Malachi 3

Note: The first part of this verse is a prophecy of John the Baptist. In Matthew, Mark, and Luke, this portion of Malachi 3:1 is quoted as though the Father is speaking to the Son. All three of them have it this way: “Behold, I am sending my messenger before your face, who will prepare your way before you.” Sometimes, when New Testament writers seem to misquote the Old Testament, we find that they were using the Septuagint, the Greek version of the Old Testament, instead of the Hebrew text that we now have. But in this case, the Septuagint is the same as the Hebrew text. So, we do not know how Matthew, Mark, and Luke all came to quote Malachi 3:1 in a way that differs from the Hebrew Old Testament that we have today. Either way, though, the prophecy of Malachi is still about John the Baptist being sent to Israel before Jesus began his ministry, and that is the important – and amazing – point of what Malachi said.

Note #1: The temple of the Lord was not Mary; it was Jesus.

He was the temple, newly baptized by John the Baptist, into which the Son of God “suddenly” came, and remained (Jn. 1:33). In John 2, God’s Son referred to Jesus’ physical body as his temple:

John 2

Note #2: The Father (“the Lord”) is the one speaking in this second half of Malachi 3:1. Here, the Father refers to the Son as “Lord” (without small capital letters), as is often the case in Old Testament prophecies.

Note #1: No one could escape the judgment of the Son when he came. The light of his Spirit exposed the condition of every heart, and those who submitted to him were purged of their sins and made acceptable to God. Then their worship pleased God, while the worship of all others remained polluted, being of the flesh instead of in the Spirit.

Note #2: To “sit as a refiner” is a reference to how refiners of silver used to sit by the silver as it was heated. The heat of the fire that burned beneath the silver caused the dross in the silver to rise to the surface, and then the refiner would rake it off. The refiner knew that the silver was purified, that the fire had done its job, when the heat could bring no more dross to the surface and he could see his reflection in the liquid silver.

God’s parable of the refiner is a parable of the hot persecution and trials that His children face in this world. Jesus also referred to persecution as heat that must be endured (Mt. 13:3–6, 20–21). Suffering perfects God’s children, as it did Jesus himself (Heb. 5:8–9), and Jesus, who “sits as a refiner” at the right hand of God, knows when each believer’s perfecting process is complete. He is very patient, as a refiner must be, waiting for the fire to complete its work so that he might see his reflection in the life of those who follow him.

Note: Judgment comes when God comes. But that is the great hope of every believer, that God will come and judge us. When we say, “Come, Lord Jesus!” we are saying, “Come judge us, Lord Jesus!” because that is the principal thing Jesus is coming to do.

Note: The more powerful the presence of God becomes among His people, the more swiftly His judgment comes among them. The swiftest and most severe punishments that befell men in the Old Testament fell upon them when they sinned in God’s very presence. Aaron’s two oldest sons were slain by God at the incense altar inside the tabernacle (Lev. 10:1–2); 250 princes of Israel who rebelled against Moses were slain by God at the door of His holy tabernacle (Num. 16:35); and King Uzziah was stricken with leprosy when he dared to enter into God’s temple to burn incense on the golden altar (2Chron. 26:16–20).

In the New Testament, when Ananias and Sapphira lied to Peter, the power of God was so strong in Peter and among the saints that both Ananias and his wife immediately dropped dead (Acts 5:1–10). Referring to that sobering event in Acts, my father once told a congregation, “It’s a good thing for some of us that the rest of us are not any closer to God than we are.” He was stressing the point already made; to wit, the greater the power of God among His people, the more swiftly and severely His judgments come upon the ungodly among them.

No wickedness can escape discovery and punishment in the presence of God’s power and glory. And no righteousness is overlooked! Every man will receive his perfect reward from God. May God grant us grace to be wise, and to remember that the God of love is “the Judge of all the earth.”

Note: God was not merciful to Israel because they had been so faithful to Him. God was merciful to Israel and preserved them because He loved their faithful fathers, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and He had given them a promise (e.g., Dt. 10:10–15). But more than that, He preserved Israel because He loved His Son, and to Israel He had given the law and the prophecies that spoke of him.

Note: By “return”, God meant “repent”, and they knew this. This fifth rejected judgment of God provides us with another example of how sin blinds sinners to their sin. These people saw no need to repent, and they most likely did not believe that Malachi was speaking for God. But Malachi was speaking for God, and through Malachi, God went on to explain in what way Israel needed to repent:

Note #1: This sixth rejected judgment from God deals with the care of His ministers. God’s people were not honoring Him with faithfulness in bringing their tithes and offerings for the needs of His servants, and God was offended by it. Since God called upon them to bring Him all the tithes and offerings, we must assume that they were dishonoring Him by bringing only a portion of them. In a world like this one, it takes faith to believe the promises of God so that we will bring Him all the tithes and offerings that He demands.

For those who are faithful in their tithes and offerings, God’s promises are expressly stated. God will bless them by:

1. giving them more blessing than they can contain (v. 10).
2. keeping every creature from robbing them of their blessings (v. 11).
3. blessing the work of their hands (v. 11).
4. blessing them so much that sinners are forced to admit that they are blessed (v. 12).

God’s promise to “rebuke the devourer for your sakes” brings to mind another sweet story about Uncle Joe. Uncle Joe had a garden from which many of us benefitted. He loved his garden and cared for it well. Once, his collards got so big that news of them spread around town. When the editor of the local newspaper heard of Uncle Joe’s collards, he sent a photographer to Uncle Joe’s house to take a picture of him and Aunt Myrtle standing out by the collard patch.

One spring, in that same little plot of ground in his backyard, Uncle Joe planted corn. Early one morning when the ears were nearly ripe, he went out to walk among the stalks, and he noticed a black fungus had begun to spread on the young ears. Uncle Joe was troubled by this unexpected event, and he walked through the stalks reminding God of what He had said through the prophet Malachi. “God,” he prayed, “you said that if we were faithful to bring all the tithe to the storehouse, you would rebuke the devourer for our sakes.” He believed God when he prayed, and within days, the fungus was gone! The fungus did not eat his crop; he (and we) did! God is pleased when His children remind Him of His promises, not because He forgets but because it is good exercise for our faith!

Uncle Joe could not have prayed that prayer with the faith he needed if he had not been faithful to do his part, according to the commandment of God. It was his clear conscience and pure heart that made his prayer effective. He and his wife were very poor, but they always brought their tithes and offerings to the Lord. In fact, Uncle Joe not only brought his tithe of ten percent, but he also made his offerings equal to his tithes. Every payday, he brought twenty percent of his gross income to the Lord. And the Lord did as He promised He would do for them. They never, to my knowledge, lacked for anything. What they did with their offerings, making them equal to their tithes, may not be for everybody, but they had the faith to do it, and God rewarded them greatly. They were two of the most giving people you could ever hope to meet, though they had less in the way of earthly wealth than most. They proved the truth of Proverbs 11:24: “There is one who scatters, and yet increases all the more; but another keeps back what is right, only to want.”

God is inviting us today to put Him to the test, to see if He will really do what He, through His servant Malachi, promised He would do. Every soul that I have known who took God up on that promise has reaped the benefits of having the faith to do so. I have seen God work miracles in the lives of those who trusted Him in tithes and offerings, and it is a beautiful thing to watch.

Note #2: Whenever God’s blessings come upon His people, many in this world envy them and try to seduce the saints in order to obtain a portion of those blessings. This has been the case throughout history, and the Bible shows how successful the world has been in robbing the saints of their riches – and how often the saints have foolishly traded their eternal riches for earthly gain. But those who are faithful to God and continue to honor Him at all times will be richly blessed – most importantly, with the riches of the kingdom of God.

Note: This seventh rejected judgment from God reveals to us again (not to those Israelites, however,) how personally God takes it when His people walk contrary to His commandments. To refuse God’s commandments is to refuse Him. Jesus said, “If you love me, you will keep my commandments” (Jn. 14:15). That being the case, it follows that if we do not keep his commandments, we do not love him.

It may be that the words which God says these Israelites spoke never actually came out of their mouths. It is difficult to imagine a situation in which they would have actually said, “It is vain to serve God. And what profit is it that we have kept His ordinance and that we have walked as mourners before the Lord of hosts?” But whether they actually uttered those words or not is not the issue; those words reflected the attitude of their heart toward the way Jehovah commanded them to worship Him. They “spoke” their attitude by their deeds, and their deeds declared very loudly that they considered God’s way of worship to be worthless.

“As a man thinks in his heart,” wrote Solomon, “so is he,” and God judges us according to what we really are. Ministers in this covenant who lead God’s people to worship God in the flesh instead of in the Spirit are saying to them, “It is vain to serve God [as He says to worship], and what profit is it that we have kept His ordinance?” – even if they are flattering God with their lips from the pulpit. And this is nothing new; many of God’s ministers in Old Testament time did the same. Quoting the prophet Isaiah, Jesus condemned them:

Matthew 15

When David wrote, “The fool says in his heart, There is no God,” he could have been referring to priests who stood before God’s people, speaking highly of God. But if at the same time those ministers were influencing Israel away from God’s way of worship, then in their hearts, they were saying, “There is no God! Just worship and live as you think best.”

The same is true today. God’s way of worship in this covenant is exclusively in spirit and in truth. All other ways of worship, however impressive they appear, are unacceptable to Him. The law of Moses was so simple, and it required so little of the Israelites, that they considered it to be insufficient. They did not have enough faith to believe that keeping God’s simple law would secure their blessings, and so, they added to their faith the worship of other gods in order to make sure that all their needs would be met. But doing so cost them their independence as a nation, and in the end, their souls.

To add anything to the way of the Spirit is to declare that God’s way is insufficient and unprofitable. When we say that Jesus’ baptism of the Spirit is good instead of confessing that it is the only baptism that is any good for salvation, we are declaring that although Jesus is good, he alone is not good enough. Again, when we say that Jesus’ communion of the Spirit is good instead of confessing that it is the only communion that is any good for salvation, we are saying that although Jesus is good, he alone is not good enough. When we are baptized by Jesus into his body (1Cor. 12:3) we are saying that the body of Christ is good, but if we then join a Christian church, we are saying that although the body of Christ is good, it is not good enough. To do such deeds, is in a very real way, to proclaim the message that to live and worship in God’s way and to keep His ordinances is vain. It is to proclaim before all, “What profit is there in living and worshipping only in the way God has said to live and worship?” And to talk like that is to “speak stout things against God”, just as the Israelites did.

Jesus Christ is sufficient! He is good enough. He is “able to save to the uttermost” those who come to him – without the aid of anything of man, his ceremonies, his religious organizations, his lofty-sounding doctrines, or his good ideas. Jesus alone is sufficient for our salvation! Our words are “stout against God” when our lives do not bear witness to the sufficiency of His Son – alone – to save. When we partake of a ceremonial communion instead of enjoying the sweet communion of the Spirit, we are openly speaking great things against God. Furthermore, our judgment of all things becomes clouded when our estimation of the work of Christ is lowered to the point that we allow fleshly works (ceremonies) to enter into our worship. Evil people begin to seem not so evil after all, as was the case in Israel during the time of Malachi:

Note: When saints wander away from God’s way of living and worship, sound judgment is dismissed as outmoded, and evildoers are admired and enriched. Because the body of Christ has in our time wandered out of the way of spirit and truth, its “salt”, that is, its preserving influence on society, is being lost. Often now, in this modern culture, those looked up to are immoral wretches and killers, while those who trust in God are frequently ridiculed.

Note: Jesus is coming again, and those who grieve for the wickedness around us and who are faithful to Jesus will be glad when he appears. God is faithful to us, and He will greatly reward those who are faithful to Him. He is mindful of what we do and say, moment by moment, in this world of darkness, and He is keeping a record of our deeds.

Note #1: The Psalmist said that God is known by the judgments that He executes (Ps. 9:6). Therefore, if God is not a God of judgment, then He will always be an unknown God. That is why they will never come to know God who deny that the judgments of God are, in fact, His judgments. When God struck down Aaron’s two sons, Aaron was instructed in the knowledge of God – but only because he knew that what had happened to his sons was the judgment of God. If Aaron had blamed Baal, he would have remained as ignorant of God as he had been before his sons were slain. King Uzziah, too, had more knowledge of God after God struck him with leprosy than he did before that curse came upon him. And the saints in Acts knew God better after He took the life of Ananias and his wife than they did before He slew them.

This is also true with God’s rewards for righteousness, His deliverance from trouble and His healing of our diseases. Every time God rewards the righteous for their love of His Son, His mind is more clearly revealed concerning good and evil. Those who see the hand of God in their blessings can come to know Him in a way that those who deny His works never can. Whether it be when He blesses or when He curses, if God will open our eyes to recognize it when He works, we will increase in His knowledge.

Note #2: This verse being placed after God “makes up His peculiar treasure” in the Final Judgment leaves the impression that God’s revelation of who is truly serving Him and who is not will come to His people only after the Final Judgment. But that would be too late to be useful for them. What good would it do anyone to realize, after the Final Judgment, the difference between good and evil, and the difference between who serves God acceptably and who does not? It seems more reasonable to understand this verse as applying to any time in history, so that Malachi is saying that whenever God’s people see His judgments, they learn from those judgments to distinguish between good and evil and be able to discern between those who serve God acceptably and those who are serving Him in vain.

Malachi 4

[Hebrew text continues as 3:19, etc.]

Note: My father used to say that we will know when we are saved when we look around us and see no one who is wicked. He based that comment on a scripture found in Psalm 37:10: “Yet a little while, and the wicked man will not be. And you will diligently consider his place, and it will not be there.” On the new earth that God has prepared for His faithful children, there will be no wicked people. According to the apostle Peter, there will be nothing on that new earth but what is good:

2Peter 3

As long as we can look around and see anybody who is sinful, then, we may know that we have not yet attained to our promised land, the new earth.

Note: This is another reference to the end times, when Jesus will return to earth and, with those who love him and are faithful, will reign over the earth for a thousand years (Rev. 20:4–7).

Note #1: This is a plea from God for Israel to be faithful and walk in the light of God’s law. The people who took Malachi’s words to heart, if any did, were wise, and to this day they are glad they listened to him. The rest will spend eternity “weeping and gnashing their teeth”, forever eaten within by the bitter worm of regret. Those in ancient Israel who “remembered Moses”, that is, those who loved and kept the law which Moses gave them, recognized Jesus as Israel’s Messiah and were prepared to receive him. Jesus said so:

John 5

It is obvious that one cannot remember the law of Moses if he has never learned it. God was exhorting His people not only to become acquainted with Moses’ law, but also to hold on to the instructions that are in it. Those who did that are in Paradise today, resting from their labors here on earth. God has never failed a soul who did not fail Him.

Note #2: In this covenant, true men of God are exhorting God’s people to remember, not Moses’ law, but the law that God wrote in their hearts when He gave them His Spirit. The Spirit now is what we must give heed to if we hope to be prepared for the coming of the Son, for the Spirit is now God’s law. Every soul since the day of Pentecost who has received and been mindful of the Spirit will spend eternity on the new earth “where righteousness dwells”. Those without the Spirit, but even more certainly, those who have received the Spirit but do not obey it, will spend eternity in great pain and gnawing regret.

Note: This is another prophecy with a double fulfillment. John the Baptist was Elijah, spiritually speaking (Mt. 11:13–14; Lk. 1:13–17), sent to introduce the Messiah to Israel (Jn. 1:21–31). But before Jesus returns to this world, Elijah himself, with Moses, will come to preach Christ to Israel and to lead Israel back to the God of their fathers (Rev. 11:3–13; Mt. 17:10–11).

John the Baptist was sent to turn the hearts of Israel back to their fathers, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and turn the fathers’ hearts to them. In other words, John was sent to bring the Israelites of his day into agreement with the faith of their righteous forebears. He baptized those who believed and obeyed him, but those who refused his message received from God the utmost curse.

Jesus said that men did whatever they wanted to do to John the Baptist (the Elijah of that generation – Mt. 17:12–13), and in the book of Revelation, the apostle John saw wicked men do the same to Elijah himself. In those days, Elijah and Moses will be hated by the whole world, and then murdered by the Beast after they preach in Jerusalem for three and a half years. Their dead bodies will lie in the streets of Jerusalem three days before God raises them up and takes them into heaven. Those in Israel at that time who refuse their preaching will be cursed and will suffer terribly, thus giving Malachi’s last prophetic words their second fulfillment.

Conclusion

The reaction of Israel and her ministers in Malachi’s time to the word of God shows that they had drifted so far from the law of Moses that truth was a stranger to them. The light of God was, in their judgment, darkness. They were so confident of being right that they could not conceive of a man truly being of God if he told them that they were wrong.

Prophecies such as Malachi’s were written down, according to Paul, “for our learning”. They exist to warn us to stay humble before God:

1Corinthians 10

We know that we have been taught the truth. We have a good understanding of the doctrine, and we believe that we are serving God the right way. But does believing that make us acceptable to God? We have now finished reading a prophetic book that contained repeated instances of people, including ministers of God, who believed they were serving God the right way. Did believing that make them acceptable to God? Paul warned us against trusting our own judgment of ourselves:

1Corinthians 4

Paul knew nothing against himself when he was helping to kill righteous, humble souls such as Stephen, who truly loved God and His Son. Paul’s judgment of himself was not worth much, was it? We must always remember that it is God’s judgment alone that is always true.

When we first saw ourselves as being in darkness, we felt needy before God and repented, and He forgave and cleansed us. But are we still humble enough to hear Him and believe? How does God see us? Does He see us as still humble enough to receive the word of God, should He send a messenger to us? Would we say to Malachi, “What do you mean, ‘Repent’?” We pray to hear from God, but what if He sends us an answer to our prayer that we do not expect?

Let us sincerely ask ourselves, “Is there something in our lives that seems normal to us, but with which God is not pleased?” “Is there something in our lives that we have grown accustomed to, that He hates?” May God help us “awake to righteousness” and break old habits that He would rather we not have. May He grant us the grace to live as sincere children of God in the midst of this wicked generation. May He save us from our own ways and keep us from becoming honored hypocrites, like the leaders of Israel in Malachi’s time.

We humbly rejoice in all that God has done for us. We are thankful for His love and goodness toward us and toward all His children everywhere. Fools become proud of what God has done for them, as if they had done it for themselves, but the wise walk with God in meekness, as loving children. As is the case with many of God’s children, my congregation and I have suffered through some difficult experiences for the sake of Christ, and by God’s grace, we survived them. At the same time, we have learned from the Bible and from history books what great suffering some other believers have gone through for righteousness’sake. May we be counted worthy to spend eternity with them!

Malachi was a prophet who labored in a very dark time in Israel’s history, and his answer to the darkness was the law of Moses – God’s law. He pleaded with Israel to repent and live by that holy law, but they would not. The Israelites and their leaders were indignant at Malachi’s warning that they were not living and worshipping rightly, and in the end, God resigned Himself to the fact that just a few of His chosen people would be faithful and be spared the coming wrath.

Ours is just such a dark time. The true word of God is rarely spoken, and when it is, it is often scorned. Too many people, trusting in their own long-standing traditions, judge the truth to be false, and the darkness seems right. But God still has His seven thousand, so to speak, as He did in the days of Elijah (1Kgs. 19:18), and to them shall “the Sun of righteousness” appear a second time, with healing still in his wings, not just a healing for their sicknesses but an eternal healing for every burden they have borne in this wicked world.