Alright. If you could take your Bibles, turn to the book of Malachi. And just to give us a bit of an idea of what the book of Malachi is like, we're gonna go ahead and read the first chapter. So not gonna read through the whole book tonight, but I do want to read through the first chapter and kind of give us an idea of the subject matter of this final prophecy before the coming of Christ. Actually, four hundred years before, approximately, before the coming of Christ.

We have the last book here of the Old Testament, the last prophet of the Old Testament preceding the coming of John the Baptist almost four hundred years later. So Malachi chapter one and verse one. The burden of the word of the Lord to Israel by Malachi. Now, the word burden there is a word that indicates prophecy. Prophecy.

It is his burden that God has given him to carry this message and to share it. It is not particularly a pleasant message overall. It is a very blunt rebuke for the most part to Israel. Verse two, God speaking says, I have loved you, saith the Lord. Yet ye say wherein hast thou loved us?

Was not Esau Jacob's brother, saith the Lord? Yet I loved Jacob and I hated Esau and laid his mountains and his heritage waste for the dragons of the wilderness. Whereas Edom, saith, we are impoverished but we will return and build the desolate places thus say it the Lord of hosts, they shall build but I will throw down. They shall call them the border of wickedness and the people against whom the Lord hath indignation forever. And your eyes shall see and ye shall say the Lord will be magnified from the border of Israel.

A son honoreth his father and a servant his master. If then I be a father, where is mine honor? If I be a master, where is my fear? Sayeth the Lord of hosts unto you, O priests that despise my name. And you say, wherein have we despised thy name?

You offer polluted bread upon mine altar. And you say, wherein have we polluted thee? And that you say the table of the Lord is contemptible. And if you offer the blind for sacrifice, is it not evil? And if you offer the lame and the sick, is it not evil?

Offer it now unto thy governor. Will he be pleased with thee or accept thy person? Saith the Lord of hosts. And now I pray you beseech God that he will be gracious unto us. This has been by your means.

Will he regard your persons? Saith the Lord of hosts. Who is there even among you that would shut the doors for naught, neither do you kindle fire on mine altar for naught. I have no pleasure in you, saith the Lord of hosts, neither will I accept an offering at your hand. For from the rising of the sun even until the going down of the same, my name shall be great among the Gentiles.

And in every place incense shall be offered under my name and a pure offering. For my name shall be great among the heathen, saith the Lord of hosts. But ye have profaned it, in that ye say the table of the Lord is polluted and the fruit thereof, even his meat is contemptible. He said also, behold what a weariness is it and you have snuffed at it, sayeth the Lord of hosts. That word snuffed means sneered.

And you brought that which was torn or stolen and the lame and the sick thus she brought an offering. Should I accept this of your hand? Say it the Lord. But cursed be the deceiver which hath in his flock a male and voweth and sacrifices unto the Lord a corrupt thing. For I am a great king, saith the Lord of hosts, and my name is dreadful among the heathen.

So that is a sample of a good bit of what is in this prophecy in this last book of Malachi to Israel before the coming of Christ. Malachi, we'll start with who is Malachi here. Malachi, an otherwise unknown prophet whose name means my messenger. So we don't know anything else about Malachi. We don't read about him in any other book.

But this is the only place we hear from or about Malachi. His name means my messenger, which is fitting. He's a prophet. So he's a messenger from from God to the people of Israel. Malachi is short for Malachi.

When you put the a h on the end, you are signifying in Hebrew a reference to Jehovah. So Malachi means messenger of Jehovah. The last Old Testament prophet and one who is greatly burdened with a message from the Lord, a message of rebuke he has been entrusted to deliver. Sadly, the vast majority of prophets, their messages were messages of rebuke. In general, prophets of the Old Testament were sent to warn the people that they were heading off in a very harmful and wicked, sinful direction.

And the messengers were sent to say, woah, stop. You are leading going down a path that's going to lead to ruin. And God warns his people to stop, but he also tells them that there is a way to get back on the right track. Malachi was writing particularly to Israel. The Jews primarily living in and around the city of Jerusalem, who by virtue of their reverend and insincere worship were on course for the soon coming judgment of God.

As Jonas as God sent Jonah the city of Nineveh, he often sent prophets to his own people to warn them the judgment of God is coming if you stay on this course. Repent, humble yourselves, and he says, I will hear from heaven. I will forgive your sin. I will heal your land. Second Chronicles seven fourteen.

So that's the who. Now the when. When is Malachi writing? He's writing after the return of Israel to the land and after the rebuilding of the temple under Ezra and Zerubbabel. Probably the gen generation following Nehemiah.

So a little history lesson real quick on the nation of Israel. So God brought Israel into the land of Canaan after he delivered them from Egypt. He said unto them, if you will be faithful to me, I will bless you in this land forever that I have given you. But if you turn to idols, I will not send a blessing, I will send a what? I will send a curse and I will scatter you out of your land.

You will be taken captive and placed all all throughout the world. Now, we know what happened, don't we? Israel was not faithful. Israel split into two after Solomon's reign. The Northern kingdom often called Samaria turned away from God from the start and never really turned back.

They'd never had great revival per se that really stuck in Northern Israel. They had great prophets like Elijah and Elisha, but but they never truly turned back to the Lord. They never had a king that that led them in the way of the Lord. And in July, God kept his promise. They turned idols and God said, I'm going to I'm going to rip you from the land I gave you.

And that's what he did by use of the nation of Assyria. And what's the capital city of Assyria? Nineveh. Remember Nineveh? The city that God sent Jonah to.

About a hundred years after God sent Jonah to Nineveh, Assyria would conquer Northern Israel. Because while Nineveh responded, Northern Israel did not. They assumed where God's people were okay. As long as we at least, you know, give at least words spoken, you know, we still believe in God, that's enough. Even though they also worship Baal and worship these other gods.

But Judah, in the Southern part where Jerusalem was, they had some good kings. Their kings were descendants of David and they had good kings like Hezekiah and like Jehoshaphat and like Josiah. And God allowed them to continue and bless them longer, but in May, Babylon came in and conquered Judah. And they took captives and they scattered them throughout the Babylonian Empire, some around the city of Babylon and in other places. Later, Babylon was conquered by Persia and it was under Persia, the king of Persia, that God kept another promise.

You see, by the word of Jeremiah, who was one of the last prophets before Israel was taken captive or actually Saul, Israel being conquered by Babylon, God promised Israel that seventy years after their captivity that God would bring a remnant back to rebuild Jerusalem, to rebuild the the temple, and to reconstitute Judah and Israel. And seventy years after that, under a a governor who would become governor, a grandson of the last king of Judah, Zerubbabel, a group came back sent by Cyrus, king of Media Persia to rebuild Jerusalem. Zerubbabel was the political side of it. Joshua, a man named Joshua was the high priest and Ezra was a scribe that later came and joined them. And then later they were joined by Nehemiah who led in the rebuilding of the of the walls.

So during this time, there was a great revival in Judah. The temple was rebuilt, the sacrifices began again as God had prescribed for Israel under the law. The walls were built. The people came back to Jerusalem and in the surrounding area of Judah and Judah was growing and God was blessing. And the children of Israel had learned their lesson in regards to idols.

Israel never again turned again to worship idols, false gods in the physical sense. They didn't make any graven images. They didn't make any bulls to worship like they did under Jeroboam in Northern Israel. They they did away with the idols. They learned their lesson.

But is that the only problem that man has, is the worship of idols, physical idols? The answer is no. And about a generation later, even though they were going through the proper motions, they began to wander away from God already. They began to take God for granted. Isn't that that's that's the human way, is it not?

You know, God blesses you with some great blessing in your life. Maybe that great blessing is a person, maybe it's a job, maybe it's a church, maybe it's in your relationship with the Lord. And, we're excited and we're happy and and we're all committed to that. And, but then over over time we begin to take those blessings for granted. And then it starts to affect our relationship with other people.

That's what was happening with Judah. They had come back, they were excited, they experienced revival under Ezra and Nehemiah, they were able to bring their sacrifices back to the temple and for a generation it was exciting and they were committed. And then, they start to grow colder and they start to take God for granted. And pretty soon, their heart really isn't in it. Remember the church of Ephesus in the book of Revelation?

Why did God say to the church of Ephesus, you're busy. You're doing a lot. But you've left your first what? Left your first love. Their love was starting to go cruel.

They were taking God's love and his blessings for granted. And I'm afraid that happened to the church in The US a long time ago in general. Taking the blessings of God and and the promises in our relationship with him for granted. And begin just to go through the motions. Go to church, do this, do that, and eventually it begins, I give God two hours on Sunday morning and I have the rest of the week to do what I wanna do.

And that is not Christianity. That is not the Christian life. But that's what we see a lot in the world around us in Christianity today, and that's the kind of thing that was happening here that Malachi had to deal with. Again, this is the last prophecy concerning Israel before the coming of John the Baptist four hundred years later. It's interesting and I just wanna share this with you.

If you look at the end of the book, Malachi chapter four, and look if you would at the last two verses. The last two verses. Malachi four. The last prophecy given by God before we get to the New Testament are these. Behold, I send you Elijah, the prophet, before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord.

And he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children and the heart of the children to their fathers lest I come and smite the earth with a curse. Elijah did not come in person before the coming of Jesus Christ, but someone who Jesus said, if you will receive him, he is the fulfillment of this promise. And who would that be? And that would be John the Baptist. So this verse foretells the coming of the next what?

Of the next prophet. That prophet is John the Baptist, but that is four almost 400 later between this prophecy and the coming of John the Baptist and subsequently the coming of of Jesus Christ. Though this book is full of rebuke, it ends with a what? With a promise of hope. The Messiah is coming.

Messiah is coming. Where? I already mentioned the vicinity of Jerusalem. This is being written. Why did Malachi write this?

To call the people and priests in particular. He talks a lot about the priests in Malachi. To call the people and priests to return to a reverent and sincere worship of God from their irreverent and self absorbed empty religion, simply going through the motions. How does he rebuke them? How does he write?

By posing a series of questions and assertions simulating a debate, point and counterpoint. A dispute of sorts between God and Israel. And if you notice as we read through the first chapter, you have Israel God speaking and Israel responding and then God responding to Israel. God says this, Israel said this, God responds with this. And we have this back and forth dispute that's going on between God and Israel.

And that's the way Malachi wrote this and makes it makes for good preaching as we go through this book on how God is dealing with his people. We are his people today. So let's look at this first dispute, this first debate beginning in verse two. There God says, the Lord says, Jehovah, all capital Lord there, I have loved you. Now he's speaking here specifically to the people of Israel.

He says, I have loved you. He had said many times of Israel that he loved them and would bless them. In Deuteronomy seven and in verse six it says, for thou art an holy people unto the Lord thy God. The word holy there means a consecrated people, a called out people, a people that had been set apart unto God. Okay?

That was special. That was that was incredible that God chose them. He says, for thou art a holy people under the Lord thy God. The Lord thy God hath chosen thee to be a special people unto himself above all people that are upon the face of the earth. Boy, you are blessed Israel.

This is Moses, by the way, speaking from Mount Nebo before he passes the torch to Joshua before they go into the land. Verse seven, he says, the Lord did not did not see his love upon you nor choose you because you were more in number than any people, for you were the fewest of all people. When God chose Israel, he actually chose them before they were people at all. He chose Abraham and then he chose Isaac and then Jacob and then Jacob's 12 sons and family and so forth and so on. Verse eight.

He didn't choose you because you were the largest of people, he says, but verse eight, but because the Lord loved you and because he would keep the oath which he had sworn unto your fathers, hath the Lord brought you out with a mighty hand and redeemed you out of the house of bondmen, slavery, from the hand of Pharaoh, king of Egypt. God says, I love you. I chose you not because you earned it, but because by my grace and mercy I gave it. And I made a promise and an oath and that oath I will what? I will keep.

God always keeps his promises. So God indeed loved Israel as God loves us. It was he who loved us before we loved him. He commended or demonstrated his what? Love for us and that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.

God loves us too. He called us to himself and we responded in faith to accept his offer and become the children of God. So he's God simply declares, I loved you. What is Israel's response? What should Israel's response be?

What should their response be? Yes. We acknowledge that you what? That you love us and you blessed us and you've been merciful to us and you brought us back to the land and you've done all this for us. You would think after all they did and and how they treated God in the past and yet God brought them back to the land as he had exactly as he had promised to do.

You would think they would go, oh, yes, Lord. We know you love us. But what is their response? So verse two again, I have loved you, saith the Lord, yet ye say, wherein hast thou loved us? Israel's response is, what do you mean you love us?

How how could they say such a thing? Out of all the nations of the earth, God chose them. He blessed them. He he protected them. He he showed them mercy for hundreds of years when they were turning their back on him.

And now he had restored them. And yet they said to God, wherein hast thou loved us? How so? How so was Israel's response? I think the problem was they were looking at the current what?

The current circumstances. They were having difficulty with their crops. They were having difficulty with their their neighbors. They were having difficulties in their families. They were struggling, and that's all they could what?

That's all they could see. And they blamed it on who? And they blamed it on God. What is God's response? God's response is this in verse two again.

He says, was not Esau Jacob's brother? Yet, I loved Jacob and I hated Esau. And laid his mountains and his heritage to waste for the dragons of the wilderness. Now, most other translations have jackals for dragons. It's probably not when we read that word, you're probably thinking of, you know, dragons, fire breathing air, but it's probably speaking of some other kind of animal.

So he says, I chose you and not Esau and laid the mountains of of Esau's descendants, the place where they lived is called Edom, And laid his mountains and his heritage to waste for the dragons or the jackals, scavengers probably of the wilderness. Wherein Edom saith, Edom, again, the nation that descended from Esau. We are impoverished but we will return and build the desolate places thus saith the Lord of hosts. They shall build but I will throw what? I will throw down.

They and they shall call them, that is the borders of Edom, the border of wickedness and the people against whom the Lord hath indignation forever. And your eyes shall see and you shall say the Lord will be magnified from the border of Israel. So God says, did I not choose you over Edom? Did I not choose Jacob over over Esau? In Romans nine thirteen, it says this, as it is written, Jacob have I loved, but Esau as I hated have I hated.

And where is Paul quoting from? He's quoting right here from Malachi. Or he's quoting from a couple other places in the Old Testament where it says something very very similar. I chose you, Jacob. I chose you Israel over the Edomites.

And I have been faithful to you and will continue to be. But Edom Edom will be left desolate. Israel will be restored but Edom Edom will be what? Destroyed forever. God could have chosen many examples, could he not, to share with Israel?

But he chose this one. And I think here's the reason. Okay? In May, as I mentioned, Babylon came in and just leveled Jerusalem and took the people captive. And God told them seventy years later by the mouth of Jeremiah, I'm gonna bring you what?

I'm gonna bring you back. Well, he sustained them in captivity. He protected them when Haman was trying to destroy them all by putting Esther in the right place at the right time in the Persian Empire. And then he sent them back by the hand of Cyrus, a heathen king of Media, Persia. And they began to rebuild.

And rebuild they did. And protected they were. Protected by decree of King Cyrus and Xerxes and others after him. Left alone to do pretty much their own thing. And they reconstituted Judah, what became Judea in in Jesus's day.

And God blessed them, sent them people like Ezra, Nehemiah, so May, Israel Jerusalem's conquered. Seventy years later, they come back. However, according to Obadiah, another prophet, when Jerusalem fell, who took advantage? The neighboring nation. And the neighboring nation was Edom.

Edom rejoiced when Jerusalem fell to Babylon and they took advantage and they spoiled Jerusalem, the Edomites did. And God pronounced judgment on them by the by the word of Obadiah, if you wanna read the very short book, one chapter of Obadiah who pronounced judgment on the nation of Edom for taking advantage of their distant relatives, the Israelites. And he said, you will be destroyed and you will never what? You will never come back, you will never be rebuilt again. And in May, this is thirty some years later, Edom falls to Babylon.

And unlike Israel, Edom is never reconstituted again. Edom's kingdom which wasn't in which is was quite the kingdom, lasted for hundreds of years. You remember when Israel came up from Egypt, they came up to the southern border of of Judea and we're gonna go around and who got in their way? The Edomites that ruled from Mount Seir, their capital city in Edom. They were still there hundreds of years later when Jerusalem was destroyed by Babylon.

But then thirty some years later, Edom was destroyed and Edom was never rebuilt. Interesting enough, the people of Edom that remained fled in the parts of Judah where they became known as I can't. That that word leaves me. The Edomites became Idumians. Idumians.

Some of them lived just the other side of the Jordan River. And when the Jews went to Galilee from Judea, they would cross the Jordan and go through Idumea and back up. But they never reconstituted their land. They lost their land forever. And after the days of Jesus, the Edomites and the Idumians disappeared altogether.

There are no distinct there is no distinct people group today called the Edomites. There is no distinct people group just a few years after Jesus's day called the Idumians. A matter of fact, the only Idumean that was well known as such in Jesus' day and thereafter was a particular family who ruled in Israel and that was the Herods. Herod the great was half Idumean. He was half Jew, his mother was an Idumean.

But that was about the last we hear of the Edomites and their their country, their kingdom was never again reconstituted. God not only reconstituted Israel, but you can get on a plane and you can fly today and you can touch down in Tel Aviv and you can drive to Jerusalem and you can visit the nation of what? You can visit the nation of Israel where hundreds and thousands and millions of Jews have returned to. Israel exists. Edom hasn't existed nor will it ever exist again.

What's the difference? God said, Jacob have I loved and Esau have I hated. God chose Jacob. He chose Jacob before he was even what? Before he was even born.

And God says, wherein do you say that I don't love you? Look look what happens to Edom and tell me that I don't love you. Look at all the things that I have done throughout your history despite your rebellion and don't tell me that I don't love you. Time and time again, God delivered his people out of the fire and brought them back. Like Israel, we sometimes are extremely short sighted people.

We tend to make rash and inaccurate judgments of both others and even God based on a single act or a present circumstance, forgetting that all God and others have done for us in the past. Before we jump on Israel and say, yeah, this is terrible, they should have known God loved them. They should have respected him. They should have responded with love and gratitude. Let's be careful that we don't make the same what?

The same mistake. How many times in my ministry have I heard people say, but God doesn't love me or God doesn't care for me. If God loved me or God cared for me, why would this happen? Why would that happen? Why would this happen?

That is human nature. It isn't a good one because we are very short sighted. I don't know how many times I've had to deal with with people with issues with one another or seen relationships crumble because of something that somebody did or somebody said. And all it takes is one bad hurtful thing and they forget all of the what? All the good and all the love and all the sacrifice that went before it and all they see is just this one this one thing.

That's human nature. It's not a good side of human nature. And it's certainly not good that we would treat God in the same manner. Don't forget what God has done for you. Try to see what God is doing amidst the hardship and the trials.

And remember what he has promised for the what? For the future. He said to his disciples, don't be don't be so concerned, don't be so despondent. Yes, I'm leaving but but it's gonna be for your good because when I leave I'm gonna send who? The Holy Spirit.

He won't be just with you, he will be in you. He said, don't worry about me leaving because I'm leaving to go prepare a what? A place for you. And if I go to prepare a place for you, doesn't it make sense that someday I'm gonna come and take you to the place that I'm preparing for you? But we get so caught up in what's going on today that we forget about yesterday and we forget about tomorrow.

Remember what God has done and treat him with gratitude and love and faith. He knows what he's doing. The people of Israel were having troubles during the time of Malachi and they blamed who? They blamed God for their troubles. And Malachi is trying to open their eyes and show them the problem isn't with God.

The problem is with you. God hasn't changed. He loved you in the past. He loves you today. He'll love you tomorrow.

This mistake did Israel make in questioning the goodness of God when they should have been instead asking, what have we done wrong? Or what is our loving God trying to teach us? Sometimes, his chastening hand is on us for good reason. Sometimes, like in the case of Job, there is something to be learned. There is growth to be had.

We just need to learn to trust him. Trust in the Lord with all thine heart, lean on into thine own understanding, in all thy ways acknowledge him and he shall direct thy paths. Let's pray. Dear God, thank you, Lord, for the lesson this evening. Thank you, Lord, for the example that you have recorded for us and preserved in your word to help us to not make the same mistakes that others before us have made.

To look for the hand of our loving God even in times of trouble. To count it all joy when we fall in the diverse temptations and trials knowing that the trying of our faith worketh patience and we might grow in our faith. Lord, forgive us when we make excuses for our sin, when we get depressed and despondent over our circumstances, when we question your ways. And help us, Lord, instead to to trust you more, to love you more, to recognize what you have done for us in sending your son to die on the cross. What you have done for us in forgiving our sins, giving us your spirit and preserving us a home in heaven that's waiting for your children.

Thank you, Lord, for all that you have done. May we not forget in times of trouble. May we thank you even then. In Jesus' name we do pray. Amen.