Pastor: We are making our way through the book of Malachi, and that's where we will return this morning. We'll be looking at Malachi chapter two, verses 10 through 16. I believe that is page 801 still in the church Bible. Malachi is not the largest book, so might be if you're not familiar with the scriptures, might not be the easiest to find. But I would encourage you, if you don't have a Bible with you, to take a copy of the scriptures there before you in the pew and turn to page 108 and follow along there in Malachi chapter two, verses 10 through 16. I believe it will be a benefit to you to follow it. I also believe that it'll be beneficial for you to just see and read the Word of God yourself. You don't want to just listen to me. You don't want to listen to any man, but you want to listen to what God God's Word says itself. Before we read it, let's go to the Lord again in prayer. Let's pray.
Pastor: Our Father, we thank you. You are not silent; that you are speaking. Even as we woke up, the heavens again, night and day, day after day, are declaring your your glory. There is no speech that cannot understand it. From from the end of the day and forever, your glory is being declared all around us, and we are even part of that-a testimony of you, the Creator, but Lord, we thank you that you also give us your Word, and that you reveal yourself not simply as Creator but also a Redeemer of man. And so, Lord, as we come to your Word, I do pray that you will give us better understanding of who you are, that you will give us better understanding of your great love by which you have loved us, by giving us a bridegroom, by giving us a savior, by giving us a Messiah to not leave us as we read in our sin and misery, but would send your Son to fulfill the covenant of works on our behalf that we might have grace, Lord.
Pastor: Open up our hearts this morning to receive the gospel, to receive Christ by the power of Your Spirit. Grant us faith, strengthen our faith, and let us rest and hold fast to Jesus all the more. Father, we thank you for hearing our prayers. We thank you for your love, and it's in Jesus' name we pray, Amen.
Pastor: People of God, hear God's word for us this morning from Malachi chapter two, verses 10 through 16.
Pastor: [10] Have we not all one Father?
Pastor: Has not one God created us? Why then are we faithless to one another, profaning the covenant of our fathers? [11] Judah has been faithless, and abomination has been committed in Israel and in Jerusalem. For Judah has profaned the sanctuary of the Lord, which he loves, and has married the daughter of a foreign god. [12] May the Lord cut off from the tents of Jacob any descendant of the man who does this, who brings an offering to the Lord of hosts![13] And this second thing you do. You cover the Lord's altar with tears, with weeping and groaning because he no longer regards the offering or accepts it with favor from your hand.
Pastor: [14] But you say, “Why does he not?” Because the Lord was witness between you and the wife of your youth, to whom you have been faithless, though she is your companion and your wife by covenant. [15] Did he not make them one, with a portion of the Spirit in their union? And what was the one God seeking? Godly offspring. So guard yourselves in your spirit, and let none of you be faithless to the wife of your youth. [16] “For the man who does not love his wife but divorces her, says the Lord, the God of Israel, covers his garment with violence, says the Lord of hosts. So guard yourselves in your spirit, and do not be faithless.” He who has ears, let him hear the word of God. You may be seated. You've been brought into a court, and you have been seated behind the defendant's table. The prosecutor is God, and the charge against you is faithlessness, covenant unfaithfulness. Now. You sit there and you think, I know I'm not perfect, but I haven't been all that bad either.
Pastor: I mean, after all, you go to church, you read the Bible, you tithe, but now the prosecution begins to call its witnesses, and what you're expecting is for God to call up your pastor, and He's going to recount that time when you fell asleep. You know, He was watching you, and He saw you out there. But your pastor is not called up. Well, maybe it's one of the elders. Maybe one of the elders will recount your church attendance and how it seems to be a little lacking around football season, where you made your priorities. None of the elders are called. Well, maybe it's one of the deacons about your commitment and service and to the church and ways you're participating or maybe lack thereof. But actually, none of the deacons are called up to be a witness against you either. The witness that is called up is your spouse, it's your wife, and you might be thinking, "Well, what does that have to do with my worship of God, what does that have to do with my faithfulness to God? Well, the prosecution then begins to ask your wife questions, and you begin to hear of the many ways in which you have failed to pray with her and for her, to wash her in the truth of God's word, to encourage her in her walk with Christ. Now she leaves the next witness, your children, one at a time, and the questions that are put to them. You hear now instances of your failure to set a godly example before them.
Pastor: Exam. examples of how you have made their behavior their priority rather than a godly heart and one that embraces the gospel. Failure, how you have made it their chief goal that they also pursue godly and or worldly things rather than to fear and worship God, and by the end of these testimonies, you realize that your closest relationships in your life have become evidences actually against you, because the same one who commanded love the Lord your God with all of your heart, soul, mind, and strength is the very same one who also said,"Husbands, love your wife, as Christ loves the church, and also says, "Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord. But I also want us to be pressed in on this sermon, we will again hear the accusations of faithlessness, and that is the charge that God has put against His people. But also that we can walk away feeling encouraged, because when we are faithless, God remains faithful.
Pastor: He is the faithful one. He is the faithful one. He is the faithful one, and he comes to rescue us who are faithless.
Pastor: Now, as we've been working our way through Malachi, it's important to remember that God is not just making suggestions to the people of God. He's not making things that he would just really like, and hopefully they'll consider them. He is actually the whole book is set up in a sense that he is bringing a covenant lawsuit against the people of God.
Pastor: You've broken the covenant. You have been unfaithful to me. Now Israel thinks everything is fine for the most part as it relates to God. Again, they know they're they're not perfect, but in fact, Israel thinks if anyone has a reason to complain and and be upset, it's us towards God.
Pastor: They say we're still attending worship. We're though we think it's boring. Ah, what? Here we are again, right? Last week, we're still offering sacrifices, even though we're giving the the blind, three-legged, sickly lamb. We're still doing it, right? We're still going through all the religious motions, even though our hearts are far from God. But we're doing the stuff, and God says, "I'll show you clear evidence of whether or not your heart belongs to me.
Pastor: Exhibit A was last week's sermon about the the character of their worship, but Exhibit B now is God saying, "Let's talk about your marriage. Let's talk about the most intimate relationships of your life." How do you treat your spouse? How do you speak to your spouse? How do you think about your spouse? How do you pray for your spouse? And why is this important? Because the point is, our disloyalty to one another exposes our disloyalty to God.
Pastor: That's the point that the Lord is making here. Five different times, God repeats the same accusation: faithless, faithless, faithless, faithless, faithless. The charge, though, is not simply right. It's not simply adultery, or divorce, or marrying unbelievers, as we'll look at. Those are symptoms of the disease of covenant faithlessness to God, but again, even when we are faithless, God remains faithful. Now the text opens up with two questions there in verse 10: Have we not all one Father? Has not one God created us? Why then are we faithless to one another, profaning the covenant of our fathers? Now God is not making a general statement that He is a Creator God in the sense that He is Father of all creation. This is a special relationship that He has with Israel as their Father and they His Son in the Old Testament, repeatedly Israel is described as God's son. Even back in Exodus chapter four, God is telling Moses to go speak to Pharaoh, and he says, "Then you shall say to Pharaoh, 'Thus says the Lord, Israel is my firstborn son, and I say to you, let my son go, that he may serve me.
Pastor: God is not only the creator; he is also Israel's savior and redeemer, and he enters into a special relationship, what we call a covenant with them. And that covenant, it followed a particular pattern that would have been known in in that world. This was called a suzerain vassal covenant.
Pastor: Suzerain is king. A vassal is someone underneath of them, and and it followed a particular pattern, like making vowels.
Pastor: Like when you go to a wedding, there's kind of a particular pattern of those vowels that follow. And this covenant it follows a particular pattern.
Pastor: The covenant always had the same elements. It first came with the identity of the king, and then a reminder of what the king had done for those underneath of him. And it might sound something like this: "I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery? Does that sound familiar? That text.
Pastor: That's how the the beginning of the 10 Commandments starts, right? And there you have the covenant words. God identifying Himself, why He is your Lord, why you owed submission and loyalty to Him, and then what follows are the obligations of that covenant, the 10 Commandments, the moral law, and then you also have laid out for you the civil and and ceremonial laws. And much of the Old Testament is the stipulations of that that covenant. And also then in Deuteronomy, you'll see there are blessings for keeping the stipulations, but there are covenant curses also for breaking that covenant. And essentially, God enters into a covenant with the people of Israel, and He says, "You are mine, and now live like it. Live like My people. But notice what Malachi says next: Why then are we faithless to one another, profaning the covenant of our fathers? Again, Malachi's point is the sins against each other, their faithlessness to each other, or actually sins against God in breaking the commandment.
Pastor: You ever feel like I really love God? I just-it's those people at church. I can't stand them. No one's ever said that here. I'm sure. Not out loud, anyway.
Pastor: Maybe you have. I don't know.
Pastor: Well, John tells us in First
John chapter four: If anyone says, "I love God, and hates his brother, he's a liar. For he who does not love his brother, whom he has seen, cannot love God, whom he has not seen. In this
commandment we have from him: Whoever loves God must also love his brother. And Jesus also said, By this all people will know that you are my disciples.
commandment we have from him: And remember what he said by memorizing the catechism. Is that what Jesus said? By this, you'll know that you're my disciples because of your church attendance, because of your theological precision. No, Jesus says, by loving one another, by your love, by your care and concern for one another. Jesus also said, "If you love me, you will keep my commandments. Now Judah has been faithless. Verse
11: An abomination has been committed in Israel and in Jerusalem. For Judah has profaned the sanctuary of the Lord, which he loves, and has married the daughter of a foreign god.
11: This is one of the exhibits put forward in the trial that one of the things that people of God were doing that was an abomination, which is one of the strongest words God could use to put forth as something He hates, that He despises, that He loathes. It's not about race.
11: It's not about ethnicity.
11: Ethnicity. It is about worship.
11: That they are marrying people who do not believe in God. They are being unequally yoked. They aren't simply daughters of another nation. These are daughters of a foreign god. And throughout the Old Testament story, God repeats warnings to God's people not to intermarry with pagan nations, because those marriages, those relationships, would inevitably draw their hearts away from Him.
11: Do you remember Solomon?
11: Solomon, the wisest man apart from Christ to ever live. You remember Solomon? Are you wiser than Solomon? You are not, and there was no army that could defeat the might of Solomon, but there was one thing that could take Solomon down-just a little bit of compromise in who he married, and he married daughters of foreign gods, and it slowly turned Solomon's heart after them. Now, also remember in Malachi's day, the people they had returned from exile back to Jerusalem, and Jerusalem is not strong. It is pretty a weak little nation right now.
11: Their economy is not doing well.
11: It is struggling, and there are other nations around them that seem strong and they seem prosperous and and what an easy way for some men might to find a little security, maybe a little step up is to marry someone else. The men of Israel started marrying foreign women, not necessarily because of companionship or romance, but because it would give them a little bit more security. It would give them a little bit more status. It would give them maybe some economic opportunities through marriage.
11: Our day and age, we might call this a gold digger, right?
11: That's what they were doing.
11: They were. I'm going to marry someone who I know God doesn't want me to marry because it will make me maybe my wealth and status and prosperity will be in a better disposition. They aren't asking what does God want for me. They're asking what benefits me. And our culture tells us again this very lie, that marriage-the whole purpose of marriage-is what the culture will tell you, is for your personal fulfillment. Find someone who will make you happy, who will meet your needs, who completes you, and when your idol-I mean your spouse-fails you, get a new one, find a new one because that's the whole purpose. If they're not making you happy anymore, well then leave them and find someone else who will. And when they're not making you happy, now leave them and find someone else who will.
11: Every idol asks us to trust it rather than trusting God. God gives much joy in marriage, but that comes through God's design, and when His commands are embraced. And in verse 12, God pronounces a curse that you be cut off if you do this, especially those who do this and then come to worship, as if you can honor the Lord by disobeying His commands, but He doesn't think much of it when you show up at church. Now the men justify this in Israel. It won't affect my walk with God. We'll still bring an offerings. We'll still go to church. You know what? What we do outside Sunday.
11: I mean, why should God be concerned about that? As long as we're still showing up and we're still tithing and we're we're still doing the things, why should God care that much? It's not going to affect my life all that much. That's what verse 13 is saying. We're still doing the stuff, and you won't hear us.
11: Why? We're weeping. We're groaning. Yet you won't receive our offerings. Why? Shouldn't that sound familiar to us by now in Malachi? God makes an accusation, and Israel's immediately come come back with a defense. Have we not loved you? Have we despised your name?
11: How we polluted you! How how how? And notice how blinding sin makes us when we are in our sin.
11: It blinds us to the things of God, and Satan lies to us to tell us that we can have a close relationship and a healthy relationship with God while ignoring His commands and keeping our lusts. God answers their question in verse 14.
11: Excuse me, because the Lord was witness between you and your wife of your youth, to whom you have been faithless, though she is your companion and your wife by covenant, he's reminding you that at your wedding there were there was people there probably, at least a judge. Many of you probably had weddings where there were other people around and there were witnesses. Well, God is reminding you and them he was a witness, and why the other witnesses went home to their own lives, God never left. God remained a witness, and still does in your marriage, in the ordinary aspects of your marriage, in the difficult times of your marriage, in the arguments of marriage. This is a comforting and very sobering fact that God is witness to our marriages. Notice there are three ways God describes the woman here-the wife of your youth. This is someone that you know. You have shared life together. You have many memories together. You have those inside jokes that no one else knows about together. Your companion.
11: This is your close friend. This is to be your advisor. The wife by covenant. You have made a pledge, and you have a covenant partner. One flesh, one covenant, one shared future. Not only these men marrying daughters from foreign gods, they are also divorcing their current wives, their faithful wives, in order to do so. That's the second aspect of it. is not simply just marrying foreign gods, but many of these men were already married, and they're just issuing certificates of divorce to their faithful wives to go ahead and do so, and then God takes them back to creation itself in verse 15. Did He not make with them? I'm sorry. Did He not make them one with a portion of the Spirit in their union? And was the one when what was the one God seeking godly offspring? So guard yourselves in your spirit, and let none of you be faithless to the wife of your youth. This is also a reminder that marriage is not our idea or the government's. It was God's idea, is God's design.
11: God gave us marriage to be a picture of Him and His love for the church. It was God's design that marriage be between one man and one woman permanently, a union of body and soul. It tells us here, one for companionship.
11: Remember in Genesis, it is not good that man be alone, and he made Eve. But also here, what's another reason for marriage?
11: What is God seeking? Godly offspring. He wants children to be raised to who know and worship Him, and also when believers marry someone who does not also believe, they're destroying the the family environment to which godliness and faith in Christ is to be is to grow and and flourish. I often tell my boys that there are other things to consider in marriage, but there are two primary things that they have to consider when they get married.
11: Two fundamental things, that she is a Christian. Those are the two fundamental things. Now I don't tell Zoe this because she's not allowed to talk to any men, but the boys no. But when she gets older, that this is this text is also reminding us that you must marry someone you who are single, someone who loves Christ more than they love you, and that they will love Christ even without you. Beauty changes, bodies change, health changes, circumstances change, but Christ does not. In the deepest intimacy God designed for marriage, requires that that shared faith, and so it's an encouragement to you, young people, to resolve now to marry in the Lord. That dating is not a mission field; it's not evangelism. Don't start dating someone you know you shouldn't marry. The person you marry will shape the way you worship in your future, and also your children. And some of you who are single and you desire to be married, you may have wondered if it will happen or if it will not. Well, don't listen to the temptations. That maybe they'll come to church with me.
11: You know they're not opposed to the idea of Christianity.
11: Remember Solomon. Don't marry someone who might be a slow drip of drawing you away from Christ, and married people here too.
11: Some of you aren't maybe tempted to leave physically, like we see here in the text, but perhaps maybe there's an emotional detachment. You live in the same house, but not really together.
11: Your co-parents rather than companions, and this is a call to us all to who are married to remember your wife, to remember your husband of your youth, remember why you stood there before God together, remember the promises you made, remember the little apartment you had, remember the ramen noodle nights, remember the card table that you had as all but furniture there, remember the blessings of of finding out that you are having children together. I mean, sometimes marriage doesn't need a dramatic restart. Sometimes it's just simply having two sinners remember again their covenant, remember their God together, to press forward together in repentance and forgiveness and grace. And there are some of you here who have also painfully experienced divorce, who were maybe abandoned, who maybe carry regret and even wonder how it affected your children. But this text also reminds us: divorce is not the unforgivable sin that God is merciful. Jesus recognized that there are situations involving sexual immorality, and and Paul also addresses abandonment, that divorce tragically becomes necessary because of the hardness of one or both parties to destroy God's good intention.
11: But Malachi is not denying those realities either. Malachi is confronting those who treat divorce casually, conveniently, selfishly. Now I think it might be easy to hear this sermon and hear this text and think, you know, I hope so and so hears it.
11: You know, they're struggling in their marriage, or that single person that they hear it. They really need this, but I'm happily married. My husband would never leave me. I told him as much. But praise God for our strong marriages. You know, one.
minister I read recently: If you don't have strong marriages and strong families, you will not have strong churches. That was Joel Beaky. But remember, Malachi's point is not so much divorce or even mixed marriages; it is covenant faithlessness, treachery, and for that, all of us are guilty. The marriages were simply evidence of their covenant unfaithfulness to God, but we are all guilty of spiritual adultery. We have all not loved the Lord with all of our heart. We have pursued our own interests rather than His.
minister I read recently: You have embraced the arms of desire and comfort rather than obedience. You have chosen convenience over faithfulness.
minister I read recently: And if anyone has grounds for divorce, it would be God towards us, wouldn't it? But what is amazing here in this text, and also in our lives, that the gavel doesn't come down, and then God quickly and justly send us a certificate of divorce. But what does God send us instead?
minister I read recently: His Son. Although we have been faithless in many ways, whether that is in our singleness, whether that is in our marriages, or whatever it might be, God remains faithful, and this is the covenant of grace that we read that that we're left in our sin and misery. But He didn't just leave us; He entered into a covenant with himself through a redeemer, that is Christ, the second person of the Trinity. He entered into a covenant with himself that he would be faithful and he would keep the requirements of the covenant himself. And not only would he keep the requirements of the covenant himself, he would also take on the covenant curses for breaking it, which Christ did. He keeps loving us.
minister I read recently: He keeps pursuing us. In the Old Testament, we not only long for a better worshiper or a better priest, but we long also for a bridegroom, a husband who can come and purchase us away from our adultery, to wash us and heal our wounds and clothe us with precious righteous robes, and that's what the whole book of Hosea is like. If you want to read that, for God so loved the world that he gave his only Son to us, that whoever believes in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. Jesus stretched out his.
minister I read recently: Arms, not to receive an embrace of a beautiful bride, but he stretched out his arms to an adulterous one by nailing his his hands and feet to a cross.
minister I read recently: The faithful one was treated as the covenant breaker and received the covenant curses, forsaken by God, cut off from God, our loyal bridegroom was abandoned that we might now never be forsaken. Jesus says to his bride, "This is in Hosea, I will betroth you to me forever.
minister I read recently: I will betroth you to me in righteousness and in justice, in steadfast love and in mercy, I will betroth you to me in faithfulness, and you shall know the Lord. I will have mercy on no mercy. I will say to not my people, You are my people, and He shall say, You are my God.
minister I read recently: You see, Christ comes and He purchases us, not and He loves us, not because we are beautiful, but He makes us beautiful. He makes us lovely, and by the power of His Spirit, He He now is working faithfulness in us, sanctifying us, and and and making us more and more precious. Ephesians five, Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle, or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish. See, our hope does not rest in faithfulness. We have not been faithful. Our hope rests in Christ alone, the faithful One, who took all the curses that we deserved and fulfilled the covenant on our behalf, so that we receive the covenant blessings now. There's1.
minister I read recently: marriage I've done so far in this church. Maybe, Lord willing, there'll be others. But one thing that I often repeat when I officiate weddings is you have a beautiful couple standing there together, and their love is strong, and it is powerful at that moment. But it is not enough. There are many people who stand there together and say those vows together, but end up splitting and going different ways because their love is not enough, and neither is ours. It is Christ's love that matters.
minister I read recently: His love is enough. His love is sufficient. When there is disagreements, when there is hurt, when there is pain, when there is unfaithfulness, it is only but the love of Christ that can draw sinners back together.
minister I read recently: Who remember what Christ has done for us-the great debt that has been forgiven, but our debt been forgiven by Christ, who purchased it, that we might have healing and forgiveness and reconciliation back to each other. What will make you and your marriage truly beautiful was when Christ is at the center of all that you do. Remember why we were yet sinners. Christ died for us. We were unfaithful. He remained faithful, and he came and he purchased us and he loved us. He is our faithful lover. He is our covenant keeper. He is our bridegroom, and he is making us more and more beautiful, and we long for the day when our marriage will be consummated in heaven. We long for the day.
minister I read recently: We're kind of in this engagement period. He is already ours, but not yet fully. We long for the day when we will see our bridegroom face to face. Come, Lord Jesus, come and deliver us.
minister I read recently: Deliver us from ourselves and make us more like you. Let us remember your love. Remember, help. Let us remember His covenant faithfulness to us sinners. Let's pray.
minister I read recently: Our heavenly Father, we thank you that you are faithful to us.
minister I read recently: I pray that you will help us to repent of our many faithless ways, the temptations of this world, Lord. I pray for our children and our those who are single that, in your good and perfect timing, you would provide good and godly spouses, that they can encourage each other and spur each other on, that they will be homes that are fertile ground for the the nourishing of godly children.
minister I read recently: Lord, give them patience as those who are single and who long to be married wait. Help them and encourage them. Lord, we pray for our marriages that we will not forsake the wife of our youth. That we will remember the vows that we have made. That we'll remember the memories that we have together.That we will remember your call for for husbands to love their wives as Christ loves the church, and and for wives to submit to their husbands as as the church would, Lord beautify our marriages and make them more a better reflection of who you are and what you would have for us. But again, Lord, for the many ways we have failed, we plead forgiveness and pardon, and we cast ourselves again on the merits of Christ, on His faithfulness, and not ours.
minister I read recently: Lord, be merciful to your people. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen.