Notes on Malachi

Title:  Is it worth following God?

God speaks to the people saying, ‘You have said, “it is useless to serve God.  It is not good to obey his laws and show the Lord almighty that we are sorry for violating it.  After all the proud are happy and the evil succeed” (3:14-15).

But God has said: ‘Test me’ (3:10).  Let’s just see if living whole-heartedly for God is worth it.

Context:  The return from exile.  Some have returned in person, but their hearts have not returned.

This message opens with God saying ‘I love you?’ (1:2).  But they respond with unbelief, asking, ‘how have you loved us?’

God then reminds them how He has chosen their people.  ‘Jacob (their ancestor) I loved’ but ‘Esau, I hated’.  Hated here is meant in the terms of covenant, in the fact that God did not choose Esau.

The thing to remember is that Jacob had done nothing to deserve God’s lavish love.  Jacob is an unattractive character in much of the Genesis account.  He is a deceiver.  But God shows love to people who deserve nothing from Him.  That is grace!  NO matter who you are or what you have done, God invites us, ‘return to me, and I will return to you’ (3:7).

God tells His people that He is like a father that they have failed to honour.  How have they failed to honour Him?  When it came to bringing their sacrifices to the alter they brought those of least value to Him—the blind, the lame and sick animals.  Isn’t it ironic—they have said, ‘you don’t love us’ and yet their actions show that they don’t love Him?

They also have a problem with their religious teachers.  Those teachers were teaching the people to do wrong (2:8).  Again, there is irony.  They accused God of not being just, but the people are practicing injustice.

The people are also disloyal.  Their men married women who did not love God.  This is not a racial issue but a religious issue.  Ruth and Rahab became believers and were incorporated into the family of God, but when you marry someone who does not love God you are failing to put Him first.  The results can be disastrous.

The men also divorced their wives, in an act of cruelty.  Again, the results are disastrous.  God desires that we have faithful offspring (2:15), but if one of the parents doesn’t love the Lord this is put at jeopardy.  If fathers don’t obey God it will affect their children.  There is a great foolishness in marrying a person who does not share your faith, a foolishness that can have eternal significance for your children.

When we read the Old Testament we should always be thinking, ‘how does this point to Jesus?  At the beginning of chapter 3 we are introduced to a messenger who prepares the way for the Lord.  The New Testament will show us that this is a reference to John the Baptist.  John the Baptist serves as a kind of Elijah (4:5).  Notice that John the Baptist prepares the way for the Lord.  This is a reminder that Jesus is none other than God Himself.  Jesus will come to purify and cleanse a people (3:3). 

God calls them to repent.  They ask, ‘how?’  The answer is through showing faithful obedience. Chapter 3 (verses 6-12) have been horribly misused by preachers who appeal to greed.  God speaks about the fact that they have withheld their tithes, and promises He to bless them if they obey.  The first thing to remember is that these were the tithes linked to the apparatus of the temple.  In the letters of the New Testament the standard of giving is a joyful and generous heart (2 Cor. 9:7).  God is not entering into a mechanical law with them saying, ‘give me ten percent I will bless you with money!’  He is saying, ‘obey me, and I will remind you of my faithfulness.’  As New Testament believers we know that God’s blessing and more than an offer of crass materialism.  God delights to pour out all sorts of blessings on His people, which might even include the growth that only can come through suffering.

Notice that those who turn back to God find that their names are written in His book (3:16).

The last chapter speaks of a coming day.  A day of Judgement.  But also, a day of blessing.  For those who did not turn back this day will be awful.  For those who have returned to God it will be a day of healing (4:2).  The people demanded justice, and justice will be what will one day happen.

It is not just on the last day that it will be seen that returning to God is wroth it, there is an abundance of blessings in living in His grace now.

‘Test me’, He says to us, ‘see if I am worth it!’