You have wearied the Lord with your words.
“How have we wearied him?” you ask.
By saying, “All who do evil are good in the eyes of the Lord, and he is pleased with them” or “Where is the God of justice?”
3 “I will send my messenger, who will prepare the way before me. 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.
2 But who can endure the day of his coming? Who can stand when he appears? For he will be like a refiner’s fire or a launderer’s soap. 3 He will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver; he will purify the Levites and refine them like gold and silver. Then the Lord will have men who will bring offerings in righteousness, 4 and the offerings of Judah and Jerusalem will be acceptable to the Lord, as in days gone by, as in former years.
5 “So I will come to put you on trial. I will be quick to testify against sorcerers, adulterers and perjurers, against those who defraud laborers of their wages, who oppress the widows and the fatherless, and deprive the foreigners among you of justice, but do not fear me,” says the Lord Almighty.6 “I the Lord do not change. So you, the descendants of Jacob, are not destroyed. 7 Ever since the time of your ancestors you have turned away from my decrees and have not kept them. Return to me, and I will return to you,” says the Lord Almighty.
“But you ask, ‘How are we to return?’
8 “Will a mere mortal rob God? Yet you rob me.
“But you ask, ‘How are we robbing you?’
“In tithes and offerings. 9 You are under a curse—your whole nation—because you are robbing me. 10 Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house. 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 there will not be room enough to store it. 11 I will prevent pests from devouring your crops, and the vines in your fields will not drop their fruit before it is ripe,” saysthe Lord Almighty. 12 “Then all the nations will call you blessed, for yours will be a delightful land,” says the Lord Almighty.
As the lit elevator descended deep underground, the brothers looked at each other and shared a conspiratorial smile. This was the adventure they had been waiting for—every boy’s dream was to go down the pit wearing a hat and carrying a lamp. The father had other plans. He was determined to end the boys’ romanticism of life as a miner.
Thud. The elevator stopped at the bottom of the shaft and immediately all the lights were extinguished – pre-planned by the father and his colleagues to show the boys the reality of absolute darkness—no hope, no comfort. Nothing. Silence.
The boys began to cry and ask for the lights to be turned back on—they groped around for the father’s hand to reassure them. At the father’s instruction the stipe of the mineshaft was illuminated once more; light and life flowed and hope was restored.
A story I read some time ago.
Things are not always the way we imagine them…and sometimes reality is a bit jolting…and need be. But the thing about the darkness that reality in a broken world brings, is that it is not final…not for us.
This hope of a restored light is seen throughout the prophets. As soon as light shines in the darkness, the darkness is forever changed; the present situation is altered. Remember that in our current days of shadows and darkness: Lighter alters the darkness.
The hope of Advent and the promise of His coming, means that the people walking in darkness, no longer need to grope around, we are able to see. The people that dwell in the shadow of death are able to truly live. Light changes the present circumstance, and it offers hope of a restored future.
Let me give you some context to the book of Malachi; we are going to do some Biblical exegesis together.
The prophet has six brief messages and our text is the fourth of the six. In this one, the people are accusing God of not being just. There was a lot happening that wasn’t good and the Lord didn’t seem to be doing anything about it, at least in the minds of His people. To them it seemed that since evil was prevailing in Israel, apparently, God couldn’t be much bothered by it, could he? “Where is the God of justice?” is more straightforward.
Before we get all ‘judgy’, remember, these sorts of expressions are not limited to Malachi. God’s people, including most of us, have often wondered where the Lord was and why he didn’t intervene to put things right and to do so in a timely manner, by which we mean, timely according to me.
As we roll into chapter 3, the Lord is going to answer this frustration. He says in effect, “Oh, don’t worry, I will respond to this and I will address these injustices.”
Now this statement in 3:1 is very important. The Lord (Yahweh) says that he will send “my messenger” to prepare the way before himself. Interestingly, “my messenger” is the same word as “Malachi” in 1:1…that is what Malachi means, “my messenger”. So, we are being told that Malachi’s ministry is a picture, a type, an illustration of this coming messenger who would prepare the way of the Lord.
The parallelism indicates that “the Lord you are seeking” and “the messenger of the covenant whom you desire” are the same. But that figure is distinguished from “my messenger” at the beginning of the verse. In other words, we have two figures here, an interpretation confirmed in 4:5 and then in the New Testament where we learn that John the Baptist was the messenger the Lord sent ahead of “the messenger of the covenant.”
However, the ministry of this “coming messenger” that is described in 3:2-5, is the ministry of the “Lord who will suddenly come” who is “the messenger of the covenant”. He does the things that only the Lord has the power and the authority to do. What is more, in both 3:1 and 3:5 there seems to be an identification between the messenger of the covenant and the Lord Almighty.
In 3:1 we have the messenger of the covenant “coming” and in 3:5 “I,” that is, the Lord, “coming.” He is both the sender and the one sent. [Stuart, 1347] This second figure is the Lord Jesus Christ.
To sum all this up: The verse says that God is going to send someone to prepare people for the sudden arrival of the individual whom people are longing for and that this individual is both the Lord and the messenger of the covenant. None of that surprises us, because we have read the NT.
Hang in there, we have one more exegetical point to be made. Verse 2 talks about the ‘day of the Lord.’ The “day of the Lord” is a phrase that is found often in the OT prophets. It refers broadly to a time when the Lord will appear as a conquering Judge to punish the wicked and vindicate the righteous. It is a day that ushers in a new era of blessing. In the NT all references to the “day of the Lord” are to the second coming of the Lord Jesus, which will fulfill and complete all the expectations for the “day of the Lord” in the OT prophets.
But here is the catch: As elsewhere in the prophets, there is a surprising reversal. The assumption of the people was that the day of the Lord would be a great day for them. They would be delivered from their enemies and granted prosperity. But, like the two brothers I mentioned at the beginning, they thought things to be one way, but that is not at all the full picture.
Malachi essentially says about the people calling for the day of the Lord: “You keep using that word…I do not think it means what you think it means.”
To be continued…
Prayer: Father, I thank You that grace and mercy cover all my sin and I thank You for opening my eyes to the glories of Christ Jesus who gave Himself for the sins of the world. I ask that the love that is mine in the Savior would quiet all doubt, fear and worry and that I may rest in humble trust, through Jesus Christ my Lord, Amen.
Song: Wexford Carol
