prosper, and we struggle daily to survive?” Why does God not judge the wicked and bless His covenant people. They thought that because they were the covenant people of God that they were righteous and that God must bless them if He was just. They had come so hardened and indifferent to sin that they did not see it in their own lives and realize that this was the reason that they were not prospering, this was why they were not experiencing the blessing of the LORD. The prophet told them that they were not going to be blessed, but instead judgment was coming, the LORD God was coming to refine and purify.
THE LORD IS COMING (Malachi 3:1)
The people were asking, “Where is the God of justice?” Malachi gives them the answer, he begins by saying, “Behold, I am going to send My messenger, and he will clear the way before Me.” (Malachi 3:1a, NASB95)[5] The people of Malachi’s day would have understood this to mean that someone very important was coming. It was the custom of Near Eastern kings to send messengers or heralders before them to remove any obstacles to their visit, to prepare the people to welcome the king. These words recorded by Malachi are words spoken by the LORD Himself, He is responding to these words that have wearied Him. The LORD is telling the people of Israel to prepare themselves because He is coming. God had already announced this messenger years earlier through the pen of Isaiah, in Isaiah 40:3-5 we read, “A voice is calling, ‘Clear the way for the Lord in the wilderness; Make smooth in the desert a highway for our God. Let every valley be lifted up, And every mountain and hill be made low; And let the rough ground become a plain, And the rugged terrain a broad valley; Then the glory of the Lord will be revealed, And all flesh will see it together; For the mouth of the Lord has spoken.’” (Isaiah 40:3–5, NASB95)[6] The New Testament clearly identifies this messenger as John the Baptist. All four Gospels quote Isaiah 40:3 as referring to John the Baptist who came as the messenger sent from God to prepare the way for the LORD to come to His people. Jesus even quoted this verse from Malachi in Matthew 11:10 when He was speaking of John the Baptist. So Malachi prophesies that this messenger is coming to prepare the hearts of the people for the coming of the LORD.
Malachi goes on in verse 3 to say that this God of justice that they were looking for would come suddenly into His temple. Even though the messenger would go before the LORD He will appear suddenly in His temple, this does not mean immediately, but instantaneously and unannounced. When all the preparations are completed, the Lord will come, not to Zerubbabel’s temple of Malachi’s day, nor in partial fulfillment to Herod’s temple during His first advent, but finally in full fulfillment to the millennial temple that Ezekiel describes in Ezekiel 40-48. The unexpected coming of Christ that was partially fulfilled at His first advent, will be accomplished in full at His second coming.
The LORD of hosts continues and says “…the messenger of the covenant, in whom you delight, behold, He is coming” (Malachi 3:1b, NASB95)[7] This messenger is not the same as the messenger first mentioned in this verse. This Messenger will come into His temple. It is a reference to the LORD Himself, the God of justice, the One who has authority to reward or judge His people on the basis of their faithfulness to His covenant with them. They had asked, “Where is the God of justice?” The LORD of hosts tells them that He, the LORD Himself is coming, the One who has authority to judge according to His covenant with them, the One who will administer justice on the basis of the covenant. This phrase “in whom you delight…” is sarcastic because these sinful people were not delighting in the LORD then, nor would they when He comes in judgment on their hypocritical worship. Destruction will come on all the ungodly when the LORD comes.
THE MESSENGER OF THE COVENANT (Malachi 3:2-5)
In verses 2-5 we are given a closer look at the Messenger of the covenant who will come into His temple. First, Malachi gives us a description of His authority and second we are told how that authority will be used to refine and judge His people.
Because this Messenger is the LORD God two questions are asked, “But who can endure the day of His coming? And who can stand when He appears?” (Malachi 3:2a, NASB95)[8] The obvious answer is no one can endure the day of His coming or stand when He appears, because all mankind is sinful, it is only if we have agreed with God that we are helpless sinners and believed that Jesus Christ’s death on the cross paid the penalty for our sin, believing that He was buried, and on the third day of His death He was resurrected from the dead that are sins are forgiven and we are justified before God, it is only by this one way that we can endure the day of His coming, or stand when He appears. The sinful, unrepentant, self-righteous people of Israel have no hope of this unless they repent and turn to God for salvation.
The LORD of hosts goes on to explain the authority of the Messenger of the covenant by giving us two examples of what His authority is like. The authority of the Messenger is like a refiner’s fire and like fuller’s soap. A refiner’s fire is a very hot fire in a furnace that will melt metal bringing it to a molten state, when this happens the impurities in the molten metal will come to the top, this is called dross and the fire will burn up the dross or it will be skimmed off. I remember when I was in high school I took a class where we built a mold and then put brass ingots in a furnace and melted them and before the molten brass could be poured into our molds the instructor would skim the dross off of the top of the molten brass. Then the molten brass would be poured into our molds to harden into the shape we had made. Fuller’s soap is also a cleansing agent. “Fuller” is an old term for someone who does laundry and their soap was usually made from alkali which was used for whitening or for removing stubborn stains. Those who refuse the refining and cleansing provided by the LORD will go to everlasting destruction in the lake of fire, they will be like the dross.
The LORD says that He will sit as a smelter (someone who works with molten metal) and a purifier of silver, and His refining will begin with the sons of Levi, the Levitical priests who had been instrumental in leading the people astray. A new group of pure priests was required for the work in the millennial temple so the cleansing of the nation would begin with them. Once they are purified like refined gold and silver they would be able to bring offerings in righteousness to the LORD. Given from hearts that are cleansed by the LORD through His shed blood on the cross, standing before God in a right condition because of His imputed righteousness to them, their offerings will be in righteousness before Him. The sacrifices offered in the millennial kingdom will be a memorial for the redeemed nation of Israel, the millennial sacrifices will commemorate the sacrifice of the Lord Jesus Christ at Calvary. The LORD says that these sacrifices from the purified priests will be pleasing to Him as the sacrifices in the days of old and as in the former years when the priests feared God and stood in awe of His name.
In answer to the people’s question of: “Where is the God of justice?” the LORD of hosts says that after the Levitical priests are refined then He will draw near them in judgment. The LORD of hosts will refine the remnant of repentant Jews who acknowledge Him as their Messiah. He does this to prepare them to be a part of the millennial kingdom and to worship Him in the millennial temple. What this refining process is for those who are repentant is utter destruction for those who refuse to repent and recognize the LORD as their Messiah. These will be excluded from the millennial kingdom, they will be burned up like the dross. In verse 5 the LORD of hosts gives a list of those who will be destroyed, these of course are not sins that happen one time, but instead describe lifestyles of people who do not fear the LORD. Each of the sins listed here are forbidden in the law, sorcery has to do with occult practices and idolatry, adultery was also forbidden, false witnesses and lying was against God’s law, as well as extortion and oppression. People who habitually practiced these behaviors showed that they did not fear God and the LORD would judge them for their sin and ultimately their judgment would lead them to the lake of fire.
CONCLUSION:
The complacency or indifference of the people of Israel had caused them to become hardened and calloused toward the LORD, they no longer feared Him or desired to walk with Him because they had justified in their minds their sin and were content to be religious without being spiritual or godly. When they saw the wicked nations around them prospering when they were not, they began to question God’s love for them, His concern for them, His justice without understanding that it was their own unfaithfulness to God that was the problem, they were being unfaithful to the covenant and the LORD was withholding blessing because of their unfaithfulness. They thought they deserved God’s blessing because they were His covenant people, but they forgot that they had to seek to faithfully obey the covenant if they wanted the covenant blessings. They thought God was being unjust, and the LORD of hosts said He would come and they would be judged according to the covenant.
What about you? Have you become content where you are in your walk with the Lord? Does reading your Bible, praying and coming to church seem like an obligation or is it your passion? Would you consider yourself a religious person or a godly person? Do not become content in where you are in your walk with the Lord but instead always seek to deepen that walk, do not allow Bible reading and prayer and church to become obligations but opportunities for spiritual growth, opportunities for deepening your relationship with the Lord. In Ephesians 3:14-19 Paul prayed for the saints in Ephesus that they might grow in Christ, that they would not become content in where their walk was with the Lord. This is my prayer for you.
Ephesians 3:14-19,
“For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named, that according to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith—that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.” (Ephesians 3:14–19, ESV)[9] In Jesus name I pray. Amen.
[1]New American Standard Bible : 1995 Update. La Habra, CA : The Lockman Foundation, 1995
[2]New American Standard Bible : 1995 Update. La Habra, CA : The Lockman Foundation, 1995
[3]New American Standard Bible : 1995 Update. La Habra, CA : The Lockman Foundation, 1995
[4]New American Standard Bible : 1995 Update. La Habra, CA : The Lockman Foundation, 1995
[5]New American Standard Bible : 1995 Update. La Habra, CA : The Lockman Foundation, 1995
[6]New American Standard Bible : 1995 Update. La Habra, CA : The Lockman Foundation, 1995
[7]New American Standard Bible : 1995 Update. La Habra, CA : The Lockman Foundation, 1995
[8]New American Standard Bible : 1995 Update. La Habra, CA : The Lockman Foundation, 1995
[9]The Holy Bible: English Standard Version. Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2016.