Malachi 2:17-3:6, Are You in Denial?, Dr. John Carpenter

Malachi’s Disputation Against Denial

Malachi chapter 2 verses 17 to chapter 3 verse 6. Here are the word of the Lord. You have wearied the Lord with your words, but you say How have we wearied him by saying everyone who does evil is good in the sight of the Lord and he delights in them.

Or by asking where is the God of justice? Behold, I send my messenger and he will prepare the way before me and the Lord whom you seek Will suddenly come to his temple and the messenger of the Covenant in whom you delight Behold, he is coming says the Lord of hosts.

But who can endure the day of his coming and who can stand when he appears? For he is like a refiners fire and like fuller's soap he will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver. And he will purify the sons of Levi and Refined them like gold and silver and they will bring offerings and righteousness to the Lord.

Then the offering of Judah and Jerusalem will be pleasing to the Lord as in the days of old as in and as in the former.

Years.

Then I will draw near to you for judgment. I will be a swift witness against the saucers against the adulterers against those who swear falsely against those who oppress the hired worker in his wages the widow and the fatherless.

Against those who thrust aside the Sojourner and do not fear me says the Lord of hosts. May the Lord add his blessings to the reading of his Holy Word. Denial they say is not a river in Egypt. A man hears that his wife has been killed and Yet refuses to believe it still setting the table for her and keeping her clothes and many other things day after day year after year.

Person having an affair does not think about pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases or what will happen when finally everyone knows. The South fights a war by their own admission at the start of it To keep slavery and then when they lose that war claim it was well all about states rights and they were gonna end slavery.

Anyway, so it was the war was totally unnecessary. They say. Alcoholics vigorously deny that they have a problem. Denial is refusing to acknowledge that something has happened or some situation is as it obviously is to everyone else.

The person in denial refuses to accept reality. It's a deep-seated turning of a blind eye to something that we desperately don't want to believe is true. But it is a willful determination that things are as we wish them to be.

Not as they really are. Denial is not a river in Egypt of psychologists call it a denial a defense mechanism. To deal with unpleasant realities that to deal with them by not dealing with them. The battered wife may simply refuse to acknowledge that she is a battered wife.

That that's why please find domestic Disturbance as some of the most violent situations a wife might call 9 -1 -1 when her life is in danger. But by the time the police arrive and start to handcuff the abuser the wife now refuses to remember What the abuser was doing and often turns on the police for daring to drag her darling away.

People can get deep in debt because of denial. They see something they crave. Maybe advertised on TV or in the mall. The credit card will pay for it for now. They think they hope or they or they happen to have the cash in their pocket at the time.

And so they just deny the reality that that means that they spend it now. They won't be able to pay their electric bill tomorrow or get food tomorrow. If they're Christians, they may even sanctify that denial.

They trust they're saying, you know, I'm trusting God for tomorrow. Well, they spend away all their money today when the reality is that God gave you the money today to take care of your tomorrow. Now some say that religion is all about denial.

That's what we're here for. We're here to deny reality that we can't deal with a reality that we're just evolved animals the product of chance. And we have no more meaning to our lives than a clot of dirt.

We're on a small planet around a medium-sized star on the outskirts of one of a billion galaxies. And that's all there is to it. It's just totally meaningless and empty and so we invent this warm father in the sky to deny the reality of a cold universe.

Of course really it's atheism. That's a denial of the reality of God. The universe is created and it could not have created itself that they want to deny though. Therefore it had to have a creator. They just deny it.

Atheism is a way of avoiding the hard truth that we will have to answer to God. That is people have such an urge to do what they want to do. They'll deny anything that gets in the way. And so they simply deny God thinking in the words of an old adage if God does not exist.

Everything is permitted. But we can't deny that a lot of religious people in fact do practice Denial and they desperately want to use their religion to stay in.

Denial.

They want to feel that they are really good and decent people and if they have have to come to get that feeling to get that kind of affirmation that they're Good people and they're right with God if they have to come to a service that otherwise they find is dull.

Or they have to give a little time or a little money to help them get that feeling. Well, they think that's worth it. They will not really repent of their sins. They'll still be just as hateful or racist or greedy or lustful.

They'll still buy pornography or cheat on their customers or just tell outrageous lies and yet the church will tell them that their sins are gone. They're even excused. For the right fee, of course a right ritual the church for such people exists not to refine them of their sins.

But to help them deny their sins as Tim Keller says The human heart runs on denial. The way my car runs on gas.

Denial.

Facing the Reality of Sin and God’s Justice

Exists. Right here and this passes for the fourth time in Malachi the fourth Disputation the fourth denial every time God says something and they deny it and here the fourth time He's telling them just open your eyes what you're wearing me how.

Well, you're living in a denial if you can't see how here they deny that they are wearing God. We see that here in three parts first the wearing then the warning and finally the washing. Are you in denial?

Well, if so, you need to face reality. That's why Malachi is here to tell us face reality. These people need to face the hard truth that they are wearing the Lord with their words not just they talk too much.

But specifically what they are saying about the Lord. They look at their present situation. Look what's going on in Israel and they say well evil people are prospering. Sabbath breakers are making a killing by doing business on the Sabbath.

Sorcerers are succeeding by doing what the law prohibited. Men are trading in their old wives for newer wives. And nobody is opposing it. Vows are broken. Vulnerable people are oppressed by the powerful.

That's what made the sojourners. Those are foreigners who live in their country and they have no they have no kin to help defend them, right? They are the vulnerable people and they're being oppressed they're being people to steal from them the people will get them to work and then we'll pay them and There's no justice for them.

The judges won't do what don't protect them because they have no advantage nothing to get from them. They're all getting away with it and Today, maybe we see liars get scholarships by misrepresenting their true situation or they cheat on their taxes.

Are they just openly lie? And then they refuse to admit what they did and yet they still get ahead. Today people get wealthy off of pornography or they get elected by making promises. They have no intention of keeping and so the people see this and they You know God.

Why aren't you you know, if I were you I would be cracking down on these people. Why aren't you God? I'm better than you are. They think if they were God, they would be doing a better job. And so they complain about the job.

God is doing. They would they would enforce justice on those people that they would punish those lawbreakers those Saucers and other people and those people are pressing them the sojourners the foreigners, but the Lord, you know.

They think but I would I would bring justice but the Lord. Look what he's doing. He's doing nothing. In fact, he's letting them he's letting them get away with it. He must even like what they are doing.

And so they say stuff like everyone who does evil is good in the sight of the Lord must be look. They're prospering the words letting them get wealthy by doing evil. He must like them even they would even say stuff.

Where is the God of justice? Where is he? Maybe today. Where is God when it hurts it hurts. God should be attending to you. He should be stopping the hurt. Why do bad things happen to good people? You know God doesn't know what he's doing.

Does he and on and on and implying that something is wrong with the Lord himself for he's not on the ball. He's not stamping out evil like I would if I were in his place I had his power and God hears all of that and is wearied by it.

He's tired of it. He doesn't want to hear it anymore. We do something like this. We weary God when we complain when we grumble. You take our blessings for granted because we think we deserve them, right?

We that's why they're not really blessing. They're just what we deserve our trials and sufferings. Those we don't think we deserve. Why is God letting this happen to me? Let's be something. God must be doing something wrong.

And we're told today that we should be we should be open with God. You know talk to him like he's your friend. Even when you're disappointed in him. God, why are you letting me down here? But here we see we should change.

Why? We think we can be disappointed with God. Another thing to dislike about the I Think everything to dislike about the footprints poem. Another thing to dislike about it. Is that the narrator complains to God about why there's only one set of footprints in the sand during the hard times.

Basically accusing God of abandoning him or her and the God of that Quote poem is it wearied by by it at all by the complaining the God in the point? Doesn't mind being falsely accused and doubted according to the point God responds.

Oh my precious precious child I love you, and I would never never Leave you during your times of trial and suffering. So the thing says. Not weird at all is he the God of the point not wearied at all now the real God here in Malachi Gets wearied when we accuse him.

When we are so lacking in faith. That we deny the reality of his rule and we forget to fear him. One of the themes of Malachi is the fear of the Lord over and over again. He's called the Lord of hosts.

The head of armies of angels that's his host he's the commander-in-chief of them and someone therefore you should tremble at in Chapter one the Lord is revolted by their worship that lacks fear of him.

And so they think that they can bring in their roadkill that they can yawn through worship. They can look at their watches and hoping that they'll be able to get to the cafeteria before the bail worshipers do.

Here they here they have the gall To accuse the Lord of not caring about justice. Everyone who does evil is it's go to the side of the Lord. Where is the God of justice? Where is he? Even apparently preferring the unjust he must be right.

That's what they're saying. All because some of the unjust.

For a while.

Appear to be doing well. Now modern churches think that they are doing people and God a favor. By making the Lord out to become warm and fuzzy and someone like a footprints poem that we can complain about.

We don't have to be at all worried that he might take it the wrong way. That he might dislike being doubted and accused so they drain all the the fear of God out of the church and out of Christians lives not knowing that a root of sin is To not fear the Lord.

I think about the original sin. You know Adam and Eve are in the garden and before the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. The Lord has told them in the day they eat of it. They will surely die. Now so they have God's threat.

If they believe that threat if they take it seriously if they fear God. And they won't dare touch it, right? Maybe just so be so deathly afraid that they would not dare Take that fruit. But they didn't take God seriously they didn't fear the Lord and so it was in that moment They they decided that God's threat of death was not to be feared.

Not to be taken seriously and at that moment They started to sin and It's the same with us with every sinful choice. We've made we knew on some level at least in our consciences That this thing is wrong.

That we are threatened By God with punishment for it that we will be judged for this, but we decide That that judgment is not so fearsome. That's just not gonna be so bad. We decide to not to take God seriously not to fear the Lord.

Every sin begins when we say somewhere in our heart that the Lord's judgment is not as fearsome as The rewards we think we will get from this sin. Are you in denial? It's just something you're doing. Maybe it's just seeking first something else other than the kingdom of God's seeking money.

You're not giving or not seeking to raise godly offspring as we saw last week something you're doing that you know is wrong. You've heard God's judgment against it that he will punish you for it. But you think I can't be helped and the judgments not gonna be that bad anyway.

You know you judge it in the balance.

And.

The rewards are better than the compensate for the judgment. You accept the excuses. Well here they weary God because they didn't fear him. They're questioning his justice lack of fear it fearing the Lord.

They're complaining. Arrogant words were sinful. The wearying of God leads to the warning from God. They were like so many today living in denial. You know who us weary God what are you talking about God.

We love God and we're seeking his messenger. We really want it. We really want to hear from him. We really do we want him to come and crack down on these simple people. We're delighted someone is coming.

To bring us a new covenant. They're in denial. Notice chapter the end of chapter 2. Chapter 2 verse 17. They're saying things like everyone who fears evil does good at the sight of the Lord. Where's the God of justice.

And God responds back behold? I'm sending my messenger and he will prepare the way before me. The Lord whom you seek what you say you're seeking him. You you say where's the God of justice? Like you want him to come.

Well, he's gonna come suddenly to his temple. Right, so they're warned about a harsh reality that they were trying to avoid in chapter 3 verse 1 God promises to bring to them a My messenger also happens to be what the name Malachi means.

My messenger the one whose job it is. My messengers his job is to prepare the way before the Lord. Now Jesus said in Mark chapter 9 after the transfiguration. Remember we looked at just that passage just before we came to Malachi.

He said there that the messenger was John the Baptist. Now something to the messenger who prepares the way is still in our future. Like we're waiting for something to happen for a messenger to come before Jesus is second coming.

But Jesus said that John the Baptist fulfills that this promise as we come up to Christmastime. We should see that much of the promises about Christ are fulfilled in his first coming. The sending of John.

Predicted here the son's incarnation. Jesus's ministry. Literally coming to the temple exactly what's promised in chapter 3 verse 1 here first my Messenger. John came to Israel to prepare the way for the Lord by warning them that they needed to repent by applying what psychologists call a reality therapy.

That is reality therapy telling besides I understand it. Telling someone who was in denial. Straight out. Here's reality. This is the way it is. This is reality not that fantasy that you've concocted in your head.

You have a drinking problem. Sometimes people need to be told that. Okay, you have it you're out of control. You you drink too much alcohol. You suffered because you made a mistake. Was the society's fault.

Was your parents fall was it whatever you made the mistake. Your affair is immoral. There's no excuse for it. Your wife is dead. Your words and your actions. Don't match. You say one thing and do another.

Your giving shows your heart's priorities. You say I love the Lord. I love the church. And then look at your checkbook. You can't sing John so don't try don't try leading singing. You need to be told the reality.

John the Baptist came and applied the reality to their denial. Yes. Here they are at the end of chapter 2 saying Where's the God of justice. We want justice, but where is he? God must not want justice and God is saying back to them.

You don't really want justice because when I sit in the messenger to bring it. Look how you're gonna respond. John the Baptist came and applied the reality to their denial so that they would be better able to accept the ministry of the Lord Jesus, you know, usually before people can come to the Lord.

They need to be jolted out of their denial. And what Keller said people live. The human heart lives on denial like a car runs on gas. Usually they're denying. That they that they need to repent or that God is angry with him got it that they will face God's judgment.

They'll deny that because they think well, I'm an average person. I'm or maybe even better. I'm a moral person. I'm decent. I've never murdered anybody at least not too many people. That just because they're considered by their neighbors as fine people that they must be okay with God, too.

That's denial.

Now it's the role of The law in our lives like John the Baptist here to Israel, but the role of the law in our lives is to prepare Us to accept prepare people to accept the Lord. It's his messenger. The laws God's requirements his standard like John the Baptist came.

He basically told them what the law said told Herod. It's not lawful for you to have your brother's wife and. It shows us that we have violated those standards as the Martin Luther 10 commandment song so well puts it.

You know, we have this law to see therein that we have not been free from sin. We think we've been free from sin. At least our sins are not that bad. The law says no. No, it's like a mirror. You know, you're in bad shape.

The Lord's law brings us to the reality of the holiness of God and how far short we have fallen and it shows us that we. That we are still full of the dross of sin and corruption. So any biblical preaching of the gospel is usually but in best Accompanied by the preaching of the law that is to jolt us and law means God's requirements.

That's necessarily just mean the first five books of the Bible anything that God requires. That's why Jesus gets to the point in the Sermon on the Mount Bosses don't murder. I say you get angry you insult.

It's like murder. It all says don't commit adultery. But if you look at a woman adult lustfully, it's like it's like it's if before God you've committed adultery. I want like that and then at the end be perfect and we get to that that's to wear us down.

Say all I've fallen short. I can't. I have no righteousness with which to come before the Lord. I've I'm I'm sinful. That's God's law doing the work of jolting us out of denial. Of our sins to see God's justice what we deserve.

Notice here how much in denial they were. Right. They're complaining that the Lord is not just where's the God of justice now, we're just we want these evil people punished. God does it. That now he's taken the side of the evil doers by rewarding them they imagine as they are complaining about all this.

They think they really want a messenger from the Lord to correct their problems. They they're saying to God we really want whoever you send us. We want your messenger. We want your prophets. We want your Messiah send him we're waiting for it.

We love it. We want that but when that messenger comes.

To them then or.

To us now.

He's not welcome.

They killed John the Baptist. And. Today when the gospel is preached and it is accompanied by that messenger the message of our sins and our sinfulness people naturally.

Hate it.

They want to remain in denial. Like Paul says it's like the message of those who are in death those who are dead. It's like the fragrance of death. It's a stench to them. They hate it. Now those whose hearts have been changed then it then it smells differently.

Now remember the gospel the good news is only received as good news by those who refuse to bury their heads in the sand and Deny reality. Yet that is the way all people are until God changes their hearts.

Until God softens their hearts gives them a new heart makes us finally willing to accept reality. Without the work of the Holy Spirit to make us able to accept the truth.

We hate it.

We hate the gospel. It's like a stench of death to us. We'll treat it as bad news and we will remain in our sins. And that gets right to the heart of what sets off a true Christian. From a hypocrite. Now hypocrites are in denial.

They're hoping you'll help them stay in denial. They like religion for the denial that it gives them. We what sets the true believer apart is that he is no longer in denial. He doesn't deny his sin. He doesn't deny it either by saying he doesn't have any to say I have no sin or by just minimizing it.

Poo-pooing it, you know by making light of sin. People sometimes say sure. I'm a sinner. Like everyone else everyone's a sinner. So why it's no big deal. That's that's one way really to deny sin. But the true Christian should have gone through a time of sensing his or her central is the time of conviction of Sensing the immense weight of our sins on our souls what John Bunyan described in my what we would say now in modern language as a swamp of conviction.

Called the slaw of despond. We said the swamp of conviction a process of trudging through our own corruption. Dredging through the through the muck and the mire of our depravity and then The joy of coming out of that to cleansing the joy of salvation.

That leaves the Christian different from the non-christian. Psychiatrist in Scott Peck and an interesting book the people of a lie describes what he regards as he says truly evil people. He said that psychologists and psychiatrists hardly ever see really evil people because because Evil people don't go see psychologists and psychiatrists unless they're forced to by the courts evil people live in live their lives in Denial they don't want to hear the true message about themselves.

They don't want to know who they really are. So they stay away from anyone who will tell them who they really are. So they will avoid anyone who exposes the truth to them. He writes quote the evil hate the light the light of goodness that shows them up.

The light of scrutiny that exposes them. The light of truth that penetrates their deception. Peck believes that the truly evil avoid counseling, but they tend to gravitate toward you know what institution.

He says the evil like where they like to go. They don't want to go here whether it'll be exposed. He says they like to go.

To religion.

In our culture to church because of the disguise and the concealment it can offer them. At least to some churches anyway you see only in religion can people so easily get away with saying one thing, you know be warm be filled and then while doing the opposite get lost is Corrupt religion where you kiss the Son of God as a way to betray him.

So Peck writes. The central defect of evil is not the sin. But the refusal to acknowledge it. It's the denial. It's the refusal to accept the messenger from the Lord because the messenger tells us about our own sinfulness.

Well the warning comes.

The messengers on his way. They're saying where's the God of justice? We want him to come but where is he? God warns them back. The messenger is on his way and He will prepare the way for me. They're actually two messengers in verse 1.

The first messenger prepares the way for the Lord and he was John the Baptist. The second the messenger of the Covenant is The Lord himself. He is the one who they say in their denial. That they are seeking.

We want him to come they're saying. But they don't really. This is the one they say. They've been waiting on to bring justice. The one they think they delight in. Of course when he actually did come They nailed him to a cross.

That's how much they delighted in him. There are many people like that today people who claim to love Jesus who claim to be seeking God. But when they hear the truth about Jesus when they are given the message They hate it.

They prefer the stories about a God who is all about them but how they can evolve to become a God to with their own planet. Or a God who is who is just as Impressed with their religion immorality as they are a God who will give them their best life now.

It will make them wealthy. Who affirms them who tells them how great they are. The real Jesus who pays for our sins and Tells them to leave those sins.

Him.

They can't stand. The warning from God here in verse 2 is that he is coming the the warning we offer in the gospel is The same only the verb tenses are changed. He has come to pay for sins once for all he has come with the kingdom that the rule of God on earth and Not one of us can oppose him.

We will have no ground to stand on before him. We try to stand on our religion or our morality. We're denying the sinfulness that we really need a Savior. Maybe just we need a good example. We just need someone to inspire us to do better or whatever we think.

We have no place to stand with a religion like that. Only by accepting his new covenant can we stand. That's why he is the Messenger of the Covenant that is the one who who brings in the new covenant God's commitment of himself to his people Through his body and blood.

And so when we take the Lord's Supper, we remember this messenger who brought from the father a new covenant a binding of God with his people a Way for us to stand when there was no other way That we could stand before God.

Who can stand when he appears in verse 2. No one. He has appeared bringing us a new covenant that we accept. By acknowledging our sin by repentance by fearing him. Not by denial. That's the warning. You in denial.

Well, if so, there is the washing at the end of verse 2 for he this messenger of the Covenant is like a refiners fire and like a force Soap. I was like a.

Launderer.

Who watches the cleans cleanses he has appeared and he cleanses his people with fire. And Detergent in verse 3 he that is Christ will purify his people. He will use fire to burn out the dross without the corruption.

The fire here is not the fire of the eternal punishment not the fire of hell, but for refining. It's not hell in the afterlife, but trials. Afflictions in this life that he is in control of out of his control in this life that he uses to take out our sin.

Which we now Don't deny. Do we it's also the fire of his spirit? Who is in the new hearts of his people? There's a dramatic moment they say in the refining process of silver when the refiner knows that the dross is gone peering into the smelter the the silver is being burned and melted in this and it's silver suddenly becomes liquid and malleable.

Shapable you can pour it into any kind of cast and make a form out of it. The refiner can look into it and see his own reflection back from it and Here the the warning is that Christ will come to refine.

Now I'm just the refiner but he is the refining now to us. Christ has come and he is Refining. Malachi's predicting it now. It's already happening. He is right now in 1st Corinthians chapter 15 verse 25 He said Paul says there he is now reigning until He's now.

In other words in the process of raining at ongoing at this moment until he has put all his enemies. His enemies in our life put our greed our lust our pride that makes us deny our sins. Anything he is reigning now.

He is reigning now until he puts those enemies under his feet until he's refined us a Problem with Christmas and Christmas time in this culture. Maybe it's the reason why our culture likes Christmas so much is That it focuses on a baby Jesus who's laying it down his sweet head.

You know, no threat to us babies aren't threatening no reality therapy. He's not gonna tell us about our sin. He's not gonna expose who we really are. No refining us. But that's not who's promised here.

Here.

He comes to refine in verse 2 who can endure the day of his coming. Well, if we're just focused on a sweet, baby, we think what's there to endure? But if he's the messenger of the Covenant who comes to refine then who can stand when he appears?

Well, he's refining. That's why we sometimes have to to patiently endure Affliction and sometimes we have to sacrifice. Sometimes suffer the loss of things we would ordinarily Could have had. Like a drink some spare time some money a relationship.

Our egos.

Sometimes voluntarily. We suffer we deny ourselves we choose we practice self-denial. That's the best kind. That's the good kind of denial. Sometimes involuntarily as the Lord lets things come into our lives that are hard.

They hurt. It's sting like a fuller's soap against the open sore. As much as I don't want any of you have to suffer. The reality is there's no more possible to become pure without pain than it is to be burned without pain.

Sometimes it may just be the sting of soap what our sinful sores. Sometimes it may be the searing of fire to purge us so that the Lord himself can eventually look at us and See a perfect Reflection. Well, he does this he says in verse 3 to purify for himself.

Levites. There's a holy priesthood what Peter calls in first Peter chapter 2 verse 5 as all Christians all his people Believers in Christ now are being built up into a holy priesthood. Peter says that's going on right now making us a priesthood to offer Spiritual sacrifices that are acceptable to God.

Peter says he is doing that right now. That means that what is here being described what's being predicted seen in the future by Malachi is being fulfilled.

Now.

Right now Christ has come and Is refining. He is cleansing through the washing of water with his word through the fires of affliction. Sometimes through our own deliberate self-denial He's refining to make a new holy priesthood.

That's us so we could bring right offerings pleasing to the Lord and that is our whole lives is living sacrifices pleasing to the Lord. He's coming to his temple. Remember 1st Corinthians tells us that the church is his temple and he's washing a new.

True.

Priesthood that is what he is washing us for right now. Now the idea that salvation Is just a gigantic denial. Kind of an excuse slip for our sins. It just lets us stay in our sins. Just because we said some words that that is a lie from Satan salvation begins by us facing up to our sins and it results in refining us.

So we forsake our sins. In verse 5 I will draw near to you for judgment God says. Remember before they were saying where's the God of justice? We want him to come and God to say I'm coming to you and I'm gonna judge you.