God's strong love, the people's weak love mechanical love and faithful and fruitful loves and a love that comes out of the refiner's fire. The burden of the word of the LORD to Israel by Malachi. Like Haggai, in Hebrew the word of the Lord comes from 'the hand' of Malachi. The last few pages of the book of Old Testament are the book of Malachi. A handful of points are made in the form of statements and questions in a didactic teaching style. The first point being 'I have loved you.' Many of the points build down to hot and cold love. God's love hot. God's intention is white hot love for Him around the world The priests and people's love largely grown cold. Marriages were cold Treatment of workers, the poor, the alien was cold Both in loving and in giving their love had grown cold and no awe of God leading to God's name being highly honored as worship had groan wearisome, tedious and dull Our choices, our worship rest on what we love and God's strong love is contrasted in this book with the weak love of the professed believers of Malachi's day and the high love God says he will achieve from the rising to the setting of the sun someday. And, yes, the English Bible ends with Malachi while the original Hebrew ended with Chronicles. In either case the prophets ended with Malachi.

1. A didactic diagnosis of
strong and weak loves,
with prognosis and remedy
closes the Old Testament
The book of Malachi

2. I have loved you
a
remnant
the people of the day
a few generation after those
who came back from Babylon were told

3. A love rooted in long-
suffering
• Hosea has God’s love cast in terms of grace in a
marriage
• Malachi has God’s love in terms of a enduring love,
even loving a people who’s own love has grown
cold

4. How have You loved us?
Q&A follows

5. The book starts with the long suffering love of God
The people of Jacob had a low
awareness of it. God’s love not seen
to be working out in a meaningful way
God’s love was not felt in life’s circumstances

6. I have loved Jacob (aka deceiver)
not Esau ( the man’s man)
God having the decisive say
(over his slightly older twin brother
who his father liked lots better)
Two twin brothers
Two nations
God offers an object lesson
objection of the people met

7. Not any love
but a particular kind of love
resting on a sovereign choice
resting on God
not man
A unlikely and particular love

8. Both Israel and Edom ( Jacob and Esau’s descendants )
were conquered by Babylon
God would restore Israel
But even if Edom were to rebuild,
God would ‘tear it down’
Jacob wrestled with Esau in the womb
Jacob wrestled with God in his life
It was God who superintended it all for God’s glory
A love that makes all the difference

9. The name Jacob not Israel is used
Jacob was ‘a work in progress’
Despite his problems
God sovereignly loved Jacob
and chose Jacob before either twin was born
A patience that makes all the difference
image of sculpture from http://www.empower.co.il/healingkiss/appendices/BiblicalSculptures/Jacob-wrestling-with-himself.htm

10. 10 And not only so, but also when Rebekah had conceived
children by one man, our forefather Isaac, 11 though they
were not yet born and had done nothing either good or
bad—in order that God's purpose of election might
continue, not because of works but because of him who
calls— 12 she was told, “The older will serve the younger.”
13 As it is written, “Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated.”
Romans 9:9,10
A choice made before Jacob did anything good or bad
Book of Romans quoting
the book of Malachi

11. In Malachi, we see aspects of both God’s patient
and enduring love
as well as God’s judgement
God’s name may be universally glorified
but God’s grace seems directed in where God
wills
In Malachi and in the Old Testament
we see both the love and judgement of God

12. There are two main groups, one will enjoy salvation
one will be judged
The half hearted worship seen
will be eclipsed someday by true and right worship in
every place in the world
The figure ‘the Messiah’ will appear
particularly in the second half of the book
A few themes to watch development of
in Malachi

13. bring up questions
answer objections
Like a teacher with ‘didactic’ Q&A
teaching style
A style of statements, objections
in the form of questions and answers

14. A vision that moves from Malachi to the people
It is ‘the oracle of Malachi’ which Malachi saw
and move forward to say
‘the people will see that God is great beyond the borders of
Israel More of the same in other chapters’

15. I am a great King
where is my respect?
A son honors his father
A servant honors his master
but where is my respect?

16. How have we despised
Your name
questions
and answers continue

17. Symptoms of a love grown cold:
weariness in the worship of God
half hearted giving
lack of awe
lethargy in worship

18. 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.
Malachi 1:11

19. A message to priests
about true worship
and how they are falling short
In giving and living,
act in a manner honoring
and fitting to a great king

20. You offer blind sheep

21. You offer lame sacrifice

22. You offer bad fruit and
vegetables

23. Why not offer those to your governor
and see how pleased he would be

24. Two strikes
in chapter 1
priests are
accused of acting
in a manner that
‘profanes God’s name’

25. A vain worship
Oh that there were one among you who
would shut the doors,
that you might not kindle fire on my altar in
vain! I have no pleasure in you, says the
LORD of hosts, and I will not accept an
offering from your hand.
Malachi 1:10

26. The book move to a message for the priests who
like the people are not ‘putting their hearts’
in their worship
•The priests are also said here to be
God’s messenger (ie Malachi)
•Spoiler alert: The Messiah will be
God’s greater Malachi
(Malachi means ‘My Messenger’)

27. The comments to priests here will apply also to today
in the ‘priesthood of believers’ and
in ministers of the gospel
•Importance of the Ministry of the word
and gospel
•Importance of Honoring the Lord’s
table

28. Levi (as a group) was given a covenant of:
life and peace
fear and awe
teaching truth
keeping people from stumbling
The priests of the day not living up to that ideal
A more ideal priesthood

29. A low awareness of a dull spirituality
The people asked how has God loved us
and how have we despised God’s name
and robbed God,
unaware how their religiosity fell short
diagnoses and prognosis given
Like people like priests

30. You have wearied Me asking
where is the God of justice?
They were ‘wearied with worship’
but were not alone
as God says ‘you have wearied Me’

31. Have we not all one father?
So why are you faithless to one another?

32. You cry and cover My alter with tears
(but apparently not over your sins)
You cry because God
does not accept you
And why? because of your unfaithful
treatment of your wife

33. Religiously, you married the daughter
of a foreign God
Physically, you are treacherously faithless
to your physical brides

34. The Lord whom you seek
will come suddenly
to His temple
A forward looking shift
A greater Malachi introduced

35. I will send ‘My messenger’
a greater ‘Malachi’
(Malachi means ‘My messenger’)
and points to a greater ‘My messenger’ is coming_
A refiner’s fire
A fuller’s soap
Flash forward to a greater Malachi to come

36. You have wearied Me
with your words
Dialog continues
heart attitudes further exposed

37. How have we wearied You
with our words?

38. you say there’s no point in serving God
Earlier God complained the way they
worshipped was in vain
And here they seem to realize
there is indeed some vanity in how
they’ve been going about it,

39. Worship may be ‘vain’ in this place
but the day will come when in every place
God’s name will be honored

40. I the Lord do not change
therefore you are preserved
Malachi began with a long suffering love of God
from the deep past toward Jacob and now explains His nature
another way
God us immutable
the same yesterday, today and forever
and it’s a good thing

41. Why have you robbed me?
An abrupt move from
immutability to grand larceny
A woefully lacking response
on part of the ‘worshippers’
banditry
Of tithes
and promises of good offerings
while substituting bad

42. I the Lord has not changed
therefore you are not consumed
Return to Me!
The Lord presses for an
appropriate response

43. How shall we return?

44. The return to God will require
God taking significant action
more on that as the book unfolds

45. stop robbing God

46. How have we robbed you?

47. From the days of your fathers you have turned
aside from my statutes and have not kept them.
Return to me, and I will return to you, says the
Lord of hosts. But you say, ‘How shall we
return?’
Malachi 3:7

48. A test. A challenge from God.
"Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse, so
that there may be food in My house, and test
Me now in this," says the LORD of hosts, "if I
will not open for you the windows of heaven
and pour out for you a blessing until it
overflows.
Malachi 3:10

49. Actually two tests
One good test suggested by God about letting
people test Him on His terms about tithing
One bad test a few verses later where
‘evildoers put God to the test and escape’
*Warning: test God on His terms not yours

50. Meet God’s test and …
You will be so blessed and all the nations
around you will sit up and take notice
(In Malachi the fame of God’s name
will go out to the nations and to every place
and said various ways throughout the book.)

51. Your words have been hard
against Me!
heart exposing dialog continues

52. How have we spoken
against You?

53. You say it’s vain to serve God
and the arrogant are blessed
Second time God made the point
that they said their no point in serving
God
• The way they worshipped God was
in a sense vain
• The way they should worship God
should not be

54. God states He opposes:
• the adulterer
• the soothsayer (looking to
something supernatural
outside God)

55. You oppress:
• the widow
• the orphan
• workers
• you push around the
alien in the land
And you do not fear Me

56. Then those who feared the
Lord spoke with one another
The giving, living, worship and justice issues considered
and a community arises

57. There will be a book of remembrance
a comfort for the people who feared God
and
A great day of the Lord
a blessing for some
a judgement for others

58. Your words have been
harsh against Me
It is vain to worship God?
What profit is it?

59. There will be light
• an oven for the wicked
• a healing sun for the righteous

60. But for you who fear my name,
the sun of righteousness shall rise
with healing in its wings.
You shall go out leaping like calves
from the stall
Malachi 4:2.

61. Formerly in a stall
will be running free

62. But for you who fear my name,
the sun of righteousness shall rise
with healing in its wings.
You shall go out leaping like calves
from the stall
Malachi 4:2.

63. And the God of all peace will soon
crush Satan under the soles of your feet
Romans
And you will tread down the
wicked like ashes under the soles of your feet
Malachi
The serpent will strike at his heel but He shall
crush his head
Genesis

64. Remember my law
given to Moses

65. Love and mercy
faithfulness
and long suffering of God
together with
a call for life reflecting love,
faithfulness, perseverance
together with
warnings of judgement for the wicked

66. He will turn the hearts of
fathers to their children
and children to their fathers
I will send Elijah
or someone in the spirit of Elijah

67. The final closing is a
warning to love each other
(particularly father’s and sons)
The book started saying
‘I have loved you’
Lest I strike the land with a curse

69. A love encouraged so that
A judgement would be avoided

70. The book started with God’s love
and at the end turns to God’s actions
and the turning of hearts of fathers and children to each other
… the day when I act…
…I will come….
and a warning
… lest I strike the land with a curse

71. And he shall be a refiners fire

72. The close of the Old Testament starts with a reminder
that God loves Jacob
This is despite the people being largely unaware
of ways they sinned and dishonored God
Yet it is the Lord who will bring transformation winnowing,
healing the redeemed and judging the wicked. The
sun of righteousness who will rise with healing in his wings and
bring resolution

73. Throughout Israel’s history, the nation failed and God called His
people back to Himself. Each time, Israel would fail again,
prompting the cycle to begin again. God’s final word of the Old
Testament concerns judgment for sin and testifies to our
inability to love Him without the help of His grace.
Chuck Swindoll on Malachi