Book of Malachi - Ch. 1, Vs. 2 (01/01/2023)

Well, good morning and Happy New Year, everyone. My voice is a little raspy, I suppose, from all the holiday craziness, perhaps, possibly getting over cold here and there.

So you'll have to put up with that. All right. Well, about three weeks ago today, we began...

Are you okay, Gemma? Okay, go to Grammy's class. About three weeks ago, we began the

Book of Malachi. We did a brief intro and covered... We covered the first verse and started covering the second, but we're going to just kind of pick it up there and go over a little bit of what we did,

I guess, for the sake of review. Again, it was about three weeks ago or so. Just a couple...

We're going to reread a passage in Deuteronomy as well that we covered, but then get into some new material.

We're not going to get too far beyond Malachi verse two, but it's for good reason.

You guys will see as we go along, but there's several things I want to really get covered while we're here, while we're in these first three verses before moving on.

So that's what we're going to be hitting up today. So y 'all can go ahead and turn to Malachi's like, and we'll start at verse two.

Okay. All right.

So verse two says, I have loved you, saith the Lord. And that first phrase there is a really important phrase that we're going to be looking at quite a bit this morning.

I have loved you, saith the Lord, yet ye say, wherein hast thou loved us?

So we covered this a lot in our introduction a couple, two, three weeks ago, in terms of the attitude of God's people at this time.

They weren't doing so, they weren't so sharp in terms of having this reciprocal love back toward God.

In fact, they were very lazy in their worship and they actually got to the point where at this point in history, they're rather bitter toward God actually.

And so here, this is kind of validating that in terms of their attitude. And we're going to see this as we go throughout

Malachi. This isn't the first time they question God or kind of answer with this.

I don't even know, you know, just he makes a statement, they question it.

He comes back and describes why what he said is true. And it starts with a bang here in terms of the whole book really sets the tone here.

He says, I have loved you. And they question that, wherein has thou loved us? And as we go throughout the study, we're going to see a lot more of why the

Israelites here were, you know, kind of in this state of disappointment.

They were in a state of, again, just really, their worship had become very irreverent.

We kind of talked about that a few weeks ago as well. They didn't really care anymore. They were going through the motions to some extent, but in doing so, they were also breaking the rules left and right.

So they just didn't really care. They just got to this kind of careless state. They found themselves in this careless state, which we'll cover in more detail as we move forward.

But here it is illustrated as they question God's love. They ask, wherein has thou loved us? And God continues in verse two, was not

Esau Jacob's brother, saith the Lord, yet I loved Jacob. Okay.

So in Malachi, just in general here, we've come to the end of the

Old Testament and we've come to this final stretch of time before the, well, yeah, getting very close to the time, this dispensation ending, the time of the law is coming to an end.

We still got a few hundred years left before Jesus comes and gives us, it gives everyone like a restart.

But we are at the end of the Old Testament, at the end of the line of the prophets. And the

Lord here, he's speaking of his love for Israel. But you kind of get this sense of disappointment in it as well.

He's describing his love or he is you know, he's claiming his love for Israel again, but that is on the front side of centuries of spiritual adultery, idolatry that his people had committed up to this point.

And as we go throughout Malachi, he's going to be reminding them that as well. He starts by reminding them that he does love them, but he's about to start reminding them of why they are in the state they're in.

We're going to find out pretty soon that they're actually, one of the reasons why they're in this state of economic turmoil, they are under the power of the

Persians. They're just, the kingdom that they were promised by all the prophets beforehand had not come yet.

Where's their Messiah? They don't believe it's even happening anymore. Just disappointment left and right. And so what we're going to find out a little bit is one of the reasons why they find themselves in this situation is

God directly is cursing them. But we're going to discover, he's going to tell them why that's the case as well.

Moving forward, he's going to remind them about this idolatry, about the spiritual adultery, if you will, that they've been committing for centuries leading up to this point.

And so we are getting pretty close to the first advent of Jesus by the time we're in Malachi. Again, there's still a few, oh goodness, close to 400 years.

I mean, the grand scheme of things, we're getting really close. But we're getting really close to that. But before Jesus comes back,

Israel is going to be looked upon by God one more time with disappointment as they usher in a time of non -relational worship.

Again, in a sense, they're going to be going through the motions, but they're going to be breaking the rules while they do it. And this is actually what's going to be cultivating the

Pharisees that will come about shortly. The Sadducees, they didn't exist yet.

These sects of religious leaders didn't even exist in Malachi. And then Matthew, the next book, there they are, and just permeating everything.

The religion, if you want to analogize that with the science, our science leaders today, they are the science.

If you question those people, you question science itself. That's the Pharisees. But in a religious sense, they were the religion.

They didn't even exist yet. So we know things are about to get somewhat bad in order to cultivate these groups of people.

Now, again, he begins with his love. He's talking about his love. It wasn't the first time that the Lord spoke of this intimate love that he had for Israel.

We have some awesome examples of it. Some maybe we'll cover eventually. Hosea, a lot of awesome passages in Hosea and Isaiah.

And his love for his people was actually the ultimate driver of his covenant with them in the first place.

And so if you guys want to turn to Deuteronomy chapter 4, again, we covered this about three weeks ago, but let's go ahead and look at it one more time as we segue into some of the stuff we didn't get to last time.

Deuteronomy chapter 4, verse 37, we're going to take a look at the significance of not only his love in the most general sense, him loving his people, but in the context of, again, it being kind of the driving force behind his covenants with them and everything that he had set in place for them.

Deuteronomy 4, verse 37 says, He always brings them back to that.

It was possibly the pinnacle of the Old Testament in terms of, I mean, he always referenced that moment.

He did a lot of other miracles for them as well. He brought them out of the hands of many other enemies beyond Egypt, helped them cross

Jordan, did wonders, works all throughout the first five books, but even beyond that.

Yet he always reminds them of the Exodus story when through his, by his mighty hand, by his mighty power brought them out of Egypt.

Now that word where he says, therefore he chose their seed, that is the

Hebrew word, let me see if I can pronounce this, Bahar, I believe.

And it means to elect or to decide for. Now that's going to be really important as we get a little bit further in today's lesson.

But again, this is setting the tone for what he's even, what he's referencing in the first place in Malachi, verse two.

He chose their seed after them and brought thee out in his sight. And then verse 38 says, to drive out nations from before thee greater and mightier than thou art, to bring thee in, to give thee their land for an inheritance as it is this day.

Know therefore this day and consider in thine heart that the Lord, he is God in heaven above and upon the earth beneath.

There is none else. Thou shalt keep, thou shalt keep therefore his statutes and his commandments.

And this is, this verse is a key here. And his commandments, which I command thee this day, that it may go well with thee and that with thy children after thee, after thee, that thou mayest prolong thy days and upon the earth, which the

Lord thy God giveth thee forever. Now, right there, he gives them just, he outlines in a single verse what they need to do to reciprocate the love back to God.

He is giving them his infinite love and he gives them some basic foundational guidelines for living their lives and honoring him with everything that they do.

And he tells them, if you do it, if you keep his statutes, Moses is telling them, if you keep his statutes, if you keep his commandments, it'll go well with thee.

I mean, the ball was in their court, a hundred percent. Now, knowing all this,

Israel, of course, should have responded by loving him back and obeying his commands. That was one of the reasons, as we'll find, we'll flesh out more and more as we move forward, why they were cursed in the first place by the time we get to Malachi.

And again, why they're, they find themselves in this kind of turmoil. They weren't obeying this verse 40 in Deuteronomy 4.

They weren't keeping his statutes. They weren't keeping his commandments. So it wasn't going well with them. I mean, it's just, it seems so simple, of course, reading it from our perspective, but I mean, they were really missing the mark.

But instead of loving him back, what they ended up doing, as we just read in verse 2 a second ago, is they questioned his love for them by asking, wherein, wherein has thou loved us?

So they were essentially betraying God and showing disbelief in his very word to them.

I mean, he is explicitly telling them, I have loved you. They're showing disbelief in that.

So, I mean, what state could you be in where you are hearing through the mouth of the prophet, God's explicit word,

I love you. And you turn around and you say, when or how, where have you, when have you loved us?

How have you loved us? So they were, they were in a really rough spot here.

Their failure to have faith in God's word caused them to fail to love him back. And as we're going to find out, as we move forward throughout

Malachi, even be hostile toward their own God, which is just crazy. I mean, how do you, how do you get there?

I mean, we're going to illustrate a little bit how they got there, but it's still, still kind of boggles the mind to some degree.

Now this word, wherein, when in verse 2, when they ask, wherein, how, wherein has thou loved us?

That single word is pretty fascinating. It comes from the Hebrew word, just the

Hebrew word is ma, and it means how or what.

And the remaining sentence in verse 2, in English, it says, hast thou loved us, that the remaining part of that sentence, all of that comes from a single

Hebrew word, ahab, which simply means to love or the act of being one's lover.

So God's people are literally asking him here, how, okay, I'm sorry, that word, it means to love or the act of being a friend or a lover.

So God's people here are literally asking him, how are you our friend? Or perhaps even better than that, how do you love us?

How can you even love us? Now, I don't know at this point, like they're asking this question,

I don't know how introspective the Israelites were actually being in this moment and asking this question, or if they were actually being somewhat, oh, what's the word?

Just, I mean, well, yeah, like maybe they were just brushing it off, brushing off the question and returning, or I'm sorry, brushing off the statement and then returning with this rhetorical question.

I have no idea. Or maybe they were actually being, you know, actually considering this, again,

I'm not sure, but either way, God answers their question with a very specific example of how he does, in fact, extend his love to his people.

And the reason this is really important for us to study is because it actually extends to all of us in this room as well.

Because this is validated, it's reaffirmed all throughout the New Testament. But in looking at this, it can be edifying for us as well as it should have been for them at this time.

So whether it was a rhetorical question, wherein hast thou loved us? Or whether they were actually being somewhat introspective and trying to figure out how could he actually love us?

Either way, he's going to answer it. He's going to give them the answer. And from that point forward, you know, they have that information, but we'll see what they do with it.

All right, now he's going to answer the question, wherein hast thou loved us? But first, let's consider

God's characteristics for a second. So when you guys think of God's attributes or his character,

I mean, what are some of the first things that pop out just like right off the bat, right off the top?

Yeah, right. I mean, I'm pretty sure that's where just anybody would go. Like if someone just pops that question, what are

God's attributes? That's going to be the first thing that pops to mind. Of course, we could think of all sorts of other awesome ones as well that may flow right behind it.

But that will most likely be first. I mean, maybe we would throw out his sovereignty first.

But it really depends on the context of the question, whether or not we were dwelling on anything. If it just came out of the blue,

I would assume that just about any person would throw love out there first. I mean, it is one of his greatest attributes.

I mean, it's the reason why we can sit here today, know anything about him through his word, and why, obviously, we through grace have salvation in the first place.

So obviously, his love is a big one. So it makes sense that that's a huge part of his characteristics.

It's not the sole part, but it's a big part of it. Now, 1 John 2,

I don't know where Katie just went. She was just sitting there. Okay. To reaffirm what Katie just said, 1

John backs it up. And it explicitly tells us perhaps his most well -known attribute. And in 1

John 4, 8, I'm just going to read it. It says, he that loveth not knoweth not

God, semicolon, for God is love. It's as clear as day.

It's actually even stronger than the first sounds, though, because that Greek word is, which

I believe you pronounce it esti, it literally means consistent. Okay. So you could read it,

God consists of love. It's a part of his very essence. And so we know that, yes, this is not only a huge part of his character, but it's a very important part of his character as well, specifically for us and for his people that he's speaking to in Malachi.

Now, according to this passage in 1 John 4, 8, where it says God is love or God consists of love, according to this passage, love is part of God's very essence.

And because of that, we can deduce that his love is infinite because he's an infinite being.

And just as with the very blood that he shed on the cross for us, which was also infinitely powerful, his love being part of his essence, being part of his character is also infinitely powerful and infallible as well.

Now, what do you guys think of that? Would you guys agree that God's love, considering that it's something that he consists of, would y 'all agree that it is infallible and that it's all powerful?

I mean, I don't think anyone would disagree, but it does make the next verse all the more interesting because then we have to start considering our view of God's love, which we'll get to in a minute.

But if we agree with that, then we have to take verses and passages like what we're about to read in Malachi.

We really have to take a deep dive in it to make sure that we really understand what we're being told here when it says that God is love, that God consists of love.

So with that reality in mind, and we do all agree, I certainly agree, we all agree that this is true. His love is infallible.

His love is infinitely powerful. With that in mind, let's read just the first phrase of the next verse in Malachi because, again, it weren't really verses.

It was all one scroll. We just read verse two. In fact, let me read verse two again.

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 love Jacob, and I hated Esau. So that's the first phrase in the next verse there, in verse three.

And I hated Esau. Now, you can look at the Hebrew word there, but it means exactly what it says.

It means hate in a very strong sense. So now we have to ask, if God's love is truly infallible, it can't fail, how could he then hate anyone or anything if he loves everybody?

I mean, that's what we're told. That is the conclusion that I would say 99 % of the world comes to.

God is love, therefore God loves everybody. Well, if that's true and God's love is infallible, it cannot fail, then how on earth could this statement in Malachi be true?

How could he have hated Esau? So if that conclusion is true, that God does love everybody and loves everything, then perhaps his love isn't infallible.

And therefore, when the Bible says God is love, his love can't, even though that has to be a reality because it's in Scripture, maybe his love can fail because as we just read in verse three, he sometimes hates people.

And not just people, this isn't just some guy, this is the very offspring of his servant Isaac. This is

Isaac's son that we're talking about. And yet he says that he hated Esau.

So which is it? Is his love infallible or can it fail because he just said that I hated

Esau? So what do you guys think? So maybe it is infallible.

Well, that's a really deep point there. And for those listening online, what Dave just said is if it's true that his love is infallible and can't fail, and there's an infinite dimension to that.

If you look at the other side of that coin, and we read a phrase like he hated Esau, it's infinite in the other direction.

And Dave also said, well, his love is infallible, and he doesn't love everybody.

So maybe what's happening here is the premise just needs to be changed. And why are we even bringing this up?

Maybe, I mean, I know that you all probably see where I'm going with this. Obviously, I don't necessarily believe the conclusion that God loves everybody.

I mean, how can you with the phrase that we just read, unless God's love isn't infallible?

Well, it is because 1 John 4 tells us it is, because it's part of his essence. It has to be infallible if it's part of his essence, part of his character.

So the only way that Malachi 1 .3 can be incorporated in the broad context of the

Bible and there not be any contradictions, which we know there aren't, is the premise has to change.

Perhaps God doesn't love everybody. Perhaps that's not the correct conclusion. Perhaps he doesn't love every person or everything, but instead, he has preordained the method by which his love is extended forth from himself to certain individuals or a remnant, if you will, which of course is a very common biblical term.

I mean, that's not just me talking. It's always a remnant, whether it's spiritual salvation or physical salvation.

He always brings a remnant out. So perhaps his love is infallible and it is infinite, but he preordained the method by which he extends that.

He didn't just preordain the love. The love wasn't a preexistent character, but perhaps the method by which he extends it is a particular method that he came up with.

So if you look at it, if you change the premise a little bit and you ignore what 99 % of the world says in terms of just that phrase that's such a cop -out and it's such an easy thing to throw out, because by saying that God loves everybody, it releases from, one, skepticism and critique from the world who would have problems with the reality that we're getting into here.

It saves us from that ridicule because God loves everybody, so I'm a good guy, but it's also just a way for us to kind of get out from having to take the time to take a deep dive into the word to see if we can figure out what exactly does it mean when it says, for God is love, because it's such a simple sentence, but yet it's so deep at the same time.

So let's throw away the premise for a minute that God loves everybody and let's just start from scratch.

So God is love. He consists of love. It's infinite. It's infallible because it's part of his very essence.

Yet Malachi 1 .3, and I hated Esau. Okay, so now we have a

God that has this character of love. He consists of love, and we know that he extends his love to some because in verse 2, it says,

I loved Jacob. So you have Jacob receiving an infinite amount of love from God, and yet to Dave's point, you have

Esau in the very next phrase receiving an infinite amount of hate from the very same person. How is that possible?

So we got to correct the premise a little bit, and his love is infinite. It's infinite by virtue of it being a part of his essence, of course.

It is infallible. It can't fail, and it's not a contradiction that he can and does hate certain people.

It's not breaking in character, so to speak, and that can be illustrated in many ways, but we're going to look at this specifically for a bit.

Rather, what he does, as we alluded to a second ago, is he pre -ordains the method, and that method is given in verse 2 as well, and it's also given to us in that Deuteronomy passage we read earlier as well.

Do you guys recall in that Deuteronomy 4 .38? No, it was which verse?

Yeah, it was verse 37. It says it right there, and because he loved thy fathers, there's the infinite love, therefore he chose their seed.

So what's the method that God uses to extend his infinite love, and what is the

Hebrew word for choose? It's elect. So the doctrine of election, of course, also permeates the entire

New Testament. We know that's not exclusive to that Deuteronomy passage, so through election, that's the method that we're given in Deuteronomy, as well as verse 2, because,

I mean, he is implying the election of Jacob when he says, I have loved you, I've loved Jacob, and I hated

Esau. I mean, the election is explicit in other passages about Jacob, but it's implied here as well, and then it's explicit in the

Deuteronomy passage we just read. So the method by which he extends his infinite love, which can't fail, is through election, through his divine election of individuals from every race and from every people.

He then unleashes his infinite love on them. The infinite love is there, which included making the ultimate sacrifices of his own son for them as well, and I bring that up because of where we're about to go.

The answer to their question in verse 2, how does he love us? The answer is that he chose

Jacob in his seed rather than Esau in his seed, and that is in Genesis, and that enmity between those brothers,

I mean, we just finished Obadiah, and that book was all about their enmity that extended all the way through the Old Testament to the point where the

Edomites were eventually, ultimately crushed. I mean, they will eventually be ultimately crushed, but as of right now,

I mean, they were pretty well crushed in ancient history as well. I mean, they're still around today.

We know the bloodline of Esau is still somewhere because they are going to return to the Battle of Armageddon, but that was all, that's all what we talked about previously.

The answer to their question is that he chose Jacob in his seed rather than Esau in his seed, so God's love is, let's see here, okay, so there's that reality.

Now, coming back to God's love for a second, again, why is it that the conclusion of so many people out there is that God loves everybody, and maybe they would even use 1

John 4, 8 as the proof text of that for God is love. If He is love, how could

He hate? Well, number one, when you look at these passages and you get to the understanding that His love is infinite, but He chooses the method by which

He shows or extends that love, it's through election, so we've concluded that using the

Malachi passage. But in addition to that, there are so many other passages that talk about the infinite love because it does, it's such a massive thing that it's not like it ends here with Malachi 1, 3 or verse 2 and 3.

Often, God's love is culminated by most people, by I say most people,

I'm talking whether you're a theologian commentator or just a person that reads the

Bible, believes it's true, it's culminated in a single verse. And obviously, you know, it goes without saying, it's the most popular verse in the world.

It's the quintessential verse on God's love, at least from the viewpoint of everybody. And of course, that's

John 3, 16. And I want you guys to go there for a second because while any of us could quote it,

I do want us to look at it together for a minute because we're going to break it down and we're going to see if we can get a little bit more information on this infinite love that God has and the way in which he extends it to the human race.

So John 3, 16, I'll read it really quick and then we're going to break it down pretty much word for word.

For God so loved the world, so there is his infinite love that cannot fail the world.

That's a pretty broad statement. For God so loved the world. He has just that one little phrase right there implies that he extends his infinite love to a pretty broad scope.

What's interesting is it's actually even more broad than what our translation here implies.

We'll get to that in a second. For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting life.

It's beautiful. Let's break it down a little bit though. So the first word

I want to look at is we have just a little bit more time. The first word I want to look at is the word so.

Dave, very important word. Dave gives me a hard time a lot of times because I'll ask him this.

I don't even, I'm trying to think of a good context. It used to be in the context of work. I'd be like, Dave, can you proofread this for me?

Can you proofread this email before I send it to this guy, this response? Or take a look at this, you know, like marketing piece

I helped with and he'll read like however much I put on there and he would come up with like a single sentence that said in way better terms than what

I said in like a paragraph or something. And so from that point forward, that happened once. It's happened many times since.

But since the first time it happened, I will say something and say, what do you think about that, Dave? And he says, so, implying because that first example, he literally wrapped up like several sentences of this paragraph

I put together with the word so and then continued on. Anyway, so it's a very important word. So for God so loved the world.

The word so there is hoitu,

I think is how you pronounce it. And it means in this manner. Okay. So for God in this manner, this is a manner that he is about to discuss in this manner loved.

So what's that word? It's agapeo. It's the verb version of the noun agape that we're all familiar with that supernatural love that only

God can have and that only we can have if we are in relationship with the Lord. So for in this manner, for God in this manner loved agapeo to love dearly the world.

So here's this is a big one. Okay. What is this word world talking about? Is it as broad as it sounds?

Well, it's actually, it's actually very broad because the word is cosmos. And the Greek word for cosmos is literally talking about the harmonious arrangement of the universe.

It's talking about the entire universe. It's not just the world is in the earth, but it's an apt and harmonious arrangement, the ornament of the heavens, the universe that God created.

So for God in this manner loved agapeo the universe, the harmonious arrangement of the stars, everything that he gave his only begotten son.

What is, what about the word that there? The word that, and the reason I want to look at this is because the word that is used again later in the verse, but it's a totally different Greek word.

The word that is hoiste, which means in so much so, or in other words, to such a great extent.

So for God in this manner, agapeo loved the universe to such a great extent.

He gave his only begotten son. All right. So this is an interesting thing because already we've gleaned a little bit of information that sheds so much light on this verse that it could be quoted by just about anyone in the earth on the planet and anyone in the cosmos.

And it's, it's, it's beautiful as written, as translated in the KJV, in my opinion, but it is so much deeper.

Like if you just break it down part for part and why not? I mean, you might think, what is the point of breaking a verse down word for word?

I mean, it can drag on. You could do this, you go forever. Well, okay, fair enough.

But it is the most popular, well -known, famous verse in the history of man.

So why not break it down word for word? And so already we've gleaned a lot of information. We haven't even finished the verse yet, but what we've gathered is you can start to kind of see a really broad context here because in the garden of Eden, what happened was

Satan in his temptation of Eve, in his success of that temptation, he actually earned a very powerful title, which is the

God of this world. The God of this world. That is a massively important title to earn.

When I say earn, I mean, literally by right of conquest, he duped the son of God, which was

Adam. In the chronology, I can't remember if it's

Luke or Matthew, when it's going down the chronology from Jesus back to Adam, it says, and Adam was the son of God.

So Satan duped God's person, God's man, and got him to sin.

So he won by conquest the title of the God of this world. And that title is talked about by Paul in 2

Corinthians 4 .4. So we know that's a legit title of the devil. He is the God of this world by right of conquest.

But then Jesus, who has another name in that context, can you guys think of another name of Jesus in the context of Adam and what happened, what transpired at the beginning?

If God was the first Adam, Jesus, as it said in 1

Corinthians 15 .45, is the last Adam. So Jesus is the last Adam because he took back the title that was meant for the first man,

Adam. God created Adam to have the title of the God of this world.

He gave him dominion over everything. He created everything and cultivated everything specifically for this guy.

And he gave it up. So Jesus, as the last Adam, had to take it back. It was meant for Adam, but he failed.

So the perfect, the last Adam, had to come take it back. And at the crucifixion, he put the cosmos, which went into absolute disarray because of the fall of man, he put it back in order.

Or at least, if you want to look at it very linearly from a human viewpoint, you could say he set the groundwork for putting it all back in order in its totality.

But from God's viewpoint, he put it back in order at that moment. And really, even before the foundation of the earth, if you want to look at it from his perspective.

But that gets a little bit crazy. So he put the cosmos back in order by right of conquest.

As Satan took it by right of conquest and became the God of this world, Jesus took it back by right of conquest at the crucifixion.

So now consider the love and the care that God put into his creation and in cultivating this perfect environment for his son

Adam to be the quote -unquote God of this world himself. So naturally, his infinite love for this cosmos would also extend to humanity, which it tells us in the latter part of this verse in John 3 16, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.

So that's like the big grand finale of this verse. This is what makes it so incredible to us sitting in this room.

Okay. I'm making sure my watch is working. I still have about 10 minutes, right?

Maybe 11 minutes. Okay. The latter part of the verse.

Okay. So that's the part that makes it great. So let's start breaking down the last half of John 3 16 now.

So here we are. There's a word that here again in English.

It says that whosoever believeth in him. That Greek word is a different Greek word than the first that we looked at.

It's the Greek word hina, which means in order or in order that something happens.

Something's about to follow in order that whosoever. This is a really important word to look at here because this word, this verse can be used out of context as we've illustrated here before from the

Arminian viewpoint in terms of God dying for every single person and then them having ultimate control over their own fate.

It sounds kind of crazy, but that's the conclusion of Arminianism. And this is a proof text for them in their teaching.

And they use this word here. So this is an important word. Whosoever it's the word. Can you take a stab at what word you think it is?

We talk about this word a lot. We talk about it. Is it pos? It's pos.

Okay. So normally the English translation that is all the English word all in this verse, it's the

English word whosoever. Um, it's the Greek word pos and it can mean two things.

And what's interesting about it. Well, I don't want to get in my head of myself. It can mean a couple of things. It can mean individually or like each person, each thing, or it can mean collectively meaning some of all types.

Now, as we've determined in so many of the passages that use this Greek word, if you look at the context, it's the latter.

Some of all types when it's Paul talking to the Jews, letting them know, guess what? You're not all that special.

You are special, but he didn't just die for you. He died for the people that you call dogs as well.

He died for all men. He died for Greeks and the Jews. Um, he died from some of every race.

We talk about that a lot, but in this context and dad, feel free to correct me if I'm missing something here.

I believe it's actually the former individually. In other words, the word pos here means each, uh, each.

In other words, each individual. Let me, I'll get back to that in a second. Okay. The next Greek word is believeth.

And that Greek word, another very important word here is pistio. And that means to place confidence in something.

Okay. So people take this phrase whosoever believeth to mean that the human act of believing is the cause of one's salvation.

But if you look at the precise grammar, it gives us again, even more insight than what you gather just by reading the verse really fast in our

English translation. If you look at the precise grammar, the verb pistio here, which is believeth, it's in the present active participle.

Normally I leave this stuff to dad. This is the first time I've ever tried to do this, uh, because it's kind of, it's kind of cumbersome, but that's why

I want dad's help in a minute. Um, but it's important again, we're looking at John three 16 here. So we gotta, we gotta figure this stuff out.

It's in the present active participle. In other words, the word is in the continual action.

If you are reading in English, when something is in the present active participle, typically we put the, what is it called?

Not a prefix, but a I N G. What is that? A suffix. We put the suffix

I N G at the end of the word in denoting continual action. It's happening right this second.

And the verb is happening the second. Okay. So that is the grammar behind the

Greek word, uh, pistio here. So the proper translation, if you are looking at the precise grammar of it in the

Greek, from which our KJV is derived from the proper translation closest to the actual meaning in Greek is whosoever is believing in him or even better, whosoever is found believing actively, continually in him shall not perish.

And again, that sheds a whole lot of light on this verse. So for this reason, a lot of, if you go look at like a

Greek interlinear New Testament, where it doesn't read that great, but it's because they are literally putting English words in the exact place where the

Greek word is, they typically translate it like that rather than how the

KJV reads, which again, the KJV reads great. And, uh, it's beautiful. And I think given, if you look at the full context of John chapter three,

I think you come to the same conclusion, but it's kind of fun to break it just the single verse down as well.

So I'm going to read John 3 16 now, but I'm going to read it with all of the

Greek words. We just broke down in the meanings of those Greek words with the tenses of that, or the tense of that one particular verb as well.

And this is how John 3 16 reads for God in this manner, loved dearly the universe to such a great extent.

He gave, I'm sorry, to such a great extent that he gave his only begotten son in order that each person that is found believing in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.

So it get, you get the sense of what's happening here. He's telling us that the way in which a person can even be found believing in the first place is the fact that he put this universe back in order.

That that's one thing you can take from it. But again, he, he looked out, he saw

Satan who took the title of the God of this world. And kind of looking at this from the human viewpoint for a second, the disarray and the destruction that he was bringing on his otherwise harmonious creation.

And he, and he loved his creation and everything he had put in place so much to such a great extent that he wanted to put all of that back in order.

But in doing so, he also made it possible that whosoever is found believing in any given point in time, they are found actively believing on the name of the

Lord that they're not going to perish. Instead, they're going to have everlasting life. There's a sense of eternal security.

It's all, you can, you can almost, you can almost conclude that, I mean, I'm not saying it is exclusively this, but a part of this is being an eternal security verse.

I mean, what we can gather from all of it is how does it apply, number one, to our lesson in Malachi, and how does it apply to us?

Well, for starters, we learn that the fact that Malachi 1 .3 says, and I hated

Esau, that does not violate God's character when we read a verse like that. His love is infinite, and it is infallible, but he's also very specific about how he extends that love to the whole cosmos, and by extension of the cosmos, the human race.

How does he extend that love to the human race, which was otherwise totally fallen, and a hundred percent of which deserved hell?

He does that through his election, and in two specific ways. Dad, did you have a thought? Okay. Think about that for a second.

The Severinos say the love, that love is intentional, and that love is a choice. I would say we all agree with that from our perspective, me as an individual.

My love is absolutely a choice, and specific, and intentional. It takes a lot of energy to love, and so you're not going to be wasting that, you know what

I mean? And so, if we were created in God's image, and we are to be like this little, tiny, minuscule reflection of his attributes, which of course, his attributes are infinite.

We can have love. It's not necessarily an infinite kind of love, unless we're walking with Christ, in which we get agape, but that's a whole other thing, but just from the sense of us being humans, yes, we can have love, so we can emulate that characteristic of God, because he created us in his image, and how do we do love?

We do it intentionally, to the Severinos point. We choose who we're going to love, who we're going to be expending that amount of energy on, and I don't mean that in a negative sense.

I mean, I'm just saying, it takes, like, we are specific, and intentional about our love, for good reason, so why would it be any different for God, whom we are supposed to be the reflection of, or to emulate the characteristics of, so that's a wonderful point.

Okay, so really quick, I'll end with this. Okay, so we have gathered that his love is infinite, and that he extends it in a very specific way, which allows, and that's, let me start over, it makes it clear to us how

Malachi 1 .3 is not contradictory to 1 John 4 .8, or John 3 .16, so he extended his love in at least two specific ways, not that it's exclusive to these, or that it, you know, what's the term, including but not limited, what's the term, you know what

I'm saying, it's not that this is all of it, but this is two specific ways that he extends his love.

Number one, it's by electing his people before the foundation of the earth, which of course included

Jacob in his seed, as he expressed in verse two, so that's one way that extends his love, but another way is by putting the entire universe, or cosmos, as we get from John 3 .16,

back in order, which he did at the crucifixion, which made it possible for those who are believing in him to have eternal security in their salvation.

That's an enormous amount of love, not only for his creation, but for his people as well, so,

I mean, John 3 .16, yes, it can be, it is an awesomely concise version of the gospel, because that is wonderful news, the fact that he took back that title from the devil, the god of this earth, by conquest, by conquering him at the cross, so that not only the universe could be put back in order, but for those who do have faith in Jesus, can be saved, who are believing in him actively in continual sense at this moment, can be saved.

I mean, it's still just as powerful, not just as powerful, it's even more powerful than just the common casual cursory glance at the verse with the conclusion that therefore

God loves everybody. It's way more satisfying, both theologically and emotionally as well, because one of the awesome things about election is, as dad says all the time, it tells you just how special that you really are.

I mean, it's, oh man, it's, who wouldn't like it? I mean, I get that people don't, especially from an emotional sense, and sometimes they'll try to stretch it theologically as well, but I get that a lot of people don't like the doctrine on the surface, and it depends on where they're at.

I don't want to get into all of that, but my point is, eventually, who wouldn't get to the conclusion that election is one of the most awesome things, because it tells you just how special you are as an individual to God, the creator of the cosmos.

Really, really awesome stuff. So I'll end it there, and we're about a minute over, and sorry

I didn't leave enough time for like comments and stuff, but I'm actually surprised I got through all that. I didn't think

I would. I guess I'll go ahead and ask if anyone has a thing they'd like to share, might as well. We go a little bit over every

Sunday, so. Okay, so that no one is.

Yes, in the Incredibles, the bad guy said, I'm going to make everybody a superhero so that no one will be.

Wow. Go ahead, Dan. Oh, thanks,

Ray. I appreciate that much, and we're not done necessarily with verse two and three.

There's, I want to, and maybe this will be next week, or maybe a little bit later. I'm not sure yet, but the next time I do this, we're going to look at some commentaries on verse two and three, and some commentaries from some really solid guys, not just any old common commentary, and some of the stuff they say about this passage is, like when

I was reading, I was like, really? So I want to read this. I want to read it to you guys as well, and get y 'all's thoughts on it, and I want to finish with the ultimate commentary on this passage, which we'll get to next time, but with that being said,

Dave, would you mind dismissing this in prayer? Thank you so much for today.