One Hour. One Book: Malachi

I want you to see that Malachi is actually divided very, very simply. The entire, the entire, um, book is really about two things: broken relationship and mending relationship. That's what it's about.

And if you look at the very first chapter, I'm, I'm going to have to, to just sort of take us to chapter one and see if I can make sense out of chapters. One stands by itself. Two, three, and four are the second box. It's really a two-box book. It's not that complicated.

The date for your entry sheet is around 400 BC. Some would say 397 BC. Malachi means "my messenger." Uh, the, the term "Mel" is actually like a, a term for a messenger. The "e" on the "i" on the end, the sound of "e" on the end, means "my." And, um, that messenger can be, by the time you get to Revelation, it can be the pastor of a church who's a messenger, or it could be the angel of a church that's a messenger in Revelation 2 and 3. Here, uh, he's a messenger in a very real sense.

Um, it's interesting because he refers to like Levi in chapter 2:7 as the messenger of the Lord, and that suggests that a person who witnesses on behalf of the Lord is like an angel. Here's what I want you to see: biblically speaking, my job as a pastor isn't to tell you all kinds of great insights that I learned growing up in New Jersey. My job is to be a messenger for God. And to the extent that I do that well, I am used by him. And when I don't, I get in his way. And much of ministry is us working to stay out of the way of the Holy Spirit. That's really what it is. Is you show up, you open your mouth, and you hope you don't get in the way.

Now, the other side of that is that "my messenger" is also the job of an angel. When an angel appears, they have basically one job. They're a mailman. Now, not all of them. Some of them fight, and some of them defend, and there are other things that they do. But in scripture, like Gabriel, when he shows up, his job is to simply articulate what God said, not to evaluate whether or not it's compassionate enough, or whether God should have said something different. Because we are living in a time now where more people in ministry want to rewrite the Bible to what they wish it said than just say what it says. Because what it says isn't always palatable. But it's not our job to be Jesus's PR firm. We're not on American Idol trying to get everybody to like us. What we're doing is becoming a messenger of God.

I want you to zero in on the message that he gives. And the first box really describes the problems. This is broken relation- relationship. And this is the problem. How did the relationship break? And why is it broken? And then, of course, what do you expect to follow the problem? Solutions. We're hoping that the Bible's not just going to bring us to the brink of, "Hey, you got a problem, you sinner," so that you can sit there and feel wretched about yourself. The point is, what fixes it? What mends the relation- ship?

And so you get into God. This is going to be indictments. An indictment is when God says, "Here's what's wrong. Here's the problem." And then God will give answers. Those indictments lead to, to the Lord saying some specific things. Let's see if we can sort of take a look at the main problem that they have.

When you come into chapter one, I want you to see that there are two priority problems that they have. Mark 1 this way. Okay. Malachi 1:1-5 is no appreciation. Malachi 1:1-5, no appreciation. The priority was on what made their lives seem better, not what, what God had done for them lately. So they become a little bit wrong about their priority. And I'm going to examine the text, but first, I just want you to get a, a frame for it. So, first problem: no appreciation. They don't appreciate.

The second one, in 6 through 14, is leftover giving. One of the ways they know that they're not appreciated is they're getting, God is getting leftovers. I'm going to tell you this from experience: in a marriage, when one of the two marriage partners doesn't feel appreciated, it is generally because they feel like they're getting the leftovers, not the prime spots. When you're coming home exhausted from the job and you're dropping in bed and barely able to give into the relationship, the partner is going to feel like they're getting ripped off. Why? Because they're getting ripped off. But you're going, "I'm working all day so I can take care of you." But really, that does, you know, at 3 o'clock in the afternoon when you're not there and you're exhausted at work, she's not feeling it. When, when you're out there working late trying to do it under stress, he's not feeling it. So because you think you're giving something, remember that if you're not giving what they think that they're supposed to be getting, that looks like no appreciation.

Let me see, see if I can zero in. In verses 1-5, it says, "The oracle of the word of the Lord to Israel through Malachi." "Through my messenger." "I have loved you," says the Lord. "But you say, 'How have you loved us?'" "Was not Esau Jacob's brother?" declares the Lord. "Yet I have loved Jacob, but I have hated Esau." "And I have made his mountains a desolation and appointed his inheritance for the jackals of the wilderness." "Though Edom says, 'We have been beaten down, but we will return and build up the ruins.'" "Thus says the Lord of hosts, 'They may build, but I will tear down, and men will call them the wicked territory, and a people toward whom the Lord is indignant forever.'" "Your eyes will see this, and you will say, 'The Lord be magnified beyond the border of Israel.'"

It sounds like he's wandering a little bit. So let me see if I can bring in some very tight focus. The opening statement shows the problem. The statement is, they walk around and God says, "I have loved you. I've taken care of you. I have given to you." And their question is, "Well, what have you done for me lately?" Wait a minute. "I'm not feeling it. How have you loved me?" And the first thing he said in verse two, second half of the verse, is preferential treatment. I've given you better treatment than, than you deserved. Somebody else was in line to be the person of preference, and I put you ahead of them. I gave you preferential treatment.

Then, behind that, he says in verse three, "I gave you exceptional prosperity over your neighbors." I find it absolutely ironic that American Christians would fuss at God. We have honestly, if you have money in the bank, any money in the bank, money in a wallet, and some change in a dish or a junk drawer, you are in the top 8% of wealth in the world. So let's just talk about what we're talking about. And we're fussing because, you know, you don't know the size of my bills. No, but you do do have some choices about how you made them. And, and here's the issue. God is looking at it and going, "Your priority doesn't seem to be to understand what I've done for you."

By the way, verses four and five, "I held your enemies from growing stronger than you." See, one of the things we don't take into account that God is doing all the time is stopping what could happen. You drove here this morning, and you only know that there's an annoying lady who was going 27 on US 27 because she thought that was a speed limit. What you don't know is that God saved you from three accidents of people who were blind or drunk. They were coming at you, and he re- he turned them off. You're going to get to heaven, see your guardian angel, and that, that guy or that gal is going to be all beat up, and you're not even going to know how they got that way. Because you're going to go walking in like, "Hey, hey, good to see you." They're going to go, "I am glad you're dead, 'cause you were killing me."

All right, my point is that you see what happens, you don't see the alternative. And so in verses four and five, he says, "I don't know if you've stopped to look at this, but when I told you that Edom would not be strong against you, I broke them down. They were actually stronger than you, and I made them weaker. They said they're going to rebuild. I keep knocking them down. I'm taking your opponents out." So I want you to, when you zero into the first five verses, look at it this way: "I've loved you." "How have you loved me?" We grow insensitive to what God provides in preferential treatment. He put us at the top of the list of great many things. We got things we didn't deserve. We got exceptional prosperity. And by the way, uh, guardian angels taking a beating keeping you here.

Let me go down now to the second one. Do you understand what God's complaint is? "I'm a good parent. You're wiping your feet on me." That's the sense of verses 1 through 5. Let's go to 6 through 1, uh, 6 through 14, I'm sorry.

"A son honors his father, a servant his master. Then if I am a father, where is my honor? If I am a master, where is my respect?" says the Lord of hosts to you, O priests, who despise my name. "But you say, 'How have we despised your name?'" "You are presenting defiled food upon my altar." "But you say, 'How have we defiled you?'" "In that you say, 'The table of the Lord is to be despised.'" "But when you present the blind for sacrifice, is that not evil? And when you present the lame and the sick, is that not evil? Why not offer it to the governor? Would he be pleased with you or would he receive you kindly?" says the Lord of hosts. "But now will you not entreat God's favor, and that he may be gracious to us? And treat us kindly with such an offering on your part? Will he receive any of you kindly?" says the Lord. "Oh, that there were one among you who would shut the gates, that you might not uselessly kindle fire on my altar! I am not pleased with you," says the Lord of hosts, "nor will I accept an offering from you. For from the rising of the sun even to its setting, my name will be great among the nations, and in every place incense is going to be offered to my name, and a grain offering that is pure. For my name will be great among the nations," says the Lord of hosts. "But you are profaning it in that you say, 'The table of the Lord is defiled, and as for its fruit, its food is to be despised.'" "You also say, 'My, how tiresome it is!' and you disdainfully sniff at it," says the Lord of hosts. "And you bring what was taken by robbery, and what is lame or sick. So you should bring the offering. Should I receive that from your hand?" says the Lord. "But cursed be the swindler who has a male in his flock and vows it, but sacrifices a blemished animal to the Lord. For I am a great king," says the Lord of hosts, "and my name is feared among the nations."

Okay, if you misunderstand who God is, you can—he sounds egotistical. This isn't just some rock star. This is the creator of everything that is. He's not being egotistical. He's telling the truth. When Muhammad Ali got up and said, "I am the greatest," it was ego. When God gets up and says, "I am the greatest," it's truth. There's a difference. When you're telling the truth, he's going, "Look, I set up the system. You belong to me. I want you to understand that on our best day, we are servants of the living God." And because of that, when a servant gets up with a master, the master looks at him and says, "Hey, wait a minute. Who's running this place? Me or you?"

So you see it? You seem surprised in verse six. Look at it. You seem surprised in verse six when I say you're treating me badly. You seem to be looking at me going, "Wait a minute, that's not true. I'm not treating you badly." Have you ever had an argument with somebody like this where they are hearing something and you're hearing it, but you're hearing it differently than they think they're saying it? And it's going back and forth? "I didn't mean that." "I didn't say that." "You didn't understand what I was saying." That's what's going on. Verse six, you, you don't get it. I claim you're treating me badly, and you don't seem to get how you're treating me badly.

So let me give you five ways you're treating me badly in verses 7 and 8. You're giving me inferior offerings. You're giving me less than you have agreed to give. Give me, you're making it seem like you're giving me this when you're giving me that. You're cutting the sauce, you're changing the wine in the bottle. You're showing me that you're giving me the good cut of meat when you're swapping it with the bad cut of meat. You're basically falsely misrepresenting yourself. So the first way you're badly treating me is an integrity issue of just plain misrepresenting what you're doing.

The second thing I would tell you is in verse 9, ignoring your wrongs and seeking my favor anyway. This is the kid who just lied, just cheated, just threw a fit, and now wants more allowance. That, that is exactly what this is. This is the person who just treated you badly but would like now to borrow your car. Do you all, you all know that feeling when a person just is, they totally blew it with you, and now they're asking for a favor, and you're gone, "Really? Is that what we're doing right now?" That's verse 9. "How can you treat me like this and then turn around and expect something from me?" Yeah, I'm not thinking that's going to happen.

God says, "Now, I don't mean to be too hard, but I mean to be true." And when you get to verse 10 and verse 11, he says, "The third thing: you continue to observe practices that are empty because your heart's not there." That's what verse 10 says. You show up, but your heart's not there. And that has the direct effect of modeling the testimony of the living God. You are doing it badly because you don't care how you're doing it, and it's coming off badly. There are people who will come in, they will literally prepare their Sunday school lesson to go and deliver it in the car on the way. They do it badly. And because of that, there's a kid who's growing up that believes this is a joke, who will grow up and be the next senator. We are getting what we grew, and we got to take responsibility for the level at which we do. If you're going to do it, do it well, or stay home. I want you to not stay home. Okay? That's not really what I'm trying to get out of you. But if you're going to do it, do it, do it to your best level.

One of the most frustrated, does anybody else get frustrated when you're, you're on a team and people just are not holding up their end? I get frustrated in ministry situations when I'm killing myself to make sure I'm doing everything I can, but the rest of the people that have to do that in order to make it work don't do their part. And I know that you're going to feel that as well. And I know that God feels that. This is my reputation, my holy temple, and you guys are doing a slipshod job, and it's coming off as on my reputation. And God says, "That's just not right."

Let's go down to the fourth one. Look at verse 12 and 13. He says, um, "You're walking around profaning the table. You're saying the table's despised." And here's my real problem. In verse 13, underline the word "tiresome." "You are saying that it is too difficult and too burdensome to follow me." You're saying, "Well, you know, the reason I'm not doing it, God, is because it's too hard." I don't want to hear that it's too hard. I made you, and I know what you can do.

Now, step back. Chapter one really says you don't appreciate me the way you should, and you give me leftover stuff instead of what I deserve. And by the way, I know, by the way, I see, and you're not getting away with it.

So Malachi has given eight directives to getting things back on track in chapters 2 through 4. So I'm going to look at these eight directives to mend the relationship. I want you to see that in the very first directive is in verses 1 through 4 of chapter 2. Directive number one is very simple: turn or face the consequences.

I was watching a YouTube clip this morning of a guy who was telling, giving a news broadcast on CNN. And apparently, a lady was watching him give the news broadcast, didn't see the car stop in front of her. He was standing alongside the highway. The next thing that happened is the guy had to flee out of the way as the car came and drove right over the camera. If you, if you don't turn around when the car's coming, you're going to get hit. You can stick your head in the sand all you want, but the rhino is still going to run you over. So he says, "Turn. Turn or face the, face the real problem." Because everything else stems from one problem. I want you to zero in on verses 1-4. Everything comes from one thing.

"Now this commandment is for you, O priests." So notice he comes at them, but he comes at their spiritual leadership. It starts with the spiritual leadership. "If you do not listen and if you do not take to heart to give honor to my name," says the Lord of hosts, "then I will send the curse upon you, and I will curse your blessings, and indeed I've cursed them already because you are not taking it to heart." Underline: "you are not taking it to heart." That's the problem. At the end of this book, do not get caught up in the symptoms. That's the problem. You don't take me seriously. You don't think I am who I say I am. The failure of a believer, the failure of a servant of God not to take seriously who God is, is the failure from which all the other problems will stem.

When God is holy in your mind, it means he is distinct. When you are his servant in your mind, it means he is your master. When those things are not true, when you treat God like he's some friend of yours, but not the Holy One, and when you take that which is distinct and unique about him and trash it, or when you decide that you should be able to negotiate rather than obey, that underlies all of your other problems.

"This book has a good word to all of us. Behold, I am going to rebuke your offspring. Spread refuse on your faces, the refuse of your feasts, and you will be taken away with it. Then you will know that I have sent this command to you, that my covenant may continue with Levi," says the Lord of hosts.

Now, bottom line: face your problem. If you don't face your problem, everything that's going to happen that stems from it will happen. In other words, when God convicts, when God demands, there's a blessing in the demand. What's the blessing in the demand? What's the, what's the good side of conviction? Yeah, now you have to actually do it. Let's just put it this: the blessing of conviction is choice. The blessing of conviction is choice. When I am convicted by God, I now have a choice to change my behavior. Without conviction, you could ignore your behavior. You could get too busy to see it. Let me, let me say it this way: God's conviction is not an untendered gift. Never push against the— God is kicking you with— don't ask God to heighten the tension of conviction in your life, not reduce it. Because by doing so, greater surrender occurs. And when greater surrender occurs, God is able to use your life in greater ways.

Now, let me give you a second directive. And this one's in verses 5-7. I'm going to say it this way: remember the past. Let me say it another way: it wasn't always cold in here. It wasn't always cold between us. Our relationship is on the rocks, but it wasn't always there. This is what I tell couples that walk in having trouble with each other. You didn't start there. You didn't pick this person to be the love of your life so you could torture each other for the next 50 years. That is not how this happened. So I need you to go back. Where did you walk apart from one another?

Now, this is how he says it: "My covenant with him was one of life and peace." Let's stop there. God's desire wasn't to make your life miserable. It was to give you life and give you fulfillment. That's the word "peace." I, I, my intention wasn't to make your life hard. God says, "I know, I know you look at me like I'm making your life hard. My intention was never to do that. I wanted to give you fulfillment." And then he says, "And I gave them to him as an object of reverence, so he revered me and stood in awe of my name." When I gave you a covenant that said, "I will make you special, and we will have relationship," it was like a marriage. I, I walked into Israel and I put my arms around her and I said, "I will make that covenant with you, and it'll be very intimate and personal. But I want you to revere that covenant." If you don't revere that covenant, the whole thing breaks down.

The second thing is, when you go into verse six, he says, "True instruction was in his mouth, and righteousness was not found on his lips." He's talking about the priests. "He walked with me in peace and uprightness, and he turned many back from iniquity. For the lips of a priest should preserve knowledge, and men should seek instruction from his mouth, for he is the messenger of the Lord of hosts." Look at verse seven. "Because that is your call. Every one of you are a chosen generation, a holy priesthood." Peter says. Now take a look at this. What is your job? "The lips of the priest should preserve knowledge." Your job is not to play PR for God. Your job is to say what is true in a compassionate, love-soaked, but nevertheless unbending truth. I can't make wrong right because you want me to. I can't change, "Thou shalt not lie," unless it's you, but you're a nice person, so you can. I'm not going to bend the truth, but I am going to present to you the truth in love. By the way, if you don't speak the truth in love, it just becomes a weapon. So I want you to clothe, when you have hard things to say, clothe them in love, but say them. Verse seven: "For the lips of the priest should preserve knowledge." Then he goes on and says, "And men should seek instruction from his mouth." It is not your job to make people want to do right.

Directive number three. Directive number one: turn or face the consequences. Directive number two: remember the past and who you are. Directive number three: I want you to reflect on the consequence of choosing bad leaders. I'm trying to hold it together right now. I'm just trying not to make any illusions to anything that could be dominating the news right now, okay? Remember the consequences of choosing bad leaders.

Okay, verse eight: "But as for you, you have turned aside from the way; you have caused many to stumble by the instruction; you have corrupted the covenant of Levi," says the Lord. "You priests have literally, by leading people in the wrong direction, have canceled, changed, annulled, beat up, destroyed the agreement I've had with them, simply by your words."

Number four directive is found in verses 10 through 17, and it's more complicated. So I'm going to stop after number four and take a break. But number four is the rest of chapter 2, 10, 10 through 7, 17, okay? And it says, "We have some issues you must face. The symptomatic issues." Okay, let me give you three symptomatic issues that you have to face.

Directive number four: face the symptoms. Deal with the symptoms. Take some Tylenol. You have a headache. That's not the problem, but that's the symptom. Okay. And he says there are issues that they're not the problem. The underlying problem, we've already said, you're not taking me seriously. But the symptoms of the problem are three.

Verses 10 through 12: intermarriage, making relationships that don't honor God. Let's just be straight up about it. Making relationships that do not honor God is a symptom of not taking God seriously. And I can tell you, at various times in my life, those words would have convicted me thoroughly.

12-16: unfaithfulness in marriage. Not only are you intermarrying or making rules or making relationships with people that don't honor God, but unfaithfulness. You're using people in relationships that God gave you instead of cherishing the relationship. You're using people. And so this is unfaithfulness in marriage. That's 12-16.

The third issue, and this is symptomatic. I want you to notice that the first two are about relationships. The sec-, the, the last one is about justification. It's this adjusting truth. It's moving the lines that we've been coloring over. Because what we do is we color past the lines, and then move the lines, and then we feel okay about ourselves. This is adjusting truth, ascribing wrong as right, perverting values.

Number five is this: a time of judgment is set. We have to recognize the holiness of God and his call to holiness. And we saw this so much in Lamentations that I'm going to be very light on how I treat this because you've been following along. But, but listen to what he says. He says, "Behold, I am going to send my messenger, and he will clear the way before me. And the Lord whom you seek will suddenly come to his temple, and the messenger of the covenant in whom you delight, behold, he is coming," says the Lord. "But who can endure the day of his coming? Who can stand when he appears?" I want you to underline just that one phrase: "Who can stand when he appears?" We'll come back to it. "For he is like the refining fire and like the fuller's soap. He will sit as a smelter and a purifier of silver; he will purify the sons of Levi and refine them like gold and silver, so that he may present to the Lord offerings in righteousness. Then the offering of Judah and Jerusalem will be pleasing to the Lord as in the days of old, as in the former days and former years. Then I will draw near to you for judgment, and I will be a swift witness against the sorcerers, and against the adulterers, and against those who swear falsely, and against those who oppress the wage earner in his wages, the widow and the orphan, and those who turn aside the alien and do not fear me," says the Lord of hosts.

I think what's interesting when I look at it is that the Hebrew word Malachi is actually the word for Malachi is in verse one: "I will send my Malachi, I will send my messenger." And that this messenger, it appears to me, to have bifocals. When, when you have bifocals, most of you have never had the privilege, but when you have bifocals, you, you actually see at one level, um, clearly. Like up above, I see distance. And down below, I can see what's in front of me, close. I want you to see that there are two times that are like two distances. Let's call them historical distance. He says, "I'm going to send my messenger who is going to come before the time of the Lord's coming." Now, clearly, when we get to Matthew, we start to see that that's John, in a sense, that Jesus's coming will be, um, led up to by John. Chapter 1, John the Baptizer in the wilderness. But he's calling the Levites to repentance, not just the people. And that's sort of the reflection of what's going on here.

Let me get down to the sixth one. The sixth, um, specific statement or directive is this: there are conditions for cleansing, but they are the same. Same as they have been. Conditions for cleansing. They're not new. They're the same. And here, let me say it in this sentence: show me you live obedience more than self-indulgence. You want to, you want to prove to me that I'm more important than you are to you, then make my choices your choices. You, you don't show God that he's more important while you're self-indulgent. Self-indulgent Christians are their own God. They worship their own need, their own feelings, their own desires, their own pleasures.

Now, where do I get that? Well, verses 6 through 15. Verse 6: "For I the Lord do not change." Underline: "do not change." "Therefore, O sons of Jacob, are not consumed." When he says, "I do not change," he does not mean he does not change in anything or any way. What does he mean? Reading the rest of the sentence is important because people are going to quote this verse out of context. "The Lord does not change." He says, "I do not change." In other words, in relationship to my faithfulness and covenants, I'm not going to renegotiate my covenants after the fact. That's what he's saying. It's not possible to take from that verse that God never changes. It is possible that we sing it, you know, but honestly, it's not true. It's the steadfast love of the Lord that never ceases. He, God is unchanging in terms of his covenant faithfulness. This is not that God never changes anything about himself or anyone else. You can't make that statement. What you can do is look at it and say, "Okay, I see that it could be seen in a broader way, but the context limits it to in as it regards my relationships."

Now, verse 7 says, "From the days of your fathers you have turned aside from my statutes and have not kept them. Return to me, and I will return to you." Underline those words because I want you to, I want your eyes to fall on them later in your life. "Return to me, and I will return to you." Remember the statement: God is for you when you are for him. Do not force him to be less than God and bless your indulgence. God is not here to make much of you. You are here to make much of him. He is not here to tell you, "You're okay," when you're not. He's, God is your heavenly father, not your heavenly mommy. He's not here to comfort you while your eyes tear up. He's here to say, "You need to understand you're wrong." And you need both in your life. So the spirit of God comforts you, but the father tells you you're wrong.

And here's what I need you to see. You say, "How shall we return? How do we come back? How do we come back?" That's what the end of verse 7 is. "How do I come back when I'm doing the wrong thing? When you ask me to come back, what does it look like?" And this is how he says it. He says, "Well, a man robs God." "You're robbing me." "You say, 'How have we robbed you?'" "In tithes and offerings." So step one: you want to come back, give me what's mine. Whatever choice in your life you're holding back, put it back on the table. It's my choice. I get to tell you where this will work, where you go to college, who you marry, what job you take, where you decide to live, how you decide to raise your children, vaccination, no vaccination, do we get a perm or not? It's all of those things. It's the choices are mine before you put holes in my owned property, ask me. Before you paint the house with a permanent paint, ask me. It's mine, not yours. It's on loan to you, but belongs to me.

Now, this is what he says: "You're cursed with a curse, for you're robbing me. Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse, so that there may be food in my house, and test me now in this," says the Lord of hosts, "if I will not open for you the windows of heaven and pour out for you a blessing until it overflows." This has been so badly damaged by prosperity teachers, I don't even know how to address it. God is not saying, "Give me so that I can give you so that you can give me to get." When you give to get, you're not giving. You're trying to get. When you give to get, you're not giving, you're trying to get. The fact that God blesses you is not the reason that you do what he says. You do what he says because it honors him. Then he blesses you. But when you turn it into self-motivation made holy, you've done something very deceptive with the truth.

Here's the bottom line: to bring the whole tithe into the storehouse is not "give more in church this Sunday." I know that's how it gets preached, but that's not what he's talking about. There was no church, and there was no Sunday. Okay? This is about one thing: you priests, you people of Judah, are not living up to the agreement we made. That can be anything. It doesn't have to be money in a, a plate when it goes by. Uh, you owe me the agreement we made. If you will say you are mine, Christian, little Christ follower of Jesus, then follow, or stop calling yourself that.

And then he says this: "Then I will rebuke the devourer for you, so that it will not destroy the fruits of the ground, nor will your vine in the field cast its grapes," says the Lord of hosts. Remember that God is in control of the blessing cycle. It's not beyond his ability to change it. So you could be living in a drought, and you go, "Well, how is honoring Jesus going to help me with the drought?" Jesus is in charge of the drought. That's how. Don't address. Look, the solution to your problem is not the solution to your problem. The solution to your problem is falling before the Lord and letting him do what he will do. Because maybe he wants you to have the problem. Johnny Ericson-Tate was laying in a bed saying, "Oh God, I'm ready to repent of every sin, even ones I haven't committed, if you'll just make my body whole." And she's still a— because that wasn't what God wanted. The prize is Jesus, not a full body. That's, that's the issue.

So here, verse 11: "I will rebuke the devourer." Verse 12: "All the nations will call you blessed, for you will see a delightful land," says the Lord of hosts. Once I start, when you walk with me and I begin to bless your life, other people will see it. It will be obvious to others that I'm at work in you.

Verse 13: "Your words have been arrogant against me," says the Lord. "Yet you say, 'What have we spoken against you?'" "You have said, 'It is vain to serve God. And what profit is it that we have kept his charge and that we have walked in mourning before the Lord of hosts?'" "So now we call the arrogant blessed. Not only are the doers of wickedness built up, but they also test God and escape." What's he saying? He says, "For the time being, you're getting away with self-indulgence and peace and just, and you are actually doing what Peter later says, 'People, people will look around and say, well, where is this God who's going to judge us?' Have you forgotten the flood? There's, there is no God who's going to actually step in and do anything to us." What is the sign of his coming? Peter said, "What people do." And you remember this from earlier in scripture, particularly in Genesis.

Look at verse 15. It says this: "When God doesn't stomp you for doing wrong, you assume he's okay with it." He's not okay with it. If he says he's not okay with it, see his word. He's okay with what he says he's okay with.

Now go to the seventh one, because I want to push you through this. The seventh statement that he makes to mend, the seventh directive that he gives to mend is this: the blessing of the faithful is assured. There's still a way to get clean. He says in 6-15, and in 16-8, he says, "The blessing is assured." Our greatest blessing in the future is God wrapping us in his love. Any sacrifice is worth that. Listen to the way he says it. He says, verse 16: "Then those who feared the Lord spoke to one another, and the Lord gave attention and heard it, and a book of remembrance was written before him for those who fear the Lord and who esteem his name." "They, they will be mine," says the Lord of hosts, "on the day that I prepare my own possession, and I will spare them as a man spares his own son who serves him." "So you will again distinguish between the righteous and the wicked, between one who serves God and the one who does not serve him."

Make no mistake about it. Just saying you have a relationship with God is not the same thing as serving God. Let me say it this way: there are many saved people that aren't Christians. They're saved. They have eternal salvation. At some point in their life, they found God. But they are not followers of Jesus Christ. They were followers of self, working on an eventual heaven plan. Their salvation is like fire insurance, but they're not walking with God at all.

Now, what's the difference between a person who really is and really isn't? That's not my job. That's God's job. I really can't tell you that. I can tell you this: if you're not walking with God, be afraid. Be concerned. Be worried. Because you're not, you can't know. Because 2 Peter 1 says that when you've forgotten those things, he will, he will make you forget you were saved from your sins. It doesn't mean you weren't. It means you will never have assurance when you're walking in disobedience. That is a truth. You will never have assurance when you're walking in disobedience. And by the way, you shouldn't. When you're doing what's wrong, you shouldn't be sure about it.

Now, now look at the eighth and final one as we close in on the end. Chapter 4 ends up with the eighth directive, and it's this: ultimate punishment of hard-hearted people is assured. In other words, there's a time when he blows the whistle, and and everybody gets out of the pool. God's grace doesn't go on and extend forever. You have a time limit on responding to God. I know churches don't like to say that because it sounds so legal-oriented, but it ought to be obvious to us that eventually we die and run out of choices to make a difference in our life. Behavior choices run out. Okay?

So he says, "Ultimate punishment of hard-hearted people is assured." You don't have to stand in the judgment crosshairs of God. There is no reason for you to do that. You can choose not to. But here's what he said: "Behold, the day is coming, burning like a furnace, and all the arrogant and every evildoer will be chaff. And the day that is coming will set them ablaze," says the Lord of hosts. Chaff is not only worthless, it's also quick-burning. It produces nothing in the long term, but burns quickly so that it will leave them neither root nor branch.

Let me just say this: all the work of living a life apart from God will leave with nothing in eternity. It will not matter. There will be great people who did great things on this earth and were measured greatly on the earth. They will be forgotten in eternity because they did not surrender their heart to the God that made them. They didn't take him seriously. And as a result, the long-term prospect for their life dies when they do.

But for you who fear my name, and there it is, for you who fear my name, "the sun of righteousness will rise with healing in its wings." There's a promise for the person who lives life taking God seriously. And that is that the end of life is not a sunset, it's a sunrise. It's a beginning, not an end. And that's what he's trying to say. "The sun of righteousness will rise with healing in its wings, and you will go forth and skip about like calves from the stall." You're going to be young and restless and rambunctious and fun. And, you know, I am convinced that nobody walks in heaven. Everybody skips. Yeehaw! We're all just doing it, you know, because why walk when you can skip?

And he ends with, "You will tread down the wicked, for they will be ashes under the soles of your feet on the day which I am preparing." He's not saying, "Ha, you get back at all those bad people." That's not what he's saying. He's saying that they will go back to the dust and be nothing. Nothing comes of it. Their end is really, "Oh yeah, he was a president, wasn't he?" And there'll be this vague memory of someone who thought they were so important at the time.

Step out of verse three. And here's what I want you to remember: you want to be important in the economy of God? Take God seriously. That's the message of this book. You want to be important in the economy of God? Do you want to be something in God's economy? Take God and his word seriously. And he will make of your life something that has eternal consequence. Or don't. And you'll just be forgotten. And you'll be that guy with the funny hair, or that girl with a, with a stupid sneeze, or whatever. Nobody will remember.

We have to ask the frank and clear question: Am I living in obedience to God's word and God's way? Don't try to cover the question by listing all the things you do. Listen to me. Don't try to cover the question, "Am I taking God seriously?" by all the stuff you do. "I go to church. I, I, I work for the church. I, I sing in the choir. I play in the band. I teach a class. I serve the God." Most of the time, last time I checked, that's not the standard. God isn't saying, "Listen, I know you take me seriously if you work hard at stuff." Do you, do you realize that you can be a really good singer so that people will tell you you're a really good singer, right? And God's not really in that. You can, you can make it out to be God, "I do this for you." That's the husband that comes home and says, "I work those long hours just for you, honey." No, he doesn't. He doesn't because he's affirmed in it. That's why he does it. A lot of the stuff we say we're doing for other people, we're doing for ourselves. And we need to know what that is.

We try to extend grace to people and give them a chance to work out issues in their lives. But I got to remember, our goal is not to hand out free passes to heaven and allow people to continue to live their old, old life. That's not our job. Growth comes from obedience. You take God seriously if you listen to what he says and follow him.

Okay, let me, let me give one final call. This is not these eight directives. This is one final call. It's in chapter 4:4-6. And you can make it its own box if you want. I typically don't, but if you want to, you can do four and make four through six its own thing. It doesn't really matter. I don't remember if we did two boxes or three boxes in the, in the holy section of boxes or whatever. But, um, the bottom line is this is a final call. And the final call is very simple: Le-, the final call is, obey my word and and anticipate the literal fulfillment of everything that I said. Obey my word and take my word so seriously that you actually think I'm going to do what I said.

Now, now, so that I don't talk around it, let me just read the verses to you. Verse four: "Remember the law of Moses my servant, even the statutes and ordinances which I commanded him on Horeb for all Israel." So remember statutes. Engravings. Engravings don't change. In other words, consider for a moment that what I told Moses, I set in stone. When I said, "Don't steal," I meant, "Don't steal." Not, "Don't steal unless it's really going to help some person who's hungry." Stop negotiating what is written.

Second, remember, I also gave you standards. The word "ordinances" is the word "standards" from, from, uh, "si." And so the first thing he says in verse four is, "Take my word seriously because I meant what I said."

Second, he says in verse five: "Behold, I am going to send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and terrible day of the Lord." And he's reprising what he said earlier in chapter 4. He's saying that there's a warning shot that I fire before I come. There's an announcer. "The king is coming! The king is coming!" And he will announce my way before I get there. Listen for the announcement so you know when to stand.

Verse six: "He will restore the hearts of the fathers to their children and the hearts of their children to their fathers, so that I will not come and smite the land with a curse." If you will prepare in repentance and get ready for the King when he arrives. Do you remember Jesus said that that one of the servants went out and and called in the highways and byways, and one man said, "I can't come because I, I married a wife," or "I just bought some oxen," or "I got a field." And he said, "Listen, go out there and get the people in the highways and the byways." And then when he walks in, he tells another story. He says, "When I walked into this feast, there was a guy not dressed for it." He said, "Why are you here? You're not dressed for this." And he ends up by saying, "Many are called, and few are chosen," in Matthew's gospel. But the point of the story was, many people are invited, but not everybody's going to do what's necessary to get ready for the King to come. And the point of this is, I want you to consider your relationships. Fathers to the children, children to the fathers. I want you to consider the restoration of your heart. Am I taking you seriously? Those are the things I want you to consider.

You could look at verse six and say he summarizes the two problems of the book. The two problems of the book are: you didn't take me seriously, and you're messing up all your relationships as a symptom of not taking me seriously. And so he sort of gives you one final call.

In May of 1995, Randy Reid, a 34-year-old construction worker, was welding on top of a nearly completed water tower outside of Chicago. According to the writer, Melissa Ramsdell, Reed unhooked his safety gear to reach for some pipes when a metal cage slipped and bumped the scaffolding he stood on. The scaffolding tipped, and Reed lost his balance. He fell 110 feet, landing face down in a pile of dirt, just missing rocks and construction debris. A fellow worker called 911. When the paramedics arrived, they found Reed conscious, moving, and complaining of a sore back. Apparently, the fall hadn't cost Reed his sense of humor, as the paramedics carried him on the backboard of the ambulance. Reed had one request: "Don't drop me."

And the point is that God is able to deliver you, no matter what you do to contribute to your own fall. But you have to trust his word and obey it when you don't see how it's going to work. You still have to trust his word and obey it. When, when you don't see how being faithful is going to work out in the situation, be faithful and trust his word.

A TV news crew was on assignment in Southern Florida, filming the widespread destruction of Hurricane Andrew some years ago. In one scene, amid the devastation and debris, stood on the house, uh, on a house on its foundation, the owner was cleaning up the yard. When a reporter approached him, "Sir, why is your house the only one still standing on this whole block? Why, when I look around, do I see every house destroyed but here is yours, standing on its foundation, as though the storm hasn't occurred? How did you manage to escape the severe damage of the hurricane?" The man replied, "I built the house myself. I also built it according to the Florida State Building Code. When the code called for two-by-six roof trusses, I used two-by-six roof trusses. I was told that a house built according to code would withstand a hurricane. I did, and it did. Take a look at the houses on this block and see if anyone else did."

See, people don't get it. They think you can cut corners in life and that it'll all work out. There's instructions for a reason. Banging it with a hammer is not the same as assembling it correctly. Okay? You know, when the sun is shining and the skies are blue, and building our lives on something other than the guidelines of God's word seems like it'll work. But when the storm comes, remember what Jesus said: "The wise man builds his house upon the rock." And the storms blow and come in, and the foolish man builds his house on the sand. Can I just remind you at the end of Matthew 7? Both men faced storms. Both the wise and the foolish. Everybody faces storms. The difference is, where did you build your life? And did you build it on what was the rock? The word of my testimony. That's what Jesus said. The rock was. Take his words seriously. Take him seriously. Take your relationship seriously as a symptom of taking his word seriously and him seriously.

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I don't have an offering to bring to you.

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