SAINT PAUL COMMUNITY CHURCH
Nearly 2500 years ago God sent His prophet to rebuke His people
for their corrupt worship of the Lord. Even though it was a message for the nation Israel then, it has strong spiritual parallels for His people
today... THE CHURCH. It is a message that would fit in most pulpits and pews across our nation. It's not a message that is denominational in tone but
applicable in every facet of the Church across America, today! The purpose of the Malachi Ministry Page is to show the uncanny parallel between the
church in America today and the nation Israel in the day of Malachi’s Ministry
Before you begin reading this page, please prayerfully petition God’s
Messenger, His Holy Spirit, for Spiritual clarity and understanding of the writing. It is written with much concern for pastors and patrons in the
Body of Christ. May God bless the reading of this word.
Malachi-
(Hebrew) “my messenger”
Date: most date the writing between 450-400BC
Purpose/Theme: God’s messenger rebukes a nation (Israel) for their
disobedience, not only to God’s Word but also for vows they had made to Jehovah God but had not fulfilled. The purpose of the message was to bring
their error front and center and call them to repentance.
In order for us too fully understand God’s sending Malachi, we must
understand what had transpired prior to the time of the writing. Approximately 100 years had had passed since the Jews had returned to Palestine. They
had experienced seventy-years of captivity under the strong arm of Babylon.
In the book of Ezra we read that through God’s prophetic (Jeremiah
25:11) word, Cyrus King of Persia decreed that God’s people could return to Jerusalem to re-build a house (temple) for the Lord, The God of Israel.
Approximately 50,000 Jews returned 535 BC under the leadership of Zerubbabel and the foundation was laid. The temple was completed 2o years later in
515 BC. The fact that it took 20-years to complete the rebuilding of the temple is a strong indication of the opposition that God’s people
encountered. Cf. Nehemiah Chpt. 1 – 6).
After the city (Jerusalem) and the temple was restored, God’s people
relished in a time of celebration, and a time of rejoicing. God's people praised Him in psalm and worship because in His mercy, He had kept His word.
All the people gathered themselves together as one man into the street that was before the water gate; and they
spoke unto Ezra the scribe to bring
the book of the Law of Moses, which the Lord had commanded to Israel. And he read therein before the street that was before the water gate from the
morning until mid-day, before the men and women, and those that could understand; and the ears of all the people were attentive unto the book of the
law. Nehemiah 8:1;3
This was not only a time of celebration but more importantly, a time
of repentance. Israel had been a nation that had been separated from their God for seventy-years because of their sin but were now back and enjoying
an intimate relationship with their God. During this time of revival and festivities, the people made four promises to God.
Reference Nehemiah 10:28-39
Ø
The people agreed not to marry the sons and daughters of the heathens
Ø
They promised to keep the Sabbath and holy days free of commercial
activity.
Ø
They promised to observe the sabbatical year.
Ø
The promised to support the Temple.
Before we get in to the details of Malachi’s message we need to understand how God looks
at the promises that we vow to Him. In Ecclesiastes 5:1-5 Solomon says (1)
“keep thy foot when thou goest to the house of God, and be more ready to hear, than to give the sacrifice of fools; for they consider not that they
do evil. (2) Be not rash with thy mouth, and let not thine heart be hasty to utter any thing before
God: for God is in heaven, and thou upon the earth: therefore let thy words be few. (3) For a dream
cometh through the multitude of business; and a fool’s voice is known by multitude of words. (4)
When thou vowest a vow unto God, defer not to pay it; for he hath no pleasure in fools, pay that which thou hast vowed. (5)
Better is it that thou shouldest not vow, than that thou shouldest vow and not pay”.
In essence, when we make a promise to God, it is in the common
vernacular, “serious business”. If we don’t intend to keep the promise, we would be better not to vow it, because God is not as man. He
does not count our words a light thing; He demands we keep it, if we vow it.
The messenger was sent by God to rebuke His people for their foolish
worship. They had polluted the worship of Jehovah by offering sacrifices unto the Lord that were blind, lame and sick. This was clearly forbidden in
God’s law… their sacrifice was to be without spot and without blemish.
They not only brought the worst of the offering but they viewed their
worship of Jehovah as a toilsome event, it was “weariness unto them; they snuffed at (belittled) it”. It is safe to say they went to church
but while the songs were a singing and the preacher was a preaching, they really wished they were somewhere else doing something else. To look and
listen they gave the appearance of being sincere. They had the external trappings but something greater was missing.
They had drawn close to the
Lord with their mouth and their lips, but they had removed their hearts was far from Him. This is not the way the Lord wants it. Our worship and
service for Him should originate from a willing heart. cf. Exodus 35:29 God looks beyond the external to see if there is a willing and joyful spirit
in the heart.
God admonished them to give the same sacrifice and service that they
were giving to Him to the Governor and see if “he would be pleased with thee or accept thy person?” The answer of course would be, absolutely
not! If we performed in our secular responsibilities, (jobs) with the same faithfulness and vigor that we serve our Lord, we would probably be
unemployed. To be quite honest, we would have been fired a long time ago. This unfaithful spirit warrants great condemnation- comparable to the
lukewarm Laodician spirit (Rev.3:14-22) that we see in the church in America.
Although all the people were guilty of this profane worship, God
focused His attention on the responsibility of the priest. They had despised His name by not holding true to His word and accepting nothing less than
total obedience. The priest were the ones given the responsibility for turning the people back to God in truth and giving glory to His name.
Under the ministry of the Old Testament, God had given the Levite
(priesthood) the responsibility of being the spiritual liaison between man and Himself…
“For the priest’s lips should keep knowledge, and they should
seek the law at his mouth: for he is the messenger of the Lord of hosts”, but due to their lack of spiritual authority and responsibility, “they
had departed out of the way; they had caused many to stumble at the law; they had corrupted the covenant of Levi.”
Herein lies a very important spiritual principle; when the ones who
should know and acknowledge God and His word, but don’t fulfill that responsibility, the profanity spreads to others. We can see an example of this
in Jeremiah 23:9-11. In the following verses
(10) we see the land mourneth and the places of the wilderness are dried up, their
course is evil and their force is not right…. God has withheld His blessing on the land. Why? - Because the land is full of adulterers…. The
people had forsaken God and walked in the lust of their own flesh. Why? – Because
(11)
both the prophet and the priest are profane; yea, in my house have I found their wickedness, saith the Lord.
The results are this, when the spiritual foundation of a nation crumbles, it has far
reaching affects, the entire nation, both the people and the land suffers. The condition is a digressive one. When those that are placed in a
spiritual leadership role, do not see that spiritual light (TRUTH) is
disseminated, the people (church) divert from the straight and narrow way and began to bask in error and are left to satisfy the lust of the flesh.
When the people of God (church) have no spiritual direction (LIGHT)
the nation is left to
the influences of the spirit of darkness, and he that walketh in darkness knoweth not whither he goeth (cf. John 12:35). When a nation forgets
God and turns their back on His Word, He withholds His blessing, and a people and land void of God’s blessing is a nation most miserable and without
hope.
Rightfully, the priest (pastors) received the first rebuke from God’s
Messenger, but the people (church) were not without fault. If you remember, they had made four promises to God, approximately 14 years earlier at a
revival meeting and had failed miserably in each of the four commitments.
It began with their inability to remain a separate and holy people cf.
Deut. 14:2 “for thou art an holy people unto the Lord thy God, and the Lord hath chosen thee to be a peculiar people unto himself, above all the
nations that are upon the earth”. God did not want them to worship the false gods of the people of the land and to intermarry would certainly
result in them turning from the True and Living God to worship another god. cf.
Deuteronomy 7:3-4
(3) “neither shalt thou make marriages with them; thy daughters thou shalt no five
unto his sons, nor his daughter shalt thou take unto thy son.
(4)
for they will turn away thy son from following me, that they may serve other gods:”
God knew that their only hope to remain true and committed to Him would to abstain from intermarrying. They failed miserably and intermarried
the daughters of a strange god and forsook the God of their fathers.
They not only had found themselves in spiritually mixed marriages but to compound the sin, they had dealt treacherously with the wife of thy youth, the wife of thy covenant. Divorce was rampant in the church and there was no conviction concerning the principles from God's Word; therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother and shall cleave unto his wife, and they both shall be one flesh- let none deal treacherously against the wife of thy youth. It may have been that they were divorcing their Jewish wives to marry the women from the heathen land. Concerning divorce in the church, the believer must consider his/her own relationship with the God of their salvation the Lord Jesus Christ. This is a great mystery but it is spoken concerning Christ and the church. cf. Ephesians 5:22-33. Surly we would not want our Beloved to turn us away?
The Spiritual Adultery of the Church
It is true in the church today. As the church dabbles (intermarries)
in the doctrine and the philosophies of the world, it will always result in drawing the believer away from Truth and will cause one to forsake his/her
allegiance to the Word of God. As the believer begins to give place to false doctrine the results are
seen in the strong warnings of..... 2 Timothy 4:1 “the believer will depart from the faith (truth)
giving heed to seducing spirits and doctrine of devils.” The believer must understand the main
objective of the enemy of God- Satan wants to thwart the truth of God’s Word and supplant it with lies and
deception, which he is the father of.
The crumbling foundation of God’s Word is only the beginning of a
nations spiritual demise. Once Satan had the nation in a compromising union with the heathen nations, he
began to influence the desires of their flesh. They began to focus their time and attention on things other than God, ultimately forgetting the
promises and vows they had made unto the Lord.
As the nation began to focus their time and attention on things other than God, they began to take for granted the privilege they enjoyed in their personal relationship with the True and Living God. This truth is evident in every realm of life.... when a person is blessed with material possessions, the odds are that the individual will eventually end up taking that blessing for granted. We become so accustomed to having the possession that we expect it to always be available; it is only when we loose it that we began to gain a grateful appreciation once again.
We see this evident in nations where Christians are persecuted for their faith in Christ. It is amazing to see the spiritual determination of the believer and what they will sacrifice to get God's Holy Scripture. They travel for miles and even risk their lives just for an opportunity to posses a small portion if only a page from God's Word. Then the believers will assemble together to put the pages together to share in God's Word... what commitment and dedication? In this country (America) the average home has 4+ Bibles and we must agree they are never even read, or if so; with little or no enthusiasm to hear the voice of God speak to his child.
"Behold the Lord hath showed us His glory and His greatness, and we have heard His voice out of the midst of the fire: we have seen this day that God doth talk with man and He liveth" Deuteronomy 5:24
I am concerned that the vast majority of God's people have never had an intimate and personal revelation from God's Word. He is alive does speak to His people today... have you heard His voice?
In these same persecuted countries the believers are imprisoned and oft times executed for their public worship and testimony for Christ. While in America the church enjoys the liberty of worshiping openly, without fear of persecution and for the most part can freely share our faith in Christ with those that we come in contact with on a daily basis, yet in this country the church is stagnant at best in its worship for the Lord of Glory and to speak of His name in public is at best a rare event.
As the nation Israel took for granted the God of their fathers they found their promises fruitless; they had backslidden and became mechanical in their observance of the law. Their commitment to the Lord lacked heart. Even though they were lax in their worship and delinquent in their tithing, they could not understand why God was dissatisfied with them. Consider the old adage "we see things not as they are but we are". It is possible to be blind or over look the obvious truth. It is like the scribes and Pharisees that brought the woman taken in adultery to Christ asking, the Law commands that such should be stoned, but what sayest thou? cf. John 8 It is apparent that they had no trouble seeing the sin of the woman yet a spirit void of conviction concerning their own sin.
Their specific violations of the Law included sorcery, adultery, false swearing, withholding wages, oppressing the widow and the orphan and injustice to the stranger. Many of these could be said of churches in America today! God said because of their sin, that He would come near to them in judgment. When the people of God, forsake His Word and commit spiritual adultery Gods pending judgment is certain.
Yes, the promise of God's faithful Word. If my people which are called by my name shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land. II Chronicles 7:14
God Bless
Brother Dennis
[Return to Saint Paul Community Church Home Page]