Malachi: Remember to be Faithful

In this episode, we explore Malachi 2 and God’s call for His people to remain faithful in their covenants—with Him and with their spouses. The message examines the connection between idolatry, spiritual compromise, and broken relationships, while highlighting the biblical view of marriage as a sacred covenant before God. Through both Old and New Testament passages, listeners are challenged to guard their hearts, remain devoted to Christ, and pursue faithfulness in every area of life. The sermon closes with the reminder that no failure is beyond God’s forgiveness for those who truly repent and turn back to Him.

Transcript

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Welcome to the Garrival Grace Chapel Podcast, where we value the expository preaching and teaching of the Word of God for the purpose of life transformation. Take your Bible and open it to the book of Malachi, the second chapter. As stated at the beginning of the service, we apologize. I don't know why our projectors are not working. They were doing fine last week and then this week they're not working. So we're going to have to follow along with us in our in the text and in the Bible. I have quite a few scripture references today because it's important. You see, both from perspectives for the New Testament and Old Testament of what's being communicated. And so if you're not able to catch up real quickly, I would encourage you to write write them down and then go back and study them later. We are in the book of Malachi. As you know, we uh value expository preaching here. We go verse by verse. Uh not all the time, but majority of the time we go verse by verse through a book of the Bible. We're in Malachi chapter 2. This begins the third dispute. As we've pointed out, the book of Malachi is structured around six disputes between God and his people. So God charged the people with a certain sin. Uh the people disputed the charge, and of course, God proved his case. And so we pick up here in the third dispute. It is in Malachi chapter 2, verses 10 through 16. I'm reading from the English Standard Version. 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? 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. 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. And the second thing you do, you cover the Lord's altar with tears, with weeping, groaning, because he no longer regards the offering or accepts it with favor from your hand. 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. 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. For the man who does not love his wife but divorces her, saith 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. Father, I come before you once again today, and I ask that a notion of your spirit would come upon your servant. As I preach the word of God. And I ask, Lord, that you would give us hearts and spirits and minds to hear and to be receptive to the word of the Lord. To the mighty name of Jesus. Amen. Malachi wanted God's people to remember to be faithful to their covenants. From that we learned that God wants his people, or God's people must be faithful to their covenants. Which covenants must God's people be faithful to? In this text, there are two covenants that God's people must be faithful to. The first covenant that God's people must be faithful to is with their Savior. Their Savior. Look at the text. It is Malachi chapter 2, verses 10 through 12. 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? 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. 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. And so the first covenant that God's people must be faithful to is the covenant with their Savior. Now the Lord is referred to as Savior throughout the Old Testament. He was referred to as Savior throughout the Old Testament. For example, in Isaiah chapter 43 and verse 3, it reads, For I am the Lord your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior. I give Egypt as your ransom, Cush and Sebah, in exchange for you. And many other places we can point to where the Lord refers to himself as Savior in the Old Testament. So the first covenant that God's people must be faithful to is their Savior. The text opens with the prophet Malachi reminding the people that God is the Father and creator of us all. Now, in one sense, God is indeed the father and creator of every one. He's God who created all things. Throughout the Old Testament, we are told that God chose Israel above all the nations of the earth. He called them his son in Exodus chapter 4. He saved them from Egypt. He delivered them from their slavery. He led them through the wilderness. He supernaturally provided for them. He formed them into a nation. He entered into covenant with them and gave them the promised land. However, the people of God were not faithful in the covenant with their Savior. And the Lord pointed out that their faithlessness manifested in the sin of idolatry. This is why the prophet said, by inspiration of the Holy Spirit, that Judah, Jerusalem, Israel had married the daughter of a foreign God. In other words, the people were not faithful to the covenant with their Savior. And the text, the prophet Malachi in Malachi chapter 2, verses 10 through 12 explains that when Israel, when Judah married the daughter of a foreign God, it showed that they were not faithful to their Savior in two ways. First, they were not faithful, the covenant with their Savior by committing idolatry. When the Lord entered into covenant with his people Israel in Exodus 19 and Exodus 20, he gave them stipulations of the covenant. I'll read a portion of it. It's Exodus chapter 20, verses 1 through 6. You are very familiar with these. It's only a portion of the Ten Commandments. I did not or will not read them all. In Exodus 20, verses 1 through 6. And God spoke all these words, saying, I am the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt and out of the house of slavery. You shall have no other gods before me. You shall not make for yourself a carved image or any likeness or anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. You shall not bow down to them or serve them. For I am the Lord your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers of the children to the third and fourth generations of those who hate me, but showing steadfast love to thousands of those who love me and keep my commandments. So when God entered into covenant with his people here in Exodus chapters 19 and 20, he gave them the stipulations of that covenant. And right off the bat, they are told, You must not have any other gods besides me. You don't even bow down to other gods. God forbids idolatry. And yet the prophet Malachi says that the people are guilty of committing this sin, idolatry, for they have married the daughter of a foreign God. The idea is they were bowing down to other gods. Which leads us to the second way that they were not being faithful to the covenant with their Savior. And that was by pagan marriages. Pagan marriages. Now I'm gonna read a lengthy portion of text because I want you to hear the word of the Lord. In Deuteronomy chapter 7, verses 1 through 11, we read. And when the Lord your God gives them over to you and you defeat them, then you must devote them to complete destruction. You shall make no covenant with them and show no mercy to them. You shall not intermarry with them, giving your daughters to their sons, or taking their daughters for your sons. For they would turn away your sons from following me to serve other gods. Then the anger of the Lord would be kindled against you, and he would destroy you quickly. But thus shall you deal with them. You shall break down their altars and dash in pieces their pillars and chop down their serum and burn their carved images with fire. For you are a people holy to the Lord your God. The Lord your God has chosen you to be a people for his treasured possession out of all the peoples who were on the face of the earth. It was not because you were more in number than any other people that the Lord set his love on you and chose you, for you were the fewest of all peoples. But it is because the Lord loves you and is keeping the oath that he swore to your fathers, that the Lord has brought you out with a mighty hand and redeemed you from the house of slavery, from the hand of Pharaoh, king of Egypt. Know therefore that the Lord your God is God, the faithful God who keeps covenant and steadfast love with those who love him and keep his commandments to a thousand generations and repays to their face those who hate him by destroying them. He will not be slacked with one who hates him, he will repay him to his face. You shall therefore be careful to do the commandment and the statutes and the rules that I command you this day. The word of God is crystal clear. And you do not enter into pagan marriages. You do not give your sons to daughter pagan uh to marry pagan women. Because what ends up happening, the Lord tells us in Deuteronomy, is that they will turn the hearts of their sons and they will begin to bow down to false gods. There is a link between idolatry and adultery. And so the first covenant, God's people must remember to be faithful to is with their Savior. Now, this applies to us in many ways today, but I'm only going to deal with two. First, God's people must be faithful to the covenant with their Savior by avoiding idolatry. 1 Corinthians chapter 10 and verse number 14. It's a short verse. It simply reads, Therefore, my beloved, flee from idolatry. 1 Corinthians 10, 14. Therefore, my beloved, flee from idolatry. In 1 Corinthians 10, we are told very clearly that the history of Israel and Judah, the people of God in the Old Testament, their history was preserved for us in the scripture so that we can learn from their examples and all the things that happened to them throughout their history. And again, once you read the Old Testament, it becomes very clear what took place. The Lord chose them, the Lord saved them, the Lord delivered them, He guided them through the wilderness, He supernaturally provided for them, He entered into covenant with them. And yet the people of Israel were faithless to the covenant. Time and time again, they were caught up in idolatry and adultery. They would marry women of foreign territories who worship foreign gods, and they would bow down to those gods, and yet they would go into the temple into the tabernacle and attempt to worship God at the same time that they're bowing down to false gods. And unfortunately, the history of the Christian church is not much different. Throughout the New Testament, the word of God is crystal clear. The Lord chose you, He saved you, He delivered you from your spiritual Egypt and your bondage. He leads you through life, He supernaturally provides for you. He has entered into covenant with you. And yet, many of the people in the Christian church are not faithful to the covenant with their Savior. They put other things ahead of God. They commit sexual sin. Which the Lord in his word has clearly revealed is a form of idolatry. In Colossians chapter 3 and verse number five, the apostle Paul writes, put to death, therefore, what is earthly in you sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry. And so we see that the people of God today must be faithful to the covenant with their Savior by avoiding idolatry. We must not put other things ahead of God. We must not even put other things on the same plane or level as God. He is God and He is God alone, and He is worthy of all of our worship and all of our service and all of our devotion. And secondly, God's people must be faithful to the covenant with their Savior by avoiding pagan marriages. In 2 Corinthians chapter 6, verses 14 through 18. In 2 Corinthians 6, verses 14 through 18. We read, do not be unequally yoked with unbelievers. For what partnership has righteousness with lawlessness? What accord has Christ? Belial. What portion does a believer share with an unbeliever? What agreement has the temple of God with idols? For we are the temple of the living God. Has God said, I will make my dwelling among them and walk among them, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. Therefore, go out from their midst to be separate from them, says the Lord, and touch no unclean thing. Then I will welcome you and I will be a father to you, and you shall be my sons and daughters to me, says the Lord Almighty. Now, obviously that text in 2 Corinthians chapter 6 could be, you know, a guiding principle in a lot of ways. As business uh owners, if you own your own business, you need to be very careful with the partnerships that you enter into with unbelievers because it's not gonna mix. You don't have the same worldview, you don't have the same values uh that you're operating from. Um there's a lot of ways that this can apply, but in our particular sermon today in the text that we are dealing with, it would apply in this way. Christians should not marry unbelievers. Christians must not marry pagans. Doing so often causes divided hearts and divided loyalties, which ends up leading to idolatry. So the prophet Malachi, under inspiration of the Holy Spirit, is very clear. The first covenant that God's people must remember to be faithful to is with their Savior. Just think of what Christ did to secure your salvation. He came to this earth to live a sinless life, never committed one sin in thought, action, or speech. And yet he endured ridicule and mocking and shame. They accused him of being a bastard and illegitimate child. They accused him of being demon-possessed. They mocked his teachings. He willingly went to the cross. Enduring the shame, the suffering, and the pain of all that that entailed. He shed his blood. He's buried in a tomb. But on a third day, he rose from the dead and he's alive forevermore. And he ascended to the right hand of the Father, and one day he's coming back. That's the gospel. And he did that for you to secure your salvation. And he called you out of Egypt. You were as dead as Lazarus in the tomb. You were as in bondage as Israel was in Egypt. And yet he brought you alive, and you came walking out of that tomb, and he broke the power of Pharaoh, of sin, of death, and addiction and bondage off of you so that you could walk in freedom in Jesus Christ. He deserves your loyalty. He deserves your commitment. He deserves your dedication. We must be faithful to the covenant with our Savior. Now, look, if you will, in Malachi chapter 2, verses 13 through 16. And this is the second thing you do. You cover the Lord's altar with tears, with weeping and groaning, because he no longer regards the offerings or accept it with favor from your hand. 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 not your companion and your wife by covenant. Did he not make them one with a portion of the spirit of 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. 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. Now I realize that this could be somewhat of a touchy subject in the modern world. But I'm under obligation to preach the word of God. And I can't hide behind things that would, or run away from things that would make us feel uncomfortable. So please pay attention very carefully to how I present this and what is being communicated. The Lord confronted the people through the prophet Malachi for not being faithful to the covenant with their Savior. And he also confronted them for not being faithful to the covenant with their spouse. And because they were not being faithful to the Lord, and because they were not being faithful to the covenant with their spouse, the Lord was rejecting their worship. They cried about it. They groaned and they moaned about it. But the Lord rejected their offerings. And this is the dispute. Remember? Malachi centered around six disputes. The Lord brought a charge against his people. The people disputed the charge, and God proved his case. The charge, you're not being faithful to the covenant with your savior, and you're not being faithful to the covenant with your spouse. And because of that, the Lord said to the prophet, I am rejecting your worship. And the people disputed that. They said, Why? Why? Why are you rejecting my worship? Why are you rejecting the offerings that we bring? I mean Don't you know who I am? Don't you know how important I am? I mean, don't you know how much money I make? Wait, don't you recognize? I come to church every Sunday. And I think you saw. I could be watching TV. I could be on a golf course. Instead, I'm doing you a favor, God, I'm coming to church and I'm worshiping. Why would you not accept my worship? The Lord began to prove his case. He said, You're not being faithful to your covenants. When my people got married, was I not a witness? says the Lord. Was the Lord not a witness to the marriage? And more than just being a witness to the marriage, the scripture says he put a portion of the spirit in the union. Why? So that the two would become one. What was he looking for? Godly offspring. And he put a portion of his spirit in that union. Now, obviously, we we we are talking about God's people getting married. Right? I'm not talking about pagans. We believe in marriage in general. Well, no, we don't. We believe in heterosexual marriage between one woman and one man. But I even believe that non-Christians should get married. Because that's a good thing for our society. But this passage, I want you to hear me very well. This passage is not talking about the general population. This passage is dealing with God's people. And he said, When you come together and you marry, I am in essence, you know, the Lord is communicating to his prophet Malachi. He's saying, in essence, he is giving a portion of the Spirit into that union. In other words, it is a covenant between a man and a woman and the holy God. God is involved in the covenant. He's not just witnessing it, he's a part of it. And he gives the grace that you need to have a God-honoring marriage. However, the men were not being faithful to the covenant with their spouse. They were hating their wives. Depending on which translation you read, I realize there are some textual variances here with this verse. But I think it can safely be said that the men were hating their wives in the sense that they were hating the covenant that they made with them, rejecting the covenant with them. They were divorcing them and putting them away. And then they were marrying pagan women. And the prophet Malachi made it clear under inspiration of the Holy Spirit that that action was causing violence. The way the English Standard Version reads that it was covering their garments with violence. In other words, it was doing violence to the covenant community. Because it was destroying families. It caused women and children to be destitute. It created divided loyalties. The men had married these pagan women and allowed them to bring their foreign pagan gods with them. And so they had pagan worship in their homes. And if you read throughout the Old Testament, you'll see one of the problems with Israel is not only they had pagan idolatry in their home, but they actually had to know the high places. They had places where they actually went and worshipped and yet still came to the temple and to the tabernacle under the pretense of worshiping God and bringing a sacrifice and getting upset when God wasn't giving them favor. Oh, because their hearts were divided between pagan idolatry and the worship of Yahweh, the true God. What's interesting here is the scripture tells us God did not recognize their pagan marriages. Because they had no biblical justifiable grounds for divorce. It was simply I want to worship that pagan God. And because they violated the covenant. Obviously, we read that long passage in Deuteronomy 7. You're not to intermarry, you're not to bring them in. It wasn't about race, it was about paganism. And the seventh commandment, Exodus 20, verse 14, the seventh commandment, thou shalt not commit adultery. They were violating that. And because of that covenant, curses were coming upon the people. And so from this, we can learn that the second covenant that God's people must be faithful to is with their spouse. Now, this applies to us today in numerous ways, but time is already getting away from me. And so I'm going to narrow it down to three things. And I hope you listen, I want you to hear what I'm saying. First, God requires that his people be faithful to the covenant they make with their spouse. Right? God requires that his people be faithful to the covenant they make with their spouse. I'm going to read a lot of passages of scripture in Matthew chapter 19, verses 4 through 6. Jesus said, Have you not read that he who created them from the beginning made them male and female? And said, Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh, so they are no longer two but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate. Really part of God's creation. It's not a myth, it's not a story. They were real people created by God. Number two, he sanctioned marriage between one man and one woman. And then number three, he said, you know, in essence, be faithful to that covenant. What God has joined together. Let not man separate. Ephesians chapter 5, verse 25, very similar. Apostle Paul wrote, Husbands, love your wives as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her. In other words, be faithful to the covenant. Just as Christ is faithful to his bride, the church, so men must be faithful to the covenant they made with their bride. 1 Corinthians chapter 7, verses 3 through 5. The husband should give to his wife her conjugal rights, and likewise the wife to her husband. For the wife does not have authority over her own body, but the husband does. Likewise the husband does not have authority over his own body, but the wife does. Do not deprive one another, except perhaps by agreement for a limited time, that you may devote yourselves to prayer, but then come together again so that Satan may not tempt you because of your lack of self-control. In other words, you are to be in covenant faithfulness to one another, and that's expressed through the sexual intimacy in a marriage. Because God put them together. That's part of becoming one flesh. And so be faithful to that. Wives, you don't deprive your husbands, and husbands, you don't deprive your wives. I can honestly say, in all the years of marriage counseling, I've never had to deal with that one. Thank you for laughing. He's kind of light the mood a little bit. I mean, while we're in 1 Corinthians 7, listen to this, verses 10 through 11. To the married, I give this charge. And then Paul puts it for says, Well, not I, but the Lord. In other words, in other words, he was saying, this is actually, this was part of Jesus' teaching when he was on earth. Remember this? And he says, the wife should not separate from her husband, but if she does, she should remain unmarried or else be reconciled to her husband, and the husband should not divorce his wife. In other words, abandonment. You don't separate, you don't leave, you don't abandon your spouse. When God's people come together, I'm presupposing a Christian marriage. I'm presupposing a Christian man and a Christian woman. And not one who professes to be Christian. I mean like a true Christian. When they come together in marriage, the idea is there is a covenant between that man, that woman, and God. And we are required to be faithful to that covenant. And we express that by being faithful to our spouse. Physically, emotionally, in every way, we are one with them and we keep that covenant. Now, anytime I deal with this subject, the question always arises, and it should, well, are there any biblical grounds for the divorce? And the answer is yes, of course. Jesus dealt with this in Matthew chapter 19, verses 7 through 9. They, meaning the Pharisees, pressed him about this marriage and divorce. And they said to him, Why then did Moses command one to give a certificate of divorce and send her away? He said to them, Because of your hardness of heart, Moses allowed you to divorce your wives, but from the beginning it was not so. And I say to you, whoever divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality and marries another, commits adultery. Did you notice that? Sexual immorality. Obviously, adultery is part of that, but it's much more than adultery. Sexual immorality carries, uh, you know, that was a large term, not just adultery. Now, you might say, well, what do you mean Moses allowed for a bill of divorce or to write a divorce for his people? Well, it wasn't, it wasn't God's plan for a man and a woman in covenant relationship to come together and then just, you know, divorce for no reasons. Nonetheless, it was happening. And so Moses, um, in order to protect the women and and the community at large had some measures of legislation for that. Back in that day, women did not have the rights and and privileges and so on that we're accustomed to here in the Western world. And so it was a way for Moses to protect the women and children and really the community at large. So that's why he did that. But but Jesus said, look, anyone who just flippantly divorces their wife, like for no reason, I just no, other than sexual immorality, well, that's sin. And of course there's abandonment. In 1 Corinthians chapter 7, verses 12 through 16, we read, To the rest say I, not the Lord. Now, remember earlier in 1 Corinthians 7, Paul said, you know, I'm saying this, well, not I, it's Christ. That was his way of saying Jesus taught this. And now he's saying, well, Jesus didn't explicitly address this issue, but as an apostle of the Lord Jesus Christ, I'm giving you this command. So this is just as authoritative as if Jesus said it. Because it's inscripturated, it's in the Word of God. And so he says this that if any brother has a wife who is an unbeliever and she consents to live with him, uh, he should not divorce her. If any woman has a husband who is an unbeliever and he consents to live with her, she should not divorce him. For the unbelieving husband is made holy because of his wife, and the unbelieving wife is made holy because of her husband. Otherwise your children would be unclean. But as it is, they're holy. Now, this is hearkening back to some of what Malachi was teaching, remember, about God putting a portion of the Spirit in the Union. And why? What was that one God looking for? Godly offspring. Verse 15. But if the unbelieving partner separates, let it be so. In such cases, the brother or sister is not enslaved. God has called you to peace. For how do you know, wife, whether you will save your husband, or how do you know, husband, whether you'll save your wife? So abandonment would not would be another clear example of a person being allowed to divorce and remarry, obviously. Now, I realize when you read through that text, you might say, Well, wait a second, you're saying that believers should only marry believers. And here Paul said, hey, if a believer has an unbelieving spouse, well, if you read 1 Corinthians 7, what's happening is a lot of people are coming to faith in Christ. And so sometimes a husband may come to faith in Christ before his wife, or vice versa, a wife may come to faith in Christ for the husband. And so now you've got a saved and an unsaved individual in the marriage. What do we do? And Paul said, stay together. Stay together. Because the presupposition is this if one of the spouses is in covenant with God, then the children, the offspring are considered holy and part of that covenant. They can experience some of the covenant blessings. Not that they're saved, not about salvation, but they can experience some of the covenant blessings of being part of the church. You realize that just attending church covers or gives you a degree of blessing, even though you may not even actually be saved. Did you know that? Like just sitting under the preaching of the Word of God and fellowshipping with other believers actually benefits your life, even though you may not be saved. Now, that is not an apologetic for, hey, don't worry about getting saved, just hang out with us. We're not that type church. I'm just, but it's scripture, it's point blank, it's in the Bible, so we have to deal with that. Nonetheless, abandonment to case. All right, let me. When I was young, uh, I uh was serving on a sectional committee. It was not this state, by the way, so you don't know this church, you don't know any of the people I'm gonna refer to. It's a whole other state. But I was on the sectional committee, and our sectional presbyter was called in by a church that was having problems and asked if the you know the the the presbytery board of that particular region would come in and try to mediate the conflict in this church. So the sectional presbyter called me up and he said, Hey, I need to go deal with something, and he explained the situation. He said, I need you to go with me. And I said, Man, I'm you know, what am I gonna say? I'm I'm you know, no doubt probably the youngest guy in the room. He goes, No, I just need muscle. I said, Oh, I got you back. So we go, and sure enough, man, it's interesting. Have you ever been in a good church fight? They, you know, like if you're on this side, you know, this group, you you all sit on this side, and if you're partnering with this guy, you sit on this side. It's literally like divided house, right? So we're sitting up front, and there's this good church fight going on. And what the issue was, a person who was an officer in their church had been married for some time. I mean years, I mean decades, decades, plural. And his wife just up and left him, literally abandoned him. And then there was a great uproar in the church on if this man should be removed uh from the office. And he wasn't even an elder, he wasn't a pastor, he wasn't an elder, but nonetheless should be removed from the position that he was holding and actually asked to leave the church. And so we're sitting here and we're going through all the issues, and at the end, the presbyter was extremely wise, and he said, I never will forget this, man. He said, Wait a second, both sides are consenting, are conceding that the wife left this man without just cause. She abandoned him. Is that true? And both sides said yes, and I never will forget. He stood up, he looked at the congregation, he says, I don't care what any of you say. For a spouse to up and leave his or leave her husband, abandon it. She is not a Christian. Christian does not act that way. She is not saved. And this man should not be punished for her. Only having a profession of faith, but never came to faith in Christ. And it was like, I stood up in the background, like, come on, say something. You didn't hear a pen drop. That was the end of that meeting. We were never invited back. But the man stayed in that church. Now, that's kind of shocking, isn't it? And I thought about that over the years. I really did. I thought about that over the years. And I think his statement has some scriptural warrant to it. Especially if you consider what's called a textual variant to Malachi chapter 2, verses 15 and 16. If you're not familiar with what a textual variant is, I'm already, I can't teach, I don't have time to teach that. But sometimes there is a controversy over how a word should be translated or a phrase should be translated. And so this is why sometimes when you'll read, for example, the English Standard Version, and then you'll read something like the New American Standard or the Legacy Bible, something like that, it may have a little different wording. Sometimes, and they have a footnote, they don't hide this. There's a footnote, it'll tell you at the bottom, a textual variant. This happens to contain one. And in Malachi chapter 2 and verse 15 in the English Standard Version, it reads like this. Did he not make them one with a portion of the spirit and their union? And what was the one God seeking? Godly offspring. So guard yourselves in your spirit, and let none of you be faithless with the wife of your youth. But Malachi chapter 2, verse 15, and the New American Standard Bible, and the LSB, the Legacy Standard Bible, and others, it reads like this. But not one has done so who has a remnant of the spirit. Let that sink in for a minute. Not one's done this thing that we're talking about who has a remnant of the spirit. And why the one? He was seeking godly offspring. Be careful then about your spirit and see that none of you deep, you know, deals treacherously against the wife of your youth. Am I saying that every divorce is caused by, you know, at least one of the partners being not saved? No, I'm not saying that at all. I'm really not. I am saying that does happen. I think there are people in the church who claim to be Christian that are not. And over time, it becomes revealed that they're not. Thus, the great Lord of Doctrine known as the perseverance of the saints. Those who persevere to the end will be saved. And so over time, you begin to see people fall away. Well, you can't always write them off. Maybe they're backslidden. Maybe they're caught up in some egregious sin. Maybe their conscience is pricking them because they were sinning secretly and still trying to attend church and they're working through that. And over time the Lord will revive them. They will return to the house of God. So I'm in no way saying just write this person off. I am saying though, you've been around church for a while. You look, there are many people that you know started out in the faith really well and they're no longer in the faith. Well, there's a strong possibility they're no longer in the faith because they were never in it to begin with. And so, because of that, you have all types of things that happen in the life of a church, including divorce and abandonment and adultery and sexual immorality and all the rest. So, what are you getting at, preacher? I'm getting at what the text is saying. Guard your spirit. Guard your spirit. It is easy to get seduced spiritually and physically. And the two go together. So guard your spirit. And if you're a Christian and you are married, you guard that marriage. You cling to one another. And you remain faithful to that covenant. Which again is the second point I want to make. Not only are application that I would like to make out of this text, not only does God require his covenant people to be faithful to the covenant with their spouse, but he wants us to recognize that there is a link between idolatry and adultery. There's a link between the two. And this is clearly taught throughout Scripture. In Jeremiah chapter 3, verse 6, the word of God reads, The Lord said to me in the days of King Josiah, have you seen what she did? That faithless one, Israel? How she went up on every high hill under every green tree, and there played the whore. Now I don't need to go into any gross detail, but spiritually, when Israel was worshiping another God, they were referred to as whores. They were adulterous, they were whoring around. Because it actually carried physical whoredom. A lot of the pagan religions in that time, part of their worship to these false gods involved sexual immorality. There is a link between the two. This is why Paul said in 1 Corinthians chapter 10, verses 6 through 7. Now these things took place as examples for us that we might not desire evil as they did. Do not be idolaters as some of them were, as it is written, the people sat down to eat and drink and rose up to play. Now it's a reference to Numbers 25, where they ate in these banquets in honor of these false gods, and they rose up to play meant. They engaged in sexual immorality and orgies and the like. When a person is drawn away after another, not to be faithful to their spouse, but is going after another, the root of that is idolatry. What it is, is they've set themselves up as God, or maybe the pleasure that they're seeking as God, or sex as God, or what have you. But the root of that is idolatry, it's manifesting in adultery. Because the two go together. This is why the Ten Commandments, when God entered into covenant, the first one is you don't have any other gods. If you get that right, the rest kind of tend to fall into place, including adultery. Thou shalt not commit adultery. That is rooted in don't commit idolatry. If God's people have committed these grievous sins of idolatry or adultery or other sexual immoral sins, there is forgiveness. I'm not going to read it all for sake of time, but you can reference Psalm 51. David, David committed uh adultery, right, with Bathsheba? Do you remember that? He was at the palace at the time the kings go to war. He sees Bathsheba, you know, bathing one night, and he was like, Man, that girl is fine. And he invited her over, you know, they end up committing adultery. He calls for her husband to come home from the battlefield. Ums up sending him back, carrying his own death note, right? It was a note written to the commander, like, put this guy over the front line, and then everybody back away from him and let him die. You know, there was committed murder, adultery, the whole thing. And when the prophet Nathan confronted him, David repented. He said, Man, I've sinned against you. That's exactly right. He also sinned against Bathsheba. He also sinned against Uriah, her husband, and even the military people by allowing them to be a part of a conspiracy to commit murder. But yet David said, I've sinned against you. That's right. Why? Because that's rooted in idolatry. Your focus shift for glorifying God and all that you do to satisfying yourself and your lust and your desires. That's idolatry at the core. But the good news is there's forgiveness. David truly repented. Now he had to he had to suffer some consequences for that.

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He said the sword would never depart from your house, the prophet Nathan told him, and he didn't. You read the rest of David's life, and that's exactly what happened. All the tragedies took place was a result of this. Nonetheless, he was forgiven. And he pinned Psalm 51. It's a great passage of scripture. You could read it, but he's like, oh, have mercy on me, oh God. You know, uh, according to your steadfast love, according to your abundant mercy, blot out my transgressions, renew a right heart within me, renew a right spirit, you know, all that. That idea of take not your Holy Spirit from me didn't have anything to do with, you know, losing salvation. It had to do from removing him from his God-anointed office as king. It's like, no, look, I'll continue to serve you, Lord, and so on. And of course, the Lord was gracious to him. So I want to make that crystal clear. If you are guilty of committing idolatry and adultery and so on, I want you to know there is forgiveness in Jesus Christ. Thus, we can point to this great passage of scripture that Paul wrote in Timothy. We are faithless, he remains faithful, and he will cleanse us from all unrighteousness. 1 John 1.9. When we confess our sin. So I don't want you to walk out of here feeling beat up. No, I want you to walk out of here like David in Psalm 51 with a renewed heart, a renewed mind, a renewed spirit, saying, okay, I messed that up in the past, but from here forward, I am faithful to my Savior, and I am faithful to my spouse, and I'm gonna serve God to the end. That's the point of today's message. Amen. Will you stand your feet with me this morning? We are going to transition by observing the Lord's Supper, so I would encourage you to go to the sides of the sanctuary and retrieve your elements and return back to your seat. I would encourage you to remain standing if possible. As always, just by way of reminder, you do not have to be a member of this church to observe communion. We do encourage you to be saved and water baptized. That's how we guard the table here. God's people must remember to be faithful to the covenants. There are two covenants that they must be faithful to. The first covenant is with their Savior, and the second covenant they're to be faithful to is their spouse. Because the two go together. Adultery is rooted in idolatry. And again, in case you're feeling condemned, let me read a great passage of scripture here. 1 Corinthians chapter 6, verses 9 through 11. Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived, neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindless will inherit the kingdom of God. And such were some of you. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God. Grace is greater. That does in no way justify sin or give you license to sin. But it does say that God saves, he heals, he delivers, and he forgives. Amen. And it's all because of what he did on the cross of Calvary. Thank you for listening to the Cairoville Grace Chapel podcast. Make sure that you like, share, follow us on socials. I'm Dr. Jason Murphy, proclaiming grace, transforming culture.