Malachi Sermon

Malachi 1:1-3:15
Sermon and Power Point by CD Haun

Today I want to look at the last book of the Old Testament….. the book of Malachi. OK, I’ve jumped ahead in our study of the Bible, but I was reading Malachi a while back and just decided I wanted to consider it this week.

The opening verse of the book begins: A prophecy:

Now prophecies come in several forms:

• They can be a call from God something like “Hello down there. God speaking. Hear what I have to say and get with it!” Amos’ prophecies often came out this way.

• Prophecies can be predictive in format such as Isaiah’s prophecies that the Messiah will be born in Bethlehem.

• And Prophecies can be a word from God given to a particular individual in a   vision or dream or one to one contact. The book of Malachi is this type of   prophecy.

The rest of verse 1 actually tells us which type of prophecy it will be: A prophecy: The word of the LORD to Israel through Malachi.

The name of the author, Malachi, may actually be his name. However the Hebrew word Malachi means “my messenger” So the book Malachi may be Malachi’s book or it may simply be: “My messenger”, that is God’s messenger’s book. Additionally, Malachi or Messenger may have been a prophet in Jerusalem, sometime around 480 BCE. Thirty years before this date, in 515 BCE the Jewish people had been allowed to return from captivity in Babylon. When they returned, they were not independent of Persia, but continued as a province of the empire.

Upon their return, the people began rebuilding the city of Jerusalem including the Temple of God. During this rebuilding, they found some of the priestly documents… the documents we now called the Pentateuch or the 5 books of Moses. These documents had been lost at the time the first temple was destroyed and the people taken off into captivity. In these documents, they learned the rules and procedures God had established for worship in the Temple and also rules concerning how the people were to live in accordance to God’s laws. So they began studying these found documents and re-discovered the worship of the Lord.

As the temple of God was rebuilt, the people re-consecrated their lives, re-established the priesthood and once again began serving Yahweh. But there were other influences now affecting the leaders and the people. For one thing, the Hebrews had spent several hundred years living in Babylon and although they had sought to remain true to the idea of Yahweh they had no books and little information concerning just how to remain true. Additionally, when the Hebrews were originally taken into exile, other people came to live in the remains of Jewish nation, including Jerusalem.

So when the Jews returned from Babylon, these other people were still there. These new settlers (if you can call people who have lived in a place for several hundred years “new settlers”)… anyway, the new settlers had their own cultures and gods. They had their own style of living and as I pointed out a few weeks ago when I discussed the book of Judges, this style of living was quite attractive to the returning Hebrews who had lived for so long in exile.

Still the Hebrews tried to follow the law they had rediscovered. They tried to follow the worship requirements of the Lord’s Temple. However, it was difficult. They fell short and turned away. So it was at this time, this time of falling short, this time of turning away, around 480 BCE, that God’s messenger… Malachi… began his prophecy as “the word of the Lord.”

Now as we consider the prophecies Malachi presented, there are two major sections to his writings. The first section presents the dark side of the picture. Malachi describes the sins of what he refers to as a dishonest, ungrateful people and an unfaithful priesthood. The second section of the book goes into the brighter side, presenting the glorious promises of God.

After the opening statements setting up the situation, in verse 6, the prophet begins to explain the problem. He says: “A son honors his father, and a slave 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.

So there is the problem. God is not being honored and respected in the ways described in the 5 books of Moses. And the prophet, speaking for God, first lays blame for this dishonor on the leadership of the temple:    “It is you priests who show contempt for my name”

Then in his book Malichi carries on his own prophetic conversation of God with the priests:

“But you ask, ‘How have we shown contempt for your name?’

And the prophet answers: “By offering defiled food on my altar.”

The next question you and I in the 21^st century ask would exactly what would this defiled food on the altar consist. In one sense the prophet is actually talking about food. Since money was not something used by most of the population as a method of trade, what would be offered to Yahweh, was often what the people had… that is food. These food offerings included Grains as well as animals. Some of the sacrificial offerings would be burned on the altar and as the scripture says, the burning would provide, “a sweet smell to the Lord.” However, some of the offering would be set aside and given to the priests as their pay.

So, since this division of the offering is how the Torah explains priests will be paid for their work, then how is the food defiled? In the hypothetical conversation Malachi continues:

“But you ask, ‘How have we defiled you?’

And Malachi speaks for the Lord:

“By saying that the LORD’s table is contemptible. When you offer blind animals for sacrifice, is that not wrong? When you sacrifice lame or diseased animals, is that not wrong? Try offering them to your governor! Would he be pleased with you? Would he accept you?” says the LORD Almighty.

OK, so what does this mean?

There’s an old church joke.

Three ministers were visiting one day. The first said, “I have been worrying over a question.” The others asked what the question might be and he responded, “It’s whether I am giving enough of what the church receives to God. I take 10% of the gifts my church gives and use that for the Lord’s work, and the rest is for my upkeep”

The second minister said, “That’s been a question of mine as well. I take 20% of the gifts my church gives and use that for the Lord’s work, and the rest is for my upkeep.”

Both ministers turned and looked at the third minister who replied: “I can understand your worries. I take all the offering my church receives and throw it up in the air. What God wants he keeps and the rest is for me.”

In a way that is what Malichi is suggesting. The priests were taking the worst of the offering… the ruined grain or the sick animals and those would be burned on the altar of God. That left the balance for the care and feeding of the priestly class. At the time of the temple in Jerusalem, the best meat market in town was the one connected to the temple. It was there that the portion of the offering given to God… the portion that was for the upkeep of the priests, would be sold for cash or exchanged for clothing, housing, transportation and all the rest of the priest’s earthly needs. And Malichi as well as the Lord knew that the best of the offering was not being consumed on the fire as a “sweet smell to the Lord.”

So during the first two chapters of his book, Malachi repeats over and over the same condemnation for the sinfulness of the priests… that is the leaders and then the people as well. He speaks for the Lord and says that both groups fall short. Then in the third chapter we come to the Glorious promise of God. Verse 1 of the 3^rd chapter begins: See, I will send my messenger, who will prepare the way before me.”

Some Christians hear this and believe Malachi was referring to Elijah as he prepared the way for the Lord. Others think he was prophesying concerning John the Baptist. . I don’t know if we’ll ever really know what Malachi meant, however I believe the next part of his prophesy makes this promise even more glorious:

“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 Almighty.

Looking back with great hindsight, we, the new Israel, recognize that this glorious promise is the coming of the Lord of Lords, Jesus the Christ. So it is the most wonderful of promises. Still Malachi cannot just let us go with this promise ringing in our ears. He warns us of the day of judgment IF we continue robbing Yahweh. This time he turns from the priests to the all the rest… to even you and me. To explain this warning he once again presents God’s hypothetical conversation with man.

“Return to me, and I will return to you,” says the Lord Almighty.

And his everyman… that is the person who speaks for all of us… this everyman speaks the question we all ask and says:

“But you ask, ‘How are we to return?’

Then God responds:

“Will a man rob God? Yet you rob me.

“But you ask, ‘How do we rob you?’

And the answer: “In tithes and offerings. You are under a curse – the whole nation of you – because you are robbing me.

So how might Malachi speak to us… to the church of Christ, to the Christian Church and even to our church. After all, we don’t have an altar here in our sanctuary where we burn grain or animals for a sweet smoke. What then is our offering to the Lord?

In part our offering is our time. The time we come on Sunday morning and at other times when we gather together… these TIMES are all part of our offering. So what part of our time do we give to the Lord? If all we give to the Lord is an hour a week, what kind of a percentage of our total 168 hours each week of our lives are we giving? Is that showing honor to the Lord or is that showing contempt to the Lord.

Another part of our offering to the Lord is our money. So how much of our funds do we give for the work of the Lord and his kingdom. Do we give of our best or is it a tip or perhaps even less than a tip?

Do we honor God with our gifts? Or are we showing contempt to the Lord with our less than 10% gift of cash?

Lastly, what are the people to do about this? What are we to do about this?

God, speaking through Malachi, answers the question.

God says: “Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house.”

And if the people begin to do this once again Malachi says that there is a glorious promise for Israel.

“Test me in this,” says the Lord Almighty, “and see if I will not throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing that you will not have room enough for it.”

As I listen to Malichi speaking to the Old Israel, I also believe God is speaking to the New Israel…. To our church. So, if we do what we are supposed to do, then we are indeed promised glorious rewards… Hallelujah!

As we look at this little book, there are only 4 chapters to Malachi’s prophecies. The final chapter is often described as “the Day of the Lord” and it presents the Lord’s final promise. Verse 2 begins:

But for you who revere my name, the sun of righteousness will rise with healing in its wings. And you will go out and leap like calves released from the stall.

What a promise. Revere the name of the Lord... Have no contempt on the name of the Lord… Honor the Lord by following the requirements of the Covenant. If you do this, then the sun of righteousness… we, the new Israel take that to refer to Jesus as the sun of righteousness…

then the sun of righteousness will rise with healing in its wings. Then this sun of righteousness will cleanse our sins and our life will become so wonderful that we will be excited beyond all understanding and we will leap with joy.

There are some Christians who seek to close the book on the Old Testament. There are some who believe, that all Christians need to consider is the teaching of the New. Yet I do not believe that we can truly understand the New Covenant if we do not first find the meaning of the Old Covenant. I do not believe human kind… that includes you and me … can understood the gift of the Christ, if we have not first begun to understand the gifts and requirements that came through the first covenant with God’s people.

Therefore, may we as the New Israel honor the Lord fully every day of our lives in all that we do with our

gifts, tithes and offerings.

In His name.