Book of Malachi - Ch. 1, Vs. 1-2 (12/11/2022)

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Well, if y 'all would like to turn to Malachi, that's where we're going to be today.

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Let's see here. So, I'm kind of continuing the same, a similar theme to what brought us to Obadiah last time, and that being just kind of my own desire to dig into some of these minor prophets that I've never paid much attention to in years past, but in the last couple years, just found interest in, mainly because, as I've told you guys probably half a dozen times or more at this point, when

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I did the Bible in a year two years ago, I'm reading some of these minor prophets, and I'm like,

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I wonder if I've ever read these. Like, I know I've heard others maybe teach from them, preach from them, but verse by verse, myself,

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I don't know. And so, there were a couple of those, and so at the very least, that made me excited to just read through them, but after reading through them, fast forward to this year, that's when

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I kind of had the desire to dig into them a little bit more myself, and so you guys get to be along for the ride there and see what happens.

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Obviously, we did Obadiah recently. We're going to see if we can tackle Malachi, which is a little bit longer, about four chapters, but there's some really interesting things that come from it.

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The first thing, just a little bit of a cursory overview before we tackle the first couple of verses here, the name

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Malachi, well, first of all, I'll say this. It's another one of those really funny things where you open up the commentaries, and some are saying that Malachi is a title, not a name.

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Others are saying it's a name, and whatever. I wish I had written the quote down.

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All of my favorite commentators agree that it is a person, it's a man, and a specific man,

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I should say, not just a guy with this title, because the word Malachi or the name

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Malachi means my messenger, so they thought it could have been just the more liberal commentators thought it could have been any generic guy that was given this title for this prophecy, but some of my favorite commentators,

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I think Feinberg was one of the ones where he was like, every book of prophecy was delivered by a specific, special person, and he just said it as a matter of fact.

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He was like, and that is the exact same for Malachi. This is the last prophet in the great succession of prophets, and it's no different.

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This is a person. His name is Malachi, and his name means my messenger, and he was the last prophet of the

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Old Testament, obviously. Now, that's not just in the order of our books, but that is historically as well.

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This is the last prophecy that we receive prior to kind of like a period of the

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Dark Ages in between the Old Testament and Jesus coming, or John the Baptist kind of getting things started, of course,

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Jesus right behind him, and Malachi was the last Old Testament prophet before John the

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Baptist himself, and it was something like 500 years or so, maybe 400 years.

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Actually, I think it was closer to 400 years, which is kind of interesting when you consider that there was 400 years for God's people between Joseph and Moses bringing them out of Egypt, and then you had roughly 400 years from the last prophet to Jesus coming for the first time, so he was the last prophet before that, and he also predicted

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John the Baptist as well in chapter 3. We'll get to that eventually. Now, as far as the message goes, the overall message was pretty simple, and it was very similar to many of the other prophets, if not all the prophets.

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The kind of the generic message within it is if God's people want to be blessed, they want to receive the blessings that were laid out during the time of Moses, most of them, they need to be faithful.

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The covenants that were conditional covenants, they have to keep their side of the bargain if they want to receive the blessings that come with that covenant, and so Malachi was reminding his people of that.

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If they want the blessings, they have to be faithful, but in addition to that, it carried, as we will see, a fair amount of rebuke in kind of the tone of this whole prophecy.

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There's rebuke, even some condemnation toward his people, and one of the reasons is because the

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Israelites at this point, they had lost perspective of God's covenants with them quite a bit, and we're going to address that as we go throughout the book because there are many examples of the state that they found themselves in by the time you get to Malachi, and in the meantime, as they lost perspective following that, they also started losing hope in the kingdom that had been promised to them for centuries from all of the other prophets prior.

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They were losing their patience. They got to the point where they decided Messiah isn't going to come, this kingdom that was promised.

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They just started losing faith in all of it across the board, and again, this is illustrated in great detail in this particular prophecy as we go through it.

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The lack of faith and the lack of patience that they showed or that they had at this time led to widespread unfaithfulness, and that included the priests themselves, not just the people, the common people, but the priests as well.

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Unfaithfulness, that spilled into what became a very irreverent form of worship in the temple.

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It spilled over into their homes, and marital relations turned really bad, fast, as we'll see.

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The Israelite men were divorcing their wives, marrying pagans. The reverence toward the way

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God set everything up was just practically totally gone at this point, and what we're going to find is

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Malachi was sent to give them one last refocus.

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If you want to think from the human viewpoint, it's like they were given one last chance in terms of, again, a great prophet sent directly from God.

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They obviously still had the law. They still had all the customs, the

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Lord's statutes that they could be observing and keeping during the time in between Malachi and the

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New Testament, but in terms of a prophet being sent and God speaking through that prophet where they are hearing the direct words of the

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Lord, it was kind of like, if you want to think of it from the human viewpoint, kind of like their last chance. Like, you guys have done bad for centuries.

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You have been revived by some of the men in the past, but you would quickly turn back, and here you are again.

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And so they had marital problems. The priests weren't worshiping correctly anymore.

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Unfaithfulness was common among all of them at this point, and this spirit was permeating the people of Malachi's day, but think about it in terms of the priests themselves.

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The Pharisees didn't exist yet at this point, but this is the last book prior to New Testament when

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Jesus comes on the scene, and then he has that great enemy, the Pharisees and the Sadducees, that he dealt with his entire ministry and that the apostles had to deal with after that.

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Well, what is happening is because of the nature, the spirit behind the attitudes of God's people at this time, it's going to be what cultivates and eventually nurtures the

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Pharisees to come on the scene. So the sects of the Pharisees and the

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Sadducees, those two specific groups of whatever you want to call them, religious leaders, they were about to start coming on the scene themselves, but they weren't there yet.

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What is going to take place in Malachi is what sets the stage for that. Now, in order to renew their perspective and kind of try to turn things around, because again, from the human viewpoint, that was

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Malachi's goal. It was like, the Lord sent me to take one last shot at you guys, at this stiff -necked people.

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In order to renew that perspective, what Malachi is going to do is he's going to point to the full picture,

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God's past, present, and future dealings with Israel. And of course, we are going to get some far prophecy as well as near prophecy throughout

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Malachi. So he's going to be telling them of things that are to come, as well as reminding them of everything the

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Lord has done for them. And he attempts ultimately to reestablish their hope and to motivate them to put their faith back in God and in his promises to them.

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One thing that caught my attention when I was kind of deciding which book

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I wanted to tackle, and why I landed on this, is again, similarly to Obadiah, there were some parallels there that I thought were interesting.

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This little book, I've never paid any attention to before, and then I take a look at it, and I'm like, well, this is interesting, because this sounds a lot like the people around us today.

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Well, that Obadiah was, the parallels I was seeing there were the

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Edomites representing kind of how the heathen are today, and what that might turn into, or what will turn into eventually for us.

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But Malachi is going to give us a great example of the weak, careless brothers and sisters around us today.

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We're going to get a great parallel of what this irreverence can lead to when you are a child of God.

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Of course, these are God's people as a whole, the Israelites, but if you want to use that as a picture of God's people today, the elect, we know that there can be a lot of problems, even after salvation.

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We have the old man, and we have the sins of our youth that can so easily beset us, and we have these sin habits that we can revert to if we're not constantly in the word, if we don't have a strong relationship with the

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Lord, and that can get really ugly really fast, even if we are a legitimate child of God.

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The Israelites at the time of Malachi, again, we're going to see the results of what that irreverence can look like, and what just walking around carelessly, you have the title of child of God, but you're not living up to the standard.

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You're not living up to that title. It's a pretty potent picture of what a lot of Christians can look like around us today.

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That was something that popped out, and maybe that'll pop out for you guys as well as we go through it, but that was one of the things that stood out to me for sure.

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At this point in history, when Malachi gave us this specific prophecy, just to put some historical context to it, the

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Israelites had been permitted to return to their homeland from Babylonian exile to Judah, and the temple had already been rebuilt, the second temple that dad talked about not that long ago, and I think

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Joseph was the name of the Levite that was helping him with that. They had already rebuilt the temple, and so temple worship was technically restored.

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Nehemiah was either in the process of getting very close to finishing the wall at this point of this prophecy, or it had already been done for a little while.

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I think it was probably already done, and so you have all these big historical events that have already taken place, and you find the

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Israelites restored to temple worship. They have been permitted to just live more like prisoners to a foreign nation, although they were still under the power at this point of Persians, but they were allowed to live with a lot of autonomy.

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They still, to some degree, had to answer, kind of like they are eventually going to the Romans around the time that Jesus comes, but this time, it was the

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Persians, and so they had a lot of freedom. It wasn't ideal, as we'll find out, because we're going to get some information, kind of shed some light on what their day -to -day looked like, but it wasn't ideal, but it wasn't bad.

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Again, they were no longer in exile. They were free from that. They had a lot of autonomy. They had their temple worship restored.

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They had some great men, some great contemporaries still with them. They had Nehemiah. They had Malachi. I'm not sure if Zerubbabel and Joseph were still alive at this time, but if not, we're just on the back of that portion of their history, and so you had all these things, but times weren't necessarily easy for the

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Israelites either, because despite being repatriated at this point, having their temple worship restored, they were still under the dominion of foreign powers, and they were cursed by God at this point.

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Several times, we're going to see God come in and remind them that they are cursed directly by Him at this point, and of course,

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He explains why, and there were good reasons for it, but they were cursed by God, so that's the period to setting the stage there, setting the tone for the way they were feeling in these times, but because of that curse, it obviously also brought some really tough economic times for them as well, and all of this is going to be illustrated as we go throughout the book, but as we'll see, these things were brought upon them for a reason, and that reason, which was certainly due to their falling short on their end of the covenant, it was exacerbated by their attitudes toward the hardships, so we're going to find the

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Israelites in a really funny cycle as we get a little bit further into the lesson today, but they essentially, just to kind of cut to the chase, were in this position because of their disobedience, and the disobedience led to God pulling away from them, even getting to the point where He is now actively cursing them, and again, we'll see what specific curses are on the table shortly, and so because of that, they find themselves bitter toward God that they're in this situation, but they're forgetting that they're in the situation because of them, because of themselves, because of their own disobedience, but because they don't realize that, they get even more bad attitudes about the situation they're in, which leads to further, again, kind of irreverence, if you will.

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Their temple worship is lazy at best. They are breaking all of God's commandments left and right, or a lot of specific ones.

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I mean, on marriage, it was a big one in the way they worship God, like I said, and again, all that's going to be illustrated, so we'll get to a lot of that, but again, everything was exacerbated by their attitudes toward the hardships that they found themselves in because of their disobedience, and they were indifferent and even resentful toward God during this time.

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Both the priests and the people were violating the stipulations of God's law actively at this point in time, and the people by this time had totally lost hope in God's covenant promises as well.

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I kind of teased that a few minutes ago. They were just like, no, this kingdom's not coming. We're just going to be under the dominion of whoever, the

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Babylonians or the Persians, eventually the Romans. This is how it's going to be forever, so we don't even need to care about any of this ridiculous stuff.

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It's not going to happen anyway. All the prophets of time past must have been lying to us. These are the kind of attitudes they had, and again,

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I hate to kind of cut to the chase too much because we're going to see the actual passages illustrate all this stuff shortly, but it's really crazy.

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They lost hope in God's covenant, and we find out in numerous ways throughout this book that in the ways in which...

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Oh, sorry. Go ahead, Dad. Yes. Well, and of course, that's,

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I mean, as you know, because you're the one that told me, but that's a mistranslation already because the wrath in the scripture that they reference is talking about hell, but in terms of the idea just in general of, well,

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God doesn't want tribulation for his people. Go ahead. Okay.

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Right. Well, one of the passages early in is a revelation. Was it

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Paul? We can look it up with the word search. I think it's actually an epistle of Paul, perhaps, but Dad will look up the exact passage, but Paul is saying that God is going to keep his people from wrath.

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I'm paraphrasing a little bit. We'll get the exact verse in a sec, but he's going to protect his people from wrath and pre -tribulation rapture.

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People who believe in that particular theory will use that as the proof text for the church will be raptured long before the seven year tribulation period.

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But the word wrath there is literally referencing hell, like eternal damnation.

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He's going to protect his people from eternal damnation, not from tribulation in this life. And so that was that was what

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I was referencing a second ago, and Dad is looking up that passage. But in terms of,

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OK, if you want to take the position of, well, God is going to protect his people from tribulation period, hard times.

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Well, number one, we are promised hard times in the Old and the New Testament. Peter, you know, think it not strange these fiery trials that you're going to experience for his namesake.

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So we're we're promised persecution at the very least for Jesus's namesake. And that is even count all of the other hardships that the

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Lord may bring us through, just totally related to our own lives, just for our own personal growth. But this is a great example, for sure, in terms of hardships, tribulation.

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And perhaps even wrath, because I think you can use that word. You know, that was an English translation, obviously, in that passage that's referencing hell.

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But you can use God's wrath in a different context in terms of, you know, physical punishment in this life for disobedience.

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And this is a great illustration of that. And what we'll find, we're going to get to a passage shortly that explains or I should say justifies perfectly why

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God is cursing his people at this time. So we're getting really close to that. But but yeah, dad,

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I mean, this can't this is this is going to be a great story or illustration of the fact that in reality,

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God's people do go through tribulation. And in many cases, they are from his hand directly to serve a specific purpose.

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Okay, First Thessalonians 5 .9.

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Right. Right. Yep.

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It's eternal security. I'll read it really quick just for the so everyone online can hear.

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But the first passage that dad was referencing a lot, the pre -trib, the pre -tribbers will use as the proof text for us being raptured prior to the

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Great Tribulation. First Thessalonians 5 .9 says, For God hath not appointed us to wrath. And what dad was saying is they'll put a period right there.

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And, you know, boom, case closed. But in reality, well, there's a comma there. And then it follows.

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It says, But to obtain salvation by our Lord Jesus Christ. So it's it's an eternal security verse.

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It's not it doesn't have anything to do with wrath in terms of physical tribulation in this lifetime. It's talking about hell.

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And that word there is is or gay, which means indignation.

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It's it's referencing God's indignation toward. Unbelievers that were that's what the word wrath is in Greek.

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If I'm remembering that correctly, I have it written here, I assume from one of your sermons, dad. But anyway, so, yeah.

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So going back to your first question, though, this will be a great illustration of of the fact that God will bring tribulation upon his people.

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And it'll be for a couple of it could be for for several reasons or all of the above. It could be for your personal growth in the.

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Yeah, it could be literally for your personal growth to make you a stronger person and to bring you closer to him.

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Or it could be indirect. It could be a direct response to disobedience. And of course, we're going to find out shortly which one it is, but I'm sure you guys can figure that one out.

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But a couple of ways that. A couple of the ways that we're that is that we're going to find out.

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And the people have. Broke the covenant or have been have been breaking the covenant with the

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Lord is number one in Malachi is number one intermarriages with pagans is one of the the common themes, very high divorce rates, which

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I should you know that would. Naturally come first, because what was happening is the

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Israeli men, the Israelites were divorcing their Jewish wives Hebrew wives to marry the pagans so high divorce rates then intermarriages with pagans and then just general moral ambivalence and.

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And we're going to see that illustrated plenty of times as well, in fact, the spiritual life of the remnant who had.

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Returned from Babylon Babylonian captivity is fully portrayed in a number of ways they were insensible to the great love of God displayed toward them and we're going to see that just right off the bat and we're going to be.

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In Malachi just in just a second, but again, this is just kind of setting setting the tone setting the stage for what this book is built on they were insensible toward the great love of God.

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They were unaware of the enormity of their departure from the way of the Lord and again, these are all things that are illustrated in the passages themselves and just kind of want to give you guys a just quick cursory.

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view of what we're going to be diving into, but they were totally unaware of how severe the severity behind.

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Their disobedience their departure from the way of the Lord they lacked references of our as we've already said a couple of times for the

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Lord and actually despised him they got to a point of despising him. They were so lacking in spiritual perception that when their deeds were pointed out to them by Malachi will buy the

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Lord through Malachi they saw no harm and what they were doing again does that not sound kind of familiar think about.

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How gosh I don't know yeah just think about again the people around us that are at least self proclaiming

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Christians Okay, you know we don't know anyone's hearts, we know we're in the Bible belt so for cultural status there's going to be a lot of people proclaiming.

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They are a follower of the Lord, but of course they bear no fruit, and so, but we know that just by virtue of human nature itself, there are going to be actual children of the

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Lord in our time around us that are living lives in a very irreverent fashion.

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Very lazy with their worship yeah I mean me. Well, yeah,

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I mean we're. yeah well think about how many churchgoers are no longer going to church after everyone went online in 2020 so everyone was home and then everyone started returning in the numbers were small and i've heard that in news articles i've heard that from acquaintances that run their own churches friends and family.

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You know, from some other predominant pastors that I may list to on YouTube or whatever MacArthur.

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Others that talk about just the generally lower church attendance well if it's a cultural status thing everyone's going to church until they don't have to until they have an excuse for it online church is a great excuse to say well i'm not going to be there physically but i'll be listening.

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or something, and then they're out on the bass boat or something that was. That was dad's illustration growing up there out there out on the got their boat out on a

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Sunday. yeah go ahead pop pop. Did you have a thought.

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Oh, but they're listening, yes, and so. But yeah, the thing about.

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The kind of the general reference is they're like rationalizing you know what

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I mean like that is that's a huge you know thing that has, I guess, penetrated.

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The modern day Christian and again i'm talking of legitimate you know children of the

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Lord rationalizing their way into certain things they want to do, and out of things that maybe they should do, or vice versa, whatever it may be, but.

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Again, you know they were they lacked reference, they were so lacking in their spiritual perception their own spiritual growth.

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That when someone pointed out like Malik I was like what you're doing is wrong, they didn't see any harm in it, they were like what are you talking about what's wrong with this,

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I mean, can you not picture. A similar situation now with just lifestyles of so many

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Christians that are like they either say, well, the Bible doesn't say I can't do that or or. You know you're being a legalist

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I don't know who knows it, but in reality, it always comes back to dad's ultimate question or he always says that you're asking the wrong question does the

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Bible say I can't do that, and the right question is. Would Jesus be doing this right now, and no one is asking that question anymore, and so we find ourselves with this in a similar situation where Christians around us many.

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I mean i'm excluding everyone here, obviously, and everyone online here i'm not talking about the people that are actually online i'm talking about the people saying they are in the art.

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that's what I was getting to earlier what dad okay they're all

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I know you guys are out fishing right now and just kind of passively listening but it's okay I won't judge too hard.

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But anyway, and so you know they're. The fishers yeah.

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We need to turn them into fishers of men, obviously. Because they're still catching bass and then, of course, their attitude toward the

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Lord is revealed in the off repeated phrase which will hear very, very often here is wherein they ask

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Malachi point something out, they say, what are you talking about so. The sins of Israel that provoked

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Nehemiah were the same that stirred up Malachi the failures were defilement of the priesthood they their foreign marriages their intermarriages with pagans their divorce rates with their

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Israelite wives. Their neglect of proper worship and so all this was going on so let's go ahead and jump into the book itself just a couple of verses for today.

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So Malachi one one, it says the burden of the word of the Lord to Israel by Malachi now the word burden here sets all of the tone that we need, in addition to just the historical context.

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It sets a somber tone and somewhat anxious tone for Malachi himself just right off the BAT. In other prophetic books this

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Hebrew word which is Messiah, which literally means burden or that to which the soul lifts itself up introduces messages of a threatening nature 27 times in the

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Old Testament. And some examples of Isaiah 1314 2815 one

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Habakkuk one one Zechariah nine one. Another one is name. This is one of the ones brother bill did not that long ago name one one says the burden of Nineveh, the book of the vision of name whom the

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English site, we know what happens here they're about to be utterly destroyed. This is the same Hebrew word 27 times is this

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Hebrew word used to introduce something that's about to happen. A great burden.

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And so the book begins with the burden of the word of the Lord, but it's not toward Babylon.

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It's not toward Nineveh. This is toward Israel. So the word here is directed to Israel, the burden of the message is going to spearhead the problems in the relationship between God and Israel, not any of Israel's enemies

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Israel themselves. These problems, of course, can only exist because of Israel's unfaithfulness, which is a big theme throughout

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Malachi as we'll see now an interesting thing to consider here is that one of the biggest offenders of an unfaithfulness during Malachi time were the priests, which of course are the ones that are supposed to be setting the example and performing the specific duties of the temple and of temple worship.

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Leading the people, all the sacrifices, all that kind of stuff. The priests, of course, were supposed to be God's messengers.

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Let me go back to Malachi for a second. Obviously, we'll get to this at some point, but this is pretty interesting to me.

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In Malachi 2 .7, it says for the priests lips should keep knowledge and they should seek the law at his mouth, for he is the messenger of the

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Lord of hosts. The priests are supposed to be the messengers, but instead they're one of the biggest offenders of the unfaithfulness and of the irreverent worship that's taking place here.

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They're supposed to be the messengers, but now they were the ones to listen to the prophet, whose name means my messenger.

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There's a little bit of sense of irony there, but there's perhaps even a larger sense of rebuke to them, because they know what

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Malachi means, they know what their duty is supposed to be, and now they're about to be put in their place by my messenger, by Malachi.

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They're going to know it's because they are failing to do what they are supposed to be doing. This is certainly a burden, the burden of the word of the

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Lord to Israel by Malachi. I have loved you, saith the Lord, yet ye say wherein?

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This is the question that we're going to see throughout this book. Wherein hast thou loved us?

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And then the Lord says, was not Esau Jacob's brother, saith the Lord, yet I loved Jacob.

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Now, in Malachi, we've come again to the end of the Old Testament, into this final stretch of time before this particular dispensation ends.

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And the Lord here is speaking of his love for Israel in the past tense. I have loved you, saith the

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Lord, as he looks back on the centuries of spiritual adultery that his people have committed, and he's reminding them of that.

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So, again, obviously, we have a strong preference from the

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Lord's viewpoint in our doctrine in so much of what we do here. But sometimes it is interesting to me to think of it on the very linear human time scale from the human viewpoint.

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And you picture God in time, he's speaking through Malachi, and I can picture him telling them this, saying,

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I have loved you, all the while remembering of the gross adultery that they have been committing for centuries.

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And it obviously speaks so much to how unique that relationship is, because whether you're looking at Israel and their husband, which, of course, the

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Lord divorced at some point in Jeremiah because of their spiritual fornication, or you look at it as we as the bride and Jesus as our groom, it's the perfect husband.

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Like, not a single flaw as good as a husband could possibly be, and yet it's the worst wife a wife could possibly be, that being his people.

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Constant adultery, constant fornication, which, of course, I'm using those terms, it was idolatry, but it was spiritual adultery.

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And gross disobedience over time and time and time again. I mean, you could go throughout the whole history of the

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Old Testament and think of all the amazing things that took place in the times where they were in such despair that the wife looked to her husband and was like, please bring us out of this, and he would bring them out of that, and then they'd turn right back into it again.

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And all that's illustrated, of course, in Hosea physically, but it's crazy.

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So you picture the Lord sitting there telling them, I have loved you, and thinking about, because again, on a linear timescale here, we're at the end of the

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Old Testament, so all of the history is behind them. I have loved you, despite all of that, despite your fornication or your adultery.

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And he is now telling them, he's telling his people this, he's reminding them of their sins throughout this time.

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Now, we're getting really close to the first coming, to the first advent of Jesus.

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We're only a few hundred years from it. But first, Israel will be looked upon by God with disappointment.

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Well, not one more time, there'd be plenty more times, but once again, he's going to be looking down upon them with disappointment as they usher in a time of non -relational, quote unquote, worship.

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That would ultimately nurture, again, kind of the pharisaical order. The Pharisees and the

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Sadducees weren't even on the scene yet, but the next time, Malachi ends, and then we're in Matthew, and they're stronger than ever.

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These religious leaders that are leading the pack and ruling the roost and are going to be, well,

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I was going to say the thorn in Jesus' side during his lifetime, it was the exact opposite. They weren't a thorn in his side at all.

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He was the one that was turning their world upside down. But that was one of, if you want to look at it that way, one of his greatest foes during his earthly ministry, although, again, wasn't really even a foe because he had no problem.

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But you get my point. What's about to take place was cultivated so that the

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Pharisees could grow out of that, and so that's kind of a crazy perspective, too. Now, this was not the first time that the

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Lord spoke of, again, going back to verse 2 for a second, I have loved you. It's not the first time that he has spoke of this intimate love that he had for Israel.

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Again, there's so many great examples. Hosea chapter 11 is one of them. His love for his people was the driver of his covenant with them in the first place, and we have a lot of passages in Deuteronomy.

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Let's read this really quick, and then I'll go ahead and close it out for today. You want to go to Deuteronomy chapter 4, starting at verse 37.

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Let's see here. So, again, the book of Malachi begins with this burden, and it immediately transitions to the

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Lord reminding them of his love for them. And the Hebrew word for love here, of course, is, as you can imagine, a very intimate love, as intimate as it gets.

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I have loved you, saith the Lord, and yet ye say, wherein hast thou loved us? That's the question they come back with.

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That is how out of touch they are. That is how altered their perception is of their actual standing, of the position they're actually in.

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Well, let's remind ourselves really quick wherein, like where, you know, the actual, the love that the

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Lord had for them, and again, specifically as a driver for his covenant with them. So, Deuteronomy 4, starting at verse 37, and it says,

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And because he loved thy fathers, therefore he chose their seed after them.

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That, I mean, their seed, those are the people in Malachi that we're going to be diving into.

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He chose their seed after them, and brought thee out in his sight with his mighty power out of Egypt.

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So, he always goes back to that. I mean, I know we're in Deuteronomy here, but, I mean, you can go throughout the Old Testament.

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He always brings them back to the ultimate deliverance in their context, which was coming out of Egypt with mighty power.

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He brought them out of Egypt to drive out nations from before thee greater. Let me start over.

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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.

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And this is all because of his love for them, for their fathers and their seed after them.

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So, by extension, all of the Hebrews, all of the Israelites from the time of Abraham all the way to Malachi, where we are now.

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His love was the springboard, if you will, for all of the blessings that they would experience.

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Their conquering of other nations, their displacement of other nations, where they came in and got to inherit the pagan's land of milk and honey, as it is to this day.

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Verse 39 says, Know therefore this day and consider it in thine heart. Always remember this, always consider this, that the

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Lord, he is God of heaven above and upon the earth beneath. There is none else.

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So, it brings them right back to God's greatness as well. It starts with his love for them, but it's also reminding them of his greatness as well.

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This is the God of the universe. The pagans can worship whoever they want, but you guys have the creator of everything as your

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God, and there is none else. It's the God, the only God. Thou shalt keep therefore his statutes and his commandments because of how much

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I love you. And because of the fact that I brought you in to inherit the promised land, and to displace the pagans, and to drive out the nations that were far greater and far mightier than you were.

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And because of how great I am, because of those things, thou shalt keep therefore his statutes and his commandments, which

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I command thee this day. That it may go well with thee, and with thy children after thee, and that thou mayest prolong thy days upon the earth, which the

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Lord thy God giveth thee forever. It's all right there in that one verse, like all they had to do in order to never have to experience what they are experiencing by the time you get to Malachi.

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And it was not the first time they had some hardships for sure. I mean, at least they weren't in exile anymore, but they were still experiencing a lot of hardships.

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Because they were being cursed by God directly. But all they had, I mean, it's all laid out in that one verse.

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Because of how much he loves you, return the favor, keep his statutes, keep his commandments, and your days will be prolonged.

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I mean, it's a total win -win. Like, we have the relationship, but I'm also going to give you the ultimate blessing as well.

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Your days will be prolonged. Everything, it might go well with thee, and for your children.

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Not just for you, it's not going to end for you, but in every generation that is after you, that it may go well with thee.

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And again, that it may prolong thy days upon the earth, which the Lord hath given thee forever. So that was,

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I mean, obviously God's love is illustrated long before you get to Deuteronomy. But this is, if you want to think about it in the context of Moses, you know, laying all of this out there for them before he passes away.

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That they will, that will be the foundation for the rest of the Old Testament for God's people.

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He told them right there about God's love for them. And so when they come in and they say, but wherein has thou loved us?

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Think about the audacity behind that question. Because not only was their love illustrated in the most explicit terms possible throughout the

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Old Testament. But you have God himself saying, I have loved you. And they're questioning his own word through Malachi, of course.

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Again, acknowledging God's love for them, Israel should have responded by loving him back and obeying his commands.

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But instead of loving him back, they questioned his love for them by asking, wherein has thou loved us? And by doing so, they were betraying

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God. They were showing total disbelief in his very word, because it's not like they were just ignoring the word.

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They were being given the word actively in space and time through a voice, through Malachi.

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And they were still, they were still questioning it. Their failure to have faith in God's word caused them to fail to love him back.

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And as we will see as we get further through Malachi, even be hostile toward God.

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And of course, that'll be illustrated more and more later. So we'll end it with there for today. But we have a couple minutes.

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You guys have any thoughts you'd like to share? And then, of course, there's some really, it just gets really interesting the further you get into it.

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But we'll save that for later. You guys have anything else you'd like to share?

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Comments or anything? It's a pretty crazy one.

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It's a it's a very dramatic way to end the Old Testament. And of course, it makes total sense because, you know, because there's some positives in there.

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Again, they're being reminded of God's love. And, you know, we're going to see some amazing things.

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We're going to see some some of the some far prophecy that we're going to see. We're going to learn more about the

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Lord's return. And he's going to be talking about the faithful remnant.

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And so there's some positives in here as well. But there is a lot of negative. And this is how it ends. Let me go with dad first,

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Mimi, because he had his hand up first. Go ahead. OK.

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Mm hmm. Yeah.

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Yeah, for sure. It's not that at all, for sure.

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Well, I think what I think

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I I worded it wrong, obviously. But what I meant was, is this what Jesus wants me to be doing right now?

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Not what would Jesus do? Because I totally agree, Brian. It's not. Yes. Yes, exactly.

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Right. Yeah, I mean, that's obviously dead on.

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And, Brian, and I'm glad you threw that out there, because I want that to be worded correctly. It's not about what would

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Jesus do? Because we can't we can't live to his standard, even if we tried. Obviously, he was living a perfect life.

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But oh, sorry, go ahead. The law. Yeah. His standard isn't even what our standard is supposed to be.

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But the question we should be asking ourselves and kind of put in my own way, because I know it's not worded exactly how dad says it.

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But is this what Jesus wants me to be doing right now? And if it is, it's going to translate into you being a good witness, because that's what he wants you to have a testimony because you're representing him.

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He doesn't want you out acting like the rest of the people, because all of a sudden, your testimony, your the example you're supposed to be setting is not him at all.

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And you get you can get in some pretty bad trouble for for carelessly living your life that way, which, again,

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Malachi, people, God's people of Judah at this time are a good physical picture of what that can look like for us as well.

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In the results of living carelessly like that. Mimi, what was your thought? And he was talking about the rest of the ministry.

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And they were quite open to the entire history of the ministry. And then there's so many issues that they had.

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And he made the comment that I've just gone over your history.

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Yeah. Right. In America, since the

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Great Reformation, we have about every 40 or 50 years of family life.

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And with each one of them, the doctors is more fluid. We've got so long ways to go.

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Mm hmm. And that's why.

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Right. And think about that for a second, you get away from the history, you get away from the doctrine and think about the kind of dumb questions you'll ask when you find yourselves in that just like, where is that loved us?

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What kind of question is that? Yeah, I mean, when you think about that, when you think about the just vast history,

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I mean, this is the exact same thing that you just said, we think of the vast history, the things that the

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Lord did with a stretched out arm. And with, you know, his mind through his mighty works through Egypt, but also across Jordan and into the promised land and conquering during the times of Joshua conquering all that.

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And then he brings them there. Obviously, there were so many bad kings, but he would bring them a good king to restore order and, you know, bless them just through just through the fact that they have a good king.

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I mean, obviously, David Solomon to some degree, but then Hezekiah eventually Josiah, they had a few of them that would bring him back and that would that would put them in a good scenario again, and then they would fall right back.

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Forget the history, forget the love, they'd ask dumb questions like where in has that loved us and this is, this is where you find yourself in when you get to that stage.

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And that's our contemporaries around us right now, asking the dumbest questions imaginable, because they have no doctrinal basis for to have a correct premise behind the questions they're asking.

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And obviously they're forgetting the history too, I guess those would go hand in hand. Well, well, yeah, so you get dumb.

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So you get dumb questions, and you get really dumb answers. When you have strayed so far away from the word, and from remembering the things that the

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Lord has done. And the results of your forefathers as well. In other words, like if they were living life poorly.

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We have recorded history of what happened to them when they were, I mean you have the entire

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Old Testament, you have examples of churches, living poorly in the New Testament think about the first few chapters of Revelation, Laodicea, and a cease,

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I think Smyrna and Philadelphia were the two good ones, but most of the churches, the seven churches were like pretty lackluster, to put it kindly and so we have plenty of examples of the results of living life carelessly forgetting not being doctrinally sound and all that kind of stuff.

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And yet we do it anyway we live life carelessly and all that stuff so anyway. Well thanks for the comments

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I guess we'll go ahead and get dismissed since we are now at the top of the hour Matt will you dismiss this please. Amen.