Malachi 1 Lesson for May 16-17, 2015 Reagan Reynolds

Transcription

1 Malachi 1 Lesson for May 16-17, 2015 Reagan Reynolds INTRODUCTION/BIBLICAL CONTEXT Approaching the book of Malachi, we need to remember the things that have happened to Israel leading up to this point in their history. God chose the Israelites to be His people through their ancestor Abraham, liberated them from Egypt, brought them into the promise land, and established them as a solidified nation. But due to their continual disobedience, sin, corruption, and mimicry of the nations surrounding them, Israel found themselves in a great deal of trouble. Judah and Israel were sacked by the very nations they had been trying to please, and a great number of them found themselves in exile in Babylon for an extended period of time. When the Israelites were finally allowed to return home by the Persians (who defeated the Babylonians), Jerusalem was in ruins and the temple was completely destroyed. Even as they rebuilt their homes and the temple, things just didn t feel the same as they had before, and the people were beginning to wonder if God really cared for them after all. Beyond that, they had more questions about how God would emerge victorious when all of these world powers (Assyria, Babylon, Persia, Greece, etc.) kept popping up and keeping Israel in subjugation. The message of this first chapter of Malachi is twofold: 1) God wants to remind the Israelites that He really does love them and 2) He wants them to remove corruption from their worship, giving all of their devotion to Him. With this in mind, I would divide up this lesson into three major points. 1) God s punishment does not mean that He has withdrawn His love. 2) God does not want blemished offerings from His people. 3) In the end, God will be victorious in human history 1 The Oracle of the word of the Lord to Israel by Malachi. Like many of the other Minor Prophets we have been reading recently, Malachi wants to delineate clearly that the words contained in this prophecy are directly from God. That is exactly what the word oracle implies a message directly from God. Perhaps in school you read about the oracle at Delphi- Delphi was a city in the ancient world that was famous for having a priestess who would give messages from the gods. This is what it means to hear an oracle from God-a direct message from God through an intermediary. Based on what happens in the following verses, this structure makes a great deal of sense. It is clear that the message in verses 2-10 are not Malachi s opinion, but God s words to Israel. 2 I have loved you, says the Lord. But you say, How have you loved us? Is not Esau Jacob s brother? declares the Lord. Yet I have loved Jacob 3 but Esau I have hated. I have laid waste his hill country and left his heritage to jackals of the desert. 1

2 God s Statement: God begins His message with an incredibly important declaration, I have loved you. The Israelites had experienced a great deal of pain and trauma over the few centuries leading up to Malachi s time period, but God reminds them that he does indeed love them. Israel s Question: The Israelites ask, How have you loved us? There are a couple of elements to this question. On the one hand, it seems like the Israelites are asking Do you really love us?, almost as if to say If You love us, then how could you let these horrible things happen to us? In some ways, this seems like a fair question, because the Israelites are experiencing an extremely painful punishment due to the actions of their ancestors. However, as we will see moving forward, these Israelites are guilty of many of the same sins as those who came before them. On the other hand, the other element involved in the question How have you loved us is the shame that the Israelites are feeling for their past transgressions. Perhaps the question could be reframed How could you love us, after everything we have done against you? At times, we see this mixture of blame and shame manifest itself in our own lives and the lives of others. The Israelites are accusing God of not displaying true love for them while at the same time feeling deep guilt and shame over the sin that is rampant among them. This phenomena even shows up in the Garden of Eden in Genesis 3 after Adam and Eve eat the fruit that God had commanded them to avoid. They cover themselves because they are ashamed, yet Adam blames Eve (and God), saying the woman that you gave to me gave me the fruit, and I ate it, and the woman blames the serpent who tempted her. God s Response: God responds to the question by bringing up the story of Jacob and Esau from Genesis chapters Jacob and Esau were twin brothers, the children of Isaac and Rebekah. Esau was born first, and he was the favorite of his father, Isaac, while Jacob was the smaller, less physically imposing brother, who was the favorite of his mother Rebekah. From the beginning, there was enmity and division between the two brothers. Esau may have been the firstborn, and the rightful heir to his father s blessing and the larger share of inheritance, but God had chosen Jacob to be Abraham s true descendant. Jacob did nothing to earn this selection from God (in fact, he was pretty tricky and dishonest), but God was still faithful to lead Jacob to prominence. God uses this story to Jacob and Esau to answer both of Israel s implied questions, how have you loved us and how could you love us. Indeed, Israel s cities had been sacked and destroyed, but their cities would be rebuilt and repaired. However, Edom (the home of Esau s descendants) will be shattered and never rebuilt. The reason for this is that God has chosen the Israelites, not the Edomites, to be His people. We learn from the book of Obadiah that God is angry with the Edomites because they kicked the Israelites when they were down. After the Babylonians sacked Israel and killed or carried off most of if population, the Edomites killed, robbed, looted, and raped what was left of those still in Jerusalem. This act made up God s mind about the Edomites, that they would be destroyed and never would rebuild again. God s answer to the Israelites is essentially: 1) I love you because I have made a covenant with you and your ancestors and 2) I have shown my love by sparing you and restoring even you when you didn t deserve it (unlike the way I have acted with other people groups). 2

3 Verses 4-5 elaborate on God s answer. 4 If Edom says, We are shattered but we will rebuild the ruins, the Lord of host says, they may build, but I will tear down, and they will be called the wicked country, and the people with whom the Lord is angry forever. 5 Your own eyes shall see this, and you shall say, Great is the Lord beyond the border of Israel. Big Point #1: God s punishment does not mean He has withdrawn His Love When God brings judgement and punishment upon the Israelites, it does not mean that He no longer loves them. In fact, it is quite the opposite. He allows them to go through a time of intense suffering and pain partly as a consequence for their actions, but mostly to refine them and form them into the people He created them to be. God s judgement does not exist for the mere sake of destruction. Instead, God punishes and judges for the sake of refining and strengthening His people. Application: All children misbehave - there is no arguing with that. If you think that children do not prove that humans are sinners from birth, then you have not spent time with any children. Because children and teenagers (and adults) misbehave, they need to be taught how to behave and function in a healthy manner. The way that this happens (hopefully) is through parents giving healthy boundaries for the child s behavior and punishments for when the child steps out of line. I vividly remember many of the times that my parents would punish me for my many forms of misbehavior as a child and a teenager. Whether they were spanking me, putting me in timeout, or grounding me, my parents would always tell me that they were punishing me because they loved me and they wanted me to understand what I had done wrong. They were never once angry or malicious when they punished me. I may not have understood completely as a kid, but my parents didn t want to hurt me with their punishments, they instead wanted to teach me and help me grow into a functional human adult. The same thing is true of many difficult things that happen to us in life. God will allow certain difficult things to happen to us because He is refining us and changing us into who He made us to be. In fact, many of the difficult situations we face in life come as a direct result of sin in our lives. God may not be actively punishing us we may just be receiving the natural repercussions of our own actions. The point of all of this is to illustrate that God sending some form of punishment into your life does not mean that He no longer loves you. It instead means that He does not want to let you stay the same forever. He wants you to change, to weed out sin from your life, and become more like Christ. 6 A son honors his father, and a servant his master. If then I am a father, where is my honor? And if I am a master, where is my fear? Says the Lord of hosts to you, O priests, who despise my name. But you will say, How have we despised your name? 7 By offering polluted food upon my altar. But you say, How have we polluted you? By saying that the Lord s table may be despised. 8 When you offer blind animals in sacrifice, is that not evil? And when you offer those that are lame or sick, is that not evil? Present that to your governor; will he accept you or show you favor? Says the Lord of hosts. 9 And now 3

4 entreat the favor of God, that he may be gracious to us. With such a gift from your hand, will he show favor to any of you? Says the lord of hosts. God s complaint to the Israelites: God now levels a charge against the Israelites and their priests; namely, that they have been dishonoring Him by bringing blemished sacrifices. At this point in Israel s history, they had an intricate sacrificial system where they would offer up animals as a sacrifice to God in order to cover their sins. From early in the Old Testament, God had set the precedent that His people must bring their first fruits to him, the best of what they had. According to this texts, many Israelites had instead been bringing lambs, goats, and birds that were blemished, blind, sick, and lame. This was a symbol that they did not want to offer their best to God, but instead their leftovers. While we may not be able to relate with the sacrificial system, I think every one of us struggles with bringing our best to God. This not just about animal sacrifice or money or anything else, it is about offering up our very lives to God. In Romans 12:1, Paul tells Christians that we ought to present our bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God. We no longer bring animals to sacrifice to God, but we instead bring our own lives. This passage in Malachi makes it clear that God does not accept a partial or blemished sacrifice. Big Point #2: God does not accept a blemished sacrifice. Illustration: Tax season just ended, and all of us had to deal with the IRS. Every US citizen who earns money over a calendar year owes some allotted amount of money to the government based on income, profession, and several other factors. If you were to calculate how much money you owed to the government, and you came up with the conclusion that you owe the government $20,000, then you are required to pay that amount of money to the IRS. At that point, you cannot arbitrarily decide that that you are going to pay $10,000 instead of $20,000 just because you didn t feel like it (unless you want to go to jail). Even if you justified paying only 10 thousand dollars in your head by saying the government is inefficient with money, and I have already paid so much money, and no one will notice that I haven t paid, and my conscience is clean, it would make no difference. You owe what you owe to the government. It would be silly to think otherwise; you pay your taxes or you risk going to prison. How many of us try similar silly mind games with God, justifying reasons for not offering our whole lives and hearts to God. Allow me to give a few examples: I know I have trouble with gossip, but I do so many other things well that I can let this slide. I listen to sermons on a podcast, so I don t need to go to church and be in community with other believers, I get all the community I need with my family and friends anyway. I won t tithe because money is tight; I ll start giving money to God when I finish paying off this car that I bought with money that I didn t have. I know that I watch pornography, but I always treat women with respect, and I would never commit adultery in real life. There are countless ways that we justify not giving God our full hearts, minds, and lives. No excuse is good enough to justify sin in our lives. Of course we will not be perfect, but we are called to feel conviction and to be actively battling sin in our lives at all times. Allow the Holy Spirit to change you, and offer your entire life as a sacrifice to God. 4

5 11 For from the rising of the sun to its setting my name will be great among the nations, and in every place incense will be offered to my name, and a pure offering. For my name will be great among the nations, says the Lord of hosts. Remember that the Israelites found themselves under the subjugation of several consecutive world empires. They had been told that they were God s people, and that His name would be great in the world. But at the moment, they looked like a small nation with a small regional God. So when they see God promise that His name would be great among the nations, and that incense would be offered in His name all over the world, they were probably wondering how could this ever happen. Because of verses like Malachi 1:11, many Israelites began to believe that God would raise up a Messiah that would liberate Israel from the oppression of the world powers like the Romans and the Greeks. They thought the Messiah could make Israel a prominent nation in the world, and that God s name would be made great in that way. Little did the Israelites know, that God would indeed send a Messiah. But His Messiah would not be a political or military leader. He instead would send a suffering servant, who would open up God s kingdom to Jews and Gentiles, and that through His sacrifice and suffering, people all over the world would indeed be offering incense and pure offerings to God. No Israelite during Malachi s time could have imagined what God would do to make His name great in the earth. Big Point #3: God will be victorious in Human History We may not know exactly how it will happen, but the God we worship will indeed be victorious in human history. All of history is moving in the direction in which God will emerge victorious, even if it happens in a way that we do not expect. We believe as Christians that Jesus will indeed return to recreate a New Heavens and a New Earth. The final scene of scripture in the book of Revelation is Heaven coming down to Earth, and all things being made new. This is the ending that we believe as Christians, and because of this, there is no reason for us to avoid offering our whole lives to God here and now. We get to be a part of what God is doing in human history, and there is no higher calling than to be part of God s new creation! 5