Introduction to Malachi

Malachi is prophesying to the people of Israel in land of Judea, probably around Jerusalem around 430 BC. Israel was God’s special people. They had a special relationship with God, called a covenant, established by God with their ancestors Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and then later with the nation as a whole, where God promised to be their God and they were supposed to be his people. This meant obeying his law which he gave them to live by roughly 1000 years before Malachi.

But they hadn’t obeyed God’s laws. Not just “they hadn’t obeyed” but they thoroughly disobeyed. So after hundreds of years of warning them about consequences, the northern half of Israel was destroyed and taken into exile by the Assyrian empire in 722 BC, and then in 586 BC Babylon destroyed Jerusalem, the chief city in Israel, and significantly, the temple, the center of Israel’s worship, and the place where you made sacrifice to symbolically atone for sin. It was a physical sign from God that he wanted to be with his people. But it was destroyed, and the southern half of the nation was taken into exile for 70 years.

Then after the Persian empire takes over the Babylonian empire, Cyrus decrees that Israelites may return to the land of Israel, or Judea. So in 538 BC, a little over 40k Israelites return to Jerusalem and start rebuilding the temple. And they eventually finish a smaller version of the temple in 516 BC.

Now, God had given them some prophets after they returned to the land to encourage them in their work. And these prophets prophesied a day when the glory of the second temple would surpass the glory of the first temple. A day when the blessing on Israel would surpass the greatest eras in their history before exile under kings like David and Solomon. That energized the people to complete the temple, recommit themselves to following God’s laws and regulations for temple worship. All the while they looked forward to God’s future blessings.

But it didn’t come when the temple was rebuilt… or 10 years after… or 20… 30… By Malachi’s day it was 60-80 years after the temple was rebuilt. And 130-150 years after the first temple had been destroyed and people had gone into exile.

Timeline Illustration

To frame this timeline, imagine your family was the wealthiest family in Mt Pleasant, but in 1880 your ancestors were playing with fire and burned down the great family mansion. Had to live in exile in Ohio. In 1880 Rutherford B Hayes was president and Thomas Edison patented the incandescent lightbulb.

In 1950 your family moved back to Mt Pleasant, having been promised by an architectural firm that your family estate will get rebuilt even grander. 1950 Harry Truman was president. World War 2 is a recent memory.

In 1970, the architectural firm builds a decent house on the property. They still promise you a grand restored, improved family estate. In 1970 Richard Nixon is president.

And now it’s the present day. Still no grand family estate. That’s roughly the timeline we’re talking.

Now, in that scenario, would you trust that architect? Or that firm that is still promising that it has plans for a greater mansion. You wouldn’t. You’d be cynical. And anyone in your family who dares to still hold out hope you’d think was a fool. There’d be bitterness, thanklessness, and selfishness (b/c you aren’t getting what promised). Trust in firm’s word would be at a low. That’s the environment Malachi steps into.

And through Malachi, God focuses on key issues he sees in his people’s lives.  Worship and tithing, marriage and divorce, attitudes towards God; expectations of coming judgment, and the coming of the Messiah.

Through this book God speaks to us today. Because in our everyday lives we struggle with the same things: we’re waiting for God’s promises. Their relevance can start to feel far off, detached from our present experience. How often do we become bitter and thankless and selfish when God doesn’t give us the blessings that we want. Worship isn’t from the heart. Personal obedience to God’s word becomes a burden, or something you just decide to ignore.

But God still speaks to us, and tonight we get to hear what is God’s first word to his people in their cynical, thankless state. And it might surprise you how God begins to talk to these people.

Read Malachi 1:1-5 and pray…

The Love of God

Here is what I want to focus on, this evening, the fact that God begins his appeal to his people with love. What’s his first word to his people who are apathetic, cynical, and dead in their worship? God’s first word to them is love. Not “get over yourself”. Not “try harder” or “do better.” “I love you.” “I have loved you.” Christian, that’s God’s first word to you. He tells you about his eternal, everlasting love.

As we consider this passage, what I want us to do is consider 4 different ways God has loved us, and then focus on how the everlasting, electing love of God applies to us.

1. God shows his love for all people by creating them and sustaining them.

If you do not believe in Jesus Christ, if you do not believe in this God, the God of this book, today, God still loves you. He has created you; He sustains you; He gives you life, breath, food, clothing, water. All things you have enjoyed in this life are gifts from God.

Now, that’s not the kind of love God is talking about in this passage. It’s true, that is a way God has shown love to his people, and to all people. But that’s not the love he’s talking about here.

2. God shows his love for his people by saving them from sin and death, slavery and exile. This is the great display of God’s love.

In the Old Testament he showed it by delivering his people from slavery in Egypt. He showed it by giving them the Passover lamb, whose blood was substituted in place of their firstborn Sons, to save them from God’s sentence of death. He gave Israel a sacrificial system in the tabernacle and the temple so they could deal with sin and live in personal fellowship, friendship, with God.

All this Old Testament salvation pointed to God’s love for us in Jesus Christ. God so loved the World that he gave his only Son that whoever believes in him should not perish in their sin, but have eternal life. Jesus died on the cross, paying the price for our sin. He destroyed death by rising from the dead. He poured out his Holy Spirit so we could enjoy unparalleled fellowship and friendship with God. That salvation is on offer for everyone here today. How has God loved you? He gave his Son for you. You believe in him and you shall have eternal life.

But God’s salvation is not what God points to in this passage as proof of God’s love for his people. He doesn’t respond to Israel by saying, “I brought you ought of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.” He doesn’t say, “I provided a lamb in the place of your firstborn,” or, “I gave you another temple to show you that there is still a way for your sins to be covered and for you to enjoy friendship with God in this covenant.”

But what he does say has that as the necessary background. These next to expressions of God’s love get at what this passage is addressing.

3. God shows his love for his people by caring for their earthly preservation.

Countless Christians will testify to God taking care of them through great trials, through loss of jobs, through wars and famines. Despite our sins and weaknesses, God still cares for and protects his people. As our Westminster Larger Catechism states, Q&A 63, “The Visible Church (God’s people) has the privilege of being under God’s special care and government; and of being protected and preserved in all ages.”

And that was definitely true of the people in Malachi’s day. Even though their sin got them kicked out of the promised land, God preserved them through exile for 70 years, and brought them back to Jerusalem. And as he points out, he didn’t treat other nations the same. God refers to Edom in verse 4. Edom is the nation, Edomites are the people group that descended from Esau mentioned in v2. Edomites and Israelites were brother nations; they were cousins. Edom had territory south and east of Israel.

But Edom and Israel didn’t get along. In fact, when Babylon was taking over Jerusalem, it appears that Edom acted treacherously, and helped capture runaways. So Edom did bad by Israel. But Israel was God’s chosen people, and God preserved them. God brought them back to their land.

But Edom eventually lost their territory as well. Probably in part due to Babylon. But we also know that a group of semi-nomadic people started invading Edom “Nabatean Arabs” – and in Malachi’s day, the Edomites were entirely displaced. They actually settled to the South West of Judah and Jerusalem. But the Nabatean Arabs are the ones who built Petra, if you’re familiar with the famous city built out of the rock. Petra is built in Edom’s former territory. In many ways it is a monument to the truth of Malachi 1.

Because you might have found Edomites in Malachi’s day who said things like v4 “We are shattered but we will rebuild the ruins.” We’ll take back our ancestral home. We’ll take back Edom. But they never got their territory back. God’s word proves true.

So in part, God is showing Israel, I have loved you: you are my people, and I have sustained you and returned you to your original home, the promised land. I haven’t given Edom that same privilege. Instead destroyed and judged them.

That’s part of what God’s saying here, but it’s not the main thing God is driving at. Driving at something deeper in the love of God for his people. Ultimately it’s the “Why” behind this. Why did God preserve Israel, and bring judgment upon Edom.

4. God shows his love for his people by reminding them of his eternal, unchanging, electing love.

That’s ultimately behind God’s answer in vv2-3: “‘How have you loved us?’ ‘Is not Esau Jacob’s brother?’ declares the Lord. ‘Yet I have loved Jacob but Esau I have hated.’”

See, Esau and Jacob were twin brothers. Esau was the older brother. So in that culture, you’d expect that Esau would get the firstborn’s inheritance, double Jacob’s portion. And you’d expect him to get the blessing from his father Isaac fitting for the firstborn.

But God tells Rebekah, their mom, before the two are born, that he has chosen to reverse their expected fortunes. He says, “Two nations are in your womb, and two peoples from within you shall be divided; the one shall be stronger than the other, the older shall serve the younger.” God said this before they were born, back in Genesis 25. And Paul, in Romans 9 in the NT, explains why God did this:

“though they were not yet born and had done nothing either good or bad—in order that God’s purpose of election might continue, not because of works but because of him who calls—she was told, “The older will serve the younger.” As it is written, “Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated.”

God distinguished between Jacob and Esau. He set his electing love on Jacob. And if you look at Jacob’s story, it’s clear that it’s not because he was a good person. He wasn’t: he was a cheat; he was a thief; he was an opportunist and a master manipulator. But God chose him and pursued him and subdued him. And Jacob over time trusted God. Esau never did. He didn’t care about his birthright – he sold it for a meal when he was hungry; he was cheated out of his Father’s blessing, but though he was deeply sad, he didn’t turn to God in his pain.

What’s the difference between Esau and Jacob? Neither of them were great guys. But God, in his sovereign, electing love, had chosen Jacob. He loved Jacob, but Esau he hated. He chose Jacob; He rejected Esau. And that’s what was on display in his preservation of the nation of Israel, and the lack of preservation he provided to Edom.

So here what he’s telling Israel. They ask, “How have you loved us?” And God’s answer is, “my love for you doesn’t start with you. It’s not about you. God’s love for you goes back to your ancestor Jacob. And it goes beyond him. God’s love for you goes back beyond Jacob into eternity past. It goes into the very deepest intention of God, to reach out and save lost sinners, not for anything deserving in them, but only out of his free electing love.”

Christian, when Jesus stepped into time, he was carrying out a plan for your salvation that wasn’t dependent on you choosing him. It was a salvation secure in the eternal love of God. That single point in time when God shed his blood on the cross in your place, is the temporal focal point, the convergence of all the radiant beams of God’s eternal, everlasting love.

How does God speak this truth to us where we are at today?

3 Applications

1^st, it humbles our dull, thankless hearts.

As I said, this book in general speaks to the condition we find ourselves in. Cynical, discouraged, uncaring. Going through the motions. But Malachi does Israel and us a service in putting these words in their mouth. Christians would rarely say, at least while we’re around other Christians, that we question God’s love for us. But we do.

And so often, if you asked me in those moments in my life, why I’m not more content and happy as a Christian, I’d probably, if I’m honest, say, “Because God isn’t giving me what I want.” I want to be stronger, more disciplined, have more money, have an easier time doing “x”, get good at this skill without having to put the effort into it.”

You can even make it less petty things: I don’t have a job that I want, I don’t have a wife or husband. My wife or husband isn’t what I want them to be. I had a really tough sickness or injury to work through. I have chronic pain. Someone I love got hurt, passed away.

God, how have you loved me? “I have always loved you; set my love upon you, from eternity chosen to give my very Son for you. While you were thankless. While you were a sinner. And after I saved you, you would keep being thankless and sinful so often. I knew that. But I have loved you. From eternity, and to the cross and the grave.”

This is where we must dwell if our hearts are full of thanklessness. God’s love. God’s free, unmerited love, a Fatherly love that loves unloving, unlovable, stubborn, obnoxious, rebellious children; a Husband’s love that loves faithless, adulterous, runaway brides.

That kind of love alone can soften our hearts of stone; can comfort our sad souls; rehabilitate our weak bodies; make us live lives of thankfulness.

2^nd This love calls us to worship God.

Notice, verse 5, Malachi says that Israel “shall see this, and you shall say, ‘Great is the Lord beyond the border of Israel!’”Israel shall see clearly God’s distinguishing love for them. And it shall lead to praise him: “Great is the LORD beyond the borders of Israel.” That is, this love helps us to see that God sovereignly ordains all things for the salvation of his people. God isn’t just powerful in the borders of Israel. God isn’t just God over churches or Christian households. He’s God over every square inch. Working to throw down all the enemies of Christ, and he’s working to deliver all God’s people. And when you see that God is doing this in all of life, it reorients you to him in praise.

That’s what the teaching about predestination and election does in the Bible. Paul gets to the end of Romans 11, and as he finishes discussing election, he bursts into praise:

Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways! “For who has known the mind of the Lord, or who has been his counselor?” “Or who has given a gift to him that he might be repaid?” For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever. Amen.

You know who else burst into praise when they thought about God’s election? Jesus Christ. In Luke 11 it says that he,

“rejoiced in the Holy Spirit and said, “I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that you have hidden these things from the wise and understanding and revealed them to little children; yes, Father, for such was your gracious will. All things have been handed over to me by my Father, and no one knows who the Son is except the Father, or who the Father is except the Son and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him.”

God’s wisdom and gracious will is revealed in election, and it leads Jesus to rejoice. If it leads God the Son to rejoice, it should lead us to rejoice. So we respond by praising God.

3^rd and lastly, this leads us pray and act for the salvation of others.

YHWH is great beyond the borders of Israel. His greatness is put on display for the world to see. Here the emphasis is on God’s greatness displayed in the judgment carried out beyond the borders of Israel, reminding Israel of salvation found within the borders of Israel. But when God’s greatness is on display beyond Israel, his saving power is on display. And his intention is for all the nations to see his greatness and be glad and sing for joy.

His electing love isn’t the kind of love that makes you want to keep it to yourselves. You want to share that love with others. And in fact, you share about the eternal love of God for sinners with the confidence that everyone whom he has chosen will believe.

Pray and live to the end that all might know of this love, and all his chosen people who you come into contact with might believe.

John Calvin is known for teaching this doctrine of predestination. He addresses it in his lectures on Malachi, when he comes to these verses. He has a whole second lecture after expounding these verses, on election. The cool thing about these lectures is that we also have recorded his prayer at the end of his lectures. You know what Calvin prayed for after he taught on election? Evangelism. Here’s part of his prayer:

“Grant that your glory may also be made known through us; and those whom you have chosen together with us may we labour to bring together, that we may unanimously celebrate you as the Author of our salvation.”

God’s electing love revives our thankless hearts. It calls us to worship him, and it impels us to labor for the salvation of others.

Let me close in prayer, using the words of John Calvin on this passage.

Almighty God, as you have been pleased to adopt us as your people so that we may be ingrafted  into the body of your Son, and be made conformable to our head,— O grant, that through our whole life we may strive to seal in our hearts the faith of our election, that we may be the more stimulated to render true obedience to you, and that your glory may also be made known through us; and those whom you have chosen together with us may we labour to bring together, so that we may unanimously celebrate you as the Author of our salvation, and so ascribe to you the glory of your goodness, that having cast away and renounced all confidence in our own virtue, we may be led to Christ only as the fountain of your election, in whom also is set before us the certainty of our salvation through your gospel, until we shall at length be gathered into that eternal glory which He has procured for us by his own blood. Amen.