We take a detour when we tell others that following God's ways is foolish and futile...

This week, I would like for us to finish looking and the final section of a letter that is recorded for us in the Old Testament of our Bibles called the book of Malachi. And once again we will see Malachi accuse the Jewish people of taking another 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. So let’s look together as Malachi makes his accusation, beginning in Malachi 3:13:

           "Your words have been arrogant against Me,"
           says the LORD. "

Malachi begins be revealing another accusation that the Lord had against the Jewish people: “Your words have been arrogant against Me”. Now this word arrogant, in the language that this letter was originally written in, literally means to be strong or harsh. This accusation, if communicating in the language that we use in our culture today, would have sounded something like this: “You have used strong and harsh words against Me when you have talked about Me to others”. After revealing the accusation against the Jewish people, Malachi then records their response in the second half of verse 13:

"Yet you say, 'What have we spoken against You?'”

Once again, we see the Jewish people respond to the prophet’s accusation with a plea of ignorance. “What have we spoken against You?” In other words, the Jewish people were saying “What have we said about You that was harsh? We haven’t said anything bad about You.” After hearing the Jewish people’s denial, Malachi, provides the evidence of their strong and harsh words against the Lord in verses 14-15. Let’s look at the evidence together:

"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.'"

In these verses, we see Malachi reveal four different statements that the Jewish people were making about the Lord that served as evidence of the strong and harsh words that they were using against the Lord. First, the Jewish people were saying that it was vain to serve God.  Now when Malachi uses the word vain here, this word literally refers to something that foolish, futile, and worthless.  So, in essence the Jewish people were telling others that serving and following the Lord was foolish and worthless.

Second, the Jewish people were saying “what profit is it that we have kept His charge. This phrase, if communicated in the language we use in our culture today, would have sounded something like this: “what do we gain by observing His commands? How does it benefit us to walk in His ways?”

Third, the Jewish people told others that “we have walked in mourning before the LORD of hosts”. But what does that mean? The Jewish people were painting a word picture for those listening of how a person conducted themselves at a funeral. In the Jewish culture of the day, a person who attended a funeral would not get dressed up in their best black outfit. Instead, the Jewish people would demonstrate their mourning by making their appearance very unkempt and by wailing loudly. The Jewish people painted this word picture to communicate to others that they no longer found joy on following God. Instead, like attending a funeral, it was a dreadful duty that did not benefit them at all to try to be right with God.

And, if that was not bad enough, in verse 15, Malachi provides an additional piece of evidence that the Jewish people were telling others: “So now we call the arrogant blessed”. Now in the Bible an arrogant person is someone who places themselves above God and others as being prominent and preeminent. An arrogant person is bold and disrespectful. And arrogant person presumes that they are better than others and will selfishly and rebelliously do things out of that arrogance that place themselves in opposition to God and others.  The Bible, from cover to cover, make is abundantly clear that God opposes those who are proud and arrogant. However, what the Jewish people were telling others is that God blesses the arrogant. 

The Jewish people then attempted to justify their statements by saying that God does not punish the selfishness and rebellion of the arrogant. Instead, as they looked around at those who were arrogant, they seemed to be prospering. From the perspective of the Jewish people, the arrogantly selfish and rebellious person repeatedly tested God through their rebellion, yet seemed to escape judgment and punishment for their rebellion. And based on what the Jewish people were observing, they had come to the conclusion and were telling others that God blessed those who arrogantly opposed God.

The Jewish people were telling others “It is foolish and worthless to follow God and keep His commands. After all, what have we gained from serving and following the Lord? Those who arrogantly rebel against God are not being punished; instead they seem to be having all the fun and seem to be doing fine financially. So, you are better off not to follow the Lord, because following the Lord is just a dreadful duty. I mean I even don’t know why we are following Him”.

And it is here where we see 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. And that timeless detour is that we take a detour when we tell others that following God's ways is foolish and futile.

Just like the Jewish people of Malachi’s day, when we tell others that following Jesus is foolish and futile; when we tell others that there is no benefit or gain by following Jesus; when we communicate to others, either verbally or through our body language, that following Jesus is a joyless duty; when we tell others that it is better off to be far from God than to follow God because God does not deal justly with arrogance, selfishness, and rebellion, we have taken a huge detour that gets us off track when it comes to our relationship with God and that dishonors God.

But not only do we take a huge detour that gets us off track in our relationship with God and dishonors God when we tell others that following God’s ways is foolish and futile. When we tell others that following God’s ways is foolish and futile we reveal a powerful distinction that exposes us to some extreme consequences.

Tomorrow, we will see Malachi unpack this reality…