Alright, let's open our Bibles
to Malachi chapter 1. Tonight, what I want to do is
basically introduce to you the book of Malachi. So I'm not going
to get very far into the verses. In fact, I'm not going to get
past verse 1 of chapter 1. I've entitled the message, The
Burden of the Word of the Lord. Verse one says, the burden of
the word of the Lord to Israel by Malachi. And before I begin
there, I wanna just by way of a reminder, read a verse of scripture
out of the New Testament in Romans chapter 15. In verse four, Romans
15 in verse four. That's where the apostle Paul
in teaching and repeating the gospel of God's grace, And he
refers back to the Old Testament, the words of the Old Testament.
Here we are at the last book of the Old Testament, Malachi.
And in referring back to the Old Testament, Paul writes this
in Romans chapter 15 and verse 4. And he says, for whatsoever
things were written aforetime, that is before our time, they
were written for our learning. Now that's what a disciple is,
a learner. That's what the word literally
means. A disciple is a learner. So these things that were written
before time, before our time, and this, as Paul wrote it to
the Roman believers, we can say it of ourselves today. He says,
in order that we through patience, that means endurance, that's
the perseverance of the saints, we persevere because we're preserved
by the grace of God. and comfort of the scriptures
might have hope. And I, you know, I got to thinking
about that as I've been preaching through the Minor Prophets and
several books of the Old Testament, and also obviously the New Testament,
that these words of God, these inspired words of God, do give
the sinner saved by grace hope. And that hope is a firm, assured
foundation that we can live upon, for our hope is Christ. It's
the certain assurance of salvation and preservation and safety and
final glory because of who Christ is and because of what he accomplished
on Calvary. And I thought about this too.
You know, the Lord said in Matthew chapter 11 when he spoke those
great words, come unto me, verse 28, come unto me all ye that
labor and are heavy laden and I'll give you rest. We rest in
Christ. You read about that in Leviticus
23, every feast day was given to Israel, the foundation of
that was the Sabbath rest, and that's a picture of our rest
in Christ. But he said, take my yoke upon you. You see, resting
in Christ doesn't mean we quit. It means we follow him. That's
another thing about a disciple. We're learners and we're followers.
And he said, take my yoke upon you and learn of me. So that's what we're doing here.
These were written for our learning, and we're learning of him. That's
what Malachi's all about, that's what Zechariah's all about, that's
what all these books of the Bible, that's what the books of, when
Ezra stood up on that pulpit of wood as recorded in Nehemiah
chapter eight, that's what he was doing. He was teaching the
people, preaching to the people of the glorious person and finished
work of Christ. So in the, these revealed words,
if the Holy Spirit empowers them to our minds and our hearts,
then we can learn things about God. I can't think of anything
better to do. We have to set aside time to
do that, don't we? In our busy lives. We're gonna
learn things about God here. We've been learning things about
God, but we're gonna learn more things about God. It may not
be anything new that you learn tonight, but we learn it over
and over again. It's line upon line, precept
upon precept, but it's still glorious, and that's what worship
is all about. connecting with the Lord through
Jesus Christ as he's preached in the Word. And then we're going
to learn some things about ourselves, not some pleasant things, but
some things that we see we need to be saved from, we need to
be delivered from, our sin. The Bible is so honest about
our sin. Malachi the prophet, he's going to be honest with
these people. He's going to do it in a strange
way. He's the first of the prophets that teaches by asking questions.
I love that method. You ask a question and then you
provide the answer. That's called a rhetorical question.
It's not, you know, it's not, he didn't expect to get an answer
from them. In fact, the answer he gets from them when he asked
the question is, well, we, We just didn't, we weren't aware
of this. We weren't aware of the problem. And that's the way
man is by nature. That's why the Bible says that
we're born spiritually dead in trespasses and sins. That's what
total depravity is. We're not born aware of the problem.
And the very fact that we by nature think that we can take
care of the problem, salvation by works, shows us that we're
not aware of the problem. That's what sin's all about.
So we'll learn some things about ourselves and then Mainly we'll
learn things about Christ and the salvation that he is he in
Malachi's time that he is going to accomplish. We'll learn about
the one he has already accomplished. We look back Malachi look forward. So these are things we need to
know and we need to learn about living under his glory about
the warfare of the flesh and the spirit there. They're right
here in the Old Testament and Malachi like all other books
of the Bible such a book. Now I want to give you five things
about Malachi, about this book, about what we're going to study,
and then Wednesday night I'll start through the verses, but
let's look at this. The first thing I want you to
know is Malachi, the prophet, he is writing here, and he was
the last one in time before that 400-year period. You see, Malachi
prophesied and wrote about 400 years before Christ, maybe a
few more years than that, but you know he had that 400 years
of silence between Malachi and the coming of Christ. We say
between Malachi and Matthew. And so Malachi contains some
of the greatest revelations of the distinguishing, sovereign,
electing love of God in the Bible. That's what he begins talking
about there in verse two when he talks about, I have loved
you, saith the Lord, yet you say wherein hast thou loved us?
Was not Esau Jacob's brother? Jacob and Esau, you know the
story there. Was not Esau Jacob's brother,
saith the Lord, yet I loved Jacob and I hated Esau. Preachers can
spin that in so many different ways to try to make man come
out looking better than he is, but it won't work. It won't work. And a lady that wrote to me about
a TV message that I preached on this and she was upset. Talking
about how election and predestination and how that's so unfair. And I just wrote her back and
I said, don't you realize, don't you realize that the objections
you're raising are the same objections that Paul anticipated in Romans
chapter nine from unbelievers? Now think about that. You see,
And this is where we have to come to, by the power of the
Holy Spirit, because we won't do it on our own, into submission
to a holy and just and righteous God. That it doesn't matter how
it looks in my mind or how it jibes in my mind, only thing
that matters here is what does this book say? Period. Because whatever it says, I believe
it's true. Now, if that's not so, we might
as well pack it up and go home. I mean, I feel that strongly
about it. Because everything, you know, to me, the most fundamental
truth of Christianity is that this Bible is the inspired and
errant word of God. Because everything I tell you,
everything I preach to you about Christ, who he is, what he did,
why he did it, where he is now, I get from here. I don't get
it from philosophy, I don't get it from man's religion, you get
it from the Bible. So it's either true or it is
not. My friend, it is. Malachi knew
that. And the Holy Spirit inspired
Paul to quote from these very verses in dealing with that same
subject. The sovereign electing love of
God in Christ in Romans chapter 9. This is where he quotes from.
in Romans 9 when he talks about Jacob and Esau. And here's the
point of it. The point of it is not that we
can come out bum-fuddled in our minds trying to figure out how
God's either fair or unfair. God's always just. Paul wrote
that in Romans 9. He said there's no injustice
with God. There's no unfairness with God. Listen, listen, if
God chose to save one individual by his grace, he would be right
in doing so, and leave the rest of us to ourselves. He would
be right in doing so, because none of us deserve salvation.
But the reason that this is brought out in Malachi, and the reason
that it's brought out in Romans 9, is to show us this, that if
we're objects of God's love, And if we've experienced God's
love, do we realize what kind of responsibility that places
upon us? I want you to think about that.
I've thought about it a lot. Do we know how humble that ought
to make us? I'm telling you, herein is love,
not that we love God, but that he loved us and sent his son
to be the propitiation for our sins. Pride and self-righteousness
and hatred and an unforgiving spirit is so inconsistent with
the saving view of God's love in Christ. And somebody might
ask, well, how can I know I'm an object of God's love? Well,
where is your hope? You see, if you're looking for
a reason in yourself to claim to be an object of God's love,
I hope you never find it. Because when you do, that's nothing
but self-righteousness and pride. There's no reason in me. The
reason is only in God himself, and you'll search that out for
eternity and never find the answer. But I know this, I know this,
all the objects of God's love, they turn to Christ for salvation,
for righteousness, for forgiveness, for eternal life and glory. You
won't turn anywhere else. That's right. Anybody who turns
anywhere else but Christ and claims to be an object of God's
love, that's nothing but pride. They think they deserve to be
loved. We don't. We don't. That's what grace is
all about. Malachi brings that out beautifully.
But now here's the second thing. Malachi contains some of the
greatest encouragements to true, sincere heart worship and praise
and service to God you'll ever find in the Bible. You see, it's
a book of worship. And it's worship from the heart.
Malachi exposes in the people of Jerusalem and Judah of his
day that they may draw nigh to God with their lips, but their
hearts far from God. In other words, their outward
form and ceremony is not worship. It reminds me when When we look
at that verse in Philippians chapter 3 and verse 3, which
says, we are the circumcision, that's circumcision of the heart,
you know that. That's talking about the new
birth. The Holy Spirit has done a work of grace, a work of power
within the heart of a sinner, within his mind, his affections,
his will. Showed him his sin in light of
God's holiness, showed him Christ. It's what Paul wrote in Philippians
chapter three when he talked about his own conversion. How
I saw how all that I thought was so good and so righteous
and so recommending. And when I saw Christ, the glorified,
the crucified, risen, glorified Christ and what he did on Calvary
and the shedding of his blood. Think about that. What did it
take to put away my sins? It took the death of the Son
of God incarnate. Now what could I offer to God
that could even be put in that category, let alone measure up
to it? What did it take for Christ to establish righteousness for
me? The death of the Son of God incarnate. There's nothing that we can offer,
you see? So we're the circumcision and
we worship God in the spirit. And I believe there's two applications,
two meanings of that. We worship God in the spirit
in the sense that we worship God as he reveals himself, not
as we think he is. Not according to our imagination,
but whatever God says about himself in this word from Genesis to
Malachi, Matthew to Revelation, that's the way we worship God.
If he says he's the sovereign God of this universe and he's
in control, that's the way I wanna worship him. How about you? That's right. If he says he's
the God who justifies the ungodly by his grace through the merits
of Christ's obedience under that, that's the way we worship him.
And then secondly, it means we worship him from the heart. Heart
worship, not outward ceremony, not outward ritualism, not outward
show, but from the heart. And understand this now, and
I always make this point because I think it's important. To worship
him from the heart doesn't mean to worship him by feeling. Well,
I feel like doing this or I don't feel like doing that. It means
to worship him according to a Holy Spirit wrought conviction of
knowledge. Whether I feel like it or not,
I know this always. I must have Christ. That's it. I may feel differently tomorrow,
but it doesn't matter how I feel, I know what God has taught me. Paul wrote, I know whom I have
believed and I'm persuaded that he's able to keep that which
I've committed unto him against that day. That's what Malachi's
bringing forth to these people in their worship. He looks forward
to the coming of the Messiah and the hour of true worship
of his spiritual people. Christ told the woman at the
well in John chapter four in verse 23, he said, but the hour
cometh and now is when the true worshipers, that's what I want
to be. How about you? I want to be a true worshiper.
When the true worshipers shall worship the father in spirit
and in truth, takes both, takes the heart and the truth. For
the father seeketh such to worship him. God is spirit, he says,
and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in
truth. That's where we're at. Jeremiah prophesied before Malachi. He said, he's prophesied of a
day that God spoke of. In Jeremiah 31 and verse 33,
he says, but this shall be the covenant that I will make with
the house of Israel. After those days sayeth the Lord,
I will put my law, my word in their inward parts. What does
that mean? It means he'll write it in their
hearts, he says. And I will be their God, and they shall be
my people. Turn over to 2 Timothy chapter
three. Malachi's day, historically,
was much like what Paul describes here in 2 Timothy chapter three.
Much like it. Listen to these words in verse
one of 2 Timothy chapter three. And he's instructing Timothy
here, minister and he says, this know also that in the last days
perilous times shall come. Now what we're reading in Malachi
is the last days of the Old Testament. Paul's talking about the last
days of the New Testament. But here's the thing folks, men
and women never change. Isn't that right? We never change.
It's the same old same old as they say. Left to ourselves,
we will not come to Christ. And so he says, for men shall
be lovers of their own selves. Now, like I said, this is what
was taking place in Malachi in his day. Covetous, boasters,
proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy,
without natural affection, truce breakers, false accusers, incontinent,
fierce, despisers of those that are good, traitors, heady, high-minded,
lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God. And here's the
key phrase that describes it, verse five. having a form of
godliness, an outward show, but denying the power thereof from
such turn away. Back here in Malachi, that's
what's going on there. They're going through the motions
of the ceremony and the rituals. They're bringing the sacrifices.
They're even bringing their offerings and bringing their money. Some
of it. But it's outward show. As I said,
it's like what Christ said of his generation and he's quoting
from Isaiah. which was 700 years, 300 years
before Malachi, when he said, this people draweth nigh to me
with their lips, but their heart is far from me. Oh, I don't wanna
be that way. You know, Christ taught that
in a parable of the five foolish virgins, the parable of the 10
virgins, the five foolish virgins. They had an outward profession,
but no true Holy Spirit wrought heart faith. Don't be satisfied
with just an outward profession. God hates it. God hates false,
insincere, ritualistic, outward worship without heart, without
truth, without grace, without Christ. Someone said, I'm putting this
in the bulletin, I think next week, I'm not sure. Someone once
said that when a grocer sells you a barrel of apples, you find
his profession on the top. But as you work your way down,
you discover his character. Maybe think about that and you
can get it. Well, that's the nature of false professions of
religion, isn't it? Even false professions of Christ.
Men want to display their professions on the top, but try to hide their
real inward man, their heart, from view. Well, here's the third
thing. And what I'm saying is Malachi
is adamant that their worship must be in spirit and in truth,
worshiping Christ from the heart. And that's what it means to talk
about Christ in you, the hope of glory. Here's the third thing. Now Malachi is placed as the
last book of the Old Testament, the last of the prophets, the
last of the Old Testament books to be written. I want you to
turn to the end of Malachi and I want you to notice how it ends.
The last words of the Old Testament, chapter four and verse six. And listen to what he says. He
says, and he's talking about Elijah the prophet. He's talking
about the prophetic tradition and truth. And it's not going
to be fulfilled in a reappearing or resurrection of the prophet
Elijah personally. That's talking about John the
Baptist. That's fulfilled in John the Baptist, all right?
But here's what he says, verse six, he says, he shall turn the
heart of the fathers to the children and the heart of the children
to their fathers, lest I come and smite the earth with a curse. You ever notice that? That the
last word of the Old Testament is the word curse. And it's a
pronouncement of a curse upon all who do not turn to the Lord.
That's what he's talking about, turning the hearts of the fathers
to the children He's talking about turning to the Lord. We'll
get to that later on, obviously. But that's the way the Old Testament
ends, with a pronouncement of a curse upon all who do not turn
to Christ. Because this is the emphasis,
the theme of the message of the Bible. Without Christ, there
is nothing for us but cursedness, lostness, death. In Christ, it's
blessing. Without Christ, curses. And I
thought about this, you know, the whole Bible begins with man
in the Garden of Eden, created by God and placed there. And
then Genesis chapter three describes the fall of man. And from there
on, the Bible is the history of the sin and the fallen man
and his sin. That's all it is. In that sense,
talking about man. And you know how Genesis, the
book of Genesis, you know how the book of Genesis ends, you
ever notice it ends with a coffin? Death. In Genesis chapter 15
verse 26, so Joseph died, being 110 years old, they embalmed
him, and he was put in a coffin in Egypt. God created the world,
created the earth, created man, man fell, ends with a coffin.
And then begins more of the history of redemption by God's grace
in Christ. Now not that the history of redemption isn't in Genesis
2, it is. In fact, at first, the whole creation is a type
of God's work of saving his people, isn't it? Let there be light.
Now what happened to you when the Holy Spirit brought you under
the preaching of the gospel and gave you eyes to see? Let there
be light. And then obviously, Genesis chapter
three and verse 15, the first promise of the Messiah, the woman's
seed who would come and bruise the head of the serpent. He would
overturn what Satan brought about by his death on the cross. And
then the establishment of the sacrificial system But it's significant
to me that the Old Testament ends with the pronouncement of
a curse, but the New Testament ends with the pronouncement of
grace. Revelation 22, 21 is the last verse of the New Testament.
It reads, the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all,
amen. Don't you just love that? And
listen, that's not just a general pronouncement of grace, it's
specific. Listen to what it said, the grace
of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all, amen. There's no grace
without Christ. Malachi preaches that. The law
was given by Moses. But grace, and what does the
law say? Cursed is everyone that continues
not in all the things that are written therein. But grace and
truth came by Jesus Christ. How's that possible? Christ has
redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for
us. He took our place on Calvary's
tree. That's what Malachi preaches.
That's what the whole Bible preaches. That as sin hath reigned unto
death, even so might grace reign through righteousness unto eternal
life by Jesus Christ our Lord. Here's the fourth thing. Another
significant issue that this raises is the fact that the Old Covenant
is ended with the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ. So
Malachi, like all books of the Bible, is a book of Christ. And
he foretells the finishing of the Old Covenant law. Just like
in the book of Hebrews chapter 10 and verse 9, quoting from
the Psalms. talking about Christ, the God-man,
who would perform that great work of redemption on earth.
He said, Then said he, Lo, I come to do thy will, O God. He taketh
away the first, that's the first in time, the old covenant, that
he may establish the second, that's in time, the new covenant.
Hebrews chapter 8 and verse 13, In that he saith a new covenant
he hath made the first old, Now that which decayeth and waxeth
old, grows old, is ready to vanish away. Malachi, one of the themes
of Malachi is the old covenant's ready to vanish away. But now
hang on. And here's the glory of it. And
here's what he tells the people to whom he prophesies. Now think
about it now. Everything you're doing here,
you rebuilt that temple. Here they came back and they rebuilt
that temple, they rebuilt the walls of Jerusalem. Some of them
were disappointed because it just didn't look like it was
under Solomon, you know, never would, never did again. I mean, Herod tried to restore
it to some semblance of really physical glory, but it wasn't
anything like Solomon's temple. And here they are going through
the ceremonies, they're bringing the sacrifices, bringing their
tithes and offerings and all that, going through, and Malachi
as well as the other Old Testament prophets came along and said,
now this is all going away. You know, none of this stuff
can save you. You're bringing animal blood. Animal blood can't
save you. The blood of bulls and goats can't wash away sin.
But they were never meant to. These things had a limited time
period appointed of God. They had a beginning, they'll
have an end, and they're about to end. Now I know that it takes
400 more years for it to do so. And we think about, well, you
know, he's too early, he shouldn't have, no, this is God's time
now. Don't measure it with our time. But Malachi's telling them
this stuff is ready to vanish away. But here's the point. That
should not disappoint you. But it should excite you, Israel. Because there's no eternal life
in that old covenant. It's a ministry. You know how
Paul described it in 2 Corinthians 3? A ministration of condemnation,
ministration of the law, ministration of death. There's no hope of
eternal life in those earthly things. So the ending of them
should not disappoint you. It should excite you because
someone's coming. Someone's coming who's going
to put away all the sins of his people. He's the God-man mediator. He's the angel of the covenant.
And in that old covenant, there's no salvation, but in Christ.
Turn to Acts chapter 13 with me. This is the summation of
that message. Listen to this in Acts chapter
13. This is Paul's gospel message. Verse 38 of Acts 13. He says, Be it known unto you,
therefore, men and brethren, that through this man, this man
being the Lord Jesus Christ, is preached unto you the forgiveness
of sins, and by him all that believe are justified from all
things, from which you could not be justified by the law of
Moses. Not only should you never be
disappointed, Israel, Malachi speaking to Judah and Jerusalem
in his day, not only should you not be disappointed that these
things are going to end, you ought to look forward to that
day. You ought to be glad of that
day. Christ is coming. Righteousness is going to be
established in the earth through the death of the Son of God,
from which you could not get from the law of Moses. What a day. Christ is the final
word from God to sinners. So Malachi draws the Old Testament
to its conclusion before the 400 years of darkness, before
the light of God's glory breaks forth in the first coming of
Christ. In verse 1 of Malachi 1, he calls it the burden of
the word of the Lord. Burden is an oracle, it's a pronouncement,
it's a message, it's a weighty message. It's a serious message
from God. It's a message of life and death.
It's a message of judgment. True judgment, God's judgment.
It's a message that shows us life and death. Life in Christ,
death without Christ. And it's given by Malachi. We
don't really know anything about Malachi personally. His name
means God's messenger. My messenger is what it literally
means, God's messenger. He's God's messenger. There's
three other significant prophecies here of other messengers. Over
in Malachi chapter 2 and verse 8, verse 7 rather. Look at Malachi 2 and verse 7.
He speaks of the priest. The first problem that he addresses
is issues with the priest. The priesthood had become corrupted
and he said, for the priest's lips should keep knowledge. And
they should keep the law at his mouth, for he's the messenger
of the Lord of hosts. The priests are messengers, he
says, of the Lord of hosts. And you've corrupted that, he
says, but you've departed out of the way. You've departed. What is the way in the scripture?
Christ said, I am the way, the truth, and the life. No man cometh
unto the Father but by me. You've departed from the way.
You've caused many to stumble at the law. You've corrupted
the covenant of Levi. That's the priestly covenant.
That's the message of the priest. Christ is represented there.
And he says, and saith the Lord of hosts. So Malachi, the messenger
of God, talks about how the messengers of Israel have corrupted it.
In chapter three, look at verse one. He speaks of the messenger. Behold, I will send my messenger
and he shall prepare the way before me. Who's that? That's
John the Baptist, the clarion call of the Lord. And he says,
and the Lord whom you seek shall suddenly come to his temple,
even the messenger of the covenant, that's Christ, John the Baptist
will come. He'll prepare the way, behold,
the Lamb of God. And then the Messiah would come,
the messenger of the covenant, whom you delight in, behold,
he shall come, saith the Lord of hosts. The issue here is this,
that God's messenger is to point sinners to Christ. Christ is
God's supreme and final messenger. And I really believe it's appropriate
that we don't really know anything about Malachi personally because
in light of the prophecy of John the Baptist who said of himself,
Christ must increase, I must decrease, who identified himself
and described himself in this way, I'm just a voice of one
crying in the wilderness. I think it's so appropriate.
Too many times preachers get in the way with their reputations
and their identifications and their credentials and their honors.
We're here to preach Christ. He says back here in verse one
that this is a message from the Lord by Amaleki to Israel, the
nation that had returned under Zerubbabel and Ezra. And it's
described in Ezra and Nehemiah, the history of it. Haggai and
Zechariah, you remember those prophets, they prophesied under
Zerubbabel and Joshua, the high priest. You remember that? And
they had already prophesied, Haggai and Zechariah. Their prophecy's
already finished. The temple was rebuilt. And they
encouraged the people to rebuild the temple. Well, here the temple's
been restored. Ezra returned with another group
and about 13 years later, here comes Nehemiah with a group.
He had permission from the king to rebuild the walls of Jerusalem. You know, they completed that
in 52 days, the rebuilding of the walls. Malachi prophesied
under Nehemiah and Ezra to bring the people to repentance concerning
their sad state and their disobedience as a nation. The corruption of
the priesthood and the people. He calls for repentance in light
of the promise of the coming of Christ, and in light of God's
covenant love and goodness and kindness towards them. And that's
where we'll begin when we go through this book. Think about
it. A book of Christ. I thought about that's how the
Old Testament begins, that's how it ends, that's how the New
Testament begins, and everything in between. All right.