God Will Establish His Justice - Pastor Tom Loghry
In Malachi 2:17-3:3, the people are told of God’s coming. This is both a warning of his judgement, and for us as Christians, a promise of salvation.
Transcript:
There are some people who question the existence of God, but those who question the existence of evil are very few in number. In comparison, we often take the order, beauty, and sustenance of our planet for granted, denying God credit in these things, but we have no problem noticing all the evil, all the things that have gone wrong all around us.
We see ways in which things have gone wrong in too many ways to count. We have our complaints about how things are going. Of course, the idea that things should be better than this just goes to show that we really do believe that there is a design for human life. There is a way that things ought to be and yet are not.
And so there must be a God and creator. Otherwise, everything's just by chance. There is no rhyme or reason still. We are left wondering about our muddled existence. Our familiarity with the good things of life, as well as the evil that spoils it all, in all sincerity, we might ask God, why? Why are things this way?
Is impossible for us to satisfactorily answer that question about specific instances of evil. But we know that the trouble began when we, starting with Adam and Eve, set a course for doing things our own way rather than God's way, and God has let us go our own way again and again and again, and our way leads to death.
On the other hand, we might begin questioning God about the evil around us with a hint of accusation. If God is so good, we think, why isn't he doing anything about all this? We might even become cynical, taking on the attitude that if evil seems to go unpunished, what's the harm in little old me cutting some corners. It is this attitude that God finds among the people of Israel in Malachi's day.
And the prophet says that God is sick of it. Picking up in Malachi two, verse 17 through Malachi three, one, we read, 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's the God of justice?
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. Now, just as we we've anticipated in kind of this introduction, the people's attitude towards God is that he seems unconcerned about evil.
In fact, it seems that maybe he even likes evil since they see how wicked people around them continue to prosper. And so they ask, well, where is this God of justice?
God's response to their challenge is this, oh, you're looking for me? I'm coming. He says that he will send his messenger who will prepare the way before him. Now, in saying this, the prophet Malachi is recalling a, a prior prophecy that was given by the prophet Isaiah in Isaiah 40 verse one through five.
And this holds, this is a prophecy that holds much, much promise and good news. It says, comfort, comfort my people says your God. Speak tenderly to Jerusalem, and proclaim to her that her hard service has been completed, that her sin has been paid for, that she has received from the Lord's hand double for all her sins. A voice of one calling: in the wilderness prepare the way for the Lord; make straight in the desert a highway for our God. Every valley shall be raised up, every mountain and hill made low; the rough ground shall become level, the rugged places, I lost my place in there, the rugged places a plain. And the glory of the Lord will be revealed, and all people will see it together. For the mouth of the Lord has spoken.
Now again, this passage has a very good kind of promise to it, but as we'll see, God's coming doesn't only bring restoration, it also brings judgment. The salvation aspect of this we do see at the forefront, and we see it in the person of Jesus Christ. Now, who prepared the way for Jesus Christ? Does anyone know? John the Baptist, yes. If we look at Mark one verse one through four, we see how John the Baptist is explicitly identified as this one that Malachi is being spoke, is speaking about. Says, the beginning of the good news about Jesus the Messiah, the Son of God, as it is written in Isaiah the prophet: I will send my messenger ahead of you, who will prepare your way. A voice of one calling in the wilderness, prepare the way for the Lord, make straight paths for him. And so John the Baptist appeared in the wilderness, preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. Now, who is this messenger preparing the way for? Well, he's preparing the way for the Lord himself.
So this is something that's very interesting to think about. What is God promising here? He's not saying, I'm merely going to send someone to you. He's saying I myself am going to come to you. Yes, a messenger's going to prepare the way, but I myself am going to come to you. And this idea of the, the valleys being raised high and the mountains made low is this idea that nothing's going to stop the coming of God.
Nothing. The devil can't stop him. Our sin, our rebellion can't stop him. God is on the way and Malachi says, speaking for the Lord, that the Lord is going to come to his temple. The Messenger of the covenant will come.
And it's going to come with suddenness, says suddenly he will come. Now, anytime you see that word suddenly in the Old Testament, it's usually in a context in which judgment is coming. Like if you had a business and suddenly like, I don't know, the health inspector showed up or something, like suddenly they're here and you better have your ducks in a row kind of thing.
Now when we think about Jesus, we see how in the course of his ministry he really truly fulfilled this.
One sign of this we see in Matthew 21 verses 12 through 13, when Jesus goes to the temple courts, says Jesus entered the temple courts and drove out all who were buying and selling there. He overturned the tables of the money changers and the benches of those selling doves. It is written, he said to them, my house will be called the house of prayer, but you are making it a den of robbers.
Now just bring all this together here. We have this prophecy that, that is given, that the Lord would suddenly appear in his temple, that this messenger would prepare the way for his coming. Now, we come to Jesus. We see how the John, how John the Baptist prepared the way for the ministry of Jesus. And Jesus is boldly entering into the table, turning over the tables, saying, what is this mess here?
What are you doing here? And now consider that God said the Lord himself will appear in his temple. What, well, what does that tell us about Jesus? It tells us that he was not a mere man. He was not a mere good teacher. He was, in fact, the son of God, God himself, come in the flesh and to enter into his temple to cleanse his temple.
This temple, which was to be called the house of prayer. Now, Jesus' visit to the temple as an occasion of cleansing was a vivid demonstration of the purpose of his mission. And in the following verses here in Malachi, we see all the more how what God promises the people in Malachi's day is fulfilled in Jesus.
So looking again at verses two through four, 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. He will sit as a refiner and purifier or silver; he'll purify the Levites and refine them like gold and silver. Then the Lord will have men who will bring offerings and righteousness, and the offerings of Judah and Jerusalem will be acceptable to the Lord, as in days gone by, as in former years.
So verse two starts out with a question, who can endure the day of his coming? Who can stand when he appears? Now, there's no explicit answer given, but the implicit answer is this, nobody. No one can stand when God shows up.
Why? Because all of us are sinners. All of us are sinners before a holy God. When Isaiah finds himself in the presence of God in Isaiah six he cries out, woe to me! I'm ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips. This is the prophet Isaiah saying this about himself.
Someone who you would think would be probably the best of the best, but even him, even he says, I'm not worthy to be in God's presence. In Romans three, in verse 10, Paul says, as it is written, there's no one righteous, not even one. And in verse 23, he says, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.
There's no one among us who can say, I'm all right. I don't have any problems. I'm not sinful. There's no one among us who can stand before God and say, you should let me in, God.
Because what God requires is perfection, and all of us fall short. The perfection of God, the standard of his kingdom, and if we claim to be without sin, the Apostle John tells us in First John one, eight, if we claim to be without sin, we are just deceiving ourselves. We're kidding ourselves. The truth is not in us.
So when the Lord comes, he's gonna have some work to do.
He is gonna have to clean us up. He's going to have to purify us because we're not acceptable as we are. And so he's described as being like this refiner's fire. Now I'm not sure how many of you are familiar with the processes of metallurgy, cleansing gold and things like that, but it takes a lot of heat.
It's a long, intense process to get out all the impurities, to remove them. And you also think about launderer's soap, especially when they had to do laundry by hand. How many of us are thankful we don't have to do that anymore, but imagine taking a bar of soap and you got a bad stain, maybe a bunch of stains in the clothes, and you just have to scrub and scrub.
We're deeply stained with sin. We need to be cleansed. We need to be made clean. Now, I think there's kind of a dual aspect of what's being anticipated here. On the one hand, we could say collectively that God is going to separate the wicked from the righteous to set apart people of God from those who remain in rebellion against him.
But we must also say this because all of us are sinners, that even those who will be counted among the people of God, they need to be scrubbed down.
They need to be made clean and purified. Now, as we look across the Old Testament, we see how is, how this is anticipated, how this is prophesied, and this is just astounding. I, I say this a lot, but I, I think it's always worth mentioning that these prophecies are given 500 to 700 years before Jesus showed up on the scene.
We read these verses and they say, oh, we say they sound very Christian. Well, it's because Christ fulfills them.
The very heart of the gospel isn't an innovation. It was something that was long foretold by the prophets. So we look at Isaiah one, verse 18 and verses 24 through 26, the Lord says to his people, he says, come now, let us settle the matter, says the Lord. Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they're red as crimson, they shall be like wool. It brings very much to mind the launderer's soap scrubbing away. It says in verses 24 through 26. Therefore, the Lord, the Lord Almighty, the mighty one of Israel declares, ah, I will vent my wrath on my foes and avenge myself on my enemies. I'll turn my hand against you; I will thoroughly purge away your dross and remove all your impurities. I'll restore your leaders as in days of old, your rulers as at the beginning. Afterward, you'll be called the city of righteousness, the faithful city. So at that time, that was not the case with the city of Jerusalem. They were not called, they wouldn't have been considered the city of righteousness, but there is a day coming in, which that would be the case.
Now again, we anticipate personal purification here, but there is also a basic separation between the wicked and those who have been claimed as the people of God. When we go to Zechariah 13, we see more of how it's foretold how this cleansing would take place, and how someone will be saved and refined.
In Zechariah 13 verse one and verse seven through nine says, on that day, a fountain will be open to the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem, to cleanse them from sin and impurity. Awake, sword, against my shepherd, against the man who is close to me! Declares the Lord Almighty. Strike the shepherd, and the sheep will be scattered, and I'll turn my hand against the little ones. In the whole land, declares the Lord, two thirds will be struck down and perish; yet one third will be left in it. This third I'll put into the fire; I'll refine them like silver and test them like gold. They will call on my name and I'll answer them; and I'll say, they are my people, and they will say, the Lord is our God.
What's being promised there is that yes, while some will be struck down, that God is intent on claiming a people for himself, and they will be refined. And they need to be refined because there are impurities within them. Then lastly, as far as another word of prophecy, kind of putting things in different terms, but I think that clearly align with these other prophecies is Jeremiah 31, 33 through 34. And I would encourage you, if you don't remember this chapter, to just underline it because it's, it's one of those critical passages that really helps us understand, I think the old, the New Testament, and how Christ really fulfills what has been promised.
The Lord says, this is the covenant I'll make with the people of Israel after that time, declares the Lord. I'll put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts. I will be their God and they will be my people. No longer will they teach their neighbor, or say to one another, know the Lord, because they will all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, declares the Lord. For I will forgive their wickedness and will remember their sins no more.
We see a beautiful pairing there of the promise of forgiveness and also the promise that God's people are gonna be transformed. Yes, they've been rebellious. Yes, they've, they've kicked against the ways of God, but that's not going to be the case in the future. A new covenant is going to be established in which their guilt is going to be set aside.
They are gonna be forgiven, and what's more, they're going to begin obeying God from the heart because this law is going to be written upon their heart and the commands of God are gonna be their own desire. And this is what we see that Jesus brings about. The gospel consists of this, that in Jesus Christ, because he was the perfect man that all of us were supposed to be, and he laid down his life for our sakes and was raised from the dead because he stands as our high priest, as our perfect sacrifice, we are forgiven of all our sins.
But there's more. Which is that in Jesus Christ, we are restored to be the people that God created us to be.
So as we look here at this passage here in Malachi, we see aspects of both judgment and redemption. No one can stand before God, but God is coming to restore. In verse three, he says He will purify the Levites. Refine them like gold and silver. Now, what is this business about the Levites? Remember the, the tribe of Levi was the tribe whose duty it was to supervise, to put on the worship of God.
They were in charge of the sanctuary of the temple. Certain ones of them were part of the priestly line. God is promising that he's gonna purify the Levites and refine them like gold, silver, so that the worship that God deserves would be properly offered up to him. Now remember, we've, we've read in Malachi 1:11 that this worship that God deserves is not only going to be offered up by the Jewish people. In Malachi 1:11, God says, my name will be great among the nations, from where the sun rises to where it sets. In every place, incense and pure offerings will be brought to me because my name will be great among the nations, says the Lord Almighty.
So something's being anticipated here that goes beyond the temple as they knew it at that time. It's in anticipating the new temple, which is founded in Jesus Christ, a temple that is made up of people, Jew and non-Jew alike, who have put their faith in Jesus Christ. We see how in the Book of Acts there is pointed out how it seems like there's a significant turnout even among the priests hearkening back to this prophecy in Acts six, seven when we were in Acts recently. So the word of God spread. The number of disciples in Jerusalem increased rapidly, and a large number of priests became obedient to the faith.
Again, that kind of seems significant. It's kind of iconic, but it's not as though these priests alone fulfilled that which Malachi was prophesying. In fact, what Malachi is prophesying here is fulfilled as far as all of us who believe in Jesus Christ become members of this new priesthood, worshiping God not by offering animal sacrifices, but offering ourselves as living sacrifices unto God.
Now the apostle Peter points this out in, in first Peter two verses four through five. He says, as you come to him, the living stone-- rejected by humans but chosen by God and precious to him-- you also, like living stones, are being built into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood, offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.
God's not interested in stone, he's not interested in wood. He's interested in being glorified in and through the people that he's created. And so in Jesus Christ, God is creating a spiritual household, a spiritual temple in which every single one of you who believe in Jesus Christ are set upon Christ as a spiritual stone, and together we are formed in him to be this temple of worship and praise that he deserves.
Again, this is what God deserves. He deserves to be glorified and once again, the spiritual sacrifices that we offer to him is simply this, the very substance of our lives, who we are, how we live, and of course the words of praise that we give to him. So there is a tone of redemption here in these verses, but there's also a definite tone of judgment that is accentuated in verse five. The Lord says, so I'll come to put you on trial. I'll 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.
So we have some specific sins that are identified here, sorcery, which is forbidden in Deuteronomy 18, nine through 13, adultery, which is the seventh command of the 10 Commandments, and perjury, which is the ninth command of the 10 Commandments. Now sorcery includes any spiritual practices that would be considered engaging in magic.
And unfortunately we see kind of a resurgence of this in our day. There's a lot of people in our, in our society, in our community, that are playing around with things that they should not be playing around with. Practicing the dark arts of, of, of witchcraft, often putting these things in the frame of health and wellbeing.
I wanna urge you to be extremely cautious, because very often in the name of health, we might be tempted to engage in practices that are not Christian at all, that are seeking for some wellbeing from some other spiritual source than simply God himself. We have everything that we need in Jesus Christ. We don't need any Eastern spiritual practices.
We don't need any potions or crystals or anything of that sort, so we should, we should stay away from that as Christians, and we should, we should warn others from engaging in those practices because they're welcoming to their lives the powers of the demonic. Not saying that these people themselves are demonic people, these they're just people. They're people made in the image of God.
We want them to turn to Christ so that they may reflect who Jesus is in their lives rather than welcoming in the dark presence of the powers of Satan. And of course adultery, we've, we kind of alluded to that last week in talking about marriage and divorce. Greatly grieves God's heart when people engage in adultery, breaking their marriage vows.
And it's kind of an echo when we break our covenant vows with God and we see this again and again in the case of Israel, it's often put in the frame of a wife cheating on her husband, Israel, turning to false gods rather than remaining true to God. And perjury. So just general lying, but especially in the case of a law court, lying in such a way, bearing false witness, so that it results in devastating consequences for.
Someone's lives. But then there's some interesting sins here that we often don't think about. I mean, you would come to hear, you know, you might expect when you come to church and you hear a sermon that you might hear the preachers speak against sorcery, and adultery, and lying, and things like that.
But how about this: defrauding workers their wages, oppressing those who are vulnerable, oppressing widows and orphans and foreigners. A lot of times we don't think about those as sins that angers the heart of God, that brings his wrath, but it's clearly stated here and so again, we must be very careful that we don't wink at these injustices, certainly in our lives, it certainly shouldn't be the case that any of us, you know, if we're in a position where we're employing someone, we shouldn't be defrauding some of their wages. We should be giving them what they deserve. And I think that includes not just, you know, oh, I was supposed to give you your paycheck this week and I failed to give it to you, but you know what a person is worth.
You know the compensation that they're due for their work. Pay them fairly. Of course, we need to be looking out for those in our society who are downtrodden, the widow, the orphan, the foreigners. We think about the homeless.
We understand, we've talked earlier, there's, there's plenty of things that we do on our own part that leads us to being bad circumstances in life. All of us. There's also outside things that put us in a vulnerable position. In the case of the widow, husband dies, case of the orphan, they lost their parents, and not just by death, but we know in our society by drugs or just other bad life choices. We think about the foreigners. Whether, whether they're here legally or or illegally, and I don't want to get into the politics of it, but we should still care for people because they are made in the image of God, and we must treat them with the love of Jesus Christ and make sure that every person is treated justly.
These things matter just as much to the heart of God as the sorcery, very bad, the adultery, very bad, the perjury, bad, but defrauding workers' wages and oppressing the vulnerable also, very bad. And God's going to bring judgment against those who are perpetuating this injustice. Yes, Christ has come to save, but Christ is also going to come again.
And when he comes again, he'll come to claim his own and he's going to come to bring judgment. Matthew 25, verse 31 through 32. In verse 46, Jesus says, when the son of man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, he will sit on his glorious throne. All the nations will be gathered before him, and he'll separate the people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. Then they will go away into eternal punishment, that is the goats, but the righteous, the sheep, to eternal life. There's going to, there's a day coming when everyone will have to answer for what they have done. And on that day, the judge will render true justice.
So if we should ask in an accusatory tone, where is God's justice? Know this, it is coming. The question you should ask yourself is, am I ready? Because while we so readily point out all the evil out there, there's evil in here. Evil resides in our hearts and we ought to answer for it. Who among us can stand before God to make a defense? We have no excuses. We know evil when we see it, we just like to overlook our own. There is no place for evil in God's kingdom. The apostle Paul tells us this in First Corinthians six verses nine through 10. Or do you not know that wrongdoers will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived. Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor men who have sex with men nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. Boom. But then Paul adds this, verse 11, and that is what some of you were. That is what some of you were, but you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ by the power, by the spirit of our God.
We can't stand before God, but the Lord Jesus Christ can. He can stand on our behalf as a lamb who is slain, the perfect lamb of God, sacrificed to take away our sins. And it is in Jesus that we can be cleansed, refined, restored unto God. And it begins with a new birth. Several verses from the Apostle John as he recorded in the gospel of John.
Jesus says, very truly, I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God unless they are born again. In First John 5:1, everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ, that is the Messiah, is born of God. First John 2: 28 through 29, and now dear children, continue in him, that is Jesus, continue in him so that when he appears, we may be confident and unashamed before him at his coming. If you know that he's righteous, you know that everyone who does what is right has been born of him
Evil abounds in this world. Jesus has begun something new. As Peter tells us in Second Peter three, Christ hasn't returned yet because God is kind. He's being patient. He's giving us time to repent, to believe in Christ, to be born again. It's when we are born again that we can really begin to worship God. We cannot stand on our own, but with Christ, in Christ, we rise to the life that God created us for.
We become that holy priesthood. Bringing offerings and righteousness, presenting to God lives well lived in accordance with his way for humanity. The true worship he deserves. Let's pray.
Father, we are humbled before your word.
We are humbled before your word, father, because even while there has been times when we have in perfect honesty and sincerity asked, God, why is some of the evil around us happening? We confess, father, that there have been times when we've asked that question with a tone of accusation, and in so doing, father, we have overlooked our own evil, our own contribution to all the wrong and tragedy around us. Father, we thank you for your mercy and patience towards us. And Father, we thank you that in sending your son you did not send him to destroy us even while we do truly deserve judgment.
Father, we thank you that you sent your son in order that we might be refined and cleansed and restored.
Father, we pray that it would become the desire of our hearts to turn to Christ, to put our faith in him and be so redeemed so that we may offer our lives up to you as living sacrifices, offerings in righteousness so that we would give our ourselves to you in the way that you deserve.
Father, impress upon us the reality of your justice, that you are just, and that you'll bring your judgment to bear. May this spur repentance within us that we would be found obedient when Jesus returns. And may this spur us, father, to warn others to call those around us who haven't turned to Christ yet to put their faith in him, to turn from their simple ways, to turn to Christ.
To receive forgiveness in him for everything that they've done wrong, and to be restored in him. Impress that reality upon us, father, so that we would not set it aside and be become preoccupied with other things. We ask this in the name of Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen.
Intro/Outro Song
Title: River Meditation
Artist: Jason Shaw
Source:http://freemusicarchive.org/music/Jason_Shaw/Audionautix_Acoustic/RIVER_MEDITATION___________2-58
License:(CC BY 3.0 US)