The Book of Malachi: WORSHIP GOD by BEING FAITHFUL TO HIS WORD

Being Faithful to God’s Word

(Malachi 2:1-9)

Malachi 2:1-9 shows God’s response as He keeps His part of the covenant and curses them accordingly. Mixed into this section is a condemnation of the priests who were not instructing the people correctly. They were showing partiality which must mean they were doing things for their own gain and they were causing others to stumble by not teaching correctly.

These priests surely didn't get the big picture. Here's that "talking to" they desperately needed - and extremely blunt. Verse 3 may just take your appetite away, "Behold, I will corrupt your seed, and spread dung upon your faces, even the dung of your solemn feasts; and one shall take you away with it." Malachi is referring to the internal excrement ("dung") from the sacrificed animals which were ordinarily carried outside the camp for disposal after the sacrifice. Malachi's prophecy strongly suggests that their corrupt actions regarding their sacrificial practices are not meeting God's approval. They are disgracing the Levite tradition. Verse 8 proclaims that they are causing people in Israel to stumble because of their actions. Were these priests well respected? According to verse 9, I guess not, "Therefore have I also made you contemptible and base before all the people."

For us believers, we have to be reminded again that we are all called priests.  Christ made us all priests to God.  We are called to be a holy nation and a royal priesthood.  What practical things can we learn from this?

First lesson is to use our ears by listening to God’s word.  Not only just to listen but to listen carefully.  God knows who are His because those who are His hear, know and follow His voice.  It is by what and who we listen to that will influence what we do.  So, let’s respond to God by listening and obeying.

Second thing that we can learn is to use our mouth by speaking God’s word.  As a royal priesthood and messengers of the Lord, our mouths should preserve the knowledge that God bestowed upon us.  We are also to handle and share His word accurately (not to take anything from it or add something to it).  In the area of rebuking others, we are to speak truth in love because our words bring only two things to the hearers—it’s either life or death.  Therefore, the words that we utter should lead people to God and not to move them away from God.

Lastly, we can learn that we should use our feet by ministering God’s word.  It means that our walk (our behaviors or ways) as followers of Christ must not cause others to stumble.  Our lifestyle must also lead others to Christ, not to lead others or us away from Christ.  Our gifts must also be use to expand God’s kingdom through serving in our own churches and outside our churches.  Our faithfulness must represent God to other people, especially to those who do not know Christ yet. 

The Book of Malachi: WORSHIP GOD WITH OUR BEST

Worship that God rejects 

(Malachi 1:6-14)

The priests of Israel were charged of despising and dishonoring God's name because of their polluted offering. When confronted about this by Malachi saying, "'If I am a father, where is my honor; if I am Lord, where is my fear?' says Yahweh of armies to you, O priests, who despise my name.", the priest questioned back saying "How have we despised your name?" Although the message of God was directly addressed to all the priests, the people were also affected and have also been guilty of not honoring the name of the Lord by what the priest offered.  The priests thought that they were doing the right things--singing hymns to God, offering animal sacrifices and worshiping the Lord with their prayers. But in God's sight, these there were not acceptable. Yes, they were offering animal sacrifices to God, but all were polluted. They were not according to God's standards.  The priests not only dishonor God, but they despise His whole being, nature and work. 

Then, Malachi instructed them to find favor in God's sight through an urgent prayer. “Now, entreat the face of God that he may be gracious to us.” The expression is bold, but simple--they have to pray for divine favor (undeserved favor).   This need of an urgent prayer is because of the people’s “guilt”.  But if the people will continue on doing the worship that God rejects, Malachi declared that their offerings will be worthless and be eaten by the fire, thus the doors of the temple will be shut down.  Therefore, there is also a need to prevent vain worship.  The next part in verse 11 predicts the Gentile faith.  If the Israelites reject the Lord, the other nations will not.  It is said in the passage that from the rising to the setting of the sun, the name of the Lord will be magnified.  This early prediction of the Gentile faith pictures the true worship where people will give offerings of prayers and pure sacrifices with obedient hearts for the Lord.  This is what genuine worship will look like. In time this is what happened, God turned to the Gentiles and when the Gospel went to all nations, people celebrated the pure offering, the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, the Righteous.

What makes the priest even worse was what Malachi said.  They were not even trying to hide their true feelings. In verse 13 he added, “And you say, ‘What a drudgery!’ and you snort at it, says the Lord of armies.” The snorting must be some kind of gesture or expression of disgust; to them it was a drudgery to do it, a pain in the neck. There was no joy in worship, no delight in serving God.  Then, prophet Malachi said God’s word, “When you bring injured, crippled and diseased animals to offer them as sacrifices, should I accept them from your hands?”   This clearly stated an insult to God. So the people who continue to do this kind of worship will be cursed which means being away from God’s blessings. 

What then can we learn from this?  To worship God means giving a proper response to who God is—to His entire being, nature and work.  Proper means doing what is right in the sight of God.  Thus, worshiping Him requires not only what we can give but also the right condition of our hearts.  We need to understand that God’s love is set after us.  He made us a chosen and royal priesthood.  We also have to use our head (mind) in worshiping the Lord.  We should know who God is and how great He is. Through knowing these, then we will be able to see that God is truly awesome and marvelous that He deserves a proper response from us, His beloved subjects.  Then with our hands, we can offer Him our best through our time and possession. Worshiping God with our heart, mind and hand is giving Him our time, energy and gift, which are actually all coming from Him and not from our own. 

The Book of Malachi: RESETTING MY HEART TO GOD’S LOVE

God declares His great love and affection.

(Malachi 1:1-5)

The opening of the book gives a declaration about the love of God for the people of Israel as it states “I have loved you.”  God gave an affirmation to the Israelites that He loved them with great affection and that He chose to love the nation no matter what they did.   This was the first declaration of God to the Israelites.  But because of the hardened hearts of the Israelites, they questioned the love God by saying “How have You loved us?”  They were not convinced of this declaration because of their spiritual rebellion.  Then the prophet Malachi reminded them of their standing in the sight of God through the comparison made between Esau and Jacob.  God realized his love for the people of Israel when He chose Jacob (where the entire Israel sprouted) over Esau.  Israel was chosen for a special purpose in the world and that is to be a channel of blessing to all the nations.  Despite the fact that the Israelites failed God many times, the Lord still loved them.  Again and again, He brought them back into His loving arms.  This is a clear evidence of God’s favor and love upon Israel among any other nations in the world.  God did not only choose Israel (Jacob), but He also cared for the Israelites in times of trouble.  He protected them down through the ages, while the Edomites (who were the descendants of Esau) were not.  While the Jews were restored to their land after the exile, the Edomites were left to the desert jackals.  God poured out His wrath to the Edomites for the treachery they showed to the Israelites throughout history.   God’s restoration was always available to the Israel every after their fall, which again is a clear sign of God’s favor and love for His own people. 

In the first part of this study, what can we (the audience) probably learn and apply in our lives?  In the same way we or the church can also look back to our lives history and see how God has demonstrated His love for us. Were times in our lives that we fail God? Have we experienced doubting God’s love?  Surely, most of us will answer “yes” to these questions.  When we begin to doubt the love of God, we should always go back to His word in the Bible and be reminded that God’s love is unchanging, sovereign and unconditional.  God’s love is unchanging no matter how we change.  He will not love us less every time we sin against Him.  He chose us even before the foundation of this world was established because His love is sovereign.  He loves us unconditionally that He chose to pay the prize through giving up His beloved Son to pay the penalty of our sin, which is death.  He did not ask for something in return from us.  There is nothing we can do to make God love us more and there is nothing we can to do make Him love us less.  This evidence of God’s love is enough.  So, we should never question His love for us.  Just as God chose Israel to spread His glory and love beyond the border of Israel so that the Gentiles (that includes us) would know and experience His love, we (as Christians) should also be conduits of God’s love.  We have tasted God’s love in our lives.  Therefore, we must also be channels of blessing and love to the ends of the earth.

The Book of Malachi

"STEP IT UP"
The Book of Malachi is the last one in the Old Testament. It is believed to be written between 430 and 420 B.C.  Malachi (one of the minor prophets) was the last of the prophets to write, and in his writings, it was predicted that the next great prophet who was to come will prepare the way of the Lord Jesus Christ.  It was John the Baptist, who was the forerunner of the Jesus, was the messenger who came after Malachi. When Malachi came, it had been sometime since a prophet was heard preaching about the message of God to the Israelites.  So when the people heard him, they reacted with hostility and disbelief. 

The message on the Book of Malachi was delivered clearly and directly.  Although Malachi is said to be not lofty in style and has not much poetic imagination (like that of Isaiah), nonetheless, he was able to utter the message of God to the people effectively and eloquently.  Malachi was more of a “reasoner” than a poet (which we will discover later as we study the Book of Malachi by series) which is actually effective to address the problems and needs of the people during that time. His words were simple, concise, forceful and powerful, which made the skeptics listen and respond properly to God's message. The book was presented in a pattern.  First, God gives His declaration. Then, it is followed by a question or a complain of the Israelites. Lastly, God gives His response to the question and complain. 

 The theme, "God wants me to reset or restore my heart back to Him" will be our theme for this study series, so that we will easily understand and remember the lessons we can get from the Book of Malachi. Because the oracles (which the prophecy was characterizes as a “burden”) included in this book are heavy and stern, and full of warnings and rebukes, it is suggested that we pray about our hearts to be in tuned and right with God.  In this way, we can also give a proper response to God after every study series of this book.  The messages on this book were not "against" us but "to" us, whom God loves so much.  Therefore, He wants to discipline us for our own good.  Hope, forgiveness, blessings and joy are God's promises to us if we heed to the warnings and rebukes given to us from this book. Then, we will be able to step our faith a little higher and make it deeper.  May we all have a wonderful journey together as we study the Book of Malachi! Let's step it up!

Heart to Heart

Have you experienced having all kinds of computer problems like viruses and malware, data loss and others? What did you do? Did you try to fix it? You probably tried reformatting, loading a new operating system, or just simply restarting the computer.  You tried everything, but to no avail. You failed!  Then, you became so desperate.  You thought you know everything about your computer and you know just what to do when something is wrong with it.  In this case, you put everything in your own hands and forgot that somebody might just be the right person to do the fixing for you. Consulting someone who knows more than you do is simply the most appropriate thing to make. 

It is the same with our lives.  Many times we try to find quick fixes and fast solutions by ourselves for the things we need in our lives.  We don’t bother to dig deeper and discover the root cause of the problem.   What we always have in mind if something is wrong is an instant solution.  We want it to be solved right away.  What are the problems that we want to be resolved right away? It can be debt, broken relationship, trust issue, or work related problem.  But all of these are just the result of one bigger problem—the issue of the heart.  In other words, “the heart of the problem is the problem of the heart”.

What we keep in our hearts will be manifested outwardly.  It can be perceived on how we deal with other people, how we do our business or jobs, how we spend our money and how we manage our time.  We can have trust issue if we have unresolved past conflicts with other people close to us. We may have not forgiven someone who hurt us in the past. Broken relationships may be just a result of not being loved back by someone we loved so much and we have kept this in our hearts for so long.  Financial problems may just be the result of greed in our hearts.  We forgot to be good stewards of our money.   We wanted so much material possessions that even living beyond our means has become our lifestyle.  We may ask then, what happened to our hearts?

A “broken heart” can be one and perhaps the most common description.  It is in despair and no one comforts it.  No one even pities.  We can overcome this by realizing that there are lessons to be learned that will make us stronger. Next is the “bitter heart”.  No one can share the joy of a bitter heart.  No one and nothing can also give joy to this heart.  What is the remedy?  Learn to forgive others and replace hatred with compassion.  The third one can be illustrated as the “stubborn heart”.  This is a hardened and unrepentant heart.  It stores up evil thoughts and pride overrules it.  To conquer this heart problem is to always be willing to change for the better and to acknowledge that reproach and criticism are tools for becoming a better person.

 If our hearts are described by these, we should admit that we are in a serious trouble and that we need a serious overhaul, a fresh start and a help by someone who knows better than us.  We need the aid of someone who knows our hearts better than we do.  Now we may ask again.  Who is this person who knows our hearts better? How does He know our hearts better than we do?  The answer is simple. HE is the one who crafted our hearts from the beginning of time.  And how He shaped our hearts are exactly the opposite of how our hearts have become.  If we acknowledge Him, then and only then, can healing and restoration happen to our hearts.  So, let’s have a heart to heart with the One who formed our hearts. Let’s talk to GOD!