You can return now to Malachi
chapter 1. Let me give you a little history
of this book, that is, when it was written. This book was written,
Malachi's ministry was conducted after the Jews had come back
from the Babylonian captivity and after Jerusalem had been
rebuilt. and after the temple had been rebuilt. Now, we read last week or preached
last week from the book of Judges, and we saw there that it wasn't
very long after God had brought them into the land that they
began to stray from the Lord who had brought them into the
land. And you know, the Jews never change, just like us. They
just act the same way all the time. That is that the pattern
just repeats itself over and over. They had departed from
the Lord and finally to such a degree that the Lord sent them
into captivity. And there they were for 70 years
with no land to call their own. But then God, in a miraculous
work, had sent them back to the land. At the hand of, in a sense,
at the hand of the very empire that he had used to destroy them,
he sends them back and reestablishes. He plants them in the land once
again, rebuilds their city, rebuilds the temple, visits them with
grace and goodness. And what did the Jews do? To show their gratitude, they
strayed from the Lord once again. Now, we don't read so much of
idolatry in the book of Malachi, but they became complacent. Their
devotion to God was half-hearted. They began to offer sacrifices
which were not suitable. They looked at their flock and
they said, you know, if we take this to sacrifice, they're just
going to kill it. And they're just going to burn it up on the
altar. Why should I waste a good lamb on the altar of the Lord? I'll save that for me. I'll save
that one for market. And they would take their blind
and defective animals to offer it. When it came to the tithes
that they were to offer, they didn't bring the full tithe in
as they should. They didn't quit doing what God
said to do. They quit doing what God said
to do in the way that God said to do it. They offered their
sacrifices. They brought some money. They
went to temple. They prayed their prayers, but
they did not do so with a whole heart. Like that, I believe it
was the Laodiceans there in Revelation, it says that they were lukewarm. And because of their lukewarmness,
a curse was upon the land. God will deal with his people.
He will leave the devil's children alone, as once said. He doesn't
punish the devil's children any more than you punish somebody
else's kids. But he will deal with his own. In his grace and
mercy, he will not let his people entirely wander away from him,
but will deal with them in discipline, and that's how he did here with
the Jews in the book of Malachi. And because of his dealings with
them, incursing their land and bringing trouble upon them, They
began to think that God's grace was of no account at all. They
began to think that their privileged position as the chosen people
of God amounted to nothing. God says to them in verse two,
I have loved you, but they asked in return, how have you loved
us? What an accusation. And yet, you know, as if we find
ourselves being half hearted towards God, of divided affections
and lukewarm. We will notice this not only.
Will we reduce in our devoted activities toward the Lord, we
will also reduce in our ability to perceive the goodness of God
towards us. Have you ever noticed that that
when you don't pay attention to the gospel? When you reserve
a portion, maybe even a majority of your heart for your own selfish
interest and you begin to pursue that. All along, God is the same
towards you. And yet as time goes by, you
find it more difficult to perceive his unchanging goodness towards
you. I find that. Evil works do not change God's
goodness toward us, but they may change our ability to perceive
His love. And therefore, from their own
blinded eyes, they say, how have you loved us? We can't tell any
difference. We don't seem to be any different
than the nations around us. Trouble has come upon us, just
like the trouble comes on nations around us. How have you loved
us? And in order to defend himself. against their charge, God asked
them this one question. He says, was not Esau Jacob's
brother? Now, that doesn't sound like
a very piercing question. And that is, by the way, the
title of this message, a piercing question. But if you were a Jew,
it's a pretty piercing question. Because they prided themselves
in being the sons of Jacob, the Israelites. And the Lord asked them this.
He takes them all the way back to an act of distinguishing grace
in their history. We read about it in more detail
in Romans chapter 9. But Jacob, they were the descendants
of Jacob. They were not the descendants
of Esau. Now understand this, that Esau is every bit as much
a descendant of Abraham and Isaac as Jacob is. So far as their
pedigree is concerned, Esau and Jacob are equal, so far as their
ancestry. In fact, Paul goes to great lengths
to point out how really, as they came into this world, everything
about them was the same, with one exception. Esau was the firstborn. And if there should have been
any privilege given to either one of them, if either one of
them were to stand out above the other, it should have been
Esau. He was the firstborn. And yet, before they were ever
born, before either had had the opportunity to distinguish himself
as a good or an evil person, as a believer or a non-believer,
as one who sought God or one who did not. Before that ever
happened, God said, the elder, Esau, will serve the younger,
Jacob, as it is written. Jacob I loved, Esau I hated. And our Lord calls these people's
question, their accusation, when they say, how have you loved
us? He simply says, don't forget Esau. You want to know how I've
loved you? All you have to do is look at
the difference between what I've done with you and what I've done
with Esau. Now, in the natural mind, there
is an aversion to God's sovereign rule. And the reason is very
simple, that natural man wants to be sovereign. All the false gods that men make
up are really just some kind of expression of themselves.
All men want to be God. And if they thought they could
pull it off, they'd do it. All men exercise all power that
they have to make things just like they want. They believe
they should be sovereign. Therefore, they don't like it
if we, or when the scripture set forth, Jehovah God is absolute
sovereign. But the religious world often
disguises its true feelings on the matter by arguing that it
is glorifying to God If we set him forth as something less than
sovereign in this matter of salvation and goodness and blessing. See, they consider it to be more
just to leave that there would be more just for God to leave
the matter of salvation in the hands of natural men. That is,
in determining who will be saved and who will not. They'll say
things like, well, it's not fair that God should choose some and
not choose others and just pass them by. Well, of course, fairness
and justice are not the same thing. God never said he was
going to be fair. You see, fairness is something
that has to be shown among equals. I must be fair with you. Because
we're equals. You're human, I'm human. It would
be inappropriate for me to show favoritism among humans. But you know something, I can
show favoritism among dogs all I want. I can go to the pound,
and the pound can be just full of mongrel mutts, destined for destruction, because
nobody wants them. And I can go there, And I can,
from my elevated position as a human over dogs, choose one
of them, a few of them, all of them, or none of them. Because you see, I'm not obligated
to be fair with dogs. And you know, God is not obligated
to be fair with us. But because he is a just God,
he will always act in justice. God will always do what is right
by a man. But you know something? We don't
want that. You want God to deal with you
in justice? You want God to give you what you deserve? No, I know I don't. There's a firing squad set up,
ten men condemned to be executed, all of them deserving of it.
And a man with authority walks out, and for reasons only his,
known only to him, he comes up to one of them and hands him
a pardon. and lets him go free, then steps
away and gives the order that the other nine be killed. Has
he been unjust? Well, if there was any injustice
in what he did, it was not in giving the order to execute the
nine. They got exactly what they deserved. If there was any injustice,
it was in his sovereign pardon of the one man. Men who cry out for justice from
God had best think about what that means. Do I want God to
deal with me as I deserve? One of the great verses of the
scripture that's so comforting says, he has not dealt with us
according to our nicknames. He hasn't dealt with us according
to the demands of justice. Now, I know that he justified
himself in that, that is, God acted justly in forgiving me
because he put my sins on Christ and satisfied justice there. But he didn't satisfy justice
in me. Justice is what we want and hell
is our destination. Sometimes they'll try to say
this in order to act as though the sovereign grace of God would
somehow another be wrong. The objectors to God's sovereign
salvation try to argue that it's more merciful for God to desire
the salvation of everyone and yet leave the realization of
that salvation in the hands of each individual person. In other
words, they say, well, you preach a sovereign God. Sometimes they'll
say things like, well, God's a monster. I remember when I
was back in Ashland, Kentucky, and Henry made that same remark. He said, people have said to
me, your God's a monster. And he said, well, get set to
deal with a monster then, because that is what God is like. He
does choose. His mercy is not extended to
every person. But those who think that it would
be greater or to his greater glory if he were to extend his
mercy to all and then leave it to each individual as to whether
they receive his mercy, I ask you this, where is the mercy
in leaving the issues of life to the dead? Where is the mercy of going into
a cemetery and feeling bad for all the people who have died,
and saying with a loud voice, all you who want life, Come to
me and I'll give it to you. Where's the mercy in that? That's
silly. To go to the dead and ask them
if they want life. In a pool, imagine this, ten
drowned people floating on top of the water. Would it be mercy
for a lifeguard to go to the edge of the pool and say, well,
you know, I want to save you. I want to save all of you. I'm
so sorry you're dead. Why don't you swim to the side?
If you'll get over here to the side, I'll pull you out and breathe
life back into you. If you were to witness that scene,
your mouth would drop open and you'd look at the lifeguard and
say, well, you idiot, you're drowned. They didn't hear you.
And if they heard you, they can't move. If you have any mercy on these
people at all, you must go out yourself and pull them in. You
might say, well, yeah, that's true. But you know, the lifeguard
should at least try to save all of those people. And God should
really, he should try. Well, imagine this then. Let's
work on that illustration a little bit. Imagine the lifeguard is
a Jew. And the ten men floating face
down in the water are Palestinian terrorists. who have just killed
his family. Now what does he owe them? Or imagine the lifeguard is you, and the ten drowned victims are
ten houseflies floating on top of the water. Do you owe them
anything? Would anybody stand beside the
pool and tell you that you've got to be merciful to those filthy
house flies and stretch yourself out to rescue them? No. Sometimes, though, people that
object to God's sovereign grace are more honest, more honest
maybe than they even intend to be. When they say things like,
for God to be good, he must be a gentleman. And a gentleman
would never force his will on another. I've read that. I've
heard it preached. I realize you all, most of you
all anyway, you come from a tradition where you wouldn't hear this
kind of stuff. But this kind of stuff, I've heard it and it rattles
around in my mind once in a while. I've heard people say, well,
you know, God wants to save you, but he's a gentleman. He won't
force his will. Where in the Bible do you ever
find out that God's a gentleman? You go to the millions that died
in the flood of Noah and ask them, is God a gentleman? Did
he ask me if he could drown me? No, he didn't. You go to Sodom
and Gomorrah and you ask those people, is God a gentleman? Did
he ask permission to rain fire and brimstone down on Sodom and
Gomorrah? You go to the inhabitants of
Jerusalem as Nebuchadnezzar's army comes there and pulls that
place down stone by stone. and rapes and kills the women
and dashes the children on the rocks. And you ask them, is God a gentleman? Ask the devil if God's a gentleman. Do you know what the word gentleman
actually means? It just means somebody that owns property.
It was a class. You had, you know, you had the
nobles, you had the lords and the dukes and all that, and you
had gentlemen. They were just a step above the
riffraff, because they actually owned land. God is not a gentleman. He's the King, and He does what
He wants. There is in every denial of the
sovereignty of God and His grace a too high opinion of oneself
and a too low opinion of God. Mercy. Who does mercy come from? It comes from him who says, I
will show mercy to whom I'll show mercy. It comes from him
who does his will in the armies of heaven and among the inhabitants
of the earth, and none can stop his hand or even question what
he's doing. That's the kind of person from
whom mercy comes. And who or to whom is mercy shown? Fear not, thou worm, Jacob." Note that the Jews in their talk
with God here, they call both God's grace, His love, they call
His love and His rebuke into question. They said, where have
you loved us? And then down in verse 6, God
says, A son honors his father, and a servant his master. If
I am a father, where is the honor due me? If I am a master, where
is the respect due me? Says the Lord Almighty, It is
you, O priest, who show contempt for my name. But you ask, How
have we shown contempt for your name? Oh, the pride of the human
heart. Our human hearts. that we would ever question,
that we who have been so blessed would ever question God's love
toward us, and that we who are so wretched should ever put a
question mark on any of his accusations against us. Would we ever say, well, Lord,
where have we ever failed? Oh, we don't know about you.
Where have you loved us? Look at us here. Where have you
loved us? And where have we ever failed? But so darkened are our
minds. Even those of us who have been
regenerated. Remember, this renewing of the mind is a lifelong process.
Regeneration is instantaneous. But this changing the way of
thinking, it's a lifelong process. And our minds still have the
capacity to accuse God and defend ourselves. The objection that the Jews had
against God, they didn't so much object to the sovereignty of
His grace outright. While the Jews may not have denied
God's right to show grace to whom He wills, they were assuming
they had the right to determine what grace should look like.
God showed them grace. For years and generations, He'd
shown them grace. Grace in all of its forms. And
when they didn't like the form that grace presented itself,
They simply denied it was grace. They say, Lord, you have the
right to show it to whom you will, but then we have the right
to decide what grace is going to look like. And here's, we
can tell, we don't have grace. And they might not, excuse me,
they might doctrinally say, we believe in the sovereignty of
your grace, so you better sovereignly give it to us. After all, we
are the descendants. of Jacob. Well, his question, then, is
very powerful. Was not Esau Jacob's brother? Now, it may be that you wonder
about such things as yourself. You may wonder, has God been
gracious to me? You may look at your surroundings,
your circumstances. You may look at the Things that
go on in your mind and the feelings you have and you might say, well,
how has God loved me? I can't see God's love. It may
not be that you're accusing God. But maybe you simply doubt. You can't see God's love. You
can't see his grace. Therefore, you question if it
exists. Paul says this, we don't look on things that
are seen, we look on things that are unseen. And you know that applies to
this very matter of whether or not God has been gracious to
us. The evidence of God's grace is not seen with the eye of flesh. simply isn't. In fact, if you
were to define grace as is often defined in the world of religion, you wouldn't see any grace in
folks like you and me. By that I mean you wouldn't see
any evidence that God has been gracious. And yet, if we'll learn
what God was teaching the Jews in the book of Malachi, we'll
see grace everywhere. We'll see it all over. Okay,
what does he mean here? Was not Esau Jacob's brother? First of
all, by that, he indicates this. Anything short of total destruction
is mercy. Now, when God defends himself
against the charge of not having loved the descendants of Jacob,
He does not talk to them of what he'd done for Jacob. That's not
what he brings up. He doesn't recite the history
of Israel and his goodness to them. Instead, he recites what
he had done to Esau. Listen to this. Was not Esau
Jacob's brother? The Lord says, Yet I've loved
Jacob, verse three, but Esau I have hated. And I've turned
his mountains into a wasteland and left his inheritance to the
desert jackals. Eden may say, though we have been crushed,
we will rebuild the ruins. But this is what the Lord Almighty
says, they may build, but I will demolish. They will be called
the wicked land, a people always under the wrath of the Lord.
You will see it with your own eyes and say, great is the Lord,
even beyond the borders of Israel. Now what is he pointing out to
them? That he had utterly destroyed Esau, and no matter how hard
they try to revive, he will crush them down. that they will always
and forevermore be called the wicked land. There will never
be a relenting of God's judgment against them. They'll always
be under His wrath. Everlasting destruction. The
New Testament calls it everlasting destruction from the presence
of the Lord. He says, you say, I don't love
you. Well, look what I did to Esau. You'll find out what hate
is. And with God, there's only two, you know, it's either love
or it's hate. So if you want to find out what hate is, look
at Esau. I made his mountains a wasteland. Mountains were always a sign
of strength and defense. And he says, I've taken that
in which Esau trusted, that which would have been his strength,
and I have crumbled it. I have made it a wasteland. I
have left his inheritance to the desert jackals. That which
was given to him, you see, God gave Jacob. the inheritance of
Abraham. But he said, well, Esau, you
can have that over there. You can have that land. And then
what did God do with it? He made it the haunt of Jekylls,
a wilderness, an uninhabitable place. For lack of a better way to illustrate
it, God did with Esau much as the government of the United
States has done with the Native American. Oh, we'll give you some land.
We'll find some rocky place where no one can live. We'll give you
the land no one else wants. That's what God did to Edom.
Edom is the country that came out of Esau. He said, I made his mountains a
wasteland. I made his inheritance a haunt for jackals. I did not
prosper them. I did not make them grow. But
Edom in his pride says, though we've been crushed, we will rebuild
the ruins. He left them with their rebellious
heart against God, and when God would would judge them, when
he crushed them, they'd just stand up and say, we'll rebuild.
And God says, you rebuild if you want. I'm going to knock
it back down. And however many times you rebuild, I'll knock
it back down. They may try to make themselves
into a righteous people, to a holy people chosen of God, he says,
but they will always be called the wicked land. A people always under the wrath
of the Lord. Oh, the Jews had their hard time,
but that never happened to them. God prospered their land. He
gave them Mount Zion, the beauty of the whole earth. He set His
temple there. He honored that country with
His special presence there in the temple. He caused their lands
to produce crops. He caused their hearts to call
upon the name of the Lord. And even, even when their rebellion
brought forth God's disciplining hand. He always built them back. Esau tried to build itself back,
and God would smack it back down. And judgment would crush the
Israelites, and God would build it back up. They said, Wherein
is your love? He said, Look to Jerusalem. Did
I not rebuild you? Look to the temple. Show me a
temple in the land of Esau. Show me my presence in the land
of Esau. But you Jews, I'm here. I'm here. So what does that mean to you
and me? Very simply this. Here we are
and maybe in your individual heart you wonder if God's ever
been gracious to you. You don't see the evidence of
it. You know, you look at some of your religious neighbors or
your religious family, and it seems like they got it better.
Why they happily sway back and forth and sing their songs, and
they're filled with a peace and a joy that you wish you had. And they go happily on their
way. And their churches grow. And their churches have fun.
And their churches are well respected. And you hear in the gospel that
God has loved us with an everlasting love. And you say, well, where
is that love for us? Where is that love for me? It is in this. That he did not leave you to
deception. He did not leave you to wallow
in your own righteousness, but has delivered you. He did not leave you in the law.
but brought you out of that darkness into the glorious light of the
kingdom of his son. Let me show you quickly four
or five things that God does to demonstrate his love and grace.
And here's what we look for. Chapter 3, verse 1. See, I will
send my messenger who will prepare the way before me. Here is an
evidence of the love of God toward each of us. that God was pleased
to send someone our way with a message of His grace. We did
not, we were not left in ignorance. God did not allow us, He did
not allow you and me to go on trying to establish our own righteousness,
even though we may not perfectly follow in that way. We do believe,
just as I am, without one plea, but that thy blood was shed for
me, and that thou bidst me come to thee, O Lamb of God, I have
come." Someone told us that. Someone told us that we didn't
need to bring anything in our hands, that we didn't have to
have any other plea than Christ and Him crucified, that we needed
nothing more than the promise of God to come to Him. And we
didn't know that until somebody told us. And you know, a whole
lot of folks around here still don't know that. I don't say that to judge him.
I feel sorry for him. But you know it. A messenger
was sent your way. A messenger has been sent our
way. And then this comes upon the heels of the messenger. Then
suddenly the Lord you are seeking will come to his temple. The
messenger of the covenant whom you desire will come, says the
Lord God Almighty. God sent you a messenger. God
sent us a messenger. And after the messenger came,
the Lord himself came. The Lord took that word which
was spoken by the messenger and made it powerful in our hearts
so that we'd not only know the word of God, we'd believe it.
And we'd trust the care of our souls to it. The Lord came into
his temple. The Lord came here. The Lord
came among us. The Lord we sought. When the
messenger spoke, we began to seek. And when we began to seek,
the Lord came. the angel of the covenant, the
messenger of the covenant, that new covenant in which God says
there's sins and iniquities, I will remember no more. Here's another thing that shows
the goodness of God toward us, the continued grace of God. Verse
six, I, the Lord, do not change. So you, O descendants of Jacob,
are not destroyed. Why were the descendants of Esau
destroyed? Because God doesn't change. And
he hated Esau from the beginning and he's hated him all the time.
And he destroyed him. But he loved Jacob. And his love
is an everlasting love. God doesn't change. Boy, you
and I change. Time makes its mark on us. We
have our natural changes, and you and I have our ups and downs
and our back and forth and wandering with regard to spiritual things.
We change. God never does. Have you ever
noticed that when you stray from God, when you find Him, again,
you find Him exactly where you left Him? In Christ, reconciling
the world to Himself. God never changes. And for that
reason, you and I are not concerned. Then there's remembrance, verse
16, and those who feared the Lord talked with each other.
We're in chapter 3, verse 16, the Lord listened and heard.
A scroll of remembrance was written in his presence concerning those
who feared the Lord and honored his name. Verse 17, they will
be mine, says the Lord Almighty. And the day when I make up my
treasure possession, I will spare them just as in compassion a
man spares his son. who serves him. And you will
again see the distinction between the righteous and the wicked,
between those who serve God and those who do not. Quite often
we can't see the distinction. And the Lord acknowledges that
with the eye of the flesh we don't see it. So there's coming
a day though when you will see it. When I come back to make
up my treasured possession, when I come back to gather my jewels,
in that day They will be mine. Those who call upon the name
of the Lord, they will be mine, and then they will see the distinction
that I made between those who worship me, who serve me, and
the wicked. It's just like that hymn writer
wrote, when I hear the wicked call on the rocks and hills to
fall, when I see them start and shrink from the fiery deluge
break, then, Lord, shall I fully know, not till then, how much
I owe. Then you and I will be able to see the great distinction
that grace made. And then lastly, and here, I
believe in our own experiences and evidence of the grace of
God towards us. Verse five, see, I will send
you the prophet Elijah before that great and dreadful day of
the Lord comes, he will turn the hearts of the fathers to
their children and the hearts of the children, their fathers,
or else I will come and strike the land with a curse. Elijah's
ministry was for the purpose of turning the hearts of the
people back to God. Now, I ask you something. Has
Elijah ever been sent to you? One in the spirit of Elijah?
How many times have you wandered? How many times have you strayed?
How many times have you let the things of this world and the
things of your evil heart cause you to depart from the living
God? So much so that if he would have
left you alone, you would have left him altogether. And God
would have stricken you with a curse. How many times? And
how many times has he sent that prophet Elijah? That is, a message
such as Elijah was given. And how many times has he turned
your heart back to him? I'll tell you how many times
He's turned your heart back to Him. As many times as you've
turned your heart away from Him. And He's going to keep right
on doing that. Wherein have you loved us? I keep turning you
back. I left Esau alone. He turned
away from me and I just let him go his way. Your flesh will never be able
to see. God's love toward you. But from your heart, you can
say, He let me know the truth. He came to me. He's been patient
with me. And time and time again, He's
turned me back. Even though I'm of the same family
as Esau, yet He has treated me like Jacob, Heavenly Father,
Bless your word, make this principle alive in our hearts. We're just like Esau. Lord, we'd
sell out our birthright. We would, if left to ourselves. If you didn't surround us with
truth, if you did not from your love fence us in with grace,
we would surely stray away. But time and time again you call
us by. Blessed be your name. We pray this in Christ's name.
Amen.