This week we are looking at a section of a letter in our Bibles called the book of Malachi. Yesterday, we saw Malachi reveal for us a timeless detour that can get us off track when it comes to our relationship with God and can result in us living a life that dishonors God in that we take a detour when we deny God’s justice.
Just like the Jewish people of Malachi’s day, when we live our day to day lives as though it is good to do evil; when we begin to arrogantly and skeptically question the justice of God, we begin to take a detour that gets us off track when it comes to our relationship with God and that dishonors God. Today, we see Malachi respond to the Jewish people’s arrogance and skepticism by providing God’s response to their questions in Malachi 3:1:
"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 of hosts.
God responds to the Jewish people’s willingness to test and try His patience by arrogantly questioning His justice with an amazing answer to their questions. God’s answer, if communicated in the language we use in our culture today, would have sounded something like this: So, you think that I approve of evil. Well, here’s the deal. Just like an earthly king customarily sends a messenger ahead of him to inform those whom he is visiting of his arrival, I will be sending a messenger ahead of My arrival. That messenger will call the people to prepare for My arrival by removing the obstacles of unbelief that would cause them to miss My arrival. I am coming and you will be surprised by My coming because it will come suddenly and in a way that you will not expect.”
You see, the Jewish people delighted in the idea of the Messiah coming because they thought the Messiah’s coming would result in them receiving the blessings of being restored to prominence in the world. And the Jewish people expected the Messiah to be a conquering king who would lead to a military and political victory. But, 150 years after being conquered and deported by the Babylonians and after spending over 100 years rebuilding the Temple and the city of Jerusalem, that had not happened yet.
So the Jewish people began to question God’s justice as they continued to selfishly rebel and reject the Lord and take detours when it came to living in relationship with God. And in the midst of those detours, Malachi answers the question “does God approve of evil?” by saying “the Lord is coming and you will be surprised by His coming because it will come suddenly and unexpectedly”.
Malachi then proceeds to respond to the Jewish people’s perception that the Messiah’s coming would result in delight and the blessings of restoration, by revealing the problem that they would face upon His arrival in Malachi 3:2:
"But who can endure the day of His coming? And who can stand when He appears? For He is like a refiner's fire and like fullers' soap.
Here we see Malachi ask two rhetorical questions designed to respond to the Jewish people’s accusation that “it is good to do evil” and that God was pleased and delighted with those who were involved in selfishness and rebellion. First Malachi asks “But who can endure the day of His coming?” In other words, Malachi is asking, who is able to survive the justice of the Lord when He comes to earth?
The prophet then asks a second rhetorical question: “And who can stand when He appears?” Now this word, to stand, in the language that this letter was originally written in, literally means to be able to stand upright. Malachi is asking, who will be able to stand before the Lord in a way that reveals that they are right with Him when He comes to earth?
Now these rhetorical questions were designed to reveal the reality that the Jesus’ coming would result in the Jewish people having to answer for the many detours that had taken that had resulted in them being far from God and dishonoring God. Malachi uses two different word pictures to hammer this point home. First, Malachi paints the word picture of a refiner’s fire. What would happen in the Jewish culture of Malachi’s day was that a smelter would use an extremely hot fire in order to refine metal. As the metal was heated, the dross and impurities would rise to the top and would be removed.
Malachi then paints a second word picture, this time of fuller’s soap. Fullers soap was a launderer’s soap that was used to remove stubborn stains from a garment. These word pictures were designed to hammer home the reality that, just as a fire removes impurity from metal and just as soap removes impurity from clothes, the Lord’s coming to earth would result in impurity and injustice being removed from the earth.
Malachi is asking the Jewish people “Are you sure you want the Lord to come, because the Lord is not going to respond well to you saying that it is good to do evil. Do you really want the Lord to come, because when He comes He is going to come like a fire and like a soap that will remove the impurity and injustice that you claim that God is pleased and delighted with.” Malachi then provides another word picture to describe what would occur in the lives of the Jewish people upon the Lord’s arrival in verses 3-4:
"He will sit as a smelter and purifier of silver, and He will purify the sons of Levi and refine them like gold and silver, so that they 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 and as in former years.
In these verses we see Malachi paint the word picture of a smelter at work. During the Jewish culture of Malachi’s day, a smelter sat bending forward over a small melting furnace to evaluate whether the color of the metal they were refining was pure. Malachi uses this word picture to reveal the reality that the Lord would be a refiner that would cleanse and purify His people. And as a result of this cleansing and purifying work, the Jewish people would present to the LORD offerings in righteousness. The offerings that Malachi is referring to here were voluntary grain offerings that were offered as an expression of worship.
Malachi’s point here is that the Lord would come to purify His people so that they would worship the Lord in the right manner and in a right relationship with Him. As in the days before the Jewish people began to take detours that dishonored God, the Jewish people would offer up a lifestyle of worship that was pleasing to God, that honored God, and that held God in a reverent awe.
Tomorrow, we will see Malachi respond to the second accusation that the Jewish people held that denied God’s justice…
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