Category: Malachi

Malachi 1-4 YOU DID IT!

~ Patricia ~ 6 Comments

Chapter 1:

2 “I have loved you,” says the Lord.

“But you ask, ‘How have you loved us?’

WOW.  This brings us right back to Genesis.  Questioning God’s Love.  Adam and Eve listened to the Devil and Questions God’s plan and full love for them.  After reading 9 months, we end with “I Love You”-God.

This dialogue will be personal to everyone who reads it.  What do you bring to the Lord?  The Law stated in Leviticus 1:3 that we only bring an unblemished sacrifice to the alter.  The sacrifice represents Jesus.  Our view of Him is shown through our quality of sacrifice and worship.  I could make a sermon out of this but I won’t.

Chapter 2-“For the lips of a priest ought to preserve knowledge because he is the messenger of the Lord Almighty and people seek instruction from his mouth. 8 But you have turned from the way and by your teaching have caused many to stumble; 

The knowledge of God is not knowledge about God or about the duties of the priesthood.  “Knowledge” translates to the ability to know Him and desire to serve God according to what you know about God.

Next:

10 Do we not all have one Father? Did not one God create us? Why do we profane the covenant of our ancestors by being unfaithful to one another?

Once again, the Jewish people are ignoring the history that caused hundreds of years of idolatry-marrying foreigners.  When trouble comes their way, there is divorce…a breaking of the Covenant.  The Lord despises this.  Thank Heavens He loves us and will never divorce himself from us.

Chapter 3- The Bridge between the OT and NT

“I will send my messenger, who will prepare the way before me. Then suddenly the Lord you are seeking will come to his temple; the messenger of the covenant, whom you desire, will come,” says the Lord Almighty.

Two messengers:

  1. One messenger prepares the way- This will be John the Baptist
  2. Then,  The Messiah they are seeking,  will come to the Temple-the messenger of the Covenant!-Jesus

In Matthew 11 this scripture is quoted:

7 As John’s disciples were leaving, Jesus began to speak to the crowd about John: “What did you go out into the wilderness to see? A reed swayed by the wind? 8 If not, what did you go out to see? A man dressed in fine clothes? No, those who wear fine clothes are in kings’ palaces. 9 Then what did you go out to see? A prophet? Yes, I tell you, and more than a prophet. 10 This is the one about whom it is written:

“‘I will send my messenger ahead of you,
who will prepare your way before you.’

Back to Malachi

For he will be like a refiner’s fire or a launderer’s soap. 3 He will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver; he will purify the Levites and refine them like gold and silver. Then the Lord will have men who will bring offerings in righteousness, 4 and the offerings of Judah and Jerusalem will be acceptable to the Lord, as in days gone by, as in former years.  5 “So I will come to put you on trial. I will be quick to testify against sorcerers, adulterers and perjurers, against those who defraud laborers of their wages, who oppress the widows and the fatherless, and deprive the foreigners among you of justice, but do not fear me,” says the Lord Almighty.

So what does this mean for the Jewish people and all their sins?  Do not fear me says the Lord!  He will always have a Covenant relationship with His People.

THEN the only time the Lord says “Test Me”.  He actually says “TEST ME SO I CAN PROVE IT”.  Did you miss it?  Go back to 3:6-12.

Chapter 4:

4 “Remember the law of my servant Moses, the decrees and laws I gave him at Horeb for all Israel.

5 “See, I will send the prophet Elijah to you before that great and dreadful day of the Lord comes. 6 He will turn the hearts of the parents to their children, and the hearts of the children to their parents; or else I will come and strike the land with total destruction.”

Tomorrow we open in the New Testament with the birth of John the Baptist

13 But the angel said to him: “Do not be afraid, Zechariah; your prayer has been heard. Your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son, and you are to call him John. 14 He will be a joy and delight to you, and many will rejoice because of his birth, 15 for he will be great in the sight of the Lord. He is never to take wine or other fermented drink, and he will be filled with the Holy Spirit even before he is born. 16 He will bring back many of the people of Israel to the Lord their God. 17 And he will go on before the Lord, in the spirit and power of Elijah, to turn the hearts of the parents to their children and the disobedient to the wisdom of the righteous—to make ready a people prepared for the Lord.”

John did for Jesus what Elijah was to have done for the coming of the Lord, but he was not Elijah reincarnated. Jesus identified John the Baptist as Elijah, while John the Baptist rejected that identification. How do we reconcile these two teachings? There is a key phrase in Jesus’ identification of John the Baptist that must not be overlooked. He says, “If you are willing to accept it, he is Elijah.” In other words, John the Baptist’s identification as Elijah was not predicated upon his being the actual Elijah, but upon people’s response to his role.

So here is the deal….and I have stared at this post for hours.  I am sitting in tears.  It’s like I want to write something BIG…I am not sure how to explain this feeling…these are the last words of the Lord for the Old Testament.  This is it.  He will stop talking for 400 years.

 

More posts to come later to transition us to the NT.  ❤️

Malachi Overview

~ Patricia ~ Leave a comment

What's Up With The Blank Page Between the Old and New Testament - San Fernando Valley (SFV) Church | Parks Chapel AME

Well, here we are.  The last Overview of the Old Testament.

We read approximately 2000 years of God’s history in just 9 months.  Amazing.  So on your mental timeline, we are at around 400 BC. (Christ will be born in year 4 B.C.)

This is the last book of the Old Testament and it falls under the category of prophecy in your Bible.   The remnant returned to Jerusalem in about 100 years ago in 3 different journeys.  We had a time of revival under Ezra and Nehemiah but we read the end of History, they went back into the cycle of apostasy (falling away from the Lord).  The priests are lax and degenerate.  The temple is neglected, sacrifices are not a priority.

The Jews are waiting for a King to show up from the Line of David to restore the glory of Jerusalem.  Malachi assures them that the Messiah will come, but it will mean judgment for them rather than glory!  This is the book that will bridge the Old Testament and the New Testament.

“Malachi” means “my messenger.” The prophet’s name was appropriate since God had commanded him to bear this “word” to the people of Israel. The prophet was not the source of the revelation that follows; he was only a messenger whose job it was to communicate a message from The Lord.

Malachi used the ‘question and answer’ method extensively. This method became increasingly popular, and in the time of Christ, the rabbis and scribes used it frequently, as did the Lord Jesus.

Essentially, the Israelites disputed God’s love, His name, and His will concerning: marriage and divorce, His justice, His demands regarding stewardship, and His service.

We will read 4 short chapters about:

  • First, the love for Israel 1:2-5
  • But then:
    • he priests’ illicit practices and indifferent attitudes
    • The people’s mixed marriages and divorces
    • The problem of God’s justice
    • The people’s sin of robbing
    • The arrogant and the humble 3:13—4:3

In each case, they responded by challenging his criticism. They said, “How have we done that?” Their response indicated the hardness of their heart, a resistance to deal with the internal conditions in their hearts that needed correcting. They believed that since they were serving God,  He must be pleased with them. Malachi said that their hearts were not right with God, and He was not pleased with them.

We will end this book with some of the most specific prophecies about the coming Messiah we have read yet!

I still can’t believe we are ending the OT!!!  That was awesome.  (But hard!)

And then Silence for 400 years!!