Today in our journey through the 66 books of the Bible we are visiting the book of the minor prophet, Malachi.
Author
The name “Malachi” means “messenger”. In the Septuagint, the Greek version of the Old Testament, the name “Malachi” in chapter 1, verse 1, is translated as “his messenger” rather than as a proper noun. So, it may be that “Malachi” is the name of the author. Or it could be that the author is anonymous, that the author is simply a messenger of the Lord.
Date
The similarity between the sins denounced in the book of Nehemiah and those denounced in the book of Malachi suggest that the two leaders might have been contemporaries. The book of Malachi may have been written after Nehemiah returned to Persia in 433 BCE or during Nehemiah’s second period as governor. Malachi was, perhaps, the last prophet of the Old Testament era, writing about a half century after Haggai and Zechariah.
Themes
Several factors in the life of postexilic Judah probably influenced the themes in the book of Malachi…
- The land of Judah was no more than a small, and by worldly standards, insignificant province of the Persian empire.
- The glorious future announced by the prophets had not yet been realized.
- Judah’s God had not yet come to his Temple with majesty and power, as celebrated in Psalm 68, to exalt his kingdom in the sight of the nations of the world.
- So, doubting God’s covenant love and no longer trusting in God’s justice, the people of postexilic Judah began to lose hope and their worship degenerated into a listless perpetuation of mere outward form. They no longer took the law seriously.
Malachi rebukes his people for their doubt of God’s love and for the faithlessness of the priests as well as the people. The people said God was unjust. Malachi’s response was to say that the Lord would indeed come to them, but they might not like it when he comes. Issues concerning proper offerings, marriage practices, and tithes, are especially prominent in this book.
Malachi urges that through repentance and reformation Judah can again experience God’s blessing. Those who honor the Lord will be spared when he comes to judge them.
Malachi warns his readers that the day of the Lord is coming, and it will burn like a furnace. In that day the righteous will rejoice. In preparation, the people of Judah need to remember the law of Moses and be ready for the day when the Lord will send “the prophet Elijah” to call them back to the godly ways of their forefathers. In the New Testament we learn that this second “Elijah” is John the Baptist.
Structure
- Title (1:1)
- Introduction: God’s Covenant Love Affirmed (1:2-5)
- Unfaithfulness of God’s People Rebuked (1:6-2:16)
- The Lord’s Coming Announced (2:17-4:6)
Key Concept—The Coming Messiah
Malachi is the last book of the Old Testament in our Christian Bibles and for Christians the book acts as a bridge to the New Testament. Malachi is not the last book of the Hebrew Bible but there are intriguing connections to the Christian perspective. For example, Malachi 3:4-24 is read by the Jewish people to this day on the Sabbath preceding Passover, most likely because of the association of Elijah with the forthcoming Messianic liberation traditionally connected with Passover.
The verses I would like to focus on for the rest of our time together today are in Malachi 3:1-4. Listen for God’s word to you…
“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.
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 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, and the offerings of Judah and Jerusalem will be acceptable to the Lord, as in days gone by, as in former years.
The first thing that Malachi addresses here is how to prepare for the Messiah’s coming. It was the practice in the Near East to send messengers in advance of a visiting king to announce his coming and to remove all hindrances or obstacles. Malachi speaks of a messenger that the Lord will send to prepare the way for the Messiah. From the perspective of the New Testament, this messenger is John the Baptist. (See Matthew 11:10, Mark 1:2, and Luke 7:27.)
I believe Malachi’s words point both to the first coming of the Messiah which happened two thousand years ago and to his second coming which is still future. Charles Spurgeon once wrote,
Jesus’ first coming was without external pomp or show of power, yet there were few who endured its testing. Herod and all Jerusalem were stirred at the news of the wondrous birth, but many who were waiting for him showed their hypocrisy by rejecting Him when He came.
His life on earth was a separating fan, and when it tried the great heap of religious profession, few endured the process. But what will His second advent be like? What sinner can endure to think of it? ‘He shall strike the earth with the rod of His mouth, and with the breath of His lips He shall slay the wicked.’ (Isaiah 11:4)
When in His humiliation He only had to say, ‘I am He,’ and the soldiers fell to the ground (John 18:6), what, then, will it be like for His enemies when He shall be fully revealed as ‘I AM’ (Exodus 3:14)?
His death shook the earth and darkened heaven (Luke 23:44). What, then, will be the dreadful splendor of that day when, as the living Savior, He shall summon the living and the dead before Him (2 Timothy 4:1)?
This raises the question: how might we best prepare for the second coming of the Messiah? I believe we can best prepare for the Messiah’s second coming the same way that John the Baptist told people to prepare of the Messiah’s first coming in Matthew 3:1-10. We need to prepare by repentance, which means turning from sin. We need to prepare by confession of sin. And we need to prepare by living a life in keeping with repentance, a life that demonstrates righteousness.
In an interview with Will Norton, Jr., bestselling novelist John Grisham recalled…
One of my best friends in college died when he was 25, just a few years after we had finished Mississippi State University. I was in law school, and he called me one day and wanted to get together. So, we had lunch, and he told me he had terminal cancer.
I couldn’t believe it. I asked him, “What do you do when you realize that you are about to die?”
He said, “It’s real simple. You get things right with God, and you spend as much time with those you love as you can. Then you settle up with everybody else.” Then he said, “You know, really, you ought to live every day like you have only a few more days to live.”
What a true statement! We need to be ready at all times, not only for our own death, but to meet the Messiah. For when the Messiah comes, as Malachi tells us, it will be sudden. This same warning of suddenness is echoed in Luke 12:40 and Revelation 16:15.
The Jewish people longed for the first coming of the Messiah because they thought he was going to judge the other nations. They did not realize all that the Messiah’s coming would entail. They were not ready for someone to come and judge them. It makes me wonder: if the Jewish people were not ready for the first coming of the Messiah will we be ready for his second coming?
A second point that Malachi touches on is the purpose of the Messiah’s coming. The purpose of the Messiah’s coming, both his first and second comings, according to Malachi, is to refine and purify.
Think about what the Messiah did at his first coming. He did not remain a cute little baby in the manger. He grew up to be a man who would later come to the Temple and throw out the moneychangers. Not only that, but the Messiah came the first time to purify our hearts by his perfect sacrifice on the cross for our sins.
When the Messiah comes again to judge the earth, I believe he will purge his people once for all of sin. That purging process is something that begins in the life of every follower of the Messiah the moment we trust him to save us.
It should be noted that this refining and purifying process is not without pain. Nobody likes being burned by fire. A launderer’s soap can burn if it is like the alkali that Malachi refers to. To use yet another metaphor, in some ways, the Messiah’s job is like that of a good football coach. Tom Landry once said, “The job of a football coach is to make men do what they don’t want to do, in order to achieve what they’ve always wanted to be.” God designed us to be images of himself. But sin has marred that image. Now it takes pain to restore that full image in us.
Malachi also makes clear that the refining and purifying process starts with leaders. Malachi says that the Messiah will purify the Levites and refine them like gold and silver. The Levites were the ones charged with taking care of things in the Temple and presenting sacrifices to the Lord. The Levites that Malachi had in mind had not done their job right. They had led people astray. So, Malachi says that the purifying process that the Messiah will carry out will begin with them.
Of course, that’s the way it always works. To purify an organization, the purification process must begin with the leaders. Don Stevenson, who was President of Global Hospitality, used to say that there were two things he always did when he took over a resort that had been failing. He would fire the president and train the people who were out front meeting customers. In a church that has been failing the same purification process is necessary. The leadership must change. It must be purified and refined.
It is also important to recognize that the end-product of purifying pain is worth it. That end-product is to become like the Lord. Listen to what a silversmith had to say about refining silver…
I must sit with my eyes steadily fixed on the furnace; for if the time necessary for refining be exceeded in the slightest degree, the silver will be injured. I never take my eye off the silver in the furnace. If I take it out too early, it won’t be purified. If I leave it in too late, it will be injured. When the silver is in the fire I focus. I don’t let anything distract me. I watch that silver, carefully waiting for the right moment to take it out.
When is the right moment? The silversmith says, “I know the silver is pure when I can see my face reflected there.”
The Messiah is the perfect refiner of silver. He will not leave us in the furnace for too short or too long a time. When will he take us out? When he sees his reflection in us. So, don’t worry, you have the perfect refiner, the perfect purifier watching over you. He has his eyes trained on you for your good.
Thirdly, Malachi tells us about the result of the Messiah’s coming. The result of the Messiah’s coming will be the giving of righteous gifts to him…
Then the Lord will have people who will bring offerings in righteousness, and the offerings of Judah and Jerusalem will be acceptable to the Lord, as in days gone by, as in former years.
The Messiah came two thousand years ago so that we in turn might offer our lives back to him as a living sacrifice. The offering that he wants is prayer, thanksgiving, and self-dedication.
Paul says, “Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God—this is your spiritual act of worship.” (Romans 12:1) And the writer to the Hebrews says, “Through Jesus, therefore, let us continually offer to God a sacrifice of praise—the fruit of lips that confess his name.” (Hebrews 13:5)
What gift can we give back to the Messiah who was born to purify us from our sin by dying on a cross? I think the following story helps to answer that question… In 1994, two Americans answered an invitation from the Russian Department of Education to teach morals and ethics (based upon biblical principles) in the public schools of Russia. They were invited also to teach at prisons, businesses, the fire and police departments, and a large orphanage. About one hundred boys and girls who had been abandoned, abused, and left in the care of a government-run program were in the orphanage. Those two Americans related the following story…
It was nearing the holiday season, 1994, time for our orphans to hear, for the first time, the traditional story of Christmas. We told them about Mary and Joseph arriving in Bethlehem. Finding no room in the inn, the couple went to a stable, where the baby Jesus was born and placed in a manger. Throughout the story, the children and orphanage staff sat in amazement as they listened. Some sat on the edges of their stools, trying to grasp every word.
Completing the story, we gave the children three small pieces of cardboard to make a crude manger. Each child was given a small paper square, cut from yellow napkins I had brought with me. No colored paper was available in the city. Following instructions, the children tore the paper and carefully laid strips in the manger for straw. Small squares of flannel, cut from a worn-out nightgown an American lady was throwing away as she left Russia, were used for the baby’s blanket. A doll-like baby was cut from tan felt we had brought from the United States.
The orphans were busy assembling their manger as I walked among them to see if they needed any help. All went well until I got to one table where little Misha sat. he looked to be about 6 years old and had finished his project. As I looked at the little boy’s manger, I was startled to see not one, but two babies in the manger.
Quickly, I called for the translator to ask the lad why there were two babies in the manger. Crossing his arms in front of him and looking at his completed manger scene, the child began to repeat the story very seriously. For such a young boy, who had only heard the Christmas story once, he related the happenings accurately—until he came to the part where Mary put the baby Jesus in the manger. Then Misha started to ad-lib.
He made up his own ending to the story as he said, “And when Maria laid the baby in the manger, Jesus looked at me and asked me if I had a place to stay. I told him I have no mamma and I have no papa, so I don’t have any place to stay. Then Jesus told me I could stay with him. But I told him I couldn’t, because I didn’t have a gift to give him like everybody else did. But I wanted to stay with Jesus so much, so I thought about what I had that maybe I could use for a gift. I thought maybe if I kept him warm, that would be a good gift.
“So, I asked Jesus, ‘If I keep you warm, will that be a good enough gift?’
“And Jesus told me, ‘If you keep me warm, that will be the best gift anybody ever gave me.’
“So, I got into the manger, and then Jesus looked at me and he told me I could stay with him for always.”
As little Misha finished his story, his eyes brimmed full of tears that splashed down his little cheeks. Putting his hand over his face, his head dropped to the table and his shoulders shook as he sobbed and sobbed. The little orphan had found someone who would never abandon or abuse him, someone who would stay with him for always.
What can we give to the Messiah who came to purify us from our sin? Perhaps Christina Rosetti put it best in her poem that we sing at Christmas…
What can I give Him,
Poor as I am?
If I were a shepherd,
I would bring a lamb,
If I were a Wise Man,
I would do my part,
Yet what can I give Him?
Give my heart.
Comments