Book of Malachi - Ch. 2, Vs. 17 (04/16/2023)

Alrighty, well, we are going to finish up the second chapter of Malachi today.

We got one verse left, so surely we'll finish it this time. Okay, just for a little bit of context going into the last verse, the last five verses or so, maybe six, last six verses, has been all about, of course, well, it's been about the sins of the people, but specifically about the rampant divorce that was happening at this particular time for no other reason than the men wanting to marry the pagans, intermarry with the pagan women, which, of course, we've talked about at length the past couple of weeks, last week in particular, and we talked a little bit about just the idea of marriage is the type of Jesus and his bride, of course, last week, which was fun, but it all came back to how exactly these guys were messing up so badly at that time, one of the ways they were messing up so badly at that time.

So now we find ourselves at verse 17 of the last chapter, and it breaks off from this topic of, well, not topic, but the rebuke that the people were getting at this time for the intermarrying with pagans and all the stuff we've been talking about, and we get a little bit of an idea of yet, we get more information, yet again, on the state of these people at this time, both spiritual and just their attitudes about everything that was happening around them, and so we glean even more information from that aspect of it.

It says in verse 17, excuse me, ye have wearied the Lord with your words.

Now there have been several times throughout Malachi already where God makes a statement and it's immediately returned from the people with a question, them questioning the statement that was just made by God himself, and it follows, it says, yet ye say, wherein have we wearied him?

So there's another one. This is about the third or fourth time this has happened, and just as in the other cases,

God turns right back around and answers and gives them even more clarification as if he needed to, but he did, and it says here, when ye say, everyone that doeth evil is good in the sight of the

Lord, and he delighteth in them, or, and he gives them a second example here, where is the

Lord, I'm sorry, where is the God of judgment? So this is an interesting verse.

When I first read it, the first impression I got was perhaps, you know, we remember kind of in our introduction to this book and some of the earlier chapters, or some of the earlier verses we were in, that the

Israelites weren't in the best place just as a people at this time.

They were freed from the Babylonian exile, but they were still under Persian rule.

They had some economic turmoil going on. They had lost, spiritually speaking, they had lost most, if not all, of their faith in their coming king, their messiah.

They were most likely wondering whether or not all those prophecies were even true, because they were just positive that it should have happened by now, and so there was just a lack of faith that was kind of permeating everything at this time, and when

I was first reading this verse, it seemed like perhaps they were, they were using this as another excuse to just question

God's existence altogether, you know, why, why is it that everyone that does evil is good in the sight of the

Lord? Or they ask in the, in the last part of the verse, where is the God of judgment? And that's kind of how

I was reading it, but I think it might actually be going a different direction than that.

I think this is actually a better, a better example of their attitudes toward, toward the sin, the sins that they were doing at this time, and their lack of,

I don't want to word it, their, their lack of care in terms of the punishment that will follow.

In other words, maybe they were doing these sins, they were approaching the sins that they were totally engrossed in at this time with kind of a sense of, of impunity.

We perhaps, you know, a sense of, of impunity toward the things that they were doing, the sins they were indulging in without actually ever getting in trouble.

Now, if that were the case here, it would seem, you know, it's been a very audacious people leading up to this point already, but perhaps that audacity is reading, is, is reaching peak levels at this point, because now not only are they just indulging in various sins, intermarrying with pagans, divorcing so that they can't intermarry with pagans, as well as all of the things the priests were doing at this time, the defiled sacrifices, everything we've talked about.

At this point, it seems that they would have changed their views of how God handles justice to the point where, again, we could say they're indulging in their sins.

Again, the best way, the best way I could put it is with, they're indulging in their sins with kind of this sense of impunity, despite, and we've talked about this many times in the study so far, despite the fact that, of course, they had all of the oracles that said otherwise at that, at this point.

In other words, they have, you know, most likely all of the books of the

Bible leading up to, of course, Malachi being the last one of the Old Testament canon. They had most, if not all, of the oracles leading up to this point in history, and even though they knew what it said, they knew what it said better than any other people on the planet.

In fact, they were the only ones that had it. They were the only ones given that special honor of keeping the oracles of God, as Paul later tells us.

They knew what it said, but they still didn't care. They were still indulging in their sins anyways. God, of course, doesn't change, but their perception of God was changing in real time.

Their perception of how God would handle the sins they were indulging in was changing, and they're literally about to be reminded of that in just a second, the fact that God actually doesn't change, because when we get into chapter 3, they're going to be reminded in, you know, not -so -subtle terms that actually, you know, you can approach things like that all you want, but this is what's about to go down.

This is what's about to happen. Now, because God isn't changing, of course, we know that. They should have known that at the time of Malachi as well.

Since he isn't changing, they should have been a very stabilized people. In other words, they should have been stabilized in their faith, in their hope of their coming

Messiah, which we have good reason to think that they perhaps didn't even believe that was a reality at this point because of their lack of faith.

They should have been stabilized in their hope. They should have been stabilized in their obedience, and as well as their understanding of how

God's justice actually works. In fact, we're actually given a clear result that follows

God's weariness, because remember how this first started, verse 17, Ye have wearied the Lord with your words.

We know what the result is of God's weariness toward his people, and the result is very reminiscent of what's actually taking place in Malachi and what is going to come later.

If you guys want to go to Isaiah chapter 43, even though Malachi is going to flesh this out a little bit, again, in terms of God's approach to all of this, we have a passage in Isaiah that really gives us some color as to where exactly does this go when the people of Israel get to a point where they're wearying the

Lord, where he is wearied by their words, by their actions, by their attitudes, such as they are now experiencing here in Malachi.

You can go to verse 22, that Isaiah chapter, and again, this is very reminiscent, somewhat of a parallel passage, although a completely different time in the history of the

Israelites. Isaiah 43, 22, But thou hast not called upon me,

O Jacob, but thou hast been weary of me, O Israel. Thou hast not brought me the small cattle of thy burnt offerings, neither hast thou honored me with thy sacrifices.

I have not caused thee to serve with an offering, nor wearied thee with incense.

Thou hast bought me no sweet cane with money, neither hast thou filled me with the fat of thy sacrifices, but thou hast made me to serve with thy sins.

Thou hast wearied me with thine iniquities. I, even I, am he that blotteth out thy transgressions for mine own sake, and will not remember thy sins.

Now, this is a really crazy passage, because not only are we, you know, seeing again what the result, or we're about to see what the result of God being wearied toward his people is, of course, him being wearied in regard to their iniquities at this time, but he also throws in this reminder that he is the one that can blot out their transgressions.

And it's important to note that he reminds us it is for his sake. It's for the sake of his holiness.

He has this special people that he called out to be a peculiar people. And because of the relationship he wants with them, that he ordained to have with them, and again, because of his holiness, for his own sake, he will be the one that blots out their transgressions and not remember their sins.

So he throws in that reminder right in the midst of this passage, and he says, put me in remembrance, in verse 26, let us plead together, declare thou that thou mayest be justified.

Thy first father hath sinned, and thy teachers have transgressed against me. He's telling them, he's not only reminding them about what put them in this particular state, their disobedience, their iniquities.

He's also telling them how to fix it as well, which I think is kind of neat. And in verse 28, it says, therefore,

I have profaned the princes of the sanctuary and have given Jacob to the curse and Israel to the reproaches.

This is what happens when the people of Israel get to a point where they are, where God is literally wearied with, again, whether it be their words, such as in the case of Malachi, their actions, their iniquities here in this

Isaiah passage. Now, go back to this idea that we were talking about a second ago about the people of Israel at the time of Malachi kind of having this sense of impunity in regard to their sins.

The phrase that comes to mind when you think about it,

I mean, and this makes total sense, not only within the context of Malachi, but within the context of how the people of Israel are and have been throughout the whole

New Testament, the whole Old Testament, kind of a tongue twister. They will go through long periods of time where they are not only sinning, but they're doing so in such a, what is the word

I'm trying to think of? They're exhibiting their sins in such a gross way that it seems as if they're doing it just to test

God a little bit, see if he's even actually there, see if he's actually going to do something. And maybe perhaps after doing a couple of things here and there, maybe a few years go by, maybe a couple of decades go by, nothing's happened yet.

So I guess he's really not there. So let's indulge even further. And where does that lead to?

Well, for me, the phrase that comes to mind, everyone that doeth evil is good.

Let's see, the phrase they say, everyone that doeth evil is good in the sight of the Lord. This is that verse in Malachi again, and he delighteth in them.

These are the words that Israelites were saying in Malachi that were wearying the

Lord at this time. I'll read it one more time. This is what they were saying, because God said, you weary me with your words.

They say, how do we wear you? And he tells them how. They say, everyone that doeth evil is good in the sight of the

Lord, and he delighteth in them. Now, when I was a kid, you know, starting maybe around the age of 12, probably earlier than that, really, but maybe around the age of 12, all the way through my teen years.

One of dad's best pieces of advice that he ever gave me, or certainly one of the more memorable ones, because it's still a useful thing to this day, it always will be.

And that is, you shouldn't rationalize. Like, you can't ever rationalize your way into doing something that either you have been told, and of course, in the context of me being like 11 or 12, you've either been told by me or your mom that is not good to do, or that you've heard, whether through reading the

Bible or learning through lessons and messages at church, you don't ever need to rationalize your way into doing something that is contrary to those things.

And he said, the reason is because what will happen in many cases is perhaps you will do something, you know, something, maybe a particular sin that you were tempted with.

And your flesh gets the better of you in that moment. And it happens.

And then fast forward a little bit, and that's when the rationalization can start to come into play.

You start to tell yourself, well, you know, what bad came with that? What actually, you know, it's not like I got struck with a bolt of lightning or anything like that.

I don't seem to be in trouble with the Lord right now, so perhaps it's actually fine.

And that was kind of where he was getting at with that. And that always stuck with me, the power of rationalizing your way into further and further and further sin to the point where you're essentially telling yourself the

Lord must not actually have a problem with this because nothing's happening to me right now. It hasn't for perhaps the last week or the last month, the last several years.

Again, think about the Israelites that would go, in some cases, decades with just indulging in these gross sins before.

And all the while, there'd be a prophet, there'd be a man of God there preaching the word and trying to pull them out of that sin from a human viewpoint.

And of course, the Lord being longsuffering and giving them every kind of opportunity you could ever have, again, from the human viewpoint to come out of that sin.

And then there would come a breaking point where the punishment would come and it would come swiftly and it would come very, so severe that that would be what would turn them back for a short time.

And so, but it would begin with that rationalization, you know, convincing yourself that the sins that you're indulging in must be fine because, you know,

I'm living a blessed life right now. I'm totally fine. Here, to the point where I believe what the

Israelites are saying is, you know, what we're doing right now is good in the sight of the Lord. He's delighting in us.

There's nothing bad that is coming upon us. And you kind of, again, it makes to me a lot of sense in the context of Malachi because they seem so, they seem like they just have, again, zero care for the sins that they're doing.

But they are also with every time that God comes in and points them to something that they need to fix, they ask him, you know, how or why, what are we doing wrong exactly?

They're so blinded to what they're doing. I believe it's because they got to a point where, again, they rationalized themselves into believing nothing bad would ever come about in regard to what they were doing.

Now, again, this was not the first time that the

Israelites found themselves in a really grievous state of just continual, habitual sin that led to zero fear of the repercussions or fear of, fear that, you know, what the

Lord may do or may bring about, as if they didn't think anything was ever going to happen.

Another example, if you guys want to turn here, is 1 Kings 19.

There's just a couple of more passages we're going to read that kind of hit home this idea of them getting to a point where the sin began and it just rolled into this habitual life, sinful lifestyle, where the total disregard, the total lack of care for those sins and what the

Lord would actually do about it was a non -issue to them. They totally put it outside of their minds. So, again, in the context of this last verse in Malachi chapter two.

You have wearied the Lord with your words, yet ye say, wherein have we wearied him? And the

Lord tells them, when ye say, everyone that doeth evil is good in the sight of the Lord, and he delighteth in them.

Or where is the God of judgment? He's not doing anything about any of this. So why not? You know, why not dive into these, you know, pleasurable sins, the things, the desires of our hearts, of our flesh, really?

Why not? So Kings chapter 19, 1 Kings chapter 19, let's start at verse 11.

And again, just what I believe is another parallel passage of this concept. And he said, go forth and stand upon the mount before the

Lord. And behold, the Lord passed by in a great, oh, let me give you guys some context.

Sorry. So what's happening right here? It's Elijah that is basically fleeing the murder of the prophets and of God's people because of how bad the

Israelites are at this time, like how evil they got, how deep into the sins, into their own sins, in the lack of care, the total disregard and the repercussions therein.

That's where we are right now. And you have Elijah running away and hiding because he fears for his life.

And as we'll see in just a second, he believes that he is the only one left on the entire planet because the nation was the chosen nation.

Everyone else were pagan. Everyone else were heathen. And within that chosen nation, he believed he was the only one. Elijah literally thought he was the last person on the planet that was a follower of God that was chosen by God and that was going to continue to dedicate his life for him.

Imagine how devastating that would feel. And though it wasn't true, the evidence that he saw himself, and this is another great example of us needing to be careful about how our emotions can lead our decision making because in many cases, we don't have all the information.

God does have all the information and he's about to share that information with Elijah, which is great, but he didn't have that just yet.

But he was letting his emotions get the better of him and he was fleeing out of fear. Perhaps, I don't know if he was dealing with a lack of faith here, but he was certainly putting the fear of what was before him, before that faith in the

Lord, preserving him through it. I think there's at least an element of that. Perhaps it's not explicitly said, but here he is, he's hiding.

So let's start, let's start back. Now we have a little bit of context. Verse 11, he said, Go forth, stand upon the mount before the

Lord and behold, the Lord passed by in a great and strong wind, rent the mountains and break in pieces the rocks before the

Lord. But the Lord was not in the wind and after the wind and earthquake, but the

Lord was not in the earthquake and after the earthquake, a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire.

Imagine all this happening before Elijah while he's trying to hide in a little cave somewhere. The rocks are being rent, the wind, the earthquake, the fire.

After the earthquake, the fire, but the Lord was not a fire and after the fire, a still small voice.

And here's where the relationship comes in. And it was so when Elijah heard it, that he wrapped his face in his mantle and went out and stood in the entering of the cave.

This is where he went to hide. And behold, there came a voice into him and said, What do is now here,

Elijah? And he said, I have been very jealous for the Lord God of hosts.

Remember that sentence right there from Elijah's viewpoint at this moment, the only person in the universe that is jealous for the

Lord God of hosts that is still yearning for a relationship from Elijah's perspective. That's the reality.

Imagine the isolation, the feeling of isolation he was having up until this moment, he heard the still small voice.

I have been jealous for the Lord God of hosts because the children of Israel have forsaken my covenant.

Now we learn how bad the state of God's people are in at this point. The children of Israel have forsaken my covenant, thrown down my altar, nine altars and listen to this slain by prophets with the sword.

And I even I only am left and they seek my life to take it away.

So again, not only does he have the fearing of the fear of total isolation as a follower of God, because all of the other prophets are now dead, have been slain with the sword by God's own people, not even a foreign nation,

God's own people. And not only is that sense of total loneliness surely taking a big part in Elijah's emotions here, but they are also seeking his life.

So he also has the fear of of being murdered at the same time. So he's depressing, he's depressed, he's mourning the loss of of his brethren that were also followers of God.

And now he's he's in mourning. He's also escaping murder. 18 says, yet I have left.

Let's see here. OK, so that's what Elijah says.

And then a verse verse 18 says, yet I have left me seven thousand in Israel, all the knees which have not bowed down and to bail in every mouth which have not kissed him.

So thankfully, from Elijah's viewpoint, God provides him with further information.

He now has a bigger picture. And again, I think this is a great example is we live our lives.

We are constantly looking at things through a relatively narrow scope.

And I do believe in terms of spiritual things, obviously, we have the Holy Spirit to enlighten us as we as we live our lives and take the next step forward into our own journeys and things of that sort.

But think about just our life circumstances, how many times within our life circumstances where we can't help ourselves but get down, depressed.

Perhaps even internally mourning our circumstances around us in many cases.

It's not even as bad as what Elijah was dealing with here, but it tells you the power of of emotions as a driver, you know, for for how we're going to approach the steps that come after that.

But the important message, at least for me here, one of the great reminders from this passage, aside from the the parallel that we're reading in Malachi, is that we don't always have all the information.

Here we are 7 ,000, a full a full remnant of brethren for Elijah that the

Lord had set apart for himself that had not bent the knee to this false god, had not kissed the false god that would that disdained all of the sin that was happening around them, the murder of their prophets and all these things.

So you have to know that not only was Elijah lifted from some of his isolation from some of his depression upon the

Lord's arrival here because he remembered that he wasn't alone there, but then getting this information from the

Lord, again, a little bit bigger of a picture. The scope was widened for him at this point, and he now realizes that there were more out there.

He wasn't alone. Verse 19 says, So he departed thence and found Elisha, the son of Shaphat, who was plowing with twelve yoke of oxen before him.

By the way, at some point I skipped from like verse 14 down to 18. So sorry if I confused y 'all there.

So now enter Elisha, who we know, you know, we know the rest is history there.

The next great man of God in the line that Elijah was totally unaware of up until this moment, up until the

Lord again made him aware of the reality. So this is just really neat.

So he departed thence and found Elisha, the son of Shaphat, who was plowing with twelve yoke of oxen before him, and he with the twelfth.

And Elijah passed by him and cast his mantle upon him.

So you have Elijah now literally passing the mantle over to the next guy.

This is really neat. Verse 20. And he left this being Elisha, and he left the oxen and ran after Elijah and said,

Let me, I pray thee, kiss my father and my mother, and then I will follow thee. And he said unto him,

Go back again, for what have I done to thee? And he returned back from him and took a yoke of oxen and slew them and boiled their flesh with the instruments of the oxen and gave it to the people, and they did eat.

And then he arose and went after Elijah and ministered unto him. Now, what do you all think was happening in verse 21 there?

Why did Elijah, who was right in the middle of plowing his field, you know, say,

Elijah, I'm coming. I'm going to follow you. Just give me a second. And Elijah's like, We got to go. And Elijah turns around, kills his oxen, boils their flesh.

What was he doing there? What do you guys think the purpose of that was? Dad, I know you know the answer.

I'll get to you in a second. Well, I think it's a sense of that for sure, kind of a sense of burning the ships.

And, Dad, go ahead, because you and I were talking about this recently, and it's unbelievable. Yeah, boil the oxen's flesh.

Yes. He was basically, this was his livelihood, and he was ensuring that he could not turn back and maybe get a little bit scared down the road and think, well,

I had a secure life behind me. I had everything that I needed. I think

I'm just going to go back. He prevented that thought from ever happening again, ever arising again.

He was so ready after having the mantle thrown on him to follow Elijah and do whatever it was.

He had no idea what his mission was meant to be at this time. Very reminiscent of the disciples upon their calling.

But he had no idea what was before him, but he knew he wanted it. But he also perhaps had a deeper understanding of his own human emotions and was like,

I'm going to eliminate that altogether and just totally destroy what was basically my job, my livelihood, the thing that provided me with putting food on the table and providing for whatever family or friends that he was providing for at that time.

He killed them, boiled them. He gave them his food to eat for those that are around him, and then he got out of there.

There are some obviously really cool things from verses 18 down to 21.

I put in there just because of how amazing it is to see not only the Lord's orchestration of some of the most devastating scenes that we can see in history.

Again, it gives us a great example of not having the full picture, as Elijah did not.

But that will come because the Lord certainly has it. And as we follow him, we get more and more pieces of that.

Obviously, Elisha's attitude toward, as Dave said, burning the ships and following his new calling.

All of that is fantastic and just super, super edifying. But what came before that in verses 11 through 14 was where I believe we see a little bit of the parallel between the

Israelites, God's people at this point in history, at the time of 1 Kings 19, and where they're going again by the time of Malachi.

I mean, I just can't think of any better way to put it other than they start with a disregard of God's statutes, his commands, disobedience, lack of relationship, no care toward him.

And eventually that turns into believing that nothing will ever come of those actions, no repercussions.

And again, these are the people that were entrusted with the oracles of God and the only people for quite some time.

And they had all the information that they could have needed in terms of what would the domino effect look like if we go down this road?

And even with that information, they did it anyway. And where does that take you eventually?

Killing their own prophets with the sword. Let's look at one more passage and then we will be done for today.

Let's go to Isaiah chapter 5. We'll read just a few more verses here.

And this is, again, the last verse in Malachi, the actual verse we're in today, that verse 17 of chapter 2, when they say, everyone that doeth evil is good in the sight of the

Lord, and he delighteth in them. Or where is the God of judgment? Another passage that comes to mind when you think about the state that they're in and their lack of care is one that we're all very familiar with.

And of course, we look around us today and can see this exact same attitude happening not only among the heathen around us, but perhaps in the case of many people that are quote -unquote churchgoers that at least claim to be followers of Jesus, but don't bear any fruit.

We've talked about that concept many times in this study as a parallel with the priests that were in chapter 1 and 2.

It says in Isaiah chapter 5, starting in verse 20, woe unto them that call evil good in good evil.

So we know that humanity can get to that state. It's happened many times.

It's happening at the time of Isaiah, when this passage was written. It's happening again at the time of Malachi, which is the point in history that we're in in this particular study.

It's happening right this second. And has for some time. And on a very large scale and in very strange ways, are we seeing the manifestation of this reality?

Woe unto them that call evil good in good evil. Well, that's what's happening. They're calling evil good and good evil.

That's what's happening. But the part that begins that sentence is the somewhat haunting part.

And that's the woe, the woe unto these people. The woe unto them, because where we found ourselves right now is exactly where the people in Malachi were.

The people in 1 Kings were. Here are the people in Isaiah. They have, as a society, as a collective people in our nation, and you can look at any given nation in the entire world, it's all the same at this point, rationalized ourselves into the point where nothing that we're doing, or I should say everything we're doing must be fine.

Because life goes on. Life has been continuing. In fact, we are seeing new levels of prosperity.

We're seeing technological advancements. We're seeing quote unquote equity and quote unquote equality and all of these things like we've never seen them before.

And I mean, on one hand, you'll hear a lot of people saying those things as if we have reached that utopia.

And on the other hand, they're also screaming that we're not even close to it. And kind of trying to totally burn all of the institutions that have been the foundation, not only for this country, which we've talked about many times, but also the same institutions that built the great nations of the

Bible that we read about the Bible, including God's own nation. Of course, he's the one that set those institutions in the first place, and many others in history.

They have, we have rationalized ourselves into believing that nothing is going to come, nothing negative is going to come from the disregard toward those institutions that God set in place for setting those aside.

The disregard toward his commandments, his statutes. And we have plenty of New Testament imperatives, as we all know from recent studies in Romans, that Christians, I'm not even talking about the heathens anymore, but just that Christians are disregarding at this point as if nothing is ever going to come from it.

We've rationalized ourselves into quite the circumstance.

Woe unto them that call evil good and good evil, that put darkness for light and light for darkness, that put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter.

It's happening on a rampant scale, and yet we get a woe from God himself at this point.

We can only imagine what that's going to look like someday. Verse 21, woe unto them that are wise in their own eyes and prudent in their own sight.

We did a little bit of a study on pride not that long ago, and it's one of the things that God absolutely disdains, and we learned that in Proverbs as well.

We happen to be in Obadiah when we were talking about it last time, but we're reminded of it once more here in Isaiah.

Woe unto them that are mighty to drink wine and men of strength to mingle strong drink, which justify the wicked for reward and take away the righteousness of the righteous from him.

That's an interesting phrase, isn't it? Think about the influence that these people have, even on God's children within the society that they are just running free for all.

Within that, think about the warnings that we get on making the little ones stumble and people, false teachers, false prophets, people living immoral lifestyles, but preaching as if they are the...

What's the word I'm looking for? I'm having trouble. They must be the outers. That they are the ones living the righteous life, and here they are taking righteousness away of the righteous from him.

And then verse 24 here ends by saying, therefore, as the fire devoured the stubble, we get a little bit of example of what these woes, how these woes will be manifested.

As the fire devoured the stubble, and the flame consumed the chaff, so their root shall be as rottenness, and their blossom shall go up as dust, because, and here's the parallel with our

Malachi passage here, they have cast away the law of the Lord of hosts and despised the word of the

Holy One of Israel. So as we get to the end of chapter two of Malachi, again, we find out that the

Israelites at this point are now revisiting a place that they should be all too familiar with. In fact, they were.

It's just they have short -term memory, I suppose. And of course, there are generations, multiple generations that have gone through this cycle, but the history is still there.

And even with all of that aside, forget the history, forget about whether or not the generation that was cursed and going through the punishment of the gross sins, whether or not they told the next generation about it.

But all that aside, pretend it doesn't even happen. Start totally from scratch every time. They had the word of God the whole time.

They laid it out in crystal clear. How many times have we gone to Deuteronomy in this study? In red, this is what happens when you keep my commandments and obey me, obey my voice, and it gives a beautiful list of wonderful blessings that are just right there for them to tap into at any point.

But juxtaposed to this is what happens when you do what they are now doing in Malachi.

You know, despising my name is one of what they've been doing. Offering defiled sacrifices, one of the things they've been doing.

Divorcing the wives of their youth so that they can marry the pagan women, which was both of which were, they were told explicitly not to do.

And on and on and on, it keeps going. So that's where we are. And that is how chapter two ends.

Now, the section that we're in in Malachi talking about the sins of the people continues into chapter three.

But before Malachi continues, he actually, for the first six verses of chapter three, he breaks off into a little parenthetical and gives the people a prophecy of the next great prophet to come after Malachi.

And so that'll be what we talk about next time as we get a prophecy about the forerunner.

And I'm looking forward to that. But then after that parenthetical ends, it goes right back into the sins of the people before the entire book ending with the second coming of the

Lord in the ultimate judgment, the manifestation of the woe to those who live like this.

So it's gonna be pretty epic as we get near the end of Malachi here. Does anyone have any thoughts that they'd like to share?

Yes, ma 'am. And to the point of not only the priest but participating in saying, this is how

God made me. It's not just that mistake. And that's the right thing to do.

You know, what's ironic about that is they are rationalizing with that.

With that particular premise and then trying to use logic to get the end of it, it's a hyper -Calvinistic premise because what they're saying is that, well, obviously

God ordained this to happen because it happened and therefore blah, blah, blah. But on the same token, they would come out and absolutely hate any teachings on the sovereignty of God, non -fatalistic teachings on the sovereignty of God.

There's a lot of irony to it. But yes, that has absolutely been a rationalization run wild recently.

I've seen a lot of similar posts and a lot of similar sentiments. And like you said, it's even among quote unquote

Christian circles. Again, there's a lot of people around us that are claiming the name of the

Lord, but where's the fruit that they're bearing? Rather than trying to live a righteous lifestyle using kind of within the framework that Jesus gave us with those imperatives we referenced earlier on how to live a righteous life, how to continually be going through the sanctification process and so on.

Rather than even attempting that, they are attempting to find, this word makes me cringe these days.

I cannot stand this word, but they are just craving the affirmation of their lifestyle.

Oh man, yeah, it's making my eyes water today. There are so many words that are so overused now in such poor contexts that makes your stomach turn.

Well, yeah, they know they're wrong. They have a conscience that perhaps isn't seared just yet.

And so the only way to combat that is to rationalize and to find people that will back up the way that you're living your life and make you feel great about it.

And then when you have the people that step out and boldly just lay the truth out in the most simple terms you can ever imagine, you have

Christians, quote unquote, that come out and bash them for being too mean and for not being bearers of the gospel and all of these ridiculous, absolutely ridiculous ways to attempt to shame them publicly when it's the most, not only common sense stuff, but just some of the most basic truths within the word that everyone is straying away from, apparently at this point.

So yeah, a lot of examples of rationalization and oddly enough, it's a very fatalistic premise that backs up, that they use to build that on.

You know, this is how I am. So obviously this is how God wanted me to be. They totally stripped out the responsibility component of life, of the way that God orchestrated everything.

Did you have a thought pop up? Right. Yeah.

Well, any conviction they have, they can bury with the rationalization until their conscience is seared.

Until their conscience is seared. Yeah. Right. I know what you mean.

Go ahead, Dan. I don't think it's in Malachi, but it may have been in one of the passages we looked at.

Well, yeah, several weeks back, we were talking about the priest's sins and just the fact that the temple worship and the various sacrifices they were doing, they were doing so improperly and then convincing the people that, yes, yeah, that was all here.

Right. Right.

Well, let me see here. Um, yeah, this is verse 13 of Malachi chapter 2.

It says, And that ye, this have ye done again, covering the altar of the Lord with tears, with weeping, with crying out in so much that he regardeth not the offering any more or receiveth it with good will at your hand.

Now that's talking about just the people taking their free will offerings to the Lord. And earlier in Malachi chapter 1, it also tells him that he doesn't accept the sacrifices of the priests specifically.

So twice, because of their actions, he does not even, he disregards them at that point.

They disregard his commandments. They disobey him. Then it gets to this point where he disregards them.

So yes, dad, and I do think it's a clear parallel to how things are going around us now.

If you want to extrapolate this out into the church age, the religious leaders, the spiritual leaders, so -called of today, essentially doing the same thing, but each person is held on an individual level responsible as well.

I mean, it started with the priests. So there's your spiritual leaders. They're held responsible for sure. But right now we're talking about just the individuals that make up the collective of the

Israelites and how they're held responsible. And so we can parallel that with us here.

So yeah, for sure. I believe that's a great comparison. All righty, guys.

Any other thoughts? All right, well, we'll dismiss and move on to the next service.

Dear Heavenly Father, thank you so much for this wonderful day you blessed us with. Thank you so much for bringing us all together once again and for just giving us this place of not only worship, but fellowship in a place for all of us to come together and edify one another each and every week.

And lift each other up and become refreshed for the weeks to come. And we're so thankful for that.

And we ask you to please be with us the rest of today, the rest of our services, of course. And we ask all these things in your name.

Amen. I apologize. I was stumbling over my words quite a bit today. I really am having like crazy allergy issues all of a sudden.

I spent all weekend out mowing the pasture and doing various things, and it is hitting me hard today. It's a little foggy.

Yesterday, Matt came down to my house for a little bit, and he was literally there with his tears streaming down his cheeks because allergy attack.