This is the latest in our series on the minor prophets called “The Prophets Speak Again”. As in the past, we’ll take a message from the Lord to ancient Israel and see if there’s a parallel application in our world today. But first lets get a little better acquainted with Malachi.

The name Malachi means “my messenger”. Very little is known about him, and some even speculate that Malachi was a title rather than a name, making the book’s author unknown. But most say he was a real person, a prophet who spoke to Israel for God somewhere between 433-425 BC. That would place his time of service after those of Haggai and Zechariah, during the early days of the Second Temple period.

According to Jewish history, a man named Malachi was a member of the Great Assembly, a body of 120 leaders who were the ultimate authority in Israel at that time. He was most likely the same Malachi whose book we’re about to read.

(The second Temple is often called Herod’s Temple but it was originally built under the direction of Zerubbabel following the return from Babylon. The first Temple, built by Solomon, had been destroyed by the Babylonians.

Zerubbabel’s Temple was expanded during the Hasmonean dynasty (140-116 BC), but in 20 BC King Herod began such a dramatic renovation project that it was swallowed up in the grandeur of his reconstruction, and that’s when the Second Temple became known as Herod’s Temple.)

The Jews of Malachi’s time had lost hope in the promises God had made through Haggai and Zechariah. These included a promise that the glory of Zerubbabel’s Temple, which was a much more modest structure than Solomon’s Temple, would be greater than the one it replaced and would be the place where God would grant peace (Haggai 2:9). He said henceforth He would always bless them (Haggai 2:19) and He said He would return to Zion and dwell in Jerusalem (Zechariah 7:3) as king of the whole world (Zechariah 14:9).

We now know that some of these were fulfilled in the Lord’s first coming while others await His return. But in Malachi’s time the people felt they were overdue for fulfillment and began to doubt whether God was sincere.

By the time Malachi came on the scene this doubt had led to rampant corruption in the priesthood and a spiritual lethargy among the people. They became focused on their difficult circumstances and refused to see that their own sinfulness was the cause of their problems. Malachi’s task was to call them to account for their lack of faith. After all, it had been over 1,000 years since God had made His covenant with Abraham and their history was filled with the evidence of His faithfulness.

Most experts believe that Malachi was the last prophet of Old Testament times. After his time of service was completed a 400 year silence followed, ending when John the Baptist came on the scene to herald the coming Messiah. With that, let’s begin our study of the Book of Malachi

Malachi 1
An oracle: The word of the Lord to Israel through Malachi.Israel Doubts God’s Love
“I have loved you,” says the Lord. “But you ask, ‘How have you loved us?’ “Was not Esau Jacob’s brother?” declares the Lord. “Yet I have loved Jacob, but Esau I have hated, and I have turned his hill country into a wasteland and left his inheritance to the desert jackals.”
Edom may say, “Though we have been crushed, we will rebuild the ruins.” But this is what the Lord Almighty says: “They may build, but I will demolish. They will be called the Wicked Land, a people always under the wrath of the Lord. You will see it with your own eyes and say, ‘Great is the Lord—even beyond the borders of Israel!’ (Malachi 1:1-5).

God used the contrast in His treatment of Esau and Jacob as evidence of His love for Israel. No matter what the descendants of Esau did to restore themselves, He would destroy it, and they would be known as the Wicked Land. Yet He had been actively involved in Israel’s restoration in the Promised Land. Even though their sins against Him had brought about their judgment and 70 year captivity, He sent Cyrus the Persian to free them. And under the leadership of Ezra and Nehemiah He had brought them back to the land He had given their forefathers and helped them rebuild both their temple and their city.

Those who teach that people have no choice about being saved like to use Romans 9:13, which is a quote from Malachi 1:2-3, to justify their position. They say it proves that God can choose whoever He wants to and reject whoever He wants to, and man is in no position to object. And when Paul continued by saying, “It does not depend on man’s desire or effort but on God’s mercy” (Romans 9:16) they say it confirms their position.

But they ignore the fact that God was not talking about our salvation in Romans 9, he was defending God’s choice of Israel as His people. No one would argue that by selecting Abraham God was exercising His right of sovereign election, but that fact has nothing to do with how Gentiles become part of the Church. The Bible could not be any clearer in saying that accepting the Lord’s death as payment in full for our sins is a choice any of us can make (Matt. 7:7-8, John 3:16, Romans 10:13, etc).
And God did not always hate Esau. In fact, when Jacob and Esau split over the way Jacob got the bulk of Isaac’s inheritance, God gave Esau the land we know as Edom. We learn this from Deut. 2:1-6 where God told Moses He had given the territory they were about to enter to the descendants of Easu, and would not let the children of Israel have any of it. He told Moses to be very careful not to provoke them, and to pay them for any food and water they consumed while passing through Edom.

From Ezekiel 35 we learn that God was driven to everlasting hatred against Edom because of the way they treated Israel during the time of the conquests of the Northern and Southern Kingdoms. They helped Israel’s enemies overcome them and then moved in to take possession of the promised land, all because they harbored an ancient grudge against God’s people. Notice how God said they harbored an ancient grudge. You never hear about God harboring a grudge about it. Jacob was a conniver but in Genesis 25:29-34 we see that Esau despised his birthright and brought the loss of it upon himself.

Breaking Covenant Through Blemished Sacrifices
“A son honors his father, and a slave his master. If I am a father, where is the honor due me? If I am a master, where is the respect due me?” says the Lord Almighty.

“It is you priests who show contempt for my name. “But you ask, ‘How have we shown contempt for your name?’

“By offering defiled food on my altar. “But you ask, ‘How have we defiled you?’

“By saying that the Lord’s table is contemptible. When you offer blind animals for sacrifice, is that not wrong? When you sacrifice lame or diseased animals, is that not wrong? Try offering them to your governor! Would he be pleased with you? Would he accept you?” says the Lord Almighty.

“Now plead with God to be gracious to us. With such offerings from your hands, will he accept you?”—says the Lord Almighty. (Malachi 1:6-9)

There were two things wrong here. First, the offering of a lame or diseased animal as a sacrifice showed they were not honoring Him. It was a sign of disrespect. If their human governor would not be pleased with such a gift, what made them think God would find it acceptable?

Second, the sacrificial animals were intended as a substitute for the sacrifice of His Son. Jesus was the perfect example of humanity, and the animals they sacrificed were supposed to be perfect examples of their breed, without any spot or blemish. Offering less than perfect animals showed they no longer cared enough to do the right thing. They were just going through the motions and in doing so were breaking an important provision of their covenant with Him.

Only a very small percentage of Christians today give God our best. We’re admonished to present our whole being as a living sacrifice to God as our spiritual act of worship (Romans 12:1-2).

But multiple surveys have shown that most of us just give Him the leftovers of our lives. If we have any time or money left over from things we consider to be more important we may share some of it with Him, but if not we don’t worry about it. Are we being any less disrespectful to the One who sacrificed His life to save ours?

“Oh, that one of you would shut the temple doors, so that you would not light useless fires on my altar! I am not pleased with you,” says the Lord Almighty, “and I will accept no offering from your hands. My name will be great among the nations, from where the sun rises to where it sets. In every place incense and pure offerings will be brought to me, because my name will be great among the nations,” says the Lord Almighty.

“But you profane it by saying, ‘The Lord’s table is defiled,’ and, ‘Its food is contemptible.’ And you say, ‘What a burden!’ and you sniff at it contemptuously,” says the Lord Almighty. (Malachi 1:10-13).
We aren’t even aware of the extent to which we take God for granted, and it’s only because He has made peace with us through His blood shed on the cross (Colossians 1:19-20) that we’re not under judgment. I often wonder how much richer and fuller our lives would be, and how much greater our impact on the world, if we took His word seriously and followed the prompting of the Holy Spirit more enthusiastically.

But like the Jews of Malachi’s time we’ve grown weary of waiting. Many who call themselves Christian no longer live in expectation that He will fulfill His promises to us. And the worst part is that they’re too busy with other things to even realize it. Someone once said, “If you want to know what a man’s subconscious intentions are, notice what he pays conscious attention to.” If it’s our subconscious intention to leave here soon and begin our eternity with the Lord, wouldn’t we pay more conscious attention to getting ready?

“When you bring injured, lame or diseased animals and offer them as sacrifices, should I accept them from your hands?” says the Lord. “Cursed is the cheat who has an acceptable male in his flock and vows to give it, but then sacrifices a blemished animal to the Lord. For I am a great king,” says the Lord Almighty, “and my name is to be feared among the nations (Malachi 1:13-14).

Before we allocated the bulk of our resources to the things of this world we could have chosen to allocate them to the kingdom. It’s not too late to start reversing that. He is a great King and deserves our best.

From Rev. 21:4 we know that when we stand before God He will wipe every tear from our eyes. I’ve heard it said that many of those will be tears of regret. We’ll shed them when we finally see with our own eyes the amazing future that’s been prepared for us, and realize how little we did during our time on Earth to express our gratitude to the One who prepared it. Don’t wait any longer. Every day is a new beginning with God. His mercies are new every morning. Stay tuned.  There’s more to come.

We all love this kind of story. And as much as we’re encouraged by the experience of an ordinary person who due to personal drive and perseverance rises from humble beginnings to become a leader of business or industry, we’re especially fond of stories where an absolute nobody is plucked from the faceless crowd and instantly propelled to the pinnacle of success. Great Hollywood stories have been built upon this premise, and they’ve never failed to delight us. But by far the absolute best example of this comes from the Bible and is about you.  Our story begins in the Old Testament Book of 1st Samuel with David and Jonathan.

And Jonathan made a covenant with David because he loved him as himself. Jonathan took off the robe he was wearing and gave it to David, along with his tunic, and even his sword, his bow and his belt. (1 Samuel 18:3-4)

The making of covenants was serious business because people’s lives depended them. A covenant was the strongest bond known to men, and had both business and personal applications that extended even to the descendants of the two parties involved. Here’s an example.

Some time after David and Jonathan formed their covenant relationship, Jonathan was killed by the Philistines in the Battle of Beth Shan, while David went on to become King of Israel. As I said, covenant agreements extended beyond the grave to the parties’ descendants. One day King David asked his advisers if there was anyone left of Jonathan’s family to whom he could show kindness for Jonathan’s sake.

They brought in one of Saul’s former servants who told him of a crippled boy named Mephibosheth. He was Jonathan’s son, living in a place called Lo Debar, about as far from Jerusalem as he could get. When David had become King of Israel, all of former King Saul’s family (Jonathan was Saul’s son) had fled for their lives for fear that David would take revenge on them for the way Saul had treated him. In their haste to escape, a nurse had picked up the 5 year old Mephibosheth to carry him, but she tripped and they fell hard on the stone floor, breaking his legs and crippling him for life. (2 Sam. 4:4) As he grew up his family had convinced Mephibosheth that David was responsible for his condition and still wanted to kill him.

Upon learning Mephibosheth’s whereabouts, David sent his soldiers to fetch him. When they brought him into the presence of the King, Mephibosheth, fearing for his life, bowed in submission before him. David reassured him and told him of the covenant he had with Jonathan. Then David restored to him all of his grandfather Saul’s property and gave him servants to work the land so his needs would always be met. Finally David asked him to come live in Jerusalem, and eat at the king’s table just like one of the king’s own sons. (You can read the story of David and Mephibosheth  in 2 Sam 9.)

Talk about rags to riches. It’s a beautiful story of kindness and forgiveness that illustrates the depth of a covenant relationship like no other, and like many Old Testament stories it’s a model of what the Lord had in store for us. Just think of David as God our Father, Jonathan as the Lord Jesus, and Mephibosheth as you and I.

The Everlasting Covenant

Long before we were born the Father and the Son entered into a covenant on our behalf. In effect, our Father said to Jesus, “Son, if you’ll die for them I’ll forgive them”

Jesus replied, “Father, if you’ll forgive them I’ll die for them.” And so the Everlasting Covenant was formed. The Bible says this happened before the foundations of Earth were laid. (1 Peter 1:20)

They had made this covenant because God knew that each time He entered into covenant with man, man would prove untrustworthy and soon break it. For example, Adam ate the forbidden fruit, Noah’s descendants refused to scatter and re-settle the Earth, the Israelites broke the commandments, and so on. The salvation of God’s children was so important to Him that no mere man could be trusted to be faithful, so God Himself had to become a man to save mankind.“You are my son,” He told Jesus, “Today I have become your Father.” (Psalm 2:7)

In the fullness of time Jesus became a man to save mankind, and stood before our Father as our covenant head.

Even though God knew we would ultimately choose Him He pursued us like an ardent lover, and at first many of us ran from Him. We’d heard the stories of His wrath and some of us had even been told that He was responsible for our infirmities and the other bad things that happened to us. They said if He ever got His hands on us He would punish us severely for our sins. Finally one day He caught us and as we trembled at His feet in fear, He reassured us and told us of the covenant He had made with His Son to forgive us. Then He restored the inheritance Satan had stolen from us, invited us to dwell with Him, to eat at the King’s table with His family, and to consider ourselves as His children.

The New Testament tells us how He accomplished this. In John 1:12-13 we’re told that because we believe in Jesus we’ve been given the authority to become children of God. Having been born once in the flesh to our earthly parents, He gave us the right to be born again in the Spirit so that He could become our Heavenly Father. He did this simply because we chose to believe in His Son. (John 3:16)

Then Romans 8:29 says that God knew in advance that we would believe in His Son, so He predestined us to be conformed to His likeness so Jesus could be the first of many brothers in the Royal Family of God. First Jesus was made like us, and soon we’ll be made like Him. (1 John 3:2)

In Galatians 4:4-7 we read that since we’ve been legally adopted into God’s family, we’re now God’s children.  And that means we’re also His heirs, joint heirs with Jesus. Romans 8:16-17 confirms this.

Hebrews 2 makes the point that Jesus was temporarily made lower than the angels, becoming a man to save mankind, and afterward He was elevated to His former position and crowned with glory and honor.

Paul gave us more detail on this. Ephes 1:20-22 explains that when He was resurrected, Jesus ascended into heaven to sit at the right hand of majesty far above all rule and authority, power and dominion and every title that can be given, in the present age and the one to come. All things were placed under His feet.

Astonishingly Ephes 2:6-7 says God raised us up and seated us there too, in order that in the coming ages He might show the incomparable riches of His grace, expressed in His kindness to us in Christ Jesus. The verbs in this passage are in the past perfect tense, meaning that in God’s view we’re already there.

So even though at one time we were dead in our sins, and by nature objects of God’s wrath, hopeless, helpless, worthless, and useless, He made us alive in Christ. He forgave all our sins, clothed us in robes of righteousness, seated us beside His Son in the heavenly realm and made us Kings and Priests who will reign on Earth, and co-heirs with Jesus of God’s estate.

The 24 Elders

By the way, this lends enormous credibility to our view that the 24 elders ofRev. 4 represent the Church.

Surrounding the throne were twenty-four other thrones, and seated on them were twenty-four elders. They were dressed in white and had crowns of gold on their heads.(Rev. 4:4)

These 24 elders confuse some people, but they shouldn’t. Their appearance gives them away. They have thrones, so they’re rulers. They surround the Throne of God where Jesus is seated, so they’re reigning with Him. They’re seated, another sign of royalty. They’re dressed in white, so they’re righteous. They’re wearing the Greek “stephanos” crown, so they’re victors, over comers. They’re called Elders, a title long associated with the Church.

Some try to explain the 24 thrones by saying that they belong to an unknown group of ruling angels. But four Biblical prophets saw the throne of God and recorded their experience. They were Isaiah (Isaiah 6), Ezekiel (Ezek. 1 & 10), Daniel (Dan. 7), and John (Rev. 4). Neither Isaiah nor Ezekiel made any mention of the 24 elders indicating that they weren’t present in Old Testament times. Daniel’s vision concerned the End Times and in Dan. 7:9 he mentioned multiple thrones but didn’t add any details as to number or type of occupants. This is consistent with the fact that the Church was hidden to Old Testament prophets even in visions of the future. Only John made mention of the 24 Elders.  When you put it all together you can make a pretty good case that the 24 elders represent the Church.

Jesus is seated at the right hand of majesty today, Paul wrote that we’re seated there with Him, and when John was transported to the end of the Age he saw us there, after the rapture but before the end times judgments begin.

In the Book of Revelation, three groups of believers come into view. In Rev. 5:9-10 the 24 Elders are shown worshiping God and thanking Him for taking us from every tribe and language and people and nation and making us to be kings and priests who will reign on Earth. In Rev. 7:9-17 we see a great multitude in white robes who will arrive in heaven shortly before the Great Tribulation begins. They will serve God in His temple but are never called priests.  Rev. 15:2-4 describes a third group of believers who have been martyred for their faith and are standing in Heaven.  Rev. 20:4indicates that this group will be resurrected to reign with Christ for 1000 years, but they are not called kings.

In support of their particular rapture view, various scholars try to identify each of these groups as the Church.   But only one of them is seated with Christ in the heavenly realms, only one is called Kings and Priests, and that’s the one represented by the 24 elders. That group is the Church, and it makes our elevation from obscurity on Earth to a throne in heaven the ultimate rags to riches story.