So let's start at the end of
chapter 2, verse 17. God's prophet Malachi, whose
name means angel or messenger of the Lord, is delivering God's
message to the professed children of God in his day in which religion
was about as rotten as it is in our day. Pretty much the same. A whole lot of talk, a whole
lot of smoke, a whole lot of hot air. But where's God? Where is He? My guess is, for
the most part, religion in our day does not need God. We have figured out how to do
it ourselves. Verse 17, Malachi chapter 2,
you have wearied the Lord with your words. You have wearied
the Lord with your words. Yet you say, Wherein? How have we wearied him? We haven't
wearied him. Here's how they wearied him.
When you say, Everyone that does evil is good in the sight of
the Lord. And he delights Or restated,
where is the God of judgment? Behold, from verse 1 to verse
6 in chapter 3 is a virtual parenthesis. Not that it is unimportant, but
it does not have a direct line to the statement in verse 17
and the subject that's picked up again in verse 7 of chapter
3. But it is all about our Lord
Jesus Christ. Now, you heard me say that Malachi
means God's messenger, Jehovah's messenger, as well as angel. Well, here are, counting Malachi,
there are three messengers mentioned in this passage. Behold, I will
send my messenger. This one is John the Baptist,
the forerunner of the Lord Jesus Christ. And look who's speaking
in verse 1. I'll send my messenger and he
shall prepare the way before me. None other than Christ himself
is the speaker. And the Lord whom you seek, whom
we claim to seek, professedly seek, but generally speaking
do not really seek, the Lord whom you seek, shall suddenly
come to his temple, even," here's this Lord's name, our Lord Jesus
Christ, even, the messenger of the covenant. Christ is the messenger
of the everlasting covenant of grace, whom you delight in. Behold, he shall come, says the
Lord of hosts, the Lord God Jehovah, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
But who may abide the day of His coming? And who shall stand
when He appears? Speaking now of Christ's first
coming. Remember, this is the last, when
you finish chapter 4, in the book of Malachi, there is no
record that God spoke to His people in Israel again until
the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ. 350 years of absolute
silence. Why did it take so long in between
Testaments? God ain't never been in a hurry
and He is not now. Verse 2, but who may abide the
day of His coming? And who shall stand when He appears? You know a good place to start
to answer those questions? The Gospel of Matthew, Mark,
Luke and John. Everywhere Christ went, it revealed
what is in the heart of man concerning the God of redemption. But who
shall abide the day of His coming? And who shall stand when He appears? For He, the messenger of the
covenant, the Lord Jesus, is like refiner's fire and fuller's
soap. And he shall sit as a refiner
and purifier of silver, and he shall purify the sons of Levi,
and purge them as gold and silver, that they may offer unto the
Lord. Here's the result, that they
may offer unto the Lord an offering in righteousness. Then shall
the offering of Judah and Jerusalem be pleasant unto the Lord, It
is not now, Malachi has been saying, as in the days of old
and as in former years. And I'll come near to you to
judgment, and I'll be a swift witness against the sorcerers,
and against the adulterers, and against false swearers, and against
those that oppress the hireling in his wages, the widow and the
fatherless, and that turn aside the stranger from his right.
And fear not me, says the Lord of hosts. Please look at verse
6. This is one of the most important
statements in all the scriptures. For I am the Lord. I am the Lord. I change not. The God of the Old Testament
is exactly the same as the God of the New. God can not He declares this as plainly as
words can say it, I change not. And look at the blessed result.
Therefore, you sons of Jacob, all God's children are sons of
Jacob. We're devils and rascals until
the Lord saves us. And we ain't free from being
a devil even after that. You know, just to be brutally
honest. I am the Lord, I change not. Therefore you sons of Jacob
are not consumed." Now back to our track that we're running
through here. The fourth one was in verse 17
of chapter 2. Here's the fifth gospel question. You'll find it in verse 7. Even
from the days of your fathers, you are gone away from my ordinances
and have not kept them. Return unto me, and I'll return
unto you, says the Lord of hosts. But we said, why do we need to
return? We've never left. We're in. Shall we return? What's the Lord
talking about? We deny there's anything to it.
All right, number six. The sixth question is in verse
eight. Let me ask you a question before I read that statement.
You ever heard people, they hear about somebody broke into a church
building and they just all aghast, they cannot believe that anybody
would do that. Where have you been living? Are you kidding? If a man will steal God's glory,
and we do, and we have, he certainly don't mind stealing God's sound
equipment and, you know, other kinds of junk. as we know quite
well here because we've had a break-in years ago. But this person who
cannot fathom that a crook would break into a building that's
a church building, I just don't understand that. It blows me
away. Will a man rob God? Absolutely. Yet you have robbed me. But we don't own up to it. We
say, now this is the Lord telling us what we say. He's putting
these words on our tongue as it were. But He doesn't put them
there if they don't belong there. Wherein have we robbed you? He answers in tithes and offerings. Now listen to me. Tithes and
offerings are Old Testament, not New Testament. These tithes
and offerings were animals and grain and whatever else I can't
remember at the moment, incense, things such as that. You can't find those things here.
They don't belong here. Those pictured Christ after He
has come, these things are no more, no use for them, no need
for them. Therefore, I'm not going to talk
to you about robbing God of tithes and offerings. I'm going to charge
ourselves with stealing God's glory, which is exactly what
they were doing and what we have done and perhaps still are, at
least to a measure. Maybe not as blatantly or openly
as once we did. Every man is born a rebel against
God. You are cursed with a curse,
for you have robbed me, even this whole nation, the whole
nation. Bring you all the tithes into
the storehouse, that there may be meat in my house, and prove
me now herewith, says the Lord of hosts, if I will not open
you the windows of heaven, and pour you out a blessing that
there shall not be room enough to receive it. That blessing
for us, my friend, is none other than the Lord Jesus Christ. I'll
rebuke the devourer for your sake, and he shall not destroy
the fruit of your ground, neither shall your vine cast her fruit
before the time. In the field, says the Lord of
hosts, and all nations shall call you blessed, for you shall
be a delightsome land, says the Lord of hosts. Here's number
seven. Your words have been stout against
me, says the Lord. Yet we say, what have we spoken
so much against you? Here's the answer, verses 14
and 15. You have said, I have said, it
is vain to serve God. Remember this Bible class and
what prophet is it? T-R-O-F-I-T, prophet. What prophet is it that we have
kept his ordinance and that we have walked mournfully before
the Lord of hosts? What have we spoken so much against
you, verse 15? And now we're so far from the
truth we call the proud happy. The book says blessed are those
that are poor. God in grace and mercy has mercy
on the poor in spirit, those that are truly humbled by His
grace. Now we call the proud happy,
yea, they that work wickedness are held up as examples to follow.
Yea, they that tempt God are declared to be delivered, for
giving comfort and hope to the wrong people. And guess what? If I tell a man that he has peace
with God and that God loves him, and in fact he does not and God
does not love him. Guess who's right? God is. Recall the proud happy, yea,
they that work wickedness are set up, they that tempt God are
even delivered. Then they that feared the Lord
spoke often one to another, And the Lord listened and heard it. And a book of remembrance was
written before him for them that feared the Lord and that thought
upon his name. And look what the Lord says about
them. And they shall be mine, says
the Lord of hosts, in that day when I make up my jewels. And
I will spare them as a man spares his own son that serves him.
Then shall you return and discern, distinguish and discriminate
between the righteous and the wicked, between him that serves
God and him that serves him." Try to deal specifically with
each of these questions, all but one of which begin wherein. The first one is in chapter 2
and verse Malachi 2.17, Through the prophet
the Lord said to the whole nation, You have wearied the Lord with
your words, yet you say, Wherein? How have we wearied him? The answer is here. When we say,
Everyone that does evil is good in the sight of the Lord. Now
listen, we are not here teaching immorality, nor are we here per
se to teach morality. We are here to preach Christ
and God's grace to poor helpless sinners in Him. And if He saves
our poor soul, It will make radical changes in every department of
our being, but the most important is for me to understand what
it means to weary God with my words. Now, I told you this was
last July a year ago when I went back to the little country church
over in Sampson County that was celebrating their 250th anniversary,
started in 1756. And I was angry because when
I got up to preach, it was an 11 o'clock worship service. When
I got up to preach, it was 14 minutes to 12 o'clock. And that
was a normal, as best I could tell, a normal Sunday morning,
except for the fact that one whole half side of the church,
about the same size as this auditorium, was filled up with knotheads
whose name was Rivenbark. My whole family was there, and
they didn't hear from me that I was gone. But for just about
15 minutes, right here at this piano well, I believe it was,
the lady got up, all the kids came up here to sit on the first
couple of benches, put a box up there, and she put various
things in on one side of the box, and when it came out the
other side, it was about 10 times bigger. And her point was, don't
gossip. Don't gossip. Well, that's fine,
but that ain't got no place in here. Here's the problem. We want people to act like Christians
without being one. And you don't need God for that. You just need a clever way to
say it. Bingo, you've got it. What that
produces is not God-fearing people. proud, haughty, arrogant Pharisees. And we all got enough of that
in us by nature. We don't need no help. Look what
he says. Chapter 2, verse 17. We've wearied
him with our words, talking about him, using terms and titles and
names that do not become him, but rather lower him. in men's eyes. He's my co-pilot,
the man upstairs. Bull, and I mean bull, that's
manure. That's all that is. Sounds good,
it's clever, it tickles the ear, but it robs God of His glory. You say everyone that does evil
is good in the sight of the Lord. You tell everybody you meet,
God loves you and we do too. No, He doesn't. He does not. And I dare you to prove it from
this book, because I can prove to you otherwise. Absolutely
certain of it. God's love is sovereign. He elected
a people in eternity past, and those are the people that He
loves. Now don't get me wrong. He's good to people who aren't
even His elect. The rain falls on both. The sun shines on both. You want
to know the truth of it? The ungodly fare better than
the godly in this life. You haven't found that out yet?
How old are you? And the second part of that first statement,
and he delights in them. God delights in you. How can
I tell you as a blanket statement, God delights in every person
in this room? I can't say that. I used to say
it. And of course, the other way
of saying it is, where is the God of judgment. You'll jump over to verse 15
in regard to the God of judgment. Now we call the proud happy,
yea, they that work wickedness are set up, held up as fine people,
examples to follow. They that tempt God are declared
to be delivered. We're giving hope and peace that
belongs to God's children, to people who aren't God's children.
You know what that's called? That's prostituting the gospel. Prostituting. Preachers have
become pimps in just indiscriminately, the Lord loves you, the Lord
bless you, and on and on and on. People eat it up, don't get
me wrong. It just isn't so. It is not so. And if God has not said it, I
dare not say it. All right, jumping down in chapter
3 all the way to verse 7, we come now to the fifth of these
gospel questions in which the Lord is admonishing the nation
of Israel through the prophet Malachi to return unto Him. Let me start the first word in
verse 7. Even from the day of your fathers
you are gone away from my ordinances. Now God's ordinances in the Old
Testament were the sacrifices that they were required to give.
It was the various religious ceremonies that were scheduled at various
times of the year that was completely inflexible and never changed,
like the Passover, or like the hymn that we sung, Revive Thy
Work. It talked about Pentecostal showers. There was the Feast
of Pentecost. There was the Feast of Tabernacles.
There was the Passover, as I've mentioned the Passover. All of
those things were God's ordinances. And they set forth before the
Old Testament worship who the Lord Jesus Christ is and what
He's done for poor sinners. And God's children in the Old
Testament were enabled by grace to see Christ in those things. So that a man's worship was either
accepted or rejected on the basis of whether or not he saw past
the physical to the spiritual. He saw past the sheep or the
goat to Christ, the Lamb of God, slain from the foundation of
the world. So that the worship of God, Old
Testament, New Testament, and today, is either accepted or
is rejected. And it is either of one kind
or the other. There are but two kinds in this
whole wide world. It is either all Christ or no
Christ. There is no in between. It can be Christianity or a thousand
and one other religions, but there's only one true religion,
and that's God's Son and Him crucified. Abel came to God at
the very beginning in Genesis chapter 4 and brought what God
required, a lamb, to picture Christ the heavenly Lamb. His
brother Cain refused to bring what God required. rather bringing
the fruit of the ground, a ground that had been cursed. God refused
his sacrifice. He got so mad he killed his brother.
There's the difference between false and true religion. Number six, verse eight, chapter
three. I want to spend a tad more time
here on this one because it is so weighty and important. has
to do with robbing God. Will a man rob God, yet you've
robbed me? But you say, we say, I say, wherein
have we robbed you? And he answers, in tithes and
offerings. Now here's the bottom line, as
simple as I know how to say it. And to understand robbing God,
you have to understand this. Whatever God requires of me or
you, Before we can give it to Him, He must, He must, He must
give it to me. Does He demand repentance? Repentance
is the gift of God. Does He demand faith? He must
give it. Anytime in this book you read,
you run into a word. Let's see, we haven't got to
it yet, have we? Yes, we did. Somebody help me
out. Where's the word return? Oh,
it's in verse 7. My goodness, I just finished
with it. Verse 7. When the Lord says,
return unto me, that's a command. Most people think if God commands
it of me, I can do it. Oh, no. No, sir. That's a trap for Pharisees to
let out a little bit of their pride and their stink. Stink
they do. God commands it. He must enable
it. He must give it. You remember
that man in the Gospel account that was in the synagogue and
it was on the Sabbath? He had a withered arm, just shriveled
up. The Lord singled him out to make
the Pharisees madder. He said, hey, you stand up. He
knew exactly what was going to happen. It was the Sabbath day.
They were going to charge him with Sabbath breaking. He said to
that man with the withered hand, stretch forth your hand. He couldn't
do it. But with the command went the
power to carry it out. That's how the gospel works.
It's exactly how it works. Whatever God requires, He must
give. And He gives what He requires. And the beauty of it is this.
He only accepts from you and me what He Himself gives me. That's the bottom line. So when
we rob God, we rob Him not of sheep and goats. Oh my soul,
the cattle on a thousand hills are His! Everything in this universe
is His! We rob Him of that blessed honor
and glory that our poor souls ought to give Him. So I've got
a little outline here on this one. I want you to look at this
Robin God as it has to do with the truths concerning His person,
His being, and His character. Our generation is overrun with
people who have no concept and no taste for the Godhead of the
Lord Jesus Christ, the Jesus that is being preached for the
most part in our day. is just a little tiny pygmy compared
to the real one. We have shrunk him and shrunk
him and shrunk him so we have a different Jesus. Paul wrote
in Galatians about another gospel and another Jesus. We've got
it. Jesus Christ is God Almighty. He is a perfect man and the holy
God. And yet In those two natures,
His divine and His human, there's only one person. And nobody can
explain to you how two entirely separate natures can be united
into one, but that is exactly who Christ is. He is as much
God as if He were never a man, and He's as much a man as if
He were never God. But robbing God is to rob Christ
of His deity. Don't talk about a Jesus who
is trying to do anything. The word try and the word God
are just absolute opposites. Where one is, you don't have
the other one. The Lord Jesus is perfect in every aspect of
His being, of His character, and of His work. And there ain't
no such thing as Him being sad or dissatisfied. Read Isaiah
42. It's there plain as day. He shall
not be discouraged. You can't discourage Him. Why?
Because He is the ever victorious Lord Jesus Christ. Take the Holy
Spirit. People call Him an it. Others
call Him an influence. That ain't right. He's a person. He is Him. And as much God as
the Son or the Father. The Holy Spirit of God is the
one who works in our poor souls in opening our eyes, in regenerating
us in the new birth, in applying to us the blessings and glories
of God's covenant mercy and grace in Christ. We spoke of repentance
and faith a little while ago. He is the one who sacredly deposits
those things in a poor sinner's soul that enables, not just enables,
causes him to come to Christ and to trust Him. Therefore,
Romans 11.29 says of those gifts, repentance and faith, the gifts
and calling of God, the gifts associated with God's call of
irresistible grace, the gifts and calling of God are without
repentance. That is, He never takes them
back. Anybody who suggests that God
offers these gifts to all men and those that use them find
the others, He takes it back. That ain't so. That's what the
natural man, that's what you and I by nature want to be so,
but it isn't so. It's not supported in Scripture
by anything whatsoever. When it comes to God the Father,
we rob Him of His glory as well. People make out that God in the
New Testament and God in the Old Testament are different gods,
and that the Lord Jesus came to cause God to love us. No! The message of this book, Old
and New Testament, is that the Lord Jesus came because God loves
everlastingly His people. You remember Malachi 3.6, I am
the Lord? I change not, therefore you sons
of Jacob are not consumed." Well, God's love doesn't change either.
It's just like Himself. It is infinite and eternal. But there's another little matter
here that has to do with Robin God. People say that now that
the New Testament has come to be, and we live in a New Testament
age, that God's law has undergone sort of a transformation. It
no longer demands of us what it demanded in the Old Testament.
Well, God has to demand what His being and character demand
of Him to demand. He cannot be untrue to Himself. Everything He does must be becoming,
that is, honoring of Himself. Now let me show you that, and
I think you can see it pretty plainly because it's about as
plain as plain gets. And it's in Luke chapter 10.
Now, yes, I got that wrote down here somewhere, but I can't remember
which page it's on. So I'm glad it came to mind. Luke chapter 10. Now, the Lord
Jesus runs into a fellow divinely ordained by providence,
I might add. No accidents with God. The Lord
Jesus runs into... Luke calls him a lawyer. One
or two of the other Gospels refer to him as a scribe. They're one
and the same person. The only time lawyer in the Bible
means what it means today, a crook, I shouldn't have said that, is
in the book of Titus, I believe. I think that's correct. And that's,
I think it's what, Zenos, the lawyer. You're supposed to know
this stuff, right? That one mention is the only
time it means what it means, you know, in our generation.
So we're talking about a man who is as smart as a lawyer pertaining
to the Old Testament Scriptures and what God commands and what
He doesn't and so forth, all right? So our Lord providentially
runs into this man, verse 25, Luke chapter 10, and behold,
a certain lawyer, a scribe, stood up, now don't miss this word,
and tempted him. Now we were charged with that
in the book of Malachi, tempting God. Well, here's another guy
tempting God. Now what does it mean for this
fellow to tempt Christ? He's trying to embarrass him,
to discredit him, to make him look bad in the sight of the
people that are enamored with him. And he said, Master, what
shall I do to inherit eternal life? But these, I remind you,
the following words, came from the lips of the Savior Himself. And you see if God's law has
been toned down any whatsoever. The truth is, God cannot demand
anything that is beneath Himself. That's why He has to give us
everything He requires of us. All right. Verse 26, Our Lord
said to the man, What is written in the law? How do you read it? How do you understand what God
requires to have eternal life? And the man answered, now listen
carefully, you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart,
not part of it, not most of it, all of it, and with all your
soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind. our neighbor
as ourself. What did our Lord say? You have
answered right, this do and you shall live. So the man is looking
for a way out. So he asked the Lord. You see,
a man's relationship to God cannot be, what's the word, truly diagnosed
by someone else as to its perfection. You see, whether I love God with
all my heart, with all my soul, with all my strength, with all
my mind, you might have a general idea. You might know, well, I
think He does. But you don't honest to goodness
know whether He does or not. You follow me? But the man knows
that this other part of the equation is a little easier to discover,
loving my neighbor as myself. So he smartly suggests, well,
then who is my neighbor? See? You say, well, you don't
like so-and-so. Well, and he's your neighbor.
No, no, he's not my neighbor. And that brought into being the
parable of the Good Samaritan. Don't miss this now. The Good
Samaritan is only one person, and that's Christ Jesus. My time's shot anyway, and I
still got another one to go, so I'm just going to stay here
for a second and tell you a little story. Some years ago, a man
that most of you know, Donnie Bell from Crossville, Tennessee,
who's preached for us a number of times, one of the ladies in
the congregation, Lantana Grace Church in Crossville, Tennessee,
She got a call on Saturday night. She had a 16-year-old teenage
son. He had the car. She got a call
from the law officials that there had been an accident, a wreck,
terrible crash, and there was a body at the hospital. They
thought there's some possibility it might be her son. She was
asked to come to the hospital and determine if that's her son.
And on the way there, she's pleading. with everything in her. Lord,
please don't let this be my son. By the time Brother Bell saw
her at the hospital, she had learned the tragic news that
it was her son. She's struggling with guilt,
and here's what she said. If that boy is not my son, then
he's some other mother's son. God forgive me, she said, for
being so selfish. Now, do you understand what it
means to love your neighbors yourself? And do you know you
can't do it unless God does a tremendous alteration of every fiber in
our being? I'm telling you, this is what
it means to love and worship God. God must create that in
us or it ain't going to happen. Okay, we'll take the course book
again please for our closing hymn.