Do We Want to Endure?

Malachi 2:17-3:5

'You have wearied the Lord with your words. "How have we wearied him?" you ask. By saying "All who do evil are good in the eyes of the Lord, and he is pleased with them" Or "Where is the God of Justice?" 
"See, I will send my messenger, who will prepare the way before me. Then suddenly the Lord you are seeking will come to his temple; the messenger of the covenant, whom you desire, will come," Says the Lord Almighty.  
But who can endure the day of his coming? Who can stand when he appears? For he will be like a refiner's fire or a Launderer's soup. He will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver; he will purify the Levites and refine them like gold and silver. Then the Lord will have men who will bring offerings in righteousness, and the offerings of Judah and Jerusalem will be acceptable to the Lord, as in days gone by, as in former years. 
"So I will come near to you for judgement, I will be quick to testify against sorcerers, adulterers and perjurers, against those who defraud laborers of their wages, who oppress the widows and the fatherless, and deprive aliens of justice, but do not fear me," says the Lord Almighty.'

'But who can endure the day of his coming?' It's not surprising to me that the Jews of Jesus day didn't recognize him. He didn't come in guns blazing calling fire down from the sky. He didn't clean house. He didn't get rid of the pesky Romans. Instead he called fisher men and a tax collector to be his disciples. He called for a radical way to love. In fact the only time he really gets violently angry is when he over throws the tables of the money changers in the temple. The refining that Jesus brings is so different from what was expected.

The Lord promises that he is going to come and judge the people of the earth. That the wrong that has infiltrated the very essences of every filament in our being will not be left. When silver and gold are refined, all the lesser metals and junk are burned away. God makes a promise that he will bring judgement. But more then that, he will give us a way to bring offerings that are expectable to him.

No longer will our rightness with God be determined by our own ability to carry out his commandments and laws. Because there never really was a chance of us being about to do that in the first place. We have, down to our filament, our very molecules, been separated from God by our perfect ability to imperfectly worship him. Who can endure his coming? He promises to break us down, to in a way, completely remake us. We can not endure, at least not how we are now.

But do we want to endure? Of course we do. That's the major problem. God promises to unravel us to pull out our very selves. The monumental heap of dung that is our lives, is more important to us then the utter wonderment of God's love. Against God we are worthless, sin infested, specks of nothing. But we don't like that comparison, so we compare ourselves against those like us. After-all, I'm better then that guy who drinks every night and doesn't work. Sure I'm not perfect, but no one is.

The Lord isn't forcing his refining on us. He is offering it to us, because he wants to call us Children. He wants to be our father. He is promising to make us as we should be, as he intended us to be. No longer are we a bit of shiny dirt, we will be pure gold. No longer a monumental heap of dung, but a pure reflection of the one who made us. No longer will we be imperfect, we will be perfect in him. It might not be fun in the fire, but it could be worth it.

The Problem with Commitment

Malachi 2:10-16 Do we not all have one Father? Did not one God create us? Why do we profane the covenant of our ancestors by being unfaithful to one another?
¹¹ Judah has been unfaithful. A detestable thing has been committed in Israel and in Jerusalem: Judah has desecrated the sanctuary the Lord loves by marrying women who worship a foreign god. ¹² As for the man who does this, whoever he may be, may the Lord remove him from the tents of Jacob—even though he brings an offering to theLord Almighty.
¹³ Another thing you do: You flood the Lord’s altar with tears. You weep and wail because he no longer looks with favor on your offerings or accepts them with pleasure from your hands. ¹⁴ You ask, “Why?” It is because the Lord is the witness between you and the wife of your youth. You have been unfaithful to her, though she is your partner, the wife of your marriage covenant.
¹⁵ Has not the one God made you? You belong to him in body and spirit. And what does the one God seek? Godly offspring. So be on your guard, and do not be unfaithful to the wife of your youth.
¹⁶ “The man who hates and divorces his wife,” says the Lord, the God of Israel, “does violence to the one he should protect,” says the Lord Almighty. So be on your guard, and do not be unfaithful.

There is a saying that gets thrown around a lot at my church: Image Bearers. It really struck me when I first heard it. I had been taught as a child that we are all created in the image of God, but I had never heard Image Bearers before. In saying that we are image bearers, we are saying that we bear the image of God. The word bear, means to hold a burden, like a roof bears the burden of snow. In a way this is true of us as well. There are no other beings in the universe that can claim to be made in the image of God. Nor is there any being that can claim that God would stoop so low as to wear our skin, our clay. 

Our image is that of a creator, our burden is to bear that image in this world. So Malachi's question cuts deep at the beginning of this passage. 'Did not one God create us? Why do we profane the covenant of our ancestors by being unfaithful to one another?' If we are in fact bearing the image of God, why do we continue to treat others as less then ourselves? When the Pharisees asked Jesus what the greatest commandment was he answered 'Love the Lord your God... and the second... Love your neighbor.' (Matt 22:36-40). It makes sense that we would love the God who made us and because of this love, love those created in his image.

The problem is that we don't like playing by the rules. We feel the need to dictate our own way, to set ourselves up to be greater then the God of creation. And this in truth is the reason there is a problem with commitment. If we refuse to worship and love the God who knit us together, who breathed life into our clay, how can we ever truly love and commit to the people around us? 

We are so easily drawn away from what deep love and commitment to God, simply because we put other things higher then God. This does not just effect our relationship with our Father in heaven. Malachi calls the people to remember the commitments that they have made with each other. To honor God not just with worship and love, but to also honor him by how we treat those around us. Judah's decision to break their wedding commitment mirrors the way they have broken with God. 

In fact the image of marriage comes up often through out the scriptures. In the end times the church is like a bride, coming to meet her bride groom (God). Our constant inevitable self created distance from God, mirrors the divorce and destruction of marriage in real life. The problem with Commitment isn't commitment, its what we are committed too.

If we are committed to ourselves and our owe thoughts, dreams, ambitions, and fears, we will never feel happiness nor complete. Money, sex, power, technologies, family, children, marriage, alcohol, and whatever else we find important, will never complete us. We can not be completed by created things. However, if we commit to God, something very different takes place. No longer are the things of this earth weighing us down. No longer are our hopes and dreams tied to this created plain. Rather we are lifted to a hope which we have no right too. Jesus commits to God so great a act of worship and honor, that we are given a pure commitment. We are that Bride dressed in white.

Thus our commitment to God brings our love of Him to those around us. No longer can we live in fear or hate. This person, my neighbor, perhaps even my enemy, bears the image of God. All of us created for His Glory. Why would we be unfaithful to each other?

The Reverent Leader

Malachi 2: 1-9 “And now, you priests, this warning is for you. ² If you do not listen, and if you do not resolve to honor my name,” says the Lord Almighty, “I will send a curse on you, and I will curse your blessings. Yes, I have already cursed them, because you have not resolved to honor me.

³ “Because of you I will rebuke your descendants; I will smear on your faces the dung from your festival sacrifices, and you will be carried off with it. ⁴ And you will know that I have sent you this warning so that my covenant with Levi may continue,” says the Lord Almighty. ⁵ “My covenant was with him, a covenant of life and peace, and I gave them to him; this called for reverence and he revered me and stood in awe of my name. ⁶ True instruction was in his mouth and nothing false was found on his lips. He walked with me in peace and uprightness, and turned many from sin.

⁷ “For the lips of a priest ought to preserve knowledge, because he is the messenger of the Lord Almighty and people seek instruction from his mouth.⁸ But you have turned from the way and by your teaching have caused many to stumble; you have violated the covenant with Levi,” says the Lord Almighty.⁹ “So I have caused you to be despised and humiliated before all the people, because you have not followed my ways but have shown partiality in matters of the law.”

This passage cuts across time and history in a chilling way. The priests of Malachi’s day might have strayed and lead the people astray, but it didn’t stop with them. In current history the news stories of Catholic priest molesting children, Pastors stealing offering money, and leading their followers to hate have become standards. Collectively we shake our heads and feel outrage at their acts. They are meant to lead us to be better versions of ourselves.

The Lord says that he ‘will smear on your faces the dung from your festival sacrifices.’ I can’t imagine a worse humiliation. They have disrespected the Lord, so he will disrespect them. There are a ton of places where God speaks out against false Prophets and bad leaders.

I can understand God's stance. We expect our leaders to be better then ourselves. We expect the hero's we worship to be almost more then human. And yet we enjoy watching others fall, because it makes us feel better about ourselves. Why else would reality TV be so popular? Yet God's displeasure isn't simply because the priest have gone astray, they have lead his people astray. The priest have broken a covenant that God made with Levi. God is calling the leaders of his people to be higher and to not stumble. 

I can’t imagine something more terrifying for someone who is going into ministry. There is a fear of miss representing God. Of leading people astray. Yet their are clues in this passage about what God expects from those who lead. First they are to have reverence for God. Second they are speak 'true instruction'. And finally they are to preserve knowledge. 

Reverence is defined in the dictionary as a feeling or attitude of deep respect tinged with awe; veneration. And the outward manifestation of this feeling. Levi had a deep reverence for God. And it was because of this reverence that he was blessed by God. If we do not first have a deep understanding of the God we serve and have a deep reverence for him, we can not be effective leaders. If you truely revere God then the thoughts of others mean little. It matters more what God expects. So if God is truly first, then the expectations of others will come second to God's expectations. The Levi's had lost sight of who God was and lost their reverence for God.

From this reverence comes the ability to speak 'true instruction'. True in this sense to be true in reference to God. Truth is a very black and white word. Things are either true or not. God calls his leaders to to speak truth. But its not just truth, this truth is to be instructive to teach. A leader is to teach the respect and awe that they have for God to those around them. They are to lead people in reverence of the Most High. 

Out of this reverence and truth comes a call to preserve knowledge, to remember history. God is calling the leaders to keep the great deeds of His love alive. They are to be taught and past down. They are not to become less real. To preserve something is to keep it forever. The dictionary defines preserve as a way of keeping something alive. To protect from harm or injury. We are to keep faith alive and thriving. To feed it and protect it. To make sure that all know the truth and the word of the Lord. Wit

This is a heavy calling. One that the Levi's in Malachi's day had failed. They were not the first. They are not the last. I just pray that as I lead others that I can remember to first have reverence for God, to speak his truth and finial preserve knowledge of his great love. 

Great is the Lord

I was going to move onward to Chapter two, but I was struck by something interesting. Now I’m not a biblical scholar. I don’t read/speak any other language but English. However, I have learned that when something is repeated it is probably important. There are four places in the first chapter of Malachi, where the greatness of the Lord is promised to be known outside of Israel. 1:5 “You will see it with your own eyes and say, ‘Great is the Lord—even beyond the borders of Israel”, twice in 1:11 “My name will be great among the nations, from where the sun rises to where it sets. In every place incense and pure offerings will be brought to me, because my name will be great among the nations,” and finally 1:14 “I am a great king,” says the Lord Almighty, “and my name is to be feared among the nations.”

All of these saying are attached to what else is going on in the chapter, mainly God calling his people back to himself and proper worship. Moreover, they are attached to what is to come after Malachi. That God would be known in all nations is a promise that is promised over and over again throughout the Old Testament. It is a promise of the great work that God will undertake and bring to fruition in Jesus. Malachi is followed by years of silence from God. This is the last word, the last place where God makes the promise that he has already put in place.

There is a progression in the repetition of this chapter. We start with Israel seeing with their own eyes that the Lord is great, even beyond their own boarders. Then there is the promise that the Lord’s name would be great among the nations. Which is followed by a Proclamation: ‘I am a great King, my name is to be feared among the nations.’ This progression tells us a lot of what is going to come in the future. God came first to his people. But God’s plan for salvation is a plan in which the whole world will be redeemed. ‘From where the sun rises to where it sets’.

First God will start with Israel. They are a fallen, wandering people. They are constantly leaving their Lord for lesser gods. Again and again God reminds them of the great works he has done for them and through them. Again and again He reminds them of his great love. God’s promised salvation will come through his people, despite their inability to be prefect as his people. Jesus comes first to the Children of God. He is born from the line of David. He was raised according to the laws set down by Moses. But the promised Messiah is not just for Israel, but rather ‘even beyond the borders of Israel.”

Second God will receive praise from around the world. ‘from where the sun rises to where it sets. Twice it is said that the name of God will be great among the nations. It is not enough that Israel see that God is great among the nations. He wants the nations themselves to know his name. The name of God is a sacred thing. Its actual pronunciation is really no more than a guess, because to even write the full name of God was forbidden. Yet this is the Great I AM, the Lord, the King of Kings. He is the only True God. Creator and sustainer. To know the name of God is to know God.  God isn’t just promising that the nations of the world will see his greatness. He is promising that they will know him, intimately. That they will call him by name. They will praise him.

Finally God claims his dominion over the world. ‘I am a great King; my name is to be feared among the nations.’ God is not just going to let his greatness by seen. God is not content with letting the nations of the world know who he is. No he promises he will bring his kingdom to earth. He claims the title that is already his. He promises that he will and is the King of the world. Jesus, when he taught his disciples how to pray said ‘Thy Kingdom Come’. That God would bring his very Kingdom to earth is exciting and terrifying. No longer is there a separation between man and God. No longer is the need for sacrifices and the law. God promises a kingdom, His kingdom, to not just his chosen people, but to the world.

Great is the Lord.

Love and Sacrifice

Malachi 1:6-14

“A son honors his father, and a slave his master. If I am a father, where is the honor due me? If I am a master, where is the respect due me?” says theLord Almighty. “It is you priests who show contempt for my name. “But you ask, ‘How have we shown contempt for your name?’ “By offering defiled food on my altar. “But you ask, ‘How have we defiled you?’ “By saying that the Lord’s table is contemptible. When you offer blind animals for sacrifice, is that not wrong? When you sacrifice lame or diseased animals,is that not wrong? Try offering them to your governor! Would he be pleased with you? Would he accept you?” says the Lord Almighty. “Now plead with God to be gracious to us. With such offerings from your hands, will he accept you?”—says the Lord Almighty. “Oh, that one of you would shut the temple doors, so that you would not light useless fires on my altar! I am not pleased with you,” says the Lord Almighty, “and I will accept no offering from your hands. My name will be great among the nations, from where the sun rises to where it sets. In every place incense and pure offerings will be brought to me, because my name will be great among the nations,” says the Lord Almighty. “But you profane it by saying, ‘The Lord’s table is defiled,’ and, ‘Its food is contemptible.’ And you say, ‘What a burden!’ and you sniff at it contemptuously,” says the Lord Almighty. “When you bring injured, lame or diseased animals and offer them as sacrifices, should I accept them from your hands?” says the Lord.  “Cursed is the cheat who has an acceptable male in his flock and vows to give it, but then sacrifices a blemished animal to the Lord. For I am a great king,” says the Lord Almighty, “and my name is to be feared among the nations.

Malachi moves straight from talking of God's great love for his people in the beginning of the chapter, to how the people and priest in particular are not showing love back. God demands that he be show the honor that he deserves. The main way that the people can show this too him is through sacrifices. Only the priest are offering blemished, unclean, sacrifices. 

It would be easy at this point to say: "We don't do sacrifices any more" and move on to the next bit. But it is important to think about what God finds unpleasing and what is important to God in the way we honor him.

God expects our best. For the Jewish people the only way that they could find forgiveness was by offering up a sacrifice. For us this sacrifice is no longer needed because Jesus has offered himself up for our sins. The sacrifice that the Jewish people offered was never going to cover all their sin. In fact they were constantly offering up sacrifices, year after year. Jesus' sacrifice was perfect. In fact we have nothing to offer that can compare. Still Malachi holds a strong warning, put God first.

When asked what the most important commandment was, Jesus said "To love the Lord your God with all your heart, all of your soul and, all of your mind" (Matt 22:37). Jesus still calls us to put God first in our lives. To offer him the best of who we are. The easiest way to do this is to offer the best of us, is to offer the first of what we do and what we make. When you get paid do you instantly put aside an amount that goes to God's work? When you are given a promotion at work, is your first thought a thanksgiving to God? 

I constantly struggle with putting God first in my life. Tithes too often become an after thought. I worry first about my bills, then giving back. I wake in the morning and think about work or food or going for a run. I make food and I'm far more interested in eating it, then giving thanks. But when I stop, and think first of God, I'm constantly surprised in how God's love over flows in my life. 

It is this thanksgiving that is most important. Ann Voskamp, in her book, One Thousand Gifts, says "All gratitude is ultimately gratitude for Christ, all remembering a remembrance of Him. For in Him all things were create, are sustained, have their being. Thus Christ is all there is to give thanks for..." God, Christ's only wish for us is to be His children. He wants to love and care for us, and to have us love Him in return. 

For the Jewish people they way to show love and honor was through their sacrifice on the alter. When they brought a defective or bad sacrifices, they were basically telling God that they didn't care enough about him to bring him the best of themselves. They were saying that they were not thankful for His gifts. They were saying they didn't care about his love. Like any parent, God wants to be loved in return for the love he has shown. 

And its not that God doesn't understand that we can't perfectly love him. After all we are fallen people, incapable of prefect love. Yet this is the reason for Christ's coming. It is the reason for his death and resurrection. God loved us so much, that even His own son was not safe. So in Christ we find a man who is able to perfectly love God, in ways that we cannot. In Christ we find a human who can honor God far better, and higher then we could ever wish. And Because of Christ, our love will be made perfect and our honor higher then anything we could offer by ourselves. 

God demands Honor and Love because of all the beings in all the universe in all time, he is the only one worthy of that Honor and Love. The reason God wanted the Jewish people to perform the correct sacrifice is because he want's to forgive their sin. He wants to be able to bless them. He wants it to be said that 'The Lord is great among the nations'. 

So how can we show him this love? It really simple and a relentless struggle. We must constantly search after how to love the Lord with our hearts, souls, and minds. We must seek after Him who loved us first. And we do this not because we must, but because we have been so loved. Basically we should offer the first and the best of ourselves to the One who gave all of himself. 

I Have Loved You

Malachi 1:1-5 

A prophecy: The word of the Lord to Israel through Malachi. “I have loved you,” says the Lord. “But you ask, ‘How have you loved us?’ “Was not Esau Jacob’s brother?” declares the Lord. “Yet I have loved Jacob, but Esau I have hated, and I have turned his hill country into a wastelandand left his inheritance to the desert jackals.” Edom may say, “Though we have been crushed, we will rebuild the ruins.” But this is what the Lord Almighty says: “They may build, but I will demolish. They will be called the Wicked Land, a people always under the wrath of the Lord. You will see it with your own eyes and say, ‘Great is the Lord—even beyond the borders of Israel!’

'I have loved you' Says the Lord.

Its curious to me that Malachi chooses the difference between Jacob and Esau as proof of God's love. Two brothers, twins, and God chooses the younger of the two. Is this because Jacob is willing to wrestle with God himself? Because Jacob is tricky and stubborn? Because Jacob works for years just for the women that he loves? Or is it because Esau gave away his birthright for a bowl of soup? God knows the heart of those who he calls. In Malachi God reminds his people of his love for them, by reminding them that he chose them. He chose one brother over another. He even promises to destroy Edom (Esau's descendants).

Often in prophecy, the past deeds of God and the people he called, are used as evidence of His character and love. Here God reminds his people that he chose them, He reminds them of the man, who's name is their given identity. Jacob, who is re-name Israel because he's willingness to wrestle with God himself. His name is still used to speak of God's chosen people. God is reminding the people, not just of his love for them. He is reminding them of their identity. God promised Abraham descendants more numerous then the stars, but it is Israel who gives his name to the people themselves.

Malachi is the last of the prophets. After this prophecy there is silence. The silence is only ended by the coming of the Messiah. Here at the beginning of this 'final' prophecy, Malachi calls God's people to remember his love. God's choice in Jacob, in the fallen wandering people who carry his name, is a show of his great love. In fact in the first chapter of Malachi there are four references to the Greatness of God's name among all the nations. 'I have loved you' the Lord reminds his people. He is promising to show them a even greater love. He is promising to show his greatness.