because of their disobedience,
their sin, their rebellion. They're walking willfully contrary
to his word, his revealed will, his revelation of himself. God
sent the nation of Israel into Babylonian captivity for 70 years. Before he sent them into Babylon,
he told them that he would send them in. He told them how long
they would be there. He told them the name of the
man by whom they would be delivered and precisely when they would
be delivered and the way they would leave Babylon. And then
the time came and Israel came out of Babylon. God sent them
back to Jerusalem to build again the waste places, to build again
his house, his city, his nation, and his worship. You would think
that the children of Israel would be a humbled people. We deserve
to go to Babylon and God brought us out. We should have still
been there. You would think there would have
been a people full of gratitude and utterly consecrated to God,
but that wasn't the case. In Malachi's day, Israel was
a nation of self-absorbed, complaining people, griping and whining about
everything. full of unbelief. In this brief
prophecy of Malachi, we hear the chosen people, these people
to whom God had attached his name. You hear them raising question
after question, expressing unbelief. No matter what the Spirit of
God inspired God's prophet Malachi to declare to them, they raised
objections. It seems as if They were determined
to have the last word with God. Read the prophecy. Read it at
one setting. Everything Malachi said, they
raised objection. But it seems as if they were
determined to have the last word with God. But blessed be his
name. God will never allow his chosen
to have the last word with him. He will never allow you or me
to have the last word with him. He always has the last word with
us and makes us thankful that he does. Here in Malachi chapter
one, verse two, is the Lord's last word to you tonight. Malachi chapter one, verse two. I have loved you, saith the Lord. Yet ye say, wherein hast thou
loved us? Was not Esau Jacob's brother,
saith the Lord? Yet I loved Jacob. I loved Jacob. That's my subject tonight. I
loved Jacob. Let's read the rest of the text.
Begin again at verse two. I have loved you, saith the Lord.
Yet ye say, wherein hast thou loved us? And God answers, was
not Esau Jacob's brother, his older brother, his stronger brother,
his preferred brother? Indeed he was. Was not Esau Jacob's
brother, saith the Lord? Yet I loved Jacob and hated Esau. I loved Jacob and hated Esau
and laid his mountains, Esau's mountains, and his heritage waste
for the dragons of the wilderness. Whereas Edom saith, that is the
children of Esau say, We are impoverished, but we will return
and build the desolate places. God's brought us low, but we
can bring ourselves up. We're impoverished, but we can
make ourselves rich. We've made a mess of things,
but we're going to fix that. We don't need anybody's help,
including God's. We will return and build the
desolate places. Thus saith the Lord of Hosts,
they shall be. But I will throw down. Remember,
he said, I hated Esau. That's not just a negative thing.
It's a positive thing. I hated Esau. I'm going to show
it. Everything they build, I'll tear
it down. They shall build, but I'll throw
down. They shall call them the border of wickedness and the
people against whom the Lord hath indignation forever. When
I get done with Edom, this is how everybody will see it. These
are the people God marked for destruction because he hated
them. See how he dealt with them. They
shall be called the border of wickedness and they shall call
them the border of wickedness, the people against whom the Lord
hath indignation forever. Verse five. And your eyes shall
see you people to whom I declare my love. I have loved you. I have loved you. Now this is
how things going to wind up. Your eyes shall see and ye shall
say the Lord will be magnified from the border of Israel. Like these children of Israel,
you and I often fall into ill humor. We appear to be beaten
down, distressed, depressed, full of sullen unbelief. What a wretched state of affairs.
What a dishonor. What a dishonor. We cast upon
our God when we question his goodness and we walk before him
in unbelief. What then? Are we better than
they? No, in no wise, for we've all proved. We've all proved
that God's people are the same in every age. There's no changing. These who were called God's people
here in Malachi's day are just exactly like James, Jordan, and
Don Ford. A people to whom God had been
so gracious. A people who should never have
entertained a thought except of gratitude and confident faith,
but of people who murmured and complained in unbelief, who spurned
God's goodness and despised his providence. In ourselves, you see, we're
ignorant, ungrateful, for the most part, oblivious to and insensible
to God's distinguishing mercies. I keep praying every day, God
teach me today to see your good hand of providence working for
me. But for the most part, I'm oblivious
to his distinguishing grace. I'm oblivious to the works by
which he shows himself favorable to me. It is this evil of unbelief
that I want to combat tonight. May God, the Holy spirit. take
his word given to us by the prophet Malachi and teach us to trust
our God. May he make us aware of God's
unalterable, free, sovereign, distinguishing mercy, love and
grace upon us and make us aware of it in such a way that we forget
not but remember always his goodness as we walk before him. I want
to show you Several things here about God's special love for
you. Now listen to me. Listen to me.
Give me your attention. You who yet walk before God without
faith. I would not dare hint to you
that God loves you. I would not dare hint to you
that God loves you. Nowhere in this book Is there
any place where any unbelieving rebel is addressed in the kind
of language that would make someone suspect that God might possibly
look upon them with love and favor and grace? As long as you
live with your fist in God's face, this is all God has to
say to you. The wrath of God is on you. shall be your portion, except
you repent. And at the same time, to every
believing sinner. Oh, if God's just now taught
you to believe. To every believing sinner. To
every man, woman, or child who hears my voice. who looks to
Jesus Christ alone as his Redeemer, his Lord and Savior. Every sinner
who trusts Christ alone, every sinner whose heart is reconciled
to Christ as his Lord. To you, God says, have not I
loved you? I have loved you, saith the Lord. Jacob have I loved. So let's
begin with this declaration of God's love. The Lord begins his
word by Malachi to these people, these people who were the objects
of his choice, these people to whom he attached his name. These
people whom he had redeemed by special work, by special blood
atonement. These people who by their daily
sacrifices confessed themselves God's people, looking to Christ
the Lamb who would come to redeem them, looking to Christ the Lamb
who was slain for them. God says to these people, these
people who are his Israel, sinners who are
the objects of his special care. And they illustrate not just
a physical nation, or they're not speaking of just a physical
nation of physical people. This nation of Israel, these
sons of Jacob represent you and me, the Israel of God. Sinners saved by grace, but sinners
still in this world. And God says, I have loved you. I used to hear a hymn, I quote
portions of it every now and then. Listen to this. The love
of God is greater, greater far than tongue or pen can ever tell. It goes beyond the highest hour
and reaches to the lowest hell. The guilty pair bowed down with
care, God gave his son to win, his erring child he reconciled
and pardoned from his sin. When years of time shall pass
away and earthly thrones and kingdoms fall, when men who here
refuse to pray on rocks and hills and mountains call, God's love
so sure shall still endure, all measureless and strong, redeeming
love and saving grace, the saints and angel song. The love of God,
that's the source, the fountain from which all our mercies come.
It's the subject that begins in eternity in the gift of Christ,
God's son as our covenant surety and our mediator. It is that
gift that begins in eternity before anything was but God himself
and runs through all the ages of the time with no variation
and no change. That love of God that was set
on us in eternity and runs through all the ages of time and all
the experiences of time and runs through time to eternity. God calls it everlasting love. Turn to Jeremiah chapter 31.
Jeremiah chapter 31 Verse 1 at that time saith the
Lord I will be the God of all the families of Israel and They
should be my people They get to the end of the chapter and
you see this covenant that God made with Israel And you think,
well, that's talking about those folks over in Palestine. No,
no, no, no. Compare Hebrews 8 and Hebrews
10, and you'll find out that covenant's talking about God's
Israel, which is his church, his elect. And this word that
he's talking about when he says, I will be God, Lord, over all
the families of Israel, he's talking about all the host of
his elect. Verse 2. Or he says, they shall
be my people. Verse 2. Thus saith the Lord,
the people which were left of the sword, found grace in the
wilderness. Even Israel, when I went to cause
him to rest, the Lord hath appeared of old unto me saying, yea, I
have loved thee with an everlasting love. Love that knows no change. Love that endures forever. Love that sprung in eternity
and reaches to eternity. Therefore, with loving kindness
have I drawn thee. Again, I will build thee, and
thou shalt be built, O Virgin of Israel. Thou shalt again be
adorned with thy tabrets, and shalt go forth in the dances
of them that make merry. I have loved you, saith the Lord.
To every believer, The special love of God is declared in the
scriptures. And it is to this love that our
text refers. This is special, distinguishing
love. I know that preachers and religious
fools like to talk about God loving everybody. And some folks
who like to straddle fences and emasculate themselves Like to
tell folks, well, God has sorta special love for you, but sorta
loves you like he loves everybody else. That kind of love is meaningless
and useless. God's love for his own is a special
distinguishing love. He distinguishes it this way. He said, was not Esau Jacob's
brother? Yes, he was Jacob's brother,
but I didn't love Esau. I loved Jacob. And I hated Esau. That's how distinct God's love
is. And that's how he would have
us ever to view it. God loves us with a distinct
love, a love that distinguishes us from all other people and
distinguishes us by certain specific acts and tokens of grace. The
Lord speaks of Esau and of Jacob so plainly that there's no mistaking
it. This was precisely the language
that God gave Paul to use in Romans chapter 9 when he speaks
of Jacob and Esau. Turn there, Romans chapter 9
verse 11. Paul is here describing for us
God's works in providence as well as in grace. He's telling
us of God's sovereignty. How that he raised up the nation
of Israel and sent blindness to the Gentiles. And then he
sent blindness to Israel that he might send light to the Gentiles
so that all Israel might be saved. And Paul is telling us here by
divine inspiration how God works in providence. Why is it that
God for 2,000 years gave light to no one but the nation of Israel?
To preserve light. That's why. Why is it now that
God sent blindness to Israel and they can't see? And now the
gospel has gone into all the nations of the earth so that
God might gather his elect out of the four corners of the earth.
And gathering them, all Israel, all the chosen seed shall be
saved. All the families of Israel shall
be His and He shall be their God. Why is it that God's doing
what He's doing in our day? Why? Did the news of this day
transpire as it did? Why are we experiencing the things
we experience as individuals, as families, as a local congregation,
as a city, as a county, as a state, as a nation, as this civilization? Why? Because God is saving Jacob. Because God loved Jacob and hated
Esau. Let's read it. Romans 9 verse
11. The children being not yet born, neither having done any
good or evil, that the purpose of God according to election
might stand not of works, but of him that calleth. That's a
pretty good explanation, isn't it? You're going to take some
real twisting and maneuvering of the English language to make
that read as though salvation somehow depends on you. that
the purpose of God according to election might stand, not
of works, but of him that calleth. It was said to her, the elder
shall serve the younger. As it is written, back here in
Malachi chapter one, Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated. Now you say that somebody, that's
not right. Well, that's not just, that's
not fair. How dare you? How dare you even
think of questioning God's rightness and God's justice and God's truth. How dares a man think like that?
If God does it, it's right. If the whole world goes to hell,
if God does it, it's right. Read on. What shall we say then? Is there unrighteousness with
God? God forbid. Don't think like that. For he
saith to Moses, I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and
I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion. So then
it is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but
of God that showeth mercy. It's not by your works and it's
not by your will. It's by God's mercy and by God's
grace, by God's love, by God's goodness. For the scripture saith
to Pharaoh, even for this same purpose have I raised thee up.
What purpose was that? the purpose of God according
to election. What purpose was that? I love Jacob. I raised you up because I love
Jacob, you son of Esau. I raised you up because I love
Jacob. I raised you up for this purpose
that I might show my power in thee and that my name might be
declared throughout all the earth. Therefore, therefore, hath he
mercy on whom he will have mercy and whom he will, he hearteneth. I have loved you, saith the Lord. And most people tell us that
he loves us while we're willing and obedient, while we are submissive
and humble and walk with him as we ought to and believe him
as we should. And truly, truly that's certain.
Thou lovest them that love thee, the wise man said. And showest
mercy to thousands of them that love thee and keep thy commandments.
No question about that. Indeed, we might even say as
Jeremiah did, thou hast utterly rejected us. Thou art very wroth
with us. But the Lord God says, no, no,
I do love you. I am the Lord, I change not.
Does he not declare, I will rest in my love? I will joy over thee
with singing. Is that not his word? For Israel
hath not been forsaken, nor Judah of his God, of the Lord of hosts,
though their land was filled with sin against the Holy One
of Israel. The Lord had professed that he
loved these folks. And He showed His displeasure
with their fathers. And they were no better than
their fathers. We read of them in Zechariah
chapter 1. And yet the Lord God gave sweet
promise to His chosen. He said in verse 17 of Zechariah
1. Yet the Lord shall comfort Zion. He shall yet choose Jerusalem. It was about this same time. About the time that Malachi came
with his word from God, the burden of the word of the Lord declaring,
Jacob have I loved, that the priests, the Levites proclaimed
a fast that's recorded in Nehemiah chapter nine. You can read it
at your leisure. And in that fast, the Levites
set out a catalog, a list of things by which God showed his
distinct love to Israel. Listen to it. He said, or these
Levites said, the Lord gave us good laws to direct our steps. He didn't give them to our neighbors.
The Lord gave us good Sabbaths of rest in which to refresh our
souls and to meditate on him in whom we have rest. He gave
his good spirit to instruct us. He forsook us not, though we
dealt proudly against him. Rather, he crowned us with comforts. He afflicted us when we provoked
him, yes, but even then he sent saviors when we cried to him. And though often we revolted,
he was entertained with his children and entreated by us and sent
mercy to us. Think of this children of God,
how the Lord has loved us. He's demonstrated it in sovereign
election. He chose you. He, before the world began, predestined
everything in the universe because of his care for you and arranged
all the affairs of providence to do for you that which was
necessary to preserve you to the time of your calling and
to prepare you for the time when he would visit you in mercy and
now to keep you since he's called you by his grace and to cause
you to walk before him in faith. He redeemed you with the precious
blood of his own son. Bought you with the price of
his own shed blood. He called you by his grace and
he's kept you to this hour. And he promises he will keep
you no matter what. He promises that his love for
you will never wane, will never fail, will never grow cold. His love is always the same.
Jacob have I loved. You were Jacob before I revealed
myself to you. I made you Israel. But I loved
you when you were Jacob. And I still love Jacob. Though
you still act like Jacob and look like Jacob and talk like
Jacob and everybody who sees you thinks of Jacob. I love you
Israel. Jacob have I loved. And soon
he'll present you spotless before the presence of his glory. Don't
you remember times, special times, when the Lord comes to you? Oh,
what wondrous, blessed times. And personally seals his love
to your heart. He bestows you till he breaks
your thigh, pins you down, makes you confess what you are. And
you walk with the lint the rest of your day so you won't forget
how God personally sealed his love to you. Even now, he speaks
to you by his word and by his spirit. It causes you to hear
his voice. And you're touched with the gracious
avowal of God's love to you. Jacob have I loved. Now these,
uh, these words and the blessings God gave to Jacob. Those things
he bestowed upon Jacob. If you go back to the book of
Genesis and read them, you will see clearly that this was not
just physical blessings or physical mercies and didn't have just
to do with physical things. Because as soon as God spoke
these words to Jacob and spoke of blessing Jacob, Jacob had
to flee for his life. I mean, just that quick. He's
off fleeing for his life. Obviously then, the blessings
had nothing to do with that physical thing, physical ground on which
he stood. The blessings were only represented
there. And the blessings were spiritual. They were to all his
seed, not just to him. You remember Jacob told Pharaoh
in the latter days of his pilgrimage, he said, my pilgrimage has been,
the days of my pilgrimage have been few and evil. And yet he knew himself A man
distinctly blessed of God because God loved him. Now understand
this. All the blessings of God in Christ. The love of God for us in Christ,
our acceptance of God in Christ is altogether free and unconditional. It's without any motive. found
in us. It's without any qualifying condition
found in us. It is a love bestowed upon us
and blessings flowing from that love given us in Christ before
the world began, before we had any being in ourselves, before
we even had a being in our father Adam, when we existed only in
the loins of our mediator, having done neither good nor evil. I think it's safe to presume
if that's the case, God's love and mercy, his grace and his
goodness toward us will not vary today because of anything we
are or do. Oh, how many there are who live without clear views of this
happy, unspeakable blessing. in poorly instructed or because
of a lack of faith looking to themselves
with how often we rob ourselves of the privilege. Because we
look within and look in ourselves, in our experience, in our doing,
in our Bible reading, our church attendance, our giving, our faithfulness. All those things we're looking
at. So those things tell me I have no reason to imagine I'm one
of God's children. And I promise you, if you vainly
imagine that your Bible reading and your praying and your giving
and your church attendance and your righteous deeds are reasons
by which you can think that God loves you, you're a proud, arrogant
hypocrite, and you have no idea what you really are. That's exactly right. That's
exactly right. Oh, no, no. These things give
me no hope before God. And bless God, that's not my
hope. My acceptance with God's in Christ. That's the declaration
of God's love. And still the love of God is
questioned by the people he loves. Yet ye say, wherein hast thou
loved us? I couldn't have preached this
message to you a year ago because I had never experienced
it. And any preaching I would do
from this statement, ye say wherein hast thou loved us, would have
just been theory and not reality. Shocking are the words. God says, I love you. And you
say, where in have you loved me? Shocking. Shocking. But Rex, I've been
there. I've been there. Lord, if you love me, why this? If you love me, why this state
of mind? If you love me, Why am I thus? If you love me, why this frame
of mind, this emptiness of soul, this barrenness of spirit? If
you love me, wherein if you love me? Times of great affliction, times
of confusion, times of grievous doubt. We're
just like that. God forgive me. So brother Don,
I've never been there. I hope you never are. But I suspect
you will be. I suspect you will be. David,
that man after God's own heart, he had no trouble dealing with
Saul trying to kill him. Had no trouble with that. He, painful as it was, He had
no trouble being confident of God's goodness to him when his
own son Absalom raised a rebellion against him, paraded his wives
before Israel, took his daddy's wives and committed incest publicly
to mock his father. And Absalom trying to kill him. David had no trouble being confident
of God's grace and mercy and love toward him. Had no trouble
to him. Isn't that amazing? Had no trouble to him. Even when
he had arranged for the murder of Uriah and had taken Bathsheba,
Uriah's wife. And the Lord had not spoken to
him until Nathan the prophet came to him. Even in those long,
empty, empty days and nights when his bones waxed old within
him because of God's roaring against him, David never gives
an indication that he did not believe God loved him. Isn't
that amazing? Isn't that amazing? And then
one day, he's standing on his palace wall
and he gets to thinking about all that he's going through.
And he looks at the fellow across the way. Now I suspect he just
has him in his mind's eye, not a real person at all, but just
in his mind's eye and he sees an ungodly pagan man. who has
no regard for God, no fear of God. Over there, he's set for
Thanksgiving Day, and all of his house is with him. All of
his sons and daughters, their feet are under the table. All
of his grandchildren are there having a good time, and he's
prosperous, everything's going great. And David's in his palace,
and most of his family's in the grave. And the ones that are
alive are a house full of rebels. And David says it's a useless
thing to serve God. He said, my feet were almost
gone. My steps had well and I slipped.
I said, I washed my hands in innocency. And then I remembered,
oh God, forgive me. You put him there. So his feet
slide down to hell. And you dealt with me as you
have because you loved Jake. Oh, let us then observe the abounding
of God's love. When we were yet without strength, in due time, Christ died for
the ungodly. For scarcely for a righteous
man will one die, yet peradventure for a good man, some would even
dare to die. But God commendeth his love toward
us, and that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Turn to Ephesians 3. Ephesians
3. And this was manifested, the
love of God toward us, because God said his only begotten son
into the world, that we might live through him. Herein is love,
not that we loved God. but he loved us and sent his
son to be the propitiation for our sins. Paul in Ephesians 3.14
says, for this cause, I bow my knees unto the father of our
Lord Jesus Christ, of whom the whole family in heaven and earth
is named, that he would grant you according to the riches of
his glory to be strengthened with might by his spirit in the
inner man, that Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith, that
you be rooted and grounded in love. that you might comprehend
with all saints. What is the length and the breadth
and the height of the love of God? God give us grace to adore his
wondrous love for us. On what grounds dare we call
into question the mercy, love, and grace of our God? How dare I doubt his goodness? How dare I ever question his
love? I wrote this down just a little
bit ago. I refuse to doubt God's love because of something I thought
or said or done. His love is free and unconditional.
I refuse to question his grace because of my sin. While I acknowledge
the abundance of my sin, I will rejoice in this super abundance
of God's free grace in Christ. I'm not going to be suspicious
of his mercy because I don't deserve his mercy. Mercy is for
the undeserving. He said, Jacob, have I loved? And if there's anybody on this
earth with whom I have every reason to identify myself, anybody
whose name I have every reason to take for my own, it is Jacob. God says, Jacob have I loved. And then he shows it to be a
distinct, special love. For he says, Esau have I hated. I hated Esau. Look at verse four
of our text. Whereas Edom saith, we are impoverished,
but we will return and build the desolate places. Thus saith
the Lord of hosts, they shall build, but I will throw down
and they shall call them the border of wickedness and the
people against whom the Lord hath indignation forever. You
read Hebrews chapter 12 verse 16, you'll find out that Esau
was a fornicator, a profane person. And therefore God left Esau to
his reprobate mind in strict justice. And yet we're told here
that before the children were born, God loved Jacob and hated
Esau. So this was exactly according
to God's purpose. The mountain of Esau, is used
to represent Esau and his seed. Void of grace, empty. It's not talking about desolations
in a physical way. It may be the richest region
on this earth, but it's desolate spiritually. Just as the mountain
of the Lord's house speaks of God's elect, so here the mountain
of Esau represents the reprobate. God says, I'll tear it down.
I'll tear it down. Then in verse five, He says,
your eyes shall see, and you shall say, the Lord will be magnified
from the border of Israel. Look back over the ages of time,
the mountain ranges of this time
world in all our experiences. And you'll say, now I see that. Oh God, why couldn't I see? Now
I see. Now I see. The Lord In this Lord, we owe to your
rich, abounding mercy, love, and grace. Amen.